Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. ~ Albert Einstein Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein If a cluttered desk is that of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk? ~ Albert Einstein Albert Einstein was one of my first heroes in life. His biography was one of the first “really long” books I read in my early life. I always felt an almost kindred relationship with him.  I think maybe I am an “ignorant” version of him. … Continue reading Stupidity, Insanity & Cluttered Desks……

I just read a news article about the grilling that Hillary Clinton got at congressional hearings lately. One of the questioner couldn’t understand why she did not respond to cable citing some staff level concern. In answer she stated that the State Department gets about 1.5 million cables a year and they are all addressed to her. I hope that answered the person’s question but I seriously doubt that it did. The article got me to thinking about the time we have to do things. There are about 0.5 million minutes in a year. If Hillary spent the entire year … Continue reading Just A Minute…..

  I thought I would use this Photo Saturday to show you some of the custom cabinets I made when I was in the business.   Continue reading Cabinet Shop Examples…

Source:  Whitney Houston’s mom ‘angry’ the star died alone – TODAY Entertainment. The Grammy-winning singer was found dead, face down in her bathtub, at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Feb. 11, 2012, the night before the Grammy Awards. The final coroner’s report listed the cause of death as accidental drowning and “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.” The document also indicated that Houston had cocaine, marijuana, Xanax, Benadryl and muscle relaxants in her system when she passed away. I know Whitney Houston’s death is old news but when I started to putting down some thoughts on drug use in … Continue reading Using Drugs….

For those of you who don’t know what Adobe Flash is it is an add-on to your web browser that allows you to view all the videos around now. But, it also is used to make many of those flashy things that distract you from reading content. Those just bug me to no end! Maybe being deaf I am more sensitive to that flashing than most people are?  To remove this pain I have purposely chosen to do without Flash.  I can tell you my web viewing life is simpler now. I used to have a large post-pad handy to cover up all those flashing ads; that did a pretty good job but it was cumbersome. Continue reading “I Don’t Have Adobe Flash….”

  Source: Republican Re-Branding: The ‘Happy Party’? – ABC News. “We want to build a massive party that’s exciting, that smiles, has a good message across America, and that’s what you’re going to see,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters at a news conference on Friday shortly after he was re-elected to another two year term. Sharon Day, a GOP activist from Florida who serves as co-chair of the RNC, put the party’s new approach even more bluntly: “I will talk to a head of lettuce if I can get them to vote Republican.” I am glad to see … Continue reading It Is Not Just “All Talk”….

Source: Thomas Edison hologram chats at Detroit Auto Show – CBS News. Past met present at the auto show Monday when a holographic image of Thomas Edison was used to promote vehicles from electric truck and van maker VIA Motors. Bob Lutz, the retired General Motors executive who led development of the Chevy Volt, took to the stage at the North American International Auto Show to listen as a hologram of a person portraying the inventor gave advice about the potential for electric vehicles. “Thank you very much, Mr. Edison, and I assure you we will not let you down,” Lutz … Continue reading Thomas Edison hologram chats at Detroit Auto Show…

Source: Behind Inaugural Speeches, Meaningful Words | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine. Wordle is an application that takes text from any source and enlarges words that appear more frequently. Conversely, words that are smaller appear less frequently. Small words, like the or of, are not included in the Wordles above. (www.wordle.net) Wordle is a new word for me. I suspect it will be commonly used in the not too distant future.  When I came across this article in the Smithsonian Magazine – electronic edition it got my immediate attention. The article basically covers nineteen inaugural address ranging from Washington to … Continue reading Wordle….. Behind The Speeches….

When we moved into our 1925 farmhouse almost 13 years ago there was not much of its original charm left. The previous owner had pretty much stripped it out and did a pretty poor job of even that. Fortunately the porches around two sides of the house were still intact. It looked like there had been about three additions added since the house was originally built. The biggest addition, and probably the last one before our ownership, was obviously built by what is known in the trade as a hack. There were numerous areas around the perimeter that had no … Continue reading A Sign Of The Times….

Yesterday, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation (S. 150) that offers a big step toward reducing gun violence in this country. Senator Feinstein’s bill, which already has 17 cosponsors, would renew and expand the ban on military style assault weapons. Despite the mass slayings of children in schools, moviegoers in theaters and students on college campuses, and the daily gun violence that plagues communities across our country, some lawmakers from both major political parties are expressing opposition. Please urge your senators today to cosponsor this legislation and work for final passage quickly. If your senators have already cosponsored the bill, then please … Continue reading Assault Weapons…

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. ~ Ben Franklin I have read several books about Ben Franklin. He is certainly a fascinating character  but he is generally not one of my favorite founding fathers. He led a pretty pretentious life and was probably one of the original “dirty old men” ;)  But his words above do inspire me. More importantly they help me keep my mouth shut on occasion. On this blog, and in life in general, I seek … Continue reading Leaving Some Things Unsaid….

via Gun control: Why the US military is fighting with the NRA – CSMonitor.com. US military commanders are trying to cope with an epidemic of suicides within the armed forces.  Officials say they are frustrated by a recent law, backed by the NRA, that makes it difficult to talk to soldiers about personally owned firearms. The NRA typically comes out in the full attack mode anytime they come across someone who disagrees with the total unfettered right of people to have as many and any type of weapon they might desire.  It is quite amazing that the NRA is picking a … Continue reading Why the US military is fighting with the NRA…

I got another of those wrenching emails from my friend Jim Wallis over at Sojourners. He sends out a weekly email entitled “Hearts & Minds”.  Here is part of the content: In the past 20 years, the world has witnessed the death of social contracts. We have seen a massive breakdown in trust between citizens, their economies, and their governments. In our own country, we can point to years of data painting a bleak picture of the confidence Americans have in any of our traditional institutions. Former assumptions and shared notions about fairness, agreements, reciprocity, mutual benefits, social values, and expected futures … Continue reading A Call for a New Social Covenant

I just got finished reading a blog post with the above title. The conclusion that the author came to was therefore to do only those things that make you happy. While this very narcissistic world view is pretty prominent today it all comes down to “what makes you happy?” That question alone could fill a library. Happiness is a very transcendent term. I have lived on this earth longer than many and I have come to the conclusion that when you focus your life totally on yourself you will never reach any significant level of true  happiness.

Everyone, especially those of us who are beyond mid-life are very aware that death could be just around the corner. Maybe that is the only thing we “have” to do but there are a lot of things in our lives before that inevitable condition.  When I originally saw the post I immediately pre-supposed that the author would continue the sentence with “Everything else is a choice”. The author of this post it turns out is a young girl currently attending college so I guess I should excuse her for taking what I consider a pretty shallow approach to this deeply philosophical statement. I’m pretty sure that as she accumulates knowledge she will see quite different answers to this question. Continue reading “The Only Thing We Have To Do In Life Is Die…..”

 

Source: Grover Norquist: The tax pledge is forever | Power Players – Yahoo! News.

This week, Spinners and Winners went to Americans for Tax Reform to talk to the man behind the pledge. ‘The Taxpayer Protection Pledge’ has been signed by virtually every Republican office holder over the last 20 years, binding congressman, senators, and governors to promise no tax increases of any kind, ever.

There’s talk that pledge is now dead, but as you can see, Grover Norquist is not backing down.Those who have disavowed the pledge — such Senators Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz. — will hear from their constituents, Norquist says.

“I think that people should keep their commitment to voters. I think they need to if they get elected with an open promise, they should keep that promise to voters,” says the founder of Americans for Tax Reform.

We all know that Washington D.C. is about power. It consumes almost anyone who goes there. I’m absolutely sure that is also the reason behind Grover Norquist’s words above. He sees himself losing power after so many years and is doing anything possible to hang on to it.  He seems kind of like McCarthy in the 1950s who gained power by accusing many there of being a communist. He dominated the Senate for several years until one person took him down with one utterance. “Have you no shame!”. Continue reading “The Never Say Never Pledge???”

Source: Obama’s Speech Is Urgent Call for Progressive Values – NYTimes.com. Mr. Obama came to office four years ago all but consumed by what he inherited: two wars and an economy in free fall. He then confronted an exhausting series of crises and political problems at home and abroad: budget showdowns, a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Middle East turmoil, the rise of the Tea Party movement. Through it all, he chose to wage additional battles of choice, most notably his successful push to overhaul the health insurance system. But not until this point, with the economy gradually … Continue reading Looking Back…. And Forward….

All followers of Jesus should be regular readers of Scripture. This is the primary place where we get our lessons from Jesus Christ. Learning how to read scripture is at the heart of learning what Jesus intended for us to do.  The topic of literalism came up very early in church history. Origen, who was one of the first church theologians, warned us not to take much of what is in scripture as  literal. That seems to be a lesson lost on so many in the fundamentalist’s organizations even today.  They insist that everything in the Bible is literal and … Continue reading Reading Scripture….

I want to warn you up front here that I am putting on my “green” hat now. I don’t mention the fact that I am green often on this blog but it is yet another thing that I have at least a degree of passion for. I try to do my part in energy conservation. One part of that is to daily follow my wife around the house and turn off the lights she constantly leaves on. :)  But another more serious part is preaching to anyone who will listen about our dependence on fossil fuels and how it is hurting the earth. Continue reading “The Sun…..”

“If exporting [LNG] means accelerated development, then we will more rapidly deplete natural gas resources that could help sustain future generations of Americans, leading to higher prices as resources diminish,” he wrote. source: Should US export natural gas? Study for DOE fuels fiery debate. – CSMonitor.com. This was a rather lengthy article (3 pages) and it was not until the last paragraph (shown above) did the question “what is good for the nation?” actually come up. Throughout the article it was widely acknowledged that if we allow natural gas to be exported it will result in significantly higher natural gas and … Continue reading Our Natural Gas – What is Good for the Nation???

  The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself  in the service of others. Mahatma Gandhi It is obvious to most of you that I think Gandhi was a very inspirational person. The above quote is certainly an example of that. Of course the bible has many quotes with the same message. The ultimate example of this is when in Matthew 20 Jesus himself said he came to serve, not to be served. I looked up the phrase “to serve” in my bible app and it returned 150 occurrences. That tells me that to be a Christian means … Continue reading In Service Of Others……

I know you expect this post to be about how the church is very much against the idea of evolution. But really it is going to be quite the opposite. Yes, many denominations within the church, like so many other areas of science, deny evolution of the species as originated by Darwin. The Scopes Monkey trial was evidence of that. William Jennings Bryan put up quite an argument about that and the church has for the most part has stiffly followed it up since then. But, this post is actually about how the church has practiced evolution over its two … Continue reading The Church and Evolution….

July 2009 – Bent’s Old Fort      One of my favorite places to be… Continue reading Bent’s Old Fort…

  Source: Lance Armstrong confesses to Oprah Winfrey about his doping – The Washington Post. The network’s Scott Pelley also reported that Armstrong is in talks with U.S. Justice Department officials, who are weighing whether to join a whistleblower suit against him, about returning a portion of the roughly $35 million that the U.S. Postal Service paid his cycling team in sponsorship dollars. I don’t follow sports much anymore but it is hard to not see that Lance Armstrong won a bunch of bicycle races that made him a multimillionaire and that he apparently won them because of drug use. It … Continue reading Your Actions Have Consequences….

  There is one rule that works in every calamity, be it pestilence, war, or famine: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it  — October 31, 1929  Will Rogers The quote from Will above just shows us that this saying that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” has been around for quite a while. It has been a fact of life for longer than we can imagine. But the last sentence is pure Will. I just can’t wrap my mind around how so many of us poor folks around … Continue reading The Poor Get Poorer….

Source:  Just the facts: Gun violence in America – U.S. News. The big picture: Every year in the U.S., an average of more than 100,000 people are shot, according to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention, the Brady Campaign reports. Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 335,609 people died from guns — more than the population of St. Louis, Mo. (318,069), Pittsburgh (307,484), Cincinnati, Ohio (296,223), Newark, … Continue reading Sobering Statistics — Gun violence in America

Source: Fiscal cliff deal includes at least $67.9 billion for special interests – U.S. News. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was less diplomatic. “It’s so incredibly disappointing that members of Congress saw fit to add hundreds of millions of dollars in special-interest handouts to the recently passed ‘fiscal cliff’ bill, which had the simple purpose of avoiding massive tax rate increases on average Americans,” McCain said Thursday. “It’s hard to think of anything that could feed the cynicism of the American people more than larding up must-pass emergency legislation with giveaways to special interests and campaign contributors,” he said. “And this growing … Continue reading About That Pork…..

Source: President Obama, Hamid Karzai: US Combat Operations in Afghanistan to End in Spring – ABC News. Roughly 66,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan. The military has proposed keeping several thousand troops in the country after 2014 as advisers, trainers and logistical support for Afghan forces; the White House has said it remains open to pulling out all troops entirely. Leaving no troops behind when we finally exit Afghanistan?  That would be a first for us.  We currently have troops stationed in about seventy-five percent of the world’s countries.  It wouldn’t be so bad to just leave some temporarily behind … Continue reading Leaving No Troops???

I am sometimes accused of criticizing too much on this blog. Some seem to think that if we were all just more positive as a society good things would then happen. Being a history buff I know that is not the case. Sorry if you disagree but that is my current line in the sand so to speak. Criticizing things is just about the only way to affect change in our society and if we need anything in today’s gridlocked world it is a change. Until enough people are critical of things nothing changes.

Yes, we could like the German citizenry did during World War II, ignore the problems around us and say every thing is fine and dandy. We could ignore all the unemployed and underemployed workers the same way they ignored all the millions of people who disappeared from their streets.  We could ignore the horrendously increasing cost of medical care in this country and how so many were locked out of the old system the same way they ignored the stench coming from some of their smokestacks. Let’s face it ignoring problems don’t make them disappear; if only that were a solution wouldn’t life be easy.

I do try to celebrate many things in today’s world. Not everything needs criticism. Continue reading “Criticizing Too Much……”

Ok, I have been working day and night to try to find the right persona for John Boehner and I finally have it. After outing Mr. Cantor as the Lone Ranger I am here to do the same for Mr. Boehner. His persona is Rodney Dangerfield. I’m sure anyone over fifty knows that Rodney Dangerfield was a comedian who’s most famous line was  “I don’t get no respect” Although I like to go by the name RJ my first name is Rodney so I was always painfully familiar with Mr. Dangerfield. My family and people I knew during my childhood … Continue reading The Persona of John Boehner….