Red, Blue, Purple, Green… whatever the color of your political cloak this is a must watch speech by Elizabeth Warren
Conspiracy Theory — Not the Movie
I was recently taken to task for a previous blog posting, Opinion Bombs. The precise section that was objectionable to the commenter was:
“I feel like there is some unknown force driving wedges between the various factions of our country and of the world. I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but it feels like the “powers that be” want to keep the little folk bickering among themselves. It is the magician’s sleight of the hand. Distract the masses with these wedges and the powers can go on with whatever it is they want to do.”
Specifically, the commenter found my use of “conspiracy theory” problematic. Perhaps I used the word incorrectly. Conspiracy is defined as – “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” A conspiracy theory is defined as – “a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event.” The operative difference is “belief”.
What I was referring to as conspiracy theories is no longer very covert, Continue reading “Conspiracy Theory — Not the Movie”
Opinion Bombs
I have friends of color. I have a couple black friends with ties to Ferguson. I have white friends. I have friends, who are conservatives and others that are liberals. When I say friends I mean real and/or Facebook. To
all of the above I could substitute the word friend with relatives. I mention this because in my Facebook feeds I get multiple opinions on the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. What has struck me most strongly is that there seems to be a strong dichotomy that is tending to break down along lines of color and position on the political spectrum. People are not so much discussing the situation as throwing opinion bombs at each other.
There was one posting on the Michael Brown case with a lot of reinforcing comments to the posters opinion of Michael Brown being a criminal. What struck me so vividly was the way the posters and commenters saw blacks. They were definitely “others”. They were a group separate from them, and something to be feared. Last time I looked we were all humans and we all bleed red.
I’m not the first to notice this phenomenon, that we do not discuss issues anymore. Continue reading “Opinion Bombs”
Robin’s Snoopy Dance
There is one very special thing about Robin — you almost never have to guess what she is feeling. Unless it is an environment like work where it is better to keep your mask on, to see her is to know where she is at emotionally.
She is also a little hyperactive. I bring this up because she has an adorable behavior that I have seen directed at me twice and at other folks a couple times. When she sees someone she really likes and cares about, and she has not seen them in a while her whole body smiles. Yes her face is all lit up, but her body goes into this little dance that I can only relate to what I have seen Snoopy do in the cartoons. She is happy all over, her whole body is smiling.
First time I came back to St. Louis after moving to Memphis for work she went into one that lasted about a minute. We went to New Orleans a while back and saw an old, dear friend of hers who she had not seen in years. That was another Snoopy dance of a minute or so.
I came home the other night after being gone just one night for a quick trip to Muskogee, by gawd, Oklahoma. She went into short Snoopy dance then. I cannot imagine a better homecoming.
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 8,309
yeah I know you did not ask!
Google knows me much too well. Of course, these voice recognition programs have a hard time with my Okie accent also. I’m driving to Tulsa the other day, and I want to find a western store. So I used the voice dictation function to enter into a Google search the following phrase: “western store Tulsa Oklahoma”. It changed that into “porn store Tulsa Oklahoma”. It must have been the personalization feature of Google.
Motown: The Musical
I was born in the fifties, grew up in the 60s, and attended college in the early 70s. The soundtrack of my youth is in many ways the Motown playbook. Whenever I hear any number of those songs, I “Dr. Who” it back to that era when the song was new.
We saw Motown: The Musical Saturday night at The Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis. It was a short three hours of wonderful music and dancing. So many of the performers did the songs so well, it felt like the original artist was there in front of us. Robin thought it was the best show she had seen at the Fox. I would not go that far, but it was definitely up there.
As a bit of background, St. Louis has been on edge for several weeks due the situation in Ferguson with the Michael Brown shooting. A white policeman shot a young black man several times resulting in his death. There were demonstrations and some minor rioting afterwards. The shooting was the evening of August 9, 2014. Here it is Nov 22, 2014 and the grand jury is still out without a decision, although one is expected any day. The typical crowd at a Broadway musical presented at the Fox is older Continue reading “Motown: The Musical”
5 Things to Say at the End of Life
To The Best of Our Knowledge is interviewing Steven Spiro, a Buddhist Chaplain, on mindful dying. He has five things to say at the end of life.
- I love you
- I forgive you
- Please forgive me
- Thank you
- It will be okay
Not bad things to say at any point of life.
No Driver Left Behind
I spend way too much time commuting which allows me time to observe the idiocy of the motoring public. And yes I know from time to time while driving I fall under the rubric of idiot. My primary rule when I am
driving is to consider everyone on the road an idiot except myself, and do not be too sure about myself.
I was thinking driving home today with all the push for testing and evaluating for competence in schools perhaps we should do the same for drivers. Some method could be devised to evaluate overall driving skills. This would then be tied into everyone’s driving records. If you fell in the bottom 20% you would have to have a red flashing light on your car. If you fell into the next quintile an orange light, then yellow and so forth. That way you quickly recognize the total idiots and give them a wider berth. Of course, you would have to retest annually as skills change. And I can see some folks sandbagging to get the red light so folks would stay away, but if you tied it to their insurance rates…
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
This book was published in 1872. Transpacific and transatlantic steamships had come into to being, but many still used paddle wheels and supplemented steam power with wind power. The Transcontinental Railroad, a 6 year project, had just been completed in the United States in 1869. What had been a many months journey from coast to coast of the United States had been transformed into a journey of a week. The concept of being able to go around the world quickly was just being realized. Verne took this new excitement and created the novel we know as Around the World in 80 Days.
Like many of Verne’s novels the bench of characters is not deep. Nor is there a great deal of character development. They remain throughout the book relatively unchanged.
The protagonist, if you will, of this book is Phileas Fogg, a wealthy man whose wealth was acquired by means unknown. To call this man regular of habit and punctual is to call the sky blue. Continue reading “Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne”
Invasion of the Dust Bunnies
I won’t say I was totally terrified, but I had started to become more than a little concerned. There were so many dust bunnies under the bed that I was afraid they were going to coalesce into a giant, fuzzy blob. The idea of waking up in the middle of the night clawing at this nebulous mass of detritus was giving me the heebie-jeebies. I did the only thing humanly possible. I broke out the vacuum cleaner.
As I took the machine from the hall closet I heard Robin say, “Do you know how to operate that?”
I replied, “Leave me alone I am on a critical mission. Our combined safety is at stake. I will figure this contraption out.”
I am proud to say I have met the dust bunnies, and they are conquered.
Semper fi.