A Few of My Favorite Things

The last two weeks have been stressful, tedious, and discouraging. So, instead of mulling over and rehashing past troubles, I decided to focus on a few things that make me happy. These are in no particular order:

1.Trees: Woods: Forests: I love trees in all their sizes, textures, and sounds. Virginia has magnificent trees that rustle musically in the summer. But California has trees that look as if they fell from a Crayon box: Pink Floss, Purple Jacaranda, Red Bottle Brush, Yellow Ones, and Orange Ones.

2."Taking the Piss" with my colleagues: I fortunately work with other managers /bosses who can laugh at themselves. We're all good at giving it out as well as taking it. I think our comraderie and good humor is rather rare for middle managment.

3.A full tank of gas: Gives me the feeling of freedom that if I wanted to I could sail by my work exit and keep driving and driving and driving until work was forgotten.

4.Tea, Scones, and Good Friends talking about great books is simply a taste of heaven.

5.Sleeping under a down comforter: The heft and cocoonability conspire to keep me abed all day.

6.Gulden Draak: A sweet Belgian beer that is good for digestion (or so the Belgium/French waiter assured us).

7.The color combination of Chartreuse and Red.

8.My Best Pal and Husband with whom I just celebrated seven years of marriage.

9. Damian Lewis: If you liked him in Band of Brothers (and we did, oh yes we did along with everyone else; though we were disappointed Simon Peg had such a minor role), you'll love him in The Forsyte Saga playing Soames Forsyte. He's in a new NBC drama "Life" on Wednesdays at 10pm. He plays a detective wrongly accused and imprisoned who's returning to the streets of LA.

10.Hollyhocks and Peonies: They're the "Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean" of the flower kingdom.

No, Really

I just received an email from my boss telling all the managers to congratulate "Roy" (a bearded 6'2" Eyeore kind of guy) on winning second place in the national competition for "small figurine painting." Are we in a Christopher Guest movie?

Haven't you always wanted to know.....

...the trial verdicts that caused riots?

On Sweden

You must read Anthony Esolen's elegiac hymn to Sweden. Really, you must. Do. it. now. But whatever you do, don't read the article he links to. Not if you want to remain in a happy bubble.

"The Unstilled World Still Whirled"

At our salon this past Sunday, my friend read part of Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot. The beginning haunted me:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

After hearing that stanza, I knew I must read the rest. These two stanzas that appear in Part V particularly arrested me:

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

I generally read like someone in great need of water-huge guzzling gulps with no breaks. But with poetry and this poem in particular I'm forced to read like a proper Victorian Lady-little sips with pauses in between to breathe. To my surprise, I enjoy the slow pace of reflecting between stanzas, between phrases on the imagery and possible meaning. Such activity will keep me from senility and it's far more enjoyable than bridge!

Makes Me Laugh

"Is that a little beard," the woman asked, pointing to the narrow fringe of hair under Steve's lower lip. "I don't like little beards."

Finally

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the pecuniary puerile perfidy of the penile hegemony in its decision to outlaw infanticide and violence against women.

Good Work Supremes!

Life as a Boss

Got a call from a woman I fired a month ago. After I fired her, she said "I've been waiting for this. Thank You." Today she said, "You were a great boss. I really liked working with you." Either she needs therapy or I'm damn good at my job. I prefer the latter.

Words for ME to live by

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."--Anthony Trollope

Here we go again...

My company has now acquired another competitor making it the third in three years. My life will cease to be my own as I get swept up into the tornado of meetings, conference calls, and planning sessions necessary to bring order out of the chaos. Corporate Management will urge all of us middle managers to be proactive in developing solutions to the emerging challenges. But we all know that we're just getting ready for another ring of hell where there will be much crying and gnashing of teeth. Oh How I Can't Wait.

My Nephew Dexter

Isnt' he the most squeezable, edible, adorable, cuddable, huggable, delectable tot you ever did see?

On Poetry

I don't like poetry. I'm a prose gal. Words in prose are less slippery, less opaque. I like that. I recognize that my apathy toward poetry is a personal failing and something to be rectified. I'm open to developing the capacity to have a capacity to appreciate poetry (to use a J.P. Morelandism).

Fred Sanders (one of my favorite professors from the Apologetics program at Biola) illuminates the point of poetry and in doing so sparks a desire within me to explore this foreign language. Here are some excerpts:

"Think of the world as divided between things easily labelled and things just barely describable. Civilians work with the easily labelled things, but when something just barely describable confronts us, we call in the language marines: poets."

AND

"What if something awful is rolling toward your generation and nobody knows what to call it? What if part of our desperate situation is our inability to name ourselves and our situation? What if we can’t appropriate the goodness available to us unless we can recognize it as what it is and tell ourselves and each other about it? What if the source of our life is a mystery that can’t be definitively spoken but must be acknowledged, praised, confessed? What if the region of the ineffable isn’t out at the boundaries of our lives but right at the center?"

The question now is, where to begin? Any suggestions?

Weird Science

I can't remember how long this bowl of strawberry puree has been in the fridge. But long enough to get a carpet of mold. Some little person would thrill to have such a perfect piece of felt for their miniature house! What did I do with it you ask? I stuck it back in the fridge for further development.

Good Friday

O God in heaven, have mercy on us! Lord Jesus Christ,
intercede for your people, deliver us at the opportune time,
preserve in us the true genuine Christian faith, collect your
scattered sheep with your voice, your divine Word as Holy Writ
calls it. Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be
allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall
away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ.
... Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

I'm St. Melito of Sardis!

"You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the
traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it
was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you
do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins."

Well how about that-this does sound like me. Check out which church father you are (if you're not shocked! shocked! at the patriarchical favoritism of it all.) As for me, I'm going to take it again until I recognize a name.

I AM...

...a pre-modern stuck in a post-modern world.

I THINK...

...pulchritude is the ugliest word for beauty.

I FEEL...

...like wallpaper. Expected to be there, but often overlooked and largely unnoticed.

Miscellaneous

Squats

Squatter communities are everywhere. People live on the train tracks, the grassy road medians, any place where they can put together cardboard, rice sacks, tarps or anything they can find to make four walls and a roof. These are the kids that grow up in them. The kids are so adorable it makes me ache to see their wretched living conditions.

Danica

I have to go all the way to the Philippines to find my name popular. Out of these 100 kids two were named Danica. I don't know why considering it's a Danish name not Spanish. Odd.

Delicacy

I have no stomach for balut a delicacy of boiled duck embryo. Fortunately Steve had the iron girded esophagus that could keep this baby down. He described it as slimy similar to eating oyesters. He didn't chew it just swallowed it whole with a dash of salt.

Sights and Smells

To and Fro

Intro to the Philippines

This photo gives but a hint of the general melee that is Manila traffic. I don't think they have a concept of right of way, but I could be wrong. You'll notice that as we are driving straight ahead cars are turning to the left and the right of us at the same time. To help with congestion they've removed intersections. Instead, you have to drive past your left turn and do a U-turn. Usually, it's you and three or four other cars all making the turn together into on coming traffic. I can't imagine a traffic light causing more confusion and congestion than a five abreast U-turn.

Steve's Aunt Alice has a unique approach to traffic cops. After making a left hand turn (which is illegal-see above about the u-turn business) and being waved to stop by a traffic cop (they stand in the street making a general nuisance of themselves) she said, "If you stop, then you'll spend all day on the side of road arguing with them." And with that, she sailed on by refusing to stop. Until, that is, they hopped on their scooters and cycles and chased us down forcing her to pull over. She's lived in the Philippines for 36 years and could count on one hand the number of times she's been pulled over. On a previous occasion a cop pulled her over on the baseless accusation that she had passed a car in a No Overtake zone. How could that be, she asked, when we haven't seen let alone passed a single car on this road? She argued her way out of that episode by telling him she was in his country helping his people so he should let her go. And he did. What makes traffic stops so annoying is that they take your license and force you to spend a day retrieving it after paying a large fine. Gov't bureaucracy...gotta love it. Can't blame her for ignoring the buggers.

Reflection

I realized, while scrubbing the kitchen sink clean of raw chicken juice, that I’m not a goal maker or goal achiever. I like to think that I am, but really I’m not. I used to contemplate resolutions and list out goals, but I never accomplished them so I only wound up depressed at my lack of ambition and my subsequent failure to produce. Yet….I FEEL like I need to be goal driven, ambitious, driven to succeed, to accomplish great things. I’m not content with being ordinary, yet I don’t have the ambition to be extraordinary. The problem as I see it is that I’m a consummate dilettante. I’m interested in too many potential life scenarios to commit to just one, or rather, be trapped by any one. If I get close to making a commitment to pursuing one particular dream, I can always talk myself out of it and into a different one. I don’t have enough passion for any one dream to get it off the ground. Should I be bothered by this or simply accept it?

I want to eat those cheeks!

I'm an Auntie!

My sister finally gave birth to her first child! He was a week overdue. I was beginning to think my sister had a large growth instead of a baby in there. But no. At 4:35pm on August 1, 2006 Dexter Stanley popped out at 7 lbs 9 oz and 20 1/4" long. He's also the first grandchild for the family so my parents are probably crying from delight right about now. They've waited thirteen years for this kid to appear on the scene, not that they were pushy or anything. I told my sister she had to be the first to give birth. It's her duty as the eldest. Now that she's done it, I guess this means I'm next....eek!

A ring of hell

This report reminded me of those plastic surgery horror stories you'd hear in the 80's. I want to say this happened to Kenny Rogers, but I can't be sure. The doctore would suck the fat from thighs and buttocks but then the remaining lumps of lard would redistribute to a place more unsightly for fat deposits than the original position like the back.

We thought we excised the Taliban from Afghanistan only to witness the horror of it reappearing in Somalia. I didn't think Mogadishu could get any worse, but I'm obviously wrong. Although, some semblance of structure might be a relief to the inhabitants after decades of anarchy. How long will that relief last when you can get stoned for painted toenails?

I must admit to a morbid curiousity about Mogadishu. How much chaos, violence, and evil can a people withstand? In their case it appears limitless. After all these years Mogadishu still exists as an entity unto itself run first by warlords who didn't answer to the larger government and now the Taliban who will not defer to the Somalian government either. Who do you think has the greater resolve to win all of Somalia?

Death is not the End

My day was filled with thoughts of death. I had no intention to think about death all day. It started with Moxy (not her real name) a woman I work with telling me about her grandma. She was 87 years old and only ate hot cereal for breakfast. One morning she woke up and told her husband to prepare her bacon and eggs. She sat down across from her son and started to dig in. After taking a few bites her head fell back and her eyes rolled up. Died on the spot. That is the perfect way to die. In action doing something enjoyable with people you love all around living life to the very end. Granted it was a bit shocking to the son and husband, but I’m sure they’d much prefer that than watching her waste away in a hospital month after month day after day.

Moxy then brought up her desire to kayak around the Channel Islands, but she’d heard the water is shark infested so she’s a bit fearful. Her friend kayaked down the California coast. About the time he got to the cliffs of Big Sur he noticed a shark the size of his kayak following him. The shark tracked him for over a mile determining if this strange object was worth the effort of attack. Creepy! That got us started on the topic of violent death. Ways we'd choose to die IF it had to be violent. Any kind of death connected to water is abhorrent to me. It took living in Hawaii for six months to make me amenable to swimming in the ocean as I always had a fear of odd creatures eating my toes. My imagination kicks into overdrive especially in a lake since I can’t see the bottom and I know some snakes like lakes. About the only type of water death that doesn’t terrify me is drowning in a pool. A pool is so suburban and banal I can’t work up any fear about it.

From this conversation it seemed perfectly natural to check out the LA Coroner’s website. I’d heard that you could take a tour. I didn’t find any tour info, but I did find the section with photos of unidentified dead bodies. My morbid curiosity led me to look at all of them despite the depressing nature of their stories. Many of them were suicides mostly jumpers. Many were homeless folks with no real identification only street names used as façades for their lives between the cracks. Behind the façade is a mystery that the Coroner’s office is hoping will be solved by people like me randomly looking through photos. One of the mysteries was an Asian guy between 22 and 32. He had kidnapped one or two people and held them for ransom. One of the victims pulled free turned on the kidnapper and shot him with his (the Kidnapper) own gun. Now he’s in the morgue unidentified. So many sordid stories encapsulated in those photos.

After that “tour” I was thoroughly depressed. Depressed at the “lives of quiet desperation” they must have lived. Depressed that they had no hope, no love, and no joy to sustain them through trials and troubles. Depressed at the violence that shaped and ended their lives. Depressed because many people think death is the end. They despair of this life and hope for relief in the next or they hope for non-existence the cessation of all thought and experience. Unfortunately for them, death is not the end. It’s merely the beginning of life with God or life without God based on our choices before death. Do we believe in the promise of life given to us through Jesus Christ or not? This life is preparation for the life to come.

I leave you with the lyrics to “Death is not the End” by Nick Cave:

When you’re sad and when you’re lonely And you haven’t got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all that you held sacred Falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end
When you’re standing on the crossroads That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all your dreams have vanished And you don’t know what’s up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end
When the storm clouds gather round you And heavy rains descend
Just remember that death is not the end
And there’s no-one there to comfort you With a helping hand to lend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end
For the tree of life is growing Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation Up in dark and empty skies
When the cities are on fire With the burning flesh of men
Just remember that death is not the end
When you search in vain to find Some law-abiding citizen
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end

He said what now?

Which ex-president said the following:

"Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority." He continues. "In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own."

My first guess would've been Jimmy Carter since he says asinine things like that all the time. But I'd be wrong. I can't believe ANY president of ANY democratic country would say something so stupid.

What exactly are the ideas that he subscribes to? Perhaps he's been a closest homosexual hater all these years and he's cool with that "progressive idea" of killing them. Or perhaps he subscribes to that "progressive idea" that young girls who happen in self defense to kill their rapists should be stoned to death. Or perhaps he meant the "progressive idea" of pushing Isreal into the ocean. He made no qualification or distinction between the Iranian government and those who are trying to overthrow the tyranny of the mullahs. If he had openly sided with the later group I would give him props for doing the right thing. Giving them support in an international setting like Davos could go far in helping their cause. But no, that's not what he did.

He's talking about IRAN (egads man not IRAN!) of all countries, which should make us seriously question his grip on reality. Perhaps he's already slipped into the fuzzy thought of senility and he's got his countries confused. At a minimum it's sloppy thinking /speaking for someone supposedly so "intelligent".

You'll find the answer in this excellent though scary article by Mark Steyn.

Our Only Hope

"Man," writes Loren Eisley, "is the Cosmic Orphan." He is the only creature in the universe who asks, Why? Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions. "Who am I?" he asks. "Why am I here? Where am I going?"

Ever since the Enlightenment, when modern man threw off the shackles of religion, he has tried to answer these questions without reference to God. But the answers that came back were not exhilarating, but dark and terrible. "You are an accidental by-product of nature, the result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death. Your life is but a spark in the infinite darkness, a spark that appears, flickers, and dies forever."

Modern man thought that in divesting himself of God, he had freed himself from all that stifled and repressed him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself.

Against this background of the modern predicament, the traditional Christian hope of the resurrection takes on an even greater brightness and significance. It tells man that he is no orphan after all, but the personal image of the Creator God of the universe; nor is his life doomed in death, for through the eschatological resurrection he may live in the presence of God forever.

This is a wonderful hope. But, of course, hope that is not founded in fact is not hope, but mere illusion.

Read the rest of William Lane Craig's article on the hope we can have because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Hypocrisy?

So, ILLEGAL Mexicans want all the priveleges of U.S. Citizenship, yet their own government will not extend those same courtesies to LEGAL immigrants in Mexico (can there be that many? I'm asking this seriously not sarcastically...). Instead the Mexican constitution confirms that immigrants will be treated as second-class citizens within their adopted home. Where are all the protests over that?

Here's a taste of Mexican hospitality:
• Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.
• Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
• Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.
• Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.
• Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants)and hand them to the authorities.
• Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

(HT: David Frum's Diary)

Cutting away the pain...

A woman I worked with did this to herself for about a year or two. Talk about creepy! She'd arrive covered in criss-cross cuts all along her forearms on both arms. When we tried talking to her about she'd deny anything was really wrong, but the cuttings mixed with the hysterical crying fits told us otherwise (yes, that's an understatement). She's still at my company, and she still crys every now and again, but the self-mutilation did stop.

I believe she stopped when she started volunteering for a small theater company and they eventually made her their stage manager. She required an activity that gave her purpose and pleasure and a peer group that needed her. Once she felt she was part of something bigger than herself she got better. Ain't that the truth for all of us though? We all need a purpose greater than ourselves to give our lives meaning.

WOW!

I am 1,006,292,425 seconds old! Can you figure out how many years that is?

Down with Tyranny!

I love stories like this. I have to laugh because compared to the signs people create about Bush, this was child's play. Yet it caused a furor that required forced demostrations in the streets in support of their "fearless" but apparently thin skinned leader.

Signs of Life

I took these during a short walk through my 'hood. One of those brilliant SoCal days after the rains where everything looks extra sharp and clear. The sun blazed but the crisp breeze kept me cool. A gorgeous, gorgeous day that underlines why I love California.

What ho!

What great taste the Indians have in their choice of British literature. Too bad the British penchant for taking the piss didn't rub off on them though. Life would be so dreary if you couldn't laugh at yourself.

The best Wooster is still Hugh Laurie who can now be seen as a cynical, sarcastic politically incorrect American on House, MD.

Run Dog Run!

I knew my dad should have patented his design. It was so perfect for small dogs with limited space to run. When our Westie was a pup my dad built a hamster-like wheel for him. Bogart (our beloved dog) LOVED that wheel. He'd get frustrated and jump on the wheel running furiously for ten minutes or so until he exercised away his frustration. Doing that several times a day gave him great exercise. I'll post a picture if I can find it of that wheel.

Yet the idea of exercising your fat Chow Chow on a treadmill in public seems so frivolous in my conception of Chinese life. I still think of that country in terms of Mao's cultural revolution. They propably would've eaten the dog not exercised it during Mao's reign since so many were starving from his cruelty.

The Hypocrisy of Hate-Crime Reporting

How many rural southern churches have to burn before any of the major news outlets report it as something serious and as a cause for concern? Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe gets to the nub of the problem (in my opinion) here.

SUPPOSE THAT in 2005 unknown hoodlums had firebombed 10 gay bookstores and bars in San Francisco, reducing several of them to smoking rubble. It takes no
effort to imagine the alarm that would have spread through the Bay Area's gay
community or the manhunt that would have been launched to find the attackers.
The blasts would have been described everywhere as ''hate crimes," editorial
pages would have thundered with condemnation, and public officials would have
vowed to crack down on crimes against gays with unprecedented severity.

Suppose that vandals last month had attacked 10 Detroit-area mosques and
halal restaurants, leaving behind shattered windows, wrecked furniture, and
walls defaced with graffiti. The violence would be national front-page news. On
blogs and talk radio, the horrifying outbreak of anti-Muslim bigotry would be
Topic No. 1. Bills would be introduced in Congress to increase the penalties for
violent ''hate crimes" -- no one would hesitate to call them by that term -- and
millions of Americans would rally in solidarity with Detroit's Islamic
community.

Fortunately, those sickening scenarios are only hypothetical. Here is one
that is not:

Ten arson attacks against 10 churches -- all of them Baptist, all in small
Alabama towns, all in the space of eight days: If anything is a hate crime,
obviously this is.

Or is it? ''We're looking to make sure this is not a hate crime and that we
do everything that we need to do," FBI Special Agent Charles Regantold reporters in Birmingham.
Make sure this is not a hate crime? If 10 Brooklyn synagogues went up in flames
in a little over a week, wouldn't investigators start from the assumption that
the arson was motivated by hatred of Jews? If 10 Cuban-American shops and
restaurants in Miami were deliberately burned to the ground, wouldn't the
obvious presumption be that anti-Cuban animus was involved?

Apparently Baptist churches are different.

Jacoby ends with this:

But real progress will come only when we abandon the whole misguided notion of ''hate crimes," which deems certain crimes more deserving of outrage and punishment not because of what the criminal did, but because of the group to which the victim belonged. The burning of a church is a hateful act regardless of the congregants' skin color. That some people bend over backward not to say so is a disgrace. (emphasis mine)

Amen!

Quote

“Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.”
--Aldous Huxley

Compare and Contrast

The brouhaha over the publishing of cartoons "offensive" to Muslim sensibilities is a joke. I can't take seriously those Muslims who claim they're shocked, shocked by the portrayals of Mohammed in the Danish newspaper, but then have no problem with cartoons like these published regularly in Middle East newspapers. If these outraged Muslims want respect for their religion, perhaps they should encourage their own Muslim governments to respect the religious sensibilities of other religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. The Taliban destroyed ancient Buddhist statues in Bamiyan. I don't remember any Buddhists burning down Afghan embassies or responding in violence as a result. Christians and other minority religious folk are regularly persecuted in Muslim countries. Call me unimpressed with the current outrage for poorly drawn cartoons of Mohammed. Above are several of the cartoons that supposedly started the outrage. However, I read recently that these cartoons were published in an EGYPTIAN newspaper months ago without any violent reaction on the part of their readers. So my question is, why the violence now?