First, we have to start with explaining a word – the word “criteria”.  There are two kinds of criteria.  There is what I call “or” criteria and “and” criteria.  Its fairly straightforward.  “Or” criteria is like the criteria needed to get a handicapped sticker for your car so you can park in the handicapped spots in parking lots.  If you are in a wheelchair, or need assistance walking, or are allergic to sunlight, you meet the criteria to park in the handicapped spots.  One does not need to be in a wheelchair AND allergic to sunlight to do so.  This is “or” criteria – where one only needs to meet one, or a few of, the criteria for something.

“And” criteria is what you think it is – criteria in which all applicable statements must apply.  To be president of the United States, one must be at least 35 years old AND born in the United States, AND have lived in the United States for the last decade.  If you were born and raised in the United States and have never even left the country, but are only 34 years old, you cannot be president.  Likewise, if you were born on the Mexico side of the border while actually at the border, and immediately taken over to the U.S., where you lived for 65 years, you still cannot be president.  This is because you must meet ALL of the criteria to be president.

What is the relevance of this to the Whore of Babylon and the Catholic Church?  It is the kind of criteria to be the whore that is the relevance.  That criteria is “and” criteria.  The entity in question must meet ALL of the criteria in question to be the Whore.  What does this mean for us?  It means something very important – that we need only prove that only one of the criteria does not apply to the Church.  Because it is “and” criteria, if the Church is even off by just one criteria, it cannot (I repeat, CANNOT) be the whore.  It does not matter how evil the Church may be, or how many people they have killed, or even if it openly claims to actually be the whore – if it does not meet EVERY criteria, it is, by definition, not the Whore of Babylon.  This means that we need only show that just one of the criteria for the Whore fails to apply to the Catholic Church to prove conclusively that the Church is not the Whore as described in Revelation.

The one criteria we are going to cover here is that the Whore is supposed to be a city on seven hills.  While there are dozens of cities throughout the world that sit on seven hills, one is mentioned more than any other – Rome.    Its constant mention is often found in the assertion that the Catholic Church is the Whore and is based in Rome.  But there is a serious problem with this, and that is simply that the Catholic Church is not actually based in Rome, nor did it necessarily originate there.  The Catholic Church, it could be argued, isn’t actually based anywhere.  It’s members live all over the world.  The Catholic Church is based on Earth – this is as specific as we can really get without bending truth a bit.  Still, no one would doubt that the Catholic Church, if based in any specific place on Earth, is based in Vatican City because that is where the top of the Church hierarchy lives and works.  This is where the geography comes into play.

As any topographical map of Rome and the surrounding area will show, the Vatican actually sits on only one hill.  Normally I would not recommend wikipedia, but it does currently have a nice, clear, and easy to read map of the area found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seven_Hills_of_Rome.svg  Of course, this is not a topographical map, but you would probably find it far easier to make sense of than one.   You can see from the map that there are seven hills of Rome way over on the east side, and Vatican hill way over on the left end.  Not only is the one hill that the Vatican sits on quite distinct from the seven of Rome, but there is even a fair amount of land and the Tiber river between it and those other hills.  So we see clearly that the Vatican does not sit on seven hills, but rather only one, that one of which is not part of the seven that give us Rome.

Now the red line bordering Rome on that map is ancient Rome.  The city has grown quite a bit since then – so much so that Vatican city is now encompassed on all sides by Rome.  Still, it is not Rome itself, nor even part of Rome, but it’s own very distinct city.  And even so, that does not matter.  If one wanted to include the Vatican as part of Rome because one wants it to fit the criteria for the Whore, one actually runs into a bit of a problem – that in the desire to include the Vatican in Rome, one must also include the hill on which the Vatican sits, along with any other hills that fall in the current confines of Rome, totaling the hills that make up Rome eight at the very least.

So one can see with a little reasoning and a good map that no matter how you might try to spin it, the Vatican, and thus the Catholic Church, does not in any way sit on seven hills.  And since this is one of the “and” criteria for the Whore of Babylon, then this also means that it is quite literally impossible for the Church to be said Whore.

At the beginning of these verses, we see the angel Gabriel greeting Mary with “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” In some translations, full of grace is instead rendered as “highly favored one,” but the gist remains the same – something is very important about Mary. You’ll notice that the angel also says that she will conceive, not that she has already. This conception is future tensed. And yet, she is still revered by Gabriel. Much like God lowered himself to our level and became man, Gabriel, an angle, lowers himself by honoring Mary. If such a higher being can do it, then surely so can we! In fact we should! Satan would not give honor to Jesus the man because he was higher than man on the “celestial ladder.” That Jesus was special did not matter to him. How much worse an offense would it be to refuse to give honor to a special creation of God that is on the same rung as us? She is highly favored by God. So, too, should she be favored by us.

It was mentioned above that some translations refer to Mary as “highly favored one.” This is not entirely accurate. In Greek, it is “kecharitomene.” There isn’t really a way to translate this well because English doesn’t have a perfect passive participle and kecharitomene is in such a form. What does perfect passive participle mean? Basically that Mary was that way from the get go – when she was first created, she was created in this state of Grace. And what does that mean? From the moment she was conceived, she was filled with the grace of God and so had no room for sin. While we are saved by being lifted out of the pit of sin, she was saved by being kept from falling in in the first place. This again indicates her importance to God and reiterates her status of importance and the necessity of showing her respect.

Lastly, we see a great testament of Mary’s faith here in these verses. Gabriel told her that she would become pregnant, bear a son, and name him Jesus and he would be king of all. But was she really listening to the rest of that? Would you notice anything else if you were single and just found out you were pregnant? I know I wouldn’t, but that might be partly due to me being a man. I can imagine her stopping Gabriel mid sentence and saying “I’m going to be what now?” And she doesn’t live in today’s world that is generally accepting of unwed mothers. She lived 2000 years ago when sex outside of marriage meant stoning. I doubt the general public would have been wiling to accept her “Goddidit” explanation, especially since even Joseph was preparing to leave her quietly until an angel made a visit to him too. Sure the angel said that he would be born and she would get to name him, suggesting that she gets to live for now, but you can’t say the thought wasn’t going through here head – “I might be killed for this.” By her words “be it done to me according to your word,” she not only accepted God’s call, but knowingly put her life on the line doing it. There is simply no greater example of obedience to God than is found in Mary!

While many people pay her no mind, or even belittle her by thinking of her as no more than the wrapping paper that Christ came in, we should be looking to her as an example to us all of what it means to follow Christ.

Random movie quote: “Hello? 911 emergency. My car’s been stolen! I’m in pursuit! I need the whole squadron, bring everyone! No, no don’t ask any questions, my father’s the head of the neighborhood watch!”

To an outsider, Kansas is boring.  I get that.  I saw an article in a newspaper a few years back that talked about how Kansas is literally flatter than a pancake.  Some mathematicians and such sat down, did the math, and figured out that Kansas is quite literally flatter than a pancake.  To people who live in places like Florida, California, Colorado, or Maine, that can’t look too interesting.  If someone drives from one end of the country to the next, the most notable thing about Kansas is all of the adult superstores along Interstate 70.  That’s actually fitting, though.  I mean, what’s the first thing that comes to a person’s mind when they hear the word “Catholic”?  Probably something like “pedophile”.  Ironic because the person thinking that is statistically more likely to be one than a priest is simply by virtue of being a parent.  But I digress.

See, those people have heard about Kansas, and they might have even driven through Kansas, but they don’t know Kansas.  Honestly, I wouldn’t expect them to.  Even people who have lived there all their lives can find it boring.  But that’s not because it is – it most certainly isn’t.  That’s because they never bothered to look around.  I lived there most of my life and I actually did look around.  But not just look, I explored.  It grows on you.  I can say to you with complete honesty that I find a wheat field just as beautiful as a mountain peak.  It’s like the ocean.  It’s just one really big expanse of blue.  Beautiful in its simplicity, except with a wheatfield, it’s not simple.  It just looks that way at a glance.  Look closely and you’ll discover that it is extremely intricate.  And if no matter how hard you try, you still can’t see the beauty there, just visit the flint hills – as green in the summer as Ireland has ever been.

That is the Catholic church.  You can pass through it and never really see it.  You can even be a part of it, and never really get it.  Sometimes if you want to see the beauty in something, you actually have to look for it.  Even pancakes are a beautiful thing – at least soaked in syrup.

Random movie quote: “We’re in Italy. Speak English”

If you don't know what John Candy has to do with pancakes, you have a problem.

Lots of you likely know who Jack Chick is and what his tracts are.  Not quite as well known is the source for most of his “facts” – Alberto Rivera.  The man claimed to have been not just a Catholic, but a Jesuit and a “secret bishop”, whatever that is.  He was exposed as a fraud several years back by a couple of Christian publications equally as anti-Catholic as Chick is.  When they did this, Jack Chick, as the story goes, instead of accepting the evidence, accused these publications of being part of the “Catholic conspiracy”.  Sound silly?  It gets worse.  About a decade ago, Alberto Rivera passed away.  Jack Chick immediately accused the Catholic church of assassinating Rivera to silence him.  In fact, more than Chick holds this belief.  The thing is, Rivera died of cancer.  When Chick and his ilk learned of this, instead of retracting the assasination accusation, expanded on it.  They – get this – claim the Catholic Church invented a cancer giving poison and used that to assassinate Rivera.  One account that I’ve seen of this situation claims that they believe this poison was passed on by a simple handshake from a Catholic “agent”. (who managed not to die from his own poison)

So you see – there will be people out there who will argue with anything and everything you say.  No matter how far into the corner they run, they will simply claim that it is you in the corner instead.  Sometimes they run away.  In fact, they do that a lot online.  Don’t worry about it.  Remember that in most forums and such online, there are always people watching.  From their vantage point on the outside, they see you making a point and your opponent unable to respond.  To the observer, you have won.

So how do people end up being so stubborn?  Well, admittedly, the example above is a somewhat abnormal situation.  And I can honestly only speculate, but here’s how I think it happens.  I’ll use another somewhat ridiculous example – the King James bible.

It’s a fairly popular version of the bible for Christians.  The one’s that use it often think it’s the most popular, but they don’t seem to realize that over half of all Christians are Catholic and we don’t use it.  Anyways, it’s a version translated into English in 1611.  Contrary to popular belief, it was the 9th, not the first, English version.  Even the Catholic Douay Rheims bible precedes it.  It’s not exactly a quality translation either, as anyone who can read Greek knows.  But many people consider it the best – and to varying degrees.  At the lowest point, there are people who prefer it simply because of the language style.  A little above that are people who think that it’s obviously the most accurate because it’s the only version that hasn’t changed in 400 years – but as is relatively common knowledge, it most certainly has.  Check a KJV sometimes.  You’ll be hard pressed to find one with the apocrypha/deuterocanon in it, but they sure as heck were there in 1611.  At the other end of the spectrum, you will find the radicals.  These people believe that the KJV is not just the most accurate translation – it’s further revelation from God.  That’s right.  To them it’s better than the original manuscripts written in Greek and Hebrew.

How the heck does someone take it so far?  Brainwashing.  That’s how.  It starts out simple enough.  Someone convinces themself that the KJV is the best – but doesn’t really have a logical reason.  They just really like it. They happen to be a very eloquent speaker and the spread this idea to others.  If you’re eloquent enough, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to say – people will believe you.  Just look at Hitler.  And so, his audience will come to accept this.  Repeat it enough, and they become closed to differing opinion.  And eventually, they try and spread this info to others.  But not everyone is an ignoramus.  Eventually they’ll try and convince someone who actually comprehends Greek and Hebrew that the KJV is the best – but of course they’ll have none of it.  They’ll sit the guy preaching down and explain in detail why he’s wrong about his claims.  But remember – the guy has literally been brainwashed.  He can’t just up and change his mind, even in the face of proof.

So what does a man do when they’re backed into a corner and unable to admit defeat?  They break the rules.  Literally – that’s the law of gravity.  In the instance of bible accuracy – they break from logic.  They make the jump to “further revelation”.  And there’s nothing you can really do about it.  Sometimes, you can’t win.  The sooner you realize this, the better.

Random movie quote: “Looks like Phil Donahue throwing up in a tuba”

Upon seeing the title, two questions may have arisen to the reader. First – what do rainbows have to do with faith? That answer is simple, though lengthy, and is explained (I hope) below. The other question, for those with more aptitude for literature is – why not “Of Rainbows and Religion”, which flows better because it includes a tick of alliteration? For that question, the only answer I can give is “dude, it’s me”. For those that know me well enough, this answer is oddly sufficient and, equally as oddly, a perfect explanation. For those that don’t know me well enough, this explanation has probably only succeeded in confusing you further and for that I apologize. Onto the subject at hand…

I believe that I am quite free. And I believe that this freedom is due, in part, to my faith. I even recall when my faith was distinctly weaker. It was a time when I was most certainly less free. I was certainly no slave, but it was also not something that I could know I was lacking because I was blinded. Yet I am told almost exceedingly often that because of faith, I am blind. Some even go so far as to accuse me, and all believers, of being intellectually inferior for no reason other than that we possess faith. They think themselves smarter simply because they are “free” from faith.

I find it rather an odd statement to make. Surely they don’t also think themselves smarter than Aquinas, Georges Lemaître, and surely not Ken Miller. Even Stephen Hawking, last I checked, believes in some sort of higher power. But when given those names, they will never recant their statement. This is quite a revealing thing, for it is no David Hume or Friedrich Nietzsche making this claim. It is not even a Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. It is simply an R.I.A. – Random Internet Atheist. Quite clearly they are falling victim to the blunder of not knowing when to give up, much in the same manner of the KJV-onlies, who when presented with evidence that their precious version of the bible is not so wonderful, simply invent other excuses for it’s superiority. Some even go so far as to call it a further revelation from God of which is more accurate than any ancient manuscript.

A person’s ability to admit that they are wrong is in every way crucial to learning. The KJV-onlies, in refusing to admit that their version of the bible is on the opposite end of the spectrum of accuracy that they want it to be, create for themselves a barrio to comprehension of much of the bible. Even worse, it is a barrier that they cannot see. They are blind to it because they cannot accept the concept that they could ever be in error. The human ego simply will not allow it if one chooses not to keep their pride in check. In much the same way, a person without faith is blind to much of the world. But how to show this? I refer you to the title of this essay – “Of Rainbows and Faith”.

A thousand years ago, when someone saw a rainbow, it was a miracle. It was also a sign from God. Hopefully I don’t have to explain the story of Noah’s Ark to you for you to understand. Even if I did, I am not going to. It is ultimately irrelevant here. Today, we know how rainbows work. It is actually quite a simply concept, really – something that is understood fairly well by believers and non-believers alike.

We know that the light source, here after referred to as the sun, as that is what it usually is, must hit the water at the correct angle. We know that the water must be in the form of droplets, but that the size of those droplets is relatively irrelevant. We know that the light from the sun refracts when it enters the droplet, and refracts further when leaving the droplet. We know that the light leaves the droplet separated, with red on the top and violet on the bottom and that the spectrum extends into the area outside the sensitivities of our eyes. Even further, we know that this light comes to a point when it strikes the retina, inverting inside of the eye. The rods and cones sense the colors and the magnitude of their brightness and send the signal through the optic nerve to our brain where the signals are interpreted and the image re-inverted so that it is “seen” upright.

Surely a meteorologist or a physicist might be able to go into greater detail of the rainbow and a biologist into the eye. I am most certainly interested to learn the reason for the second “bow” in a double rainbow to have its colors juxtaposed. Hopefully though, the explanation given already is enough for the purpose here.

The believer and the non-believer can clearly both understand how a rainbow works. I am a believer, and I have certainly expressed such comprehension. A non-believer should certainly also understand, for if they didn’t – if it was some great mystery to them – one must question if they are truly a non-believer. One would also be forced to question the self-perceived intellectual superiority that some of them claim. No. Of course they understand. They may even be able to see the inherent beauty in a rainbow, but for them, that is where it ends.

For the believer, there is no such limit. I understand rainbows. I know that science can explain them and I have a healthy enough comprehension of how they occur, but they are no less of a miracle to me. When the non-believer notices a rainbow, they cannot see the miracle.

A non-believer might accuse me of hallucinating. Apart from the rainbow, there is nothing to hallucinate. To see the glory of God in a rainbow is not a literal sight. It is a belief – it is faith. And besides, what if it is not a “hallucination”?

No, I am not bringing up Pascal’s wager. I know better than to do that. It gets the non-believer quite riled up. Generally, its mention results in a non-believer giving it an offhanded dismissal and worse yet, serves mainly to further puff up their ego, like a peacock displaying its feathers, as though they just served a scathingly brilliant rebuttal to the wager.

I am so reminded of a presentation that Richard Dawkins gave soon after the release of his book, the name of which I will not mention because I find the mere title to be an affront to the human intellect. (If I find so much in error with simply the title, perhaps it would be best never to ask me about the content of the book) After the presentation, he opened things up for the crowd to ask questions. One brave girl asked simply “What if you’re wrong?” Most of the visible crowd, already having revealed themselves as “Dawkins-heads” through their praise, gave her ugly looks. Mr. Dawkins assumed she was talking about Pascal’s wager (which I find unlikely), made a statement against it that failed completely to account for the potential of infinite reward or punishment inherent in the wager and was quite obvious from his tone, not given any thought. The video was grainy – most likely there more for the audio than the video – but as he moved onto the next question, I swear I could see his head actually get bigger.

Such is the danger of Pascal’s wager to a non-believer that they will assume the wager into unrelated questions and most won’t even stop to actually sit down and think on the wager itself. Like they refuse to believe in a God, they refuse to believe that we might actually possess a logical reason for our faith. Here we arrive at the other reason that I am not using Pascal’s wager. It is perfectly logical, but it simply cannot be proper motivation for believe. Put yourselves in the shoes of a non-=believer. Could a logical reason to believe in God actually impart upon you genuine faith? Of course not.

No. It was not Pascal’s wager that I was alluding to, but rather the freedom one is given when with faith. Ask a non-believer about Marian apparitions, Eucharistic miracles, levitations occurring during possession, miraculous healings, or out of body experiences (not to be confused with near death experiences) and they can ultimately say no more than “science hasn’t explained it yet”. Such reason is no better than a KJV-onlie saying “God did it” if asked how they know their version could be further revelation. It is nothing more than an excuse – a way to avoid answering the troublesome question. Their only other option is to call such phenomenon fraudulent. But when the experts – even secular ones – are baffled as to the cause, such a claim holds little weight.

One should by now be able to see why not just rainbows, but also faith are good and wonderful things. To sum it all up into a mildly redundant sentence:” The ability to believe more gives one the freedom to believe more. That ability is of course granted to us by our Father in heaven.

But wait! If I believe in God, why do I not also believe in leprechauns? Good sir, that is precisely half the reason I used rainbows in this essay. The other half is that rainbows have a rather simple scientific explanation. Had I elected to, I could have used the big bang or evolution in it’s place, but that would have forced me to make this essay considerably longer. But as for leprechauns and the first half of my reason – I visited Ireland for a course a couple of years past. Beautiful place. I highly advise a visit. While there, I was a rainbow. I saw many rainbows, in fact, but this one was different. It was different in that I and the 22 some-odd other people on the bus for tours (as opposed to a tour bus, which would imply that we were musicians of some sort) managed somehow to reach the end of it. I can assure you with the utmost confidence that there was no leprechaun guarding a pot of gold at the end.

Random movie quote: “Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Bluebirds fly. Birds fly Over The Rainbow. Why then, oh why can’t I? If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why cant I?”

One was your average jock. One was lazy. One wasn’t too fond of God. Another was devoutly religious. Another still was the son of a billionaire. Yet another just wanted to fit in. One liked to be stoned a bit too much. One still didn’t know who he was. (though I have since figured that out) There were a few others too.

The point is that they were all different. Quite different. There really wasn’t much we had in common back then.

One dorm room, two tv’s, two x-boxes, and eight controllers. That’s all it took. Nothing else. No consensus on faith, or what to do on the weekends, or even on which sport was the best(Rugby is the right answer, by the way). No unifying purpose at all. Some of them were roommates, but considering how I got along with mine, I really can’t believe that was a factor.

One thing in common. One single thing, and we were made friends for it. Sure, most of us never became really good friends who share intimate secrets with each other. We ARE guys, after all. Our conversations mostly involve harmless smack talk. Though it crossed the line into harmful every now and then. Oops.

A simple video game. That’s all it takes to create a bond between people. It’s an amazing thing isn’t it? And yet, despite that, it can still be so very difficult to make friends, or for people to become better friends.

There’s this thing called transference. It usually happens between a psychiatrist and a patient, whereby the psychiatrist says something that was a a phrase commonly uttered by someone the patient hates. The patient becomes inexplicably averted to their therapist, sometimes even walking out in the middle of a session. It can happen between two average people too.

Maybe that’s what makes it difficult sometimes. Or maybe the bond of friendship can’t get stronger because one of them screwed the pooch (it means ‘messed up’) sometime in the past. Or one of them thinks there’s a problem and doesn’t have the guts to ask the other about it.

Funny. I just noticed all of those are problems that don’t genuinely exist. They’re simply gaps – ones a lot of people don’t seem to care to bridge.

Look, we are human. It is human nature to fudge things up every now and then. Don’t be petty and hold grudges. If you have an issue with a friend, don’t sit there and let it fester. Talk to them about it. If they’re any kind of real friend, there’s absotively posolutely nothing to be afraid of. You think it’s not worth it to speak about it. I say it’s not worth it NOT to!

It shows a great selfishness to have a problem with someone and neglect them because of it without them even knowing what it is. You leave them wondering how they hurt you, which, trust me, is far worse than telling them what it is and them finding out there’s nothing that can be done. I implore you, use your lips, use your tongue, use your vocal cords, and if you’re far apart, use your phone. TALK with your friends. Who’s friend are you if you don’t?

Random movie quote: “Max, look, it’s the Leaning Tower of Cheesa!”

What is it? There are a few different kinds of love. There’s “I love my dog”. There’s “Love your fellow man”. There’s even “Kel loves orange soda”. But what about true love – sacrificial love? What is that? I always thought I knew. Christ died on the cross for all of us. Vader died for Luke. Donnie Darko died for his family. Troops dive on live grenades all the time to save their fellow soldiers. That was sacrificial love to me. To die for someone else. There’s a few people in my life that I’m prepared to do that for. I know that much, and so I thought I fully understood sacrificial love.

But even Alex Trebek gets it wrong every now and then.

See, I recently started working in the mental health wing of a hospital. Most of the people who come in are there because of an attempt or a plan to harm themselves. Some of them are perfectly normal, except that they wanted some attention that they weren’t getting. Others are truly depressed. On top of that, some are bipolar. Others are schizophrenic or suffering from dementia, or even a combination of all of them. I need a pass code to get on or off the floor. They spent two days training me on how to defend myself from violent patients, including what to do if I’m being strangled with a belt that they snuck past security. As you can imagine, there’s some interesting patients.

My first day I had to watch just such a patient who we’ll call “Petey”. That’s not his real name, but I’m not legally allowed to say it. Apparently someone out there thinks you can find a person easily with only a first name and a medical diagnosis. Oh well. He was demented. Completely. He called all the guys, white or black, “N*****”. He called all the women “fat B****”.

Don’t worry. This has a point. Just bear with me.

He wouldn’t take his medication. He wouldn’t leave his room to eat. He WOULD leave his room for just about anything else. He was also incontinent. For those of you who don’t know what that means, lets just say he wore a diaper. On my first day of my first real job, I changed the diaper and wiped the ass of a man nearly three times my age. Yuck. There was a little bit of dry heaving occurring on my part. I can’t say I liked the guy very much, and neither did any of the other employees.

But, the next day, Petey had a visitor. It was his wife. She came in three hours before visitors were normally allowed, but she was let in early. Let her deal with it instead of us. The thing is is that she did deal with it. Quite well. Apparently she had been taking care of him for years. She had to deal with name calling and changing diapers all the time. She stayed for several hours. She changed a diaper while she was there, and she was called names even worse than the ones I mentioned above. She dealt with it.

I had to check in on them every now and then, and something about this woman brought about a miraculous change in Petey. Before she left, he was saying “please” and “thank you” and using people’s real names. He used the bathroom on his own, and went to the dining room for his meals without coercion. The kicker is that every moment she was there, she had this amazingly humble and loving look on her face.

This guy was nothing like the man she married years ago, but she loved him anyway. He called her names, but she loved him anyway. He needed changing, but she loved him anyway.

I was absolutely amazed at the love this woman showed. An entirely different aspect of sacrificial love. I always was prepared to die for the ones I love. I’ve had dreams about it. Jumping in front of a bullet. Refusing to tell a mobster where someone was hiding. Diving off the cliffs of Moher after someone who fell to grab a hold of them and take the force of the impact(yeah, that one’s a bit odd). But what this woman endured? Yes, I suppose I’m prepared to do that too. I at least know that it is true sacrificial love that I feel for those most important to me, but I hadn’t really thought of it past dying for them. I suspect that a lot of you haven’t either – so take a think about it and how amazing sacrificial love really is. Not only how hard it would be for you to do this for someone else, but also about those that love you so much that they would be willing to do this for you too if you ever one day needed it.

Random movie quote:”Don’t panic”

I mostly made this note to share with you my favorite movie: Waking Ned Devine. So, go watch it. Its a great reminder of how awesome the Irish are. However, that doesn’t make up for a good note with some substance to it, now does it? So…

…what’s up with television these days? A lot of the shows are good, but I’m talking about the commercials. The advertisements. At 1:00 p.m. there’s already advertisements for nip tuck. At around 5 p.m., the commercials for victoria secret and sex and the city and such start showing up. Notice that these times are surprisingly right after kids get home from school. After the kids come home from school, hang up their coat, toss their bag on the floor, and flip off their shoes, they tend to flick on the television. Whats the first thing they see as they flip through the channels to find their show? Half naked women looking lustfully at the camera and completely naked women with strategically placed surgical instruments and road signs. It’s almost as if they’re actually targeting children.

Not five years ago, commercials like this wouldn’t show up on TV before about 8 at night. If I have a kid of my own in another five years, are they going to be forced to watch these commercials with their Saturday morning cartoons?(or not watch them at all) It’s such a sad state that I’m not even sure I’m going to buy a television for myself when I move out. I can just watch Heroes and House online and plug my x-box into my computer monitor, not that I play it much anymore. The only thing that could make me pay for cable TV later in life is if rugby started showing up on espn.

Thoughts?

Random movie quote: “Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.”

Her backpack pukes.
Her boyfriend laughs.
The guy whose name she can’t recall
Helps her mop up the mess,
But she sticks with the one worth less.

Random movie quote: “Know this; there’s heroes and there’s legends. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart kid, and you’ll never go wrong.”

Wahsington, D.C. -
Capitol of the richest country
In the world.
I walk the frigid streets with my
Friends.
One sees a vent in the ground
Spewing seeming smoke.
She goes to dance in it.
“It’s warm!” she exclaims, “and it
Stinks” – but she dances all the
Same while a poor man looks on
Wondering what’s become of his
Fireplace.

Random movie quote: “Dang it Jim, I’m an astronomer, not a doctor. I mean I AM a doctor, but I’m not THAT kind of doctor. I have a doctorate. It’s not the same thing. You can’t help people with a doctorate. You just sit there and you’re useless!”