Last night towards the end of Megyn Kelly's exclusive interview with Donald Trump on FOX News Trump said "I like our relationship right now" and Megyn goes "I gave you my cell phone number." Happy texting guys.
I just got a Chase Alert informing me I've been making too many ATM withdrawals. There could be a fee etc. You know this is known as Life (car repairs, food shopping, Christian Bros.). Maybe the Donald can fix this.
Oh, I'd send a Z-Man alert to Chase: -Do not threaten your good customer or he will shred your precious plastic and replace it with a low rate credit union Visa-
What gets me is they act like you're up to something nefarious like you're slowly withdrawing money to put a hit on your boss or you're paying for prostitution. 100,000 mile car, oil leak - Hello!
Just started a new book about how big business has peaked at creating value and is now extracting value. We know that the internet does a lot of 'mining', IMO far more than Homeland Security ever can. One technique was sort of odd: Facebook as data mining algorithm that among other things, records where and how long your cursor hovers over things on their page: the date/time and location. The data is segregated and sold to other companies. Stuff like that is probably why when I search thermodynamics I get addition ads for Lands End and Eddy Bauer.
Trump had a meeting with Henry Kissinger. Henry is 92 now and told the Donald that he needs to go talk to Kim Jong Un and straighten things out. Henry is too old to travel and recommended Dennis Rodman to go along on the Trump plane.
For the last few weeks this place has become a kind of male-only place. Only men have been commenting, it's something I've noticed. So where should we hang the elkhead over the fireplace right?
Those that study the blog life cycle 0bserve that 157,000 new blogs are created each day and typically last 3 months. So in terms of longevity, yours is a rare survivor. The popular catagories seem to be the virulent political ones with loyal followers that enjoy ganging up on any newbie who dares post an opposing view, popular niche blogs...scrapbooking, hunting, photography..just about any field and subfield, religious blogs, and even sort of scholarly blogs like literature and geology. I typically list about 20 that I visit in my favorites and well over half have petered out and been replaced. While the metrics of hits and comments might seem to be a measure of success, longevity seems more related to quality and frequency of blog owner posting stuff. Elkheads: lot of them hanging around here. They are BIG, like buffalo heads, and take a lot of space. You might attract the African poacher crowd if you hung a Mountain Gorilla face over the fireplace, though.
There were times I wanted to retitle this The Misunderstood Blog, some times in the past I had to explain myself. Straight political blogging is the thing though. How many times can you say liberals or conservatives are evil, the dark force? The formula works though.
I see the conservative power brokers met with Zuckerberg yesterday. From now one, in the interest of 'fair & balanced', it will feature Hannity and O'Brien and be called FOXbook rather than Facebook.
Along those lines, the experts assure us that breaking a good encryption by standard means (1 trillion keys/sec) can take up to 500 times the age of the universe. Then, they observe that using quantum computer techniques, the same problem can be solved almost immediately. There's probably a cloud for it someplace....
I'm of the mindset that yes they can probably crack my text message to Mon about what to make for dinner or some other such thing but I'm at least going to make them have to utilize far more resources to do so. Such to the extent that they begin to question whether it is even worth it from their own perspective.
FB's anti-conservative bias doesn't bother me all that much. I got bigger fish to fry like today on my walk I'm pondering if we didn't exist before we were born and we don't exist after we die what is this dot all about? I mean FB's political bias, who really cares?
Let us know if you came up with a conclusion on the meaning of life-it has bugged theologians and philosophers no end. I tend to go along with the advice in the 'Desiderata': "..be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." While we learn of the past and can guess at the future, neither inductive nor deductive reasoning can lead us to that kind of 'why?' concerning our own existence. Curing cancer pales in comparison.
The problem is made worse when we consider we didn't consent to our own existence. Let's say your life sucks (e.g. you're a 5' hunchback who will never get a woman), you didn't consent to ANY of this but your pastor tells you life is a gift.
So I'm recharging my smartphone last night and up comes this ad for Truthfinders.com. You can search yourself, your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, whoever and find out the nasties. So what do we do with all this info, avoid Todd or Diane because they did this or that 20 years ago? Unless somebody's a pedophile or likes to embezzle money from the company I really don't care. The Information Age
My old HS class keeps an updated site. You can find out who married who, who ended up doing what, who is still alive...like the Statler Brothers 'Class of '57, ya know?
The ad that popped up on my phone for truthfinders was more negative like trying to find out the dirt on your neighbors. I have no desire to know Fred three doors down once masturbated in a public restroom 25 years ago ya know?
I'm guessing sapiens inherited polygamy from the wolves, gorilla and elk. Bible-thumpers know Solomon had 700 wives & 300 concubines and fringe Mormon Warren Jeffs had 80. They say Solomon was wise. Jeffs is serving a life term for rape, polygamy, kidnapping and tax evasion. Win some-lose some. It seems problematic that the practice would leave a lot qualified and lusty lads empty handed, no?
Having reached the 1/2 century mark one of the tragedies of life as I see it is some people are blissfully ignorant of the fact that life is too short and time moves too fast. In our minds there's always more time to mend that relationship or family rift so we keep putting off that letter or phone call. You might wake up one morning and go "OMG I'm 78" and you have a porno in your dvd player.
People say I'm young but at 50 I remind them before you know it you'll be 60. When you're 60 before you know it you'll be 70. One thing I never understood about Life (among several things I never understood about life) is God makes this incredible machine (the human body, Hamlet called it a miracle) and it only lasts 70, maybe 80 years. A tortoise lives longer.
The Mrs. is in Manhattan with a bunch of geriatric retired educators. Four of them got themselves lost on the subway system and had to get help from locals. Who were quite friendly and very helpful. Here I thought NYC was a tough hard-bitten place, ya know? Doc said I won't need another colonoscopy until I turn 80, which is only five years. I'm pretty sure the greedy scope guy will have me exhumed every 6 years until Armageddon.
I thought at age 75 this would be your last one. Kind of ties in with my philosophical point: no matter what we do we ain't gonna live that long. You can have one at 80 and then die of natural causes a week later. I hate to sound macabre.
Well, you got Alzheimer's, dialysis, shingles, arthritis, acquaintances dying off, strokes and your DNA telomers keep getting shorter. Then you get a phone message from some young lady in Louisville announcing who have won a trip to Alcapulco if you buy a mattress + all the usual trials of when you were younger. The bright side of pre-senility is you don't have to take crap from anybody ('cept the Mrs.)
I think when you're 50 women find you more attractive. In your late 20's you can be a nuisance, more prone to stray. Maybe past 50 you have that nice mixture of virility and wisdom. I don't think this applies to Trump though.
Apply to Trump? You could test that out by bar cruising with a nice comb-over and explaining your wonderfulness. Ever read those personal dating ads for the older folks? "Young sassy 82 year old Christian woman, likes line dancing and waterskiing. Seeks cowboy 75-90. Must be non-smoker". Honestly, one time I was on a flight from a business meeting in Portland and sat next to a little old lady about 80 in the twin prop job that hit every bit of turbulence. I could seen she was turning white and gripping the handles of her seat. Being a concerned gentleman, I enquired, "Is this your first flight?" she responded, "Oh no, its just that I'm meeting a rancher I met in the personals" -date jitters, they never go away-
I never got the pickiness of those personals. Let's say you're a great guy in every way but you smoke so you get crossed off the list. You promise not to smoke in front of her but you're still off the list. Let's say you're not into waterskiing. You like to stay home and read a book. I guess the personals ain't for you. Maybe these people deserve to be where they are.
They even have abbreviations which I guess you are supposed to know. I thought CNS stood for Cheap Naïve Sucker, but found it was Christian Non-Smoker. The newspaper personals are disappearing in the wave of I-net dating, but there have to be a few fossilized ancients out there, probably writing out the ad in pencil and phoning it in over their land line.
If you puff an e-cigarette are you considered a smoker? Have they invented an e-cigar yet? I never figured out the emphasis these date wannabees put on Christian..."SWF seeks Christian SWM. Felony record acceptable."
You'd figure the older in life you get the less picky you'd get. I mean Time is running out. Again I'm not getting the non-smoking part. Me? I just like to meet a woman in my travels.
They have a singles club in town; advertises in the activities section of the newspaper, between Toastmasters Club, Weightwatchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. They meet once a week in various venues and I suspect a few participants hit all three organizations.
I came up with a kind of self-assessment this morning, a personal to stand other personals on its head. For those ditherers who can't decide: "I'm flawed and imperfect but there's ten men who are worse than me. I think I would be ok. BTW I like to drink and smoke cigars. If a man is too perfect he's probably a serial killer."
The population of singles continues to be trending up . Probably economic and unmarried living together. For eons, parents arranged their children's marriages and some societies still more or less do. Which, we presume has its many pros/cons. Typically, marriage results in a life long soulmate, but in current society, even that seems unusual. Anecdotally, the older one gets, the less likely to marry..my middle daughter remains single, partly being self-sufficient, partly from being fussy. But I had a cousin, a woman who went to Australia as a professor who married when she was 55 for the first time. As for drinking and smoking cigars, heck there's women that do that, Z-Man.
By far the worst thing that happened in my life was a betrayal. That cuts to the core. The other negative was the great love of my life was unrequited. That's fine, it's something poetic to write about so you move on only problem here is you rarely feel that magic again with another person. Oh it does and can happen on occasion but dating has hardly anything to do with it. So with me my credo is no magic/no marriage. Normally the unmarried would be envious of those in the married state except the statistics offer some consolation. I don't know what the current #'s are but usually it's been about 50% of US marriages end in divorce so you could say the unmarried are kinda bypassing all this, the pain the lawyers etc. It's not like American marriage is this great social success. I once went out with a woman a few times who was quite passionately in love with me but I kept thinking of somebody else, the magic wasn't mutual so it never really worked. I don't think you should marry somebody you're moderately in love with but I think people do because there's social pressure to marry, biological clocks and all that. Life doesn't give you much time to figure things out so people are inwardly desperate although folks don't admit this. So there you have it. You take each day a step at a time and see what happens.
Once bitten, twice warned. Vaguely related, we note the guys that seek out foreign women. Knew I guy that went through 3 Filipinos, and is looking for another. Another guy met and married a Filipino lady and both their daughters became topnotch physicians. I guess the antonym to 'once bitten' is 'fools rush in'.
In HS we had to read Sartre's "No Exit." As I recall it's the classic romantic triangle of hell - A is in love with B, B is in love with C but C is in love with A or something like that. I don't even think St. Jude can help with that one.
Happened to turn on Pat Robertson's '700 Club' this morning. They were doing fund raising; examples of poor people, people in debt that kept right on tithing 10% to Pat, Inc. Lo and Behold, the Lord took note and made them rich according to scripture. My analysis of the theology involved boils down to 'if Pat is happy, the Lord God Almighty is happy. My philanthropy is more directed to 'Doctors Without Borders', my liberal bent admiring that small portion of humanity that could be making $750,000 doing metro colonoscopies, forgoing that for living in a bombed out tent saving the indigenous wounded. That theology is found in the words of the hymn "help of the helpless, abide with me." Pat is pretty excited though, the Trumpster is meeting with the hardline evangelicals....
I don't know if you ever heard of the guy but the Rev. Jimmy Evans was on Daystar one night talking about the Nephilim. It was interesting but weird, the kind of thoughts you have when you're on acid. I personally like Bishop T.D. Jakes.
Rev Jimmy is one of those guys that never went to Seminary and dropped out of college after a couple of years. However, "Evans also is a popular marriage and family speaker and conference leader, and the author of 12 books, including “Our Secret Paradise,” “Twelve Tips to Resolving Stress,” “Freedom From Your Past” and “Marriage on the Rock.” Sort of the Trump of Baptists. IMO, the Nephilim, Gods that married human women and sired giants is a tale that along with Noah, is based on the Prometheus legends of the early Greeks. Is T.D. Jakes the guy that is overweight, thunders the gospel and sweats a lot?
Re the Devil I am absolutely convinced he exists. The late Malachi Martin said Evil Spirit is personal and intelligent and Our Lady of Fatima spoke of diabolical disorientation. There have been things, events in my own life and you go why did this happen and everything proceeds from there. It's like the Devil is writing the script.
Do you see him as an anthropomorphic redskinned guy with horns, tail and pitchfork operating from the nether regions? The problem of the clear existence of evil is the subject of considerable religious and philosophical thinking. As usual in such cases, we run into how/why/ cause? Hard data is hard to come by, so we are left with conjecture. So the concept is real, but unverifiable: Flip Wilson's "the devil made me do it", the development of 'beelzebub' from the Philistine god of flies, attested well before the Hebrew Bible in the Ugaritic texts, the current TV show 'Lucifer' (which Boehner used to describe Cruz). In the end the problem is that the world is not perfect and someone has to be at fault, I guess.
It's been years since I read Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin but going by memory in the intro he calls it Evil Spirit and it insinuates itself into the most personal and intimate aspects and events of our daily lives. This happens, that happens and something else happens all negative but it's not a normal cause and effect and it's a consistent pattern. You being the hard rationalist would not be convinced and it can't be proved empirically but let's say you attend a birthday party and there's a big nasty family fight then you get a very negative piece of mail that upsets your peace of mind then something else happens, maybe somebody's dog kills your cat and bad stuff happens at work. It may well be just you're having a bad day, then again maybe not.
Sr. Lucy of Fatima fame always talked about this thing called diabolical disorientation where the Devil absolutely convinces you of a reality that's not really the reality of the situation or you absolutely 100% think you're embarking on the right course of action in another complicated situation but you're actually going down the wrong road or you rationalize your abortion or the Church authorities bring about confusion among the faithful by changing this or that or it can be any number of things. There's so much more about Fatima that Francis needs to bring out but a lot of it makes sense to me and goes a long way in explaining the state of the world today, society and even our personal lives. I find it interesting and fascinating stuff but again the skeptic would say people are people, that's life and close the book.
I happen to think that Sister Lucia knew more than a few things about the present state of the Catholic church and those spoiled fruits within. Some say those details are in large part the 3rd secret.
The last pope of all time is supposed to be a false pope, the Antichrist and one-third of the Catholic hierarchy will be on the road to perdition and lead astray countless souls. So say serious researchers and those in the know.
The other reason I personally believe in the Devil is on a very few occasions, say you visit a location or are around a certain person you feel the overwhelming sense of evil. It's overpowering and could be related to something tragic. Thankfully it doesn't happen that much.
Well, I have to be careful here with what criticisms I have lest we forget, Pope John Paul II did kiss the Quran and Pope Francis washed the feet of a Muslim man and a woman on Maundy Thursday this year.
And on that note, not sure if I mentioned previously but I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (one of the original 4 consecrated by Lefebvre back in 1988) a few weeks ago.
Popes, being human, have their warts. I nominate Innocent III (Pope 1189-1216). Elevated to the papacy at the unusually young age of 37, he occupied the position longer than most and managed to 1. Launch the Crusade against the Albigensians in S. France: they believed if they lived perfect lives they didn't need a pope or bishops, hence were regarded as heretics. Many thousands were killed, including numerous local Catholics, to which the Cardinal with the troops announced "Kill them all, God knows his own!" Provence was depopulated. 2. Simultaneously, Innocent III launced the 4th Crusade to free the Holy Land and took personal control. Due to a number of factors, the Crusaders invaded and conquered Constantinople, dividing the spoils (and directly caused the Great Schism). 3. When evil King John of England bowed to papal pressure on appointments to the see of Canturbury, Innocent rewarded him by annulling the Magna Carta John signed at Runnymede, postponing the rights of the English for many years. This strengthened the papacy temporarily, but led to the rumblings which begat the Reformation. It is ironic that a contemporary of the warty Pope was his antithesis, St. Francis of Assisi. Who knows what history 800 years later will have to say about the current crop?
Kind of fascinating how a billionaire relates so well to the jobless, disenfranchised and underpaid. He knows how to appear to each interest group. I'm waiting to see if he offers free trips to the Bahamas for retired chemists.
What's unique about Trump's ego is most people look back on their lives and cringe at things they said and did. In Trump's universe he can call a woman a fat slug and even at age 98 he'd be proud of it. He's in his 60's now and there's like no maturation process that I can see.
Has he set up a meeting with Rosie yet?
ReplyDeleteDivine intervention would mean those two get stuck in an elevator for ten hours.
ReplyDeleteI just got a Chase Alert informing me I've been making too many ATM withdrawals. There could be a fee etc. You know this is known as Life (car repairs, food shopping, Christian Bros.). Maybe the Donald can fix this.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'd send a Z-Man alert to Chase: -Do not threaten your good customer or he will shred your precious plastic and replace it with a low rate credit union
DeleteVisa-
What gets me is they act like you're up to something nefarious like you're slowly withdrawing money to put a hit on your boss or you're paying for prostitution. 100,000 mile car, oil leak - Hello!
DeleteJust started a new book about how big business has peaked
ReplyDeleteat creating value and is now extracting value. We know that
the internet does a lot of 'mining', IMO far more than Homeland Security ever can. One technique was sort of odd:
Facebook as data mining algorithm that among other things,
records where and how long your cursor hovers over things on their page: the date/time and location. The data is segregated and sold to other companies. Stuff like that is probably why when I search thermodynamics I get addition ads for Lands End and
Eddy Bauer.
We're all being cyberstalked by corporations.
DeleteTrump had a meeting with Henry Kissinger. Henry is 92 now and told the Donald that he needs to go talk to Kim Jong Un
ReplyDeleteand straighten things out. Henry is too old to travel and recommended Dennis Rodman to go along on the Trump plane.
For the last few weeks this place has become a kind of male-only place. Only men have been commenting, it's something I've noticed. So where should we hang the elkhead over the fireplace right?
ReplyDeleteThose that study the
ReplyDeleteblog life cycle 0bserve that 157,000 new blogs are created each day and typically last 3 months. So in terms of longevity, yours is a rare survivor. The popular catagories seem to be the virulent political ones with loyal followers
that enjoy ganging up on any newbie who dares post an opposing view, popular niche blogs...scrapbooking, hunting,
photography..just about any field and subfield, religious blogs, and even sort of scholarly blogs like literature and
geology. I typically list about 20 that I visit in my favorites and well over half have petered out and been replaced. While the metrics of hits and comments might seem to be a measure of success, longevity seems more related to
quality and frequency of blog owner posting stuff.
Elkheads: lot of them hanging around here. They are BIG, like buffalo heads, and take a lot of space. You might attract the African poacher crowd if you hung a Mountain Gorilla face over the fireplace, though.
There were times I wanted to retitle this The Misunderstood Blog, some times in the past I had to explain myself. Straight political blogging is the thing though. How many times can you say liberals or conservatives are evil, the dark force? The formula works though.
DeleteI see the conservative power brokers met with Zuckerberg yesterday. From now one, in the interest of 'fair & balanced', it will feature Hannity and O'Brien and be called
ReplyDeleteFOXbook rather than Facebook.
I wonder if they'll be using an encrypted texting app.
ReplyDeleteAlong those lines, the experts assure us that breaking a good encryption by standard means (1 trillion keys/sec) can take up to 500 times the age of the universe. Then, they
ReplyDeleteobserve that using quantum computer techniques, the same
problem can be solved almost immediately. There's probably
a cloud for it someplace....
I'm of the mindset that yes they can probably crack my text message to Mon about what to make for dinner or some other such thing but I'm at least going to make them have to utilize far more resources to do so. Such to the extent that they begin to question whether it is even worth it from their own perspective.
DeleteFB's anti-conservative bias doesn't bother me all that much. I got bigger fish to fry like today on my walk I'm pondering if we didn't exist before we were born and we don't exist after we die what is this dot all about? I mean FB's political bias, who really cares?
ReplyDeleteLet us know if you came up with a conclusion on the meaning of life-it has bugged theologians and philosophers no end.
ReplyDeleteI tend to go along with the advice in the 'Desiderata':
"..be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." While we learn of the past and can guess at the future, neither inductive nor deductive reasoning can lead us to that kind
of 'why?' concerning our own existence. Curing cancer pales
in comparison.
The problem is made worse when we consider we didn't consent to our own existence. Let's say your life sucks (e.g. you're a 5' hunchback who will never get a woman), you didn't consent to ANY of this but your pastor tells you life is a gift.
DeleteWatching an old Lucy episode just now. Back in the day having a second job was known as moonlighting, now it's the norm.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm recharging my smartphone last night and up comes this ad for Truthfinders.com. You can search yourself, your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, whoever and find out the nasties. So what do we do with all this info, avoid Todd or Diane because they did this or that 20 years ago? Unless somebody's a pedophile or likes to embezzle money from the company I really don't care. The Information Age
ReplyDeleteMy old HS class keeps an updated site. You can find out who married who, who ended up doing what, who is
Deletestill alive...like the Statler Brothers 'Class of '57,
ya know?
The ad that popped up on my phone for truthfinders was more negative like trying to find out the dirt on your neighbors. I have no desire to know Fred three doors down once masturbated in a public restroom 25 years ago ya know?
DeleteYou can go through a drought then everyone wants you at the same time like job applications. Probably how polygamy started.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing sapiens inherited polygamy from the wolves, gorilla and elk. Bible-thumpers know Solomon
Deletehad 700 wives & 300 concubines and fringe Mormon
Warren Jeffs had 80. They say Solomon was wise. Jeffs is serving a life term for rape, polygamy, kidnapping and tax evasion. Win some-lose some. It seems problematic that the practice would leave a lot qualified and lusty lads empty handed, no?
Yeah as Rod Stewart sang once some guys have all the luck some guys have all the pain.
DeleteHaving reached the 1/2 century mark one of the tragedies of life as I see it is some people are blissfully ignorant of the fact that life is too short and time moves too fast. In our minds there's always more time to mend that relationship or family rift so we keep putting off that letter or phone call. You might wake up one morning and go "OMG I'm 78" and you have a porno in your dvd player.
ReplyDelete50 isn't all that bad if you can avoid colonoscopies.
DeletePeople say I'm young but at 50 I remind them before you know it you'll be 60. When you're 60 before you know it you'll be 70. One thing I never understood about Life (among several things I never understood about life) is God makes this incredible machine (the human body, Hamlet called it a miracle) and it only lasts 70, maybe 80 years. A tortoise lives longer.
DeleteAs you can tell I'm very interested in the FB controversy.
ReplyDeleteThe Mrs. is in Manhattan with a bunch of geriatric retired
ReplyDeleteeducators. Four of them got themselves lost on the subway
system and had to get help from locals. Who were quite
friendly and very helpful. Here I thought NYC was a tough
hard-bitten place, ya know? Doc said I won't need another colonoscopy until I turn 80, which is only five years. I'm
pretty sure the greedy scope guy will have me exhumed every
6 years until Armageddon.
I thought at age 75 this would be your last one. Kind of ties in with my philosophical point: no matter what we do we ain't gonna live that long. You can have one at 80 and then die of natural causes a week later. I hate to sound macabre.
DeleteI hate to make it sound like there's lucre involved but I don't think the phrase "colonoscopy industry" is being unfair.
DeleteWell, you got Alzheimer's, dialysis, shingles, arthritis, acquaintances dying off, strokes and your DNA telomers keep getting shorter. Then you get a phone message from some young lady in Louisville announcing who have won a trip to Alcapulco if you buy a mattress + all the usual
Deletetrials of when you were younger. The bright side
of pre-senility is you don't have to take crap from anybody ('cept the Mrs.)
Alzheimer's - you can break the law and get away with it. You leave the store without paying for all of your groceries, no biggie.
DeleteI think when you're 50 women find you more attractive. In your late 20's you can be a nuisance, more prone to stray. Maybe past 50 you have that nice mixture of virility and wisdom. I don't think this applies to Trump though.
ReplyDeleteApply to Trump? You could test that out by bar cruising with a nice comb-over and explaining your
Deletewonderfulness. Ever read those personal dating ads
for the older folks? "Young sassy 82 year old Christian woman, likes line dancing and waterskiing.
Seeks cowboy 75-90. Must be non-smoker". Honestly,
one time I was on a flight from a business meeting in
Portland and sat next to a little old lady about 80
in the twin prop job that hit every bit of turbulence.
I could seen she was turning white and gripping the
handles of her seat. Being a concerned gentleman, I
enquired, "Is this your first flight?" she responded,
"Oh no, its just that I'm meeting a rancher I met in
the personals" -date jitters, they never go away-
I never got the pickiness of those personals. Let's say you're a great guy in every way but you smoke so you get crossed off the list. You promise not to smoke in front of her but you're still off the list. Let's say you're not into waterskiing. You like to stay home and read a book. I guess the personals ain't for you. Maybe these people deserve to be where they are.
DeleteThey even have abbreviations which I guess you are supposed to know. I thought CNS stood for Cheap Naïve Sucker, but found it was Christian Non-Smoker.
DeleteThe newspaper personals are disappearing in the wave
of I-net dating, but there have to be a few fossilized ancients out there, probably writing out
the ad in pencil and phoning it in over their land line.
If you puff an e-cigarette are you considered a smoker? Have they invented an e-cigar yet? I never
Deletefigured out the emphasis these date wannabees put on
Christian..."SWF seeks Christian SWM. Felony record
acceptable."
You'd figure the older in life you get the less picky you'd get. I mean Time is running out. Again I'm not getting the non-smoking part. Me? I just like to meet a woman in my travels.
DeleteThey have a singles club in town; advertises in the
Deleteactivities section of the newspaper, between Toastmasters Club, Weightwatchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. They meet once a week in various venues
and I suspect a few participants hit all three organizations.
I came up with a kind of self-assessment this morning, a personal to stand other personals on its head. For those ditherers who can't decide: "I'm flawed and imperfect but there's ten men who are worse than me. I think I would be ok. BTW I like to drink and smoke cigars. If a man is too perfect he's probably a serial killer."
DeleteThe population of singles continues to be trending up . Probably economic and unmarried living together. For eons, parents arranged their children's marriages and some societies still more or less do. Which, we presume has its many pros/cons. Typically, marriage results
Deletein a life long soulmate, but in current society, even that seems unusual. Anecdotally, the older one
gets, the less likely to marry..my middle daughter
remains single, partly being self-sufficient, partly from being fussy. But I had a cousin, a woman who went to Australia as a professor who married when she was 55 for the first time. As for
drinking and smoking cigars, heck there's women that do that, Z-Man.
By far the worst thing that happened in my life was a betrayal. That cuts to the core. The other negative was the great love of my life was unrequited. That's fine, it's something poetic to write about so you move on only problem here is you rarely feel that magic again with another person. Oh it does and can happen on occasion but dating has hardly anything to do with it. So with me my credo is no magic/no marriage. Normally the unmarried would be envious of those in the married state except the statistics offer some consolation. I don't know what the current #'s are but usually it's been about 50% of US marriages end in divorce so you could say the unmarried are kinda bypassing all this, the pain the lawyers etc. It's not like American marriage is this great social success. I once went out with a woman a few times who was quite passionately in love with me but I kept thinking of somebody else, the magic wasn't mutual so it never really worked. I don't think you should marry somebody you're moderately in love with but I think people do because there's social pressure to marry, biological clocks and all that. Life doesn't give you much time to figure things out so people are inwardly desperate although folks don't admit this. So there you have it. You take each day a step at a time and see what happens.
DeleteOnce bitten, twice warned. Vaguely related, we note the guys that seek out foreign women. Knew I guy that went through 3 Filipinos, and is looking for another. Another guy met and married a Filipino lady and both their daughters became topnotch physicians. I guess the antonym to 'once bitten' is
Delete'fools rush in'.
In HS we had to read Sartre's "No Exit." As I recall it's the classic romantic triangle of hell - A is in love with B, B is in love with C but C is in love with A or something like that. I don't even think St. Jude can help with that one.
DeleteHappened to turn on Pat Robertson's '700 Club' this morning.
ReplyDeleteThey were doing fund raising; examples of poor people, people in debt that kept right on tithing 10% to Pat, Inc.
Lo and Behold, the Lord took note and made them rich according to scripture. My analysis of the theology involved
boils down to 'if Pat is happy, the Lord God Almighty is happy. My philanthropy is more directed to 'Doctors Without
Borders', my liberal bent admiring that small portion of
humanity that could be making $750,000 doing metro colonoscopies, forgoing that for living in a bombed out tent saving the indigenous wounded. That theology is found
in the words of the hymn "help of the helpless, abide with me." Pat is pretty excited though, the Trumpster is meeting
with the hardline evangelicals....
I don't know if you ever heard of the guy but the Rev. Jimmy Evans was on Daystar one night talking about the Nephilim. It was interesting but weird, the kind of thoughts you have when you're on acid. I personally like Bishop T.D. Jakes.
DeleteRev Jimmy is one of those guys that never went to
DeleteSeminary and dropped out of college after a couple of years. However,
"Evans also is a popular marriage and family speaker and conference leader, and the author of 12 books, including “Our Secret Paradise,” “Twelve Tips to Resolving Stress,” “Freedom From Your Past” and “Marriage on the Rock.” Sort of the Trump of
Baptists. IMO, the Nephilim, Gods that married human women and sired giants is a tale that along
with Noah, is based on the Prometheus legends of the early Greeks. Is T.D. Jakes the guy that is overweight, thunders the gospel and sweats a lot?
That's him.
DeleteRe the Devil I am absolutely convinced he exists. The late Malachi Martin said Evil Spirit is personal and intelligent and Our Lady of Fatima spoke of diabolical disorientation. There have been things, events in my own life and you go why did this happen and everything proceeds from there. It's like the Devil is writing the script.
DeleteDo you see him as an anthropomorphic redskinned guy with horns, tail and pitchfork operating from the nether regions?
ReplyDeleteThe problem of the clear existence of evil is the subject of considerable religious and philosophical thinking. As usual in such cases, we run into how/why/
cause? Hard data is hard to come by, so we are left with
conjecture. So the concept is real, but unverifiable: Flip Wilson's "the devil made me do it", the development of
'beelzebub' from the Philistine god of flies, attested well before the Hebrew Bible in the Ugaritic texts, the current
TV show 'Lucifer' (which Boehner used to describe Cruz).
In the end the problem is that the world is not perfect and someone has to be at fault, I guess.
It's been years since I read Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin but going by memory in the intro he calls it Evil Spirit and it insinuates itself into the most personal and intimate aspects and events of our daily lives. This happens, that happens and something else happens all negative but it's not a normal cause and effect and it's a consistent pattern. You being the hard rationalist would not be convinced and it can't be proved empirically but let's say you attend a birthday party and there's a big nasty family fight then you get a very negative piece of mail that upsets your peace of mind then something else happens, maybe somebody's dog kills your cat and bad stuff happens at work. It may well be just you're having a bad day, then again maybe not.
DeleteSr. Lucy of Fatima fame always talked about this thing called diabolical disorientation where the Devil absolutely convinces you of a reality that's not really the reality of the situation or you absolutely 100% think you're embarking on the right course of action in another complicated situation but you're actually going down the wrong road or you rationalize your abortion or the Church authorities bring about confusion among the faithful by changing this or that or it can be any number of things. There's so much more about Fatima that Francis needs to bring out but a lot of it makes sense to me and goes a long way in explaining the state of the world today, society and even our personal lives. I find it interesting and fascinating stuff but again the skeptic would say people are people, that's life and close the book.
DeleteI happen to think that Sister Lucia knew more than a few things about the present state of the Catholic church and those spoiled fruits within. Some say those details are in large part the 3rd secret.
DeleteThe last pope of all time is supposed to be a false pope, the Antichrist and one-third of the Catholic hierarchy will be on the road to perdition and lead astray countless souls. So say serious researchers and those in the know.
DeletePersonally I think the Vision published by the Vatican in 2000 portends a major terrorist attack.
DeleteAny idea of who took Fr. LeBar's place?
DeleteHuh, I googled it and can't seem to find that information. Maybe the position is still open.
DeleteThe other reason I personally believe in the Devil is on a very few occasions, say you visit a location or are around a certain person you feel the overwhelming sense of evil. It's overpowering and could be related to something tragic. Thankfully it doesn't happen that much.
DeleteWell, I have to be careful here with what criticisms I have lest we forget, Pope John Paul II did kiss the Quran and Pope Francis washed the feet of a Muslim man and a woman on Maundy Thursday this year.
ReplyDelete"...And by their fruits you shall know them."
And yet it he is the schismatic.
DeleteAnd on that note, not sure if I mentioned previously but I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (one of the original 4 consecrated by Lefebvre back in 1988) a few weeks ago.
IMO the more bureaucratic and rules-oriented the Church becomes the more it loses the sense of the spiritual.
DeletePopes, being human, have their warts. I nominate
DeleteInnocent III (Pope 1189-1216). Elevated to the papacy at the unusually young age of 37, he occupied the position longer than most and managed to 1. Launch the Crusade against the Albigensians
in S. France: they believed if they lived perfect lives they didn't need a pope or bishops, hence were regarded as heretics. Many thousands were killed, including numerous local Catholics, to which the Cardinal with the troops announced "Kill them all, God knows his own!" Provence was depopulated. 2. Simultaneously, Innocent III launced the 4th Crusade to free the Holy Land and
took personal control. Due to a number of factors,
the Crusaders invaded and conquered Constantinople,
dividing the spoils (and directly caused the Great Schism). 3. When evil King John of England bowed to papal pressure on appointments to the see of Canturbury, Innocent rewarded him by annulling the
Magna Carta John signed at Runnymede, postponing the
rights of the English for many years. This strengthened the papacy temporarily, but led to the
rumblings which begat the Reformation. It is ironic
that a contemporary of the warty Pope was his antithesis, St. Francis of Assisi. Who knows what
history 800 years later will have to say about the
current crop?
Pope Trump
DeleteKind of fascinating how a billionaire relates so well to the jobless, disenfranchised and underpaid.
DeleteHe knows how to appear to each interest group. I'm waiting to see if he offers free trips to the Bahamas for retired chemists.
I feel your pain but I'm not feeling any pain myself.
ReplyDeleteBack on topic- what's up with Megyn Kelly's new hairdo? It's
ReplyDeleteshorter than Trump's. Makes her look a bit like that Kaitlyn
guy....
Dunno but she wants to be the new Barbara Walters but imo that's not something to aim for.
DeleteHere's my theory about why Megyn Kelly now likes Trump: she wants to change him. All women do this.
ReplyDeleteGonna take more than one woman.
DeleteWhat's unique about Trump's ego is most people look back on their lives and cringe at things they said and did. In Trump's universe he can call a woman a fat slug and even at age 98 he'd be proud of it. He's in his 60's now and there's like no maturation process that I can see.
ReplyDeleteGiven his list of business failures which resulted in a lot of people losing money (but not him) he is chutzpah personified.
Delete