Sunday, September 30, 2012

Exciting News

From the LATimes:
-- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took to the Sunday talk shows and declared that Wednesday night’s presidential debate will “restart” Romney’s campaign. --

Romney restarts his campaign as often as some people I know stop smoking.

The problem is, none of the restarts actually start anything new. Romney has only one constant, "I am not Obama." We'll, I'm not Obama either. So?

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Aliens Among Us

If Star Trek taught us anything, it is that aliens are humans with severe skeletal deformites and even worse skin conditions. Unless they are self modified humans, of course.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/bagel-head-forehead-injections-japan-saline_n_1916188.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

Memory and PTSD for A Friend

To a friend, recovering from a shocking, but noninjury accident:

Nothing beats meditation and thoughtful prayer for insight. Don't be surprised, though, if some memories never resurface. I still remember only parts of the accident that left my grandson and me trapped upside down in my truck. These memory bits are stunningly vivid, while whole sections of the event cannot be recalled.

Hypocrites, Public Prayer, and Politics

"When there's a directive that comes down from a federal court that says you can't pray at a public event," he explained, "that's basically saying people of faith should not be involved in the public arena. There's case after case where folks have been pushed back on from standpoint of being engaged in prayer." Gov. Perry, quoted in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/separation-satan-and-state_b_1914267.html?ir=Religion

I find three problems with this position:

1. If the prayers were to Allah, the Goddess, or to Ganesh; I am certain Perry would suddenly find a reason to ban them.

2. No court has banned prayer at any public event. They have banned government directed or government sponsored organized prayer at public events.

3. As a man of faith, I give the following advice. Whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray while standing in public and on street corners so that people can see. Whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.

I suggest anyone interested in this topic check out Matthew 6. It is quite insightful.

Friday, September 28, 2012

A Message to My Middle Daughter

Try this, Kid. This is an excellent way to start meditating, which is proven to increase physical health, reduce stress, depression, anger, etc.
And remember, as the author says, "There is no wrong way to begin."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/teo-bishop/autumn-equinox-may-you-pray-with-a-good-fire_b_1903276.html

I have been neglecting my spiritual life, due to certain stresses. It is a mistake. Meditation is essential to well being, and I must return to it.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga, I admit it. I was wrong about you. You got class!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/26/lady-gaga-launches-body-revolution-little-monsterscelebrate-perceived-flaws-_n_1916192.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Message to the Tea Party

Message to the Tea Party. You want your country back? Well, you see, it's their country too. You need to grow up and learn to share. You know, what you work so hard to teach your grandchildren to do? It's not that hard, sharing. You just stop trying to grab it all for yourself and let everybody have a turn. You should try it. It works for your grandkids, and it can work for you!

Who You Gonna Trust

Speaking of Pox News,

-- According to Media Matters, at least 10 scientists have gone as far as calling the Fox News and the Wall Street Journal's coverage "Utter Nonsense." --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/news-corp-climate-change-coverage_n_1912896.html

Who you gonna trust? The blessed monks and nuns who work at Fox News (they are required to take an oath of poverty, obedience and meekness) or the money crazed "scientists" who are conspiring to take over the world?

Of Airplanes and Windows

OK, so Romney made a rather lame joke about airplane windows that should roll down. Unfortunately, many media sources took it seriously and made it look, briefly, as if the Pox Propaganda Channel is right about them.

Personally, due to my PTSD from being trapped upside down in my crushed truck a few years ago, roll down windows aren't enough to get me on a plane. I'll fly when they put out a convertible model.

I insist that there at least be a sun deck, as recommended by W C Fields in...was it The Bank Dick?

Note to family and friends: As in COP, you vulgarians! Those were simpler, less crude times. Get your minds out of the gutter, or at least look at the stars from time to time.

Another note: The last reference is one of my favorite quotes. How well do you know me? Can you identify the quote? No cheating! No googling!

Last note: I recently discovered that Barney Google is still a published comic strip! No goo, goo, googly eyes, though. No Sparkplug either. If I didn't know better, I'd say I'm getting old. Thankfully, I know better.

Curses be upon you, auto spell check! My friends and family are vulgarians, not Bulgarians! Not that there's anything wrong with being Bulgarian, they just aren't.

Monday, September 24, 2012

The Wisdom of Psychpaths

From Scientific American, October 2012. "The Wisdom of Psychpaths"

-- We can learn a lot from psychopaths. Certain aspects of their personalities and intellect are often hallmarks of success. --

I told them so, but they wouldn't listen to me. The fools!

A Letter to My Prodigal Daughter 9-24-12



I am sorry I have taken so long to write. Did the kids get their package? What did they so with their coins? Does Rebecca even like amber?

I have had a seemingly endless viral infection. I hope it will wind down soon. In the meantime, please answer me. If you will not, have the children wrote at least a thank you note. Even that formality would mean so much to me.

Love,

Daddy

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Innocence Of Muslims - A brief explanation to my middle daughter

The movie is a hateful, personal attack on Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. Even the actors are saying they were tricked into participating by being told the movie was about another subject.  The movie maker then added words to the sound track after the actors had finished their work.  

The people in the Middle East who are rioting think the US government must have allowed the movie, since that is the way their old governments controlled everyone and did not allow free speech. AntiAmerican groups are taking advantage of this to stir up violence.

Many Muslims, in the US, Lybia, and other places are condemning the violence.

Extremists on both sides are making all the trouble. The rest of us need to stay steady and remember that reasonable people are trying to restore calm.  

We can help by not joining in the hate fest.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Global Warming

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/2012-warmest-year-summer-record-breaking_n_1871216.html?ir=Green

More proof that global warming is a deception!  The truth is, the planet is getting hotter.

Lincoln-Douglas: Obama-Romney

Interesting and and telling link, Nick. -- http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/mitt-romney-man-all-reasons --

I'm  curious as to your opinion on the debates.  With Obama suffering from the economy and his mixed record while Romney struggles with personal unpopularity and a clinical case of the flip flops, I see the debates as essential.

I expect their impact will be as powerful as they were during the Kennedy/Nixon campaign. I am hearing from various pundits, left and right, that Romney is a skilled debater who will almost certainly win at least one of the debates.

As an old debater, I don't see it.  Romney did very well in the Republican debates, but he was up against a set of incompetent, often incoherent opponents.  Even Gingrich was a pale, sickly shadow of the powerful manipulator he had been.

I saw Romney as a competent debater, not a great one.  Furthermore, he was subject to damaging his performance with with jarring oddities that emphasized his wealth and sense of entitlement.  I would be surprised if he wins any of the debates.  

My question is, what do you expect?  Care to make a prediction?  How about an estimate?

Sunday, September 9, 2012

A Letter to My  Prodigal Daughter   9-9-12



This Sunday, let me speak of love.  Love is not a zero sum game in which there is a limited quantity of a resource which must be allocated on the basis of one person's gains constitute another's loss.  The more love which is given out, the more there is to distribute. 

This sounds like one of the magical  devices of myth and legend.  I recall a story of a salt mill which would produce upon command until halted by another magic word.  Salt being of immense value in the ancient world, someone stole the device and set it to grinding out his fortune.  Unfortunately for him, he did not know the command to turn the mill off.  Soon he was in danger of suffocating in salt.  In desperation he threw the mill into the sea, where it still grinds away, making the fresh water which flows into the oclean into brine.

I have a never empty mug of Coke.  It may drain down, but it always refills itself. OK, so I give it some assistance, but it is never dry.

If I were the kind of father who would stop loving any of his children on command, my love would be false and worthless. Love which lasts, love which is worth having, is deep and enduring.  It is boundless and flows out for all the family. 

If my love was something I could turn on and off, it would not be worth having.  It would not be love, but some sort of self interested business arrangement.  If you could make me stop loving the rest of my children and grandchildren, so that my devotion was be all yours, you would find it to be a sterile and pointless thing which would have neither depth nor endurance.  You would no longer want it.  Do not seek to kill the goose that laid the golden egg if it lays for more than just you.  Share the wealth, share the love.

I will do anything I can for you.  And I will do anything I can for all my children.  One of the things which I cannot do, and still remain who and what I am, is abandon any one of you.  

The day I turn my back on any of my children or grandchildren is the day I have been transformed into a stranger, into a monster.  Nothing short of a major brain injury could cause that.  An injury so great would be so catastrophic that I could truly be declared dead, and a new person would inhabit my body.

All the love I have to give is yours, as it is all my children's.  I will never reject any of you, no matter how you hurt me.  Unconditional is unconditional.  

Did you know it's Grandparents' Day?  I miss my Lost Lambs.  I know they miss me.  Let them call me.  Tell me I may call them.  At least let them write me a thank you card for the gifts I send. Please don't bring more suffering into the world.  There is already too much here.

This mill grinds out love. It must, for that is its nature.  The day it stops 
loving is the day it is no longer a mill.  If you succeeded in changing me, I would no longer have any value.  Not to you, not to anyone.  Love and family are all I have that is of worth.  The rest of me is so much organic tissue.  

Accept my love.  Let your children, my Little Ones, have my love.  There is enough for all.  You do need to take any away from anyone else.
Call me.  Let my Lambs call me.  Tell me I may call.  Take back your command that I be silent.

Don't be like the dwarfs in The Last Battle.  Surrounded by love and plenty, they insist, no, demand, that they are being treated badly.  A feast is interpreted as animal fodder, fine wine as dirty water from an old trough.  These things are pure and wholesome and wonderful, but their fear and bitterness make them seem polluted and foul.  

Here is the same love I give to all my family.  Why won't you take it with joy?  You are loved.  Why isn't that enough?

Join the feast.  

Love, always, love.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Sing Along

I posted on Facebook about heading out to get tasks done and being caught just in time to prevent my discovering that it was a national holiday by noticing that the offices I needed to visit were closed.  

Susan (miss you!) pointed put that she and others live for those holidays which I can afford to forget.

So I responded:

Don't be sad!  Sing along instead!  To the tune of Hello Young Lovers...  

Hello, Job Holders, whoever you are
Don't cry cause I'm retired
I had a job once too, like you
I had a job once too