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Our Daily Thread 11-23-12

Good morning.

Or good whatever it is if you’ve been shopping all night.

Whichever.

So I guess I’ll ask the obvious,

Question of the Day

Did you, or will you, brave the crazy crowds today?

Quote of the Day

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

67 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-23-12”

  3. Not sleeping in, just getting around to it.
    It’s Friday! You know what that means?
    Busy day for me Not even the Y this morning.
    And Lions aren’t scheduled today.
    We have lots of finishing up to do. Elvera has to go pick up a Honeybaked Ham she ordered. I have tables to set up and other odds & ends.
    Chuck and Linda and Becky and Brian and Caden and AddiLiz and Collins are coming about 4 p.m and I’m taking everyone out to dinner.
    We had a nice time at Mel & Polly’s last night. Their oldest daughter & her family were there. They live in Manassas, Va.
    I hope everyone had a nice day and remembered to be thankful.
    I see in the Times – News that people lined up in front of Kmart early Thursday morning to do some shopping.
    That shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
    It really does.

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  5. Good morning. I’ve been up since 3:00 am, and it wasn’t to go shopping! Insomnia again. Or perhaps some sympathetic wakefulness since 2nd Arrow, back in her home away from home, had to get up at 3 am to get to work by 4:30 at her retail store that opens at 5:00 today. She finishes work at 5 tonight. She is not looking forward to that!

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  9. Go see Lincoln.

    I’m walking my dog with a friend in about an hour and then, yes, I’m going to Joanne’s to get an obscure expensive gift at $80 off. But that should be it.

    The paper yesterday included two inches of ad circulars. I went through them, but automatically recycled every store open on Thanksgiving–I went to bed at 8:30 with a book. I have no idea why all that feasting was exhausting!

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  10. I might go to Walmart, but just for groceries. They don’t usually have any Black Friday deals that appeal to me. (I bought a Wii there 2 years ago, that was the one time they had something I really wanted.)

    I’d probably have to drive to either Iowa City or the Quad Cities to really run into crazy crowds, though. Even Black Friday at our Walmart is pretty tame. Crowded, but not crazy.

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  11. I am shopping small this year. There are lots of frou-frou shops in town. I have to buy a silver baby cup for SGH. There is a jewelry store in town where I have gotten most of my jewelry. I shopped at a small local book store on Tuesday for How to Babysit a Grandpa. I bought a wallet for P at the local trophy shop and they embossed his initials on it.
    Baby Girl? OK. That is going to be harder. I may have to resort to the internet because I do not live in a large enough city to have an Urban Decay.

    Also since we have a trip to Annapolis planned in January we may be giving each other plane tickets.

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  12. I don’t generally shop on Black Friday, and I’m not today, either. I went out one year about 4:00 pm, not desperate to get anything specific, and it wasn’t bad, not surprisingly, compared to the horror stories of people who have gone out early early. That’s not for me.

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  13. I’m working today but, unfortunately, I will have to get into Macy’s next door to the office at some point (I’ll likely wait until I’m off tonight). I just need to make a quick-as-possible surgical strike to the makeup department and I suspect tomorrow may be worse, crowd-wise, than tonight might be.

    I’m out of a skin product I use (it literally lasts a whole year) and I was remiss in getting it ordered online before I got down to the last traces.

    At this point, the cheapest way to go really is buying it at a brick-and-mortar store. I so rarely go into department stores anymore, though, it’s almost becoming an alien experience. But the worst of the crowds should be cleared out by this evening, I’m hoping.

    All the best to 2nd Arrow and her long day ahead. Hope she has a couple days off after that?

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  14. I told husband if he did not sit down in his chair like the doctor told him, I would go do the shopping which means driving to town to the pharmacy to pick up his meds from the ER visit. And I will leave him here to babysit eleven children. He sat down.

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  15. I am going out today, but it will be to return home from D1’s house, then later go get an MRI on my hand. The doc thinks my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome may be something needing surgery.

    I hate sitting in medical waiting rooms. It’s worse now that they think everyone wants to watch TV. News channels are okay. But one has some home channel going. The dentist has it on the country music channel. Whose crazy idea was it to start making music videos? Music is for listening, not watching!

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  16. Mumsee —

    🙂

    Donna — yes, 2nd Arrow has Saturday and Sunday off. Since getting promoted, she gets every other weekend off; fortunately, this is one of the off weekends. (Although if she did have to work this weekend, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten such a long shift — 12 1/2 hours — today.)

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  18. Peter, hope the hand doesn’t need surgery. I agree about waiting in medical offices with televisions being on nonstop, I used to take a friend to Kaiser quite often (mostly late night ER calls, it seemed) and it was awful having that TV always going.

    But then even my ob/gyn got a TV for his waiting room some years back — entirely annoying, you’re trying to read but the sound is always such a distraction.

    The veterinarian’s office has one, too, but the sound is very low so you really don’t hear it (I think they keep it on Animal Planet or something like that). 🙂 — better than those shouting “real life” talk shows with crazy people arguing that are on in the afternoons, eh? Horrible.

    Glad 2nd Arrow can have 2 days of rest after today. As I recall, doesn’t the Black Friday mania pretty much ease off by afternoon? Although it’s probably busy all day. But I think the real professional shoppers are probably done by 10 a.m. 😉

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  20. Good job. You are ignoring me. Keep it up and perhaps I will die (well, I will die for sure) and perhaps I will go away. Thanksgiving (as I mentioned last night) we went to the mommies’ house and had a wonderful time with the mommies, some other grandparents, one of the daddies, and of course our granddaughter, who at 8 years of age, behaved herself close to impeccably after a childhood of disgraceful dining table table behavior.

    In a good mood we drove and ferried home. I checked the 5 hens. One black one was missing. After searching in the dark, I found her carcass in a corner of the chicken run. I told my wife, ruining her Thanksgiving joy. We went to bed and sadly went to sleep.

    This morning we woke up, went outside as soon as it was light enough to examine the scene of the crime and do what forensic examination we could. We have, it seems, a serial predator. A few months ago a chicken hawk slipped through the mesh above the chicken run and attacked our oldest hen. I chased the hawk away and the hen recovered. It seems fairly likely that the same (or similarly sized) hawk got in and attacked and shredded one of the two younger (and still laying eggs) hens. With goves I placed the dead hen in a paper bag. My wife used a shovel to scrape up all the bloody dirt and scattered feathers.

    We threw the body in the woods. We piled the dirt and crime scene refuse on top of her. My wife walked in the garden for a while (mourning in silence I presume), and thought sadly about the other younger hen who no longer has a special friend to scratch and peck with. We thought the older hens would go first. They are no longer laying eggs much and mostly stay inside, so they don’t provide much flock companionship for the other younger blackie. This is so sad, my wife cried for a bit.

    Well, life goes on. I presume everyone ignored my comment, as it doesn’t thank God for taking a hen to hen Heaven.

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  21. Sorry to hear about your chicken loss, Random. It is hard to see that. And that is why we hate sin, not only does it produce a wall between us and God, but it causes the world to groan with the aftereffects.

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  23. You are welcome, Random. Sin. Interesting concept. For a human concept, especially. Humans seem to be so, well, self centered. It is hard to imagine them coming up with such an all inclusive state. Often we look at things and say, “well, it does not hurt me so it cannot be wrong.” But whoever came up with sin made it that anything that hurt anybody through our actions would qualify. In fact, they took it to some, apparently, random standard of goodness and said, “if it does not meet this standard of goodness, it is sin”. Hmm. I wonder who set the standard? Some guy just decided out of the blue that taking things that did not belong to him was wrong? Weird.

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  25. Ransom, yes sorry about the hen.

    No black Friday shopping. I was talked into it two years ago. Since I am an early riser the 4:00a.m. call was not hard, but standing in line to get into Target was only made worse by actually getting into Target with a gazillion other people. It was sort of like a B movie nightmare. No interest in doing it again. I guess if I had some product in mind to buy, but didn’t then and don’t now.

    My son, 6 Arrows would call him my 6th arrow, had a 12 hour shift yesterday at Mimi’s on his birthday. But don’t feel sorry for him. Somehow his birthday worked into the chat at every table and at the end of the night he was quite happy with his tips.

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  27. She expressed it so much more succinctly.

    And Random, I am guessing you missed my comment on another thread as you have neglected to express your sympathy or empathy for my son’s devastating loss of his sister. But then, when death is right before us, as in your chicken, it seems so much more real than a girl dying six thousand miles away.

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  28. Thanks Peter.
    And Mumsee, I’m sorry about your son’s loss. I will add him to my prayers.
    Elvera experienced the same loss when her oldest sister died. There were nine children, and the oldest sister raised her. She was the mother to her.

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  29. Mumsee, I avoided reading WV for several days, so I probably missed awful and wonderful events posted by a variety of people. However, if you want to describe my lack of posting an empathic or sympathetic comment about your “son’s devastating loss” of his sister to my being a narcissistic atheist monster, that’s probably correct as well. I am probably going to take a break from my addiction as well, but (assuming I don’t die on the way to and from the gym), I will check WV again tonight. If you, or someone else reposts or tells me day and time of the bad news, I will read it and post a comment I consider appropriate (though you may not) tomorrow.

    Kbells: Random, my condolences on the loss of your beloved hen. .

    Thank you for your condolences.

    I didn’t love the hen. My wife loved the hen, and mourned it, and is carrying on.

    (This encourages me, in a peculiar way. I will probably die before my wife — though no one knows these things for sure — and if she can mourn the loss of a beloved hen and then carry on, she will mourn my loss and carry on. If I die first, that is what I would want her to do.)

    I was perturbed by the hen’s death. Perhaps because it made me think about my own death, and about death in general. Perhaps because I knew it it would make my wife very sad. Perhaps because I felt regret or guilt because despite our efforts to make the chicken coop and chicken run very safe, we did not succeed. I was selfishly irritated, because one of the two chickens that still reliably lay eggs is gone. I feel a little empathic sadness because even though chickens are very stupid, they still have feelings, and she will be lonely and sad (to the extent a chicken can be) because she won’t have her best flocking friend to peck and scratch and lay with.

    Here’s a poignant memory. We have two “nesting boxes” where the chickens lay eggs. One day I saw the two black hens in the same box together (very tight fit). I asked “What are they doing?” When they both emerged, I found two eggs. They were laying eggs together. That’s how I will remember them.

    However, the loss of a human, especially a human one knows and feels relationship with, is much sadder and moving than the loss of a beloved pet. Mumsee, I am sorry about your family’s loss.

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  30. I know you are, Random, and I do appreciate it. And I know you would have expressed condolences had you seen the post. You are a good guy. Sadly misguided in some areas, but, like my dad, a generally ethical fellow who does not believe.

    But, since you continually tell us we are misguided and/or foolish in some word or another, I felt it reasonable to speak in Random speak.

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  31. I am reading a Wes Pruden column in The Washington Times . He says:
    “The coverage often reminds me of my devout grandmother, beyond elderly, when she called me in tears many years ago to tell me, ‘God is dead. They just announced it on television.'”
    Reminded me of an aunt Elvera had. She said, “It has to be so, they wouldn’t let them say it if it wasn’t so.”
    Some people are still like that.

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  32. Thanks, Chas. It is hard for them. Their mom put them in the orphanage to protect them, now they are here and hearing of the deaths of siblings far away. Not something I can understand, though my sister died young when I was away.

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  33. Random, we mourn our hens and toms and sheep and goats. Even when we kill them but maybe more so when they die from something from which we did not protect them adequately. Death is hard.

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  34. Daughter and I are meeting an old friend that now lives in Northern California for our annual luncheon today. She comes to SoCal every Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with family. We lost touch for about 2o years, then, 4 or 5 years ago, she cleaned out a closet and came across Grandson’s birth announcement [he’s 23 now], tracked me down, and we’ve been meeting ever since. Daughter babysat for her kids back in the day.

    I’m intensely dislike the term “Black Friday” and the way it encourages commercialism over the birth of my Lord and Savior, so I won’t shop today, but tomorrow is being publicized around here as a day to support small local businesses, so I may do some shopping tomorrow.

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  38. Sorry for your son’s loss, Mumsee. It’s hard to lose family any time,but it’s especially surreal when they are so far away. Your son will probably experience some survivor guilt because he is out of that situation and in a safe place.

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  39. As much as some of our merchants feel compelled to join “Black Friday” given their proximity to the US border, its not nearly as busy here. Some Cdns will go to Buffalo to shop — shoes, electronics, and books are far cheaper but the rest of us trudged off to work. I’ll wait for Boxing Day sales … now thats a tradition that might need an introduction.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day

    It was parent-teacher interview day today. It was very quiet. The middle school teachers sit in the gym to allow parents to interview different teachers. When no-one shows up, we hold mock interviews to pass the time. I saw 9 out of 26 parents. I managed to phone a dozen more in the afternoon.

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  41. hwessel,

    Good point and good illustration of the truth that God has “written His law on our hearts.” We can say He doesn’t exist and we can invent any number of other gods. But even if we fail to acknowledge Him explicitly, we do so implicitly, because we’re still His image bearers, and we cannot deny the law that He’s written on our hearts.

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  42. Oh, good. Perhaps both hwesseli and Ree are here. Certainly two of the most intelligent and knowledgable particpants, and probably both smarter than I, though I expect there is little agreement between them.

    While you may be pondering this, I will look at a video my doctor sent me about the prostate. (I am going to see a urologist next week or so and there are many puzzling and vexing empirical questions I have. Will I die of prostate cancer or dementia first, or something else? What good would praying do about these questions? (Nothing, as far as I can see, but if someone wants to prate about the meaning and purpose of prayer, that might be mildly interesting and amusing.)

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  44. No doubt, Stephen, that you’re not meant to know all of God’s purposes and ways, which should be unsurprising considering the magnitude of who God is. But the very fact that you’re capable and inclined to wonder about such things, and the fact that you’re inclined to even think in terms of meaning (“not meant to know”), would seem to reveal something about the nature of reality. An impersonal meaningless universe would certainly not produce personal beings full of wonder.

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  45. Mumsee,

    I can’t find your original post about the death of a sibling of one of your children, but my heart goes out to your family in this tragedy. I’m so thankful every time I think of these children being in the care of your family!

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  47. I proposed humans are neurologically/biologically wired/selection to react with revulsion and affinity to particular acts, thoughts, ideas, etc. The evidence arises from comparative religion/anthropology and an extensive psychological experiments. Now Ree and others could assert that this is evidence for a designer but I have to ask, is there a need for that hypothesis? It seems we agree that an idea of morality is imprinted upon man but Ree and others feel compelled an author beyond neurology and natural selection. But why?

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  50. Darn, HRW is gone. Probably better things to do.

    you’re not meant to know all of God’s purposes and ways. How convenient, as there is no God, no purposes, and no ways. (HILTYW).

    An impersonal meaningless universe would certainly not produce personal beings full of wonder.. Sure it would. As I often say, “It’s amazing that we exist, that we are conscious, that we are aware of our existence.” What’s not to wonder about?

    It’s amazing also that human beings discovered empirical science and began to figure out that we are not the creation of some heavenly “parent” who “designed us” full of flaws. Imagining that all our (various flaws (such as my BPH [Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia]) are the result of some imaginary dude named Adam’s “original sin” what a brilliant bit of imagination. It’s no good to blame Adam. (As he wasn’t real.) It’s no good to say “Hey, I didn’t do anything to get me into this fix.” WE’RE ALL GUILTY!!!! It doesn’t do any good to pray. It won’t shrink my prostate. It will just get me into an imaginary place called “Heaven” when my prostate, or liver, or heart, or (pick your favorite organ failure/cancer location/ or other cause of death) carries me off.

    As someone said a few days ago, all Christians are empiricists. Another brilliant (if silly) stroke of imagination is “Right to Life.” We are animals. Animals don’t choose to die (if they did they would not pass on genes). Our slaughtered chicken didn’t say to the hungry hawk, “Jesus told me I won’t die if I pray to Him.” She squawked and struggled (I hope not to long); then she expired.

    As will we all.

    Well, back to my prostate video so I won’t sound too stupid when I visit the urologist.

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  51. Ricky, I tried to get to your Facebook link. But I can’t get through to the correct Ricky Weaver. I hate Facebook and my patience for this is about 15 seconds, and I used it up. I am out of here.

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  52. Sorry about the poor hen, Random. 😦

    So, had to pick up one little thing at Macy’s today (of all days).

    So after work I drove to the mall next door to our office, found a parking space close to Macy’s (someone was leaving just as I was arriving, but it was still quite packed by 4 p.m.); made a mad dash across the first floor, through men’s colognes, men’s shoes and men’s sweaters and jackets, hit the “up” escalator at a brisk pace; got to the top where the counter I needed was right in front of me; told the clerk (amazingly free of customers) what I wanted; she got it; rang it up; tossed it in a bag; I dashed back to the “down” escalator, then scurried across the first floor through men’s sweaters and jackets, men’s shoes and men’s colognes, and back out to the parking lot — just in time to provide someone else with a great parking space.

    Clocked it all in under 15 minutes.

    On Black Friday.

    Am I the camp?

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  53. Oh I’m here but I’m watching the Vanier Cup at the same time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanier_Cup

    Self-awareness is a thing of wonder but we’re not the only species that’s self aware. Bonobos and perhaps the common chimp have demonstrated self-awareness.

    All constructs have an internal logical that’s fairly rational and empiricist. Its when we question the originating premises that things fall apart.

    Don’t see the relevance of Romans 1

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  56. Dogs are walked — and they got an extra long one tonight. Bunch of homies clusered on one of the corners where we usually turn for home, so we headed the other way back up to the main drag to go a few extra blocks.

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  58. Thank you hwesseli; we are pretty much on the same page. [You are more precise, polite, and patient than I am.]

    Donna, your comment falls into the “This is true because I say it is true,” category. [TISBISIIT). I may be wrong, but I suspect that all the apologetic statements ever made by evangelical Christians can be reduced to enough categories to count on ten fingers.

    Implicit in TISBISIIT is “I didn’t say it; God said it.” That gets too long to put into an already too long acronym but is never left out.

    [IDSIGSI] Might make a good tattoo.

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  59. I am trying to boil all the evangelical arguments down to a concise and inclusive list. I’ve got six so far. It needs a lot of work, but it gives me something to think about. Perhaps you can put yourself to sleep at night meditating on it.

    PW Pascal’s Wager.

    HIWTYL Heads I win; tails you lose.

    TBISI/IDSIGSI True because I said it; I didn’t say it; God said it.

    ICCYJHTOYH I can’t convert you; Jesus has to open your heart.

    TBISBTBSIT The Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.

    CAKBTF Christians are known by their fruit

    I don’t know if this set of tags will let me monospace a comment, probably not, so I don’t think I can line up the lines. [It would take an act of God.]

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  63. Don’t even think about it Donna.

    😦

    Trust me, we get enough of that already. Some of ’em are gettin’ sneaky. They’ll post all kinds of nice, complimentary stuff about the comments and the site, and then at the end WHAM, the SPAM. It’s not very nice. The jerks don’t take a holiday either, if yesterday is any indication.

    But the filter works very well.

    🙂

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  64. hwesseli says,

    It seems we agree that an idea of morality is imprinted upon man but Ree and others feel compelled an author beyond neurology and natural selection. But why?

    Because if morality were what you say it is (descriptive but not prescriptive), then it would be just an illusion–a meaningless mental construct, certainly holding no binding moral force. Without God, everything is lawful. But I know (not empirically, but definitively) that we–and that I–am under the authority of a moral law. I know that Hitler was evil. I know that Jerry Sandusky is objectively guilty. And I know that I sin, grievously.

    And if this is not so, then you have no right, and no cause, to judge anyone or anything. But you know as well as I do that some things are objectively wrong.

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  65. I’m probably incorrect. Standard evangelical Christian responses probably run up to about 20 or so. (And standard atheist/agnostic counter-response probably run up to at least the same total.) Acronyms don’t work, so probably I should just make a list of tags/slogans. Maybe I can complete the list before I die.

    Pascal Pascal’s Wager.
    Heads Heads I win; tails you lose.
    Valid Because God said it.
    Heart Jesus has to open your heart.
    True Because Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.
    Fruit [Real] Christians are known by their fruit.
    Everything Without God, everything is lawful.

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  66. Stephen,

    It’s clear to me from your posts that you don’t always understand at least some of the “standard Evangelical responses” that you hear, and I may have a problem with some of those responses, myself, depending on the context in which they’re used. But whether or not you correctly understand them, and whether or not I consider them good or valid responses, I’m not sure what the objective is in trying to categorize and number them.

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