What Bald Spot?

         I don't think that I would look good if I were bald. Some of you might be saying....'Special Dog, you don't even look good with hair'....but that's besides the point. About a year or so ago I was attempting to trim my own hair so I had a second mirror out to see the back of my head and lo and behold there was a small patch of baldness at twelve o'clock high and it sent me into a little bit of depression.
         No one had mentioned this to me, not our son or even my wife, not even my co-workers who delight in ribbing each other with information like this, although my barber did comment one day that I might want to keep my hair a little longer on top and I wondered what he meant by that. For a few days and weeks after that I would occasionally get that second mirror out and check to see if the bald patch was spreading.
         I came up with the perfect answer to this dilemma. No, it's not Joe Biden hair plugs...and no it also wasn't just growing up and accepting what was minuscule in the grand scheme of problems that we face today. I just quite looking at the back of my head...problem solved! I ignored it. Until I can see scalp on top of my head while looking directly into a mirror there is no problem!
         Friends, I gladly relate this story to you, embarrassing as it is, if I can but turn this quirk of human nature to your benefit by pointing it out. There is really only one way not to see the impending disasters just ahead for not only America but the entire world, and that is that the evidence, both in the news but most importantly in the Word of God, has to be totally and purposely ignored.
         What is especially frightening is that I don't see this ugly total lack of respect for other human beings in Europe as much as here in the United States. We have bypassed them in abominations because Europe does not push the envelope on God as we do here. Police officers are being executed in our streets. Donald Trump certainly does not represent Christian values but those who put him where he is do. Thus we have this intensifying clash. Ignore what is happening if you want but cheering for Donald Trump cannot hide what is really taking place....it has to be purposely ignored.....which in essence is lying to ourselves.

Mr. Monk And The Missing Campaign Manager

         It's front page Internet news on Fox right now! The caption with the accompanying picture reads..."Girl captures chilling pic of 'child ghost' in mom's car." This is Fox News folks....."Fair And Balanced." Here's the story.....A mother and her 13 year old daughter are riding in a car...alone...on a sunny day, and the daughter is bored and begins to take selfies of herself. A month later the mother comes across the picture on her phone... and visible behind her daughter is a young child....but they were alone in the car!
         The mother then contacted an expert in the paranormal. The expert tells her that in using a special device, used also by the FBI and the CIA, that there was no color or temperature in the small child's face. Are you bored yet? There's a few more X-Files moments if you are interested but what I'm interested in is that the mother now thinks that "it's very important to the world to see that picture" because "So many people have hope for the afterlife and this proves it....." It should be noted that the mother, according to the article, "was not scared by the suspected haunting as she claims (her daughter) is a magnet for paranormal activity." Personally I think that's Megyn Kelly in the photo. She seems to be everywhere?
         Let's go over this again.....a woman who according to the article has been given thirteen traffic tickets for driving with her daughter not wearing a seat belt....this woman tells us that she thinks it's important for the world to see the picture that's on her phone. I could see if it was only seven or eight tickets...but thirteen? The mother describes the daughter as a 'magnet' for paranormal activity." The daughter has been told thirteen times to put on her seat belt and never does it... but the mother is also 'sure' that there was no one in the backseat? Might I suggest that the young girl may have snuck someone along for the ride? Nah...that would be disobedient! The mother says that this whole thing is a 'positive' thing.  What then is a negative thing....no ghosts in the picture? They were on their way to a junior beauty pageant...nothing unusual here!  The mother sent the photo to the ....Director of Parapsychology, Afterlife and Paranormal Studies. I'll bet you she had his address in her contacts.  This whole episode might encourage the producers of Monk to bring the show back into production...

Monk.............."Let me get this straight....you were sitting... here?
Mother.....       "Yes, that's where the steering wheel is."
Monk.......       "And your daughter was sitting... there?"
Mother.....       "Yes...and the ghost was sitting in the back seat."
Monk........      "And your daughter didn't have her seat belt on even though you have had
                         thirteen traffic tickets for her not having her seat belt on?"
Mother............."I'm going to catch her one of these days."
Monk turns to Captain Stottlemeyer....
                         "There's something strange going on here."
Capt. Stottlemeyer rolls his eyes......
                         "Why...because there's a ghost in the back seat?
Monk.......         "No...because this is front page Fox News.....Fair and Balanced."
Monk eyes get very bright................
                          "I've solved the case."
Capt. Stottlemeyer....."Monk, there's no case here."
Monk................."Oh yes there is. You see Hillary Clinton was supposed to win
                            the election. If she catches Robby Mook, her campaign manager,
                            she may strangle him! That 'ghost'... that ghost...
                            was Robby Mook hiding in the back seat!"
Capt. Stottlemeyer.....
                            "Well it does make sense....and it is her modus operandi?"

Aaah Bach!

         I retired six weeks ago...or was it six years ago....no, it was six weeks ago. "I think that I shall never see...A poem lovely as a tree".... I relay this verse not because I love poetry....although I used to be Rod McKuen's biggest fan...but because had I not at least two weeks of raking leaves so far I may have gone crazy. By the way...did you know that Joyce Kilmer was a guy....Joyce was his middle name as his first name was Alfred. Alfred?...I guess I don't blame him.  Anyway, in desperation for things to do I have recently thrown myself into Bach as a last resort! My mini-boom is at my ear as I type. I don't know fugue from fudge but I must say these tunes are every bit as good as everyone has always said.
         I write semifacetiously here. I do know the difference between fugue and fudge. I just prefer fudge. And I have indeed 'thrown myself' somewhat into Bach. And his music is as wonderful as it is acclaimed to be. The following is part of a post from 2010. The last paragraph is the key. We can throw ourselves into many things...politics....fitness....and music... there are important responsibilities and wise pastimes  and good deeds and enjoyments....but there is only one thing that should be all-consuming....only one thing that is  'living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning (of) the thoughts and intentions of the heart.'

Aaah Tabletalk

         There was a movie a few decades ago, a comedy, where a man was trying to impress a young lady who was very cultured. Advice given to him was that if the topic of classical music came up, just say Aaaah...Bach and that may get him by. If Old English Heroic Epic Poetry is ever brought up to me in a conversation, I may just say Aaaah...Beowulf.  I read Beowulf in high school. It was a great learning experience. I learned how to read thousands of words straight through and not understand a single thought they conveyed.
         I once held a fancy for a young lady in college who was very cultured, in fact she taught Theater Arts 101 as a grad student. This may have been the beginning of my actually... studying....for I signed up for the class and devoured the textbook to impress her. I even took an acting class and went to plays....Aaaah...Moliere!  The peak of my impressing her was when I cleared up a long standing mystery at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. We were working there for a few weeks, actually just rummaging through the stored old materials of the historic Playhouse for anything that the Pitt library's Special Collections could use. During a tour of the building I correctly identified King Edward VIII out of a dozen characters in an old Al Hirschfeld caricature mural, an answer that had up to then eluded even the director. This young lady looked at me in amazement and said..."You're Smart!" But alas, I'm not cultured. I guessed correctly for I knew it was either the king, later the Duke Of Windsor, or Dagwood Bumstead....Aaaah Blondie!  I'd rather go to a Three Stooges marathon than a ballet. I read everything I had to through high school, but I didn't really read it. But I've since had a metamorphosis, Aaaah...Kafka!   
         Reformed theologian, pastor and teacher R. C. Sproul, through his Ligonier Ministries, publishes a monthly devotional/Bible study called Tabletalk, the name taken from Martin Luther's work of the same title. This booklet comes to our house early so I'm usually a little bit ahead of schedule. Today I was reading the July 15th offering and the Bible verse to be considered was Joshua  1:8.... This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous....   
       

Special Dog For Congress?

      There are people who just do not take a good photo, and I am one of them. I've had three photos over the years under my profile that appears to your right. The first photo, if you remember, was what looked like a wet dog sitting on a wooden bridge over a creek. Unfortunately that was me....I just looked like a wet dog in the photo. The second photo that I tried was me standing on a sandy beach. The face in the photo appeared grainy. It wasn't the camera's fault...my photographed face just tends to look grainy. The third and present photo to your right may look somewhat normal for a sixty-six year old man. I was eighteen when it was taken!
       Many people just do not photograph well. Woody Allen is one. He is a very handsome man in person and resembles Robert Redford a little bit, but look at all the photographs of him! Hillary Clinton is another.....to look at any of her photographs one would think that she just crawled from under a coal truck. Her eyes appear no more human than a Macy's mannequin, her smile as a humanoid robot, her mouth as a bottomless pit, her skin as Vladimir Lenin's in his mausoleum. Every time I see a picture of her I think of Madame Tussuad's Wax Museum...but actually in person she is a very beautiful lady!  This phenomenon works the opposite way also. Some people never take a bad picture. Anthony Weiner for one.
        I've tried very hard to find a decent picture of myself to put on this page. My driver license looks like I was hauled in for drunken driving and faceprinted instead of fingerprinted. I've tried every angle. A side silhouette looks like Alfred Hitchcock with a beard. I don't even take a good portrait! My mother was an accomplished oil painter. I've added her portrait of me below. The only reason I have not run for Congress is that who is going to vote for someone whose photographs look like they should be on America's Most Wanted?  Hmmm, a lot of people are going to vote for Hillary!

We're Not In Kansas Anymore Toto

         I had an interesting experience tonight for I was alone in a relative's living room with a 60" television set six feet in front of me. Interesting in that in our home I have a 21" set sitting 18' away from from my La-Z-Boy. I turned the set on and was reminded of the 1965 New York World's Fair where I, as a fifteen year old, would enter an exhibition hall and be amazed at the what the future promised in technology. The faces on the screen were clearer than I have ever seen of my own in a mirror. (We're not in Kansas anymore Toto!) It was 7:30 in the evening and I thought that I would turn on The Middle, for I have watched this show faithfully for six years and I'm still are not sure what the main characters look like.
         There were three remotes in front of me and the best that I could do was turn the power on and change channels but had no audio. So....not finding The Middle, I settled for Greta on the Fox Channel which we do not get at home. Watching Karl Rove talk without audio is like paging through Humpty Dumpty without any words. An older man with glasses and a kind, sort of-what am I doing here, look... came on the screen and I thought it was Jeb Bush, but it turned out to be an insulin needle commercial. Then someone kept knocking on people's doors giving them a big check and the people would jump around for joy. Could this be an Obama public service message? Turned out to be Publishers Clearing House.
         I began to hit buttons on the remotes trying to get sound and thought that I switched to a sex film. Two people were running around an apartment taking off their clothes. I never did figure out what that commercial was selling. Well, I know what it was selling but I don't know what the product was. I turned off the set and when I came home I turned our little television on. Aah...little indiscernible figures talking in a little box on the other side of the room....back in Kansas again.

Debate.....2011

      

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Debate Coverage...Sort Of

   

Well, I tuned in to the debate tonight, the first time I have done so, and the following might not be exactly verbatim but it's kind of how I saw it:

Pelley: Governor Perry. What would you do if a nuclear weapon came up missing in Pakistan?

Perry: Let me just say that we are winning in Afghanistan.

Pelley: That was the previous question to Governor Romney.

Perry: Oh...I wouldn't give a penny to Red China.

Pelley: That was two questions ago. Time is up. Thank you Governor.

Garrett: Congressman Paul. How would you deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Paul: Have we ever tried sending him flowers?

Santorum: Excuse me. Excuse me! I just want to say that I totally disagree with Congressman Paul.

Garrett: Governor Huntsman: Would it ever be the right thing to do to bomb Iran?

Huntsman: You know, I sat next to a sailor on the flight in and we have the finest navy in the world.

Garrett: Oookaaay. And what about Iran?

Huntsman: What about it?

Garrett: Would it ever be the right thing to do to bomb Iran?

Huntsman: Let me just say that I used to live in a shack in Iran... I know Iran.

Garrett: And...?

Huntsman: And what?

Pelley: Speaker Gingrich. Would you ever use the fiendish, horrid, un-American torture of waterboarding?

Gingrich: Waterboarding isn't torture.

Pelley: Yes it is! Yes it is! Yes it is!!!
Garrett: Governor Romney. You're really a handsome man.

Romney: Thank you and I sincerely hope that Putin doesn't think that I'm just another pretty face.

Pelley: Mr. Cain. What hands-on experience do you have with nuclear weaponry?

Cain: Hands-on.....as the CEO of Godfather's Pizza? None.

Pelley: Thank-you sir.

Pelley: Congresswoman Bachmann: I notice that you have your hair pinned back tonight. Have you ever
used a washer board while doing your laundry?

Bachmann: Excuse me!

Pelley: Thank you Congresswoman.

Bachmann: Excuse me again. I have sixty seconds to talk!

Pelley: That was sixty seconds.

Bachmann: Two words? Sixty seconds?

Pelley: We're playing by the rules tonight shorty!

Garrett: Speaker Gingrich. Some people say that you will say anything conservatives want to hear?

Gingrich: I'd bomb Iran, stop abortion, nominate Joe the Plumber for the Supreme Court and add Ronald
Reagan's name to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Garrett: Thank-you sir.

Santorum: Hey, Hey, Hey. What about me over here?

Pelley: Senator Santorum. How would you handle the situation in Syria?

Santorum: Well, I would..

Pelley: Thank you Senator. Times up. Governor Romney. Who is going to be your Vice President?

Cain: What kind of question is that?

Pelley: I'll rephrase it. Governor Romney. Is your Vice President on the stage tonight?

Romney: Let me just say that I'd be honored to have any of the 300 millions Americans as my V.P..

Huntsman: Hey! I'm down here in Siberia you know!

Perry: Did I ever tell you the one about the elephant who forgot where he put his trunk?

Pelley: That's all the time we have for tonight. Thank you gentleman, shorty...and the black guy to the left of
Presi...I mean Governor Romney.

The most difficult thing about watching this was in seeing South Carolina Senator Jim Demint watching from the audience and not one of the candidates for president!

Dining Out

         The following is one of those reflective posts that I write and keep here for only a day at the most before relegating it to obscurity in my 'humor and short story' link:

         Maybe the best thing about going out to eat is observing the fellow diners and praying for them. I guess the same thing goes for automobile trips. It's been many years since I had to hitchhike or take public transportation because we or I did not have an automobile but not long enough to forget the difficulties involved in trying to get somewhere without one. Thus I see someone, anyone, walking along the side of the road and offer up a prayer.
         Back to the restaurant, it has always amazed me how there are over 300 million people in America yet aside from twins, no two look exactly alike. I mean... how many different shapes can you have for a nose or a chin and how many different settings can there be for eyes? How wonderful was God's plan and design!
        Take tonight for instance.....and two different tables at the Middle Eastern restaurant that we ate at. At one was a mother and father, presumably, and their son. The father was quiet while the mother did most of the talking, and the son, of about thirteen or fourteen, was demonstrative with his hands, often adjusting his ball cap and occasionally pulling out an electronic tablet of some kind to play with, with his face about a foot from the screen. It was a pleasant scene but my thoughts always wonder if their home life is a pleasant as it looked. Maybe the father grudgingly took them out to dinner. Maybe the mother nagged him into it.
        One certainly could not tell in a restaurant of our home life when I was eight or nine years old. My father was a wonderful man but his life with us was shared with the local bar. Now it was a wonderful bar, I remember it well. The owners were elderly and everyone laughed while I played the bowling game while eating potato chips and drinking Cokes. When we went out as a family I'm sure it looked much like that family tonight but when at home there was often tension. I thoroughly felt blessed in praying for that family tonight.
       The other table in question was a man and what looked to be his two teenage daughters. They smiled and talked a lot more. Where was the mother? Perhaps there wasn't one or maybe she had a lot of holiday cleaning to do and told the family to help her out and go out for supper. I didn't feel as compelled to pray for them as the first table but I did.
       What else are we here for other than to pray for others in this world? I'm sure that's way too exclusive but at such times it feels to be the case. Of particular concern are those folks who might dress as if they don't have much money, or maybe their car looks to be well past its time, or maybe their expressions are just sad or forlorn? I want to tell them to take heart, that this world is passing, that true joy and even happiness is in Jesus Christ, that money means little to nothing in comparison, that Jesus said that with God it can be done but that...."...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." But how to tell them this...how even to help them?
       What is a man's life on average. The statistics may show it to be higher but I always refer to it as seventy years.....seventy short...yet in looking back on them....seemingly long and almost endless years. So many questions to be answered. So many wonderful answers ahead when we meet our Savior! And so many wonderful faces to look at at that banquet!