Curtis Dahlgren
The sermonette notes of Enoch ("My name is Jude," he said)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"I HEARD you're hiring a new community commentator, and I'm here to apply for the job," said the stranger. "My name is Jude."
Hey Jude! Jude what?
It's just Jude, dude.
Okay! So what's that you have there? Your resume?
This is a sample of my writing. It's a letter that I wrote to some friends back in 66.
You've been writing since 1966?
That's just 66, dude.
Whatever. But just for the hell of it, let's hear what you wrote there.
OK. "I needed to write to you guys to urge you to have faith and stand up for the faith once delivered. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha and the rest of that neighborhood gave themselves over to lust, suffering the vengeance of fire for an example:
"Likewise, our contemporaries despise orthodoxy and speak evil of the prophets. Woe unto them! for they have gone the way of Cain, and after the error of Balaam, lusting for money. They are clouds without water, carried about by every wind, trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.
"ENOCH ALSO, the seventh from Adam, predicted all this. 'The Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints,'
he said. 'To convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
"These are complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouths speak great swelling words to impress people, having men's opinions in admiration in an attempt to gain an advantage.
"But friends, remember the Word spoken long ago, how you were told that there would be mockers in the latter dayss, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts."
That sounds kind of judgmental, doesn't it?
WELL DUH! What do think judgment IS?
Well it's not cool to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. This is 2013, you know. Don't call us. We'll call you.
–
P.S. I interrupt myself to go back to the original column that I had planned to submit this week, before I was so rudely interrupted by certain events in the news this week:
Question authority? [you're not entitled to your facts, they say]
"WE'LL GIVE YOU YOUR FACTS." [I'm paraphrasing the mainstream news media.]
"YOU'VE HEARD THE NUMBERS – 10% OF AMERICAN MEN ARE GAY, 2.7 million children are abused, one in eight women develop breast cancer. Politicians, activists, fund raisers, scientists and, yes, magazine journalists routinely unload such staggering statistics on a trusting public. The numbers are presented as though they carry all the weight of scientific truth" . . . But too often exaggerated figures are used deliberately to mislead, raise money or advance an agenda. 'Many statistics are generated by people who have a vested interest,' notes journalist Cynthia Crossen, who is writing a book on how numbers are manipulated . . .
"Environmental organizations tend to present the most alarming scenarios to pump up the threat of global warming . . . "
BELIEVE IT, or not, those words came directly from TIME magazine! April 26, 1993 ("The shrinking ten percent" by Priscilla Painton and Anastasia Toufexis)!
This isn't a one-point piece, but its theme is Truth versus factually-challenged information (formerly known as lies). The subtitle of this piece could be "A day in the life of the USA TODAY." I'm focussing on several items in the May 16th edition – examples of questionable (literally) statements too often taken as fact by the low-info voter. What brought me back to that paper was a frustrating conversation with an otherwise intelligent friend the other day.
We were talking about gas prices, and I casually mentioned that a gallon of gas cost $1.86 when O'Boma took office. My friend thought I was flat-out lying, but I told him he could look it up. No, he said, the price of gas went way up in the last six months of Bush's last term because his family was into oil and they were "cashing in."
I said that if they were cashing in, you mean they were selling, and if they were selling, that would lower the price, not make it go up. David Limbaugh's column about two years ago mentioned the fact that the price of gas – adjusted for inflation – went down nine percent!
But you can't argue with people who do not want to be "confused by the facts"!
TO BE CONTINUED.
© Curtis Dahlgren
June 27, 2013
"I HEARD you're hiring a new community commentator, and I'm here to apply for the job," said the stranger. "My name is Jude."
Hey Jude! Jude what?
It's just Jude, dude.
Okay! So what's that you have there? Your resume?
This is a sample of my writing. It's a letter that I wrote to some friends back in 66.
You've been writing since 1966?
That's just 66, dude.
Whatever. But just for the hell of it, let's hear what you wrote there.
OK. "I needed to write to you guys to urge you to have faith and stand up for the faith once delivered. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha and the rest of that neighborhood gave themselves over to lust, suffering the vengeance of fire for an example:
"Likewise, our contemporaries despise orthodoxy and speak evil of the prophets. Woe unto them! for they have gone the way of Cain, and after the error of Balaam, lusting for money. They are clouds without water, carried about by every wind, trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.
"ENOCH ALSO, the seventh from Adam, predicted all this. 'The Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints,'
he said. 'To convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
"These are complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouths speak great swelling words to impress people, having men's opinions in admiration in an attempt to gain an advantage.
"But friends, remember the Word spoken long ago, how you were told that there would be mockers in the latter dayss, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts."
That sounds kind of judgmental, doesn't it?
WELL DUH! What do think judgment IS?
Well it's not cool to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. This is 2013, you know. Don't call us. We'll call you.
–
P.S. I interrupt myself to go back to the original column that I had planned to submit this week, before I was so rudely interrupted by certain events in the news this week:
Question authority? [you're not entitled to your facts, they say]
"WE'LL GIVE YOU YOUR FACTS." [I'm paraphrasing the mainstream news media.]
"YOU'VE HEARD THE NUMBERS – 10% OF AMERICAN MEN ARE GAY, 2.7 million children are abused, one in eight women develop breast cancer. Politicians, activists, fund raisers, scientists and, yes, magazine journalists routinely unload such staggering statistics on a trusting public. The numbers are presented as though they carry all the weight of scientific truth" . . . But too often exaggerated figures are used deliberately to mislead, raise money or advance an agenda. 'Many statistics are generated by people who have a vested interest,' notes journalist Cynthia Crossen, who is writing a book on how numbers are manipulated . . .
"Environmental organizations tend to present the most alarming scenarios to pump up the threat of global warming . . . "
BELIEVE IT, or not, those words came directly from TIME magazine! April 26, 1993 ("The shrinking ten percent" by Priscilla Painton and Anastasia Toufexis)!
This isn't a one-point piece, but its theme is Truth versus factually-challenged information (formerly known as lies). The subtitle of this piece could be "A day in the life of the USA TODAY." I'm focussing on several items in the May 16th edition – examples of questionable (literally) statements too often taken as fact by the low-info voter. What brought me back to that paper was a frustrating conversation with an otherwise intelligent friend the other day.
We were talking about gas prices, and I casually mentioned that a gallon of gas cost $1.86 when O'Boma took office. My friend thought I was flat-out lying, but I told him he could look it up. No, he said, the price of gas went way up in the last six months of Bush's last term because his family was into oil and they were "cashing in."
I said that if they were cashing in, you mean they were selling, and if they were selling, that would lower the price, not make it go up. David Limbaugh's column about two years ago mentioned the fact that the price of gas – adjusted for inflation – went down nine percent!
But you can't argue with people who do not want to be "confused by the facts"!
TO BE CONTINUED.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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