Our 50th

Yes today is our 50th; like an anniversary, we begin our 50th Great Course via Roku. Been here and there, practically everywhere without leaving our favorite chairs.  Without cable, we missed the1st of the 2nd round of Democrat debates, but our loss is not their gain.  What a divided country we suffer. 

BUT on to another typical radio ad from American Family Physicians saying that America spends the most on health care but our health care is at the bottom of the world.  Oh really! Even in the 60's our 'worst'  health system could save a baby from a death by pyloric stenosis at birth.  How far have we come? Where is racism in America when an NFL receiver ( note, not a QB) signs a 100 million dollar contract over 5 years?  With such racism we could tell the physicians who claim our health care reeks, that our sports does too.  Another ad on radio hawks its "legendary ring event" (sale) from its business open for only one year... 
  

Moral authority

I'll give you some excuses for, not examples,of moral authority.  Gavin Newsome says "lack of moral authority" by Trump causes gun shootings like at the Garlic Festival.  Hold onto this first example. .  The upcoming tax free school supplies and clothing holiday allows for parents to buy American Girl fashions for their children tax free up to  $75.00.  8 dead and 40 wounded in Chicago over the weekend. (I'm so glad I absconded from the Windy City in 1976).  Finally,  a Dental Lifeline Nework is looking for donations of dental service to help homeless vets, suffering from PTSD who neglected their oral health.  1,2,3 and 4 are examples of moral excuses for fake news.  How dare the left, the progressives, the Democrats, any American participate in these lame excuses for -- tadah- immoral behavior? OK, perhaps a moral failing does not equate with a moral hazard or irresponsible behavior, but behavior always betrays one's decision.

Need to be uplifted? Try a description of the Beatific Vision at the conclusion of the Paradisio in Dante's  Divine Comedy.

Ineffable

The word just came to me - ineffable. Why? A sacred object beyond description. A presence beyond the need for words.  From a Catholic or a literary tradition of accurate expression? Look it up?  I submit the Freiburg Cross (A.D. 1280 -1300) as candidate for the ineffable. Countless expressions of the events and beliefs in a faith represented on a gold cross elaborated with finely carved renderings in gold, silver and enamel. Two-sided, no space is spared characters and symbols filled with religious mneaning. Of course, a Beatific vision ( real or imagined) of God defines the unspeakable, but believers in the Middle Ages couldn't wait. They rendered the ineffable on a cross available to the common and uncommon alike.    

Scrabble?

If Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, excels in scrabble, I don't care. Just because I waste time with the game, frustrated at most outcomes, my squandering of other possibilities does not exceed his. Radio today proves again that a little clarification of spelling could help when news copy is read.  I heard that a new politician was "voted into the in term position."  Get it? Interim is the operative  word.  Even Boris and I could recognize the error. Zero points as usual for ignorance in the media. 

Death toll

What saddens me NO END  is the loss of life in World War II.  750,000 horses were used by the Germans in operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union. How many survived? 400 trucks a day streamlined over Lake Ladoga to bring supplies to the beseiged (900 days) inhabitants  in Leningrad, 1941.  How many civilians survived? Don't ask. Check out the numbers for yourselves.  

  Keep a statue of a horse in your home In Memoriam. Keep light on each night to commemorate victims of war.

Two per day

Who would want any politician (with power)  to pass 2 bills a day for 200 days?  The Democrat House of Rep has done just that since taking control in 2018. Lordy! I can't pass through a day without a downer. Then there's the tradition that the Governor spent an overnight camping at the opening of the Ohio State Fair. Dewine and wife plan the stay tonight in the Natural Resources Park. Governor Kasich declined during his time in office to participate. Who would think a 'tradition' as silly as a campout needs to exist? Lordy! Take away penalties for small quantities of Pot, raise the drinking age to 21 and punish youth for vaping. Lordy! Three more downers if I pay attention.  Better, I say, to ponder the existence of Purgatory, thoroughly examined in Dante's Divine Comedy.  

Today's trifecta

Today's trifecta for July 24, 2019.  One the  Muller testimony bust, two the boom of 26 pints of fresh, hand-spun honey from #9 hive, and three, the nonsense of hearing that a baseball team must carry the moniker of the Scranton Rail Riders.  Politically correct leftism accounts for #1 and #3, but #2 is pure, unadulterated sweetness. A 33% success rate isn't bad.

F...

Virtually all indecent, uncivil, obscene, insulting, accusatory and racist language and 4-letter words spew forth from the left. From extreme Democrats on the left. On web sites and in personal encounters, violence and in-your-face crudeness predominates. What's the favorite word? F...,  you guessed it. Today I saw 'normal 'people' abusing New York city police on the streets. In the land of Guiliani such behavior would not have been tolerated. SO SAD.

After the recent heat wave subsided,  my local nanny news segued rather smoothly into a warning to pet owners from a "Companion Animal Parasite Council."  About what?  Who cares? 

To think or not to think

Woe is me! A commercial for Diamonds Direct, a  new jewelry store ( 2 years on) in Columbus, brags that no middlemen  account for their top quality, extensive collection and low prices.  Sorry, oh mighty one.  Their ring sale announcement today boasts that ring designers are bringing in the newest styles. Think...  If ring designers, i.e. middle men "bring in" diamonds, are they not middle men? Typically no ad lacks such shenanigans. Hooey. Don't  trust what you hear. No need to verify, when truth is absent.  Speaking of absences, Oregon schools now allow 5 days of excused absence every 3 months, for any student claiming stress.  No questions asked. Some states like Oregon have already  seceded from the Union in 2019. 

stop that

Iran has seized a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. "Stop that," says Great Britain.  "We are not going to retaliate because we want a diplomatic solution."  BUT if you don't stop that, "there will be serious  consequences."   ??? The sun has long set over the British empire.  Does any power ( much less Iran)  take Britain seriously.  I asked my man what Britain meant by "serious consequences."  He astutely answered that they would just call on Trump to do something and then disavow it.

Another sad situation that we must STOP is nannying from everyone on the radio.  Exhortations abound.  Stay hydrated, Drink lots of water in this heat wave. Mind your children and pets. And if your kids won't drink water - here come the politically correct, nannying inanities - give them "water-intensive vegetables and home-made Popsicle."  I kid you not.

Not me

Must you (not me) hold out for 6 wks until the Ohio State football opener?

Today. however the new Ohio budget affects all of us victims ( yes me too).  Lots of money allotted for  "need based" and "strategic scholarships for college. Why? Why? Why must some 2-legged students be more equal than others? The 'generous' budget also absolves people earning less than $20,000 from paying income tax. Why must some citizens ( and non?) be more equal than others? Earn your way, I say;  don't let others pay for your stay. Amen.                   

Manspreading

Spread manhood, please. We need more manspreading (not the Feminist hysteria about how men sit in chairs)to save America from uptight, progressive feminism.   A note on Nostradumous, Glenn Beck.  Today he said Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were "monsters."  What did they do?  As racists, the former tried to exterminate a minority ( Cherokee  Indians) ;  the latter put Japanese Americans in concentration camps.  There you have it!  Mouth in motion before his brain engages, as usual. I too have blurted out a stupid statement in the 'heat of a moment;'  luckily no audience ever awaited one (or more) of my injudicious pronouncements.

50th Anniversary of the moon landing - boring then, boring now if you focus on earth instead of the possibility of the extra-terrestrial.

Nostradumous

Of whom do I think when I refer to Nostradumous - the oracle on the hill of egotism and self-promotion?   Glenn Beck, of course.  What is the point of reference when I am told "A lot of momentum to get better in your life," awaits you?  A dentist's office visit, of course.  What company tels me in its ad that  "change is how you grow forward?"   A heating and air business, of course, on local radio.  I'm sickofit - daily edicts from Nostradumous, ignorant ads and yes, statements like "its looking better for Joesee," referring to a baseball player known to the spokesperson but whose name IS JOSE, pronounced 'hoza.'  Monumental slaughter of language and death of thought can bum out your every day unless you take a Great Course from the Teaching Company for an hour of respite and relaxation. 

GD her

Why did not anyone, someone, perhaps a parent, GD her?  The millennial who could not spell and took offense for being corrected by an editor, melted down over the ego-punishment of her misspelling of hampster.  GD, the 1st letters of Guidance and Discipline which were called for years ago when someone, anyone, perhaps a parent, probably not two parents ( of opposite sexes) attempted to raise this young woman to adulthood.  Now she cannot cope in the real world of DC, disappointment and criticism.  Her misspelling of hampster should have warranted only a simple trip to a dictionary but, no, not possible for a woman who could do no wrong.  Feelings do not trump facts, young lady.  I pity any person who accidentally enters her life without foreknowledge of an immature person who obviously treads her hamster wheel of perceived perfection and won't jump off.

PARODY BECOMES REALITY

PARODY BECOMES REALITY 

“Thank you for watching our abortion.”  A panel moderated by @lizzwinstead at the 2019 NetRoots Nation gathering demonstrates terminating an early pregnancy with a watermelon.  A major forum for 2020 hopefuls, such as Elizabeth (Fauxahontas) Warren, Cory Booker, Stacy Adams and “countless other elected officials, candidates and leaders” was treated to “…a woman gleefully demonstrating on a watermelon how a woman can give herself a do-it-yourself abortion at home. In her hand is some kind of sucking device (long syringe) designed to do the procedure. She proclaims it is “easy” and “not surgery.” This is happening on stage, in front of the same crowd the major 2020 candidates are speaking in front of.”  This is real folks!

I was stunned and shocked to see parody become reality.  A family tradition had our children do ‘Brain Surgery–Self Taught’ when they had to a ‘demonstration project’ in High School.  They would perform a ‘lobotomy’ on a pumpkin filled with spaghetti using a butcher knife and meat cleaver.  Quite messy.  Everyone knew it was a parody – this was not the real world.

Now “do-it-yourself abortion at home” is demonstrated at a major ‘progressive’ event to applause from of ‘woke’ liberals and a handful of the Democratic Party’s 2020 Presidential Candidates.  As the site RED State observes: “The celebration of abortion in this way is just unfathomably evil and sick. This is a fetish to these people. It was just a decade or so ago that Democrats were insisting abortion should “safe, legal, and rare.” Now, they perform abortions on watermelons on stage. It’d be unbelievable if we weren’t all witnesses it playing out so vividly.
But perhaps it’s best they are being honest now. Like the slavers who would take pleasure in abusing their victims, pro-abortion extremists seem to actually enjoy the idea of women killing their babies for sport. The audience and panelists are actually clapping and laughing as this woman explains a horribly inhumane procedure that takes another human life. The fact that we’ve arrived at such a depraved state as a nation still baffles me.
Meanwhile, the same media that will lose their minds over Donald Trump getting two scoops of ice cream will not even acknowledge this disgusting display took place. Instead, they’ll continue to mainstream the conference and pretend this is all perfectly normal.”
Could you vote for any candidate who applauds this demonstration?  
“Abortion Self-Taught” we have entered into the Twilight World, Fantasy is Reality, or as Dostoevsky wrote, “Without God all things are permitted.”

Word abuse?

The answer I'm sure is simpler than this concluding sentence from a movie reviewer that I read today.  "It's a benediction with predictive force."  What the heck does this mean? Help. How does or can someone think and write this? A  powerful blessing that can foretell what?      

Shut your mouth

"Shut your mouth!"  Yes, I say to the spokesbeing for women's champion soccer team and talk show host Glenn Beck.  Both outlandishly speak no truth to power.  First,  Glenn this AM. calls a chair from target "crap" to sell his sponsor's X-chair.  Shame on you, big mouth.  Second,  foul-mouthed Megan Rapinoe pitches unequal pay for women while brandishing her meager breast.  Then a stupid ad, the  one I heard for Prevagen asks you to "keep your brain top of mind." Then too stupid talk from Tom Steyer, hedge fund billionaire criticizes "corruption of our democracy by corporations" adding that we need "To give more power to the people."  Well, a meaningless statement about democracy's inaction clinches my premise that America is in decline.  Megan the immodest and Glenn Beck the big mouth, and hawkers of Prevagen and leftist Tom Steyer - all wage a civil war just to be outlandish.   At least, soldiers and politicians in the Civil War were CIVIL.  America's backward steps since 1865 do not speak well of us as we abandon the 'good ole days.'  And ways.

No foul responses please.  As a sudent of history, I'm aware of the good, bad and ugly in mankind.

"They have no wine"

Who said, They have no wine?"  Mary to Jesus, of course, before he performed his miracle at Cana's wedding feast.  Who says daily, "They have no water"?"  ME!   Because our many, thirsty bees sip from a fairy water dish, water must be continually replenished during these hot, dog days of summer.  Are the girls grateful? You bet! 

On to more cultural nonsense.  Honoring ANY dead person killed by violence or suspicious cause is standard, caring procedure.  Locally a body in a shallow grave was 'honored'.  Methinks she was a druggie or prostitute, but even if I error in the cause of her demise, she inevititably receives a lighted vigil in honor for her life. Today we honor anyone, good or bad,  just to remain non-judgemental.  Why?  Even a ticker tape parade in New York along the "canyon of heroes" never notes the anti-American players involved in female soccer. Good thing I still note incongruity, injustice, moral hazard and just plain ignorance - all signs of our times.

Lastly another killer of English by a local woke man advertising a dental business.  "If there's a problem that presents..."  go to x operation for a solution to your problem. Yes, he is too woke to ad the final word 'itself,' to his spiel.

Impactful

"It's really impactful," said a spokeswoman for an alzheimer's fund raiser.  Yep. The impact of our slaughtered language can be felt daily.  The impact of the drug epidemic too.  Over this weekend 6 Ohio deaths from drug overdoses ( fentaynal anyone? ) made the news.  All the money pouring into our state (and others) can affect nothing to solve the terrible addiction problem.  Who knows that government is not the solution but the problem?  I wish I could tell you what qualifies as a dose of  'impactful' in my daily routine; perhaps overheating from an hour of clipping and chopping useless vegetation fits the bill.  "Exhaustion" not "impactful," however,   is the exact, operative word.     

50/50

50% SAY HE'S UNPRESIDENTIAL?  50% OF AMERICANS DON'T VOTE? WHERE ARE YOU?  HERE'S THE TRUTH.  WHATEVER A CONSERVATIVE, THE WHITE HOUSE OR YOU OR I SAY,  (MEANING ANY HUMAN BEING WITH A QUESTIONING MIND) THE LEFT WILL UPEND IT, DISTORT IT, MISREPRESENT IT OR UNBLINKING, LIE.   NO  NEED TO MAKE A 50/50 BET ON IT BECAUSE THE BETTER HORSE (OUR HORSE) WILL CROSS THE FINISH LINE OF REASON FIRST.

RECKLESS, MY PLASTIC MOTHER'S DAY HORSE,  GREETS ME EACH MORNING AFTER A PAT ON HER HEAD WITH WHINNIES AND LABORING BREATHS. OH HAPPY DAYS.      

Best fireworks

Best fireworks ( I think) were Macy's in New York city.  The heat and humidity here are devastating. Radio ads don't cease, however, with ill-logic and nonsense.  Who knew you can "drive for better" with a Dennis (car dealership) Hundai?  Who knew that hiring more expensive unarmed safety officers for city schools wouldn't make students safer?  And... who knew that J.E.B. Stuart was described by an admirer as a man "born to fight cavalry."  To each his own, for sure, but he gave his life for the South in the war.  I can't believe that in this l00 degree heat, a hired workman slaves away all day on my neighbor's roof with a 'project.'  Only in U.S.A.?

A tragedy

45,000 barrels of Bourbon up in flames at a Jim Beam warehouse.  A tragedy, whether set off by a stroke of lightning or not, a tragedy of the hottest order.

An aside.  My reading of the Gettysburg Address made me aware of the fact that Lincoln used the word "here" frequently, too frequently perhaps? Did he want to portray a sense of immediacy?

Now to my red meat observation, that whatever, WHATEVER a leftist, a Democrat, an extreme liberal or a hate-America anti-Trumper says, reality is just the opposite.  Whatever you are told by our enemy, rest assured the opposite is truth.

Radio advertising nonsense today is "extra affordable" and a "true guarantee"; more murder of  the English language. 

My philosophical window opens to the fact that each of us human beings is unique.  This realization came to me after my diagnosis of hyperlipoproteinemis.  Can't pronounce it, but research says I'm a freak again. Each of us can claim to be special, sui generis  in the hands of God.       

A photo speaks

"'They say a picture is worth a1000 words.'  It won't take that many for you to 'see' our inhumane border patrols officers at work.   I saw a published photo of a migrant in the desert, trying to get into America illegally, who collapsed from heat exhaustion. Two border agents, one black, one white, stand over the migrant sipping a pro-offered drink as a intravenous electrolyte drip also feeds him liquids.  How cruel!  How inhumane. How racist!  How can your eyes deceive you? How can you stand the left for their unmitigated manipulation of public opinion based upon lies, i.e. greater truths.

The 4th is coming. Again. Life, liberty and sacred honor at stake. All did not go humanely and well, but what has ever gone as planned?  At first shot, all bets are off.    

Fatherly advice

What dad today will say this: "It is true that you have, to start with, good morals fortified by religion, a good temper and a good constitution, which if preserved will carry you through the trial safely.  But temptations of a camp to a young man of sanguine temperament, like yourself, are not be to trifled with or despised.  I conjure you to be constantly on your guard, repelling and avoiding the slightest approach towards vice or immorality."

The son, J.E.B.Stuart, Confederate general killed in the Civil War in 1864 at age 31, 7th of 11 children, minded his father's advice.  He lived, fought and died honorably, revered by his parents and peers.  Please celebrate Independence Day with a modicum of understanding of American history.