Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

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

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Internet Littering

My Daddy’s folks are from Kentucky.  My Mama’s folks are from Oklahoma. Our childhoods were passed overseas or on the east coast, always around a Navy or Marine base.  My father was first in the Navy, and then he went to work for Kaman Aerospace.  I mention this as a frequent summer trip was back to Kentucky and/or Oklahoma.  This was in the 50s and 60s.  Initially there were no Interstates. Even later when the Interstates were under construction it was still a hodge-podge of Interstates and two lane roads. These were long, slow trips, not uncommonly in bumper to bumper traffic on two lane roads not always in the best repair.  Heaven forbid if there was an accident.  It would back things up for hours. Air conditioning in a car, surely you jest.

Vivid Childhood Memory

A vivid memory that implanted on my very young Continue reading “Internet Littering”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,591

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

Our treadmill is a little old.

How old is it?

It is so old that it does not even have a way to hold a cell phone or tablet so that you can watch a video while using it.

Our treadmill is a little old.

How old is it?

It so old that it does not even a really efficient way to hold a water bottle.

Just saying.

Thank you Johnny Carson.  ( I included a link to Hereeeeee’s Johnny, as I bet there are one or two generations that have no idea that he was once the king of late night television.

“How old are you?” they asked.”

“Two,” I replied, “too damn old.”

And so it goes in the La casa de los viejos.

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Missouri GOP Looking to Criminalize State Teachers

The following article appeared in the local alternative newspaper RiverFront Times:   Missouri Bill Makes Teachers Sex Offenders If They Accept Trans Kids’ Pronouns

1st Objection

Personally, I am not a big fan of this whole pronoun phenomenon, BUT as it says in the Book of David 1:1

“Within the bounds of the Golden Rule, people being who they are, and loving who they love are not immoral acts.”

I once worked with a fellow named Walter.  He was very insistent on being called Walter and not the diminutive of Walt. I understand as I prefer the formal David to any of the diminutives of that name, but most of the time I just let it slide.  I am just generally glad someone has acknowledged my existence by calling me by name.

I see selecting a personal pronoun, more of less, in this same category.  And yeah, I realize there is a serious qualitative difference, but isn’t it the GOP that spouts all these libertarian ideals… like getting rid of helmet laws and allowing folks to carry firearms wherever they want.

The kicker for me is from the article:

“We showed that the more contexts or settings where they were able to use their preferred name, the stronger their mental health was,” the author of the study, Stephen T. Russell, University of Texas at Austin professor and chair of human development and family science, said. 

Transgender youth already face a heightened risk of suicidal ideation. Another recent study, this one by the Trevor Project, showed that in 2022 nearly half (45 percent) of LGBTQ youth surveyed seriously contemplated suicide. One in five attempted it.

Sadly the article went on to say:

Missouri remains at the forefront of anti-trans legislation efforts and is one of the most prolific in the nation for bills targeting trans youth. 

2nd Objection

My wife, Señora, was a  special education teacher, retiring after more than 30 years in the profession.  It had changed from a job she dearly loved to one she had a very hard time with.  The last three or four years she taught, at the beginning of the school year she cried for a couple weeks from having to go back.  It is, without a doubt, a very hard profession, one that does not pay particularly well when you consider the level of education and expertise required.  I could write several blog articles on why the profession has become so difficult, but the burnout rate speaks for itself.  If you are interested here is an article on the subject: K-12 Workers Have Highest Burnout Rate in U.S.

And now the Missouri GOP wants to criminalize teachers for doing their jobs and supporting students that who in all likelihood are already having a very hard time adjusting. I just cannot get my head around the fact that there are individuals out there that want to force teachers to register as sex offenders for saying he or she when this person’s rigid beliefs insists it should have been she or he.

Some things are more than a little wrong.

A Little Lagniappe

Interestingly enough the British newspaper, The Guardian, picked up this story: Missouri: home to child marriage, corporal punishment and sick ‘child welfare’ ideas

Sometimes I do not know if I am more embarrassed by living in Missouri or being from Oklahoma.

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Brooks & Dunn – Neon Moon

Warning:  This song is a bit of an earwig.  I just want to share the delightful pain of that imaginary burrowing insect, although I suppose earwigs could apply to other things than songs.

I made reference to this song in my posting: My Musical Roots?, since then I have played this YouTube video about 20 times.  As mentioned,  back in the 90s, my pick-em-up radio had decided to only feed me AM stations, leaving me with nothing but country stations for music. I had experienced a double whammy I really do not need to get into here. At the time it seemed like they were playing this song at least once an hour. Talk about a crying in your beer song… does that still hold true if it is a dark ale instead of a Busch Light? Bud Light? Coors Light?  Cowboys and rednecks  like their light beers. I reckon, though, that sometimes a girl just needs to wallow in her nostalgia.

All that aside it is a great song, if you like country music.  This video has had 46 million views in the last two years.  Not bad for a song released in 1992.

Remember I warned you.

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My Musical Roots?         

A love of music is something that Señora and I share.  An important inflection point in our courtship story, Señora and the Curmudgeon, was our second date, an indoor Bluegrass music festival taking place in St. Louis that first winter of our romance.

Shared Musical Loves

Bluegrass seems to be a style of music that you either love or you look at the other person thinking, “WTF.”  Obviously, we both are fans.  Our other commonality in the realm of music is that we both have very eclectic taste, liking a wide array of musical styles.  Although, our favorite genres are folk music and a style of roots fusion music that is referred to as Americana.

 Musical Talent

One key musical difference between the two of us is Continue reading “My Musical Roots?         “

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Sage of North Barrington

Señora and I, the last few years, around her birthday, have made an overnight trip to Pere Marquette Lodge just across the mighty Mississippi River in Grafton, IL.  The lodge is in a heavily wooded state park and very much away from all big city distractions.   We find it a nice retreat for some couple one-on-one.

We generally go  during the week when we can take advantage of their Eagle Package: the room, dinner, breakfast and two drinks for a very reasonable price.  Of course, since Señora’s birthday is in February, a slower month at the lodge,  since the packages are from Sunday through Thursday when most folks are working, and since it is a bargain, Señora and I frequently feel like the youngest guests there. I suppose senior friendly is the term I am choking on.

After dropping off Princess Lily at her second home, we were making our way out of town on I-70.  This particular interstate is one of my least favorite roads. It is a major trucking route and always full of semis.  It goes past Lambert International Airport and is almost always overly trafficked.  It also goes through some of the least scenic parts of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

As we were driving on this road, along came a car traveling much too fast, even if the highway had been basically empty instead of its usual crowded state.  Naturally, this want-to-be Richard Petty was weaving in and out of traffic, channeling their inner NASCAR.

Señora made a comment about this car which I do not remember, but it was not a compliment of their safe driving skills.

I advised her to remember what the Sage of North Barrington is prone to say about these type of individuals.

She looked at me with a quizzical expression on her pretty face.

“You can’t fix stupid,” I answered her charming, expressive countenance.

“Oh, the sage you are talking about is Harry,” she remarked.

“Clearly,” I said, “what other White Sox wise man would you find sitting on a warm rock upon a lofty Barringtonian peak, enjoying the sun, surrounded by books, contemplating the wondrous navel of the Windy City, proclaiming his own unique version of the Serenity Prayer?”

And so it goes on the race tracks that are St. Louis’s Interstates.

Another Voice

Channeling his inner Kant, the Norman Ascetic frequently expresses his version of the Serenity Prayer by declaring, “it is outside my locus of control…an illusionary concept in any case.”

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

~~Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971)

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #8,264

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

All my experience with Jewish temple services are in Reformed synagogues as that is the branch of Judaism that Señora follows.

In the temple, on the back of each pew are copies of the prayer book and of the Torah.  Many folks at these services speak or have a passing knowledge of Hebrew, but many do not.  For that reason, these books are in Hebrew and English. Typically the Hebrew is in the right column and the English is in the left.  Or the English translation is written just below the Hebrew.

As the principle language is Hebrew, a language read from right to left, as opposed to English which is read from left to right, they start at what English speakers would think of as the back of the book.  Thus the page numbers increase in an order opposite of what we are used to.

We were at a Bat Mitzvah today, and as I followed along in the prayer book I thought, “they should number books in English like this.  That way you would know how many pages you had left to read in the book.”

Or not.

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Oklahoma Senator Calls LGBTQ+ ‘filth’

Oklahoma State Senator Tom Woods was at a forum with other law makers when a woman asked:

“Why does the Legislature have such an obsession with the LGBTQ citizens of Oklahoma and what people do in their personal lives and how they raise their children?”

She then went on to bring up the Nex Benedict case.  This was a non-binary student who died after receiving a beat down from three girls in the school bathroom.  Although, the police are currently stating that Benedict did not die from trauma.

Senator Tom Woods responded by saying:

“We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma… We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state – we are a moral state.”

I have no idea what morality he is practicing, but in my universe his ersatz morality is resolutely immoral. I would apply my immorally moral to this man. If nothing else using such a pejorative as filth to denigrate a whole class of people is immoral. Within the bounds of the Golden Rule, people being who they are, and loving who they love are not immoral acts ~~ Book of David 1:1

Christianity, at its best, is a loving, accepting religion, providing a sense of community to many, ministering to the the poor and needy, giving a sense of purpose in a chaotic and unfathomable universe that is exceedingly arbitrary in its treatment of living things.

By and large, though, that is not what is practiced in this country, especially in the Bible Belt.  To me, it appears that more than a few ostensible Christians in these here Uniteds are having fantasies about renewing the Spanish Inquisition, or at least of setting up a theocracy. Talk about your Sharai law, it would be that, just a different flavor.

One of the few prayers I still say: God save us from the religious.

A couple links about the story:

Report: Oklahoma senator calls LGBTQ+ ‘filth’ when asked about Nex Benedict, gender legislation

Video Shows Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict Reflecting on Fight Before Their Death

We need to do better.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #6,928

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

While there is a whole boatload of differences between single man and married men, one  coalesced into verbiage for me today.

Single men, if Aphrodite is smiling on them, help a woman to get undressed.

Married men, by the Decree of Hera, help a woman to get dressed.

“Would you zip up this dress for me dear?”

“Could you fasten my necklace for me?”

Just saying.

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Supreme Court Ethics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

I truly have never been more discouraged about this country than I have been in the last few years… this Supreme Court definitely plays into that discouragement.

I would hate to see John Oliver give this awful Supreme Court Justice $1,000,000 a year for life, but he certainly does not need to be on the Supreme Court bench.  Of course Clarence Thomas is 75 years old, statistically he will likely be out of here within 8 or 10 years.  However, at the end of the day, John Oliver has made a bet with himself that Clarence Thomas will not accept his offer.

We should have listened to Anita Hill.

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