Recent Comments

1. about 9 hours ago on Off the Mark

   My dad was a bombardier in B-17s, I wonder if your dad trained the gunners on his crew.

2. about 10 hours ago on B.C.

   I learned to drive in New York City on ice. I drove in the city for several years and I could get my car into a slot six inches longer than the car. I have not driven in the city for over 50 years. My current parallel parking skill is to pull up the the car in front of me from a half block away.

3. about 10 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   I recall seeing some very racist cartoons as a kid: things like blackface and stereotyping. Popeye was particularly anti-Japanese during Word War II (I can understand why.) I recalled seeing some of these cartoons as late as the 1970s when my own kids were watching them.

   It’s difficult to find them today. I can understand why. However, it IS part of our history that we’ve successfully hidden. We need to be reminded of an era when we were ignorant and didn’t know better so we should be alert to try to know better now.

   The only cartoon of that genre I can find now is “In Der Fuhrer’s Face,” an animation on a song of the time. The Germans are displayed comically but the lone Japanese figure has the thick glasses and buck teeth.

4. about 10 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   I remember Saturday morning. It was just about the only time cartoons were on and we did not have a channel totally devoted to them. Then there was the matter of whose turn it was to watch THE TV.

5. about 10 hours ago on Aunty Acid

   Revenge and retribution. How miserable your life must be if this is all you live for!

6. about 23 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   If Jesus were on earth today, he would not be at the Vatican or even Canterbury or Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s more likely that you’d find him at the bus terminal in Omaha or the city park in Greensboro with the homeless.

7. about 23 hours ago on Off the Mark

   I was raised very strict Catholic. That’s where my objection to ritual and dogma come from. I liked the Catholic Religion, I didn’t like the Catholic Church.

   My wife went to work for an Episcopal Church. I got “sucked in” when one of the priests told me, “God gave you a brain; The Episcopal Church expects you to use it.”

   I like to joke that, “I’m not a member of any organized religion; I’m Episcopalian.”

   My wife is now an Episcopal Deacon. She would never had been ordained in the Catholic Church.

   I have a high school friend who is both an atheist and a pacifist. I am Christian and ex-military. It’s amazing on how many things we agree upon.

   It is actually my military flying career that led me to believe that there is a God. Most Christians get their faith through scriptures. Mine comes through life experience (and how I choose to interpret it) and the feeling of connectivity that I have with the universe.

8. about 23 hours ago on Off the Mark

   I agree with you. The Bible started out as oral tradition, borrowed from other cultures and was copied down in many different languages. Some passages have different interpretations and even conflict with one another.

   I don’t know who wrote the Bible, but I do know who edited it: the Roman Emperor Constantine. He literally decided what is Gospel and what isn’t.

   The Roman Empire co-opted Christianity and and transformed it from a Middle-Eastern religion into it a white, Western-European religion.

   When I look at Judaism and Islam, I see the importance of hospitality, welcoming the outsider, and protecting the weak, disenfranchised and the poor. By comparison, these compassions seem weak in Christianity. Even though they are strong in Christ’s teachings, they seem secondary to rituals and dogma in many Christian churches.

9. about 23 hours ago on Off the Mark

   To me, the miracle of the Bible is not in its historic or scientific accuracy, it’s that one can still find relevance in it to this very day.

10. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

    If you have the artwork, try Zazzle.