Crosby Kemper's Library Woes

   Crosby Kemper III took 100 teenagers to Jefferson City to protest $6 million in cuts to Missouri's public library systems, and he was shocked and surprised when he and the kids were booted out of Governor Jay Nixon's office.  On Facebook he blamed it on the "the notion that we were slightly critical and not whispering was too much."

   It's too bad he and his 100 "non-whispering" teenagers weren't in Jefferson City raising a ruckus when Republicans in the legislature slashed taxes for wealthy Missourians to the tune of $621 million last year, a budget that Jay Nixon vetoed but Republicans over-rode. 

   In fact, Crosby Kemper III and his buddy, Tax Cut King Rex Sinquefield, head up the "Show Me Institute,"  a supposedly non-partisan (though pretty much wholly Republican) "grass-roots" organization that fights hard for lower taxes and "free market solutions," and lobbies hard for the kinds of tax cuts that are now costing Kemper's library at least $100,000 of its funding.

  Perhaps Mr. Kemper can find a free market solution to his library problem... or maybe he could quit supporting the Republicans that bring us these heinous budgets that benefit only wealthy folk like himself and his tax cut king friends.  But it makes better press to take 100 teenagers into a government office and then be "shocked" when they're asked to take a hike because they are disrupting an office not equipped to handle 100 non-whispering teenagers, being tasked as they are with balancing a budget that's $621 million thinner, thanks to the tax cuts that Crosby Kemper himself personally fought for.  I wonder how many of the 100 "non whispering teenagers" were aware of that fact.

His 21st Birthday

It was this day, March 7, back in 1967.  It was his 21st birthday and he asked his buddy to take this picture of him cleaning his M-14  combat rifle.  He was in or near a place spelled Huế and pronounced "Way."   Because he would spell the name Way in letters home, his mother became frustrated about being unable to find it on a map.  It had once been the capital of Vietnam. The next year the place would be the site of the Battle of Huế and the Tet Offensive.
   He'd been in Vietnam for ten months, which gave him enough tenure to make life a little easier for a Marine.  A person knew more than anyone who had been there a shorter length of time, even a day, in a situation where every day the motto was "learn or die."  He tells me that in reality survival was "90% luck."
   The weather was beautiful that day, between 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.  The letter in his pocket had to have been outgoing... an incoming letter would show much more wear.
   Of the two Marines pictured here, only my friend made it back home alive.
   Three months later Prof. Ulichne was Stateside, the War in Vietnam behind him but always a part of him, even today, on his birthday, 48 years later. 

Wisdom is a Woman

If you believe in the Bible, especially if you take every word literally, there is an important fact that you may have missed out on over the years.  Just like most Christians will tell you that Jesus Christ was around before our universe was formed (John 1:1-3), there was someone else out there with the Heavenly Father long before the Creation.

This is all from the Book of Proverbs, using the King James version, for those who won't accept any other.  Before the Beginning, there was somebody very close to the Creator, a female called "Wisdom."

Proverbs 7:4 advises, "Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman."

This isn't her first mention, but it establishes wisdom's female identity with certainty.   

Her origins can be learned in Proberbs 7:22...31, in her own words:

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  ... When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men."

In all Chapter 8, it's shown how she dwells on this planet, amongst the sons of men, trying to make contact, a frustrating prospect when one is Wisdom and most men are foolish, as she point out early, in Proverbs 1:22.  So very often these same words, in sermons given at churches by preachers, are spoken as if God said them, but it wasn't God who said them. It was the female Wisdom speaking. From Proverbs 8:2-7:

"She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips."

From the beginning of the Proverbs the importance of this female entity is made clear:

"Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee."

And she's just waiting for people to take notice, ready to give them treasures more valuable than rubies, more valuable than anything:

"Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.  Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding. " Proverbs 9:1-6

Just like this picture you always see of Jesus knocking on the door of your heart trying to get in, Wisdom is out there, and she's calling out to people who know they don't know everything.  All you have to do is accept her, the same way you accept the Messiah.  She will give you understanding that you won't find otherwise, no matter how hard you search, and she'll tell you EXACTLY what you need to know in order to be wise.  It can pretty much be summed up in two very simple things, but you'll need to read the Proverbs to find out what they are (just keep clicking the arrow pointing right when you get to the bottom of the page).

This, my friends, is straight from the Bible.

White O.J. Simpson Riots

RE: Ferguson, Missouri.  In the past two days I've seen this picture in my Facebook newsfeed more than any other:

It says,"Caucasians are superior to African Americans because we don't act like that."

But I DO remember how white people rioted.  Not about O.J., but about a LOT of other things that really got them stirred up.  I remember clearly how white people rioted when football coach Joe Paterno was fired during the Penn State child sex abuse scandal.  The injustice of it a drove a race of people to this:

I'll never forget that.   And look at the wanton destruction in Huntington Beach, California  because.... the U.S. Open of Surfing was over.  The real action starts about 50 seconds in:

 
 White people were out of control in New Hampshire because...it was the Keene Pumpkin Festival:

As the night wore on, tensions began to build and the Pumpkin Rioting escalated:




 In two days it will be Black Friday, and we'll see lots of footage of holiday shoppers turning into animals as they indulge in the "Christmas Spirit of Giving":




This is how white people riot in West Virginia.  Why were they rioting? Because their football team WON!



And a riot for the Kentucky basketball win!

But, because White Americans kept their cool after the O.J. verdict, it only seems right (to the people who share the O.J. Simpson picture on Facebook) to point out their racial superiority at a time when the whole world is watching a U.S. city being burned to the ground -- not because of a Pumpkin Festival or a sports win, but on account of hundreds of years of hostility and tensions boiling over on a night when a militarized police force, hundreds strong, faced off and lobbed tear gas and other projectiles at non-violent protesters, while at the same time looters and rioters were burning the city down unencumbered.  Last night I watched stores get looted and buildings burned without a law enforcement officer in sight; they were all standing off against the protesters.

Thankfully I have sensible friends on Facebook, too, who are saddened by all of this, and are engaging in dialogue about how we can keep the kind of rioting that we've see in Ferguson (and everything that led up to it) from ever happening again.

You Can Be Happy Again

My cousin David got killed by a train in 1983 when he was 14 years old.  His mother's grief was the most painful thing I'd ever witnessed, and my 16 year old brain told me, "She'll never be happy again."   Several months later, their family's home burned down, and David's father, my Uncle Bob, lost his arm in that fire.  "What more can happen to these poor people?" I wondered.  In October of the next year Uncle Bob joined David in Heaven and my sorrow for his widow, my Great Aunt Mary, the kindest woman I'd ever known, knew no bounds.  "She has no hope of ever being happy again."

For the next few years when I'd see her, she seemed better, always kind and friendly and loving.  I asked her how she managed to get through and she said it's because you don't have a choice... you just keep surviving, and that the grandchildren and new babies in the family helped... I would find that out myself in later years.

Then came a family reunion in 1988, I believe it was.  Aunt Mary, who had been through so much, was all smiles with much laughter... she looked genuinely happy.  She had a new boyfriend, and she was in love.  "Maybe she CAN be happy again!"  Never did I imagine that I would see her beaming with happiness like that. I carried that inspiration with me throughout all the hard times and I always will.

Over the next decades she would marry the man who brought happiness back to her life, she would travel to Ireland, she went skydiving in Las Vegas at the age of 60+... so many happy things.... so many happy times.  She became the inspiration of my lifetime, and she always will be.  Because of her I was able to hang in there at times when I really didn't want to because she had taught me that no matter what happens, you can be happy again.

The past three years were hard on her... in her 70s she fought and won a battle against Stage 3 lung cancer that she was told she had little chance to survive... her son-in-law was killed in a motorcycle crash... the wife and baby of her grandson died during childbirth.  No matter what she was going through, she was there to comfort and console and offer hope and love and smiles to everyone who loved her and needed her support.

At 4:00 this morning Aunt Mary left this planet, left a very big family, and I know there are many people that I'm related to right now that wonder if they will ever be happy again.  I know that they can be.  My Aunt Mary taught me that.