Herbal Stew

Two items of interest to those readers who can identify the following alphabet soup acronyms correctly.

AC, HWA, GTA, AICF*

First, there's a promising new blog by someone with a longtime ability - well beyond my own - to deal to the acronym-rich community in question. For the moment the blogger is remaining anonymous, but I am in a position to say at least that this individual not only has a history with most of those acronyms going back much longer than mine, but has been much, much closer to the beating pulse than most of us. Basically this is a book review site, bringing together personal assessments of a potentially huge range of publications - many (most!) long out of print - that have dealt with the movement. Given the subject, most of the material reviewed is "unapologetically apologetic" in nature, and frankly some of the writers were bigger jerks than the people they were lambasting, but... whatever... its still great to see them together in one place. Of the texts currently featured, I confess to once owning five - all since long lost.

Second, the latest issue of that august journal, The Journal, is out. It's a typical dog's breakfast (not sure if that term makes sense in the US, but Antipodeans will know what I mean) of the good, the bad and the bizarre. Dennis Diehl responds to a particularly silly article in the previous issue, the moronic book by wingnut Joe Kovaks gets low quality publicity, genius writers Steve Collins and Alan Knight blather on whatever latest thought takes their fancy, there's another dubious faux miracle story on page one, and I'm not sure I even begin to understand what the heck Bill Glover is trying to do, but if you're out there Bill, I prescribe a nice cup of tea and a lie down.

And that's without mentioning the ever-wacky Connections ad section. But please don't take this as a put-down of The Journal. I love it! I subscribe to it! It's, well, unique. Hours of hilarity salted with a very occasional nugget of precious sanity. Publisher Dixon Cartwright is definitely one of the good guys. What's more, you can download the front and back pages for free.

*Ambassador College, Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, Ambassador International Cultural Foundation.