Random Stuff

My favorite breakfast: 1) three eggs fried in butter, crisp but over medium so the yolk is runny; 2) fresh biscuits and sausage gravy on the same plate with the eggs; 3) crispy cooked pancakes with real maple syrup; and 4) a big glass of very cold milk. Oh, and I like the new sausage and gravy biscuits at Hardies. Add an egg to the biscuit and it's wonderful. Just don't try to eat it while driving.

I heard on the radio news this morning that the US auto dealers are in trouble and "President-elect Obama wants to help." Really? That's great, I thought. Maybe he can volunteer some of his time at a factory. Maybe he has some extra money in his bank account or in investments that he can loan to them. Perhaps he can sit down with the executives at Ford and GM and share some of his ideas for streamlining the business and turning things around for them. That would really be cool if he volunteered some of his time and money to help them. But no. He doesn't really want help. What he wants to do is force the rest of the country to "help" them. Why can't the news accurately report what is going on? "President elect Obama has a plan that would take more money from productive citizens and give it to these failing industries. If anyone disagrees with this, that's tough. You don't fork over your money, you go to jail."

The hubris of academic religious studies is astonishing. For the past month or so I've been preparing for some lectures on the Gospels I'm doing in December. I've been reading the latest on the "synoptic problem," trying to get up to speed on current research. Sheez. Talk about the blind leading the blind. For example, there's more time and effort spent on understanding the make-believe document "Q" (supposedly behind what is common in Matthew and Luke) than on the actual extant Gospels! Essays, dissertations, and books have been written on the date of Q, the sources used by the author of Q, the background and presuppositions of the author of Q, the Q community behind the document, etc. Unbelievable nonsense. Q is make believe. It only exists in the minds of academics. If I want to know about Q, I'll read James Bond novels. They are just as imaginative, but infinitely more interesting.