Putting the Pall in Politics

One of the most profound changes my life has seen, during the "missing years" while I was away from this blog –

Hold that thought; just a moment.

Life is what happens to you while you're while you're busy making other plans.

– John Lennon

Okay.

One of those most profound changes is manifested in how I voted this past November: against Hillary.

Yes, I the registered Democrat, and straight party-ticket voter, did otherwise this go 'round. I sent a note around the family – all of us quite left of center, some especially so… except retired Marine oldest brother Sarge.

I wasn't blaring a trumpet, but rather seeking to forestall long conversations over the then-upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. I was going to say that my aim was to spike everyone's guns… but it's possible I actually stepped right into the family crosshairs. Certainly youngest sister Alicia had the very strong glare for me when she and family came down from New England.

From: Dr. Richard "Childe" Schildt
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 9:36 PM
To: A. Gene Childe
Cc: Sarge; Mew; Alicia; Shellie; Pauli
Subject: Re: FW: More From There!

Hi Gene,

How are you and mother taking the election results?

Emma and I are very bummed out.

Lots of Love,

-- Your Bro Doc

 

From: Aging Child [mailto:AGeneChilde@YouWho.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 10:22 PM
To: DocRich@WayWayOut.com
Cc: Sarge; Mew; Alicia
Subject: RE: Putting the Pall in Politics

Yo, Bro!

I'm not sure how closely Mother's followed the election, so I tried not to load too much of it onto her – she's been watching some CNN, and I've been trying to give her some background. I'm not sure she's all that interested either. And you know… I haven't asked her; I just realized that.

Myself, I took a page from Father Jake Hujus's book and… it probably will come as a shock to most of the family, but I voted against Hillary. I'm not an American who happens to be Catholic, but rather a Catholic who's an American. So I refused, and will always refuse now, to vote for any candidate who's for abortion (and there are other hot potatoes I'm going to try keep in the oven).

Hillary has more political experience and chops than any candidate to top the national slate since at least George B., Sr. – even more than her husband did 24 years ago. But her stance on human rights – specifically, for one, the rights of the very youngest humans, beginning with their Constitutional right to life – was the dealbreaker; ditto the Democratic Party's platform plank on that issue.

Life is precious, and a gift… not an inconvenience.

Hillary is also on record as intending to take on the Catholic Church and undermine it, and she supports the stupid and unconstitutional HHS mandate that requires nuns pay for birth control, for example. I was not about to squander my vote on a further nonstarter like that. Her putatively Catholic running mate at best gives lip service to what the Church has always taught from the very beginning; that's scandalous, and also not worth my checkmark. His "values" were clearly available to the highest bidder… essentially political (and spiritual) prostitution.

I haven't turned conservative, though I've found my faith has brought me to embrace a wide range of traditional values, while I watch our culture slide toward the abyss. Some of what some moderate conservatives hold fast to means that they can sometimes see eye-to-eye with me, and that we have some common ground. But I don't cozy up to the NRA; I despise them and their objectives and their influence. I'm deeply opposed to tax breaks and political breaks to larger corporations and so called trickle-down economics, which woefully failed over thirty years ago. I think the mass expulsion of illegal aliens is heartless. And so on.

Trump is a total jerk, embarrassment, caricature, and tons worse. And I'm deeply troubled by what the next four years will be like, unless sometime very soon he quits or falls into a coma, and his VP takes over.

I'm deeply troubled by the character and incompetence of this incoming president… and I just heard he's pulled in Chris Christie, of all people, to help with staffing (and some Bush Jr. and Romney cronies). I hope that's not a harbinger of things to come, though I wouldn't be greatly surprised if it is. If his administration is able to do effective, culturally positive things – e.g., Supreme Court, and some social policies – to slow our downward moral spiral, then the upcoming rough ride will have at least some pluses about it.

And I won't have the blood of any children on my ballot, and on my hands, and on my conscience.

Regards,

Gene

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress. Thus we do not fear, though the Earth be shaken and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea. — Psalm 46:2-3

 

And this weekend, Brazil-raised friend Senhora N. Fermeira and I batted that around a touch further.

 

From: Senhora
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 6:00 PM
To: A. Gene Childe
Subject: Re: Tap, Tap, Tap...

How are you doing? Are job prospects improving under Trump? Going to be an interesting four years.

Prayers and grace to you, N

Do not fight the thing in detail: turn from it. Look ONLY at your Lord. Sing. Read. Work

 

From: Aging Child [mailto:AGeneChilde@YouWho.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 8:49 PM
To: N.Fermeira@Calvino.br
Cc: N.Fermeira@YabbaDoo.com
Subject: RE: Chew to Life

Ms. N., it's great to hear from you!

For myself… uh, guilty bite to the lip here. Since late October, it's been too easy to rest on the severance, and not apply myself to… applying.

Even having voted for Mike Pence for VP, I really don't like the president who shared his ticket… yet some of what he's been doing this week looks good. (E.g., today he signed off on a lifetime ban on former U.S.-government employees' lobbying for other countries.) And I especially like the defunding of Planned Barrenhood, and the high-profile, proactive position he and Pence and their administration have taken in pro-life, anti-abortion issues. I still dread what his chumminess with big-buck executives might yield for every(wo)man and the environment… but saving the lives of some three thousand babies a day, well, trumps even those issues.

Have a great rest-of-the-weekend, you and kid and kitties; hugs and kisses to all from me and fluff-faced Maude!

Regards,

Senhor Gene

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for, and evidence of things not seen. Because of it, the ancients were well attested. — Hebrews 11:1-2

More tomorrow… although as some days wind down, I think about Bill Murray's line in "Groundhog Day", and snicker: "What if there isn't a tomorrow? There wasn't one today!"

The Child Is Here, and the Tomb Is Empty!

…and I just now posted my final… post… at BlogSpot:

Where's the Empty Tomb? Where's Aging Child?

I'm now right next door; stop on by – no need to wipe your feet, even… but do please keep your alcohol, tobacco, and firearms outdoors; thank you.

More to come…

Update: Now Up to Date!

Good evening, reader(s?): as of almost 11:00 PM in my local time zone, January 27, 2017, I've finished moving all of my old WordPress blog posts to their new, more-easily-formatted home at BlogSpot… and am ready to start posting in real time… heh; all in good time.

"In good time" indeed – my first posting at WordPress was ten years ago tomorrow!

It wasn't a mere superficial exercise in vanity; reading and reformatting each posting – was a worthwhile effort for me, because I was able to view the inner Aging Child… at an earlier age. And I remet old friends I haven't seen or even heard from in years, and even had a good strong look at who I myself was, back then.

I posted this same text at WordPress, and added the text of my previous posting here as well, which had included:

As of this evening, I've relocated and spruced up two-hundred old postings, leaving just fifty-some more [...] – another week or two should do it.

Heh; I certainly overestimated how long it would take me to get fifty-some blog postings… re-blogposted: just two days; not bad!

And of course I've changed, since 2008-or-so… less the occasional cliché and all, such as that one. If any – i.e., either – of my old readers wanders back here, and somehow finds the interest to visit the Empty Tomb's new home, they may well see some of those changes. That's not why I'll write, or even what I'll write. And I'll be doing some recapping, I suppose… but I'd like to keep eyes more forward now.

This will likely be my next-to-last WordPress posting; I'm now just next door to that old locale, so stop on by anytime you're bored. And feel free to nudge or prod!

Real Time... Coming Up!

Among plenty of other things I've been doing, these last few weeks, has been the transferal of my blog from its old site at WordPress to its new host here at BlogSpot – mostly to give me the kind of text formatting WordPress no longer provides, and which I have to have – you know I'm very visual, and need to be able to switch fonts and text colors (even sizes) in mid-posting.

There's no handy tool or app that would let me bulk-move the whole thing, as I explained a couple months ago. So I've had to transfer each old posting, one at a time. But… this has allowed me to catch and correct ancient typos that had slipped by, various other errata, and to update hyperlinks (which I've done only in some instances… come on, guys – a lot of it is… old stuff!! )

As of this evening, I've relocated and spruced up two-hundred old postings, leaving just fifty-some more, and then the job is done, done-done-done dunnnn.

As I expected, I also found plenty of loose ends (besides dead links), and sketches of postings I'd hoped to write up and get out there… all those years ago. Some I may still do; we'll see. In the meantime, it's back to work – another week or two should do it; whew!

After that, yes, there'll be back-and-fill even while I move forward. Most of that I'll drop in, when I do, simply as background – stage props to strengthen the context and depth of what's here and now… and where we're headed.

Till then… ciao!

Did It Again!

This past week, Marine older-brother Sarge twisted my arm about another 5K, and I decided to go for it… the starting point was right outside the back gate, in one of the community parks! Rather than driving an hour and a half each way, I got to sleep later (up sixish last weekend!), warm and eat a nice breakfast, then step outside. I strolled across the footbridge, got my race packet, bib, and tracking chip… and walked back home, got one more caffeinated sip, said Hi again to Maude the cat, grabbed some tissues/napkins, and walked back to the starting line, still 'way early!

Like last week, I walked most of today's course, but also sprinted/jogged a couple short stretches… and somehow managed to knock several minutes off last week's time. The folks at last week's event had me crawling past the finish line at… around [mumbled number] minutes, so I'd at least walked my age, which gets easier as you get older.

This time 'round, here in town, I finished at 49:02… right between a six-year-older and a ten-year-older, according to the posted printout. This seems to indicate I'm getting younger – underscored by that age-group bracket; heh-heh.

I still didn't dud myself up seasonally, unlike these folks:

 

 

…but should've at least brought along my jingle-bells, dang it. There was a real-beard Santa in kilt (bagpipes would've been stunning!), plus a passel of elves, a woman dressed like a school bus, some more trotting kids decked out as li'l snowmen, poochies like reindeer… fun!

The two gals joining Goofy Santa above (really cool gloves, Goof!) are labeled "Dasher" and "Prancer", but could easily have worn tags that both said "Vixen"… never mind. And they finished long ahead of me, fluffy tails and all.

The course covered a few chunks of some of the places friend Gwynne and I took in during our own walks last year (and much earlier), both nighttime and afternoon… so I relived some of those good memories of her company, and as always sent up some extra prayers. I hope she felt especially blessed this morning. Hah; she IS! It would have been great to have her along this morning, of course – and her nurse-mom with the stethoscope and nitro pills, just in case.

One of the several great things about hosting Gwynne here, a year and a half back, was all the walking we did. I lost maybe twenty pounds over that two-plus-month span… I seem to've found them again, and would like to drop them by the wayside once more, along with their cousins and friends.

This is just one way and part of an-even-slightlier healthier lifestyle. Plus Rosie next door (my other Sarge – and a friend of Gwynne's as well) encourages it – and where the heck was she this morning, anyway? I'll have to check… she was probably completing a marathon someplace (she's a sixty-something grandmother), maybe even the 5/10K at the military base in the city, where my brother and his wife were doing their own running this morning.

Brother and sister-in-law (hyong-su nim) were supposed to be at today's local course, but at the last minute found they had a conflict – that on-base run. Hah! No conflict for them; they got to visit the commissary afterward.

The cold air – had to be in the thirties – was so crisp it almost crackled… and was quite invigorating, too, given my thick coat, sweatshirt underneath, and knit cap. And the route was easy, with only one uphill stretch, and a couple nice downhills. Bonus: I now know an exact 5K course in my own neighborhood to practice on.

 

Another 5K... Survived

…you know, as you get older and keep practicing, it gets easier every year to run your age. I walked mine today – I think I really did cross the line at the [mumble]-minute mark.

 

Just after starting, and by tradition, I called up childhood friend Spartacus. It's been two or three years since my last 5K, and almost always I call while setting out… and give him a hard time about strange, panting men on the phone. I did the same this morning, of course, and regaled him briefly in crummy Italian, before wishing him and famiglia and pooch well, and pholded up my phone.

 

For most of the course, I was right behind a grandmother, who was garbed up – like many other walkers and runners – for the Christmas season. There were elves, three snowmen, walking giftbags, a Mrs. Santa, a Grinch or two – and an actual Christmas tree that ran the full 10K. To the friendly, chatty reindeer tail and cap in front of me, at about the first-mile mark, I said, "Is your husband running the 10K?"

 

"He's hunting," she explained, waving off toward the mountains. It was nice Northeast US rural farmland, with Colonial-era limestone farmhouses… and even a 1920s-era rusting tractor roadside.

 

I grinned, and pointed out, "And here you are in the country, wearing a pair of antlers. Good thinking!"

 

That got me a snort. We later finished up by sprinting the last couple yards, having walked the rest. And I picked up a seasonal race shirt, so that'll be under some Whoville Who's Christmas tree.

 

I'm not as reluctant to take on the next 5K, whatever my Marine older-brother twists my arm for… and I'm embarrassingly a bit sore about the feet and hips, for having hoofed it for under an hour. But I was still vertical when I finished, which is always a good thing.

Moving Day for the Aging Child

Copied over from my prior blog site and host:

Good afternoon, loyal reader!

(…"loyal reader", meaning "sole reader"…)

Last week, I set up this blog's successor – well, transplantee might be a better term. For now, I'll mostly be moving over into it this old site's postings, until maybe just this single page remains here.

That'll take a while; I may drop new foolscap in here regularly as well.

This where to find me: http://1MT2mb.BlogSpot.com/.

See you next door!

Regards,

A. Gene Childe