Fox Nation Decries Modern Bible Translations as Heresy

I can’t beat KJV-über-alles silliness, but I’ll offer this from FakeAPStylebook:

Johnson Administration – presidency of Lyndon Johnson, 1963-69; “johnson administration” – something Brett Favre doesn’t do well.

:)

@al2o3cr: I love those guys. And I’m truly surprised they’ve been able to keep up the shtick this long.

is it me or are they oozing desperation.

King James VI of Scotland, I of England. Another proud gay man making a difference.

It’s Aramaic-only or GTFO!

Hmmm. Thanks for the original Nojo. Is that Aramaic or Hebrew? The Google translate from Hebrew of the above quote reads:

Power of the Lord will replace defective organ vultures will run and not touch will not Yeaapo:

While it may lack syntax, it certainly is powerful dada poetry. Perhaps Fox should have quoted the more authoritative Google Translate for the correct quote.

@rabidgerbil:

…defective organ vultures…

Dick Cheney?

@rabidgerbil: Hebrew. Although we may have to use that translation in the Zombie Bible.

@rabidgerbil:
great
I love google translate.

if it was around I would say it was responsible for at least some Captain Beefheart lyrics.

That Scripture page could help you kick some serious ass at Bible study.

Years of scholarly research may yet be required to settle the controversy as to whether Yeaapo is a noun, a verb or an exclamative.

TJ/ (Sorry) Kinda important issue and question in the clubhouse. (Sorry.)

@rabidgerbil: I would vote for adjective.

@rabidgerbil: @SanFranLefty: Sandwich spread.

@rabidgerbil: Sounds to me like a liquid coffee extract to which one need only add water. Oh no wait, that’s Camp.

“The Lumberjack Song” in German.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiVOG199X2c

Politico asks Virginia Thomas about her new lobbying scam career, gives them the old “you’re breaking up/this connection is bad” brush off.

The New International Version of the Bible, as well as several other 20th Century translations/interpretations (Living Bible) are blasphemous.

They were created by American & British Evangelical Christians with an expressed political agenda (read the preface to the N.I.V.) to attempt to eliminate inconsistencies. They do this by specious & inconsistent translation practices rejected by the vast majority of literary & biblical scholars.

Since we have an excellent translation of the Torah/Old Testament dating from the 3rd century BCE (the Septuagint translation by the Jewish community in Alexandria into Greek) containing the vowels & spaces missing from Hebrew, it is easy to spot the blatant lying in the modern mistranslations.

Also, if these modern evangelicals are correct in their translation, it would mean that the standard text of the Torah used in Jesus’ time were all incorrect. Jesus himself would have misinterpreted the meaning of the Bible when he read from it in the Synagogue according to these “scholars”.

P.S. As an atheist, I am hardly a KJV literalist. If you want the best translation of the Old Testament Bible, I would suggest using both the New Jewish Publication Society translation (1985) and the original Jewish Publication Society translation (1917).

Also, as the N.I.V. Bible is alleged to be the most popular Bible in the U.S. and is favored by conservative Evangelical Christians, this shows how ignorant Fox News is of both their professed Christianity and the actual Beliefs of the audience it focuses on.

As the greatest American of all time said, “Suckers! There’s one born every minute.”

@jaycubed: Kisses. I use the Bible my grandmother gave me the last time I saw her in her last futile attempt to save my soul. I suspect she knew I was teh gay because her brother, my communist hero, was most likely into Sydney gay bars after having been exiled there after blowing up coal mines in Scotland. I suspect he brought assless chaps to Dunfermline. Americans read ‘babel’ as babble. Why not ‘Bible’ as bibble? It’s an old ugly book stuffed full of eternal truths. Eg: When you need to fuck your dad first get him drunk. When you want to fuck neighbor bitch slice her husband in bits. And such as.

@redmanlaw: Better than English. Makes me think: did they do whole different versions in German? Does Pat Robertson know?

@jaycubed: This is why I love Stinque — I learn something new every day.

@jaycubed: Thanks–I thought that was the case with the NIV and evangelicals, but had no time to look it up as I’m too busy cataloguing 12th century bible manuscript leaves. The KJV is one of the “new” translations in my business–anything done later is of no interest to collectors unless it’s particularly beautiful or important printing or is in an unusual language (leaves from Eliot’s Indian bible in Algonquin are particularly sought after).

@Mistress Cynica: Shakes knew Geneva. Or Britches. But he mostly stole from Ovid.

@Benedick: The C of E hated Geneva because of the Calvinist leanings, so produced the Bishop’s Bible under Parker’s supervision. Of course, it’s only a really special translation if it gets you burned at the stake.

I thought “Good News for Modern Man” was the heathen version. You just can’t trust Lutherans.

I actually prefer King James, because it’s fun to shout. Purely an aesthetic choice for me.

Say, any Latin elitists out there? Let’s rumble!

@nojo: Uh huh. Big guy.

@Mistress Cynica: Werd. Word.

This is magic: “Of course, it’s only a really special translation if it gets you burned at the stake.”

Even though I have been an atheist since childhood, I always loved the Old Testament Bible. (It’s impossible to imagine Shakespeare without the precedent of the revolutionary language/imagery of the KJV and its impact on English speech & writing.)

It is a wonderful record of how real people (over thousands of years) have actually behaved, rather than a guide to how they should behave. As a basis for morality it is mostly horrible and deeply inconsistent.

I love Bob Crumb’s illustrated Genesis and highly recommend it for the more visually oriented.

There is no other book like it. Just remember it is a marvelous collection of fairy tales rather than The Big Fairy’s Handbook.

When is Obama going to quote to Gospel of Magdalene?

@jaycubed: Not to be a noodge, but one can hardly call the KJV a “precedent” to Shakespeare, as it was “published” in 1611, some two years before Shakespeare’s final plays The Tempest and Two Noble Kinsmen were produced.

Welcome to the Funque, by the way. Consider my snide, know-it-all-posturing as hazing. I’m really not as arrogant as I sound.

Did you ever hear about the “Shake/Spear” code in the KJV? It does work, if you follow the directions right, and is used as evidence by some to prove that Willie worked on the translations for the bible.

@Benedick: Sex beast! How are you this evening?

By the way, speaking about the gross ignorance found among both Evangelical Christians and their reactionary political allies:

Here are the real TEN COMMANDMENTS courtesy of the KJV.

EXODUS 34
—–
[12] Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
[13] But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
[14] For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

—–
[15] Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods , and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
[16] And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
[17] Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

—–
[18] The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

—–
[19] All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.
[20] But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

—–

[21] Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

—–

[22] And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

—–
[23] Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
[24] For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.

—–

[25] Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

—–
[26] The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God..

[26 cont.] Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

—–
[27] And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
[28] And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

—————–

Strange that I haven’t seen the real Ten Commandments on any courthouse. The one they always put up is just made up. or reflect commandments that god specifically rejects after first bringing them up.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

The KJV was the result of a process starting with the Tyndale Bible nearly a century before the KJV was published. The language style was created by William Tyndale, and the majority of the KJV is identical to or closely derived from his preceding work.

@jaycubed: Then it would be fair to say, I suppose, that the Tyndale bible preceded Shakespeare, but almost entirely inaccurate to say that the KJV preceded him, don’t you agree?

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Tynsdale was burned at the stake for his efforts.

@Dodgerblue: Before, I would imagine, Shakespeare grew to the age of majority. Which would make the event a precedent to Shakespeare, not, as some logic apparently runs, antecedent to his life and works.

ADD: I am a bitchy queen when I really get going, aren’t I?

@jaycubed: “A process”? So that means that KJV was written by bureaucratic committee? That explains so much. My agnostic Irish drunk grandpa always said that if you wanted stories better than any soap opera, just crack the Old Testament open to any page and start reading. Then he’d go on about incest and murder and coveting, and my mom would say “Ohhhh-kaaaay, that’s enough about the Bible, Dad.”

And people wonder why I’m a believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster/St. Francis/dog heaven and not much else…

@Mistress Cynica: I think that “Of course, it’s only a really special translation if it gets you burned at the stake.” might just beat my Palin intellectual property comment for COTD honors. But since I love you, it’s okay! SMOOOCH!

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: You’re OUR bitchy queen, darling…

@Dodgerblue: @SanFranLefty: Y’all are too kind.
Most major translations of the bible were by committee, which does, indeed, explain so much. Even St Jerome probably had help (Vulgate shout-out for the Latin elitists).

Comments: tl;dr Sorry

@Mistress Cynica: One of the Gospels was changed (Mark?), because it ended with the women finding the tomb empty and then fleeing. Period. Someone along the line supposedly gave it a “better” ending.

Okay, sleep.

Love you all.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

While that is true, few people are even aware of the Tyndale Bible or the Common Bible or the several other interim versions which lead to the KJV. The key point is that the English prose style pioneered by Tyndale reached its conclusion as the KJV after nearly a century of common usage, which did allow Shakespeare’s style to be intelligible to his contemporaries.

Holy shit, a KJV-Tyndale catfight? This truly is the bestest blog ever.

OK. OK. Darlings. And Catt. Tyndale, first translation into English, was indeed burned at the stake. Shakes grew up on the Geneva Bible. Based on Tyndale but not quite the same. He was also familiar with the Breeches Bible – Adam made himself ‘breeches’ from the fig leaves. And the Bishop’s Bible. Do not know if he was aware of the Assless Chaps Bible – Adam made himself a pair of assless chaps from the fig leaves and headed over to Splash.

Then big old homo James commissioned the Authorized Version long after the Bard made his masterworks.

Shakes was totes a humanist and Ovid was who framed his imagination. Though he might have been a recusant Catholic I don’t see much in his work that reflects that.

@SanFranLefty: So that means that KJV was written by bureaucratic committee?

Welcome conventioneers from the Council of Nicaea!

YEMEN! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12353479

Sorry if it’s been covered. I sleep now.

King James was a twat.

@jaycubed: Totally impressed by your passion.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: But you’re our bitchy queen.

@jaycubed: I am not one of those who allows that Shake’s style was derived from whatever Bible. See above note re Ovid. I was never more thrilled than when I read the Metamorphosis for the first time (I had no education) and realized that the Bard had ripped whole scenes from the poet’s work. Yes he makes biblical quotes but his basic meter and heartbeat had nothing to do with any Bible. It’s my idea that his racing meter left far behind the plodding notynotynoty of biblical verse. There is little from the OT that can be seen to influence our boy and nothing from the New. He was not by any means sui generis but his generis was the newly discovered avalanche of Rome and Greece.

@JNOV: James was teh hot. And he saved the sceptered isle from catastrophe. Or occupation by the Franch. He also re-opened the theatres and had chicks played by chicks. Plus he was the first man to say :Good morning, Mish Monapenny.”

@Benedick: BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, that dead guy, you know, the one who scored movies? He also did Midnight Cowboy. Fresh Air interview here: http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/

@jaycubed: Which, of course, has nothing to do whatsoever with the chronology of the matter. The KJV was likely more influenced by Shakespeare than the other way around.

@Benedick: I thought you were the first guy to say that…

@JNOV: Except for the part Harry Nilsson did.

@redmanlaw: I’m less than three minutes into Machete, and it’s fucking awesome.

@nojo: Machete III part iv.

Henry: What is the whirligig I see before me? Is it the
machination of the hamster or the mouse?

@nojo: Yeah, it’s great. Forget Alba, focus on Rodriguez.

ADD: typo alert in the tweet feed!

@Nabisco: Where are all the great movie titties of yesteryear?

And: The Tweet Hamster has been sacked.

@Jaycubed: I’m still trying to imagine them molten gods…. kind of like a close-up of pudding shot through an orange filter for a Roger Corman film.

@Benedick: Did he also say, as Bond does in Goldfinger: “Something big has just come up”?

@Benedick: he might have been a recusant Catholic I don’t see much in his work that reflects that.
And here is where we bring the Douai bible into the mix.

@Mistress Cynica: I never get the feeling from his work that he cared much for religion or the religious. I can’t think of a leading character who is notably religious. Apart from the villain in Measure for Measure. There are a few who are either pre-Christian or who have magic powers. Even with all of Hamlet’s shilly-shallying, which has more to do with moving the plot along than theology, I don’t get the feeling that he was all that conversant with the Bible beyond what any schoolboy of his day might be. I realize that I get just a tad testy about this as I’ve begun to see Him claimed by some of our fundie brethren who seem to think Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… has got something to do with Jeebus.

@Benedick: I can’t think of a leading character who is notably religious.

Shylock?

@nojo: Who? Is he dead, too?

SOMEONE COME STIR THIS FUCKING POLENTA!

@SanFranLefty:

Not exactly yet finally. How’s that for an answer?

The “process” that led up to the KJV and its distinctive language style started with Tyndale (based on his desire to emulate other continental translations of the Bible into vernacular languages), extended through several other writers, entered the common speech & writing of the English people during a period of religious & political chaos, simmered for a few generations during the Golden Age of the Elizabethan Era, then was finally consolidated & finalized by a committee of Puritans under James.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

Nope, Shakespeare was at the end of the process and not really appreciated by the Puritans who made the final modifications.

@nojo: Wait. Okay, he is dead, and he sang the title track. He wrote it, too?

Seriously? You all are liking Machete? I might owe RML an apology. He’s used to it.

@nojo: He wasn’t Christian, darling. And his religion is a bit like Othello’s race: the declared reason the story happens. I think an interesting aspect of Merchant is the assumption it makes that the audience will be pleased by Shylock’s defeat and Jessica’s conversion otherwise they wouldn’t welcome the play’s rapturous conclusion.

@jaycubed: And the other aspect of the KJV was its role as an ‘authorized’ version of the text, one that could be used to help unite the nation after a long and bitter struggle over religion.

@JNOV: Machete is the Mexploitation movie Rodriguez wanted to make from the start, if he had the budget.

ADD: Silent Creative Partner loves the intestine scene.

@nojo: Flipping back and forth between Sin City and El Mariachi on the sat. The Spy Kids mom is hot. I really liked Lohan in Machete.

Re: Bible translations – My mom’s uncle or grandfather worked on the Navajo Bible translation. Part of his work is still in the current edition, which I got for her last Christmas, plus a missionary’s memoir in which he is named and credited for his work.

Went to a funeral mass early this morning in Mrs RML’s hometown (where Red Dawn, No Country for Old Men, and part of Easy Rider were shot) for her aunt, Son of RML’s godmother. I’m spent, even took a nap. Looking at the cold gray sky and thinking about cutting a little wood before tonight.

@nojo: Guts! Guts! Guts!

NO POLENTA FOR YOU! And it’s goooood!

BAKED! Where is you?! I’m ready to get my crunk drunk on!

I AM HAVE BEEN BAKED! w00t! Envy me.

She’s brushing teeth.

Oh, and she’s spitting it all over the room.

And dropping shit.

She says, “And we haven’t even opened the champagne yet,” but that’s only because we don’t have our narcotics lined up yet.

Watch out Phillie. RUN! Just kidding ladies. Have fun.

Baked says: She’s only here five minutes, and she’d already hogging the bed.

(Some of you have experienced that as well. I haven’t told her that I snore like a lumberjack, but she’ll be so fucked up that she won’t hear me.)

Oh! Apparently I’m only here for IT help. Once we have her computer hooked up, I’m getting the boot.

Step 1. Steal underpants

Step 2. Hook up computer before getting wasted.

Step 3. ????

Step 4. PROFIT!

Baked sez: We are taking this whole Stinque Up to a new level. Announcing The First Stinqueupandover.

(I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve slept over before, but she’s my first girl, so okay.)

@JNOV: Wow.

@JNOV: RE: Stinque Up “sleepovers”….I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been more than we suspect.

baked here…i’m using JNOV’s puter cause mine is NOT working. the flight was too much for it’s fragile state. she’s trying to fix it, but all i see her doing is photographing the burn marks all over it. we’re in pj’s drinking and thinking about the posse and wish you were ALL here!

@flippin eck: really?? we tell, no shame.

JNOV here GEEK ASSISTANCE NEEDED, PLEASE!: She’s running Windows XP Professional something-2001 (HAHAHAHAHAHA!) I can’t get it to start in safe mode. I restart it, press F8 like a motherfucker, and it still goes to the start up “Swipe your motherfucking finger or ctl+atl+del to log in.” NOTHING HAPPENS!

Oh, and I cleaned some syrup (Purple DRANK!!!!) off her battery.

@flippin eck:
Hey now. When I visited Nojo, I only had popcorn and beer. I swear.

ADD: She’s got water coming out of her nose and her eyes. Please help b4 she has an aneurysm. Wait. ::lick:: tastes like champagne, oxycontin and cigarettes.

@Benedick: Baked has requested your expertise in all things that plug in. Like to outlets. ANGRY BIRDS!

@ManchuCandidate: Heard he had you, dude.

Oh, now she has to pee. I’m not tasting that, but I’m sure it would get me high and will cause a major fishkill.

We’re popping off the F8 key now. (Someone, who shall remain nameless–BAKED!!–put her notebook in her suitcase.) Mmmmhmmm. Nope, popping off key not helpful.

Next?

@JNOV:
Heh. I need more than free beer and popcorn.

@ManchuCandidate: Ruffies? Nojo haz ’em.

Rrrrrruffies have Rrrrrridges.

@redmanlaw: Sorry about your aunt-in-law’s death.

@JNOV: Good luck, ladies. I can only imagine the look on the faces of the guys at the Apple store when baked takes in her laptop…

@SanFranLefty: Thanks, My Love!

We’ve diagnosed the problem: Ground control to major Tom, your circuits dead, there’s something wrong…

We’re posting pictures on FB. Basically, her keyboard is squashed. And I found a cat in there.

@nojo: Ribbed for her pleasure.

@ManchuCandidate: British pub w/Catt and Dodger, plus Mrs RML and Son of RML in Santa Monica . . . two long years ago. Mrs RML hearts the Catt.

Coming up: Jamie and the RMLs at the Gila River tribal hotel casino in PHX when I’m there for a conference in June.

@SanFranLefty: Thx. It’s the second death in her family in a month.

SHE’S GIVING ME PREPOSITION EARWORM!

She’s refusing to do tricks.

WTF? TV, yay! But all the old dudes are on SNL?

Bieber?

@JNOV: DERP.

@al2o3cr: +1 (I’m a little slow on the uptake.)

@jaycubed: Simply not historically accurate.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

Oh really? In what way? Please cite some references if you have evidence that what I wrote is “not historically accurate”.

I would suggest you start with The Oxford Companion to English Literature since your knowledge of “history” seems to be lacking.

@jaycubed: I have a Master’s Degree on the subject, and wrote my thesis on Shakespeare. Insulting me doesn’t make you any less wrong, by the way.

What you have written is not historically accurate because:

1. Shakespeare had already written most of his plays by the time the KJV became available, which was, incidentally, only five years before his death. I put this in bold because the conversation should really stop there…clearly, an author cannot be influenced in his work by a bible which does not exist. King James didn’t even meet with scholars to initiate the process of translating a new English-language bible until 1605. I imagine that you can look these dates up in an Encyclopedia (or perhaps have someone help you), so I’m not going to give a reference.

2. The KJV was based mostly on the “Bishop’s Bible”, not the Tyndale bible, as you claim. The Tyndale Bible was used to some extent, but not as the primary source. Furthermore, the Tyndale bible was banned in England under Henry VIII. Printed copies of the Tyndale bible were burned if found, and Henry VIII actually sponsored an alternate English-language version of the bible in 1539 – so the Tyndale Bible was something of a rarity in England by the time Shakespeare was born. Additionally, the KJV was not a particularly popular version of the bible even after it had been printed so late in Shakespeare’s life, and it was not until 1630 or so, when the Geneva bible was banned, that it became widely used.

3. Shakepeare used another bible entirely, most likely the “Geneva Bible”, produced by by John Calvin, John Knox, Myles Coverdale, John Foxe, and other Reformers. While the Geneva Bible retained a good deal of Tyndale’s language when it was translated, the Geneva Bible tended to be much more direct and colloquial than the KJV, and used less elevated prose throughout. Additionally, and perhaps more to the point, the Geneva Bible was not written in verse, whereas both the KJV and Shakespeare employed this device. One might make the argument that Tyndale influenced Shakespeare, but you did not until your lapse in accuracy forced you do modify your statement. What you said originally, however, was (and I quote):

…it’s impossible to imagine Shakespeare without the precedent of the revolutionary language/imagery of the KJV and its impact on English speech & writing.

4. Shakespeare’s language is far more wide-ranging and inventive than that of the KJV. For example, while Shakespeare employs almost 30,000 different words in his works, the KJV only uses about 8,000.

I can really go on and on…if I had recourse to my books at work I could really get into it, but instead I think I will recommend Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, which is a good source for beginners like yourself.

If you’d like to explain how Shakespeare used a time machine to move forward and be influenced by the KJV, by all means, go ahead. Or maybe you could forward the argument to Sarah Palin’s website, where I’m sure you will find like intelligences who will appreciate such a unique view? On reflection, however, perhaps we should drop the subject altogether, as it is unlikely that without the involvement of such a device your argument will find much purchase in fact.

Meow, darling.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: “Shakespeare’s language is far more wide-ranging and inventive than that of the KJV. For example, while Shakespeare employs almost 30,000 different words in his works, the KJV only uses about 8,000” I think this is very true. I know he quotes from time to time but I for one don’t think any Bible was a big influence.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Game, set, match.

@Benedick: That’s what facenates me about him: He’s such a cipher. Was he a religious man? A royalist? Hard to tell from his writings…

@Dodgerblue: The reference to the Oxford Companion to English Literature set me off…

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

I have repeatedly admitted that the KJV Bible itself was contemporary with Shakespeare’s later work.

While that is true, few people are even aware of the Tyndale Bible or the Common Bible or the several other interim versions which lead to the KJV. The key point is that the English prose style pioneered by Tyndale reached its conclusion as the KJV after nearly a century of common usage, which did allow Shakespeare’s style to be intelligible to his contemporaries.

However, the style of language Shakespeare used was only possible & intelligible to his contemporaries as the result of the impact of nearly a century of that text, that the vast majority of English speakers know only as the KJV Bible, interacting with the English language & people.

The mass publication of vernacular Bibles led to a huge increase in literacy. People had something they could read in their own homes. Literacy became popular. This was also the beginning of journal keeping on a large scale. So writing became as commonplace as reading. Poetry left the Courts. Theater developed into the style appropriated by and surpassed by Shakespeare. While Shakespeare was the master of neologisms, he was hardly unique in such creative language at that time. Shakespeare was at the end of this process and had no impact on the language of the KJV.

You seem to keep focusing on an already conceded point of trivia (KJV was end of the 16/17th century process of English vernacular Bibles and was contemporary with Shakespeare) rather than the influence of vernacular Bibles on English language development including upon Shakespeare.

@jaycubed: @Tommmcatt: Jeebus on a bicycle, boys, what is this, Day 5 of this debate? Can I buy you both a drink at the Ark bar and be super flirty and sweet and tell you you’re both very, very smart and we can just, you know, let it go?

@flippin eck: We’re witnessing the Internet’s Leading Tyndale-KJV Flame War, and you want them to stop? This is why this site exists.

@flippin eck: Alla You Ark Bar? (say that three times fast….)

Schism!

Which side has better weather?

@Tommmcatt: @jaycubed: Carry on, then, carry on. If Nojo condones it (albeit in the name of cornering a sliver of Interwebs Glory), then far it from me to rain on the parade.

@flippin eck: Now that Liz & Dick are warmed up, we just need George & Sandy to visit.

@flippin eck: Has Cynica weighed in on this?

Morpheus is fighting Neo!

@flippin eck: If the boys want to have their fun on an obscure historical point of little interest to anyone else, I say let them have it. However, it looks much like every other internet flammables sale I’ve ever seen: “I’m right and here’s why,” rebutted by, “We’re not talking about the same thing, and I’m right, as I already explained.” Lather, rinse, repeat. Meh.

The correct response to my posting of indifference is, “You misquoted us, and how dare you suggest that this is a minor point of no interest to anyone, it led to [name of large social or historical movement/phase/etc.]!”

@redmanlaw: That was my second choice.

@IanJ: how dare you suggest that this is a minor point of no interest to anyone, it led to [name of large social or historical movement/phase/etc.]!

The Nefarians?

@Dodgerblue: I’m too busy copying and pasting key points from Tommy’s rant into the blurb I wrote for a Geneva bible we have for sale.

@flippin eck: Definitely the Nefarian party.

@Mistress Cynica: Seriously? How many are out there? Is it intact?

It’s just a flesh wound!

@flippin eck: No, the Nefarian People’s Front. The Nefarians are completely different and wrong from those of us at NPF.

@Dodgerblue: It’s just the New Testament and Psalms, and is in a modern replica binding. Read about it here. Complete ones are rare, but not as much so as, say, the Tyndale, just because it was the most popular English bible for many years.
Please, Design Nazis, no cracks about the website. New one should be online within weeks (after we wasted 20 months dealing with a local company who never got anything right).

@Mistress Cynica: Are you coming to Ess Eff this weekend for ye olde booke faire?

Exit, pursued by a Whore of Babylon.

@nojo: Well we’re nearly five days and 123 comments in, and not a single mention of You Know Who (in this thread anyway), so that’s gotta be some kind of historical interwebs record right there.

@SanFranLefty: No, I lost out to the colleague who can drive the van filled with books and help with the heavy lifting. I hate to miss a Stinque-up opportunity, but I’m so exhausted by the travel and tsuris of the year to date that I think typical book fair 14-hour days with nothing to eat but candy and crap from a vending machine would do me in. I’ll be in NYC for the fair in April (maybe this time we can meet up, bloggie). They bring me in to deal with the Easterners since I speak High WASP.

@Mistress Cynica: Son of RML is being invited to Martha’s Vinyard this summer so his friend’s relatives can meet a Real Indian; “behold the Savage,” etc. That’s the subtext, anyway.

@¡Andrew!: Well, now that you mention it…

Hitler considered Shakespeare superior to Goethe and Schiller.

Kneel before Godwin!

@redmanlaw: There’s either a Woody Allen movie or Tom Wolfe book in that.

@redmanlaw: Oh dear lord, their friends will be flying in from all the WASP strongholds to meet him. His (true) stories about hunting and visiting the ancestral home will have them enthralled. If he plays his cards right, this could lead to an Ivy League scholarship. Or he could just fuck with them, which would be a lot more fun.

@Mistress Cynica and redmanlaw: Maybe he should suggest that they reenact the first Thanksgiving…

@Mistress Cynica:

“I have come to return your gift of smallpox.”

“I think the casino would look good next to the horse barn.”

“Where da white wimmen at?”

“It is our custom that I greet you with my tongue in your ear.”

“Your lacrosse teams suck.”

“How about them Redskins/Braves/Indians?”

@nojo: Tobacco is the gift that keeps on giving.

“I think the casino would look good next to the horse barn.” – Actually, I think that’s the case right now over on Long Island. Some Indians native to the area just got federal recognition as an Indian tribe (an effort no doubt funded by gaming interests) and of course are looking at a casino for economic development purposes.

Here’s an NYT story on it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/nyregion/16shinnecock.html

@redmanlaw: He should bring a copy of “Heart of Darkness.”

@Dodgerblue: Having him shoot an anthropological photo series might be interesting.

@redmanlaw: “A Day In The Life.” Pitch it to National Geographic.

@redmanlaw: @Dodgerblue: Make sure he gets tit shots.

@Dodgerblue: “The skittish and endangered High WASP, observed in its natural habitat.”

@Mistress Cynica: “Rarely seen in urban areas, the effects of climate change may alter their habitat in destructive and unforseeable ways.”

@Mistress Cynica: “I was unable to observe their mating rituals, because they appear not to have any.”

@redmanlaw: Never been. Nantucket is pretty cool (though somewhat of a letdown after watching so many episodes of Wings).

@redmanlaw: @Mistress Cynica: @nojo: @Dodgerblue: I can’t tell you how much this discussion makes my day. Literally.

Nojo, here’s a special, special treat for you. I think you’ll like the work/progress ratio observable here. My way of saying thank you for your continued awesome work on the blog….what’s that, you want beer money too? Ingrate.

@flippin eck: I’ll have to watch it later — busy afternoon — but just seeing the cat there highly amuses me.

@nojo: People in San Diego are busy? With what, making guacamole for happy hour?

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: @jaycubed: I was lying in bed last night and I thought “Censorship!” This could have a lot to do with why He is not overtly religious. It wasn’t allowed. What he could and could not discuss was pretty tightly controlled. Which perhaps gives his plays their slightly distanced quality. He’s a hard man to pin down.

@jaycubed: Not sure what you mean by diaries. I think of literacy in Shakes’s day as still being pretty uncommon. Indeed I have become somewhat obsessed with wondering how the actors learned their parts. Did they read them or were they taught word by word? How much was improvised? I have a theory that a good deal of the low comedy was improvised and became integrated into the stage manager’s script – I assumed there was some person fulfilling that function. That became the basis of the written parts that were given out which only contained the actor’s lines, four or five words preceding the speech as a cue and the same after. They didn’t see the whole script. (Same used to be true in summer stock to save paper and printing costs; the actors worked from ‘sides’, as they were known) What I’m getting at is the theatre is essentially a spoken medium. It is only written down as a secondary form. The script is a blueprint not an end in itself. So He would be more attuned to the poetics of the classics than the, in my opinion, cramped English of the Bible of whatever flavor. I can’t think of a single phrase in any testament as good as “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”

“Your breasts are like pomegranates.” “No, your breasts are like pomegranates.” “No, yours are.” etc.

But then, I don’t spend as much time on my knees as Catt.

@Dodgerblue: People in San Diego are busy?

People in Eugene are busy, which can adversely affect the downtime of people in San Diego. At least one of them, anyway.

ADD: Sometimes I’ll call myself Agate Street GeekWorks, given my concentration of clients across from Hayward Field.

@nojo: How are the Ducks doing in roundball this season?

@Dodgerblue: I have no fucking clue. Although one of my clients will soon be moving in next door to the latest Phil Knight Shrine.

@Dodgerblue: Mr Cyn just realized, to his horror, that he will be in Oz during March Madness. Nooooooooooooooo…

@Benedick: People without literacy in written language and music learn to compensate if it’s a regular part of their enterprise. Likely, a director could work rehearsals by reading the actor’s their lines and letting them repeat it to retain them and work out their own interpretation with them. If that’s what the actors did for a living, over time they’d cultivate a capacity for rapid rote learning of lines and long-term retention of that dialog. There are bodies of literature in music, for instance, that can be entirely transmitted by rote, such as Swiss Basel drumming, immensely complex stuff with bizarrely constructed rhythms, arcane sticking rules and diabolical grace note placement conventions. In some ways, in some disciplines, it may be more efficient. I can’t imagine a battery percussionist reading a Basel drum chart in manuscript that notates every stroke. In music there are lots of examples of illiterate or semi-literate musicians. Buddy Rich, for one, didn’t read music at all. One of the most prolific arrangers of the big band and bop eras, trumpeter Neal Hefti, was actually a terrible sight reader who evolved late as a side man and soloist. Could be that in Shakespeare’s day, the actors were expected to hear it and learn it in one swipe.

@Benedick:
@jaycubed: Not sure what you mean by diaries. I think of literacy in Shakes’s day as still being pretty uncommon.

I mean the keeping of journals and records of correspondence by secular figures. For example, there are: Lady Margaret Hoby, the first woman diarist in English; Philip Henslowe & Henry Machyn (& pamphleteer Thomas Dekker), of whom any Shakespearean scholar should be aware; and John Manningham, whose diary is a fantastic source of details of both contemporary funeral practices and sectarian strife.

Literacy became much more common in the period prior to Shakespeare and one of the main reasons was public bible reading by the laity.

Also, the publication & mass distribution of political & religious pamphlets became widespread during this period.

I’ve been away from the computer, mostly because of the 102 degree tempterure and the green stuff coming out of my lungs. But youhavnt heard the last of me on this, not by a long shot.

Ian, the only points worth arguing are the meaningless ones. Ask Donald Rumsfeld and John McCain.

@Benedick:
So He would be more attuned to the poetics of the classics than the, in my opinion, cramped English of the Bible of whatever flavor.

I suspect that he was so attuned to the classics because he was a crypto-Catholic and actively sought to distance himself stylistically from the vernacular Bible which would have been anathema to him.

Also, while the KJV language appears “cramped” to us, our perspective is skewed by 400+ years of English’s evolutionary development.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:

Hope you get better soon.

@FlyingChainSaw: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I PRONOUNCED it to you.” How dumb am I? There we are. They were taught their parts. I daresay some could read, education improved in the generation right before Him, but I bet many couldn’t. Many still can’t, if the clowns I’ve worked with are anything to go by. Our notion of director is very new. The English still don’t understand it. The author used to stage plays, I think. Good people stood on the right, bad on the left. The librettist put the singers on the stage for Mozart, for example. They all improvised a lot more than we now give them credit for.

I grew up with jazz.

@jaycubed: I thought groups would get together to have the Bible read to them. I’m going on the Scrooby congregation. The school I attended was founded by Marlowe’s star actor so I guess it was the fashion. God knows I learned plenty when I wasn’t being slippered behind the cricket pavilion. The prefects, as punishment, would make us little boys learn soliloquies then make us recite them in the prefects’ common room. Before slippering us.

@jaycubed: I don’t think so. He was listening to it. I still say his great influence was Ovid.

@Snorri Haraldsson: Nice story about Mozart’s opera production. Yes, and I think it’s grossly underappreciated the human capacity for memorizing vast amounts of literature for later recall, performance or interpretation. Post Google, when everything is available all the time via machine recall, I supposed we’re doomed to have our hippocampus just vanish. Who memorizes music or poems any more?

@Nojo: Best sticky tag EVAH on the right hand side. Does this post set the new Stinque record for most views?

I really think we should add Team Tynsdale and Team KJV and Team Shakes t-shirts to the Stinqueria. Or thongs.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Feel better, babe.

@jaycubed: Psst. The real reason Tommy is going back and forth with you is your lack of an avatar. That drives him batty. “Get thee to Gravatar!,” as they said in the Book of Luke in the Tynsdale version.

And BTW, stick around, try the veal, venture into other posts. Given your interest in the Bible and religious things, any thoughts on cockfighting and the karma of St. Francis of Assisi?

@Snorri Haraldsson: You too, Snorri. Hop to it. Get to Gravatar. Being Icelandic is no excuse. Bjork would be a great avatar for you.

@FlyingChainSaw: It’s still very touchy in musicals who teaches the actors the notes: composer or musical supervisor/conductor. Some composers insist they do it, some directors won’t allow it. Not all actors read music. Some do. So you make a tape of your part and go over and over it to get the notes. I don’t know if the same is true in opera. Teaching notes, I mean. Those mothers can read.

@SanFranLefty: Oh good Lord it’s just me. I’m on my Air. Noje won’t let me sign in as Benedick on this machine so I have this ridiculous charade. Something to do with passwords and the remembering of. More than that I can’t tell you.

@Snorri Haraldsson: Ah, yeah. The operatic sopranos I have known could sight sing but they had formal training in voice up to masters degrees in performance level and formal training in another instrument. (The most successful of which could hack read on piano and was a baritone horn/trombone double until well into undergraduate years. Then she got caught up in voice and last I heard was singing modern opera, premiering works, one of which was well reviewed in the NY Times years ago. Sturdy girl from Indiana.) So people who perform in t musicals can’t all sight sing? They’re teaching these people to sing by rote melody memorization, like a bunch guys in a bar before they go out Christmas signing for the neighbors?

@Snorri Haraldsson: @SanFranLefty: SFL is having irony fail today. Poor girl may have to resort to more emoticons and risk pissing off Noje.

Speaking of irony, I’m watching an old Frontline right now about how our brains are changing/getting more dummer thanks to the digital world, and they compared it to how breakthroughs in print and growing literacy destroyed our powers of memory. Gone are the days when poets or storytellers memorized thousand-line long epic poems.

@nojo: Did you watch your hamster vid yet? It’s not a major commitment, you know–it’s like a minute and a half long. Do you want me to become resentful?

@SanFranLefty: We’ve had posts with more views and comments, but this sets the record for sheer endurance. You’d think we just fired somebody.

@flippin eck: The hamster vid is hilarious. I wonder if my cats would be as unimpressed, or if Baxter would be determined to open it up and get the mousie. Since he used to take the water fountain apart to get the filter and carry it through the house, I’m guessing the latter.

@Snorri Haraldsson: Darling. I know it’s you. Don’t make me pull out the fucking emoticons again, nojo will get really pissy. And you know how she gets.

@flippin eck: THANK YOU! What iz I doin’ wrong today? Daaayum. Irony fail indeed. Snark fail too.

@flippin eck: Any video is a commitment, even if it does prominently say “1:31”. I like to flit. Videos don’t flit.

But I really don’t get the cat. Or the hamster, for that matter. When my rat visited the folks, she was not happy about the predators I had introduced into her life. And the cats were very interested in the Deluxe Plaything they were being denied access to.

Oh, and the rat’s name? Desdemona, of course.

Oh, so that’s why I’m seeing Bible ads. Well, thanks for finally getting rid of that office furniture ad. Carry on.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: I get “microfinance” ads until I log in, then it’s all Bible, all the time.

I guess that means I should either start my taxes, or pray.

@FlyingChainSaw: You don’t need to be able to read to be in a musical. In the old days the chorus was divided into singers and dancers, and the singers would read. Now everyone does everything. The graduates of places like NYU musical theatre department are ferociously well educated. God knows what for. Spiderman?

@nojo: I’m with you re videos. Though I will watch the hamster. Not so much with the flitting, however. But good to know. I can enjoy that image as I read your postits.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: @Nabisco: “Sarah Palin Dress Up” laughs at your tasteful ads.

@mellbell: Now it’s one for a Danish site, Apel Reunion, asking, “Are you Apel family?” I’m not, but if I married into the family I’d totally take a hyphenated last name.

@mellbell: Paging Manchu for a “Michelle” re-write: “Mellbell, Apel . . . “

@SanFranLefty:

@jaycubed: Psst. The real reason Tommy is going back and forth with you is your lack of an avatar. That drives him batty. “Get thee to Gravatar!,” as they said in the Book of Luke in the Tynsdale version.

Sorry, I don’t categorize well enough to limit myself by a single image.

And BTW, stick around, try the veal, venture into other posts. Given your interest in the Bible and religious things, any thoughts on cockfighting and the karma of St. Francis of Assisi?

While I regularly read many articles on Stinque, I only comment on things when I feel that my perspective might be worthwhile. I don’t post just to post. (I don’t twit, facebook, IM, etc. either.)

For example, I linked several friends to the cockfighting article with a header of: “Instant Karma meets Darwin Awards”. That satisfied me.

I prefer face to face interactions. Like giving the woefully ignorant proselytizing street preachers in my town “Bible lessons” and teaching them about biological evolution- “You don’t think you came from a monkey? Let me demonstrate to you how your insides are full of fish!”

It’s much more fun to see them seethe & hear them scream. I often find that I can make them afraid to look in their own Bibles. One of my favorites, the fool who stands on a stepladder and berates those walking by, can only scream “sinner, don’t talk to him” at me and hold his Bible up like a shield to ward off my evil influence. Very satisfying.

@jaycubed:
“I don’t post just to post.”

Hey! I resemble that remark! [insert smily-face emoticon]

Well, don’t be a stranger ’round here. The regulars are always excited when a lurker emerges.

Day 6. Post-apocalyptic wasteland. Running out of Zombie ammo. Developing a connoisseurship about squirrels. Tell my family I love them. If they’re still alive.

@SanFranLefty:
Thanks, I will. (When there is a topic I feel I can contribute to.)

P.S. I’ll wave “Hi” when I pass through The City this weekend.

@nojo:

According to reports from the Siege of Paris, cat tastes just like squirrel when you’re starving.

Just don’t let my cat (‘snot Mine) know that I told you that.

@jaycubed: Favorite bad Kliban pun: Quatre Cinque.

@jaycubed: In Amsterdam, during the Winter of Hunger ’44-’45, they called catmeat ‘roof rabbit’.

BTW. Awesome restraint. Limiting yourself to topics about which you have something to say. Humbling. I’ve heard of this but never seen it before. I’d be limited to poncing about and Catt to assless chaps. Do you have any video of street preacher denouncing you? We’d all like to see.

@jaycubed: Bonus points if street preacher yells, “Get behind me, Satan!” and you explain how that reference is alllll about temptation.

@flippin eck: So the vicar’s wife comes home and says, “Dear, I have a confession to make. I bought a dress to day. Satan tempted me, and I was unable to resist.”
The vicar is dismayed. “Darling, you know we can’t afford it. Why didn’t you say ‘Get thou behind me, Satan’?”
“Oh, I did,” she replied. “And then he told me how great it looked from the back.”

@nojo:

My previous cat, who lived with me for 14 years, also had an interesting name.

About 25 years ago I was waiting for a movie to start at the Lumiere in S.F. and was killing time in a bookstore. A woman walked up to me and said, “I’m a witch. You’re a cat lover, I can tell.” She pointed at my right hand/index finger and pronounced, “Your last cat’s name was Balthazar.” Well, I never had a cat named Balthazar; but I used to wear a silver dragon ring where she pointed (which regularly took a bite out of that finger) and the dragon’s name was Balthazar. Interesting coincidence. She then said, “Your next cat’s name will be Fortuna.” That sounded like my kind of cat name – For Tuna.

About a year later an adult female cat, fixed & declawed, was dumped near the psychiatric hospital where I worked. The patients loved her, and named her Apricot due to her pale orange fur; but the mgt. said get rid of her.

Then a crackhead burned down the apt. building I lived in @ 2:30 in the morning, putting 120 of us on the streets. The Red Cross got us housed in hotels for two weeks while I hunted for a new apt. First place I looked, the mgr. had a cat, so I moved in there. The cat came a week later. Since it was now my cat, I needed to name her. Remembering the “witch”, I named the cat Maguro Quat.____Tuna Four.

Or, Albaricoque became Albacora.

@jaycubed: Then a crackhead burned down the apt. building I lived in

Some days I’m glad I lead a boring life.

@Benedick:
Do you have any video of street preacher denouncing you? We’d all like to see.

I’m afraid I’m a bit of a Luddite. My cell phone is a phone, no camera of any kind & I like it that way. When I text I use proper spelling, punctuation & grammar sans emoticons.

White Stripes put out an album called “Get Behind Me Satan” in 2005.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4696110

We had a cat named Major Tom back when Space Oddity was an AM radio hit. He traveled the West with us one summer when my dad was on a tour reviewing tribal government operations when he was on a Ford Foundation grant, which we used as an opportunity to hit some major powwows. He (my dad, not the cat) was a hostage when the American Indian Movement took over the BIA building in DC in 1972 while he was studying the agency’s operations.

@nojo:
Never a boring moment in the Tenderloin. By the way, it was the second fire he started. He nodded out a month or so before and set his mattress on fire. The big fire was caused by him cooking freebase with ether & a candle. He went screaming down the hall on the 2nd floor with his door & window open. This set fire to the second floor and blow-torched up to the newly tarred roof, which caught on fire & completely burnt down the top/4th floor.

Fortunately, there were no serious injuries among my neighbors & we got everyone out safely. Except for the two junkies who were nodded out in their 2nd floor apt. and didn’t realize anything was happening until fire crews broke down their door about 6-8 hours later. The crackhead was burnt, but not seriously. He was taken away by the police.

::whispers to the room::

… near the psychiatric hospital where I worked. Sounds like our kind of Stinquer.

@jaycubed: You’ve more than passed the audition: baptism through commenting on substance throughout the length and breadth of this post, then – wham – off topic into cats, grammar and admissions of ludditismo.

We’ll have you pissing on Senator-for-Life Mike Lee and commenting about Sport and/or Fashion in no time. Bienvenido.

@Nabisco: Fuck Mike Lee.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Please.

It starts with Tyndale but it ends with Mike Lee.

@jaycubed: SF VA psych ward or Langley-Porter? Friend of mine did her shrink residency at the two, with swings through SF General for good measure.

Speaking of arson, there’s an arsonist who’s been setting houses and garbage cans on fire throughout the Castro. Not cool, luckily nobody hurt yet but one of last week’s fire three blocks from me made 17 people homeless (plus the SFFD sirens at 4 am are getting old). Suspect is a homeless dude who had been spotted a month ago wandering around the Castro threatening to burn the neighborhood down.

@SanFranLefty:
@jaycubed: SF VA psych ward or Langley-Porter?

Neither. Private hospital in Marin.

@Nabisco:
We’ll have you pissing on Senator-for-Life Mike Lee and commenting about Sport and/or Fashion in no time.

No sports or fashion comments I’m afraid. I have no problem commenting on self-righteous idiot wingnut asshole Senators.

@jaycubed: Don’t worry. We all hate Mike Lee. And what better place to unload our loathing and contempt than right here?

Keep it up! We’ve got a record or some shit to beat. PZ Meyers has the neverending anastomosing thread.

@JNOV: I’m not sure anybody’s heart is still in it.

I’m seriously thinking about a late night consultation with Dr. Bombay by the fire tonight.

If a day goes by in silence, I’m yanking the link.

What are people’s thought about screw-top wine? When did this happen, that a decent $8 bottle of Australian shiraz comes not with a cork, but a screw-top? Would I be shamed taking such to a dinner party?

@nojo: /that should keep it going for a few days, at least/

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Your heart might not be in it <– that was my jam(!), but what about your soul? I’ll read through carefully and chime in with my uniformed informed fundie opinion later. We cannot let this thread die!

@Nabisco: Do the tops on Australian wines screw on backwards? Like that drain thing?

Tighty righty; lefty loosey.

@Nabisco: Screw top wines are better than stanky cork. The Kiwis and Aussies have embraced them. And lemme tell you, nothing’s better when you’re on the road, camping, and/or hiking than a screw top. I’m sure Mr. Cynica has some thoughts on this topic.

@Nabisco: Dammit, Man! This is a serious question!

@SanFranLefty: The Kiwis and Aussies have embraced them. That explains the bottle I got yesterday, then. Re: the road/camp/hiking thing, it also solves the problem of whether to throw the Leatherman tool (great blade, pliers, but no corkscrew) or the ancient (and dull) Swiss Army knife in my kit.

But you know what is great about all of those used corks? They make great cat toys on hardwood floors.

@Nabisco: I wouldn’t worry about the wine, but I would worry about rubbing the dog’s crotch with your foot.

@Nabisco: @SanFranLefty: Mr Cyn would argue that screw tops (that’s Stelvin closures, thank you very much) are OK for whites that will be drunk soon (Like many of us! Ty the veal!), but are NOT the best thing for reds that need to be laid down to age. There’s no reason to be embarrassed about taking a screw top wine to dinner–they’re are some $40+ Oregon wines that have Stelvin closures, and some winemakers swear by them. Screw top doesn’t equal Boone’s Farm any more. Cork is considered the greener alternative, because it is recyclable, renewable, and sustainable, whereas the screw tops can’t even go to metal recycling because of the plastic lining.

ADD: Tyndale/KJV degenerates into Cork/Stelvin controversy. Attention, wine geeks of the web!

@Mistress Cynica: And what does Mr. Cyn think about the plastic corks? Those make me stabby. The Aussies have some good SHEEEE-raaaaaaaaz with a screwtop Stelvin closure.

@nojo: Never, baby. We’ll keep it going. I certainly don’t want to be the one who gets the last word on this thread.

I have no feelings re screw tops. I only detest loathe and abominate those resin things that swell up like a sailor at fleet week so you can’t pull out.

I’m just a little disappointed that Catt should have ceded the ground re Tyndale. I hadn’t realized he was a quitter. Not that I’m blaming him. I expect he has better things to do. Lady Gaga videos don’t watch themselves after all. So we’re all aboard with the KJV influencing Shakespeare or not? Fine.

I like spigots myself.

$40 for wine made in Oregon!!! Sorry. Can’t stop laughing.

@Benedick: I’ve missed you so. Have you seen Batman, The Musical yet? Did they paper the house?

@Benedick: Tommy has had the consumption for the past few days, give him a break. Glad you and I are on board w/r/t the plastic korks.

@JNOV: Well, darling, I’ve been right here. It seems I only go to the theatre in European capitals these days. I find I’m happier when I can’t understand what they’re saying.

@Benedick: Like people understand Scots…or is it Scotts? One is toilet tissue, and one wears a kilt.

ADD: IOW, both are known for asswiping.

@SanFranLefty: Ugh. Those things are made by the damned souls of Republican operatives in hell.

Poor Catt. I thought his pole dancing days would have made him impervious to getting soaked.

@Benedick and Lefty: TB can strike anyone at any time. TAKE YOUR FUCKING RIFAMPIN, PEOPLE! Like, ALL OF IT! Fuck H1N1. Drug-resistant TB is gonna kill us all.

@JNOV: The Scots say Scoats, as in “Whit rare! Hen talks broad Scoats!” The English say Scottish, as in “Cynthia, darling, this funny little man is talking broad Scottish and one simply can’t understand a word. Pass the champagne, there’s a dear.” The people of Scotland are Scots who are scottish. They are NEVER ‘scotch’.

@Benedick: Tape, such as.

Do you understand Gàidhlig? I love that stuff! And the reels. (Stop laughing, man!)

K. Night, y’all. Gotta go find new digs tomorrow.

@Benedick: There are plenty of Oregon wines that cost more than that, but I think all those winemakers (Drouhin, Ken Wright, Bergstrom, to name a few) use real cork. Don’t make me smack you.

@SanFranLefty: Plastic corks are an abomination, and whoever invented them deserves to be burned at the stake.

@Mistress Cynica: I just liked the inventive nature of the plastic cork – plus, no cork crumbles after an inept opening at Thanksgiving!

@JNOV: …

Having my consultation with Dr. Hendrick’s and watching the Lemmy documentary by the fire. Life is hard.

I’ve made top water bass flies with both plastic and cork corks, although my spun and clipped deer hair poppers do better with members of the bass family from sunnies up to largemouth.

@JNOV: I was rockin’ the Wallace tartan tie for Mrs RML’s aunt last weekend at the funeral and burial. Although they’re Hispanic now, the family name comes from the immigrant Union soldier stationed here in New Mexico in the late 1800s who married in to a local family.

Lemmy’s band Motorhead, “Overkill”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlecTBevmzc

I sleep many nights in a Motorhead shirt.

Ooh. A show on the FAL.

@redmanlaw: Right on. I need to learn to knit argyle socks and fair isle (yeah, yeah, different places, but they’ve all got sheep and shit).

@nojo: Heh.

@JNOV: I was pretty surprised by the Icelandic wool which really is like the spun hair of angels, so soft and light you expect it to float away. The sheep are everywhere, wandering hillsides and jumping from crag to crag. And if the sheep aren’t around the sheep-shit sure is. I found it comforting because it was all so like being a young boy in Scotland. Needless to say, a lot of the beautiful wool is made into horrific folkloric wooly cardies to sell to the tourists (me!). I did, however, come across – it was well hidden smack in the middle of the trendy half-block of Reykjavik’s main drag, right near the curry palace – one of the most original men’s clothes shops I think I’ve ever seen. And there they had large scarves of the local wool spun so fine they felt almost like silk. I couldn’t square paying $200 for something I knew I’d leave in the nearest airport loo so I didn’t buy one even though it was on sale. How strong am I?

@Benedick: Foolish, foolish boy.

@karen marie has her eyes tight shut: I know. But I had already left one scarf on the roof of the car and drove off and left another in the hell hole of Heathrow. So I figured I’d keep it for maybe a month.

@Benedick: VERY strong. I’ve never doubted that.

I import most of my yarn from Wales — hand dyed lovely stuff. The silk is divine; the lambs wool is so sweet.

I hesitate when I can get things like great Egyptian cotton for $4/ball. It makes me wonder what the artisans are being paid.

What I’d REALLY like to get my hands on is some of this stuff by Manos del Uruguay, a women’s co-op, but I can’t find anyone to import it for me. >:-/ I was supposed to have a deal with my mom to buy it wholesale for me. I’d sell things in her store and give her a cut. She wanted 10% AND for me to work in her store for free selling her stuff, too while she smoked weed all day hung out at the beach. Um, no.

ADD: Imma check out what’s going on in Iceland.

Look. I’ve got something to say. I just haven’t said it yet. And it’s past my bedtime. Please don’t kill the shortcut, nojo. The cruelest cut.

@JNOV: I was so impressed by the quality of handicrafts in Uruguay – the clothes, the art, the tchotchkes, and oh, the leather goods to die for. If only I could have afforded any of it – reminded me of the last time I was in Italy salivating and panting over the gloves and wool jackets.

Well, we tried.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Are we on the mend?

@JNOV: Look at the Iceland wool. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Though the Uruguayan wool is very beautiful. I wonder if the homosexual yarn crafts shop in Woodstock might carry it? Or should we start an import business? I know some jews. How hard could it be? The sister-in-law is staying with us. I have to explain the stories on Judge Judy to her. She said to me today, “When it gets warmer does the snow stop?”

I have to ask myself what Tyndale would say.

@Benedick: “I have to ask myself what Tyndale would say.”

This:

וקוי יהוה יחליפו כח יעלו אבר כנשרים ירוצו ולא ייגעו ילכו ולא ייעפו׃

@Benedick: Slowly, yes. This has been a particularly stubborn bug. And right in the middle of it my bridge failed so I have a terrible toothache.

Job has nothing on me.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: I’m very sorry to hear it. I feel sure you are meeting adversity with the stoical fortitude that is the badge of our people.

@SanFranLefty: Which translates as: “Anyone fancy a cuppa?”

A yes vote for both screw tops & (especially) plastic corks. Nothing like opening up a bottle of excellent wine you’ve saved a decade for some special occasion & finding it “corky”. The plastic corks are easy to reseal and will never crumble into the bottle. They are also easy for a hamfisted person to remove in one piece.

However, I draw the line at boxes/plastic bags. No thanks.

@jaycubed: OK. Tyndale? Whatever. Plastic corks? Bring it on. Corky? Corky??? Easy to reseal? With all the bloat? Trying to cram the cork in the mouth. Pushing past the lips. Forcing the gushing spurt deep into the throat. You are obviously working outside a Geneva/Tyndale/Bishops ethos. Can’t we all just try to get along?

@jaycubed: I, too, was skeptical of boxed wine, but a tasty (and, it almost goes without saying, cheap) offering from Target changed my mind. Plus, it’s eco-friendlier than a bottle, because you can cram more in a single container and its requires less packaging to ship.

@mellbell: Ooh. Cheap boxed. Yum. Plus cramming. Tyndale would be pleased. He spent most of his his time spanking sub-teen boys delivered unto his hands by their parents. Then sprinkling oblations over their welts. As who hasn’t? Not till Shakespeare do we learn how to touch our own parts.

A little fun today.

I live a few doors down from the local Planned Parenthood office and found an anti-abortion demonstration going on. I ran in & grabbed my umbrella to check them out.

One was carrying a printed sign about Planned Parenthood helping pimps of teenage prostitutes get abortions, ala Faux News. I asked them a couple of questions about the sign: didn’t they know that their claims were false & that the various P.P. offices that the “pimps” visited had reported them to the police & FBI? That the videos were edited like previous “sting” videos?

“No, no, that’s not true.”

I asked them, “Do you know what the Bible says about abortion?”

The leader replied, “I’m sure you’ll tell us.”

“Absolutely nothing. Nowhere in the Old or New Testaments is there any mention of abortion.”

I asked, “Do you know what the Bible says about whether killing a fetus is murder?”

They weren’t talking now, so I said, “It clearly states that killing a fetus is not murder.”

The woman holding the “Faux News” sign said, “Well you can Believe what you want.”

I told her it wasn’t a matter of “Belief”, but of clear Legal language: “If a person strikes a pregnant woman and kills the fetus that is not murder, in fact that is what we might call a “violation” like a traffic ticket & satisfied with a fine. If the woman dies, then that is murder & requires the death of he assailant as punishment. It is very clear from the Bible that a fetus is not a person and has no rights as a person.”

I offered to go get the Biblical reference for them as I didn’t remember it offhand (EX.21:22-25), but in the five minutes it took me to walk back home & get it they had vanished. They had several children with them holding signs (including the usual aborted fetuses) and my guess was they didn’t want the kids to actually hear the Bible passages that clearly disputed their indoctrination.

@jaycubed: I love you. Kisses.

@nojo: Hey! Where did the quick linque go?

@jaycubed: “They had several children with them…”

Last time I checked, today is a school day. Unless of course this was part of the edumakation of the home skooled.

@jaycubed: Well played. But you left out the most important part: which translation of the Bible did you fetch?

@Mistress Cynica: The one that spelled fetus as the Brits do, foetus.

@jaycubed: Awesome, and I like how you grabbed your umbrella. Very Penguin-like.

@SanFranLefty: I don’t know how it is in other states/school districts, but in ours you can yank your kid out of school for a limited amount of days during the school year without too much fuss.

Comes in handy during planting season (kidding….)

@SanFranLefty: I was ready to drown it in a bathtub, but I demoted it instead.

@jaycubed: Dying Fetus, “Homicidal Retribution.” Death metal with extreme blast beats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVJxCLcU6Wc

@SanFranLefty:

My thoughts exactly.

@Mistress Cynica:

I didn’t take a copy with me, just the reference. They usually carry their own.

My favorite translations are George Lamsa’s Peshitta (the Syriac Bible) and the JPS Tanakh translations.

P.S. I love J.G. Thirlwell’s music.

Foetus

Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel

You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath

Foetus In Excelsis Corruptus Deluxe

Etc.

@jaycubed: Did I just hear a fuckin’ awesome Venture Bros. reference?

BRING BACK THE QUICK LINK!

@jaycubed: right on. Right fucking on.

@JNOV: It’s below the rim shot, which seems appropriate.

@jaycubed: I could’ve sworn it’s “phoetus,” but then again I don’t wanna be a blimey chav.

@¡Andrew!: @jaycubed: I could’ve sworn it’s “phoetus,” but then again I don’t wanna be a blimey chav.

It sounds more like you’re a Limey Chap. There’s apparently a band called Phoetus in England. No relation to Foetus .