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The Long and Short of Haircut Gratuities

The familiar barber shop pole with its red, white, and blue stripes is easily recognizable as a place for a haircut and other services. As in other places, a man in the old West could stop in for a haircut and shave, and finish with some bay rum after shave. Many years ago, barbers also performed surgeries, hence the red and white stripes on the pole. Eventually, they only medically-related practices they performed were tooth extractions and the barbaric practice of bloodletting. Credit: Pexels / cottonbro On a side note, by ignoring Leviticus 17:11, bloodletting contributed to the demise of President George Washington. There were many factors in his illness, but since the life is in the blood , he may have survived it if they had left more of it in him. But we can't expect doctors (and barbers) in 1799 to know modern medicine — and people in medical science are still learning. Traditional barber shops have become a rarity. Today, barbers are men and women that often work in multi

Another MacGyver Rings Down the Curtain

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Television and movie producers have been criticized by their frequent "reboots" of existing material, and some people wonder if they are out of ideas. (Why reboot ? The established meaning is to reload an electronic device with the existing material.) Some try to keep to the spirit of the original, but others only have a superficial resemblance to what is being remade. In this case, MacGyver 2016. Tombstone image before modifications: Vukki The first name of the character in the original series, Angus, was kept a secret until the seventh season. May was well use it from the get-go in the new one since the secret is out. For quite a while, I expected Richard Dean Anderson to appear as Mac's father, but Anderson didn't like the new version and refused. Several character names from before were used in the reboot, but the characters were usually quite different. The Phoenix Foundation was also used as the organizations each Angus worked for. Speci

Smoking that Doobie, Brother

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Many countries, especially on the western side of the Atlantic, have decriminalized cannabis (weed, pot, doobies, grass, smoke, reefer, whatever) and legalized it for medical use. Many places have made recreational use legal as well. Even where illegal, enforcement of laws is often sporadic . And there was great rejoicing among pot smokers. In fact, here in not-all-that-far-upstate New York, cops don't care. Polly Pothead in the apartment next door was chugging away so much, the smoke could be seen not only in the hallway, but seeped into our own apartment. Police did nothing. That was before it was legal, but her usage is the same as before; smoking wacky tobaccy just wasn't important enough to enforce the law. Also, she's a terrible conversationalist. One article I found in my research mentioned that Mary Jane was originally illegal because it is harmful. (Oh, come on! Don't get a burr under your saddle. You know it's true. People who argue

Celebrating the Resurrection in 2021

This Easter has a deeper meaning for me. Thinking about the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, but it is also the anniversary of the birth of my late father. He, too, had that blessed hope. I will meet him, my mother, my oldest brother, and others in Heaven who have gone before. Credit: Flickr / Kristin Klein  ( CC BY 2.0 ) If anyone was looking for a longer post, yes, I've been busy: Answering Good Friday and Easter Questions  (putting to rest false claims of Easter and Good Friday paganism) The True Source of Life The Other Resurrections (especially that puzzling passage in Matthew 27:50-54) Moses and the Resurrection of Jesus?

Shining MORE Light on a Darwinist Deceiver

This is a sequel to a sequel. Earlier, I wrote about anti-creationist tinhorn Paul Braterman and provided links to his deceptive diatribes. We can use his attacks as examples of bigotry and bad reasoning. April 1 is a good day for this (Psalm 14:1), I reckon. Derivative from the 1909 Rider-Waite tarot deck (public domain) The earlier article linked above also included links to other articles on the subject, including how Snopes is biased and unqualified, and they didn't bother to "fact check" Braterman's rant on their site. Bad Paulie put burrs under a passel of saddle blankets, didn't he? If you see him, ask why, if evolution were true, would there be a need to misrepresent creationists and to abandon reason. Here, we have a short article from the Institute for Creation Research that has some thoughts worth considering.  Paul Braterman, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Glasgow, recently claimed online that creationism “meets all the criteria”

Learning a New Word: Apophenia

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen No need to be bothered by this five-syllable word because what it describes is interesting, and even useful. I wondered if there was a term for hearing sounds that do not exist where psychosis is not involved. Yes there is. Credit: Freeimages Before I get to the audio part,  pareidolia seems to be more widely known. This is where people think they see things that are not actually there, such as gazing at passing clouds and seeing a dinosaur chasing a car. Pareidolia happens a great deal in the "true ghost" videos where an evil face is seen in a mirror or against a dark background. I was able to see Charles Darwin's profile in a tree , people saw a woman on Mars , and so on. It is probably worth noting that when watching the scary video collections, the viewer is prepped by the verbal cues of the narrator, and by expecting to see something creepy. The audio version is apophenia ( brief definition and pronunciation here ), which is also called musica

Shining the Light on a Darwinist Deceiver

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen This is part 2 of Conspiracy Theories, Creation, and Reason , but takes a different approach. We saw how a number of factors contribute to the act of purveying conspiracy theories, and how there are several reasons why people believe them. Then there is the alleged creation science conspiracy. Credit: Unsplash / Steve Johnson We have three articles to consider, two of which are from the same ministry. Naturally there will be some overlap, but they each offer material that comprise a larger picture. There was a time when if someone had a question about, say, that 2002 email saying the teddy bear icon in Windows was really a virus. They could check Snopes and find out that it was a hoax , and they could search for urban legends. Unfortunately, they became heavily involved in promoting leftist political views with "fact checking", and their credibility became questionable. Snopes even attacked the parody site Babylon Bee (one of whose slogans is " fa