Thanks Darling

As a swimmer, I stink.  I could serve as ballast.

People have tried to teach me to float face up, but as they scream, “Arch your back!” I slowly sink, hovering about 6 inches below the available air.

“Arch your back!” as I look like a submerged Yoga Master impaled on a stick, sounds like, “Bbblllarchh, bbllooaa bbbblllll!”

Doing the face down “dead-man’s” maneuver, I can stay buoyant for days, but unlike a dolphin, I don’t have a blow-hole in the back of my head…

I’ve almost drowned 3 times in the past, the first event occurring when I was about 4…  Still, ever since Jacques Cousteau plumbed the depths on the televised voyages of the Calypso, I’ve always been enthralled with the environment underwater.

As a kid, apart from the full outfit of a snorkel and mask, enabling the aforementioned dead-man’s float, sans rubber blow-hole, I was given just the mask.  Far worse than nothing…  Bad idea!

Still, these were the days when people believed the nonsense that swimming within 30 minutes of eating, say, a warm tuna sandwich on the sand, would leave you with cramps.

Truth is, even after an hour, coating the children with tuna oil, before having them re-enter the surf on Jones Beach, not far from Montauk where they catch Great Whites, is FAR more dangerous than tightened muscles.

Time passed, the dream faded, and then I married my wife.

With her prior experience, she got me and my children into proper snorkeling, and then into certified diving.  We have all bonded through this experience, and become better people because of it.

Swimming on the surface, I still resemble a lead weight attached to a large sand-bag.  But sinking with rented scuba gear on, the last 150 dives have been a cinch.

Thanks darling.  And, Happy Birthday!

You opened a world less explored than the Moon, and enabled our children to better know the earth, and indeed, themselves.

BTW, if you check out the video below, click through to YouTube directly, it’ll play much better…

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Ferguson again, why?

Exactly why are violent protests happening in Ferguson?  We are at the 1st anniversary of what?

Fact is, the DOJ issued a report fully exonerating Darren Wilson.  This is after a Grand Jury refused to indict him.

Why?

Read the DOJ report.  Go on the DOJ website and download it.  Pages 5-8 are worth the price of admission.

Why hasn’t the President used this anniversary to re-frame the whole “race” issue, restate the blatant facts coming from the DOJ investigation, and re-institute a common sense, dispassionate view of law and order?

Fact is, like all life, so-called “Black” lives do matter.  They are being lost violently in nearly epidemic proportions, and not via police action.

Why isn’t the President calling attention to this basic reality?

He is uniquely poised to tell the truth, and set about planting a long-term fix.

Without the diagnosis, we’ll never be able to start fashioning solutions.

 

“We choose to go to the Moon…”

When President Kennedy sent us on the quest for landing on the moon and returning safely, his idea was well beyond what anyone on Earth had ever thought realistically possible.

It was an enormous vision.

President Obama needs to do the same thing in envisioning the quest for a society that forgets “race” and looks upon character.

Our current President enjoys a golden opportunity to redefine America, and lift us far beyond the mud of racial division into the stratosphere of universal human reality.

He is uniquely poised to do this.

I hope he will.

 

 

Epson Fantastic!

How do you treat a customer?  Epson Incorporated seems to know.

Having successfully and very happily used their other products and projectors, some years ago I purchased an Epson $3,000.00 LCD projector for work, using it pretty sparingly for very short duration presentation videos.  Still, it came to pass that at only 18 hours total illumination, the bulb blew.

So I called Epson tech support, got right to a live person who heard my story.  He never asked for a receipt, never asked for proof of use.  Just heard my story.

Putting me on hold for a minute to touch base with a supervisor, he then rushed me a new projector bulb unit, gratis.

This is a $500.00 item, sent free of all charges.

Guess which company I’ll stay with and recommend across the board, without reservation?

Epson not only makes marvelous products, just as critical, they operate out of the principle that the customer is a friend and ally.  It’s not just the technical sophistication that makes this company go.

It’s the superlative service.

Ancient Aliens?

I remember reading Von Daniken’s, “Chariots of the Gods”, when it was first released as a paperback.  Some of the theories contained within were later promulgated by Leonard Nimoy doing the voice-over on the TV series, “In Search Of”.

Who would know better than Mr. Spock regarding the true nature of “Bigfoot” or the Nazca lines in Peru?

Few of us at the time thought to ask, if aliens can travel light-years across the galaxy, why would they need an airport in Peru?  Did they require baggage claim too?

Running through the channels a few days ago, I came across, “Ancient Aliens”, on The History Channel, no less!

Imagine a network known as The History Channel airing a program about aliens, when, as yet, there is not one shred, not a single scintilla of evidence, that aliens exist at all, anywhere!

Sad, really, when it’s a fact that The History Channel airs footage relative to things like WWII, and people like Churchill, Eisenhower and MLK/Jr.

Apparently, against all odds, the alien pursuit on what should be a bona-fide media source is nothing more than a pandering grab for ratings.

“Ancient Aliens” belongs more on the Comedy Channel.

While the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program has yielded nothing of the kind, perhaps it’s time we looked for Inter-terrestrial Integrity.

Finding evidence of that would truly be something.

 

 

 

Francis Pusok, beaten

The video depicting the beating of Francis Pusok is pretty straight forward: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Man-on-Stolen-Horse-Stunned-by-Sheriffs-Deputies-in-IE-299250951.html

Is he a person of color?  No.

Does the apprehension of this individual seem egregiously excessive?  For sure.

Can we calmly expect a full investigation, without widespread rioting?

Almost definitely.

Why?  Well, in part, because the ridiculous concept of “race” won’t be injected into the discussion.

Cowboys & Indianas

For years I have not accepted numerous invitations from the Gideons to participate in free events celebrating the work of pastors.  My lack of positive response has been based in my disagreement with the approach of the Gideons toward women and Catholics.  I have raised my thoughts and concerns with them in this regard, but the Gideons don’t need me to endorse their practices, nor should they rely on my views to adjust their program.

The Gideons do good work, as do other organizations that I still would not choose to fraternize with.  Thus, if I were asked to render an Invocation for certain occasions, I would respectfully decline.

Could I be wrong?  For sure.  Being wrong is a right I’ve cherished and nurtured my whole life, and, in a clerical role, being wrong in the above regard, is a right I believe is Constitutionally secured.

But what if I was a photographer, or cake baker, holding the same beliefs and convictions?  We all know there are people in the pews whose faith orientations are as strong as any ordained personnel.  What then?

Would I have the right to turn down a big pay-day, not in refusing a request for crucial goods and services, but as a photographer asked to capture an event with a camera?  If I was a committed pacifist, would I have to render on-location videography service for an Armed Forces banquet?  As a lay-person, would I have the right to say, “Hey, have the dinner, and have a ball, just do it without me.”

Perhaps such considerations seem ignorant and backward.  Alright.  Is it the government’s job to decide who’s moral principles are correct and whose aren’t, especially as it pertains, not to an act of restriction, or segregation, or prohibition, but to the personal choice of non-participation?

I think most solid Christians are quite willing to respect legislation that allows things they don’t personally endorse.  What becomes much more problematic are scenarios in which faithful people are asked to professionally and publically provide services for social events they fundamentally don’t want to be associated with.  Where do their rights begin and end?

Watching the discussion centered on Indiana, it’s been amusing to see various factions claiming what Jesus would do and say as they castigate those adjudged as ethically inferior.  One wonders how many of those who use Jesus actually pray to him.  Indeed, the moral tyranny and cyber-bullying openly expressed is shameful, and some would do well to remember that not all who wish to access the right of refusal are Christian.  Conscientious objection is often an Inter-Faith affair.

Respect for diversity cuts across many lines, and painting Jesus using only the colors we favor isn’t just spiritually arrogant, it’s sinful idolatry.

In this country, even stupid people have rights.  However, let us all take humble caution in determining who the ignorant and wise truly are.

What has happened?

    Monday, March 23, 2015 2:40 PM EDT

Police Find No Evidence of Rape at University of Virginia Fraternity

The police here said Monday that they had found no evidence that a woman was gang raped at a University of Virginia fraternity house in 2012,

and they were suspending their investigation, after a lengthy inquiry in which the alleged victim refused to cooperate. But they said the inquiry was not closed…

Do rapes happen?  Yes.  Are they monstrously repugnant?  Always.

So, what has happened in the land of journalism where a huge story published in Rolling Stone turns out to be totally bogus?

Rape is such an inhuman crime that charging rape without cause is especially reprehensible.

Why?

Because it undermines legitimate claims made by victims who deserve full recourse through the law.

In point of apparent fact, UVA was raped…

Who pays for that injustice?  Who repairs the reputations and relationships of those accused?

How is it that the Fourth Estate has run so amuck?

Headline News!

From the New York Times…

Justice Department Clears Officer of Civil Rights Violations in Ferguson Shooting The Justice Department has cleared a Ferguson, Mo., police officer of civil rights violations in the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager whose death set off racially charged and sometimes violent protests last year.

Really?  The Justice Department cleared the police officer just like the Grand Jury did?

What about those who fomented the rioting based on “race”?

Were they cleared as well?

Coptic Christianity

People don’t often think of Egypt as a Christian nation.

Yet, more than 600 years before Islam was, Christianity was, in Egypt.

The beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by ISIS is yet another depraved, demonic and deliberately perpetrated act of religious murder.

To say this is not directly related to Islamic terror is a notion that terminally strains credulity.

None of us should sink to animalistic hatred in reaction.  Thus we would be mimicking our enemies.

Even so, denial is a fundamental insult to the victims of this morally religious degeneracy, and therefore it undermines a humane and critically definitive response.