Favorite Super Bowl Commercials

I admit it. I was crying like I was four years old...

OK, this one, too...

...And oh, yes, the game was also pretty good.

The Fault Lies in Ourselves

Q. "Why does anyone need a gun like that?"
A. "Well, why does anyone need a Quentin Tarantino movie?"
~ from "Violence," by Rep. John Campbell (R-CA)

A congressman from California, John Campbell, has written a thoughtful reflection titled "Violence," about the increased gun violence in American society. In reading it, I find he thinks as I do--that guns are not the problem so much as our modern culture. That as William Shakespeare put it, "the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Campbell notes that although gun control laws were nearly nonexistent sixty years ago, school shootings were unknown. He cites six aspects of our society that have grown harsh and coarse in the last several decades. Among the causes he theorizes are at the root of our nation's current violent tendencies are the decline of the family and religion, Hollywood influences, and the complete lack of personal accountability so prevalent today--especially in our so-called leaders.

Watch today's movies, listen to popular music, read the headlines. There is no denying the soul of America is darker than it once was. We can protest in the streets, pass laws, and try to control circumstances. All these external actions are easy to do, quick fixes that may make us feel better, temporarily.

But laws can't alter a cultural mindset. Positive, enduring change that will enrich and strengthen our society must come from within each individual. That's the hard part. It's nobody's fault but our own that we don't do it.

Lessons from the Saints

"Whatever you would wish at your dying hour to have done in health, that do now while you may."
~ St. Angela Merici (1474-1540)


I looked at the church calendar for today. One of the many saints whose memorial is today, January 27, is Angela Merici. I was surprised to read that she actually died on January 24, which is my birthday. Also, she is one of the "the incorruptibles," the term applied to those saints of the Catholic Church whose physical bodies remain intact after death.

(Aside: I wonder how atheists would explain the incorruptibles?)

Many years ago I read The Incorruptibles, the fascinating book by Joan Carroll Cruz (no relation). As it was a Christmas gift from one of my children, and one I had requested, I still have my copy. So I looked up Angela Merici's story to refresh my memory. There is a photo in the book of her body on display in a beautiful glass case in Casa S. Angela in Brescia, Italy.

St. Angela founded the Ursulines, the first teaching order of nuns in the Church. As usual, saints are busy people. She took her own advice to "do it now." I read somewhere that "saints are just sinners who keep on trying." As usual, again, there's a lesson there.

Canine Commitment

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I


There's a lot more to dogs than we humans will ever understand. Read the story of Tommy, the loyal, bereaved German shepherd in Italy and see if you don't agree.

Big Brother is Taking

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” 
― George Orwell, 1984

"Do you hate Obama yet?" asked the front office receptionist. She has just looked at her paycheck and was running the numbers on her calculator.

Always careful to avoid political talk at work, I replied, "I never really liked him. Why do you ask?"

"Well, wait until you see your paycheck today," this young, liberal-leaning woman said. "You'll hate him." Before I left the lobby, she had finished her calculations and announced that she was now taking home less money than when she started working at the company two years ago.

This tableau is one that no doubt played out in countless workplaces throughout the country in the past week or so. As the cold, hard truth of government spending and ineptitude run amok is revealed to all in the concrete form of reduced take-home pay, workers are waking up to the fact that they've been had. And they're not too happy about it, to say the least.

My paycheck is indeed lighter, but not only because of the expired withholding tax. The company's medical premiums have skyrocketed; thank you, "Obamacare." In 2013 I'll pay four times as much as I did last year for medical insurance in each 2-week pay period and ten times as much for dental coverage.

I don't blame my company or the insurance company for the increase; I blame the government.

I've been following all of this tax fuss rather closely, and so the element of surprise (or maybe shock?) was eliminated in my case. But I'm sure that, for many 20-something-year-old front office receptionists who thought President Obama was a superhero, the hard lessons of our overweening, progressive, "Big Brother" government are just beginning to sink in.

Perhaps young workers waking up to reality will be a good thing for our country's future. I certainly hope so. If we're to have a future, the younger generation needs to understand what's going on and vote accordingly.

The confiscatory fun is only beginning for Big Brother. Just wait until next year, when PPACA ("Obamacare") becomes fully effective. As I said to another coworker who stopped by my office to bemoan her take-home pay shortfall, soon work will be like a hobby. Just something to occupy our time, keep us off the streets and out of trouble--and oh, yes, as President Obama once famously said, "spread the wealth around."

Everyone else's wealth.

Comedy and Collapse

Since I prefer not to start the New Year off on a depressing note, I'm linking to Mark Steyn's hilarious analysis of the "fiscal cliff" deal-that-wasn't. At least, it would be hilarious if his pithy observations weren't so sadly true.

Although its source remains a mystery, I suspect that the inevitable financial crisis approaching our nation will arrive swiftly. It will be like the words in the needlepoint frame in the climactic scene of The Shawshank Redemption: "His judgement cometh, and that right soon."

While there's still some time and a bit of money left in your wallet, treat yourself to a copy of Steyn's After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.

Presents Beyond Price

It's an ordinary snapshot of a snowy winter morning, taken from the deck of an upper floor condo. There's nothing remarkable about the picture, really.

But this photo was taken on Christmas morning in Boston's Cambridge neighborhood, from my daughter's back doorway. Not only did I get to spend Christmas with her and my baby grandson, I got to watch snow falling as we had coffee and opened our gifts.

Like spending time with a first grandchild, being surprised by a white Christmas was a gift that money just can't buy.

Christmas Time - Hallelujah!

I would love to have seen this live and in person. And perhaps to have chimed in. What fun! Watch for the amazed little boy in the GAP sweatshirt. Priceless.

Merry Christmas to all. Hallelujah!

Beyond Words

I've seen a lot of bad news in my lifetime, beginning with the 1960s assassinations when I was a schoolgirl. Some of the tragedies, like 9/11, were especially terrible. But never in my life have I watched television news with tears running down my face until yesterday, as reports from Newtown, Connecticut were broadcast.

Words are inadequate. There is nothing anyone can say. But if you can find a prayer in your heart for those families in grief, please send it their way.

A State's Right to Work

 Once upon a time, I belonged to a union.

It was at my very first job, when I was a teenager. I don’t recall the exact penny amount of minimum wage back in those faraway days, but I know it was less than $1.70 per hour. I worked part-time at the long-defunct A&P grocery store, after school on weekdays and all day most Saturdays.

On my first day at the job, I learned that a condition of employment was membership in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union. Never mind that I had been hired as a cashier and thus had nothing to do with the butcher. I had to become a union member, or become unemployed. Dues were $50 per person, regardless of wages, and they had to be paid in short order after being hired. That was a hefty fee for a kid making a buck-and-change. So my mother paid the $50 out of her own checkbook to keep me in the union’s good graces. I handed the check to the manager of the meat counter and paid Mom back out of my first several paychecks. Considering that my take-home pay averaged between $25 and $30 per week, it took a few months for me to reimburse my mother’s household account.

I don't know that I ever received any benefit from paying my union dues. Although after one year on the job, I did receive a dime-an-hour raise. 

At the time, I didn’t think this system was fair. My opinion hasn’t changed in the intervening decades. I still don’t believe that coerced participation in a union is correct in a supposedly free country. It seems Michigan is now one of two dozen states that agrees with me.

The Amalgamated Meat Cutters was the only union I ever joined. I have been stalwart in my avoidance of any job that smacks of unionism throughout my working life, right up to today. It’s just a personal preference, based on that early experience that left an enduring sense of injustice on an impressionable 16-year-old. I know many people who are union employees, and most are pleased with the arrangement. That’s good for them, great. But when people want to break away from a unionized system and are demonized, harassed, and threatened because of their wish, then something has gone terribly wrong with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Because intertwined in all three of those unalienable rights we find our right to work.

The presidency is not a monarchy. There is a mysterious and feisty spirit afoot in our country, an underlying sense of calm resistance and subtle rebellion. After President Obama's razor-thin victory, we are watching states assert their rights in ways that have not been seen in modern times. To date, close to two dozen governors are refusing to implement state-run exchanges to facilitate Obamacare.  Now, with Michigan joining their ranks, two dozen states are insisting upon freedom from labor union control by passing their individual state's right to work legislation.

Governors have clout, and the majority of them now are Republican. A state's rights, be they in labor or in legislation, are issues that are here to stay.