Returning From the Land of OZ

Tags

Facebook, fundamentalists, right wing conservatives, teabaggers, wilful ignorance

Oh it feels so good when you stop.

If you ever travel to Michigan, take a wide berth around Flint. I grew up there. I have recently come to discover that it’s the birth zone of some of the most ignorant people I have ever met. Not all mind you. A few of us escaped. In case you wonder, I escaped. You were unclear about that?

Now Facebook is a wonderful device to get back in touch with people you haven’t spoken to, or in most cases thought about in years. But  beware, you too may find that you were born in a zone of ignorance. And you may well find that most of those people you thought it would be fun to reconnect with and see what they are up to? It’s better you don’t.

We developed a “hot topics” page just to discuss politics and such. Oh my good lord, you would be shocked. Nay I say, you would be bowled over. Who knew you went to school with idiots?

I’m not talking about drooling misbegots who are still practicing shoe tying an hour a day, and have “almost got it.” No these people are of reasonably average intelligence. They are mostly willfully ignorant, choosing to create safe worlds which they can inhabit without all that messy guilt.

Let me give you some examples:

1. In a discussion on climate change: One fine fellow is very sure there is no such thing and regales us with YouTube video cartoons, and plenty of bloggers who are darn sure it’s all a hoax. Trouble is, most of his links have no names attached, or if they do, it’s pretty clear the writers have no educational background justifying my belief in their opinion. (I am pretty sure the earth has a molten core too, but as a lawyer, I don’t expect you to take my word for it.)

Said denier, has no background that enables him to choose between the experts. But he really likes that there isn’t any climate change, certainly that humans are responsible for, cuz dang, he hates taxes and doesn’t want to pay for all that green technology start-up. He can’t be bothered with the 97% of climate scientists who tell him he is wrong–they are just part of the hoax.

As everyone is clearly aware, scientists upon graduation, sign a pledge to maintain the conspiracy of climate change, in order to get their diploma. Then, logically, (around the world this is done mind you) they apply for government grants to waste time doing experiments they know are not true, and then publish this untruth, all to justify getting more grants to do it all again. Until they retire. They are leaving letters with their attorneys admitting the hoax upon the 50th anniversary of their deaths,  while they are relegated to the trash heap of scientific discovery– which is the ultimate aim of any scientist worth his/her salt.

Best question put by another “Hamady Hawk” as if this proves something–“Didn’t ice once cover all of Michigan?” Yes my dear, it did, your point?

2. On economics we are peppered with the wonders of Hayak and Friedman, both economists proven wrong in their models by, well, you, know, the freakin’ disaster of 2008. By the way, did you know that it’s “Obama’s recession” and Bush really had nothing to do with it?

3. Evolution: we get the standard, “I don’t believe in that, because the bible explains that for me.” I supplied this link: Is the Young-Earth Creationist Idea of God Compatible with Christianity? 

This was written by our good friend, James McGrath, professor of religious studies at Butler University. I also submitted this really excellent piece by another good friend of this blog, Dr. Peter Hess’s, God and Evolution.

Neither made a dent. You want to know why?  BECAUSE THEY CAN’T FREAKIN’ READ THAT STUFF BECAUSE GOD WOULD KNOW THEY AREN’T TRUE BELIEVERS AND THAT WOULD MAKE HIM MAD!

The point is, you can’t have an intelligent conversation with a creationist because they are willfully ignorant and damnably determined to remain that way.

The seminal question I got from them on this was:

• Are you actually saying that you can believe in evolution AND the bible at the same time?  (YES MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DO!)
• If we are related to chimps, then why are chimps still giving birth to baby chimps and humans to humans? (OH JESUS, I SWEAR I AM GOING TO STEP IN FRONT OF A TRUCK NOW!)
• If evolution is true, why aren’t we still “evolving” ya know?  (WELL, YA, KNOW, WE ARE!!!)

4. On poverty and our need to care for those who can’t for any reason care for themselves? The usual first hand accounts of “homeless” men who don’t want food but want money instead. Apparently homeless people have no other needs, just food. Apparently 25% of all homeless who are veterans are unable to work rather than emotionally unable to hold down a job. GET A JOB! Food stamps in the country is a CRIME! While one in five children go hungry. Yeah some crime. And then it’s all wrapped up neat and tidy by a litany  and I do mean extensive and detailed of “all they do” for the poor so you can’t call me callous! And everybody knows Republicans give more than Democrats.

5. On the Tea Party. “I carry the constitution with my bible everywhere. I am a patriot. I am against unions, I am against takers. Democrats are the party of dividing people. Michelle and Barack Obama both lost their law licenses (an urban myth, but of course you can’t explain it to them). I am for guns. My my isn’t Ben Carson just the most brilliant man? (the new house Negro in the Right wing). Send them back to Mexico! Jesus said you will always have the poor! And he was against the government doing anything about the poor! Jesus supports self-defense!

6. On education: You guys think you are so educated, and know it all. Well I’m not stupid. Just because I don’t think what you think, I’m not stupid. (EDUCATION IS NO MORE THAN CURIOSITY ABOUT THE WORLD AND THE DECISION TO PICK UP A BOOK AND READ IT. ANYONE CAN DO IT. THEY HAVE THESE THINGS CALLED LIBRARIES AND THEY ARE F**KING FREE!)

But I escaped. . . . I am back here in the land of reality.

If you believe in any of that crap I just related. . .YOU ARE WILLFULLY IGNORANT. YOU USE YOUR FAITH AND YOU USE YOUR CONSERVATISM TO JUSTIFY YOUR SELFISH DESIRES TO HAVE YOURS AND SCREW THE REST OF THE WORLD.

BITE ME!

BITE ME!

BITE ME!

Well, I think I lanced that boil rather well, doncha think? Do you think they will invite me to tea if I’m in town?

And those of you who I’ve talked to by message who are smart, AND well-informed? You know who you are, and I love ya!

 

 

There: Now You Went and Did It

Tags

DADT, Facebook, foreign policy, Fox News, global warming, Individual Rights, Julian Assange, Kyl, Mark Zuckerberg, Media, START treaty, tax bill, Time's person of the year, wackos, wikileaks

I know. I said yesterday that I had no opinion on Wikileaks. I still don’t. But I’m starting to lean. Like the Tower of Pisa, if I tip too far, it is inevitable that I will topple over.

Why am I leaning?

Because more and more this is starting to resemble the aftermath of 9/11. Remember when Congress was declaring  for “Freedom Fries” and everybody was stumbling over each other to be more patriotic than the next gal?

Remember the upshot of that: the Patriot Act?  Where we pretty much handed over our rights to the government to ignore them any time it chose in the name of “national security” and protecting the “homeland.” The name alone was reason enough to vote against it. But I think one person did. Everybody was afraid to be on the “wrong” side and not be a patriot.

Today, people are starting to fall all over each other to be on the right side of the Wikileaks affair. We are hearing calls for assassination of Julian Assange, new laws to make him a terrorist, and of course the usual chorus from the right–censor the news and if necessary prosecute! Meanwhile corporate entities who provide financial mechanisms to support Wikileaks are closing their doors. No doubt corporate America may have concerns itself over what may come out about them and government shenanigans.

” . . . I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him [Julian Assenge] for the efforts. So that’s kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.” (quoted from Allen West, newly elected Rep. from Fl.)

Once one of these snowballs starts, they usually end up in a bad result. And then we all feel “safe” and everyone moves on to the next “crisis”. Except the laws remain and are ready to be used by exactly the sort of people we don’t want messing with our rights–the extreme right. With one foot now in the door, and salivating at the prospects of 2012, this is no meaningless concern.

Imagine (if you can stomach it) the power to censor the press in the hands of one Sarah, who is already on record as declaring that all media are lame, except for her Foxy supporters. Imagine. That’s an Imagine not the likes that John Lennon had in mind.

So, as I said, I’m leaning.

***

I’m thinking that Time, in making its decisions about who they will name “person of the year” is now rending it a contest sent out to high schools across America. Recall the “mirror” one? Well, in their INFINITE wisdom, infinitely small that is, they have chosen Mark Zuckerberg, the kid who started Facebook.

While no biggie, it seems that this is the best they could come up with? It just seems a lazy choice. Zuckerberg and his creation are of no serious import in the world it seems to me. While I laud his offering of much of his wealth to cure societal ills, well, what is new about that?

Who would you have liked to see get the nod?

***

Here are some things I read late yesterday without linkage:

• Rush Limpaugh has taken to calling the First Lady, Michelle the Butt. Each time, he corrects himself to Michelle La Belle, but he’s don’t it in excess of six times and it’s clear it is deliberate. Rush has a thing for demeaning women, once claiming that Hillary Clinton couldn’t join the armed services because they didn’t have combat boots large enough to get over her thick ankles.  Rush is a piece of crap.
• Somebody somewhere found a new planet and it’s very carbon rich, raising the possibility that it is full of diamonds. That should make Kays and Zales and all the rest giddy with anticipation!
• Romney is against the parts of the tax bill that give aid to the unemployed and so forth because their raise the deficit by a few billion. But he is inexplicably for the parts that give tax cuts to the rich, when that deficit, over 10 years, figures to be in the trillions. Another case of assuming your base is too stupid to understand.
• The House is re-introducing  a new DADT bill, alone. That allows the Senate to try again. We may just make it! That is, if we can explain to Sen. Manchin that his concerns were addressed by the Joint Chiefs and the report that emanated from the Pentagon. He’s new, he didn’t know any better.

***

You know when the GOP claimed it wouldn’t do a thing unless they got their precious rich people their tax break? Well, on the verge of getting it, they are (didn’t we know they would) still balking at doing a thing. And some of so darn angry at giving the Dems even a tiny benefit, they are willing to screw everyone.

Kyl, the other dingbat from Arizona, is claiming that Reid is “disrespecting” the Holiest of celebrations for Christians by threatening to keep the Senate in session over the holidays. DeMint is threatening to have the entire START Treaty read aloud, wasting a good day, in order to screw that up. And Colburn is threatening to do the same with appropriations bill.

What part of compromise don’t these people get? They will destroy America before they will stop this petulant game of politics first. Never in my life have I seem a group who has less concern with the public good than this bunch of asshats.

***

Foxy lies continue to be unearthed. Just last week or so, memos came to light that Fox had directed it’s reporters and commentators to use the term “government option” rather than public option in regards the health care bill because the former didn’t poll well. Now we see that Fox employees were ordered to not report anything about this being the “warmest decade” on record without “immediately” citing that there is data claiming this is untrue.

…we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.

The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.”

What’s on the stove: homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Stay Warm!

Related Articles

• Michael Moore On Countdown: “We Owe A Debt” To Julian Assange (mediaite.com)
• Time Chooses Mark Zuckerberg Over Julian Assange For Person Of The Year (observer.com)
• WikiLeaks and the Power of Patriotism (pbs.org)

Let It Be A New Day

Tags

911, Alvaro Uribe, Asteroids, astronomy, Cedar Rapids, Columbia, Detroit, Facebook, Flint, fundamentalism, Georgetown, GOP, Iowa, Islamic faith, journalism, Muslims, Qur'an, religion, right wing, tea party, tolerance, urban renewal, voters

Praise be to whatever Goodness speaks in your heart this day! In response to hatred, there is love being expressed, tolerance overflowing and men and women of good will gather in friendship.

A couple of important notices:

First, for those living near the environs of Cedar Rapids, IA, please take note that an interfaith “Day of Remembrance, Unity and Respect” is scheduled for 9/11 at 1-2:30 pm at the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids, 2999 1st Ave NW, Cedar Rapids, IA. Members of the Islamic faith, Judaic faith, and Christian faith will gather for a few words and prayer. Please come if you can to show your support for tolerance, and unity in recall of our time of tragedy.

If you cannot attend, please consider this Facebook call for unity and tolerance. Dr. James McGrath has created a FB page called, “read the Qur’an day.” Please go and sign up. We cannot remain silent in the face of the hatred being expressed by a tiny minority. We must speak out. We are a nation of immigrants. Tolerance is what defines us.

I caught this over at National Catholic Reporter. Fr. John Dear, SJ, has written a post on the sad but true fact that what can only be described as dictator, Columbia’s former president, Alvaro Uribe, has accepted a teaching position at Georgetown University. Fr. Dear has a good history of both Uribe and Georgetown’s questionable dealings with the American war machine in the past. This is truly sad to hear. I certainly don’t deny that Uribe has a right speak his piece about whatever, but I surely think there were better choices for teaching our youth than one who has had such a close connection to warlords and other murdering types.

I was born in Flint Michigan and lived a considerable number of years in Detroit, so I know of what I speak. Both are ugly decrepit cities and nothing much can save them I suspect. Both largely grew to magnificence (or some semblance of that) through the age of the Automobile, now both rust away as the heyday of automotive power wanes.  The Boston Globe has an interesting article on how these declining cities deal with this. How to downsize? (Note: recently Detroit decided to go forward with wholesale demolition of old neighborhoods long abandoned–thousands of homes are involved so I understand) A truly innovative look at a problem.

To those of us who pay attention, the Teapartiers have always been an anomaly. A conglomeration of mostly uninformed folk, who rant about “our freedoms” while having little or no clear thinking about what the Constitution says or means. Ironically they are often “for” things that are in-opposite to long-standing constitutional norms. In essence, they are often willing to eviscerate the Constitution in the name of upholding it. DeWayne Wickham at USAToday has a great article about the new KnowNothing Party.

Oh and before I forget, let my say this: This refusal of most of the “high-ranking GOP leadership (read Palin, Boehner, Gingrich et al) to condemn the Qur’an burning is disgusting and amounts to an endorsement. They are willing to allow their hate spewing followers to believe they favor it rather than have the guts to stand up for what is right. So much for ethics. But then who ever assumed they had any?

And we see that John Sidney McCain is criticizing the President for allowing the tax cuts for the rich to expire. Oh but, darn, McCain voted against them when Bush proposed them? How to reconcile this old fart? Just another one of your vengeful acts isn’t it John? You hated Bush for beating you, and you hate Obama for beating you. You need to go sit in your chair and muse about the dust bunnies in the wind.

If I hasn’t come to you yet, it will. Which came first: the insipid vapid (id words you see) moronic lack of intellect of the average American, thus requiring constant feeding of irrelevant nonsense, OR the increasing laziness of the journalistic working man and woman, who has traded actual journalistic skill for a few tips from Entertainment Nightly. Huh? Well, D-Cap tackles this one.

Christian Beyer is a fine writer and thinker and knows fundamentalist Christianity from the inside. See his blog entry today: It’s time for Christians to declare jihad against Fundamentalism. Just an excellent read.

Sad to say, but perfectly predictable, the right-wing and GOP are using the upcoming 9/11 date to raise money and spread hate. They have been doing it for years, and plan to continue it seems.

Ya know there is just plenty of crap to worry about. I worry a lot about that seething mega volcano just waiting to erupt in Yellowstone. That will take most all of us out. I worry about the state of our magnetic field, without which we will all be toast in days. Well, now I gotta worry about asteroids again! I thought we had that one all taken care of with an array of telescopes all searching for any misdirected balls of iron. (Jupiter with its super-massive gravity well is largely to blame–just so you know where to direct your ire.) Turns out NASA which runs this safety program is RUNNING OUT OF MONEY.

So I figure, we should perhaps set up a citizens brigade or something. You can leave your name and number and the night you would like to take your watch. Don’t push. Sharp eyes and a pair of field binoculars are required.

What’s on the stove: chili today. Oh I know it’s early, but I was hungry for some, and I made it really good and hot, and with some fresh corn bread. HA!

Related Articles

• Islamophobia After 9/11: Enough, Already (beliefnet.com)

Updating Around

Tags

blogging, Facebook, new blogroll entries

Times have been busy as I’ve alluded to a number of times in the last few weeks. By and large, it’s been good. I’ve been reading my fool head off and am nearing my completion of study of Genesis. On to Exodus next of course. With a number of other calls on my time, I’ve found less and less time to devote to just relaxing online and reading blogs. I have missed a goodly number.

This has been a bit lessened in impact by the fact that I’m a daily visitor to FFacebook, and follow any number of links to several blogs a day anyway. I wish a few of my favorite bloggers would join the Facebook interface. I find it highly useful in both promoting my blog, and learning of others I’d not likely run into. I also get a nice bunch of links to good news stories.

As most of you know, my foray into renewing friendships with old classmates hasn’t fared as well. It turns out that my neighborhood turned out to be a hotbed of fundamentalist blubbery. Who could have known. Yet, I’ve had a few pleasant conversations with some who remained undamaged by this brainwashing.

On the other hand, I’ve met a number of friends of other bloggers and have been enriched by their wit, intelligence, and eye for the great news story. Their hearts are deeply in the right place, and I am delighted to find so many passionate and compassionate people.

In any event, I’m here today to alert you to a number of new blogs that I’ve run across. They are rather eclectic (what’s new?) this time. I hope you will stop by a few and see if any of them tickle your fancy.

In the non-believers category, see the following: Atheist Ethicist, and  Atheist Revolution. Both are well written and thoughtful. You don’t have to agree, but if you are to understand your faith, you should listen to other voices I believe.

In the category crafting,  look up Corner Paint. Vicki does have the most amazing eye for color and her blog is just enjoyable for the beauty she brings together. Eye candy all the way. The blog leans toward decorating ideas.

In the religious category, add, Ancient Hebrew Poetry, Biblia Hibraica, Experimental Theology, Father Jakes Stops the World, God’s Politics, NYT’s Religion and Belief,  and Paul of Tarsus. These run the gambit. Some are quite technical and designed for the more serious biblical student, the others are more general and often deal with issues of the day.

That’s it for now. Hope you link up along the side with a few of these and try them out. And I do hope that more of you will go over to Facebook. I think it’s a great way to stay in touch between bloggers, as well as other groups you are interested in.

And just a little tidbit. This traveled around the better circles on Facebook. Hope you like it. It certainly tickled me!

Way More Than I Wanna Know

Tags

being connected, cell phones, communication, e-mail, Facebook, sociology, Twitter

I have been thinking lately, that well, we may have gone too far. I’m middle-aged and I intend to remain that way. In my life time, there was a time when most everyone I knew have one phone, black, and located centrally in the kitchen near the hallway. That was it, other than the mail, which reached a person within a decent period of time, inside a week usually.

That was how people communicated if they were not able to be face-to-face. Nobody called it “face time” as they do now, which now actually means have a “rare” personal moment within one yard of another human being.

We all thought it was cool and modern to get that second phone, not a second line mind you, but an extension. I got mine on Christmas morning when I was 16. A pretty pink “princess” phone. I could loll in bed and chat with my girlfriends until I heard the booming voice of my father, “GET OFF THAT PHONE!”

We proceeded to beepers. I never had one of them until I was a lawyer, and there was indeed some need to be reached by my office so they might direct me hither and yon as judges needed my services. Then the computer and e-mail, and the cell phone.

It all seemed reasonable at the time I would argue. We all thought it meant faster, better, more accurate transmission of vital information. We all bought as much as we could, and used it as much as we could.

I’m the first to claim that man was not meant to be alone, and community is where we thrive. But how much is too much? How “available” do I have to be? How in touch with everyone must I be to be with it?

I realize that when I make arrangements to keep in touch with some one, I don’t get just a phone number (land line to be correct, since that must be distinguished from a “cell”–which horror of horrors I don’t have). I get the land line, the cell, the e-mail, and just to be safe, the twitter and Facebook.

Recently I reactivated my FB account, and located some high school mates. I thought it would be fun catching up on lives. After some cursory “messages” giving a bare bones one paragraph of what we have been up to for 30 years, I got nothing further. No updates on any of our other class mates, no nothing. But I can tell you their scores on “bouncing balls” and tell you how many “smiles” they got last week.

I got a hello from an old colleague from work in Detroit. To tell me the sad news of the passing of my boss. She “found” me on my blog, in the middle of my “autobiography” and left a comment. I said I hadn’t been lost, and had contacted a couple of people from there several years ago, hadn’t moved or changed e-mail or address. They had been too “busy” to continue any conversations. I just found it strange. I wrote back immediately and haven’t received a word back, though she was “excited” and couldn’t wait to tell the “girls” she had “found” me.

Maybe this is what passes for “knowing” and keeping in “touch” these days. I can read that you’re playing an Internet game and what your score is, and that you are going to do housework now. You can learn that I have posted my blog for the day, and am off to church to go to a library committee meeting.

Is this what we account as “communicating? Is this information that is important to transmit. Do we feel apart of each others lives by doing this?

You see, I have a lot of questions. Precious little answers. I just don’t know. We mostly feel compelled to proudly count the ways we are remaining hip to technology and patting ourselves on the back that we still “talk” to old friends. Does this measure up in some way that matters?

Are “friends” I know on the Internet, real friends? Are they  the same as “face” time friends? Does it matter?  But should I refer to them as “Internet” friends to “face” friends and vice versa? Are they acquaintances rather than friends? Would anybody care?

The world, it is a changin’ and no doubt there are sociologists and the like busily asking and testing and ruminating over these very things. Our society will and is changing as a result of all these “relationships” of whatever definition, all fostered or helped to limp along by our ability to stay connected.

 Can we make do with trading pictures of our lives instead of visiting. Can I feel like I’ve “seen” your new house by the pictures you put up on FB? Do these new forms of communicating,  all equally nourish the soul? That last one is a big big idea, and one we need to examine carefully and seriously. Are we getting anything of substance from these superficial “virtual” friendships? Are we deeply harming our psyches, or the opposite?

I dunno the answers as I said, I just ask the questions.  All I know is that we better find out, because more and not less is on the way. It will impact us for better or worse, and it might be prudent to know which one.

Sweeping In a Whirlwind of Dust

Tags

church, Contrarian, Facebook, housework, Humor, pets

Big title for a rather mundane blog. Yes, you heard it here first, so don’t complain when you get to the end, that it was much ado about nothing. Credit to Shakespeare!

I hate housework. Always have, always will. I don’t care for things that are boring and have such transient results. In my house that means a few minutes often. And that definitely makes it less than worthwhile.

I do it, and have been pretty darn religious about it since the big room by room wash down a year and a half ago. Still, you wouldn’t even want to think about eating off my floors. Only the dogs do that, and they have no class at all anyway.

I can mop a floor here,  and go off to shop only to return to find large sand piles in the kitchen where the dogs have plopped awaiting my return. It’s dangerous most days to move around unshoed. Cats puke with regularity around here for some reason, and well, you get the picture. Everything that can cling to dog or cat fur ends up on my floor.

The walls are always speckled with muddy water, shook from said dogs. Cats seldom shake, and I don’t know why that is. Tubs are ringed with tiny kitty prints as they snoop far and wide.

And don’t even get me started on husbands! No, best leave that subject alone.

And you thought living in the country was clean? No, in a word. We live 1/2 mile from the dirt road and it manages to find its way back here and leaves a dusty trail with about two days. So much for all that “clean” air.

I have in a word given up, and just keep the surface clean, but don’t even suggest you want to visit, cause I’ll get the vapors. I’m just lucky to live with the Contrarian who thinks closets and drawers are for people who want to lose things. Better to dump it on the floor nearby where I can stub my toe in the middle of the night.

Speaking of which, a joke all women can relate to:

How do you know when your husband has fallen asleep on the couch, from the other room you are in?

When you hear the remote hit the floor.

Relate? Told ya you would.

***

I’m off to a luncheon today at the Church, which is why not much thought is going into this post. Just so ya know. Conversation with women is always so eclectic I think. It can range from tampons to Iran in a heartbeat and it all makes perfect sense to us.

***

I’m doing Facebook again. I signed up a couple of years ago, never got it, never found any groups I liked, and pretty much ignored it. Border Explorer mentioned to me that she had “friended” me and I related that I didn’t much participate.  Well Twittering has pretty much been a bore, especially since all those who want to be me twitter friends these days are young women who don’t like to wear clothes. I’d be suspicious that the Contrarian was about nefariously twitting behind my back on my name, but he cares less about that stuff than he does about what’s going on in Big Brother, and he cares NOT about that.

Anyhooo, I had some time, and wandered over. Either it changed a lot, or I didn’t get it. It’s a lot more fun than I thought, and BE and I are mafia partners and playing Mafia Wars. It seems that QuakerDave is there a lot, as is Jeannelle, and a number of other bloggers. We exchange a lot of links and so forth and chat real time occasionally, which is also new.

I’ve befriended a few Church friends too. But what I just started doing is tracking down high school classmates. I’ve been in touch with a couple so far, and the stories of what we have done in the intervening 40+ years is truly amazing. It’s just fascinating to learn who married who, and what people ended up doing for a living and so forth.

So if you Facebook, look me up. You can follow the link on the left side or just enter my name, Sherry Peyton to find me.

***

Brandy and Bear had a great walk today with me. Brandy was in the bean field, only her tail wagging furiously as she ran along down the rows. Every ten yards or so, she leaped up and dove back under, much like a dolphin. Soon Bear got intrigued and joined her.

They raced along, until, whhhooooosh, a hen pheasant rose, followed by two, then two, then two more, all juveniles. So the pheasant population seems to have done well this year.

 The dogs were ecstatic, and she was grinning from ear to ear as she rejoined me on the lane. I guess that passes for great fun for a dog.

***

Tomorrow is another full day at church it seems. Meetings at 9 before service, and at 10:30 after. I seem to be getting “involved.” I’m visiting the food pantry Tuesday to “learn the ropes” as it were. I went from having almost no commitments any month to having 5-6 or more. For a lazy person, that’s a lot, but I’m enjoying it, and finding it worthwhile and satisfying. Hopefully I am of some service to others in some small way.

Catch ya tomorrow for something or other! Visit on Facebook if time is short!