My Christmas Wish for Everyone

November 20, 2019

I hope that you enjoy the fun aspects of the season: Warm coffee shops with great smells and pretty decorations; Christmas lights making the winter gloom more cheery; singalongs; Christmas cookies and fudge; outdoor activities; the pervasive feeling of excitement that makes people a little happier, before the stress kicks in.

I hope you settle for giving and receiving small tokens of affection instead of stressing yourself out trying to find the Perfect Gift for everyone; I hope you don’t go broke trying to give your kids a Perfect Christmas.

I hope you accept the good wishes of strangers for what they are, instead of nitpicking about what words they used.

I HOPE that you open yourself up to the good feelings of the season, and leave the stress behind.

They Don't Want It to Count Against Them

November 24, 2019

Texas could gain up to 3 congressional seats from the 2020 Census; but the legislature won’t set up a “complete count committee”,

Because it’s afraid that the awareness campaign would find population surges favoring Democrats.

I guess too little representation is better than the “wrong” representation, huh?

Because the Church and the Boy Scouts Weren't Enough of a Warning

November 24, 2019

What’s new on the roulette wheel of leaving your kids alone with “responsible” adults?

Hiring a ride-hailing service to ferry your kids to their after-school activities. Some services will pick up kids as young as 5.

Although some drivers have left kids waiting up to 30 minutes, or canceled entirely, so far no molestations have been reported. 

I guess that should relieve our minds, huh?

The Dirt on Wild Honeysuckle

November 21, 2019

When I was helping chop invasive Wild Honeysuckle I learned that, in addition to it choking out native plants, the bright berries tempt the birds, who fill up on them. Unfortunately, the berries don’t have the nutrition that the native birds need to survive their long migrations. “The equivalent of junk food,” the guide told us. So it’s endangering the wild bird population, as well as native plants.

I thought it sounded like a good book title: Wild Honeysuckle: A Story of Beauty and Betrayal.

Then I looked on Amazon to see if there were any similar titles. Turns out that looking up books concerning honeysuckle leads to a lot of pornography.

Who knew?

How Fresh Is It?

November 22, 2019

A chain of stores that bills itself as a farmer’s market and says that it offers the freshest ingredients close to home,

Has had a recall of berries sold in stores in eleven states.

How fresh and close to home are we talking?

Who Could’ve Seen That Coming?

November 19, 2019

Well, well, well. After the Missouri legislature gave $50 million in tax breaks to keep General Motors in the area,

General Motors pledged to keep less than half of the current number of jobs here.

Governing bodies just never seem to learn.

(See “Sign Me Up”, May 15, 2019)

The Characterization was Spot On

November 18, 2019

From the TV show “Sunnyside”:

My time in city council taught me that most “work” is actually just the appearance of doing work.

For instance, if you walked by my office, you would have seen me typing away. What you would not have seen is that my keyboard was unplugged, and that I was busy watching “GI Joe” reruns.

It’s amazing how similar that quotation was to real life. Substitute “playing video games” for “watching ‘GI Joe’ reruns”, and you’ve got the actions of Steve Stenger, former County Executive of St. Louis County. 

Maybe he can get his own TV show someday.

Not a Perfect Ad

November 17, 2019

Another ad that caught my eye this morning:

It displayed some gifts, with the wording, “A Prefect Gift for Any Holiday!”

The Wording Could Use Some Work

November 17, 2019

I just saw a sale flyer that reads:

Mon, Nov. 18 – Wed, Nov. 20

PRE-THANKSGIVING

ONE

DAY

SALE

I wonder which day it is.

A Non-Catholic Pastor's Take on Marriage

October 27, 2019

A married Lutheran pastor said to me years ago that there were times when he thought that maybe pastors should be single. He often felt that he wasn’t giving his family the attention they deserved, because of the demands of being a pastor; he either had to shortchange one aspect of his life or the other.

From what I’ve seen on TV, doctors, policemen and firemen, among others, feel the same way. Maybe everybody with a demanding profession should stay single; or maybe they could get together and swap stories of how they make things work; or, if they don’t make things work, maybe they can figure out how to. (Throw some marriage counselors into the mix, for guidance.)

The Church might realize that they’ve been right all along, that married priests can’t serve both God and their families effectively; or they might find out that forcing priests to remain single is no longer necessary.

In any case, they owe it to the priests to at least try to find out.

You Had Your Chance to Get Priests

October 27, 2019

The Catholic Church is considering allowing married men in the Amazon to be ordained as priests because of a shortage of available priests in the area. Of course, conservatives in the Church are worried that it could set a bad precedent, and that pretty soon the rest of the world will want to jump on board. Turmoil could ensue!

I really don’t feel sorry for any religion that doesn’t allow women to become priests, pastors, or whatever they call their chief religious person. Any arguments that women are less worthy or less spiritual are hokum; so if you’re short on priests, it’s your own fault. Let the turmoil begin.

Photo Philosophy

November 15, 2019

I’ve taken lots of pictures that didn’t look nearly as pretty or impressive as the subject I was trying to get. The camera recorded flaws that I didn’t even know were there, until I saw the 2D version of the scene.

Lately, though, I’ve had just the opposite experience. I’ve taken pictures of things that seemed drab: a tree that had gorgeous colors last year, and was a sort of indifferent yellow this year; or a landscape that seemed brown and ugly after the first snowfall.

When I looked at the “drab” photos, though, it seemed like the light was better in them than it had been in real life, and things actually looked brighter and less dreary thanks to the camera lens.

I’m not sure if the moral of the story is, “Things often aren’t as bleak as they seem,” or if it’s, “Pictures never turn out the way you want them to.”

I’ll let you work it out.

A New Way to Gerrymander

November 11, 2019

For the first time, you can respond to the U.S. Census online.

Because we need more proof that our systems are vulnerable to hacking…

They Reject Big Government—Until It’s Time to Clean Up the Mess

November 10, 2019

There’s an article in the paper about how the plucky people of Paradise, CA are rebuilding their town after the wildfire destroyed it in 2018.

First, several government agencies were called in to help with the cleanup. Who’s paying for the billions of dollars it costs? Not the plucky citizens of Paradise, that’s for sure.

But they are rebuilding. Unfortunately, they don’t want to adopt all the stringent restrictions that other fire-prone cities have adopted, so their chances of remaining unscathed by the next fire are slim.

So when the city council won’t ban combustible plants within 5 feet of homes, because they don’t want big government telling them what to do…

Big Government should say, “Then next time, clean up your own damned mess, Plucky Citizens of Paradise.”

Not-Smart Recruiting

November 10, 2019

A man who was at St. Louis headquarters to retrieve items taken from him in a police raid tried to recruit a female sergeant to work as a prostitute for him.

She declined.

What's It Worth to You?

October 28, 2019

How do you decide how much your pain and suffering is worth?

An Arizona couple is suing police for using excessive force in a shoplifting arrest.

An immigration agent in Connecticut threatened a Honduran woman with deportation if she didn’t have sex with him, then raped her for seven years, impregnating her three times.

A police officer in St. Louis was passed over for promotion 23 times after he came out as being gay.

The Arizona couple wants $10 million.

The Honduran woman wants $10 million.

The St. Louis office was awarded $19 million in actual and punitive damages.

Maybe I’m out of touch here, but I think that, in most cases, after you pay for missed wages, medical costs, legal costs, and counseling for the entire family,  a cool million in punitive damages should cover pain and suffering. Even today, a million isn’t chump change for the average citizen. In the case of the woman who was raped over the course of years, I’d go higher, but I’m not sure how I’d calculate how much higher. 

I think we need to stop throwing numbers around, seemingly at random, and should address the serious imbalance in choosing how much we think our pain and suffering is worth.

It’s Quiet Here in the Cave

November 3, 2019

I remember a Star Trek episode* that used a subsonic frequency to make people irritable in order to overcome the effects of an alien plant that was making everyone too mellow. If you’ve ever dealt with a continuously buzzing fluorescent light, you know that the idea is not so far-fetched.

And if you live within a few miles of a highway, you know that traffic sounds can carry pretty far, too. Ever tried listening to birdsong in the morning? Good luck.

Well, guess what? Now we may be able to add drones to the list of things that will interrupt your quiet meditation on the deck. The idea of drone delivery is becoming more prevalent, and I doubt that they will be completely silent. (Some people may even insist that drones not be silent, to make spying on households more difficult.) I’m getting worried that pretty soon there will be so much continuous sound that our entire society will be cranky, just like the people in the Star Trek episode.

Not looking forward to it.

*This Side of Paradise

They Could at Least Have Sent Him a Memo

November 3, 2019

If you want to have a good laugh, while simultaneously raising your blood pressure, check out Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s contention that he didn’t have a hand in settling a case that could have regained millions in tax credits for the state of Missouri.

Instead of recouping $2.6 million in one case, the state settled for $324,000; and it also waived future claims against the same developer, who had been granted $43 million in tax credits for properties it never developed.

Schmitt said that his office handles thousands of matters at any given time. The implication is that he can’t know everything that is going on in his office.

Perhaps they should have weekly meetings to keep him abreast.

Put Those “You Oughtas” to Good Use

October 30, 2019

Still hung up on this volunteering thing.

Remember how I talked about how annoying it is to hear, “You oughta…”?

Well, I might have a good use for those “You oughtas”.

We all like to give advice, right? So,

If you don’t really want to sit on a committee, but still want to Get Things Done…

Go to one meeting. Write down your suggestions about what YOU think they should be doing, or how to move meetings along more efficiently. In a day or two—NOT during the meeting—make your suggestions. Who knows—you may have some ideas that will actually make the committee members’ lives easier.

You may get interested enough to go back and help them follow through.

But even if you don’t—a helpful suggestion can—well—help.

So, you can get all that good advice that you’re dying to give somebody out of your system.

And you can count that as your Volunteer Specialty.