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| John Fuseli - The Nightmare |
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| Mega Millions lottery tickets from New Jersey and New York, 2012 |
Is there a lesson here?
John, who was in financial difficulty, walked into a church and started to pray. ''Listen God,'' John said. ''I know I haven't been perfect, but I really need to win the lottery. I don't have a lot of money. Please help me out.''
He left the church, a week went by, and he hadn't won the lottery, so he walked into a synagogue. ''Come on, God,'' he said. ''I really need this money. My mom needs surgery and I have bills to pay. Please let me win the lottery.''
He left the synagogue, a week went by, and he didn't win the lottery. So, he went to a mosque and started to pray again. ''You're starting to disappoint me, God,'' he said. ''I've prayed and prayed. If you just let me win the lottery, I'll be a better person. I don't have to win the jackpot, just enough to get me out of debt. I'll give some to charity, even. Just let me win the lottery.'' John thought this did it, so he got up and walked outside.
The clouds opened up and a booming voice said, ''John, buy a frigging lottery ticket.''
Cheers,
Paul (A.)
A man doing market research for the Vaseline Company knocked at the door and was greeted by a young woman with three small children running around at her feet. "I'm doing some research for Vaseline. Have you ever used the product?"Ha ha ha. You know who is to blame.
She said, "Oh, yes. My husband and I use it all the time."
"If you don't mind my asking," he said, "what do you use it for?"
"We use it for sex," she said.
The researcher was a little taken aback. "Usually people lie to me and say they use it on a child's bicycle chain or to help with a gate hinge. But, in fact, I know that most people do use it for sex. I admire you for your honesty. Since you've been so frank so far, can you tell me exactly HOW you use it for sex?"
The woman said, "I don't mind telling you at all. My husband and I put it on the doorknob and it keeps the kids out."
Cheers,
Paul (A.)
As a 16 year old living in a tumultuous household, Jane Austen's novels were balm to my troubled soul. What sparkling wit! No fiction writer is Austen's equal in writing dialogue. What limpid prose! Reading Jane was sheer delight, not to mention that reading her books took me out of myself and out of my environment. After reading the first of her novels, which happened to be Pride and Prejudice, and which is still my favorite although I dearly love them all, I rushed to read the other five. I wanted to be Elizabeth Bennet. I read Jane's novels, and I read them again, and again, and again, up until now, and when I need cleansing and freshening from the load of drivel in print and on the tee-vee, I plunge into the novels and come away refreshed and renewed. One last thing: I believe that reading Jane Austen's novels in my impressionable teen years contributed for the good to the formation of my moral center, which should give pause to anyone who says, "It's just a novel."So. My tribute to Jane Austen and her lovely novel, originally titled First Impressions, which is 200 years old today, is a rehash but is no less fervent and admiring than if I'd written the words today.
Jane's gift for irony is, to me, unsurpassed. Disclosure: my alcoholic and verbally abusive father had a gift for irony which was not always inflicted on his wife and daughters, and I learned from him to view our mad world through ironic eyes. I owe him for his gifts of books from an early age and for encouraging me to read by always having books and magazines around the house, even when my mother had to borrow grocery money from extended family. We never lacked for music, either. There's irony for you. To this day, I feel sorry for my poor mother's plight, but, in my heart of hearts, I can't regret that the books and music were present.
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When the former leaders of the Episcopal diocese left the church, they initiated a suit to keep the name, assets, and property of the diocese in their control. A judge issued a temporary restraining order yesterday.Again from The Lead:
A state judge this week issued a temporary restraining order saying the diocese is the only group that can use the name Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. A hearing on whether to make the order permanent is set for next month in Columbia. So one of the things the group must do is give themselves a working title.
A photo from the convention of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina - temporary name for the diocese and missing seal.I hope and pray the loyal Episcopalians in the original diocese in South Carolina will have their name restored, but, in any case, life goes on in the continuing diocese. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Their choice of a working title is excellent.
The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori was celebrant and preacher at a Choral Eucharist that opened the Convention. After his installation, Bishop [Charles Glenn] vonRosenberg addressed the Convention. The Reverend Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies of The Episcopal Church, also addressed the Convention. She was one of many Church leaders from across the nation who traveled to Charleston to show support for continuing Episcopalians in South Carolina.Blessings and prayers for Bishop Glenn and the continuing members of the historic diocese. May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.The Episcopal Church in South Carolina is continuing. We are reorganizing with renewed dedication to carry forward the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as prior generations have done since 1789. We have much to do and many challenges to meet, but we are confident that by moving forward together in unity and faith, with God's help, we will flourish.
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Welcome!
Your participation in this new ministry is encouraged. The Episcopal Church always welcomes you!
From StoryPeople.Sometimes I think I should just keep my opinionsto myself, she said, but someone has got to be thevoice of reason.
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino Jr. (born February 26, 1928) is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Domino is French Creole and Creole was his first language. Domino was delivered at home by his midwife grandmother. Like most families in the Lower Ninth Ward, Domino's family were new arrivals from Vacherie, Louisiana. His father was a well known violinist, and Domino was inspired to play himself. He eventually learned from his uncle, jazz guitarist Harrison Verrett. Fats released five gold (million-copy-selling) records before 1955. Domino also had 35 Top 40 American hits and has a music style based on traditional R&B ensembles of bass, piano, electric guitar, drums, and saxophone.
The United Nations has launched an investigation into the use of unmanned drone strikes and targeted killings in counterterrorism operations.It's about time. Although President Obama did not mention the drone war in his inaugural address, the drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia may well kill terrorists, but the attacks also kill innocents, including women, children, and people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The attacks are not as precise as the administration claims. In addition, fear of drone attacks traumatizes people who live in the areas where the attacks occur. It's accountability time, and I hope the investigation by the UN sheds more light than the Obama administration has been willing to do.
The probe will investigate 25 strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories. It also will focus on civilian killings and injuries caused by the strikes.
British lawyer Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special envoy on counterterrorism and human rights, will carry out the probe.
Emmerson says the use of drone technology is "here to it stay," adding it is imperative that "appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use."
Most attacks by unmanned drones have been carried out by the United States. Israel has used them and other nations have access to the technology.
May you have a great day, Tom!
BAYOU CORNE — Eleven new bubble sites have been found in inundated swampland west of an 8.5-acre sinkhole in northern Assumption Parish, including a frothing spot dubbed the “mother of all bubble sites,” officials said Tuesday.My guess is that the people who were ordered to evacuate from their homes last year will very likely never be able to return. The troubling situation in the area is worsening, and who knows when or where it will end? I wonder if further numbers of residents of nearby areas may be asked to leave. Highway 70, a much used road, is near the sinkhole activity. If the highway is impacted and forced to close, it will greatly inconvenience workers and travelers in the area.
The sites are roughly in a row west of an unnamed oilfield access road extending south from La. 70 South through the wooded swamp, a parish map shows.
The sites bring to 34 the number of known bubble sites in the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas in the vicinity of the sinkhole on Texas Brine Co. LLC’s leased property.
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| The "mother of all bubble sites" |
Two leading Lutheran clerics have rejected suggestions from the Vatican that it could create a subdivision for converted Lutherans similar to its structures for Anglicans who join the Roman Catholic Church.I can only conclude that the arrogance of the authorities in the Roman Catholic Church is without bounds. Lutheran leaders told Rome what to do with their my-way-or-the-highway offer for Lutherans to have their own separate pen similar to those of the converts to the Anglican Ordinariates. Lutheran Bishop Weber suggested that those members who want to be in full communion with Rome should simply join the Roman Catholic Church, which I think is very sensible. The "Anglicans" in the ordinariates are, in fact, Roman Catholic converts.
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Bishop Friedrich Weber, the German Lutheran liaison with the Catholic Church, said the idea was unthinkable and amounted to "an unecumenical incitement to switch sides."
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Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, head of the Vatican's powerful doctrinal office, was reported in Catholic media last week as saying Rome might envisage a special section for Lutherans.
[The Rev Martin] Junge said very few Lutherans wanted to switch to the Catholic Church and creating a special subgroup for them would complicate ties between the churches and confuse Lutherans who wanted to work in harmony with Catholics.
Ain't that the truth? Read Krugman's post.The reality, first, is that the deficit scolds — who are, after all, making a living by scolding — depend on constant warnings of imminent fiscal crisis to drum up interest. Saying that it’s a longer-term issue, and not our first priority right now, is not something they can afford to hear.
Paul Ambos is well known and widely respected in our diocese. For many years he has been active and effective in advancing the mission of our Church through his parish, this diocese and the wider Church. He has a keen intelligence, a faith-filled heart, a firm foundation in the Gospel of our Lord and an inexhaustible energy for our mission. Those who have attended our Convention in the past ten years and more are aware of the tremendous volume of work that Paul has contributed to the Convention through the Standing Committee on Constitution and Canons and the Committee on Resolutions. In addition, he presently serves as Senior Warden of Christ Church, New Brunswick and sings in their choir. His devotion to our Church is lived out in activities too numerous to mention. His service and sacrifice are exemplary.We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity — until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
(Barack Obama - Second Inaugural Address - January 21, 2013)
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| Icon by Tobias Haller |
"In a few weeks some of us are coming to Washington to see if the will is still alive or if it is alive in this nation. We are coming to Washington in a Poor People’s Campaign. Yes, we are going to bring the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. We are going to bring those who have known long years of hurt and neglect. We are going to bring those who have come to feel that life is a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. We are going to bring children and adults and old people, people who have never seen a doctor or a dentist in their lives.Tobias Haller blogs at In a Godward Direction.
We are not coming to engage in any histrionic gesture. We are not coming to tear up Washington. We are coming to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. We read one day, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.
We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible.
(Sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr at the National Cathedral, Washington, DC, on 31 March 1968. The Rev King was shot on April 4, 1968.)
The recent mass killings in Tucson, Aurora and Newtown have sparked public conversations about the deficiencies in state-run mental health systems across the United States. But few states are poised to spend their own money to reverse as much as a decade of budget cutbacks in those areas.Louisiana is not presently known for its sterling mental health care system. Nevertheless, our governor, Bobby Jindal, has opted out of the Medicaid expansion which would cover mental health care on conservative principles, but I wonder if he may reconsider. The majority of the citizens of Louisiana are against any sort of regulation of firearms or ammunition, giving as their reason that it's not guns that kill people, but deranged individuals who manage to get their hands on guns who kill people. How about it, members of the NRA in Louisiana? Why not start a campaign to urge the governor to sign on to the expanded Medicaid program that will enable more persons with mental illness to get treatment?
Instead, many of them are counting on an infusion of federal mental-health dollars. Because Medicaid includes mental-health benefits, those states that opt into the Medicaid expansion included in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act will be able to make mental health coverage available to thousands of their citizens who do not now have it.
For the first three years that additional coverage would cost the states nothing: Under terms of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will cover 100 percent of the costs of new Medicaid enrollees for the first three years and 90 percent after 2020.
Arizona will participate in the expansion of Medicaid, Gov. Jan Brewer said Monday in her State of the State address, making her the third Republican governor to agree to one of the key components of President Barack Obama's health care reform.
Brewer said that if she did not accept the Medicaid funds for Arizona, other states could claim those federal dollars and create jobs that otherwise would be created in Arizona. Fellow Republican governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada also plan to expand Medicaid to anyone who earns up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is currently $14,856 for an individual.
But 10 other Republican governors have already decided not to participate. The Supreme Court's 2012 ruling that affirmed Obama's health care law allows states to refuse to take part in the Medicaid expansion.
It’s looking increasingly as if House Republicans won’t crash the world economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, at least not right now. Score a big one for the White House (provisionally); its bet that it wouldn’t need a way to bypass the ceiling is looking like a winner (although it ain’t over until the tanned guy cries).Paul nearly caused me to spew orange juice all over my keyboard with his final parenthetical comment. Don't misunderstand me: Krugman has a biting wit, but it's not usually of the sort that will cause liquid to be spewed, so I was unprepared.
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| Our Diana wearing her Mardi Gras beads |
A charming commentary on dogs as portrayed in classic Jewish literature. Thanks to my friend Linda, who posted the link on Facebook.
It is taught that in the World-to-Come, dogs will lead in singing the praises of the Almighty. They will say to other creatures "Come! Let us prostrate ourselves and bow, let us kneel before G-d, our Maker".
Throughout classical Jewish literature they are portrayed as the most insolent of animals. How could it be, he wondered, that this very same creature will merit to lead in the singing of praises to G-d in the World-to-Come?
(Rav Yishaya)
