I lie here
just like a zombie,
beheaded.

People who believe in them are stranger.

Imagine some chap coming up to you and saying “God is great!”

Really? Well, what if I came up to you one day and said “Calvin is great!”

Who the heck is Calvin?

Well, who the heck is God?

(I’m talking about Calvin, friend of Hobbes. Ah, now you get the picture)

Does anyone really know who/what God is? People certainly claim to know, but is it possible to convey that to a stranger? It’s akin to a stranger telling a stranger how great a stranger is. Whatever for?

Now, for the easily offended (some people just love to live to be offended), this isn’t really a slight against your deity. I’m not likening God to some mortal, imaginary or not. That would be like saying The Hulk is green –  grass is green — The Hulk is grass. Flawed logic. Unless that’s a new fancy name for a certain kind of marijuana. But nevertheless, flawed.

Also, I’m curious as to what imams tell their flock at prayers every evening. I can hear it from my house and I don’t know what he’s saying because I’m quite deaf (to the world). I know what pastors say from sitting in at these things a couple of times – honor thy parents and whatnot – but the imam near my house seems quite the passionate speaker so I wonder what’s going on.

The paranoid (or maybe, the creative, wink wink) part of me thinks it goes along the lines of “destroy all infidels, because we’re totally awesome,” but I suppose it’s much the same as any other religiously themed speech, honor thy deity and honor thyself and honor thy parents but mostly honor thy deity and hey, by the way, the donation box is to the left of the exit, thanks very much.

Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html

If it’s archived and you need to sign in, try Bugmenot.com.

An excerpt:

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

It’s not all about yourself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html

The first author is clearly a believer, but she has quite an interesting perspective -

“Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. But can we respond religiously to evolutionary theory? Can we use it to recover a more authentic notion of God?”

But I still think the only claim to the possibility of divine existence is the question: who wrote the rules? Who said that all that goes up must come down? Who said F = MA and 1+1 = 2? On whose authority does light travel at 299 792 458 m / s and E = MC2?

I dunno, and I don’t think anyone else knows either.

You are a guy. (Or if you really insist otherwise, feel free to switch the genders). You and your best (male) bud are on the way to class. You pause by the restrooms. Your friend really needs to go.

Your buddy walks into the toilet – the girls’ toilet.

What do you do?

That is the prime paragon of the existence of social constructs. Why should anyone care which toilet they enter if they’re all basically the same? It’s all arbitrary plumbing. Ten thousand years ago – four hundred years ago even – if you were around would you care if some joker hung up a sign that said:

“For girls only. Pee on the next tree.”  (I want that sign.)

Actually this post should have gone up on another place as a serious argument, but that line was far too good to not be here.

Anyway the point here is that next time you want to enter a toilet while a friend of yours is around, why not stress-test your friendship with that situation? Use the line.

Mr Bei of Victoria Zoo watched the enclosure nervously. Xiao Tao was getting restless. Very restless. She had refused all food, swatting away petulantly at the freshly harvested bamboo shoots from a patch of bamboo grove Mr Bei had (superlegally) ordered airlifted from the deepest forests of northern China. After the ninth failed attempt her personal attendants had simply given up and allowed her to sulk at a corner of her favorite playpen. Pining, his chief veterinarian had claimed.  Mating season,  he had said, and winked.

It was all Thompson’s fault. Mr Bei gritted his teeth. If it hadn’t been for him and his bloody Animal Showdown at the Lone Star Casino and Rodeo Hotel! The Australian fool and his presumption – “Let’s do a show, mate, a show with the best of our nations! I’ve got good ol’ Bucky, roped him in myself off Simpson Desert. A pretty fair opponent with the proper gloves on, if I say so myself.” Mr Bei had agreed reluctantly – the check waved in front of his nose had been an influential incentive – and regretted it the moment the creatures set sight on one another.

Maybe it was his fault, Mr Bei conceded, for spoiling her so much. Thompson’s apologies had been profuse. “I’d do anything, anything at all, to make up for that- that…” He had run out of words. Mr Bei and the chief vet exchanged glances. One of the assistants had been gored seriously this morning. Mr Bei sighed heavily. “Send for Bucky.”

It arrived twelve hours later. Xiao Tao had almost torn down the custom made bamboo grove. Bucky was placed in a separate enclosure. The staff evacuated and from a safe distance, Mr Bei pushed the button that was to lift the gate between the enclosures. Bucky whimpered.

Xiao Tao pounced.

[Sentence: A b_____ p____ w____ a k_______ in T____.]

So I was thinking, if a bullshitter exists (I am one of them. Damn, wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to tell people you work as a “professional bullshitter”?), does a bollocker exist? That’s a good word, it is. Or is the S essential to the power of the word? Should it be “Bollocker” or “Bollockser”? Or should it not be even discussed at all?

(The following were taken from the Princeton Wordnet) -

Nut:

Noun

• S: (n) nut (usually large hard-shelled seed)
• S: (n) Nut (Egyptian goddess of the sky)
• S: (n) nut (a small (usually square or hexagonal) metal block with internal screw thread to be fitted onto a bolt)
• S: (n) en, nut (half the width of an em)
• S: (n) crackpot, crank, nut, nut case, fruitcake, screwball (a whimsically eccentric person)
• S: (n) addict, nut, freak, junkie, junky (someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction) “a golf addict”; “a car nut”; “a bodybuilding freak”; “a news junkie”
• S: (n) testis, testicle, orchis, ball, ballock, bollock, nut, egg (one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens) “she kicked him in the balls and got away”

Verb

S: (v) nut (gather nuts)

Bean:

Noun

• S: (n) bean, edible bean (any of various edible seeds of plants of the family Leguminosae used for food)
• S: (n) bean (any of various seeds or fruits that are beans or resemble beans)
• S: (n) bean, bean plant (any of various leguminous plants grown for their edible seeds and pods)
• S: (n) attic, bean, bonce, noodle, noggin, dome (informal terms for a human head)

Verb

S: (v) bean (hit on the head, especially with a pitched baseball)

I wasn’t really going to talk about nuts but the definition is so amusing I’m leaving it there. Today the topic of out-depth study is beans. More specifically, human beans. If you don’t know your English, let me tell you that I’m mangling it right now. Don’t learn from me, otherwise you might pick up such otherlanguagey words like “otherlanguagey”, “makaning” and the quintessential Malaysian “lah “. There’s also such gems picked up from overScrabbling – “hi gl”, “thx” and the all time classic: “gg”. Not to be mistaken for real words like AA/EE/OO/AE/AI/AO/EA/IO/OI/OU and my preferred mind boggler, EUOI. Remember, capitalizing is for nerds. (I’m a Scrabble nerd for capitalizing Scrabble words and the word Scrabble. Meh.)

Back to topic. The titular question here asks: What is a human bean? Does it describe a human like a bean, or a bean like a human? Does it look like this?

Nope, unfortunately that’s not what a human bean is.

Let us first look at the qualities of a human. Actually, let’s not. Assuming you, the reader, are a human, I would be inclined to think that you have way more information than you really need about humans. So let us look at the qualities of beans instead.

A bean:

1) is full of nutrients.

2) is longer than it is wide. Or is it wider than it is long? Whatever.

3) is brown.

4) has got its head stuck in the ground.

5) is all about feeding itself.

6) is all about making more little beans.

7) looks the same as any other.

8 ) doesn’t bother with thinking, cos it ain’t got no brains.

And a human bean is precisely the same thing. Only (duh) human. They are the masses, the everybody, the public, the “they” who “say”. The human bean is everywhere and nowhere. The human bean is nature.

You might be wondering by now, “Why the lengthy exposition on the properties of an empty shell?”

You see, I’m not interested in legumes. All humans have potential. I bet that you, reading this article at this moment perhaps giving me the compliment of a guffaw or a smirk (I love smirks), are thinking, “Gosh, these beans are so sad. I’m sure glad I’m not a human bean.”

Nobody would think that way (… I certainly hope so). Nobody believes in his or her mediocrity. But look at the normal distribution. Everyone falls within the 100%, lost within the sea of six billion faces, floundering, pleading to be heard.

Unless you are Bill Gates.

So strive, my beany friend, strive. Remember that I, a fellow nut, am striving too. We all are.

Maybe we can succeed, if we keep off the carbohydrates.

Fluffy says:
Ri–ight
Voon|~Pie says:
as “Ode to Laziness”
Fluffy says:
Really?
Voon|~Pie says:
this belongs in Lord Nod
Fluffy says:
VOON DRINKS, SMOKES AND GAMBLES
Fluffy says:
Post this up
Voon|~Pie says:
Quality Bullshit

(tm). Proof: I fulfill my promises. Well all the ones that I fulfill anyway.

Here’s a fascinating phrase so many insensitive people like to trumpet to show their fantastical superiority over a minor percentage of mankind:

“God hates <insert honorific here>.”

Be it “fags”, “terrorists”, “pedophiles”,  “Democrats” (I’m not American either), “Nod”, or even, “me”.

But that presents an interesting conundrum:

If God is presented as loving everybody, God must be incapable of hate.

Which leads to another conundrum:

If God is all powerful, God can never be incapable of anything – including hate.

Leading to:

God is incapable of incapability. But that’s an incapability!

Plus:

Didn’t God create everything, including hate?

What now?