Truckloads of bullshit from the news - what the hell does it all mean?

How do we process it all, I for one do not think we have evolved enough to keep pace – and that worries me.   We are bombarded with the likes of Benghazi, Boston bombing, Jodi Arias and the kidnapped and tortured women of Cleveland.  I have a hard time fitting these things into my head, I know a lot of people do and can but the pure evilness of people is beyond my comprehension.   When I think of the hell that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight must have lived through being locked up by a crazy man for years I just get sick to my stomach.  I cannot even comprehend the terror they must have felt, for years and the hands of a madman. 

I won’t pretend to know these women, or anything about who they were, prior to being kidnapped.  We won’t learn that – we will however, learn all about the madman who perpetrated the crime.  We are fed information in an ever shortening news cycle and we think we know all about it, from those little snippets of news that are created solely to create sensationalistic responses.  No deep thinking about things today, we only have a few seconds to dwell on this topic and then it is on to the next tidbit of   sensationalistic bullshit designed to grab headlines and more importantly ratings points.

I wonder if everyone finds it as scary as I do, the brief and horrifying vivid 30 seconds of the news cycle that will indelibly stamp my cerebellum with some horror or heinous crime for months or years.   Doesn’t it seem WRONG how often and briskly we are forced to acknowledge the horrors of human existence?   Our world serves up the miseries of people’s lives like the kid at McDonalds serves up a super-sized order of French fries.  Does not our brain rebel from it all, the same way a big mac meal deal will make me shit it back out within 30 minutes.  My brain is repulsed by it all the same way my stomach is repulsed by the crap served at McDonalds. 

Some days, I want to and do shut myself off from the world, ignoring television and radio news and sticking to my internet radio stations that allow me to just listen to music with no interruptions.  That is not a very good thing either though, to insulate ourselves, to numb our feelings to pain and suffering.  What happens then when a family member or friend gets sick or is dying, has our empathy been over extended?  When we get sick from eating too much McDonalds do we stop eating that food – for a while we do.  But sometimes we want to clean up our insides with a salad and some water, water that is not bottled!    What we can’t do is, stop eating all together.

We are just not able to seal ourselves off, unless we live in a cave on the Serengeti and our worries center around which freaking animal is going to eat us.  Unless we are that dude we will never to be able to block the evilness that surrounds us from our lives.   It will seep in, no matter where we hide.  Attempting to create a mental panic room does not work and if it did it would be only temporary.  The suffering always finds us, no matter what walls and fortresses we build to protect ourselves.    

We have to accept that evil exists in the world, we cannot escape that fact.  How do we deal with it? Especially when the news cycle feeds it to us like a big mac, one every 38.2 seconds.   How do we get our brains to go from someone who lost their legs in Boston to Tiger Woods new squeeze to the fact that Kate Middleton is wearing an Alexander McQueen maternity dress in between which we are forced to decide what kind of erectile dysfunction medication to use and what soda to wash the pills down with.   

It seems we take more time to pick out the right breakfast cereal than we do actually experiencing fear, terror, anger, envy and downright befuddlement.  The world spits out so much and spits it so fast that there is little time left for contemplation.  To wonder what it all means.  In one minute I am having my righteous indignation raised by the Cleveland story, which is immediately replaced by my repulsion over a thousand dollar maternity dress of the Princess.  My pain about the Boston marathon murders slams right into Tiger Woods’ sex life – like I give a shit about which girl he is dating today, his is a freaking pig!

CNN or HLN or Fox or any other, they are all selling to and celebrating our monkey minds.  They have figured out how to turn us into automatons.  It almost feels like they want us to react a certain way, to feel fear or compassion, anger or joy, but only in the briefest and most superficial of ways.  We experience a roller coaster ride and like all roller coasters, our adrenaline can only be ramped up for so long before become accustomed to it.  Much like a drug addict has to get the fix, we need a fix of adrenaline to keep us going, they have conditioned us, much like a man and his bell with his dogs.   

We have had Philosophers over thousands of years who have tried to explain war, violence and suffering.  The search for understanding, happiness and contentment is as old as life itself.   Back in the day, we used things like ceremony, tradition and spiritual introspection to understand how we fit into the world, what our purpose was.  Now we are getting it between ads for personal injury lawyers talking about transvaginal mesh and long-lasting lip gloss – neither of which I care about.  I am unsure how this will work in the long term.  Like anything, when it is new we don’t fully understand the consequences, only after some time do we have some hindsight do the impact of things become clear.  Our brains need a sick day folks, a break from it all to contemplate the meaning of things. 

Taking sick leave is a short term solution, we can decide to shut off the news and sit with the facts for a while.  Not the details of how Jodi terrorized that poor man before killing him but the facts of our very existence.  To practice Yama – or self-restraint, self-control and discipline is what is needed.  The yamas comprise the "shall-not" in our dealings with the external world just as the niyamas comprise the "shall-do" in our dealings with the inner world.

We have monkey minds to begin with, the brain is a trickster that roams from this to that and this again.  The media has figured out the key, exploiting our monkey minds and desensitizing us to the horrors of the world – with mostly their opinions and not many facts anyway.  When someone died back in the day, it wasn’t a once-every-five-minute event, it was not a blip in a 24-hour news cycle.  When these things happened, they happened to people we were intimately acquainted with. The story was very real to you, very inescapable.  We were forced to deal with it, to contemplate the meaning of it.  This wasn’t entertainment, it was part of the healing process and you didn’t have the luxury of changing the channel.

We are being taught by the world that the monkey mind is a comfortable place to be, it is in actuality the exact opposite.  Introspection, meditation, the slow and steadied examination of these questions is what leads us to, if not peace at least acceptance.   Slowing down and stepping back from it a bit, we allow ourselves to move beyond the initial reaction of fear and despair.   Fear is the emotion most often used by the media to draw us into the news cycle.  Those snap judgments, that intense reaction to the horrors of our world, is only the surface of a very deep ocean.

To meditate is to be a deep sea diver.  To meditate upon murder, poverty, jealousy, joy, forgiveness, revenge, sickness is to slow the cycle to a halt, to relax our monkey minds.  When meditating we are not preventing someone else from murdering, we are not preventing the death of our loved ones or the loss of our job.   We are preventing our brains from becoming a flash-fried burger and fries.  We are keeping our heart open and our will strong.  Meditation hopefully provides you with a different kind of narrative to take out to the world, one that allows time for suffering, grieving, healing, and time for peace and contentment.

Facebook stalking – is there really such a thing?

So, I am a Facebook stalker.  I was unaware that when you accepted my FB friend request I was not to poke around your wall and dig through all your particulars.  I am kind of an old fogey but I was kind of thinking that was the purpose of the place, seems I am mistaken. 

The thing is, I am completely open about it.  In most circumstances I leave a note on the person’s wall I was digging around in the façade of their lives.  It seems weird that some folks watch it so closely; I know several of my friends who use an app to see who was there.  To me, that seems like paranoia.  The definition typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself.  The thing is, WHY put things on Facebook that would ever make you feel that way.  Seems you have to be dumber than a bag of old rusty hammers if you put things on FB that you don’t want other people to see – the term dumbass comes to mind actually. 

Come on folk’s your privacy is GONE!!  Once you place something on FB it can never be retrieved, it will be floating around out there, somewhere, FOREVER!!  And besides, why would you worry about it  anyway – did you not accept all the people in your friends list?  Unless you are one who just friends all sorts of people just to get a large number of friends, in which case, again dumbass comes to mind!!  Don’t get me wrong, I am huge fan of Facebook, it has allowed me to reconnect with friends long ago forgotten, especially those from my Navy days.  There is one dude I served with back on the USS Stump that I just can’t seem to shake loose and get rid of, a bad penny if you will.  You will know him because he will post a comment on this blog.  Other than that, all the people on my friends list, is actually a friend.     

I have 193 friends, according to my list, which still amazes me by the way.  I have met all but 5 of them, and you know who you are.  Not sure how I connected with those 5 and ya know what, it does not matter.  I find watching their lives scroll by on my wall pleasant, if I didn’t I would boo them off MY list.  I have deleted many folks who were just filled with the hateful mean spirited bitchiness that I do not allow in my real life and especially do not allow on FB.  I have seen some people with over 1000 friends, I am not even sure that I know 1000 people and why in the hell would I want to share anything with people I don’t know.  

Earlier I mentioned the façade of their lives, I wanted to talk about that a bit more.  As I watch people and the vitriol they spew sometimes I am always amazed.  Some folks will profess righteousness and display high minded ideas in the pictures and links they post.  One might think they were saints come down from freaking heaven with the grace of God himself.  So while they share those little sayings and pictures about how they want to be perceived (God fearing) it seems a different story when you read the things they actually post themselves.  In one case I remember seeing a picture of the Dalia Lama saying something, does not matter what because whatever he says embodies peace and love kindness.  So the very next post, after sharing that link, was spewing some political bullshit lambasting one government program or another along with a high minded and very narrow minded comment about someone who has been less fortunate in life then they have been. 

I have one friend, he knows who he is, that I met on FB and then later met in real life.  Since that time we have gone to shitty Jaguar games and changed brakes on a Honda, or Toyota I can’t remember.  Had it been something from the 60 or before I would have been able to rattle off all the particulars but since it wasn’t, I can’t.

So, after a recent “incident” I have started leaving a picture on the walls of people I stalk, here it is.

If you see this on your page, I hope it makes you smile and I hope you realize I must be somewhat interested in the boring ass life you put up as your façade J

Love ya, one and all!

 

 

I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN!!!

I have not looked at the TV much since the crazy MF’ers up in Boston set off a bomb at the finish line.  There have been some stories rolling through my facebook feed telling stories though.  I consider myself ill-informed on the topic of the Boston bombing.  I have raised up some prayers for those who were killed and those who lost loved ones and for those who were injured and will carry the scars of that day with them forever, whatever form those scars take. 

I saw something attributed to Mr. Rogers on the old interwebs.  Here it is. 

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world."

There were hundreds of helpers!!  

I also saw something from Patton Oswald, who by the way I have never thought was that funny but this was poignant.  Here it is. 

“I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

For me, that sums up what it is to be an American, we are helpers and we outnumber the evil bastards that roam our planet with us.

Something I saw today on the facebook got me riled up again about the way the media reacts to such things.  It is fucking shameful that they glorify the worthless bags of shit that perpetrate terror on our society.  Even the word terror pisses me off!  These guys, foreign and domestic, are mass murders, no different than Hilter, other than in the numbers.  They believe in something and are committed to their  cause, as committed or more than we are to protect our way of life.  When was it changed, changed from what it is, mass murderer, to terrorist and why?  Terrorist is word used by the media to get ratings.  It is used by the government to identify certain of those among us.  I believe the word is already overused and when a word gets overused it loses its effectiveness.   These people are killers, plain and simple and I don’t need the White house or the media to tell me that is was terrorism. 

Another thing, I could case less, less than I would a puss filled festering boil on some nasty toe, about ANY BIT OF information about these two shit birds.  The media hypes these guys up and they have gotten their 15 minutes of fame.  Our young people see this and it is a way for them to get their 15 minutes of fame.  It becomes the “norm”, my life is just like his, maybe I should do the same thing.  I think it the most terrible of disservices we can do, talk about the murderers.  Other than to let us know what the sentence was and when they have been executed.  I don’t want to know, and REFUSE to watch anything else about them.  Don’t care where they are from, don’t care why they are here, don’t care about their parents, uncles, neighbor’s friends or teachers.  I don’t give a shit!!     To give them anything more than that is to give them what they want, perpetual news coverage and an extended bit of fame for a cowardly act.      

I know there have been lots of stories about the helpers, and I appreciate that.  I wish there was a way they could come back in a few months’ time to talk to survivors, folks who helped out and were fearless in the face of adversity.  I would like to know the impact this had on their lives, how did it affect them at work, at home, in church.  I want to hear the story of the guy whose leg had every bit of flesh blown off of it.  How will his recovery go, will he become friends with the man in the cowboy hat who saved his life?  Tell me the stories about us, because Damn it there are more helpers and people who stand facing the darkness of the world around us – and there will always be more of us than there are them and that is what I care about.    

On a lighter note, I did see something about Boston.  I can’t remember exactly but basically I will not act up when I am Boston.  They will shut the city down, everything will stop – buses, subways, public and private transportation, work, schools everything and then ask the citizenry to lock themselves up while they will bring in whatever resources necessary to hunt you down.  Talk about the American way, props to the mayor of Boston! 

My friend, Alison Bodey - part II

After reading my first blog about my friend Alison, I saw that I had done what the Sherriff had done.  Like him, I made a snap decision and reported the facts.  It seems my first blog was not well thought out and just rambled.  My heart was seared with the immediacy of the pain I was feeling for the loss of my friend.  I want to apologize to the Sherriff.  I know he was just doing his job but man, with the complete shock of losing a friend the last thing I wanted to read as the last line was that she was not wearing her seatbelt.  Like it was her fault because she wasn’t strapped in, who cares about that?  I guess in some way I was defensive of my friend, not wanting people to talk bad about her or hurt her feelings in anyway.

I am amazed by the number of people who reached out to me about my last blog.  I even reconnected with folks I remember from those trips to Morehead State back in the day.  I have had a hard time the last few days, as this has hit me harder than I would have thought.  I suppose one does not really think about such things and how hard they will be when they happen.  I am experiencing a weird mix of emotions.  Every time I think about it, about her, about her kids and about her death it just seems crazy and I am unsure how I should act, what I should do.  I have stared at Google maps looking for where I think it happened, just east of Millerstown road on Zimmerman is what I hear.  I have zoomed in to look at every foot of that road, not sure what I am looking for, and obviously there won’t be real time pictures of the accident.  There won’t be skid marks I could analyze, there is nothing, nothing but the trees and fields, same thing that has always been along that stretch of road.      

I have electronically chatted with her oldest daughter, Caitlin.  I think that is cool – I suppose that is more for my own selfish reasons, trying to hold onto something that was, and is not there now.  Still I think it is cool.  She is the spitting image of her Mom.  From reading some of her posts on FB I suspect she has a lot of the same attitudes, outlooks and life philosophies as well.  Good for you Caitlin because those are some of the attributes that made your Mom who she was.  I received a very nice email from my blog from a friend of Alison’s from Myrtle tree Baptist Church, telling about the influence Alison had on her.  It was a very touching email.   It seems weird for me to even be thinking about Alison and all the times we had back in the day and since we started our journey together but each of us have followed our own very different paths in life.  Her journey took her back to our hometown, mine took me literally around the world and I could never imagine moving back to our hometown.    

Why is it that we allow the wrong things to dominate our lives?  Why are we in such a hurry to go and to do?  Why… why not slow down a bit and realize the stupid shit most of us are chasing is the wrong stuff!  I think Alison understood that better than most.  That syndrome seems to get worse the older we get, our bodies grow old, we get set in our ways and we seem to forget the important things in life.  I hope each of you can hold onto your childhood spirit, be young and mischievous, adventurous and light hearted.  At least try to be that for one day, just one day and do it in remembrance of Alison Bodey!   I had to find it but I remembered a quote from John Steinbeck from “The Winter of Our Discontent” that I liked when I read it and I think is perfect here: 

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

The world just seems a little grayer, a darker place without her in it anymore. 

I suppose the most important question one can ask at times like this is, did they really live life?  I guess at this point in my life I should know, or at least understand what it means to lose someone that is dear to me.  It never seems to fail that when I tell myself that, intellectually I know it to be true, death is the inevitable end of life for all of us.  But loss is not about the intellectuality of things.  Loss is about the gaping hole left in one’s heart when our friends and family pass away.  Sad thing is, one can never really repair the holes this kind of loss brings.  All we can do is to learn to live our lives around the holes.  On more than one occasion after a loss, I have wondered, wouldn’t it be cool if we could have just one more conversation.  One more chance to ask the things we never thought we should, one more chance to ask the things that are important in our lives.  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to get one more chance to make up for the time we think we have? 

I am reminded of a favorite scene from a movie called “Waking Ned Devine” that Bride and I just watched again recently.  One of the main characters, Jackie O’Shea, was talking at a funeral: 

“Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend.  But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Michael and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I'd congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend.”

I think that is how I feel about Alison.  She was a great friend, but I don’t think I ever told her so, at least not so simpley stated.  I want to thank her for being my friend, I am better for having known her.   

“Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend, but I don't ever remember telling him that.” 

That is a sad commentary really.  How many people in our lives do we consider to be great friends and we never tell them that, not in a meaningful way anyway.   What is it that we can do to ensure our friends know how we feel about them?  If you have never watched that movie, you must go and rent it, it is on my top 10 – perfect justice all the way around at the end of that movie.     

Bride asked me if I’d like to go to her funeral.  I was unsure of what that answer should be.  It really turned out to be a moot point, I have to travel to Canada for work on the day of her funeral.  I wondered if I would want to go if I did not have a prior work commitment.  It has been a long, long time since we have seen each other.  I do not know her kids, her parents are gone.  I wondered if it would be just for my own sense of closure.  I am not big on funerals, even less excited about viewings, although my Sister told me the casket was done with Pink Floyd which I would have liked to have seen.  I did not even go over to the casket at my Dad’s viewing.  I did that once when I was younger, and then that was the last image I had of that person.  For me, I do not want the rest of my days with the image of what is left of someone I loved, propped up in a box for all to see.  I refuse to remember my friends like that.  I choose to remember them in life, not death.  Would I go, I think I would.  While I can use my mind’s eye to remember my friend and the parts of the journey of life we shared, it would be fun to listen to others tell their stories and shared experiences with Alison.

After reading back through this I suppose this is still about me mourning the loss of my great friend and not yet a tribute to her – I am working on it.   

                                                     
Below is a picture from one of her albums on FB, adorable donkeys – who has an album called adorable donkeys?

Alison Bodey – Rest in Peace my old friend

I have known Alison Bodey pretty much as long as I have been alive.  We were both Millerstown rats, I was born there and moved away when I was four.  She was born there (I am pretty sure) and stayed for a long time.  I moved back later when I was about 14 or 15, moved in with Granny in the purple house because I don’t think anyone could tolerate my dumbassedness.   We had a lot of great times back in the day, we liked each other, we hated each other and for a short time we loved each other.  She was killed Thursday morning in a single car accident with her daughter in the car.  Here is the article from the paper in Springfield. 

A St. Paris woman was killed early Thursday morning when she lost control of her vehicle and overturned on Zimmerman Road.

Alison Bumgardner, 47, was killed in a single-vehicle crash when her 1997 GMC van went off the west side of the road and overturned shortly before 7 a.m. in the 6000 block of Zimmerman Road in Mad River Twp. in Champaign County, said Matt Melvin, Champaign County sheriff.

A second woman, Cailtin Woodrum, 26, was a passenger in the vehicle and was taken by ambulance to Mercy Memorial Hospital in Urbana, where she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Bumgardner was headed south on Zimmerman Road when she lost control, and she was partially ejected from the driver’s side of the vehicle, Melvin said. Champaign County Coroner Josh Richards pronounced her dead at the scene.

Deputies are still investigating the crash, but it doesn’t appear that drugs or alcohol were involved. Some snow was on the road, but it’s not clear what role, if any, the weather might have played in the accident, Melvin said.

Neither Bumgardner nor Woodrum appeared to be wearing a seat belt during the crash, Melvin said.

Seems so sanitary, it is really weird for me to read that.  I Google earthed the 6000 block of Zimmerman road, which I have driven on hundreds of times.  I could not tell me exactly where that is, neither could Bing maps.  I rolled over my first very first car (1974 Vega) on Zimmerman road, close to Millerstown road.  I wonder how far she was away from that spot when she died?   Deputy Melvin’s report is so to the point, does not appear that drugs or alcohol were involved.  Not clear what role, if any, the weather might have played. 

This article is so flat, so devoid of emotion and feeling – it is the antithesis of who Alison Bodey was.  There is no mention of her likes, her loves and nothing of her life at all.  Nothing about the loves of her life, Kiara, Caitlin and Wyatt, there was also no mention of Pink Floyd, nothing about horses, nothing about her hobby’s, nothing about the pain she suffered with - nothing about her at all really – just that she was not wearing her fucking seatbelt, it was almost as if Deputy Melvin wrapped up her life with that worthless stupid little tidbit of information.  I don’t know him and I know he was just doing his job but you know what – I don’t care – I don’t like him for summing up my friends life with that ending statement – Fuck you Matt Melvin, Champaign County sheriff.

It is very hard for me to read that article, and even harder to talk about.  I have lost friends before, she is not the first but she is the closest friend I have lost.  I say closest, it almost seems weird to say but I am so glad we reconnected after all the years on FB without seeing or hearing from each other.  It was weird, almost as if no time had passed at all when we reconnected on Facebook.  I have written about her before on the oratory, I did not mention her by name but here is a link to that blog

http://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2012/01/not-sure-where-to-start-this-one-mr.html

I remember asking her if it was OK to blog about her post – her response, “I don't mind. Thanks for the prayers.  It’s the best thing going for me. :-) Faith, hope, prayer, and laughter.   I won't let it get the best of me.”  I remember she messaged me after I posted it – “I thought it was good, and I do see similarities in the writing. I prefer to call it rambling. And as far as anyone and the paths of their lives, it is simply amazing how little, insignificant (at the time) happenings (or things that didn't happen) can mold or shape us into decisions we make. I think the little things make more of an impact for the most part than some big things.”

We messaged a few times when her Dad got really sick last year, he passed November.  She shared her frustrations with her brothers handling of that, even before their dad passed.  I was mad at him for that, but as I told her losing parents has weird effects on folks, especially siblings.  I shared some of my own experiences from when I lost my Mom and Dad.  There are never any words that seem right at times like those though.  I told her all you can do is forgive, if you don’t it will erode your soul.  I hope she was able to forgive him before she died.              

I remember on one trip back to Ohio a few years ago I took lots of pictures, fall in Ohio is beautiful.  Anyway, one of the pictures I posted on FB was of her Dad’s cows.  DAMNIT, I miss my friend!  How is it that she was taken from us, she was one of the good ones!! She was always positive, always forging on, regardless of the obstacles.  How weird, I miss her a lot and a lot of people’s lives will have a gigantic hole that can never be filled.  I was looking though her pictures on FB and laughing, she was a very funny woman.  Her sarcastic wit was well honed, even back in the day.  I enjoyed those road trips up to Morehead Kentucky to see her when I was stationed in Norfolk in the 80’s. 

Here is the last message I got from Alison, this was December 2^nd 2012. 

Good afternoon now!! I am not doing too bad, all things considering. Starting to feel a little better.  At least I'm able to eat. I think most of the ulcers have disappeared finally. Although this medicine the dr put me on for the Crohn's has been making me very shaky, out of breath, and kinda agitated all the time. I've been back to work for a week now. And trying to go through stuff at Dad's when I have time. Still haven't spoken to my brother since the Memorial service. Oh well, if he wants to be that way, guess I don't have much of a say in it. Hope all is well with you. I laughed at the blue sky pic you posted. That was a good one. Wish it were blue here. It’s 55 but gray and rainy.

She used this picture a lot as her profile picture, I think it sums her up her life much better than Matt Melvin, Champaign County sheriff could ever do!

 

 

I will miss you old friend – love ya!!                                         

Ps. Sorry if this rambled more than normal – I am still a little freaked out!
                                           

5 people you would want to spend some time with, a weekend get away!

I saw this question on FB someplace where someone had asked what five people you would like to have come to a dinner party.  I thought, cool who would Mr. Oatmeal pick for that sort of thing.  I immediately went for Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha but then I got to wondering, maybe those folks were not as popular and famous in their lifetimes as they are now.  Maybe they did not understand the impact of their lives so far into the future.  Maybe they were just normal guys that were just doing the right thing and some folks started following them.  I can’t imagine any of them had any idea what would come of their lives and the work they started.  I suppose that could be said about most figures we know from history, ancient or recent.  So, that lead me to start thinking about folks who at least seemed interesting or that I thought might be interesting in their own right.      
 

It has taken me a bit of pondering, there are so many that would be interesting to spend time with, at least in my opinion.

So here ya go.

Leonardo da Vinci – here was a man truly out of time, he was not of his age and if I believed – I say that he traveled back in time from some point in our not so distant future.   He was a genius in many areas as well – he was an inventor, engineer, architect, anatomist, scientist and philosopher.  He was a left brain kind of guy for sure.  BUT…………… He was also equally a right brainer - known for being a painter, musician, sculptor, architect, cartographer and writer.   Who else would have been able to conjure and create the famous “Mona Lisa” and the even more famous “The Last Supper”?   He is the quintessential definition of a Renaissance man.  He wrote the bulk of his notes backwards and in code, why?  What was he hiding or was he just messing with people heads, maybe he was also a comedian.  This is a man who snuck into graveyards at night to steal corpses and study human anatomy, to find out where the soul was.  I find him a complete and total dichotomy of his time.  I would love to have him spend some time on our age and then come to my weekend getaway.  I think it would be fascinating to get his “take on things” in today’s world.  Mostly I could just ask questions, I would be the annoying kid going why? why? why? 

Bill gates – I think he would be interesting not for what made him rich and famous but what he has done after he got rich and famous.   Here is a guy who can make an impact on world issues like no one has ever been able to do before him.  Think about the impact that $28,000,000,000 (28 Billion) dollars has had on our planet!  The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has been working on some of the planets worst problems.  Problems most isolated Americans do not even know exist.  He has probably singlehandedly saved more lives than anyone in history with The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization program alone, and that is one of thousands of initiatives they are working on.  I would love to get to know someone who has that grand of a vision, someone who has the ability to make that big of difference in so many lives.  From simple means this man has taken on the hardest problems on the planet, it easily makes building the most deployed operating system seem completely insignificant by comparison.  I would love to understand how he went from smart kid, to business tycoon to the world’s greatest philanthropist in one lifetime.         

Constantine the first – Like it or not, this is the person responsible for the popularization of the Christian religion.   Christianity was still a rag tag group of misfits when he became the Emperor or Rome.  It is well known that he was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, in 313 he and CoEmperor Licinius issued the Edit of Milan in which tolerance of all religions was proclaimed.   Most importantly he was a Roman and what were the Romans great at, organizing things.  They organized, armies, organizing empires, the organized building projects like no others and they (he) organized Christianity.  I would love to talk to him about how he selected the books of the Bible, what criteria was used for Mark getting in and the Odes of Solomon not getting in.  Did he envision what Roman Catholicism is today or did he envision something completely different?  What was it about the epistle of Barnabas that got it kicked out and what about John got that book in?  Could it have been John 3:16, which is, in my opinion, the key to the whole thing.  If you believe that God gave his only begotten son so that whichever of us believes in him will have eternal life.  It seems to me that if you believe that, you are in and if you don’t, there is no way you can get in.  From an organizational perspective I think it would be interesting to find out the why on how the Bible was assembled.  Why did the Old testament have an angry plague and pestilence God while the and the New Testament has a healing, forgiving and loving God – I think it was to make it all work, hard to sell the old testament.   

Mark Twain – I have always looked at Mark Twain as a quintessential American.  He was someone who had his finger on the pulse of America.  He also changed the way people wrote, before him writing was very formal.  When he came along he was able to inject a certain type of colloquialism writing (for lack of better words).  His Prince and the Pauper is a classic and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court I think showed the absurdities of political and societal norms, in Yankee by setting it in the court of King Arthur – how funny is that.  More than anything there was an everyman sort of down to earth common sense that came through in his writing, more so in the newspaper articles than his books I think though.  I would love for him to spend a year in our time and then come to my weekend getaway, he would no doubt be able to point out the absurdities of our day that surround and envelope us in a way that we do not even notice anymore.  He would be telling us about the elephant in the room, of that I have ZERO doubt! 

Michael Angelo – I have stared at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and I have seen his Pietà, the sculpture he created when he was only 24 years old that depicts Mary holding Jesus after he was crucified.  It is probably the most moving piece of art I have ever laid eyes on.   He had many many famous commissions over his life but those two for me are the most incredible.  I feel they are incredible because they both moved me like no other art I had seen before or since.  I would love to ask him how he saw those things, how did he see Mary holding Jesus after his death inside that block of marble.  How did he see that incredible story he put on the ceiling before he got started.  My questions would not be about the magnificence of the work, which is unquestioned, but more about how did he see it, what inspired him and how was he able to take that vision and drive it through to completion.   For him, he just had a job, he was an artist doing his work.  There is absolutely no way that he could have known the impact of his work on the rest of the world.  If one were to have told Michael Angleo that in less than one year in 2010 over 500 million people were going to come to see his work he would have thought you crazy.  That was population of the planet when he was alive.  The first I ever heard of the Sistine Chapel was in the movie Ecstasy and agony, with Charlton Heston, and Rex Harrison.  I remember the part where Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) would constantly holler up to Michael Angelo on the scaffolding, “when will it be done”, and Michael Angelo (Charlton Heston) would yell down “when I am finished”.  I loved that movie. 

 

As I was pondering this blog and started writing it, I listened to a song called “Beer With Jesus” by Thomas Rhett, here are the lyrics and below that is a link to the video.

If I could have a beer with Jesus heaven knows I'd sip it nice and slow.  I'd try to pick a place that ain't too crowded or gladly go wherever he wants to go.  You can bet I'd order up a couple tall ones, tell the waitress put 'em on my tab.   I'd be sure to let him do the talkin', careful when I got the chance to ask how'd you turn the other cheek?  To save a sorry soul like me, do you hear the prayers I send.  What happens when life ends, and when you think you're comin' back again.  I'd tell everyone, but no one would believe it.  If I could have a beer with Jesus, If I could have a beer with Jesus I'd put my whole paycheck in that jukebox.  Fill it up with nothing but the good stuff, sit somewhere we couldn't see a clock.  Ask him how'd you turn the other cheek, to save a sorry soul like me.  Have you been there from the start, how'd you change a sinner's heart.  And is heaven really just beyond the stars.  I'd tell everyone, but no one would believe it.  If I could have a beer with Jesus, he can probably only stay, for just a couple rounds.  But I hope and pray he's stayin' till we shut the whole place down.  Ask him how'd you turn the other cheek to save a sorry soul like me.  What's on the other side?  Is mom and daddy alright?  And if it ain't no trouble tell them I said hi.  I'd tell everyone but no one would believe it If I could have a beer with Jesus.  I'd tell everyone but no one would believe it, If I could have a beer with Jesus.  http://www.cmt.com/videos/thomas-rhett/855115/beer-with-jesus.jhtml.  I suppose I feel that way

 
There are so many characters in history that I think would be interesting to spend time with but I have narrowed my list to these five, what are your thoughts on it

Veterans Day

As you know, I have written quite a bit about Veterans Day and Veterans in general.  Today I sit here thinking about how lucky I am to be an American and how thankful I am to those who made that possible.  There are currently about 25 million living Veterans, not all active duty but still kicking and I am proud to include myself in that group.  Just as a comparative there are only about 48million who have served in our military since 1776.  As you can deduce with simple math, over half of the folks who have ever served – since 1776 – are still alive.  As I sit and think about that and what it means I wonder, where we will be as a nation be in another 50 years.  The one thing I do know, we will have brave young Men and Women who are willing to server to protect our Great Nation. 

I was reminded of a poem I heard a long time ago by Courtney Tanabe called “Because of you, Unknown Soldier”.   Usually when we think or hear the words “Unknown Soldier” we think of Arlington National Cemetery and the proud marines protecting the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I am not sure but I suspect Courtney might have been inspired by the site there at Arlington.  Maybe she put together the pieces of the puzzle that explain the importance of 21 in the military.  21 gun salutes, the 21 steps that Marine takes or the 21 seconds he pauses before the next 21 steps at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, who knows.  As I read it today I wonder if maybe she wasn’t thinking about the fact that we do not really know our soldiers. (The word Soldier is used generically to describe anyone who serves).  Here is her ode.

 Because of you, I am here

Because of you, I am able to live freely

Yet I do not know you

And I have not done anything for you

But there you stand, ready to fight

And there you are prepared to die

For me

You've fought before

And you'll fight again

For someone you don't know

So thank you Unknown Soldier

Fighting for me

I'm here because of you

And I owe my future to you

 

Regardless of what she was thinking when she wrote it, it is a beautiful tribute. 

Maybe that is part of our problem, our Soldiers are unknown to us and their work is even more unknown to us. We like to picture Hero’s in our head and the Military has no lack of Hero’s. But along with those Heroes are young scared kids who may not understand the geo political ramifications of the actions they are taking.  Maybe, and this is a maybe, we just don’t care about things as much anymore.  Other than the things that are revolving in our own insulated cocoon of life.  That sounds like a harsh reality but that is what it seems.  With so much instantaneous and overwhelming communication we have insulated ourselves.  We listen to news stations that cater to our views, we hang out with likeminded folks who hold the same views.  We rarely get outside our bubble, our cone of safety if you will.  This may be part of our National problem, we live in a world where we have so many places to get information from that are very targeted to exactly what we want.  Is that good, I think not.

For example I will pick two things and explain, social media and riding in your car in traffic.  I have to ask; don’t we feel emboldened when we sit in our 5000 pound protective cocoon?  Don’t we scream things at people that we would NEVER say to them in person, even in a joking way.   Don’t we feel powerful when we can sit in our underwear pecking away at a keyboard spewing hateful bile, in all caps no less?  We never have to see the persons face or care about their reaction.  Most people and things outside our bubble are “Unknown” to us.  How many of your own neighbors can you name, how many have been in your house, how many do you just wave at to appear the tiniest bit friendly?  I was not sure where this would go when I started pecking on the keyboard, I never do but here I am.              

I want to let everyone who has served or is serving to that I am indebted to you, I owe my freedoms to you and I will never take the sacrifices you have made for granted.   I started two years ago posting a tribute to every Military member who died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, those posts have reached 838 as of today who have died in the last two years defending our freedoms, or so they tell us.  I am so glad that we are out of Iraq and soon to be out of Afghanistan so I no longer have to perform that honor, not because I don’t want to, but because I should not have to. 

I will leave you with another poem or two

Remember

by Brittany Vigoreaux

American soldiers sacrifice so much,

All for the freedom of our country.

Leaving their families and heading off to war,

Not knowing what the future holds.

Working day and night

Determined to stay strong.

Watching friends be killed every day

Letters from home inspiring them to keep fighting

So little is given to them

Although there is little to do,

For those who have died in war

We can still remember

Remember all the men who have died.

Remember all the battles fought

Remember all the tears families cried

Remember it was freedom the soldiers brought

To this very day soldiers are under-appreciated

Veterans Day is the day

For the dead, living, and fighting soldiers

To be remembered

 

Sometimes the World Seems

by Larissa Myschuk

Sometimes the world seems like it's

Upside-down

Inside out

Torn down the middle

In need of arrangement

Desperate for guidance

Wanting direction

Lacking leadership

Losing patience

Turning and flipping

Backwards and sideways

Speeding endlessly forward

On a path of self-destruction

And the only thing to stop it,

The only thing to calm it,

Is the lives of the men that

Fight passionately

Fall readily and

Die willingly.