9/24/2014
PRAYING
GOAFS II: #111
PRAYING
9.24.14
Today I want to remind us of two existential (known by
experience rather than reason; empirical as opposed to theoretical ) threats; 1)Ebola,
a virus disease, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is
a severe, usually fatal illness in humans. There is currently no cure. 2)Feckless Foreign Policy Syndrome,
commonly known as Progressive Liberal Touchy-Feely Soft Diplomacy.
FIRST PRAYER REQUEST
Remind
the Lord of all those in any way involved in fighting the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The
village medical practitioner illustrated above is a first responder in this
emergency. Here he is pictured conducting a pre-natal clinic—today he is in the
front line of the battle of a disease that is ravaging west Africa and threatening
the rest of the world. Pray for him and his fellows, the victims of Ebola, the
their families, the local and national health care systems, the missionaries,
the U.S. Military sent to help, and the experts from America, especially the
CDC people from Atlanta.
SECOND PRAYER REQUEST
Remind the Lord of the nation’s great
need for principled, non-partisan leadership from our young Messiah of Hope and
Change who travels the nation and the world like a dark-skinned Elmer Gantry,
preaching his unique Gospel of What I
Will Not Do, to all and sundry while improving his golf score and raising
funds to perpetuate his socialist agenda.
It has been reported that Dwight D.
Eisenhower once gave Richard Nixon some sound advice on the conduct of foreign
policy in a dangerous world—Never tell
your enemy what you will not do. The Democrats have always scorned both
Eisenhower and Nixon--it is long past time that they should take a new look at
this little bit of wisdom. When dealing with aggressive Islam, 200 years of
experience have proven conclusively that they only respond to two things: very
large bribes, or overwhelming brute force. Their treaties and agreements are
worthless since they are free, and even encouraged, to lie to infidels who
“have no right to the truth.” They are not moved by pompous professorial
lectures from a weightless cypher masquerading as the Leader of the Free world.
The prayer of a righteous person has great
power as it is working.
James 5.16 ESV
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
9/17/2014
VINEGAR
GOAFS II: #110
VINEGAR
9.17.14
We are on the
list for an independent living unit at the Wesley Village Continuing Care
Retirement Community near-by-- lightening the ship in preparation for putting
the house on the market when a unit we like comes available. So far it has
consisted mostly of getting rid of things we should have disposed of long ago
and we have had pretty good success in getting many of those things into the
hands of people who will use them.
If our
prospective buyers are normal (like me) about the only thing that really needs
upgrading is the carpet—we have upgraded along the way and taken good care of
things. But one challenge was formidable: the grooves in the floor of our
fiberglass shower stall have 21 years of shower scum in them and it did not
want to give up its home. I have wiped the walls and door down every time I
used it, but I the floor was woefully neglected.
I tried
bleach, CLR, various tile and tub cleaners, all without success. Then I Googled
“How To Clean Everything” and up came 416,000,000 hits. After going to what
seemed like a bunch of sites I found that no one directly answered my inquiry.
That was my first discovery.
My eureka
moment came next – as I was about to give up the search, I paused and thought a
bit and a pattern popped into my mind (I am a Myers-Briggs INTJ—we tend to see
patterns), I noticed that many of the clever solutions to tough cleaning
problems were mixtures of ingredients that had in common ordinary vinegar. None
mentioned soaking, but the vinegar component was almost ubiquitous.
I went to the
kitchen, found a half bottle of vinegar, took it to the bathroom. There I
folded a white washcloth in half, laid it on the shower floor, and soaked it
with vinegar. That was at about 10:00 in the morning.The next
morning I took the washcloth up and worked the spot over with a little
Soft-Scrub and a stiff brush(nylon not wire). I rinsed it down and took this
picture. The rectangle in the center was the test.
The next day I taped two old towels over the bottom and up the curved corners. I was out of vinegar to I went to the Kroger store and bought 2 half gallons of Heinz all natural cleaning vinegar – special cleaning strength. It is about the same price per half-gallon as normal vinegar ($3.89). I saturated the towels and left them from 2:00 PM until the next morning.
This third picture is the after.
The lighting is a little iffy but the floor looks brand
new. Since writing this I have received one suggestion from my son-in-law, a
cleaner that friends of his who manage apartments swear by, it is called
Gel-Glass and is carried by Wal-Mart and Lowes, and probably on-line. It comes
in a spray and a gel that is like car wax, you spread it on, let it dry and
then wipe it off. The gel works much better than the spray. I haven’t tried it
myself.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
9/10/2014
CURRICULUM VITAE -- A WEIGHTLESS CYPHER
GOAFS II: #109
CURRICULUM VITAE- A
WEIGHTLESS CYPHER
9.10.14
My apologies to those of you
who might be getting weary of politics, but with control of the Senate hanging
in the balance in November, there is a lot that yet needs to be said. America
is on the brink of making the same mistake a third time – and it would be
tragic if we are so distracted by our cell phones that we fail to put Harry
Reid and a dozen of his pall-bearers out to pasture and start cleaning up the
mess we are in. This article was sent by a friend and it clearly summarizes the
last two mistakes—let us pray and let us act as we are able to keep it from
happening again.
The future Shrinks,
Whether the past is well
Or badly spent.
We shape our lives,
Although the forms
Are never what we meant.
Dana Gioia
By Matt Patterson
(Newsweek
Columnist - Opinion Writer) from final edition of Newsweek, Nov 18, 2012 A rare death-bed conversion for a long time liberal cheerleading news magazine)
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of
Barack Obama as an inscrutable and phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed
of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they
will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many
into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's
most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian
examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy
League, despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy
non-job as a "community organizer;" a brief career as a state
legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his
attention, less often did he vote "present"); and finally an
unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which
was devoted to his presidential ambitions.
He left no academic legacy in
academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is
the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing
preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor;" a
real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor.
It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on
Earth was such a man elected president? There is no evidence that he ever
attended or worked for any university or that he ever sat for the Illinois bar.
We have no documentation for any of his claims. He may well be the greatest
hoax in history.
Not content to wait for history,
the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall
Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with
an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist
like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was
black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out
with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were 'a bit'
extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass - held
to a lower standard because of the color of his skin.
Podhoretz continues: And in any
case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and
elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which
gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to
lay the curse of racism to rest? Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the
animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon - affirmative action. Not in the legal
sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all
affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make
white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the
back.
Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not
qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and
high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority
students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and
deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action.
Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color
of his skin - that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't
racism, then nothing is.
And that is what America did to
Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but
why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for
Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good
enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he
was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his
life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next
step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.
What could this breed if not the
sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008, many who
agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's
oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people - conservatives
included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the
hoariest of clichés, and that's when he has his Teleprompters in front of him;
when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one
original idea has ever issued from his mouth - it's all warmed-over Marxism of
the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years. (An example is his
2012 campaign speeches which are almost word for word his 2008 speeches) And
what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything
else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess.
Remember, he wanted the job, campaigned for the task. It is embarrassing to see
a president so willing to advertise his own powerless-ness, so comfortable with
his own incompetence. (The other day he actually came out and said no one could
have done anything to get our economy and country back on track). But really,
what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how
do we expect him to act responsibly? In short: our president is a small-minded
man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you
understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of
liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such
an impostor in the Oval Office.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
