miasma…once again, we are afraid to breathe

“Once plague had shut the gates of the town, they had settled down to a life of separation,
debarred from the living warmth that gives forgetfulness of all.”
“If there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love.”
Albert Camus, The Plague

(Paul Fürst, engraving, c. 1721, of a plague doctor of Marseilles
(introduced as ‘Dr Beaky of Rome’).
His nose-case is filled with herbal material to keep off the plague.)

Miasma–The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete
medical theory that held that diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia,
or the Black Death—were caused by a miasma (μίασμα, ancient Greek: “pollution”),
a noxious form of “bad air”, also known as night air.

The theory held that epidemics were caused by miasma,
emanating from rotting organic matter.
Though miasma theory is typically associated
with the spread of disease, some academics in the early nineteenth century suggested
that the theory extended to other conditions as well,
e.g. one could become obese by inhaling the odor of food.

The miasma theory was accepted from ancient times in Europe and China.
The theory was eventually given up by scientists and physicians after 1880,
replaced by the germ theory of disease: specific germs, not miasma,
caused specific diseases. However, cultural beliefs about getting rid of odor made the clean-up
of waste a high priority for cities.
(Wikipedia)

If you have ever traveled to Italy, pre-pandemic of course, you might have noticed that
the Italians tend to be, what we Americans might call, overtly health-conscious…
almost to the point of extremes.

So I can only imagine that their pandemic quarantine and loss of life was a very heavy,
heavy burden,

And yes, they do indeed believe in the notion of “night air”—aka “bad air”.

I have Italian friends, so I know this.
And yes, this belief, phobia, or fear, whatever you might call it, was truly way pre-pandemic.

They don’t understand why we Americans don’t use bidets.
You know those extra toilet looking things in hotels that my son once thought was
a fancy foot washer.
They bundle up with full face scarves in the winter to fend off inhaling cold air
and in the summers, they fear air conditioning— they think it produces “bad” air.
That is why so many older hotels and apartments do not have AC.

And if the truth be told, they may be on to something…think Legionnaire’s disease.

But I digress.

So when I read Kathy’s post yesterday over on atimetoshare, about masks—
“To mask or not to mask”
TO MASK OR NOT TO MASK
it got me thinking…

Plague doctors…THAT’S IT!!!!
We need plague doctors…
Oh, wait… isn’t that what Dr. Fauci is….???

Digressing again…

So a plague doctor, according to Wikipedia:

The clothing worn by plague doctors was intended to protect them from airborne diseases.
The costume, used in France and Italy in the 17th century, consisted of an ankle-length overcoat
and a bird-like beak mask, often filled with sweet or strong smelling substances (commonly lavender),
along with gloves, boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and an outer over-clothing garment.

The mask had glass openings for the eyes and a curved beak shaped like a bird’s beak
with straps that held the beak in front of the doctor’s nose.
The mask had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator which contained aromatic items.
The beak could hold dried flowers (including roses and carnations),
herbs (including eucalyptus, peppermint), spices, camphor, or a vinegar sponge.
The purpose of the mask was to keep away bad smells, known as miasma,
which were thought to be the principal cause of the disease before it was disproved by germ theory.
Doctors believed the herbs would counter the “evil” smells of the plague
and prevent them from becoming infected.

The beak doctor costume worn by plague doctors had a wide-brimmed leather hat to
indicate their profession.
They used wooden canes in order to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients
without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away,
to remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them,
and to take a patient’s pulse.

So do you think this will be an okay type of mask for me to wear to the grocery store
while keeping me safe?
Just thinking…

(as seen on Pintrest)

baby watch and viruses for the Mayor

Ok—so the Mayor started running a fever Thursday night.

And since it continued through the night and remained elevated and steady
despite baby Motrin, her top two chief Atlanta aides made the call that she was
homebound as well as doctor bound Friday.

So naturally, the chief aide in Woobooville’s satellite office, moi, came up Friday
to assist.

The pediatrician babbled something about Fifth’s disease…again…or was it Roseola?
It seems we’re running out of viruses and thus have started to lose count.
Hence the now numerical listing of viruses…but really, I’m thinking we’re up to
something like 25 by now.

Thus the Mayor opted to drown her sorrows in the consumption of copious amounts of beverage…

Oh, and did I mention that we are right at the 39-week mark for the new sheriff???

So this is what my daughter-n-law is feeling at this point…

But my son keeps saying, “but sweetie, you’re simply glowing…”

My son insisted that we venture to an old school Atlanta vestige Italian restaurant…
a 30 year old establishment that has actually been featured in renowned
foodie magazines such as Bon Appetit.

We made the trek north of the city, almost to Dobbins Air Force Base Friday evening just
so my daughter-n-law could partake in a plate of their miraculous Eggplant Parmagian.
A dish that is a near guarantee to send any and all expectant mothers to be into labor.

If within 48 hours of consumption a mom goes into labor, the baby’s picture joins the
hundreds of pictures lining the walls and the family receives a $100 gift card.
My son practically forced her to eat every last bite.

It seems this did not work on the Mayor’s arrival…
but this new Sheriff might just be different.

However, the Mayor is simply having none of it…as the thought of a new sheriff in town
is more than a bit disconcerting to her Mayorial role.

Stay tuned…

power goes to their heads

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power,
the world will know peace.”
Mahatma Gandhi

Ah, Spring Break.
The trees are budding, the cold ebbs and flows and the pollen lays like a thick
heavy yellow dusty blanket…

And since it is that time of year, the Mayor has called me to Atlanta for a few days—

And as I have been called into duty, my thoughts, during nap time, have been left to roam and ramble…

What is it about our politicians and the evolution of that hunger and lust for power and rule…
that uglier side of human nature—the side that leads those who are elected to lead…
to not only want more power but they appear to crave it and actually need it…

It is a vicious cycle which eventually leads them to use such power and cravings,
not to the advantage of those they serve…
but rather they use such, as well as those around them, to actually serve
them…an upside down role reversal…

It’s like something comes over them when they begin to see their office
chair as more of a throne.

And when meetings with the staff do not go as planned, well, they have a hissy fit…

And what about the spending of monies and time on things that are to their benefit and not
that of their constituents…

I will keep you posted on any new developments on this notion of politicians and power
when they eventually turn their backs to the truth…

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8

the take away of hope and hopefulness

“Hate corrodes the container its carried in”
Senator Alan Simpson during his eulogy of President G.H.W Bush

(image of Senator Simpson offering a eulogy during the funeral of G.H.W. Bush)

One thing I learned as an educator is that we are always learning.

When we are a part of or exposed to various learning moments, those moments
which are both known, and even most often unknown,–moments throughout our
lives, we inevitably are given gifts of the ‘take aways’…

Those nuggets and morsels of wisdom that we glean…
glimpses of that which speaks deeply to our souls.

They are the things we ruminate over…chewing on and pondering over.
They are the small gifts we receive from both moments and individuals…

If you’ve read any of my posts this week, you know I’ve been trying to take
in what I can from the life, death, mourning and now funeral of our 41st President
George H. W. Bush.

I’ve been watching the state funerals of our presidents since John F. Kennedy’s funeral
as my parents instilled that sense of duty and respect in me…
a respect extended to our presidents for their service to us, the people.
It mattered not the party, we gathered for each one—that is until I was on my own,
And I still watched…just as I did today for our 41st President.

It was never about party or politics…but it was about respect and service.

President Bush 41 was just finishing the first year of his presidency when my son
was born.
It’s one of those things written down in a baby book…” who was the president
the year you were born”…with his being Bush, mine being Eisenhower.

Most who know me, know that I was a huge fan of President Reagan.

And if you’ve read many of my posts over the years, you’d then know that the tandem
working relationships between President Ronald Reagan,
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and
Pope John Paul II all played a significant role
in my life at a time when I was just coming into my own…
coming into my own thoughts and conviction about the world around us.

They fed my keen interest and love for our democracy, freedom as well as the importance of
having a working Christian faith within that very democracy and freedom—
as the cost for each comes at a very high price.

They taught me that hope remains even when things appear hopeless…that
a Cold War could be broken, a wall could be torn down and people could taste freedom
after living a lifetime under tyranny.

The presidency of George H.W. Bush seemed to serve as an asterisk to those
four world giants and the ture gifts they offered our world.

So it comes as no surprise that I’ve been quite taken with much of what I’ve learned
throughout the course of this week regarding the life of our 41st president.

Some things that I had known and some things that I had never known.
Some things about The President, some things about his cabinet and some things
about his lifelong friends.

It has been, however, from his death that I have actually found a surprising sense
of hope—hope for this oh so divided Nation of ours.
A deep-ceded, hate-filled division that I have anguished over now for
oh so many months.

Look at these two images.

The first image of this group of American movers and shakers is at the
beginning of the President’s funeral.
It is an image of past and present.

And within that past and present is a great deal of visible stain.

This was a gathering of people who we all know don’t exactly care much for one another.
Some in the group are better at hiding their real feelings in public than
some of the others.

This historic picture shows four presidents, along with one hopeful want to be,
along with spouses gathered together, seated side by side,
in order to pay homage to one of their own.
The mood is somber yet the tension on this front row is palpable.

The second image appears to show that humor can be unifying emotion.

Humor seems to be one of the small final gifts given by the 41st President to
this group who have followed his footsteps.

And it was Al Simpson, the former senator from Wyoming and lifelong friend of
President George H. W. Bush who, in his eulogy of his dear old friend,
offered many of those stories which provided a thankful amount of humor.
A gift freely offered to all those gathered and particularly needed by those gathered on
that front row.

But it was what Senator Simpson said toward the end of his eulogy that
I found most telling of which I could only pray that those seated on that
first row would each digest in his or her own private way.

Senator Simpson noted that President Bush never “hated” anyone…

Meaning this age-old friend never heard his very important friend ever
express vehemence or disdain…for anyone…not publicly nor privately.

Not even after a difficult and challenging campaign and defeat.
Not even after the dealings with aggressive and difficult world situations.
Not even after a life spent in the often ugly and petty business of politics.
Not even despite the trials of living life after losing a young child.
As this approach to life and living was something instilled in him at a young age.

For the Senator noted that both he and Bush had learned this particular lesson
early on in their young lives as each of their mothers carried what they
called velvet hammers.

These men learned hard lessons at the knees of their mothers with one of the most important
lessons being that “hate corrodes the container it is carried in”

That container being one’s heart.

So I was now curious for a little more background behind Al Simpson…
curious because he was much funnier delivering this eulogy than I had remembered
him to be during his days in the Senate.
So I found this little bit of his background story…

Another offering of hope found in a now elderly man’s earlier life…

The story is about a one-time youthful holy terror,
who almost, and most certainly would have in today’s time, served jail time for his
life of running wild, yet who, with time and redemption, actually grew up to become
a leader, a senator and dear friend to a president.

So the first of the takeaways that I want to share from a seemingly sorrowful event is
that of hope and hopefulness.
Other takeaways will be shared later.

I want to offer Alan Simpson’s backstory regarding how this now 87-year-old survived
to come out on the upside of what was nothing more than a selfish reckless youth…

The story is a reminder that if there is hope for a youthful hellion who
no doubt seemed to be a hopeless cause, so then surely there is hope for
a group of politicians who find great disdain for one another…
The same Hope that remains available for a deeply divided Nation.

A lasting gift offered even in death by a President to his grateful yet divided Nation.
A gift that our 41st President always knew came from his faith…
that being the faith and Hope found in and freely given by Jesus Christ.

There has been a great deal of this notion of hope that I have found in these
rapidly disappearing members of this Greatest Generation…

I even read of it coming from Barbara Bush.

Just a few months ago she herself was now dying,
her son Jeb asked her if she was afraid to leave their dad behind.
Barbara unequivocably told Jeb that she will miss her husband and his father
but that she believes in Jesus Christ.
She knew that George would be okay without her as she would be home with her
Savior—all the while waiting on George to follow.

Bereft as he was when his wife of 73 years died, George senior, knew where Barbara was,
that she’d be waiting on him as his hope also rested in his faith—
faith in a Savior who would also bring him home when the time was ready.

So I offer the back story to a once difficult young man who put his trust in
the notion of hope and hopefulness as he grew to be a man who also chose
to serve others over serving self.

According to Wikipedia:
In Simpson’s words to this Court, “I was a monster.”

In that brief, in support of the claimant in the Supreme Court case,
Simpson admitted that, as a juvenile, he had been on federal probation for shooting mailboxes
and punching a cop and that he “was a monster”.

One day in Cody, Wyoming, when Simpson was in high school,
he and some friends “went out to do damage.”
They went to an abandoned war relocation structure and decided to “torch” it.
They committed arson on federal property,
a crime now punishable by up to twenty years in prison if no one is hurt,
and punishable by up to life in prison if the arson causes a person’s death.
Luckily for Simpson, no one was injured in the blaze.

Simpson not only played with fire, but also with guns.
He played a game with his friends in which they shot at rocks close to one another,
at times using bullets they stole from the local hardware store.
The goal of the game was to come as close as possible to striking someone without
actually doing so.
Again, Simpson was lucky:
no one was killed or seriously injured, or caught by their parents.

Simpson and his friends went shooting throughout their community.
They fired their rifles at mailboxes, blowing holes in several and killing a cow.
They fired their weapons at a road grader.
“We just raised hell,” Simpson says.
Federal authorities charged Simpson with destroying government property and
Simpson pleaded guilty.
He received two years of probation and was required to make restitution from his own funds –
funds that he was supposed to obtain by holding down a job.

As he [Simpson] has described it, “The older you get, the more you realize . . .
your own attitude is stupefying, and arrogant, and cocky, and a miserable way to live.”

Simpson stated “I was just dumb and rebellious and stupid.
And a different person.” and then added,
“You’re not who are when you’re 16 or 18.
You’re dumb, and you don’t care and you think you are eternal.”

And so the state where this young hellion would cause so much trouble would eventually
vote him in as their United States Senator.
Setting his life on a path to becoming dear friends with the 41st President of the United States.
A man who remembered yesterday in the Nation’s National Cathedral.

There is always hope…

the common sense of the obvious

“A moderately bad man knows he is not very good:
a thoroughly bad man thinks he is alright.
This is common sense really.
You understand sleep when you are awake, not well you are sleeping.”
C.S. Lewis

(Percy assumes the throne is his…it is not / Julie Cook / 2018)

No, Percy’s name is not Autumn and no that is not Percy’s chair,
it is Autumn’s chair.

Yet Percy thinks that what is Autumn’s is actually and naturally his…
because he was the first baby here in this house and therefore anything that is
for a baby is his by proxy.

In Percy’s brain, that all makes sense.

So the stroller is his…

That’s him underneath.
He prefers to be up top but at the time it was unfortunately occupied.

Autumn’s finnbin is his.
(That Scandinavian baby box I ordered so Autumn can snooze comfortably after her
workout on her play mat…of which is also Percy’s…as in his playmat.

When I’m busy folding clothes on the bed and Autumn is busy snoozing, Percy snoozes too.

So I really don’t understand why Gregory got so upset the other day when one of his very
expensive hearing aids disappeared and he naturally assumed Percy took it.

Years ago, poor Gregory was involved in a hunting accident and is now totally deaf in one
ear with considerable hearing loss in the other ear.

He gave into hearing aids about 8 years ago and has fussed and cussed them ever since.

They don’t work, despite costing a small fortune.

He’s lost one in the ocean.
He’s lost one someplace else that we can’t remember, otherwise it might not be lost.

Replacing them is a pain and another small fortune.

And so obviously, if Percy sees them say sitting on, say the counter, or by Gregory’s chair or
on the shelf by the shower when Gregory forgot that they were still in his ear when he got
in the shower and had to quickly get them to a dry spot…
Percy just assumes that Gregory has laid them out for him to happily take.

If you are not familiar with hearing aids…they are these tiny, yet expensive little
contraptions you shove into your ears.
They have tiny little batteries and tiny volume controls and they work by amplifying sound.

Unfortunately, Gregory claims they amplify the wrong sounds.

If you’re in a crowded restaurant, they amplify the noisy background chatter rather
than the true target, that being the person sitting across from or next to you…
as in me with whom he’s trying to communicate.

The waiter asks “Sir, how would you like your steak cooked?”

“I’ll have blue cheese thank you.”

With me then having to interject
“he’d like it medium and the blue cheese goes on the salad…”
this as he looks at me as though something happened but he’s just not sure what.

And whereas it can be quite comical and funny…
In actuality, it is very frustrating and equally maddening.

And can, more times than not, make his life just darn miserable.

Anyone who wears hearing aids will certainly testify to such frustration.

As can anyone living with said folks who suffer from hearing loss…
There is simply an awful lot of repeating, yelling, screaming, exasperation
and hands simply being thrown up in the air.

“WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME???”

BECAUSE I SAID IT THREE TIMES AND YOU STILL DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT I SAID”

“WELL I’M SORRY BUT I CAN’T HEAR, REMEMBER!”

“AND DON’T SCREAM AT ME CAUSE YOU’RE HURTING MY EARS!”

It’s a vicious cycle

So I think the real reason as to why Gregory gets so upset when the hearing aids go missing
is not so much because they work, but rather because they cost a small fortune.

And here is where our real story continues…

The other evening Gregory went to take a shower and took out the hearing aids,
placing them on the counter in the bathroom.

One of them mysteriously disappeared.

I say mysteriously because two were there, and then two were not.

It wasn’t until after his shower that he’d come back to the den to watch TV that
he remembered he needed to go back to get his hearing aids.

If he doesn’t put them in while watching TV, the television is turned up so loudly,
I have to leave the room.

Suddenly I heard my name being called in a not so pleasant manner.

I race to the back making certain everything was okay.

“Julie, I can’t find but one of the hearing aids.”
“Percy got it.”

“How do you know Percy got it?”

“Who else would have gotten it?”

“Maybe you didn’t have both of them with you when you took a shower and the other
one is by your chair or still in your pant’s pocket.”

“I already checked the pants and I remember plain as day putting them here on the counter…
plus I remember seeing “him” in here.”

I did not like the way he had said “him” and I wasn’t too keen on how this was going.

I will admit that there have been a few occasions that Percy may have actually taken one
of the hearing aids, thinking of it as some small squeaking creature. And he may have
actually played with it as he would, say, a small creature…
Batting it wildly across the floor and tossing it up in the air as if it was a poor living
creature to be toyed with before a slow torturous death.

I know this because I must confess, I’ve caught him doing such.
My fear being he’d somehow get the battery out and swallow it.

So imagine my then having to fuss when Gregory obviously and carelessly forgets to
securely put away the hearing aids when he takes them out. This in turn potentially allows
for Percy to potentially get a hold of the hearing aids which potentially lead to his swallowing
a battery and potentially having to have some sort of emergency surgery.

Talk about a small fortune.

Plus as his mother, I have to defend this baby.

And so I spent about an hour that night scouring the house looking for said hearing aid.
All the while Gregory kept looking angerly at Percy,
demanding Percy tell him what he had done with the hearing aid.
All the while poor Percy was simply looking innocent as a lamb.

I crawled on the floor, looking eye level across the rugs, peering underneath the couch,
the chairs, the tables.

I didn’t remember the house looking, so, well, dusty and dirty…hummmmmm.

Finally, I gave up for the night because I knew tomorrow was another day.

So…for four long hours the following morning, I looked high and low.

I vacuumed the entire house, I dusted, I swiffered and I carefully looked, while on all fours,
investigating every inch of the house.

I opened closet doors.
I looked under cushions.
I flipped over every pair of shoes.
I debated calling the vets telling them I needed to x-ray Percy’s stomach…
and I even considered the unthinkable…sifting through the litter box.

I called Gregory who was at work, only halfway hearing.

“Gregory, I can’t find it anywhere…”

There were a few choice words I can’t repeat.

So I did what I always do in a crisis.
I prayed.

I prayed earnestly to God…explaining that I knew He knew how expensive the stupid
little things were and that I really needed to find it.

I decided to check under the couch in the living room one more time,
despite having already looked, dusted and vacuumed there twice this
particular day and once the night before.

With flashlight in hand, I got back down on my hands and knees, bent way down
almost on my head, lifted up the kick pleat and shined the flashlight into the far recesses
when low and behold…there it was.
Despite my having already looked three times total under that couch.

Ecstatic, I called Gregory and explained my answered prayer.

His reply was “Good, and when I get home, Percy will be tried in a court of law, my court.
He will be tried to the full extent of the law, my law.
He will be tried and found naturally guilty and punished…better yet, banished.”

Donning my best defense attorney hat, I proceeded to explain that since no one had actually
seen Percy take the hearing aid…let alone seen him take it to his favorite hiding spot
under the couch…the same hiding spot he goes to when, say a “stranger” comes in the house,
and he is afraid…or the same hiding place that his favorite toys often rest.
There is simply no clear-cut obvious explanation…only mere conjecture.

It is therefore only presumption that he is guilty as there was really just no way
to prove that Percy took it as there were no witnesses.
Peaches, the other cat…did not count.

I even threw in the fact that had
Gregory taken better care, putting the hearing aids in their case, it never would have
disappeared in the first place.

I was beginning to walk on thin ice.

But in the end, it’s all really pretty darn obvious is it not?

Who else would have, could have, taken it??
Especially given Percy’s proclivity and track record demonstrating his lack of restraint with
hearing aids, there is a pattern to his madness.

Yet I was simply running with it…to the far reaches of the absurd.

And thus my far out over-reaching is no more absurd then what you and I are hit with on a
daily basis flowing from our progressively insane society.
A society that is happily playing fast and loose with all things truth, common sense and
downright obvious.

I was running with it just like our own politicians, our legal eagle justice system
and even now our entertainers are running off with the obvious as they thrive to live to
shuffle and distort, to rile and defile.

They twist and turn the obvious and the truth around in such a way that they first convince
themselves while wielding their charms to twist the obvious into the oblivious for
everyone else.

And should you or I dare to question or think otherwise…questioning their form of the
“truth” …then you will be punished or even better yet, exiled…
much like Gregory decided to do with Percy…banished.

And I for one have grown weary of it all.

So this little tale about a cat and his hearing aid fetish serves not merely to
entertain us but rather to remind us…reminding us of the absurdity of that which
is currently circulating around us.

It reminds us of the lack of common sense and the twisting of the blatantly obvious
as the culture gods have taken the ultimate Truth and created the absurd.

Because remember, there’s no better way to ellude the average citizen than to
confuse him or her…so that way, no one really cares as to what is really what.

Now how did that stuffed mouse get in my shoe…?

The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them;
the sins of others trail behind them.
In the same way, good deeds are obvious,
and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever.
1 Timothy 5:24-24

the monkey of generational angst

“America isn’t breaking apart at the seams.
The American dream isn’t dying.
Our new racial and ethnic complexion hasn’t triggered massive outbreaks
of intolerance. Our generations aren’t at each other’s throats.
They’re living more interdependently than at any time in recent memory,
because that turns out to be a good coping strategy in hard times.
Our nation faces huge challenges, no doubt.
So do the rest of the world’s aging economic powers.
If you had to pick a nation with the right stuff to ride out the coming
demographic storm, you’d be crazy not to choose America, warts and all.”
Pew Research Center, The Next America:
Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown

(a young Macaque courtesy the web)

(*****yesterday’s post had quite the typo—commandant verses what I actually meant,
commandement…thanks David!! Sadly, I can look at something a thousand
times and still see it as what I meant rather than what I typed…
such is an aging brain—onward and upward!)

A life long friend and I can often be heard grousing about this current generation’s
sense of entitlement, self indulgence, whining, progressiveness, liberalism, irresponsibility, lack of morality….
all the while as we fuss over their ‘addiction’ to all things social media
and materialistic….

And it goes without saying that I am convinced pervious generations groused
about us…however I’m wondering if perhaps their grousing was more so with a
deep and very real sense of foreboding.

For I am a baby boomer. That blossoming group born post war—
as I was post Korean war.

After my friend and I have gone on a bit, trading lamentations, I tell her that
“You know, this is really our generation’s fault…”
“What?!” she’ll exclaim….
“Yep, it’s our generation that is really to blame…”
“We are the ones who did this to them.”

“But shhhhhhhh,” I’ll warn, “we don’t want to give them the satisfaction of
having one more person, place or thing to blame
as they love to cast off any and all culpability for their actions…”

“We were made of tougher stuff” she’ll counter indignantly

And while we’ll both admit that we are not nearly as tough as say that of the generations of our grandparent’s and parent’s, those of the “Greatest Generation”…
one thing is certain, we are tougher then this current bunch of whining
“snowflakes”—-that is a truth!

And as much as I fuss about millennials, my son continues to defiantly insist to me
that he is not, nor has he ever been, a member of this millennial generation
of which I am constantly fussing, cussing and complaining about….

However according to those who figure out such statistics and numbers,
the millennial generation falls between the ages of those who are between
18 to 34….so sorry Son, but you are on the wrong side 34 by almost 4 years.

And so I often wonder exactly when it was we went so wrong….with them….

So as I ponder this latest conundrum…our Wee Flea friend is at it again….
offering tantalizing morsels for sample…
and it is right along this notion of generations and their dysfunction that he
is happily taking us.

Our friend the Wee Flea has read a book that, whereas it was not written by a
Christian and is not necessarily a book for Christian audiences, David did find
the book most enlightening….
he does warn however that the F word is frequently used.

Now this is where David will venture more bravely than myself as he has read
and seen those things that I will readily and quickly cast aside as rubbish
as I have a low tolerance for crude language, hedonism, vileness,
defamation or sarcastic flippancy…..

Yet David is good and diligent to sift through the spoils in order to find
the buried gems….

His latest offering is a book by a fellow named Rod Liddle…who happens to be a
journalist and contributor to The Spectator…
and I will say that what I have read from The Spectator, I have greatly enjoyed.

The Spectator is a British conservative weekly publication with a focus on all things
political and of current affairs. It’s been around since 1828 so it must be doing something right. I’ve looked into subscribing as an ‘across the pond subscriber’
unfortunately the cost would be exorbitant….
so I settle to just catch the random article here and there….

The book by Mr Liddel is entitled
Selfish Whining Monkeys…
how we ended up greedy, narcissistic and unhappy

David was kind in that he tells us that if we don’t feel like reading the book,
he’s identified 25 main characteristics of our generation and offers them in his blog.

and oh how it stings….

The Lost Generation –

“It is hard to argue against longer life expectancy, greater affluence, safer workplaces, the freedom to escape from a hopeless marriage, the rights of women to be treated equally, and so on. But a certain moral code has been lost along the way, which has contributed largely to our country becoming close to bankrupt, a nation of broken families clamouring about their entitlements siring ill educated and undisciplined kids unfamiliar with the concept of right and wrong, where there is an ever diminishing sense of community and belonging, a perpetual transience, if you fancy a cheap oxymoron.”p. 10

“peace has made us complacent, freedom has made us irresponsible, affluence has made us acquisitive, comfort has made us neglectful of others, and security has made us – oddly enough – tremblingly insecure.” Page 11

12) The Divorced Generation

“beyond that, though it was a betrayal of my boys. Having made the decision to have children, I should have stuck with it. But I didn’t; my personal happiness seemed to count for more than anything else.” Page 75.

“The loosening of the divorce laws, and the swift removal of stigma from those who have been divorced, came from the top down. It was designed to enable the more affluent in society to continue to pursue that most compulsive of post-1960 pastimes, serial monogamy.” Page 76.…

Like so much socially liberal legislation presented to the electorate as a wonderful means of acquiring those most liberal of things, freedom and equality, divorce reform benefited only the well-off, by and large. It was legislation designed to enable the affluent to XXXX around with impunity, (no fault, remember!), And hang the rest. Hang the kids. Children from broken homes make up 80% of the population of Britain psychiatric units……. Whoever the 1971 divorce format was brought into ‘enable ‘, it was certainly not the children. It was not the children, and it was not the poor.” Page 77.

13) The Sexualised Generation

He talks about the 1970’s and Gary Glitter singing to 14 year old girls – ‘Do you wanna touch me?” What do you think he was referring to…?

This as I hear Rod Stewart singing somewhere back in my shadows in my head…
do I think he’s sexy or Mick Jagger singing about wanting to spend the night
together…
sigh…..

Anywhooo, this is but a few of the gems I plucked out of Davids’ list which I
found most telling.
David has only offered 1 though 13 in today’s post as he’s divvying the list up
into a Part I and Part II posting—tomorrow he will offer us Part II–

I can hardly wait to see how much lower we will sink into the truth…
to be continued…..

Rod Liddle – Selfish Whining Monkeys.. A Review – Part 1

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 100:5

On the first day of Christmas….blah, blah, blah…..

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
a drunk opossum in a box!”
Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge

(mother’s late circa 1950’s mistletoe ball / Julie Cook / 2017)

See this garish, yet oh so festive green, red and white bedecked ball of plastic??

This ball of plastic, aka mistletoe, has been a part of every Christmas of mine since
I began having the capacity to actually remember memories…..

Every year, sometime in December, Mother would haul down the boxes of Christmas
ornaments and lights from our attic.
Down came the stuffed Coca Cola Santa who would sit on the fireplace hearth.
Down came our stockings knitted by my aunt.
Down came all manner of bauble and ball.

The wooden beamed, insulated tomb which housed our poor ornaments,
as they would spend 11 months out of the year, was
in this wizened sense of hindsight,
a really dumb place to keep real keepsakes….

You know how hot it gets in Georgia in the summers right??

So is it any wonder as to why those festive little dough ornaments
we made in kindergarten didn’t much survive past grade school…???
all before succumbing to the elements and reverting back to their powdery,
albeit now colorful, days of floury finery….???

Mother would pull down that wooden drop down hatch in the middle of our
hallway ceiling, the one with the sad little raveling cord and the plastic knob
at the end, as she’d precariously jiggle the pull down rickety wooden ladder
attached to said little pull down hatch, as I was instructed to hold the ladder
very still while she maneuvered boxes both up and down.

I now marvel at how Mother never fell and broke her neck.

Ceremoniously Mother would pull down this and that box…
She’d survey the contents determining the survivors and discarding the broken.

And each year she’d head to the kitchen in order to literally tack up that
plastic ball of mistletoe over our back door,
as in with a thumb tack in the door frame.

I always imagined being kissed under that mistletoe…
because isn’t that what you’re suppose to do when you happen past a boy
under some mistletoe…????
You get kissed by someone magical and special under that mistletoe???

And I always wanted it to be someone other than my dad’s peck on the cheek
each evening when he’d return home from work throughout the holidays….

I wanted a kiss, a real kiss from a real boy…one day…much like something Prince
Charming might offer….
Yet what I knew of real kisses back then, eludes me now… but I
certainly thought it was something every young girl would dream of…..

Fast forward about 50 years….

So there I was Sunday night, unpacking our own boxes of Christmas treasures
and memories, most of which oddly spend their 11 months out of the year in a very
hot Georgia attic (as some lessons are hard learned)… when low and behold,
what did my wandering eyes behold….but that same ball of mistletoe with
Mother’s tack still stuck on the strand.

Proudly holding up my childhood relic as if it were some trophy fish dangling from
a stringer, I call for my husband to see my prize….
to see if he remembered where my plastic treasure came from and as to its
magical importance….

As I was all ready for my sentimental walk down memory lane,
full of a cherished warm glow from recalling those oh so happy days gone by,
all the while anticipating that long awaited kiss from my very own prince charming…

He looks over in my direction, away from the football game, then practically screams—-
“OH MY GOSH!!
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T SEND THAT WITH ME TO THE STORE….CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CRIES IF I HUNG THAT UP IN THE STORE?????????!!!!!!!!!

And so goes another cherished memory right out the window….gone to our overtly and
off its freaking rocker society….

Sigh…..

And so on that note…I figured since we’ve all probably been taking ourselves just
a wee bit too seriously as of late—-
I wanted to share a story I read yesterday out of the News….
a story coming out of Fort Walton, FL….

It seems that a possum…of which you must know I do find cute and always have, as
I hold a soft spot open in my heart for these poster children of all things
roadkill ever since I can remember….

It seems a possum found its way into a Liquor store in Fort Walton.
Or actually found its way into the ceiling of the building.
Yet it appears that this possum fell out of the ceiling….
Falling onto some bottles of whiskey—of which broke.

When the proprietor of the store opened up the following morning,
imagine the surprise of finding a staggering, foaming at the mouth and
obviously very drunk….possum…
a possum who just so happened to have lapped up all that spilt liquor.

So the kind and caring folks from the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge had to come get
the staggering and very sloppy drunk marsupial.
They in turn had to give the sot possum a bag of IV fluids to flush the alcohol from its system.

Once the hangover had passed and the possum had sobered up,
it was released back into the woods…as it was heard to exclaim,
before it went out of sight…
Merry Christmas to all and to all no more bourbon tonight!!!!

http://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-opossum-found-drunk-after-liquor-store-break-in#/

Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy,
all you upright in heart!
Psalm 32:11

Really???

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot,
and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
George Carlin

(as seen while I was driving to the grocery store / Julie Cook / 2017)

People crack me up…
well….
let me correct that….
I admit… I’ve actually been known to also crack myself up…

But today it wasn’t me, it was people…as in the random people out on the road.

If you’re anything like me,
especially now during the start of this season known more for
its madness than for anything truly Holy, religious, spiritual or even grateful….
you’re in your car a lot—driving.

Driving to visit, driving to work, driving to shop—
driving wherever it is you drive.
As in you just seem to be driving more than perhaps you normally would…
In part because during “this” season it’s when we seem to need to go more places,
do more things and see more sights than we normally would or do…
it’s just what we do.

So early this morning as I made a dash to the store, I was stopped at a red light,
behind the car whose image is inserted above.

I usually enjoy reading the stickers folks put on their cars.
Entertaining mindlessness as one sits held captive.

Of course if the stickers are foul or profane,
of which I have seen plenty of stickers that are offensive in one way or another….
I’m none too amused…
and actually if the truth be told,
offended by the thoughtlessness of the more selfish among us….

Yet generally speaking, the stickers provide a bit of cheap entertainment, idle mind filler, thought-provoking wonderment, contemplation or even an audible “amen” …
this as I waste the 4 to 5 minutes of life sitting at red lights or hours stuck
in stop and go traffic.

I’ve always said you could tell almost everything about a driver
from the stickers on their car—-

Whether or not they are young or old,
male or female,
Southern or not,
a fan of a particular college,
a veteran,
a republican,
a democrat,
a member of the green party,
a member of PETA,
a music fan,
a former POW,
a Purple Heart recipient,
a school supporter,
a proud parent or grandparent,
a Christian,
an Atheist,
a Gay,
a dog lover,
a cat lover,
an adopting parent,
a Humane Society supporter,
a relative of or an actual cancer survivor…
whether or not they are athletic,
whether they are into sports,
whether they love electrical linemen,
whether they live on a farm,
whether they drink beer–and usually which brand….
whether they love adventure,
love to hike,
love to bike,
simply love,
simply hate,
whether they are a doctor,
a nurse,
a teacher,
a boy scout,
a girl scout,
an Eagle scout,
a Starwars fan,
and even a guess as to their name as their initials are actually monogramed on
their car’s window—-kind of like a throwback sweater but not.

It gives a good bit of insight into who it is driving the nearly 4000 pound vehicle
in front of you….a friend or foe sort of vibe.

So imagine my curiosity when I actually focused and read the sticker on the car
in front of me this morning.

Now I’ve seen stickers that warn that ‘in case of rapture this car will be driving
dangerously and erratically, all by itself,
so everyone left in their cars need to watch out’—
or what about those stickers that state that God is the driver’s co-pilot…
I think I’d rather prefer that to read, ‘God is the pilot,
I’m just along for the ride’….

But Zombie Response Squad??? Really???

Was I to assume that there was an actual zombie rescue person in the car
in front of me?
What exactly does that mean their responsibility will be in case of an attack?
Was I to find some sort of comfort in knowing that little fact of their
expertise in all things zombie?

This as I remember there’s actually a truck here in town, riding around with
some sort of machine gun, real or not I do not know,
mounted in the bed of the truck with signs posted on either side of the truck–
“Zombie Assault Vehicle”.
As I begin to wonder what sort of town do I actually live in……

Nervously I look up and down the road…left then right…
They eat brains right???

As in do people really think Zombies are going to attack?
That Zombies are actually real?
That Senoia, Georgia’s claim to fame…The Walking Dead are actually alive and…ummm…dead and questionably well down in that small southern town?

Is that why we hear tales of preppers?
Is that why we hear tales of those militia who are hiding out in the mountains
and woods?

Is there something going on that I don’t know about during this season of
all things mad and crazy??
Maybe that’s why it’s called “black Friday”…
it’s a Government coverup because it’s really about some sort of Zombie apocalypse…

This as I just read another story that someone out there is certain the whole moon
landing was faked….

Well, it tis the season…. or so they say…
and remember…I think I read that Zombies like fruit cake…
So best to leave those ubiquitous seasonal goodies now hitting the grocery store shelves
out on the lawn….just to be on the safe side….

May you and your family have a joyful, grateful and even a bit of the humorous
Thanksgiving eve—- 🙂

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:11

the tale of the drunk mockingbird….

One day Bessie Braddock, a rather plump Labor MP,
approached Winston Churchill in which she said
‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which Mr. Churchill replied
‘I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.’
Winston S. Churchill

(our resident mockingbird / Julie Cook / 2015)

Remember how I shared the tale of woe concerning our shower?
The twenty year slow leak that could only be rectified by tearing out the old…
all the way to the studs…with dust upon debris of rot and leak….
Only to slowly, and just ever so, add back layer upon layer…
eventually putting things back better than before???

Well we’re still in the middle of the layering process—
water mesh, moisture barriers, shower pans, sealant, cements…
on and on goes the mess.

Tile fellow is a very nice man and very much a Brooklyn boy who lives and breathes
for his beloved Yankees…. who have been winning their series in the playoffs.
Much to my favor as Happy Yankees beget Happy Yankee fans who beget
Happy Yankee tile guy, who beget happy tile customers…

But this has been a very messy and very dirty task.
Had I known what all was entailed, I would have just said re-do the entire bathroom
while you’re at it because if I live through this, I won’t be retiling anything
again in my lifetime.

After Tile man leaves each evening, I’m rolling up drop cloths,
vacuuming up a ton of dust, gingerly removing old insulation, wiping down cabinets,
mopping floors, and cleaning from top to bottom the residual mess of the day’s work.

Tile man wanted to leave his shop vac sitting in the middle of my very dusty bedroom at night as its just too heavy to haul back and forth from the garage along with the air compressor for the nail gun.
“You know we sleep in there right?”

I had to remind him that I prefer not having heavy equipment out lest I run into in the middle of the night.
He also didn’t understand why I insist on rolling up the very dirty and very dusty drop cloths every night only to roll them back out early each morning….
I don’t know, something about living without any more excessive dust and dirt then absolutely necessary seemed to make sense to me, but who am I to say.

So you should know we have a door in our bedroom that leads to the back deck,
the covered back deck.
We never use that door but it was in the plans when we built the house 20 years
ago so we have a door we don’t use….

Tile guy tells me that since he’s a New Yorker and Italian to boot, the heat is brutal
on him so every available window is open, the AC is running, fans are blowing
90 to nothing as dust is delightfully blanketing my entire house—
think Pompeii indoors.
And the high this week have only been in the mid 70’s….go figure.

He told me that he was going to open that door in the bedroom for more air.
Obviously windows are not enough.

However he was going to need to make a quick run to get more caulking.
Tile man was obviously born in a barn because all doors remain open whether or not
he is coming or going—
as in he will not, for love nor money, shut a door behind him.

Think now of every fly in the county and every bee and wasp for miles seeing
these open doors and I might as well have a sign out,
“all bugs please come inside!”

So as Tile man ran to the store for more caulk, I went to shut the back door.
When I headed into the bedroom to shut that door imagine my horror as I spied
our resident full grown Mockingbird flying around and around in a panic in my bedroom.

Let that sink in a minute…

a full grown bird in a tizzy flying around and around like
a nutjob in my bedroom—
did I mention the antique lamps that were my grandmother’s???

Let me back up a tad.

During the past week or so I have noticed how our Mockingbird has been singing
his pretty little head off as if it were a new Spring…
as in the birds and bees being oh so happy that it’s “that” time of year again…
as in it’s time to sing and look pretty for the ladies.

But wait…the calendar says mid October…as in cool nights and temperate days.
Not the time for making, let alone thinking about, woo…

This nutty bird has been sitting outside the closet window staring in at
Percy my cat, singing to my poor cat his song of love, for the past week.
Plus I’ve noticed a copious amount of bird poop out on the front porch…
As in the bird is off his rocker, making a mess and creating all sorts of havoc.

And then it dawns on me…

This time of year berries, Pokeberries to be exact, are in plentiful supply.

These things are similar to elderberries but poisonous to human consumption.
However they have been used by Native Americans and others for centuries to make a
deep lasting purple / magenta dye.

The berries just sit on the vine and, well, ferment.
In other words… free drinks on the house for all woodland creatures of
both field and air…

Meaning, I’ve now got a very drunk Mockingbird…
who by the way, is acting very much like a typical drunk,
now trying to fly drunk in a place he has sense enough to know is not home…

This is why you don’t drink and fly.

Ok, back to the present and this bird in my bedroom.

The bird continues circling and bamming into the ceiling,
leaving grey feathers everywhere along with seeds and purple poop.

I collect myself enough to quickly shut the bedroom door—
otherwise I’d never catch the bird if he made it to the rest of the house.

And now he heads to the bathroom.

REALLY?
THE BATHROOM????

Of all places????….
Tile guy is bad enough in there and now I have a drunk bird pooping purple crap all
over the place.

It was a miracle he missed bombing the lamp shades and my bed!!!!
As that purple mess isn’t washing out of anything.

The bird flies into the shower, into the mirror, into the window,
into the ceiling and back into the bedroom…
grey feathers are now stuck or floating all over the place.

All the while I”m chasing this drunk bird with both arms outstretched
trying to either catch it or shoo it out….whichever works….

Finally, thankfully, he finds the door….and out he goes as I quickly slam
the door in his wake.

And if you’re wondering where the cats were during all of this excitement—they
shelter in place in the guest bedroom, cowering in the closet when workmen are in
the house as they have apoplexy when visitors show up.

So not only was I cleaning dust and sheet rock residue, I was now cleaning purple poop
from the the windows, the door trim, the floor, a pillow case, the drop cloths…

When Tile man finally returns I, in no uncertain terms, tell him that there will be
no more open doors in the bedroom as I pleadingly ask how much longer does he
anticipate this job is going to take…

“Tile,” he tells me, “is messy hard work, probably another week or so… that is
if I don’t rush him…”tile can’t be rushed”….

Sigh—

So what’s the moral of this little tale you ask?
Well there really isn’t one…
just know that you should always be weary of melodious singing birds in the fall
who have been hitting the sauce, or in this case the pokeberry juice, one too many.
And that pokeberry juice will stain anything it touches…

Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:21

alas, life is now a living satire

Dennis: Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
King Arthur: Bloody peasant!
Dennis: Oh, what a giveaway!
Did you hear that?
Did you hear that, eh?
That’s what I’m on about!
Did you see him repressing me?
You saw him, didn’t you?
(lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail / the killer rabbit scene)

Way back in 1975 I can remember going to the theater to see a rather bizarre movie.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

At the time I was not up on my British comedies and was unfamiliar with Monty Python
let alone their often avant garde and most irreverent humor

As a young girl, I was always more serious than silly so the often blatant silly
comedic humor was lost on me as I found it just too…well, silly.

Having a keen interest in history…
which first started out with a love of history of heritage…
of which took me back to roots found buried deep in the soil of the British
and Irish Isles, coupled with my often vivid imagination…
well, I could envision myself mucking about with a metal detector trying to locate Excalibur, believing Arthur to have been once a living breathing king, I would then
be claiming that mythical sword in the name of some long lost relative.

So when I first watched Monty Python’s take on Arthur and the quest of the Holy Grail..
well I wasn’t sure how I felt about it or what to make of it.

But one thing was certain, I did develop a life long enjoyment from watching
John Cleese in action.

Yet what brought Monty Python to the forefront of thought today was not some fun or
amusing sketch I glanced while perusing the web but rather it came from the latest blog offering by the Scottish Pastor David Robertson.

Perhaps an odd coupling….

His most recent posting is actually an article written for Premiere Christianity
and is written in response to an article about a troubling incident where a church school there in the UK has deemed a Christian organization of being, well, too Christian to be
permitted in a church school.

And so here is where we que the insulting French knight who sadly is not showing up.

As in here is where the overt satire of the likes of Monty Python deviates to reality…
A sort of surrealism that just happens to be real….
In such that one just can’t make this kind of stuff up….
as in it is just so over the top and so so sad and so so troubling and ridiculous
all rolled into one, that one is left standing mouth agape.

A Christian group has been banned from a Church school because a few parents have complained that Christian teaching is extremist. Premier Christianity asked me to write a response – you can get the original here – (some of the comments afterwards from people who profess to be Christian are quite chilling – not least the two professing Christians arguing that to ask for a Christian group to be able to speak at a Christian school is intolerant, discriminatory and against the teaching of Jesus!)

As a retired educator this story certainly had my attention.
Now whereas I spent my career in the often anemic sector of public education that
basks in its secularization and the separation of church and state–
so much so that there are districts who have told their educators that they may not
have a Bible in the classroom but an Islamic prayer rug is ok….
if that makes any sense….
so I understand the raised eyebrows over religious groups coming in
to address the students….
But when an actual church school claims a Christian organization is just too Christian..
well we’ve got bigger troubles then I ever imagined…

3) There is a patronising and dangerous ideology that is being used to teach our children.

Education used to be about teaching children how to think. Now it is about teaching them what to think. And nothing must be allowed to deviate from that. Instead of education our schools are being turned into centres of social engineering where the secular Brave New World is indoctrinated into our children. Our children are being taught that marriage has nothing to do with gender. And now they are being taught Queer theory; that gender either doesn’t exist, or has nothing to do with biology, or is ‘fluid’. Now there’s a really harmful and dangerous ideology!

And the good Pastor goes on to then offer the following points…
(you’ll have to click the link below in order to read the commentary for
each of the points)

4) Those of us who warned that the introduction of Same Sex Marriage would quickly move from being a permissive to being a prohibitive decree have been proven right.

5) The Church only has itself to blame –

Jesus wept.

Christ wept over Jerusalem.
We must weep at the insanity that is gripping the UK, *[and might I add the US]
of which this incident is only the tip of the iceberg.
Christ’s sternest warning was for those who would harm any of “these little ones”.
Maybe its time for the Church to reflect the priorities of the Christ who said
“let the little children come to me,
and do not forbid them”?
Maybe for the sake of the children we should come out of our own comfort
zones and challenge the new State-imposed fundamentalist doctrines that
cause so much harm. If we are to be accused of extremism,
then let’s make sure that it is the kind of extreme and courageous love
that Jesus showed.
Whatever the cost.

* my little input

So just when we thought the likes of Monty Python to be just a mere comedic group
of both stage and theater, we see that they are actually becoming quite real…
quite real indeed….

Now teaching Christian doctrine at a church school is ‘extremist’. Move over Monty Python.

You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!…
You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful,
but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Matt. 23:24, 27