Janel's Place

Dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor;
So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1)

That wasn't meant to be anything other than a cool fly reference from the Bible, but maybe it is applicable to my present frame of mind.

I have a massive brain clot building about the gospel of Mary. It's just that when you sit there and calmly claim to a room full of Christians that the gospel of Mary really should have been included as one of the gospels and that Jesus may very well have been married to Mary Magdalene as that's not an unusual thing for a man to do, you are stating a few more things than that:

A. The apostles are male chauvinists and also some pretty awful liars.
B. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself manifested in the flesh, married a human being before dying for the sins of humanity, and the apostles failed to mention it.

The implications of this idea are farther reaching than that, maybe I could get out to Z if I had more time to spend on it. Can you be a Christian and believe this kind of crap? Can you? Is that the wrong question? Should I be saying "Can I?" I can't. I can't. Look, I just tried and it's not working out, try and pry my mind open farther if you want to.

Here's a piece of ammo people reference as support for this idea.
John 11:5 "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."

Doesn't that imply that the relationship was far more complicated than a simple marriage? Hmm? NO I'm not laughing, I'm saying that this concept is ridiculous and utterly incompatible with the Christian faith and I don't know why we all just SAT THERE and didn't point that out. This gender inequality accusation against the Words of God and His disciples is something I have encountered before and am therefore equally angry at myself because I don't have great answers when things like this come up. I sit quietly and strongly desire to chew people's heads off defending my God and the sense of His Words written as is but I choke on words. I suppose I fear circular reasoning and fear being cornered with an answer along the lines of "mere faith," but it is not mere faith that Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God and walked the earth performing miracles and fulfilling prophecy, and if He chose a bunch of male chauvinist liars to carry on His message you have to work DARN HARD to reconcile that in your mind, in fact a great deal harder than questioning the validity of the gospel of Mary.

What really bothered me, and I mean REALLY BOTHERED ME is that the claim in my first paragraph was made and the room full of Christians was silent. Are we that uneducated in our faith? I don't know these people, maybe they all have their own answers and simply let it go in the format of a guest lecturer that should not and need not be challenged. I wasn't in on the secret. This guy had command of some interesting historial trivia but he remains utterly clueless about Christianity and the foundations of the faith or he wouldn't pitch crap like that at a Christian fellowship. What was his point? What was the point of having him there? I don't know. It smacked me from left field, that's not what I expected, I'm really disappointed, but then again I formed my expectations on my own and can only hope and pray that this kind of poison was smiled and dismissed by all. If not there is certainly work to do. By someone. I really get ticked when people twist Christianity around. I get really ticked when Christians let them do it. I don't think it was my place to start a big argument there, I don't know what they invited him for or what they thought of what he said. Right now I know I'm ticked.

The foundation of the Christian faith is the Bible, written as is. I admit it. I'm not ashamed of it. Beat it with a theory that makes more sense. Go ahead.
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When llamas live in herds they have a communal dung pile. This is just another amazing reason why everyone should want llamas.

Today I learned that there are two statistical worlds. One of them models all parameters using binomials. If I ever figure out what that really means then I suppose I will have ascended to a higher level of intelligent thought. At the moment I'm here with my humming fridge and my adopted housefly that Carin stepped on yet he survived therefore I've given him his own vial and a bubble of water that he likes to hug. I'm wondering how the heck to write a chapter about a protein that I know less than nothing about and the more I read about it the less I know about it. Other than that my flies have too many chromosomes and I don't know what to do with them all without the help of some serious magic.

I counted 23 chickens at home, 12 are mine. Noone is showing signs of Avian flu. George has been accused of chasing down the goats and giving Ashley a nasty leg wound that has rendered her 3-legged for the time being.

Gas is $2.19. Tuna with miracle whip is disgusting.

I've dreamed about our old blue suburban twice in one month.

If this gets any more boring I think I'll have to stop.
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Never mind. Too tired.
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Made it through that week, whoa. Gotta backache from getting pitched around dancing, tired of the flies by now but saw a 4-winged one yesterday at the Creation seminar (that was cool)... blanking out now in the numb stare at the computer screen that seems to happen on Fridays a lot. The fridge is sending me into a humming trance, maybe I am a fridge. I store food and sometimes moldy items and solutions and I'm cold and I stand in the lab a lot and things are stuck to me. I'm a lot like a fridge, more than I ever thought.

I need to go buy crickets my frogs are starving. I'm parked on Pluto somewhere. I crave llamas all the time, I think I'm sick.
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You know those days where you've been in the lab so long you just don't want to leave anymore? No, you probably don't. Guessing from the empty building only weird freaks of nature feel that way. Well I just can't leave. I'm mocha latte bug-eyed and happy with error bars that no longer overlap the other genotypes but upset that 3 Hz is not as beautiful as I thought it would be and if the CS mutant really does get lower after 30 pulses I wonder why I didn't see that at 10 Hz and what does it mean anyway and if I need to figure out what that could mean before I can get out of here that could be another reason why I really don't want to leave. I hear squeaking... it's the squeaking man-eating phantom and it's going to eat me. Maybe it's Al Gore. I'm sitting pretty still and only moving my fingers, maybe he'll think I'm a tree with a few twitching leaves. Maybe Kerry and Gore can run against Hillary Jeckyl and Hillary Hyde. Maybe if I run around the moors of England at 4:30 in the morning Mr. Darcy will come and tell me I bewitched him. Maybe my web of causation can lead me to all of the answers about what I'm doing here and a thorough inductive investigation will allow me to slowly but surely uncover the web until I can define what is wrong with me with 95% confidence. God is cool. If Kathi is right and I'll get to heaven and no longer really care to know all the answers than I better get my kix in this life. She could be right. I am now sleeping with my eyes open and almost completely mad. If I wait a few more minutes I can catch some coast-to-coast on the way home. Yikes the man-eater is coming back. Oh it's only Nancy. She doesn't want to leave either. I think I'll grab my spoiled tuna and go home. It doesn't seem like the sensible thing to do but that's what I usually do so I guess I'll do it. Story of my life.
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by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!
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A-alone in the lab
B-butter from lunch today
C-coffee from the freezer launch where I didn't win an ipod
D-don't want to think hard right now
E-enough is enough
F-frog from... Atsuko? Hee Jin?
G-gloves that are really dirty now that I wear them in the barn
H-hate it when maggots die on me
I-i don't feel like blogging right now
J-journal articles that should be read
K-keys to my car without a door handle
L-lab notebook
M-millions of boogers
N-nobody else is here
O-out of here someday
P-penguin from the freezer launch
Q-Queen c.d. that is not cool because it's in concert
R-rescue me from an n of 40
S-sharpies that probably aren't mine
T-tired brain that can't grasp an n of 40
U-ugly old electrodes
V-very braindead
W-water bottle that is cool with "Promega" on it
X-x on 11 larvae
Y-yucky broken wire
Z-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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