Pirate1974

You know, just when I think I've heard every moronic thing these people did, I get surprised. There's always one more thing that's just floors me. What possible freaking reason was there for any twi "leader" to know what medication anybody was taking? Why on God's earth would that be any of their business whatsoever? Did any of them ever stop and think, "Maybe I really don't need to know this?" I guess that's giving them too much credit. That would involve actually having to think for yourself. Sheesh.

Is this the letter you're talking about? Martindale's Demand for Loyalty

I'd like to hear some more about that "sex shrieking." Is that like what Meg Ryan did in "When Harry Met Sally?"

It is loosely based on the classic capitalist game Monopoly, but it’s intended to teach kids about stewardship. And unlike the Parker Brothers perennial best seller, ”Episcopopoly” is about more than just money. Instead of building houses and hotels, the object is to build a church. “It’s all about learning what it takes to run a church in terms of the upkeep or the responsibilities the church has,” says Erik Vochinsky, a manager at the Washington National Cathedral Museum store, which sells the game. The game was created by Deborah Esayian, a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Riverside, Ill., near Chicago. She was trying to think of a way to teach kids about stewardship. She had the idea to turn it into a game, a knockoff of Monopoly, and then set about to make it happen. The squares on the board are all churches and seminaries that agreed to help financially sponsor the first 3,500 games, which are almost all sold out. Instead of choosing to be a top hat, a race car or a dog, players move around the board using tokens such as a baptismal font, a lamb, a dove or the bell tower from the University of the South, an Episcopal college and seminary. Instead of cards denoted ”Chance” and ”Community Chest,” players can draw cards when they land on either “time, talent and treasure” or “operating budget.” Instead of going to "jail," a player may have to go to "fund raising," an interesting concept. The cards feature directions such as "Organist joins heavy metal rock band - go back three spaces" and "Water balloon incident at parish picnic - pay hospital fee of five offerings." Wonder if it includes ones that say "Neighborhood becomes too ethnic - lose turn while moving church to suburbs" or "Church ordains gay bishop - go back five spaces." The game includes "board, offertory plates, steeples, cornerstones, bricks, tokens, Time, Talent & Treasure Cards, Operating Budget Cards, property deeds, offerings, property brochure and dice." No mention if the object of the game is to force the other players churches to go out of business, like real Monopoly.

Just curious, Steve Why do you think Clinton was not a Rhodes Scholar? Every biography of him says that he was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 1968. Every list of famous Rhodes Scholars lists Clinton along with Bill Bradley, Kris Kristofferson, William Fulbright, Tom McMillen, and Byron White. Clinton was a featured speaker at the 100th anniversary of the Rhodes Scholarship last year at Oxford, where he was introduced as a Rhodes Scholar. It's true that he only stayed two years and didn't earn a degree, but I seriously doubt that the Rhodes Foundation would allow Clinton to call himself a Rhodes Scholar if it wasn't true.

Lee Marvin is the sergeant says that line in "The Big Red One." Don't remember who it was he said it to.

I have no idea what Mel Gibson's reason for making this movie, other than what I've read. I just find it interesting that in the midst of all the controversy about Mel's movie, another movie called "The Gospel of John" was released and disappeared, almost unnoticed. Similar cast of mostly unknown actors, same story, same crucifixion, same Jews involved, not as much blood. So why did "Gospel" play on 14 screens when it opened and Passion played on 3,043? I'm sure one difference is that "Gospel" was directed by Philip Saville, who's career consists mostly of British tv movies, instead of Mel Gibson. Is that the only reason "Gospel" has grossed about $4 million so far while "Passion" has shot past $200 million in barely two weeks? I just can't help thinking that all the "controversy" that has people flocking to this movie was cooked up by some Hollywood publicity hack. The people who made "Gospel of John" might be kicking themselves for not having thought of that first. Timing is everything.

Obviously that's a whole different class of ferry. This is what we have here in NC: M/V Governor Hyde

60 bucks for a car and driver one way? Man, I think I'd really have to need to make this trip bad to pay that. Of course, my experience has been limited to ferries here in North Carolina, like Cape Hatteras to Ocracoke, which is free, or Fort Fisher to Southport at $5.00. The most expensive is Ocracoke to Cedar Island, a 2 1/2 hour trip that costs $15.00 per car, no extra charge for passengers.

Mike, I truly appreciate your "excusing" me from further reading of your posts. However, I reserve the right to read more, if I so choose, and maybe even respond to it, thank you very much. When you first started posting this stuff, I thought you were at least sincere, however misguided. Now I think you're just another internet troll that likes to keep stuff stirred up by making outageous statements. Bringing up this old thread yourself because people had obviously lost interest in you was the first sign. Then with statements like "Jesus Christ teaching out of a orange PFAL book" and "I see Jesus Christ himself requiring the PFAL collaterals for his own learning" it's obvious you're just trying to provoke people to disagree with you so you can pull out your old "poor Mike is being attacked again" act. The statement "I rubbed his shiney little nose into his own $hit" says it all. What do you hope to accomplish here? This "silent minority" that you mentioned must already be working on "mastering pfal" and the non-silent majority isn't interested. If I ever do see Jesus Christ with the orange book, I'm going to ask him what he thinks about that mother and her little boy story. That should be interesting.

Hey Mike, It's been a long, long time ago, but I seem to remember hearing in the way that if people don't want to hear your message, you should shake the dust off your feet and move on down the road. How are your feet? Getting pretty dusty, I'll bet.

Mmmmm. Cadbury Caramel Eggs. It's a good thing for me they only sell them at Easter.

Tom, It's like beating beating your head against a brick wall, my man. Mike NEVER answers a direct question.

Too bad he's not going to do "The Hobbit" first. The world does not need another remake of "King Kong."

And his flip charts. -->

Fainting? No, I doubt that. Rolling on the floor laughing my a** off? Absolutely.

If PFAL was a life-changing experience to some people, that's great for them. For me, it was basically a waste of time and money. I remember thinking when it was all over - "Is that all there is?" I don't know exactly what I expected but from all the hype I had heard, I expected a lot more than I got. I especially resented the whole culture of having to have the class to be one of the "in crowd." I can only speak to my experience in Greenville and Charlotte, NC, but pfal was always used to separate people into "have had the class" and "haven't had the class." The "haven't hads" always knew they were at the bottom of the totem pole. It always reminded me of a fraternity. You can't learn the secret handshake and stuff until you join up, pay your money and go through the initiation (pfal), just like at the Sigma Chi house. The whole structure of twi was built around marketing that class. The whole idea of "don't let anybody see your syllabus or your books until they've had the class" was a crock, a marketing ploy only to increase the "mystery" of pfal. If there's so much important information in it, then let me buy the book and check it out for myself. Don't make me sit on a hard folding chair in a cold room watching a long, boring film. My only experience with any kind of outreach program was a summer thing called WONC (Word Over North Carolina.) We knew going in that our goal was not to introduce people to God's word, but to run a class. Even if we had gotten 100 people born again, but did not get a pfal class run, we knew we would have been failures. Fortunately, we suckered three people into signing up and we saved face.

If you've seen one trailer for this movie you know the basic plot: American cowboy competes in horse race across the Arabian desert. Yeah, it's "based on a true story" that probably never happened and some of the special effects are not that great and the Arabs are mostly stereotypes and the story is pretty predictable, but it's still a fun movie. Lots of action. It's not going to challenge you intellectually, but it's good for a weekend matinee.

Dot - You might want to check out a movie called "The Gospel of John" that came and went this past fall with barely any notice at all. Overshadowed by all the Mel Gibson controversy, I suppose, it's a literal word by word depiction of the book with all the familiar stories - turning water into wine, the woman at the well, healing the blind man and the lame man, raising Lazarus, feeding the 5,000. There's also a bloody crucifixion, "evil" Jews included, and a resurrection with Jesus hanging out with his disciples afterward. Not as much raw meat as Gibson's, but you get the point for sure. It's very well done and Jesus is shown as a pretty normal guy, not as solemn and unemotional as you usually see him. I don't know if it's out on video yet, but it's worth a look. [This message was edited by Pirate1974 on March 06, 2004 at 20:37.]

Me too, but that movie did an excellent job of showing how hard it was for Travis to do what he had to do without being graphic. I didn't need to see the lead ball blast Old Yeller's brains all over the inside of that shed to understand that.

A week ago we had 15" of snow on the ground here and yesterday it was almost 80. Don't like the weather in North Carolina? Wait an hour.

Shouldn't there be a special "Mike" section in the archives for this stuff? That might just be the best description of this stuff that I've seen.

As of today, this movie has already raked in more than 125 million bucks, which means Mel will get all his money back and then some. That's really not the point. I don't care if it passes "Titanic" as the top box office smash of all time. I guess I just have a problem reconciling phrases like "it was a calling" and "led by the Holy Spirit" with "officially licensed merchandise." In my opinion, wearing a nail on a string around your neck is creepy.

"I really feel my career was leading me to make this. The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the power to evangelize." - Mel Gibson Well, maybe I'm just a cynic, but a lot of these quotes by Mel seem to ring a little hollow considering that there's a website where you can purchase "officially licensed merchandise" such as this: and this: and this: it just looks like the old Hollywood hype machine at work. Maybe all the controversy was stirred up by some PR group just to put more fannies in the seats at your local theater. I'm waiting for "Passion of the Christ" toys to show up in McDonald's Happy Meals.

excathie, My mother gave me that book too. It's sweet, but it'll make you cry. I always liked anything by Dr. Seuss when I was a kid, and I enjoyed reading them to my kids too. My favorite was "Yertle the Turtle."