Category: Uncategorized Page 36 of 71
David McCullough writes about President Harry Truman with an obvious affection for the man, just as he did with John Adams. It is clear that what impresses McCullough is character, and he rarely misses an opportunity to point out in both men incidents which display admirable character.
The secret service agent attached to him in Germany during the Potsdam Conference recounts an incident in which an Army public relations officer who had his hand in the Berlin black market approached Truman and told him that he could get him anything he wanted. He only had to say the word. “Anything, you know, like women.”
“Listen, son, I married my sweetheart, ” Truman said. “She doesn’t run around on me, and I don’t run around on her. I want that understood. Don’t ever mention that kind of stuff to me again.” (page 435)
Sadly such evidence of faithfulness seems surprising to our jaded ears.
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By the way, I’m on page 467. 425 more to go. I’m halfway home.
When we want to know something, we ask an expert.
It is useful to be reminded that experts are sometimes wrong.
Leo Szilard was the University of Chicago physicist who had helped persuade FDR to initiate the efforts which would lead to the development of the first atomic bomb. He later came to question the wisdom of using the weapon whose development he had initiated.
In his efforts to prevent the use of the bomb, he spoke with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man directing the work on the project at Los Alamos, NM. We would consider at this point Oppenheimer to be an expert, not on the morality of the bomb’s use, but on its viability and capacities.
Szilard quotes Oppenheimer as saying at this time, two months before the weapon was actually used with devastating effect, “The atomic bomb is s***…a weapon which has no military significance. It will make a big bang—a very big bang—but it is not a weapon that is useful in war.”
Experts are, as I said, sometimes very wrong.
How NOT to watch a Super Bowl:
1. Watch three quarters cheering for Arizona.
2. Decide at beginning of fourth quarter with the score 20 – 7 that AZ has no chance, turn off TV and read a book.
3. Turn TV back on after a while to see what the score is. Discover that AZ is now UP by 3, and you missed ten remarkable minutes of football, just in time to see Pittsburgh begin a drive resulting in an eventual game winning touchdown.
That is how NOT to watch a Super Bowl.
It IS how I watched it, I fear.
For a completely different angle on watching a televised football game, read this. Fascinating. (Written, by the way, by the author of Blackhawk Down, a man with obviously diverse interests.)
I take myself too seriously sometimes. So, God has gifted me with an eight year old who, after finishing our reading of one Freddy the pig book (Freddy and the Bean Home News) did not want to pursue other reading adventures, but wanted to plunge right into Freddy and the Men from Mars. To read about a pig who can walk upright, talk, write poetry, solve mysteries, and fool people with a variety of disguises, well, that lightens me up measurably.
In this latest book, the habit of a character named Mrs. Peppercorn of turning ordinary sentences into ‘poetry’, leads the other characters to do the same. At one point Freddy and Jinx the cat were on an errand which led them across a stream crossable only by stepping on a series of rocks.
Jinx dashed across; then he turned and looked back. “Look out for that second stone, Freddy,” he said. “It’s prob’ly wobbly.”
“Prob’ly wobbly, hey?” said Freddy. “That’s a good one. Well, I’ll be careful. I bet that water’s rilly chilly.”
“Swallow a lot of it and it’ll cause ya nausea.” Jinx replied, and then laughed so hard at his own joke that he slipped off the bank into the edge of the stream.
Later, Mrs. Peppercorn is explaining to some ‘Martians’ her theory that in poetry, poets should try for new rhymes that have not been tried before. To illustrate, she ‘improves’ the poem ‘The Night before Christmas’:
All through the house ’twas the night before Christmas.
Not a creature
Would meet yer
Neither Mr. nor Miss Mouse.“Now what have you got?” Mrs. Peppercorn said. “Instead of one ordinary rhyme: ‘house’ and ‘mouse,’ you’ve got two brand new ones: ‘creature’ and ‘meet yer,’ and ‘Christmas’ and ‘Miss Mouse.'”
The eight year old beside me and my inner eight year old find that hysterical.
Find yourself an eight year old, real or imagined, or someone who is not too proper to act like an eight year old and can play the part, and read Freddy. We are not talking Newberry sophistication. We are talking lighthearted silliness.
I need that every so often.
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A PS for the serious minded. In 1994 the NY Times published a positive assessment of Freddy and his pals.
The first two thirds of this video is brilliant. He describes ideas as ‘brain crack’, ideas, that is, which we keep stored away and never really get to implementing. It’s worth watching as a stimulus to actually realize that not every idea is a good idea, and that ideas are meant to be implemented. It encourages us to pursue those ideas and dreams that we harbor, but fear trying. To realize that most ideas really aren’t good ones is a good and healthy realization.
However…
Only the first 2/3 of this (just a couple of minutes) is worthy watching. The last third is a song which is NOT worth listening to, especially if any use of the ‘f’ word is offensive. When he starts singing, turn it off. I’ve warned you…
My youngest daughter is “just 17, if you know what I mean, and the way she looks, is way beyond compare….”
Sorry. Got carried away.
All true, by the way, but not relevant.
What is relevant is her name – Jerusha. I could gush for some time about the meaning of that name, but that is not what is key here.
What is key here is a passage from a book that my son and I were reading, Freddy and the Bean Home News, a book originally published in 1943. In this book we were introduced to an expression that we had never before encountered.
Freddy the pig and his friends, the animals from the Bean farm, had been banished from public appearances by the devious Mr. Garble. You don’t have to know the story to know that when Freddy ran from the cover of some bushes into Mr. Garble’s presence, Mr. Garble was greatly surprised.
“Great Jumping Jerusha!” shouted Mr. Garble.
You can see why that passage interested me.
Caught your attention, didn’t I?
(You can relax, Barb.)
When I preach, I can look out upon a congregation and have a basic idea of, if not to whom I am preaching, at least how many.
Not so when blogging.
So, I subscribe to a couple of services which give a rough estimate of how many people on any given day or week or month stop by the blog. I can’t tell exactly who visits, but I can tell a lot about them. I know what country they are from, what operating system their computer is using, what browser they use, and, interestingly, what led them to the blog and what they looked at while there.
Yes, when you walk on the web, you leave LOTS of footprints (or ‘pootfrints’ as my son used to say).
Here is the interesting thing: the most frequently viewed page of all the posts I have written is one entitled The Emerging Blogger. This post was not particularly interesting or relevant or provocative. All I say in it is that I was resuming blogging after a lengthy hiatus. Hence the title.
But in our current ecclesiastical climate, ’emerging’ is a hip word attached to a movement in the church which has stirred up quite a bit of interest. My guess is that people looking into the subject search the web for those blogging from within the emerging movement. As they search, they end up at my site, on the basis of the title alone.
I’m sure they are then greatly disappointed, as will be any who came to this post interested in who knows what. I’m just curious if THIS title rises up to challenge ’emerging’.
Bill does not post often, by I appreciate his heart when he does.
In case we forget to pray for any president, but especially for our new one, here is an insightful anecdote from the life of Harry Truman.
On April 12, 1945, Truman had been Vice President for only 82 days when he was urgently summoned from the Capitol to the White House. He was ushered into a room occupied by a few of FDR’s family and close associates.
Mrs. Roosevelt stepped forward and gently put her arm on Truman’s shoulder.
“Harry, the president is dead.”
Truman was unable to speak.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he said at last.
“Is there anything we can do for you,” she said. “For you are the one in trouble now.”
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Quoted from David McCullough’s biography of Truman. I am, by the way, on page 354. Only 638 to go.