Oh, Boy, Oh Bama

The only thing we can really afford is single payer
You're not going to believe this.  I just had a nasty thought about President Obama.  No, I mean this is really not nice at all.  

I have this thought that Barack Obama really is not dedicated to the overall welfare of the United States of America.  I get this nagging thought  that this man does not care one way or the other about what happens during the next two years.  Not only that, I am swamped by the sullen presence of the thought that the only thing that Barack Obama really cared about to being with, was winning.  Once he won, he had nothing to do but to find a way through the morass of complexities that constitute governing, and he would have his future and  that of his family assured, partly at tax payer expense.  After all, no one gets "fired" from the lifetime benefits that come to ex-presidents.
He hit the jackpot when John McCain saddled himself with Sarah Palin.  From that moment on, it was all Obama.  So it was until he got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Then it was all peripheral.  It was all Pelosi, Reid, Holder, Napolitano, etc.  Obama settled into playing the blame game iced over with the compromise shuffle.  Some times he did not wait for the challenge to compromise, he just wiped the table clean before it even got visited.  Barack Obama is not breaking a sweat over getting anything done at the highest degree of quality.  All he wants is to get something done, no matter how big or how small.  He'll take it all, go home and display it for the rest of his life as spoils of his victory.  That's my thought, and not just for today.  It has been hanging around for a while now.  I just can't wait until two-o-twelve!

HOW TO ASK FOR MONEY, EVEN IF YOU DON'T REALLY NEED ANY

Boy! That's a pretty ugly picture, wouldn't you say?  I use what I can find on Google, of course, 'cause it's free.
I had a thought today that was rather humorous and also rather serious. My sister-in-law baby sat for a lady who gave her thirty dollars after three hours of baby watching.  My sister-in-law, three months new in the U.S.A. protested and said that $30.00 was too much and that it wasn't necessary to pay for the service in the first place.  Fortunately, the lady offering was a Filipina who understood what was happening.  So, in the end, the transaction was completed and the $30.00 found a new home.


When I heard the story I said to my sister-in-law, in the United States you take the money, smile nicely and say "thank you three times" and put the money in your pocket.  As all of this was happening, my brain was flip-flopping looking for a nice, powerful way to explain the cultural difference to this dear, lovely lady.  We have some of that in us too, and I thought about it again when in the few hours after my short conversation with the baby-sitter, I had another conversation with our number 1 son.  He asked, "Do you know what Ma would like for Christmas?"  My brain went haywire.  I know what she wants, but I don't want to tell him.  Well, that's not really perfectly true.  My real problem is that I want to tell him but he caught me by surprise and so I don't know how to say it so that he'll know without really KNOWING.
I mean, I sure as Dickens was not going to say, "a tidy little sum of cold cash."  Hell, even here in the good ol' U.S. of A. we don't say it that way. So I quickly got cute and said, "Yeah, just slip her a couple of pictures of Andrew Jackson and she'll be happy."  Now you all know that what I said is not true.  My son knows that it is not perfectly true, but he knows what he knows and I, and you, know that everything will be OK in the end.
Finally, here's the bottom line thought.  After the conversation with my son, I realized that I had the perfect explanation for my sister-in-law.  You accept the money because that is the value that the donor places on your service for that event.  It may not always be the same, but it's not up to us to judge in these cases.  All we have to do is to respect the decision of the  payer.
Now c'mon, ain't that sweet?  She thought so.  So do I.

WE DO NOT THRIVE ON BREAD ALONE

I know that this is true because I live it every day.  In many ways, I live it.  I want to take a light hearted "view" of the comeback that Jesus threw to Satan when they were "proof texting" one another in the desert, early on in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4, verse 4.  Jesus tells Satan that man thrives on "every word that comes from the mouth of God."  
I'm not contesing that, but God has also given us some pretty nice stuff to admire with our eyes and hearts, as well as His sweet words that feed our ears and hearts.  That's why I took this photo on Thanksgiving day, not too far back in the past.  That's the blue PACIFIC OCEAN on the horizon and that's what we see from our kitchen.

When we turn around from the kitchen, we look through the dining room and out the bay window and see a sweeping panorama of the San Diego River Valley to catch the two levels of heights in the eastern distance.  It is all the more majestic since it is set off nicely by the majestic Norwegian Pine tree on the left.
The "frosting" on this wonderful "cake" is the balmy 65 degree weather that is the average temperature for this part of the world.
When I first came to San Diego to live, I didn't come for the climate.  I came for the comfort of the extended family.  It was a time of search and a time of change, so Massachusetts was not going to fill the bill at the time.  So, San Diego it was.  But now comes the secret of the thought for the day.  All the while I was taking these pictures I was remembering the unsurpassed beauty of a landscape brilliantly bejeweled with snow and ice.  You can't escape it.  I can't escape it.  Every now and again during the "winter" months, I spend some time mooning over the miraculous makeovers that snow gives the face of the land.  This happened to be one of those days when that was the thought that got my attention.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISE MAINLY FOR MARC AND JO-EL

I was telling Isabel that for many years now I have decided to write my autobiography for the boys.  I have it started.  I had it on some 3.5 inch floppy disks (remember those?) and some of it has been lost and some of it remains.  I still  have some hard copy and I still have the outline.  All I need is the time.  This new expression of what goes on in my head should be considered a part of the autobiographical process.  Not only this blog, but here and here as well.  Click on those blue babies and you'll get some insights.  There is nothing there about my historical physical existence, but the activity that goes on between my ears and in my emotional self is pretty much what you'll find.
If you take a close look you'll see me on the highest step in the photo, hunched and poised for the kill with the glint in the sidelong stare.
This particular post was occasioned by the unexpected query at the breakfast table about what I was doing last night until 12:00.  So I simply told the truth and then was given the 3rd degree about my motives.  So, once again I had to actually think and tell the truth.  I was rather happy with the reaction.  She thinks it is good.
Therefore today I had two thoughts:  The clarification of why I do this and making sure that I understand the now growing expectations of the 10 of you who now know what is going on...at least the little bit that I now know and think about, you are privy to.
Oh, in case you are wondering, yes, I do know all the children in the picture.  Go ahead, put me to the test.  Go to the comment box below and twist my cranial synapses.  I dare ya!
I am now drained and have no more thoughts, ideas or phantazees left for today.

"ANYONE IS FREE TO CONTRADICT ME"

Yup, that is a quote.  It comes from the introduction to Jesus of Nazareth written by the Pope, Benedict XVI whose picture appears right here, to the immediate right.


When this guy was elected, it made me happy.  When I read the above quote it made me happy.  this guy knows his place.  He knows that he is in charge, in some ways.  He also knows that God is in charge in ALL ways.  He knows that he can be contradicted in the matter of condoms that he brought up in his new book.  He knows that he can be contradicted in the matter of offering the traditionalist Anglicans a safe corner in the Roman Catholic Church.  He knows that he can be contradicted in the matter of giving so many concessions to the "Latin only" traditionalists of the Roman Catholic Church.  He knows that he can be contradicted in the matter of kneeling to receive communion and to receive on the tongue.  He knows that he can be contradicted on a lot of matters a lot more technical and theologically profound than those I just mentioned.  He not only knows it, he invites it.  He loves the intellectual give and take of discussions that take off from different points of view.  He loves to engage in that kind of tension because he is convinced that it is in this atmosphere that the Holy Spirit enlightens the world.  He is also confident enough in his own convictions, intellectual, emotional and spiritual to know that he can control the debate.  I made a comment about this a while back after what he said about the Muslims in Regensburg.


In this area, I agree with him.  My thought is that what is important is not the departure point of the discussion that is important, it is the destination that is used to define its value.  My thought continues to say that the optimum destination is right in the middle, right where the tension is the hottest and where the new truth caused by the clash is created.  It is the middle that is the furnace that forms and burnishes the clearer understanding of the one Eternal guiding Truth.  Benedict "ex-vee-eye", more than anyone, has planted the seed for that thought in my mind.


Now ain't that something?  Quite a thought, don't ya think?

INTRODUCTION TO AN OLD MAN'S MUSINGS AND GROUSINGS

Hello,one and all.  Welcome to a experiment in human behavior.  I am wondering if I can actually practice the discipline that it is going to take to do this.

First let me introduce you to the symbol for the year.  the picture of the door on the right is the door that leads to the bedroom where our two wonderful boys spent the first years of their lives.  One of them is a rather clever cartoonist.  One day he got hold of a felt pen and let his imagination run roughshod over about 15% of the door. (The lower portion--he was about 8 or so.)  I liked it, and decided that we needed a little creativity in our lives.  That was a daring decision.  I never regretted it.  I want that kind of thinking to rule over this production.


I have to say that I have been walking the face of the earth for a little more than seven decades.  Along the way I have had some thoughts about some subjects.  I have also had some ideas.  If you can tell me the difference between the two, I'm ready to listen.  Anyway, two nights ago I was lying in my bed suffering from the pain that an attack of gout inevitably brings on.  As I lay there, I was occupied by a brain that would not stay quiet.  I had this inspiration to note a specific thought that caught my fancy for every single day of one year.  The longer I lay there languishing in the no-man's-land between sleep and fiery pain, the stronger the conviction came to do this.
Well, it didn't take long before I got into an argument with myself.  It was about the very important element of when the year would start. I knew that I couldn't wait too long because then it would be a leap year.  My brain was having nothing of that.  365 is enough, I can't and won't do 366. So the neutral part of me said, OK, December 1, 2010.  But then I got excited and things started to happen and it was decided that we would start immediately...today, November 25, 2010.
So here are some of the reasons why today won:
1. 50 years ago today my younger brother Denis was married.  Sadly, I can't be by his side, physically, so I will piggy-back on his marvelous tenacity and in that spirit, I begin this today.
2. If it's worth doing, do it.
3. I've already got two thoughts, why waste 'em?
4. I've got the symbol / logo for the year.  What's to wait for?

So away we go.  I have explained the logo above, so here's the first thought I had for the year.

See that lady on the right?  That's Isabel cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.  Laptop and all!  All I could think of when I saw this scene was how it was done when I was a boy.  I saw it done a couple of ways.  My maternal grandmother had a coal fired oven.  That didn't prevent her from cooking some bodacious excellent meats...it didn't matter to her, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, meat loaf and even bread.  So what's with the laptop, Mom?  My father was a more intellectual type, and we had an electric stove.  He still used to succeed marvelously well without a computer when it came to baking, and he never once took out his slide rule to get help in the process.  

My thought about this is that some things that we call the fruits of progress, really deserve the title because the results that they bring about are in fact better.  Some things though are only "progress" because they make the job of obtaining results easier, quicker and less strenuous.  In so many cases they do not make the end product any better.  Some things though are true progress in my book.  Take that laptop, for instance.  Now that's progress.  There is a universal library in that little black box.  And it doesn't cost a thing.  So, as my brother-in-law Jack responded upon hearing the story of the turkey being "Googled", as my sister Emelie remarked, made the insightful comment, "Well, that's one turkey who won't "gooble any more."

Now there's a thought!  Why didn't I think of that?