Monthly Archives: April 2016
Hasn’t happened to me in all my years.
This is what happens when atheists show up at certain doors with books, science, and reason.
You know, like religious people do.
The bathroom in the house where I was staying on Cape Cod was across a small hallway from the bedroom, perhaps two steps at most.
It was a balmy day, and so I had opened the front door to let the house receive the beautiful breeze, and then I stepped into the shower.
I had left my bathrobe on the bed, so after the shower, since it was only me an my dog, Oscar, in the house, I dried myself off, and began walking the few steps toward the bedroom in the all-together when I observed Oscar acting a little strangely in the living room. He was jumping around a bit, and I was afraid he might have gotten into the trash, something I know he had done only twice in 14 years, and eaten something that may not be agreeing with him.
I walked into the living room and crouched down, and when he came toward me, asked him. in the usual mature I-only-talk-this-way-to- babies-and dogs-voice, was he okay, was the little prince okay.
He did one of those excited dances terriers do, he was part Jack Russell and perhaps Chihuahua as far as any vet could tell, and then turned toward the open door .
I did too, minus the dance, and there, frozen in that moment before the knock connected with the door jam were two elderly women dressed in their Sunday best holding copies of the Jehovah Witnesses Watch Tower magazine.
Neither they, obviously, nor I was prepared for this encounter.
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I couldn’t undo anything by running back toward the bedroom, and grabbing a couch cushion to hide behind would have been too TV comedy episode-like, so, I simply told them that this was not a good time.
They did collect themselves enough to stutter that they would just leave a copy of their magazine that I could read later if it was all right with me, and off they went.
My neighbor across the street came over soon after to ask if everything was okay, since she had been looking out her living room window while talking on the phone, expecting the ladies to cross the street and bother her, but, instead, saw them simply walk way from my front door, get into a car that was parked at the end of the block, and drive off.
No one from that church ever knocked on my door again, and that was the only issue of the Watch Tower I ever received in the 4 years I was in that house.
In my time on Cape Cod I noticed that in the height of the summer tourist season there was an influx of Jehovah Witnesses going through the neighborhood, and Mormon Missionaries in their white shirts and blue ties patrolling on bicycles.
Apparently the salvation of your eternal soul is only a concern when the weather is good because you never saw these mini-patrols in the winter.
A claim by those who want to control others is that atheists and Homosexuals are constantly recruiting people. I had been personally accused of that when my only concern was making schools safe for GLBT kids.
But, and I don’t think my situation is unique, I have never answered the door to find Gay people or atheists on my front step asking me if I had found whatever Gay people have to find, or if I found the joy of living in the here and now, doing good to others and making the world a better place without having to fear a vengeful entity that will punish me if I don’t do the good works I have been doing pretty much without that fear.
A question
It’s a disaster
Most English teachers have stressed with their students to avoid the over use of the adjective “nice”.
Besides showing a pitiful lack of vocabulary, describing everything as nice weakens the description and renders pretty much everything as neutral.
If everything is nice, there are no degrees of good or bad.
And, as the philosophical saying goes, if everything is equal, there are no choices.
If everything is the best, then the bar moves and there is no good or better.
Conversely, if everything is the worst, there is no bad or worse.
Besides favoring the words, “best”, “greatest”, “most”, when referring to himself and his ideas, Trump seems fixated on describing everything as a disaster.
But if everything is a disaster, there are no degrees of negativity to things, so disaster becomes the norm.
Trump referred to the recent terrorist attack in Brussels as a disaster, which it was, but the depth of the act is muddied when you consider these other things that he considers disasters, which is a lot of things.
In referring to the pope’s comments on a wall between Mexico and the U.S.A. he said,
“My people came up to me, they said, ‘Mr. Trump, the pope just made a big statement about you.’ And I said, ‘good or bad?’ They said, ‘Not good.’ I said, ‘Oh, this is a disaster,’ “
At a press conference after the November GOP debate where he was promoting his book “Crippled America,” Donald Trump repeatedly went after CNBC’s John Harwood, one of the moderators at the GOP debate.
“I think Harwood is probably finished as a credible reporter,” Trump said. “He was a disaster.”
Last October when Trump was interviewed by 60 minutes and was asked about NAFTA he said,
“It’s a disaster. … We will either renegotiate it, or we will break it. Because, you know, every agreement has an end. … Every agreement has to be fair. Every agreement has a defraud clause. We’re being defrauded by all these countries.”
Regarding George W Bush, Trump made this assessment,
“I think he was a disaster.”
When he was discussing the Ryan Budget last December and the budget process he said,
“You look at our budget process and it’s a disaster, it’s a joke. If it weren’t so hurtful, you’d all start laughing right now. It’s very, very sad. I don’t think they know anything about a budgetary process, I don’t think so,” Trump said.
In 1990 he assessed Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax cut this way,
“What caused the Savings and Loan crisis, other than incompetence and various other things, was the 1986 tax law change. It was a disaster. It took all of the incentives away from investors, etcetera, etcetera, and it was a disaster,”
In Response to this written by George will last September,
“Every sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency. After Donald Trump finishes plastering a snarling face on conservatism, any Republican nominee will face a dauntingly steep climb to reach even the paltry numbers that doomed Mitt Romney”,
Trump response was, “George Will is a Disaster,”
And he continued his response to Will by tossing in “Another one [disaster], Karl Rove. No, he’s terrible. Terrible. He’s terrible.”
Last December when Trey Gowdy, the Chair of the committee having hearings on Benghazi endorsed Marco Rubio, Trump, in a Sunday-morning appearance on “Fox and Friends,” declared,
“I hope [Gowdy] does a better job than he did, frankly, at the Benghazi hearings, because they were a total disaster.”
In his assessment of Cary Fiorina when she was still in the race, he rated her executive success this way,
“You could call it bad luck, you could call it she did a bad job. But Hewlett Packard was a disaster and Lucent, the company she was at before Hewlett Packard was a disaster.”
His assessment of Chris Christie, who now endorses him, was,
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“He’s a friend of mine. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s a good guy, but you know, he’s one email away from a disaster.”
When Scotland decided to build a wind farm instead of allowing Trump to build a hotel, Trump made this comparison,
“Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103.”
Other things he declared were and are disasters include:
“Common CORE’s a total disaster”.
“Obamacare is a disaster”
“The Southern Border is a disaster”
“Justice Roberts is a disaster.”
Rand Paul in the polls and on the military is a disaster
Walker’s state was a disaster
Hillary Clinton,
Schools and hospitals,
Mitt Romney
Our airports
The EPA
The Veterans Administration,
Iraq,
our enemies,
Now if all these things are disasters, it should tell us to be aware of them because they are serious. If he had included something trivial in his list of disasters, it would call into question how serious, or even realistic the list was.
Just how much of a disaster is a disaster?
So it’s important to remember that on July 11, 2014, Trump included this on his list of disasters.
“Rosie is back on the View which tells you how desperate they must be. It is the standard short term fix and long term disaster.”
All these things are not equal, except Trump has bestowed equality on them by labeling them all as disasters.
There is no nuance.
To me it’s like when he kicks protesters out of his rallies.
He does not refer to their concern as that would mean he would have to know and show at least some glimmer of interest in what they have to say so that he might address them.
But they are all lumped together as he continually shouts, “Throw them out.”