There was a young woman...ah, fuggit!

 

So, many years ago, I was dating this girl and before long, it was clear to me that she was way more into me than I was into her. She was writing me weird love letters full of references and concepts I just really couldn’t make heads nor tails of and calling too often.

And I was way too nice (read cowardly) to tell her that I just wasn’t that into her. So I tried the usual guy approach which was to just not call or write back.

So one night, I was walking into a party with a buddy who was fully aware of my situation, and who should be in the doorway as we walked in, putting on her coat to leave but my young lady friend. So she saw me and ran up to me and gave me a big hug and asked if I’d gotten her letters, to which I said I had. And then she asked me what I thought of them and I paused, my mind racing, trying to decide to tell her the truth or to avoid it. Finally I made my decision. I said, "Your writing...your letters are like poetry to me!"

So after another even bigger, longer hug, she left and immediately, my buddy grabbed my arm and said “What the hell?! Why did you lie to her like that?! ‘Your letters are like poetry to me’?! You liar!”

I looked at him and smiled. “I wasn’t lying. I don’t like or understand poetry either.”

 

I know – it really wasn’t worth it, was it?

I am no longer burning, and hopefully neither is Paris.

Sooooooo much I keep wanting to write on here, and I always run out of time to give it the time it deserves, but I just have to get this off my chest.

And to go all Hank Kimball here, as I am so often wont to do, it's probably a good thing I didn't find the time to write this a few days ago, because it would have been a completely different post as I'll explain as long as I can kick my buddy Hank out of here, well, actually out of me, for now. I'm sure he'll be back, well, I'll be back, or maybe...(just watch the clip on the link above.)

Anyway, the big topic in the news since the Paris attacks last week has been the issue of whether we should allow or restrict Syrian refugees in coming to America. I was upset to see the Republicans quickly pass a bill seemingly restricting it (though arguably, the bill was pretty pointless from a policy or regulation standpoint).

And for a few days since it passed, I was pretty upset about it and feeling like more than ever, it was yet more proof that we have two Americas - dark red and bright blue. And if I had posted about this earlier than this morning, that would have been the gist of my post.

But as I thought about it more, I decided that this was such a missed opportunity for our legislators. When one looks past the sound bites, I really believe that we are actually all on the same side of this issue. Well, except for the racist fringe that was against the idea even before the Paris attacks.

We all want to feel compassion for those people fleeing the atrocities of an out-of-control civil war. People on the Right have only slightly less compassion on this issue than those of us on the Left. And we are concerned about the security issues as well, though not to the point of paranoia.

And this was a golden opportunity for the Republicans to pass that bill, emphasizing not the fist-pounding xenophobic fear mongering to keep people out, but how much they believe in the strength that immigration has brought to our country, not to mention how poorly we have handled it in the past, with Jews and the Irish as 20th century examples. And that this time, once certain security standards are met, we are going to do it right. We are going to throw open our doors to once again show the world that we take great pride in our Melting Pot society and show that we have no ill will toward Muslims or any peace-loving people.

And similarly, President Obama should have said the same thing, but emphasizing first that as President, it is his job to keep America safe, and that he will not allow one single (or married - yuk yuk!) person to come in to this country without 2 years of vetting by the greatest security system in the world.

And this afternoon, I had a perfect opportunity to tell my Congressman, Ryan Costello, exactly that point, particularly since he co-sponsored the House Bill I referred to above.

And he listened to everything I had to say and said "I agree completely. What should have happened was...well, exactly what you just said. The Republicans should have emphasized compassion and the Democrats should have emphasized security. Yeah...exactly what you just said."

OK, Hank and I are done...for now.

And if their prayers are answered, would that person take the (newly) evangelical vote away from Ben Carson?

Considering I attend religious services almost every Sunday, maybe 3 of every 4 weeks anyway, it might seem hypocritical for me to say that I think this is really good news:

Pew Research Center study finds “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious”: “An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the ‘nones’ – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith.”

That said, they should give this poll again come next summer, when we’ve narrowed down the Presidential race to Hillary Clinton vs Ben Carson. I’ll bet the number of people praying regularly goes up significantly, and all probably with the same prayer:

Give us a Third-party candidate!

Then we can get to work on controlling personalities - as long as it isn't mine

Okay, I just need to get this out there because it’s been weighing on my brain since my ride home from work last Thursday.

Why-oh-why must we all, when we get fed up with our (non-Apple) PCs, feel the need to control alt-delete?!

Why can’t we just let alt-delete be alt-delete?!

(Sorry – sometimes I just need a goofy little post like this one to get back on track on this blog.)

Lucky guy, me

The wife of my good friend, Martin, asked his friends to send something in for her to put together to give him for his 60th birthday and she is giving it to him this weekend, don't you dare tell him about the post below (!), which was my love letter to Mar:
------
My memories of Martin Bradfield. Ah to be as eloquent and erudite as is my lifelong friend, Martin.

My memories of Martin are many and varied (your dad would have hated my switching tenses throughout – my apologies!):

-          Getting sunburned on the beach in New Jersey together

-          Martin being dared to try on one of my sisters’ bras as a teenager, and his accepting (it wasn’t a good look for him)

-          Going to many Phillies games together, including our first game Campbell Kids Day, where we saw the only Major League game ever started bya pitcher wearing sunglasses – Lowell Palmer. Phils lost badly, but we did get to see Richie Allen hit a “moon shot” completely out of Connie Mack Stadium

-          (a guaranteed way to get Martin to dissolve into hysterics…and me with him – get him to tell this story) Our convincing a friend – Dennis Moore – after he begged us not to, to pitch some batting practice to a bunch of us, and on the 2^nd or third pitch, one of us drilling him with a line drive hit so hard, it left indents of the ball’s stitch marks on his stomach.

-          His explaining some theory of drumming to his Dad at the apartment in Charlestown and his Dad listening with such rapt attention that the house could have collapsed all around them and his Dad wouldn’t have stopped listening to his every word

-          Martin staying with me for a short spell at my apartment in Pottstown when he had no other place to stay and after he’d been there “long enough”, waking me up one morning in my grumpy state by announcing “Jame! Time to begin your happy day!”

-          Listening to a National Lampoon album over and over and over so we could practically say the routines word for word.

-          “Don’t be noxious!” “Hiyucatan!”

-          The McVickars and Bradfields driving to Cape May in time for the sunrise on a Sunday morning

-          Playing All-Star spin baseball

-          Seeing how many catches we could do consecutively until we got bored and never came back to it. (I think we stopped at 500)

-          Playing “touch” football with poor David

-          Seeing how much Trevor adores him

-          Arguing politics over beers for close to 4 hours at a brewpub in Devon but never getting upset or feeling like our friendship was in any kind of danger

-          Watching Martin eat 10 hot dogs at one Phillies game…or ok, maybe that was me…or so Martin would have us believe

-          Martin coming all the way up to Maine for Cheryl’s and my wedding

-          Watching Martin fall in love with drumming as a young teen and drumming his fingers on anything in his reach, especially when listening in his earphones to a Bee Gees 8-track or cassette

-          Falling in love for real for the only time with Cathy!

-          Skipping organized activities at Camp Hilltop to organize our own activities

So that’s all I got off the top of my head. The memories come flooding back once I give them a chance to.

But those aren’t the first things I think of when I think of Martin. What I think of first is the value of a long time close friend, with me through lots of incredibly good, fun times and lots of incredibly unimaginably bad times.  But there throughout. The kind of friend I can go months, maybe even years at times, without being in contact with and then when we do get back together, chattering away like we’d just talked yesterday.

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

-          Baltasar Gracian

And I am so blessed. Thanks, Mar, for so many great times. I love you, and I look forward to another 60 years of making great memories together.

Learn-up, people!

This is just too good not to post...thanks to the Daily Kos...although I admit all the snarky italicized comments are mine:

Things I Learned From Republicans in September:

• If you work hard, you won’t have time to get hooked on drugs and that will solve all our drug-problem woes. (Rand Paul) 

(Which might suggest that Rand has never worked a day in his life to come up with this kind of crazy.) 

• Muslims can't be president. (Ben Carson) 

(And neither should people who have neglected to read the constitution.) 

•  Charles Darwin came up with his theory of evolution at the behest of Satan. (Carson again)  

(I'll give him a pass on this one and just assume he was auditioning to replace Dana Carvey as the new Church Lady and this was part of his comedy routine.)

• America should get back in the torture business. (Carly Fiorina) 

(Watching your campaign would certainly qualify.)

• Diversity sucks. (Rick Santorum) 

 (Which is why he prefers to stay in the party that votes like he means it.)

• The discovery of water on Mars was faked by NASA. (Rush Limbaugh)

(With 4 wives and counting, he's probably used to spotting people who fake things.) 

•  It's acceptable to walk into a classroom of seven- and eight-year-olds and coldly ask them, "Do you know what a nuclear weapon is? Do you know that there are schools that train children your age to be suicide bombers?" (Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon) 

(Doesn't appear he spent much time paying attention in school to be much of an authority on anything classroom-related.) 

• Immigrants need to speak American. (Secretary of Energy Sarah Palin)

(As opposed to whatever the heck her sentences can be identified as.) 

• The Dred Scott decision is still the law of the land, so slavery is still on the books. (Mike Huckabee) 

(Sounds like the typical Republican "What the heck do we know - we're making this up as we go?!) 

• To appeal to Latinos, just leave 'em a little tip when you check out of your hotel. (Gov. John Kasich) 

(I'm sure they have a few tips for you as well, sir, on how best not to alienate millions of voters with one simple sentence.)

• The issuance of secular marriage licences to same-sex couples is leading America into the very pit of Hell. (Kim Davis's lawyer Mat Staver) 

(As opposed to people who contort Jesus' teachings to fit their intolerant, hate-filled delusions.) 

• Same-sex couples getting married is the same as gassing the Jews at Auschwitz. (Bryan Fischer, speaking for the American Family Association)

 (I'm just going to go ahead and hope this isn't possibly what the man really said and not even comment on it here.)

 

Well that was fun!

 

(For the sources, go to the original post here where the links are provided:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/30/1425841/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Wednesday?detail=hide#)

Mini-posts

I keep holding off on posting things for a variety of lame reasons, so instead of lengthy wordy posts, I'll throw a few quick hitters down here:

 - Forget that post a few weeks back that I called "Handicapping America".  I keep trying to imagine scenarios where any of the current R candidates can win a race that SOMEone has to. Even though he still has a long way to go in the polls, I think it is High School Debate Captain Marco Rubio's race to lose.  Stay tuned next week when I change my mind again completely.

- And I still hope it's Kasich, or if not him, Jeb!? Bush. and you can call me all sorts of anti-women names for saying this, but Carly Fiorina annoys me more than all the other candidates combined. I sure hopes she is the R nominee!

 - I somehow became subscribed to Louise Hay's emails a number of months back, probably because I ordered one of Cheryl's annual Cmas presents from there, and the only reason I haven't unsubscribed is that I love the quotations they sometimes include in their various sales pitches. Today's was a good one:  

“What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life – to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.”
– George Eliot

This describes the feelings I have for so many people I've loved and not communicated with, at least on a tangible level, in some cases for a decade or more.


- I didn’t post last week’s weigh-in total, though you can guess why – I was disappointed with the result…as I was today. So, I had started this whole thing at 208.6. Last Monday, I weighed in at 199.6 and today at 199.0. I know it isn’t bad, but I’m influenced a little by a rogue weigh-in on Saturday where I was 197.6. Damn Station Taproom truffle fries! And an apple-cider donut or 3 over the weekend.

Moral of the story - do weigh-ins on Saturdays from now on! (Or maybe stop eating donuts? 'Sif!)

- A rare sports reference here. The bad news is that the Iggles are 1-2 when many thought they’d be 3-0 at this point. Good news is the 3 teams they’ve played have a collective record of 7-2 so far and the Birds are only 1 game behind the hated Cowboys and have an easier schedule coming up.

- I watched far more of the Pope in Philly this weekend, well, just on Saturday, than anyone might expect. And I love the guy and everything he said here. I just wish he weren’t a hypocrite when it comes to loving and respecting gays and women. But these things too will change over time, I am certain.

- I am just loving that John Boehner resigned, not because he was such a bad guy, which he was, and wasn't.  But because it will further expose the extreme wing of the republican party (The Extremities?!). I expect their whole influence to implode on themselves and their party within 2-3 years, either in the 2016 elections or in 2018. I think (and hope) they'll do substantially more damage to their party and their cause than to the nation in the meantime.

- The beginning of the end for Donald Trump as front-runner of the R party. He's starting to make sense: "Donald Trump will unveil his tax plan at 11 a.m., calling for higher rates on the rich. On CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Trump told Scott Pelley from his 5th floor Manhattan penthouse that the tax plan would hike taxes on the wealthy while eliminating some “unfair deductions.” “What kind of Republican are you?” Pelley quipped. “I don’t want to have certain people on Wall Street getting away with paying no tax,” Trump replied. The real-estate mogul revealed that a “large segment of our country” (referring to the poor) would pay a “zero rate” and that middle-class and corporate tax rates would also go lower."

- I've enjoyed this new approach. If anyone has any pros or cons, let me know, please, either here or via email.