Discerning What Is Important and What Is Not

Banjos, Banjos that you play

I'm tired of your tune -

And if I ever hear another banjo

I'm going out and buy a big balloon

And if I ever hear another banjo

I'm going out and buy a big balloon

Well now Christmas is passed.  We’ve had Festivus and Quanza and Hanukkah is almost done with.  I have not done a posting since Thursday, which means I did not post any of the four day extended Christmas weekend, when all the usual talk show radio hosts were off the air.  There is such a mine field of topics our family has to avoid when we get together at holiday gatherings the list can be crushing.  In terms of topic avoidance this year definitely gets an A.  Not one item on that whole, long list ever came up even briefly for discussion.  There was not even any talk of medical insurance from anybody.  That’s unusual in itself given our gatherings.  Butt this year it would have been too easy to segway into Obamacare.  There was no talk about my new drive or renovated computer.  I am not really a happy camper right now because almost all of the Word files have been deleted from my hard drive.  And the back-up drive is also presently out of my possession.  Most people may spend several weeks making a decision about buying a new computer and maybe an hour or two picking one up at the store.  For me this was flip flopped.  At most an hour was spent making all the relivent decisions, and it wasn’t exactly me who made them, and it’s been weeks waiting for this custom built computer.  Nobody remarked about the new sweater I was wearing.  It wasn’t my normal style and I got it as a gift from this place.  There was no talk of taxes or politics at all.  There were so many big news stories this year any ONE of them would have been a major event in any other year.  Let’s talk about the abundance of favorable economic news that’s been breaking lately including two consecutive jumps in the consumer confidence index.  We could talk about the significant rise in the Pressident's poll numbers and now approval exceeds disapprovals 47% to 45%.   So the President is finally “in the black”.   Also ignored were any of the many other major developments in the news such as Arab Spring or the death of Bin Laden, which in itself would have spawned countless champaign corks popping were Bush still President.  There is also the death or capture of countless other Islamics and terrorists such as Alaki or whoever.   That 2011 was the year the nine year in Iraq for the US came to an end, would certainly have been major news any other year.   The whole Gabrial Giffords thing was major news in January because of the major hatred that spawned it, and that it spawned.  We had Sarah Palin who was still around them (thankfully not any more) making her inflamitory statements such as 2^nd amendment solutions and gun sights on her campaign litriture.    There was no talk about the debt default crisis - - which was unprecedented in our nation’s history and people like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachman, who were all in favor of it happening.    Of course you would think that a gift of between one and two thousand dollars in payroll tax cuts would have merited mention, at least in passing.   And there was a little thing like the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, a once in every thirty years event.  And now we hear a royal heir is on the way.  And they changed the law so that the first born female can become Queen.  That's a once in several hundred year's event.  And they have discovered that earth like planet.  (I can year the yawns now)  It's hard to deal with a really jaded audience that's seemingly either "heard it all" or just too disinterested to care.  There was no talk about religion what so ever.  That in itself is kind of hard to do at Christmas time.  There was no talk about 2012 and the Mayan Calendar.  There are indications that Pope Benedict isn't long for his job.  What will the next Pope be like?  There was no talk about Dad,  But then again, there never is.  Since he’s been dead these past four years the motto seems to be, “Out of sight, out of mind”.  There was no inquiry how much I’ve used my camera.  There was only Wendy indicating her boredom as my shooting movies with it.  There were no inquiries about what sort of year I’ve had or getting a coffee maker or “the coffee business”.  There was no reference to Dr. Levy or things I may have learned this year I didn’t know before - - or anything I wrote him.  Pete Richards tried to spike interest in things I wrote him, but once again Wendy’s boredom was more than obvious and Pete risked endangering his own relation with Wendy if he were to continue to press the matter.  All the news about Uncle John and Alzheimer's and now a heart attack, I hear- - was so hush hush - - only a few people seemed aware that conversation was even going on.  I never talked about the food or any other doings around here or the deaths of Bob Guyer or Richard Powers.  Richard Powers was a good friend of mind and I have known him for seven or eight years or whatever since the Green Harbor days..  I was on corgial terms with Bob Guyer.   And there was no mention of my flirtations with Mormonism or Seid and Nicky’s Sunday night group, where admittedly the chief activity is eating ice cream.  But there is also some prayer and teaching and occasionally reading from the Book of Mormon.   So what did we talk about?  Favorite Christrmasses of our child hoods.  There was talk about knitting patterns and quilts and China patterns, and their two cats - - and whether the house across the street may be re-zoned for a Board and Care facility.  There was talk about how little the town of Julian has changed over the years.  And Al did relate a couple of frightful events I never knew about.  I don’t recall anyone except perhaps Pete discussing their job, because employment talk would be in danger of morphing into politics.  I guess over-all I’m feeling just a little turned off with the whole family scene.  You know, they say “Don’t throw your pears before swine”.

Actually the good political news continues, as I see it.  Newt Gingrich didn’t even qualify to run in his current state of residence, Virginia.  Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman didn’t qualify either.  In other tantalizing news if true,  Donald Trump announced he is leaving the Republican Party.  Nothing would give me a greater political rush than for Trump to announce he was running as a third party candidate.  That more than anything else would absolutely insure an Obama landslide next November.  Now we hear that Ben Nelson of Nebraska will not be running again for Democratic senator from that state.  Good riddance to bad rubbish- - is what I say to that.  Nicole Sandler is saying that Atheists want to try and “get along” with Christians next year.  My advice is “Don’t bother”.  They don’t want you around.  They’re too proud and bigoted to admit they aren’t completely self sufficient.  If you’ve hung around Pastor Mark as long as I have, you wouldn’t even have broached the idea.  There is a roomer that President Meliki of Iraq is trying to forge an alliance with Iran.  Well you know something?  That’s something we should have thought about before we took out Saddam Hussein.  He may have been a despot but as Pat says, “We had him in a box”.  He was pretty much neutered as far as his military power was concerned.  He surpressed Al Qaeda and the Shiits and other Islamic extremist groups.  So in an ironic way the people of his nation were able to dwell in a certain amount of peace and harmony they haven’t enjoyed since.   Some would regard legalized gay marriage in the state of New York as good news.  They say that people with close relations to homosexuals generally have the greatest tolerance for it, even if they are right of political center.  I guess that leaves me out.  Now they are saying that the US as we speak is taking new hostile action in Iran and there are roomers of a nuclear reactor blowing up in that country.  We’ll all have to stay tuned for that one.  Right now I just want to thank everybody for reading this posting.  I know it’s the first new one we’ve done in a while.  And we will be posting in this blog for another week or two.  There is a LOT I was going to include in this first posting but I’m just too pissed off at a lot of people and secretly wondering whether I just bore everybody anyhow.

Stewart Sutcliffe put in an appearance and he said that my problem was that “I don’t size up people quickly enough”.  I think he was also offended at Wendy’s trashing of the Beatles with her remark about “when they come on I always change the station”.  He also indicated that Obama hasn’t won the 2012 election yet but there is still plenty of time for political missteps and “knowing Obama he’ll make serious mistakes”.   He also mentioned “even in the Ten Commandments it may not have been wise to raid the temple granaries.  You might want to run that by the Egyptian Gods, first before you do anything rash”.  I did munch on the macadamia chocolate things but didn’t have the piece of pecan pie till the next morning.  Stewart said a lot more and my "flesh" wants to quote him extensively, but I'm being an undeserved "nice guy" about it.   As you know this is Stewart's second appearence in a week, and this one was more extensive.


People are so inconsistent.  They profess to be bored of any talk about religion, but let an Atheist challenge their beliefs and the are immediately in an uproar or "how dare they?"   A psycho-therapist would argue that such people have "unresolved issues".  It's amazing how many people don't have wills and their relatives have to deal with these "unresolved issues" and they fight like cats and dogs often knifing each other in the back.  We've all heard such stories.  People don't mind when it turns out that everything any Christian has said to them when tested - turns out to be a lie- - doesn't bother them.  Because they are told that "We have a sure promise of life to come".  Would you be willing to make book on how "sure" that promise is?  Keep in mind that not one individual in the whole Bible, including the son of God himself, ever perported do die and go to heaven and come back to tell others what he experianced.  To me "zero" is just too small and uncertain a number to base any "unshakable" faith on.  Thom Hartman is upset at the idea of Atheists trying to "evangelize their religion" to others.  First of all it is not a religion because Atheism as a belief system is based on science and not religion.  But the term "Evangelize" implies you are trying to "pitch" or "sell something" that you have some emotional stake in promoting.  If you warn someone the road is washed out a mile ahead due to the recent floor you aren't "pitching" anything.  You're not trying to "pull something over on them".  You are warming them as a good Semaritan, which is by the way a Christian good practice.  It would be the same thing as loaning a person in need something you happened to have, in some emergency.  Atheists are not intimidated about living among Christians, but Christians are quite intimidated about, for instance, "exposing" their kids to even a little objectivism.  Why is that?  It is my belief that Christianity, like the tea party, is in its death throws.  It's gotten to the point of being so utterly weirded out that long timers no longer even recognize it as it tries desperately to survive in a 21st Century society, like some species doomed to extinction desperately tries to evolve and mutate fast enough to live in a world where it can no longer survive.  (Selah)