In Glock We Trust

I found an interesting item in the Washington Post the other day. It seems some Christians in northern Virginia don’t really expect their god to keep them safe, even when they’re in church. So, they’re helping him out.

By bringing weapons to church.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Parishioners carried Bibles in embroidered cases, babies with ribbons in their hair, and flutes, violins and sheet music into Immanuel Bible Church for Palm Sunday services.

And a few carried guns, tucked into waistbands, hidden under suit jackets.

- snip –

Philip Van Cleave, of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, said people have been carrying concealed weapons to church for years because of the threat of terrorism and church shootings across the country.

“Al-Qaeda has been our reason, as well as many of the recent church shootings around the country,” he said. “Think of it this way: If saving your own life isn’t a ‘good and sufficient reason’ to carry a gun, then what else could possibly qualify?”

- snip -

“Guns in a church? Why?” said Samy Youssef, a member from Alexandria. “God is our protector. He is our savior.”

- snip -

“The real sad thing for all of us in this is it’s an indication of where our culture is — that public meeting areas, churches, schools, town halls, malls are threats for terrorism,” Holley said. Two years ago, he said, a preacher in Illinois was gunned down in the pulpit.

The Rev. Tom Joyce, a fellow Immanuel pastor, said there was a case in Colorado in which a gunman began spraying bullets in a church but was shot and killed by someone in attendance.

“We rely 100 percent, before any weapon, in the power of the Holy Spirit to protect us,” he said. “It’s also good to have some people here on campus” who are trained and armed.

It seems to me that, if the Holy Spirit’s protection needs to be supplemented by firearms, then faith in him is not 100%, as claimed. Samy Youssef (quoted above) agrees with me. Apparently, the gun-toting Bible-thumpers who disagree with Samy and me are more inclined to believe that their god helps those who help themselves than to believe that he looks after his own.

– the chaplain

 

Chappie’s Kitchen #2

A long time ago, I started what was supposed to be a recipe series. The reason I haven’t shared anything since my first entry is that I don’t usually measure ingredients when I cook – I just add stuff, taste it, add some more and so on. The reason I have this recipe to share is that I wanted to get a nutritional breakdown, calorie count, etc. In order to do that, I had to pay more attention to what I was adding and how much of it was going into the pot. Today’s recipe is Amatriciana Sauce W/ Chopped Veggies.

This is a variation on Italian amatriciana sauce – I substituted bacon for the pancetta and added some fresh veggies. Authentic amatriciana is pretty hot and is simpler than this as it leaves out the veggies and some of the non-pepper seasonings. Be forewarned – the recipe below is a bit hot. The seasonings can be varied according to taste, and 1/3 cup of wine can be substituted for some of the water (if you use cooking wine, omit the salt). Also, fresh Roma tomatoes could be chopped and substituted for the canned tomato sauce to cut down the sodium.

We’ll start with the ingredients:

Hunt’s Tomato Sauce – 1 15-oz. can
Hunt’s Tomato Paste – 1 8-oz. can
Onion – 1/2 cup, chopped
Celery – 1/2 cup, chopped
Garlic – 4 cloves, chopped
Carrots – 1/2 cup chopped
Water – 1 cup, or 2/3 cup water + 1/3 cup wine
Sugar – 2 tsp.
Bacon – 4 slices, chopped
Pepper – 1/2 tsp.
Salt – 1 tsp.
Red Pepper – 2 tsp. (may substitute Tony Chachere’s seasoning)
Oregano – 1 tsp.
Rosemary – 1 tbsp.
Thyme – 1 tsp.

Next, the procedure:

Add tomato sauce, paste, liquid and seasonings to crock pot and begin cooking on high.

Once the base sauce has started cooking, chop vegetables and bacon, and brown in saucepan until tender. Start with the bacon, then add veggies when fat has started melting. You may add one tablespoon of olive oil, if needed, to keep veggies from burning. When veggies and bacon are nicely browned add them to the sauce in the crock pot. Sauce may be cooked in crock pot 2-4 hours without burning.

Prepare pasta – rigatoni and rotini go nicely with this sauce. One minute before pasta has finished cooking, remove 1-2 tablespoons of pasta water and reserve. Drain pasta, then add pasta and reserved cooking water to sauce. Cook pasta for one more minute in the sauce, then serve.

Finally, nutritional data for those who are interested in such things:

Note: the nutritional calculation does not include the pasta.

Servings Per Recipe: 4 (calculated at 1 cup per serving – this is quite a lot, so you may want to decrease the amount according to your taste)

Amount Per Serving

Calories: 166.9
Total Fat: 4.2 g
Cholesterol: 5.4 mg
Sodium: 1,869.2 mg
Total Carbs: 30.0 g
Dietary Fiber: 6.9 g
Protein: 7.3 g

If you like Italian food, you may enjoy playing with this recipe and adapting it to your tastes and needs.

Happy cooking!

– the chaplain

 

Intervention: Robin Cook’s Dose of Religious Bullshit

One of the books I took to Jamaica for beach reading was Robin Cook’s Intervention. I’ve read several of Cook’s medical thrillers over the years and have generally found them both entertaining and edifying. Unfortunately, that was not the case with this book.

The principle reason Intervention disappointed me was that Cook took the curious position of indicting alternative medicine while allowing for the possibility of faith healing. Yes, you read that correctly. In Intervention, Robin Cook simultaneously offered compelling evidence against such practices as chiropractic spinal manipulation, acupuncture and homeopathy and completely ignored the dangers of faith healing. Cook achieved this by having his characters take the same route that most Western believers take: they sought both medical attention and divine intervention for their sick child. And when the child was healed, they claimed not to care which factors had been efficacious – they were just glad their child was well.

*sigh*

Okay. As a parent I get that. In a desperate situation, the pragmatic side of me – allowed to operate unchecked by my intellect – could easily conclude, “What the hell; whatever works.” I can even accept that agnostic parents – such as Cook’s principal characters – might, in desperation, seek divine intervention for their chronically ill child. But, as a reader, I cannot accept that Cook, an author who “strives to elucidate various medical/biotech ethical issues…” would allow – without offering one shred of evidence to support his position – this one exception to his general condemnation of alternative medical practices.

Cook didn’t take the extreme position of promoting divine intervention in lieu of standard medical intervention. Of course not. That position would mark him as a nut and jeopardize his standing with both the medical profession to which he belongs and his readers. And it’s probably a position he abhors. Instead, he took the safe middle way that many Westerners take: a dose of conventional medicine accompanied by a dose of religion. In short, Cook takes the following positions in this book:

1. Alternative medicine – standard medicine = not acceptable.
2. Prayer placebos/healing hands + standard medicine = acceptable.

Like many people, Cook seems to think something along the line of, as long as people don’t ignore real medicine, religious placebos won’t do any harm. Does Cook feel the same way about acupuncture? Is he comfortable if people seek pain relief from both acupuncturists and MDs? What about crystals? Are crystals combined with pills okay? Exactly how does one determine which woo is respectable and which is reprehensible? Why is religion respectable and reflexology flaky? Personal prejudice surely is not an acceptable criterion for making such determinations. The bottom line is, if conventional medicine is the only necessary ingredient, why make allowances for any woo at all? Cook never answers this question. And that really pisses me off, because he’s the one who raised it. I suspect that, had Cook addressed alternative medicine without once mentioning faith healing, few people would have noticed, or cared if they had noticed, the omission. But, Cook didn’t do that. Instead, he went out of his way to introduce the religious element into his story, presumably so that he could go out of his way to make an exception for it. Consequently, what should have been a fascinating, informative read about the dangers of alternative medicine ended up being a piss poor novel, a lame apologetic for religion and an intellectually unsatisfying waste of valuable beach time.

My advice to Dr. Cook is this: the next time you’re compelled to write a book that is both entertaining and educational, do a gut check on whether you’re willing to follow your evidence to its logical conclusion. If you’re not, then do us all a favor and write about something else. Whatever you do, please spare us another failed intervention.

– the chaplain

 

Paradise Lost

The deacon and I enjoyed our vacation in Jamaica and will likely go back again. This is a glimpse of what we saw and did there. We began by flying into Montego Bay.

We also went to Rick’s Cafe, in Negril, to watch some cliff diving.

In addition to cliff diving, we were supposed to see the sunset. Unfortunately, some asshole on our bus booked dinner reservations at the same time as sunset at Rick’s. The deacon valiantly restrained me from throttling her.

I even managed to roll off my float for a little while and do some snorkeling.

Now, I’m officially in detox mode.

– the chaplain