Author: DOuG pRATt

Rick Perry channels Pat Robertson

Here’s Rick Perry, sounding like a televangelist instead of a Presidential candidate.

“Biblical principles” of money management? It’s been decades since I spent any time studying the Bible, but this is what I remember Jesus saying about money:

Matthew 19:

20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Get rid of your Xbox 360! Goodbye, PS3! Give up your iPhone and your HDTV, too.

Matthew 21:

12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Hmmm… what about bingo in church basements?

Matthew 22:

17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

So pay your fair share of taxes, rich people!

Perry is praised for the economic success of Texas, and creating jobs, but I think he owes the money flowing into Texas to the oil flowing out of Texas. Right now the Lone Star state is a year into its worst drought ever. Perry’s been praying for rain, but it hasn’t worked. Perry made his famously reckless comment about Ben Bernanke’s management of the Federal Reserved being “almost treasonous…”

… but he doesn’t think the idea of Texas seceding from the United States can be considered treasonous?

And oh, by the way, the unemployment rate here in Massachusetts is lower than in Texas.

A Hundred Sinners with the Feeling

Heard this song by the Feeling on BBC Radio 2 tonight. Another British band that deserves to get more traction in America.

And how about this? Michael Ball on Radio 2 talks with Doris Day. She comes in at 1 hour, 20 minutes into the programme (sorry, can’t embed it). Doris is 87 and she sounds great. Her son was the late Terry Melcher, who had a noteworthy career of his own in the music business. Doris had a squeaky clean “good girl” image in her movies, but she got married to her first husband when she was only seventeen, because she was pregnant with Terry.

Monte Schulz moves into ‘The Big Town’

After the craziness of the Iowa straw poll, where the ostensible winner lost and the GOP front runner didn’t participate, KRUU-FM in Fairfield, IA does something more reasonable and interviews novelist Monte Schulz.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Aug/monteschulz.mp3|titles=Monte Schulz interviewed on KRUU]

According to Amazon, Monte’s next book, The Big Town, will be out in February. Nice cover!

I’m comfortable having a couple of non-fiction books going at the same time, but novels I prefer to read all the way through to avoid spoiling the mood, and I’m starting Monte’s current novel, The Last Rose of Summer. Monte has a knack for defining distinctive characters, and in the first book of his 1920’s Americana series, This Side of Jordan, Chester is as chilling a cold-blooded killer as any villain you’d never want to meet. The funniest moment in the story for me is Monte’s nod to his father that I wrote about at this link.

Eating you out of House and home

Long before Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House, there was House, a bizarre 1977 Japanese movie about a haunted house that eats unmarried girls. House adheres to the Japanese Pop culture obsession with schoolgirls, and it’s essentially a ghost story, but with an amazingly varied, unrelenting series of creatively twisted, comic-horror images.

Because the movie is so utterly strange, it’s no surprise that on Amazon the customer reviews are all over the place. Watch the trailer and you’ll know whether or not you want to see the whole thing.

Garage garbage

Spent most of the day with Eric, cleaning out the garage. It should have been a Spring job, but it’s done. We took everything out, including from the always interesting loft (looks like a mouse and/or a squirrel was up there), gave the place a thorough sweeping and shop-vac, threw out a lot of stuff, and got everything back in, nice and neat.

In the loft I found the kiddie-sized resin chair Eric used when he was little. He sat in it for a moment as a joke and said we could throw it out, but I said keep it, in case a family with small children wants it. A few minutes later, a new family in the neighborhood with two small children walked by, and I offered the chair to them. They were happy to take it, and the father put in it the wagon he was pulling. It was one of those moments, that Eric doesn’t always appreciate, when I was able to say, “See? I told you.”

Back inside, I’m playing with the Squeezebox Touch I got for half price on a special deal from Logitech. The software still needs a few fixes, but that’s always the way with Logitech, and I have no buyer remorse with this purchase.