Opus 2017-007: On the Street: The Dental Beat

I spent a total of three hours at the dentist recently.  I am so thankful for pain blocking drugs.  The romance of bygone eras is revealed as hollow by a dentists chair.  In my first session, a cleaning, I suddenly realized that there was music on.  It was so boring that I hadn’t even noticed.  I asked the hygienist if she knew the song.  She pled ignorance.  It was one of those songs that are so common today,  They have nothing distinctive about them.  They are not painful, just boring. 

Later on when I was being drilled on I noticed that the entire office was joining Smokey Robinson as he sang “My Girl”.  I bet even you started going over that in your head.  “I... guess... you’d...say, What can make me feel this way?.....”  Then more boring stuff.  Then everyone hummed along with the Beatles.  I was struck by the contrast and frustrated by the balance of mediocre.  There is so much really good stuff out there.  I keep wondering why we have to listen to all the filler.  This is true on the radio, in church, or anywhere else you go that music is played.

Are you old enough to remember the game show, Name That Tune.  It was awesome how little it took for some to recognize a melody.  This stuff I was listening to you could not identify after half the song being played. 

It could just be my taste in music but have you ever met anyone who didn’t like “My Girl”?  How about the Platters and “Great Pretender”?  Peter, Paul and Mary and “Puff the Magic Dragon”?  It could also be that some people could not recognize a beat if someone was pounding on their head or a melody if they were playing it themselves.

I vote for great music.  Until they start playing it I will listen to talk radio.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-006: Tax Dollars at Work: Winter Break

The I-want-everything-that-I-think-someone-else-is-paying-for masses of the People’s Repubilik of Kalifornia just passed two initiatives to give more money to education.  One was a $9 Billion borrowing spree that the big print said would cost $500 million a year for 35 years to pay off.  Since most of them don’t pay taxes and everyone knows education needs more money, it passed.

I just want to stop and thank all of you working regular jobs for paying your taxes so that I can be a teacher.  I realize how hard it is to pay the bills.  I want to remind you that while you are working, I am at home writing blog posts.  Remember when you had to work all day on December 22?  I got to go home early and got the 23rd off.  Now, on January 5,  I am still off and will not go back to work until next Monday.  I get as much time off for “Winter Break” as most of you get all year.  If you are self employed you don’t even get two weeks with pay.

Please, next time you hear someone talking about more money for education remember my Winter Break.  I will take all that you give me.  I am not crazy.  At the same time I always vote “no” on money for education because I am also not immoral.

Seriously.  Thank you.  Just as seriously, stop throwing good money after bad.

Happy New Year.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-005: Snowflakes in Historical Context

The unhappy campers who are marching and protesting are a bit unsettling to the rest of us but we need to understand that it is nothing new.  Read your history and relax.  Most of these events are in the back of your mind from a class you took in high school.

Bacon’s Rebellion was an early example.  They drove out the governor and had to be suppressed by English soldiers.

The Sons of Liberty and the Boston Tea Party were an example of unhappy campers.

The early years of the Republic had many cases of protest.  Look up Shay’s Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion.  Both were serious enough to call out the militia.  Both shook up the country.

You had the draft riots during the civil war.x

I am sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg.  If you go to world history you will find the same types of things going on.  Life is not simple or easy.  People will always be unhappy.  Our job is to listen to complaints that are reasonable, ignore the ones that are not and get on with life.

Who knows, maybe next time it will be you or me in the streets. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-004: Headlines: Dabbing Is the New Snuff

One of the big issues of the morning was Paul Ryan’s son trying to dab on national television.  Everyone acted like it was a childish attempt at a dance move.  As a middle school teacher I will admit that it is the latest cool thing that kids are doing.  At least it was before the Christmas break. 

Like so many things in the youth culture it is not as innocent as you might think.  The move is from a pattern by drug users to sniff an illegal substance from the elbow.  It can be placed there and avoid detection.  From there is was introduced into some dance move and now everyone is doing it.  Picture the way cool people used to take snuff. 

We need to be thoughtful in adopting the ways of the degenerate segment of society.  Wearing your pants hanging to show your underwear got its start in prison culture where belts were not allowed.  A pimp is a guy who runs a string of prostitutes.  “Dis” is not a word. 

Let’s grow up and think about what we do and what we let our children do.  Is that asking too much?  Maybe.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-003: Melt, Snowflakes, Melt

I have a certain sympathy for the snowflakes as they dissolve into tears and futility.  I have been there.  I was there as the Republican field narrowed and the many people that I thought could do a good job dropped out.  I went through my Trump denial along with millions of other voters.  Eventually I had to grow up, look at reality and decide to support Trump in spite of my doubts.  I am still leery but beginning to have a bit of hope.

Maybe it is time for you to do the same thing.  Maybe it is time to take a deep breath, grow up and admit that if you are a citizen of the United States of America, Donald Trump is am much your president as Barak Obama was my president eight years ago.  I don’t care which of the three you do first but I would suggest that the other two will be easier if you start by growing up.

But of course many of you are not voters.  You didn’t bother, or you are not a citizen.  If you didn’t bother then stop complaining.  If you are not a citizen then I understand that he is not your president, but honestly, who cares.

So get off the street.  Tell your mommy you are going to get a job.  Get a job.  When you do those things you will find it easier to take a deep breath and that you have already started down the road to growing up.

A democratic republic is not a place where you always get your way.  The only people who get their way are the top dogs who can have everyone else shot and the sheep who are satisfied with bread and ciruses.  Liberty is about disagreeing, partisanship and compromise.  It is about getting half a loaf and not being jealous about the half the other guy got.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-002: New Eternity’s Day

What will eternity be like.  It is beyond our understanding but so is a comparatively simple thing like a computer chip.  We still think about it and wonder.  One of the questions that I have heard is, “How can I find joy in eternity knowing that people I love are in Hell?”  A good question and I don’t know that I have a definitive answer.  I trust that God will supply it when I need it.

There is another question that troubles me.  It is a question that I might be able to do something about.  The trial of eternity will not be forgetting the pain and suffering but the ways in which I failed God. 

Have you had a time when you let down one of your children?  Did you ever disappoint your parents?  It can really eat at you and you can’t go back and redo it.  Now think about all the blessings and opportunities that God has given you, and ask yourself how you have repaid Him.  Obviously we cannot repay Him for the gift of salvation.  Obviously we are fallible.  Just as obvious is the realization that we could have done better.  I am not talking about rejection but a desire to hear, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Now is the time to consider.  We will have an eternity to regret.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-001: I Missed the 12:01

Happy New Year to those with a western European Background.  If you come from a different tradition you celebrate a different beginning date.  You have Chinese New Year and Jewish New Year.  Down through history it has even moved around in the western tradition.  It is kind of like the magnetic north pole.

I want you to know that I don’t believe in New Years Day like I do the resurrection which we celebrate on a date calculated by the lunar calendar.  I lump it in with Valentines Day and Mothers’ Day.  It is just a date picked to push a commercial agenda.  It meshes well with my habit of washing my sheets on Saturday morning.

In spite of that I acknowledge it and go along with the festivities.  Fortunately my wife does not expect expensive candy on New Years.  A bottle of Martinelli’s, a summer sausage from Hickory Farms and a pizza from a local deli make the day work.  As we get older I don’t even need to stay up until midnight.

So in case you stayed up to watch the nonsense on TV, I hope you had a good 12:01. 

Happy New Year.

homo unius libri