Rick Warren: "If you love Jesus, we're on the same team."

Warren and Pres GW Bush. Need something at top of blog Facebook can see :-) (Wikimedia Commons)

Rick Warren has appeared a couple or few times on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network, the Catholic TV channel begun by Mother Angelica).

You might like to listen to some of this interview on the World Over with Raymond Arroyo. It gave me an appreciation for Warren that I didn't get from The Purpose Driven Life.

When you're in the troubled middle, you get it from both sides.

From this side >, and from this one >, and this one >.

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In case you didn't watch it, we learn that he and his wife listen to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for spiritual restoration. If you wonder what that is, you can listen to it below.

Theological accountants will make mincemeat of Warren and Francis and others like them. That's too bad. But maybe there are more Warrens and Francises in the world who will be emboldened by their examples.

I am on a journey, just like you. As my journey continues, more people begin to appear alongside me that I didn't expect to see.

[2014-11-24]

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Listen to my toddler leave me voicemail.

Mimi's 1st Birthday 2013

If you have an iPhone, you know it's pretty hard to save voicemails to a format you can share.

How'd I do this? I played it back on the iPhone with speaker on, held up my office headset microphone to the speaker, and called my Google Voice number and left a message.

This one was just too wonderful not to risk losing.

I wonder who else she's calling?

[2014-11-23]

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Happy Black Friday

Danny Thomas outside St Jude's Children's Hospital.

I'm giving a little something to St Jude's Hospital this year. I've always wanted to do that. After deciding it was a good place to send a donation, I read the info below. It didn't influence my decision to give, but it was nice to learn.

"Mr. Thomas, a Roman Catholic, was long known for his strong religious faith. He often said that in the difficult early days of his career, when his wife was urging him to give up show business and get a regular job, he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless, impossible and difficult cases. He asked the saint to put him on the right path, vowing that if the saint did so he would build him a shrine.

That shrine, built with the assistance of many other people, was the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which was dedicated in 1962. Mr. Thomas spent much of his time raising money for the hospital, which he long considered his most important accomplishment. "That's my epitaph," he said in a recent interview. "It's right on the cornerstone: Danny Thomas, founder." Source >

No Danny on the homepage, but his legacy lives on. St Jude's Children's Hospital >

[2014-11-23]

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How I gave myself a happier Thanksgiving by quitting a job.

Many years ago I managed a gourmet meat and cheese shop in Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, MI. It occupied the same spot Yankee Candle occupies today.

I made every effort to prepare and sell the very best foods, but I was eventually reprimanded for discarding food that could still be sold at full price.

And so I sold Kona Coffee beans at $12/lb that had been sitting for months in a Plexiglas dispenser. And meat with the scum scrubbed off. And stale bagels rejuvenated by 10 seconds in the microwave (but were hard as a rock when they cooled). And ancient Lindt chocolate bars that had been on the shelf so long the fruit fillings had dried into a grainy sugar paste.

The last straw was the shrinkwrapped gift packages we were preparing for the Christmas shopping season. The ingredients looked a lot like their Hickory Farms counterparts, but were cheaper and tasted dreadful.

Most of the packaging was cardboard and green straw, the prices were exorbitant, and the vacuum-sealed cheese and summer sausage were shelf-stable through Armageddon.

After cheating thousands of people, I couldn't take it anymore, and just before Thanksgiving, I quit.

I was working three jobs at the same time, so the decision wasn't hard.

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I recall what was probably my most heroic (and enjoyable) moment in gourmet retail: The mall had been put on alert during a tornado warning, and a handful of customers and mall employees were forced to stay in the store. No one was even allowed to dart across the hallway back to their own store, or peek around the corner.

I took the opportunity to build a little goodwill by giving away free cups of coffee. Everyone loved it, the threat passed, and we all felt a little friendlier.

Everyone except the owner. When he found out, he was not in a friendly mood at all.

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The owner had once told me a story how he'd used a cigar box as a cash register in his first business venture. Seems he'd been a salesman for a long time and was a seasoned pro. He was also a plagiarist. I later read the same story in a business magazine in his office.

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The owner had the same name as a former US president. Someone told me he could sell you your own shoes. I'm sure somewhere he is doing just that.

[2014-11-20]

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Why do we sexualize our children?

Child beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey.

I recently took my kindergartener to a cheerleading camp, which was a Saturday morning with local high school cheerleaders.

She had fun, and so did all the other little girls.

It wasn't the little ones that occasion this post, but the older ones, the teens.

Some years ago, travelling on business in San Francisco, I had dinner at an Arab-themed restaurant that included a belly dancer with castanets and strategically placed veils.

She was all smiles when dancing, but when I tried to smile at her on the way out after dinner, she curled her lip contemptuously like the waiter just served her a burnt steak.

Why that story now? That was the feeling I got after watching the teenage cheerleaders.

They were all smiles while cheering in stretchy leotards that accommodated the gyrations and left little the to the imagination. But after showing us parents what they'd taught our little ones, when the music turned off, so did the smiles, which were replaced by a sexual awareness that characterized the belly dancer.

This wasn't about leering fathers, it was about teen cheerleaders knowing full well they were appealing to baser interests.

I really don't want Dee Dee to be a cheerleader. She can put the same effort into gymnastics, or piano, or math, or just being a little girl for a few years.

[2014-11-08]

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The Facebook raspberry.

It's been interesting to watch how acquaintances respond to those who respond to them. I'm not sure I fully understand, but it often seems to follow this pattern:

1. My friend makes a clever comment.
2. Someone comments

My friend likes

3. Another person comments

My friend likes

4. I comment

My friend is silent

5. Another person comments

My friend likes

6. Another person comments

My friend likes.

Etc.

One or two isn't a trend, but repeated silence is a message.

(And if you're reading this, I'm not talking about you :-)

[2014-11-21]

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My very brief thoughts on Ferguson, MO

Protesters face riot control forces in Ferguson, MO. See note at bottom for credit.

1 Most of those expressing an opinion - from Ferguson residents on up through Al Sharpton and President Obama (and myself) - weren't present that day when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed.

2 None of us have seen final autopsy reports, either (except maybe the President).

3 Threatening violence, inventing injustice, or demanding a certain outcome before the grand jury makes a decision is tantamount to holding the justice system hostage.

4 Most of the violence that comes out of this (if any) will be only remotely related to Michael Brown or officer Darren Wilson. It will be driven by opportunity to express frustration with a system that has disenfranchised entire segments of society and allowed them no role to correct it.

That system is agnostic, and can just as easily subjugate any color on the human roulette wheel with a little spin and enough money riding on it.

If you take sides based on color, you're just helping to spin the wheel. And those determined to hate will continue as surely as gamblers will gamble.

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Picture credit: Democratic People's Republic of Korea blog > .

Google translation of that page: "On Tuesday, the DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman, responding to a reporter's question KCNA, said the serious situation of racial discrimination in the United States, which recently attracts international attention. Recently in the city of Ferguson Missouri US one black teenager was shot dead by police, sparking mass protests of the local population. However, these shares were ruthlessly suppressed by the police, who, aiming at protesters weapon used against them, tear gas and other non-lethal weapons. In this situation, in other American cities, was shot dead a policeman another black."

Clarence Translation: Let's just all be grateful we live in North Korea, folks. You could have been born in the USA.

[2014-11-23]

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Ted Turner on Hell: Flippancy + irreverence is just obnoxious.

Ted Turner (Wikimedia Commons)

I once heard a visiting minister at Bethel Baptist Church in Erie, PA (back when it was at 737 E 26th St) say that some folks think hell is nothing but a big beer party and all their friends will be there. I thought that was nonsense, no one could think that way, even if they were exaggerating, it just bends the metaphor too far.

Then I hear Ted Turner quoted as saying this (heard it on the radio, then looked it up because it sounded so absurd):

"... heaven is going to be perfect. And I don't really want to be there...Those of us that go to hell, which will be most of us in this room, most journalists are certainly going there. (Laughter). Anyway, because they are not that religious because they know too much. But, when we get there we'll have a chance to make things better because hell is supposed to be a mess. And heaven is perfect. Who wants to go to a place that's perfect? Boring, boring." (Laughter)" 

Quoted by by D. Min. Theology Rev. M.L. Johnson in From Heaven To You > ; see also Google Books page >

I really had to think about why that bothered me. Was it the irreverence? Partially, but not entirely. I think it was more the flippancy, which, combined with irreverence, is just obnoxious, like a kindergarten fart joke.

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My reaction has nothing to do with whether hell is real or not, or if Ted Turner is right or wrong. His remarks simply lend no insight, funny or not, and trivialize the beliefs of others who work with him, for him, or tune into his Superstation every day and drive ad revenue.

There was a time when Turner made an effort to be associated with family values, but a little googling paints him as "a womanizer who once bragged about his photographs of nude women, yet deplored the decline of family values and nudity and sex on film and TV; a man who was sometimes careful and guarded, but then embarrassingly blunt or crassly to-the-point." Source >

Folks who try to one-up God often seem to misunderstand the foundation for their humor, and so substitute one-liners and applause for wit.

[2014-11-14]

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greetz

You can't correct old mistakes by making new ones. One of the great things about Christianity is that we're forgiven, even for the stuff we can't forget. We don't have to know how, just accept it. It's not a pathological lack of regret. Quite the reverse. It's a reconciliation with the unprincipled half that stalks us our entire lives.

[2014-11-12]

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:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:

             .======.
             | INRI |
             |      |
             |      |
    .========'      '========.
    |   _      xxxx      _   |
    |  /_;-.__ / _\  _.-;_\  |
    |     `-._`'`_/'`.-'     |
    '========.`\   /`========'
             | |  / |
             |/-.(  |
             |\_._\ |
             | \ \`;|
             |  > |/|
             | / // |
             | |//  |
             | \(\  |
             |  ``  |
             |      |
             |      |
             |      |
             |      |
 \\jgs _  _\\| \//  |//_   _ \// _
^ `^`^ ^`` `^ ^` ``^^`  `^^` `^ `^

greetz to the eleetz

kfuss

drew

Jimmy ben Z

Jimmy ben Alphee

Johann

Phil

Bart

Tom

mattax

Thad

ψman

and

#13

disses to πl8 & dzhewdÜs

join the krew: alt.binaries.water.bread.wine

:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:NFO:

[2014-11-12]

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Oogie Pringle: A Vernondale 4th grade memory.

A 1968-04-09 handout/ad for WJET personalities that included Oogie Pringle

When I returned to Vernondale Elementary School in Erie, PA for the first day of 4th grade, Steve Schloss (I think now a doctor) had cut out a picture of a local radio personality and was walking around the class saying his name and laughing. It was Oogie Pringle. "Oogie Pringle" was a character in 1948's A Date With Judy. I'm not sure how Erie's Oogie obtained the name. I think Erie must have been a step down, since he was formerly with WNBC in New York.

Here's Oogie in 1975 in WNBC in New York...

I remember saying about that time, if not at that moment, "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down," which received great laughs from my fellow 4th graders, especially Beth Williams, whom I wanted to marry.

[2014-11-15]

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Of wedgies and old high school Phys Ed teachers.

Former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice who was known for his abusive rants and was fired after ESPN aired a few of them. (AP Photo/Mel Evan)

A few days ago I mentioned a wedgie at the close of post. That reminded me of a tragic locker room drama at McDowell High School in Erie (Millcreek), PA. A couple jocks gave a poor kid a wedgie so bad they pulled his underwear up over his head.

You know the rest: the coach yells at the brutes, who saunter away laughing, helps the unlucky kid get his head out of his underwear, asks him if he's okay, and pats him on the back like he's sending him back into the game.

I'll bet that happens in every boys' locker room in every school every year.

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I had a very good Phys Ed teacher at McDowell, who was also very kind. He had small children and I think understood the long-term harm that cruelty inflicts on children.

He was a large man, energetic, the type that carries his weight like a man half his size.

I remember seeing him at McDonalds with his children. I was with Mom and my brother and sister. (That's one of the few times I remember Mom taking us to McDonalds, it was usually Dad.)

He was one of three Phys Ed teachers as I recall. I always secretly hoped I would wind up with him on gym days and not one of the other two.

[2014-11-08]

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