How Internet Rumors Start

I found this little gem on Facebook, that bastion of free speech for moonbats everywhere.  Check the flag and the caption.

From Facebook

The reality is a bit different.  From the article Lps Sends Statement Regarding Flag Placement at North Star High School:

Lincoln Public Schools was made aware Wednesday of an incident that happened in a Spanish language classroom at Lincoln North Star High School. There are flags of many nations hanging in the classroom, and one student hung a Mexican flag on the same flag pole as the American flag.
The classroom teacher appropriately used the incident as an opportunity for a teachable moment to lead a discussion on respecting the American flag, proper flag etiquette and patriotism, and removed the Mexican flag. The school principal had conversations with the students and staff involved, and people had an opportunity to discuss the issue. These were all positive experiences; these are life lessons that stick with students.

Note that it was a student who hung the flag, and the instructor corrected it.  Now just try and get the real explanation to fly in the face of the blatant lie that is already making the viral rounds.

Home Improvement

The house in Columbus is slowly coming together, and it doesn't look like a 27 car pileup on I-75 during an ice storm.  My problem is that I have a galley kitchen, which is a polite way of saying that there is room for one, and only one, chef, and it would be best if the chef were slim and flexible instead of being old and fat.

R.I.P. Ruth Seed

Ruth passed away on Tuesday, January 24th, 2017.  She was a long standing member of Bethany Community Fellowship (BCF), and was a close friend to my mother, Jane Emery. The two of them could be found together most Sundays sitting in 'widow's row', as Ruth named it.  Ruth had a wry sense of humor, and was very straightforward about her opinions.  When one of the Elders at BCF ruffled her feathers, Mom and I had to calm her down before she had a chance to straighten him out.

Ruth will be missed by many, but she's in Heaven now along with my mother, and what a time they are having!

Edit: Here's a link to Ruth's obituary: Ruth Seed Obituary

R.I.P. Pastor Jim Riccitelli

On Thursday, January 5th of 2017, Jim Riccitelli was admitted to the hospital due to a bad case of pneumonia.  He was discharged several days later, but his condition worsened and he was taken to the emergency room the following day.  He received the best of care, but his condition continued to worsen, and he passed away in his sleep, early this morning (Saturday, January 28th, 2017).

His wife Ruth is doing as well as can be expected.  She's surrounded by friends, neighbors, and members of her Church.  As I write this, her children are on their way to her home.

Pastor Jim was a great man.  He and Ruth served as missionaries in Burkina Faso, Africa for over ten years, where they ministered to the Red Bobo tribe.  Jim and Ruth had to learn the native language, which is tonal - anything you can say in Red Bobo, you can also whistle - then Jim invented a written language for the tribe as they had none.  He translated the New Testament into Red Bobo and taught the tribe to read.

Upon returning to the United States, Jim started The Berean Fellowship Church in Point Place where he served as Pastor for 25 years.  His sermons included a question and answer session; in other words, if you didn't understand something or you had a question, you could raise your hand in the middle of the sermon and your question would be answered.  All Jim's sermons were teaching sermons, focused on understanding the Word of the Lord.

When he retired, he was called into service at Bethany Community Fellowship Church in Sylvania, Ohio, which is where I met him.  Pastor Jim led me to accept the Lord into my life on Thursday, August 18th, 2005.  I was baptized shortly thereafter, and a few days later Pastor Jim and Ruth agreed to become my godparents.

Pastor Jim retired (his third retirement) and he and Ruth moved to Ft. Meyers, Florida, where Jim was called out of retirement again to serve as minister of music.  In between ministries, he finished his most recent book, Authenticate Your Faith.

I shall miss Pastor Jim terribly, but I'll see him again in Heaven, and I wouldn't wish him back into this lousy world for anything.

Edit: Another writer has posted a missive about Pastor Jim, which you can read here: Remembering Pastor Jim

Zillionaires Prepare for the End of the World

I was listening to NPR the other day and heard an interview that I found interesting. Evan Osnos of The New Yorker typed out a fairly interesting missive about survivalism; surviving the aftermath of the next great catastrophe.  You can read it here, Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich, but the title says it all.

Belated Political Anniversary - January 22nd

January 22^nd is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (courtesy of Wikipedia).  The case was officially argued on December 13, 1971, rehashed on October 11, 1972, and finally decided on January 22, 1973. Truly a momentous decision.

Why Me?

I'm more than a little exhausted from moving to my new home in Columbus and trying to clean out the family estate in Sylvania.  Last Friday I schlepped my parents' fine harness show buggy to a consignment shop in Louisville, KY, then was too tired to make the drive back to Sylvania.  I ended up staying in Columbus and driving back the next day.  I'm beat.

And so, you see, I had a little incident with breakfast this morning.  It's my habit to wash my dishes by hand, then put them in the dishwasher for rinsing and drying.  The abrasive soap in the dishwasher being hard on the dishes and cookware, you see.  This morning I popped open the dishwasher and retrieved my favorite cast iron skillet, spatula, and coffee cup.  I proceeded to make myself my standard breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast and coffee.  Everything had a slightly odd flavor to it, but being half comatose I ate it anyway.  In truth, my sense of taste has been permanently altered by chemo and radiation therapy, so nothing tastes quite the same as it used to, but as I write this I have a very bad aftertaste in my mouth that reminds me of badly used dishwater.

There's every chance in the world that I washed the dishes, put them in the dishwasher and failed to turn the blasted thing on.

On another front, two kind souls gave me a gift certificate to Amazon and a cash Visa card, respectively, and now I can't find either card.  I must have put them somewhere for safe keeping, which means they'll turn up sometime in June.  Worse, I can't find the charger for my camera and I desperately need to photograph some items in the house so I can fail to sell them on eBay, which means I'll have to buy another charger on Amazon, and this will give me a total of four separate chargers for my camera, three of which are lost.  Or misplaced.

Why me?