Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Missouri religious leaders sue to overturn Missouri’s ban on abortion

One of the guiding principles of my life is live and let live.  If I were being honest, I would have to admit to falling short of this goal far too often, but it is a light I steer towards.  In that same vein I have a mantra I recite whenever I am speaking or thinking about religious beliefs or sexual orientation, “Life is tough, whatever gets you through the day, whatever gets you through the night.”

My issue with many Christians, especially Evangelicals and Catholics, and Continue reading “Missouri religious leaders sue to overturn Missouri’s ban on abortion”

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My new nickname?

I don’t remember exactly when my mother went into the nursing home, but it is pushing ten years that she has been in one or the other.  Her health is reasonable, but she suffers from dementia, Alzheimer’s to be specific.  This September she will be ninety.  The first half of her time in nursing homes she knew I was someone, but for the last several years she has had no clue who I am.

I do not visit her near as often as I should or would like to.  I live in a suburb of St. Louis, and she is in Continue reading “My new nickname?”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,799

yeah I know you did not ask!

In a post I used the phrase “in the Weinhaus-Rush household”, being a senior with a floppy neural network (do they make a Viagra for that?), I began to play around with the meanings of our two last names.

All my life people have made puns or jokes on my last name.  In the start of the Cold War era in the fifties it was, “Hey David, are you a Rush-AN?” During the hippie sixties it was, “Man, what a rush”, referring, of course, to the effects of drugs, generally said as someone passed me in the hallways at school.  My least favorite has been, “Hey, RUSH Limbaugh.” I quickly dissuaded folks from the use of that obnoxious appellation in regards to me.  And there is always the omnipresent jest, “Hey what’s your rush, Rush.” For the purpose of this randomness we are going with sixties version.

Indubitably, you are aware that Weinhaus is German for wine house as in the anglicized name, Amy Winehouse.

So our household is the Wine House Rush or perhaps the Rush Wine House.  Apparently, we are running some sort hippie opium den tavern/pub/wine bar.  Man, what a rush! Y’all come on down here, hear, aprisa, before the Ruskies  and MAGAs take over.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #9,959

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m down in Chesterfield Valley, the local generica full of strip malls and chain stores,  waiting at a stop light behind a smallish SUV with multiple bumper stickers.  The one that caught my eye was “Abolish ICE“.

I thought, “Well we are already doing a pretty good job of that, the way we are ignoring the impending climate change disaster.” Then I noticed their “Combat Climate Change” bumper sticker, and went, “naayy.”

I then wondered about hockey, thinking that could be a dangerous sticker in this area full of fanatical St. Louis Blues hockey fans.

Indubitably, they were referring to the federal agency, U.S. Immigration  and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.  Without question, ICE is overzealous far too much of the time, but I don’t think I would want to abolish the agency completely.

The way traffic was I never did see the person driving, but obviously an activist individual.

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Obituary – Neosho Weiss

Neosho Weiss, more intimately known as Osho, passed away in his sleep on the 4th of January, 2023.  For quite some time he had been in congestive heart failure, but with much love he had maintained a quality of life during this period.

He was the bosom buddy and constant companion of Adam Weiss.  When I say constant companion that is literally true.  Until the recent new business start up, with the way Adam worked , Osho and Adam were always together – 24/7. The exceptions being Continue reading “Obituary – Neosho Weiss”

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Chilly on the outside, chili on the inside

click to see larger

My daughter, Keely, after graduating from UALR (University of Arkansas at Little Rock) and before entering law school at the University of Oklahoma, did several things to keep body and soul together.  After divorcing her first husband she went to work at the Poteau, OK newspaper, The Poteau Daily News. She worked first as a reporter, and then later was also one of the editors. As a reporter she once interviewed an active NFL quarterback, Jake Plummer of the Arizona Cardinals, who was in town as part of an advertising campaign.  I asked Keely what she thought of him.  Her reply was that he appeared to her as if he had been hit in the head one too many times.

Just as an aside, Poteau, which is on the Arkansas and Oklahoma border south of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, is known locally Continue reading “Chilly on the outside, chili on the inside”

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A Southern, Jewish Tradition – Revisited

I originally published the article below  in 2014, and since it is about to be the first of the year, I thought that it would be a good time to revisit it.  One thing that has changed is that instead of Señora doing the cooking on New Year’s Day, it is yours truly.  And just for the record my collard greens are to die for… if I say so myself.

I performed this tradition when I was single, but then it consisted of the opening up a can of black-eye peas and a package of frozen turnip greens and Continue reading “A Southern, Jewish Tradition – Revisited”

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Spiritual Quotient

I encountered the following article while scanning the news Monday morning, 13 Types of Intelligence (Which Ones Are You?), The fact that they found 13 types of intelligence peaked my curiosity enough to cause me to click the bait.  I knew about IQ, Intelligence Quotient, being blessed to be somewhere on the right side of that famous bell curve. I knew about EQ, Emotional Quotient, mainly because one of my former intimate partners once shoved a cassette tape (yeah, that long ago) into my face (well my hands) telling me that I needed to listen to it as I had an EQ…wait for it… of zero.

I am not sure I agree with their thesis that there are so many different types of intelligence. However, of the 13 types of intelligence listed in the article the one that captured my attention the most was, Continue reading “Spiritual Quotient”

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What Do You Know About the Constitution?

I recently watched on Wondrium a very interesting and worthwhile pair of courses on the US Constitution taught by Eric Berger, a professor at the University of Nebraska Law School. The two courses were:

I am currently in the process of watching:

While the US Constitution is not that long and is not that hard to read, reading it and understanding it are two distinct things.  Both of the first two courses are good, but the second was more interesting to me as Continue reading “What Do You Know About the Constitution?”