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Our Daily Thread 9-19-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1777 the Battle of Saratoga was won by American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

In 1891 “The Merchant of Venice” was performed for the first time at Manchester.

In 1957 the U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test. The test took place in the Nevada desert.

In 1959 Nikita Khruschev was not allowed to visit Disneyland due to security reasons.  Khrushchev reacted angrily. Sorry, but Mickey don’t like commies. 🙂

And in 1982 Scott Fahlman became the first person to use 🙂 in an online message.

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Quote of the Day

“If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.”

Henny Youngman

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This one is just because I like it. 🙂

Today is also the birthday of one of my childhood favorites.

Today is Cass Elliot’s birthday too. So here she is, but without the other Mama and no Papas. Unless you count Johnny. Stick with it, after a solo she does a medley with Johnny. 🙂

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Does anyone have a QoD for us this morning?

44 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-19-13”

  4. Evening Ann, enjoy your day. The high school had a lovely choir concert tonight and then as I left I saw the lovely full moon. So many clouds here that it is an occasion to see the moon.

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  7. More quotes of the day:

    Robin says “Holy encyclopedia Batman! Is there anything you don’t know”?
    Batman, with his most humble look: “Of course Robin. In fact, several things.”

    “Worry is negetave meditation. When you meditate on worry, worry takes over.” Tony Evans

    In “Beetle Bailey”, Zero says to the smart guy. “Sameday we’ll fly to all the stars.”
    Smart guy says, “And we’ll all die from the hot gases of nuclear fusion.”
    Zero says, “It should be against the law to destroy dreams with facts”.

    That was my problem. Facts kept getting in the way.

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  8. Good morning all. It is cooler here today. Amos has finished up his medicine but is still coughing. It is kind of funny. Mr. P says Amos can go all day without coughing but starts up again when I get home. Smart boy, working the sympathy angle.

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  9. Chas, every time I try to enjoy a time travel episode of one of my favorite Sci-fi shows, Hubby tells me how scientifically impossible time travel is. Though now I am beginning to realized that the only purpose behind the time travel episode is to give the actors a chance to wear cool historical costumes.

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  10. Good morning all! May I join the conversation? We went to the state fair yesterday. I wore out hubby and 5 children long before we had seen everything. I had to leave hubby sitting watching 2 little ones playing in the corn box at the Ag building while I took the big ones to see more exhibits. I think the high point for all was getting to pet the baby zebras. I think the girls were inspired to do some winter hand work projects after seeing all of the beautiful things that other people made. I think a good time was had by all as young son, 21 months, was laughing in his sleep.

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  12. Good morning all.

    Ah, yes. Batman on TV. We watched every episode. Now I see it as a spoof of all things superhero. However, I would rather see children today watching Adam West as Batman, rather than the overly violent, uber-cgi versions on the big screen. At least the Adam West version didn’t destroy half of Gotham while fighting the bad guys.

    Oh, and Chas’ quote by Robin and his use of “Holy…, Batman!” Would those phrases fall into the grey area you guys discussed yesterday concerning substitute swear words?

    Speaking of which, and I don’t want to over extend the conversation– you guys had great points one and all– the words we think of as unacceptable were the words used by the Angles and Saxons prior to the Norman invasion of England in AD1066. The ‘s’ and ‘f” words are only considered “vulgar” because the “new” French aristocracy said so. “Vulgar” is the Latin word for “common” or “of the masses”. So, since England got Frenchified, common words are not considered proper in polite society. Now I am not advocating all the swear words being allowed on TV or radio, or especially in movies geared towards teens and children.

    Oh, and this is also the reason why we say “ox” when it’s in the field and “beef” when it’s on the plate; or “sheep” when it’s alive and “mutton” when we eat it; or “swine” and “pork”. So if the words for animals are “vulgar”, should we consider them “swear words”? Just playing the devil’s advocate here.

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  14. Can’t wait to listen to the music, but I’m running late this morning. Cass had a really nice voice, even my dad said so and he generally hated “my” music in the late 1960s. 🙂 But he also liked the Supremes. Absolutely hated the Beatles, though, and all those “shaggy” British guys I loved.

    He liked country, but I don’t think he was a Johnny Cash fan for some reason. Maybe he was a little too dark, I suspect his past & the drug problems hurt his reputation with many mainstream type country fans.

    It’s overcast and cool here again this morning, it really is feeling like fall. But our heat can return anytime during September and October, so we’re always braced for a rapid and sudden return to hot-hot summer. I haven’t put the sandals way just yet.

    Picked up my new glasses yesterday, I can see much better now. 😉

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  16. RKessler, I enjoy it when you join the conversation. 🙂 The fair sounded like a lot of fun, and the 21-month-old laughing in his sleep made me smile.

    I never have pet a zebra, but people who live only about a mile from us used to have a couple zebras on their farm. Yes. A pretty amazing sight the first time we saw them.

    I used to teach piano (to others besides my children), and the families that came from north of me would drive past that farm. I remember my friend, whose daughter studied with me, coming to my house one day for her daughter’s lesson and asking a little sheepishly, “Were those zebras I just saw at that farm up the road, or is someone playing a funny joke and painting some horses to look like zebras?” 😉

    They don’t have the zebras anymore, likely due to a very bad experience one of the adults had. One of the zebras bit her on the hand or fingers, and she got such a bad infection that got so out of hand for a while that she almost needed an amputation of the infected area. Fortunately, they did get the infection under control eventually, so that an amputation wasn’t necessary, but that was enough of a scare, as you can imagine, that they moved on to simply having horses and other more usual farm animals.

    I’m assuming those baby zebras at your fair probably don’t get aggressive like the zebra I mentioned above, which was an adult. I’m hoping not anyway. 😉

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  17. 6 Arrows, There was a sign warning that they will bite. I was under the impression that they could not be domesticated. The ones at the fair were very gentle and seemed to enjoy the attention. We had some goats a couple of years ago that were pretty ornery and would take a nibble if they could..not a big deal for adults, but had to keep a eye on the little ones as they could do some damage to little fingers.

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  18. RKessler, I think you’re right about domestication. My understanding, too, is that, though there have been isolated examples of people taming or training zebras, that really isn’t the same as domestication, and it’s rather a risky venture.

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  20. Goats: we’ve never had them, but my husband always gets a good chuckle whenever he remembers his former boss when he was in the propane business. The boss came back to the office one day and was ranting and raving about being at a customer’s house and getting chased by goats to the top of a pile of I don’t remember what, and who wouldn’t let him come down from there. Of course my husband and his coworkers who either saw it happened or heard the story later just laughed mercilessly at the guy. 😀 I still hear that story from time to time, and it’s good for a laugh every time, even though it wasn’t all that funny for the boss. 😉

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  22. The Real – On your last post yesterday, that was neat. We must endeavour to sustain the educational benefit of this blog 😀

    Peter – Have you been watching the documentary “The Adventure of English”? I remember seeing it on PBS years ago and that point about Saxon and Norman words was made. If you like learning word origins, I would highly recommend the book, The Stories of English. On your point, I wouldn’t object to the use of those words in proper context (by their nature, that context should be very private conversation) – it is their current use as meaningless adjectives and coarse interjections to unrelated topics which is offensive.

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  23. 6 Arrows – A homeschooling family that doesn’t have goats? It seemed like goats and homeschoolers went hand in hand in my day 😉

    I have read that zebras cannot be domesticated. However, one of my teammates and I were intrigued by the stripes that some of the donkeys here have on their legs, and we were wondering if zebras can breed with donkeys.

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  25. I wouldn’t object to the use of those words in proper context (by their nature, that context should be very private conversation) – it is their current use as meaningless adjectives and coarse interjections to unrelated topics which is offensive.

    I agree 100%. But I have not heard of the PBS series nor the book. I’ll have to check into them. Merçi beau coup!.

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  26. I have a question for anyone who would like to answer. What do you recommend saying (if anything) to a Christian you believe is depressed but who appears to believe that Christians don’t get depressed.

    She’s a young mom with many small children, including an infant, and I mentioned my concerns to her about the possibility she may be experiencing depression (it sounded that way to me by the way she was talking), and encouraged her to seek help if she thought she was (I recognized that I might be “reading” her incorrectly, though).

    Her response was that she’d never really thought about the possibility of depression and had always heard, “Christians don’t get depressed.”

    My personal feeling is that Christians can and do get depressed, as I believe depression has a biological/chemical basis to it, and that it’s not a reflection of weak faith or being unsaved or what have you when a Christian gets depressed.

    Thoughts on anything you think I could share with her on the subject?

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  30. Donna, at number of people my dad’s age (would have been 74) and older didn’t like Johnny Cash because he spoke out against the Vietnam War. My dad didn’t care too much for him either. Also my dad was quite the prude and didn’t like the affair between him and June no matter how it turned out.

    6ARROWS Christians can and do get depressed. It is more chemical than anything else. Just today I was talking to a friend that I had told about 10 years ago that she wouldn’t fight taking insulin if she was diabetic. She said she remembered driving down the interstate one day and calling me to telll me the trees were green and the sky was blue and THIS must be what normal felt like after she had been on an anti-depressant a couple of weeks.

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  32. Question from Sunday School (Noah’s Ark): do zebras make A sound like a horse mskes?

    Yes, Christina can suffer depression. There was an article about that on yesterday’s Baptist Press you may want to look at.

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  34. I have no doubt Christians can get depressed. They can also get the blues or down. Martin Lloyd-Jones, for one has a book about it. Many great Christians have/had depression.

    However, sometimes we can be too quick to use drugs and assume a bio-chemical basis for it. Sometime, all that is needed is time or a change in our thinking habit, eating habits etc. If someone is under a lot of stress, they may just need a listening ear and time.

    I had a friend that was told she was depressed after a doctor thought she was too long in grieving for her teen daughter who had died. Drugs were suggested. She declined. Amazingly, she hasn’t taken them, even after her third son died. He was in his early forties and the other child was around two. We seem to live in a society that expects us to always be bouncy. happy or in need of drugs.

    OTOH, some Christians can be amazingly foolish about mental health issues. They can accept the need for drugs for diabetes, but not ongoing bio-chemical brain diseases. They may wait too long to get help that really is needed.

    All that to say, I think you were wise to point out the possibility and let the woman think about it. The age of the infant may be important too, with the possibility of post-partum depression. Just having someone to talk about it all with seems a wonderful thing to me.

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  35. I see Kim beat me to the punch with the insulin comparison. I did have to use that with a young woman whose husband kept after her to get off her bi-polar drugs and just pray. I believe she listened to me and stay on them. She ended up divorced, at any rate.

    I have heard too many stories of well-meaning Christians discouraging drugs when they really are necessary.

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  36. Kim re your comment regarding your dad being something of a prude. I would imagine that all Christians would be regarded as prudes as we follow the standards set forth in the Bible instead of what the world tells us is okay. Just a thought.
    hmmm… new slogan: Proud to be a Prude! 🙄

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  37. Thank you, all, for your great input. Kathaleena, our neighbor had a similar experience as the one you describe with your grieving friend. Sometime after the death of his first wife, I’m not sure how long, my neighbor’s doctor recommended antidepressants. He declined and told the doctor, “Shouldn’t I be sad?”

    He naturally grieved, and then went on to marry again, and has always been a healthy, productive man who is now in his eighties.

    I think you’re right that, as a society, we can be too quick to think we always have to be “up”, and often be tempted to medicate away natural human reactions to normal life events. Certainly medications have their place, and are literal life savers in some cases, but I think their use should be approached with caution, as they can sometimes increase suicidal tendencies. And I don’t know that they should ever be a first resort, as they sometimes seem to be treated.

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  38. I just heard that the winning lottery ticket was purchased in South Carolina. Chas, you’re not hiding something from us, are you? That could cause a scandal in your next presidential run.

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  39. Jo, my dad was a prude is just one of the things we say about him. He was a tall, good looking man, as was my grandfather. My grandfather was a womanizer and my dad was the polar opposite. He didn’t like “forward” women and had more than one “stewardess” offer to show him around whatever town he was in despite the wedding ring on his finger. He always came home to indignantly tell my mother, “How dare she say that to me!” He held a grudge against one of my uncles for giving his children up for adoptions to his ex-wifes’s husband. You never turned your back on your children. It was irresponsible of this uncle to give up his children (they have since come back to try to have a relationship with their dad and our family)
    I once took him to Thanksgiving dinner at my sister in law’s house. She served off of paper plates. He informed me it was the first time in his life he had eaten Thanksgiving Dinner off of a paper plate and if that poor girl didn’t have any dishes to serve her quests he knew I d*&^ well did have plenty of dishes and I should loan her some.
    If he got any sort of feeling that a woman was interested in him in any way he shut her down and made sure never to be alone with her, even if they were both single. He was funny about many different things and once he got his mind set a certain way there was no changing it.

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  40. I haven’t been down to SC in several months now. But I hear the winner was in Lexington County. That is the home place of most of my dad’s family. It means nothing to me.

    I have never known that a woman was interested in me. But it may be that I was too dense to see it. Elvera says that her roommate “was out to get you”. I was too obtuse to recognize that.
    It wouldn’t have mattered.

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  42. Jo, you said: ” I would imagine that all Christians would be regarded as prudes as we follow the standards set forth in the Bible instead of what the world tells us is okay. Just a thought”

    Yes, that is true. But it’s also true that we would NOT be thought prudish, just the opposite, if we used much of the language that Scripture uses!

    I have always been very careful about my language. We grew up learning not to say gosh and gee and heck, and in fact we we were the only kids telling our teachers we needed to “go BM” and “go pot” (which I suppose was shortened at some point from “go potty”). And I definitely think it’s important not to use God’s name casually. But I think the apostle Paul and other Scripture writers would be quite surprised at the Christian culture’s sensitivity over things like bathroom language.

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  43. My friend leads a Bible study, and the most recent study we finished was the book of Philippians. We ladies bring whatever Bible version we prefer, and we’ll often read a passage several times in the various translations we’ve brought. It was a bit of a contrast to read Philippians 3:8 in the KJV, which is what I use, after hearing words like “garbage” and “rubbish” in the other versions, then reading out loud Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

    And how about Malachi 2:3? Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

    There are lots of references to excrement, in fact, in the Old Testament especially, and I think you’re right, Cheryl, that Scripture writers would probably be amazed at our sensitivity about that kind of language.

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  44. I just walked my dogs a little while ago and dutifully picked up the dung. 😉 I bring a tiny flashlight with me at night because it’s rather hard to see if it’s not near a street light.

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