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10:16pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
School is delayed 2 hours. I just cleared the snow. Not that much really – at least for a former Buffalonian.
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10:50pm | Caring for homeless animals in Poland |
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10:50pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Caring for homeless animals in Poland http://tinyurl.com/65dyzk
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12:23am |
Shared 4 links on Google Reader. (Show Details)
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9:51am | Memories – Born in the PRL |
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9:51am |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Memories – Born in the PRL http://tinyurl.com/5ym33t
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11:59am | Arlen Specter – wait, a member of the Know Nothing Party? |
I hereby nominate Arlen Specter, Senator from Pennsylvania, and nominal Republican, as the new Chairman of the Know Nothing Party
From Newsmax: Arlen Specter’s Polish Jokes ‘Offensive’
When Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha recently said many of his home staters are “racist” and “rednecks,” he may have been referring to the state’s longtime U.S. senator.
The New York Post’s Page 6 reports that Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., used the occasion of a public luncheon Friday to lighten up the crowd by telling Polish jokes.
Specter was speaking before the influential Commonwealth Club, a Pennsylvania Republican group meeting in New York’s Rainbow Room, when he began his opening act.
The senator queried his audience if anyone present was Polish. Reportedly, about 10 people raised their hands.
Apparently callous to their feelings, Specter let loose with a stream of Polish jokes. The Post said he recounted the old one about a person who tells another person that he knows a good Polish joke. The man responds, “Hey careful, I’m Polish!” Specter delivered the punchline: “That’s OK, I’ll tell it more slowly.”
A member of the stunned audience told the Post that Specter’s jokes were “insensitive.”
“I was offended, and I’m not Polish,” the source said.
Also at the Huffington Post: Specter Polish Jokes At Luncheon Deemed “Tasteless”.
The Republican Party of Pennsylvania, which sponsored the meeting at which Sen. Specter spoke, says in its principals statement:
diversity is a source of strength, not a sign of weakness, and so we welcome into our ranks all who may hold differing positions. We commit to resolve our differences with civility, trust, and mutual respect, and to affirm the common goals and beliefs that unite us.
Do you think they will censure him for violating their principals?
Of course he later apologized as is de rigueur for such politicians. In Yiddish or Polish — Paskudnik. Interestingly, his Wikipedia bio states that his parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia; more than likely from the Russian controlled portion of Poland. There is a very good chance that his parents were Polish!
Some bad, some good, some funny…
PRL is the People’s Republic of Poland (Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa)
From the city of Łódź, promoting the adoption of homeless animals. Folks also dropped off food, blankets, and other care items to support the local shelter, The effort ties in to the tradition of animals talking on Christmas Eve, welcoming the Christ child. Polish families include their pets in their Christmas vigil meal through the sharing of a special piece of the opłatek (typically pink in color).
And that man is not able to serve God worthily while he is in the world, and while he is a possessor of riches, and the owner of wealth, the word of our Redeemer Himself testifieth, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon;” and forthwith the hearer thought that henceforth the door of righteousness was shut in the face of all the children of men, for they cannot be wholly free from the care of riches, and according to the decision of the word of Christ, whosoever careth for it cannot care for God. And it is necessary for us to understand the word as it was spoken, for according to the rule of those who are perfect, the man who careth for riches cannot care for God; but a man, being a possessor of wealth, is able to be justified by that other measure of righteousness which is worked in the world, if it be that he is not a servant who worshippeth his riches, but a master of the things which he possesseth. Some men are slaves of their possessions, and some are masters of their wealth, and one man is worshipped by his possessions, and another man worshippeth them. Now the word of our Lord was spoken concerning the man who is a slave of his possessions, and who is not able to be a servant of God; “For ye cannot serve two masters.” Thou seest that He shewed two masters in His discourse, and that in explaining who these were, He said, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Behold then, whosoever hath made mammon his master cannot serve God, but he serveth that master whom he hath chosen of his own freewill, his service being especially dear unto him, and his dominion over him being beloved by him, because he hath become subject unto, him of his own freewill. For the children of men are wont to love exceedingly that which they have chosen of their own freewill, and they love it much more than Him Who perforce and naturally is Master over them. And behold, if there were a few men who have pleased, or who please God, it is because they were and are masters of their wealth, and they sent it forth to [do] everything like a slave and subject, sometimes to feed the hungry, sometimes to clothe the naked, sometimes to redeem the captive, sometimes [to pay] vows and offerings unto God, and sometimes to free those who were in the bondage of debts; and wheresoever the will desired to rule over it, there it sent it like a servant, even as did Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Job, and Joseph, and David, and Hezekiah. And of these men some were rich, and some were princes, and some were kings, and collectively they all were owners of great possessions and wealth; but they were masters of their riches, and their riches were not masters of them, their riches worked for them in all the good things which they wished [to do], and they did not serve them in all the wickedness which mammon demanded. — First Discourse on Poverty.
From The Brooklyn Rail: Poland here, and Poland now
While it may be possible to view Poland strictly in its current, robust guise, it’s perhaps more instructive and accurate to see it through the layers and ambiguities that resonate everywhere in a nation where such an important portion of its history was annihilated so recently…
The author, Alan Lockwood, is invited to tour Poland and attend the concerts and recitals of the Warsaw Autumn Festival. He comments on interpersonal and cultural understanding, complexity, and history over the course of his tour. The article is lengthy, and well worth the time.
Two great articles from John Guzlowski: Christmas and Forgiveness
A while ago, I gave a talk to a high school class about my parents and their experiences under the Nazis. I talked about my father’s four years in Buchenwald and my mothers two and half years in various slave labor camps in Germany.
During the Q & A after my talk, a young man asked me a question. I’m sure it was in part sparked by the Christmas season, the talk that you hear at this time of year about —Peace on Earth and Good Will to all Men.— He asked me whether or not I forgave the Germans for what they did to my parents.
The question stopped me. I haven’t thought about it before…
…and
When our daughter Lillian was about five years old, she started thinking about the natural end of all the things she knew. She started thinking about dying and death.
I don’t know why she did, but she did, and it made her sad and worried. She didn’t want to lose her mother and me and her grandparents to death, and she was frightened that she would.
Because she was a bright kid and a problem solver, she tried to think of a solution, some way around death, and the solution she thought out was her own personal vision of heaven.
Heaven, she figured, would be a place where she and her parents and all the people she loved would live in some perfect place, interacting with all her favorite characters from all her favorite books.
It sounded great, and I used to love to hear her talk about it. She and Linda and I would be in the same perfect place as the characters in Laura Ingalls Wilder and C. S. Lewis. We would have lunch in a park with Laura and Lucy and Edmund and Susie and Peter and Aslan, the compassionate, kind, loving God of this Heaven…
Consider these two posts and their relationship, one to the other. Does God forgive, and to what extent? Beyond metaphysical and theological ramblings can we see a God Whose love is the ultimate victor? Who accepts all who present themselves? Who cannot help but run after those who purposefully turn away from Him in an everlasting series of overtures?
Our forgiveness is limited and human. Our concept of heaven too adult. We need more of the heaven of Laura and Lucy and Edmund and Susie and Peter and Aslan and less of our prosaic vision[less] concept. Perhaps Saint Exupéry was right:
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to have to explain things to them always and forever. — The Little Prince, Chapter 1.
Something to ponder as we approach our celebration of the Incarnation.