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I remember when I was in Greg Boyd's summer apologetics class and we were going through and debating the arguments for the existence of God. One of the last ones was "The Music of J.S. Bach exists, so their must be a God". To this, I countered, "But the music of Metallica also exists so it probably is all by Chance, anyways!"


Last semester, one of my students lent me his Metallica CD and I decided, what the hay, let's give it a try. I was grading tests for my most mathematically-oriented class and started to really get into the music. "Wrrrronnng, wraaaahng, wwwrnng, WRAHHNG,..." But then, I felt convicted and put LifeHouse into the CD player and my heart suddenly swelled with compassion for the mathematically-challenged and from then on their grades were a lot better.


When I was in graduate school, it was common for my fellow graduate students to spend a lot of time talking about sports, making fun of the student news-paper, and so on... . I remember telling them about how I was pretty good at Baseball when I was growing up, except for the catching, throwing and hitting things. But I was great for team-spirit. I knew all the chants and everything, which was why they had me on the team... . Well it was either that or all that money my Dad was paying the Coach.

One of my professors from Graduate School was Warren J. Samuels, an agnostic Jew, who also was the grand-master of Economic Methodology, who was quite distinct in the way he incorporated the importance of volition into his Economics. In my first semester in Grad School, I had a course in History of Economic Thought with him. At one point, in the middle of the class, he told me, "In all my forty years of teaching, you are the second person that I have allowed to ask questions in my class with-out raising their hand first... . I tell you this, because the first was murdered and the murderer is about due to be released from prison." (I don't know if he was telling me to raise my hand or to be careful or both, but since I am rather paranoid about such things I think I was a little more careful from then on. )

Warren Samuels often emphasized the importance of law and rules for how economies function. He would tell us how sometimes when he discussed these things with his undergraduate students, there would be some libertarians in the class-room that would insist that there was no need for rules for how we should behave. He would then reply to them, "Okay, well then from now on grades will be determined in this class on the basis of bribes and sexual favors."

At a conference, I was in an elevator with this guy from MN that I was sharing a room with and two rather attractive female economists and another economist. The guy I was with was trying rather obviously to get the females to do stuff with us and mentioned, "there is a swimming pool on the third floor, we should go, I brought my swimming suit." After a pause that showed the females discomfort, I commented, "Yes, but the problem is... your swimming suit won't fit her..."

I was talking with some italian friends of mine(all female) and they were complaining about the fact that the men in their country not having any balls, being un-willing to stand up for themselves against those that are in charge. At which point, they asked me if I had any balls. I recounted a story from when I was in high-school and in choir and most my fellow basses were making rather racist remarks(I grew up in Coon Rapids, MN; the home of much white-trash). In reply, I pointed out how much our music was based on contributions from African-Americans and how many great sports-players were African-Americans, not condemning their racism or refuting it. My italian friends then commented that I had "smart" balls, to which I replied, "Well that's what I think with, you know..."
(Here I should mention that the Italian people are really suffering due to the failure of Christianity there. Addiction to pornography, unfaithfulness and the degradation of basic behavior is terrible. Almost all the italians I met wanted to leave, one way or the other. I didn't take advantage of their desire for a green card, though I could have. I know one of my italian friends had been seduced by a USAmerican who wanted to swindle her parents into paying for a free-trip to Italy for him. )

When I met one of my italienne friends, she told me exuberantly that her dream was to come to live in America. Then, (much batting of eye-lids) she asked me if I had a dream. I told her, "Yes,... to not die before I am 40." (I believe I was able to witness to my italian friends through my life and encourage them to become more involved with their church. I have passed along articles about the movement in the US to provide for more democracy within the Roman Catholic Church.)

Another time, I was eating out with a bunch of Italians and two Mexicans, a blonde female and a more typical-looking guy, when I was in grad-school. The Mexican guy started bragging to the Italians that if they came to Mexico they wouldn't need to bring their girlfriends since there were so many beautiful, available women in Mexico, making the Mexican female look rather uncomfortable.
To which, I replied, "Well, it's too bad the same thing can't be said for Mexican Males."(How else do you get someone making sexist remarks to discontinue?)

I went to Italy after my third year in Grad-school and spent a fair amount of time in Christian Rome( I have always been a tabernacle, not a temple, person). I tell people how my time in Rome was a spiritual experience for me, not so much because of all the Churches and what-not but I spent so much time staring up at the Systine chapel that the damage to my spine isn't reparable and every-time I crossed the street I saw my life flash before my eyes and so as a result of my time there I just feel a lot closer to God than I did before.

When I was in Italy I met some of my italian friends again, including the one who dreamed of coming to America. She studied African-American linguistics and was a dancer and now teaches English in a private school. Apparently, she had developed a crush when she was young on Michael Jackson that she never completely got over. I was confirmed that she wasn't the one, when in talking with her, she warned me that, "Unlike the African-Americans in the US, some of the Africans in Italy sell drugs and may mug you."(She longs for purity and this colors her view of African-Americans in the US.)

When I got back from Italy, I had an old friend who really wanted to go abroad too. So we decided to drive to Canada together, up to Thunder-bay. When we got there, we found out that it was a canadian holiday and nothing was open. We had asked what there was to do to this one guy. He turned out to be your friendly local head Communist-Party organizer. We got talking some about politics and he told us(this was before the 2000 election) that, for him, the silver-lining in the Bush Cloud was the fact that he did carry out the death-penalty a lot. Apparently, his view was that you give the worker the wealth but you require him to work and if he didn't work hard, you sent him to Jail and for incentive-purposes you executed about 20% of the prisoners every year. "But how do you decide when a worker isn't working hard enough?" "Well, that's the tricky part..."
At this point, my friend and I looked at each other and decided it was time to go home, happy that we lived in a country where Communism was never seriously considered.

I liked to try and tell a joke before I gave a presentation in Grad-School(Once I dedicated my presentation on the Male Marriage Earnings Differential(The difference in the earnings between married and never-married males controlling for other stuff) to a fellow student who I said probably was a better applied econometrician than me because he was married and I wasn't. I also gave an info-mercial for Water-Joe, Caffeine Water before a presentation. It makes great Kool-Aid!!!). Anyways, the night before the presentation, I had wanted to buy a new suit for my presentation and so I asked one of my Korean friends if I could borrow his car. The next day I dedicated my presentation to him, for having the courage to borrow his car to me.(I got my license when I was 21 and in grad-school. After having failed once in MN for hitting the stupid cone in trying to parallel park, and then another time for when I was trying to parallel park I thought I was crooked and so I spent five minutes trying to straighten the car out until finally the instructor told me we had wasted enough time, already. I then hit the cone on the back-wards parking part. Anyways, in MI, the rules for getting a license were much, much harder. I mean sure I was able to get off with doing the parallel parking in a very small car with a big parking-space but the really tough part came when I had to laugh at the worse jokes ever that the driving instructor told during the test. The driving instructor, who apparently was polish, told me about this guy who went to the doctor's office and told the nurse, "I got the see the Doctor. It hurts, everywhere I touch it hurts." So finally the Doctor saw him and looked at him and asked, "You're Polish, right?" The guy said, "Yeah, how'd you know?" "Well, you're fingers broken." So I had to laugh at that joke and others, and, fortunately, he gave me my license.) "Most people, you think, wouldn't have been willing to trust me with their automobile. I just wish it hadn't died outside of the mall where I had to stop to ask for directions." (It's not my fault, I'm actually a good driver, though I prefer to bike.)

I passed along some french jokes a French friend of mine sent me to a number of people, including my students and my high-school biology teacher. My high-school biology teacher wrote me a long email(with whom I have apologeticked quite a bit), telling me how inappropriate the jokes were. So I sent him an email saying that he was probably right and I wouldn't do it again. The next day, I apologized to a very pro-UN german student of mine, telling her about the letter I got from my Biology Teacher and concluding that I had come to agree that it wasn't right to make fun of weaker nations...

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I think you had to be there to really get these...

dlw

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I liked them all, except the one about the duck.

peace and love, don

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I think you had to be there to really get these...

dlw

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I liked them all, except the one about the duck.

peace and love, don

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"No Rules, just Right" Outback Steakhouse

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You just didn't understand the one about the duck.



I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.

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op Ten Things Heard In Line To Buy Hillary Clinton's Book

10. "At last we'll cut through the lies and get to the embellished,
politically motivated truth"

9. "Do we get a discount if we've had sex with Bubba?"

8. "Hey, the Whitewater chapter is all shredded"

7. "Why ain't your husband king no more?"

6. "Hillary Clinton? Crap, I thought it was the new Harry Potter book"

5. "That Barnes and Noble cashier looks a lot like Al Gore"

4. "I hear the section about Bill is a pop-up book"

3. "The last time I was at one of these, Rosalyn Carter showed up
drunk"

2. "Twenty-eight bucks for a book? That Lewinskys"

1. "I feel weird doing this with your wife right there, Mr. Clinton"



Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

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Hey...these were from David Letterman the other night.

Tigress

The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.
-Psalm 34:7