Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Jeanne Chats with a Former Nun

 I have a friend, Jeanne Felfe,  who writes novels and short stories.  She also works with other authors to edit their work and aids them in bringing their books to the self-publishing marketplace.

Today on her blog, Jeanne interviewed, Shirley Anderson, a newly published former nun who she termed an absolute delight. Shirley has lived quite the adventurous life, and shared some of wonderful stories in her memoir, Poverty, Virginity & Love.

To read the complete interview follow this link: Jeanne’s interview with Shirley Anderson.

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Word of the Day – Epexegesis

  • Noun: Epexegesis — Adverb: Epexegetically
    1. additional explanation or explanatory matter
  • Synonyms:
    1. annotation
    2. comment
    3. commentary
    4. gloss
  • Usage:

“’For example, there’s a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There’ll be a whole stack of long words stored just this purpose.

‘Where?’

‘In the word-memory section,’ he said, epexegetically.

  • Encountered:
    1. While reading the short story, The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Ronald Dahl.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Senator Josh Hawley, Unacceptable…

For reasons unfathomable to me, the citizens of Missouri turned out a very capable and very moderate Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in favor of the Republican candidate, wanna-be Proud Boy Josh Hawley.  He spent the first part of tenure fairly quietly in Washington.  With the presidential election he came completely out of the closet.  When he decided to be one of the Senators that would oppose the electors for Biden I wrote him the following letter via his website. Continue reading “Senator Josh Hawley, Unacceptable…”

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Artifact or Angel

Robin was taking some pictures with her phone.  It has a function which can do a motion capture of 6 or 8 images.  This makes your still photograph act like it should be at Hogwarts.

There is an interesting phenomenon happening in the middle of the picture that we cannot explain.  I am pretty sure that this is some sort of artifact of lighting or camera movement, perhaps the light reflecting off a passing vehicle.

Señora, however,  is convinced it is an alien entering our space-time continuum from a rip in the fabric of the universe.  Or possibly an angel…

Anybody have a possible explanation?  You can appreciate it more  if your go to full screen.

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Polio Vaccination

If you are of a certain age…old now, you might remember these cards and the big push to get everyone vaccinated against polio.  I came across this immunization certificate going through a box of papers from my mother’s house.  I also have the cards for Type 2 and Type 3.  I think my mother must have filled in my name as it looks like her handwriting.

The card is from the Orange County Medical Society which is in New Jersey.  As there is a Navy base in the area Continue reading “Polio Vaccination”

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Quote of the Day — Robert A. Heinlein

“The essence of philosophy is to accept the universe as it-is, rather than ,try to force it into some preconceived shape.” “ Robert A. Heinlein

 

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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The Lottery by John Steinbeck

Okay, okay… I got the title a little wrong.  Steinbeck’s book is actually titled The Pearl. I started thinking about this book because the current value of the Mega Millions lottery is $850 million.  The current value of the Power Ball lottery is $730 million.

The Pearl is a wonderful, concise novel of about 90 pages.  It is not near as well known as Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, but it should be. The language and the imagery are captivating and the narrative is spellbinding.  If I remember the back story of this novel it is based on an old Spanish legend.

The story is situated somewhere in South America.  The primary protagonists of the story are an exceedingly impoverished indigenous couple, Continue reading “The Lottery by John Steinbeck”

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Thbbft…

As any semi-regular reader of my silly little blog will know, I have been studying Spanish for a while.  As part of that exercise I use a platform called, italki.com.  I use one professional teacher from Guatemala who is valiantly trying to improve my grammar and pronunciation.  As you can imagine, working with me, he does indeed have the patience of a saint.  I am also working with what italki calls tutors. These are generally folks not trained in teaching languages, but will converse with you and gently correct your errors.  Some will try to teach a little. I use them mainly for conversational practice.  I am currently using 4 tutors in 4 different countries to sample different accents.  I also occasionally do a language exchange. There is no cost to these.  You spend 1/2 your time speaking your language and 1/2 your time speaking their language. This last method sort of works and sort of doesn’t, at least for me.

I use Skype to take these lessons. My avatar on Skype is Bill the Cat going, “Thbbft“. Continue reading “Thbbft…”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #9,340

yeah I know you did not ask!

I turned on the TV and watched about 10 minutes of the House “debate” on impeaching Trump for a second time.  This was about 9 more minutes than I could have stomached if I had not been doing other things at the same time.

I came to the conclusion that there are a lot of Republicans that I would like to play poker with.  They have no idea when to fold a losing hand.  I also suspect, given the analytical skills on display, that they would always draw to an inside straight.  Only thing that could be better would be a drunk poker player with lots of cash to bet.

I’m tired of this Irish blessing we are living.