2/29/12:
Sigh. I made it through 3 1/2 hours of work Monday, then went to see the doctor— thank goodness. Now I have had antibiotics on board for both ear and sinus infections since then and was able to make it through my day at home today with only one nap. Tomorrow I will be at the airport by 0600 to head to Michigan while Jay holds down the fort.
I mentioned earlier that JFK being a Catholic was a big deal, back in the day. Tonight on the radio they mentioned in a story that back then there was a fear that the Pope would exert control over American politics. Interesting.
The counties both north and south of where I live are primarily served by public Catholic hospitals. If those who proclaim themselves true Americans have their way, non-Catholic employees such as doctors, nurses, and supply clerks will not have access to birth control in their health plans. Has it come to be? Has the Pope taken control of American politics? What other explanation can there be?
Catholics indeed have joined with conservative Christians in a battle against "Secularism". The term "secularism" was coined in the 1800s to refer to separation of church and state. Isn't that interesting? We have gone full circle. Our founders came to the new world to escape religious persecution, now those anointing themselves as correctly religious and true Americans are persecuting those who do not share their beliefs.
Freedom of belief and from belief is being profoundly challenged— have you noticed? Let's see, what is the saying about not speaking out, until they came for me? Enforcing your beliefs upon others is religious persecution. Period.
I end with a quote from the day... Ciao.
Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism. Hubert Humphrey
2/26/12:
How long do these colds last? 2 weeks if I treat it? 14 days if I don't? I don't like the answer because 2 weeks is soo long!
I'm sure you are like me, hoping the government will shrink and stop focusing on worker safety, civil rights, education, etc. and focus on the important things. What can be more important than making birth control hard to get or shutting down unions? Ah, for the good old days when workers could work dawn 'til dusk and when time wasn't wasted with safety inspections.
Of course some things have changed for the better, like having big news media owned by wealthy people from other countries. Yes. They keep us well-informed, and they even tell us so!
Agendas are interesting. Over the last 20 years money has been drained from the American college system, with tuition now 4 times what is was then and student aid changing from grants to loans— commercial loans at that. Today's college students are graduating with huge loans to pay by design, and not at those stupid subsidized interest rates but at rates closer to a bad credit card's. Cool, keep that critical thinking at bay. I mean, what is better than telling people you are fair and balanced and just having them believe you? You can tell them mainstream news media is to the left too and they will believe it!
How rich! Yes, now we can get the distribution of economic resources closer to our goal of those that existed in feudal times. Let them eat cake!
If you too would like to form a PAC click on the picture and find out how. Who knows who is funding all these negative ad PACs? Who even cares? Yeah, we love MONEY! Yes, anyone or any country who wants to fund negativity in American politics can do so secretly. LOVE IT! Like the old saying goes, love it or leave it. Why question such good things? Let it go man. Ciao.
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.— Henry A. Kissinger
2/22/12:
Ribbon Seal. Yes, this is a ribbon seal. The photo was taken south of here, on a dock down by Everett— where arctic ribbon seals aren't normally seen. Quite the cutie though, eh?
When I was a kid in Michigan we had lots of snow, all winter long. We trudged through it and kept on going. Girls were not allowed to wear slacks, but we were allowed to wear them under our skirts as long as we took them off inside school. Today the discussion is whether or not gay couples should be allowed to marry, back then the rules were about whether girls could wear pants...
Oh yeah, I digress. Yes, it snowed a lot, with lots of drifting because the snow was dry. When I was in 5th grade they sent us home in a blizzard. Our bus driver (who we referred to as "crazy") dropped my sister, brother and I off at the corner and turned her bus toward Eaton Rapids and home, scooting off as fast as she could. We started to walk the half mile home she normally drove us in the midst of a blizzard. These days she would have lost her job, back then she got an award for being one of the best bus drivers. Are you seeing a theme here? Yes, times change— the profundity of which we did not realize back then either.
So, we started walking, but we did not walk far. Our neighbor pulled up on his tractor and we hopped on for a ride home. That was part of those days too.
School was closed for a week and the drifts scooped up to the edge of the barn roof. It was just the way it was, but what is the point?
Jay grew up here in Skagit Valley, with its own snow storms and ground-freezing. Today many of my perennial plants would not survive if submitted to his childhood winters. Today new plants make it through the winter in my hometown too. And girls just wear pants, period.
What we took for granted as seasonal weather changes have changed. Who knows why? Some people proclaim with pride that they live in places where the climate has not changed. Not so for me or my family. They must be lucky people, to be able to predict the vagaries of life and weather. What charmed, predictable, and simple lives they must lead!
Here the arctic ribbon seal showed up this month. Maybe he heard that there are places where the climate has not changed and was in search of what he used to know.
I am sick with a cold. My head is stuffed, my muscles ache, my throat a little sore, my body hot, my mentation slowed, my sense of balance disturbed, and I am filled with profound fatigue. I too have gotten lost and have not made it in to work all week so far. I will not find my way in tomorrow either...
One of my favorite jokes is vague to me but is about a guy in the middle of the water or something, praying for God to save him and then rejecting many human rescuers, telling them that God would save him. He ends up in Heaven, lamenting to God (what sacrilege!) that He had not saved him— God replies that He had tried and tried, sending many emissaries who the man rejected.
What emissaries are we rejecting? Maybe I have been brought a virus to force me to rest away from work. Maybe the ribbon seal is here for us. SHRUG. C'est la vie. Ciao.
I've learned to make a study of the hour
When grander schemes that mock our calculations
Reveal that we're the emblems standing for
The consequence of what we cannot master.
— Gjertrud Schnackenberg, The Lamplit Answer (1985)
2/19/12:
The Snowy Owls in the picture are visiting Boundary Bay in southern British Columbia. These Arctic tundra birds come south in search of food. The winter of 2008 I was treated with a close sighting of one looking straight at me through my windshield as he flew in front of me. That is an example of cool beans...
Earlier this month, on the 5th, I sermonized about thinking rather than believing everything that comes to you in your email. Last Sunday a friend had posted on her facebook page one of those cutesy pictures of a praying, big-eyed girl. She was praying for God to "re-bless America" because prayer was no longer allowed in schools (I remember doing the Pledge of Allegiance but not praying, but apparently lots of people prayed in public schools when they were kids or have been told in emails that they did so they are sure they actually did...) and they had "taken you...out of government". That last bit is fascinating, since the founders took such care to separate church and state. How do things like this get people to shake their heads as if it is so true... without any reflection upon how accurate the words are or even if they are true or not? Like lambs to the slaughter...
Since I saw the posting on a Sunday I wrote a sermon— why not? Some people don't like to be oriented to reality, preferring to live in a fog and allowing others to determine the content of their thoughts. They don't really like my sermons. C'est la vie. Oh yeah, they don't read any French either.
This was last week's sermon: God gave us the world, we are responsible for what we do with it. The Haitians have a saying that God gives but he does not share, because sharing is up to us. God is God for everyone— we forget that an awful lot. Prayer has been interpreted as a time for pleading— it is a time for requesting guidance— then LISTENING. Try listening to God, our answers are there for us. Jesus said his father's world is all around us yet we do not see. I think we are too busy to see, and too busy putting down other people for their beliefs when they are different from ours. A minute of silence in the schools would be great, but not a minute of one church's idea of prayer...
Nothing new, as you can see. In a country full of Baptists, Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Congregationalists, Moslems, Mormons, Native American Church members, Christian Scientists, Methodists, Unitarians, and others, who picks the prayers the children will say in school? Will we have rotating prayers from every religion? Hmm, I don't think that is what the big-eyed girl lovers had in mind. Religion tends to separate people, rather than bring them together. Are the appeals and heart-tugs really positively intended? Really?
I find these images and statements full of anger and hatred, thus my reaction. I read the message and thought about what it really means, what the founders actually wrote about religion. And I think about my own belief that (whatever you are referring to when you think of "God") God actually doesn't care if your sports team wins, that God has better things to do. Oh yeah, I also think God created the world, all of the world, and all of the people.
Here is where I depart from many "good" (meaning better) people— I also believe God gave everyone a way, whether they are Baptists, Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Congregationalists, Moslems, Mormons, Native American Church members, Christian Scientists, Methodists, Unitarians, or whatever. This is sacrilege to some, the idea that all people have a way to God by design. Also interesting.
Maybe I think too much, after all the people that send these emails are counting on me not thinking. C'est la vie, keep thinking man. Ciao.
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.— Sinclair Lewis, 1935
2/18/12:
Whew! A busy, crazy week has come and gone— yeah it is a three day weekend for me!
Valentine's Day seemed to come quickly this year. Jay got me 2 amber rings to celebrate and I got him a pair of shoes. A pair of shoes? Yeah, what can I say?
For his birthday and Christmas I got Jay an Irish tweed jacket and a hat. He had a tweed hat that was getting worn and lamented needing a new Irish tweed one, so that gave me my idea. Jay has to be careful what he says he likes or wishes he had because I use these comments for ideas for future gifts— and I write them down!
So I was on a tear, hunting for tweed, and ran across tweed athletic shoes— can you believe it? Now you see how this happened... I bought the shoes after Christmas and they have awaited Jay's joy...
The picture here is of the Onitsuka shoes and links to a picture of Jay looking smug with his new shoes...
It is crazy windy and rainy here, have a nice weekend. Ciao.
To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder, but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.— William Makepeace Thackeray
2/13/12:
THE JOURNEY
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
— Mary Oliver
2/10/12
Can anyone explain why it is not "Big Government" to pass laws regulating women's (not men's, noticeably) access to birth control? Why is it not "Big Government" to insert governmental inspection of bedrooms?
Why is it "Big Government" to attempt to limit laissez-faire policies that created the economic havoc of the last 4 years? Leave it alone man, are there no poor houses?
Even Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave...
Next time you hear politicians speaking of Adam Smith and keeping an unchecked, free market, think of this: "Contrary to popular belief, however, Smith was not an apologist for the capitalist class. One of his least repeated statements warned that a group of capitalists rarely gather together under one roof without the talk turning towards collusion against the public. For this reason Smith firmly favored anti-monopoly laws. Furthermore, his support of competition remained contingent on the fact that it encouraged economic growth, something Smith felt would benefit all members of society."
Click on the mouse for more info... More later, happy Saturday. Ciao.
LOT'S WIFE [Excerpt]
they would have found her—even as now
some men encounter the woman of their dreams
(beauty of the movie screen, princess they capture
with a camera's flash, girl whose finger brushes theirs
when she takes their card at the market register)—
found her, that is, not as the person she was
but as whom they needed her to be, and, man or woman,
each of them would have wanted a piece of her.
Standing in that wasted landscape,
she must have seemed a statue erected there,
as as tribute to human frailty, white, crystallized,
her head turned back as if longing to be the girl
she had been in the city she had known.
And they must have stood there, as we do,
a bit awestruck, taking her in for a time,
— Gary J. Whitehead, January 2, 2012 New Yorker
2/7/12:
I guess the band OK Go was on the Super Bowl Sunday, sponsored by Chevy for their newest video which features music made by a Chevy, of course! You can see that one, Needing/Getting, HERE. It is great, but I still like the Rube Goldberg one here... Ciao
Be like Curious George, start with a question and look under the yellow hat to find what's there.— James Collins
2/5/12:
Yikes! It has been lovely weather here for a few days, with sun and high temps in the 50s. Yesterday I even did some yard work, cleaning some beds of dried plant material from the winter— February 4th! Spring bulbs are peeping through, heralding spring as well. Hope they are right...
Do you like the interesting picture here? It is a rotifer or "wheel animalcules", which make up a phylum of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals. The picture links to some other info and if you scroll to the bottom of that page you can click on a slide show...
Doesn't anyone remember their school lessons about critical thinking? In particular I am thinking about: "don't believe everything you read." These days anyone can spread lies or propaganda through emails and social media, appealing to soft spots or ideas of injustice. They always urge you to spread the word, pass it on.
I have written about this before but just this last week saw an old one again. These tend to have a lot of underlying anger, this one in particular is full of anger pointed at Congress. It is so weird— there is much to recommend major activity to reform our political process yet the purveyors of this information take attention away from any legitimate claim for action and get people side-tracked with erroneous information. It seems to be the way of the US today. Just as politicians try to arouse anger against illegal field workers who take jobs no one else wants, rather than addressing inadequacies in our immigration policies and processes. Who needs to focus on the lack of jobs created by Congress' own past actions when we can divert attention to other "evils", especially ones with darker skins.
You can be part of the solution or part of the problem, it is totally up to you. Really. Does that email message get your juices going, make you want to say "yeah, that is not right!"? Hmm, kind of suspicious. Why hasn't this been a big issue? Yes, Congress should have to pay into the Social Security system! Never mind that they already do, lets rile everyone up with mis-information! Oh my God! Hell no! How can it possibly be that Congress gets full pay after only one term! Pass it on to make this stop! It has turned into a nation of non-thinkers. Oh, by the way, Congress pays into the Federal Employees retirement system, with retirement pay based on income and length of service— you know, like GM retirees. Pretty upsetting! Lord help us...
So, put on your thinking caps. There is a lot to be fixed in this country. Spending time and energy on stuff like this is not part of the solution, spending time separating mis-information from reality might be, who knows? Ciao.
I wouldn't have so much problem with minimum wage if those jobs were minimum work.— Jay D. Eckert
2/3/12:
Remember that old saying or idiom? A month of Sundays... A lot of the sayings we grew up with have disappeared from everyday usage. Language and communication have always been a fluid thing, changing with each generation and invention, although never as rapidly as these days.
A month of Sundays... that just popped into my head as I set out to make a February page. February already has turned out to be a month of Sundays for me, full of unexpected challenges.
I left work early yesterday and stayed home today— it was too much. After working more than one position for 6 months (2 whole positions for over 2 months and 1.5 positions for over 3 months) I was sooo much looking forward to only working my own position starting Feb. 6th. Whew! That was a tough one!
But then again, don't celebrate only working one job too soon! I learned from a light-hearted email, sent to me at home to brighten my time while I was not working, that my co-worker was not going to stick around. Yesterday my boss let me know it could be another extended period of time before they could refill the other position when it is vacated. Does it get any better than that? Thank you so much Cindy for your hard work, we think we will now have you enjoy yourself some more!
That might sound a bit irritated, but read it again— it is actually more like bitter.
I will figure out how to live through this as well, always hoping for brightness in my life besides my loving Jay.
The great photo above links to a larger version. It is by NW photographer Lee Mann, who passed away last year. He had some great pictures.
Relax, take it easy, have a nice weekend. Ciao.
Life is hard. After all, it kills you.— Katharine Hepburn
Jardot's World: February Edition, 2012
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