PARODY TIME-THE WAY THE CROW FLIES

Open on a kitchen. Jack, Mimi, Mike, and Madeline are sitting around the kitchen table, having dinner.

Jack: So, kids, how was school today?

Mike: Well, Dad, I---

Jack: I wasn’t talking to you.

Madeline: Dad, my teacher, Mr. March, is real funny.

Jack: Probably not as funny as the Globe and Mail’s Your Morning Smile.

Madeline: No, I didn’t mean ha-ha funny, I meant funny strange.

Mimi: How is your teacher strange, ma petite.

Madeline: See, he always makes kids stay after school, every day. And it’s always girls.

Jack: What kinds of things does he make the girls stay after school for?

Madeline: Sometimes it’s for help with homework or for acting up in class, but its always for exercises.

Mimi: Exercises?

Madeline: Yeah. He makes some of the girls that have to stay after school do exercises, and the girls that have to stay back for other stuff have to stand in the cloakroom with their faces turned away from Mr. March’s desk.

Jack: That does sound rather odd. Still, if your teacher says you need to do exercises, then you need your exercise. Got that, buddy sport?

Madeline: Got it, Dad. Hey, it’ll probably help me be big and strong when I grow up.

…

25 years later.

Shift to psychiatrist’s office. The psychiatrist is sitting at her desk. Madeline is sitting on the couch.

Madeline: And so this teacher sexually abused me and a couple other girls every day we were in his class, and, I’m wondering, do you think the fact my first sexual experiences were inappropriate and violated my very innocence could have something to do with the fact that I’m a lesbian?

Psychiatrist: No, I don’t think so.

Madeline: Oh, thank goodness.

Psychiatrist: After all, if that were the case, all sexual abuse victims would be homosexual.

Madeline: That makes sense.

Psychiatrist: It’s just like I told that veteran I had on the couch this morning. Some of your buddies have come back from the war just fine, gone back to their lives, got jobs and everything, so don’t go complainin to me about no PTSD, buster.

Based on "The Way the Crow Flies" by Anne-Marie MacDonald.

RADIO-RELATED STUFF: GOOD SIGNALS ON SHORTWAVE AND FM

Picked up WTWW 5830 this morning with a good signal for the first time in a couple years.

Is Bob Kingsley back hosting "American Country Countdown?"

Picked up 100.5 The Drive tonight with commercials including for Hyundai dealership and house flipping seminar.

MEDIA-RELATED STUFF

Cool TVO is going to have local news hubs.

Enjoyed listening to Al Malmberg on WCCO last night.

PureFlicks has clean content but does it have good content?

MORE AUDIO FROM THE PAST

A tape from Bolt and Tremblae, a bond trading firm, with part of the sales pitch at the end and the same thing in French on the other side, except that on most of the first side it was my friend and one of his friends from back then (1985) messing around. My friend was pretending to be a deejay interviewing the lead singer of a glam rock band. He offered the fictitious listeners a chance to come down to the station and beat up the singer.

The second tape featured blues albums in the background while my friend recorded in-store advertisements for a record shop.

MEDIA-RELATED STUFF: YES TV STARTS SHOWING THE CANADIAN BASKETBALL LEAGUE; NEW ESPORTS TELEVISION CHANNEL COMING; NEW ETHNIC RADIO STATION IN EDMONTON APPROVED

Cool YESTV is going to start showing Canadian Basketball League games.

ESports must be big if there's a new Canadian channel coming on the air with programming about them.

A new ethnic station has been approved for Edmonton on AM. Wonder if some vacated MW signals across Canada will become home to ethnic stations as Canada's population gets more diverse.

A COUPLE MORE BLASTS FROM THE PAST

CFLY-FM Kingston from February 1988 with Don Neil. Timecheck of 6:38 p.m. and mention of an upcoming interview with a nurse concerning Dental Hygene Week.

Q107 Toronto from summer 1984. An evening show with unidentified male anncr talking about Bruce Springsteen coming to Toronto July 23-24. He was giving away gift certificates for Pizza Pizza.

RADIO-RELATED STUFF: AMERICAN TALK RADIO NEWS

The annoying electronic noise is gone from WTAM.

Good to hear "Ground Zero" caller Geno on WABC last night.

Listen to "Music and Miscelaney" Sunday mornings on 99.3 County FM. Seems like John Mater literally plays everything.

MEDIA-RELATED STUFF

Click here to watch a variety of interesting channels from around the world.

I spilled spot remover on KKHH and now its gone.

Why can I not stream WGRF-FM Buffalo on any platform??

JOHN PIPER-HOW JUSTIFIED SINNERS LOVE EACH OTHER

In which Pastor John contradicts everything he's said in the previous 70 messages.

Piper starts off by talking about the differences between a small town church, where one sees the same people for 30 years, and a church in a big city, such as Minneapolis, where people are constantly moving in and out of the area. He then says the command to love one another given in Romans 12 means all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I agree with this latter point, but here's where it, and everything John Piper subsequently exhorts in this sermon breaks down in the model of the institutional church.

I have never been a member, or even really an attendee, of a church in even a town of significant size, let alone a large city. However, in the many small town churches with which I am acquainted, it seems from my observations they end up being little more than social clubs for the oldest, longest standing families in the church.

From what I understand, in the sizable churches found in larger locales, there is much more emphasis on programs and clubs, such as the small groups which are the focal point of the sermon on which I am presently commenting.

While the small or cell group sounds attractive, it inevitibly fails for the simple reason it is mandated by the church which facilitates said groups. Obedience to everything Paul is commanding the Roman believers to do in Romans 12 has to come from within the believer by the Holy Spirit. If Pastor mandates that being part of his church means joining a small group and doing such things as finding ten lonely, single people and inviting them over for soup next Sunday lunchtime, then what he'll get is a congregation of believers doing a work because the guy in the pulpit told them to do it and not one that stems from their knew birth in Jesus and which flows out of having clothed themselves in Christ's righteousness.

Hence, John Piper has just flown in the face of everything he's emphasized up till now in this series on the Book of Romans and has helped to prove the unbiblical nature of the way believers fellowship today as compared to the church of the first century. I mean to say, while there is so much excellent material in this message, it's teachings can not be truly and properly applied under the present institutional model.

For the original sermon, click here.

NATIVITY CROSSES MAKE ME CROSS

Well, a lot more than cross but I couldn't think of a better title for this post.

I was watching CBN News online while having my lunch today and a commercial came on for these Nativity crosses some company is selling. I could not believe an evangelical network would broadcast something like that ad. I mean, I knew we were compromising with the Catholic church but when we have hucsterism to the point of selling crosses with alleged stones from the manger in Bethlehem where Jesus was born, even though legend has probably obscured the exact location of the inn where our Saviour came into the world, then why don't we just close down all the evangelical churches and start attending our local Catholic houses of worship every Sunday.

As an additional free offer, a guardian angel brooch was being thrown in along with the relic cross, which the announcer said would ensure that we would always be protected. Aparetnly, Jesus doesn't do this for His people anymore and the job has been outsourced to the company manufacturing these trinkets.

Can the staff of CBN not see this is an amulet, something that comes straight out of paganism, and this so-called Nativity cross is nothing more than a fake relic such as was being sold to pilgrims at the time of the Crusades? Possibly, is it just a matter of the media outlets who are running ads for this garbage not caring about idolatry, blasphemy, doctrine, or anything else that makes a true relationship with Jesus Christ the only way?