On Christmas eve quite a few members of our family attended the Children's Mass at Epiphany Church. It was a beautiful experience. The children had an active role in the Mass and the celebrant made the Mass appropriate for all ages but with the accent on the children. The priest is very exuberant and quite a showman but very devout and sincere. I have heard him speak before and his 'sermons' are so unique and creative that he captivates the entire audience. The church was packed beyond capacity so one glass side of the building was opened up and huge tents were assembled so that they abutted the church sanctuary. Chairs were set up out there for the overflow crowd. I may have been colder at sometime in my life but I could not recall when while sitting there with the bitter cold air flowing in and the tent walls bulging and my hands turning blue, then black and finally dead white. (And we were inside the church in the front row.) Nevertheless it was still an awe inspiring experience. After we left Mass we stumbled out on frozen feet and sought the respite of the warm car. Ahhhh! We proceeded to Kristin and Tim's house for a great meal.
During dinner the people at our end of the table got into a discussion about the absurdity of some of the offensive commercials on TV. We touched on most of the more outrageous ones and even mocked the messages that bombard us at every viewing. We even sang snatches of some of the songs now quite familiar to all. We discussed the person who feels compelled to tell us that she has 'just one body' and we talked of the two bathtubs in the woods and others. We ended up laughing so hard that we became almost raucous.
Our hostess, Kristin, facetiously asked if she needed to ask us to leave! We were a little over the top. Remember, these were prime time commercials that we were discussing. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my ear, I could hear snippets of the conversation going on at another table or part of the room. They were commenting on the three point BILLION dollars that just one group of Wall Street CEO's had received in salaries or end of year bonuses. Now that is what I call obscene.
We had a great time at our gathering though and I look forward to future good times with all of them. Happy New Year to all!! Shalom!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Where's the Gas-X ?
A few years ago there was an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease in England. We eventually got a few cases of it here too. When the media got onto it they were ever so glad to tell us about each and every case and scare us into eating chicken. The media takes one news clip and shows it over and over again, sometimes two or three times during the report. They had one clip of a cow falling down! That was so depressing to me that I would close my eyes every time they started to talk about cows. Cows are not supposed to fall down! Cows are so peaceful, they don't fight with other cows or with humans, they stand around, eat grass and moo. They are outstanding in their fields!
Well now, guess what they are being accused of? While peacefully standing in their fields it seems they are burping and gaseous and this has become a concern of the government. Cows and hogs are now considered air polluting animals. There might be a "cow tax" in the future.
The Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles constitute air pollution, someone latched onto the fact that so also, do animals standing around eating grass emit greenhouse gases. Frankly I don't see the connection.
In Congress, today, Harry Reed got in a little trouble for pointing out that in the summer when Washington, DC is besieged with tourists standing in lines to visit the historical sites ,"You can smell them." Hark, is there a 'standing in long lines' tax coming? What about all those guys,(and I suppose some gals) guzzling beer and eating hot dogs at sporting events, are they emitting greenhouse gases?
At the end of football season at Papa John's stadium is it possible that the crowds emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions per season? Especially a season like we just had? Ticket prices may well be on the rise. Our concern for this problem falls under the federal Clean Air Act. This stinks!
If they do begin to tax cows, the farmers say that they would go bankrupt because it would cost $175.00 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20.00 for each hog. A moderate sized cattle or hog farm could cost $30,000. to $40,00 dollars a year. Vegetarians rejoice!
John Millett, a spokesman for the EPA's air and radiation division, said that there has been an oversimplification of the EPA's document "to the point of distortion." Whew, that's a relief!
Never mind!!!
Well now, guess what they are being accused of? While peacefully standing in their fields it seems they are burping and gaseous and this has become a concern of the government. Cows and hogs are now considered air polluting animals. There might be a "cow tax" in the future.
The Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles constitute air pollution, someone latched onto the fact that so also, do animals standing around eating grass emit greenhouse gases. Frankly I don't see the connection.
In Congress, today, Harry Reed got in a little trouble for pointing out that in the summer when Washington, DC is besieged with tourists standing in lines to visit the historical sites ,"You can smell them." Hark, is there a 'standing in long lines' tax coming? What about all those guys,(and I suppose some gals) guzzling beer and eating hot dogs at sporting events, are they emitting greenhouse gases?
At the end of football season at Papa John's stadium is it possible that the crowds emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions per season? Especially a season like we just had? Ticket prices may well be on the rise. Our concern for this problem falls under the federal Clean Air Act. This stinks!
If they do begin to tax cows, the farmers say that they would go bankrupt because it would cost $175.00 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20.00 for each hog. A moderate sized cattle or hog farm could cost $30,000. to $40,00 dollars a year. Vegetarians rejoice!
John Millett, a spokesman for the EPA's air and radiation division, said that there has been an oversimplification of the EPA's document "to the point of distortion." Whew, that's a relief!
Never mind!!!
Friday, December 5, 2008
LUNCH WITH...
The Courier has a feature in the paper once a week now, that I usually like. It's called "Lunch With..." They choose individuals from the community and invite them to lunch and interview them while lunching. They have a variety of people and not people with celebrity status necessarily. As an example, one of the people they interviewed a while back was the man that turned O.J. Simpson away from his restaurant on Derby Day. Neither O.J. nor his party were allowed in.
Today they interviewed MeShorn Daniels, a name very unfamiliar to us. He, however is a crusader. He is with a company that is called GARMY. GARMY is an acronym for God Ain't Released Me Yet. MeShorn is 47 years old and says he is a baby boomer in the middle. That means, according to him, the young baby boomers who are in the middle of those who are older than them, who went through the civil rights of the 60's and lived through the 70's while still very young. They are older than Generation X, the hip-hop culture, the saggy pants and all that.
He says that the deal is they are still trying to hold onto some of the values that they had to deal with, that the older baby boomers put them through...he said they are going to try to mandate some things in this 21st Century.
He is advocating a "Pull Up Your Pants "campaign. He wants to get a dialogue going with anyone that wants to participate. He spoke to the Metro Council and ask them for a show of hands of how many of them were affected by seeing the sag pants and talked about the "Pull up your Pants" environment . Everybody raised their hands and he heard murmurs of agreement from the audience.
He was asked if he thought there should be laws against sag pants. He said he is not advocating laws but thinks it can be handled by dialogue and proposed a resolution that would encourage discussion. He made it clear that he is not just targeting African Americans (he is African American) he wants it talked about across the board.
I know that at Meredith-Dunn we had a dress code and absolutely no sag pants was in the code. Even though the uniform pants were khaki, some of the boys pulled them down as far as they could, to the point that their underwear showed, and then had to be sent to the office for dress code violation. As soon as they got out of the sight of the office, they pulled them down again. So much quality teaching time was spent trying to get them to obey the rules that I did a pants ,belt, tuck- in -shirt check as they entered class and if it had to be addressed again there was extra homework assigned to make up for the lost teaching time. I didn't see too many sag pants during my classes.
MeShorn said he wants to empower people to say, listen, I see something I don't like and I want to effect change. He wants to encourage people that they can effect change by saying something. He mentioned the Dooney "Da Priest" CD that inspired him to get involved. The rap version that explains the different talking points of saggy pants piqued his interest. The sag pants style was started in prisons by the homosexuals and it was to indicate to fellow prisoners that the prisoner wearing sag pants was already "taken" by another.
MeShorn says his intention is to bring the issue of "saggy pants" to the whole community, state or country as public indecency awareness,to encourage more responsible and accountable adults, men, women, parents, mothers, fathers, wives or girlfriends that this is unacceptable form of expression.
I applaud his idea and hope it gets results. He has an e-mail address : ) pullyourpantssup@ garmy.com
I wonder what happens when the saggy pantsers have to run out of the way of harm or danger. Do they leave a trail of pants in their wake?
Ciao
Today they interviewed MeShorn Daniels, a name very unfamiliar to us. He, however is a crusader. He is with a company that is called GARMY. GARMY is an acronym for God Ain't Released Me Yet. MeShorn is 47 years old and says he is a baby boomer in the middle. That means, according to him, the young baby boomers who are in the middle of those who are older than them, who went through the civil rights of the 60's and lived through the 70's while still very young. They are older than Generation X, the hip-hop culture, the saggy pants and all that.
He says that the deal is they are still trying to hold onto some of the values that they had to deal with, that the older baby boomers put them through...he said they are going to try to mandate some things in this 21st Century.
He is advocating a "Pull Up Your Pants "campaign. He wants to get a dialogue going with anyone that wants to participate. He spoke to the Metro Council and ask them for a show of hands of how many of them were affected by seeing the sag pants and talked about the "Pull up your Pants" environment . Everybody raised their hands and he heard murmurs of agreement from the audience.
He was asked if he thought there should be laws against sag pants. He said he is not advocating laws but thinks it can be handled by dialogue and proposed a resolution that would encourage discussion. He made it clear that he is not just targeting African Americans (he is African American) he wants it talked about across the board.
I know that at Meredith-Dunn we had a dress code and absolutely no sag pants was in the code. Even though the uniform pants were khaki, some of the boys pulled them down as far as they could, to the point that their underwear showed, and then had to be sent to the office for dress code violation. As soon as they got out of the sight of the office, they pulled them down again. So much quality teaching time was spent trying to get them to obey the rules that I did a pants ,belt, tuck- in -shirt check as they entered class and if it had to be addressed again there was extra homework assigned to make up for the lost teaching time. I didn't see too many sag pants during my classes.
MeShorn said he wants to empower people to say, listen, I see something I don't like and I want to effect change. He wants to encourage people that they can effect change by saying something. He mentioned the Dooney "Da Priest" CD that inspired him to get involved. The rap version that explains the different talking points of saggy pants piqued his interest. The sag pants style was started in prisons by the homosexuals and it was to indicate to fellow prisoners that the prisoner wearing sag pants was already "taken" by another.
MeShorn says his intention is to bring the issue of "saggy pants" to the whole community, state or country as public indecency awareness,to encourage more responsible and accountable adults, men, women, parents, mothers, fathers, wives or girlfriends that this is unacceptable form of expression.
I applaud his idea and hope it gets results. He has an e-mail address : ) pullyourpantssup@ garmy.com
I wonder what happens when the saggy pantsers have to run out of the way of harm or danger. Do they leave a trail of pants in their wake?
Ciao
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