HOW DO YOU SAY: "TO FUNCTION PROPERLY?"

This is rather humorous.  You can't see it because you are reading the finished product.  The words of this composition are underlined in red as if they are misspelled.  That is because I have just finished writing a piece in French.  Before I started doing that, I pressed the correct button on the computer to tell it that I wanted French.  I wrote everything in French that I wanted to, but every single word was underlined in red, because the computer refused to see French, despite my best efforts.
NOW, I have reclicked to bring the computer back to English, and all the words are still underlined in red.  But, of course you can't see it because you are not as intimate with my computer as I am...Good thing too.


Why all of this rigamarole about my silly computer and what does it have to do with the title above?  This is what it has to do.  How many ways do you know how to say that a tool is functioning properly or not?  Go ahead, take a few seconds and ask yourself the question.  Ready?  OK.  Let's do English first, OK?
So: -- Let's be positive, that way we can keep smiling :-)  It works;  it runs; it's fine;  Oh, it functions.
Let's try French, shall we?  It goes;  it walks;  there it is;  it functions.
Want a little Italian?  It leaves;  it goes;  it walks; all good;  it functions.
Spanish?  It goes;  it leaves;  it walks; it catches; it functions.


You know what?  Through all these insults and twists and turns, my computer still has not recognized that the language that I am writing in is English.  So this thing doesn't work, it doesn't work, it sure isn't running. Run?  hell, it doesn't even walk.  I think it goes, because I think that it has gone somewhere and has forgotten how to find its way back.  


At this point, I am glad for all of you beautiful monolingual people.  You only have to put up with one intellect and one emotion.  You see what I have to go through?  I have all these realities that I have to battle  every single day.  When things go well, I have to put up with a barrage of synonyms and I get so buried that I don't know where I am.  When things go awry like they are now, I try to be humorous about it so that I don't go berserk with anger and frustration.  By the Way, my computer still has not yet been sensitive to my needs and is still underlining every single syllable in red.  If I were a bazzillionnaire, I'd throw it through a window and go get a more human one in the morning.  But I am not, so I won't.
I wonder what language it will find for me to make me feel better in the morning.
I am just super glad that I don't ever have to ask it to write in Polish or Hebrew or some such other unfamiliar language.

FLY HUNTING?

They make 'em big in San Francisco.  That is not the "thought" for today.  It is rather concerning the task of swatting flies when you discover that there are too many of them in your house.  I was standing in the kitchen and there were altogether too many flies active for my taste.  So I reached out and took up the fly swatter and decided that I was going to wage war on them.  You all know what happened.  I no sooner had my weapon of choice ready to go when the flies all disappeared. So I decided to stand perfectly still in a position that I figured would fool them into coming back and landing in the line of fire.  I was standing by the kitchen sink, right next to the white stove.  I just knew that there would be some action soon.  Sure enough.  One landed right in front of me.  I swung, but I made the mistake of not swinging too hard so as not to squish the thing and cause a small puddle of blood and guts at the scene of the deed.  So, of course, the perp got away.  I had to change tactics.  There had to be a way.  Suddenly I got creative.  I got a paper towel, wet it somewhat and held it in my non-dominant hand.  You know, the one without the weapon.  Then, I resumed my position, ready to blast away and get it done with shock & awe and just wipe the results clean before doing the following one.  Then, of a sudden, one came into view, just over the sink.  It made the mistake of making one or two turns just over the basin.  I swung at it while it was in full aerobatic arrogance and BAM, got 'im.  Maybe it was a her, but all's fair in love and war.  Down into the basin.  Feet in the air, spasmic.  Turn the water on, click the garbage disposal unit on, swoosh, gone.  Yay.  Shut it all down and wait for the next one.  No sooner do I take my position, right arm cocked with my elbow bent at the correct angle when a brazen creature lands on the kitchen table off to my left.  I whirl around and in one smooth, swift action bring the weapon down on the invader and SSppaaalaat!
UGH!  EEEWWWe!  Gross!  Quick, wipe, wipe, squeeze a little bit.  Ahhh!  Clean.  Throw it away.  get another wet paper towel.  Got it.  Position.  Hey, where'd they all go?  I know that there are more of them.  Maybe if I put a dab of maple syrup out there that will help.  HHmmm.  That won't work,  The Voice from the Kitchen would raise Hell and put a prop under it if she ever found out.  "Do you know how much that costs?"  The sad part is I do know how much it costs and I doubt that it is worth the couple of flies that it would nab.  Then again, I could miss, too.  So, I just put out a used banana peel.  It worked.  I got two more.  I somehow knew that flies aren't really as smart as they try to make it look.  In order to make this story a little bit shorter, I have to say that I did get 9 or 10 and I am quite sure that there were none left after that.  Job well done.  No prisoners.  I feel like a Spanish Conquistador.  All told, I had a good time for about 20 minutes.  I'm glad that it doesn't happen too often, but for once, it sure as shooting was more fun than watching the San Diego Chargers.
Pretty gross thought, right?
620 words on fly hunting.  That's because I have not the slightest idea about fly fishing!

FLESH, YES -- BLOOD -- NO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shylock
I admit to you that like so many others in this country, debt is something that I have on my mind a lot.  Not only that, but since I am 20 years behind the curve that most people follow, my debt structure is very interesting indeed.  But, that is not what the thought is about, this time.  Debt, yes.  Mine, no.
Believe it or not, there is a philosophy of debt that is not agreed upon by all.  Here in the United States it appears that we have the Shylock philosophy.  Pay or die.  We seem to  have the attitude that the lender is a scoundrel without any philanthropic bone in his body.  Not a charitable corner in his heart.  Here in the United States, debt, for the most part, is a non-negotiable contract.  The only negotiation possible is at the beginning and cannot be amended along the way.  Either you pay or you go to jail.
For a long time, lending was the bailiwick of the Jewish community.  It was thus because the Christian belief of the time was that interest charged on a loan was sinful.  The concept of affordable interest had not yet been developed.  We are all aware, that things have changed since then.  We are also well aware that there is a prevailing attitude that lenders are indeed scoundrels.  We are also very much in accord that debt is a good thing that has to be managed properly, on both sides of the moral scale-- by the lender as well as by the borrower.
There is an interesting history about the phenomenon of debt.  In some cultures, when the king died and a new king was crowned, the populace would be rewarded by the forgiveness of all debts.  All slates were clean and everything began at zero.  I do not know if this custom continues anywhere in the world.  I wonder if anyone owed Kaddhaffi any money.
I am not Jewish, but I do know that the law of the Sabbath states that every seventh year (Sabbath)  all debts are to be forgiven.  The other thing that I do not know is if this is still practiced in the Jewish Community.  The other practice that I do know exists is that the very rich, individuals and corporations as well as countries negotiate and renegotiate debts all the time.  All you have to do is to watch the news on television fairly regularly and you will get to know it.  Those who do not get to negotiate the terms of the debt are the "Antonios" of the world who are indebted to the "Shylocks."
It is therefore a part of my thought, some of it old (The Bible and History part of it) and some of it rather recent, is that the world owes it to itself to rethink the philosophy that describes debt in these times.  You may or may not agree with me, but that's OK.  I'm easy.  I don't even mind if we write it "debt" or "dett" or even "det."  Oh, hey wait a minute.  Maybe we could start the rethinking process by negotiating over the orthography of the process.  Good idea!  Let's do it.

CARTOON CHARACTERS I REMEMBER AND YOU DON'T

This came to me today.  Actually,"Henry" came to me first.  Here he is.  This child did not talk.  Yet there was a a lot of humor in this strip.  I don't know how he did it, but the author provided daily material seven days per week.  The Sunday strip was 8 panels while the daily strip was four.  Henry was one of my favorites.





Below is Nancy.  Not one of my favorites, but I always read it.  She too was presented seven days per week and sometimes her friend "Sluggo" was with her and sometimes not.  They were inseparable and they both enjoyed ice cream cones.  She, vanilla and he, strawberry.  Nancy was not filled with tricky dialogue, but was a lot more talkative than Henry who had 0% "talk."

Do you remember these two brats?  Now they are a real pair.  They talked with a thick German Accent and they were forever playing trick and practical jokes on their uncle the sailor.  I never missed these guys.  They were my dead on favorites.  I still remember the old sailor's exclamation after falling for a practical joke that he had been caught by,  "Gott in Himmel!"

Joe Palooka was no "Palooka."  He was the "REAL thing."  I, and everybody else loved Joe Palooka.  Honest, kind, clean living, hard working and a winner every time, in every way.

He made a real man out of the simple Simon neighborhood "mobile fast snack" salesman, Humphrey Pennyworth...

That's my trip down memory lane for today.  It came to me as I was driving down to San Diego for a weekend rest.




I know that same of you will relate.  Enjoy.

CURSIVE --- CURSE-IT!

LOOK AT THIS, 65 YEARS LATER.  Pretty bad.  But I did try.  I sat at  the table,straight up,good posture, shoulders squared to the table, the paper at a 45° angle to my shoulders, my left arm bent at the elbow and my left hand holding the paper steady.  I placed the pen through my right thumb and index finger and rested it on the web between thumb and index and aimed it straight back to my right shoulder.  I did not squeeze the pen with my fingers and I took a deep breath so as not to do too badly in this test, some 60 years after I had rebelled against this kind of garbage and gone on my merry way.  The reasons come later, but for now, I have to continue the narration begun earlier.  I had no sooner written the first vertical leg of the "H" of "Hello" that I realized that I was in deep trouble.  My rebellious ways were showing already.  The curve on top of the leg starts low on the left and loops across the top in counter-clockwise fashion.  "Non,non, monsieur Dion, ce n'est pas comme ca!" Good ol' sister Lucrece de Marie was telling me that I had done it wrong.  However, in this case, I'm the only living being in the room, so I smile and finish the capital "H" my way.  I was so nervous after having been taken down by the good nun, that the rest of the first line was not a raving success, as you can all see.  But hey, look at that "W", now ain't that a beauty?  In fact that whole first sentence is really not too bad.  The two first degree successes are the capital "W" and the capital "P", both of them appear twice and both times they are pieces of art.  The rest is the usual garbage that I have always had.  I do have some high samples of my handwriting, but trust me, you don't want to see them.
Many of you are familiar with the Palmer Method of handwriting in cursive.  It was a rather widely applied method of teaching your children how to produce legible cursive writing.  One of the reasons I rebelled is illustrated here below.

 Those of you who were trained in the Palmer Method of cursive handwriting are instantly brought back to the days when you were subjected to what seemed to be hours on end of these exercises.  I hated them.  All I wanted to do is to write something that meant something.  I hated these things and I hardly ever did then properly, causing the ruler to come down on my hand more times than I can remember in my Alzheimers' contorted capital function.  YUCHHH!  BESIDES, I had a perfectly good reason, in fact many good reasons, plural, why all this was totally insane.  If it was not insane, then the people who were foisting it on us were.  I know this because I knew what appeared to be thousands of people who did not write like that and who had very legible handwriting styles.  EFR Dion being the lead one of them.  My exhibit "A".  That was at home.  At school a couple if children joined our class when their parents had come to South of the Border, down USA way :-) Heee!  They could write well and they were not trained in the Palmer Method.  So,Why Me?  I therefore decided that I would write the way I wanted to write, no matter what.  Like a good prisoner, I did what they wanted me to do when they were looking and when the had a ruler in their hand and watching me.  The rest of the time, I was busy doing my best imitation of EFR Dion's handwriting style.  He had never been trained in the Palmer Method and he had the coolest handwriting of anyone I knew...Including Old Buzzard, Palmer.
Presently, I do as little handwriting as I possibly can.  My hands just do not do what my brain tells them to do any more.  See, it's easier to blame my hands than my brain, not being able to control me any more.  After all, that would appear that I am admitting to being insane.  Sheeeesh, we can't have any of that, can we?  So, I'm sticking to the unruly hands.
In finishing, I can say that I was going to make a lot of snide remarks about the pen points, the ink wells and the fact that I broke the rules this morning by using a ball point pen, instead of a dipping nib, but I spared you all of that.  Back when were being trained in this silliness, it was even against the rules to use a fountain pen, for goodness sakes!  If EFR Dion could use a fountain pen, why was it against the rules for me to use one?  This was just like the idiot rules about wearing short pants instead of trousers...  OOOPPPssss!  I think I got carried away there.  It's easy to do when you're wound up about the things that made you rebel when you were too young to do anything about it,except to sneak around and do the "naughty" stuff anyway.

HE'S NOT MY BROTHER -- HE'S JUST HEAVY!

Quick! How many of you get the joke?
I got this in email today from an old fart friend of mine who thinks that he can send me anything that he thinks was in vogue when Moby Dick was still a guppy in a fish bowl.   The title of this blog post is a direct quote of the language that he used as the caption of the picture you see here.   So, do you get the joke?
Instead of my going through the entire story, let me just send you to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Ain't_Heavy,_He's_My_Brother
where the first few lines will be all you have to read to find out all you will ever need to know about the saying.  That's where you will also find out that the sentence uses a paraprosdokian to make the point.
I just want to add one thing to the information that is presented in Wikipedia.  Boys Town is located in Omaha, Nebraska and, as far as I know, is still in operation and is still quite well known, if not still "famous."  Here is the picture from which the above joke was taken.

"He ain't heavy, Father, he's m' brother"

CONSCIENCE DOES MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL [HAMLET]

Are you sure it is conscience that makes us cowards, or is it just plain ol' fear?  It is my thought that conscience is such a deeply personal reality that it is not contributory to cowardice.  It is my opinion [thought?] that anyone who follows the directions [notice I did not say "dictates'] of conscience is not a coward.  Allow me to give you an example or two.
1. I eat dog meat, you all know that.  Some of you would never do that because you think that it is disgusting and outright morally wrong.  I differ.  I have many reasons, but none of them is on point here.  Suffice it to say here, that I do not consider it to be immoral, period.
2. I also eat horse meat. By the bye, I do eat my veggies too.
3. I drink alcohol.
4. I gamble.
My conscience allows me to do these things and nothing you say or do is going to change my conscience about them.  That's cowardice?
Things I do not do.
1. I don't take bribes.  Never did [some have been offered], never will.
2. I don't fear death [I can't remember when, and if, I ever did] and I talk about it willingly and without compunction.
3. I don't believe in dodging the truth.  I believe in personal accountability even if it means having to swallow my own bitter medicine.
4. I don't miss work.  I believe in perfect attendance at work, and I believe in being there on time every day.
5. I don't follow immoral commands from anybody.  I've left jobs over this one.  Got fired once too.
My conscience guides me through that too.  If that be cowardice, then so be it.
I do admit that in some areas my conscience is less authoritarian than in the above 9.  But even then I would never call myself a coward for having followed my conscience.
I also have to admit that I have sometimes done some things more out of fear of authority than out of conviction that my conscience was the sole guide at the moment.  This has happened to me in my adult life as well as during my adolescent years.  For a couple of years I was delegated to attend a noon meeting one time per month as a part of my work duties.  For the entire time I went to the meeting, got there just before the meal was to be served, did not imbibe any alcohol and went back to work immediately after the meeting.  I never frittered my time away by swerving off track with a ready made pretext handy for getting back to work later than usual, or not at all.  I admit, that sometimes that was conscience.  Sometimes it was pure cowardice.  I knew the difference then and I know the difference now.  
So, Prince Hamlet, take that.  I don't agree with you.  Conscience does not make cowards, conscience makes heroes.  
I rest my case for the argument that there should therefore be no crying at my funeral.   I knew what I was doing then, and I know what I am doing now.
Amen.  Amen.  Amen.

DEFINE AN HONEST ANSWER

There are a lot of definitions of "Honest Answer."  At least two of them come from the Bible.  The most succinct one is "Make your <yes>, yes and your <no>, no." [Matthew, 5,37 and James 5,12].  Straightforward.  No BS.  Saves every single bush in the vicinity from being beaten to death.
Somewhat earlier than Matthew and James, a wise person wrote in the Book of Proverbs this definition:
'An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips." [Proverbs 24, 26]  Now that one I like.  I like it because it is rooted in the heart and transmits the truth of the heart to the interrogator.  It is not a reality that has to be confected in the brain before being thrown on to the table in a take it or leave it attitude. It is made of pure, unalloyed ME wrapped around the truth being sought by the person who is seeking it from the responder.  It goes beyond historical fact and even goes beyond the amount of time that two people have known one another.  It is always a sign of assurance and of mutual trust.  It does have varying levels of significance, of course.  The level of trust invested in asking directions to the nearest drug store is not the same as that involved in seeking career advice.  Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that an honest answer does convey a level of intimacy that an evasive response does not.  An honest answer is a sign that the speaker is placing a deep level of comfort in the receiver of the statement.  It is a comfort that presumes a level of trust and intimacy that may or may not continue after the event, but existed before the rupture.  Presuming that the relationship continues, it can more than likely be also presumed that it will grow.  Honesty will become a mutual element of the relationship and the seed of love will flourish and more than likely the flower will never wilt.  We all have examples of this reality in our lives.  The examples do not break evenly at 50/50, for sure.  That's why they are so precious.  That's OK.  The examples of complete disaffection don't break at 50/50 neither.  That's why they are not the end of the world.  The good ones and the bad ones are not what drive me crazy.  It's the spectrum between the 25% here......and......the 25% here that I can't stand.  Don't you feel the same way?  Don't we all agree that a kiss on the lips (or the refusal of one)  is worth a day full of kissing your cousins?  [All due respect to my cousins!]  Should I really plan on going to Tahoe?  Heee.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, young and old and everyone in between, that's my $0.02 for today...and if you are not satisfied, I will refund you the amount between here..and..here.
Now you know why politicians never tell the truth.

PLAGIARISM AT ITS BEST -- SMILE EVERYONE CLICK!

MADONNA OF THE BLUE SCARF
http://stefanwashburn.blogspot.com/

I sure hope that ol' Stefan doesn't get offended.  This is not meant to offend anyone, just to make a rather innocent and somewhat humorous point about reality.  Since I have no idea who the model was, I have no reason to implicate any nastiness by what follows.
For years, and I mean years, [more than 10 but less than 20] I have been smiling at the recollection that I have of the poem that appears below.  It comes from a book of poetry that I discovered in a collection that had been donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Society chapter of the Holy Family Church in San Diego, California.  Since I have trouble letting books pass through my hands without first trying them on for size, I did the same with the collection that fell before me that one day.  It was my duty to go through the collection and decide what books, if any, should be kept from the wandering eyes of the poor souls who frequent the St. Vincent de Paul outlets around the world.  So that's what I was doing when I stumbled across the book of poetry that contained the poem below.  It is a nice poem, and, I think, an unforgettable bit of humor.  And, if Stefan will forgive me, a little like the Madonna of the Blue Scarf, perhaps an argument for iconoclasm.  Actually, that is not my main thought here, this time around.  My main thought is, <Do you know what you're looking at?>  The question continues, and is highlighted in this...

My Madonna

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

I haled me a woman from the street,

   Shameless, but, oh, so fair!

I bade her sit in the model’s seat

   And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;

   I painted a babe at her breast;

I painted her as she might have been

   If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.

   Then came, with a knowing nod,

A connoisseur, and I heard him say;

   “’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.”

So I painted a halo round her hair,

   And I sold her and took my fee,

And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,

   Where you and all may see.

Source: The Best of Robert Service (1953)

Now, let me tell you what triggered this thought, or more truthfully said, this memory.  It was an email that I got today with a list of the 20 most intriguing questions in the world.  You have all received at one time or another a similar email with a similar list.  None of them dares to ask one of the most cryptographically challenging epistemological questions of all:  "How true is it when you say, <I can't believe my eyes.>?"  Do we ever know?  After reading the above poem and contemplating Stefan's painting, I think that we will forever be unsure.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WRITING

BOOOOOM!!!

If and when ever you read the introduction to this blog, you'll see that I wondered if I could get 365 thoughts in one year.  As a matter of fact, I got so many thoughts so far this year that I can't begin to calculate how many more I have lost than those that I actually captured.  It is the usual story of the challenge of standing at the starting line and wondering if reaching the end is possible.  This initial phobia can be rather difficult to conquer.  But, as a matter of fact, it has not been difficult.  It has been more difficult trying to keep the product within some sort of logically bounded territory.  I have constantly told myself that the autobiographical nature of the product should never be abandoned.  So, that means that I have to abide by some self-imposed rules.  For a character like me that is not easy to do.  I therefore get around that difficulty by maintaining other blogs that serve as pressure relievers when the boundaries are starting to squeeze a little too tightly.  That hasn't happened too often, so things have been rather smooth and slippery.  I have tried to maintain the "Grant, Data, Warrant" model in the production of the articles.  Sometimes it works, sometimes my affinity for the digression and the embroidery is too demanding and off I go... I read the thing the next day and I say to myself, "Well, the humor is not in the way it was said, it's more in the way it was written."  Oh, yeah, I know it happens.
This is a strange feeling for me, the discipline I mean.  Since I was 12 years old I have been writing and speaking in public. Most of the time I do it extemporaneously, without notes and many times without a written outline.  I always have one in my head, but hey, everyone knows what stream of consciousness does to you when a good line swishes by and your synapses grab it.  You just have to use it.  When I first started, I figured that things would just come and roll out.  Like in the featured picture. Just sit down and whooosh! 700 words and off to bed with you.  Actually, most days it's like that.  Some are not.  But over all it is fun, and it is, believe it or not, instructive too.  For instance, I have learned to stay away from foul language, except in Latin, as you know.  But then again, everybody knows that foul language is one the the first double standards that children discover as they are growing up.  But I think I have been quite restrained in that area.  The other area I have been carefully monitoring is the "no-no" duo, "Politics and Religion."  I have three other outlets for that, but I decided that this was not the place for that kind of stuff.  Not that I don't have thoughts and convictions about them, but just that if anyone wants to sniff around with that, they can ask me and I'll tell them.  The important thing is that the audiences for those outlets know where to find them.  I have mentioned them here a time or two and the links are listed off to the side.  Actually, if truth were told, some of the greatest gems are in my old E-mails.  Some of them are sparkling jewels of who I really am!
Finally, I have generally been rather modest.  I have one article that I wrote several years ago about a mother who was bringing her daughter to church for first communion.  The mother and the daughter were dressed in equally stunning white dresses.  One was 10 years old or so and the mother was, of course, somewhat older.  The mother was somewhat less than appropriately dressed for church, and I write about it.  In polite terms, of course.  I was thinking of putting it here, but the Voice from the Kitchen is dead set against it.   So, if you want to see it, click around a bit.  You'll find it.  By the way, The Voice from the Kitchen has about 36 more days of left to her half-life.  After that I will abide by her wish to use her real name for ever more.  
So, you see,  this is a reporting of what goes on in my coconut with regards to this effort of mine.  I can therefore confess that it is nothing but an authentic, unvarnished, secular, but polite part of me.  One that my children will be able to show to their children, on the off chance that they generate any.

MAKE ME THINK

2,080,000,000 results (0.44 seconds)
The best I could find was this!
I do have to confess that I only

perused through the first five
results.  I'm sure that you would 
not believe that I had scanned all 
2 billion results.  
This is one of the more famous 
images that we as humans carry
around within our heads as we
go through life.  There are many 
jokes that are dependent upon the
very fact that everyone is 
familiar with the sculpture.  Most 
people even know the name of 
the artist.  I am often taken by the 
posture that this poor fellow was 
sentenced to maintain. for so 
many centuries.  Nobody
No one can begin to convince me 
that a human being could strike this posture and 
actually think of anything other that the pain that the contortions caused.  
You think I'm making this up?
I dare you to try it.  It's nearly impossible to twist your body into that way 
of sitting.  Then,
if you succeed in getting there, I dare you to get a creative thought.  Ha!  
See, I told you. 
It's impossible.  
Besides, we all know that there is a much better posture for thinking.  
It is much more conducive to being creative than any other known to 
humans.  Of course, the problem with our world is that so many of us 
waste the opportunity by reading some drivel like 
the daily cartoons.  Now that newspapers are on the wane, 
even I have to confess that I waste the opportunity to do some serious 
creative thinking by striking the "posture" and
proceeding to indulge myself in trying to solve a crossword puzzle.  
In fact, it is in that particularly productive posture that I am the most 
successful at crossword puzzle solving.  I often think that if I brought 
a blank sheet of paper with me along with a pencil I would have better 
luck with the "365 Thoughts..."  But then, that would take away my 
opportunity to strap on my headphones, get my free Internet radio 
station warmed up and start typing away with sweet music amped 
into my brain at about 5,000,000 dBs.
Besides, I have nearly completely lost my ability to write cursive legibly.  
So, crossword puzzle it has to be...or reading a silly short sidebar 
article in TIME magazine.
By the way, have you tried that Rodin guy's posture yet?  See?  
Didn't work did it?  If it did, prove it by sending me the results in 
the comment section.  I promise that I won't hold my breath.  I also 
won't tell anybody.
BTW, final thought.  Isn't this where we used to write "PS?"
Anyway, I have been flooded with a lot of Hallow e'en [how many of 
you remember that this was the proper spelling of the spooky night?] 
stuff lately, but I'm kind of holding it at bay until we get a little bit closer.  
I hope that none of you let your under age off- spring read this stuff.  
There are a couple thoughts that I have been thinking about 
unveiling that would not be very edifying for the young'uns.  
BBTW, used to be PPS
I am so glad that this is the end.  I couldn't hold the pose any longer!

PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION

There are fewer things that I can praise than there are about which I can "rant."  That's not bragging, it's only true.  There is something about praise that rings false.  Yet, it is supposed to be one of the easiest tasks that fall to someone to accomplish.  I have found myself questioning that all my life.  I had a moment in my life when I was constantly berated for being a constant grouch and a useless curmudgeon.  Curmudgeon?  I was only 16!  It came to me because I  was an outspoken critic of movies.  It was because I only liked "Tom and Jerry" cartoons and everything else was nothing but technology trying to explain life.  I have truly never been much of a movie fan.  I just can't get behind the screen.  The worst possible behavior that holds forth in movie houses is the applause at the end.  Yaay!  Great job, Clint!  Come on out and take a bow.  Hey, where is ol' Clint?  I just saw him stare down 125 people.  Where'd he go?  Gee, he's so shy.  Doesn't even appear for a bow after such a great performance.  It's going to be a cold day in Dante's place before I ever applaud for him again. 
A couple years later I go to another movie and the viewers applauded again.  I was pretty amazed.  All these people must never have been to a movie before.  Didn't they know that the leading man and the leading lady weren't going to come out to take a bow?  Really amazing a stuff.  Now if I were going to praise movies, how could I be humorous about it?
How could I be humorous if I were praising the Red Sox?  Or the San Diego Chargers?  or Beach Volley Ball?  

I have to admit that the things above are really quite frivolous to begin with.  There are other things that could get a lot heavier.  Like discussing cruel dictators; organized, legal bribery and politics; religion and religious convictions; morality and a host of other interesting realities, like bullfighting.  Even these things can be discussed in humorous ways, and very often they are, but only when what is being proposed is not laudatory.  
So that's who I am.  I love the give and take of cool discussion.  I love the cold, hard dynamics of intellectual exchange.  Interestingly enough, I can only do that in some areas.  There are some things that I just can't touch.  I just don't have the desire or the zeal to engage in useless give and take when I know that there is absolutely no chance that I will ever cross the divide between my position and that on the other side.  It has now become obvious to you that it is not a question of inability, it's a question of escape.  So, yep I escape from some things, especially if they are lodged in certain people.  It is then that I decide that silence is the only valor that I am going to parade around in at that time.  Believe it or not, that does happen.  It usually happens when I know that humor is not going to be the safety valve that I want it to be, or need it to be.   
So, dear readers, let me praise you for choosing to follow these humble musings.  You're the best audience I have ever had.  I love each and every one of you more than I love myself.  Since you know that I love you so much, know that I would never, ever prevaricate in your presence, not even in a moment of great need and great challenge when the bases were full in the bottom of the 9th with two strikes on me and two outs in the seventh game of the World Series and my team behind by two runs.  When I hit the walk-off home run, I would not expect one single, solitary syllable of praise from anyone and never, ever expect anyone to cry at my funeral after I got hit by a speeding car when I stepped off the curb in an ethyl alcohol, celebration induced, drunken stupor.
So there.

SILENCE, SUFFICIENT TO EXPLAIN A HEART

«Un silence, voilà qui est suffisant pour expliquer un coeur.»

Deux Jeunes Amoureux

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin dit Moliere.

Early morning in the Alps of southern France.  A strange thing happened to us this evening.  We were in a meeting preparing for the end of January event where we have people from different walks of life come to make life enriching presentations to our church goers.  This evening was a moment when we had representatives from the two major language groups present, English and Spanish.  We were reviewing where we had arrived in our planning process to date.  I was taking suggestions from everyone for topics to be considered.  Many floated across the table and the evening was approaching its final moments.  That's when it happened.  Someone said, "What about <Sacred Silence?>  If you ever saw unanimity hit a group in what some may have called a "New York split second", you know what I mean when I say that.  It was like a lightening bolt.  It was a serious meeting so not a single soul thought of making the obvious bad joke about, "Yeah, so we encourage someone to TALK for 90 minutes about silence!"  Not even I wanted to dare that one.  So I wrote it down in my note book and let my mind absorb it.  We went on to lighter things, started to bid one another a good night and slowly found our way to the door.  But it still kept swirling around in my head.  On the way home I found my mind coming to rest where it often does in these moments...right in the Moliere sand-box, so to speak.  When I want to let my mind run free and take a nice refreshing swim in the ocean of challenging thoughts, I dive into the Moliere Ocean.  He is a 17th century poet and playwright who is most famous for his classical comedies and farces. He found a way to say so many deep truths in such subtle ways that I find myself floating on clouds when I get to dealing with his turn of phrase and piercing vision.  For those two love-birds,  it was early in the morning and the sun was just making his last efforts to make it over the shoulder of the mountain to the east of where we were standing, close and in silent meditation and communication with one another and with the Creator.  In the direction that we were facing was the mountain peak that had claimed 55 Canadians 50 years earlier.  At the moment when my French Friend, Pierrot, yeah I know, ["mon ami Pierrot, prete - moi ta plume"], anyway, Pierrot snapped a couple of very sentimental shots and actually named the electronic files with the caption that I have put below the photo that you see here.  This is a moment of silence during which  two hearts were communicating without needing any noisy help.  So how do you give a 90 minute talk about this?  I am not about to be the one to try, bet on it.
So tonight, the one string of words that came to mind, picture and all, was the one that I translated for you as the title for this article.
I am not going to belabor the point.  I can end this moment of seriousness by saying that 40 years ago I would have known [intellectually] that "Silence is sufficient to explain a heart" is true.  I am profoundly happy that now I am head-to-toe, inside and out, intellectually and emotionally positive that it is true.

OCCUPY WALL STREET -- OCCUPY AFGHANISTAN -- COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF?

Yes, I have a thought about these two realities, and you can tell that it is in blood red.  It is a short, sharp thought and you will not be detained very long with reading this one.
The Commander-in-Chief promises to get the country disengaged from the Middle East.  Then hedges his bet and his promise by saying, "I will talk first to the people on the ground.  They know best."  Huh?  Who the hell's in charge here?  ($6 BILLION a month)
The "Head Socialist" sees hundreds of thousands of people around the globe complaining about the maltreatment that they are receiving at the hands of the financial establishment.  He's got plenty of boots on the ground, right next door.  Anybody seen him talking to any of them?  You think maybe it's because the worst of the perpetrators are working for him, just down the hall?  You know, Geitner and Co...Yep, we know whose in charge there... ($ 0 a MONTH, AND $ 0 INCOME TOO)


Doesn't anybody remember Harry S. Truman vs Douglas 
McArthur?  It's clear to me that the buck stopper has died and everybody is glad that he did.  


The stercus taurorum is getting to be pretty thick.  Democracies usually last between 300 - 350 years.  Aren't glad you're not 18 years old?

DO WE SAY THIS IN ENGLISH?

How much more can an old guy learn?  I have been spending a lot of time with translations these days for some fairly serious reasons.  None of them lucrative, by the way.  Today I was plugging  along plagiarizing some Portuguese stuff from my friends (real friends, no joke) when I ran into this saying:
"Felicidade compartilhada, alegria dobrada." Happiness shared, double joy."
I thought, "Hey, that's pretty neat."  I figured that I would wonder about it for a few moments, move on and forget that I ever even came into contact with such a thought.  I have too many of them to keep track of anyway, so why clutter up the attic any more than what it is already.  So I move on because I have to satisfy an obligation that I had scheduled some time in the past.  Well, wouldn't you know, that during the two hours that I was doing what I had to do at the place where I was, someone, while talking to someone else said the exact same thing in English that I had put aside as being some strange Brazilian soccer thing!  [It's true.  I am not making this up.]  More trouble up stairs.  Now I'm getting nervous.  My arrogance is taking a hit, because I'm supposed to know this stuff.  Or so I am convinced, anyway.  At the time of this incident, I surround the corner of my brain where the crime occurred with the yellow "crime scene" tape and tell myself that I have to investigate this thought that had sneaked into my mind from Brazil without showing me a passport.  
I come home, work a few things, check the clock and decide that I can afford a short night and decide that I am going to confess openly that I didn't know something.  Well, I might as well get a picture, right?  So I go knock on Mr. Google's door and what do I find?  You got it.  Perhaps the most famously, most notoriously known and owned Kangi symbol in the world.  I have fallen into the pictograph of the never ending transcendental concept of mutuality of shared happiness in Feng Shui.  It was all over my screen.  In many hundreds of artistic expressions.  I can't tell you how many times I had to remind myself that 24 hour days are just not in my playbook any more.  So I cut it short and came up with what you see here.   I am duly humbled, but by the same token happy that I have learned something that will continue to contribute to the dynamics of continually trying to acquire perfection of  my intellectual and emotional being.  Quite an experience for an old guy.  Now that I have shared the joy with you, we're both so happy that you will not have the slightest temptation to cry at my funeral.

WORD IMPLANTS, BELIEVE IT -- BUT DON'T FALL FOR IT

So, you thought that you had seen everything.  Well, you haven't, not yet.  I have just been advised by Mssrs Page and Brin (Mssrs. Google) that now as I am writing using their famous program, Blogger.com,  the program itself is going to help me by making word suggestions for me to choose from as I go forward.  I turned it on for the fun of it to see how it would work.  The advertising said that if I have writer's block and keep stuttering in my writing and trying to find a way to express something, the suggestions will turn up in grey, shadowy forms just ahead of the last character that I had put into the ether in order to give me some help with my literary skills.  So far I haven't really had to use it because I am usually quite good at handling the thoughts as they flash across my electro-chemical cranial system.  I have turned the artificial intelligence and it is rather nice.  I have a bunch of words that are constantly sitting in front other my cursor.  So far I have not been impressed.  Let me tell you that if a surgeon had the level of skills that this electric artifical intelligence has, I would bet that we would have a lot of funny looking humans running around.  Sadly, after I stopped typing for about about 30 seconds after the word "around"  the electronic word and idea donors were nowhere to be found.  Maybe they were out looking for matching DNA profiles or something of that nature.  It would be quite embarrassing to have to answer for so many rejections due to mental incompatibility.  Hey, my donor just jumped a synapse and came up with a word.  Not one that I would have rejected, but it was a good one.  Seven syllables too!  I'm wondering if this artificial intelligence and( Hall!) Oh, Oh, I knew it.  I am smarter than this idiot computer.  See that word in red up there.  I was forced by the artificially intelligent Boob inside my magic box to leave it there.  I outfoxed this idiot in less than 200 words.  You see, I wanted to write O.R. for Operating Room, it wouldn't let me.  Then, I wanted to write HA! in jubilant victory over the narrow-minded electronic control freak.  He/she? wouldn't let me do it.  No victory dance in the end-zone.  Let me tell you, my fun is finished.  I just found out that I have been right for the last 74.6 years.  I am smarter than a hunk of iron encasing a jumble of copper, gold and ceramic.  Phooey!  Never again.  I caught you off base after 10 minutes.  You're a Bozo.  Nice try Brin!  Good stab, Ol' Page.  I'm passing on this one.  I will make up my own phonemes as they come.  That grey mush that I have locked in between my ears is better than your silicon sweethearts.  So, all you writers out there.  When you have "writer's block", sit on it.  Don't turn on the electronic anticipatory thingy.  A little rest and maybe even a sip of ethyl enervation will get you going much more effectively than "Google Scribe", the haughty moniker that they tried to pass off on us poor humans.  Ha!  Google will never measure up to my amanuensis.  You're fired, Google Scribe.  I'm taking my marbles and going home.  I am.  All the way back to the first third of the 20th century.  I'll show you whose got his act together.
I had fun with this.  I hope you did too.  I'm serious.  If you're a blogger, don't turn that little gadget on.  It'll drive you nuts and to the bar long before it drives you do the bank or the church. :-)

HE SHOULD STEP DOWN--GET A JOB, RIFF-RAFF

Remember this guy?  Of course you do.  He was the hero of the year because of his act of bravery in Tienanmen Square, so many years ago.  There are even some of you who remember the pictures of the Buddhist Monk burning himself to death in the town square of I forget what country...It was so long ago.  A man did it not too long ago in Tunisia to set off the "Arab Spring."  We all remember the pictures from Tahrir Square in Cairo and those from Lybia, and those from Iran as well as those from Syria.  We also remember the pictures from Manila of some 20 years ago when "People Power" was the featured news story for as long as the uprising against Ferdinand Marcos was raging.  All this is very interesting and you have perhaps come to the awareness  that I haven't mentioned anything about demonstrations here at home.  That's because my thought today is precisely about the difference of the personal and public reactions and opinions that make the rounds when we see it happening THERE versus when we see it happening HERE.  What a difference a "T" makes, eh? as they say in Canada.
When it happens "there" we are all righteous and populists and democratic as we denounce the leader who after all these years of oppression has it coming and he should leave.  Oh, by the way, isn't it a crime against humanity to slaughter your own people in the streets?  How perfectly righteous of you!
When it happens here, we sing a different tune.  I remember the student demonstrations that took place here.  Yes, I remember Kent State and I don't have to Google it neither.  I also remember Wounded Knee and Waco and the other place in Iowa, I think it was where we killed our own people.  NO, I haven't forgotten Selma and Mobile and Montgomery.  Have we learned?  I doubt it.  So far no one has been killed in the "Occupy..." moment.  I can honestly tell you that I am holding my breath.  After all how far can it be between, "Mob", "Riff-Raff", "Loser", "Bum", "Get a job!" and tear gas to begin with, then,  before you know it, a TAZER over-dose.
We know how to take bribes from the "mob."  We have a highly sophisticated official bribery system in place in this, the crown jewel of the world's democratic republics.  What we don't know how to do is to listen to the populace who has nothing else to give us but its time, its passion, its vision, its needs and its hopes.  That, we have an answer for, "Get a job!"  
We, just like the Arab dictators, are not afraid to ignore the reality in the streets.  "They're just students with nothing better to do."  Huh?  That's not what the pictures on television news show.  Or is that just "profiling?"  We are very human when it comes to rationalizing our situation when it is being described for us by others.  We don't like it.  We dig our heels in and refuse to give in.  When it comes to abdicating power, we become vicious and we lose a good part of our humanity.  It is not only in Arabia that it happens.  It happens here.  It also happens inside all of us, not just inside the politicians, but inside all of us.  We have to retire to our room, close the door and look to the Creator for help when it comes to this situation.  We are all vulnerable.  I know, cuz I am among 'em.  
My conclusion therefore is, empty yourself of your usual animal self; listen; learn; do the right thing for humanity according to your conscience, not according to your wallet.

UH...I FERGOT...WHAT'S THAT NUMBER AGAIN?

This is a thought of mine left over from the last decade of the 20th century.  Here's a hint:

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7zOfFTsz69NUdg7tb_UmvK5Ff6-bUa_AhqOczdhIBum5Ds4tRsd05fw5icXQWX2jgBHGfuuajzoBfX-qvc7fDPw8EcM7zUl1V7uQ0aBLYi3M014bOHO2nUpaiWd5lLvTryitoPm28sI/s1600/unrequited+dreams.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7zOfFTsz69NUdg7tb_UmvK5Ff6-bUa_AhqOczdhIBum5Ds4tRsd05fw5icXQWX2jgBHGfuuajzoBfX-qvc7fDPw8EcM7zUl1V7uQ0aBLYi3M014bOHO2nUpaiWd5lLvTryitoPm28sI/s400/unrequited+dreams.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>TEN YEARS AND COUNTING...</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>


Let me translate this for you.  See?  That was easy, right?  Let me tell you that what you see above is the easy stuff.  There's worse, a lot worse than this.   But I digress. 

For many years I worked in companies that are what we called at the time, "high tech" companies.  That meant that they hired a lot of computer programmers to do a lot of very esoteric things.  The eleven lines of code that you see above are actually next to nothing of what has to be composed in order to get a computer to do anything.  In fact the number of lines of code for some of the programs that we take for granted run into the hundreds of thousands, if not more.  The volume of items that have to be considered in order for a computer program to function properly is staggering.  I dare say that for someone like me, it is simply too overwhelming to comprehend.  Since I was a human resources professional who had to recruit programmers, I had to learn some of the jargon, but that's as far as I got.  It is simply too astounding for me to imagine 25 people working on the same program all at once.  Yes, I said 25.  That's like saying that 25 people are going to write a book, and the outcome will be nearly perfect.  Excuse me!  How do you keep track of these people?  Do you expect that they are all going to think the same?  Do you expect that one or two of them might be in the habit of saying "port" instead of "left" and screw something up?  To continue along the same metaphor, what if the guy down the hall used "ass-end" for "stern" and the guy across from him uses "front" for "prow?"  Aren't we in deep stercus?
This is not an idle question.  When you decide to control a drone from California to assassinate Boodro Bullwinkle over in some far away "...stan", you don't seem to give yourself any room for regional or emotional differences.  Yet, we can do it.  
Those of us who are not long distance assassins, fire up our computer, go to Facebook and paper our wall and think that we are hot shots.  No way.  All the hard work has been done.  When I think of these thoughts, I really have to marvel at the world that we live in.  While it is true that spare parts for humans is the one area of endeavor that gets me in the profoundest part of my being, the control over technology gets my attention every day.  It sometimes gets it by attacking my patience, but mostly things run smoothly.  That, in and of itself, is also quite a situation for a guy who hits all the red lights on every given day!  So if any of you have a few million lines of code to write, don't come to me.  5 or 6 hundred words a day is about all I can handle.  Yeah, of course, I do it all by myself.  I screw up my own stuff.  I don't need any help in that area.