Web Log Archive, January 8th through January 21st, 2006

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

We Catholics were taught to be grateful that we had been baptized. Why? Well...let's say that you hadn't been baptized...but you had led a good life...and then you died. Heaven for you? Hell no! Limbo! The reason? Well, without the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, you'd still be carrying the weight of Original Sin and so you couldn't expect to schmooze with the Saints, could you? I always thought that made sense.
Limbo, we were told, wasn't a bad place, exactly. There was hot & cold running water, HVAC and three squares per day. I mean, it sure wasn't Hell but neither was it Heaven and so you always felt there had to be more! Yeah...Limbo had acquired a reputation over the years as being kind of a boring place to hang out. It was where un-baptized babies were sent and so there were a lot of un-(and under-)developed personalities (not unlike where I used to work). The Official Story went on to say that, when Judgment Day  finally arrived, Limbo-e-ans would be AmTrak-ed to Heaven and that would be the end of it: Eternity, I mean. IOW, Limbo could be thought of as a holding cell...a reason to 'think twice before you blow off your Baptism" kinda thing. 

Oh! But now?

Friday, January 20th, 2006

This is the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of Ronald Reagan who, that day, got to announce that the 52 hostages, held for 444 days at the American Embassy in Tehran, had been freed unharmed. The term 'October Surprise' has been coined to refer to the conjecture that a release of the hostages before the 1980 national election would (have) lead to an upsurge in support for the incumbent, Jimmy Carter.  There is a quite plausible (conspiracy) theory that operatives for the Reagan-Bush campaign underhandedly negotiated an agreement with the Iranian authorities not to release the hostages until after the election was safely in the bag (for Ronnie).

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

Bad enough...her folks named her 'Katrina'..., but now she don't figure to graduate!
But she's Pretty! And math ain't everything!                ^_^

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006

To 'succeed' as a parent means that, by the time your child is in his or her late teens or early twenties, she or he will be capable of living on his or her own.
Right.
He or she will not need you anymore and that's your 'reward' for having done such a good job and for the lucky fact that things have 'gone right'. This means that, after you have devoted about twenty years to the (incomparably challenging) task of parenting, you must be prepared to abandon that hard-won 'parent persona'  as if it were a suit of clothes that has gone out of style.
And to be a successful parent means that you get to experience the 'empty nest syndrome'. OK, that might be a Doctor Phil 101 pop psychology term...but it's as real as a toothache. Entering this three-word-search term in AltaVista yields a mere 125,000 'hits'. Of the several sites that I explored, almost to a one the assumption is made (sometimes quite explicitly) that women (read 'mothers') are more affected by this life transition than are fathers and...that there is a marriage relationship that will need 'redefining': "now that it's just the two of you"! Perhaps forty years ago, both this gender bias and this marriage assumption had some bases [that's plural for basis]. But in 2006, I believe that neither does. I could find almost no mention of the plight of a single parent (except for a heartbreaking letter or two submitted for discussion at, for example, The Parents Room). There's emptynestmom.com featuring the Empty Nest Magazine and there's EmptyNestSupport.com. Moms (in 'successful marriages') will find comfort in commiseration at these sites. Fathers will just need to spend more time at the driving range. 

It is best not to cultivate guilt in anyone (but especially not in one's child)...however tempting and easy it may be to do so. "Don't worry about me! I'll just sit in the dark!" Children do not 'ask' to be born, after all. I believe that one must 'parent' (verb, intransitive) with no expectation of gratitude from one's child. To expect gratitude, under penalty of guilt, is to scatter pebbles in the child's path and so, quite possibly, to undo some of one's (parental) 'successes'.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2006     The 12th anniversary of the Northridge Quake.

Most of us worry about things 'going wrong'. But there's plenty, also, to worry about things 'going right'.

"...when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views."  On the occasion of his 300th birthday.

Monday, January 16th, 2006      Joe McGuinness is Sixty Years old.

"Whoever feels predestined for contemplation instead of faith finds all the faithful too noisy and obtrusive. He defends himself against them." Fred

Sunday, January 15th, 2006

It is an ill wind, indeed, that blows nobody any good. Every cloud has a silver lining and every silver lining conceals a cloud.
It was Ben Franklin who gets credit for the saying that "if a man be granted half his wishes, it will double his troubles."
And it was Galileo who exhorted us to be grateful for misfortune, for it "detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and the Divine."

According to1998 US Government statistics, there were three suicides for every two homicides.

Saturday, January 14th, 2005

A transcript from January 10th, 2006...and a theory:

"Sam Alito is [uh] eminently qualified to be a-a member of the bench. I-I'm not the only person who feels that way --the American Bar Association looked at his record, looked at his opinions, looked at his [uh] temperament, [uh] and came to the same conclusion, that he is [uh] well qualified to be a Supreme Court judge. Sam's [uh] got [uh] the intellect necessary to [uh] to bring [uh] a lot of class [uh] to that Court. He's got a judicial temperament necessary to make sure that that the Court [uh] is a- is a- is a- is a body that interprets the law and doesn't try to write the law. [uh] And so I'm looking forward to your hearings. I know the American people will be impressed, just like I have been impressed and a lot of other members of the Senate have been impressed. And my  hope, of course, is that the [uh] the American people will be impressed by the process. It's very important that members of the Senate [uh] conduct a dignified hearing. The Supreme Court is a dignified body; Sam is a dignified person. And [uh] my hope, of course, is that the Senate [uh] bring dignity to the process and give this man a fair hearing and an up or down vote on the Senate floor. Sam, good luck to you. Thanks for your agreement to serve. I appreciate you. Thank you."

Friday, January 13th, 2006              Uh Oh!

 
To paraphrase Charles Bronson: "When somebody is a rapist and a murderer, don't be surprised if he's also a liar."

Thursday, January 12th, 2006

Wednesday, January 11th, 2006

What you think will soon be forgotten...both by you and by those with whom you share even your most carefully-crafted opinions.
What you feel may be quite beyond your control...but it endures.
Long after you have forgotten what you said, you will remember what you felt.

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

"Those whom the Lord loves die young." An old Irish expression, often quoted by Mary Nolan (1870-1958), who left her native land for the last time in 1914, at the age of 44. Just half her life had been lived by then.

"Childhood they say is innocence indeed, but age is sympathy, and sorrows, though 'lessons right severe,'
are fountains of wit that can be got 'nae other where.' " Charlotte Mason (1842-1923)

I happened to catch this part of the hearings on the radio yesterday: "After Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked him for an opening statement, Alito took almost 30 seconds to pour himself a glass of water, take a sip and unfold notes from his jacket pocket. He began by telling a joke about a nervous lawyer who had fumbled under pressure during an appearance before the Supreme Court, but he bungled the punch line. Then, he declared, "I have often asked myself, how in the world did I get here?" Michael Scherer
The 'joke' to which Scherer refers was a variation on that tired old bit about the guy, lost in Manhattan, who asks a passerby, "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" [Now if you don't know the punch line to that one, then you don't know Jack (Benny).] What might we conclude from the fact that Alito would choose to christen such an important moment in his life with a freeze-dried 'joke' (based upon a third-grade pun)? Perhaps he was seeking to dispel any lingering concerns that he might be insufficiently boring to qualify for a seat on the Court!

Monday, January 9th, 2006

When I am in the presence of a butcher with a sharp knife, I always say,
"Boy...wouldn't you hurt yourself if you slipped?"
And he always answers, "No! It's safer than a dull knife!"
And I always think,
"Well...but in order for this man to have come to that conclusion,
he must have a reason...there must be a reason!"
(for him to think that---to believe that, I mean)
And I always think that
he must always pay attention when he cuts something.
But I don't.
Not always.

Sunday, January 8th, 2006

Cynthia Ice-Bones, 32, a Republican from Sacramento, Calif., said knowing about the program made her feel a bit safer. "I think our security is so important that we don't need warrants. If you're doing something we shouldn't be doing, then you ought to be caught," she said.

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