utenzi

According to the main page of Wiki , on this day in 1844 the Millerites predicted Christ’s return to our vale of tears here on Earth. The Millerites were, as you might know, the followers of William Miller, a well-off farmer in upstate NY who believed in the coming Second Advent of Jesus Christ in the time period of 1843-4. He based this, not too surprisingly, on information he gleaned from the Book of Daniel and also Revelations. There's a rich tradition of using the allegorical language used in the Bible to describe current events and forecast future occurrences. While no doubt a fun hobby, it's a little silly. The prophets and apocalyptics in the Bible were describing their current political situations and social milieu. As was traditional, they'd describe their political/religious sermon in terms of a dream or vision---one which they couldn't understand---then that dream would be explained by some figure of authority. Angel, God, what have you. The symbolism would ...

It's Friday the 13th today. Yesterday saw this area banked in with nasty smoke from wildfires near the coast. They'd been suffering the effects of those fires for nearly a week but it was our first taste of it here, a couple of hours away from the coast. I can't say I liked it. But since today's a lot better, I'm wondering if it was Thursday the 12th that was unlucky--at least in this area of NC. It was quite murky here in the Chapel Hill area but just 30 miles to the East in Raleigh apparently it was dark enough to force people to use headlights while driving : Many drivers switched on their headlights in the middle of the day to help negotiate streets around Raleigh and be seen by other drivers. "Most of the cars have their lights on today. I noticed it in commuting across the city," driver Dave Bamford said. The smoky conditions definitely got everyone's attention on Thursday. The smoke prompted more than 300 people to call Wake County 911 on Thurs...