Atomictumor

“We keep trying to explain away fundamentalism,” writes Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer. And on the other end of this article, Sharlet concludes that fundamentalism is doing the same to its opponents. Those are the folks who identify with the “we” of that opening line.

I grew up going to fundamentalist churches. I know the language. I can speak it. I miss it’s certainty even as I deny it. I find myself rooting for that certainy like a newborn baby.

Sharlet hammers the nail into what I’ve always found fascinating about fundamentalism. He writes,

One afternoon last year I found in my mail an unsolicited copy of “The Vision Forum Family Catalog,” a glossy, handsomely produced, eighty-eight-page publication featuring an array of books, videos, and toys for “The Biblical Family Now and Forever.” This catalogue, I think, is as perfect and polished a distillation as I’ve found of the romance of American fundamentalism, the almost sexual tension of its contradictions: its reverence for both rebellion and authority, democracy and theocracy, blood and innocence. [italics mine]

Fundamentalists make me uncomfortable, But they’re fascinating, too. They’re like those mythical beasts that were a mix of two animals. They’re Republican Anarchists.

I have a love hate relationship with the idea of fundamentalists. I mean I don’t really have any friends who are self-professed fundamentalists. So I’m not arguing with flesh and blood. Any argument I have with a fundamentalist is all in my head. It’s with myself.

There’s the rub. I keep trying to explain away my own fundamentalism. When I came to accept that I am a Christian I realized that I had to deal with those churches I grew up in. I have to deal with that language, that mix of rebellion and authority.
I’m still working on that.

So, a few minutes ago, I found that my lappy’s wifi wasn’t working.

WTF, I said.

The laptop was all like:

Rebooted the router, same deal.

So I checked to make sure that the radio was enabled by going to the properties of the connection, and bouncing through all the little goofy things. Yep, enabled. I disabled, saved, enabled, no good. Reboot. No good.

So, maybe its having a hard time with the little Bluetooth dongle (heh… dongle) being unplugged. The wifi and the Blueteeth may be BFFs, and one might not work without the other anymore in some weird, motherboard bus transcending relationship.

So, I plug it in.

…is what I got.

Well damn.

I go check MastaG’s computer, which runs on wifi, and badow, working like a charm. Hmm.

Now I’m getting pissed. I didn’t wuss out of work today, troubleshooting other peoples computers, just to come home and troubleshoot my own! “WORK, DAMN YOU” I told it. “I MADE YOU, AND BY GOD, I CAN UNMAKE YOU, YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE BASTARD!”

Reboot, and this time I got:

So my Mom called at that moment, while I was looking at the thing, and wondering how expensive the LCD screen is to replace if I run over it with my car, just to teach this machine the lesson that it better straighten up and fly right, and told me that the Bisc is officially retired as of now.
Woot to the Bisc!
Sufficiently distracted, I figured maybe there was something wrong with the Windows wifi, so I tried using the Dell one. I never used it before, because XP does a decent enough job of handling wifi, but since it seemed to be awfully aggressive and smack talking, I figured maybe the jealousy approach would work.

I loaded up the Dell one, and it said:

THE END

Now, we all know our GAC was born on 1/18, but what you might not know is the other pieces of awesomeness that happened today.

So, I asked my friend Wikipedia, and it was all like

“Dude.

There was all sorts of shit happened on 1/18.

Lemme lay it down like this.  In pictoral form.  Cuz I’m bad like that.”

Today, the biggest thing, is that we moved on up for the first time.  The Jeffersons, arguably one of the greatest things of the ’70s, next to test tube babies and stuff, premiered on January 18, 1975.

We also, along with a bunch of other less important people, like Kevin Costner, have 5 interesting birthdays today.

First up is the mighty emperor Daigo of Japan, born in 885, who, uh, did ruling emperor things.  I don’t think he decapitated many people that I hear of.

Then we have A.A. Milne, who isn’t known for decapitations either, but is known for Winnie the Pooh.

Following ol’ A.A., we have Jim O’Rourke, who produced Sonic Youth and Wilco records, along with a bunch of other stuff.  No decapitations, but he does make a lot of ear splitting noise, which may have made a head or two pop.  I don’t think thats the same thing.

Next up is Robert Anton Wilson, making his second ‘tumor appearance this month.  Again, no decapitations.

However, our final guy, is responsible for some of the best decapitations in Japanese cinema, Takeshi (Beat) Kitano.  He’s friggin awesome, and, not unlike Jim O’Rourke, still alive.

So, there you go baby.  Bet you never knew you shared a b-day with “moving on up”.