A Rain of Frogs 

A Rain of Frogs

Jelly side down, duct tape side up:

Duct Tape References in the New Testament, Duct tape as a Cure for Warts, Paralytic Shellfish Toxins, Red Green in Narnia, Prom Gowns and the Maine Marine Patrol. Betcha don’t see a blog entry like that every day. OK, every other day.

Duct tape, Screwtape—our friends,

or “That’s The Way Life Ought to Be” (also incidentally the Maine state slogan).

ToxicDriving past the Pine Tree State’s border outposts at Jackman, Calais, Forest City, Houlton, you will indeed discover that Maine is not only “Tough on drunk drivers,” but the “Way life ought to be...” There are green highway signs that say this. I ponder on this whenever I go across the road to admire the sign the State of Maine gave me. Well, I didn't actually catch them at it, but only a government agency is funded at a level where it can turn out broadsides for the carnivorous whelk community. A Marine Patrol detail must have slipped up in the middle of the night. The rationale behind night sign-posting is if the wardens can slip past a native Mainer, a carnivorous whelk will be a pushover. Maine is not so tough on the alexandrium algal blooms that bring red tide, killing our native filter-feeders: clams, mussels, quahogs, oysters and carnivorous whelks and the occasional snail out for a night on the town. The Maine Marine Patrol first came by my little house on the Pennamaquan oh, eighteen years back, and stapled a predecessor to this this sign on the woodpecker-riddled power pole across the road. I walked over. Yep. They were right; the Pennamaquan stank to high heaven. No one killed amongst us higher life forms, but a few knocked down. And I recall being warned against accepting gifts of mussels and clams until things cleared up. That was in 1985. Things didn’t clear up and the pole, weakened by woodpeckers, went down and with it my Internet. Bangor Hydro put up a new pole; the State of Maine put up a new sign.

Maine is big on signs. As I have written elsewhere in this blog, I live on a fjord, a fresh water river that connects with the sea—the Bay of Fundy, eventually the Atlantic Ocean—and turns brackish twice a day as the tidal surge backs things up just like the tenement plumbing that serenaded us in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal basin.

“Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”

—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Got warts?

In 1492, Columbus discovered the New World; one year later, the Old World discovered a new disease. And what a disease it was—starting with “painful pustules on private parts spreading to body and face, rashes, ulcers, buboes, black pustules, carbuncles, agonizing and swollen joints, lassitude, fever, rotting flesh, blindness and death . . . the symptoms lingering for years in survivors.” In graphic detail, Nicolo Leoniceno (1428 to 1524), a professor of physic in Ferrara, Italy, thus portrayed syphilis, the first international sexually transmitted disease. *

In the 21st Century we may inject antibiotics, have topical creams and balms, unguents to apply to the affected areas, the ever-popular acid dribble as recommended by The President’s Council on Music in American Life:

There was a young man from Dulut’
with warts all over his root.
He used acid to cure ’em
so when he passed urine
he fingered the thing like a flute.

Why are sexually transmitted diseases not mentioned in the Bible? If carnivorous whelks can be spoken of openly on my power pole—well, really. Is this a conspiracy of silence, or what? In the early 20th Century the reverence for New Testament miracles had yet to extend to a dose of the clap. Egypt had its plagues, but that was Old Testament stuff. Clearly duct tape had been invented in Atlantean times and hence banished from God's revealed word, an easy cure for weenie rot being seen as a contravention of God's pronouncements concerning wandering in the desert, slavery, starvation and slaughter. All the good stuff plus all sorts of Levitical ordeals. Syphilis, a New World (and not a New Teastament) complaint, had yet to arrive.

* from New England Journal of Medicine, “Sexually Transmitted Infections and AIDS in the Tropics,” May 4, 2000.

But wait...

Common warts (verruca vulgaris) are a common problem among patients who present in family physicians’ offices. Although a significant number of warts will spontaneously resolve over two years, patients frequently request treatment to clear their skin of the lesions. Treatments such as cryotherapy, acid preparations, laser therapy, heat, and tape occlusion have been used in the management of warts, with cure rates ranging from 32 to 93 percent. However, most of these therapies are expensive, painful, or labor intensive. A few small, nonrandomized trials have studied the use of tape occlusion in wart treatment, with one study reporting cure rates of approximately 80 percent. Doc Focht [Dr. Dean "Rick" Focht III of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.] and associates compared the effectiveness of cryotherapy with duct tape applied to common warts.

Clap for Jesus

I loved summer bible camp,
candy bars for bible verses
and possibly a ticket to
the swimming pool.
Verses repeated back and forgotten,
gluttony satisfied by chocolate.
"Jesus loves you! Here is some
candy!"

—Ashley Taylor Drye

The Clap in Damascus

Alexandrium algal bloom...? Nonononono, not a character in Ulysses—an unlikely source for a duct tape omnium gatherum—but the Writer’s Guide to Poisons, a reference title more evocative of things otherworldly, a spiritual portmanteau, kiddie-safe. Jesus, if not invoked outright, should be at least hanging in the rafters, on standby for the wavering faithful. Things are proper and all right side up by implication. If we don’t deny the existence of the Pentecostal Triumvirate (or duo plus dove) outright, we are already jelly-legging it on shaky enough ground. And Red Green. And C.S. Lewis.

Strange rafter-fellows? I thought so. Lewis, the very Catholic author of That Terrible Strength and Perelandra, even with the strength of an adult conversion, had his merchant-adventurer nephew of a senior devil receive a caution for getting all clapped-up from his Uncle Screwtape. A book recommendation: The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, a source book for duct tape as a cure for venereal warts. Wormwood is/was a junior demon on a prospecting holiday in the world of fleshly humans. Keep it bent for Lent.

The Duct Tape Prom Gown

Prom GownIt is just phenomenal to think that these gorgeous creations are made from the same tape you use to hold together your bike seat or to keep a cardboard box from falling apart. If you have never seen a duct tape prom dress you are really missing out. There are contests around the nation to make a duct tape prom dress and tux and see who can be the most creative. You will just be blown away by the duct tape prom dresses and coordinating men's outfits on this website! With colors like purple, maroon, pink, neon green, silver, camo and clear you are limited by only your imagination. The design of a duct tape prom dress is something that can be as individual as you are. A couple of tips on the design and wearing of a duct tape prom dress:

Climate control

  • Because of the material you will probably get very hot. Wear cotton underneath so you are most comfortable.
  • Paint on a duct tape prom dress flakes off so that isn't a fun option for your limo or living room couch.
  • People will want to touch your duct tape prom dresses so be prepared.
  • You won't have to worry about getting dirty or rained on but you will want to keep a little bit of duct tape in your duct tape purse that matches your duct tape prom dress for any last minute repairs.
  • You really can't plan on making your duct tape prom dress the night before so plan accordingly.

Free prom dresses

Don't forget that if you are the one that is offering a free prom dress that you could also offer the shoes, and other accessories that you bought to go with it too. If you are offering a free prom dress make sure you communicate whether you want the dress back and if so do you want it in its original condition? Free prom dresses can be altered to fit the new person or totally updated by ripping off sleeves and adding other alterations. So if you want it back let them know right up front.

You're pregnant and you still want to be able to attend your prom night? Finding a maternity prom dress will be your biggest battle. Maternity prom dresses can be made from other dresses with just a little ingenuity.

A Duct tape first line of defense

Here's a way to keep safe in the backcountry, bring along the Outdoor Bible

  • Finally a Bible that's as adventurous as you are! Do you like to go hiking, camping, on mission trips, to outdoor music festivals, etc? Get the Bible that can live up to your crazy schedule. Durable enough to take anywhere, the Duct Tape Bible is tough enough to use in real life. You can take the Duct Tape Bible anywhere you want to go - (on any of your fun-filled trips, or even to school or church). And the message of this Bible is even more durable than the duct tape. It's a life-changing message that will last forever. In silver duct tape or camouflage, get the version that is perfect for you... Featuring:
  • The first-ever Bible wrapped in duct-tape!
  • The plan of salvation and valuable insight on how to become a disciple of God.

Oops, this just in...

A boy and a girl who keep themselves pure until marriage and remain faithful after marriage are a separate island. They never come in contact with the cesspool of venereal diseases that are passed around from person to person by immoral people.

According to the law of the Old Testament, Israel would be kept pure because those who committed fornication or adultery were stoned to death. The word ‘fornication’ refers to all kinds of sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and adultery is fornication that violates a marriage.

Forgiveness is possible under the New Testament on the basis of remorse and repentance. If you have committed fornication or adultery, you can repent and be forgiven. Your soul can be purified by the blood of Christ. You can determine that from now on you will keep yourself pure.

This also means that you must be extremely careful whom you marry. Try to find someone who has the same high moral standards based on faith in God that you have. It can still happen that one is deceived or betrayed, but we must do the best we can and be very careful whom we marry.

Now that we understand that STDs would not exist if people obeyed God, we can continue with the question: Are HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections punishment for sin?

These diseases are not always a punishment for personal sins. There is a distinction between the innocent and the guilty. Some are victims and others are perpetrators.

Those who have contracted an STD through their own immorality, however, are—to use Paul's words—‘receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due’ (Romans 1:27). The disease is then a direct consequence of their own sin and, as such, is also a punishment for their sin. And when an immoral person has given an STD to his spouse or children, he must bear the added burden of knowing that because of his sin an innocent person has been given a terrible disease.

—Roy Allen Davison (Rev.)

 

We see conventionally. It is not only that we think and act and speak and dress alike, because of our surrender to social attempt at Entity, in which we are only super-cellular. We see what it is “proper” that we should see. It is orthodox enough to say that a horse is not a horse, to an infant—any more than is an orange an orange to the unsophisticated. It's interesting to walk along a street sometimes and look at things and wonder what they'd look like, if we hadn't been taught to see horses and trees and houses as horses and trees and houses. I think that to super-sight they are local stresses merging indistinguishably into one another, in an all-inclusive nexus.

—Charles Fort, Book of the Damned Chapter XIV

“At the moment of conception the parents-to-be are too busy screwing to take proper precautions and hence inadvertently pass on to their children, along with race, sex, handedness, eye color and a propensity for warts, an endless capacity for self-delusion.”

—Rob Hunter

“Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.”

—Oprah Winfrey

 

RESOURCES:

Duct Tape Prom Gown fashion/comfort/availability tips courtesy www.bestpromdresses.com
The Duct Tape Prom Gown www.ducttapeguys.com
Ulysses (James Joyce) Project Gutenberg
American Academy of Family Physicians. www.aafp.org
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine http://archpedi.ama-assn.org


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