I computered tonight . . .

I went to Nashville last week to see Vann, Benjamin and Kate. It was Vann's birthday week (he turned 21). Vann chose the restaurant for dinner. We ate at La Paz.

Or you might say we La Pazzed for his birthday.

A portion of the dinner coversation was taken up with the linguistic practice of making nouns into verbs, or nouning verbs, to put it into practice.

We vacationed in the Hamptons. We summered at the lake. We motored across town.

We didn't do any of that, they were just examples. All with a slightly British accent for some reason.

It made for riveting dinner conversation for awhile. At least we thought so. You can make any noun into a verb if you try hard enough. I quesadillaed. I coffeed. We Priused back to Benjamin and Kate's where we Alabama footballed. Kate confirmed that it is a real thing. She found it on the internet. She googled it.

So it was kind of interesting when Barry preached on the same subject this morning. Okay, the actual subjects were far from the same, but Barry spoke of a noun that is really a verb.

Love is a verb. Or should be. We like for it to be a noun. A noun can just sit there till somebody else moves it. But a verb, now that's something different. A verb must get up and do something.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say, "We love."

No, that's not quite right.

It would be nice if we all did it. Love, that is.

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Saturday morning cartoons . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

I was reading The New Yorker this morning. Okay, I was really flipping through the pages looking at the cartoons. That's what I do first with a new issue. Sometimes that's all I do. I hope that doesn't diminish my intellectual style points. (Actually this morning I did read the movie reviews for "The Next Three Days" and "Morning Glory," but I don't think that counts toward the intellectual tally sheet since I was really just wanting to know which movie to waste ten bucks on.)

There were a couple of gems. One by Roz Chast was entitled "The Last Thanksgiving." Just the idea of a pushback to all the "First Thanksgiving" depictions was enough for me. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a great cartoon is worthy of none, especially Roz Chast cartoons. I don't have permission to print it, but you can see it on the page where you could buy it if you wanted to. http://www.cartoonbank.com/2010/title-the-last-thanksgiving-family-seated-around-thanksgiving-table-each-person-has-arrow-p/invt/136236/

But I will try to explain the second cartoon anyway, because it expressed so simply a great notion worthy of contemplation and I don't have permission to reproduce it. The cartoonist is gifted, but his or her signature leaves a great deal to the imagination. I imagine his or her name is B. S. Miller, but I'm not sure.

A middle-aged couple is standing in a bare, empty room of a house. The woman, purse in hand as if she had just walked in, is standing next to the man, staring at the stripped walls and rooms. No furniture, no pictures, only a bare light bulb hanging down from the ceiling. The only thing in the room is a small, rectangular, shiny brick in the middle of the floor. The man tells the woman:

"I've simplified my life by converting all my possessions into one gold brick."

Some of you may be thinking at this point, "If only I had done that a year ago . . ."

If so, maybe words are necessary for this one. Bless your heart.

Most of us experience gold as jewelry. A few carats. An ounce or two.

In such small amounts we may have missed one of the main characteristics of gold.

It is heavy.

Like an anchor. Security in the swirling currents (or currencies) of our changing world.

But like an anchor it holds us in place. As the river of life flows past, urging us to come along, we are trapped by our own security. We never get to where we were meant to be because we can't turn loose of the gold.

And when the waters rise . . .


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Do me wrong, or do me right, right now . . .

I believe I have posted this before, but I'll say it again. I am wrong sometimes. And so are you. That doesn't mean we aren't fine people, we are just mistaken from time to time.

I have never taken a position that I did not believe to be true at the time. Unfortunately, in hindsight, I realize that confidence has occasionally been misplaced. We all are wrong sometimes, even though we were confident we were right. We just don't know it till later, if we are lucky enough to find out at all.

So in this moment, as so many are flinging opinions into the great marketplace of ideas, there is a great chance, probably closer to a certainty, that many of those cherished opinions are wrong.

That doesn't mean we should quit offering our opinions.

It just means that, like maturing parents, at some point we must accept the healthy reality that our offspring are not perfect.

But we don't boot the imperfect children out and banish them to the land of imperfect children. No, we continue to be parents. To nag, punish, encourage, teach and applaud, pick them up, dust them off and send them back into the fray of life to be tested.

Mistakes can be corrected.

But our neighbor's children? If they don't measure up, that's a different story. Haul them off to juvenile, hopefully never to be seen again. They are so screwed up it's hopeless. No need to think about giving them another chance. They'll never amount to anything.

Unless we are wrong about that.

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Man Up America

This morning I listened to the talk-radio post mortems and read the papers regarding the election. They featured several interviews with disgruntled voters. A typical response went something like this:

"I just hope they get the message. We just want less government, smaller government, government out of our lives. We want lower taxes. And this deficit they are rolling up, we want something done about that. But most of all, the government needs to do something about jobs."

I got two words for these concerned citizens. Man up.

If you want government out of your life, then take care of yourself and those around you. Quit whining about the economy and jobs. You said it. The government is too big. The government intrudes on your life. You don't need big brother. Who ever said that the government owed you anything?

You did. I just heard it. Over and over and over. The government owes me a good economy and a job.

I think government has a logical role to play in maintenance of the economy, including employment levels. But you don't. So what's up with wanting the government to fix the economy? Either you want the government to help or you don't. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can have it both ways.

I think Rand Paul is . . . well he would just not be my choice for Senator based on what I had read. He's probably a very nice man.

But to give him credit, that is what he said in a speech today. Rand Paul said it is not the government's job to create jobs. I personally disagree with that policy. But I appreciate his consistency. That is what we've come to. Rand Paul is our role-model.

Again, America, quit sipping your tea with a straight pinky and man up. We got a deficit? You want to get rid of it? Then let's pay it down. No tax cuts. On the contrary, lets pay more taxes until the deficit is gone. Then, and only then, cut the taxes.

And smaller government? Not a bad idea. It'll help reduce the budget deficit. Let's cut the budget across the board by ten percent percent based on last years' budget for as long as it takes to get rid of the deficit.

Sure, that might hurt retired Americans a little. And federal employees. And sick folks. And states like Alabama who depend on federal dollars to pay for frills like police and teachers. And those of you who depend on government defense contracts for employment will probably be out of a job for awhile till this deficit thing is straightened out, but that's a small price to pay for smaller government and to get the country back on sound financial footing, isn't it?

Smaller government and budgets and deficits are perfectly legitimate, even desirable government policies. Sometimes bigger government and budgets and deficits are as well.

But there is a price to pay no matter what policies we choose.

Man up America.

It's time to pay up.

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