Maybe I Can Use That as My Excuse

July 21, 2019

In today’s Gospel reading, Martha was bustling around, Mary was listening to Jesus, and Jesus told Martha that Mary was doing the better thing.

Makes me feel better about not being more of an activist.

Getting Back to the Basics of Christianity

July 21, 2019

The guest pastor today was talking about how today’s Christians are seduced into thinking that “Live and let live” is a proper philosophy, instead of taking the moral high ground (with a sideways swipe at homosexuality implied). I wondered if, conversely, today’s Christians are the ones who are actually being called to bring Christianity back to its original meaning.

I mean, think about it: According to Jesus (the founder of Christianity), the only 2 commandments are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It seems to me that if people were really concentrating on the first one, they wouldn’t have time to worry about what other consenting adults do in their bedrooms.

She Must Have Been Stunning

July 21, 2019

Another random snippet from the Bible:

Abram and Sarai moved around a lot. Once, during a famine, they moved to Egypt, and Abram told Sarai that because she was so beautiful, the Egyptians would kill him to get her. To prevent this, they told the Egyptians that she was his sister (which was true), and Pharaoh sent for her. He didn’t have his way with her, because the Lord punished him for taking a married woman; so he sent her back unharmed, and kicked them out of the country.

Later, after some other events and a name change, Abraham and Sarah were residing in Gerar, where King Abimelech cast his eyes upon the lovely Sarah and took her, Abraham having again neglected to mention that Sarah was married to him. Once again the Lord interceded, and all ended well for the happy couple.

But here’s the thing: The first time she was taken away to make a king happy, Sarah was 65 years old; and the second time, she was 89.

She must have been quite a looker.

(Also, Abraham seems like a slow learner, and Abimelech and Pharaoh seem pretty indiscriminate in their female-snatching. But that’s another story.)

If More Women Worked in Construction...

July 17, 2019

When I saw some construction workers outside in the heat yesterday, I thought of the office-temperature study, which says that biology is responsible for the fact that men usually are hotter than women.

So why, I wondered, are men typically the ones out in the heat doing the construction work?

I figure that construction work has typically been a man’s field because it’s associated with strength. I’ll bet that if women were out in the field, they’d figure out some lighter-weight but more durable materials that could be used in road and building construction. Then the men could stay in the air-conditioned offices, and the women would be outdoors where they wouldn’t have to freeze.

Let the research begin!

Do Tourists Have to Speak English, too?

July 17, 2019

A few months ago I saw a post on Facebook that said a man was harassing a woman who was talking on the phone in a foreign language. “Go back to Mexico,” he said. She said, “I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go to England.”

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it made me wonder if people are harassing tourists to our country when the tourists are speaking in their native language. If so, what is the effect of all this hostility going to do to the tourism industry?

I frame the question in a dollars and cents context, because that seems to be what gets the attention of the movers and shakers in our government; not, “You’re harassing innocent people,” but, “Hey, your actions are costing us money.”

I hope that the possibility of losing income, if not humanitarian reasons, will motivate our leaders to discourage the harassment anybody who isn’t speaking English.

The "Too Emotional" Tables Turned

July 11, 2019

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson made my day this morning.

Discussing the merits of paying the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team players the same amount as the players from the Men’s Team, he admired the Women’s Team for playing all out even while suing the U. S. Soccer Federation for not supporting them as well as it supports the Men’s Team; mentioned a study that showed that the women’s team may be earning as much or more for the Federation than the men’s team; and noted that the women’s team has a better record than the men’s team. Then he wrote:

“There’s one thing missing from the women’s game: the histrionics. There’s much less writhing on the ground over dubious injuries, much less operatic pleading with the referee, much less juvenile gamesmanship. One has to wonder whether men might inherently be too emotional to play this game the right way.”

I love seeing the “They’re too emotional to be effective” tables turned.

Party for a Pothole

July 6, 2019

A Kansas City, MO man requested that a large pothole on his street be fixed. After it had been there for three months, and none of his requests had been answered, he bought a slice of cake, put a candle in it, and posted a picture on Facebook.

The city fixed the pothole two days later.

Tipping the Scales in Their Favor

July 3, 2019

“Nobody ever went to Hell for over-tipping.”—Me

I recently stayed in a hotel in New York City. Even my father, the world’s stingiest man, would leave tips for maids at the motels we used to stay in when I was a kid. So I know that tipping is important.

Considering that the housekeepers have to change the sheets, tidy the room, and clean the bathrooms (and you know how unpleasant some people can make bathrooms), I was prepared to shell out some serious cash. You’re supposed to tip a concierge $2-$3 for helping you procure tickets to something or map out a route for you—and they’re just working at a computer! So I figured that all that physical labor would be worth quite a bit.

So I was stunned to see that the rate for tipping a housekeeper—in New York City—was $1-$2 per person per night. In New York City!!! I checked 3 different sites to make sure. And I checked the date of the sites, to make sure that they weren’t several years old.

It seemed outrageous to me, so of course I over-tipped. But considering all the work the housekeepers did, I don’t really think that it was over-tipping.

But I do think that somebody may want to re-think the tipping scale.

(Guess what? Before I posted this, I looked again, and found a site that said $1-$5 for housekeeping in NYC. So I feel better.)

Are the Wasp Nests Punishment for Something?

July 6, 2019

I’ve mentioned before how some people blame hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and their destruction on whatever they feel is wrong with the world. Gay marriage and immodest dress by women have come in for their share of blame. (No matter that the catastrophes affect everyone, whether they believe in those things or not.)

Well, a bunch of giant wasp nests—some the size of cars—are appearing in Alabama this year. Alabama has recently adopted really restrictive abortion rules, yet nobody is running around saying that the nests are punishment for that.

At least God’s not taking the rap for that one.