CHRISTMAS QUIPS

Christmas quips are merely Tweets, some standalone and some attached to other posts.  A few years ago I might have made a little book of them and called them "micro-novels."  This year I just gathered them off my Twitter account.

I blog. 

None of my relatives will read it. 

They say they don't have time. 

They say it is "such an ugly word." 

It is published. 

More people read it than copies of my book has had printed. 

I make no money from writing. 

I love it. 

It makes my day. 

It makes my life.

I'm post-Christian. I have an MA and MDiv from the University of Chicago and am a terrible snob about it. I was a minister for a decade in the UUA context.  I am VERY proud of the Christian Century. They've got guts.

In regard to Matt Shea's desire to "kill all males who don't agree" with him, my tomcats are in favor. I notice that the treatment of noncompliant or over-needy boys comes close to killing all of them in our society right now.

When I came to this rez to teach in '61, 

my students had grandmothers 

who had escaped the Baker Massacre. 

Now those same students are great-grandparents. 

Those early students' children 

were the first Headstart generation. 

Now they are PhD's.

Umair convincingly redefines fascism as the automatic default when human government breaks down. I think he's right. And I think it is because it is the default organization of mammals without empathy.  (They all "attach".)  Chicken yards, zebra herds, sea lions -- all attach without empathy  Reptiles don't. We call attachment "love" if it includes empathy. Elephants can love. Reptiles cannot.

Plants changed the atmosphere to high oxygen, 

which made land creatures possible, 

but it kept the planet on the edge of bursting into flames, esp. Australia. 

The people holding cups of water 

while koalas drink 

are doing their best 

to compensate with compassion.

I'm post-Christian. I have an MA and MDiv from the University of Chicago and am a terrible snob about it. I was a minister for a decade in the UUA context.  I am VERY proud of the Christian Century. They've got guts.

"THE TWO POPES" The gorgeous film, refulgent with Italian sunlight, presents two unique people with crushing responsibility but human understanding of what is called "God." It's long and sophisticated but vital.

People who talk about there being no "liberal media" are not recognizing that the People's Media is email, not on anyone's owned platform, unmeasurable, and not captured by Trump. Deadly -- if warily -- critical.

Even as we tweet in this moment, the solstice is tipping the planet towards Spring. The days are soon getting longer. Get ready for the Groundhog. Howl for it!

Between one demographic based on race and another is no thin line. Always it is a No Man's Land (or woman either) that may include more people in the middle than on either side. They're the ones who get hurt, but they mix anyway.

A lot is happening.  We just have a really hard time believing it.

A major consequence of our social media -- an extension of advertizing -- that we live in a Performance Society. Not just the politicians, but everyday. At the PO I just smiled and held the door for someone I don't know. It was a performance.

Half a moon, half a moon,

Half a moon only.

What have you lost

To become so lonely?

People have the most intractable and unreasonable ideas. They look for magic, some marker for success, when it's always unique and sometimes unexpected. But always socioeconomic.

When a president is impeached and ordered to leave office, he doesn't really leave office.  His office leaves him.  There is nothing he can do about it.  His physical self is irrelevant.

Institutions are political. The media does a bad job of describing the same generational gaps and education gaps inside denominations and "Religions." Prob'ly time to end religious privileging that was invented in medieval times.'

For a long time I saved a Russian news item about a drunk who crawled into a bear den and slept with the bear until he sobered up and left.  Carefully.

So if I'm understanding experts, Putin has realized that the days of oil are limited and will drain away Russian wealth, but that long cold winters are excellent for keyboard hacking and energy grid capture all around the planet. Trump doesn't even "get" cell phones.

Rez dogs respond to the larger culture. Used to be a lot of pit bull in them.  Now it's Australian blue heeler.which is a good thing.

This is all about the paraphernalia of institutionalized religion -- meaning through the lens of culture -- and has nothing to do with the sense of the sacred or even with the holy itself, whatever that is.

The ragged old blanket over the sky has a florescent shock-pink satin binding.

Montana had only ONE Medicare choice last year, Humana. Neverthless, I was buried in mailings and phone calls. They have nothing to do but invent variations and requirements and there are many of them. I'm just one old lady.

Suddenly a woman nearly seven feet tall burst through the cafe door and with a revolver of some kind and with incredible accuracy, she shot the complaining dude's ears off. One ear ended up in my soup. "Well," she said, "He's the one who taught me how to shoot."

Culture IS access to resources and vice versa. But as DRK used to quote, "the reason poor people are different is because they don't have the money they need."

Trump's decline is so obvious that it's not just a character defect anymore, but it's like people are terrified to say anything about it, as though they might be accused of making fun of someone, like a reporter with cerebral palsy.

Didn't get the name of this artist, but they are wonderful.

When a caterpillar converts to being a butterfly, it does not simply swap one part for another, but reduces as a whole to molecular soup. Then those molecules reconfigure in a whole new architecture so they have wings and can fly.  We are now socially in the molecular soup.  What is the new architecture?