-- In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Footage of Swiss farmers pulling strands of spaghetti from trees prompted a barrage of calls from people wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti at home.Gotta wonder if you would have been one of those floaters ... or maybe one of those incensed by the renaming of the monuments ... kind of makes you smile :)
-- In 1985, Sports Illustrated magazine published a story that a rookie baseball pitcher who could reportedly throw a ball at 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) was set to join the New York Mets. Finch was said to have mastered his skill -- pitching significantly faster than anyone else has ever managed -- in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans' celebrations were short-lived.
-- Sweden in 1962 had only one television channel, which broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to receive color pictures by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. In fact, they had to wait until 1970.
-- In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.
-- In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement for the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.
-- In 1992, US National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." They even had clips of Nixon announcing his candidacy. Listeners flooded the show with calls expressing their outrage. Nixon's voice actually turned out to be that of impersonator Rich Little.
-- In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.
-- Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the "Left-Handed Whopper," specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original "right-handed" version.
-- Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed -- a technique they used to hunt penguins.
-- Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation.
April Fools Hoaxes
With Fools Day just two days away here is some Fools Day trivia from Yahoo. Here are 10 of the top April Fool's Day pranks ever pulled off, as judged by the San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes for their notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped.
Abbott Sells Computer to Costello
If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, "Who's on First?" might have turned out something like this:
COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START".............
The Darkside of Ministry
Recently our local paper had an expose' on the finances of a local SBC church saying that it's senior pastor kept financial matters secret. It is sad, though necessary, when the secular media does this kind of stuff.
Reign Over Me
I am an Adam Sandler fan - I think that he, mostly, makes pretty good movies. So I am wanting to catch this movie (it is opening today) before it leaves the big screens. Here are a few excerpts from Todd Hertz' Christianity Today review:What does Charlie need to reign over him? Love.You can catch my review of another Sandler flick here.
In telling the story of Alan's steady, bold and abrasive love slowly brightening Charlie's dark world, Reign Over Me hits on poignant, profound themes that make you think. This movie will lead to great discussions. Christians will see several ideas and thoughts reflected from the Bible. And Charlie's attitudes, emotional traps and side effects of grief may remind any audience of hurting loved ones—or themselves. After the film, you may think of hurting friends you need to call. I did. You may feel the need to talk to your spouse about what you want for them if you pass on first. I did. There are just so many provocative truths...
We see an example of why God designed us for close friendships and biblical fellowship. We see why we need one other—and, sometimes, need help from trained professionals. We see the importance of communication. We see the reality of people painfully holed up in their grief. We see the need to not run from or bury past loves, losses and mistakes, but instead remember—as painful as that process may be. We see why love is selfless...
At its heart, the movie is about people who have lost their bearings through tragedy, and dealing with it in unhealthy ways. It's redeeming and powerful—though uncomfortable to watch at times because it's about messy people navigating messy lives. And like in life, nothing heals quickly and easily. Instead, progress comes in fits and starts—and tends to hit rock bottom just when you think everything's getting better.
Dark Journey, Deep Grace
Dan Barry's March 11 New York Times article: He Befriended a Serial Killer,
and Opened the Door to God
The big wall clock tells the minister he has less than an hour before tonight’s Bible class down at the church.
No time for supper.
He finds his keys in the tight apartment that he and his wife, Susan, have rented for 16 years, shared now with an adult daughter, two cats and a dog. In this space the clock looms large, a treadmill dominates the living room, and bunny knickknacks everywhere signal the approaching season of rebirth.
A goodbye to Susan, a pocket pat to jingle those keys, and out he goes into the wintry Wisconsin sunset, Roy Ratcliff, minister of the Mandrake Road Church of Christ in Madison. No different from any other preacher, save for one baptism he performed long ago.
“My friend Jeff,” Mr. Ratcliff often calls him. A child of God.
His friend Jeff was killed in prison in 1994, several months after his baptism and in a brutal fashion too quick and clean for some. To say that he confessed to killing 17 young men and boys only begins to hint at his grisly crimes. His full name was Jeffrey Dahmer, and his depraved actions once made the world recoil.
Mr. Dahmer left behind confused parents, dozens of distraught relatives of the victims, the traumatized city of Milwaukee — and this white-bearded minister, struggling still at 60 with the sense that he, too, had been condemned, for having the audacity to grant God’s blessings upon the devil.
“I’m marked as the man who did that,” Mr. Ratcliff says, his tone suggesting frustration, not regret.
Before this singular act came to define him, Mr. Ratcliff was just another modest minister of modest means, addressing the temporal and spiritual needs of a few dozen congregants. He tended to speak rapidly, with New Testament references seeming to tumble from his lips with each exhalation.
Then, one day in April 1994, Mr. Ratcliff found himself in a small room at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, where an inmate had expressed a desire to be baptized. He had never met a serial killer; for that matter, he had never been inside a prison.
The young man entered smiling and unshackled. The minister calmed himself and got to the point: “I understand you want to be baptized.”
In Mr. Ratcliff’s mind, the shocking crimes of Mr. Dahmer were stipulated; the inmate had readily confessed to everything after his capture in 1991. What mattered now was whether this blond, pallid man before him understood that baptism cleansed his sins against God, not his crimes against the state.
“He was seeking redemption,” Mr. Ratcliff says, recalling how Mr. Dahmer often spoke of being the worst of sinners. “He was seeking forgiveness.”
A few weeks later, Mr. Dahmer donned a white polyester robe and climbed into a steel-silver whirlpool normally used by inmates with physical injuries. The minister gently pushed him under the water until he was fully immersed, and baptized him with a short prayer.
When the convict emerged, the preacher said, “Welcome to the family of God.”
Jeffrey Dahmer smiled.
Every Wednesday for months afterward, Mr. Ratcliff met with Mr. Dahmer to pray. The convict said he should have been put to death for his crimes, and his minister agreed. He talked about suicide, something the preacher had flirted with many years earlier, after being fired from another church. A shared faith drew the different men together.
A few days before he was killed in November 1994, Mr. Dahmer handed Mr. Ratcliff a Thanksgiving Day card that the minister keeps wrapped in plastic. “Dear Roy,” the note begins, in loopy handwriting. “Thank you for your friendship, and for taking the time and effort to help me understand God’s word.”
After a discreet memorial service at the minister’s church in Madison, after the notorious surname had slipped into the recesses of public consciousness, Mr. Ratcliff continued to be identified as the man who baptized the serial killer. Both in and out of the Church of Christ community, some embraced him for it, while others shunned him.
People would walk away when introduced to him or argue that they wanted no part of a heaven that included Jeffrey Dahmer. Some would praise him to his face, only to tell others that he had been duped. He was rarely invited to other churches to talk about the salvation of the least of us, because, he guesses, “there is a sense of shame.”
At gatherings of preachers in the region, he says, one minister from Milwaukee constantly points him out to others and says: Do you know who that man is? Do you know what he did?
“I’ve become a little bit jaded by the hypocrisy,” Mr. Ratcliff says.
Last year Mr. Ratcliff wrote a short book about what he calls Mr. Dahmer’s “story of faith.” The book, “Dark Journey, Deep Grace,” has sold poorly — perhaps, he says, because people cannot see that a story about Mr. Dahmer is a story about all of us.
Mr. Ratcliff says he is a better man for having known Jeffrey Dahmer, but knows that some people will have trouble understanding this. He says he now visits several prisons a month. He says he has a keener understanding of faith, and of mercy.
It seems that Mr. Dahmer is rarely far from the preacher’s mind. For example, that large clock looming in his family’s apartment was bought at a kiosk in the mall, with the honorarium the Dahmer family gave him for arranging the memorial service. The Ratcliffs call it “Jeff’s clock.”
By the time that clock strikes seven, the minister is already at his church, turning on the lights, checking the heat, greeting congregants. Soon he joins them in song.
The Thinking Blogger Award
This week Nova Dad has given me The Thinking Blogger Award. One of the responsibilities of this prestigious award is the awarding of five other blogs. So, drum roll please, I hereby bestow on the following blogsters the designation of The Thinking Blogger Award: From The Morning is a blog that causes me to think about faith and life from a younger perspective. It has helped me to expand my thinking beyond my experience ... and it is cool :)So, the responsibility of these award recipients is to award others with "The Thinking Blogger Award". Be sure that when you award them, you link back to the original source of this award and include the icon displayed above.
Enter The Rainbow is authored by a United Methodist pastor and has helped my see past my nondenom background and experiences. It has taught me to see value in a different faith perspective.
Prodigal Daughter is not a place you want to go unless you want to change. The author of PD writes in such a transparent and vulnerable way. She is authentic to the max and helps me to witness the life of an overcomer.
Julie Unplugged is a UPI religion writer that has a similar faith background to my own. Julie helps me to see faith and life in a helpful and constructive way. Her insights on Evangelicalism are revolutionary revelation.
Familyhood Church, The Milly Times and The Sword's Still Out (along with many other blogs) have caused me to rethink community. I listed these as representatives of bloggers that genuinely care for me and pray for me when I hurt. These bloggers are the reasons that I come back to blogworld every day.
Fortran Inventor Dies
John Backus, whose development of the Fortran programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82. Read more here.
Vote for Sanjaya ?
03/21 Update: Sanjaya Rocks American Idol
Heard about this website?
Apparently Howard Stern is joining with them in supporting Sanjaya for all the wrong reasons.
Of course it is just TV :)
Apparently Howard Stern is joining with them in supporting Sanjaya for all the wrong reasons.
Of course it is just TV :)
Grand Canyon Skywalk
Have you ever been to the canyon?
Recommendations?
Would this new attraction attract you?
Festival of the Pillow Fight
The crowds were large and jubilant at this year's Festival of the Pillow Fight. -- Nova Dad (Matt)
Church and Technology
Find more cartoons that you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.Each week I hear something or observe an attitude that reflects the sentiment in this cartoon by Dave Walker. Many in churchdom seem to think that technology is not needed and attempts at changing services to include technology (i.e. computerized presentations) is simply not needed. These folks also do not understand or even see a need for a church home on the internet. Such a sad commentary. What is your experience with technology in church?
War Zone Diary
On March 21 at 9pm CDT, MSNBC will air War Zone Diary, an hour special based on the video journal of NBC News’ war correspondent Richard Engel, 33, who has reported continuously from Iraq for the last four years. Here is a short interview he did with Tim Russert a few weeks ago on Meet the Press.Here is a quote from Richard Engel on what it’s like to live and work in Iraq for the last four years.
“As Iraq has changed, I have changed. The war has cost me my marriage. I’ve had friends killed and kidnapped, survived bombings and attempts on my life. I have seen Iraqis freed from the numbing, terrifying fetters of totalitarianism, and had their lives destroyed by the religious bigotry, ignorance, greed and opportunism unleashed by this war. It has changed my outlook. Violence and cruelty now seem, to me, to come easily to mankind; a new belief that disturbs me. But I am also more appreciative of how quickly life can turn for the better, or for the worse.”My prayers go out for Mr Engel and for all other US civilians in Iraq.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)