AN EMOTIONAL DAY

(The  two flags of my heritage): 

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Emotional.   I hate that.   I’ve had my emotions stirred today three times and ended up in tears – of happiness, I think.

I am Scandinavian.   We.    Don’t.   Cry.     Only sometimes we do, and then we look like a mess and  feel like a mess and we’re embarrassed  –  and we ask,  “How does that happen?”

So,  today –

Happy thing number one –  Son  spent a few hours here today; we kept so busy;  and his actions and his stories filled me with . . .  wonder!  and a great deal of gratitude.    (He’ll know why.)   A very happy day.

Happy thing number two –

Big loud crashing thunderstorm today.   And more to come!   Early in the evening I was in my “study”  at one edge of the house and the thunder struck.  Not the muffled, rumbling thunder that comes through thick clouds,  but the sharp, banging kind that makes it seem as though some heavy equipment with sharp distinct edges just got dropped overhead.  In fact one set of thunderclaps was so loud and distinctive that I looked out the window to the house next door with the thought that it just might have collapsed.     Spectacular  noise !!   (The house is okay.)

Very pumped up and excited.

And then –  President Trump began his speech.    Happy thing number three.

Every single sentence of his touched me very deeply.   It was like the things I was thinking, the things I had been hoping for, the things that I have desired for our country was all being verified and affirmed.    Someone was speaking my thoughts!   At last.

It’s been thirty years since I’ve heard a presidential speech without having to cringe.

No cringing tonight,  just grateful for a president who loves our country as much as I do.   And I hated it because his words touched me with hope and pride and good possibilities – and it made me cry.     “How does that happen?”

Thank goodness I was alone.  I absolutely lost it when  President Trump got to Jamiel Shaw Jr.      I had been very affected by his death several years ago.     I wrote about  it   one Memorial Day although I don’t remember quite how I made the connection.

I was horrified that this  accomplished and beloved son was shot in cold blood –  by an illegal immigrant who had been  released from prison.

Mr. Jamiel shaw, Sr. and President Trump,  friends

Jamiel Shaw.   I never wanted to forget him because he is a symbol, to me, of all the victims of crimes, especially  crimes committed against Americans by those who are here illegally.    His father was especially  devastated, in a way that I could only fearfully  imagine.   Please,  God, may I never experience the death of one of my children.  But Mr. Jamiel Shaw, Sr.,  did.     And he and all the other families of such victims need our sympathy, our prayers,  and our help.

Actually,  all the good people who were showcased in the speech tonight moved me to tears.  (How does that happen?  Why should I be crying?)

It  is to our amazement that when President Trump announced the new task force to help the victims of these crimes —  was it V.O.I.C.E.?  — the television cameras showed the entire  Democrat side of the Congress booing, hissing, and sitting still.

He said that “every problem in our country can be solved.  Every hurting family  can be healed,    so why not join forces to get the job down.     Let’s work together.”     Funny,  again,  only one half of the Congress applauded.  The Democrat side sat in stony silence.    Really?   They don’t want to work together to heal our nation?   to heal hurting families?  Or is it that they WILL not work together with the president of the United States?

Well, again,  every sentence that I heard President Trump say surprised me by how deeply I had wanted to hear those things.     It was uplifting.   “Why should we not expect wonderful things from Americans again  . . .?”

Maybe I do know how those tears happened tonight.

Relief.

WHAT THEY DON’T GET

(updated, to tamp down the enthusiasm and perhaps make more sense):

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Sunday!

Strengthened,  happy,  and all-pumped up —  and ready for this:

Daytona Day!!!    I’m happy to have this one day out of the week when we’re commanded to stop, pause,  refresh,  recreate,   change your pace,  change mental gears so we can look upwards,  make this day set apart  (made  holy)  — to remember God.     His idea:  one day out of seven, right?

The age-old Reading given to us  to ponder on this particular Sunday concerns  a man who sat in a dusty (probably smelly) heap on the side of a well-traveled dirt road holding out his hand,  begging.

No one cared.  No one glanced his way,  because he was annoying.   We have bums like that today,  but for this man,  his situation wasn’t entirely his fault.    He was unseen and  unseeing.  He was blind from birth.  Really,  of no use to the society of his day.

This is one of my favorite stories from the Gospels, because it isn’t really about this man’s   blindness.

Jesus walks by with a great noisy crowd around Him,  but then he comes to a sudden halt – causing the crowd around him to stop too.   What for?   Jesus has heard the call of the blind man,  and He has heard the man dare to call him “Thou Son of David!”    There is only one Son of David,   but the crowd missed it.

Jesus rewarded  Bartimaeus’s  faith with a physical miracle.

I like the story, sure.  I’ve written about it before, like here.    But after the sermon,  the Mass went on . . .

As I was driving home,  I was musing on why I often feel so strong and happy after the Mass.  (   I’m referring to the actual,  original real  Mass which was entrusted to the Church and cannot be lessened and diminished.)

The (real) Mass is  a spiritual miracle,  but, like Bartimaeus,  it seemed like I often experience a physical miracle too.   I can’t explain it all,  but I thought of all the people who “don’t get it”  and what it is they don’t seem to “get.”

They don’t get:

Why we go to Mass every week – or more – and willingly.

Why we’ll bother with ashes this week.

Why we don’t eat meat of Friday.

Why we keep the marital act within a marriage.

Why  our commitment to stay in a marriage is a strong one.

Why we give our hard-earned money away to people in need.

Why we hold back when there is reason to be really angry.

Why we refrain from cussing and swearing and talking trash about other people.

Why we look uncomfortable as we’re hearing dirty jokes.

Why we dress modestly.

Why we read the Bible,  on our own, because we want to.

Why fun feels so . .  .  fun!

Lots of other things too –  but I was writing this list as I was driving home and thought it best to keep the list short.

There are many things to be blind to.    And I know there are many reasons for a man to be blind,  willingly blind.

Jesus reached out to Blind  Bartimaeus  with  concern,  pity,  love,  kindness,  and with power.   Suddenly Bartimaeus  sees  Jesus standing before him.

As we all will some day.   When we leave this world,  we will see Him with perfect clarity.   No explanations from us are needed.

No explanations  from us are possible.

No excuses.

“We will know as we are known.”   We will no longer “see through a glass, darkly,  but clearly,  face to face.”  Some day not one of us will be blind to what we should have known.

Seems safer to call out now to the Son of David   (as Bartimaeus did);  today,  rather than after this life.   Jesus reaches out today with the same ” concern,  pity,  love,  kindness,  and  power..”      When we look up,  respond, call out His name,   we begin to “see” so much.   “I have come to give you Life, and that, much more abundantly.”

Strong,  happy,  whole, and mysteriously  pumped up after each encounter!

11,000 rps

 

11,000 rps.   I still gasp, when I try to think of it.

We live now in the age of, not revolutions per minute,  but of revolutions per second!  A little while ago   I was casually listening to an explanation of what they were proposing to do at CERN,    something very exciting to me,   when the voice said   “…  at 11,000 revolutions per second . . . .”        And each revolution,  once around,  is 17 miles!!!

I tried to grasp onto what that meant.    One can’t even visualize that accurately.   Anything large enough to be visible to us would be torn apart at that speed.    –  but we can make those speeds  happen . . .

And –  Boom!!!

Now, of course,   calculations are not made with that figure, 11,000 rps,  how often a particle speeds around the cyclotron.     They think in terms of equations, not words like “speed” and “charge.”    They use relationships between whole equations to describe   something that is beyond human experience.

A new issue:

But –  we’ve now created another area where we’re pretty sure we can control interactions at a speed that is beyond human experience;  and I just a couple hours ago finished a book that dealt with this issue.

Oh, it was pretty exciting fiction, a page turner;  but I learned a lot and some day we will all be very much affected by its subject.     Let’s see . . . .   the name of the book is  . . .  there it is:     “The Fear Index.”     (By Robert Harris)

You’d have fun with the plot if you’ve ever traded options.    The author uses terms like algorithmic hedge funds;  CBOE trades;   stops!   (ha ha);  liquidity;    sniping;  trading in VIX futures;  and the action reaches its climax in  the cortex of a CPU farm.     Like this:

In the book, the mad genius who invents the super-algorithms realizes he has created something with ” an intelligent mind of its own”   which learns,  protects itself, and eventually bypasses human input, way beyond the realization of actual AI.     How the system discredits its own creator is fascinating.     Possible?        Plausible.

Plausible because  the system has learned  the rules of human behavior  and uses  the consequences of human sin, immorality, and degradation  to place a  hit on its own creator.      (Never go to a  doctor or a psychologist who puts your records on a computer connected to the Internet!!  Hackers are the least of your fears!)

Well, that ‘s all.     Such is the world we live in.    I have no lesson or conclusion.  Just, we’d better all be aware.

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Note for myself:    We have the story of Icarus.    We have Pandora’s Box.     We have the Book of Enoch where we see that (as the Greeks said),   “The gods  give us the toys with which we destroy ourselves.”     

Shiny toys we can’t resist.     We have “computers,” now;  and we want these machines to compute faster than we can act.

And the  gods?    Why would they want to give us these machines that can surveil us and control our behavior and create our attitudes and reward and punish us?

Cui bono?     Not us.

There are too many of us.

Too many of us even for the gods.   Though of superior intellect,  they are not infinite in power and knowledge.

I think we’ll  find  this   in the book of Revelation in the Bible, the last half of chapter 13.     Someday the gods – or he or it – will gather us all together into One World,   and somehow,  then,   we will all be surveiled and controlled –  or eliminated.

The Antichrist can probably control the algorithms better than any human.

 

EITHER/OR

 

Well,   they do have that right  —

It’s either Freedom  —  for all of us.

Or it’s an  inevitable development of Hell on earth.

Either/or.

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Or maybe the Swedes would understand it this way:

   in case you forgot their name.*   Happy,  young Swedish singers.

But it’s either/or  in Sweden now.

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This photo is from Gates of Vienna,  a Website that keeps us informed about the dangers I was talking about in the last post.      I shall have to re-do my links at the right some day soon, get us up to date with today’s issues.

 

 

 

CALLING ALL GENTLEMEN !!

Gentlemen needed to come to the rescue:

 

Yeah,  they took turns kicking her while one of the men video’d the “fun.”  *  Muslims like to show their superiority over Western women.

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Europeans live where Christendom once reigned.    Modernist Europeans are rapidly giving up the Christianity that lay at the foundation of their own cultures.  They live now only on the momentum of existing values, left over from Christian times,  but the momentum is,  uh . . .  weakening.

We still retain words, though, like ladies and gentlemen,  and the attending respect of one for the other,  each in his own sphere of responsibility and expectations.

Now the “gentlemen”  are walking around a bit confused,  clueless,  weakened;  wounded by a society which tells them they are here only to  make money and have fun.    Men have been  “quieted.”

And the ladies are merely women, alone,  wondering why they’re supposed to act like men,  other than to make money and attain the power to do whatever the “heck”  they want.     (Sorry, no coarse language from this lady.)

When I was young I read a good novel of a rousing battle in the Middle Ages.  In the worst fury of the battle,  a lady dropped to her knees in great fear and could think of nothing else but to pray.

An  enemy  knight saw her and came to lead her away to shelter.    “A parfait gentle knight,”  as the old poem goes.     A knight does not only fight fiercely for a cause,  but he must know when to be gentle.

Sometimes he must act with strength,   gently.

Remember this Iraqi child?   On his way to being burned alive, with the rest of his family.

He was.

How about these girls,  waiting to be . . .   you know.

ALL  of  the 6 or 7 Crusades were Defensive in nature.      Parts of a couple of them were disorganized with inexperienced leaders;  and selfish,  evil men accompanied the Crusaders.  The Church excommunicated many of these aggressive bandits, and if the leaders of the criminal bands were of the nobility, the Church put an Interdict on their lands.  A chilling punishment.

But, still, all of the Crusades were Defensive.    It’s a 1,400 – year old war against Christianity.     In today’s world they have stated that their goal is to crush “Rome,”  by which they mean Christianity,  by which they mean Europe and all Western nations.

Us.

Some people at work call Wednesdays   “hump day”   because we’re at the middle of the work week;   keep working,  keep  doing what you must,   and you will make it up and over that hump in the middle of the week.   Then you can rest.

The Western World has a hump to get over too.   I’ve always wanted to assign my Wednesday writing to this problem of the Advance of the Worldwide Caliphate.

This young lady is the West.

We have a ‘hump”  to get over.

You may not choose to don “shining” armor,  you may choose combat boots,  or you may choose pen and paper  (well, keyboard and, uh,  “device”)   or you may choose to become internally and privately a strong gentleman,  as you wait and to watch for what you must do.

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   I told you before that I “think in plaid.”     But I don’t want to make this simple idea too complex.

I’m not done with  the strands of colors yet.    I’m not done with “ladies and gentlemen,”  nor with  pushing back the Caliphate which is coming.

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.*   (The rest of the video showed clearly that these were a small group of Muslim men, also known as  “refugees”  or  “migrants”  or  “immigrants.”)

THE SCIENCE OF WHIMSY

“True Science is whimsy.”

There was a young lady named bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned the previous night.

Science is whimsy,  for God made the world out of Love and Joy!    It is the serious pudding-faced “science practitioners”  of our day who put a heavy weight to science –  and dare you to disagree!

If you cannot find fun and admiration and joy and gratitude in the science you know,  then you have not done science at all!

I took my studying 0utdoors today –  it was 61 degrees, for goodness’ sakes!!!    That’s a pretty warm February day here in the Far North!   I did my work right in the middle of nature with the sounds of many seriously happy birds, the  water in the  creek  babbling over the rocks,   and the wind soothing itself through the trees.

So enjoyable,  this science of  meteorology.

Speaking of which,   WHERE IS MY GRANDSON AGAIN?

White-out in the High Sierras

Cooper lives in the Sierra Nevadas where they’ve had  five feet of snow one week, six feet the next, five feet again the next week,  and one time it was eight to ten feet.   Today and yesterday they are having a three to five feet snowfall –   not so much –  but the wind gusts  nearby were measured at  199 m.p.h. (Alpine Meadows)  and 193 m.p.h.  (Squaw Summit.)   Fascinating.      Intimidating.       My son-in-law works up there at times!

Haven’t received any recent photos of Cooper.    Probably don’t have cell phone service again.  Or electricity.

I think they could use a little science and technology help out there.

Science is delightfully beautiful but it’s probably not a good time to teach Cooper that “each little snowflake has six points and each one is different from every other snowflake   . . .”  They’re not seeing  “flakes” out there.

Amazingly,   the world is so big and man and his dwelling places are so tiny,   that  Cooper can have his blizzard way over there and I can have my heatwave way over here.

Looks like the Pacific Ocean has been having an unexplained heatwave of its own.

They call it “the Blob”  sitting alongside our West Coast,   a large heat anomaly.  It’s been there for a couple years, but science hasn’t figured it out yet.

It’s still a mystery to wonder at.

And then there is  “gorgeous”   on an ordinary day:

Do you know what that column of sunlight is called?   Do you know what causes it?

Just driving along one evening   —     all of a sudden,  the sun shoots out a pillar of brilliant golden light.

It was gone in 45 seconds.

Just a whimsical  reminder of the power and glory of the Creator of all science.

 

 

 

HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS

(Heights.  Depths.  Metaphorically speaking.)

One good thing is that there is National Geographic out there that produces for us some of the finest photography that makes us feel as though we’re right there in the scenes!

Here is a man just having reached the top of Mt. McKinley (Denali)  in Alaska.   Thanks to a National Parks  DVD set from National Geographic,   I followed him and his companions all the way up the brutal trail that took the men almost past their limits of endurance.

Then,  once the men caught their breath, as best they could,  this is how each of them felt!!

Exultant!

And so did I.  Whew!   Quite a harrowing trek.  I’m proud of our human race!

So many rewards.

I saw the aurora sometimes when I lived in the Far Far North,   but I haven’t seen them for a long time down here . . .  in the Far North.    Son wants so very much to witness the Aurora Borealis, and he keeps threatening to go to Hudson Bay sometime.    Where the fierce polar bear live.

(He could catch that on a DVD.)

That was the “one good thing”  about National Geographic.    The one very bad thing, embarrassing, really,  is that they have fallen hook  line, and sinker for the global warming mythology.    You know,  the  Climate Change Doctrine that UN officials from time to time freely admit that Climate Change is actually a scheme for the massive transfer of wealth from First World countries to third world countries.

As in “carbon tax.”    The embarrassing narrative on the National Geographic video about the Everglades,  part of the set on National Parks,   actually stated that carbon dioxide is a “toxin.”

Tell that to the plants of this world!

Script after script about the Parks promoted the idea that global warming is putting the planet in great jeopardy.   (Did you know that it is HOT in Death Valley National Park?)  And it might possibly could perhaps maybe some day in the far future record a temperature higher than the 134 degrees we recorded in . . .  1913?      Over a hundred years ago – and we haven’t topped it yet.

Perhaps they should tell us the whole story about this global political scheme:

Here is a  country,  which seems to be producing quite an abundance of carbon dioxide and lots of other toxins besides,  and it  is NOT required to pay a    “Carbon Tax.”

This is China, which regularly donates its pollution to the west coast of the United  States, via the winds that cross the Pacific Ocean.

In fact,  the  countries which produce the most pollution by far are exempt from the carbon tax.    The United States must pay for their global warming sins.

A massive transfer of wealth from First World countries to the Third World.

With the United Nations as the “helpful”  middleman.

Sheeesh!

I think next time I take out a set of nature videos from the library,  I’ll choose that one that was not produced by National Geographic.     The real old-fashioned one, made decades ago.     When the “scientists”  told us to worry about the coming Ice Age.

CALLED TO SHARE OUR BROTHERS’ WORK

(Spreading lies;  successful victimhood;  television zombies)

To follow up on a portion of the last two posts,    we, here in America,  shall soon be called upon to answer the calls given to our European brothers and sisters at various times in the 11th  through the 17th centuries.*

The Muslims have ultimately  WON  all these  C^ ru  sad  es, only temporarily pushing back their march towards a World Caliphate.   Now they have plenty of collaborators in the West.

Spreading the lie:

(ascribed variously to Lenin and to Goebbels)

News reports today describe  large “demonstrations”   in New York City and in Detroit this weekend,  including a loud “call to prayer”   and loud shouting out to the American people that their god is greater.

Comments on these reports pretty much show our opposition to this advance of Islam in America,   although the “demonstrators”  have the television cameras and they have  perfected the Victimhood  language:      They are (1)   only asking for their rights, and (2)   are lying about our government policies.

The lie is that there is a “muslim ban”  applied to immigrants by our government.   There IS no Muslim ban.   

One commenter on the “news” article reminded us about their attitude and aims –  from their book:

Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”.
Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
Quran (3:28) – “Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever of you does that has nothing with Allah , except when taking precaution against them in prudence. And Allah warns you of Himself, and to Allah is the final destination.”

I’ve looked these up before in the K^  or   an,  so I think they’re accurate.   (The original words, of course, are in ancient, classical Arabic, which few can read today, but the attitude in these words is what is propagated.)

You may have heard on television . . .

. . .  that a  certain Miss Sarsour,  spokesman for Hamas (a terrorist group)  in this country and organizer of Leftist women in this country  (the silly pink hat march in Washington) –  warned during New York’s “demonstration”   that  President Trump could issue an executive order for putting Muslims in internment camps,  as President Roosevelt did during World War Two.

So.

They are placing themselves in opposition to us,   and perhaps the opposition will keep building and building and building . . . .

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Europe   had to rise up and push back in the past.    I hope we  Americans are in good shape to preserve our own culture today ** – welcoming others,  but preserving the foundations of American culture and law.

(A  Television Zombie)

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.*     (And during WWI and WWII, when the Hitler’s socialist army joined the Muslim armies in the Middle East and Africa, although this was in the context of world wars,  not a call to a c^  rus  ade.)

.**   But now we have to be careful how we try to hang on to our culture.    Speak out?    Indicate our opposition?       In a Canadian mosque  recently,  a big mosque in Totronto, the imam inside called for   (quote) “the total destruction of the enemies of Islam and the purification of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the ‘filth of the Jews.’ ”    This call for violence and death against Jews and Western non-muslims is so offensive,  it does not call for any further comment.

However,  when Canadians gathered to protest this call for violence and death against themselves,   now face possible “hat ^e-cr ime”  charges.    You know,  criticism against  Muslims is  considered    “hat^e-sp eech.”

Western Laws have been changed (sabotaged) to work against Westerners.

 

SEXAGESIMA: ENEMIES WILL COME

( I felt safe this morning, in a dangerous world. )

I went to church this morning,  and didn’t even give a thought to my safety:

Christendom had always seems so big and  strong.   I’d like to take my safety for granted,  but I know time is running out for us.

I  kept in my mind this morning that some Christians were not so safe going to their church services a couple Sundays ago.

Right in the middle of their services,  angry men surrounded the church building,  burst in through the doors,  locked the doors so no one could escape,  and then proceeded to beat and rape the men and women inside.

Because they were Christians.

(Our Rulers who are creating and then using chaos and confusion,  are moving the enemies of Christianity into Christian  (formerly Christian)  nations.     Now why would they want to bring in our  enemies? )   

Christians have always had enemies.    The Christian world has always had enemies.

It’s “Sexagesima Sunday”  today,  the second of three Sundays that get us ready for the season of Lent.    These three Sundays are a thoughtful reminder of how serious this world is, how necessary Good Friday and Easter were, and that happiness in this world  is incidental,  but not our goal.

One of the Readings attached to this Sunday is a sort of short  autobiography that St. Paul gives us, concerning the enemies he faced.       This great man,  this Apostle to the Gentiles  —    What all did he face?

Here is a portion of what we heard today,  from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians:     He did his work as a Christian missionary   ” in many more labours, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. [24] Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. [25] Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea.    [26] In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. [27] In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness . . .”

Ahhh,  the life of a serious Christian!     Most likely none of us will ever have to go through that much in order to fulfill our mission on earth,  but it does remind us that Jesus said if we want to be followers of Him,   we have to be like Him and to take up our cross too  . . .  and then we can follow him.

Christ first.      Then us.

He faced enemies and opposition from this present world system –  and so will those who love Him and follow Him.

It’s sobering to list all the enemies there are,  both external and internal.    Safety is an illusion,  a temporary illusion,  but we have each other for friendship,  encouragement,  and prayer for such as those in Uganda,  facing such enemies as in the photo above.

 

 

 

 

 

SATURDAY: ABANDONMENT BY PAPA

(It’s been a bad month of accelerating violence.)

This post will read like a fine plaid.

Many individual thought-strands woven together in a pattern that  makes sense  when you see it as a whole.

(This plaid is quite like the one associated with Hubbie’s last name (and now mine and our children’s),  so I will mention him too.

So,  strand #1:    It’s Saturday today,  the day Christendom remembers that Jesus lay buried in His tomb, leaving us with the awful sense that evil has been winning and we’ve been abandoned by God.    A good day for quietness, extra prayers,  reparations,  penance, holy remorse for our offenses that actually led to the death of Jesus.

Grief stricken and alone.    Even the strongest and the best felt  desolation and abandonment on that Saturday.  And looking about us,  today,  at current events with the cacophony of confused cries from every quarter,  it’s easy to feel . . . rudderless.  Leaderless.   Abandoned.

I’m not going to tell you you’re not  (abandoned).

It’s a historic fact that for a millennium and a half   (1,500 years !!) civilization grew on the bedrock grounds of the Church that Christ founded.    Not every single person was happy with that, of course.    There were rules against doing things that harmed you and harmed society.     (Where’s my “freedom”?!)

   Another strand of thought:    My husband  ( usually known here as   “Hubbie”)   was a driver’s training teacher  in his younger life.   He enjoyed it  (weird);   and I think he was good at it.    Oh, boy, do I have some stories to tell!     One thing he told me, one day,  was that a police officer who had been invited to speak to his class made the statement that  there aren’t enough policemen in our country to keep us safe if the number of lawbreakers reached a critical point.   Just 10%.     If that many citizens all of a sudden decided to break the traffic laws, for instance,  the streets would become dangerous.

Society would become  very dangerous if just around 10% of people disregarded the Law – or didn’t know the Law. 

That Civilization –  that Christendom –  that Church  that provided guidance and “laws”  that built a safe and orderly society  (more than would have been without it),   is supposed to have a Voice,  a one leader that represents that  supernatural Voice.

So here’s another  “strand”  in that plaid of my mind.

Struggling against the supernatural:

Some of you may know what particular miracle almost always happens up to three times a year – unless some disaster is pending  –  or some disaster is present.     It’s associated with Saint Januarius.

For two years in a row, now,  the supernatural sign did not appear.

This man seems not to be the one to have kept a supernatural  connection with the Church he leads.   He is NOT the Church;  but he should be its leader,  guarding against strange, new, or alien teachings.   However, almost daily,   he seems to be working hard to abandon the teachings of Christ.

There are implications of the Church losing her voice, allowing the world to become  rudderless,  leaderless –lawless.

This man,  who should be Papa,  has inexplicable declared that there is no terrorism today inspired by a religion.     “Islam is a religion of peace.”

But. . .

My inner being is still reverberating from the horror of  a recent video showing a man beheading his wife – in public,  on a street, with onlookers,  and with the local police protecting his action.   I watched as the woman was knocked to the ground,  yelling out her fear and protests,   two of the man’s friends helping him hold her down . . .    one reached into her burka and pulled out her long hair, subduing her and bringing her head down to the pavement,  where he then was able to strike  down with his large knife,  abruptly cutting off her yells. . . .

The police helped the traffic and bystanders   move on as her body was moved away.

Then I read of a man who boarded a bus in Austria last week along with many other passengers.    As the bus  drove off,  the young man put his head back and fell asleep.  the man behind him yelled various “Islamic words”  and reached over and began cutting the neck of the sleeping man . . .

“Islam is a religion of peace.  There is no terrorism.”

I’m glad I’m not an old woman in Sweden….

Once  popes called on Europeans to protect themselves against invasions . . . I hope you can see the “plaid”  as a whole.     Christ is gone after the Crucifixion.  We’re seemingly abandoned on that Saturday.   Abandoned,  we become leaderless.

And a leaderless people suffers the consequences of Lawlessness.

Only knowledge can begin to turn us around.    Knowledge of the real world.  Knowledge of actual Truth,  as it’s come to us for two thousand years.

You’d better stop reading here, if you don’t want to think about what is confronting us..      Because the world can get real bad if we don’t DO anything.    The Founder of the Church taught meekness, mildness, forgiveness, and charity.    And He demonstrated His love by dying for us.

___________________________________________________

The world in general seems not to know this.

I’ve watched a video of a teenager girl being stoned to death.   Amazing and horrifying.

I’ve watched many videos of beheadings.   I’m not afraid to see the truth.

I’ve witnessed the actions of a brutal people . . .  who are on the move.   And you’d better not try to escape them:

These are not animals that are hanging.    These are SOME of the humans who tried to get away and were caught.   Tarred.   Hung over fire.   Eventually they died.     May God have mercy on their souls.

Migrating.   Invading.   On the move.

Not  everyone is executed if they are called guilty.   Just,  this:

Sharia on the move.

I sorrow for the many women who – even in our own country – are victims of genital mutilation,   of acid thrown into their faces,  and are victims of “honor” killings –  killed by their  fathers or brothers.

It’s Saturday.    There are so many things to mourn for.    The sum total of human evil.   The consequences of “good men doing nothing….”

It almost feels like we’ve been abandoned by the Good God.

But tomorrow is Sunday.    The more we understand Saturday,  that dark day right after the Crucifixion,  the more we will experience Joy and Hope on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

140 YEARS AGO

Life was freer  140 years ago:

I applaud the new administration for attempting to tackle the removal of tens of thousands of regulations that are stifling our economy and personal freedom.

But I guess we can keep a few.

Hat tip to Cousin Lois in the Far Far North.

A LITTLE PAUSE FROM MAD MAGAZINE

(Remember “Mad” ?   Well, here’s a little interlude, a little pause,  with one of Mad’s little pictures.)

I’ve been posting some pretty dark information lately, and I’m leading up to a terrible warning for us.  A slap in the face.   Wake up,  people!!!!     But first,  however,  I have a lot of new readers, and I just want to explain what I’m doing here and who I am  —

I’m the one in the water.

And I have some things to say.

God our Creator tells us to be  Watchmen. *    He doesn’t call all of us to be  His  official watchman,   but if we’ve got experience,   if we can  see things happening,  if we can offer some information and wisdom and help,  then that’s how we can be of use to others. **

But sometimes it feels awful because I have awful things to tell you about.   But the real world is like that.   It’s full of danger that we don’t see.

Sure,  the world is full of  knitting and kittens and cooking and football and skiing and traveling around in this beautiful world . . .    I’ll soon  go back to all  those random thoughts floating around in The Spruce Tunnel,  but  meanwhile,  it can’t be all-good until we manfully face what is bad.

Good people push back against evil.

 

______________________________________________

.*   God speaking to His prophet,  Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 3:17-21 –  “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: ¹⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹ Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. ²⁰ Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. ²¹ Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.”

 

. **   St. Paul,  explaining his duty:

Acts 20:26, 27   –    “Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. ²⁷ “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”

 

SPACE JUNK FOLLOW-UP

(Just in case any of you  like science   or technology or . . .   freedom.)

Remember the picture in the last post showing what all the space junk in orbit around our earth would look like?

That “space junk”  is doing things, we know.

Well,  there’s a follow-up in the news today,  kind of an “addition.”    The headlines for the article from Wired . com   reads:  “88 New Satellites Will Watch Earth All The Time  All The Places.”   

The 88 new satellites from the company called “Planet”  (and they’re buying more)  will be “imaging”   the earth and everything on it.   The article concludes by saying that every day the entire land mass of the planet will be photographed and databased.     Every day.  The whole planet.

And there is a long list of people, entities,  corporations, and government offices who are buying this information.

Word for the day:      Luddite  –   Not liking all this technology.   

I’m  not a Luddite, probably, but I just can’t think of one technological  “advance”   that has a net positive effect on human society.      (That is,  add up both columns,  positive and negative,  compare,  and the negative columns will be greater,  slightly greater or massively greater.)

Don’t tell me the medical industry is a positive.    We should have done it all differently,  focusing on  the health of the person ,  not on  the disease.    Health officials take care of the disease,  not the person.   How much do you think medical “advances” are worth?

How much of a price would you put on these cute little twins?

Healthy little twins.    Just beginning to smile and get social.    How much do you think they were worth to their parents and family?

The world was recently  relieved of the presence of these little ones.

The medical industry declared that they were Sexually Active.     

They were vaccinated to death.    Routine vaccines.   Routinely too many at once.   Including the vaccine for a disease you catch  after  doing the “marital act”  with multiple partners – people  like lotharios,   prostitutes, and nymphomaniacs.

The medical industry thought these infants were a pair of immoral sluts.

Net positive effect?     Not if they were my babies.   America has the highest infant mortality rate of the industrialized  (technological)  world.

____________________________________

 

.*    (It can be found here, but take out the spaces:      https://www . wired . com/2017/ 02 /88-tiny-satellites-will-watch-time-everywhere/

(Take out five spaces, I think.   Copy and paste and then take out the spaces if you want to read the whole article.)

RANDOM SADNESS IN THE SKY

(The Spruce Tunnel . . .  “random thoughts. . .”  as it says on the side panel.   Feeling a little low today.     I’ll have to scrape me up off the floor by the end of this posting.)

I had a delightful little surprise view of the little lighted  village in my bay window one evening.       The surprise was that the Full Moon joined the scene!

I love the night sky  (when we have one.)

This time of the year in the Far North the sun itself is pretty “random.”    We’ve been seeing it this week, though.     And with such days come clear, starry nights.   I walked out onto my deck last night and saw that bright and very orange star.

Betelgeuse.

(Not my photo.   I saw only 1/50 of those stars!)     Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion was very striking and was being very orange!     So lovely.

Our astronomers did a close-up of it.

That’s nice,  but seeing it with my eyes had a bigger impact.    Poor thing will only be there for another million or so years, and then it will go nova.    I’m enjoying it while I can.

The next day was a bit sunny and I had an urge to go into The Spruce Tunnel  for a little winter walk.   But two steps outside, onto my front porch, I looked up –  slightly to the south.

Yikes!

Slightly to the north:

I’m too old to be breathing in the cadmium,  boron,  barium,  miscellaneous metallic nano-particles,  desiccated red blood cells and other “biololgicals,”    and aluminum –  aluminum!    A neurotoxin, nerve killer,  brain deteriorator.      Immune depressant.  And plant killer.

Back yard?   —

   ‘Taint clouds.     

You can’t enjoy the good ol’ outdoors every day.     Anymore.

Humans have put a lot of things in the sky – that don’t belong there.

But we’ll be seeing a lot of these things again, some day,  as they fall back to earth.

How about the other things up there, the natural things.    Every day we are watching lots of these things:

Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid	Date(UT)	Miss Distance	Size
2015 QR3	Feb 12	13.1 LD	31 m
2017 BK32	Feb 12	10.6 LD	26 m
2017 BW	Feb 17	4.6 LD	88 m
2013 WT67	Feb 17	44.2 LD	1.1 km
2017 BY93	Feb 23	2.4 LD	108 m
1992 FE	Feb 24	13.1 LD	275 m
2017 CP1	Feb 24	3.6 LD	53 m
1998 QK56	Feb 24	53 LD	1.2 km
2017 BM123	Feb 27	12.5 LD	81 m
2012 DR32	Mar 2	2.7 LD	52 m
1998 SL36	Mar 16	8.3 LD	390 m
2015 TC25	Mar 26	7.6 LD	6 m

Looks like nothing remarkable today.

 

How about a genuine mystery,  up there in the sky,  but close to the horizon for the camera?

Someone took a photo of a sunset and of a . . .  another-thing-set.    Two apparent flaming balls, lowering themselves into the horizon,  each showing a reflective reality of their sinking.

Lots of photos out there of the sun’s   “companion.”     But it’s a mystery to me.     I just look up – and watch things.

---

---

 

I watched Orion and Betelguese for along time, until –  not that I got cold outside –  but until a deep sadness gently overwhelmed me. Something very terrible and sad happened to me, as a mother,  many years ago during the season when Orion is visible above the horizon here.   I had had enough.

The chemical trails in the sky made me feel sad too.   Long gone are the deep blue noontime skies of my childhood,  with a bright yellow sun,  and the occasional pencil-thin water vapor trails that followed the airplanes across the skies, for a a  minute or so.    I was lucky to grow up next to O’Hare Air Base  (O’Hare Int’l Airport now)  because we saw lots and lots of those contrails.     But that’s not what we’re seeing today.     And I very much miss that deep, deep blue color that made you feel like you were looking out into the beginning of Space.

That space junk doesn’t look healthy either.   It’s look a bit menacing, when you think of what each item is being used for.     I love science fiction movies –  but this is real.

And I sadly hope that I never find out what weird, destructive, cosmic things are coming down on this Earth – and all her people,  who will surely  face judgment some day.

 

Scandinavian . . .  deep winter funk . . .    bleah . . .  that’s my explanation.

 

A PHYSICAL LOOK AT ST. VALENTINE

St. Valentine!

 

We have St. Valentine’s Day.   A cute,  fun, innocent opportunity to show affection for our friends and “sweethearts.”        Teachers use this day to teach their children to have respect and caring for all their classmates.    Other people enjoy a reason to share fond feelings with some activity like special meals,  special notes and cars,  special . . .   smiles.  make your Mom or your Grandma or your aunt feel special!

So many times in the New Testament we’re reminded to show love and affection and tender caring for each other.    Jesus is gone now, for the moment,   and we are to be His hands,  showing His love to each other.

This was a common  remark from the Roman citizens about the early Christians:   “How they loved one another!”

Among these early Christians were bishops and priests who both taught and modeled the love of Christ for their people.

There really was a man named or nicknamed “Valentine.”  (“Valentine” for “a valiant man.”)     The story has come down to us that  he converted many to Christianity during the second half of the 3rd century;    that  he worked among the young soldiers of the Roman army,  teaching them and marrying them to their “sweethearts”   so that, as Christians, the young man would live honorably with their wives.

 

. . .  Thus angering  the Roman officials.   He was beaten and then beheaded.   His relics were rescued, saved, and honored – and passed around!    An important part of his relics ended up in modern Ireland.

How do we know what he may have looked like?     Today there are experts in facial reconstruction, starting with the skull, and knowing how the tissues and muscles fit upon the skull.

So now we have a pretty close idea of what St. Valentine may have looked like!

A real, actual,  historical man.   A real, actual saint.

Love is real.

 

 

THE WAR WE’RE NOT FIGHTING

(Well, just from my point of view – we don’t seem to be fighting.   Haven’t seen any battle axes or Crusader flags around lately . . .)

72 of these guys . . .

    . . .   officials warned  us . . . .

    . . .    72 guys like this entered our country in the recent rush to get in after the suicidal  9th circuit “court”  exceeded their jurisdiction and stopped the temporary halt of immigration from a few of the  countries in the world who are known and internationally recognized sources of terrorism.

I guess if anyone says “moslem ban”  then you can  laugh in their face.  With justification.  (It’s not;  and they know it’s not.)

The moslems praying in the street in my last post were photographed in Paris.   They stopped Paris traffic.    They have a right to stop traffic in Paris.    They believe.   Are you aware of how many hundreds of cars are torched every week in France?     (By “immigrants.”)

There are hundreds of No-Go  zones in European countries.   “Zones”  where Europeans cannot go.

In Sweden a couple days ago  some policemen tried.

They were responding to  a call for help.   Doing their duty led to fires, riots,  and three policemen getting injured.    I guess Sweden doesn’t own all of Sweden.

Where is the Swedish government?     Where are the Swedish leaders?   Where are the Swedish men?

Unfortunately,   we have an answer:

They took a trip to a moslem country.    To make nice.  To make deals.   Maybe to learn a thing or two.   Like How to Wear a Hijab and long black coats – because . . .  you’re just a female.   That parade of women in front of the two males are  the Swedish government at this present time.    They are proud of themselves.  They call themselves the “first feminist government in Europe.

The woman on the left is Swedish.       The women were learning to be . . .  learning to act like moslem women.

I don’t know.    Learning to capitulate, I guess.

The most hated man in Sweden right now is the former chief of police of a  city in Sweden who couldn’t stand it anymore and turned whistleblower.     He told the truth about the moslem takeover of Sweden, about who is responsible for most of   the crime in Sweden, and about how poorly the country is doing economically.

He is now being investigated for hate crime.

That was a Mr. Springare,  former chief police investigator in Örebro,   if you want to look it up.  This week another policeman spoke out about the coverup of moslem criminal activity in Sweden.   Tomas Åsenlöv.       He stands to lose everything in his life too.

Why should we care?   Why should an American care?       Because it’s not happening only in Sweden.

Weiße dominanz

And neither is this happening only in Germany:      Weiße dominanz —  you can probably guess what those two German words mean:  weiss =  white  and dominanz =  dominance.

Weiße dominanz,  as in   “End White dominance”  —  in Germany!!!     It’s a big movement.

Aren’t the Germans . . .  Caucasian?     Aren’t the Germanic people largely White?

Should not the Germans dominate  in  their own country?

Who is trying to push them out?

Die Linke, for one.    The Leftists — allied with the moslem invaders.    We in America are just now becoming aware of the affinity between the Left and the moslems who aim to promote sharia in this country too.

Are your children,  your  sons and daughters,   nieces and nephews,  grandsons and granddaughters  learning to recite the moslem prayer of submission to the moslem god?   Are they learning to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam?

Have you checked what moslem groups like C.A.I.R.  are  telling our schools what to teach?

America is a land of Legal Immigrants who assimilate into our culture which is founded in and identified by Judeo-Christian principles.

---

 

A classroom in Georgia,   for instance,   doing their lessons on Islam –

Classroom in Tennessee, taken by an angry parent during moslem lessons:

Blond-headed Dutch schoolchildren:

A page from a lesson one day  for German schoolchildren:

“. . .   und es gibt keinen (g)ott ausser dir.”          Oh, really?

 

Ignorance is (not) bliss.

 

 

SUN TZU AND ME

 

First “me” —   “If you stay focused on what you want,   you’ll eventually get it, especially when no one opposes you.”

“What you want”  –  like domination over the streets of Europe.

Now Sun Tzu,  in The Art of War:      

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  
 

 

So here’s my copy with its very special case:

Got yours?

 

Because we’re in the next phase of a 1,400-year war.   

There are many battles to fight.

 

 

 

NOT LAUGHING

(A sobering observation.)

Oh,  I still laugh freely in my private life,   among my friends and family.     Lots of enjoyable, funny things  around here.    But I had a glimpse of the world “out there”  today, which  gave me a little wake-up.   Life is a serious matter.

I’ve been staying away from the entertainment-news  media lately.

I can  spare myself the aggravation of looking for some  real information on these news programming shows.    Even the sports “news”   has quite a strong agenda leaking through.

The Communists won the Culture War a long time ago.   Communists, socialists,  progressives,  “alinsky-ites,”  leftists – whatever you want to call them.    But it was FUN for us.    We’re not the ones who invented “sex, drugs, and rock n roll,”  but we sure had fun when  rebellion and moral confusion was inserted into our culture and made to seem normal.       The things that corrupt and weaken a society were happily embraced.

  If you’re a serious reader, you  might want to read their plans for us,  or at least  a summary of their Book.     Or you might want to explore the Frankfort School of Marxism which laid out their plans for us.*     You’ll find uncertainty and confusion are important   “Planks”  of Marxism.

And it’s all to further their main goal, which is the destruction of the West,  and the destruction of America.       Our heads are spinning because we don’t know right from wrong –  but the Revolution is clear-headed, and they know what they’re doing.

The writers and producers  of our entertainment-news media call themselves The Left and they call anyone who has a different idea  The Right, and they have plenty of words to smear The Right with.    

We probably all woke up today to Google’s latest attempt to change our vocabulary.  “He who controls the vocabulary controls the discussion” – right?

Google gives us a new definition of “fascism”   – forgetting that fascism is a leftist phenomena,   a form of socialism,   as in the “National Socialist Party,” also  known as the Nazis.    This is a serious deformation of the English language,  but is part of the campaign to bend our minds towards their ideology.      They want to win!

Well, I knew all that.    Sometimes I just want to “skate” free for a while and not think about these things.     But I was reminded of just how serious all this is when I became identified as the Enemy this evening.

I had a busy, productive day – and I’m still happy about my computer working –  so I went to the library and took out a BBC series on DVDs that I’ve been wanting to see.    I won’t tell you the name  (anymore)   but it’s kind of the British equivalent of our FBI,  fighting domestic  crime and terrorism with all kinds of great technology.   I love that.

But in the first episode,   the enemy criminal was:  Me!   Myself and all the friends I know!   And the majority of American citizens.      Something we strongly believe in but the Left vehemently promotes.    We fight with prayer, strong prayer,  both private and quietly in public.

We don’t shout,  but we are shouted at.   We don’t throw things,  but things are thrown at us.     We don’t wave angry fists.  but angry fists are waved in our face.  We don’t threaten,  but we are threatened.     We don’t restrict people from walking on public sidewalks,  but we are restricted.

So guess who is the loony radical dangerous enemy to society?

I took offense, actually.     I took it personally.    Here is a whole popular TV series –  painting good people as evil.

I didn’t watch the rest of that episode, but I turned to the second one.

Same thing; different theme.     The traditional values that built up Western Civilization were treated as though they were some evil  ideological enemy of mankind.

And all the resources of the government are thrown at . . .  the people with traditional values.

In America,  the Leftists are exposing themselves as pretty out of touch with reality,  but they strongly believe what they are saying.  The children in college are being used to threaten and to be destructive and menacing against Conservative citizens.  Leftist judges overreach their authority and are treated as “authoritative.”    Professionals in various unions are gathering up their collective forces to obstruct and to take power.

They are all speaking words of division and disruption and hate.

I’ve studied revolutions formally in my university years –  and beyond.     Everyone gets hurt – even the ones being used by the revolutionaries.

It takes a tipping point to get a violent revolution started.  But it doesn’t take much to create that tipping point.

It always takes people by surprise.

“If only we could have pulled back a little”    and cooled off and began actually discussing issues, solving  mutual  problems,   acknowledging what we have in common.

But – with all that I’ve learned in the decades behind me –  this kind of attitude comes out of the values of Western Civilization —    the very values that we are allowing to be torn down.     (As predicted in 1917 –  “. . . russia will spread her errors . . .”   It’s not “russia” –  it’s the  socialism that overcame Russia.)

Didn’t we have some sort of election here that showed we wanted to return to those values?       One man can’t do it alone.  

We didn’t elect a Savior.

We couldn’t.

 

 

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  .*     “Basically, the Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual had the belief — or even the hope of belief — that his divine gift of reason could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to provoke socialist revolution. Their task, therefore, was as swiftly as possible to undermine the Judaeo-Christian legacy…..

“To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School recommended (among other things):

2.  Continual change to create confusion
3.  The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
5.  Huge immigration to destroy identity.
7.  Emptying of churches
8.  An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9.  Dependency on the state or state benefits
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

“One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud’s idea of ‘pansexualism’ – the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women.”  

 

Credit for this quotation goes to:

https:  // http://www.crossroad. to/ Quotes/brainwashing/2009/frankfurt-dewey.htm

(This is not a  link.   You’d have to remove spaces.  Or just Search for the Frankfort School (of Marxism).

My last post ended facetiously with  “Know Thyself.”          This one should end with:  “Know thy enemy.”

 

NOW I CAN LAUGH

I live in a computer world.   I live in my computer’s world.

I like all my “devices” –  PC, laptops, cell phone, tablet,  eReaders.

 

But it’s a precarious world to live in because we’re just not used to a world where there is no reality but digital reality,  there is no privacy but illusion of privacy, and there is only very flimsy digital safety.

So, on Monday,  I had a “digital visitor.”

It happened like this:  I had a couple browsers open and a few windows  in each browser.   (asking for trouble, I guess.)    Up-to-date virus protection and  frequently used anti-malware program,  affording me that illusion of safety.   I was on the other side of the room, talking on the phone,  when all of a sudden my computer started talking to me!

“Your computer has been compromised and all your data is gone and you have to   —  ”

Boom!    I leapt over to the computer and pulled the plug.   All the plugs I could find.   And stared at the blank screen,   shuddering.

Bye bye, all my  data.

I had been in the middle of a big project, collecting ALL my photos from every source possible,   putting them into my PC;  collecting all my research and studies and class lesson plans and interesting articles and . . .  everything, every information bit I had.  The plan was to put them up in the cloud, into thumb drives,  into an external hard drive, etc. etc.      because —

—  because I’m “pretty smart!”          ( back up back up back up)       Redundant back-ups.       

But I was taking my time.      I didn’t get to the actual backing up stage.    “Stupid.”

Although I wanted to call “a computer ambulance”  right away,  I had a four-hour delay because I had to go to class first . . .(sorry guys for my inattention)  . . .   and remained reverberating inside with that shuddering fear of what might have just happened.

Finally –

–    I got my PC and my laptops to my  computer doctor – and he did some . . .magic, maybe,  and he looked inside at everything and blandly told me, “I can’t find anything wrong.”                I made him search again.   And again.

Until I believed him.

He said that pulling all the plugs right away like that “probably stopped the installation of the encryption of your data.”      Or maybe it was just one of those Scare Windows.

I don’t care which.   I don’t  know what he did:

I just love my Computer Tech Guy.

Don’t call this an “anti-climactic” ending to the story.   I will remember this scare for many years to come.    ALL of ME  in that PC.     So close to being –  gone.

Lessons learned?    (back up back up back up)  —

I will.   And I will also start living a little less connected to the Internet.    Back to thinking with my own brain.   Writing with my own hand.   I am a visual-tactile learner anyway;    I love pens and pencils and colored pencils and the “living flow” of meaning from the words I’m writing to the thoughts I’m thinking.   The keyboard divides me from my thoughts.

I’ve made more resolutions this week than I ever had on New Year’s!!

Yeah.  Lessons learned.   Nerves almost back to normal.   Good humor almost restored.   I can laugh –  well, not yet at this little incident,   but I can find the humor in all the changes that computers have wrought.

Here’s one for you:

Yep.  The computers have changed the way we think about ourselves!

“Know thyself.”

NEVER GIVE UP, EH?

(I’ve got to express . . .  my football self.)

What a game!!!

How did that happen?!!     (Speechless!)      Wow!     Never give up, eh?

We saw “history”  made tonight.   The  game will be talked about for a long time.

Interesting:    I heard a lot of predictions for the outcome, but no one even came close to what happened in the actual game.

CROSSING INTO THE “DESERT”

The memory of this year’s Super Bowl will linger a little longer than past Super Bowls, but it will soon blend into the long, long desert of . . .  no   football.

Six months?  Six and a half  months?  It’s going to be a long trek again through that desert.

All we can have are memories and dreams and . . .

 

. . . . hope for the next Season.

GO BEARS!