More George Carlin

When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?

When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?

When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Women like silent men, they think they're listening.

"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?
They never mention that part to us, do they?

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.

Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.

To those under 40 years of age.......

To those under 40 years of age -(I will turn 50 in less than 730 days...).

The prior posting from Leondard Pitts denotes a huge chasm in generational thinking.

This quote is the most telling: "Designer facts are easy because they are soothing, because they are predictable, because they never make you think, only react. But they also leave us talking past each other because we no longer operate from the same assumptions or speak the same language. "

If we can"no longer operate from the same assumptions" or "speak the same language" than the message of Christianity becomes harder to deliver. If we cannot agree that there is one God and one Son, Jesus Christ; Christians automatically become counter-culture.

It was not as severe when I was younger - the changes in assumptions were beginning to happen but the foundation was familiar to all of us.

Jesus Christ was that familiar foundation. Yes, you had the different denominations but Christianity was still main stream in "Word" if not deed. Now even the "Word" is under attack.

A person must make a choice about Jesus Christ. Any kind of faith is dependent on that. Jesus himself said -"I am the way, the truth and the life, no comes to the Father but through me".

What does that statement say about Judaism and Islam?

Add to that the message of the media (TV, movies, the internet) where we are constantly bombarded by earthly messages. The messages have become so common place that many people follow these messages without thought; only reaction.

We must realize that a majority of the people have been raised on TV. Their perceptions of Christianity and Jesus Christ have only come from the media. Many have never opened the bible to see what it really says. And the use of the King James version in the media has created a further gulf by using the outdated language of that version.

Shows that do not follow Christian morals only serve to undermine Christianity. TV is used as a pulpit to move away from Christian values. "Will and Grace" only serve the homosexual agenda of making homosexuality acceptable and the crime shows play on the nerve that "death is our greatest enemy" and reality shows play on our ability to have relationships.

As Christians we are called to live above that. We are called not to react to this world but to act with purpose. Our purpose is to proclaim Jesus Christ, not only in word but in action. Not reacting to threat of terrorist attacks or pandering to the "passion of pity." But live our lives in a controlled and disciplined way where people notice us because of our actions not because of our words.

We must learn to understand other people's assumptions but still maintain our Christianity.
This is now harder than when I was under 40.

When the 'facts' collide, honest debate is elusive - Leonard Pitts

IN MY OPINION
When the 'facts' collide, honest debate is elusive
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
So apparently, we didn't get the real story on Cindy Sheehan's arrest.
Some of you will recall that I wrote last week how Sheehan, the antiwar activist, showed up to President Bush's State of the Union address wearing a T-shirt that referenced the number of Americans killed in Iraq. Capitol police took her out of the gallery and placed her under arrest.
Meantime, Beverly Young, wife of a Florida representative, showed up in the same room wearing a sweat shirt that said ''Support Our Troops.'' She was asked to leave, but was not arrested. I laid the disparity in treatment to the administration's thin skin toward criticism of its policies.
I've since been informed by a number of readers that the real reason Sheehan got hauled to the hoosegow while Young didn't is that Sheehan attempted to unfurl a protest banner in the chamber. Others report that instead of complying with police instructions, she resisted arrest.
Just one problem: There's no evidence any of that is true. Indeed, it's Young who has admitted to cursing police. Yet my readers relayed these ''facts'' about Sheehan with such righteous authority that you'd never know they weren't. Facts, that is.
Jack Nicholson was right: We can't handle the truth. Not the truth about Sheehan. The truth, period.
SEPARATE TRUTHS
It's increasingly the case that there's no such thing as the truth. Rather, we have truths, separate but equal. We choose the one we need, based on which best validates our preferred worldview. We get these truths from radio talk shows and Internet forums that manufacture them according to our political alliances and warn in dire tones against trusting truth that comes from ideologically impure sources.
So extreme conservatives shun the ''liberal media'' and extreme liberals shun the ''mainstream media.'' And neither seems to get the joke that they're both shunning the same media for supposedly favoring the other side. Seems obvious to me that when opposing extremists each accuse you of supporting the other, you're probably hitting pretty close to the truth.
Which takes us back to Nicholson's line. And to this point: Once upon a time, we all drew upon a common pool of facts. You might interpret them differently than I, but we could have an honest disagreement because the facts themselves were not in contention.
Now we have designer facts, facts that aren't facts but that gain currency because somebody wanted to believe them. The thing is, facts that really are facts, truth that really is true, doesn't always validate your beliefs. Sometimes it challenges and confounds them. That's probably the problem.
TALKING PAST EACH OTHER
Designer facts are easy because they are soothing, because they are predictable, because they never make you think, only react. But they also leave us talking past each other because we no longer operate from the same assumptions or speak the same language. You may feel the shirt looks better in black and I may think it looks better in white, but if we can't even agree on what black and white are, we can't have the argument. We have no basis for conversation.
Maybe that's the inevitable byproduct of the information revolution. We have gone from three networks to 500, one for every worldview, every bias, every demographic set or subset. We no longer have one Bringer of Truth. Paul Simon once famously asked, ''Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?'' It might be more apropos to ask, ``Where have you gone, Walter Cronkite?''
Wherever he went, he apparently took with him the concept that decent people could interpet the same objective, verifiable facts differently and have -- that phrase again -- an honest disagreement about them. Now we have facts created for us according to our politics. Now we have ''truth'' that belongs in quotation marks.
And the result is predictable, isn't it? We still have plenty of disagreement, but there's nothing honest about it.

My son is 18 today plus other things

My wife's grandmother passed away this morning in Detroit, Michigan. We are all glad that we went to visit Grandma Patterson in 2002 and have great memories from that visit.

It is also my oldest son's 18th birthday today!

People say that parenting comes without a book of directions. I now understand why.

You parent from your own experience and knowledge that you pick up along the way.

And after 18 years I have a lot of exprience and knowledge. Unfortunately, the understanding has come later, after I submitted to being on anti-depressants and therapy in the last two years. Through this process I learned much about myself.

Parenting comes down to this: relationship.
If you know yourself and what motivates you then you can look at your children and ask the same question. I have four children and they are completely different and what works with one child does not work with another.

This may sound like a cliche but you must look beyond the saying.

Look at your friends and family and ask yourself: "Is my relationship with them encouraging? Do I encourage them and do they encourage me? Do I understand what makes these people happy? How can I contribute to their well-being?" Your behavior and attitudes impact those around you.

Look at the grumpy or cynical person. Do you always want to be around them? I have learned through my sense of humor that people don't like a smart aleck. I now view a "sense of humor" like salt. A little bit here and there adds flavor but too much will ruin a relationship.

God, the creator of you and me, wants a relationship with us. That is why he gave us true free will. That is why there is sin. Without sin, there is no free will.

With no free will, there is no spontaneous worship that not only glorifies God, but draws us closer to Him.

With no free will, there is no struggle and no victory in Jesus.

1 John 5:19-21

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Time to stop being clueless about Seattle
BY STEVE KELLEY
Seattle Times
DETROIT - Thank God it's game day.

Finally it's time for Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter to walk the talk.

It's time for Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck to show the billion or so people watching just how good he is.

No more questions about how the Seahawks will handle the Steelers' 3-4 defense. No more tortured interrogations of Seattle tight end Jerramy Stevens.

Super Bowl Sunday brings a respite from the thousands of agonized Aggies who just can't believe that another team could be brazen enough to believe the idea of the 12th man doesn't belong only to Texas A&M.

The next thing you know A&M will file half a lawsuit against the NBA when the league announces its annual Sixth Man Award.

TGIGD.

At last we don't have to read any more stories, hear any more questions about how remote Seattle is. No more analysts claiming nobody knows about the Seahawks because they play in far-away Seattle.

The fractured way geographically challenged football scribes wrote about the Seahawks last week, you'd think the only guys who've ever covered the team are Lewis and Clark.

Listen to the pundits on cable TV, and you'd think they were the Siberia Seahawks. You'd think the city was discovered by Neil Armstrong. You'd think the only flights to Seattle originated out of Cape Canaveral.

TGIGD.

You listen to people who should know better talk about the Seahawks, and you'd think this Super Bowl appearance was the first and only accomplishment in Seattle sports history.

They forget that five years ago the Mariners won 116 games. (Come to think of it, that's hard for a lot of us to remember.) Former Mariner Randy Johnson won a Cy Young Award in Seattle. And Ken Griffey Jr. had no problem building his reputation in the same far-off city.

Just because the 21st-century Sonics can't seem to get it right, and want us to build them a new arena before they build Seattle a team worthy of a new place, doesn't mean the city doesn't have a rich basketball history.

Seattle won an NBA championship in 1979. It remains the home of Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens. It has been home to Fred Brown, Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson, Jack Sikma, Lonnie Shelton and Paul Silas.

Tom Chambers won the MVP in the NBA All-Star Game, as a Sonic, in Seattle. The city gave NBA birth to Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, to Slick Watts and Spencer Haywood. It hosted the NBA Finals in 1996 and there wasn't a hotter, louder, more intimate building in basketball than KeyArena.

The Washington men's basketball team was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament last March. Across the state, Gonzaga remains a national power. Anybody ever heard of Adam Morrison?

Enough people noticed Seahawks wide receiver Steve Largent and Huskies and Seahawks quarterback Warren Moon to vote them into the Hall of Fame. The summer before last the Seattle Storm won the WNBA championship. And, once upon a time, Washington was a football power that frequented the Rose Bowl and the Top 10.

TGIGD.

You just get a little tired of people referring to Seattle as some backwater when you know it's the home of the Seattle Opera's world-renowned Ring Cycle. When you see its local theater companies winning Tony Awards. When its Pacific Northwest Ballet continues to challenge itself, combining innovative works with the classics.

Isn't it funny that Seattle Symphony maestro Gerard Schwarz has been able to survive the terrible "isolation" of Seattle and has created an international reputation.

Jonathan Raben, Charles Johnson, Sherman Alexie and David Shields are among the many great writers living in or near the city. And the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson lived and worked in Seattle.

The city is the home of Pearl Jam, which after all these years remains one of the world's hottest bands. And just for the musically impaired who continue to refer to the Seattle music scene as grunge, the expiration date on that term was, oh, about 1995.

TGIGD.

Didn't Microsoft start shrinking the world three decades ago? Isn't Microsoft based in the Greater Seattle area? Aren't the co-founders of Microsoft, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, from Seattle?

Thanks in large part to Microsoft, we live in the wired age. I can have e-mail arguments over sports with soldiers in Mosul. I can file columns from the top of Kilimanjaro. So you mean to tell me people still think Seattle is isolated, somewhere between the Yukon and Uranus?

The point of this rant is that the Seahawks' anonymity has nothing to do with geography. The Seahawks' games are televised. The highlights of their games are shown on every cable outlet every Sunday, just like the Giants' games and the Patriots' games. You can follow them on your computer, your cellphone, you name it.

People weren't paying attention to the Seahawks because, for 20 years, they didn't win. Want to isolate yourself from the world? Just lose, baby.

And it seems every time the Hawks played a potential breakthrough game, they broke down. They lost in overtime in the playoffs in Green Bay. They lost in the last seconds in the playoffs to St. Louis at home.

But the only real similarities between these Seahawks and all of those other Seahawks are the name and the logo. This team wins. And the world pays attention when you win.

It's 2006. Lewis and Clark aren't in the house, and the only geography that matters on this day is that Seattle is this close to its first Super Bowl title.

Thank God it's Game Day.