Mythology Synchroblog

I've just learnt about an interesting mythology synchroblog, which everyone is welcome to participate in. Unfortunately there's not much time left -- target date tomorrow.

Mythology Blog: Between Old and New Moons � Mythology Synchroblog 5 Reminder (Also Messing around with Typealyzer and Gender Analyzer):

Mythology Synchroblog:

This is a reminder that the Mythology Synchroblog is just around the corner (Dec 1). It’s not to late to join in. Everyone is welcome to participate. So please let us know if you’re interested in the comments below.

The Topic for the Mythology Synchroblog is Mythical Monsters and Otherworldly Entities. The Deadline/Post Date is December 1st.

And then there's also the Darkness Synchroblog due on 10 December. Details should be available at Upcoming Synchroblogs, though they are not there yet. In the meantime you can learn more at Square No More: Darkness and Light as Motifs of Spirituality: Next SynchroBlog

Jonestown - 30 years on

On the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, the media are running anniversary pieces. Such bizarre behaviour as mass suicide is usually attributed to "fundamentalists", but in this case it was actually group from a "mainstream" Protestant denomination.

GetReligion “The press . . . just doesn’t get religion.” — William Schneider:

Jones was a minister in good standing of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), an absolutely normal denomination at the heart of the liberal Protestant ecumenical establishment. He was an idealist on the left and, as everyone knows, this kind of theocratic, cultish behavior is supposed to take place on the theological right, not the left. That’s where the wackos reside. Correct?

Thus, there has always been a tendency to avoid in-depth discussions of what Jones believed, what he preached and how his idealistic, progressive congregation — one committed to racial equality, free health care and social justice — evolved into an armed camp of suicidal killers lined up at a vat of cyanide and fake fruit juice.

Blogiversary

Today is the third anniversary of this blog.

It is now three years since I started Notes from underground on 28 November 2005, and in that time there have been 741 published posts (this is the 742nd).

This wasn't by any means my first online blog or journal.

I atarted an online journal at DearDiary at the beginning of the new millennium





I was then invited by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist to join LiveJournal, which I still use as a journal for personal events and happenings.

I then discovered Blogger, and started a blog here, because the Blogger software was specifically designed from blogging rather than journalling. The distinction between blogging and journalling is rather fuzzy nowadays, but a blog, or web log, is still basically a commentary on things one finds on the web, and Blogger had the "Blog this" feature that made it easy to link to web sites and comment on them.

Then Google took over Blogger, and introduced a new beta version of the software, in which many of the features, including "Blog this", no longer worked. At that point, from about October 2006, many Blogger users began moving to WordPress, and when more and more things in Blogger were broken, I myself started a WordPress blog, Khanya, in February 2007, in case it became necessary to move.

At first the Khanya blog was just experimental, just to see what could be done with it, but I began using it more and more, as Blogger remained crippled. Then about a year ago Blogger began to improve again, and many of the features like "Blog this" began working again.

So now I have two main blogs, which I use about equally. This one, Notes from underground, I still use mainly as a blog proper, to comment on other web sites, because the "Blog this" feature makes it easy. So if there is a distinction, this blog is more for news commentary, while Khanya is more for articles and ideas. But the distinction is not by any means absolute, and the choice of which blog I put something in is often determined not by subject matter, but by which one makes it technically easiest to accomplish whatever I want to do.

A lot of stuff that would previously have gone into my LiveJournal now also goes into this blog or Khanya, because they include pictures directly, while LiveJournal only allows one to link to pictures uploaded to a third-party site like Photobucket, which makes it more of a hassle to include pictures.

One thing that seems strange, however, is that even though I use this blog and Khanya interchangeably, the Khanya blog, on WordPress, always seems to attract more readers, as the following graph from Amatomu shows:



And that's in spite of the fact that this blog has been going almost twice as long as the Khanya one, and should thus have been able to gather more readers.

Anyway, it's now three years old, and I wonder if it (or I) will still be around after another three years.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has read it and commented on the posts over the last few years. It's the comments that make blogging worthwhile, and help one to see whether ideas are worth pursuing or not. Well, perhaps I should qualify that by saying intelligent comments. Spam comments, and other comments that have nothing to do with the post and so add nothing to the subject, are worse than useless.

Spend! Save! Don't spend! Don't save!

As the economic recession gets closer to a full-blown depression, the conflicting messages from economic fundis and would be fundis become more and more confusing, leading to reports like this: Spend less this Christmas, says the Church of England, as retailers head for bankruptcy :: Damian Thompson:

Every year the Church of England tries to underline 'the real meaning of Christmas' with a publicity campaign and every year it makes a hash of it. Indeed the sound of a Christian PR stunt backfiring has become a much-loved feature of the festive season. This year s headline the Bishop of Reading the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell calls on the public to spend less in the shops just as the recession is biting and shopkeepers are searching anxiously for customers. Nice one bish.

Hat-tip to A conservative blog for peace.
And then there's this.
TitusOneNine - Joe Nocera--The Worst Is Yet To Come: An Anonymous Banker Weighs In On The Credit Card Debacle:

Over my career, I have seen thousands of consumers that have credit card lines in excess of their annual salaries. Some are sinking under their burden. Some have been fiscally responsible and have minimal amounts outstanding. My 21-year-old daughter, who’s in college, gets pre-approved offers all the time. She has no ability to repay debt, yet the offers flow in just the same. We all know how these lines are accumulated. The banks, in their infinite stupidity, keep upping credit lines because the customer pays the minimum payments on time. My daughter’s credit line started at $1,000 and has been increased over the last two years to $4,400. She has no increased earnings to support this. But the banks do it without asking. And without being asked. The banks reel in the consumer, charge interest rates higher than those charged by the mob, increase lines without the consumer asking and without their consent, and lure them into overextending. And we can count on the banks to act surprised when they aren’t paid back. Shame on them.

You swipes your credit card and you takes your pick.

Muti murders and ritual killing

The Daily Dispatch has a good article on the growing number of muti and ritual murders.

Daily Dispatch Online:

THE use of human body parts for medicinal purposes – “muti”, derived from the word meaning tree – is based in the belief that it is possible to appropriate the life force of one person through its literal consumption of another. Medicine, or muti, murder appears in several countries across Africa, with ethnographic evidence going back to the early nineteenth century in South Africa. Research indicates that an estimated 80 percent of South Africans regularly use traditional herbs and medicines for muti.

Not all traditional healers make use of human body parts as an ingredient in their medicines, but those who do place an “order” with a person hired for this specialist purpose. The orders include private parts, tongues, hands, heads, eyes and lips which are used to ensure economic prosperity, sexual potency and to promote romantic matters amongst others.

These are the type of self-centred motives that leads to murder.

The use of human body matter does, however, not always involve killing. F or example, a living person’s nail clippings or hair cuttings may secretly be collected by a jealous neighbour or friend and used in potions targeted against that person. Body parts can also be harvested from corpses, with mortuary workers and hospital staff implicated in this aspect of the trade.

Lest this be thought to be a problem related only to African culture and African traditional medicine, the following report indicates that Western medicine also suffers from this kind of abuse:

News - Crime & Courts: Spotlight on organ transplant scandal:

A decision is to be made this week on who is to be prosecuted in the alleged international kidney transplant trafficking scandal which allegedly involved St Augustine s Hospital and eight KwaZulu-Natal doctors specialists and staff.

And a decision will also be made on what the proposed charges 'the participants' should respond to said Advocate Robin Palmer a law professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who has been called in to prosecute the case.

Charges were provisionally withdrawn two years ago against the doctors and Netcare transplant unit staff to allow the State time for further investigations.

Harvesting organs in this manner, whether for African traditional medicine or Western scientific medicine, turns healing into a zero-sum game, in which the health of one person can only be improved at the cost of the health of another.

The Times - Carter: Zim crisis unimaginable

Recently former US President Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary Kofi Annan and Graca Machel were refused entry into Zimbabwe.

The Times - Carter: Zim crisis unimaginable:

Former US president Jimmy Carter today said the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe appeared greater than he had feared, due to the country’s crumbling economy and failing health system.

Carter had planned to visited Zimbabwe last weekend with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and rights activists Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela. But all three were turned away by President Robert Mugabe’s regime.

They had wanted to highlight the country’s humanitarian crisis, with half the population expected to need food aid and a cholera epidemic killing hundreds of people.

"Unimaginable" just about sums it up.

Over the last ten years or more we have watched helplessly as the rulers of Zimbabwe have systematically destroyed the country, and in effect waged war against their own people. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is Mugabe's petulant revenge against the people for failing to give him additional powers and presidency for life in a referendum. In revenge he took them anyway, and set out to bankrupt the country and destroy its infrastructure.

I can't think of any other country in the world where such a thing has happened. Well, maybe Pol Pot's Kampuchea, but no others. And Kampuchea lasted for a relatively short time. Zimbabwe's agony has gone on and on and on.

I think Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Graca Machel are people of goodwill and considerable diplomatic experience. If they despair of a solution to the problems of Zimbabwe, what can the rest of us do?

South Africa has suffered because of Zimbabwe's problems, but we have also benefited in ways that we can't imagine. We have benefited from the skills and knowledge of Zimbabwean refugees. One day Mugabe will fall, and when that day comes many of them will return to rebuild their shattered country. They will leave behind a gap of skills and expertise that we barely appreciate. Are we prepared for that day?

Random acts of political correctness

Yesterday I posted some thoughts about giving money to street beggars as an act of Christian charity that some people wanted to outlaw. A couple of commentators seemed to have a problem, or at least a query, about my calling this Christian. Then Notes from a Common-place Book: Those Wacko 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians pointed me to this:
I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into 'turning the other cheek.' We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like 'righteousness' and 'justice.'

It's good to be reminded of the need to live a balanced Christian life and to avoid fanaticism and extremism. Perhaps that's what it means to be "a moderate".

Moving back to Blogger?

A couple of years ago half the Blogger blogs I knew were announcing that they were moving to WordPress. Here's one going the other way.

On blogger now � Rock_Angel_Grass:

To all readers who want to read more of my blogs, please visit me at http://blogophobicgracia.blogspot.com for more updated posts.. Thank you.. :-)

Back then, of course, Blogger was being "upgraded", and many features stopped working and the "full-featured" Beta version was missing many of the features that had made people like Blogger in the first place.

Now the Blogger software has stabilised, and some people, it seems, are beginning to move the other way.

For myself, I continue to keep a foot in both camps. One platform is good for some things, and the other for others.

Britain: Eyewitnesses reveal Jean Charles De Menezes shot without warning

from most of the evidence given at the inquest so far, it seems that the police were behaving like terrorists.

Britain: Eyewitnesses reveal Jean Charles De Menezes shot without warning: "No commuters were called to give evidence at last year’s Metropolitan Police health and safety trial over the shooting. This is the first time they have told their stories in public. It is also the first time the two officers who shot de Menezes have given evidence. The inquest has been adjourned until December 1, when the coroner will begin summing up the evidence.

De Menezes was shot after being wrongly identified as a terrorist suspect on July 22, 2005, the day after the bungled terror attempt on the London underground, when four men left rucksacks packed with explosives on London’s transport network that failed to detonate."

Can Christianity be saved from empire

Can Christianity be saved from empire? was the title of Prof Nico Botha's inaugural lecture as professor in the Department of Spirituality, Church History and Missiology at the University of South Africa (Unisa) last night.

I wouldn't dare attempt to summarise his lecture in a blog post -- for one thing he left large chunks out, and Dr Puleng LenkaBula's response, which summarised it, lasted half an hour. But there are some points that I'll comment on.

He mentioned various metaphors for the relationship between Christianity and empire: knot, captivity, midst, shadown, intermingling, intertwinement, travel companion.

He noted that Christianity has both imperial and anti-imperial aspects. The language of Christianity is imperialist - Jesus is Lord, the Kingdom of God, etc. This goes back to the beginning. Though Abraham is a landless wanderer, he is promised that he will be the father of a great and mighty nation. Joseph had a cosy relationship with the Egyptian empire.

But Jesus did not always behave in an imperialist fashion.

Nico spoke of the church as a parasite or hybrid, living in the space in between, and mentioned another theologian (I forget who) who had spoken of Jesus as being a sort of parasite or hybrid, being both God and man. But I'm not sure that that is the best image of the incarnation.

But all the way through his lecture I kept thinking that I would like Nico to come round to our place and see the film Ostrov (The Island), and discuss it afterwards, because it seems to relate to so much of what he was talking about. And after the lecture Val said the same thing -- she kept thinking of different parts of the film. Since we have the film on DVD I'm still hoping we may be able to gather a few people to watch and discuss it, since it seems to link to so many issue that people are talking about.

Apart from the lecture itself, it was good to meet old friends from the Unisa missiology department like Klippies Kritzinger and Willem Saayman, and catch brief glimpses of others that I knew, like Karabo Makofane, Annalet van Schalkwyk and Piet Meiring. I hoped that I might meet fellow blogger Reggie Nel, but didn't.

Blog Comment Day 2008 | Blogging

John Smulo is tryin g to promote more interaction in the blogosphere by starting a "Blog Comment DaY"

Blog Comment Day 2008 | Blogging:

Though there may be 100 reasons why people blog, I've yet to meet a blogger who doesn't appreciate comments. For this reason I'm starting Blog Comment Day on December 3, 2008. Here's how it works:

* On December 3, 2008 you will leave one comment on at least 5 different blogs.
* Out of the 5 blogs you comment on, at least 2 of them will be blogs you haven't commented on previously.

John has also set up an event on Facebook and invited people to join in.One thing that surprised me about that was the number of people who declined the event. I'm amazed that so many people have conscientious objections to commenting on other people's blogs!

My demonized computer

My computer has a demon, it really has.

OK, it's probably a daemon, but it's a demonic daemon.

It takes control of my computer most mornings about 9:20, just when I'm trying to get some work done, and wastes about half-an hour every day.

What happens is that the hard disk starts churning, and the computer then takes an age to respond to anything. The only way to gain control again is to press and hold down the power button until the thing stops, and then reboot.

But this morning I decided to do it the long way. When I clicked a few times and there was no response, I checked, and sure enough, the disk activity light showed that the hard disk was churning. I'd been viewing a web page, and tried to close it, as I thought it might be trying to send me something long and expensive, like a video. When it took a long time to close, I realised what was happening.

09:23 - Decide to shut down
09:26 - clicked the Restart button
09:28 - htqtra08 closing, then computer closed down and time disappeared
09:36 - time reappeared on reboot
09:43 - Loading ZoneAlarm
09:45 - Reboot complete.

OK, so that is 22 minutes, but from the time the problem starts to the time I get back to where I was working and start working agan, it's more like 30 minutes.

It's possible to save 5-7 minutes by switching off with the power switch instead of going through the close-down but it's still a long long time.

I'm running Windows XP, and if ever I have to replace this computer, I'll probably be forced to use Vista, which to all accounts is worse.

One of the problems is that Windows never tells you what it's doing half the time. Microsoft don't see fit to tell you. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to see what program is running and misbehaving so one can close it down, and there's nothing there. When you boot up, there are all kinds of "processes", and I've read that you can speed things up by omitting some of them, but how do you know what they do and whether you need them or not? Microsoft doesn't tell you.

There are other things Microsoft doesn't tell you, or someone doesn't tell you.

Some program, I don't know which, underlines things it regard as spelling mistakes in some documents. But it underlines some spellings that are correct. So where is it, and can one adjust the settings and update it's spelling dictionary?

There is another (or perhaps the same one) that "suggests" things to use to fill in fields on web pages. The trouble is, it "suggests" every typo I've ever made. What is this program, where can one find it, how can one adjust its settings and remove the typos?

Are there any fundis out there who can answer some of these questions?

Someone I know had a hard disk crash recently, and when her hardware had been repaired, she had a problem "revalidating" the Windows operating system. She tried every available method, but nothing worked.

Eventually a friend helped her by loading a pirate version of Windows XP on her computer. It was half the size, booted in half them time, and ran at about twice the speed. It was a stripped down version that was an improvement on the original.

Actually for most of my work I'd be quite happy to use MS DOS. The only trouble is that it hasn't been updated and can't handle modern hardware -- disk drives, controllers, video cards etc.

People say use a better OS, like Linux, but I don't know whether the programs I use most often would run under Linux. I have 20 years of work on my computer, if not more. I really don't have time to start all over again and redo all that stuff.

So perhaps it's time to exorcise my computer.

Nouslife: Freeing the Saints From Hallmark Festivals

Nouslife comments on the modern potlatch, the exchanging of cards and presents on every conceivable occasion.

Nouslife: Freeing the Saints From Hallmark Festivals:

First this specific got my attention: 'Robyn learned the story of St. Nicholas, the Turkish bishop who became a symbol of anonymous gift-giving by providing dowries to three destitute sisters. (You can read the story in Samantha Baker-Evens article, “The Real Santa Claus”.) When Robyn shared the story of St Nicholas with her children, she was able to encourage them to focus their gift-giving on those who were really in need at Christmas and remember the One who gave us the greatest gift of al—Christ our Saviour. The whole family volunteered to serve Christmas dinner at a local homeless shelter, and they bought a goat for a poor family in Ethiopia. “It was our most satisfying Christmas ever,” she said.'

I must say that the first thing that struck me about it was the anachronism of saying that St Nicholas was a Turkish bishop -- it's a bit like saying that King Arthur was an English king.

And the second thing that struck me about it is that the Hallmark festivals have already freed me a long time ago. Well, that and Tom Lehrer's song

Relations sparing no expense'll
send some useless old utensil
or a matching pen and pencil
just the thing I need, how nice.

It doesn't matter how sincere it is
nor how heartfelt the spirit
sentiment will not endear it
what's important is the price.

Being urged to buy presents and send cards for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day and all sorts of other days has cured me of buying Christmas cards as well. It just became too much of a good thing -- for the greetings card industry, that is.

My mother-in-law used to send Christmas cards to all sorts of friends and neighbours. She came across one card which was much too nice for the rather vague acquaintances who were next on her list, so she decided to send it to her sister instead. She'd already sent them one, so she signed that one "Gilbert, Effie and the twins" just to mystify her.

But nowadays the greetings card has been replaced by the blog, and that's available all year. Who needs the prepackaged sentiments of the doggerel in a commercial greetings card when you can say it yourself in a blog?

It's no longer "You send me a card and I'll send one to you". It's "You read my blog and I'll read yours."

And instead of making lists of all the people who sent you Christmas cards last year so that you can send them one this year, we have MyblogLog and BlogCatalog to let you know exactly who's been reading your blog so that you can reciprocate. Eat your heart out, Hallmark!

More on child witches in Africa

The UK Channel 4 programme on child "witches" in Africa broadcast last week has reignited debate on the topic. I keep a database of African independent churches and church leaders, to try to build up a coherent picture of African Christianity, but the media reports on this phenomenon, which has been reported mainly from Nigeria, the DRC and Angola, usually raise more questions than they answer.

According to Tracy McVeigh of "The Guardian" (9-Dec-2007) "it is American and Scottish Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries of the past 50 years who have shaped these fanatical beliefs".

What I would like to know is which American and Scottish missionaries these were. What are their names, their background? Who sent them to Nigeria, and when? Which denominaations and mission agencies sponsored them? What was the source of their teaching, and how did they influence those who are propagating these beliefs in Nigeria today?

These seem to me to be very important questions for missiologists and church historians to be asking. We have international academic discussion forums for researchers on African Independent Churches and New Religious Movements, but if anyone is doing research into those topics they aren't saying. Possibly some sociologists have been doing research into it, but if they have, I haven't heard of it. An interdisciplinary study would be useful.

In the absence of such studies, all one can do is try to read between the lines of the newspaper reports and try to guess what is going on.

According to some reports this phenomenon -- accusing children of being witches -- did not exist in Congo (DRC) in 1994, but it was common in 1999.

One of the denominations reported to be most active in witch hunting is the Liberty Gospel Church, founded in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria in 1992 by Helen Ukpabio, a former nurse.

She has apparently said that if children cry a lot and are fretful it is a sign that they are witches. Now I'm not a fundi on Nigerian witchcraft beliefs, but I do know that in most parts of Africa if a child is ill and feverish and cries a lot people may suspect that the child has been bewitched. Witchcraft has often been seen as a cause of illness. But it seems that Ukpabio has reversed this, and instead of seeing these as symptoms that a child is a victim, she teaches that it a sign that the child is a perpetator of witchcraft.

Maybe there is some precedent for this kind of thing in Nigerian culture -- if there is, I hope someone will enlighten me. But it seems to me like a new twist on the "blame the victim" game.

And if Helen Ukpabio and others like her really got their theology from American and Scottish pentecostal and evangelical missionaries, it might be quite important to know which ones. I think it may, however, be a bit more complex than this.

In Central and West Africa there seems to be a growing interest in exorcism; though such beliefs may have been around for a long time they seem to be growing stronger. Many clergy seem to have specialised in it. I met a student at the Orthodox seminary in Nairobi who had been a Roman Catholic and gathered a congregation of about 500 people in Douala, Cameroun, who had mainly been attracted by his ministry of exorcism. He became Orthodox when the Roman Catholic bishop sought to inhibit his ministry of exorcism, which he continued with the blessing of the local Orthodox bishop.

Another student at the seminary, who was from the English-speaking northern part of Cameroun, had become a Rosicrucian at the age of 16, and had tried an amazing number of religions, including Wicca and Ekankar, before settling on Hinduism, which he studied for some time under a guru in India. On returning to Cameroun he was told by his spirit guides to worship the Triune God, and walked into town and the first Christian Church he came across was the Orthodox Cathedral, so he decided to join the Orthodox Church. But at the seminary he believed that the teaching staff were withholding important information from the students, such as which variety of incense was best for driving out which kinds of demons.

But there is also the possibility that the excesses of people like Helen Ukpabio could actually kill off African witchcraft beliefs altogether.

Something similar happened in the great European witch craze in the 16th and 17th centuries. In early modern Europe there was, in some places, a great increase in witchhunting and witchcraft accusations. As time passed, however, the accusations and the beliefs about witchcraft became more and more bizarre and over-the-top, until people could simply no longer believe them, and eventually the entire belief system crumbled under its own weight. Perhaps Ukpabio's teachings are a sign that this is beginning to happen in Africa.

Loony tunes

It is not unusual for organisations to receive letters from nut-cases, but it is rather strange for them to pass them on to the news media, and for the latter to publish them in full, without comment. This one was apparently sent to the Evangelical Seminary of Southern Africa. It's a strange strange world we live in, Master Jack.

The Times - My power and glory, your faith everlasting:

I will, however, need more than a gun and a Bible to reconstruct these Pyrrhonian backsliders. The Dogon believe they were created by gods who came from the sky in space ships. They are madder than Tom Cruise and I will need 20 crates of single-malt whisky, 500 condoms and a thousand aspirin if I am to convince them that it is not the god Lebe, but the Almighty Himself who visits them at night in the form of a serpent and licks their skins in order to purify them and infuse them with life.

As one of your newest recruits, my motto will be: Convert Or Die. I have already printed the T-shirts so you have to give me the job or I will sue your holy ass to kingdom come.