Individuality vs Conforming

An operable VW mini-bus model circa 1960: Sons Patrick and Michael 

 

  Mark Andrew age nearly five months (April 8)

Even asleep Mark looks happy.

I had to choose between correct exposure taken from the other side, or, post the one with live figures included even though it's over-exposed.

 

So far this vehicle has five times succeeded in avoiding having its picture taken. I persist because I harbor a grudging respect for the homeless (I assume) owner who lives, I assume, in the vehicle while parked on city streets. He never seems to stay at any one location for more than about four of five days. I've seen him at six different locations. On the front there is a tiny garden, the statue of an angel, and in the rear left hand side his exhaust is an uprising sculpture. On top flies the American flag, large. Would such a mess have been allowed to exist on public street in a dictatorship? I have my doubts. In Russia? Nah. Germany, hell no. Mexico City: not even if the Mexican flag on top was humungous. London? I don't know. China, the owner would be put in prison for rehabititation.

I've yet to meet the owner. One of my sons saw the owner lying down inside wearing a brown blanket. The exterior decorations are more bold than they appear in this photo. The small garden, live not pictorial, on the front left bumper defies description.

That he is tolerated interests me more than the individual himself. Humans, especially the advantaged, in America, tend to sneer at the non-conformist. I thoroughly believe that the eccentric in England is respected far more than he is in America. Bravo Brits!!

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

Religion

Exchange lifted from the Do You Believe? aol (new?) message board which is so crowded with rushing rivers of posts I'm never responed to, or almost never. Ha ha ha. So, I come here to talk to my friends.

< "I'm guessing that Jesus was a nice guy but very naive politically."

<From:  Hector46ofTroy 

A Christian organization (in CA I think)spent a heap of money on a finely shot, color documentary aimed to 'prove' that Jesus was so politically astute that he deliberately upset the tables of the money changers in the Temple so as to get himself crucified, that it was his Mission. The thesis was, in part, that the temple priests deliberately controlled who could attend sacrifices in the inner temple by exchanging their unclean money for the purchase of white, sacrificial birds, only to people they approved of. Jesus did NOT like that: God must be made available to EVERYONE with absolutely not a soul left out! To a Christian that message is potent stuff. I can therefore very easily imagine Jesus in an absolute rage flinging the tables and coins of the money changers every which way.

 

[If anyone has a bead on why this highly dramatic scene was omitted from Mel Gibson's controversial movie I sure would like to hear your slant on the matter.]

 

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

A cogent argument might be possible along the lines that Jesus cannot be shown to have been on a suicide mission. Suicide being, in the Catholic Church, a mortal sin.        - Barry

Journal Content

 

Thank you Ally for your Comment.

I hesitated posting yet another baby

pix given our nutty world in which

children are so often victims. Horrid

to have to make that admission. In

a 'normal' world I'd post a slew of family

pix but even my family cautions me to not

do that.

 

Instead, I think I'll post a photo I took yesterday

of what used to be called a VW mini bus

festooned with nutty decorations by the harmless,

homeless owner who apparently lives in the vehicle.

I've photographed the van at least five

separate times and never done it justice.

I thought I might use the graphic to illustrate

the theme of 'Individuality.'  It is grotesque

and totally irrational, yet I'm very glad the

owner is permitted to drive our streets, and park

where parking is allowed. He moves from spot to spot,

never staying for long in any one place, and never

parked illegally.

 

Thanks Ally for your cheery Comment.

 

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

Mark Andrew vertical

                              

Mark Andrew, Esq. had a reservation about his likeness being Online upside down. So, here he is again right side up.

Now that you've met, notice how much more at ease he is.

More later. Thanks for peeking.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

Damn, it looks a bit like a trick photograph with the head placed on another body. But no, Mark's head is on a pillow making his face tilted, getting more light from the window, accentuated by flash fill.  - B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting a Relaxed Friend

(Posted by me on an AOL Message Board two days ago.)

"Have you ever wondered what it might be like to actually meet Jesus? Reading this board,* and seeing the hundreds of thousands of posts, I find myself imagining seeing Jesus from a distance and wondering if I should approach. The setting is Biblical. In that reverie I try to imagine what he might have looked like. The number one thing I think I might notice is how physically relaxed he was. He would be at ease, natural. He'd laugh freely. He would be a skillful speaker and pitch his voice, on occasion, to reach every listener. If a listener were to bring him some water to drink I see him drinking with gusto and profusely thanking the bringer of the drink.  Easy, relaxed, easy to approach, and talk to. In his replies he'd look at you as you have never been watched before, totally accepting and even respectful. How easy he'd be to love!"

- Barry

* Do You Believe an AOL (new?) Message Board which garners hundreds of thousands of posts every couple of days.

Each 'entry' (aka "post") on the apparently new message board "Do You Believe?" has a thumbs up, or thumbs down button which one, even me, can pass, or select. I was stunned to receive the maximum four thumbs up for the above mini-essay. Statistically, I think, the anti-Christian and atheistic posts outnumber in length and stridentcy those religion sympathetic. For that reason my minority vote was, perhaps, read more sympathetically that it might be under different circumstances. Ha!

I feel honor bound to 'confess' that I'd heard my theme before. One Christmas many years ago I went to Midnight Mass at a church in Phoenix, Arizona. I was so struck by the eloquence of the good priest that on a subsequent visit to that church I asked for the name of the priest. I was going to mail him a fan letter. No amount of description or number of details I offered could shake loose the name of the priest. I thought that very odd. But I can't even guess at an explanation. In defense of myself his vocal imaginings were quite different from my written reverie. But the essential idea that Jesus very likely was easy to meet and talk to I got from the priest.

I just this instant remembered that another Catholic Church I visited in Phoenix around that time said Mass in Latin, and otherwise was in violation of Vatican ll's edicts. The priests individually, I think, were in good standing, but that parish no longer received financial assistance from the greater Church. I would guess that by now things have been smoothed over.

You know of course that Los Angeles Archdiocese has agreed to pay victims of priest child molestations a total of $660,000,000 in reparation. And, no, I didn't add three too many zeros.

Over all, maybe just maybe, priests oughtta spend more time with Jesus.

That "Do you Believe?" board can give one a headache. All that hothouse heat.                           (mostly about next to nothing)

 

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Mark Andrew

Gee, he's almost upside down. 

Vincent, age 12, did the clicking to get the pix here. Mark is nearly five months old. He's been a heaven-sent addition to our family which now numbers a total of six, four boys for which the boy's mother is a bit chagrined because she insists she ordered a girl. I'll settle for healthy, and that sure is Mark. From the word go,. on exit, when one eye was open already he was busy scanning the scene. he hasn't stopped. I mean he's here to participate! I love him! Oh, oh do I love him! See him looking at you?: he has your number, ha ha ha.

Forgive me, I gush.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/

 

 

 

 

Newspaper Chat

Los Angeles, CA has a fine newspaper to which I subscribe: The Times. Today's issue is stunningly full of news about RACE, as in racial equality, race diversity and history of race mixing. 

1. Page One headline: 60 MILLION CALIFORNIANS BY MIDCENTURY.  "Latinos will become the dominant group."

2. Editorial Page, OPINION section, Essay by Heather Williams, "...a Cherokee citizen, and an Indian freedmen descendant."  "The tribe's requirement that members must prove a blood connection isn't racist."           (Atavistic, that)

3. Front page, large photo showing LA's Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa surrounded by 16 news people and their four large, tripod mounted cameras.  'What news!?' you ask: okay, I'll tell you. The good Mayor has been found to have a young, gorgeous,  female, hispanic news reporter as a mistress. The mayor is married: even his surname is a coupling. "Villa" his birth surname, and "Raigosa" his present wife's last, Maiden name. They united their names from love passion.  Apparently the populace is angrily astir with indignation that their mayor would disgrace them in such a plebeian fashion. (How come they don't know that in Hispanic culture the male can do whatever he wants and desires?)  Background: Yesterday's front page news was that Mexican drug gangs can now outgun Mexico's city forces. Now it would be very unwise to retire to Mexico as I did in 1997. USA retirees are routinely murdered, for as little as a beat up old car.

Well, you get the drift. 

I must attend to my chores. Immediately, wash the baby's clothes. Oh boy, you should see Mark Andrew. He put his toe in his mouth this morning said my son Vincent, age 12. What might that foretell?

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/