Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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A Wino’s Wisdom

I stayed in my 3rd floor castle for several months.  Then Tom, an old high school running mate, convinced me that I needed to move into an apartment with him and two other guys.  Well that rock along nicely, for a while.  My running mate left early in the lease, and the other two guys failed to tell me that they were not renewing the lease until the last minute.  Wino

This left me without a place to stay.  I spent 2 or 3 nights sleeping in my car before I managed to locate and rent an apartment.  I needed one that I could afford by myself.  Now remember this is 1971.  I was making a whopping $2.60 an hour which was a dollar more than minimum wage, and I took all the overtime I could get.  I really did not have the resources to rent a penthouse abode.  Continue reading “A Wino’s Wisdom”

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Every Time I Went to Kiss Her

When I was a young teenager my father had a hi-fi stereo, state of the art. We boys were not supposed to touch it, but of course we occasionally did. In my father’s LP collection was a comedy record that we had been explicitly charged with not listening to…under any circumstances. That ranks right up there with waving the old proverbial red handkerchief at “el Toro”, with telling Brett Favre he should retire, or Mt. Everest beaconing Sir Edmund Hillary. It became a challenge. I had to hear that comedy record. Continue reading “Every Time I Went to Kiss Her”

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Open Season on The Young Rev. Joe

Outsized would have described my Uncle Sam, my Aunt Irene’s husband.  He had an outsized personality, and he was prone to tell outsized tales of questionable veracity. He was physically a big man. I do not know what his height was, but he always seemed taller than my 187 centimeters. He was a man who loved to eat, and his weight showed it. He was just a big man.

Run, David, Run...Although I never thought about them, he had one physical characteristic that apparently bothered him. It was his ears. They did not quite stick out 90 degrees from his head, but they were definitely more of an obtuse angle than the usual acute.

My cousin Perry inherited his ears. When Perry was 12, he had plastic surgery to go from obtuse to angular in the pinna department. Shortly after the operation he and his mother, my aunt, were visiting at our Grandmother’s house.

Continue reading “Open Season on The Young Rev. Joe”

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Quien es este hombre?

This is a presentation that I wrote for the beginning Spanish class I am taking.  I am not sure how this sounds to the Latino ear, but I suspect like a fifth grader’s report.  I’m just now learning to use past tenses.  I’ve discovered that Spanish has at least two past tenses while in English,  if it is past it is past.

Yo tengo mucho interés en este personaje histórico, porque su hermana, Hanna, es mi abuela hace seis generaciones.

Él  tiene tumbas de los estados de Missouri y Kentucky, y  ambos de los estados afirmaran que está enterrado allí.

Él  nació en 1734 (mil setecientos treinta y cuatro) en el condado de Berks de la colonia de Pensilvana. Sus padres eran cuáqueros. Una de sus hijas se casó con un hombre que no estuvo cuáqueros.  Porque del matrimonio fue una controversia en la comunidad de cuáqueros. Se desilusionó con la religión. Él paró a ir a la iglesia.  Sin embargo consideraba sí mismo un cristiano todavía y bautizó a todos sus hijos.

Él  había poca educación formal. Continue reading “Quien es este hombre?”

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The Raping of America

Now That’s Rich – New York Times op-ed piece by Paul Krugman

From the article:

“We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million Continue reading “The Raping of America”

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Does Ice Cream Cause Breast Cancer?

Is Your Favorite Ice Cream Made With Monsanto’s Artificial Hormones? – Huffington Post Article

Why my title?  It is a quick synopsis of the article by John Robbins in Huffington Posts. Basically rBGH, artificial growth hormone that is so prevalent in our milk supply was developed, pushed through FDA approval, and promoted by Monsanto Chemicals. One of the effects in cows of rBGH is increased IGF-1 in their milk. Monsanto’s own research showed Continue reading “Does Ice Cream Cause Breast Cancer?”

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High Cost of Cheap Eggs

Lessons From the Egg Recall: Cheap Food Makes You Sick – Huffington Post Article

I moved to cage free and preferably free range eggs a while back.  I’ve given up mayonnaise because the eggs in it come from such places.  While the eggs are pasteurized it would be an economic vote for such places as the Iowa factory farms producing the tainted eggs to buy such a product.

And eggs are not the only cheap food that has a high cost.  Just about all the meat (chicken, turkey, beef, and pork) in the supermarkets of this country comes from industrialized farms.  It has been well documented why these are not good places, and definitely not good places to get the food that nourishes your body.  As much as I love a good steak, I cannot in good conscience eat one anymore.

This is a capitalistic society.  Dollars are economic votes.  Is seemingly cheap more important than the environment, the workers in such places,   the animals welfare, or if self interest motivates, your health?  Is it really ethical to sustain such places with your continued participation by buying their product?  Unfortunately, for so many of these corporate operations, the bottom line is what matters.  It should be different, but they only change when they see their bottom lines headed the wrong way.

How are you voting?