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Thread: Daily Bread

  1. #341
    Williamsmith
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan View Post
    Did you take advantage of the opportunity to seal your own bottle?
    Attachment 2355
    Im not sure why but I was not intrigued by the “opportunity” to seal my own bottle. I simply purchased bottles from the gift shop. When my ambassador barrel ages and is ready to be bottled....I will probably do so if offered. Nice pic.

  2. #342
    Williamsmith
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    I don’t often think of politics over my morning coffee but there is a certain entertainment value going on with Trumps “Reign of Terror.” I’m not sympathetic nor am I aggressively offended by it all. I suppose it’s because of my inherited skepticism of government per se (after all I worked in it). I know what motivates people in charge and “the good of the people” isn’t usually high on the list. There are significant pensions to be secured and lifelong relationships that provide “consulting” fees to make one comfortable the rest of your born days.

    Still, one need choose a side sometimes if you can’t separate the parties. I have stated it and will again.....I have always been able to agree with a lot of Ron Paul’s politics, if for no other reason than he was a thorn in the side of the mainstream Republican Party. The Democratic Party left people like me in the progressive dust on Air Force One on the return trip from Dallas on November 22, 1963 so where else was there to go but the greenies.

    All this circles round to the seed that stuck under my floating bridge this morning. Rand Paul has been on a tear lately. I get a kick out of his ability to become a thorn also. His calling for Trump to rescind the security clearances for people like Brennan and Clapper......now that’s downright heroic in my eyes.

    Everone knows , well everyone has been reminded, that you don’t cross the “intelligence community”. What is this community they speak of and why as appointed and not elected entities do they have the power to demand your allegiance? Why do former intelligence heads still possess clearances? Especially given their cozy positions as consultants to the free press.

    I have always believed it to be true that “people who talk, don’t know and people who know, don’t talk”......and especially true of the people actively working to maintain the security of our Country. These people, talk way too much and seem to relish the power the media gives them over public opinion. Now I don’t click glasses with fellas and gals of the former administration and I don’t know crap from shinola about the secret threats to our existence but I do know I wish I had a time machine so I could transport George Mason here and watch his reaction.

    George was responsible for much of what went into the Constitution and then was one of three who refused to sign it. Thomas Jefferson took his ideas and spun them onto the Constitution in his own eloquent words. George got a little miffed when they wanted him to sign it without an attached Bill of Rights. George was adamant that the executive office not be filled by one person but by three. He thought one person too closely resembled the Monarchy they just separated from. He had a good point.

    Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Much of it was used as fodder for the Constitution. His idea of freedom of the press was interesting in that he viewed the threat of restraint of such freedom as coming from a “despotic Government.” What could be more despotic than to have certain former officials who were unelected but remain able to acquire classified information of the current elected officials and then use that information to poison the “free” press? Or worse yet, plant false information of a classified nature, act like you are discovering it and then use it against your political enemies. This would all make a great novel if it weren’t all so true.

    Next time, I promise myself to talk about tagging butterflies or childhood recollections of winter rubber boots with those metal clamps.

  3. #343
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    My family lore is that we are related to George Mason. But, casually poking around in his lineage,
    I dont see any direct connection. Perhaps perhaps I share ancient ancestors with him.
    I suppose we all share ancestors if we go back far enough.

    On anther note, Rand Paul rocks!

  4. #344
    Williamsmith
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    “Unforgettable....that’s what you are.” I can hear my father crooning this 1951 Nat King Cole song as he moved about on a cheerful Saturday morning. Michael Badalucco, who played Baby Face Nelson in “O Brother Where Art Thou” reminds me of my father. I don’t know if dad was bi-polar but he definitely had his highs and lows and there was a big swing in between them. When he was peaking, he was singing and whistling and playing guitar. When he was in the trough, you wanted to stay out of his way.

    Racism was a given growing up. It wasn’t purely against African Americans but they certainly were considered bottom of the barrel. Other ethnicities and religions weren’t off limits. It’s just everybody considered blacks to be inferior. That’s why it was more than just a curiousity when my dad raved to me one day about how great Nat King Cole was. The King died in 1965 just about the time I started becoming aware that there was more to life than Saturday morning cartoons.

    Maybe this seeming contradiction planted a seed of doubt about the legitimacy of pure bigotry just enough to allow me to see the stupidity of it at an early age. Or maybe, it was my dads way of saying he was aware that blacks suffered unjustly and he was cracking the door open without going inside. Whatever the real reason, the country took a turn toward real turmoil over the equality of blacks just about the same time Nat King Cole died and MLK was assassinated. Just about the time I was developing a conscience about things and exchanging stare downs with a cute little black girl in my elementary school.

    I knew it would never be acceptable to have much in common with her from both sides. My parents and her parents weren’t going to invite each other for dinner or sit on the porch chewing the fat for that matter. So I sat in class behind her for the entire six years of first through sixth grades and passed notes back and forth. She was brilliant. Brilliant enough to share valedictorian honors with another girl I knew six more years later.

    That’s probably why this morning when I started thumbing through an old box of records at a garage sale, I stopped at a pristine looking Nat King Cole 1952 release of “Unforgettable.” The record itself was near mint. I also grabbed a more recent release and an interesting Johnny Cash album. All for $1.

    I cleaned up the Unforgettable album and tossed it on the platter. Hearing The King singing took me back a half century to a cheerful dad and certain classmate who I would never really get to know.




  5. #345
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Even though I grew up in a town of 50k it was racially mixed which was good. Our schools were mixed so no real prejudice as far as being friendly with black kids. However, dating was a no due to the times and everyone knew it. One of my Girl Scout leaders was black and everyone was fine with that.

  6. #346
    Williamsmith
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    We recently had another homicide of an elderly man. He was taken prisoner in his own home, duct taped and tied to a chair and then stabbed to death. The actor enlisted another person to help him remove the body from the house and dispose of it in a nearby pond. That person found a conscience and went to the police. The actor went on the run and somewhere near Chicago a police officer on patrol ran into him. A gunfight ensued and the actor was killed. So simultaneously I felt great sadness for the loss of life of the murdered victim and joy at the death of the actor. Morality and justification have much to do with it.

    Likewise, in reading a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post entitled “We owe our children a big apology” I thought about the topics the author briefly touched on.....eugenics, overuse of psychoactive drugs, mass inprisonment, gender biased sex selection, elimination of so called inferior beings like Down syndrome fetuses, genetic selection of intelligent or athletic traits for our offspring. All these things contribute to social blind spots and economic inequality.

    So as Im thinking about these things I see another article about the protest on separation of children from their parents by immigration officials. The visual is little kids wearing white t-shirts that say ”I Am A Child”. What a smart choice for protestors. It reminded me of Neal Young’s song “I am a Child”.


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.a0973c05b431




  7. #347
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I love Neil Young. Thanks for the clip.

    Interesting article on many levels. I could pour out a few thoughts but this is a lazy Saturday and I'm trying to take a thinking break over coffee at the moment. But it is a provocative piece.

    But I will say that one of the things that popped into my mind was a conversation I had yesterday with my son who thinks that the farther we get away from "childhood"--not in a chronological sense but in a spirit-sense, the worse off we tend to be. I reminded him what Jesus said: "Truly I say to you, unless you turn around, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

  8. #348
    Williamsmith
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    I love Neil Young. Thanks for the clip.

    Interesting article on many levels. I could pour out a few thoughts but this is a lazy Saturday and I'm trying to take a thinking break over coffee at the moment. But it is a provocative piece.

    But I will say that one of the things that popped into my mind was a conversation I had yesterday with my son who thinks that the farther we get away from "childhood"--not in a chronological sense but in a spirit-sense, the worse off we tend to be. I reminded him what Jesus said: "Truly I say to you, unless you turn around, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
    I was thinking about your analogy to being more childlike. We tend to make most people conform to rules simply in order to get things done in the business world or in the service industry. But being more childlike has been the result of retirement for me and the ability to strip myself of the bonds of commitment to doing things a certain way.

    It has not been without its criticisms. But I am free in the sense of what I think the “kingdom of heaven” was referred to. Not a physical place as much as a sense of acceptance of where I am at. Many religious minds would like to construct a box of set rules so that a person knows if he or she is in or out. Those rules come with a set of circumstances whereby you restore your in status. A child is not so committed to the rules that they can’t adjust them to make things go better during a game. I’ve pretty much learned that when I suspend the rigidity of rules, my environment is happier.

    Ive had to learn the hard way but I look at it as returning to my naive childself when I wasn’t affected by prejudices, adherence to strict guidelines and failure to understand how often I’m at a place where I can’t see the whole battlefield from my perspective.

    I dont think religion is a bad thing. I think people make it so. It’s like trying on a new pair of jeans. At some point it’s all about how the jeans make you feel and how you think they make you more appealing. Maybe later in life, it’s all about how comfortable the jeans are but during the trying on period you stand naked before the mirror. That nakedness is reality and it’s what we want to cover up. Religion helps us do that. It can make us feel more appealing to others or we may think we look better as we are seen going to or from church.

    The nakedness is to me what the Adam and Eve story is all about. The fig leaves are the beginning of religion. It covers up the reality of our nakedness and separation from our creator. Some people find other ways to deal with their nakedness. I have no problem with that and I think children are more accepting of differences than adults with rigid ideology. It’s nice to have things you “believe in.” But more and more I’m allowing myself to downsize the place where those “beliefs” reside. It makes me less likely to harm other people.

  9. #349
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    I draw a very distinct line between "faith" and "religion". I define faith as the story (stories) we believe about why we are here on Earth, what life is like, and what happens when we die. I define religion as human codification of how we express that faith.

    Believing in Jesus Christ as The Chosen One and the path back to God is (a) faith. Thinking that Jesus would tear little kids away from their parents at a border crossing on the speculation that wrongdoing had occurred, or that God has any preference whatsoever about the car you drive or the country you live in is religion. And, from that perspective, the further away I get from organized religion, the stronger and purer my faith becomes.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  10. #350
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    But I am free in the sense of what I think the “kingdom of heaven” was referred to.
    I'm not a theologian but I always find it interesting that the Lord's Prayer says "thy kingdom come" It doesn't say anything about us "going" anywhere. We can sit right here and live in the kingdom of heaven. IMHO.

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveinMN View Post
    I draw a very distinct line between "faith" and "religion". I define faith as the story (stories) we believe about why we are here on Earth, what life is like, and what happens when we die. I define religion as human codification of how we express that faith.

    Believing in Jesus Christ as The Chosen One and the path back to God is (a) faith. Thinking that Jesus would tear little kids away from their parents at a border crossing on the speculation that wrongdoing had occurred, or that God has any preference whatsoever about the car you drive or the country you live in is religion. And, from that perspective, the further away I get from organized religion, the stronger and purer my faith becomes.
    First of all, I am generally in agreement. Yet, I'm not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater or deny the positive impact many practitioners of organized religion have every day. People whose faith has compelled them to adopt foster children, or invite refugees into their homes or go to feed the homeless. My own cousin became "born-again" and we can disparage all the evangelicals, but she stops and talks to homeless people and offers help, food, or shelter. Her intervening kept me from losing my home. Yes, many evangelical Christians are very un-Christian, but there are many--many--who are walking the walk.

    But I do love Martin Luther King's quote: "Most churches are social clubs with a thin veneer of religiosity." To WS's point that's when all the "rules" come into play. We're blessed if we can find a community of faith that operates through a different lens and encourages us to abandon our "adult" precepts of pride, ambition, and social acceptance..
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

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