Pop corn sales

I'm a sucker for a guy in uniform. I just paid $10 for a container of popcorn (2.5 lbs) I didn't need. But the Boy Scout was adorable, well spoken, clear about his product and prices, and the scout leader was standing near buy.  We invited them in, chatted a bit. He was a young boy any parent or scout leader would be proud of.

What is happening in our country?

Driving to the fitness center today I heard a caller to a local radio (610 a.m.) show say she'd hired a teen to do some work (didn't say what--I assume yard work or repair) and discovered he didn't know how to use a ruler. She showed him a ruler and a tape measure, and he didn't know what to do with the numbers. She also said Columbus, OH school board had removed all American flags from classrooms. I'm not in the Columbus district so I’ve never heard.  She said the American Legion and VFW were planning to replace them because no one knew where they had been stored. Her final comment on public education supported by citizens in Columbus was that during the 2016 election cycle neighborhood children told her she shouldn't vote for Trump because their teacher told them they would lose their welfare. I asked about this on Facebook, and one Columbus teacher said she had a flag in her classroom, but another friend had this shocking comment.

Brian responded:  “I posted 57 educational videos to YouTube last month, all videos are for my business and all open with and have thumbnails that have the American Flag on them. We had zero copyright violations, and broke no community standards with content. Our account was shut down permanently they cited the fact the videos all have the American flag on them as hate speech. I appealed the ruling and lost. This is your country in 2019.”

The American flag is hate speech?

Opening the book—sermon series, audio and visual

We’re starting a new sermon series at UALC, called Open Book, an initiative to read and teach through the Bible.  So this Sunday will be Genesis 2.

  However, last Sunday, September 8, a few in-house details needed to be addressed as there are changes in scheduling taking place and worship services are being condensed or merged.  You can not change worship styles even in the same Lutheran congregation without causing some conflicts or hurt feelings.  Last night at dinner in a restaurant  for our church’s art ministry one of the spouses of a member declared how much he dislikes organ music and only enjoys what I call the “clangy bangy service.” (loud guitars, many amplification speakers, quartet leading—X-Alt)  Bill honors God in a different way than the Bruces who like liturgy, hymns, scripture and written prayers.  So Senior Pastor Steve Turnbull at the Lytham Road services (9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) preached on this. http://www.ualc.org/clientimages/38787/ministry_guide-handout_pdfs/09-08-19_lrsermonnotes.pdf  I’m listening again to the audio, and can tell it wasn’t the 9 a.m., but essentially the same words for the 10:30.  http://tech.ualc.org/mp3/audio/190908STLR.mp3

To prepare for tomorrow’s service (Sunday September 15) I looked at (on-line) the Biblical story of the creation of the earth and Adam and Eve. What is so annoying about listening to it on-line while reading is the advertisements.  First, there was a woman’s blouse flashing on the left in teal and black.  I paused to close it, and it was quiet for a minute, then brought up a stationary ad of a dress, so I closed it.  Then a few seconds later it posted a car advertisement (we were looking at new cars yesterday), so I closed it.  Three interruptions in one Chapter! Cookies left along the way on my computer have told advertisers that a female who is car shopping is now reading Genesis 2.

Also, a professional actor is reading (in the NIV audio by Gateway), and although he has a wonderful voice, after a few sentences they all start to run together, so I find the audio of the reading done by our own layperson more pleasant.  Unfortunately, it isn’t available until the sermon is recorded.  To get around this, I can click on what was being read last week at Mill Run which will be the selection for this week at Lytham. http://tech.ualc.org/mp3/audio/190908ATMR.mp3

These on-line interruptions in my vision are similar to what I experience auditorily in some worship services—loud noises, odd music, abrupt changes, difficulty hearing what is being said due to fluctuations in voices (dropping voice at end of sentence) or people whispering behind me. Aural comprehension has always been a problem for me from the time I was told in school or at home I wasn’t paying attention or I was lazy, to this day when someone asks about a point in a sermon and I don’t recall a word.

Comment on patriotism by Diane McDermott

“Just for the fun of it, I randomly checked the Facebook walls of six left-leaning friends of mine who use the site on a regular basis.

Not one of them mentioned 9/11, in any form.

I usually play this game and see similar reactions on major patriotic holidays as well ... 4th of July, Veterans’ Day, etc, so now apparently you can add 9/11 to that list.

I know it doesn’t really mean a whole lot but, to me, it just reinforces my belief that they have very little love for this country...or at least no desire to openly display it.”

Fifty nine years ago today

 

 

Tonight we're going out for dinner with neighbors Jerry and Joan who will be married 60 years tomorrow.  119 years.

Remembering Nine Eleven, 2001

There are 2,977 flags representing the victims of the 9/11 attacks posted on the west lawn on the Ohio Statehouse. When seen from above, the design represents the World Trade Center towers, with a space in the shape of a Pentagon and an open strip representing the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

Elizabeth Warren wants your wealth

The Democrat candidates are "monkey say monkey do" and they climb on the socialism clown wagon daily. O'Rouke wants your 2nd amendment rights destroyed, Elizabeth Warren wants your retirement savings destroyed with her "Accountable Capitalism Act." They all have a blood lust for the unborn and fragile. You need to speak up. Old people don't have income, they have wealth. . . to support them in their old age. Our progressive tax system already takes huge amounts of our money. Congress is profligate spenders and once they get ahold of your pensions, they won't let go.

Seventy-two percent of the value of all domestically held stocks is owned by pension plans, 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, or held by life insurance companies to fund annuities and death benefits. This wealth accumulated over a lifetime and benefits all Americans. . . 
Socialism always destroys wealth; it doesn’t redistribute it. Unfortunately, this great truth is far from self-evident. Whether current and near-retirees will stand up and fight for their retirement savings will effectively gauge the survival instinct of our country, and our willingness to preserve the economic system that built it.  Phil Gramm, Wall St. Journal. Sept. 10, 2019

Nancy Crist 1927-2019, a good friend to all

Yesterday we said good-bye to Nancy Crist, a dear church friend of many years. Many Bible studies in her home, lots of laughs, many visits in hospital or nursing homes over the years, dinners together, and pick ups at the airport. She was always willing to help and give a hug and an encouraging word. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx… She loved teaching at the deaf school and in church you could often see her signing as she listened to the sermon and hymns. Yes, 92 is a long life, but we also knew her father, a WWI vet and he lived to be over 100 as I recall.

I'm not sure when the photo was taken of our couples group from UALC called SALT, but Nancy and her husband Rod are in the back left, so it's probably about 1992--Bob had hair and I had big hair. What fun we had.

So many in this photo are gone now—only Charlene (center), Bob and I (back right) and Andrea (in front of Bob) are left.

Illinois and Indiana budgets

I'm sure there is more to this story--cartoons and memes never tell the whole story. Perhaps someone from Illinois knows?  Is Illinois dying?  Is it Chicago mismanagement and corruption?

Democrat media gives Trump so much free publicity, just like 2016

Worth reading again. President Trump lives rent free in the heads of the Democrat media. I heard that Trump gets 11x the publicity, all negative, from cable and broadcast news than all the Democrats running against him. Also that he has 94% support from Republicans.

“Do not underestimate the Trump voter. When they channel-surfed cable news, or heard of the antics that took place on college campuses, or saw street-theater demonstrations on television, they boiled at the idea that they had often worked at minimum wage, saw their jobs outsourced, never discriminated against anyone, and yet were being damned by smug youth who in a few years would draw on their college B.A. cattle brand, their parents’ lobbying, and the good-old-boy network of being rich, white, and from the proper zip code to inherit their rightful place in business, investment, politics, entertainment, the media, or the university. Google all the rich, white, privileged pundits who at one time or another, both in jest and in all seriousness, have called to deport the deplorables and in their stead give amnesty to illegal aliens or import “better” people from abroad.” Victor Davis Hanson,

Native American speaks out against latest racism, guest blogger, Candace Brown

As a Native American woman I have never seen so many people use race as an excuse to push an agenda. I grew up in a time that racism was actually beginning to be called out and attitudes, stigma, and stereotypes were seen for what they are. We had come so far from the racial separatism from my youth by the time Obama became president. As a young girl, I remember white people refusing to allow classmates to visit my home because I lived on a reservation. One woman I knew drove one hundred miles out of her way in order to avoid going through the reservation, on her way to a large city.
We actually overcame this kind of racism. We learned, we grew, and we became stronger for it. Then Obama happened. In the 8 years he was in office, he destroyed the progress this country had made and set us at odds once again based on skin color. I voted for him his first term, but watched as he took years of knocking down barriers of color and ethnicity to be a country of American people and turned us into a pathetic politically corrupt, victim mentality, shadow of our once great country. I remember hearing over and over his words, “ that is not who WE are” he used us against each other, he turned once strong relationships into victim and perpetrator.

If we do not end this kind of political hate mongering that uses color to justify hate, we are no better than him.

Charges of White Privilege

The charge of “white privilege,” or “White supremacy” hurled at Americans of European and other area countries is a way to shame, bully and induce guilt, whether or not you personally intended it that way. Shaming and bullying are also how abused women, slaves, trafficked children, and elderly are kept quiet. It’s as old as slavery. And Trump voters and conservatives of any stripe are the victims. The Left knows this well—their ideology killed 100 million in the 20^th century, and it didn’t all start with gas chambers, reeducation camps, or storm troopers. Right now, the charges are justifying creating data bases of Trump supporters so they can be publicly shamed or lose their incomes; it justifies Google CEOs for creating winners and losers in elections via social media; it justifies attacking people wearing read hats, with or without MAGA stitching; it justifies 95% of academic faculty being liberal and only those promoted and tenured; it justifies knocking down buildings and statues not just of Confederate generals (all of whom were pardoned by the U.S. government) but founders and current members of Trump cabinet.

I am more concerned about parents dragging children (and some not their own) across thousands of miles in very unsafe conditions subject to weather, assault and separation from grandparents, extended family and home than I am of well run detention centers where they are well fed and housed, and safe from traffickers (which was the intention of that regulation). Millions have been subjected to that illegal border crossing—only hundreds to detention centers, which are quickly emptied as parents’ (or other adults) cases are resolved, most to float out into the general U.S. population. I’m very concerned that U.S. border patrol is babysitting rather than keeping the borders safe for both Americans and Mexicans from all the non-Mexicans, including ISIS fighters, who cross without a problem.

I’m very concerned that the Leftist organizations and politicians have made illegal immigration an issue of race and color (and over 80% are NOT “people of color”) because they know charges of racism turn on the white guilt to shut people up and garner donations from Democrats. We have more children on the streets with brain addled homeless parents than in detention centers, but they would probably be safer, cleaner and better educated if instead of the squalor of San Francisco, they were in an Arizona facility.

Socialism by guest blogger, Michael Smith

"Socialism is like a Ponzi scheme, it only works for the ones at the top and only then if they an keep everyone in the game. The major difference is that where Ponzi schemes depend on greed, socialist regimes depend on coercive force.

Socialists always promise Norway (which is a capitalist country with a massive welfare state funded by oil an gas - not socialist at all) but socialism is not scalable - it doesn't have a volume knob that goes from one to ten, Socialism is binary, it only has an on/off switch. When socialists shoot for Norway, they always wind up with Venezuela."

Pizza for lunch and OSU football

So I picked up a pizza a Walmart.  Wondered what beef patty crumbles were.  Here’s the list. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Marketside-Ultimate-Meat-Pizza-Medium-29-5-oz/366231555

Ingredients:

Crust (Enriched Unbleached Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid], Water, Yeast, Palm Oil, Sugar, Contains 2% or Less of: Vegetable Oil[Soybean Oil and/or Olive Pomace Oil and/or Extra Virgin Olive Oil], Salt, Natural Flavor. May Also Contain Acacia Gum, Calcium Sulfate, Ascorbic Acid, and Enzymes), Low Moisture Mozzarella Cheese (Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Sauce (Tomato Puree [Water, Tomato Paste], Sugar, Contains 2% or Less of: Spices, Salt, Soybean Oil, Citric Acid, Xanthan Gum, Dehydrated Onion, Garlic Powder), Cooked Italian Sausage (Pork, Spices, Water, Salt, Corn Syrup Solids, Dried Garlic, Paprika, Paprika and Annatto Extract, Sugar, Lemon Juice Powder [Corn Syrup Solids, Lemon Juice Solids, Lemon Oil], Flavoring), Pepperoni, BHA, BHT, with Citric Acid Added to Help Protect Flavor (Pork, Salt, Contains 2% or Less of: Beef, Dextrose, Flavorings, Lactic Acid Starter Culture, Oleoresin of; Paprika, Sodium Nitrite, Spices, Sodium Ascorbate, BHA, BHT, Citric Acid), Sliced Beef Steak, Water and Modified Food Starch Product with Natural Smoke Flavor Added (Beef, Water, Dextrose, Sodium Phosphate, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Autolyzed Yeast, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein.; Coated with: Dextrose, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Modified Corn Starch, Sodium Diacetate, Natural Flavor, Spices, Garlic Powder, Mustard, Onion Powder, Paprika, Grill Flavor, Natural Smoke Flavor), Cooked Seasoned Beef Topping, BHA, BHT, and Citric Acid Added to Help Protect Flavor (Beef, Water, Salt, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Spices, Dextrose, Sodium Phosphate, Dried Onion, Dried Garlic, Dried Worcestershire Sauce [Distilled Vinegar, Molasses, Corn Syrup, Salt, Caramel Color, Garlic Powder, Sugar, Spices, Tamarind, Natural Flavor], BHA, BHT, Citric Acid), Not Smoked Provolone Cheese (Cultured Pasteurized Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Fully Cooked Beef Patty Crumbles (Beef, Water, Textured Vegetable Protein [Soy Flour, Caramel Color], Salt, Spice, Granulated Onion,; Granulated Garlic), Contains 2% or less of Fully Cooked Bacon Bits (Pork Cured with Water, Salt, Natural Smoke Flavoring, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite; May Contain Sugar, Brown Sugar), Grated Parmesan Cheese (Parmesan Cheese [Pasteurized Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Powdered Cellulose [Anti-Caking Agent]), Grated Romano Cheese (Romano Cheese Made From Cow's Milk [Pasteurized Cow's Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Powdered Cellulose [Anti-Caking Agent]), Dehydrated Garlic, Dried Oregano, Dried Parsley.

A list adjustment for Democrats in 2020

We need to adjust the list of campaign promises by Democrat candidates and their supporters:

• Abortion and infanticide for American babies plus black and brown babies in developing countries.
• Dox, threaten, blacklist and bully anyone who votes for or donates to Trump, threaten their livelihood and their children.
• Destroy as many freedoms in the Bill of Rights as possible--religion, speech, guns, and assembly.
• Eliminate borders and citizenship so Democrats can guarantee a "free and fair election."
• Rewrite history so that any invention, literary work, business success, song, building, statue or school that has the name (even on a memorial brick) of an American of western heritage is destroyed, maligned or forgotten.
• Continue to deny that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism.
• Increase taxes to fund more government employees for Climate Change. Assure only the “rich” will be affected—they already pay 95% of the taxes.
• Outlaw red baseball caps.

Do as I say, not as I do

Bahram Arkadi built Lifetime Fitness (about 130 locations) where I have a Silver Sneakers membership and is a multimillionaire. Recently in the magazine "Experiencing Life" he pointed out the root causes of threats to biodiversity: overpopulation and overconsumption. He personally wants for nothing. Has his family and his millions, and he's lecturing the rest of us on birth control and materialism like someone running for president? The U.S. population is already below replacement rate, and his business was built on a never ending hunger and quest to look and feel better that will always sell.

One way to help the environment is to pick up trash on your walks—and you don’t do that in a gym.

A rant about NPR from long time listener

“National Public Radio covers, in the absence of covering the case of the opposite side adequately, and supports the causes of abortion, homosexual, and transgender “rights.” Its editors directly instruct on-air staff how to speak about matters of abortion: reference to “babies” or the “unborn” in the wombs of pregnant women is verboten. As one commentator noted, NPR’s linguistic policing has nothing to do with objectivity; it’s all about shifting public opinion. NPR shoves same-sex “marriage” in our faces, but it lets traditional marriage and other forms of moral restraint fend for themselves. . .

National Public Radio’s coverage of the recent rash of mass murders tends to a mechanical and simplistic “solution”: ban guns. It made a hero of high-school anti-gun activist David Hogg because he agrees with this position. But NPR tells us basically nothing about the familial and sociological backgrounds of the murderers or of those persons and factors directly abetting the murderers: police, school officials, family members and other relations, as shown at times via personal expression on the media.”

Read the whole article in the New Oxford Review. https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/why-ive-tuned-out-national-public-radio/#

The Imposter Syndrome

Is there no end to attempts to make women victims? A recent issue of JAMA (August 6, 2019) had an op-ed on "imposter syndrome." I didn't know it had a name, but it's that fear that some very successful people have of being exposed as a fraud--that they shouldn't really be a success despite all the evidence--money, fame, top position, etc. They attribute it to "luck," or timing, or even that they've duped others.

And according to the authors (I think female, although can't tell from the names), this syndrome affects more women in medicine than men, and rather than the person seeking help with their self worth, the world needs to change so women don't perpetuate a cycle of minimizing their ambition and salary expectations. The answer is for health organizations to be more proactive in promoting women and minorities, and rooting out causes of #impostersyndrome because it is only a symptom of the inequality that women and minorities experience.

SMH.

The little Constitution, guest blogger Maryann Leboffe Pinelli

“I carry the Constitution with me, in my car and it’s on my IPAD ... 
I’m a Real Estate Agent. A few years ago I had a younger client looking for a home. In conversation he brought up the 2nd Amendment, there were “No hunting” signs in the area. Now I try and avoid political conversations in business as there’s no way I can deny my beliefs, although am short and polite, so I never start the conversation. Turned out he was a legal gun owner. I go in my car and get out my little booklet, 4”x 6” 36 pages, and this kid was like, wow, that’s it? He had never read it, thought it had to be thousands of pages, with language he’d never be able to get thru. I told him he could have it, but he said no thank you and that was it.

A few months later, at his closing, when we’re walking out, he thanks me, for helping him find his new home, but even more for introducing him the simple but beautiful Written words of the Constitution...said he bought his own and now carry’s it with him, in his car.

It never ceases to amaze me, the simplicity of our Constitution. That Our founding fathers, a group of what today would be “millennials”, from various economic, educational and cultural backgrounds, conceived and wrote such a perfect document for Freedom and human God given rights.

And it never ceases to infuriate me how we have allowed corrupt politicians, justices, judges and liberal academia, chip away at it.
No longer will we survive with sell out career politicians who are weak, easily bought and paid for by the highest bidder, and who do not believe in the Constitution as written.

This was and is President Donald J. Trump’s time to be President. To bring our country back to the core beliefs of our Founding Fathers. I didn’t vote for a “Presidential” puppet, a chameleon who becomes whatever the media and fake polls demand he/she be. I voted For someone who would be fearless, tireless and not intimidated. For someone whose intelligence, instinct and shear determination would be used do what’s right to fight for America and her people. Period.

I was at his inauguration, listening to his speech brought tears to my eyes, as I thought, Finally. Two and a half years in, I can’t believe all he has accomplished, while under 24/7 attack and 90% on his own, with no help from Congress.

Bringing our country back from decades of corruption will not be easy. It will take more than his re-election. It will take “Trumpian” like candidates for us to send to Washington to help him, and will take a 2024 candidate that can be as determined, and strong as him, as possible.”

Overuse of the word CRISIS

What if media, politicians, academics and marketers couldn't use the word "crisis?"  It must be like the word “sale,” because it seems to work.

• "Air quality is quickly becoming a global health crisis, especially in highly urbanized areas."
• " Every year, Ohio’s drug crisis grows."
• "Obesity crisis: 2 billion people now overweight. . ."
• "We don’t have a “gun” crisis in America. We have a crisis of angry, young men."
• "Refugee education in crisis."
• "10 facts about Africa's education crisis."
• "The ocean plastic crisis."
• "Domestic violence crisis text line."
• "Crisis of the nones in church."
• "The American fashion industry is in crisis."
• "At a moment of architectural crisis, Trent university . . . "
• "The [water] crisis in Flint is a result of a failure at all levels of government. "
• "Democrats face identity crisis."
• "Are you ready for the financial crisis of 2019?"
• "Adolescent girls in crisis."
• "There is a gluten crisis hanging over the baking industry as several factors converge in a slow and insidious manner."
• "Crisis management plan for your wedding."
• "There's a global banana crisis."
• "Are we handling the bee crisis wrong?"
• "The coal crisis has hit Powder River Basin."
• "Facebook is facing an existential crisis"
• "The crisis of the Democrats is becoming more evident each week."
• "The border crisis is fracturing the Democrat party."