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Rest In Peace -United States of America

Rest In Peace
United States of America
July 4, 1776 – January 20, 2025
“Even God could not save her from the religious.”

There needs to be some serious soul searching amongst the denizens of this country.  There was no sane, moral or ethical reason for having voted for the chimera that is Donald J. Trump, especially this time around, as his psychopathy had been on full display for years.

If you voted for him because your religion is preaching an Armageddon / Second Coming of Christ fantasy, and he is the the agent that God will use to fulfill those end days delusions, you need to apply critical thinking skills to what they are  spewing from the pulpits and to religion in general.  But then again, it seems to me, the only way for people to be religious is to forego thinking critically about it.  With the Evangelicals embracingTrump as they have, faith has become a four letter word in my book.

God save us from the religious.

For the first time in my life I am truly afraid, afraid of future, afraid of what this country is becoming, afraid of many of my fellow citizens, afraid of what DJT and his ilk are going to do to this world. The only bright spot I can see in this cluster f*** is that I will not be around much longer to witness it.

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Interesting Fishing Method

YouTube tends to feed me a lot of videos on golf and fishing. Go figure. This particular video caught my attention for some obscure reason!  I am not sure, but I think the language is Russian or at least in that language family.

It did  remind me of a time I took the kidrens fishing.  We were at their grandparents small ranch in Arkansas.  We had permission to fish the neighbor’s pond which was larger and fishier than any of the ponds on their grandparents property.  I don’t really remember very well, but I think David Bryan might of been around 5 or 6. That would have put Keely around 9 or 10.  They were fishing with cane poles and I was fishing with a spinning rig.

It was always a little funny fishing with those two as David would be catching fish left and right, and Keely would be getting skunked.  I remember one time she bumped David from his fishing spot.  He went down to where she had been fishing and started catching fish, and she continued to be skunked.

This particular day, David had caught 5 or 6 bass of a pound or two when he announced that he was going to catch one more fish, then quit. We got his line out into the water then I started to pay more attention to my own fishing.  After a bit, David, without catching one more fish, put his rod down and began doing other things.

I suddenly realized that his cane pole had come off the bank and was floating in the pond. I was fishing with a lure that had treble hooks.  I cast out and managed to snag his cane pole and drag it back in.  Lo and behold, there was another one of those one pound bass thrashing around on his hook .  He had caught (with a little help) his one more fish.

And so it went.

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Quote of the Day – William Shakespeare

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. ~~ Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 by William Shakespeare

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Bonnie Taylor: 8 June 1951 – 8 July 2026

What can I say, a song from my past that once meant a lot to me.  The song silly…

I learned today that she passed away recently.

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Vanity Plate for the Day – MATH OZ

Vanity Plate of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one in the wild that I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  When I was commuting from my home to downtown St. Louis and back, I was spending anywhere from an hour and half to two hours daily in rush hour traffic. I used the exercise of deciphering vanity plates to help pass the time… plus sometimes they are very clever and worth sharing.

I thought this one cute.  It just took me a second or two to reinterpret it as MATH WIZARD.

It was on the back of a gray Toyota RAV4.

To see more Vanity Plates of the Day use this link: Vanity Plates of the Day

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Quote of the Day – Frank Herbert

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”  ~~ Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune 

I agree with the first part of the quote, and even the statement that it is a magnet to the corruptible.  However, I believe that political power in and of itself can corrupt all but the strongest of personalities.  Even if they start out with good intentions, what it does to lesser souls… well Katy bar the door.

Unfortunately, we have way too many of those lesser souls in government at all levels.  But it seems to have always been that way.

As an aside, the first two books in the Dune series, Dune and Dune Messiah,  are among my favorite novels, science fiction or otherwise. The novels later in the series were good, but at one level he was just churning more out as they were so popular.

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Zwitterion – Or Fun with Chemistry

I have had chemistry up through graduate level biochemistry.  One of my most vivid memories of all that time spent in chemistry classes was a test given when I was taking Quantitative Analysis (Chem II).

The above screen shot from somewhere on the Da’  Net reminded me of that exam.  I had two thoughts when seeing the above image.

First, it must be an old test as Donald J. Trump was not among the possible choices.

Secondly, it reminded me of that Chem II test.  The particular question was what is a zwitterion.  Just to satisfy your curiosity a zwitterion,  also called an inner salt or dipolar ion, is a molecule that contains an equal number of positively and negatively charged functional groups. All of which I remember after all these years, likely due to the way the question appeared on the exam.

This part of the test being multiple choice, the professor listed several options including one that read: A German marching band.  For some reason it cracked me up in the middle of taking the test and I let out a rather loud chuckle that disturbed a few of my fellow chemistry cohorts.

Ahh… fun with chemistry.

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way…

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Can I Buy You a Drink?

Last night was Senora’s and mine thirteenth wedding anniversary.  I discovered a few months ago that one of Senora’s favorite singers, Gillian Welch, was to be in town with her husband and musical collaborator, David Rawlings that same night. I bought the tickets as soon as I could as it being in a smallish venue, the concert sold out rapidly. Before the concert we went to one of our favorite, low-key Italian restaurants here in St. Louis, Vito’s Sicilian Pizzeria & Ristorante.

It was a good night. We both enjoyed the restaurant, having a meal of calamari, salad and lasagna. Senora turned me on to Gillian Welch a few years back and I have been a fan every since.  David Rawlings I had not heard of before, but he is an extraordinary Continue reading “Can I Buy You a Drink?”

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13 Years Today, But Who Is Counting

One of my siblings passed around the following cartoon this morning:

I am moody, grumpy, opinionated, pessimistic, prone to depression, and occasionally let my anger get the best of me. All of that while being more than a little misanthropic and, more often than not, frugal to a fault… cheap sounds so vulgar.

God bless Señora for putting up with me.  I remarked one time that her ability to do so was due to all those years she spent as s special education teacher.  She told me after I had repeated that comment a few times that I could say it five more times then I needed to stop.  Not exactly sure how many more times I have intermittently resurrected that remark, but I have ran out of fingers and toes to count it on.

Glad I found someone who is not like me!

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David aka Heh-soos

I started to title this one, For my Baptists Relatives…

Friday is normally the day I mow the grass at our little hacienda. However, thunderstorms, then rain moved through the St. Louis area, making that a chore for another day. I decided I would do the running around I needed to do.

This summer, I have been slowly rebuilding our 250 feet of picket fence, three eight-foot sections at a time, trying to do one a week. However, with weather and other unforeseen happenings, this has extended out longer than I had planned.  I needed some more lumber for the job.

Señora had not been feeling well, and I left the house with Continue reading “David aka Heh-soos”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #2,594

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

I can be good, I really can.  I can control my mouth, at least part of the time, I really can.

On one of the golf courses I go to when you finish the 18th hole, you pass by the first tee.  Which is what I was doing yesterday afternoon.  On the first tee were four young men, late teens or early twenties, teeing off.  Just as an aside, it is so hard for me tell ages these days, especially with that group, they all look like babies to me.

All four of them were dressed very similarly, tee shirts and Tom Selleck shorts.  However, one of the youngsters had on a pair of very red sneakers (to use an antiquated word).  I so wanted to  say to him, “nice shoes, Dorothy,” but I refrained.

See I can be nice.  Besides it would have be four against one.

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