Peter from Scotland

I get lots of views on my blog. One day last week there were 278. Usually 50 or so. But I seldom get comments.

I did a few days ago about a blog about how I thought Fox News was trying to wound Donald Trump because he couldn't possibly win the Presidency. And that's why I love him, that he's dragging the Republicans over the cliff.

And PeterfromScotland commented that the Conservatives in Britain are rooting for a left-wing person to take over the Labor Party and, thence, kill it.

Just like me rooting for Trump, but in reverse.

This whole Left/Right thing is ridiculous to me. I simply can't understand why everyone isn't a democratic socialist like me!

Truly, when I hear the Republicans talk it's like they're drunk or insane.

Why isn't everyone for a single-payer health plan, free public college, rules against power plants, income redistribution--huge taxes on the rich, generous social programs for the poor, a livable minimum wage, the agreement with Iran...stuff like that.

It just makes so much sense to me--all that and more left-wing stuff--that I can't imagine anyone not wanting all that and more.

Which is my Achilles Heal--I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with me. I am genuinely surprised when someone does.

I believe myself to be the moral and social and political "norm".

Imagine how uprooted and confused that makes me, given reality....

How good can August be?

The last three days the only AC we've had on is the huge one in my office. We keep the door to the rest of the upstairs door closed, and, as anyone knows--cold air sinks and warm air rises, so all the cold from this monster up here goes down to make the downstairs more than comfortable. It hasn't been warmer that 75 in our dining room--the room furthest from my office all summer.

But the last few days, just fans in windows in our TV room and bedroom and blissfully cool.

School is about to start in CT and there hasn't really been a summer at all, not like usual, anyway.

A hot., humid day here and there--but for the most part low 80's in the day and 60's at night. Easy to live with.

I think I've suggested before that Connecticut has such great weather because we're the Bluest State. All democrats in state and federal offices. God loves democrats, I believe.

But then, there are the winters!

Not God-sent by any means....

Creatures on the altar

There was a tiny creature on the altar today at St. Andrew's, Northford. It was teeny-tiny, I have no idea what it was. Smaller than a gnat it was, crawling slowly across the Paten and then the corporal and then the fair linen. (If you don't know what those words refer to, google it.)

I've often encountered creatures on altars. Mostly spiders, it seem to me, but from time to time a ladybug or a bee.

I never kill them. It just seems too awful an act, to kill a creature of God on the altar of God.

It reminds me of a time years ago at St. John's, Waterbury, when we always had seminarians from Yale. Some seminarian or another had invited his/her classmates from fieldwork to come see where she/he worked. I was asked to celebrate the Eucharist for a dozen or so students and their professor.

I did so, and afterwards a particularly studious seminarian (she'd been taking notes during the tour of the church and even during the Eucharist!) came up to me.

"Father Bradley", she said (that 'Father stuff really annoys me), "I'd like to ask you about some of your manual acts I've never seen before."

Well, I went to Virginia Seminary where "manual acts" were at a minimum and I seldom do anything besides make the sign of the cross over the bread and wine--not much else.

"OK," I said, "ask away."

"Well," she said, looking at her notes, "several times you waved your hand above the chalice at times I've never seen before."

I almost laughed and would have if she hadn't been so serious. "Fruit flies", I told her.

And she wrote it down.

Creatures at the altar. You've got to love them.

The first and last time I'll agree with Donald Trump

Trump was, as usual, thoughtless in his verbage about Megan Kelly--all the 'blood from wherever" stuff--but he was right that he was set up and made to look bad.

The initial question about agreeing to 'support the Republican Party's nominee' would not have been asked if Trump hadn't opened that possibility. No one else had said it. So, obviously, it was asked to make him look like the bad guy out. Obviously.

And the question from Megan about Trump's comments about women--that too was heavy handed. No one on that state hadn't, at some time or another, said something feminists (and male feminists like me) haven't flinched at.

Trump says what he thinks and gives not a crap about political correctness. And that is, to this point, winning the support of more Republicans than any two others (Bush and Walker). Fox News and Megan Kelly know and know fair well that Trump couldn't beat Hillary or Biden or Bernie...or me, for God's sake, in a general election, so they tried to take him out of the mix in that debate.

And Megan, for goodness sake, was visibly and in voice tone, out to get the Donald.

Yes, left-wing, almost socialist Democrat Me watched the whole thing.Something like being present for the 'end' of the Republican Party...I hope.

The Red State something or other took back Trump's invitation to speak today--lots of conservative activists. I think that might just backfire.

Go, Donald, go! Nothing better for left-win, almost socialist Democrats like me that that you do well.

I'm rooting for you, boy.....



 

Music from a time before

Bern and I were sitting in the Adirondack chairs she helped build, reading, when the music began.

We live about a mile from the High School and the park across the street from Cheshire High, but we can hear a lot of what goes on down there. We know when Cheshire scores a touchdown, for example and can hear the announcer announce it. And we can hear the music from the park during the summer from the concerts there.

Today the band playing (quite good, I think) were singing songs from another time--a time before. They did some Mama's and Papa's and some Crosby, Stills and Nash and Beach Boys a little Stevie Wonder...music that carries Bern and me back in time to a life before being on Medicare and wondering how long we'll live.

"Teach your children well" was the last song I listened to before I came in to write this. And we can't hear them from inside the house because it was built in 1850 to keep the outside, well, outside. Plus I listen to WSHU classical music on my computer at night as I type.

Amazing how some songs can transport you back decades to another time--a time before--a life before that you lived and have almost forgotten until music makes it present.

Anything by the Beatles or Bob Dylan rips me out of 2015 and takes me back to when I was young, smoking a little dope and without pains in my joints.

Music not only soothes the savage beast, it removes the years for a while and makes you younger than you can now imagine being.

We were children without children again for a while on our back deck, the light failing, reading books we would have never read back then, as Bern grilled dinner.

Not a bad way to spend a late afternoon, early evening--being young again.

I wish I knew who the band was. I write them a thank-you note.

What I wish I'd said....

This afternoon, the land phone rang. It doesn't ring much. Mimi and Josh sometimes call it but most people use our cell phone #'s.

I answered and a cheerful voice said, "Hi, Jim!"

I went through my phone voice recognition index without success.

It was a 'professional fundraiser' calling about children with some heinous disease.

I said, "I don't give money over the phone, ever. Send me something in the mail that includes how much actually gets to the charity."

"Should I send you something for $25 or more?"

"I just want information." I said.

"Jim, I can't send you an empty envelope. You need to make a pledge," she said.

"No," I said.

"It's not the amount, Jim," she said, "it's the compassion."

I hung up.

I wish I had said, "don't call me 'Jim' until you've known me for several years. Mr. Bradley or Dr. Bradley or Fr. Bradley will do until then. And don't lecture me on 'compassion', my life's work has been about compassion. I just don't to give money to 'professional fund raisers', like you, but to people in need of 'compassion', and let me speak to your supervisor."

But I said none of that.

I hung up. The coward's way out.

Another warm day

July was so kind to New England--lots of nights cool enough to do without A/C and temperature in the high 70's. August, so far, is not being so forgiving. Near 90 today, but bearable. I'm not going to complain when wild fires are scorching the West Coast and temps are ultra-high in the Midwest and south. I imagine it's because God is looking after the Blue states....But maybe not.

Which brings us to coal.

The President (God love him) shocked the opposition by coming out with much deeper cuts in carbon emissions--that means 'not burning coal'--than anyone expected.

We are electricity junkies (don't take my AC away in August!) but that's what's causing climate change along with internal combustion engines. Coal.

I have coal dust in my blood. My father was a coal miner as well as my father in law. John Lewis and the United Mine Workers Union are the fourth and fifth members of the Trinity to me. Coal=West Virginia. King Coal, we called it.

And it must stop. It really must. I know it will plunge some of the most depressed parts of the country--Southern West Virginia, Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia--into even more grievous economic decline. But, burning coal is poisoning the planet and it must stop.

I have grand-children who, God willing, will have my great-grandchildren. I want them to have a planet to live on in peace and comfort.

Not burning coal for electricity will be part of what makes that possible.

(The coal dust in my blood is trying to blind me for writing that...but it is true....)

And people shouldn't have coal dust in their blood, by the way.