Saturday, August 9, 2008

Random cogitation

On Friday, Rush was asking how five repubs could undermine the efforts of clearing our own drilling for crude.

He remembered to "follow the money" but he didn't go fur enuff...

I cannot speak for the other senators, but as for Thune, I am pretty sure I can say he is bought and owned by the ethanol/corn farmers lobby. If, and when, we start drilling our own oil, there won't be much call for using corn liquor to run our vehicles.

I was one of the SDakotans who pushed to get rid of Daschle, and get Thune into the sinate...now, I am wondering what happened.

When Thune was running for office, he purported to be a conservative; and now that he is in the seat of power, he is acting just like a liberal...his pet projects are farm subsidies and ethanol.

Not to mention, how he was bragging about getting the tax rebate passed...that ain't conservative; that's bout as liberal as any of them can be.

We attribute the word "honorable" to members of con-gress, which I believe is a draw back to the days of England and the aristocracy...as far as I am concerned, there has not been much proof coming out of the con-gress to show that they deserve the word "honorable".

That's about all I'm gonna say about that!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

More thinking without gettin paid

My mother, and her sister's birthdays are both in August. As such, they both wished to sit at the birthday table at the Salvation Army today; which is done once a month to honor all birthdays from the month.

The theme for today's meal was "The 60s".

For me, that decade included graduating from high school, joining the Marine Corps, stint in Vietnam, marriage, and death of baby from car accident.

It was a time of unrestrained hedonistic activity. Alcohol was a high priority on that list, as a result I only remember a few things from that decade.

JFK's assassination, lunar landing, LBJ stopping bombing north of the DMZ, drugs over reality, hari krishna devotees, Beattles, and the folk music genre, Hong Kong flu, and George Jones.

The 70s was the time of enlightenment for me, personally. I came to realize that I had been trying to live a legacy I had internalized from my dad: That to be a real man, you had to drink more, faster, and longer than anyone else, and have more sexual relationships.

I came to realize just how empty a person can become, inside, when trying to live out a philosophy like that. I came to understand what being alone in a crowd really meant. It was in this decade that I became acquainted with Virginia Satir and one of my most favoritest sayings that I have posted on the header.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I have not attained to perfection...I have progressed pretty well up Maslow's hierarchical needs scale: but still I ain't perfect.

My momma will be 85 this year; dad died in 1973 at the ripe old age of 54; my high school 45 year reunion is in two weeks; and retirement is pretty much all it has been cracked up to be.

Shamelessly stolen from John's Egocentric World

Beer, Liberals and Conservatives
For those of you who slept through World History 101 here is a condensed version. Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were:
1. The invention of beer, and
2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer, and the beer to the man.

These facts formed the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, the evolution of the Hollywood actor, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide all the meat and beer that conservatives provided. Over the years, Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, firemen, lumberjacks, construction workers, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history. It should be noted that a liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above. A conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be copied and sent immediately to other true believers, and to more liberals...just to piss them off. Later.
posted by Biggun6969 at Monday, July 28, 2008

Monday, August 4, 2008

Preaching to the choir

If we love truth, we will be lovers of silence. So say the words of the Syrian monk Isaac of Nineveh:

"Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself..."
(Pathways of Spiritual Living, Susan Annette Muto, Image Books, Garden City, NY, 1984, pg 58)

We live in a cacophonous world. Silence is avoided and averted.

Cell phones have MP3 capability meaning you can store your favorite music on your phone, and have it with you wherever you may be.

Bluetooth technology allows you to wear an appliance connected to your ear, through which your cell phone is connected.

It is 10:30 pm, I climb into bed, ready to drift off to sleep...a huge airplane roars over the apartment building in its approach for a landing...an atv with straight pipes accelerates from the stop light with an open throttle; a police car screams down the interstate just blocks away...two motorcycles throttle up, as if in a race...a vehicle pulls up to the stop light with the speakers throbbing loud enough to shake the windows of the apartment.

And my mind wanders back to the time of my childhood, when there were very few automobiles on the road; where the only radios were plugged into an electrical outlet; where there were no powerful huge jets flying overhead; where telephones were few and far between, and if you had one, you were on a party line with others.

And it seems to my military mind we have lost the ability to listen to the sounds of silence.

I guess for many, there is a fear of silence...methinks partly because that is where we are able to connect with God; but I think also it is in silence that we come to know, and see our self, as we really are.

It was in the silence of night that the ghost of Christmas' past were able to communicate with Mr. Scrooge.

A number of years ago, it was possible to go to a certain store, in Southern California, and for a few dollars, you could climb into a relaxation chamber...I always thought of them as limited sensory deprivation chambers.

The water was heavily salted with epsom salt, which made it heavier, and allowed your body to float without touching the bottom.

When the lid was closed it was pitch black inside, you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face.

And there was no noise, ultimate silence.

You could provide the operator with your favorite cassette or 8-track tape to play for you; but I could never understand why anyone would want to disturb the silence...the peace in that chamber was unbelievable.

In parting, I just want to touch on the part of the statement that says:
"Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within."

I have written before how tired I am of the whole presidential candidacy process, especially as we have been inundated with it these past two decades, or so.

But I have to say, I am not surprised at how empty the candidates and the main stream media are; their emptiness being shown by their plethora of words, that continues unabated, especially in this world of 24/7 television and radio.

How I dearly love the adage: "It is better to remain silent, and be thought to be ignorant, or stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Rachel peeves

Rachel has been dealing with her peeves this past week.

She doesn't have any pet peeves, because her pets are dogs...so, she has been going over a few of her peeves.

Peeve week, day 4, finds her speaking to restaurants. I echo her sentiments exactly, completely, indubitably.

However, I have to go a little further and say, my biggest peeve in restaurants is when the wait staff or the manager comes by your table, especially when they can see you have just stuffed your face with their food, and asks how the food is tasting...

It is unbelievable how uptight they get when you try to tell them with your mouth full of food; yeah, just like when the kids show you see food.

I generally go to a restaurant because I like their food or ambiance. If there is something wrong with my food, I will sure let them know...however, as long as my food is good, and cooked the way I like it, I am content to sit and hedonistically enjoy masticating my fare.

I have no problem tipping and generally will let the manager and the wait staff know at the completion of the meal how much I liked it.

So, that's all I'm gonna say about that...

Mamacita esta muy bien mujer y profesora

Mamacita has moved her blog...

So, she is still alive and well and hopefully drying out...