VIRTUE IS IN THE CENTER; WHAT ABOUT THE TRUTH?

I never asked myself that question
until today.  Then I found this in the search engine and I got a few shivers in the right places.
Doesn't this seem to make sense? On the surface, it sure does.  It would seem that the truth is always preferable to an intentionally delivered non-truth.  Ah, I think I just tripped over something.  Technically, a lie is the communication of an idea or a thought that is other than the one that the speaker really has in mind.  Some lies are innocuous attempts at humor.  Like for example the wry announcement, "Great weather out there today!" during an ear-ripping Nor'easter.  No harm done there.  I did try to convince myself that dentists don't lie, but I never really succeeded. Over the last few years I have grown accustomed to the painful feeling, so I just relax in the thought that it will all go away rather quickly.  After the first time I visit a dentist, I don't get the false reassurance any more.  If the dentist does try to tell me that it will not hurt, I have gotten to the point where my response is, "You mother told you never to fib."   That little bit of infantile language has two effects: It makes the dentist smile and it is never repeated to me by the same dentist.
Talking about comforting someone with the truth instead of with a lie, one dentist whom I really respected and thouroughly enjoyed at one time,  slipped an "OOPS!" in there while fishing around in the deep dungeon of the # 32 molar.  She made the mistake of retracting herself from the dungeon.  I smiled and said, "OOPS??" Are you sure that you're supposed to say that?  She did not exculpate herself, much to her credit.  Furthermore, she said, "I can't anaesthetize you any more, so what I have to do now is perhaps going to be "uncomfortable."  I smile sweetly at the fair young lady and said, "Perhaps?"  "Uncomfortable?"  Tough lady, this dentist!  She came back with, "I am making allowances for your threshhold of pain."  She shut me up by diving back into my gaping pie hole before finishing the sentence.  Yeah, it was a smidgeon more than "uncomfortable" but I lived through it and never held it against her because I can't do that to people who give me a reason to have fond memories of human foibles.
Comforting people with lies is not good practice.  Telling someone that "This is smoothe, low alcohol Bourbon" (55% alcohol) is not a comforting way of acting.  The famous repartee, "Don't sweat it, it's just small stuff" will make the speaker feel good and the hearer feel good if it is true.  If it is not true, then neither will escape the remorseful after taste and the resulting discomfort in the relationship is quasi assured.
So, even if the truth is going to hurt, deliver it anyway.  If it hurts so badly that the relationship is dead, that's not all that bad.  It's one less cigar that you'll have to give at your wake...or one less Kleenex.  The way I'm sizing up my situation, I think I will be able to get by for about $10.00 for both commodities, including matches.

Oh, and by the way, remember, "It's a sin to tell a lie."

BOSTON, SNIFFLE, BOSTON

Boston and the rest of the world have to take a lesson from Vatican City and Rome.  Talk about soft target!  These crowds are HUGE, they're celebratory and they are all unarmed. Yes, I have been there often, very often.  There was a time when I felt totally safe.  Then there was the shooting of the Pope; then there was the Twin Towers; Oklahoma City and some more.  I have also been in St. Peter's Square after all of this and the crowds there do not get any smaller.  They are still huge and generally well behaved.  They are also very sure that they are being watched.  How can they not know.  Just look at that uniform.  Only blind people  could miss it.  It is the epitome of high visibility security.
See that halberd?  Don't mess
with it.  It is sharp,  and it is pointy...real pointy.  See that baby face?  He knows how to use it.  He also knows that everyone in the crowd knows that the pretty clothes and the pretty face are as tough as nails.  And the eyes? Those eyes don't miss a trick.  They are trained to catch every detail.  The ears below the helmet are also trained.  Most pairs of ears sitting above the pretty colors understand at least three languages.  Many of them can handle and sort out four or five.  And these are the "cute" ones.
Go back up to the young lad in the picture up on the left.  See that sword on his left hip?  I guarantee you that is is not an ornament.  These guys are the NHSA (National Halberd & Sword Association.)
Every crowd in this part of the world also knows that there are many "spectators" who are trained security people.  Some from Vatican city and some from Italy.  It is well known that St. Peter's Square is deeply infiltrated by security personnel.  The "narcs" are perhaps lucky that many eyeballs are on the Michelangelo uniforms making it easier to profile the would be bad people.  Who knows?

Yes, as we know even he cannot be 100% sure of his safety.  It is however clear that there is a presence around him, one, colorful and attractive and one plain and unobtrusive.  Is there a lesson there for us?  It is hard to say. St. Peter's Square is not 26 miles long.  It has its own inherent dangers.  The greatest one is that it doesn't present any great and clear way of escape.  It of course has cameras, but it also has the network that I mentioned above.
The last time I was there, less than one year ago, I realized that this could in fact be a target.  Not for any special reason.  Just because that is the effect that today's world has on just about all of us.  It is too bad.  All we can do as individual's is to keep making deposits into the "good human" bank with regularity in order to see if we can make some progress toward outweighing the scales of the malevolent buffons who surround us everywhere we go.
In the end, I still think that the department of Homeland Security migh profit from a visit to the Swiss Guard Commander.  I'm sure that he speaks English.

...SEVEN SENATE DEMOCRATS HAVE YET TO COME OUT IN SUPPORT OF MARRIAGE EQUALITY

I got this in my email today from a political activist.  So I have decided to let you all know about "Marriage Equality" by Paul Dion.  In case you are wondering whether or not I am going to pull out my moral stance on the subject - I am, but just a little bit.  But I do have one.  A very stubborn one as well as a nuanced one.  Much too complicated for 500 words.  So this is going to be reality based sarcasm.

There are several fundamental non-equalities in a same-sex marriage.  Just for starters, I issue a few.
1. Everyone knows that there is no marriage without a daily quibble or outright spat about the toilet seat being left up.
2. Everyone knows that there is no marriage without a clearly defined owner of who gets the last word.
3. Everyone knows that there is no marriage without the remote possibility of engendering offspring. (I offer Sarah and Abraham as examples.)
4. Everyone knows that there is no marriage in "gender."  SEX is where it's at, not "gender" for crying out loud!
5. So, when all these things add up to "no marriage" then the "gender" of marriage = neuter. (You can look it up in any grammar book where there is no sex, just gender.)  Gender = no marriage.
5a. The question that I have is: "With all this talk about "gender" why do we even bother talking about same SEX marriage?
6. Everyone knows that for a true marriage to exist, the ensuing divorce has to be a vicious battle of wills between a man and a woman fighting over money, property and custody of children.  What's going to happen to that?  Will the lawyers go hungry?
7. Everyone knows that it takes testosterone and estrogen go have a real newsworthy, headline grabbing divorce.  That's why "gender" unions won't work.  The tabloids will go broke because they won't have any more real marriages to denigrate.

I must say, to be fair, that I am solidly convinced that the government can grant marriage licenses to whomever it pleases, provided, of course, that the recipients are human.  That does not mean that I think that what the government does is moral.  Not at all.  In fact I know that it is immoral.  It goes from one bribe source to another to the detriment of the common good.  That is immoral because it contributes to the preparation of the nation for its downfall. I do know, according to the moral principles of the relationship between law and virtue, that the lawmaker should never make a law that countervails virtue.  Laws that are counter basic morality are not enforceable laws and are therefore not real laws at all.  The law must always make it easier to practice virtue.  I don't think that anybody should put the Constitution of the United States of America before the fundamental natural law that governs right human conduct which is in commonality with the Law of God.

We hear a lot about same-sex marriage being an attack on the institution of marriage.  The wise-crack answer is usually, "It's not attacking my marriage."  You're right, except for one thing.  It is an attack on your children's perception of human morality and over time it will erode the moral fiber of this democratic republic...all the way to its downfall.  Remember Greece?  Remember Rome? Remember Constantinople?  

Therefore, every time the lawmaker caves in to a special interest, the greater good suffers at the hands of individual greed and the republic gets weaker and weaker every time.

Remember, you read it here.  That way you won't be tempted to cry at my funeral.

HOW DO YOU SIGN FOR TWO?

It has been a long time since I have had some fun at this site.  Lately I have had some intellectual and emotional throwback moments.  One of them hit my funny bone when I and the Voice from the Kitchen went out for something to eat while we were on a relaxation trip.  It just so happened that we were the only two non Chinese Nationals in the entire two or three acre  mall.  It was  a very interesting experience.  We went in to a simple restaurant and when I entered the hospitality lady asked me to confirm that we were two by holding up her fingers in the configuration that you see here on the left.  
I decided to have some good natured, humorous banter with her by holding up my hand with my thumb and forefinger separated.  She caught on and said, "Is that two?"  I said, "Oh, sorry.  No this is what I really wanted to say," and I held my hand up with my ring finger and pinky in the air and said, "This is what I really meant."  She laughed and again, ferociously, this time, literally threw the culturally proper sign for the number two into my very sharply focused line of vision.  Laughing and chuckling we made our way behind her sashaying saunter to the table that was available.  When she had put a safe and private distance between us, Belle asked me, "How do you think up this stuff?"  Actually, I don't think it up.  It just slices and stabs its way into my brain.  Many times  day.  You don't hear it because I am so busy with so many things all day that I can't capture it all.  Every day I finish the day with more forgottens than remembereds.  Trust me, it is very frustrating.  It is perhaps a good thing that what I fail to capture is really not very important or significant.  I suppose that is a good thing.  
I hate to imagine what would happen if I captured significant thoughts and then proceeded to run them through the mish-masher of my brain for public consumption.  It would be a disaster.  You too, then must be thankful that society at large is not in any grave danger of being severly and crippingly brain-wounded.  
So, friends, take it easy.  I will not take you through the pain of telling you how many cultural ways I have observed of how to count to ten on your fingers.  We (United States) start with the index; some Europeans start with the thumb and the Japanese start with the pinky.
Some start with holding the finger out away from the palm while others signify the count by folding the appropriate finger into the palm.  So you see.  If you live long enough in the company of people from different corners of the world, you can learn a lot of ways to do a lot of unimportant things.  
I wonder in which country or on which planet the people who invented the computer on/of protocol of using the same command switch for the start and the stop.  

Relax and enjoy my vacation time along with me.