Pain, Sorrow, Confusion, and Beautiful Creation
I just finished watching “Crazy Heart” with Jeff Bridges and the hottie Maggie Gylenhaal. In the movie Jeff Bridge’s character is a somewhat washed up alcoholic country and western singer and through out the show I could not help but think about how often some of the greatest art comes from chaotic souls.
Does the pain, confusion, and chaos inspire the creativity or just destroy the order and inhibitions that stifle it? I am a person that has always had an ebb and flow to my personality. While not considering myself manic depressive I definitely find myself following a pattern of highs and lows and one thing I have always noticed is that I am way more creative during these down or lower times.
I travel by myself for my occupation extensively and often after being in the car listening to music for a few hours I will become very contemplative and suddenly find myself feeling a strong urge to write. Usually nothing comes from it, due to the whole “keeping your eyes on the road” thing and by the time I pull into the hotel I am exhausted. One of these days I would love to find a quiet place pull over and just start writing what comes in my head.
Reading this post back I realize one thing…. I am way to happy because this does not even remotely sound inspired! ;)
I’m off to bed.
~the idiot
Times, They Are a Changing….
Well, I am ninety nine point nine seven percent sure this blog does not have a single reader! Not that I am surprised or have hurt feelings. It has no readers because with only a few posts over the last several years I average less than one new post a year. Of those few posts, none of them were personal or even had a deep message to me.
The Rambling Idiot was the very first blog I ever created. So now that I run quite a few websites and blogs, several of them being of significant size, I just abolutely have ignored this blog.
So at first thought I was just going to shut this blog down, and then the other night I was watching a program that stirred a little emotion in me and I wished I had a place to write about it. I realized that is what this blog needs to be, it needs to be my outlet. Right now I have it all organized and tidy for a neat appearance, but that absolutely take the free spirit of the blog away and confines me so much that when I do feel like writing It is too much work to mess with. What is so funny about that, is that if you knew it seems my blogs and website are the only thing I tend to hyperorganize. My wife would be thrilled if I was able to adopt the same spirit about my office.
So in an effort to make this my Fun Blog! Which hopefully will encourage me to write more stuff that I like writing about I am going to change some things around here. I plan on taking the focus off of images. If I have an image I want to include that is great, but I hate looking to find a picture to match everything I write about. This is not a newspaper it is a blog, so in the spirt of a journal pictures will only appear when necesarry or when I want them too. I also am going to change to homepage to just a traditional blog format where you read one post after another.
I hope all this freedom means not only does this blog, special because it was the first, gets to stay around and at the same time I get to start writing some stuff that I feel like writing about!
Peace!
J
Non-Christianopolis – A View from the Bible Belt
Today’s tidbit is just a quick commentary on life for the average non-christian taking up good oxygen in the peaceful, loving, goodwill towards man capital of the World, Houston, Texas. An article posted on a local news channel website discussed a lawyers filing for a case against the city council to stop the tradition of prayer prior to Houston’s City Council meetings.
It was mentioned in the article that records had indicated that overwhelmingly ninety-percnet of all of these prayers had been christian. The article is not really the subject of this post, just the comments. Never the less here is the short article:
By Doug Miller / 11 News
HOUSTON—Houston City Council’s longstanding practice of opening its meetings with a prayer now faces a court challenge.
The same lawyer who forced Harris County to remove the Bible that once stood in front of a downtown Houston courthouse, now claims that the council’s opening prayers violate the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state.
City council has traditionally begun its meetings with a prayer, usually Christian in nature. Now real estate agent Kay Staley has filed a federal lawsuit saying the council’s prayers have become so overtly Christian, they essentially promote one religion over all others.
Council Members generally rotate the duty of saying the opening prayer, although they often invite local religious leaders to the speaker’s podium. Although the prayers have sometimes been Hindu, Muslim or Jewish, the lawsuit says more than 90 percent of the prayers are Christian.
Randall Kallinen, Staley’s attorney, says he reviewed the minutes from dozens of council meetings. His lawsuit specifically names Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck because she’s often recited the Lord’s Prayer straight out of the Bible.
Kallinen says his client wants the mayor and city council to recite more secular prayers.
I love reading comments to stories like these because it just amazes me how narrow minded some people are about religion. I have listed a few below.
tom7 35 minutes ago wrote:
What? Take away the only likely source of help? Maybe Kallinen shuld also go after the OMG screechers on HGTV?
You are exactly right tom7, asking for less religious influence at public meetings is exactly the same as the OMG screechers….although must admit I have never heard of them. Tom7, are you OK if we start opening up football games with prayers to Allah?
Bill1025 35 minutes ago wrote:
Note to self: Two people not to do business with:
Kay Staley and her attorney Randall Kallinen.
If they don’t profess to love the Lord then the hell with them. With all that the city council is faced with, Houston definitely needs some divine intervention.
Bill1025, great first point! You have every right to do that and it is a great way to express your displeasure, but then you go condeming them to Hell and all that. Be as good and pure as I and my God are, or……F*CK You! Moses could not have said it better!
MarkF 43 minutes ago wrote:
It is time for Americans to stand up and defend the fact that the United States was founded on Christian values. We should not allow the tail to wag the dog. If the majority of the council memebers want to SAY A CHRISTIAN PRAYER THEN DO IT!
The United States was found on christian values! Yes, the very christian value of having the freedom to not having another religion crammed down your throat.
pete jones 46 minutes ago wrote:
get a life women.
Actually, good point Pete! I would probably find better things to spend money on if it was me.
redbird54 1 hour ago wrote:
the door knob turns both ways if those are offended by prayer let them go out the same way they came in,thats whats wrong with this country now people sticking their damn nose in other peoples beleifs nobody is making them pray and nobody should stop them from doing so
This one is classic redneck Bible Belt! It is obvious if you don’t believe just like my “Mammy” and “Pappy” taught me, yous definitely from some far of devil country!
Whowants2kno 1 hour ago wrote:
Kay Stanley…and your attorney…MY RIGHTS ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOURS. I’VE LIVED IN THIS CITY FOR 58 YEARS. I WANT PRAYER AT COUNCIL MEETINGS…Now…with the utmost of due respect, why don’t you move someplace else and take your complaints with you. May I suggest another country somewhere far, far away.
So what about the Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, etcs. rights who have lived in this city for 59 years. I don’t think this formula for solving problems would be a good solution! But way to think outside the box “Whowats2kno”
Why can Christians be so mean and disrespectful to their neighbors on some days and cry and yearn for their lost souls on another…. Vexes me!
~The idiot!
“Your Name” is on my Ass!
Back in my early twenties I had one of the funnest and coolest roommates you could ever have. The guy was an absolute blast to be around twenty four hours a day seven days a week. He was also great with the ladies, so if you were going to the bar it was guaranteed you would at least be talking to some girls shortly after entering the establishment.
One of the funniest things about him that also, amazingly enough, helped with the ladies was a very interesting tattoo he done when he was in high school. He, while being heavily intoxicated one night, decided to get the words “Your Name” tattooed on his posterior. While I am quite sure he had some regrets the next morning for such an odd choice his reasoning was quite hilarious.
After receiving the tattoo he would get into random conversations with girls at the bar and at some point he would ask them their name. Yes, you guessed it! After hearing their name he would drop his jaw to the floor and with amazement laugh and tell them, “You are not going to be believe this, but I have your name tattooed on my ass!”
Of course the girls would giggle and tell him he was full of it, until he would finally make a bet with them. He would often the girl to agree to a date, a phone number, etc. before finally giving in, dropping his drawers, and winning the bet!
My wife and I have decided that at some point in the near future we are getting tattoos. I am quite certain I will be going a very different direction than my roommate. Most likely we are going to get Ambigram tattoos of our sons names.
If you don’t know what an ambigram tattoo is, it is a tattoo that reads two different words depending on which side is up. The picture above is an example.
~the idiot
The Blatant Atheist
I am not a blatant atheist by any means. I don’t even consider myself a hardcore atheist. I, by the product of my upbringing, life experiences, education, and own free will of though have found myself strongly swayed to the side of the coin that there really is no higher power.
In reality I probably line up closer to agnostic, because I am quite certain if there is a higher power he is not represented by any current or ancient belief system or dogma. I just find it way too hard to believe that anybody as got it right down here?
I am very tempted, out of habit, to quickly get into a strong defense of my position because I am forced to almost everytime my belief structure comes up in coversation. But today’s post is not about why I am right and they are wrong, it is about the way we go about life.
Over the last six months or so, my wife and I have become huge Facebook addicts. We are on there at least once a day and have connected with hundreds of friends from current to long ago. I can’t help but get a little disgruntled every time I log in when seeing the inevitable hundreds of posts praising God, thanking Jesus, downing evolution and just about every other belief I have.
I just want to know why it is so socailly acceptable to be so aggressive at not only pushing one’s beliefs, but challenging anothers. How come it is not considered rude to aggressively degrade another’s beliefs.
Atheists are one of the few groups that not only endure this constantly, but do so without anyone else in the World seeing a problem with it. As intolerant as the christian faithful are to Muslim beliefs, they still amongst themselves play civil in discussions with Muslims.
Yet, even a twelve year old child would have no problem making brash statements about the idiocy of Evolution and it’s followers and furthermore their parents would not object as well.
I just wish I could go day to day without choosing to either anger someone or defend my belief. I just want to check my Facebook and say “hi” to some friends.
~the idiot