The DIY fallacy

I swear, if I see one more do-it-yourself show I am so gonna lose it!

DIY, HGTV, and all their sister stations, I hate them. hate them, hate them! It seems that every show I see on those networks all revolve around people redoing rooms and homes that DON'T NEED REDOING! A camera will pan slowly across a room in its 'before' state while an announcer bemoans the fact that SOMETHING simply MUST be done about those dreadful 90's COLORS!

What's wrong with 90's colors? Is the room still functional? I mean, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot people, it's a living room! If your friends care more about the appearance of the room than visiting with you, well, then, I say to Hell with them.

I mean, too, what kind of life do you have when you're embarrassed by a perfectly good living room solely because it hasn't been repainted since 2005? Can't you take a decent shower in a nicely tiled bathroom even if the tile dates to 1977? Come on, folks, get a life!

Decadence, that's what it is, pure and simple. What a crock.

I'll just sign off with mindless, incomprehensible grumbling now. Mumble grumble rackin' frakin' dipwads with too much time on their hands...

Ariana Grande and the furries

Remember when Sunday mornings were for going to Church? Well, now that I'm firmly ensconced as a Saturday Catholic, my Sunday mornings are free for other fascinating adventures. Adventures such as taking my granddaughter to Tim Horton's for coffee and timbits (doughnut holes). I discovered they have red velvet doughnut holes. Oh joy oh rapture.

While we waited for our order a song played over the store's speakers. As I know little to nothing about popular entertainers, I asked my granddaughter if she know who it was. "Ariana Grande, I think", she answered. She then got out her phone and found the song and artist in less than two seconds and showed me the results. There was a picture of a young woman in bunny ears.

"Why is she dressed like a rabbit?", I asked.

"Maybe she's a furry." my granddaughter explained.

"A what?" the clueless grandfather responded incredulously.

The hip granddaughter patiently explained, "A furry. People who like to dress up like animals." Now that I'm home and online, I find that there's a whole culture of people who like to dress up like anthropomorphic animals.

And now I'm also thinking that I need to just go back to going to Church on Sunday mornings.

Two remarks and an attempted joke

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died. Not that I had supported him in any way, shape or form, but isn't it a little sad (or maybe pathetic is a better word) that someone who was going to change the world has passed on in relative obscurity? He was going to be the player in the Americas. But then the Soviet Union fell. So too went his real forum. Such is history; I sincerely hope he has made amends with his Maker and that all is now well for him.

Only 4 people shot, with two killed nationwide in Black Friday violence yesterday. That may be some sort of record. But if it is, I'm sure it ain't one to be proud of.

Did you know that I used to be afraid of those folks who went around with wax painted faces and red noses? I sure was, but now I'm cured. It turns out I was being Pennywise and clown foolish.

Please tell me someone gets that joke. Until next time...

Thanksgiving 2016

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789

Anyone who claims that we weren't founded on Christian principles, read these words well and carefully. And have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving in that light.

Wayne State police officer shot

I left the Roseland Curling Club tonight planning on writing a blog about our curling game. I arrived home to find that a Wayne State University police officer has been shot just blocks from where I live. Police officers were everywhere as I drove home, and I hear helicopters overhead as I write. I see their searchlights flash across my bedroom window.

This is a very sobering moment for me. A curling game sounds unimportant, trite, even, as I think about what's going on just beyond my walls. Someone out there protecting me is fighting for his life, two days before Thanksgiving, for no good reason. And worse, he's the fifth law enforcement agent shot nationwide in the last three days. It is clear that our police are being targeted simply because they're cops.

This is unacceptable behavior. It is symptomatic of an anti-authority streak in these United States which truly threatens our national stability. Yes, I know there are bad cops. But I also know there are worse felons than that relative handful. And I know they are a greater threat to our country.

Black lives matter? Of course they do. But blue lives matter too. All lives matter. Until we understand that, none of our lives are safe.

The Ballad of Marty's transmission.

It had begun so innocently. I was trying to get to a bon voyage party for a curling friend who was leaving Canada for an overseas teaching position. I crossed the border and my car stopped 'pulling', that is, going forward. A hose had ruptured in a transmission line, spewing transmission fluid everywhere and leaving my van immobile. C'est la vie. It happens.

That issue was calmed soon enough. A friend on that side of the river recommended a mechanic who could fix the problem. And he did, for $325 Canadian, including the tow from the Roseland Curling Club where I left my van to his repair shop. A good price, honestly.

I drove her from July until two weeks ago, when my van again stopped pulling near Muncie, Indiana. But two quarts of transmission fluid later, C'est la guerre, she pulls once more, all the way to home to Detroit.

Then she, my 2000 Chevy Venture, stops pulling right as I was about to get onto the ramp in Detroit from where there was no re-entry into these United States. I managed to get her off the expressway and onto a side street, where I might have her towed to my mechanic. He, my mechanic, found the same hose had ruptured as before. He fixed it, and all seemed well.

Then last night, for it is last night now, as I returned from my Monday night curling game, I could not pull away from the customs booth on the US side as I returned from curling. Now as I've complained much about US customs, it is only fair that I give them credit as due. They cleared me, quite succinctly and deferentially, as I hoped. But then my van would not move. And the guards saw that I had a transmission leak. And they pushed me beyond the toll booths so that I might have an easier time with a tow.

That tells me that the border patrol are not really bad folk after all. I'm not so ready to think the NSA evil anymore. They rushed to help a US citizen obviously innocent of any crime to simply get home.

And that is why I am dismissive of the fears of my libertarian and progressive friends. Innocence breeds trust. It's as simple as that.

The need for humility

People who overvalue themselves are generally not the people we want in leadership positions. Those who are meek about what they do may be our best citizens.

I have written before about the hazards of thinking too much about ourselves and our work. I have found and offer to you an excerpt from a neat little article penned by Richard Mitchell, who wrote under the moniker of The Underground Grammarian. The passage itself may be vaguely dated, having been published in 1983, but the point is universal. You may read the entire piece here: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/

I encourage you to read more of Mitchell's stuff. It's pretty good on the whole. But for now, read this and let it sink in.

ONE of the most delicious ironies of our ironical time is the fact that schoolteachers often make less money than garbagemen. Although garbagemen seem to have reconciled themselves to this curious inequity perhaps out of a phlegmatic realism inevitably induced by their labors, schoolteachers have not.

How can it be, schoolteachers ask in letters to editors all over the land, that "society" holds them so cheap? Have they not labored mightily to make society exactly what it is today, clarifying values, facilitating appreciations, and teaching everyone how to relate? Have they not been the principal providers of universal public self-esteem, creativity, and social awareness? So how come they don't get no respect? What kind of society can it be that better rewards those who haul away garbage than those who produce it?

Such complaints seem, at first, indubitably justifiable. At least, they require of any thoughtful citizen a scrutiny of whatever differences can be discovered between garbagemen and schoolteachers:

While the work of garbagemen is of unquestionable social value, they never hire public relations experts to nag us about their selfless devotion to the common good. They don't even have a bumper sticker. That ought to he worth a few bucks.

When garbagemen ask for more money, they gladly admit that what they really want is the money. As to recompense for the self-sacrifice out of which they consented to become garbagemen rather than executives of multi-national corporations, they say nothing. Such reticence is surely worth a little more money.

Although they shouldn't be, garbagemen are just a little bit ashamed of what they do, and thus deficient in self-esteem. Schoolteachers are not the least bit ashamed of anything that they do. They have great big oodles of self-esteem. Would it not be an appropriately democratic redistribution of wealth to take some money, since they'll never part with that self-esteem, away from the privileged schoolteachers and give it to those emotionally deprived garbagemen?

The shame that arises from believing what the world tells us to believe is a form of slavery, but when shame arises from self-knowledge informed by a principled consideration of what is estimable and what is not, it is virtue.