HANDY CONVERSIONS

For those who thought the hardest part of Physics 101 was
the constant conversion from feet and inches to the metric
system, including all its Newtons, Joules, and Watts, here
are some other useful conversions:

Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter:
Eskimo Pi

2000 pounds of Chinese soup:
Won ton

1 millionth of a mouthwash:
1 microscope

Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement:
1 bananosecond

Weight an evangelist carries with God:
1 billigram

Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour:
Knot-furlong

365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less
filling:
1 lite year

16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone:
1 Rod Serling

Half of a large intestine:
1 semicolon

1000 pains
1 kiloahurtz

Basic unit of laryngitis:
1 hoarsepower

From Doug.  I have more, which I will publish later.

R. I. P. NELSON MANDELA

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

(W H Auden)

Thanks to my friend Jane on Facebook for posting the poem. Jane lives in South Africa.

ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU ON NELSON MANDELA

I disagreed with him a number of times, firstly over his government's decision to continue to manufacture and trade in weapons and over Parliament's insensitive decision to grant itself big pay increases soon after coming to power. He attacked me publicly as a populist, but he never tried to shut me up, and we could laugh over our tiffs and remain friends.
....

The world is a better place for Nelson Mandela. He showed in his own character, and inspired in others, many of God's attributes: goodness, compassion, a desire for justice, peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. He was not only an amazing gift to humankind, he made South Africans and Africans feel good about being who we are. He made us walk tall. God be praised.

Read the tribute in its entirety.

The many tributes and eulogies thus far speak far more eloquently than I ever could about the great man.  I especially admire and respect Archbishop Tutu's words on the life and achievements of Nelson Mandela. The two men knew one another well and participated simultaneously in the struggle for justice and equality in South Africa. That Mandela spent 27 years in prison and came to freedom without bitterness is a testimony to his great strength of character.  Who better to speak the tribute than his friend Desmond Tutu?

May Nelson rest in peace and rise in glory. 

Photos from Wikipedia here and here.

LOUISIANA WILL LOSE OVER 1 BILLION BY REFUSING TO IMPLEMENT MEDICAID EXPANSION

States not expanding Medicaid under Obamacare will be collectively lose more than $35 billion in federal funds in 2022 alone, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.
....

The Commonwealth Fund further explained the study's methodology as follows:

Federal funds that pay for state Medicaid programs are raised through federal general revenue collection—taxes paid by residents in all states—whether or not they participate in the program. Therefore, taxpayers in states not participating in the Medicaid expansion will bear a share of the overall cost, without benefitting from the program. Glied and Ma estimated the net loss of federal funds to states that do not expand Medicaid by using projected federal Medicaid spending in each state and calculating the federal Medicaid-related taxes paid by each state.

According to Healthrender, Louisiana stands to lose 1.566 billion dollars.  That's billions lost to the state budget that is often in arrears and requires last minute cuts in programs and institutions that have already been cut to the bone.

Almost certainly people in Louisiana will die from treatable diseases and conditions because of the lack of health insurance, either because treatment was started too late, or because treatment was inadequate.

So far as I can make out, Jindal refuses the money for the sake of furthering his political ambitions on the national scene.  He has campaigned around the country since he first assumed the office of governor in Louisiana.  His extensive travels for political purposes leave him little time in the state which he governs so incompetently.  Even so, Jindal has managed to destroy or maim multiple institutions and programs that took decades to build and will require generations to recover if the people of Louisiana ever have the will to elect governors who will build up rather than destroy.    

WILL BOBBY JINDAL IMPLEMENT MEDICAID EXPANSION?

From blogger CenLamar: 

The Dumbest Decision in Contemporary Louisiana History

In less than thirty days, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will make a final decision on whether he wants to accept, according to a report published by his own Department of Health and Hospitals, as much as $25 billion from the federal government in order to guarantee and expand health care coverage for as many as 653,000 poor and working class Louisiana families and individuals.
....

"The fiscally, socially, ethically, and morally responsible thing to do would be to accept the Medicaid expansion dollars to which we are already entitled. The fiscally, socially, ethically, and morally responsible thing to do would be to champion and embrace the promise of lifting hundreds of thousands of our neighbors and fellow citizens out of despair and hopelessness, to provide them with the very basic opportunity to access affordable and quality health care. It is profoundly decent, but even more than that, it is also represents the single most important and transformative investment in Louisiana’s workforce in modern history."

What are the chances that Jindal will do the right thing?  Slim to none I'd say.  The governor wants to remain pure in the eyes of his Tea Party fans, and anything that involves a link with Obamacare would render him impure.  So what if hundreds of thousands of the poor and working class in Louisiana remain without health insurance?  The governor's ideology trumps health care.

A number of Republican governors have set aside ideology and implemented the Medicaid Expansion as a no-brainer because it will not cost the states a dime for nine years and then only 10% of the costs thereafter.   In addition, perhaps the governors may have been ashamed to so blatantly put their political ambitions above the welfare of the poor and low income people of their states.  Such a lack of compassion in a man who claims to be a Catholic Christian but chooses to ignore Roman Catholic social justice teachings about preferential treatment of the poor is puzzling to me.  Has he ever heard or read the words of Pope Francis?

How healthy are the people of Louisiana?  Are the citizens of the state so far above the rest of the country in good health that we do not need the Medicaid expansion?  Indeed not.  There we are in our usual place in the group of least-healthy states, tied for 49th place with three other states.

Click on the chart and map for larger views.
 

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

My questions missed the anniversary of the consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury on November 14 by a couple of weeks. In 1784, the Rev Samuel Seabury, rector of St Peter's Church, Westchester, NY, was consecrated first Bishop for the Church of Connecticut by the Right Rev. Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus of Scotland, the Right Rev. Arthur Petrie, Bishop of Ross and Moray, and the Right Rev. John Skinner, Coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen, Scotland, in Bishop Skinner's private chapel.

Would it be accurate to say that the Scottish Episcopal Church is the mother church of the Episcopal Church in the US, rather than the Church of England? The Church of England is the mother church of the Scottish Episcopal Church, so would the Church of England then be the grandmother church of TEC in the US?

AN ADVENT STORY

A few years ago, when she was in great need of help, a friend told Annie Lamott an Advent story.  Her friend, Tom, is a Jesuit and a recovering alcoholic.

Advent is about the coming of Emmanuel, which means “God with us,” and so as the fields outside our windows go to sleep, we stay awake and watch, holding to the belief that God is with us, is close and present, and that we will be healed.

I want that belief, and that patience; I checked the box on the form choosing that. But it has not been forthcoming. I have instead been feeling a little — what is the psychiatric term? — cuckoo. My mind has been doing a Native American worry chant, WORRYworryworryworryworryworryworryworryWORRYworryworry … It’s not that I don’t have a lot of faith. It’s just that I also have a lot of mental problems. And I want to fix them all, and I want to do that now, or at least by tomorrow afternoon, right after lunch.

Tom's story drew me into the spirit of the season of Advent, my favorite of the church year, the season of the paradox of anticipation and recognition of the Kingdom of God, which is right now and not yet.

With thanks for the link to my friend Paul (A.) of the jokes.  The story is no joke, but rather one of the loveliest of Advent stories.

HOUSECLEANING

Smith goes to see his supervisor in the front office.  "Boss," he says, "we're doing some heavy house-cleaning at home tomorrow, and my wife needs me to help with the attic and the garage, moving and hauling stuff."

"I'm sorry, Smith, we're short-handed tomorrow," the boss replies. "I can't give you the day off."

"Thanks, boss," says Smith.  "I knew I could count on you!"


Cheers,


Paul (A.)

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

ABOUT THANKSGIVING

My friend, the poet, sends two fine poems.  The first made me smile.  The second sounds a more serious note.

Wild 1, Early Riser 0

something breaking

crunch   scraping    bang of metal

oh! out of the edge of sleep   cold

recognition     awake

just ice removal beyond the window

that time of year now   officially

    screaming   cursing     must get up to see

ha! knew there were some around

further out of town

wild turkey attacking the man

clearing glazed, dusted suv

count nine of them flitting  dancing

annoyed by salt spreading truck

do not speak this dialect

of poultry   just the sound objecting

   “wicked oppressor,  wicked oppressor”

as Tom takes another run at handy human

wielding broom at feathers black and brown

        not connecting

root for the not genetically engineered

sleek and sturdy birds

hatless in a fresh wave of freezing sleet

count his running retreat to lobby

a win for the wild ones

(Marthe G. Walsh) 

 

Most Call It Thanksgiving …

Where there are humans, there are holidays,

celebrations of hunt, harvest, hubris

or just hope that harsh facts will cede to better ways.

With bonfire, sacrifice, feasting and prayer,

remembrance of triumph, thanks given for

seasons or old cycles washed in soap of new care,

the wanted, the wilted, both lost and found,

seem to crave reprieve from unsteady stream,

ordinary existence of life on this ground.

If one does not join in, heed herding’s call,

suspicion abounds, hints that rejection

lurks in lone contemplation, spoils for a joy fall,

but no, no, it is just a choice, a taste

for still moments to reflect and to think,

to note and to notice what was gained, what laid waste.

A Pilgrim is stranger, traveling light,

lost without some injustice to balance,

some truth to discover, some old wrong to set right.

It will not be grim, my Thanksgrieving fast,

for I am glad of many things, and, too,

aware that tradition can help oppression last.

(Marthe G. Walsh)

THANKSGIVING MUSICAL HUMOR