Worst general manager ever

Jerry Jones deserves what he gets.  He had a chance to pick someone of great value, someone he had talked to and known from the passion in his rhetoric, the determined look in his eye, the steel in his tone of voice that this is a pick for an impact player.

Oh, no. Not Jerry Jones.  He is under the mistaken impression that money buys success.  He's tried that already.  He sticks with a highly paid quarterback who has impressive personal success - but can't win first-round playoff games.  If one listens to Romo talk, (s)he doesn't hear the passion in the rhetoric, just cliches like, "We need to watch more film."  (S)he doesn't see the merest hint of determination in his eyes, just resignation.  (S)he doesn't feel the strength of steel in his almost apologetic tone of voice.

so go ahead Jerry, pick someone as the #1 draft pick you think you can buy without even talking to him, be yourself, have one more lackluster year without any fanfare for winning a championship

Yeah, he stuttered

On tonight's news was an investigative report on a compound of families in Waco who seem to have a problem with sex abuse of young girls by some of the men in the compound.  Such a travesty!  I was watching the interview of one of the men involved in the abuse.  He had undergone counseling by the compound's "elders" for two years before the girl the abuse happened to reported the tragedy.  Evidently, in the counseling session, he had been told that the compound, or "church" as he called it, pointed out that it was against scripture to take a matter to the courts.  When he was asked by reporters why he thought the he was shielded by his church, he stuttered, "It was God's...  It was God's will... It was God's will  that these matters be kept within the church."

Yeah, I would have started that sentence three times myself.  Those pauses allow the mind to do a little reflecting on what might come out.  If you don't like the possible answer, you just have to start the sentence again.  The second rehearsal of an answer evidently didn't  yield any better results that made sense in his mind.  Finally, he just decided to tell the answer he had been coached to give.  Context determines how to interpret pauses, but in this case, he knew that the reporter was hostile, non-cultic (my words, of course), and not gentle in his presentation to the public he wrote for.  So, the pauses appear to be the man's testing in his mind how his words might sound to an outsider.

Sex abuse of young girls and God's will seem like opposites to me.  They do not seem like they could ever be two terms of a paradox or oxymoron.  EVER!  But the man who only stuttered  about why he almost got off scot free for such a heinous act should pay for all the therapy his daughter will need due to her watching elders administer counseling to the perpetrator and then asking her to forgive him.  Not my idea of God's will. 

I guess I should be grateful the man stuttered to show that he at least was considering how this might play with the non-cultic crowd who would be listening to the report.  But I also think that the stuttering revealed that he was hiding behind someone's misbegotten idea of God's will.  I don't have words strong enough to condemn this man's behavior. 

It might be that God's will for this man is to deconstruct his thinking and reconstruct what is right, good, and true in his soul.  He wouldn't find himself stuttering if he were to do this.

Needing the authentic

Carnation instant breakfast isn't food.  It tastes all right as far as substitute food drinks go, especially the chocolate version of it.  I hadn't drunk any in a long stretch of time until I started getting hungry again in the early morning hours.  So, recently, I have begun to start the work day with a little nutrition.  It worked.  It lasts for about 2-3 hours before it plays out, and it is a quick way of getting a few nutrients without cooking or eating out and spending much money.  Usually a person gets what he pays for.  But, in this case, it may just be a bargain.  My health is better.

Small fixes in life are many times just what the doctor ordered.  Those redirections of behavior toward one individual or two during the day can many times make the quality of  a day better.  Sometimes, finding a time during the day to make sure a little nagging task is getting accomplished gives just the right nudge to put the task behind and get on with a more enjoyable task.

Instant breakfast is not food, however, anymore than small daily adjustments in behavior are not going to cover the need to hear a laugh, see a smile, enjoy someone's company, sip a drink knowing that all is well with the world.

 I will have a glass of instant breakfast in the morning, but I know it is not authentic food.

Where the heart is...

There is a saying about the heart that is true 100% of the time.  Where your heart is, there your treasure lies also.  I like this saying for a number of reasons.  But the main reason is that it uses the word treasure.  I like that word a lot because it shows the supreme value a person puts on something or someone.  Having someone of supreme value in your heart is a repetition of double value because matters of the heart also make something supremely special.  A treasure in a heart, then, is a reiteration of how supremely, extremely valuable and special something or someone is.  As the tip of my tongue flattens against the alveolar ridge to form the voiced fricative that marks the sound warming my whole being because of the treasured name that follows, every chamber of my heart resonates.

Hint of the majestic

Tonight the moon is but a sliver of itself in all of its beauty when it is full.  It is a reminder that life in all of its beauty is masked by darkness sometimes, causing it not to be seen.  There is that tiny sliver of hope that the moon in its brightness will again be seen.  But faith takes over because you have seen the splendor of the moon in its fullness before.  You have to wait for its return.  That is so very hard to do, but faith looks through the present invisibility to see the beauty of the full moon.  When the full moon actually does appear... how majestic... well worth the wait.

Set notes

In math, one can have sets.  There are sets for sequences  {1, 2, 3, ...}, sets for patterns {1, 3, 5, ...}, sets for operations {10(5), 5(5), 2.5(5), ...}, and the list goes on.  Sets isolate from the larger system the numbers a person wants to work with.  Then, of course, there's the empty set {   }.  Nothing is in it.  Not the value "nothing," but the absence of numbers to work with.

I look at events and people in my life.  I can pull at will the sets of events and persons I want to work with from the total number of events and people in my life.  I like to do this and have written about different sets on a number of occasions.  So many events occur in life that sometimes sets turn into empty sets because the brain cannot remember the events.  Something becomes nothing so to speak.

Tonight I am thinking of a fixed set in my mind of a series of special events. . If somehow that series 3 springtimes ago would lead to a second and similar series of special events, and if that series could lead to a lifetime of special events...

-3 years{special events }+ present{special events}-->{0, 1, 2, 3 ... n years (infinity) pure joy}

{   } --> {heaven forbid}

Over (again) whelmed

Whelm is a word from Old English.  Today it only exists in literature because it has given way to a supraform, overwhelm in regular usage.  Whelm means to be completely immersed or submerged.  It can mean to be hit by something and bowled over by it.  It can mean covered, its original Old English meaning. 

I have learned over the years what to expect in life so as not to be whelmed by too much anymore.  One gets better at anticipating what might be surprising at a earlier age.  Peoplewatching is like that too.  One gets to be a pretty good judge of character, just based on a few words or actions, so much so that, really,  only one person in all of life whelms me now, and I am whelmed over and over every time I think about or am near this person.  It's ok.  Life is really not worth living without this one's whelming presence over and over.  I don't use the word overwhelm right here because even though overwhelm has taken the place of whelm, for who knows what historical reason, it has an added semantic that takes it away from meaning the same as whelming over and over.

I am lying down tonight, completely whelmed with thoughts of that one... again and again... over and over.

Sacred path

I allow my mind to go down a sacred path pretty often these days.  The path is sacred because its scenes are the most special ones that have occurred in my lifetime .  Nothing else in my experience compares to these happenings, their places and sounds, the conversations that warm my heart.  They are so special, only the word sacred expresses how my heart and soul have been affected by them.  They give me the greatest pleasure a person can have.  They filled my life when they happened, and they fill my thoughts even now.  Without them I would wither.  If I I could go back in time and choose again which path to travel, I would choose the same path every single time.  If I could travel the path now, I would choose it without even hesitating because it would lead to the greatest enjoyment a person could ask for.

More is less

English has a saying: When all is said and done, there's always more said than done.

I know that the saying is aimed at how people say that things will get done and then they fall through on what needs getting done.  But, there is also an upside to the saying.  When people get peeved, they threaten with all kinds of epithets.  They don't really mean it though.  They threaten to sue, but they don't and won't.  Anyone in his/her right mind would not spend the money it takes to litigate an issue during the course of the 18-24 months it takes to go from start to finish with an attorney.  People say they will file complaints, and they might.  But by the time a complaint takes its course, much of the sting has been taken out of it.

Anymore, when I hear venomous speech, I will listen and acknowledge on the outside.  But on the inside I am yawning.  There's always more said than done.