Home of the "Little Known Blogger"
The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt
yeah I know you did not ask!
There is a house in our neighborhood that I can see their front yard from the kitchen window at the back of our house. The house is actually the one street over on a street that runs perpendicular to our street. For Halloween one their decorations was a witch on a broomstick crashing into a tree. For Christmas they have Santa Claus falling off of the roof.
I do believe I am going to knock on their door and introduce myself. They seem like my sort of folks.
I’ve been thinking a lot about 3 words of late, “I love you.”
“Why,” you ask.
It is my wife. She says those words all the time, to me, of course, but also to many other people, mostly her women friends. 
Let me explain my wife, perhaps something no husband should ever attempt to do. She has a certain charisma that is not lost on me, even after many years together. She attracts people, and probably more importantly, she really likes people. She has lived in the St. Louis area all of her life. She has friends dating back to her nursery school days. I’ve never sat down and analyzed it, but she has 3 or 4 or 5 different circles of friends. A couple of the circles overlap Continue reading “I Love You – Part 1…Maybe”
“The research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in ‘Personality and Social Psychology Review’, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.” ~~ Article in Scientific American, What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic
I stumbled across this article while researching another subject. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my Canadian friend, Le Canuck, who lives in Memphis. I was there Continue reading “Less Reading = Less Empathy”
yeah I know you did not ask!
What is wrong with me? Yeah, yeah, I hear you muttering under your breath that you have been asking that same question for much too long now.
La señora purchased a tin of pre-popped pop corn as a gift for my brother, James Michael Rush, CPA, when he was here recently, visiting. He opened it, ate some of it, and drove off without it. So I have been liquidating his gift, grudgingly of course, one handful, one bowl full, at a whack.
One type of pop corn contained therein, is caramel covered. I have been taken these, putting them in a small bowl, shaking a few peanuts into the the vessel, and voilà, Instant Cracker Jacks. This afternoon I found myself digging around in the bowl looking for The Surprise!
I understand that it is possible now days to engage the services of a therapist online.
I was in the waiting room of a doctor’s office this week when a pharmaceutical representative came in, triggering memories of my father. I only saw the backside of this gentleman as I did not notice him until he had pulled his trolley of samples up to one of the windows of the office personnel, and I went in shortly thereafter. From the backside he struck me as very fashionably dressed. His clothes appeared relatively new and of the current fashion. To me, the current fad in men’s sports coats and suit jackets always appears as if Continue reading “Shoes Did Not Get the Invitation”
Like most Homo sapiens I hold contradictory views, opinions, modus operandi, etc. One such area is how I regard and behave to others of my species.
In my personal life I have for several decades taken the position that I do not trust anyone until they prove to me they are trustworthy. Perhaps this is an outcome of working for huge corporations and other large organizations. There are always folks in these environments that are willing to do about anything to advance their careers. A few times I have felt their footsteps on my back. Add to the corporate office politics, the sundry disappointments in my personal relationships, and my base position is that you need to prove to me that I can trust you. And yes I am aware Continue reading “Diminishing Trust”
yeah I know you did not ask!
I want to see the job description at MoDOT for this position, or at least the want ad for the job,
I was headed to St. Charles, driving north on MO 141. I passed one then a second of these those big yellow MoDOT trucks sporting the brightly lighted signs declaring “MEN WORKING AHEAD”. Both were driving extremely slow as there was a work party afoot moving very slowly too. Both were equipped with big, striped crash barriers at the rear of the trucks. I sometimes see 3 or 4 of these vehicles stacked up for a moving work zone.
Wanted: Must have CDL. Need a person capable of driving extremely slow. Potential for accidents is higher than average. Harried, cell-phone-using commuters might miss bright yellow truck with brightly lighted sign warning of danger. No worries, trucks are equipped with state of the art crash barriers, and Health and Life Insurance will be available at reasonable cost to you.
Hello Boardman, Oregon…
Looks very rural and beautiful from the pictures on Google maps, but then again sitting on the Columbia River how could it be anything but?
Señora and I were running around the other day, remembering I needed a charging cable for my phone, we stopped by Wally World. On the way out we passed a Christmas display causing me to “sing” out loud, somewhat sarcastically, “Fra la la la – la la la.”
Señora’s almost immediate reaction was to say, “You really should not do that in public.”
I disingenuously asked, “What?”
“You really should not sing in public,” she elaborated.
“I thought you liked it when I made a ‘joyful’ noise?”
“I do, at the house, not in public.”
“Well,” I said in a huff, “that is one of the meaner things you have said to me.”
“I am just trying to protect you,” she went on.
“Protect me from what?”
“I would not want to see you pelted with rotten tomatoes. It makes doing the laundry tough.”
“It will be a while before you hear me sing again,” I heard the pouting me say.
Was that a long sigh of contentment I just heard coming from Señora’s direction?
I was in Memphis, TN this weekend and saw this bumper sticker – God, Guns & Trump – on the back of a small, older pickup truck with Mississippi tags. 
The sad reality is that I could have seen this sticker many places; they are just more common in that part of the country. I live in St. Louis which is not what I would call a particularly liberal or progressive area, but it is an island of sanity in the red cesspool of MAGA Republicans of rural Missouri and southern Illinois. I see many bumper stickers of a similar ilk around here too.
God, Guns & Trump…To me this encapsulated the sickness that is currently inflicting our country.
God: While I understand people’s need for religion, I am not a big fan. My personal opinion Continue reading “God, Guns & Trump: A Jeremiad”