Blessing portable electronics and the Iranian government’s insultingly bad lies

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 Ṭeveth 5770 (Parashath Wa’era’).

Today’s holidays:  Thursday of the First Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of the Magi: To Mega Theron (Thelema), Makara Sankranti/Pongal (Hinduism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Take Action: Help Protect Wilderness!”.

Topic 1:  “Blessed be the mobile phone users and those called the children of iPod”:  An Anglican church in London had a blessing of cell phones and portable computers.  This may sound bizarre, but it is precendented.   The article notes that in the old days they had Plow Monday, a day on which people brought their plows to church to be blessed.  I am also personally aware of someone whose car was blessed by a Greek Orthodox priest.

Topic 2:  More religious persecution:  “Tehran puts 7 Bahais on trial for spying”.  Is there anyone besides the government of Iran who thinks these Bahá’ís are actually spies?  Is there anyone who actually thinks that the cliché Islamic practice of blaming non-Muslims or heretical Muslims (the Bahá’í Faith is an offshoot of Shia, so arguably it is a Muslim heresy) for anything and everything wrong is anything but an attempt to distract people away from the real causes of problems?  Also:  Notice that the Iranian government claims the Bahá’ís were spying for Israel, which clichéd Muslim loudmouths blame for practically everything wrong with the planet.  This reflects the cliché of thinking of “good” and “evil” as two teams fighting only each other, when in reality one’s enemies are sometimes each other’s enemies, too.  Shame on the Iranian government for this pathetic propaganda!  If they are going to lie to us, they should at least come up with something credible or at least creative.  A bad liar is doubly bad, first for committing the moral offense of lying, and second for insulting his/her audience’s intelligence.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “BUT you said I could”:

Somebody please bug me to get my hands on a copy of The Seventh Seal, the movie which created the current image of the Grim Reaper…

Peace.

Aaron