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Oh, good lord!  How is an ordinary, sensible guy like me supposed to be religious when people like Pat Robertson tells us what true religion is?   "Can demonic spirits attach themselves to inanimate objects?", Pat was asked. Oh, yes, he answered.  They can.  Not always, but sometimes.  So if you think that sweater you picked up at Goodwill has a demonic spirit attached to it, pray the little bugger away!  It never hurts to play safe! "And," Goodwill advised, "please wash the clothes before you give them to Goodwill." That seems to suggest that there is an alternative way to drive out evil spirits:  a washer and a dryer.   Now we are beginning to talk about a religion I can understand!  "Wash your clothes!  Take a shower, yourself!  Use soap and a towel after a lot of things!  Change socks!  Blow your nose, and be nice to each other!" And for really special occasions, maybe wear a pair of those red shoes! ...

pinkpanthermagazine.blogspot.com Last night we watched a three-hour program reminding us of how hard it has been for women to reach for gender equality. There have been great accomplishments, but still there is far to go.  For instance, while we have more women in Congress than ever before, the numbers, still , are far from fair or reasonable.   Still , we have never elected a woman to be president. Our prejudices have deep roots.  Roman Catholics are about to elect another male pope.  All of the cardinals, bishops, and priests are male.  Women are second-class citizens in the Catholic Church, as they are in many Protestant churches.  It is even worse in most Islamic countries.  Both Christianity and Islam are the offspring of Old Testament Judaism, from where they learned their prejudices.   It is perhaps as a recognition that women have made significant gains that right-wing politicians turn immediately, after their elections, to mak...

Let us think about how this business of picking a new Pope works: the Princes of the Church--that Splendor of Cardinals--or at least those who have not had to stay home and pout because they have been accused of participating in, or abetting, the low-lying fog of sex crimes against small boys, will assemble, pray, discuss, horse-trade, and finally select the finest among them to wear red satin shoes and tell us all what God is thinking about how women ought to behave.   It is very important that the new Pope be very firm in telling women how to behave.  It is the primary business of the Church.  Women must be told how to dress, how to manage their occasional sex lives, what to do and what not to do when they become pregnant, and how to avoid even thinking about any form of birth control other than solitary confinement.  And they must never, ever, think about where the nearest Planned Parenthood office is.   Women simply cannot be trusted to grow up and be...

And that  is why the javelinas have been trying to break into our garden!   I do not know what it is: a Japanese radish, perhaps; a Korean submarine; a whiskered Italian snail?   Those little orange things are ordinary carrots, unthinned, as a proper farmer might have done for them, giving them an unfair advantage.  Meanwhile, that white monster, as crowded in as they were, settled down to explore the netherworld.   I really ought to open the garden gate, and let the javelinas in, and take pictures of the struggle that would ensue.  I am sure I could find betters who would place a farthing or two on the Daikon.  

Before I say anything else, I think I ought to explain how I got to this subject.   In a large context--probably not the largest--I once was a clergyman, but no longer, and no longer religious.  Farther down the train of events, the Pope has just resigned.  I have been curious about the Pope ever since I attended his lectures in Tubingen, Germany, in the 1960s.  And then, still on Huffington Post, I saw an article in which Christiane Amanpour interviewed an "openly-gay" former Dominican friar.  And farther down the page, I spied a list of things forbidden by the Bible.   Ham is forbidden, of course, and tattoos.  I had not remembered that a man who is "wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off" shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.   (Why should I remember that?)   But this is brutal:  If two men are fighting--apparently with their pants open, or off--"and the wife of one draweth near for to deliver he...

It is painful to have to admit it, finally, but a tiger should not be kept in a cage.  He deserves to be let loose in the neighborhood, possibly to get into someone else's kitchen and bathrooms, and solve their latches.   Poor kid!  Locked up here.  Allowed out only on a leash (so to speak).   I spent all afternoon, today, installing those little plastic latches that stop a cabinet door from opening only an inch or so, until you press down on the catch, allowing the door to open all the way. I am willing to bet that before another grandson visit has passed, Jao will have mastered the art of opening the doors himself, and that I will have forgotten how to do it.   I could not have believed that, at 81, I would be installing so-called "child-proof locks" on my own cabinet doors.  Tiled floors are unforgiving, and ancient joints and bone-bends have long-since  lost their padding.  I cannot count how many times I dropped little half-in...

From the N. Y. Times That is a radiance of Cardinals.   The collective name for a bird cardinal is a radiance of cardinals.   In the Church, they are also known as a college of cardinals, or a conclave. Red birds.   James Lipton published a book titled, An Exaltation of Larks , in which he reveals that an aspiring gentleman in the fifteenth century had to try to learn about five hundred such whimsical names for groups of critters.  (I could not find my copy, so I turned to Wikipedia for a few samples: a congregation of alligators a bench of bishops a rabble (or a flight) of butterflies a wake of buzzards a clutter (or a glaring, or a pounce) of cats a destruction of wild cats a clutch of chickens a murder of crows a waddling of ducks a convocation of eagles a busyness, or business, of ferrets a skulk of foxes a wedge of geese a tower of giraffes a rabble of gnats a charm of goldfinches a rasp of guineafowl a sieg...

Jao is not yet a year old,  but he knows that there are two places: inside and outside. Jao is a semi-mobile experimental scientist, not yet quite really a counterpart to Albert Einstein or Steven Hawking, on the theoretical side of things, but obviously on his way. He has discovered, entirely on his own, and while still a creepy-crawly critter, that cupboard doors and drawers are gateways to alternate realities and pleasures that C. S. Lewis never dreamed of in his closet. Like a small man on a large mission, the has tracked and mapped the hiding places and food preferences of our old Annie Cat.  He cannot say, "Kitty: or "cat",  but if you know enough German to do an imitation of the "ch" in Johan Sebastian Bach, or maybe the "gh" in Vincent van Gogh (should you prefer the Dutch visual arts), and if you gutturally string a series of "ch"s, and "gh"s together, then you can say, "Kitty", as ...

A blizzard, consisting of several snowflakes of perceptible dimension, and wind drifting eastward toward Tucumcari and Bermuda, is driving through Tucson at this hour.  Looking toward Pusch Ridge from a vantage point in our kitchen--as the photo shows--one can see that not a single automobile can be seen, and even the plants that were not able to seek shelter before the storm hit are at a complete standstill. Grandparents have been warned not to allow their grandsons out into the streets, unsupervised, lest the Pima County Dirt Grading and Pothole Supervision Crew find their last remaining, horse-drawn grader, and come trotting down the street, unable to control their unfamiliar equipment. Two crews from the ski run up at the top of Mount Lemon, at the top of the Catalina Mountains on the northeast side of the City, have been dispatched to the Valley floor to sweep up as much snow as they can manage, and bring it back to the ski run.  A bulletin has gone out to all fou...

This posting has only one purpose:  it is to bug Mari. Mari has never met a cup she did not like, and today, because she was occupied with a book group, and because I was on my way back from an Old Timer's ball game, I stopped at one of our old favorite places in downtown Tucson to see what was new.   It has changed a little.  Tucson does not like change to come too fast, and it has not, but the Old Town Artisans is better than ever.

Republicans are learning! They are moving on! All that fascination they have shown with respect to women's vaginas-- regulating abortions, probing private parts, denying funding to Women's Clinics  for fear they will educate people about birth control, or permit abortions even when the mother's life is at stake--cost the Party dearly at the ballot box. So Republicans are putting all of that behind them, and are getting serious about the business of government. In North Carolina, Republican legislators  are taking up the matter of nip slips;  you know, accidentally or deliberately  allowing a breast nipple to public view. They are coming down hard on women's nipples! After all, western civilization is at stake. Be honest:  what would you do if ever you caught sight of a woman's nipple? I thought so!  Turn you into a mad dog! Make you go home and ask your wife if she has some. Cause you to ask what they are for!   Mess up yo...

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press They didn't deserve to be rescued.   In the first place, it was not necessary to spell out "h E L p" on the deck of the cruise ship:  everyone knew they were up to the knees in s**t.  We all knew they were peeing into the shower stalls--even before the plumbing stopped working--and that they had been given plastic bags for the sturdier effluent.  (I am sorry to say that:  it was in all the newspapers.) But then, when they tried to spell "h E L p", they got it all wrong:  the "h" is upside-down, and backwards.  They actually spelled something like "4 E L p".   "fELp"?  "fourelp"?   They are back in port, now.  I hope they made the alphabetical geniuses wait until last to get off.   (I know that is probably a botched-up capital H over there on the right, but it looks like a small h upside-down and backwards.  What are we rescuers supposed to do?  Be typesetters?)

Good Ol' Pat!  Pat Robertson:  preacher, TV evangelist, would-be President, fugitive from some other reality.   You remember Pat!  Of course you do!  Pat is the guy who said that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by a pact between the Island and the devil.  When tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, Pat said it was because people had not prayed enough.   (Well, let us stop right here and agree that President Obama is on the wrong track when it comes to climate change.  As Marco Rubio says, government cannot change the weather.   Prayer  changes the weather!  It always has.  It makes it overcast.) But back to Pat!  Now Pat says that Islam is not a religion.  It is, he says, ". . . more of--well, it's an economic and political system with a religious veneer." And Popes do not s**t in the woods, and bears are not Catholic.  (I am pretty sure about the "bears" part.)   But to say that Islam is not...

I wonder what Chuck Hagel is thinking about his own party, right now.  A life-long Republican, he is President Obama's choice to become the Secretary of Defense, and now his own colleagues in the Senate are trashing him and his reputation.   It is not easy to bad-mouth Chuck Hagel.  He is bright, competent, thoughtful, and has a stellar career.  Until he was nominated, only the far-right fringe of the Republican Party--the fringe with the Tea Bags dangling on their three-cornered caps--thought ill of him.  Now even people like his good friend, Senator John McCain, have been trying to throw him under the bus.   Even John McCain!  The same McCain who chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate.  That John McCain!  The wise fool who thought a dipstick from Alaska was qualified to become President, should anything happen to Old John Himself.   Even Fox Gnus got rid of Sarah Palin. It is not an illustrious time to be a Republican.  T...

Lurve.  Nicodemus.  Pippin.  Felix.   Dogs.  My dogs.  Our dogs.  Not one of them was a purebred, certified, made-to-order dog.  They were dogs.  Descendents of wolves, about as much like wolves as most of us are descendents of Adam and Eve and the Image of God.  Mongrels.  Mutts.  Not even shelter dogs.  Just dogs.   We have been watching the Westminster Dog Show, again.  You know the one!  The guy with the marvelously resonant voice calling categories of mail-order dogs, sorted by inbreeding and imaginary utility.   "The Quirky-Queer Dog," the Voice says, "originated in monasteries in Greece, where all the dogs were male, and where they protected the monks from females and Police Inquiry.  Today they are fun-loving brutes who will empty the refrigerator if you let them.  All they ask for is f ood, a good bed, and a house without children or cats." Some of the dogs--if that is what...

"Do we have halftime treats?"

A Lutheran pastor at a parish in Newtown, CT, was asked by his Missouri Synod bishop (or whatever the Missouri Synod calls them) to apologize for taking part in a community prayer service for the families of the kids who were slaughtered there.  One of those kids was a member of Christ the King Lutheran Church.   The pastor apologized.  Maybe he has a family to support.  Maybe he is spineless.  Maybe his courage is on a leash.  I do not know.  I do not understand.  I do know something about the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.  They have the courage of their arrogant convictions.      In Papua, New Guinea, the good citizens burned a young woman to death for being a witch.  They had beaten her mercilessly, until finally she admitted that she had caused a young boy to become sick, demonstrating that if you beat a witch long enough, she will admit that she is one, and should be stripped naked and burned on a trash pile...

The first gun I ever owned was a lever-action, Marlin 30-30.  It was just about everything a high school kid needed.  I did not know, at the time, but some of the other kids were having a lot more fun.  I had bargained for weeks with a scurrilous neighbor, and finally brought the gun home.   It was mostly let's-pretend.  Let's pretend I'm a skilled hunter.  Let's pretend I'm a cowboy.  Let's pretend I'm herding cows, riding the Purple Sage, and protecting the dogies from coyotes.   I was born too soon.  I should have waited until about now.  Up in Idaho, a bunch of patriots are going to build a Citadel out in the woods to protect themselves from people like you and me.  They are charging the first 9,000 people $208. each to get on the list.  They are going to set up a firearms factory, and manufacture automatic pistols and AK-15 rifles, which the government may outlaw by the time they get organized. Getting organized m...

Was there ever a more perfect gathering of incompetence and maliciousness  than the Post Office and the people who want to kill the Post Office? If standing in line at a post office is not the most exquisite of dismal tortures, then what is?  Listening to Congress talk about it? It is reasonable that people who work in places like the Post Office have regular breaks.   But at the Post Office, the breaks come between taking your money and giving you change. That is not true, of course:  the breaks come as you near the head of the slow-shuffle line.   People who have skill at dealing with the public are not permitted to work at the Post Office. I am speaking now of the people at the counter: who knows what goes on behind the Maginot Line? But I will wager that every one of us could  put together a maddening list of P. O. employees who have found imaginative ways to make the line move slower; who were thrown out of pre-school, grade sch...

My favorite wok is round-bottomed and made from carbon steel.  However, we have moved from a home with a gas range to one with an electric stove.  So my trustworthy old friend, first met in a Chinatown store in San Francisco, is--like me--being pensioned off.  I have taken my principles in hand, and have begun thinking about a flat-bottomed wok.   Since I am not without loyalty, and since it seemed to coincide with the best chance for finding another carbon steel wok, I went to a large Chinese market.  I found no woks on the shelves, so I went to the registers, where three employees were chatting. "Can you suggest a good place to buy a steel wok?", I asked. "Wok?  What's a wok?" their spokesperson replied.   "To cook in!", I said.  "You know, stir fry!" Blank stare.   I pantomimed the shape of a wok, and its size, putting in imaginary oil, and vegetables, and some shreds of thigh meat from a chicken.  I stirred the air o...

"Would you mind," she asked, "if I put on some clothes?" It was not what it sounds like. "She" was Mari, and she already had clothes on, although not the kind one normally wears to the grocery.  She had gotten up early, to greet her grandson, who is here for the day.  Jao is not quite a year old, but he is as agile as climbing puppy dog. "Would you mind," she actually meant, "keeping an eye on Jao while I put my best grocery duds on?"  And that is not what she really meant, either.  She meant that she was going out of the room for a minute, and would I mind protecting the house and TV while she was gone.   "M . . a . . r . . i!", I soon called:   "M . . . a . . . r . . . i!" "What is it?"  "Put your clothes on!", I said.  "He is beating me into submission." Jao like to drum on things.  He drums until you put him down, and then he scoots like a skateboarder without wh...

Born in Tacoma at the tail end of the Great Depression, "when", as a Norwegian poet said, "milk was thin and unemployment thick", schoolbook stories about the Civil War and slavery and segregation were almost foreign. There were no Black kids in school.   Racism was real, as I came to recognize later, but it was talk, not tangible.   Later, when I moved to California, racism came to mean more than the religious bigotry we practiced,  and I became one of those white idealists committed to what I did not understand. Moving to southside Chicago  was a way to trade ideals for experience.   Still, White Civil War attitudes  were something strange.   The Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, and Segregation, have since become ordinary fare. In our own time, the underlying attitudes  of racist White America have married symbols from the American Revolution,  and declared themselves to be a Tea Party. Their language is the la...