nom nom nom

OK, I enjoy reading YA novels from the library, but WTF, YA section: why have both of the books I got yesterday and read had discussion questions at the end? So annoying. Makes me feel like I"m supposed to be reading for class or something. LAME. I am reading fiction for fun, not for edification! Cut it out! I don't want questions at the end about the character's motivations and crap! BOO. If I really WERE reading this book for class....well, I think my teacher should have better books to choose, first off. And secondly, if my teacher DID choose this book, s/he could come up with his/her own questions.

(I also especially hate this in books that are suddenly popular and reprinted for book club discussion groups. Like, WTF? Suddenly I can't just enjoy the book and talk about it with friends if I so choose, I need a bunch of questions at the end suggested for me?)

More importantly, why did I post it HERE?

Sorry, everybody. Too many windows open.

Um, how about that.... actually, has anyone else read anything by Alaa Al Aswany?

It's the worst "Song of Solomon" on mushrooms mated with the sad, raped memory of Walt Whitman ever. Gah.

And I gotta wonder what kind of breasts this guy saw to use cheese as a metaphoric descriptor. Arrrrrooo?

Maybe it was inspired by this and he did not realize it was supposed to be humor: [link]

So I've been working on my new garden, and plant names are making me think about a Tolkien garden:

• Sea Holly “Blue Hobbit“ [link]
Dahlia “Black Wizard“ [link]
• Periscaria “Red Dragon“ [link]
• Rockcress “Treasure“ [link]
• Kobold is German for “goblin.” [link]
• And there’s the “dwarf” variety of anything
• but Gaillardia “Dwarf Goblin” is even better [link]
• dELFinium might be pushing it, but trollius and spiderwort seem good
• Orange Gnome beats putting in a garden gnome

Salon's got an interesting interview with Bart Ehrman that's worth the read.

but Gaillardia “Dwarf Goblin” is even better

It's a pretty flower, but the name suggests unfortunate liaisons in the Mines of Moria.

I love your garden, Raq! (With or without unfortunate liasons)

I have an Elsie Dinsmore-inspired question about baptism that the internet doesn't seem to provide an answer for. Throughout these books, someone is referred to as a Christian if they've had an experience where they've accepted Jesus. There are a few different times and ways that we see this happen -- Elsie's father suddenly accepts Jesus after Elsie dies (and then she comes back to life); Elsie tells a dying slave about how Jesus will love her and let her into heaven if she just believes -- she doesn't have to do anything but believe, and even a sinner like her will go to heaven; and, in what seemed to me to be one of the odder ones, Elsie's uncle Walter, before joining the army to go fight in the Civil War, decides that he wants to be prepared for death first, so he takes a week to go to another plantation where he knows he'll have some privacy and reads the Bible and thinks about it until he suddenly realizes that believing is all he has to do, and after this, he tells the housekeeper that he can't figure out why he didn't understand this earlier, since it all seems so obvious now.

But baptism isn't mentioned in any of these stories. From other things I'd read, I'd thought that people who believe in that sort of experience with coming to accept Jesus also believe in being baptized once they did believe. There are quite a few kids born in these books, and no mention of babies being baptized, either. So, I guess my basic question is, am I wrong about what Christians believe about baptism? Would the author (who was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister) have just left out the baptism scenes, or is there something else going on?