Well Hello Again

Thomas (Drying out after I had given him a bath.)

Well Hello again.

This blog has been dormant for about 2 years. That's when I took over as editor for my hometown newspaper.

The main reason for the dormancy is obvious. With so much writing to do for the paper and the attached magazines, plus not to mention the job of making the paper my own, who had time to write blog posts?

But I’m tentatively reentering the blogging waters. With work, I am tied to a particular style of writing and, of course, the commercial requirements. Lately, those requirements have begun to chafe on me, so I thought I would stretch my writing muscles and bring this blog up to date. The main thing that has occurred in the past two years is that my wife and I have said goodbye to yet another faithful canine companion, Thomas an elderly yellow Lab. We rescued Thomas from the pound shortly after we had lost our chocolate Lab, the last of our original three Labs (We had three in the house at one time- a chocolate, a black, and yellow). I named him Thomas after Thomas Aquinas, because I met him on that saint day, and he was the smartest dog in the dog pound when I tested him.

Thomas stayed with us for five years, before finally leaving us in December of 2017. He was a very good dog. Housebroken from the start, smart, mellow, he made an excellent companion—whether it be watching a movie in the living room, or going for a walk—Thomas was always amiable and easy going, never a problem.

He also liked car rides in our old Volvo station wagon. He loved to stick his head out and feel the wind.

 

Because adventure is out there!

His one quirk was that he didn’t know how to swim. Like most Labs he would rush into the water, marvel in play at the splashing water, but that’s where the similarity with other Labs would stop. Thomas would not be aware that he was sinking like the Titanic. The reason for this was that he would doggie-paddle like crazy with his front paws, and forget to paddle at all with his hind legs. (Hence the Titanic analogy, butt sinking, but the head is up.) I had to get into the water and remind him to paddle with his hind legs with a series of swim lessons.

 

Teaching Thomas to swim.

When his health started to fade, I had hoped he would make it to Christmas Day 2017, but alas, that was not to be.  He left us just before.

After seven months without a dog, we adopted our newest family member Teddy, a Black Lab, in August (he was born in June).

Teddy is easily the most rambunctious Lab we’ve had. We picked him because the dam was a small Lab, and we thought a “pocket-Lab” would be a good idea. However I didn’t check into his father’s pedigree fully, and it turns out dad was from hunting stock—hence the high energy and super hind leg muscles. When he jumps, he has hang-time just like Michael Jordan.

Despite these characteristics, he has successfully completed basic training, and we’re starting him on field training and retrieving. Typical of Labs, he’s smart (sometimes too smart) and is eager to please. 

In January, we finally put back out all the breakables and rugs we had stored away when he first joined our household, and he now has run of the house (mostly).  I think its fair to say we have a favorable Teddy forecast for the next 15 years.

Teddy on his car ride home in August.

Dignitatis Humanae

As I allow myself a rare moment of schadenfreude at the left’s cry for Xanax at today’s Trump inauguration, a serious thought keeps coming into my head.

When I think of the legacy of Obama I will forever be drawn to this mental image.  To me he will always be the President who worked fervently to put the gun of government to the heads of the Little Sisters of the Poor, insisting that they either pay to destroy children in the womb or be crushed.

You can't sugar-coat that.  You can't hide it.  You can't pretend it wasn't what it was.  For 177years, the Little Sisters of the Poor has been a large Roman Catholic religious ministry that takes vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and hospitality.  Serving the Kingdom of God on earth in over 30 countries, they have one stated mission: to care for destitute people as they near the end of their lives.  As one online commentator described it, "The only fight they go looking for is to make the last days of some very downtrodden people brighter and happier, to send as many people into the next life surrounded by love, not garbage."

Barack Obama knew that, personally.  Regardless, he instructed his government lawyers to rewrite executive regulations nine separate times to ensure these nuns be forced to either violate their conscience by helping distribute abortion drugs or be fined $70 million a year and out of existence.  Their beliefs, their ministry, their cause, and even the incredible work that they do were secondary to President Barack Obama's devotion to funding and expanding the destruction of infants with tax dollars.

The president's own lawyers admitted in court that there were compromises available that would have met their objectives while sparing the Sisters' consciences.  But President Obama refused.  Using the coercive power of the state to compel nuns to pay for abortion drugs became an issue of pride for this small man.

His obsession was so out of touch that the Supreme Court, divided as it is, issued a unanimous ruling telling Obama he must find another way.  When Judge Ginsburg joins hands with Judge Clarence Thomas to rebuke your fixation with forcing nuns to violate their conscience, you have reached the pinnacle of ideological extremism.

That President Obama failed to ever respect that eternal truth of conscience is both pitiful and shameful.  And it's why I'm relieved to bid him farewell.

Click here for the full text of The Vatican 2’s Declaration of Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae .

Merry Christmas 2016!

Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2017! On this seventh day of Christmas, and as we embark at the start of a new year, I think it’s important to take off the earbuds, turn off your smart phone apps, and ponder what is truly meaningful:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. "

 -Luke

Painting above- The-Temptation of Saint Anthony by Cezanne.  A representation of sorts of today’s secular electronic world, which constantly bombards us with distractions.  These time wasters steal our time and cognitive energy, and prevents us from focusing on what's truly vital for our happiness and well being.  Painting below- Raphael's cherubs in what appears to be a contemplative mood.

On the Importance of New Year (a reprint from 2007)

During a quiet New Years Eve dinner at home, my wife told me she saw New Years Day as a crock.

Her point being that you could start the calendar year on any day. So aside from a day off from work, New Years Day held no real meaning unlike say Christmas.

I disagreed. I think people have a strong need for endings and new beginnings.

The marking of New Years gives us the opportunity to look around and be introspective. It's a chance for a fresh start and a re-stacking of priorities.

The value of this should not be dismissed.

So with that in mind, may the New Year bring you health, wealth and happiness; and all that you seek.

JP

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates (dead Greek guy)

2016 The Year of Pis Aller

Think of the French term “pis aller.” Pronounced "peace-ah-lay," it means last choice.

You run into it in business from time to time.  Usually when you’ve done all your homework and you realize your faced with two bad choices.  You then have to pick the lesser of two evils, if only because it’s the least damaging to your organization.

That pretty much sums up the current presidential election.  The Roman mob has spoken and we’re faced with two unpalatable choices- A) A shameless self-promoting mountebank, with a bad orange comb-over or B) a shameless corrupt harridan, who looks like a mini-me version of Chairman Moa in a pantsuit.

Either way, it’s not pretty, and not necessarily what our country needs after eight-years with a peevish man-child and narrow ideologue in office. I think that some Trump supporters know this.  I don't think they see him as a solution, but rather a grenade they want to throw at a broken establishment. So with that thought, I offer you this poem which is apropos to the moment we’re in-

Waiting for the Barbarians

  By C. P. Cavafy (1898)

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

            The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?

Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

            Because the barbarians are coming today.

            What laws can the senators make now?

            Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,

and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate

on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

            Because the barbarians are coming today

            and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.

            He has even prepared a scroll to give him,

            replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today

wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?

Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,

and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?

Why are they carrying elegant canes

beautifully worked in silver and gold?

            Because the barbarians are coming today

            and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual

to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

            Because the barbarians are coming today

            and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?

(How serious people’s faces have become.)

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,

everyone going home so lost in thought?

            Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.

            And some who have just returned from the border say

            there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?

They were, those people, a kind of solution.

 Mexican artist Diego Rivera’s famous 1931 mural of an Aztec jaguar knight killing a Spanish invader (at the gate of Tenochtitlan?) I first saw a print of it while in elementary school and thought it was cool art.