Opus 2022-269: Lessons on Libations

Have you ever seen a historical drama or documentary where someone will pour out a bit of wine on the ground and talk about “libations for the gods.”  How did the idea get started?  I really don’t know but that won’t keep me from offering an opinion.  At least it hasn’t stopped me or the media.

Picture yourself a garden variety pagan and you are making a bowl of popcorn for a snack while you watch a bit of Oedipus Rex.  All is going well as you stir the butter around when suddenly for no reason, one kernel jumps out and falls to the floor.  Don’t tell me it hasn’t happened to you unless you always let the servants make the popcorn.  Being a garden variety pagan, I want to know why.

Or lets say you are walking across the living room with a cup of coffee in your hand.  How often does it suddenly decide to climb the side of the cup and deposit a little bit on the carpet.  I get around this by carrying the cup on a dinner plate and don’t have any problems.  It only slops when I think I am in control.  Being a garden variety pagan, I want to know why.

Have you ever gone into the kitchen after you prepared something and noticed food on the floor you don’t remember dropping.  You remember wiping down the counter and checking to see that everything is neat and clean, but there is that green bean looking at you with a twinkle in it’s eye.  Being a garden variety pagan, I want to know why.

So I come up with what a garden variety pagan would understand.  Since every rock, tree, stream, and, yes, popcorn kernel has a spirit in it, it must be the gods.  Maybe they are hungry.  Maybe if I give them a little bit of offering they won’t trip me on the way to my recliner.

And thus you have the tradition of libations for the gods.

You are welcome.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-268: Cookies and Global Warming

If you want to know why conservation will never work as well as competition then consider the humble plate of cookies.  The smell of chocolate chips and cookie dough is wafting through the house and a plate of freshly baked morsels appears mysteriously on the counter.  You do a quick count and realize that there are five for each member of the family.  It is a good day.

You practice self control and either have none or just one.  Delayed gratification is the meme for the day.  You come back the next day and find nothing but crumbs.  What happened?  You were trying to cooperate and your little brother saw it as a race.  

Cooperation is wonderful if all is supervised by someone of power and discernment.  There are certain situations where it is the only way to survive.  I remember the time my children were able to participate in the folding of the flag at Fort McHenry.  The flag is 30x40, feet not inches.  It would be impossible for one person to fold it and keep it from touching the ground at the same time.

Sometimes the cooperation and competition exist side by side.  They take turns in dominance.  Picture the drive home from work.  Certain rules must be agreed on.  The lanes are clearly marked and the speed limit is posted.  You know the rules.  Does everyone cooperate totally?  No way.  When you observe the distance between you and the car in front of you it is necessary to overlook safety at times or someone will cooperate themselves right in front of you.

When your mother is watching the plate of cookies, cooperation is a wonderful thing.  When she looks the other way, all bets are off.  Conservation works that way.  When the camera is on all is well.  We are thoughtful and careful.  But when the media looks the other way then all the people who talk conservation grab all they can get and run.  You have seen meme posters of the rich and powerful flying in their private jets to a conference to limit your use of fossil fuel.  You are aware that when congress passes laws limiting your liberty they usually exempt themselves.  You know you can go to jail for lying to the FBI but they are free to tell you all the whoppers they want.

All I can say is that each of us needs to live up to our own standards.  That may cost you a few dollars but if you are a person of integrity it might be worth it.

Or maybe not.  Be wise, not stupid.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-267: On the Street: Turtle Porn

We have a couple in our neighborhood who used to have a claim to fame because when they went for a walk they not only had a dog but a pig and a goat.  It was quite a sight.  At the time they were well behaved but the goat eventually began to get aggressive and was sent to another home.  The pig maintained his decorum until the call of the bacon became too strong.  They are now back to just a dog.

I was walking a few weeks ago and thought I heard the sound of a goat coming from their property.  When I saw them today and asked if they were rebuilding the team they laughed and said, “No, it was the tortoise.”  It seems that they now have two female and one male tortoise and it is the time for love.  File that away.  A tortoise in love sounds like a goat saying hello.

They seem to be concerned about the noises and the neighbors.  I am not sure what it will do to property values when it gets around that be have a tortoise bordello in our hill.  I suggested they could go on line with their own stream of turtle porn.  With all the diversity in identification out there you never know who might show up and what the financial rewards could be.  Maybe they could set up a clinic for doing surgery to change turtles into tortoises.  I would not work the other way because a search tells me that all tortoises are turtles but not all turtles are tortoises.

Life continues to be unfair.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-266: I Will Take One Utopia and a Pink Unicorn, Please

In Texas we have a competition for Governor being on between Greg Abbott and “Beto” O’Rourke.  It should be no contest.  Abbott should win going away and never needing to look back.  He is a generally conservative and competent leader.  Beto has been a national celebration of empty suitism.  No serious citizen would vote for him.  It is a good example of having two clear alternatives and when the tallies come down it will tell you where people stand on the issues.

Or maybe not.  It amazes me that people have any confusion on their choice.  I think the problem is the Utopia Compex.

Some people will not vote for Abbott because he is not perfect.  I will admit that I did not vote for him in the primary because he was not the best choice but I gave up searching for perfection in everything after I found a wife.  No politician is perfect.  No church is perfect.  No diet is perfect.  Somehow Abbott is supposed to step above that line.  Since Beto seems to promise Utopia he may be their man.

I will be voting for Abbott in the general election.  Beto represents everything that is wrong with this country so it is really an easy choice.  Abbott did not show the right leadership on the Covid nonsense.  He has been slow off the dime on the border.  He has his weak points.  I think one of his problems is that he is not a good judge of resource people, a failure he shares with Donald Trump.  

Here is hoping he will rise to the occasion.  If we bath him with prayer then he may be wiser and stronger than he really is.

Elections matter.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-265: Hunger and Hacks

Reading history can help us deal with our present fears.  I am currently reading a book called The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 by Canon John O’Rourke.  It is available by downlead from Project Gutenberg.  I have found that many people know about the great potato famine that drove waves of Irish emigration.  It is the events around it that I find reassuring because they reflect on the panic that so many are trying to create around the world.

The cause of the famine was not a potato blight.  That is what the books tell us and there was a problem with the potato crop.  It failed.  That failure put many people in the path of starvation but not because there was no food.  It is restated several times by the time I am a fourth way through the book but here is one,

"That the people of Ireland, in their bitter hours of misfortune, have the strongest right to impeach the criminality of the ministers of the crown, inasmuch as it has pleased a merciful Providence to favour Ireland in the present season with a most abundant crop of oats. Yet, whilst the Irish harbours are closed against the importation of foreign food, they are left open for the exportation of Irish grain, an exportation which has already amounted in the present season to a quantity nearly adequate to feed the entire people of Ireland, and to avert the now certain famine; thus inflicting upon the Irish people the abject misery of having their own provisions carried away to feed others, whilst they themselves are left contemptuously to starve.” Kindle location 1293-1298

The potato failed but there was a bumper crop of other foods.  The problem was not a lack of food but a surplus of political shenanigans.  England controlled Ireland and made it illegal for the Irish to import food that did not first get unloaded in an English port and then loaded again.  They also looked at crops like oats as a cash crop and were not about to leave them for the Irish to eat.

The government in London knew the problem and did a lot of talking but at the point I am in the book they were doing nothing but talk.  I am assuming since the famine was so bad that they kept talking and taking their tea breaks.

There were other political causes of hunger around the world.  This is just one example.

Then you have what we like to call “climate change.”  It is a common occurrence in the history of the world.  Ireland got there share.

"’In the beginning of November, 1739, the weather,’ says O'Halloran, ‘was very cold, the wind blowing from the north east, and this was succeeded by the severest frost known in the memory of man, which entirely destroyed the potatoes, the chief support of the poor.’[17] It is known to tradition as the ‘great frost,’ the ‘hard frost,’ the ‘black frost,’ etc.”  Kindle Location 445-448

Then we have another familiar story.

“To add to the miseries of the people there was a great drought all the winter and spring.”  Kindle Location 471-472

And then they went through torrential rains that rotted the potatoes in addition to the blight.

Does any of this sound familiar?  It should.  It is very similar to what we are going through.  There is nothing we can do about the weather except accept that it is part of the natural cycle of the earth.  The politics also seem like we are being run into the ground.  Do what you can on that.  If nothing else, wake up to people you have voted for that are backing the current politics of the Progressives.

I think it fits into Solomon’s statement,

(Ecc 1:9 KJV)  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-264: Ode to Old: Better Than a Dog

Spending time with our children and grandchildren has different urgency for me and my wife.

For her it is a necessity.  It is like vitamin C.  If she does not get enough she will get emotional scurvy.  The need is more acute now that they are living in the same town.  Have they changed?  Do they still remember Grandma?  Why haven’t they called?  Keep in mind they are 2 and 4.

For me it is a luxury.  If I can’t have it, at least I can dream about it.  The memories and anticipation can be gratifying.  I have pictures that I can look at that bring a smile.  That surprises me.  I have never been a big one for pictures but now I find myself suggesting them for Fathers’ Day and such.

If you have grandchildren you probably know of what I speak.  If you don’t then at least you have your dog.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-263: Share the Joy

What would be fun would be for DeSantis and Abbott to get into a contest to see who could come up with the most creative destinations for the illegals.  Other governors might get in on the act too.

There are other rich, white, liberal enclaves that need a chance to embrace diversity.  Some of the ski resorts in Colorado would be nice.  Maybe Jackson Hole.  Kaanapali needs to get involved but it might be hard to get a bus there.  How about dropping off a bus load outside some Democrat conventions or planning sessions.  Maybe a service to local ACLU offices.  It might also be interesting to take some of them and drop them off in Canada.

This could get interesting.

homo unius libri