IT'S CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

Some things that happen as you age

Get ready -- It's gonna get deep over here.

Yesterday my favorite sister made the mistake of "Skyping" me.  You all know what we talked about.  There are no secrets here.  We talked about what empty nesters talk about when they are alone.  Is there anything else?  But during and after the interlocutory, which was lighthearted and enjoyable, by the way, I took up a reflective meditation that has been hanging around my head and my heart for sometime.  

[Before going on, I promise I will say  something about the picture]

Several years ago I slipped past the outer limits of the life span of nearly the entire generation of maternal and paternal first degree relatives through whom I came into the world and by whom I was trained to live in it.  As I go forth into the future day by day I go deeper and deeper into the realm of the unknown.  Every moment of every day I get further and further away from my forebears and closer and closer to reaching them again in the spirit world.  I awake every day with but one instant thought:  “Ok, God, here I am, just tell me what you want me to do today.  Tell me why I am awake."

Contrary to the common opinion, I say "It is a blessing to get old."  Age gives us the opportunity to let God take us by the hand and lead us down the byways of mysterious uncharted territory.  It makes me think that the people who wrote the Scripture reflections about not caring about what you wear or what other people may think of you either were very mature for their age, or they were really older than average.  Like maybe 300 or 400?  

Jesus of course was in a class all by Himself.  “You can’t serve two masters” says He.  He mentions God and Mammon.  We think of Mammon as money, goods, riches.  That’s what we hear from the pulpit every year when that teaching appears.  I don’t look at it that way any more.  For me, Mammon is I; Mammon is what I want; Mammon is my good reputation according to what others think of me; Mammon is doing what I want when I want and how I want; Mammon is making sure that I am comfortable; Mammon is really “I-AM-ON” and I don’t ever want to be OFF.  When I serve myself; when I seek the praise and pleasing judgment of others; when I do for others in order to polish my own apple, I am serving Mammon and I am not serving God.

This teaching is THE challenge.  The challenge to live life in, with and for God and thereby find the real ME and everything that goes with it in the bosom of Father God.

So now, many days when I wake up and I see that it is the house ceiling that I am seeing and not the face of God, I thank Him and along with "Tell me what You want today," I've gotten to the point of many times adding, "..and teach me something new today while you're at it."  You know, just to be fair to Him, a lot of times He does just that.  Maybe He does it just to humor me.  Maybe just to keep me interested enough to want to hang around a while longer.  I don't knock it.  

Take, for example, the Christmas Tree in Bethlehem.  Yeah, Bethlehem.  You know, the City in the West Bank, the one with the refugee camps, the thirty foot "security wall" all around it, Jewish squatters in "settlements" sitting all along the "security wall" and the only woman mayor in the whole Arab World.  That Bethlehem. The place where David, Joseph and Jesus were born and that same Bethlehem where the picture of the Christmas Tree can be taken every single year.  That Bethlehem on the southern border of Jerusalem, the de facto capital of Israel no matter what the rest of the world thinks about Tel Aviv.  

I did not know that I, or anyone else for that matter, would ever see a Christmas Tree in modern day Bethlehem, never mind read or write about it.  But there I was, one day about three weeks ago in the major square of Bethlehem where people were gathering to celebrate the lighting of the majestic Manger Square Christmas Tree.  Sadly, I had 79 other people to take care of and we had other commitments, but I have to say, that the only place I really wanted to be was in Manger Square that evening.

See, every now and then God does get His way.  Here and there, now and again He gets His licks in against the Dragon.  He and Ol'

Saint Michael wind up standing over the whimpering Dragon.  Even in Bethlehem where only about 1% of the population is Christian.  Now, I don't know about you, but I'll take that Christmas tree over Santa Claus any old day.

Let me end by saying that if I had not lived this long I would never have known any of this stuff.  It's a lot of fun growing old, if you can get away with it.

I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS -- THIS IS KINDA WHITE, RIGHT?

Christmas in Southern California: temperatures near record highs

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Nicole Englanoff and Leah Zeffren, both 19, sunbathe on the beach on Christmas Day in Santa Monica, Calif.

Yes, actually, I do dream of white Christmases.  Rather often, as a matter of fact.  Every time I wake up, I rejoice  that it was only a dream.  I am happy that I was able to locate such a clear record of the truth that a white beach is every bit as pleasing as a white road, bounded by white waves of plowed snow in temperatures at teeth rattling temperatures barely making it into the mids teens.  

There is only one thing that the dream brings me that cannot be compared to anything in Sunny, Southern California is the ethereally majestic wavering Aurora Borealis (Northern lights) shimmering on the horizon over an expanse of comfortingly soft white snow.  That is something that I dream about, reminisce about and actually yearn for.  If only I could keep the visit down to a quarter of an hour.  Like they say, Dream on!

So there you have it.  A New England Lad who loves 80 degree, asunshiny Christmases but still confesses that he misses the Northern Lights.  Well, at least I am honest.

May you all have a very happy, peaceful, loving and healthy 2014.

Paul, and I am sure that were she awake, Belle, would join in the happy wishes as well.

CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM A VERY RARE SIGHT

A TRUE SIGHT

We and our band of 79 pilgrims saw this Christmas tree in Manger Square in the Palestinian Authority city of Bethlehem on the very day when it was schedued to be lit.  This is the birth place of David and Jesus, among others.  We were in the square just about 30 minutes before the lighting ceremony and subsequent jubiliation.  Even though we did not participate in the celebration, we felt the holiness of the occasion.
Belle and I join together in praying for you all at this Holy Time of the year.  We hope that you will all join us as we include all peoples in our approach to God.
May you all be blessed with peace and joy this Christmas and throughout the New Year.

KLEENEX -- WHAT DID YOU JUST THINK OF?

This struck my eye while I was researching what I was going to pin up to satisfy my thoughts about Kleenex.  I am not a Kleenex guy.  I am a shirt sleeve guy.  With shirt sleeves, who needs Kleenex?  Now, the answer to that becomes a little bit more difficult in the situation pictured on your left.
This all started this morning when the Voice from the Kitchen who has been hoarse and sniffling for three days now asked me to buy some Kleenex on my way back from a presentation that I was giving.
I can't tell you how many stupid things ran through my coconut about Kleenex and what I remembered of them.  One of the things that has stuck with me is the cartoon that I saw when I was a little boy about a baby in diapers who had emptied a full box of Kleenex in the frustration that he developed as he tried to take only one tissue out of the box at a time.  The room was full of Kleenex tissues that the baby had thrown around in frustration.  Try as I might I have not been able to get Mr. Google to find that cartoon for me.  So, I settle for this picture because as my thoughts jingled and jangled through my head today, one actually captured my mother's story about a friend of hers who had been subjected to the indignation of having pigeon droppings besmirch her fine dress as she was walking to church one Sunday morning.  As the story used to go, the lady pronounced the name of the substance in disgust as she furiously struggled to wipe it off by repeatedly wetting her thumb with her tongue and rubbing, and wetting and rubbing and wetting some more...Yyeccchhh!  My mother insisted that the story was true and she could never tell it without having to interrupt the flow of the description to succumb to waves of screeching laughter.
So, you see what having to buy a box of Kleenex can do to an old guy with a memory.  But there's more.  Oh yeah.  I got to thinking about the baby and his problem of taking only one tissue out of the box and being done with it.  So, after I found the picture and camped on the focus of the "Thought", I decided that I would do some research about the history of Kleenex.  Mostly, I wondered when the "pop-up" feature had been invented.  I found out that it was 1929.  Youch!  Nearly 85 years ago.  Hey, that's older than I am!  But you know what?  I also found out that Kimberly-Clark, the manufacturer, never thought of it as a nose juice recipient/wiper.  Nope.  They made it to wipe cold cream off actresses' faces.  Really, that's what the book says.  Slowly but surely the word got around that ordinary people liked the idea of the Kleenex doing their nose work and saving them the trouble of washing and ironing handkerchiefs.  It wasn't until around 1930, six whole years after the introduction of the product that the company started to advertise it as an alternative to handkerchiefs.
But hey, it gets better.  I read somewhere that very early on in history,  the Japanese had found a way to treat and soften a kind of seaweed so that they could take care of their runny nose and then throw the seaweed down on the ground rather than put it in their pocket.  Those who could afford that luxury thought they were cool and they enjoyed showing up the poor folks who were still using their hands and their sleeves.  For the record;  throw a Kleenex on the ground in Japan these days and it's the slammer for you, dude!
See how times change?  Finally, and I know that this is going to kill you:  How many of you actually took time to teach your beloved children how to use a handkerchief properly?  Hmmm!  Hard to be honest with that one, right?  I pity those poor kids.   I'll bet that you even forbade them to wipe their nose on their sleeve.  I'll leave you with the picture that results from those two previous sentences...
I don't dare write it in public...

I think I'll just let myself out the back door, slinkily and quietly...

Come back tomorrow, if you dare...

WHOSE READING THIS NOW?

United States
Germany
Canada
United Kingdom
France
China
India
Australia
India
Jamaica

Don't ask me who they are.  I just know that I am told by my handy dandy stats reporter that there are people in these ten countries who read what you do.  To all of you around the world who read a simple old man's musings about his life, welcome and trust in my respect for you.  I am glad that I don't use foul language, except for the occasional Latin use of a common Anglo Saxon expletive, camouflaged for the sake of propriety and a show of Classical European culture.
Nearly three years ago now, on Thanksgiving eve I began to do this and I just never stopped.  In fact, from this I sprouted a couple more blogs because I did not want to compromise the nature of this one.  So I created one that is basically very Catholic...life style Catholic, not doctrinally Catholic in its totality.  Then I was cornered because every now and then I just love to let the grouch in me have his day, so I took a page out of Malcom Muggeridge and Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Molière and created a blog that is as much a rant as anything else.  You should visit that one...Wow, some good stuff there.  Lots of politics and soon there will be a post there about insurance companies...Oh yeah...life insurance, if you please.  They made the mistake of messing with me while I am still alive.  They should have waited a while.  Then, a couple of years ago, the missionary in me decided that there is a way to evangelize and to exhort and to pray and meditate and reflect for personal growth and the edification of members of the Faith Community, so I have that one too and some of you read that one as well.  Truth to tell, it is a lot more mellow than the Crusty Kurmujjin, of course.
So now I am 16 days away from the third anniversary of my blogging life and on the anniversary, I will be partly in the air, partly in Istanbul and partly in Moab, the land of Ruth.  It's always fun to fly in the opposite direction of the International Dateline.  You never know where you are and are always mystified about what the time of day is.  So anyway, if you get word from me there, just realize that I am not looking for the Lost Ark... or whatever that place is renowned for!
So, this old man never ceases to be amazed at the wonders of the 21st century.  If you read the Crusty Kurmujjin, you will see that the amazement sometimes turns to utter disgust...without nary a nasty word, guaranteed.  That is one development of the 21st century that I am resisting.  I only cuss when certain people are around...and come to think of it, both of them are dead already...Sheesh! I'm getting old.
C ya's later, alligaters...

IS IT A LIE OR A PURE DISCONNECT FROM REALITY

Would bugs be funny without Elmer?

Ask yourself if President Obama would look sane without the Republicans hounding him all the time?  Maybe not.  I have written some rather critical things about the man, here.
This time it is perhaps more humorous than it is anything else, but you have to admit that the youngster has put his foot in his mouth for sure, this time.  We all know what he wanted to say when he said that "If you like your insurance, you get to keep it."  He said that, and other variations on the same theme more than once.  Now, there is a wave of accusation and disparagement against him for lying.  He's not lying.  He's just disconnected.  If he's not disconnected, he's propably running on "LoBat" like he does a lot of the time.  He's like Elmer Fudd.  He's got a lot of bluster, but he ain't never killed nobody!  He said that because he's just plumb out of touch with reality.  How do I know that?  Watch closely as you yourself answer these questions to yourself.
1. How do you know whether or not you like your health insurance?
2. How do you know whether or not you like your life insurance?
3. How do you know whether or not you like your car insurance?
If you haven't died lately,you're more than likely fairly happy with your life insurance.
Insurance is something that we like when we don't have to use it.
Moving right along to health insurance.  How many of you really know the difference between an insurance policy that you like and one that you dislike?  The cost of the premium, right?  The level of the deductible, right?  How many of you know whether or not you really like your homeowner's insurance?  Why?

When the president made those statements, he should have known that he was talking to a brick wall.  No,not the Republican brick wall,the brick wall of ignorance about the complex reality that is insurance.  The only time that we like or dislike our insurance is when we get the good news or the bad news.  In between, we don't even think about it.  We throw the $200.00 premium at it every month with nary a thought about whether we like it or not.  Actually, we can't think about why we like it or not because we don't use it or we don't understand it.

The president also made the mistake of not trying to explain that the new law was going to make all health care insurance policies meet certain minimum standards.  So that one that you had, fell far short of these standards before the law.  Now that the standards have been built in, you have to pay more and so you hate the president because you now hate your insurance policy and you think that the president lied on purpose.  He didn't lie out of malice.  He erred out of the disconnect between his way of living and ours.  He thought that we would undertand that when insurance companies had to change their policies to accommodate the law of "no maximum caps on benefits; no pre-existing conditions; no deselection because of no coverage of certain illnesses and a host more, they would increase their prices."

In the process, we had lost our below standard insurance that we had and liked, so we had to go another route.  Also, in the process, many insurance policies were changed and are no longer the same as we had and liked before because they had to be changed to meet the standards of the new law.  After the change, of course the price was increased because the level of insurance company risk went up substantially.  Mr. Obama knew that, I am sure.  It should have been explained and it should be explained now.  It's what we get when those who live in palaces and don't have daily cash flow problems try talking to us.  When it comes to nitty-gritty reality like Insurance, they are ignorant of what it takes to make us understand.  They make it easy for us to call them liars.  They are liars.  But in this case, I know enough about insurance to want to give the president a slight slice of mercy, all the while saying with shame that he did, and is doing, a horrible job in this area.

At one point or another along the way, President Obama said these things, but neither he nor any of his people elucidated them to make them understandable to the greater population.

NO PICTURE - JUST YOUR IMAGINATION - THAT WILL BE $1.00 PLEASE

Those of you who have been reading in this corner know that there is a lot of nostalgia laying around.  So, I usually have a picture of some nature to help you bring your mind back as far as I go.  No mean trick, actually.  Tonight, though, I am going to talk about something that happened to me today.  As you know, I've done that a time or two.  Here is what happened.

I have been looking for a cheap life insurance policy to replace the one I have had for ten years.  It is due to expire in August and the premium would explode in the manner of Hiroshima.  An agent got me a nice, I thought, guaranteed issue $20,000 policy.  All I had to do was to fill out the forms and start paying the premium.  I had a question to ask stemming from the mailed documents that I had received.  During the telephone call, on which I happened to be talking to a sweet and gentle, softly lilting voice of a respectful and warm senior sounding lady, I found out the following.

For every single "mode of payment" to this insurance company, there is a fee.  The fee is based on the degree of convenience or inconvenience that the exchange of money from the buyer to the seller entails.  Of course, it is the seller who determines the degree of inconvenience.  So, and this is but an example, not the real numbers.  This is just an illustration of the concept.

    MODE OF PAYMENT                                    FEE
Pay by cash out of hand:                   Principal + 1%
Pay by check, USPS                          Principal + 2%
Pay by telephone call                         Principal + 3%
Pay by direct bank to bank draft         Principal + 4%
Pay by online banking                        Principal + 6.5%

If you think that this is a joke, think again.  It happened to me today as I was talking to the above mentioned sweet little old lady from the insurance company.  I warned her in these words, "Lady, I'm now going to say something that is going to offend you."  I proceeded to tell her in firm, but unmistakably acerbic terms that it is viciously immoral to charge someone a fee for putting money in your hand for a previously agreed upon amount.  She was silent for a good minute and a half.  I just waited, silently, of course.  She then, meekly, proffered, "Well, every company does it."  I said, "I have a computer full of bills that I pay without any 'modal fee.'  So lady, this conversation has just ended.  Good-bye."  Click.

So, boys and girls, be very astute when conducting business with sweet little ol' ladies.  They talk like angels and slink like asps.

Now see, you didn't need a picture for that, now did you?

WELCOME TO THE 90 DAY GOVERNING CYCLE

"Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border, from coast to coast and all ships at sea.  Let's go to press."
[Walter Winchell]

It has been determined by the best minds in the entire country that we have all become irretrievably, invincibly, incorrigibly entrenched in our incurable insanity.  We persist in repeating the same governing behavior over and over again hoping that the more we lurch from 90 day period to 90 day period the closer we will come to solving the perennial and persistent problems that beset our existence as a nation and a people.  These problems are well known to us all...Unrest over our immigration laws and our inability or unwillingness to live by them;  our out of control budgetary situtation; our insidious "campaign contribution" bribery system; our rampant and voracious appetite for gathering private information about our citizenry;  our staunch and militant insistence that every citizen should be armed with the most lethal weapon that exists; our contentious and angry conviction that our health care system is the best in the entire world inflamed by our equally vicious attitude that it is not necessary to make it available to every citizen through a single payer arrangement; our overt rigging of the voting districts of our municipalities in order to assure victory in each and every election; our deeply ingrained conviction that we are bigger and better than any other nation in the world, in every conceivable category of human behavior, despite very clear evidence to the contrary.  I dare not continue because there isn't enough time in the next 90 day governing cycle to fix all these behaviors.  Better that we just continue arguing about debt and taxes and let the rest go to hell in a handbasket.
Lest we exercise our index finger overly much by pointing it in the direction of Washington D.C. it might be good for us to name ourselves as participants in this insanity since we are the ones who insist in electing and re-electing the denizens of that enclave over and over again in the hope of changing the outcome. 
Yes, Mr. and Mrs. America, this is global insanity. 

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, YOU DID WRONG, AND HERE'S WHY

Bring the truth to earthly power

When we celebrate the great apostle James, it is a good time to consider one of the things for which he is famous.  First and foremost, he is remembered as the first official, de facto, leader of the New Community, The Way, as the followers of Jesus were collectively known.  His seat of leadership was atop Mount Zion, the Holy City of Jerusalem.  He is also known for his short but powerful written instruction to the world, The Epistle of James. Finally, and to the point of my present letter he is famous for his teaching about the human tongue.  [James, 3; 1 - 12]  You can imagine that anyone who could have written that must have lived by it first.
When I think of James, I always remember Nathan, the great prophet Nathan,  God's "mouth piece"  bringing judgement down into the ears, heart and soul of the great sinner, saint and  King, David.  Nathan was not afraid of David because Nathan was dedicated to God and God's truth.  Like all God fearing and revering people, Nathan was not afraid to die because he was doing God's work and speaking for God.  He knew that he was right and that the king who had been chosen by God through the service of the Great Patriarch Samuel, knew that he had to listen to God's word coming to him now through the holy prophet Nathan.
We have much to learn from Nathan.  We have much to learn from James.  We also have much to learn from our Weeping Mother, Mary as she appeared to two illiterate children at La Salette in France in 1846, speaking the Naked Truth in stark, real-time terms. The first thing to learn is that closeness to God makes us strong in the truth.
The second thing is that the truth is always produced by God in every age until the end of time.  Jesus used His human tongue to bring the truth home to us.  He showed us that the truth is a sign of contradiction. He showed us that the truth, because it is inexorably from God, is, in fact, a sign of contradiction just as He, Himself and His Father are, and always will be.  Jesus, when His Hour had come, clebrated the truth by testifying to it while standing before the ultimate earthly power, the cruel potentate, Pilate, who, just before handing Jesus over to the Jews and the Roman soldiers asked, "Truth?  What is that?" [John 38, 38]
            Answer:
Closeness to God. The whole truth and nothing but the truth takes away our fear of earthly power.  It doesn't matter what the source of power is, it can never equal the grace of God.  Staying close to the pure, unvarnished truth is therefore a very important virtue for us to practice.  It keeps us close to God, the Pure, Eternal Truth, at every moment.  It is in this actual intimacy that we will find comfort, peace and joy.

We should be aware of this every time we use our tongue to communicate something.  We have some very lofty sacred examples to follow, Nathan, Mary, Jesus, James just to name a few.
Think about it the next time someone asks you "How old did you say you are?"
Don't be afraid to say that you heard it here.  Don't be afraid to refrain from crying at my funeral because I say the truth when I tell you not to do that.

HORSEPOWER -

It has been a long while since I have had the time and the inclination to put more foolishness in writing.  I have to admit that for the last three weeks or more, I have been mentally and physically over-booked.  I have a fairly long list of things that have crossed my mind lately, and to tell you the truth, I have no idea why I chose this topic to break the silence.  It's just one of those things.  Just below this one you will find some deeper considerations about "Secret Thoughts," but this is bound to be more fun.
When I was younger, some 65 years younger, I remember asking EFR Dion the question that is the topic for today:  'What is horsepower?"  He looked at me and said, without missing a beat, "It is the strength that it takes one horse to lift 16 tons in one minute."  Well, I have lived all these years with the conviction that I knew exactly what horsepower is.  I have no clue of how to translate it into torque, or watts, or speed, or heat, or BTU's or calories, or any of that other fancy stuff, but I still remember my father's sure and solid answer.  Despite the fact that he was one half ton off the mark, as you can readily see, it was good enough to last all these years.  It would still be good enough except that I found the half-ton short-fall when I betrayed my conscience and second guessed Ol' EFR by going to Mr. Google in search of a horse.
A couple days ago, amid my clogged schedule, this idea came to me like a hair on soup.  The strange thing is that it would not go away.  So often, I get waves of inspiration like this and despite my best efforts, I forget what the inspiration was about. If I had a better memory or a faster pencil, I would have scribbled a lot more things than actually have found the light of day as a result of coursing through my brain.  This one though, kept pinging on the inside wall of my coconut, relentlessly.
The other thing that got me to smiling was how useless it was that I should have this fact tucked away on the dark, dank corners of my mind and neither one of my sons has ever asked me the question.  In this world of ours, where nanoseconds, picofareds, megapixels, kilobytes and terabytes, keyboards and quartz screens, smartphones and WIFI's, I'm practically dead certain that neither my sons nor anyone else will ever deem it necessary to ask me what horsepower is.  Horses don't move anything other that themselves these days, for which I am sure that they are quite happy.  So, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, that's the thought for today.  If I'm lucky, the Good Lord will slip me another one tomorrow.

SECRET THOUGHTS

I was listening to an interesting interview earlier while driving back from visiting family in another city. It was on NPRI, National Public Radio International.  It was originating in Canada because, I suppose, it being a holiday (Labor Day) in the USA, the out of country divisions were providing the on-air presence.  This was about the ever more deeply encroaching surveillance being foisted on the people of the USA. I don't remember the names of the main interlocutors but one question, among many provocative ones struck me. It was, "What do you say to those who postulate, "If you have nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear.'?"
The answer from the expert being interviewed was swift and sure: "Everyone has something to hide."
My internal, personal reaction was, "I do."
I haven't murdered anyone, raped anyone, robbed any banks or some such things, but if the snoops want something, they can find it in my public life.  It doesn't even matter whether or not it is morally correct.  Snoops can make up all kinds of stories once they have enough information about you.  Since I have confessed that I have something to hide, let me show you where a serious snoop could start, even before I even had a presence on the Internet and a Smart Phone.
I never attended a public school.  I never spoke less than two languages.  I was never drafted into the military.  I was exempted by the nature of my continuing education.  During the time when I could have been drafted, my continuing education took me to Europe.  To Italy where the Communist party was still very strong.  When my continuing education was finished I went to "work" in the Philippines where I stayed for 11 years.  During my time there I lived in the section where the anti Marcos insurgency was fairly strong.  A colleague of mine spent five years in prison for rebelling against the government.
I came back to the United States and when I went to work in secular industry, I did not work for a purely American corporation for many years.
I could go on and on. Now, some nasty snoop could, I suppose, make hay by the fact that I have a fairly constant presence on the Internet and have voluminous writings open and available to the world to ruminate.  It should be clear to you by now, that over these 50+ years of of non-typical existence, there's gotta be something that I should worry about.  Maybe there is, but at 76 years young, I don't give a damn.  But you do get my point, I am sure.
It is the same point that the expert made during the interview.  We have all been to the doctor, many of us have consulted lawyers, or worked for a corporation where our responsibilities put us in positions of having to work with lawyers on a fairly regular basis. Many of us have worked overseas, many of us have picketed our employer's facilities, many of us camp outside of abortion clinics and pray and intervene with the entry of prospective patients, many of us send emails that are not kind to the leaders of the government, and the beat goes on.  The man was making the point that it is not just public speech that is being watched, it is our private expression of personal opinion that is also being monitored. In the end, therefore, says the man, we all have something to hide, we often times don't know what it is.
Over all, I was fascinated by the fellow's point of view.  It was all the more interesting because he is the owner of a company that makes products that prevent the government from snooping on the exchange of messages between two people by using these products. The product has the name "Silent..." I can't remember the whole thing.  I do remember that it is expensive, of course!
So, there you are.  A little sample of the stuff that you can hear while your spouse is sleeping in the passenger's seat on the way home from a holiday in sunny San Diego.

USA EXCEPTIONALISM? YOU BET -- NOT!

Exceptionally high prescription drug prices, the highest in the world, even higher than the many developed countries who have single payer health care systems.

Exceptionally high infant mortality rate, the highest among wealthy nations.

Exceptionally well educated graduates who can’t read cursive handwriting

Exceptionally high private gun ownership…the highest in the world

Exceptionally proud to be the number one nation in the world in the number of gun related homicides

Exceptionally violent…more than anywhere else in the world

Exceptionally inclined to mass murder, much more than anywhere else

Exceptional by the fact that the USA has more crime by far than any other country

Exceptional by the fact that the USA has more people incarcerated than any other country

Exceptionally proud that our life expectancy at birth is a resounding 49^th place on the charts of the world

Exceptionally obese.  Number one in the world, in fact.

Exceptionally poor public mass transit infrastructure

Exceptionally driven to meddle into the affairs of others, at home and abroad

Exceptionally weak Commander in Chief who always consults the “Generals” rather than commanding them

Exceptionally weak Head of State who seems to fear to dare the opposition to cause senseless havoc

There has been a lot in the news lately about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government to kill some of its citizens.  That is certainly not a very nice picture.  There is also another ugly picture to contemplate right here in the USA.  We also have a government that wages chemical warfare.  We don’t get gassed, we just die because we can’t afford the chemicals we need to survive.  I’m a lucky one.  The prescription I can’t afford is not a cure or a control for a terminal condition…painful, but not terminal.  So, I do without.  But there are people who choose to die because they cannot afford the astronomical prices of some of the “miracle” drugs that are for sale, all the while being unavailable because of price. 

There is also another crime that kills our fellow citizens in this country and that this the legalized bribery practiced between politicians and special interests.  If politicians had a moral compass they would stop taking the standard “campaign contribution” and “lobbyist” bribes and start to protect the citizens of the country with common sense health care and gun control laws.  The canard of the second amendment is just that, canard.  There is nothing in the second amendment that says that the government doesn’t have the right to protect innocent citizens of the country. 

Yes, the USA is Exceptional.  It has constructed the best legalized bribery system known to humans on this planet or any other one where humans may exist.  The immorality of this ingenious system has succeeded in substituting the authority of the government with the power of the special interests.  This displacement of truth and honesty has despoiled the franchise held by the citizens of its guiding force.  The citizens vote, the politicians get washed downstream by the flow of the bribes.  Along with the politicians goes the will of the vote only to go over the Niagra and fall into the churning miasma of unrest and unrequited expectations for a decent, well organized, productive life in an honesty based land. 

No, I don’t live in Russia.  No I’m not a bleeding heart liberal, nor am I a tight-sphinctered conservative.  I am a hard working, 76 ½ year old who still holds a job and has experienced life in many places in this world.  Given my internationally grounded experiences, I can fearlessly say, yes, even along with Vlad Putin, “Get over yourself, America, you’re just as ordinary, and in many ways just as bad if not worse as anyone else.”

FROM THUNDERBOLT TO THUNDERMUG

Brace yerself, this one's gonna getcha.
I saw sumthin' taday that brought all kinda thoughts to floodin' my mind...
Thunderbolt - you know the WWII P-47 types...
Thunderclap - you know, the explosive snap after the lightning bolt that happened just 1/2 mile away...
Thunderhead - like the thick, gnarled black clouds just over the hill...
Thunderstorm - like in raining cats and dogs for 15 minutes accompanied by fiery lightning and noise from Hell...
Thunderstruck - like too much $50.00 a fifth Bourbon on New Year's eve...

Thundermug - ...

... nuff said!
    I honestly thought that EFR Dion had made that word up when he first used it in front of me.  I still thought that when today, for the first time in at least 60+ years, I actually saw the cutie that you see up above.  It showed up at our place in San Diego, on the patio, please, just as pert and pretty as you please like you can all appreciate from the picture.  So, just to test myself and my skepticism about the name of this artifact, I put EFR Dion's word in the slot at the top of the Google page,

and there it was, just as big as life, a real, enameled metal thundermug, without the gentile cover and the cute design on the side.

Brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and cousines, friends and neighbors, ladies and gentlemen, you all, old and young from near and far, you have before you a hint of some of the things that run through my warped, pretzel shaped mind on any given day. 
Hey, it's better than Alzheimers, ain't it? Hmmm,or is it?

RETRO POST -- RETRO WHAT?

                   

 Hi.  Welcome to my retro post, totally handwritten, in what used to be known aS longhand but now masquerades as cursive...my very own, arthritically damaged handwriting.  Enjoy!

Needless to say...

I was called into the head office and told that my services were no longer desired.
I have subsequently learned that the 
kindergarten teachers can't read cursive either.
Maybe we should go back to hieroglyphics...they have such pretty birds on their walls!

CORPORATE CULTURE AND THE TRANSLATOR

Raining cats and dogs

How do you want me to say it? 

I have choices, but I cannot read your mind and I do not know your internal culture

Several years ago I worked for some large international corporations and I had to produce legal agreements to be used between the corporation and outside interests in laguages other than English.  In one of these companies we drew up a list of conventional intra company terms [sometimes referred to as "argot"] that would not be translated into the language of the outside interest, but were to remain in the language defined by the corporate culture of the company for which I was working.  This was often the case with technical acronyms.  One of these was AQL (Aceptable Quality Level).  There were others in engineering and in accounting and in purchasing as well.

The point I want to make is that a good translator will try to identify what, if any of the terms used in a legal, or even paralegal document are to be or not to be translated according to accepted and established corporate culture.  The professional translator is aware of some of these idiosyncrasies and inquires from the client which ones they are. 

Verifying this from the outset can prevent discomfort and discontent between the client and the translator.  

SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY -- NOT

This, I have to make a part of my life.
In the San Diego Reader,  Thomas Larson wrote a cover article on August 14, 2013,

"College? no thanks"

I congratulate Mr. Larson because as far as "Reader" articles go, this was one I really appreciated.  Not all "Reader" writers are created equal.  Mr. Larson is one of those who attracted my attention and kept it for all 5,000 words.  Good English, good syntax, good style, good job.
Here's why I read, and, I must admit, reread this article.

For most of my upbringing, a good 15 to 18 years of it anyway, I would hear my father, otherwise known to you all as EFR Dion, say: "Yeah, my brothers have a lot of education, but they don't know anything."
My uncles were on the G.I. Bill after serving in the armed forces during WWII.  They had not graduated yet, so while they were in school, they had very limited resources.  EFR's auto was their preferred mode of transportation when the friendly confines of Fenway Park, 100 miles to the east, would beckon.  Their predilection for the American League Red Sox was always a mystery for us.  We were smarter than that, we had adopted the National League Braves as our team.
But that was not the limit of their lack of "smarts."  They somehow usually returned the vehicle with nothing left in the tank but the smell of the fuel.  Every time that they did this, I was sure that the day of Sodom and Gomorrah had arrived.  But no, the storm would pass and all would be well again.
EFR had left high school at age 15 because his father had died and left the family with 8 children behind.  It was 1928 or so.  Yes, indeed, great depression time.  Read more about him here.  I have to get to the point.
The brothers who went to college turned out to be excellent teachers and later in life, successful entrepreneurs.  They were creative.  Music and poetry was their forte.  There was another brother who eschewed the G.I. Bill and went right back to work as a tool and die designer, and as any tool and die designer who ever lived, I'm the best damn designer out there.  You will never meet the second best tool and die maker.
So, I grew up in a polyglot, cultural teapot that was steaming with both, creativity and education.  There is no way that anyone, in my opinion, can make an absolute statement that school at any level, college and university included, crushes creativity.  I say that fearlessly.  Mr. Larson in his article, positive as it may appear on the surface about skipping college, carried a definite undertone of feeling that no matter what his interlocutors told him, the possibility of a college education remained a presence inside of them.
Personally, I've got a masters degree in a "soft science."  [Theology] I've had a string of jobs.  I've failed at some and I've excelled at some.  I can honestly say that my long stay in school has had its positive influence on my life and even some negative influence.  But never has it crushed my creativity.
One of the jobs that I held for many years was the recruitment of engineers and other professionals and managers.  I have seen up close and in living color, the difference between the "self-made" professional, technical or administrative,  and the fully degreed, =/>2.50 graduate. Give me the one with the solid educational achievement 90 percent of the time.  Yes, I leave a ten percent gap there to accommodate the exception.  (See EFR Dion, above and linked)

The difference is in mental discipline.  Not emotional nor physical discipline.  Mental discipline.  Mental discipline allows for creative solutions at the end of a logical development that follows the intellectual parameters of the science within which the task is planned and followed by the path taken in its execution.  The person who has a foundation in those laws and practices is more successful at planning the outcome of the project, is more successful at solving the unexpected deviations from the plan caused by the pressure of certain variable realities that are not always possible to foresee.  The scientifically trained, disciplined mind can identify these deviations more quickly and institute corrective action more quickly and effectively that the one with practical experience only. Creativity is a child of mental discipline acquired through education. Creativity is not a corollary of experience.

Many years ago I read a poem that made a point of saying that the creative little person who was witty, musically inclined and lovable was crushed when he entered school because the discipline forced him into line with the herd and the nerd.  That is a reality that exists.  I know.  I have a son who is perhaps a product of that reality.  I know that there are people who would very much like their pursuit of art (or of financial gain) to be their only discipline. They point to the great rules breakers of all times, Picasso, Shakespeare, Moliere and a hundred more that I can't name here.  I just want to say that before Shakespeare could bend grammar to his art, he had to prove that he knew that he was breaking the rules and he also could prove why he wanted it that way.  Maybe Shakespeare graduated from an institution of higher learning.  I don't know, but I'd bet that he did.

I beg of you not to bring up Bill Gates and his leaving of Harvard.  It is well documented as coming from Bill Gates personally that he and his friend dropped out of Harvard because they were afraid that if they did not bring their ideas to closure that they would be overtaken by others. Gates and Paul Allen are an example that education, science and creativity go hand in hand.

I could go on, but I won't.  I'll leave you with my point.  This discussion has no end because there is too much truth on both ends of the rope.  I have avoided the political aspect of the discussion.  My math is not up to par to allow me to hold my own there.  What can you expect from a Theology major?
My point is that creativity is the child of solid education.  It is the child of strict mental discipline, a skill usually acquired through education.
Let me paraphrase a traditional dictum that comes from the old Greek philosophers:  The highest truths can be learned through personal investigation, but at the cost of great effort over a great amount of time.
This holds true for pure science as well as for art and athletics.

Look around.  It's true.

IS IT A LIE,OR...?

Many times I sit down and I scratch my head to look for the thought that I had at 2:00 PM and told myself that I did not want to forget because it was soooo hot!!  You've seen me brag about writing 600 of these "thoughts" and now we're on 601 and I have been sitting on it alllll day!  ...and I have not forgotten.

It is about a person whom I know, and have known for lo! these many years and I have always been trying to figure out just how much of what I hear I should believe.  Now we all know someone like this.  Many of us, myself included, know that some people who know us wonder the same thing about us.  So, it's not that anyone is immune to the situation.  It is, however an interesting place in my life that this conviction about the one individual of whom I write took so long to take root.  The other interesting thing about my conviction is that I am now glad that I am formally settled into the conviction that I have come to know that I am not being lied to.  I know that I will continued to enjoy my relationship with this friendly human creature.  Even though everything that I get from that direction is not the purest, pure truth.

This person is not a liar.  This person knows what the truth is.  It's just that there is a drive to make the truth appear better that what it really is so that I will be attracted to it.  The truth is always present in everything communicated, but it comes wrapped up in different ways as time progresses.  It's just up to me to find it.  It's like the same person with a different pair of glasses or a different haircut. I just have to get used to the different styles and cut through the embellished truth to see where the root of the message really is. You have to admit, this is an on-going conundum. It's a good thing, though.  With this puzzle in my life, I won't have to spend too much on crossword puzzles any more.  

The negative I can discover here is that instead of drilling down for the truth within the person, I just may enjoy myself playing with the puzzle rather that empathizing with the puzzler.

The good part about all this is that I really love this individual.

With an attitude like that, why cry at my funeral?

599 + this 1 = 600 -- CELEBRATE BY READING IT

HEY!  I didn't think that I had 600 thoughts in my coconut.  6 or 16 maybe, but 600...Not on your life. That's a 600 page book for crying out loud!

Thank you, Tom

The interesting thing about it all is that I have some that I will never publish.  I have been pushing them out of the line of fire for nearly three years now.  I am glad that I have had the common sense and the circumspection to stay away from certain expressions of my convictions.  I do not feel squeezed or encumbered by any of this.  I don't feel as though my freedom has been tethered and curtailed because of my decision to keep certain personal and family facts off the pixellated page and away from the consciousness of the readers.  Believe me, this is true.

Those of you who get email from me fairly often, and even those who get email from me occasionally can see that I have more than one blog containing my ramblings.  I don't know why, but lately I have been reading quite a bit of what I have written at random.  I kid you not, random.  Stuff from many years back.  Stuff that appeared long before I was answering the challenge of the 365 Thoughts in one year.  Some of it is really good.  Some of it makes my eyes bug out and make me say, "Did I write that?"  Just as well, some of it makes me wrinkle my nose and say, "I wrote that &*%@+~??..."  So you see, I do know the difference between right and wrong.

It is true that I have some wonderful experiences that would really look good on paper.  They would really be wonderful snapshots of my journey along the road of life but I do not feel compelled to release them into the ethernet.  I think that sometime early in the series I mentioned that I would refrain from using foul language and staying away from the seemier adventures that I have experienced.  For the most part, I have done that.  Not that all that is secret is seemy.  Nope.  Some of it is quite elegant, really, but this is not the place for it.  Not according to me, anyway.

This blog is one thing. The blog "No Crying at my Funeral" is quite another.  It is meant to be an expression of my experience as a Cradle Catholic who neither could nor would be anything but.  It is a Catholic life style blog from the point of view of someone who knows the Catholic Religion from the inside out and who tries to live according to the expectations of that Religion.  This blog is part and parcel of an online Catholic Life Style weekly magazine.  I have some five or six years of contributions to that endeavor.  There too, there is some amazing stuff...on both sides of the meaning of amazing stuff.  The fact that I have a masters degree in Theology from a prestigious Vatican University doesn't protect me from producing some really horrible stuff.  It also doesn't guarantee that the good stuff is equally good all the time.

You see, I just told you that I was enjoying some of the old stories that I produced.  When I lit up my computer this evening, I saw that I had written 599 articles under this title of 365 Thoughts.  So, why not open my heart a little bit and let you in.  I still have some tellable tales.  My #2 son has asked me for one.  I have some that I have been thinking about.  Nostalgic stuff.  You know like, "Given inflation, is today's $0.99 store the .05 and .10 of yesterday?"  "How many times have you been knocked out in your life?"

Tomorrow (Today?) is Hiroshima day.  60 years now, I think, or maybe more.  The other day was the end of the Korean war, 50 years ago.  We in South Hadley have a bad memory of that.  A sweetheart young man named Mike Barney was killed after the armistice in that war.  So see, I still have stuff that I can talk about all the while keeping secret what I want to keep secret and not feeling crimped by it one single bit.  Good, bad or indifferent, there's plenty of other stuff to put out there.  Maybe I'll do better when I produce # 601!

HEY, THAT'S MINE -- THAT TOO -- HEY, LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE HERE

ONCE A PROFESSIONAL ALWAYS A PROFESSIONAL

I did not translate because her numbers tell the story.  She is cradling the MVP award of the professional woman's league in Portugal.  Her story in English, below.

Jennifer Risper é a estrela que mais brilha

...is the star that burns brightest  (Portuguese)

 22.11.2011 ás |  Miguel Tavares |  0 Comentários

Em Algés, mora uma jogadora que tem o seu brilho próprio e que vem trazer qualidade e momentos de genialidade aos campos de basquetebol da Liga Feminina de Basquetebol. Se o cartão de visita de Jennifer Risper já deixava antever uma boa campanha em Portugal, a #8 do Algés tem demonstrado as qualidades que a conduziram à WNBA.

Na Jornada6 da LFB, a base norte-americana do Algés acabou por ser a grande figura: no jogo contra o MRGroup Olivais Coimbra, Jennifer Risper foi MVP, rainha das assistências e atleta com mais roubos de bolas. No desafio deste fim-de-semana, a #8 das algesinas voltou a ser a figura maior na importante vitória da sua equipa, terminando o jogo com 20 pontos, 7 assistências, 5 roubos de bola e 4 ressaltos. Tão, ou mais, importante que os seus números é a capacidade que Risper tem de assumir o jogo nas alturas decisivas. Nos momentos decisivos do jogo de Vagos tomou sempre as opções correctas: fosse para finalizar em bandeja, ou para assistir uma colega melhor posicionada para lançar.

Depois de ter sido a atleta em maior destaque no jogo da Supertaça Feminina, Jennifer Risper continua a demonstrar a sua qualidade e ao fim de 7 rondas da Liga Feminina, a base norte-americana é a MVP da competição com as médias de 18.3 pontos, 9.4 ressaltos, 5.7 assistências e 4.6 roubos de bola por jogo.

20 POINTS
7 ASSISTS             These are one game numbers
5 STEALS
4 REBOUNDS (She's 5'9")

18.5 POINTS
5.7 ASSISTS           These are averages
4.6 STEALS          
9.4 REBOUNDS

We met this woman last night.  She joined a small community of religious people from our church.  She was there to talk about her change of career.
At the young age of xxvi she has lived more than what some of us can log over almost three times that amount.  The adversity that she has had to overcome and the joys that have been showered upon her all flowed smoothly from her heart as she spoke.
She has decided to give her life to God.  After a rather impressive professional basketball career, the numbers are there for you all, she has decided to be a lay college/university campus missionary. She is listening to the call to "Come and follow me."   She will be stationed in Nebraska, yes, THAT Nebraska and she will be the spiritual guide, the prophet, if you will, in the athletic area of the institution.
We hear a lot about professional athletes.  I personally totally lost interest in that universe 20 years ago.  Of course it didn't help that I was living in San Diego!  Be that as it may.  Jennifer Risper has been the object of great adulation for many years. Through Vanderbilt U. and through her professional career, as you can tell by the picture celebrating her MVP award.  She has left that all behind for the sake of the Kingdom.
We spent a wonderful two hours with her last night. I invite you to click on the link just below to see what it is that she is called to do.  This, I'm gonna watch.   http://www.focus.org/

YOU HAVE BEEN OBSERVED ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS A CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SITE

THIS IS A SCAM AND A VIRUS

If you get this on your computer, you must, I say MUST do the
following:
1.  Say "Oh saint and holy guardian angel of mine, keep me calm."
2.  Read all about the fact that you have been busted trying to access a child pornography site
3.  Read how you have already made it to the public list of perverted pedophiles and maybe even worse
4.  Of course you will see that your computer has been "locked" and can only be re-opened by paying $300.00 by anonymous card and putting the card number in the space provided here-on within 48 hours
5.  Now you can start smiling to yourself because you know that all this is not true.  There are some facts that are now beginning to sink in because you have listened to me and kept your calm, like I did.
6.  You read the instructions telling you to go to a list of six retail outlets to pay the $300.00 fine that will liberate you from the jaws of hell.

By now it should have hit you square between the peepers!  The US Department of Law and Order wants me to pay my fine at the 7-Eleven!!!  Through an anonymous pre-paid card!!!
Boys and girls, angels and devils, introverts and extroverts and other classes of "verts"... relax, already.  When this happened to me this morning I had more then enough evidence to know that I had been attacked.  I also did know that it's going to cost me about 50 skins to get my machine back.  But tell me, ain't that a far cry from $300? I was also assured that I won't lose any data.  Now that's really good because the machine that got bombed belongs to my son.  Sorry son, your Pa's a "vert!"

My computer guy and I were laughing because he was thinking about a real serious consequence to my status when he asked, "Watcha gonna tell yer pries'?"
We laughed heartily and he told some true stories about other customers who actually fell for it out of fear and out of guilt in a case or two.  They only found out that they had been duped when their computer never did get unlocked despite the 300 simolians that they had dropped at their friendly WalMart.

I have written to you before about Internet shenanigans.  It never seems to end.  This is a very sophisticated and well organized worldwide attack.  So be careful.  Keep a $50.00 bill hidden somewhere in case you have to bail youself out.  The last thing you have to worry about is that Eric Holder is coming after you.

But the way, this kind of took the shine off the Lady in Manchester, England who was trying to escape from paying me for work I had done for her. Much to her credit, she paid.

Until next time.  Cheerioooo!!

CABBAGE NIGHT TRICKS -- 24/7 -- I ONCE HACKED A CLOTHESLINE -- HOW 'BOUT YOU?

One of my nephews had this happen to him lately.  After the event he got a lot of sympathy from his friends and neighbors.  Very touching and sympathetic expressions of compassion, they were.
"Hey Dude, I opened it and you should see what I saw!  Who you running with these days, Dude?"
"Hey, C..., wow, good looking lady there, man! Doesn't spend much on clothes, does she?"
"Gee, C..., I didn't know you used that stuff!"

I couldn't help but think, what if the same things would have greeted the old biddy with the hacked-up clothesline about 65 years ago.  We used to do those kinds of things to assert our allegiance to the ghosts, gobblins, leprechauns and spooks who were running rampant on the eve of Hallowe'en.  
Truth to tell, cutting clotheslines was reserved for the people whom you really did not like and whom you deemed "deserved it."
Most of the real damage was usually inflicted upon house and car windows with a bar of Ivory Soap.  You know the stuff, 99.44/100% pure, "It floats!"  The bar had a groove in it to facilitate the cutting of it into two equal parts called "Halves."  So, for a dime, when dimes still existed for a better reason than just making change, you could mark up twice as many windows as the Bozos who only had a bar of Palmolive or some such other thing that DID NOT FLOAT.
What did we write?  Real raunchy stuff it was.
"Ha Ha"  "Kilroy was here"  "Boo"   Most of the time we just scribbled zig-zaggy lines.  Believe me, even the ruffians didn't dare do more than that.  Hey, this was 65 years ago!  In those days, even the ruffians were polite.

So, now hacking means something else.  So, even though I haven't been hacked yet ... now that I've said it, watch what happens over night...  So, now, I say, I am the 21st century ruffian.  I figure out that if you're going to hack me, you're going to have to know the grossest words I know in some foreign language mixed in with BIG letters and real tough numbers like Ih8U@%**& in Sanskrit.  If you hack me it better not be for Viagra, Cialis or anything like that.  What I need is Colchicine that you have stolen from the halls of Congress.  If you're not pushing that, leave me alone.

So, there you have it.  My nephew had a bad day at the keyboard.  First he got hacked electronically and then he had to stand by and get hacked emotionally.  It should never had happened to him.  He never kept any poor child's baseball that had accidentally flown into his back yard.  Besides, you want to hack something real expensive and a real rare treasure? Go find yourself a clothesline and discover the 21st century Nirvana.