LEARNING TO RIDE A BIKE

Sure, I fell a lot, but I never cried.  I was smart, I
practiced on the grass in the outfield of the baseball diamond.

I have been having these throwback moments of nostalgia again these days.  Rather strange about how that happens.  You go a couple of years straight without ever going back into the past. It's like it never existed. Life goes on at the age that you have achieved and that's it.  You arise in the morning, live the day going from one event to the other and never step out of that narrow trace.  Then, one day, when you're looking for some piece of reference material, boom!  There is a picture of a cousin that you haven't seen for 60 years or so and you're off...to who knows where.  Now where the @%^<~* did that reference thingy go?  You spend 30 or 40 minutes looking for it, and finally find it right where you left it to begin with, on the floor by the side of the box where you had found it.  But the cousin is still there.  Never goes away.  Can't get anything done.  What a mess!  I quit.  I hope she's still alive.  She must be, otherwise someone would have told me.  Funny, she never did get into the email stuff.  Pretty old fashioned, I guess.  Oh well, gotta get back to the grind.

Yep, that's what starts you back on the road to the past.  You think of all kinds of things that are not connected, not logical and not consequential in the least...but you're having fun so you let it go on.  So, I got stuck on the learning to ride a two-wheeler experience.  The reason why I put this picture up is because this is evidently a rich spoiled brat kind of wimp.  Look at that $300 bicycle!  It's small too.  What's he screaming about?  What would he be doing if it were a standard 26" like more of us had when we were going through the phase. Falling from that added height would really make him howl!  I didn't have a bike because my father said that I would get one when I turned 14.  I didn't like the deal, but the only money I ever held in my hand was the nickel that I would occasionally get to by a Hershey bar or something precious like a balsa wood stick and wing glider.

Somewhere around 9 years old or somewhere in there, my aunt Norma heard me whining about the fact that some of my friends could actually ride two-wheel bikes and that made me ashamed to traipse around the neighborhood on my old trike.  She said that I could borrow her bicycle now and then so that I could learn.
Oh, wow!  The first tine I had it, I walked it down to the playground where there was plenty of grass so that I could fall and not die on the first day from so many road wounds.  All went well until the guys saw that there I was with a girl's bike.  Ooooppsss!  I had over looked that discrepant reality.  I really took a lot of heat for showing up in a man's world with a girl's bike.  So, I got as far away from them as I could and forced myself to learn how to balance myself on that infernal machine.  I admit, that first day was not a total washout, but I left the playground to give my aunt Norma her vehicle in good condition.  I thanked her and asked her to lend it to me again soon so that I could maybe get to learn how to sit on the seat to pedal.  I had almost mastered balancing myself while standing up.  That was the beauty of the girl's bike.  It did not have the horizontal bar from the seat support to the front fork.


See what I mean?  This looks about like what my aunt's bike looked like.  This one is a little bit on the deluxe side though because it has a kickstand.
Well, about one week later I did get to spend some time at the playground again and I did learn pretty much how to ride a bike.  I still had not mastered the proper moves to mount a boy's bike, bit could ride a bike.  It would be quite a while before I would learn how to mount and dismount from a boy's bike.  That took a lot of practice.  However, to do that I got some help from a fellow baseball player who helped me to learn.  That wasn't easy, but I got through it and by the time I got my bicycle, I was already quite proficient...and, by the way, I was in the 6th grade and I was only 12.  I never knew why EFR Dion changed his mind about that.  Yeah, he bought me a boy's bike.

IS FANATICISM A SIN

I was asked this question nearly one year ago and I have been thinking about it somewhat because I have it in the right margin of my computer calendar.  In case you might be wondering how come I know exactly where it is, I'll tell you that it is one of those things that I know I want to do, but...  Well, you know!

I have run up against the same difficulty now that I I have decided to actually do something about it.  I can't find the definition of fanaticism that I want.  I know what it means, I really do, but the more I think of it and the more I "Wiki" it, the more disappointed I get.  It keeps coming back to religious intolerance...to religious narrow-mindedness...ah, religion, religion, religion!  The reason I don't like this definition and these explanations is that most religious people I know who are worth their salt, are really zealous people who are deeply dedicated and narrowly focused.  They would never succeed at their calling if they weren't.  I happen to be one of them.  I can honestly tell you that I am quite capable at what I do.  I can also honestly say that I cannot qualify as a fanatic.  I know because my psychiatrist friend told me so. 

So, now, I can tell you that I know that fanaticism is a sin, but only after a certain degree of it has been surpassed.  But, you say, "where is that?"  To which I answer, "No one knows."  So, essentially, that's why I am frustrated at the lack of clarity in the definitions that I have found.  I say lack of clarity because I am convinced that all fanaticism is not religiously based.  So why can't at least one dictionary say that "warmongering fanaticism is a sin" and get it over with? No, not a one.  So, all I can do is to repeat the answer I gave to my #1 son after thinking about it for only about 30 seconds.  I tell you that so that you can see that procrastination never contributes to clarifying your intellectual acumen.

Fanatisicm is a sin because it is an extreme commitment to one idea and one only without leaving any space for another point of view concerning that one idea.  The reason why that constitutes sinful behavior is because it is the opposite of virtue, therefore vice.  It is vice because vice is extreme behavior, whether right or left, while virtue is to be found dead center between to extremes.

There, that is what I told my son.  He never complained about it and the person who had talked him into asking me didn't fight it either.  So, I have carried this around for so long, and here I am happily coming back to the top of the arc, despite a long series of disappointments about the results of my research.  Therefore, rejoice with me and be comforted that we have found that fanaticism can be defined without dragging religion into the picture.  

Given that conclusion, you have to be sure that I do not expect you to Cry at my Funeral.

28,222 DAYS LATER, A NEW THING HAPPENED

I did not look for this picture, I stumbled upon it just today and the thought touched me.
I will use in in another venue, that's why I added the English and the Spanish.
The original I found is in French.

It was yesterday that for the first time in my life I felt some real strange and interesting movements in my internal being.  Something really serious and heavy happened to a dear colleague whom I admire a lot for her zeal, dedication, generosity and placid approach to life.  She is a person who is single minded and focused on her mission in life.  She is a one career type of person who would no doubt be a fish out of water anywhere else than the environment in which I and she work, when we do, indeed find ourselves side by side on the same project.  I know that I am not too far off base in my assessment of her, because I am witness to the glowing reviews that she gets from every quarter of our common working area.

Yesterday, I learned that she had been terminated from her local work division and that the headquarters had taken the decision to exclude her from the entire corporation as well.  Yesterday I knew little about the details but even in the face of such devastating news, I was left with nothing but emptiness.  The strangest emotion, or lack thereof that I have ever experienced.  I am still overwhelmed by my reaction.  But that's not all.  

Today, I learned more details about the situation and the emptiness is still there.  Now it has changed to a low grade feeling of mercy and sympathy but nothing seismic, despite the devastation that has come into her life.  Am I this way because the effect on her life is so catastrophic that I know that I can do nothing but to promise spiritual support?  Is it because the unexpected details of the situation are so conflicting on the one hand but also so daring on the other that they are hard to process?  Some of the details are not surprising because I know her and have known her for a rather long while.  Some of the conflicting details amaze me because they point to a person who was leading a double life and seemingly got picked off first base in a moment of uncharacteristic distraction.  Is it the result of my knowledge of the environment in which we live and work that has taken the edge off my ability to polarize my emotions in moments of sudden change?  It is a really strange realization that I am living.

I know that this person is in a position where she is now forced to change career.  In her present situation, there is no other choice, despite the mountainous quantity and the high quality of the education and training that she has acquired, she is now forced to move on.  She has to move on and I am sure that it will be a large challenge.  Success in the second half of her life is now defied  by circumstances that she herself brought upon herself, but perhaps never thought that the gauntlet would someday be thrown at her feet.  

Along the road of life, I have observed that "old people" don't react too violently to sudden and unexpected change.  They have seen so much of it that it doesn't throw them off balance as much as it does younger people.  So, I suppose that is the "take-away" that I have...I'm old.
I say that and it doesn't bother me.  I'm old and glad of it.  I have done a lot of jobs in my life. Some I liked and some I didn't.  Some I had trained for and some I hadn't.  The one I have now I didn't train for but I like it and I am good at it.  Every now and then I wonder if I'll like pushing daisies.  I've not trained for that so I still don't know if I'll like it or not.  I hope I like it because it's one job that no one walks away from...not even me.  Now, that's a change!

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - LEGALIZED REVENGE

Capital Punishment

History:

1.       Stoning                                          100% efficient

2.       Burning at the stake                   100% efficient

3.       Beheading

a.       Axe, etc                       100% efficient

b.      Guillotine                     100% efficient

4.       Hanging                                        100% efficient

5.       Firing Squad + Coup de Grâce      100% efficient

6.       Electric chair                                    +/- efficient…some complications

7.       Lethal injection                                 +/- efficient…some complications

Bible – God spared Cain.  Mosaic Law and developments = Pro

Catholic Church – Evolving from Pro to Con, with some allowance for Pro

Present countries - 56 countries, including the United States = Pro

States within the United States that have abolished capital punishment = 18

Humane?

The greatest single OXYMORON you’ll ever hear: “Humane capital punishment.”

I ask you: “Is capital punishment beneficent, benevolent, benignant, compassionate, good-hearted, kind, kindhearted, kindly, softhearted, sympathetic, tender, tenderhearted, warmhearted?

It is related to attentive, considerate, solicitous, thoughtful; affable, amicable, benign, companionable, comradely, cordial, friendly, genial, gentle, good, good-natured, good-tempered, gracious, mild, neighborly, nice, pleasant, sweet, warm; clement, forbearing, forgiving, lenient, merciful, soft; patient, pitying, tolerant, understanding; altruistic, brotherly, charitable, freehanded, generous, greathearted, humanitarian, liberal, magnanimous, munificent, noble, openhearted, selfless, unselfish, unsparing; anticruelty, cruelty-free?

Clayton Lockett? 

May this name never disappear from the American consciousness.  This could be the name that brings some sanity into the collective soul of this country.  I pray that it will.

This is a man who was cruelly victimized by incompetent government officials of the state of Oklahoma, USA.  They planned to kill him with a cocktail of three drugs and they failed.  They stopped the procedure and the ill-fated human being in their “care” died from a massive heart attack, no doubt caused by their bumbling ignorance.  Remorse?  Of course not.  He deserved to die anyway since he himself had killed and tortured his victim too, 15 years before. [Paraphrase of statements made by two state officials and other opiners]

That’s the “pro” side of the story.  The “con” side says that the executioners should have remorse since they did not treat the victim “humanely.”  WhAaat??  It’s OK to kill people provided you do it humanely?  They don’t make insane asylums big enough, high enough nor wide enough to hold that many deranged humans at one time. Kill someone humanely?  Now ain’t that a concept?

Actually, the more humane you get at this exercise in human malevolence, the less efficient you become.  Can any of you imagine how irreversibly and invincibly ignorant a population can be that in the 21^st century it has a difficulty in killing a human being?  I’ll be that it didn’t take Cain 45 minutes to kill Abel.  I’ll bet that it didn’t take 45 minutes for adulteresses to die from stoning in Old Testament days.  We know for sure that the guillotine and the firing squad are a lot more efficient and less painless than suffering from intravenous torture for 45 minutes before dying. 

One of the reasons that we still are one of the few first world countries with the death penalty is that we are still trying to figure how to kill a fellow human humanely.  At this rate, who knows how long it will take us.  Given our ferocious alligator jaw grip on our “American Exceptionalism Arrogance” it will be a long time before we are willing to accept that we are so retrograde that we don’t even know how to kill a person quickly.  Our European counterparts have given up trying to civilize us into abolishing the use of deadly force as a punishment.  They refuse to sell us the drugs of our choice required, we think, to kill people humanely.  We therefore have graduated to an even more barbaric level of human behavior by experimenting with other methods of slaughtering our fellow human beings by using human beings for the experimentation.  Isn't this a great country to live in?  Doesn't this just make you shirt button bustin’ proud to be an American? 

It is just simply frustrating to me to have to be counted as belonging to a civilization of such a low level of human development.  Imagine having to admit that I am among people who won’t abolish the death penalty and yet refuse to use methods of killing people that really, infallibly, with 100% zero failure rate certainty, work?  It’s embarrassing, you know.

I have a proposition for you primates out there.  It is an either / or suggestion.

If you insist on punishing people by killing them, use one of these three methods:

1.      1. Guillotine (There are many of them in museums.  You can rent one as needed)

2.      2. Firing squad with coup-de-grace (Wayne LaPierre can help you here)

3.     3.  Hanging (If you can find someone to sell you the rope)

Or, you can hoist yourselves up by the 21^st century boot straps, civilize yourselves and stop killing people out of revenge.  Yep, I said revenge.  It sure as shooting (oops, sorry, Wayne) ain’t justice.  Killing the killer doesn't fix anything.  It diminishes the “punish-er” and frees the killer.  The same rage that it took the original killer is what drives the punishing killer.  The punishing killer who acts in representation of the community damages the community by lowering it to the animal level of the original killer.  Killing the killer isn't really punishment.  Actually, it is release.  It is freedom gained.  It is more a reward than a punishment, you know.  The real punishment is the lack of freedom.  The permanent Lockup that assures the killer that there will never be any freedom available is real punishment.  The permanence of the cage is more punishing than the release of death. 

Furthermore, the killing of a human being in the name of the community imprisons the direct perpetrators of the deed, the surviving members of the families of the two people who have died, and it imprisons the entire population with memories that can never be shaken loose. 

In closing, I will just say this.  I am a very religious person.  In fact I am a very dedicated Catholic.  I am saying this because I want you to know that Capital Punishment is not a purely religious issue.  It is a basic human issue.  I say with neither fear of error nor compunction, The practice of Capital Punishment makes us all less human.  Yes, I said ALL.

THE 5TH GOSPEL IS CALLING YOU

Welcome aboard. This is a very well developed pilgrimage to the Holy Land scheduled for a very holy time of the year. It is designed to provide the greatest impact possible in a short time. We have positioned it at a time when US residents are living the season of Thanksgiving while preparing for the coming of the Messiah. Two major spiritual events situated within six weeks of one another.
We have also taken advantage of the price breaks available to passengers traveling with Turkish Airlines in the low season. We will therefore land in Istanbul before proceeding to Tel Aviv, the starting point of our Israel, Palestine, Jordan spiritual adventure.
From Tel Aviv we will proceed north along the ancient Via Maris with Tiberias our final destination for the day. Our day will be marked with stops at Caesaria Maritima, two stops in the Mount Carmel range, and a visit Mt. Tabor before settling in on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. After two glorious days immersed in Galilee, we move to Judea through the Jezreel Valley and reach Jerusalem by way of Megiddo and Samaria.
Once we get to Jerusalem, we will spend four days of prayer and visitation in the heart of the great monotheistic religions. Jerusalem leaves an indelible mark on the hearts and souls of all who come to know her. Never does anyone leave Jerusalem behind. The memory of Jerusalem and the satellite towns and regions around her remain vividly present in their entire spiritual splendor.
On the fifth day after our arrival in Jerusalem we move to the quiet region of Jericho where we get to appreciate the jeweled gate of entry of the Israelites into the promised land. This is also an important site where we get to say goodbye to the great prophet Elijah. We met him at Mt. Carmel on the first day. Now we leave him just two days before our departure. It is also the gate on entry that Jesus took into His public life though His Baptism in the nearby Jordan River. We will celebrate that event in our own lives by renewing our baptismal vows.
We spend our last two days in the quiet of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the shores of the Dead Sea and a visit to Petra before leaving from Amman to return to Los Angeles.
You are cordially invited to join us.

HOW'D DAT HAPPEN? Now what?

Every now and then something happens around the house or in the world around me that makes me want to shake my head and laugh. Some of the stuff that gets to me is really trivial, but it has an impact that makes me shudder with excitement at the idiosyncratic behavior it causes in my cranial neural synapses.  It's a good thing too because then I know that those electro-chemical systems are still working.
Take this cup that you see in the picture.  I hope that you are not squinting trying to read what is on it.  That is not why it is there.  It is there because the something that got me "All Shook Up" sent me scurrying for a picture like the one here.  You see, in my experience, if a coffee mug drops or otherwise strikes something hard it is lucky if the handle is the only thing that breaks.  Lucky, I say because then it lives to see another day.  Lucky because then it will be pointed in another career direction and its life stands a chance of being more interesting than just being a hot liquid container that has to stand grimy morning mouths slobbering gingerly around its edges.  Lucky because it stands a chance of being some elegant office equipment holder/dispenser on the Head Janitor's desk.  This one is lucky because it reminds me of all the other coffee cups I've ever seen with their handles compromised.  So, it made it to this blog and will now become famous around the world.

I now move you to the stunning reality that invaded my life a couple of days ago.  I reached into the kitchen cabinet where the coffee cups are [NO, I do NOT have a favorite coffee cup] and my eye fell upon the weird object seen here to the side.
How did that happen?  I was home alone at the tme so I could not question the Voice from the Kitchen about it.  I wondered how that could happen.  Did she decide to rearrange the looks of some of the coffee cups?  Look at that thing.  It is a work of art.  The two places where the roots of the handle should be are there but the roots are gone.  I took it into my hands and fondled it for a good two or three minutes, just to see if it is still real and not a ghost or anything like that.  When I put it down again a cloud of puzzlement washed over me.  What does the future hold for this poor freak of cup nature?  What role will it be able to play?  Does its present condition impart more character to it?  Is it handicapped because it has no stubs that might make it easier and less slippery to handle?  Is this the 21st century cool?  I'll tell ya, I'm lost.  Cups in the '40's and '50's had more sense than this.  What kind of a life is this poor mug going to have?  Who's going to want a cup that looks like this?  Is this a cup or a post-modern glass?  Where do you put someting that looks like this?

I give up.  I'm turning it over to you.  Give me some ideas.  If you don't, you'll share in the responsibility of having put a poor invalid out of a nice warm house and cozy home.  You wouldn't want that on your conscience, now would you?

NOW, THESE ARE SPARK PLUGS!

191,000 miles per set

This is almost more than what a guy can believe.
When you get to be 3/4 or 75% of a century old, funny things happen along the way.  This one is so funny that It shook me out of my focus with many things that were very important to me, like $, food, etc, and brought me back to Ol' "365..."

My Honda Civic Hybrid, at least the equivalent of my age as calculated in "car years" started to act funny and not behave very well.  In fact, it even took it out on the Voice from the Kitchen and stranded her in the middle of a busy thoroughfare a couple of weeks ago.  So, off to the Urgent Car Care Center we go where I get the news from a smiley, barely old enough to shave "Customer Care Professional":  "You need a new set of plugs," says he.
"Oh, that's easy," says I.
"Yup, should be done in a couple of hours," says he.
"Coupl'a hours," I say while shaking my head in total disbelief.
So, naturally, my friendly self takes over and I repost, "It takes ya 2 whole hours to change 4 spark plugs?"
Hey, boys and girls, did you every see a totally discumbobulated 25 year guy with a scraggly goatee and dangly earrings when his eyes start to go round in spirals and his mouth is looking for a "professional" smile somewhere and can't find it?  Do you remember the last time 2 seconds felt like 20 minutes?  That poor guy was rockin' back and forth lookin' fer hisself in every single corner of a round room.
Finally, he puts is all back together, looks at me after licking his lips back into a comfort zone and says to me, without too much condescension, I must say:
"Sir, there are 8 spark plugs for this car and there are some metrics that have to be performed to make sure that everything is in tune."
I lose it: "No _-_-!  8?  How do you do that?  The cylinder ain't got enough diameter for 2 does it?"
Now, he's laughing.  ...AT me, no doubt. "Oh, they've found a way to make it work, sir."
Smart ass!
In the short silence that followed, I'm still flip-flopping the picture of stuffing two spark plugs into the top of each cylinder when the sweetheart Customer Care Professional interrupts my electro chemical cerebral kaleidescope with, "Sir, do you also want us to check and change the fluids and stuff?"
"Yeah, sure, it's about time anyway, it's been about 6 or 7 thousand miles since that's been done."
So, he sashays out to the vehicle, checks the odometer, comes back and says, "It's 25 miles away from 191K, is your IMA battery still good?"
That's the battery that helps the gas engine under certain driving conditions.  When it was good we would get 48 MPG or so.  Now we average 37.
In answer to his question, I say, "Not very.  I don't have the 3K to replace it."
"I understand," says he.  "Let's go inside."   Oh, OH, oh! I'm thinking.
So he pushes his penc...no, the keys on his computer, I meant to say, presses the "print" button...WWWhhhrrrrrr...reaches down, rips that page off the printer and says, cheerily, "It's going to be $530.00."
"Kaaathunck!" goes my head as it bounces off the floor.
Spark plugs and an oil change, $5,300,000.00 !  Whoa, sonny boy!

"Yeah, I figured you'd be surprised so I gave to a 10% senior discount."
Heeee, so that's my reward for living 75% of a century, $55.00!
I say, "Are those spark plugs made out of gold?  Are you sure that you have to use 2 for each cylinder?"  Well, that made him laugh.  So it made me laugh too.  Then, smart ass that he is, he said, "Look, $300.00 dollars divided by 191,000 isn't very much per mile, now is it?"
Now that, made me laugh.  Then, the awe that I felt over the modern miracle that my little car had driven 191,000 miles on the original set of spark plugs.  I hate to say it, but sharing in that technological miracle took some of the sting out of forking over $300.00 for a set of plugs for a four-banger.
Now in my theologically focused life, I am not too bothered about money in and of itself.  My philosophy and my Theology are summed up in the idea that "it's only money" and that "There is more where that came from."  Not only that.  Psychologically, I am dead sure that I can always make enough of it in time to cover my needs."
So, here I am with the memory of $20.00 to change 6 plugs for a 1949 Hudson Wasp.  It's 1500% inflation - :-( $300.00 to change 8 plugs for a 4 cylinder baby carriage with a motor?

I'll go back to my Theology now and remind you not to cry at my funeral because you know that I had all kinds of fun getting there.

"SCIENTIFIC" OBSERVATION BY A 30 YEAR OLD PhD

Taken from "Time" Feb. 3, 2014
"The Mindful Revolution" by Kate Pickert

It's been a month since I have had any fun with you on these pages.  I could tell you a lot of stories about why it has been that long, but then again, I would have to waste your time and mine with MINDLESS drivel.  Oh yes, I have been busy, so busy that I really haven't much time to read the magazine by the same name. The other day I went to the mail box and there was the latest copy.  It was staring at me with the cover shouting out, "The Mindful Revolution: The Art of Being Mindful" .

Is that an art?  If it is I am sure that it was invented by Dali.  In a way that makes it nice because then you can tell everyone what it means whether you really know or not.
Actually, it can't really be an art.  If it were, then when I lost it I would have missed it.  But I have to tell you that being mindless is also a lot of fun.  It is more fun that being mindful because you don't have enough memory to feel guilty over what it is that you just did.  I mean, it's great.  It's actually a Mary Poppins flying umbrella ride.  I actually spend a lot of time cultivating mindlessness.  I practice it about every moment of every day.  I lose track of my phone, my earphones, my glasses, my shoes, my pants, my postage stamps, my passwords, my wallet and of course, my coffee cup.  Actually, my coffee cup is no problem.  It occupies the least of my time.  That's because there are about 20 of them in the cupboard and I never forget where the cupboard is.  Besides, the cupboard is where the coffee pot always is, too.
The situation gets more complex for me since I also have to spend time looking the fruits of mindlessness of the Voice from the Kitchen.  Since she never loses her voice, I never have to spend time looking for that treasure.  But there are a lot of elements to her mindlessness too. Have you seen my keys?  Hmmm...How about my USB flash drives?  My red scarf?  My "KindleFire?"  My slippers?  etc...  Actually, I measure my productivity by the actual number of minutes that are left for me to Shower, Shave, Shampoo, S--- and Shine.  Usually about 10 or 15 just before bed time.  Now, where did I put my Chamomile?

So, actually that Time magazine article was useless for me, as you can see.  Except for one thing. 
This young lady, child she must still be, doesn't remember that it was disrespectful and grossly impolite to check your wrist watch in public.  LOOOONG before cell phones.  In fact, if I don't abuse my feeble memory too much, a certain presidential candidate lost an election for checking his watch publicly during a debate.  So, sweetheart, wrist watch or smart phone, an insult is an insult, 20th century or 21st --- a loser is a loser.  Mindful or mindless, a loss is a loss.
Do you remember who that wrist watch candidate was?  Don't Google it before you answer.

Wow, I liked doing this.  I'll do it again some time.

IS IT STILL NEW YEAR?

It is now January 4, 2014 and I am still being blessed with New Year's greetings prayers and best wishes for all kinds of things. Hurray, already.  Actually, I have been fighting a crazy sore throat for over one week now and I am wondering if I will survive this whole thing.  So, I am glad that the year is beginning on a negative note because hopefully that will change quickly and I won't have anything more to worry about for the next 355 days.  That would be cool.
I go through this greeting quandary every single year.  For how long do I have to be polite and greet people with a "Happy New Year" blessing?  It could get rather long and quite convoluted in the neighborhood where we live where about 35 or 40% of the people are on the Chinese calendar.  So just about the time when I start to decide that I have exhausted the politeness quotient of the Gregorian calendar, I'm back in the environment of the Chinese calendar.  Now, it really doesn't mean much to me on the off years when it is not my turn to wonder what my personality is, or should be, according to the animal of the Zodiac under which I was born.  What really gets to me is the nagging reminder that one more year has passed and I am still fighting the battle of the bulge.  Shouldn't once be enough?
So, tomorrow is January 5.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.  "Hello!" it is and the devil take the hindmost.  The blessings have all of about two more hours of shelf life for the year.

Arghh!  You're not going to believe this.  It is still Christmas season and worse yet, our Orthodox friends are just warming up for the "real" thing in their Church.  I was just in one of their business establishments today and it was all Happy, Happy with Baby Jesus who is going to be born on January 7 this year.  I am so glad that I have age on my side.  I got invited to Midnight Celebration of the Divine Eucharist, and I used my advancing chronological debility as a dodge.  Hey, wouldn't you?  

Now, tomorrow, the day before the feast of the Magi, the Three Kings, is going to be another one of those great massive Mexican foodie days...Tamales of all sizes and all shades of the same basic taste and consistency plus the "Rosco de Los Reyes", a circular cake with tiny figurines of baby Jesus embedded.  If you get a piece with the baby Jesus in it, you HAVE to treat the whole village to celebrate your blessing.  I'm thinking that I had better find a church full of Irish immigrants who have already taken down their Christmas lights and have begun drinking quarts of coffee in order to be ready for work on Monday. 

The wonderful part about all this cultural diversity living is that you never stop celebrating.  You never know when one year ends and when the other begins.  In the Christian world alone we never know when Jesus was really born nor when He did a bunch of other stuff, like Die and Resurrect.  There are too many intersecting calendars.

It's not just the religious stuff that gets fuzzy.  Just look at what we've done here in the good ol' US of A.  The children of a certain age can't tell you when Flag Day is; they can't tell you when Washington's birthday is; nor Lincoln's; nor when Memorial Day is.  (Do we still  have Memorial Day?)  If it's not on a Monday or a Friday, we don't know when it happened.  Except for Independence Day.  For those of you below the age of 50, Independence Day is the Old Fashioned Name for The Fourth of July.

I hope you all have that straight now.  Next year on January 1 I am going to write a resolution that starting January 2 there are to be no Happy New Year's Greetings except in the year when the Chinese Zodiac says that it is the year of the OX.  Yay!
By the time that rolls around I will have pushed up enough daisies to really exuberantly decorate the margins of this great blog.

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.