Inedible Ink

“I give them, you know those little cognac and bourbon bottles that you get on airplanes? Well before the bird is slaughtered you [give them] that.

“You just pour it down.”

Stewart told an incredulous host Stephen Colbert she planned to kill six turkeys for her own Thanksgiving dinner this month.

The article suggests that Her Marthaness was giving the birds alcohol for its sedative property to make her job of slaughtering them easier and not purposefully starting a boozy marinade from the inside out.

Either she is putting Colbert on, which is a good thing, or she really does this, which is a good thing - a very good thing.

“Sketchy” is favorite word of mine. It’s a good word for those slightly crumbly undocumented rock-climbing routes. “Sketchy” accurately describes making plans for a two day backcountry hike on the basis of an extended sentence fragment in a guide book. Leaving the groomed and mapped trails to ski out-of-bounds in powder between the trees is clearly “sketchy”.

The connotation is of incomplete information (as in a pencil sketch), there is a clear inference of risk, and for me there are associations of adventure.

Leila at Little Catholic Bubble blog came across this word when it was used to describe her having 8 kids. Someone wrote:

“Personally, I think having 8 kids is sketchy.”

Leila’s reaction post is here, and it’s a good read.

I don’t get the impression from the quote in question that the writer of  “sketchy” was intending to show respect. I also don’t think it is an opinion worth worrying about.

As for me, I think “sketchy” accurately describes the faith-filled decisions in having multiple children;  not enough information to guarantee anything, things might go wrong, and it will probably be an adventure.

Oh, and don’t believe everything Urban dictionary has in it.

John Adams writing in 1789:

I think that splitting the hydrogen off of water molecules for fuel is pretty darned clever, however;

The folks doing this research:  the Foresight Institute » MIT’s Belcher uses engineered virus to split water need to go and read Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

in which Ice-Nine, an engineered crystal, a new type of ice which freezes solid at high temperatures, has the capacity of acting as a seed crystal which threatens a chain reaction and the world’s water supply before they set this virus loose, just,  you know, in case.

There is a status getting copied around Facebook that says

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage  makes you a car.”

It is true that being a Christian extends beyond going to church, but I think the claim has problems.

“Make you a” occurs twice in that sentence. Does it mean “form you into a” or “prove you to be a”?

Could I correctly paraphrase:

“Going to church doesn’t form you into a Christian any more than standing in a garage forms you into a car.”  Making

or should it be:

“Going to church doesn’t prove you to be a Christian any more than standing in a garage proves you to be a car.”

Being formed into a car, by standing in a garage, is utter nonsense.

Being formed into a Christian by going to church is a less ridiculous notion. Professing the faith, participating in Christian worship, hearing the scriptures read aloud and listening to teaching is an obvious exercise in formation.

Does it mean prove you to be a Christian? How would you prove someone to be a Christian?

I believe that, were Christianity made a crime, church going would be used as evidence for prosecution.

If I was hoping to find a bunch of  Christians on a Sunday morning, I’d look at church.

I stood in my own garage to test the second version, there is no credible proof that I am a car. If I exhibited some of the defining characteristics of being a car such as acceleration, braking, steering, and cupholders you might form an argument that I am a car.  What defining characteristics of being a Christian would you accept if you do not accept going to church as one?

Further, the two verb phrases are different. “Going to church” is being compared to “standing in a garage”, an active phrase compared to a passive phrase.  If we were talking about going to the gym, or going to school we’d know that the activity of going was relevant. Going to the gym is one way to get more physically fit. Going to school is a prime occasion for education. No one expects standing in a gym or standing in school to be causes of fitness or education, why should going to church be considered at all similar to standing in a garage.

If I was hoping to find a bunch of fit people on a Saturday morning, I might look at the gym.  If I was hoping to find a bunch of educated people on a Monday  morning, I might look at school.

What do you think?

are both cowards’ games.

I do believe I just became a loyal Hobby Lobby customer.

C.S. Lewis College.

The C.S. Lewis Foundation has long envisioned establishing C.S. Lewis College in the U.S. as a fully accredited Christian institution of Great Books and Visual and Performing Arts. That vision is now about to become a reality as plans move forward to launch C.S. Lewis College on the beautiful campus in Northfield, Massachusetts, recently acquired for this purpose from Northfield Mount Hermon School. This property has been purchased for the use of C.S. Lewis College by Hobby Lobby, a privately held retail chain of arts and crafts stores based in Oklahoma City, OK.

Subject to securing all appropriate approvals, C.S. Lewis College currently plans to commence instruction in Fall 2012.

The Telegraph takes Dan Brown to task. Here’s a list of 20 sentences that might do well in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

19. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 83: “The Knights Templar were warriors,” Teabing reminded, the sound of his aluminum crutches echoing in this reverberant space.

“Remind” is a transitive verb – you need to remind someone of something. You can’t just remind. And if the crutches echo, we know the space is reverberant.

via The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown’s 20 worst sentences - Telegraph.

Six feet long.  Transparent head. Bulbous nose.  Yep, that’s a Muppet alright, I’d know it anywhere.  Found in the wild:

Jellynose fish can grow to more than six feet (two meters) long and, like many deep-sea fish, they have gelatinous bodies consisting of very little muscle.

via National Geographic: Bizarre Gelatinous Fish Found in Brazil.

This earth is a marvel-filled place, isn’t it?

Here at Inedible Ink we like our baseball bats wielded by good guys, but the Strength to Carry On file will just have to expand to  accommodate this little role reversal.

A man apparently tried to rob an acquaintance by beating him with a baseball bat and was seriously hurt when the victim fought back with a sword, authorities said.

via Bat-wielding would-be robber beaten with a sword. AZCentral