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| Jusssst a bit outside.... |
| 09.30.05 (8:52 pm) [edit] |
Good morning Boys and Girls! Happy October!This post was inspired by the comment from Pastor Dave about my post from a couple of days ago. He mentioned that he might give audio-books a try the next time the choir started singing another gospel number... Cute, but, with apologies to Pastor Dave, it's not exactly hilarious, right? Except I started laughing almost immediately and couldn't stop for a minute or two... You see, it evoked memories in me I hadn't thought of in a good long while, probably because every single time they pop to the surface I start cracking up... Until I was about seven years old, my Grandfather was the minister of the church our family attended. He'd been there eleven years when he finally left to go to another church (a very long time in the Methodist Church), and the fellow who followed him, who was nearing retirement, was a friend of his and of our family and was similar to my Grandfather in many ways - right down to being a rather short, bald man (Damn you Grandpa! - my Mom's dad... you know how THOSE genes work...) who shared my grandfather's relatively liberal outlook and humorous bearing. They weren't "every word in the Bible is the Literal Word of God" guys. They were, however, very smart and caring and faith-filled men. His name was Rev. Burden and he stayed till I was about ten years old. I liked him. I remember thinking, "Well, if Grandpa can't be our minister any more, I'm sure glad Rev. Burden is." He retired in 1968, at exactly the same time the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren, a more conservative denomination with some traditions that I, for one, certainly wasn't familiar with. Alter calls, the whole concept of "being saved" and the like, just wasn't a part of what I knew, and it made me completely uncomfortable. (Funny though, no one ever called to ask what I, a ten year old, thought.) Nevertheless, suddenly our church and all the other Methodist Churches were part of this new amalgam, "The United Methodist Church." Enter Reverend Whiting. Reverend Whiting was big tall smiler. He was a gregarious man. A large glad hander. "An Old Time E.U.B. man" he liked to call himself, and he was our new pastor. I remember my folks being a bit unnerved by the guy. He had ideas! He was going to drag our pagan souls into the light whether we liked it or not, and, many of us, um... did not. To put it mildly, there was a bit of unrest. People left. People stayed and bellyached. People hollered in meetings... It was a mess. But really, all that stuff is only an aside to the recollection shaken loose by Pastor Dave last night. Reverend Whiting, his wife, a decent tenor from the choir and a shrill voiced soprano named Mrs. Longcore (I have no idea whether I'm spelling the woman's name correctly here...) formed... "The Quartet." They sang two weeks out of every month just before the sermon - our reward for having donated sufficiently in the offering baskets, perhaps. "The Quartet's" performances were always announced by Rev. Whiting in a somber tone. Both hands outstretched and resting on the big'ole carved pulpit, Reverend Whiting would say, head almost bowed, "The Quartet will now sing "The Old Rugged Cross." or, "The Quartet will now sing "Were You There... (ridiculously long dramatic pause) ...When They Crucified ...( another pause, head further dropped theatrically in reverence) ...My Lord." And then he'd carefully step down from the pulpit; pause; ever so slowly remove his vestments; carefully fold them and lay the on the the first pew - so that now he and the tenor were dressed alike in red blazers to match the skirts worn by the women-folk - and then he'd step to the middle of the alter where the other three would be waiting, having just arrived, and they'd pose just so as the piano (never the organ for them..) would begin as they prepared, glancing sideways at each other, and nodding ever so slightly to ensure a unison start.... and then? Let me mention that I come from a fairly musical family. Other than my youngest brother who, if born by then had just been, none of us are professional musicians, but we could all carry a tune. All of us had at least some formal training, and even at that age, (I was about ten and my sister was eight), we'd certainly picked up enough musical savvy even by osmosis to have honed our ears to the point where we could easily recognize when something was way WAY out of tune, and so when... They would start to sing. It wouldn't be too bad for half a verse! Right away, you could hear that these people had NO business as headliners, but it was tolerable for the first little bit.... "Tremble.... tremble..... Were you there, when they.... And then? Mrs Longcore would take it up an octave, and the dissonance would become immediately and starkly and abruptly... simply unlistenable, Every other week, it was the same. First I'd start laughing - out loud. My sister would slam her hands over her ears and turn to look at me in panicked desperation, eyebrows furrowed, mouth scrunched. My Father would glare pointlessly. My Mother, (desperately trying not to laugh herself and trying to keep her little charges from embarrassing her any further) would reach down with both her hands (I sat on one side of her; my sister the other) and pinch us hard and fast on our outer thighs. In her patented ventriloquist's clipped whisper she'd say, her eyes straight ahead, "If you don't stop this instant..." And one of us would invariably squeak in pain... and because now we had an excuse to make noise, I'd snort, laughing out of my nose, since I was really trying not to laugh and I'd closed my mouth tight - to no avail... This went on for three years... Tomorrow when I shower? I'm going to look to see if any of those pinch bruises are still there! "Tremble..... tremble.... Were you therrrreeeee when they...." Be good to everyone. |
| another old book review... |
| 09.29.05 (7:27 pm) [edit] |
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Good evening Boys and Girls! (First of all... my apologies to anyone who made an attempt to read this last night right after I wrote it. This morning I corrected no less than 12 typos I hadn't noticed last night, all of the sort where the word "on" became "one" or where a word was omitted, hence the trusty old spell check feature didn't pick it up, but made the piece almost unreadable to me this morning. GRRRR!- It sort of reenforces the truth of my second sentence, I think...) A couple of serious things I'd like to talk about tonight, but I don't think I'd do the subjects justice. There's something to be said about starting with a clear head when you're trying to make points worth other peoples' time - and my head has no chance of being clear tonight. I don't remember if I've said much about this in the blog before, and if I have it would have been months ago, so I suppose there's no harm in talking about it a little. After my divorce a few years ago, I had real trouble concentrating for any length of time. My mind would spin like crazy and my inner voice would not leave me alone for a second. It was maddening. Someone I'd described my problem to suggested that I try listening to audio books as a means of having SOMETHING else going on for me to think about. It worked... But? Now I'm an addict. I listen to books all the time. All kinds. Well, almost all kinds. If it's unabridged and not a romance novel? I'll listen to it. Novels, Biographies, Histories, Mysteries, Pulp crap. Hundreds upon hundreds since I started. Three to four a week. Nuts, I know. On the other hand, it has made doing my job FAR more enjoyable that it would otherwise be, since once I'm actually working, what I do is pretty mindless. It passes the days far more enjoyably.... And, as an added bonus, since most tapes are 45 minutes a side, it helps me keep track of my day by what's become a sort of informal time tracking system. How long am I taking to get things done? "Oh, this job took me about a tape and a half... ninety minutes." Stupid? You bet. -And I wouldn't have it any other way! All this lame foundation laid to get to THIS? Oy. Last week I listened to "I Married A Communist" by Philip Roth. It came out five or six years ago and I remember taking the book out from the library at some point but I never got around to reading it. Amazing story. But what's best about it is that it's told as the recollection of a ninety year old former english teacher to one of his former students - who's now a sixty-five year old writer himself. The protagonist is the older man's younger brother who too had been a close friend and mentor of the younger man when the writer was still a teenager. It's he, the writer, who narrates the story. It's really all just a series of conversations between them over the course of six or seven nights at a little cabin out in the middle of nowhere. That's it really. I'm sure it sounds boring - to most folks at least. But it's absolutely captivating. Roth, who must be one of the five best living american authors, has a way of making each word so very important that to leave out a single sentence might noticeably diminish the whole of the story. It's that tightly written. For those of you old enough to remember it, it reminded me a bit of the 80's artsy flick "My Dinner With Andre" with regard to the format, though the stories are not similar at all. But, it makes you feel like you're part of the little audience, right there in the room with them, slapping the old guy on the back when he delivers a funny line, wanting to give him a reassuring hug when he's telling a sad tale. It's worth the time of anyone who appreciates a master's ability to turn a phrase with care and poignance. Read it. Or, if you're a lazy good-for-nothing like me? Listen to it. Oh, and please, let's keep alms ( http://almsthvn.tblog.com ) in our thoughts and prayers. She had surgery yesterday as a result of her car crunch Sunday. Be good to everyone. |
| A blog-in? |
| 09.29.05 (2:58 am) [edit] |
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I was thinking... Whoever is running this site has either dropped the ball, or is underfunded, or doesn't care, or doesn't have the expertise to handle the problems, or SOMETHING. The biggest problem though is that this is the only blog site I know of where there is NO communication from the folks running it to us users. What if we took two or three days, and did nothing but make pleas to Rocky or his successors to let us know what's going on, and to answer our correspondences? Is that crazy? Obviously the spammers ad bot posters won't help, and who cares, but if those of us who like the format of this community and use it all worked together, would it make a difference? Comments? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?.... Bueller? |
| Hurry up... Now relax. |
| 09.28.05 (5:27 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls! surrogate, your lower case servant, at your service. Wednesday. "Hump" day. Middle'o'the week. Hmmm. The days fly. I have never been - at least simultaneously - so busy, so tired, so full of energy, so pleased with my progress, so excited about the possibilities and so worried. Why? The days fly. I'm too busy to think about what I'm doing - at least in the abstract. I am, at the present, living a completely unexamined life. Any ramifications? Who cares. Hell with that. Full speed ahead. I get to this keyboard in the evenings and I end up writing gibberish for twenty minutes just to calm down, relax and clear my head. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only clear thoughts I have each day - that I ALLOW myself to have - are the minutes or hours I spend tying to sort things out enough to express whatever idea I'm trying to convey in this blog. The days fly. Ten hours squeezed into two or three. I remember feeling this way for short periods of time in the past. When I was rebuilding our home, I felt like this from time to time. Some aspect of the project that I knew was coming down the pike, that I wasn't exactly sure I could handle on my own, would make me worry, and there were times that I'd avoid whatever it was and work around it until I couldn't any longer, then, finally, once I'd get started on it, I'd just go, go, GO, until that part of the project was done. I remember that at one point we were taking out a a long section, about twelve feet, of the main support wall right in the middle of the downstairs to open up a room, and replacing it with a huge beam to carry and distribute the weight. I was so afraid I'd let the whole house collapse under it's own weight if I did it wrong, that I put off that particular chore for at least month, doing other smaller things instead, just to avoid it. Once I couldn't put it off any longer and jumped in? It went fine. Well, during times like that, time would fly because I'd be working so hard trying to make sure I didn't screw up, time would fly, until, I'd look at what I'd accomplished and usually feel okay about it. But right now? Every day feels like that. The days are fun, nerve-wracking, exhilarating... and exhausting. Wonder whether I can keep it up? Must get going. Right this minute, It's 8:16 a.m. I'll be back for supper. -In like ten minutes By the way, this was sent to me. I loved it. The author is unknown. A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them. "Not very long," answered the Mexican. "But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American. The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family. The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, and sing a few songs... I have a full life." The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat." "And after that?" asked the Mexican. "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise." "How long would that take?" asked the Mexican. "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American. "And after that?" "Afterwards? Well my Friend, That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!" "Millions? Really? And after that?" said the Mexican. "After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings doing what you like and enjoying your friends." And the moral is: Know where you're going in life... you may already be there. Be good to everyone.... (here's the text of the Delay indictment... http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs...) |
| Try the Singapore Noodles! |
| 09.26.05 (9:15 pm) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls! surrogate here, with a transcript of part of a conversation I had last night at a Chinese Buffet with Jesus. "...it's on?" "Yeah. you said I could, right?" "Fine with me. (a fork hits the floor and a little kid wails...) So what are we gonna talk about?" "Well, I was hoping you could just sort of bring everyone up to date on what you've been doing; where you've been; who you've been see..." "... Why?" "Well, the name of the blog is "Jesus Reporting" and you've been doing damn little of it lately. I hardly ever hear from you and when I do, you always have some excuse as to why you can't make time to write a post. You said..." "...Come on surrogate, I said I'd write when I could and I'd help you with ideas when you're stumped. You out of ideas? "Well, no. But..." "...See, surrogate, it's like this. I have a lot to do. ALWAYS. I told you that when you cooked up this little scheme. I know you think you've got this.." "...Scheme? SCHEME?" "Settle down. Look, so far I think it's working out fine. You're doing your best to get the important things out there. You KNOW I'm doing my part. Geez, I've traveled seventeen thousand miles THIS month!" "Yeah, yeah. But doing what? What exactly are you doing?" "Well, last night I had dinner with Shirley and Steve in Chicago. Remember them? I told you about them. They're that couple dealing with the loss of their kid, and they're sort of blaming Dad and me." "Oh man. What happened?" "Leukemia. Nine years old. Awful." "And they're blaming you?" "And Dad. (He shrugs and turns his palms out a second) It's understandable. It happens. People need someone to blame when bad things happen. Who better than God?" "Is it God, um, your Dad's fault?" "Not really, but try to tell that to grieving parents. I don't blame them for blaming us. It's part of what we're about." "What? Part of what you're about? Explain that one." "Well, see, when bad things happen, especially when bad things that you see coming down the road for a while BEFORE they happen, and bad things that you've probably prayed like crazy - even people who don't pray - to KEEP from happening, and then it does, finally; well, those folks feel especially hurt and confused and utterly sad, so, part of the process they go through; and, in fact almost anyone who experiences loss goes through the same thing to some degree or other, well they lash out. They HAVE to. ...and who're they gonna lash out at but the very God they prayed to so hard that the thing wouldn't happen at all." "Wow. Yeah. Guess so... So what did you tell this couple then?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "Nothing. I just sat there. Was there. Listened. Watched them try to enjoy their dinner." "You didn't eat?" "Nope. "Why?' "Well, actually, they didn't even really know I was there. Not in so many words anyway. I was just there, and every now and again? I just lightly patted them both on the back. Ever so gently. I think it helped - maybe - maybe a little.... if they felt it" "You were just.. there?" "Yep. They needed good company. I tried to be good company." "What like, you were invisible?" "Call it what you like. I was there, and I think they knew it. Maybe it'll help a little. Who knows. Can't hurt, right?" (waitress comes and refills my iced tea and Jesus' diet Coke, overfilling his drink and spilling a little on the tablecloth and into our little shared bowl of duck sauce... I turned off the recorder for a sec... and then forgot to turn it back on.) Be good to everyone. |
| Wasteful me... |
| 09.25.05 (7:01 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls! surrogate here. Where I'm living is at the Southern edge of the city. One mile South of here, while there are still commercial buildings along the main road, the corn and bean fields butt right up to the back edge of those properties, and another couple of miles South, it's all farms and rolling meadows. One mile North, it's as busy as any other city street in the area. The population of the metropolitan area is just over a million and a half and, other than the people themselves, who, on the whole, and for reasons I haven't figured out yet, seem to be a tad happier than in other areas I've lived, it's like any other Midwestern city. So then, I have a brand new coffee maker sitting in my son's garage over on the other side of the state. It's not an expensive one, but it is brand new and I've forgotten to grab it each of the last three times I've been over to visit. Knowing this, and being annoyed with myself for the forgetfulness, I haven't allowed myself to buy another one even though they're pretty damn inexpensive unless you want a hoity-toity one with lots of bells and whistles, which I certainly don't Yesterday, when I was done working for the day and driving home, I noticed a Goodwill store. "Cool! I'll grab a used coffee maker for a buck to tide me over." I did. Three bucks. It looked barely used and the light came on when i plugged it in. Cool. Woke up at about six this morning and ran some water through the thing for a cycle to clean it out. Didn't work. Shit. Looked at my receipt. "No returns for any reason." Went for a walk to buy some coffee at either a gas station or the MacDonalds that's about a mile away near the expressway. Headed down a side street to see if I could make my way to the expressway without walking along the main drag. At the end of the street, perhaps a quarter mile down, a field opened up. No fences, no signs. just trees and open areas. it reminded me of the "woods" I played in as a kid a few blocks from our house - till it became another subdivision a couple of years before we moved away. Ended up realizing I was probably walking out of my way, but I came upon a clearing with a little creek running fast with a path along it, and came to an area back near the road with the MacDonalds on it - perhaps a hundred yards from that street - where there was a tiny little waterfall and a stump that has obviously been used for years by someone as a fishing stool. Quiet, secluded, and gorgeous; what a find. I sat there for a half hour. It was beautiful! I was so glad to find the place. And, thankful I wasted the three bucks at the Goodwill store. Ain't life interestin'? Be good to everyone. |
| Gas is cheaper again! |
| 09.23.05 (8:15 pm) [edit] |
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Good evening Boys and Girls! Friday night and all is well. Just made plans with Jesus to have dinner Monday night in a town halfway between where's he's been visiting a friend and where I'm at; about an hour drive for me. He wants to go to a place we visited together on a road trip last winter... (He seems to get a real kick out of buffets.) We chatted for roughly twenty minutes about this and that. He did his usual yapping about the war, and how now it's gotten to the point that Iraq's not even worthy of front page status anymore. He listened to George Bush speak yesterday and wasn't very encouraged about the whole thing ending any time in the near future, or that by the mid-term elections (which had been my naive thought about when we might start bringing some of the troops home), that American troop levels would be reduced by any more than a token amount. Then he was kidding me about how, when Dick Cheney was sent to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, I'd mentioned, kiddingly, I'd thought, that he was really being sent down there for the purpose of doing an estimate for Halliburton and how they must be angling for another no-bid contract, and how, in fact that has come to pass to the tune of 61 billion bucks (amazing to me that he could laugh about it) and how I should start playing the stock market... I got sort of annoyed and asked him why he was so chipper when all this crap is still going on, and he said, in his almost fatalistic way, "surrogate, it'll ALWAYS be that way. If you wait till the world is perfect to start being happy, two things are certain. One: you'll never be happy, and two: you'll be part of the reason the world isn't getting more perfect." Huh? I made him repeat it, or tried to. But I'd heard him. I just had to think about what the hell he meant. Still not exactly sure. A buffet. Jeez. Be good to everyone. |
| another copy and paste post! |
| 09.22.05 (4:46 pm) [edit] |
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Got this forwarded to me... no idea where t came from, but it was really well written, if a bit silly... If a dog was the teacher you would learn stuff like: When loved ones come home, always run to greet them. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy. When it's in your best interest, practice obedience. Let others know when they've invaded your territory. Take naps. Stretch before rising. Run, romp, and play daily. Thrive on attention and let people touch you. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass. On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree. When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body. No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout ... run right back and make friends. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough. Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not. If what you want what lies buried, dig until you find it. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently. |
| Lost post blues.... |
| 09.21.05 (10:14 am) [edit] |
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Good afternoon everyone. Learned a hard lesson yesterday. Wrote a post in the composer. A fairly long one actually. Then when I went to "publish this post" tBlog did one of it's freezes and I lost the whole damn thing. I felt especially silly since I had this happen a few months ago and ever since I've usually written my posts in my email and then then sent it to myself, then copied it and pasted it into the tBlog composer so that if and when the freeze thing happens, I'd simply be able to do it again later (the copy and paste portion) without having lost anything. But, alas, by the time I finished the post I didn't have time to try to rewrite it, a frustrating experience, which I'm sure we've all had more than once. I'll try to write a real one later tonight or tomorrow. Be good to everyone. |
| Learning to quit judging... at least too quickly. |
| 09.17.05 (5:07 pm) [edit] |
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Good evening Boys and Girls! surrogate here. I so want to be writing every day. It's infuriating to get home and be too damn tired to be able to sit and think clearly, although the days tend to replay themselves very clearly until sleep takes over. It's a strange thing to be so consumed with something I'd sworn I'd never do again many years ago, though I know WHY I swore it and why I've changed my mind. I'm meeting a lot of new people every day and so far I've yet to deal with a certified A-hole, though one fella came close, at least to my way of thinking. This time though, I made a concerted effort not to judge the guy too harshly or too soon, and I've found that by my being patient, we've managed to get long okay the last couple of times we've found ourselves face to face. Perhaps he did the same. And perhaps this is something I should have learned long ago. How many times do we make snap judgments about people after an initial bad meeting - and since we let the impression harden into concrete so quickly, the relationship has little chance to evolve into something more pleasant, even if it's just a business thing? Too often, at least for me. Today was an interesting day. I worked for about six hours at a frenzied pace, trying to force a full ten hour day into Saturday's shortened hours, and not surprisingly found myself wrung out and ready to relax for a while. Just then a customer asked me to do three more jobs rather quickly. I smiled and asked for a half hour break before I did the work. Ended up working another three hours and by the time I started the two hour drive here to see my kids, I was whipped. And yet? Right now, I feel absolutely full of energy. Strange. Be good to everyone. |
| Walkin' and Thinkin' |
| 09.11.05 (7:24 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls! surrogate here from the west side of the mitten. Hope all of you have contributed what you can to the hurricane relief effort. Spoke with Jesus on the phone last night. He's been down there observing and wanted everyone to quit blaming each other for what wasn't done, but wanted to assure everyone that God didn't do this as a direct "attack" on anything. He explained that God doesn't do anything about weather patterns any more than he directs nutcases to bomb abortion clinics or takes sides in international disputes. I asked exactly what God DOES control, and he cut me off saying that that's not how it works, but he didn't want to go into it, or he didn't have time. He said he caught my brief little post yesterday and just called to see if I was okay. I assured him I was fine and that I'd taken a long walk yesterday and tried to remember good things with a positive attitude. As for me, I'm not so sure about the lack of blame thing. Where I'm at there are two talk radio stations, both of which play predominately super-right-wing talkers and they have been ruthless in their criticism of the New Orleans mayor and the governer while praising each breath taken by President Bush since the disaster. The big "talking point" seems to center around that, had Rudy Giuliani been in charge, hardly anyone would have been killed. Absurd to me. I kept thinking that had all of Manhatten been flooded along with half of Jersey and Connecticut, then there could be a realistic comparison as opposed to the horrible but relatively localized destruction caused by the September 11th attacks. I liked the Teddy Roosevelt desk sign: The buck stops here. The other night, Friday night, I'd gone for a walk to grab some dinner. I'd ended up traveling a couple of miles south till I happened upon a place that beckoned me in. It was a new Bosnian restaurant. The food was incredible and very inexspensive. The bread was like nothing I'd ever had before... and of course the guy who runs it told me he's having huge struggles paying the bills. I told him he simply HAD to get enough people to just try the joint once. I'll sure go back. I walked back north on along a tree lined street and climbed a slow incline back toward my place that crests a few blocks south of where I live. As it happens, the downtown area is north of where I'm at by a couple or three miles, and since it sits along a good sized river, the surrounding topography makes the downtown area a bit lower - perhaps 150 feet - than the surrounding area. I found out later that there was a festival going on I hadn't been aware of. All of a sudden, huge fireworks started exploding just above street level to my perspective and directly between the trees. It was sooo cool to look at and went on for a good half hour... Was a real visual treat. Couldn't help slowing my walk and enjoying the show. Be good to everyone! |
| obscured path |
| 09.10.05 (5:14 am) [edit] |
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Good morning Boys and Girls. Twenty-eight years ago today I married a wonderful woman. Still miss her. Be good to everyone. |
| Holy Rollers mucking in poop... |
| 09.07.05 (8:23 pm) [edit] |
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Good evening Boys and Girls! Sorry, been having internet problems (and tBlog problems...) Just a few thoughts tonight... Followed a mini-van today for about five miles mostly because I couldn't get around the damn thing, or, once I took notice of the bumper sticker on the bottom right hand side of the plastic bumper - (made up of a sentence I found absolutely infuriating... Blue letters against a white field for the first half of the sentence and reversed for the second half...) I couldn't flag the driver down either. It read: "You can't be both pro choice and a Christian." Can't emphasize enough how annoying I found this pompous sentiment, since I myself AM&nbs p;both. Grr... I'm on the west side of the state these days. This area has long been famous for being a hotbed of closed minded Bible thumpers, but I keep seeing more and more evidence of a true "lifestyle" lack of tolerence by some of the folks around here. In a restaurant just earlier today I overheard a conversation between a couple of older dudes sitting accross the isle from each other bemoaning the possibility that some of the displaced folks from New Orleans or the surrounding area may find themselves housed in one or more of some of the local Hotels or Motels that have been offering up some of their too often vacant rooms as temporary housing through the coordinated efforts of our State's government. Their comments were so bigotted and harsh that I don't want to quote or even paraphrase them here, but what really steamed my shorts was that, after that little fragment of conversation, they segued seemingly naturally; talking about some trite shit going on at their church. Now I know it's said Christ came for the sinners, but what about people who don't even recognize that the whole way they look at life is an affront to humanity, God and anything good? Who knows. Be good to everyone.
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| the stress of not knowing... |
| 09.02.05 (7:39 pm) [edit] |
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Good evening Boys and Girls. surrogate here. I'm sure some of you have gone through the situation of caring deeply about people that you are, for whatever reasons, not in contact with on a regular basis. It's a constant for me, and it's probably the thing that drains me more than any other single event in life. It is, for lack of better words, a joy sapper. I do my best to put it out of my mind most of the time, and this past few weeks has been a tad better, I suppose, for the simple reason that I've been so exceptionally busy, and have had other things occupying my head, which, when I DO stop to think about it, makes me feel guilty for not thinking about those things and people I really feel like I need to think about each day to give my life meaning... and the cycle starts over. When I think about the awful things going on in the world and the number of people suffering real trauma at the hands of both Mother Nature and nationalistic misplaced aggression, I REALLY start to feel guilty about my own little bouts of depression since they're caused by such trivial and easily identifiable (and therefore supposedly; easily rectifiable) situations. So then, why am I still worried about these trifling things that I can't control in my own life, when there are so many greater problems out there in the world? Who the frigg knows. I just know I'm ashamed of it. Pray for those who have REAL reasons to be depressed out there all over the world. And GIVE. (Except please don't give to Pat Robertson's Charity thingy. Somehow his organization is one of the three groups officially sanctioned by the White House to funnel aid to the disaster victims. "How could that be?" you ask yourself. Think it through. It'll come to you. And then, for goodness sake, send your money to the Red Cross. Be good to everybody. |
| Time to DO it. |
| 09.01.05 (11:43 am) [edit] |
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Good afternoon everyone! surrogate here. I tried to post yesterday but tBlog was being tBlog and I wasn't able to get things to post correctly, at least within the ammount of time I'd given myself to get something up. I suppose the first thing I want to talk about is Katrina and the awful stuff going on as a result of her...severe temper? I've heard all about all the looting going on and how awful it is, what with some radio talk show hosts talking about how the police ought to be shooting to kill anyone carrying something out of a store... And evidently there have been many repeated showings of some guy carrying a TV out of a Walmart as "the" example of how awful the whole practice is. I've also heard how "all" the looters are black. I've heard how this is just another example of why we should not be tolerant of people in the situation these folks find themselves in...blah, blah, blah. Just more excuses for bigots to be what they are. Meanwhile we all deal with the seemingly staggering cost of gas and we bitch (probably justifyably) about how the oil companies and the retailers are price gouging. My thought is this: How about now, as they run off at the mouth about how we need more and newer refineries to produce gasoline from the every dwindling supply of precious oil, we take a look at using another form of fuel to at least run our cars? Brazil made the switch twenty-five years ago to ever evolving versions of alchohol fuels. As the technology advances, so then do the formulations they use. The fact is that we could grow enough crops between the medians of our highways with regionally chosen fruits and or vegatables to produce enough fuel to run all of our cars. Sound crazy? It's not. Maybe the times have outstripped that particular calculation, since it was figured out in 1977, and it would take more now. But trust me, we have enough land to do the job, and do it rather painlessly. A new gas line, fuel intake system (they might have to go back to carboretors and the miliage isn't quite as good as with gasoline, but folks, it burns way cleaner and we don't have to go to war with anyone to produce all we need.) Maybe, just maybe, it would cut down on global warming a bit and the storms wouldn't be as severe twenty-five years from now. There is NO reason not to do this, especially now that we're looking at such high prices for the next few months (read: years.) Write your congress-person. It's time. Meanwhile, pray for the survivors and give to the Red Cross. Be good to everyone! |
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