Wednesday, November 24, 2004
This article on Catholic Exchange:No More Stuff: A Christmas Revolt is one of several things I've seen and heard lately about Stuff. A couple years ago my Dad began giving out cards instead of gifts at Christmas time. The money that would've gone to gifts he's given to local charities. Places like the City Mission, Women's shelters etc. It seems that perhaps, if slowly, we're all getting tired of all the stuff. Below is something I wrote about it in '97.
Doing The Dishes
I replaced all the lightbulbs in my kitchen tonight. Suddenly I could see just how filthy it really was. Time to clean. Cleaning the house and doing the dishes are a royal pain in the behind. It is possible I suppose to avoid the whole problem. If one were to eat out always, never change clothes, never pickup the mail and so on. The home might eventually pickup a good layer of dust but dust is a far different thing from the clutter and filth that accumalate in daily life.
I wonder if Thoreau had to do the dishes at Walden. Perhaps he ate each night off a disposable chunk of tree bark. At most I suspect he had but one tin pot to clean. I've been told that my Great Grandfather, Kasmir Kresse, was like that. KK would head out to the family farm on his own to do some work around the place. He stacked a pile of newspapers at the end of the kitchen table along with one plate, one glass, one fork, and one knife. Each night he cooked his dinner (I presume in one pan) and with a piece of newspaper for a placemat, he ate off his one table setting. He then cleaned his plate, glass, and silverware and threw the night's placemat in the fire. He left his clean plate et al on the table ready for the next meal.
I only remember KK from pictures but I beieve he was a man of few pretentions. I know that he made do with what was at hand. To this day one can find his dustpans, made from a scrap of old broomstick and a piece of tin. I envy this simplicity, but I can't seem to work it into my life. I am too attached to my stuff. I have an abundance of stuff that I can't seem to be without. Perhaps if I had more life in my life I wouldn't require so much stuff.
JTC
October 22, 1997
Binghamton, New York
Alright, I know, you're thinking...John did you really have to change the lightbulbs to see how dirty it was? It's a bachelor thing, what can I say.
JTC
posted by JTC 1:15 PM
Monday, November 01, 2004
I'm Tired
Or perhaps weary & worn is a better description. Like many I'm tired of election hoopla. Tired of poles and pundits. But that's not the core of my weariness. I am, quite frankly, tired of the left. I understand that there are those who have serious disagreements with things that President Bush has done. As a conservative there are things he does that I am not fond of either. I know that among good people there are sincere difference about what and how government should do. But I am worn with propaganda that sifts into even our entertainment. Propaganda that mocks the very values that we as American's hold dear. I understand that many do not want to vote for President Bush. But why do you WANT to vote for John Kerry? Do you really want to make human beings in petri dishes so they might be destroyed to do research that hasn't even been shown to have any promise? Do you want your children to live in a nation where they are told that there is no real difference between boys & girls? Do you want those children to live in a world where one third of their peers have been denied the chance to be born?
I am not a republican. But I believe that the left and the democratic party in particular have abrogated their right to speak on behalf of this nation's people. The blessings of freedom and liberty that we cherish rest on the premise that each and every life is of inestimable value; that those blessings, those rights are preceded by a right to life and endowed by our creator. The left has chosen to treat life as a commodity to be traded, exploited and discarded as seems convenient. Where will that stop? As the poem says: " Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me."
I am tired, worn and deeply saddened. When our neighbors are hungry we blame government rather than feeding them. We embrace quantity rather than quality in our laws. We are immersed in the culture of death. We have forsaken the great promise our forefathers gave this nation. The opportunity given them and us by God.
JTC
posted by JTC 1:57 AM
Stem Cell Research
Rebutting his brother Ronald, Michael Reagan quotes his father in the above article. President Reagan's article can be found here.
posted by JTC 1:51 AM
