Today I walked downtown to the Walgreens, trudging my way through freshly fallen heavy snow and slush. I made sure to arm myself with snowballs lest some wise guy in his car decided to drive into the slop by the curb and splatter me with gunk. No one was dumb enough to do it.
Darn the luck.
Anyway, on my way out of the store, I saw one of the ladies who works there walk in. Now, I want to make clear that this is a nice lady. She's middle-aged with blonde hair, and always greets return customers with a cordial smile. That's part of the problem. This woman has the worst teeth in the history of humanity. People who have been dead ten years have better dental hygiene. I had wondered if she had grown up in England, but in speaking to her I couldn't detect an accent. Honestly, she looks like the Crypt Keeper on Tales from the Crypt (Great show, on late Friday nights on American Movie Classics). Her teeth, that is. I noticed that her right front incisor was mostly gone. It had decayed to a greater extent than the last time I'd seen her. I'm almost certain that she has no molars left at all, and very few incisors and bicuspids. She must be in constant pain. And her breath...yecch!
Anyhow, check out the Weird News link, and read Abe's quote. I'll be back tomorrow.
Have a day. :[
P.S. OK, here's the deal. To get more traffic, I joined the Yahoo! Member Pages Directory/Religion and Beliefs/Singles group. I click on a few sites, one of which is titled "Old-Fashioned Christian Girl..." So I click on it. Turns out this gal wants a "dominant husband/submissive wife" relationship. She gives a link to a site by a couple who practice "domestic discipline" So I click on that.
Hooboy.
This is all about S&M, folks. With, I imagine, whips and chains and hot black leather. There's a link to a page titled "Hormones Affecting Spanking".
These people are demented and their behavior is disgusting.
Promise me you won't go looking for that site.
3/6/04:
It's an ordinary day today.
I have a rip to make today, and it's about televangelists, especially faith-healing televangelists.
Some of the more blatant faith-healers use some interesting tricks in their acts. Peter Popoff uses "prayer cards" that folks fill out on their way into the auditorium. People write down their name and illness. These are given to his staff, who note the physical description of the individual and where he/she sat. Some radio equipment in a truck outside allows Popoff's wife to read off the prayer cards to her husband through a wireless, invisible earphone Popoff is wearing. Suddenly, Popoff is able to pick up through divine revelation the afflicted person's name and malady.
Naturally after this part of his show, the collection plate is handed around and Popoff usually has a pretty good night, income-wise.
The sad part of this is that people with cancer and other serious illnesses, believing that they have been healed by Popoff, refuse medical treatment and more often than not wind up dying in agony for no reason. If they had gone on with treatment, they might have survived.
There's a great book called Flim Flam! by James Randi that deals with his efforts to debunk the paranormal. I encourage you to read it. I believe the book is out of print, but your local library should be able to find you a copy.
Now it's through the miracle of television that Popoff and others of his ilk (Richard Roberts, W.V. Grant, Benny Hinn, etc.) really make their money. For they can hand that collection plate around the country, around the WORLD! I really love these guys, especially Hinn. He can be seen on the Trinity Broadcasting Network almost every day. Benny likes nice clothes: tailored suits, silk ties, Italian loafers. His hair is freshly barbered every day.
I wonder how much all of this costs? And I wonder how much of that money comes from little old ladies living well below the poverty line, living on cat food, living in cold-water, rodent and insect-infested flats or in tar-paper shacks down south?
Maybe Benny should buy off-the-rack like the rest of us and let those little old ladies keep their money.
Anyway, it's time for me to hang it up. I put a new link on the main page to Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird site. It's always good for laughs.
More on Monday. Have a weeekend. :[