Archive for words

The Most Spectacular Misunderstanding…EVER!

June 4, 2010 at 12:54 am · Filed under Philosophy, Religion, words ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Today, while reading my bible—the one with liner notes that help clear up any misconceptions—I noticed something.  A misconception.

Well…first, let me show you what I was reading.  It comes from the Biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt; or more specifically, the chapter in which God introduces himself to Moses—from a burning bush:

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.   This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ “

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

~ Exodus 3:13-15 [New International Version]

Okay…so the burning bush story is familiar to most of us who’ve grown up in Western society, even if we’re not all practicing Christians or Fundamental Jews.  As is, of course, the epic crossing of the Red Sea, and the Ten Commandments, and so on.  How is this misunderstood?

Well…take those Ten Commandments.  PLEASE!  Take ‘em…you can have—

No, no!  I didn’t mean it like that…seriously!  ;)

I meant that, in those Commandments, God has something to say about His name—that’s right, the same name He gave Moses to introduce His Almighty Self to the Israelites:

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

~ Exodus 20:7 – the Fourth Commandment [New International Version]

Notice anything interesting here?  Hmmm?  Not yet?  Well…you will.

You see…in any version, and in nearly every language, God introduces Himself as “I AM”—the present-perfect sense of the verb “to be”.

“Well,” you say, “maybe it’s specifically referring to the Hebrew language word for it?”

Actually, that’s what most people think.  It’s what the Israelites thought.  In conjunction with what the Fourth Commandment told them, they took it so seriously, they stopped using the word.  LITERALLY!  The people of Israel took the Fourth so seriously, they stopped saying “I AM” outside of prayer and worship activities, until the sound of the word itself was lost, and all we have left of the original Hebrew name for God is the four consonants written in the Hebrew scriptures for it: “YHWH”.

Wikipedia has a great article on this Hebrew name for God, including images of that Hebrew script for it.  Regarding their reverence for the name of God, Wikipedia has this to say:

Jews ceased to use the name in the Greco-Roman period, replacing it with the common noun Elohim, “god”, to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others; at the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered, and was replaced in spoken ritual by the word Adonai (“My Lord”), or with haShem (“the Name”) in everyday speech.

They stopped using it.  The Israelites stopped using “I AM”.  And even today, people are loath to say “God” or “Jehovah” or “Jesus” unless they’re really calm or reverent—or, really, really PISSED!

And that’s the part that I think was a terrible mistake.

You see…I don’t think God made a mistake when he used one of the most ubiquitous and irreplaceable symbols in the Hebrew language system to describe Himself.   He referred to himself as “I am what I am” or, as I prefer from the King James version “I Am THAT I Am”.

Seemingly, God…is equating Himself with Existence itself.

He told Moses “I Am that I am”, and that he could introduce his God simply as “I AM”: I Exist, I Was, I Will Be, and Am Here And Now.  He told them His Name was the same as Existence itself—that everything that is was His, that He made it, owned it, and without Him it wasn’t to be.

God…would “BE”.

In Modern English, we can’t speak at all without using derivatives of the verb “To Be” in our sentences.

Think about it.  Here I am, writing about the name of God, and where would I “be” without that one little word?  I WOULDN’T!  Literally, the opposite of “I AM” is “I AM NOT”—non-existence, nothing, never there.  Without “I AM” I could not communicate my existence, your existence, nor the existence or state of anything in the Human Experience.

God meant to do that.  And He meant us to remember Him whenever we talk about OUR existence, too!

THAT was why He chose such a word.  God never intended Humans to stop saying His name.  He never wanted us to shy away from Him out of reverence, or fear, or shame.  The Fourth Commandment says what it means, and means what it says.  Every single time we speak of our existence, or our state of mind, or our place in the universe—every time we use ANY derivative of “Be”…is, am, are, was, were, will be, couldn’t be, has been…WHATEVER!—we ARE speaking the Proper Name of our God, just as He intended from the beginning!

God’s EXISTENCE  is tied into the very framework of our own!  With that Fourth Commandment, God permanently and explicitly tied reverence to the concept of “Is”, of being, so that whenever we spoke of something that is, we must inevitably think of the Almighty God that made it POSSIBLE for it to be.

His name is “IS”.  “I AM”…I-Exist-And-All-That-Exists-Exists-Because-I-Am.  That is the proper name of God, and this is why I believe Israel—and all the people who followed Israel’s lead on the matter—have mis-interpreted not only the intent of the Fourth Commandment, but have misunderstood the entire meaning of God’s name, and his relationship to Creation.  We can’t “not” use God’s name!  It’s impossible to speak coherently without saying it.  It is impossible to contemplate, without experiencing it.  To be, or not to Be…we can’t without God—and that was the idea.

What a SPECTACULAR misunderstanding!  These people thought the name of their Lord was too precious to speak aloud.

I know now that it is too prescious…NOT to speak it.

I shall speak the name of my Lord—loudly, openly, and proudly.  I shall speak it in every way, each and every day.  And I shall remember this name, and I will keep it always Holy in my heart.  Never will I take existence in vain—mine, nor His.

If I am truly the product of God’s Hand, then here is a lesson not taken lightly.  God commanded me to BE, and created me—a Human “BE”ing. 

This…is what I Am…

SASS has Spoken.

– the SASS Man

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The Ultimate Spam-Filter Avoidance Technique

March 25, 2008 at 10:15 am · Filed under advertising, Spam, words

I’ve finally seen it: the Ultimate Spam-Filter Avoidance Technique.  Today, I got a message in my in-box, big as life, amd it wasn’t even marked as spam.  It read:

                                                     yx 
gb    dy  lz                                        onfy     je       zhmd     dw 
wk    ou                                           jsiudj  ecyi      hs  kp  sqwf 
 fq  qv                                            hxmu      kn          xc    wm 
 jk  jl   eb   ethz    hjlgt  hwpn   hrmi          ptll      fx          lw    dk 
 bk  df   rl      kh  qp  bl  xby       fg          nxye     ig         ud     mv 
  gdxn    rs   rtmjm  ci  ip  rs     objfx  opzoq    yeov    oi        vh      gu 
  ltmo    co  ur  by  kv  he  ch    qx  ic           hspf    fv       gi       mh 
   wc     cb  ep  sw  lr  rz  cd    yl  sp         hxyjxz    hf      wd        qq 
   ei     oc   mcnwk   wdziz  le     jmkpx          gjko     bx  mn  ehqupf    dd 
                          df                         xb 
                      emzzi

Now,  don’t get me wrong, but…if your eyes can see what I can see, you probably already understand the problem.  Spam filters are designed to search through text looking for key words – like viagra, porn and big financial deals – and shuffle the messages off into oblivion.  And, if you look real closely, there’s plenty of text there–lots of it, in fact–all random letters layed out in a nice formatted grid courtessy of “Courier New,” Microsoft’s default Monospaced font.

But what the span filter WON’T see is what your eyes tell you: that this is a sales pitch for that miracle drug that lets men function even when older, failing hardware won’t let them.  And this, of course, is just the start.  I dropped the part that encoded their website address in the same fashion, as well as the snippet from some story or blog post entry that followed it (in a normal font and text size, of course) in order to fool the filter into thinking this was real.

Now, I should tell you, I filter my own spam.  Yes, I have filters on my server(s) mark the spam, but before I get rid of the crap, I like to check it.  It wasn’t from someone I knew, but that wouldn’t have mattered.  I often get messages from people I meet online, or from friends who’ve changed internet providers and so on.  Also, I can generally tell the ones from scammers in South Africa who claim to be needing to use my American bank account(s) to transfer $50,000 to €50 Million out of some defunct corrupt official’s accaounts.  Those people just want an account number so that they can rob my US checking account.  I just forwarded three of those to SPAM@UCE.GOV, the Federal Trade Commission‘s Span Reporting address.

But this … this has to go.  I mean, it’s cool and all … As a geek, I get to point and laugh about how the creative Human Mind can overcome “this Technological Terror they’ve constructed” – one more bit of proof that the computer, while logical and fast, will NEVER be crazier (or better) than us.

But why does it always have to be spammers that figure this stuff out?

 bgjy   jh      lz    rc     qs 
wk  ou  js            dj    ekox 
fq      hx          knthwp  smrn 
 jk     ebthz   hj    lg    okbq 
  jk    rl  kh  qp    bl     wf 
   dx   rs  jm  ci    ip     pl 
    mo  co  by  kv    he     gc 
zf  wc  cb  sw  lr    rz 
 sgul   bw  we  op     mzz   un

SASS has Spoken.

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Wow, I Hit the Big Time!

December 13, 2007 at 5:17 pm · Filed under blogging, words, You-Tube

I just hit the top page of GOOGLE!  I did it with a search for “Eva Cassidy Fact Fable“–which, incidently, was my way of trying to find a video that my employer, Fact & Fable Productions, made as a tribute to Eva Cassidy, using their autumn footage and Eva’s song “Autumn Leaves.”  I put the song up on YouTube, and it has since begun to circumnavigate the virtual globe.

I embedded that YouTube video of “Autumn Leaves” in one of my posts, and Google picked it up.  Now, here’s the interresting part: there are multiple places where a person could find “Autumn Leaves”.  (Our version … done by Fact & Fable Productions, I mean).  Fact & Fable Productions is one of them, in fact … we put up a post on the Fact & Fable News Blog with the same information.  However, it was this very blog that Google caught, and presented to you at the top of the search engine listing.

Now … I doubt I’m considered a popular blog.  In fact, Fact & Fable Productions has a page rank of 2, and my measly little blog doesn’t even rate on Google’s bandwidth yet.  And still it was my copy, my embedded version of Autumn Leaves that Google presented to the world when I searched for it.  Not the F&F News Blog … not even the video on YouTube itself!  Me.

I feel so honored!  Thank you, Google!

SASS has Spoken.

p.s., Incidently, I’ve revisited this post, and my page still turns up at the second entry for the search.  However, now the YouTube page for it is at number one.  That makes alittle more sense now.  I still feel honored to be among such company.

 SASS has Spoken.  Again.

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How big is a Blog?

October 24, 2007 at 9:35 am · Filed under blogging, Politics, words ·Tagged , , , , ,

As a unit of measure, words can often be considered the smallest units of reason. Sure, in the hands of a master orator, a good speech, or a brilliant bit of prose or a poem can change the course of history. A well-crafted song at a critical juncture can mean victory in battle, or start a movement of people that changes everything.

But then, they’re just words … right?

Well, in a 2002 speech by Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Bidden Jr., I was reminded that our founding fathers knew how words could reshape history. Thomas Payne wrote “The Crisis”, a series of pamphlets that supported the Revolutionary War, and legitimized the founding of this nation. And when they wrote the Declaration of Independence … well, I probably don’t have to go into how important that was, seeing as how none of you in America are the future subjects of King Charles, nor pay your taxes to Elizabeth II … at up to 80% of your income, I might add….

This was done with words. Oh, sure, those words were backed up by muskets and cannon, but without the words, who would have raised a pistol or an arrow? And who … without the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … would have stood up to the national guard in Alabama? Who would have fought for – and changed – the laws that held one segment of our society hostage to the will of another?

Yes, this is the power of words: words make people think. When they think, they change their minds … they take action, and they start talking, and the words change other peoples’ minds. More people acting, and talking, and thinking means the words spread and grow. Soon the words of one or a few people become the ideals of thousands, then tens of thousands, then countless masses. And when the words spread so far that they become the common thought of the people, then, for better, or for worse, history IS changed. When Adolph Hitler said, “It is not truth that matters, but victory,” a nation followed him and led the world into Hell. When John F. Kennedy challenged us “Before this decade is out to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth” we followed him into the modern world.

Indeed, we measure our success by the power – and longevity of our words. How powerful, then, are the works of William Shakesphere? The Gettysburg Address? The Constitution? What is the power of the common Blog? Will it not be a Blog that sparks the next Cultural Revolution, or Civil War, or Human Rights Movement? Is it not the Blogs which have propelled Environmental Awareness into the mainstream? Who among you is the next Martin Luther, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Payne?

What is the Measure of The Common Blog?

I tell you, it is immeasurable.

SASS has Spoken.

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The SASS is Here…

October 4, 2007 at 3:31 am · Filed under blogging, words ·Tagged , , ,

A new day has dawned.

I know that statement is cliche and overused, but every morning it happens again … a brand new day.  And on this particular day, I’ve started my own Web-Log.

This actually comes as a surprise to me, as, while I’ve posted responses to many blogs, I’ve never seen the necessity of starting my own.  That is, until my collegue advised me that I should start a blog for my employer, and I wound up creating one of my own.  A forum, if you will, for the many words of wisdom I’ve gathered, and a few words of ignorance, I’m certain, to be displayed for all of the world to see.  In the words of an ancient “tagline” from the pre-Internet days of dial-up bulletin boards and WWIVnet, “Open mouth, insert foot … echo internationally.”  Well, in this case, there is no echo … you’ll hear it all directly from ol’ SASS himself.  Unless you read some quote out there on somebody else’s blog.

I have alot of quotes.  Some of them are downright funny.  Take, for instance, the immortal words of one Samuel Clements.  You might know him better as the legendary Mark Twain.  Back in his day, they weren’t all complaining about how stupid the President’s foreign policy was.  Nope.  Their scapegoat was Congress.  For instance, Twain once said, “There is no distinctly American criminal class.  Except Congress.”  Of course, in his day, many of them were in the pockets of major corporations and trade groups (read: monopolies) like US Steel and Standard Oil.  (Any correlations to Haliburton here?)

Also, few lawmakers in the 1800s had the education we now take for granted.  We once even had an illiterate president!  Said Twain: “Let’s say you were an idiot, and lets say you were a member of Congress … but I repeat myself….”  And then there’s Bush.  So … we have us in 2007, and we have Twain in 1887.  Has anything really changed?  Why, YES!  NOW we can blog about it internationally!  In his day, Twain had to wait for his comments to appear in the Saturday Evening Post (Anyone remember that one?  My grandmother had a subscription….)

And, so I blog.  You will learn my politics (I consider myself a cultural Anarchist with a touch of Avant-Garde), my professional life (I do computer stuff … duh), and my inner self (there’s something deeply religious in there, if I can sift through the insanity to find it … you have to be a little mad these days to see the world objectively).  I am SASS.  I am THE Sass.  Observer.  Corresponder.  Correlator.  And I blog.

Hello, world.

SASS has Spoken.

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