To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
20
Aug
2019
The case against conversion therapy is based, mostly, on it being aimed at the LGBTQ2 community. Mainly by the most conservative Christian churches, who consider homosexuality a sin, prohibited by the Bible and against God’s divine intention.
It’s directed mostly at gay men. The Bible has one verse denouncing sex between women, but I haven’t heard of conversion therapy being applied to them.
Conversion therapy attempts to show these “sinners” the error of their ways, and restore them to the heterosexuals God meant them to be.
I remember when mainstream society openly endorsed conversion therapy. In the 1970s, it was called “de-programming.”
It was advocated for returning prisoners of war, “brainwashed” in Vietnamese or Russian prisons.
Also, with good reason, for cult members mesmerized by charismatic leaders like Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Charles Manson. Manson convinced his Family to murder nine Hollywood celebrities and their hangers-on. Jones took his colony to Guyana, where 900 followers committed mass suicide. Koresh and 80 followers perished in the infamous Waco standoff.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: conversion therapy, Manson, Koresh, Jones
14
I didn’t read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Lovewhen it was a bestseller. I waited ten years.
When I finally read the book this summer, I was interested in the conversations Gilbert had with God -- or something -- by writing out her pain, anger, depression. And something told her hand what to write in reply.
Psychics might call it “automatic writing”; charismatic Christians might call it “writing in the Spirit.” Whatever it is, it gave Gilbert the assurance that she was okay, she was loved, she mattered.
One day, I didn’t want to do anything. I had a “to-do” list about a page long. But I felt utterly unmotivated.
I wondered what would happen if I applied Gilbert’s process myself. I started by typing, “I’ve wasted the whole day.”
Almost immediately my alter ego, or something, interrupted: “ What do you mean, wasted?”
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, inner voice
11
Three million years ago, a distant ancestor of mine lived in Ethiopia. Since then, we humans have grown taller, stronger, more intelligent and, I would hope, more compassionate.
After three million years of evolution, is Donald Trump the best we can achieve?
Trump is the world’s number-one human, the colossus who sits bestride the world (to borrow a line from historian Robert Payne). President of the world’s most powerful nation. Chief executive officer of the world’s richest economy, who can make stock markets around the world crash with a single Tweet. Commander-in-chief of the world’s largest military force, with the biggest nuclear arsenal.
A while ago, I resolved that I would not waste any more columns on Trump. It’s difficult to keep that resolution, when he declares himself “the least racist person in the world.” Or condemns the entire city of Baltimore as a “rat and rodent infested mess.”
But I cannot continue to avoid writing about him.
Tags: Trump, National Cathedral, Joe McCarthy, send her back
7
My pea vines have died. Despite getting the same water and sunshine as the rest of the garden, they seemed to know, somehow, that they had accomplished their mission. Now it was time to go to The Great Compost Bin in the Corner.
Like salmon, they produce their next generation, and then give up living.
All living things seem to recognize when their time is running out. Pea vines live less than one full summer; some trees will live thousands of years. But they all die, eventually.
And so, interestingly, do their individual cells. Cells have their own life spans. Human skin cells die every few days. So do the cells in the toxic environment of your digestive system. Sperm cells survive only a few hours.
Indeed, without cell death, we wouldn’t be human. A human fetus has webs between its fingers and toes -- a throwback, perhaps, to our amphibian ancestors -- and those web cells must die so that an infant can be born with recognizably human hands and feet.
Tags: apoptosis, genes, bel-2, overpopulation
4
According to legend, Paul Revere rode through Massachusetts at midnight shouting his warning, “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
I would like to ride out of the Rocky Mountains, shouting my own warning: “The glaciers are dying! The glaciers are dying!”
You can see this for yourself, if you drive the Icefields Parkway that runs from Banff to Jasper up the spine of Canada’s national parks. I’ve just returned from doing it.
The Crowfoot glacier no longer looks like a crow’s foot. The Angel Glacier does not look like an angel. And the Snowbird Glacier looks as if a coyote got to the bird first and ripped it apart.
Only by looking at old photos can you appreciate the names given to these glaciers.
Tags: Sandford, glaciers, Rocky Mountain, Icefields Parkway, watersheds