Offsite Comments

I failed to bookmark it, but some blogger yesterday posted two videos.

One was that Louisiana politician - Guillory or something - who talked about converting from Democrat to Republican. When it came to race & the political parties, he hit just about every bullseye.

Another was a promo for a longer documentary about blacks becoming Republican.

It's strange to see people who flee to the Republicans because of the core principles the R's are supposed to represent, and then read folks here despairing "We have no party."

Frankly, I'd rather be a naive idealist who thinks the Republicans just need to clean house, not be abandoned. But then, I live where Republicans still do abide by those principles. My Congresscritter Bridenstein. My neighbor Cotton. The kind of folks you don't have to hold your nose to vote for.

I don't usually get to watch Vic post in real time. Impressive! Thanks, Vic.

Amazing.

Morning, Glories!

Thanks. That was really nice.

(Oops. Meant to send this earlier. Good thing the Book Thread is not time-sensitive like open threads. )

Df82: "I have come to the conclusion that women need structure because, without it, they self-destruct. How else could it be for people who make serious decisions based on their emotions?"

I read Df82's comment to my daughter. She didn't object. In fact, she added, with our feminized society, we have a lot of men who have the same problem of overly emotionally influenced decisions. Thought that was pretty insightful.

...

Instead of strong men like M Thatcher, we get weak gals like B Hussein.

Oops, duh.

"The year I graduated from college high school..."

Always funny to read folks looking at the 1970s.

I graduated HS in 1970. So, the '70s were my coming of age, m/l. The first few years I was trying to figure out why I was in a liberal arts college, and where went all that excitement that was happening at colleges on TV in the '60s. Finally figured out college was killing me, and left before graduation. Unlike Gov. Walker, I didn't have a good job calling me away, though.

Then there was that most pleasant and memorable couple of quiet years, when Milady came to visit and we ended up staying together, getting to know each other.

Then for the latter half of the '70s, I went nuts. I tried to go into business, and ended up with an excellent education in what not to do. Lost good friends. Ended the decade under a half-million dollar lawsuit. (Which I "won," finally, in 1980, by losing but to a much smaller amount.)

Still, I feel like I missed the '70s in a lot of ways because I was either studying, working, or trying to do business, when I was supposed to be at the disco and doing cocaine.

Hm. The year I graduated from college was closer by two decades to the end of WW2 than it is to today. Pass the geritol.

Thanks to the Book Thread folks for encouragement to start reading books again. Still re-learning, but enjoying it.

I found myself abruptly at the end of the narrative part of Mark Twain's Autobiography, part 1, big fat study edition. So, I picked up the next book I found lying around. Once again, I found one of those things Milady discovers in the thrift store bins for two bits:

Understanding the Times of Christ
William W. Menzies
Gospel Publ House, Springfield Mo. 1969

First thing I noticed about this book was, unlike the squinty Twain book, I didn't need my glasses. Normal-size type is still readable for me. Or I'm in denial about the blurriness. :/

This small book (124 pages) serves its purpose well: to give a broad, general background for understanding of New Testament times.

The author covers the history leading up to the times of Christ, the politics of Rome, and Palestine of the time, the society and daily life of Judaism of the time, the broad spread of Judaism, and Judaism functioning amid a pagan world.

The final two chapters are specifically about Jesus' life. The earlier chapters generally eschew footnotes (acknowledgements are made in the introduction), but derive from historical study and describe what you wouldn't pick up from reading the scriptures, while the last two chapters mostly derive from and reiterate the Gospels, relating them to the context aforedescribed.

As this is an area of interest of mine, I was intrigued that EITHER I was better informed than I realized OR the author and I are mis-informed in the same ways. I did glean some new information about the historical contexts, and some political-social matters. It was for me, then, in a way, a good "lite" refresher course; the arrangement of the information especially gave me a better perspective of the context and sequence of some events.

The author lapses regularly into some statement or other of Christian doctrine or teaching. Usually only a sentence at the end of a section, and not abrasive, nor unexpected in a publication from the Assemblies of God, but sometimes just seeming gratuitously inserted. Despite that, it was refreshing to read a book on Biblical historical context which came from a position of faith rather than cynicism and doubt.

Ironically, the chapter I found most informative was the section on the Essenes at Qumran. Ironically, I say, because the Essenes never get a mention in the New Testament, and really had nothing to do with the Christ story. The author includes them because of the newsworthiness-popularity, still in 1969, of the "Dead Sea Scroll" community.

The Essenes had a run of two hundred years, devoted to purifying themselves in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. Just about one hundred years before, and one hundred years after Christ. It's already painfully obvious, practically redundant, when the author points out that, from a Christian's perspective, basically, they missed the boat they were packing for.

And after taking a couple of weeks to consume Twain's bio, it was nice to buzz through this little volume in a day. In learning to read all over again, that's a bit of encouragement.

But now I have the habit, I'm wondering, what to read now?

Sigh! I've done a lot of pondering on prayer and Providence, the mundane and the miraculous (likel the "fortuitous coincidence" of that note in the shoebox). It's not just abstract theologizin', but the most important question of my current life crisis. So, when I read this post, I began a comment, only once again to end up with an overlong essay that I have cut, set aside to work on, to maybe someday to show up as a webwork. Lucky y'all, eh?

It may not make as much sense out of the context of the rest of what I wrote, might not exactly seem much related to the post, but I thought I'd leave this story here just for entertainment purposes, or something:

Mom tells a story from back when she was still driving. Took a wrong turn in the confusing maze of downtown streets, and found herself going the wrong way on a one-way street, in heavy traffic. She couldn't go forward, couldn't back up, everybody was honking and yelling at the crazy old lady driver. Finally, a cop comes up, and he starts yelling at her. Mom eventually managed to say to the officer, Okay, I messed up. Now what do we do? And at that point, the cop got his $#!+ together and began directing traffic so she could get out of there.

I feel like that, wrong turns, trapped, no way out on my own, horns blaring. Except, the cop either doesn't show up, or he doesn't quit yelling. When all I want to know is, now what do we do? Hello, Lord?

BTW, there were shoes in that shoebox as well, right?

That wallpaper! Egad! Never before thought to ask the question, what would four crossed eyes look like?

Morning, Glories! Everybody running late on a Sunday morning?

Vic: "Approximately 2800 of those rioting illegals will be moved to other federal prisons after trashing the one in TX yesterday. http://fxn.ws/1LsHmrt"

From the article (maybe this has been mentioned, I'm still back on Vic's comments):

"The inmates being held at the facility, which is in far South Texas more than 200 miles south of San Antonio, are described as 'low-level' offenders who are primarily immigrants in the U.S. illegally." My emphasis added.

Also they ostensibly rioted over medical care.

Seems t'me there's some bugs in this system.

How to know if I've made a really bad decision?

I made it.

Blog Heap o'Links — just random links galore, clumped under various headings.

PoliNation pals, pardon a personal pronouncement please. :P

Because I always have 'way more links than I could rightly post on here, after some pondering and experiment, I decided to revive my ol' linkin' blog (SWIDT?), which I started many years ago to web-bookmark links of interest, for Milady, for the kids if they were interested, for myself especially, and of course for anyone who accidentally stumbled by. I was pretty diligent at it until a couple of technical gremlins and other gnomes clobbered my ability to keep up. The Heap has been an off-and-on thing for years since then; lots of off.

Now, anyway, I've kept it going again since Valentine's Day (must've been the candy ♥ buzz), but I waited to mention it, since I didn't know if I'd be able to keep it going; and I still don't know, but for now, for now. I do like having the links handy this way; it's what I created it for in the first place. Anyway, anyone's invited.

Pete, this is a great post. Your news links & comments are meat and potatoes, but your fun and nostalgia posts are apple pie dessert. I look forward to the more you say you've got! Meanwhlie…

Kaleidoscopes. Growing up, our house never had them, but thank goodness my pal Tom's had them. Kaleidoscoping is one of my favorite tools in the digital art
program, too. I had a whole series of these.

Someone gave me a mood ring once. I might still have it buried in a drawer, somewhere. Now they have clothing that changes color according to your "mood." Or something.

Those old metal ice cube trays could be a real hassle.

No matter how many times I'd buy them, I'd never have gummed reinforcers where & when I needed them.

And the trick to Jiffy Pop was, if you keep it on the stove until the last pop is heard, you've burnt the bottom of the batch, if not the whole thing. And boy, what a smoke when you opened up one of those that was burnt! The modern version of this, of course, is microwave popcorn, with added chemical so the smoke is extra toxic.

"GRANNY PUT THESE IN THE TUB SO WHEN I TRIED TO SLIDE FORWARD AND BACK TO MAKE WAVES,IT HURT LIKE HELL"

Hahahahaha! They started as shower-tub safety things. Then they migrated to Volkswagen buses. Eventually, they ended up all over the scenery and gals on Laugh-In. Gritty plastic flower power, baby!

Vic: "And speaking of schwartzes a man awakes to find his GF biting his off."

RickZ: "In the woman's photo, she has crazy eyes. Never dip your wick in crazy, even for a morning BJ."

Woman unclear on the meaning of "eat me."

Crazy Eyes was the first thing I saw, too, when I looked at the mugshot.

Vic: "Y-not up now that I have posted the links."

I keep telling you, it's not by chance; they wait for you to start before they post.

Like our observers in the NSA, the cobs don't have a lot to do, so that kind of thing keeps them entertained.

Vic: "After checking no I wasn't here for the morning thread."

Whew. So, my grasp on reality is above 0%. Okay.

rickl: "I am not aware of any alternate reality where 'wile away' is correct."

Heh. It's one of those things where what isn't correct has been used so much in common parlance, even cunning linguists such as myself aren't always sure what's correct anymore. Like... okay, can't think of an example. Neurons still activating.

My brain did come up with this: "Wherefore" in Shakespearean means "why" or "how come." But I had that thought yesterday. I need fresh ones.

Perhaps I should make coffee. BRB.

"...the Copenhagen terrorist's funeral, over 500 mourners..."

I blame the influence of the Horde when I read something like that and the phrase pops into my head, "target rich environment."

From Hat's link: "The phrase meaning to pass time idly is while away. It is older and more logical than wile away. But because the second phrase occurs so frequently, it is now included in many dictionaries and is rarely considered incorrect."

That's kind-of what I was thinking. Glad I didn't insist "wile away" was correct, then.

Good morning, Vic! Missed you yesterday. (Didn't we? I think so. Boy, yesterday was a long, long day!)

Back from arising & all the chores that entails. Hi back, finally, Fluffy. Oklahoma is above freezing this morning. I thought last night's rain would be a frozen mess this a.m., but it's merely soggy. And cold.

Hat: Is it "wile away" or "while away"? My pedant neurons aren't clicking yet.

Morning, Glorious ONTers!