CHRISTMAS DONATION

 

Is pre-Christmas Christmas humor considered Adventicide?

From someecards.

TO OWLS

To OWLS (Older Wiser Laughing Souls)

Wisdom from Grandpa...


Whether a man winds up with a nest egg, or a goose egg, depends a lot on the kind of chick he marries.

Trouble in marriage often starts when a man gets so busy earnin' his salt he forgets his sugar.

Too many couples marry for better, or for worse, but not for good.

When a man marries a woman, they become one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.

If a man has enough horse sense to treat his wife like a thoroughbred, she'll never turn into an old nag.

On anniversaries, the wise husband always forgets the past - but never the present.

A foolish husband says to his wife, "Honey, you stick to the washin', ironin', cookin' and scrubbin'.  No wife of mine's gonna ‘work’."

Many girls like to marry a military man - he can cook, sew, and make beds, is in good health, and already used to taking orders.

Eventually you reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

You know you are getting old, when everything either dries up or leaks.

Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they don't recognize you.


Have a GREAT day and keep laughing! It's good for the soul.

And remember my motto: pay the undertaker with a bad check...

Thanks to Frank.

NEW WORD

                ADVENTICIDE

See definition at Beaker Folk.

I'll have none of it around here. 

H/T to Tim Chesterton.

WHAT IS A SERIOUS DEFICIT PROPOSAL?

Just a thought: if you follow the pundit discussion of matters fiscal, you get the definite impression that some kinds of deficit reduction are considered “serious”, while others are not.

The Obama administration proposes raising taxes on the rich; Republicans propose raising the age for participation in Medicare.

Those tax hikes would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade; according to the CBO, raising the Medicare age would save $113 billion in federal funds over the next decade.

Paul Krugman is my favorite economist.  He inhabits the real world outside the Beltway and outside the heads of the very serious people who expound on the teevee.  Mr President and Democrats, keep in mind that the majority of people in the country voted for your policies.  You have no reason to make concessions to the side that lost the election, namely the Republicans, especially to the crazy extremists in the GOP.  Leave it to Boehner to pacify the hoards in the House.  That's his job.  Your job is to stand your ground and our ground, as you were elected to do.  Boehner, as was true of Mitt Romney, will not give details of his not-serious proposals to address the deficit, but don't we all know the devil is in the details?    

PUT ON THE ARMOR OF LIGHT

 

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

ADVENT YOU'RE HERE AGAIN...

Asperatus clouds - Scotland

   Partly Cloudy With A Chance of Seeing

Low clouds slumped, lingering, leave a thin sheet
of white on glass, metal, bowed grass and asphalt
just wet and shimmering, no need for salt,
brace for winter closeout, a year end retreat
except in the vault of the soul’s heartbeat.

Advent, you’re here again, begin anew,
back to page one, annual re-booting
of what is meant or real or just fragment
of divine texting by star re-routing;
but first the penitence, the harsh review
the wardens of faith inflict to deny
any foolish expectation of clean,
cleared slate, repent or miss out on pardon
that is the point of birth in stable mean,
gift for which they insist we must apply.

Ignore the frantic forecasters warning,
a new cloud, undulatus asperatus,
rough waves perhaps disturbing the status
of science known or a sign, wind fresh forming
old verse, “Lo, he comes with clouds” upending.

It makes no sense this ritual attempt
to bargain with the firmament, appease
some imagined angry God with sorrow
and self-flagellation, a show to please
One who knows just how messy and unkempt,
adventitious, disorderly ever
the course of those created with free will,
not quite exempt from seasonal forces,
yet prone to agitate waters made still,
restless, testing the limits of never.

Adventure is a chosen risk the bold
begin with trembling wrapped in joyful hope
that aspiration can uncoil the rope
error ties to souls trapped, seeing only cold;
set out again for Love meant to enfold.

(Marthe G Walsh)

See more pictures of asperatus clouds here. 

WORLD AIDS DAY

 

New Orleans - A collaborative effort between local and state government and area community-based organizations is spearheading a variety of events to help raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in our community. New Orleans currently ranks 5th in the nation for AIDS case rates among major metropolitan areas in the United States.

In honor of a relative who died of AIDS contracted from a blood transfusion during heart by-pass surgery.  To this day, the immediate family would not wish his name to be mentioned.  His funeral was private; the extended family was never told the cause of death.  We knew because when one family member went to visit him in the hospital and asked if he had a diagnosis, he laughed and said the doctor thought he might have AIDS, which seemed impossible to him at the time.  As best as I can remember, this was sometime in the 1980s. 

THOUGHTS ON THE PROCESS...

Wake me when the first woman is ordained bishop in the Church of England.

Since the defeat of the motion in General Synod to allow women bishops, I have grieved along with my friends in the Church of England, especially my women friends, both clergy and laity. The vote was a slap in the face to all women, within the church and without. Although I've read pages and pages of discussion and opinions on the fix to allow women bishops, and I've even gone so far as to watch videos of English Parliament arguing the question, I have no idea how the Church of England will resolve the matter. Now I shall take a break from it all it and wait to hear the good news (soon, I hope) of a resolution and wait even longer for the announcement of the choice of the first woman bishop and for the date for her ordination to be named.

Whenever the remedy to this great injustice comes, I pray the resolution will honor the women who have faithfully served the church for so very many years.  Joy on the occasion of the acknowledgement of women as equals in the sight of God and of humanity will be tempered by the exceedingly slow and grudging process of giving assent.  In the case of women bishops, the moral arc of the universe in bending toward justice is, indeed, long.

 

Photo from NASA.

EIGHT THOUGHTS TO PONDER

Number 8 
Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 7
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 6
Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.

Number 5
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

Number 4
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.

Number 3
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 2
In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now, the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

And The Number 1 Thought 
Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers--what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.


- - - and as someone recently said to me:
"Don't worry about old age--it doesn't last that long."

Thanks, double thanks to susan s. for several wonderful laughs.  Eight to be exact.

NOT SO FAST BOBBY

State District Judge Tim Kelley ruled Friday that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s expanded voucher program unconstitutionally diverts public money to send some public school students to private and parochial schools.

Kelley said that both Act 2 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 99 unlawfully divert tax dollars for nonpublic educational purposes.

Kelly heard closing arguments Friday morning from attorneys for the state, teacher unions, school boards and school-choice advocates.

Of course, the decision will be appealed, and who knows what will happen on appeal, but the news for now is good.  The voucher system transfers state funds, dedicated by law to public school systems, to private schools, which are not held to the same standards as public schools. However, the decision is not about unequal standards, which is a whole other matter, but about following the Louisiana Constitution.