This and That

My mom, Helen, was admitted to the hospital monday evening. Congestive heart failure. I took the boys to see her on Tuesday morning and again on Tuesday evening. She has so many friends, children, and grandchildren that someone is always in her room. I wouldn't like that but I thnk she does.

In between visits to my mom I took the boys to the beach. Very strange experience. The sea was black deep green. Every wave seemed to be carrying a mountain of sand. Kelp, jellies, crabs, mussels, rocks, and driftwood were all over the place. Every wave brought more. And very oddly there were no birds other than a few crows nesting on the cliffs. I would have thought that given the vast amounts of living creatures washing up on the sand that there would have been hundreds if not thousands of gulls feasting on Neptunes bounty.

My Son and the War

We heard from my oldest son. He is doing well, considering he has been in combat for a few weeks. His unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade is continuing to live up to its deadly tradition. He said they are moving to [censored] today (He called it "down range". That's cute.) and he doesn't know when we will hear from him again. I am very happy. Surviving on the battlefield is the first requirement of victory and he has shown that he is capable. I am very proud of him.

"Bend your bow, prosper and reign, Son of the Mother of God, subduing the people of Ishmael who war against us, granting to our devout King the Cross as an invincible weapon." - A Theotokion of Sunday Matins

Serbia

Handmaiden of God Leah says: "In this post on the History of Serbia it says:When the Serbian people, having perceived a chance for their liberation from Ottoman rule sided with Austria in the Turkish-Austrian wars at the end of the 17th century…One thing it doesn’t mention is that when the Turkish advance into Europe was stopped by the blood of these Christian people, an important aspect to this story should be remembered. As the soldiers lay dying on the battle field, at the end of the day; the Christian women would go out and take water and give comfort to every man on the field, not just their own, but the Muslims too. Because we are taught to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is our history, the teachings that are handed down to us that make us who we are, that create in us the impulse to do what we do." (You can read her whole post here.)

At this moment my oldest son is engaged in killing Muslims in Afghanistan. I have been thinking that the best way to solve the problem of Iraq is for the U.S. to leave and let the suni and shia slaughter each other. I drafted a letter to my congresswoman urging the decapitation of the Persian state before they build nuclear weapons. But then my sister Leah tells me about serbian women giving water to the wounded Muslim soldiers who just a little while earlier were trying to kill their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers. Sometimes, it seems to me that I know nothing about the kingdom of God.

UpdatesinceVacation

Did I mention that I've been on a diet? I have been. Lost 18 lbs between the end of Bright Week and the start of my vacation last thursday. Afraid to look at a scale now. Back on the diet now.

The itenerary got messed up the first night. Some stuff we didn'tget to. Added some other stuff at the last minute (such as a trip to Ukiah and a drive down the Russian River Wine Road.

We broke camp about 2 hours late to make it to church on Sunday. I am bumed over that. I was really looking forward to being there and seeing some old friends. Oh, well. Will have to try again.

Mendocino is in pretty bad shape. When I was there 26 years ago it was still a real town. It is all tourism-oriented now. very very sad. Its like a rustic version of Pier 39.

We discovered the Anderson Valley and the Anderson valley Brewry. Much fun.

We are home now. Much recovering to do. (In case you are wondering, the tent worked well.)

Serbian New-Martyrs

Commemoration on June 28th for the The Serbian New-martyrsTroparion Tone 8

For your faith in God and His Righteousness, you suffered in the flesh.

The earth sorrows, but you have saved your souls and heaven rejoices!

And your ancestors sang aloud with the heaven greeting you at the gate

Of paradise with this song: Your names are in the Book of Eternity.

Enter into Paradise O children of immortality! We your posterity

On earth, cry out in unison: O New-martyrs, pray for us!

I find my mind has been often returning to the hideous idea that Kosovo is to be severed from Serbia. You can read the stories of some of the Martyrs (the most glorious rank of saints) of Serbia here. You can read about what is going on in Kosovo here. You can pray for Serbia anyhere.

Vacation

We bought a tent (Not just any tent, the Trailhead 6) at REI a couple of days ago. We are going to try it out this weekend. We are going north. Thursday evening we are going to leave Menlo Park and drive up the peninsula, through San Francisco, accross the Golden Gate Bridge and into the wine country town of Cloverdale. On Friday we will go to Mendocino and that fabulous beach at the bottom the cliffs (there are stairs made of driftwood, at least there were in 1981 when I was last in Mendocino). We will spend Friday night and Saturday night at Russian Gulch. On Sunday we are going to visit Saint Seraphim Parish. I think it will be a fun trip. It will be the first time either Anslem or Basil has been camping.

Sunnyvale Chrysler Dealer Service

I have had nothing but bad experiences with Chrysler dealers. They have installed wrong parts (to be fair they made it good after I pointed out the problem.) and they are always late. For example, I made an appointment to take my PT Cruiser in for an oil change. I was told it would take 2.5 to 3 hours. That was a little annoying since an oil change should only take 30 minutes. But I was already there and the oil change was already paid for (I bought the pre-paid package when I bought the car) so I left the car there and the boys and I went for a walk up and down El Camino Real in Sunnyvale. (not a walker friendly neighborhood. Totally auto-centric.) When we came back three hours later the car was not in the "We're all done woking on this car" parking area. And my "Service Advisor" was nowhere around. We stood around about 15 minutes when we saw someone drive our car INTO the sevice bay!!! I could not believe it. I just took the car and left without getting the oil changed. I will never go to Sunnyvale Chrysler again. And I must admit losing my temper at the Service Advisor and her boss. I do regret that.

Thursday I am going to go to Boardwalk Chrysler in Redwood City. I've already talked to the Service Manager, and have explained my past experience and what my expectations are. He said their goal for an oil change on a PT Cruiser is 45 minutes and that they are almost always finished within an hour of drop-off. I'll be wearing a watch.

Albanian Muslim Plot Against U.S.A.

I've mentioned on this blog before that the geniuses in the State Department want Kosovo, the spiritual heartland of Orthodox Christianity in Serbia, to be an independent country for Albanian Muslims. This, even though they already have one. Its called Albania. I suppose the fact that it was Albanian Muslims who were plotting an attack on Fort Dix won't change their minds.

Birds

Anslem and I go bird watching once in a while. We have a guide book and even though it doesn't show all the seasonal changes in plumage it is serviceable, as long as we keep looking in the same place over the course of a year. For instance, the avocet's black, white, and grey plumage is handsome. But for a short time each year the head is reddish. The guide book only shows the red head. It took a very long time before we found out that we were looking at avocets.

This morning we went to the Palo Alto Baylands , a wet land preserve. At one time all the land between Hwy 101 and the Bay, from San Francisco's Candlestick Point in the north to south of the Guadalupe River wetland. In fact, the wet lands extended far south along the banks of Coyote Creek. And the sky, according to early explorers was black with waterfowl, as the wetlands around San Francisco Bay and in the Santa Clara Valley were a major resting area for the avian set traveling along the Pacific Flyway.

So, back to my story. This morning, after dropping Cyndi (who I sometimes call Athanasia) at school (last day of the semester. She is geting straight A's.) we went to the Palo Alto Baylands. While we were there we saw several score Night Herons. WOW! what intense birds. They are all about finding little fish and frogs and skewering them on the dagger-like beaks. But this is hatching season. We saw dozens of hatchlings and anslem went around picking up egg shells. It was such a pleasant experience. We saw gosslings and ducklings, too. We also saw gulls fighting over a gosling's corpse. (Question: As Orthodox Christians, do we believe that birds are ever anything but a corpse?) Anselm said he no longer likes gulls.

Tonight after dinner we took Cyndi to the Baylands to see the Night Heron chicks. We got there just at sunset and had the pleasure of watching the adults leave their nests and roosts to hunt. We walked a little way beyond the trees where their colony was nesting to a dense stand of palms (They are not trees. They are very large grass.) where we saw Snowy Egret chicks.

We came home and ate watermellon. I read Chapter two of Prince Caspian to the boys while they took a bath and Cyndi cleaned the kitchen floor. They and Cyndi are in bed right now. I'm going to join them. Goodnight.

The gnat

I haven't mentioned the financial scandal in my Church (not my parish or diocese, which are above reproach in every way) on my blog until now. Even though it was in the Washingotn Post and currently in Commonweal and people around the world have known about it for years, I didn't want to draw the attention of its existence to someone who might be considering a conversion to Orthodoxy, or to an Orthodox of weak faith. But today, it occured to me that I, by not mentioning it, was doing the same thing the bihops of my church are doing, trying to hide the facts. I do not anticipate writing a lot about this scandal or the people involved. I am only mentioning because I do not want to be like those who want to sweep it under the rug.

Now that I've mentioned it, I want to tell you what I am doing about it.
1. I pray to the Mother of God and to St. Tikhon theEnlighter of America to remove from the ranks of the clergy all those who have lied or stollen money in the course of this scandle. That includes Metropolitan Herman (I am aware of no evidence that Metropolitan stole money. But he has been caught in lies. And he was treasuerer when a lot of money dissapeared.)
2. I call the Metropolitan's office every day and ask him to resign.
3. I've written a letter to my bishop (now retired) asking him to take our diocese out of the OCA and into one of the other jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church.
4. I have ensured that none of the money I give to my parish filters up to the Metropolitan's office or any of his programs.
5. I have written to the Holy Synod and asked them to deal with the situation and not just sweep it under the rug.
6. I ask God to not let my annoyance at the bishops and priests eclipse my view of my own sins. (It is easy to get so worked up over the weeds in your neighbor's yard that you forget to weed the garden of your own heart.)
7. I have written many emails to the Metropolitan Council, urging them to do their job and not just be a rubber stamp for Metropolitan Herman.

I probably won't mention this situation on this blog again. Hopefully, through God's mercy those who have done wrong will repent, come clean, and we can all get on with our mission.

Bubbies Pickles

Last night I went grocery shopping. It was late. It was so late that my regular stores, the stores where I usually shop, Trader Joe’s, Piazza’s (but not for frutas y verduras, usually), and Whole Foods were closed. I had to go to Safeway, which is the largest grocery store chain in California. If a product is made by Kraft, ConAgra, Nestle, or Unilever it is sold by Safeway. They tend to not carry products unless they are made by huge producers. It doesn’t make financial sense for them.

One of the things I bought last night was Claussen Dill Pickles, a Kraft Foods product. I bought two jars for less than I usually spend on one jar of of my usual brand of pickles. I was very excited. But not just by the price. Why? Because since the second Monday of Pascha I’ve been on a diet (I want to live to 50) and dill pickles are something I can eat as many of as I like.

When I got home I opened my jar of pickles, admired their color, took one out of the brine, tasted it and almost spat it out. It tasted sweet and chemically. I thought to myself, “What? Why would a pickle taste this way? All you put in dill pickles is water, salt, vinegar (sometimes), herbs, and spices.”

So I looked at the list of ingredients. But the first thing I noticed when I looked at the label is that each serving of theese pickles has five calories (that’s kcals for my british reader). That shocked me. A serving of pickles usually have less than 1 calorie each. What was going on here?

I continued to read: “ Fresh cucumbers, water, distilled vinegar, salt, contains less than 2 percent high fructose corn syrup, dried garlic, spices, calcium chloride, sodium benzoate, dried red peppers, natural flavors, polysorbate 80.”

Why is there corn syrup in pickles? Disgusting! This is a jar of kosher dills not sweet gerkins. And why the preservatives sodium benzoate and polysorbate 80? By definition, pickles are preserved. Once cucumbers are pickles and and put in a barrel or jar they last for years and years. This makes no sense to me.

Beginning with this post I am going to begin compile a list of good, pure, wholesome, good-tasting foods that are available to SF Bay area residents. The first item on that list is Bubbies Dill Pickles. (I've mentioned them on this blog before). They contain no corn syrup, no polys, no benzoates. They are good pickles that taste the way God intends pickles to taste. The list will be in the right margin of this blog.

My article

My guest editorial was printed on Friday. I'm on Page 23 of the paper version. Here is the link to the online version. It was very difficult getting it down to 600 words from its original 1300 words. Essentially, I left the conclusions in but cut out most of the supporting arguments for those conclusions.

Duh!!!

It has been reported that scientists have discovered the sun singing.

Amazingly, God already revealed this to us.

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. (Psalm 149/148: 3)



This amazing discovery of the scientists reminds me of that guy from USC who thinks people might live to 120 years of age. What is wrong with our society that an educated person can know so little about the Bible? Of course, we can live to 120.

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (Gen. 6:3)



Next thing you know, scietist will discover that there is stuff that exists.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1)

WOW!!!

You know all that stuff I said about TV in my last post? Well, I might have to take it all back. In the world to come I want to be Emmitt Smith. (And check out his shoes!!!)

Watch What Your Servants are Teaching Your Children

Not too long ago I heard a story. An old man said to a young boy, "There are two wolves inside you. One is evil, one is good, and they are fighting for control of you."
The boy asked, "Which one will win?"
The old man answered, "The one you feed."

It reminded me of something I read by St. John Chrysostom. He told parents to make sure that household servants are not a corrupting influence on children. When I read it I felt confirmed in our decision about no television in our house.

But today, I wasn't fast enough in turning off the radio. Anselm heard about what happened at Virginia Tech. I was busy making lunch and didn't even notice that he was sitting at the table with his mouth open, shocked by what he was hearing. He asked me in disbelief, "People kill themselves?" I said, "sometimes".
"What happens to them?"
"I think they go to Hell because they have given up all faith and have turned their backs on life, the greatest good thing God gives people."
I turned off the radio. I wish I hadn't been listening.

Peggy noonan wrote about the media and its influence on children.

Think of it this way. Your child is an intelligent little fish. He swims in deep water. Waves of sound and sight, of thought and fact, come invisibly through that water, like radar; they go through him again and again, from this direction and that. The sound from the television is a wave, and the sound from the radio; the headlines on the newsstand, on the magazines, on the ad on the bus as it whizzes by—all are waves. The fish — your child — is bombarded and barely knows it. But the waves contain words like this, which I’ll limit to only one source, the news:
. . . was found strangled and is believed to have been sexually molested . . . had her breast implants removed . . . took the stand to say the killer was smiling the day the show aired . . . said the procedure is, in fact, legal infanticide . . . is thought to be connected to earlier sexual activity among teens . . . court battle over who owns the frozen sperm . . . contains songs that call for dominating and even imprisoning women . . . died of lethal injection . . . had threatened to kill her children . . . said that he turned and said, “You better put some ice on that” . . . had asked Kevorkian for help in killing himself . . . protested the game, which they said has gone beyond violence to sadism . . . showed no remorse . . . which is about a wager over whether he could sleep with another student . . . which is about her attempts to balance three lovers and a watchful fiance . . .
This is the ocean in which our children swim. This is the sound of our culture. It comes from all parts of our culture and reaches all parts of our culture, and all the people in it, which is everybody. . .

(Read her whole article here.) She was writing in the context of the killings at Columbine. But the excerpt above seems applicable to Virginia Tech, and Abu Ghraib, and even my own life. I know that in my own life 5 - 10 hours of television almost everyday when I was growing up almost ruined me. Pro-wrestling, and Star Trek, and Dirty Harry taught me that violence solves all problems. M*A*S*H, Happy Days, and the Love Boat taught me that women were for my pleasure.

A few days ago when I took the DVD of the movie Happyfeet (its about anthropomorphized penguins on the make) out of the computer and Anselm protested because it was a present from his Granny I felt kind of bad. I felt like every kid in America has seen this movie. My Mom paid good money for it. Was I being too cutious? Until I read Ms. Noonan's words I thought, maybe, I was being too protective. But now, I am convinced, I did the right thing. I was starving the evil wolf.

Kosovo

I admit that I am a little late to the party. I didn't know that my government was even thinking about independence (from Serbia) for Kosovo. But as I was cruising around the State Department's website I came across this. I looks like the war our country waged against Serbia wasn't enough. Now we want to take part of their soverign teritory, but not only that, the heart and cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy and turn it over to Muslims. Hven't the Orthodox in Europe suffered enough?

Pass the Duchy

I never knew what "Pass the duchy on the left hand side" meant. I loved the song as a teenager, 13 or 14, I think. I sang the song enthusiastically while riding around Tampa with my cousin in his 1975 white Lincoln Continental. I loved that song but I had no idea what it meant. I kind of guessed it had something to do with a nostalgia for the British Socialists and a desire to break up the Duchy of Corwall. (I was a bookish kid.) It turns out I was wrong.

Today I was reading a movie review and saw that the correct spelling is dutchie. Well, I thought to myself, "I wonder if there is a Wiki article on this". So I searched, and lo and behold, someone had written an entry on the song. Now I know what the line "pass the dutchie on the left hand side" means. I kind of miss my original idea of a bunch of skinny black leftist boys singing about the destruction of the British aristocracy.

Thou Shalt Not

Of all of the 10 commandments there is only one that strikes agaist God, the state, and the person. The proscription against giving false testimony is that one commandment.

By giving false testimony the liar acts against God, who is Truth.
By giving false testimony the liar undermines the authority of the state, making it an object of scorn among righteous people.
By giving false testimony a liar unleashes the awful and frightening power of the state against the innocent person.

A liar has been found among us. She has given false testimony. She has subverted the state. She has accused people of doing that which they have not done. She has acted against God. Her name is Crystal Gail Magnum.

Sharpton Not Sharp

I do not know anything about Don Imus. I have never heard his radio show. But havin worked in radio, and having known some "on air personalities", I am not surprised that he said what he said. But what galls me is Al Sharpton condemning him. Sharpton said:

'It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves'

I remember Sharpton speaking into a megaphone, threatening race-violence and inciting riot during the Tawana Brawly investigation. I remember him even accusing the district attorney in the case of being a rapist.

I am not a Democrat (neither a Republican) so let me say to any Democrats out there, please, figure out how to make Sharpton go away. Like the smell of dog shit, his words in service of race hatred are offensive to me.

Beslan Martyr?

I remember hearing about a Greek national who was in Beslan when the Muslims attacked and took the students hostage. He was a teacher in the school and was killed while protecting a girl from one of the terrorists. I assume he is Orthodox since more than 90% of Greeks are Orthodox. I've wondered for a while if anyone is going to declare him a martyr and when we will start seeing Icons of him. Does anyone know?