Jamie123

Interesting...so "the hand" lives on...

Just out of interest, if a member resigns from the church, does that have the same effect on their covenants as excommunication?

I just recently read this: I take this to mean that an excommunicated person would not be judged (by God) for having broken his/her covenants, but rather as an ordinary non-baptized person would be had they done the same things. That's quite a radical idea. I'd always seen "excommunication is an act of love" as a bunch of flim-flam, but seen this way it does sort-of make sense. Afterthought: If this is true then when they annulled John D. Lee's excommunication, didn't they effectively put him back under God's wrath for the sin of mass murder?

"Coronation Street" nowadays has a ridiculous over-representation of gays: Billy - an Anglican priest (!!!) His sexuality is disapproved of by his bishop. Sean - barman. Boyfriend of Billy. The archetypal "gay best friend". A bit clueless. Todd - clever and manipulative (a bit like Thomas in Downton Abbey). He went through a phase of being truly horrible, but is improving now) Kate - daughter of factory owner Johnny Connor Caz (presumably short for "Caroline") - soldier-girl. Girlfriend of Kate, of whom she is over-possessive and rather manipulative. Sophie - daughter of car mechanic Kevin. Classic tomboyish lesbian. Quite religious. Caz's rival for the affections of Kate. Of these, I would say that Billy, Sean, Kate and Sophie are "nice" characters while Todd and Caz are "not so nice". We've gone a long way (I suppose) if writers are now comfortable creating two gay antagonists in a show - so long as they are balanced by twice as many sympathetic gays.

Not many people know this, but Shari Lewis (the voice and operator of Lamb Chop (sadly no longer with us (Shari Lewis I mean, not Lamb Chop (though Lamb Chop too I suppose now Shari Lewis' hand is no longer around to operate it)))) also co-wrote the Star Trek episode "The Lights of Zetar" (P.S. Apologies to everyone I may have scarred for life with the information that Lamb Chop was actually Shari Lewis' hand. But you had to learn the truth some time.)

They were talking about that thing on the news here yesterday - some people are worried it will be used to kidnap children. "Go to XYZ place and you will find the Pokemon you're looking for!" Child goes there: it turns out to be a lonely back-alley where the Gobblers are waiting. P.S. By "Gobblers" of course I don't mean turkeys; it's a Philip Pullman allusion. P.P.S. Whatever happened to Philip Pullman? He was all the rage a few years back! You never hear of him now.

You couldn't invent this stuff... Boris Johnson - Mr. Gung-Ho Brexiteer who we all expected to succeed Cameron as Prime Minister should the "Leave" vote win....but who bowed sheepishly out at what should have been his moment of victory...has now been appointed by Mrs. May as (of all things) Foreign Secretary. I hope that woman has some clue what she's doing!

I have quite a lot to do with interns in my job. (I teach computer science at a university.) Interns here are usually paid, and they have to go through an interview and selection procedure with their prospective employers. The internship usually takes place in the last-but-one year of their bachelor program. I sometimes have to visit them at their placement companies, talk to them and their employers about their progress and write reports about them for the university. I had an intern a few years back who had nothing but complaints about his managers. Going by his academic record (which was actually quite excellent) I foolishly took him very seriously and raised his concerns to his employers...only to have my ears bashed with a long list of complaints that he was slow, lazy, uncooperative, persistently late for work and constantly whining. After a several such interviews I had a "very stern talk" with him (though my "very stern" is not very intimidating) that however badly treated he considered himself he should "buckle down" and "button his lip" for the next few months for the sake of salvaging a good reference. Which advice fortunately he took. This is why (though I did express some incredulity at the mass-sacking) I'm not inclined to think this is a one-sided issue.

Actually I agree with you... As you go through life - and particularly towards the beginning - "older, wiser and better" people think they are teaching you lessons. And often they are teaching you lessons. Just not the lessons they think they're teaching.

If they were fired simply for signing a proposal then that is outrageous and I would suggest these kids steer clear of that company (or at least that particular management team) in future. Even granted that the proposal was "inappropriate" (I haven't seen the wording) they were there at that company to learn. People learn through their mistakes, which they never will do if the learning experience is always terminated at the first mistake. I think one of two things has happened here: The management of this department were unwilling to have these kids foisted upon them, and were looking for the first excuse to get rid of them. We have a disgruntled young lady telling her side of the story, and that the reality was somewhat different.

So tomorrow the UK will have a new Prime Minister. Since her main rival stepped down (mostly due to a monumental piece of verbal stupidity which I shan't go into) Theresa May has become Leader of the Conservative Party, and will be appointed Prime Minister tomorrow by the Queen. She'll be Britain's second ever female Prime Minister. But more importantly, she was anti-Brexit. That's right. Cameron stepped down as PM because he was anti-Brexit, to allow a (presumably) pro-Brexit successor to steer the UK through....umm...Brexit. And who is that successor? Another anti-Brexiteer! Already Theresa May has said she will not trigger Article 50 until after the end of the year. And I don't think she's going to trigger it at all. She'll come up with excuse after excuse about why "now is not the right time". That's how it will be, mark my words! Then again...I've been wrong before...

I think he was probably speaking figuratively, meaning that there was nowhere he could truly rest. His whole existence was one of service to others.

You're quite correct - people call it a "rowter" all the time and it drives me mad!!!!! I'm being ironic of course: different areas have their own pronunciations, but we all like to think ours is the CORRECT version. There seem to be two kinds of American: the ones who say "rooter" and the ones who say "rowter". My wife (who is from Maine) is a "rooter" person. The "proper" UK pronunciation is "rooter", but many people nowadays say "rowter" because they've been watching youtube videos made by "rowter Americans". AND IT MAKES ME SO MAD!!!!! ;)

"Steak President" made me think of this: Homophones are words which sound the same but are written differently. They can sometimes be mildly amusing: "Steak President". "Plank's Constant". I used this spelling consistently throughout my own dissertation and no one noticed - not even my adviser who I happen to know got a first* from Cambridge! (In mathematics though, not spelling.) Poster outside a church: "If it's just For Weddings and a Funeral (same font as the Hugh Grant movie) you're missing out" Have you read "Lord Fowl's Bane" by Stephen R. Donaldson? (brilliant book by the way - Thomas Covenant has to fight a gigantic bird to save The Land from the dreadful ur Pigeons.) Homographs are words which are spelled (but not necessarily sounded) alike: "She was only a whisky-maker's daughter, but he loved her still." Stan Laurel: "You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead." Probably the most irritating homograph (for me) is "router". As in: "I just bought a new router for my woodworking business!" "Oh, I guess you'll be able to connect to Wi-Fi there now!" Now this is a router: it rhymes with "shooter"... And this is a router: it rhymes with "shouter", "doubter" and "pouter"... The words are homographs. They are NOT NOT NOT NOT homophones!!!! And the next time someone tells me they want to include a woodworking tool in their network, I might just murder them. * A "first" is roughly what you Americans call "summa cum laude". In the UK we use the more prosaic term "first class honours". (There are also second and third class honours as well as degrees awarded without honours.)

The first time I heard that was when I was 10, in assembly at school; some kids got up and "performed" it, after which the teacher stepped in and asked "Does anyone not know why that is funny?" When answer came there none she proceeded to explain it anyway. Jokes are never funny when you have to explain them, and since this one had never been very funny to begin with anyway it was rather an exercise in dreariness. I prefer the Bronx-accent version anyway: On the matter of "Spring is Sprung..." though, you can't forget Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons"... Has me in stitches every time!

"Whatever will be, will beeee...." (When I was just a leetle girl, I asked my mother, what will I beeee? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to meeeee....)

If you think the British are bad, check out the Australians!

You've gotta like Nige. Just look at Rompuy's expression during that tirade! P.S. I just found this... Quite uncanny!

Indeed she has. Back in the '80s when I was a student I used to listen to Cyndi Lauper - together with Chris de Burgh, Peter Gabriel, Rush, Barcley James Harvest, Kate Bush, Mozart, Dire Straits, Clannad... and oh so many more. Such wonderful music...

You are starting to make some sense to me now... I've never been very interested in pornography per se, but I have had my own severe trials with the flesh. (And I'm not gay either - the thorn in my own flesh is something you're not likely to guess at, and I'm not going to tell you what it is.) And like you, I've never thought it right to "admire myself" for resisting - in fact if experience is anything to go by, self-admiration is the quickest path to being sucked back into your sins. And...more's the pity...it has happened. Like you, I'm more comfortable admiring Christ for answering my prayers and giving me the strength to resist. But admiration for others...that's a sticky point. I posted a thread a while back about how heroes let you down, but is it never right to admire other people? Or should admiration only ever be given to Christ? Perhaps we should admire others but not for their own glory - rather for what Christ has made them.

Ha ha - OK my first sentence was hyperbole!

I don't think Just a Guy was suggesting that paedophilia is admirable - but that people afflicted with it are admirable for resisting it. A person is not the same as his or her temptations.

It makes every bit of sense and is perfectly germane to this discussion. A crocodile keeper is responsible for making sure his crocodiles don't eat anyone. If he does his job well and no kids end up as crocky-din-dins then we rightly give him our admiration. Similarly a person who is afflicted with paedophilic tendencies has a responsibility to keep those tendencies in check so no one gets hurt. If he does this well then yes...I think he deserves our admiration. OK the analogy isn't perfect because: (i) A crocodile keeper has a responsibility also for keeping his crocodiles healthy; he could keep zoo visitors even safer by shooting all his crocs through the head, but that would only get him the sack. A "righteous" paedophile on the other hand would prefer to give up his paedophilic urges than merely to control them, but that is often not possible. (As Paul discovered with his "thorn in the flesh".) (ii) A crocodile keeper has likely chosen his profession, while for a paedophile (good or bad) it has probably been thrust upon him by his own childhood abuse. P.S. I'm not suggesting that Paul was a paedophile - only that what he refers to in 2 Corinthians 12 may have been something analogous to this.

I find your statement even odder: do you not find it admirable to resist evil because resisting evil is "about evil"? You might as well say that the crocodile keeper at the zoo is not to be trusted because his work is associated with crocodiles (which as everyone knows are dangerous).

I don't believe anything has ever been 100% accepted. (Except perhaps breathing.)