If An Athiest

Swears On The

Bible,

Is He Committing

Perjury?

Places I Want To Visit Before I Die:

The Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku, is a three-story building on the grounds of the Rokuon-ji temple complex in Kyoto, Japan.
The top two stories of the pavilion are covered with pure gold leaf. The pavilion functions as a shariden, housing relics of the Buddha (Buddha's Ashes). The top floor is built in traditional Chinese cha'an style, also known as zenshu-butsuden-zukuri; and the middle floor in the style of warrior aristocrats, or buke-zukuri.
The ground floor is rendered in shinden-zukuri style, reminiscent of the residential style of the Heian imperial aristocracy. The building is often linked or contrasted with Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion Temple), and Shōkoku-ji, which are also located in Kyoto.
The Golden Pavilion is set in a magnificent Japanese strolling garden (kaiyū-shiki). The pond in front of it is called Kyōko-chi (Mirror Pond). There are many islands and stones on the pond that represent the Buddhist creation story
The original Kinkaku-ji was built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama.^[1] It was his son, shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi, who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school.
The temple was burned down twice during the ÅŒnin War.
On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a monk named Hayashi Yoken, who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. During the investigation after the monk's arrest, his mother was called in to talk with the police; on her way home, she committed suicide by jumping from her train into a river valley. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illness on September 29, 1955; he died of other illnesses shortly after in 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames (now restored). A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
The present structure dates from 1955. In 1984, the coating of Japanese lacquer was found a little decayed, and a new coating as well as gilding with gold-leaf, much thicker than the original coatings (5/10,000mm instead of 1/10,000mm), was completed in 1987. Additionally, the interior of the building, including the paintings and Yoshimitsu's statue, were also restored. Finally, the roof was restored in 2003. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji )
Today's History Lesson: January 28

1974 - Israel lifted its siege of Suez City and turned over 300,000 square miles of Egyptian territory to the United Nations, ending the occupation that had begun during the October 1973 war.

1975--A baby girl was born in Clinton, OK at 11:25 a.m. in the exact same hospital and delivery room  where her father had been born 34 years earlier, her mother had been born 33 years earlier, and her sister had been born four years prior.   Her parents named her Holly Lyn.

 2000 - The U.S. government admitted that workers making nuclear weapons were exposed to radiation and chemicals that led to cancer and early death.

1997 - Five former police officers in South Africa admitted to killing anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko, who died in police custody in 1977 and whose death had been officially listed as an accident.

1986 - The space shuttle Challenger exploded 72 seconds after blastoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crewmembers, including civilian teacher Christa McAuliffe.
Today In Soonerland:
It may not be Christmas, but the weather is certainly frightful--in fact, it is downright scary.  A mixture of freezing rain and sleet continues to fall with the temperature at 27 degrees and dropping.  By tomorrow morning, when it is supposed to stop, Oklahoma could be in a world of hurt with thousands without power.
Since I am not expecting Prince Charming to come riding up on his magnificent steed today--the poor animal couldn't stand up and Prince Charming's armor would be so laden with ice, he would fall off--I decided that this was a good day to do some deep cleaning that I have been avoiding for several weeks now.
When, I clean, I look worse than a redneck woman in her shack in the backwoods.  My hair gets wet with sweat, ; I'm usually wearing the oldest clothes I have, and I do not divulge in make-up.
I am definitely not one of those little women we see in ads running the sweeper in their dainty little dresses, hair coiffed, and not a bead of sweat anywhere.  Do they actually exist anywhere? 
One last bit of trivia: 
The Challenger exploded on Holly's birthday and President Kennedy was assassinated on her dad's birthday.