We’ve long heard that whole wheat flour (with bran and germ) is more nutritious than white flour that has had the bran and germ removed.  

I’ve recently been grinding some wheat kernals, that I had in my food storage, into flour.  I’ve done both red winter wheat and white spring wheat, and learned a new thing.  Fresh ground flour has oil in it. The whole wheat flour that you buy at the grocery store has sat around long enough for the “volitiles” (oil, etc.) to have evaporated.   Fresh ground flour also has more flavor.  (more…)

An English language version of Er ist wieder da/ Look who’s back, with its above brilliant and striking cover art, caught my attention in a bookshop a couple of years ago – and I bought it on the basis that it has been a sensational best-seller in Germany.

(I have a considerable interest in German culture and literature, and my brother and my wife’s brother both have German wives.)

The premise is that somehow Hitler is time-shifted to modern Germany, just as he was when he died, and has to make sense of it all. And Germany also has to make sense of him – which they do by assuming he is some kind of satirical comedian who never drops his impersonation.

It was quite intriguing, but I didn’t manage to get through much of the book. However I was interested enough to give the subtitled movie a try – when I discovered it was available on Netflix. The movie had been as successful in Germany as the book – being number one box office for a while.

I would highly recommend Look who’s back as extremely thought-provoking and also at times very funny (Hitler’s encounters with daytime TV, the internet, as a chat show guest etc.) – despite that it is overlong and sags in several points (the improvised sections – which I mostly skipped).

But the scripted sections of the movie were fascinating. The tone shifts back and forth between sympathetic and horrified, between making clear Hitler’s broad, powerful democratic appeal and personal charisma; and the terrible, disgusting quality of his doctrines and actions. I found myself as if caught by a hook, pulled back and forth, but unable to squirm free.

The result was, I found, a very complex argument which has stayed in my mind for several days – indeed, there haven’t been many recent movies which I found so interesting.

[Google Images result for “Contemplative Pepe”]

I have a theory about the rise of the Alt Right. Or maybe that’s too specific: I have a theory about why the American Right has become considerably more verbally aggressive, politically incorrect, and nationalistic over the last 2-4 years, a phenomenon that encompasses Trump and Trumpism, the Alt Right, the rise of Breitbart and Steve Bannon, etc. (more…)

Free for a day or so at Amazon.  By Wyatt North.  I haven’t read it yet, but just wanted to alert others. (more…)

Now, lest we spend all our time on pessimism and trouble, (ahem, a recent lesson in church), I would like to share this:

It is fascinating enough for us to image exoplanets. But here is an example of exoplanets, imaged moving in their orbits.

Further images of other worlds.

And some Hugh Nibley lecturing on Cosmology and the plurality of worlds (I, II) in the Scriptures and ancient literature. The entire series is worth listening to.

At least Nero only fiddled.

(more…)

The Poor you will always have with you. Matt 26:11

So, what are we going to do about it? (more…)

“Harry Potter has become a surprisingly obsessive allegorical tool for liberals’ opposition to the Trump Administration [ . . .] I’ll disobey Occam’s Razor and offer another mostly unrelated hypothesis about why Harry Potter stories are such useful allegorical material for contemporary liberals, aside from a general hunger for myth and meaning in a post-religious age.

“Harry Potter, especially the movies, is about the legitimacy of authority that comes from schools.”

–Spotted Toad

(more…)

If I were a lawyer working in Phoenix with mostly Spanish-speaking clients, I would try to get for my office the phone number 602-214-0857, though any number in the range from 0783 to 0931 would be close enough. And I’d have a 1 kilogram silicon sphere on my desk, and somewhere where everyone could see it, a 22.4 liter bottle of gas (any gas, ideally). The thought of it makes me want to order a burrito at Chipotle and say “yes” when asked if I want to pay extra.

So, who does have that number?

When they break things or assault people, they’re rioters.

fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2017/02/niceness-is-not-virtue.html

His Majesty: “I doubt that’s the only reason.”