"Mister Gasman", a parody of "Mr. Sandman", as performed by The Laryngospasms at the 2008 AORN Congress at the Anaheim Convention Center. Come visit us online at www.Laryngospasms.com!!
The members of The Laringospasms are all certified nurse anesthetists. Wouldn't you like to have them put you to sleep?
Jeff will not change the retirement age for any worker nearing retirement.
To save social security for future generations Jeff will shore up the system by making changes without raising taxes; changes that will not jeopardize benefits of current retirees or workers within the system.
The explanation of Jeff's views on Social Security in his mailing is vague and deceptive. See the shadowy elderly couple pictured in the post card? The mailing is targeted to the elders amongst us and is intended to reassure us that nothing will change for us. And, if nothing changes for us, why should we be concerned about anyone else? I'm all right, Jeff, and that's all that counts, right?
Social Security and Medicare is a promise that was made to our seniors who paid into the system for many, many years.
Our seniors built the Nation we enjoy today. As your Congressman, I will not allow the current liberal administration to default on its promises to the greatest generation. I believe our nation must keep its promises.
I will not ignore threats to the solvency of Social Security or Medicare. I also understand that there is a need for a modernized secured retirement system that gives more freedom to today’s workers. A system that workers can use to build secure wealth and prosperity for their retirement and their posterity. As a member of Congress, I will work to ensure that all Americans have an opportunity for a secure retirement.
Simply put, I will protect Social Security and Medicare and help ensure we have a strong retirement system in our nation for decades to come.
Now we have a bit more detail about Jeff's position on the issue. In the end, Jeff's plan will result in the destruction of Social Security as we know it. It will put an end to mandatory contributions by employers and employees to the Social Security Trust Fund.
Jeff gives no details that I could find on his website on how he would protect Medicare. I sent an email to Jeff asking for details, but I have not yet heard back.
Jeff, along with his family, participated in Louisiana Tea Party taxpayer rallies and he served as a Delegate to the Republican State Convention and served on the Party’s Platform Committee where he helped write the Party’s conservative platform.
What if we all got along & people loved each other & sang songs about peace? he said. Would that be a good world? & I said I didn't know about that, but it would be a good summer camp & he looked at me & shook his head & said, It's no wonder you're leaving us with such a mess.
A couple of samples to entice you to read the rest of the ripostes at the link:
—Your faith is unreasonable.
—Your reason is unreasonable – and you have such faith in your scepticism.
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—The Gospels contain inconsistencies A, B, and C.
—You forgot X, Y, and Z.
While meandering around the website, I found a marvelous post by Ben Meyers, titled On writing: thirteen theses. It's enough to give a blogger pause, nearly enough to cause a blogger to cease and desist, but not quite. However, reading the theses will perhaps cause me to think rather more seriously about what I write and to give additional attention to editing and deleting - and that would be before I hit the publish button. I joke that my motto is "Publish first; edit after", but making a joke of mistakes is a poor excuse for not writing a satisfactory post before publishing.
Excerpts from the theses:
2. Kinds of writing. There are four kinds of writing: bad, mediocre, good, and great. The difference between bad writing and mediocre writing is discipline. The difference between mediocre writing and good writing is editing. The difference between good writing and great writing is miracle.
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3. Writing and editing. T. S. Eliot once observed that good writers do not necessarily write better than others, but are better critics and editors. Good writers cull the overpopulated paragraphs of their work. Like a farmer protecting the livestock, the writer lovingly separates whatever is sickly and infirm – and then loads the gun.
Bang!
There you have it. Read the rest and weep. I know I did.
Random and out of context quotes from Bishop Mark Lawrence's address to the Reconvened Diocesan Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina:
I do not wish to keep you long this morning, though I may. ....
At our Diocesan Convention in 2009 I put forward what I believed was a God-given and gospel vision that would guide us through the stormy waters facing us at that time. The vision was succinctly stated as, “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age.” ....
It is my great pleasure to announce at this Reconvened Annual Convention that he (Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, retired Bishop of Rochester in England) has agreed to be Visiting Bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Relationships. ....
Certainly we have challenged and will continue to challenge a tendency to revise the core doctrines of our church and to reshape the polity of the Episcopal Church through an inappropriate extension of power. ....
Along with the voices that just say, “Be quiet and get along,” there are others who say, “Bishop why don’t you just leave? Depart with or without the buildings?” To these voices I say “We still have a God-given vocation within this worldwide struggle.” Not unlike a battalion in a military campaign which is ordered to hold a pass or a position against overwhelming odds—so we are called to resist what many of us believe is a self-destructive trajectory within the Episcopal Church; to resist until it is no longer possible and at the same time to help shape the emerging Anglicanism in the 21st Century, which is increasingly relational and less institutional.
It may well be true that “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Unfortunately, it has not always been mightier than the axe. As that eloquent environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote: “A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of his land.” Far too many of the leaders in our church have never learned this lesson.
There is much axe swinging these days in the Episcopal Church. I have grown sad from walking among the stumps of what was once a noble old-growth Episcopalian grove in the forest of Catholic Christianity. It may surprise some, but I write not to bemoan the theological or moral teaching that is in danger of falling to the logger’s axe. I have done that elsewhere. My concern here is that as the church’s polity is felled only a few bother to cry “timber.”
I have space to raise three concerns, and these briefly: the presiding bishop’s threat to our polity —litigious and constitutional; the revisions to the Title IV canons; and, finally, a passing word about inhibitions and depositions to solve our theological/spiritual crisis.
Bishop Lawrence never calls Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori by her name, but rather refers to her as "the presiding bishop" or "she" or "her". He likens Bishop Katharine to a "rapacious lumberjack" who fells trees indiscriminately, rather than a conservationist, concerned about renewal of the forest - er - church. Yet he says:
I hasten to add my concerns are not with her personally. My problem is with how she and her chancellor are felling our polity.
It seems to me that the manner in which Bishop Lawrence speaks of Bishop Katharine and his failure to refer to her by name indicates a level of disdain bordering on contempt.
Bishop Lawrence does not write about the Episcopal Church's false theology, nor does he write about the church tearing "the fabric of the Anglican Communion". He speaks not of the Episcopal Church's mistaken stance on "profound questions of doctrine, morality and discipline". No, he's already covered those issues at great length. And don't I know it, for I've read a good many of his speeches and writings. Now Bishop Lawrence challenges Bishop Katharine's "axe swinging" manner of exercising her office. He references the "national" church with scare quotation marks, for the dioceses are "independent" (my scare quotes!) of the "national" church.
At his ordination service, Bishop Lawrence said,
"I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church."
Would this be the "national" church that Bishop Lawrence now references with scare quotes?
I'll leave it to others to take up the questions of whether Bishop Katharine has exceeded her authority or performed unconstitutional acts, or whether "we have entered into a new era of unprecedented hierarchy and autocratic leadership." Others far more knowledgeable than I will take up the question of whether "all of these are strokes of the axe hacking at the stately grove of TEC."
The disrespectful tone of this piece about the leadership of the Episcopal Church, from a supposedly loyal son of the Church, distracted me greatly from any rational points that Bishop Lawrence may have been attempting. I hope that one day, as he stands amongst the stumps of what was once a stately grove of trees, Bishop Lawrence may choose to consider his tone as composes his next public message, but the time is not now. Bishop Lawrence's address to the South Carolina diocesan Convention, which is presently taking place, can be read here in its verbose and bombastic entirety.
Note: On the diocesan web page, "Episcopal" does not appear in the name of the diocese. However, the Google search for "Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina" calls up the home page for the diocese in which the word "Episcopal", the church which, along with its Presiding Bishop, must not be named.
For further commentary, read the words of Bishop James R. Mathes, of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, at the Daily Episcopalian.
UPDATE: "The Lumberjack Song" thanks to Ann.
UPDATE 2: Andrew Gerns at The Lead continues with updates on the activities at the diocesan convention of the Diocese of South Carolina.
I had to take Katzie back to the vet today. There was blood in his urine.
He had developed a bit of an external infection around the area of the surgery, but that seemed to be responding to the antimicrobial cream. I didn't mention it, because it was not an unexpected complication in skin that has not previously been exposed to urine and uric acid.
The vet was very upfront: Katzie will be observed this weekend, but, if they can't get him to heal up, he will have to be euthanized.
Sad news. Please pray that the worst won't happen.
