Web Log Archive, 11/26/06 through 12/9/06

Saturday, December 9th, 2006

"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." Guess Who

Friday, December 8th, 2006                 Happy Birthday to my big sister Carol!

On this day in 1854, in the presence of more than 200 bishops, Pope Pius IX (1792-1878), an epileptic, proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin as 'dogma' (something you gotta believe or you're outta here) of the Catholic Church. It's real important for us heathens to remember that this dogma (though run over by our karma) concerns the conception of Mary (in her mom's, St. Anne's, womb with the 'help' of her father, St. Joachim) and not the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb which certainly had nothing to do with St. Joseph! If you have trouble keeping this straight, then note that the Church celebrates Mary's birthday on September 8th...nine months after December 8th.
It was also during this fella's record reign (of 32 years) that the First Vatican Council of 1870 proclaimed the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility:
"So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema." 
In other words: 'You better believe it!'

Thursday, December 7th, 2006               The 65th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

"The 109th Congress will have been in session for a grand total of 103 days this year, which is seven days fewer than the "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.
An ordinary full-time worker with a generous four weeks of vacation would have clocked 240 days of work during that same period.
According to the American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein, the average number of days in session for a two-year Congress has dropped from 323 in the 1960s and '70s to just 250 during the first six years of the Bush presidency." Washington Post

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006            Happy Birthday Charlie!

Chucky is sixty.

Happiness depends not so much on getting what you want as on wanting what you get!

'The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a "body odor".'
Lynne Lowrance, Nashville International Airport Authority

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

There is a train/vehicle accident in the United States about every two hours.
A train hitting a car is the equivalent of a car hitting a soda can.
So the car always loses. 

Monday, December 4th, 2006

Sunday, December 3rd, 2006

If you have tears, prepare to shed them!

"His paws were frozen. We warmed him up and fed him and he just purred and cuddled.
 From day one, we felt he'd be the right personality for the public." 
Vicki Myron, Spencer, Iowa

Saturday, December 2nd, 2006

Hey! Cool tip from Newpeep: check out this site offering free movies online. Not sure what the deal is with the site but there are, like, a couple of dozen movies freely available for streaming. Most are old enough to be in the public domain but there are also several that are fairly new. Last night I watched a bit of  The Woman In Green, a Sherlock Holmes flick from 1945 with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. 
No surprise: the script and the plot are corny and contrived (there's even a slapstick, Scooby-Doo quality to the 'murder mystery') but this black & white film, only 66 minutes long, is 'engaging', all the same. I liked the selective and sparing use of background music, a touch which lends the aura of a stage play to this production. While there are numerous allusions to sexual matters, they are always oblique. 

Every character in the movie is a chain-smoker! Sherlock, himself, is never without a cigarette or a pipe.

In checking the bios of the by-now-all-dead cast, it seems that four out of five succumbed to a heart attack by age seventy.

Friday, December 1st, 2006                     From Pleasanton, CA: Crying Baby Doll Causes Freeway Crash

Five years (or so) ago, when my brilliant daughter was in 8th Grade, there was (I guess you'd have to call it) a Sex Education class which, in addition to running down a few basics, got into the (more philosophical and less biological) issue of whether it is a good thing to have a kid in your teens. Near as I could tell, the class didn't quite get past the easier-to-address-and-measure matter of  'whether it is a fun thing to have a kid in your teens'...and the answer to that, of course, was supposed to be 'no'.
A (literal) key component of this 'Education' was that each of the girls was required to learn what it is like to be 'responsible' for an infant. This was to be accomplished by issuing, in turn, to each girl for one night, a pretend baby. The faux infant came fitted with a pretend voice box by which, at random intervals, it delivered a mood-shattering wail which could be silenced only by the turning of a key in a lock recessed in the "baby's" back. This silencing key was to be worn around the neck or wrist of the pretend mother.

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

"At 62, I'm too young for Medicare and too old for women to care." Kinky Friedman

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Courtesy of RJ

"How's your boy?"  "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President."  "That's not what I asked you. How's your boy?" "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President." From an exchange between Senator-Elect James Webb and Guess-Who.

Tuesday, November 28th, 2006

"I'm not sure what is getting into folks these days, but if I thought they would listen, I'd tell those Islamic terrorists to just bide their time."
Dr. Robert Hallstrom, DVM

"All mushrooms are edible, but some varieties you only get to eat once." Dr. Edell's mom

Monday, November 27th, 2006

Today's question is, "What is 'love'?" Is it (merely) a synonym for 'desire'? If not, then how is love different from desire?
Dictionary.com lists no fewer than 21 definitions for 'love' as both a noun and a verb, including a tennis player's definition: Zero!
Merriam-Webster Online is more concise, listing only a half-dozen (or so) meanings.
Bob Dylan famously wrote that 'Love Is Just A Four Letter Word'. Was he right? Or is there a reality to love, quite apart from the word itself? 
How would any or each of us explain what we mean when we use the word 'love'?  'What Is This Thing Called Love?'
Of course, the nature of  love depends upon the object of our love, no? The love for a child or for a parent or for a sibling is surely different from the love one might have (or 'feel') for a peer. There is the love within friendship and there is romantic love, which may (or may not) be sexual.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote often on the subject of love and perhaps his most ponderous declaration is this one: "What is done out of love always happens beyond good and evil." Fred was never careless in his language and never profligate in his use of a word like 'always'. And so he's telling us that love is not a choice and that love is not intellectual.
There is 'love at first sight', but love can grow. We may learn to love someone. But love may be inconvenient because love is instinctive ('primal') and not the product of a 'good bargain'. We may love someone in spite of our 'better judgment'. Love is altruistic. Love does not need reciprocity. 

Sunday, November 26th, 2006

11/25/06, Associated Press:

A woman's body was found wedged upside-down behind a bookcase in the home she shared with relatives who had spent nearly two weeks looking for her.
A spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said Mariesa Weber's death was not suspicious. Family members said they believe she fell over as she tried to adjust the plug of a television behind the bookshelf.

Weber, 38, returned home Oct. 28 and greeted her mother, then wasn't seen again. Her family thought she had been kidnapped and contacted authorities. Family members scoured her room for clues but found nothing, though they did notice a strange smell.

On Nov. 9, Weber's sister went into her bedroom and looked behind a bookcase, where she saw the woman's foot. Using a flashlight the family saw Weber was wedged upside-down behind the unit.
"I'm sleeping in the same house as her for 11 days, looking for her," her mother, Connie Weber, told the St. Petersburg Times. "And she's right in the bedroom."

Both Weber and her sister had previously adjusted the television plug by standing on a bureau next to the shelf and leaning over the top. Her family believes Weber, who was 5-foot-3 and barely 100 pounds, may have fallen headfirst into the space.

"She's a little thing," her mother said. "And the bookcase is 6 feet tall and solid. And she couldn't get out."

The sheriff's office said Weber appeared to have died because she was unable to breathe in the position she was in.

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