Fresh Eggs for you

1.       When you first saw the initials LOL, did you think it meant ‘laughing out loud’ or ‘lots of love’?

2.       Regardless of your answer, it is falling into meaninglessness because people are using it as a punctuation mark for what they say on social media. Too many posts end LOL and I can’t help thinking, ‘Why are they laughing?’

3.       Watching Joyeux Noel, a dramatization of the time when German, French, and English troops held an impromptu truce Christmas Day 1914, I wonder what would have happened if they had laid down their arms and refused to fight any longer.

4.       But that is iron pyrite in the affairs of men—fool’s gold. When you can’t persuade people by the merit of your ideas or the power of your personality, you will enforce by … force.

5.       The most tragic conflicts in the world are taking place in Nigeria, South Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

6.       Fresh water, so abundant upon the Earth, is a limited resource. I understand fracking and extracting oil from rock, but even so, it seems like we are using up something vital to our survival.

7.       For instance, the Chinese divert so much water from the Yellow River it rarely deposits anything into the sea. Don’t sneer, we Americans and Mexicans do the same thing to the Colorado.

8.       For the second time in his Presidency, I can give unrestrained kudos to President Obama. The first was the courage he displayed in authorizing the mission to go for bin Laden. The second, his opening of relations with Cuba. The Castros won’t last forever. Everyone realized that when they passed from the scene, a new era in relations would open between the two countries. Obama is positioning the U. S. to be in a better position when that happens.

9.       Stop quoting MLK, Jr. at me. If he was still alive, you wouldn’t like what he would be saying now, white people or black people. We can’t move forward when we live in the past.

10.   The greatest sermon I ever heard was by a preacher named Ken Young, who talked about four types of churches: mausoleum churches, museum churches, merry-go-round churches, and mission churches.

a.       Mausoleum churches are dead. They enshrine the past and exist only as a monument to those past glories. “It will never be the same.”

b.      Museum churches aren’t dead, but they live on past memories. “Remember when so-and-so was live?” or “When such-and –such happened?”

c.       Merry-go-round churches exist for the current membership. They are all about social events and having fun. The pot-luck is their high ceremony. As a result, they never see the need that exists around them.

d.      Mission churches are those that embrace the great commandment to go out and make disciples of all people.

11.   The gloomy skies hanging over Florida remind me of why we have festivals this time of year. Face it, Christians, there is no historical evidence that Christ was born at this time of the year. But at the Winter Solstice, when sunlight is at its least strength (Northern hemisphere), it is a depressing time. We had to invent something to keep from going mad. Christianity took over because … the Romans had too much fun … ‘nough said.

12.   Whoo, boy, did I just step in it?

Fresh Eggs

I haven't posted in a while, too busy writing stories and helping friends. But here's another collection of fresh eggs, random and unrelated thoughts that don't merit a full post:

1.        There are 38 college football bowl games this year. That's 76 teams getting in out of 129 total, or 59%. Somehow, it doesn't seem impressive that a team has a better chance of getting into a bowl game than winning the coin flip that will start it.
2.        Over the last two decades, there has been movement among the college conferences as schools sought the best place. Six to eight team conferences are history. The only way forward is to join a two-division, title game playing conference. Consolidation is taking place. Within the next ten years, probably sooner, there will be three major conferences: Pacific, Southeast, and Big 10. The Atlantic Coast, Big 12, and others will compete to be the fourth. Then it will be easy to set up championship playoffs.
3.        Once colleges have collapsed into four major conferences, they will get together and form their own overarching governing body. The NCAA will pass away, irrelevant and unmourned.
4.        A collapse of the United States is nowhere as close as much of the world thinks.
5.       North Korea is wasting its time attacking Sony Entertainment. The premise of the movie is dumb and that never fails to produce a flop. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/12/06/sony-cyber-attack-maybe-kim-jong-un-didnt-get-joke
6.      Tigers are cool.
7.      The casual racism of classic Looney Tunes/Warner Brothers cartoons of the 30s, 40s, and 50s is such that I can never be amused by the antics of Bugs Bunny and his pals again.
8.      There is a reason venture capitalists are called vultures. The latest casualty, the operators of Edgewood Bakery, probably have no idea what they signed over to Shad Khan through his firm, Stache Investements, in order to receive funding. Neither did Steve Jobs the first time around when he was forced to leave Apple Computers.
9.      Shad Khan will sell the Jaguars in a few years when the tax write-offs run out if the team does not start winning.
10.   150 years ago, we were five months away from wrapping up the conflict that forged our national identity, whose ensuing consequences still marks our life today. Yet there has been almost no notice of the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression. What you call it depends upon your ancestry.
11.   Really, with Obama in office, you would think the 150^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation would have been celebrated loud and long. At least used as a moment to mark our progress as a nation, a moment of reflection, and an opportunity to move forward.
12.   Kids will always read books when they get books they want to read.