Saturday, September 02, 2006
Long Week-end Luminous/Fast & Furious Survival Tips...!
Because TLB Prime cares! Sure we do! Rrrrrright.
As much as Rrrrrrrrrrrutten does.
Rutten who?
Bas Rutten, that's who, bouncer extraordinaire!
To tell the truth, Bas Rutten was much more than just a bouncer. He was a mixed martial arts fighter all over the world's kickboxing rings, most notably where that sort of thing is really appreciated, namely in Japan. Bas Rutten was one of the best fighters in MMA spectator -and often, one has to admit, spectacular if brutal- sport. He was a 3-time Pancrase champion and an UFC champion too. Granted, he was a lean mean brawling machine back then - now he's become a beefier brute but still a likeable and often funny and agreeable guy, somehow...! For, here today, Bad a$$ Bas gives us a whole crash course on how to decimate any baddie that comes your way or simply antagonizes you in a bar, on the streets or anywhere in-between - free of any charge!
The thing is, Bas Rutten and I share the same philosophy. As he says in the video, he doesn't believe in an eye for an eye; he believes in two eyes for an eye. In other words, if someone attacks you, you show no mercy whatsoever in taking him out and "doing him damage" - permanent damage. This is inflicting debilitating damage upon your opponent, all in a spirit of self-defensive retaliation/revenge imbued of divinely-decreed self-preservation, of course! Yup - I believe in that! A much greater man taught us to "pray for our enemies" (Jesus said that, for you heathens without a clue) however I believe it applies to those enemies that stay out of our faces and hate us from afar! Those that get too close deserve to get hurt - and get hurt bad! No joke! Well, maybe not... The fact remains that so many decent folks are stuck on wheelchairs for the rest of their lives - if a few lowlives wind up in the same condition, it is not an injustice at all! Maybe the experience will make them better human beings - although, deep down, I doubt it will.
So, my luminous advice is indeed to do as Roustabout Rutten (a better nickname than, say, Rotten Rutten... eh?) admonishes, if only on week-ends and nights out, out onto the dangerous streets out there - for it is a jungle out there and these boogers deserve to be blinded and beaten up bad!
Who needs Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg or Vin Diesel - when one has Bas Rutten for a hero and veritable role-model?
A practical hero, that is...
Over and out! ;)
Link
As much as Rrrrrrrrrrrutten does.
Rutten who?
Bas Rutten, that's who, bouncer extraordinaire!
To tell the truth, Bas Rutten was much more than just a bouncer. He was a mixed martial arts fighter all over the world's kickboxing rings, most notably where that sort of thing is really appreciated, namely in Japan. Bas Rutten was one of the best fighters in MMA spectator -and often, one has to admit, spectacular if brutal- sport. He was a 3-time Pancrase champion and an UFC champion too. Granted, he was a lean mean brawling machine back then - now he's become a beefier brute but still a likeable and often funny and agreeable guy, somehow...! For, here today, Bad a$$ Bas gives us a whole crash course on how to decimate any baddie that comes your way or simply antagonizes you in a bar, on the streets or anywhere in-between - free of any charge!
The thing is, Bas Rutten and I share the same philosophy. As he says in the video, he doesn't believe in an eye for an eye; he believes in two eyes for an eye. In other words, if someone attacks you, you show no mercy whatsoever in taking him out and "doing him damage" - permanent damage. This is inflicting debilitating damage upon your opponent, all in a spirit of self-defensive retaliation/revenge imbued of divinely-decreed self-preservation, of course! Yup - I believe in that! A much greater man taught us to "pray for our enemies" (Jesus said that, for you heathens without a clue) however I believe it applies to those enemies that stay out of our faces and hate us from afar! Those that get too close deserve to get hurt - and get hurt bad! No joke! Well, maybe not... The fact remains that so many decent folks are stuck on wheelchairs for the rest of their lives - if a few lowlives wind up in the same condition, it is not an injustice at all! Maybe the experience will make them better human beings - although, deep down, I doubt it will.
So, my luminous advice is indeed to do as Roustabout Rutten (a better nickname than, say, Rotten Rutten... eh?) admonishes, if only on week-ends and nights out, out onto the dangerous streets out there - for it is a jungle out there and these boogers deserve to be blinded and beaten up bad!
Who needs Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg or Vin Diesel - when one has Bas Rutten for a hero and veritable role-model?
A practical hero, that is...
Over and out! ;)
Link
Friday, September 01, 2006
So, Why Is It Then That Some Fare Better Than Others...?
We see it all over the media and we see it wherever we may go too - although we are all "born equal", and it is often rhetorically expressed, not everyone is equally lucky! Even among the "lucky ones", there are different types to delineate, ranging from "blessed by the fates" to "dumb luck"! Why is that? There must be a reason behind all that, right? Nothing happens without rhyme or reason in our universe - ask Hawking! Everything is meticulously balanced out by the Supreme Mathematician Who Created All! A less-than-supreme mathematician convinced Hawking to mention GOD often in all of his scientific theses so that sales could multiply a hundred-fold -at least- or so it was mathematically estimated... But I digress yet again...
And so, the rules of the universe are so tightly well-calculated that no two planets whirl out of control and bump into each other, creating a cosmic domino effect that sends us all, E.T. too, into oblivion... Even though I am convinced that God Could play pool with our globe and every other such astral body, and send us all into a black hole only for His Amusement, if He Wasn't such a Loving God. Some children though are harder to love than others, you will all admit. God Loves all equally - that is a feat only God Can Accomplish (just like, say, Creating the universe and regulating it? Yeah - see how it all fits together?)
However, even though all are loved equally, not all are blessed equally!
It has to be our own fault.
The main link today is about a study trying to determine why some people age better than others, even when they are closely related. It has to be because those who fare better have taken better care of themselves over the years. Some reach their 90s and are still active - others eat junk food throughout their "prime" ; they cannot expect to reap any "rewards" come their old age, if they even get there...!
Some kids are even worse than that though - such as "Rose", a Quebec teenager who nearly died a few years ago after defying a curfew established by the only ones who truly love her unconditionally on this Earth... Her parents. One night, around midnight, Rose slipped out of her bedroom after a brief cell phone conversation with a so-called "friend" and agreed to meet him, along with another guy, at a nearby parking lot. They picked her up in a stolen car I do believe - drunk behind the wheel and all - and they drove up to a "recreo-park" which is right by the river...
Once there, Rose says now that "a little light lit up in her head, warning her that something was amiss... That she was in danger". Really? It was about time... Better late than never, as they say...
Indeed, the danger was not that there was drinking and driving going on there ; the danger was that she was alone with two guys. Although the one she knew best and regarded as a "friend" did not assault her, the other guy sure did. The sexual assault quickly became attempted murder, for the young punk (by the name of Dompierre - serving an eleven-year sentence now, since 2005) believed that, if she lived, he was looking at 25 years in jail - just for attempted rape. Ironic that a punk has a better sense of justice than a bonafide judge, eh? He got only 11 years for attempted MURDER - and attempted rape! My, what horrid things must a felon do to hit the jackpot - life imprisonment?!? One shudders at the thought...
Needless to say, Rose survived, somehow, more on instinct (she played possum - played dead, exactly as a wounded animal would in order to escape a predator. She threw herself in the river and laid motionless on the other side of the river. The punks wouldn't follow in the cold water because they did not want to wet the car seats afterwards! Pathetic criminals, are they not. But that is another story... So, Rose survived the sickening and gratuitous assault and, soon enough, during the trial, she was denounced by both the defense lawyer as by a certain media pundit -Gilles Proulx- as having gone after trouble. Appalling attitude by both, considering that both seemed to completely forget that there had been ATTEMPTED MURDER there. Sure, Rose went after trouble, but it was only a sexual assault risk - the creep took it much further than that by trying to kill her on top of that. Proulx would be forced to resign from his radio broadcast position over his insisting too much that Rose was a little you-know-what... Funny that he omitted to say that Dompierre was a CAREER CRIMINAL in full bloom! I lost a lot of respect for Proulx... Still, even more appalling to me is the fact that Dompierre's defense lawyer was a WOMAN! Hell will be filled to capacity with lawyers, indubitably...
So many are "guilty as charged", like Dompierre... And, alas, like Rose too. The blame was laid, again, on society, which is nowadays way too permissive and way too "open". Right here, on the web, millions of pornographic images are readily available. Dopes like Dompierre (who never even completed grade school) wind up thinking that sex is theirs and they have a "right" to do as they please. And when that doesn't work out, they can erase all of their traces with murder. That's the coherent thought-process from an uneducated thug for you! Drop-outs, I tell ya... But I might be digressing again, so I'll stop telling you! ;)
This theory is not mine though - the "blame it on the permissive society of today and on the web porn" stuff comes from a very open-minded sexologist actually who was commenting on this sordid case! I say it is only PART of the problem... Just like guns don't kill people, people who pull the trigger do? Here, also, it is people who make the wrong choices. Sexual activity has been trivialized, sure, but it is not web porn that pushed Rose to take such mind-boggling chances as she did... Violence has been trivialized too, but it is not all the violence that he has seen in movies and video-games that pushed Dompierre to dump on poor bubbleheaded Rose that night... He has the seed of evil right in the core of his being ; in his soul. It is not the environment that makes us what we are - it is what is inside of us. The environment, like all of the props (guns, drugs, whatever else there is) are mere tools that are either used or ignored. It is all up to each and every one of us to make that decision. It will be overwhelming to the naturally-inclined towards evil ones to make the wrongest of choices... They shall suffer the consequences for it, that's all. And these consequences will be harsher in the Great Beyond than they are here, believe you me...! Eleven years... Were he in Florida, would Dompierre elude death row for very long?!? Good for him that his mommy couldn't afford to be a "snowbird" like most of his fellow drop-out duds are... duh!
This is not justice, not in my book, of course - a system that is all built around the "reformation of the guilty party" while neglecting the victim and the victim's family is not "justice". Justice - with a capital "J" - will be had only later on... When it is meted out and delivered by the Awe-ful Judge Himself on Judgment Day. Many a so-called "lawman" will be reprimanded severely that day... They, too, made their bed - let them lie in it! They do that often anyway, lie that is... Lie or twist facts in their clients' favor... Doesn't always work.
So then, what can we conclude as far as our original questioning here today goes - why are we not all equally fortunate? Well, for starters, we can't all win the jackpot - how would the world turn without envy, jealousy and greed? We are all born equal in a sense, but we are not all born with the same degree of common sense! And then there is that old French saying: "le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres". That can be taken on many levels to mean many things - bad weather on one side of the globe that is accustomed to great weather will benefit the other side of the globe, which will then be able to export its umbrellas and warmer clothing there, for there will now be a demand to supply there, when there wasn't one before! More directly and less poetically, a hated co-worker's firing will help out someone looking for a promotion sooner rather than later... In a world in movement, all of this activity is necessary to test our characters and see if we will do the "right thing" at all times. Rose's so-called friend did not, when he failed to even try to defend her from Dompierre. He got, for his part, a seven-year sentence. Likewise, we will all be rewarded according to our actions and reactions during our own "tests"...
And then, there are those times when luck has nothing to do with it - and it is but our destiny to meet our demise a certain way. Such as this 9-year-old boy from Middleborough, Massachusetts, USA, who died Thursday from eastern equine encephalitis. He was the first fatality from the mosquito-borne virus in the state this year. His name was John too. John Fontaine developed a fever Aug. 18 and was hospitalized two days later. He died Thursday afternoon, said Christine Powers-Perry, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital in Boston.
That was neither a question of luck or lack of it, nor was it his fault in any way. So, mosquito bites can be fatal now - are we going to stay indoors forevermore now? I myself have gone out with short sleeves this summer and been bitten a dozen times - I guess my death from such a thing would not have served as much purpose as this boy's demise does. Yes - the word is purpose - and it is not a typo! (I am not that bad a typist to make twice the same typo - in a row!)
In the Grand Scheme of Things, even someone's untimely death -especially if untimely- serves a purpose. Its effects on that person's immediate entourage are necessary ripples and reverberations that must be felt - either to make said entourage change their ways, mend some things, reflect upon other things, come to terms with what truly matters in their existence and / or simply better themselves. Plus, Heaven gains a new angel - which is always great. Hell has been increasing their numbers ceaselessly for some time now (it is said too, you know where, that their numbers will be as numerous as the pecks of sand in the desert -lest it is on the beach, which would still be considerable- lo, in the end of days... Yeah, I know - me and my paraphrasing! *LOL*) and so, we can assuredly say that a 9-year-old is as pure as they come and is a shoo-in to be named as "newest heavenly attendant recruit" - immediately!
Ultimately, maybe it is our perception of what "luck" is that is off-kilter - for this 9-year-old boy is assuredly luckier, in many ways, than the boy who "saw dead people" on the silver screen in the movie that made him a star and M. Night Shmalayan a director "de renom"... And who is now slowly but surely going the way of that "Home Alone" kid...
Link
And so, the rules of the universe are so tightly well-calculated that no two planets whirl out of control and bump into each other, creating a cosmic domino effect that sends us all, E.T. too, into oblivion... Even though I am convinced that God Could play pool with our globe and every other such astral body, and send us all into a black hole only for His Amusement, if He Wasn't such a Loving God. Some children though are harder to love than others, you will all admit. God Loves all equally - that is a feat only God Can Accomplish (just like, say, Creating the universe and regulating it? Yeah - see how it all fits together?)
However, even though all are loved equally, not all are blessed equally!
It has to be our own fault.
The main link today is about a study trying to determine why some people age better than others, even when they are closely related. It has to be because those who fare better have taken better care of themselves over the years. Some reach their 90s and are still active - others eat junk food throughout their "prime" ; they cannot expect to reap any "rewards" come their old age, if they even get there...!
Some kids are even worse than that though - such as "Rose", a Quebec teenager who nearly died a few years ago after defying a curfew established by the only ones who truly love her unconditionally on this Earth... Her parents. One night, around midnight, Rose slipped out of her bedroom after a brief cell phone conversation with a so-called "friend" and agreed to meet him, along with another guy, at a nearby parking lot. They picked her up in a stolen car I do believe - drunk behind the wheel and all - and they drove up to a "recreo-park" which is right by the river...
Once there, Rose says now that "a little light lit up in her head, warning her that something was amiss... That she was in danger". Really? It was about time... Better late than never, as they say...
Indeed, the danger was not that there was drinking and driving going on there ; the danger was that she was alone with two guys. Although the one she knew best and regarded as a "friend" did not assault her, the other guy sure did. The sexual assault quickly became attempted murder, for the young punk (by the name of Dompierre - serving an eleven-year sentence now, since 2005) believed that, if she lived, he was looking at 25 years in jail - just for attempted rape. Ironic that a punk has a better sense of justice than a bonafide judge, eh? He got only 11 years for attempted MURDER - and attempted rape! My, what horrid things must a felon do to hit the jackpot - life imprisonment?!? One shudders at the thought...
Needless to say, Rose survived, somehow, more on instinct (she played possum - played dead, exactly as a wounded animal would in order to escape a predator. She threw herself in the river and laid motionless on the other side of the river. The punks wouldn't follow in the cold water because they did not want to wet the car seats afterwards! Pathetic criminals, are they not. But that is another story... So, Rose survived the sickening and gratuitous assault and, soon enough, during the trial, she was denounced by both the defense lawyer as by a certain media pundit -Gilles Proulx- as having gone after trouble. Appalling attitude by both, considering that both seemed to completely forget that there had been ATTEMPTED MURDER there. Sure, Rose went after trouble, but it was only a sexual assault risk - the creep took it much further than that by trying to kill her on top of that. Proulx would be forced to resign from his radio broadcast position over his insisting too much that Rose was a little you-know-what... Funny that he omitted to say that Dompierre was a CAREER CRIMINAL in full bloom! I lost a lot of respect for Proulx... Still, even more appalling to me is the fact that Dompierre's defense lawyer was a WOMAN! Hell will be filled to capacity with lawyers, indubitably...
So many are "guilty as charged", like Dompierre... And, alas, like Rose too. The blame was laid, again, on society, which is nowadays way too permissive and way too "open". Right here, on the web, millions of pornographic images are readily available. Dopes like Dompierre (who never even completed grade school) wind up thinking that sex is theirs and they have a "right" to do as they please. And when that doesn't work out, they can erase all of their traces with murder. That's the coherent thought-process from an uneducated thug for you! Drop-outs, I tell ya... But I might be digressing again, so I'll stop telling you! ;)
This theory is not mine though - the "blame it on the permissive society of today and on the web porn" stuff comes from a very open-minded sexologist actually who was commenting on this sordid case! I say it is only PART of the problem... Just like guns don't kill people, people who pull the trigger do? Here, also, it is people who make the wrong choices. Sexual activity has been trivialized, sure, but it is not web porn that pushed Rose to take such mind-boggling chances as she did... Violence has been trivialized too, but it is not all the violence that he has seen in movies and video-games that pushed Dompierre to dump on poor bubbleheaded Rose that night... He has the seed of evil right in the core of his being ; in his soul. It is not the environment that makes us what we are - it is what is inside of us. The environment, like all of the props (guns, drugs, whatever else there is) are mere tools that are either used or ignored. It is all up to each and every one of us to make that decision. It will be overwhelming to the naturally-inclined towards evil ones to make the wrongest of choices... They shall suffer the consequences for it, that's all. And these consequences will be harsher in the Great Beyond than they are here, believe you me...! Eleven years... Were he in Florida, would Dompierre elude death row for very long?!? Good for him that his mommy couldn't afford to be a "snowbird" like most of his fellow drop-out duds are... duh!
This is not justice, not in my book, of course - a system that is all built around the "reformation of the guilty party" while neglecting the victim and the victim's family is not "justice". Justice - with a capital "J" - will be had only later on... When it is meted out and delivered by the Awe-ful Judge Himself on Judgment Day. Many a so-called "lawman" will be reprimanded severely that day... They, too, made their bed - let them lie in it! They do that often anyway, lie that is... Lie or twist facts in their clients' favor... Doesn't always work.
So then, what can we conclude as far as our original questioning here today goes - why are we not all equally fortunate? Well, for starters, we can't all win the jackpot - how would the world turn without envy, jealousy and greed? We are all born equal in a sense, but we are not all born with the same degree of common sense! And then there is that old French saying: "le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres". That can be taken on many levels to mean many things - bad weather on one side of the globe that is accustomed to great weather will benefit the other side of the globe, which will then be able to export its umbrellas and warmer clothing there, for there will now be a demand to supply there, when there wasn't one before! More directly and less poetically, a hated co-worker's firing will help out someone looking for a promotion sooner rather than later... In a world in movement, all of this activity is necessary to test our characters and see if we will do the "right thing" at all times. Rose's so-called friend did not, when he failed to even try to defend her from Dompierre. He got, for his part, a seven-year sentence. Likewise, we will all be rewarded according to our actions and reactions during our own "tests"...
And then, there are those times when luck has nothing to do with it - and it is but our destiny to meet our demise a certain way. Such as this 9-year-old boy from Middleborough, Massachusetts, USA, who died Thursday from eastern equine encephalitis. He was the first fatality from the mosquito-borne virus in the state this year. His name was John too. John Fontaine developed a fever Aug. 18 and was hospitalized two days later. He died Thursday afternoon, said Christine Powers-Perry, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital in Boston.
That was neither a question of luck or lack of it, nor was it his fault in any way. So, mosquito bites can be fatal now - are we going to stay indoors forevermore now? I myself have gone out with short sleeves this summer and been bitten a dozen times - I guess my death from such a thing would not have served as much purpose as this boy's demise does. Yes - the word is purpose - and it is not a typo! (I am not that bad a typist to make twice the same typo - in a row!)
In the Grand Scheme of Things, even someone's untimely death -especially if untimely- serves a purpose. Its effects on that person's immediate entourage are necessary ripples and reverberations that must be felt - either to make said entourage change their ways, mend some things, reflect upon other things, come to terms with what truly matters in their existence and / or simply better themselves. Plus, Heaven gains a new angel - which is always great. Hell has been increasing their numbers ceaselessly for some time now (it is said too, you know where, that their numbers will be as numerous as the pecks of sand in the desert -lest it is on the beach, which would still be considerable- lo, in the end of days... Yeah, I know - me and my paraphrasing! *LOL*) and so, we can assuredly say that a 9-year-old is as pure as they come and is a shoo-in to be named as "newest heavenly attendant recruit" - immediately!
Ultimately, maybe it is our perception of what "luck" is that is off-kilter - for this 9-year-old boy is assuredly luckier, in many ways, than the boy who "saw dead people" on the silver screen in the movie that made him a star and M. Night Shmalayan a director "de renom"... And who is now slowly but surely going the way of that "Home Alone" kid...
Link
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Luminous Banners!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Down With Ernesto - In, Up, Up And Away With John
I find it supremely ironic that we've seen in recent hours Ernesto be downgraded to mere "tropical depression" while a truly powerful hurricane rose up, to bear the name of... John!
My uncle, whose name ends in "-to", passed away first, some years ago. He was roaring like a lion all throughout his life, but went out with a whimper indeed. He was a good man with a genuine caring heart - only he often went about it all wrong in showing that. He is remembered for his outbursts more than he is for the good that he did because of this. If that wasn't mirrored in the hurricane turning into tropical depression, nothing can mirror it...
My father was, to my chagrin and amazement, the next one to go from that generation. His temperament was calm on the surface and boiling below! Nothing can better equal that on the scale of mother nature than a storm becoming a huge hurricane force - "Dangerous John" they have already called it, over at the N.H.C. (National Hurricane Center - really International if you ask me, since Canada and even Mexico depend and heavily rely on it and neither, to my knowledge, have officially been swallowed up by the USA yet - you'd have close to 75 states by now, if not more, if such had been the case...! But I digress...)
Here's an ethereal thought: what if my father and everyone named "John" for that matter, was behind the strong winds of this hurricane that is their namesake? Winds that have very good chances of attaining SUSTAINED (1-MINUTE AVERAGE) WIND SPEEDS OF AT LEAST
...34 KT (39 MPH... 63 KPH)...
...50 KT (58 MPH... 93 KPH)...
...64 KT (74 MPH...119 KPH)...
WOW!
If we've heard of "ghosts in the machine" - it makes more sense to me to think of "ghosts in the wind" or in the sea, or in the stars, or in the forest, and so on...!
That's what I'd do if I was a ghost too! And I'd gear that hurricane/tropical cyclone/typhoon/whatever I'd be caught in towards my old stomping grounds... Settle a few scores with the living and undeserving! ;)
Watch out, some day, for Hurricane Luciano - it will be one for the ages!
Link
My uncle, whose name ends in "-to", passed away first, some years ago. He was roaring like a lion all throughout his life, but went out with a whimper indeed. He was a good man with a genuine caring heart - only he often went about it all wrong in showing that. He is remembered for his outbursts more than he is for the good that he did because of this. If that wasn't mirrored in the hurricane turning into tropical depression, nothing can mirror it...
My father was, to my chagrin and amazement, the next one to go from that generation. His temperament was calm on the surface and boiling below! Nothing can better equal that on the scale of mother nature than a storm becoming a huge hurricane force - "Dangerous John" they have already called it, over at the N.H.C. (National Hurricane Center - really International if you ask me, since Canada and even Mexico depend and heavily rely on it and neither, to my knowledge, have officially been swallowed up by the USA yet - you'd have close to 75 states by now, if not more, if such had been the case...! But I digress...)
Here's an ethereal thought: what if my father and everyone named "John" for that matter, was behind the strong winds of this hurricane that is their namesake? Winds that have very good chances of attaining SUSTAINED (1-MINUTE AVERAGE) WIND SPEEDS OF AT LEAST
...34 KT (39 MPH... 63 KPH)...
...50 KT (58 MPH... 93 KPH)...
...64 KT (74 MPH...119 KPH)...
WOW!
If we've heard of "ghosts in the machine" - it makes more sense to me to think of "ghosts in the wind" or in the sea, or in the stars, or in the forest, and so on...!
That's what I'd do if I was a ghost too! And I'd gear that hurricane/tropical cyclone/typhoon/whatever I'd be caught in towards my old stomping grounds... Settle a few scores with the living and undeserving! ;)
Watch out, some day, for Hurricane Luciano - it will be one for the ages!
Link
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Saints & Angels: The TLB Prime series
Today, according to the calendar up on my wall, is the day of the commemoration of the martyrdom of my favorite saint - Saint John The Baptist.Though my plight is not technically "martyrdom" literally, I saw on this day quite a few parallels and quite a lot of synchronicity going on there...!
However, such is not the subject of this blog post nor of this recurring sub-series that is a cherished part of TLB Prime...
Hence, more about the saint instead...
He is also known as Joannes Baptista; John the Baptizer; John the Forerunner; Juan Bautista; João Batista
Memorial Dates are most well-known, the first mostly - June 24th (birth) and today, August 29th (death)
Profile ~
Cousin of Jesus Christ. Son of Zachary, a priest of the order of Abia whose job in the temple was to burn incense; and of Elizabeth, a descendent of Aaron. As Zachary was ministering in the Temple, an angel brought him news that Elizabeth would bear a child filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Zachary doubted and was struck dumb until John's birth.
Prophet. Began his ministry around age 27, wearing a leather belt and a tunic of camel hair, living off locusts and wild honey, and preaching a message of repentance to the people of Jerusalem. He converted many, and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus. Baptized Christ, after which he stepped away and told his disciples to follow Jesus.
Imprisoned by King Herod. He died a victim of the vengeance of a jealous woman; he was beheaded, and his head brought to her on a platter. Saint Jerome says Herodias kept the head for a long time after, occassionally stabbing the tongue with his dagger.
He died beheaded circa 30 A.D. at Machaerus; buried at Sebaste, Samaria; his relics are found in Saint Sylvester's church, Rome, Italy, and at Amiens, France - reputedly.
His name means "God is gracious" or "gift of God" (John)
I so do agree with that meaning - my saintly father's a namesake...
His Canonization is one of an elite few that was "Pre-Congregation" - of course.
His Patronage is vast and goes way beyond mere baptism to embrace a whole lot of diverse causes, places, professions and ways of life, such as: bird dealers; the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina; Colletorto, Italy; converts; convulsions; convulsive children; cutters; diocese of Dodge City, Kansas; epilepsy; epileptics; farriers; French Canadians; Fürstenberg, Germany; Genoa, Italy; hail; hailstorms; Jordan; Knights Hospitaller; Knights of Malta; lambs; Leioa, Spain; Macau, China; Maltese Knights; monastic life; Monte San Giovanni Campano, Italy; Monza, Italy; motorways; Palermo, Sicily; diocese of Paterson, New Jersey; Penzance, Cornwall, England; diocese of Portland, Maine; Pozzallo, Sicily; printers; Puerto Rico; Quebec; Ragusa, Sicily; Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, Loiret, France; San Juan Indian Pueblo; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Sassano, Italy; diocese of Savannah, Georgia; spasms; tailors; Teising, Germany; Torino, Italy; Umbria, Italy; Wenden, Germany; Wenings, Germany; Wroclaw, Poland.
Representation: cross in hand; lamb; severed head on a platter; skin of an animal; slender cross. (It is one of the things that I always loved about my faith - its rich and abundant symbolism! Imaginative and creative minds are greater than knowledgeable ones - Albert Einstein himself knew so much!)
As for the angel of the day - or rather of this installment of "TLB Prime's Saints & Angels" really - let's go with go a regular, run-of-the-mill heavenly attendant and nothing too fancy at that, hmm? After all, Jesus Himself stated that "there were no men greater than John - but the smallest of the angels was greater than him" (I paraphrase again, yes!)
The ANGELS are the lowest of all the orders in the heavenly hierarchy and the closest to man. They announce the lesser mysteries and intentions of God and teach people to live virtuously and righteously before God. They are appointed to guard each of us who believe: they sustain virtuous people from fallen, and never leave us though we have sinned, but are always ready to help us, if only we ourselves want it.
Angels such as this one...
An echelon up on "mere angels" are the Seraphim (the closest ones to God), the Cherubim, the Thrones, the middle hierarchy made up of the Dominions, the Virtues and the Powers and then the lowest hierarchy constituted of the Principalities, the Archangels and finally the "common Angel" described above...!
Blessings!
Labels: Saints And Angels
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Monday, August 28, 2006
Emmy - ami? That is NOT the question...
I am allowed the use of French, more than ever, as, it appears, some so-called experts (of what? Of fluff, I say) have used it last night during their coverage of an umpteenth "un-event" - the Emmy awards ceremony... En effet, fashion "expert" Ms. London (can't recall, for the life of me, her first name) thought so much of insipid ditzy blonde actress Jaime Pressley's get-up that she took the liberty to apostrophe her name... "J'aime" instantly says either "I like" or "I love"... She did, and I... couldn't care less actually!Same expert remarked that the predominant color on the red carpet was (no, not the carpet's color but really...) purple! Hence, once again, I find justification for the umpteenth use of my prefered font color here, on this day's blog post, at least...!
TLB Prime - covering the Emmys? TLB Prime - catering to the masses who, passively, ogle the so-called "stars" and dream of "the life"...? TLB Prime - lowering itself to the level of E-Talk, Access Hollywood, E.T., Flash (the lesser known of them all - thank God) and other so-called "cultural magazines", no matter what media they employ...? Ah - hardly. There has to be a bigger, greater and more significant reason why I would bother with the Tinseltown TV fluff crowd and the following is it...
First, I must applaud NBC's initiative to push the airing of this "un-event" three weeks earlier - usually, it conflicts with the commemorations of 9/11 and, you will all recall, in 2001, it had been scheduled to be held the very week-end following the tragic event. It had been rescheduled twice rather than once before it finally aired. This year being, of course, the 5th anniversary marking the tragedy - a movie having just come out on the dire subject too, abnormally starring former Con Air protagonist, recent 'Bringing Out The Dead' lead and soon-to-be 'Ghost Rider' too, Nicholas Cage; truly an odd casting choice when you look at it under this perspective - the luminous perspective! Oliver Stone must have been trying to console Nic Cage for having missed out on being Superman - when the role just returned to the big screen (to a rather mild reception - Lord, how will they make up all those millions now, down at Warner Bros? But that is another tragic story in itself...) and even Ben Affleck gets to be the man of steel, by proxy, playing the suicidal/murdered George Reeves in "Hollywoodland" - part of Hollywood's latest "twin projects" syndrome relapse - lest it is a new affliction that reeks of necrophilia (The Black Dahlia coming out simultaneously and all... But I digress)
Hence, NBC will likely do as every other broadcaster will do in the coming ten to fourteen days - spend all of their time remembering the Twin Towers. Hopefully they will find five seconds to think of the third plane that crashed that day too...
NBC, for all of its goodness and kindness on the airwaves, committed a major booboo in the order of quasi-heartlessness though - oddly enough during the initial few seconds of the Emmy Awards broadcast too! Kentucky folks did not appreciate their insensitiveness at allowing Conan O'Brien's skit during the opening minutes to go through, uncut... In it, O'Brien boards a plane that crashes (though off-screen) and he lands on the island where the NBC series "Lost" is shot, meeting a cast member of that show there (the only one who'd go along with O'Brien, I'm sure, and, alas for O'Brien, it wasn't Evangeline Lilly who is pictured twice here, looking dazzling in her purple dress from Versace, expressly for the Emmys too... Sheesh. Not that one can tell, from either pic, what she's wearing at all though; she could be naked there! Thanks a lot, whoever cropped the pic; Versace, especially, must be pleased...)The thing about Kentucky and planes crashing at this time is the recent tragedy over there, where a commuter jet crashed into a field and burst into flames, killing all aboard except a co-pilot.
This had, in fact, taken place on the same day. The NBC executives overseeing the live telecast of the Emmy award show had no clue whatsoever about what happened down in Kentucky earlier on? They could not blackout only a minute of their precious presentation, to spare sensitivities, toshow respect...? Forty-nine lives were gone, just like that, in Kentucky on Sunday - what's that to NBC network executives? Not even a bleep in the ratings - right? A nice quote at this time would be from Tim Gilbert, the general manager of NBC's Lexington, Ky., affiliate, WLEX...
"We wish somebody had thought this through. It's somewhere between ignorance and incompetence." Indeed.
Speaking of some "i and i" - the Spellings. The Spelling dynasty, verily - as glamourous (well, almost - Linda Evans and Heather Locklear are hard to match...) and as infamous too as the good old classic Dynasty clan... The mother and the son of the late legendary producer Aaron Spelling were seated at one end of the audience - and Tori "not-so-torrid" Spelling was at the other end of it, with her husband-du-jour... Even on Dynasty, they wouldn't be so foolish or cruel. Reuniting stars from Aaron's hit shows - especially the original Charlie's Angels; Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett - was a nice touch. But the Spellings' attitude over the ESTATE AND WHO GETS WHAT AMOUNT OF MOOLAH ruined the moment.
Far more touching were the Pivens. Jeremy Piven honored the memory of his dad as he also honored his mom, present there, in the audience, as he won an award for his role in the heavily-aquaman influenced, Tinseltown mock-a-thon HBO hit Entourage...
Jeremy Piven is a family guy, who knows what fmaily truly means and also the meaning of "respect your elders" - I can only hope that he is not like Kevin Spacey. Well, nobody's perfect... Piven though, being associated with Aquaman rather than Superman (as Spacey was this summer, playing Lex Luthor) - I'd think that there's more hope for Jeremy than there is for Kevin! I never met a Kevin I didn't dislike, to tell the truth - this goes out to Kevin T of Halifax (the T is for turd, yes) - but I am willing to admit that there are exceptions to most every rule...
To end on a "glamour note" - aside from Evangeline, the Scrubs' own Sarah Chalke proved that she was no tomboy with all that lace she wore (the other dominant thing that night - aye, twas purple and lace! And sore losers - but that is predominant on any award show they ever have!)
It was embarrassing to hear a certain actor's wife admit to having a crush on another actor. It was ten times more embarrassing to listen to the Access Hollywood bimbo who held a mike asking said wife "if you had a free pass, that would be it, right?"
Luminous perspective on it: the actor was renowned for being the "everyman geek" in his younger days, as he began in the business in his teens. He was, most notably, quite the pizza delivery boy, as original Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson would recall fondly too... (Love it when it all comes together like this in the end - don't you?)
Morale of all this: once a geek, always and forevermore hard to shed the geekiness... Even if you get the dream part of a TV doctor with "dreamy" in your character's very NAME...
Oh - and Conan O'Brien makes for a funny host of these type of things. "Un-events" and him go hand in hand - like a sports event and a heckler or a garage sale and a hawker. Much funnier than David Letterman - just ask Jay Leno. And much, much funnier than Jon Stewart - just ask Stephen Colbert, who was in the audience and was, in fact, in stitches. And taking notes.
On how to be funny, y'know...
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Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sunday Survivalism! (Who Wants To Survive - Doh?)
Your overall survival IQ is 75.
Your ability to stay alive is 81%
Your ability to protect yourself from the elements is 95%
Your ability to catch the attention of your rescuers is 47%
Test Your Own Survival Skills Now - Click Here!
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Your ability to stay alive is 81%
Your ability to protect yourself from the elements is 95%
Your ability to catch the attention of your rescuers is 47%
Test Your Own Survival Skills Now - Click Here!
Link
