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Not far from a madding crowd

Dick and Lynn Cheney own original Picasso sketches.
They don't hang them in their home because they do not want
their grandchildren to see sketches of nudes.  Isn't that the same
Dick Cheney who seems willing to go to war almost anywhere;
who is giving Obama hell for not sending more troops
to Afghanistan?  Does he plan to invade the Prado Museum,
and the Louvre?  Does he take off his clothes when he showers?

I did not read the article, recently, but I saw the subject,
having to do with people's incredulity that a well-known
Hollywood actress actually walked around nude, at home,
before her young children.  She wasn't nude, was she,
when she gave birth to them? 

Now, I will admit to a certain amount of modesty, myself,
but it is not because I think a naked body is sinful, or liable
to cause excessive amounts of self-stimulation.  It is because
we have a mirror, and I caught sight of myself just a year or two
ago, and it was not a pretty sight.  I think I could live quite
comfortably on what neighbors and cultural associations
would be willing to give me to keep my clothes on. 
When I am chosen to play basketball on the skins side,
I wear a flesh-colored tee-shirt, with long sleeves. 

I recall a music teacher at Luther College who deplored
what students wore to class.  He said the sight of bare feet
made him want to throw up, actually, as in feeling sick.
Music may tame the wild beast in us, but it was then
I realized why I had trouble singing in key.  Feet are feet!

We live in the midst of a strange menagerie of people!
We have coffee with people who talk to God, work with
others who think witches are using Halloween candy
to infest people with demons, pay lots of money to teachers
who find bare feet makes them throw up in their throats,
and we turn our government over to people who think Picasso
sketches will do something awful to their grandchildren.

If I did not believe that the end times were near--
perhaps a mere few billion years from now--I would worry
about the lunatics who deliver the mail, and who drive Fords.
I might better understand why Sarah Palin participated
in an exorcism service!  But with the end that near. . . .

I think you should know that the voices I hear
have a slight Norwegian accent; nothing to worry about!

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