I am making more use of links: music and visual. Click on them and then you might have a second link to search. Some locations, such as YouTube generate revenue for your "free" viewing by running ads, so be patient. On occasion there is a "skip ad" button. Sometimes it will load and start when you go there, sometimes you need to click on the white arrow in the red box.
I closed my Instagram page due to the political climate and to protest their political attacks on conservative voices...that’s about all I can do.
An important note: I work on this blog for one person - ME; I love sharing it with about 60 friends, relatives, and acquaintances in the States and in Europe.
With this in mind, I hope you enjoy the updates to my art and life as presented in this blog. IF you don't like the political stuff and don't want to receive future blogs just say so, no hard feelings. So far, only four have taken me up on the offer. With that in mind, remember:
Below the Fold below is where lies controversial stuff, if you don't want to go there, stay above.
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present:
New Art:
This was an interesting experiment...I blocked in, in oil, the background, the table top, the vase and the flower shapes. Simple, flat. Then I took a picture. Using the photo I pulled up an art app for my iPad and “drew” the colors, black line, shapes, etc. From the photo, I visited a commercial printer and had him print 5 copies on canvas pad surface. I think it worked pretty well, if you want a signed copy, I’ll send you one for $49 including postage. Pinch open and you can see the canvas effect.
I used my down time to pull about 20 old pieces a never really liked or were my early attempts and tweaked them. Several still did not workEd so I will sand them and gesso so I can re-use the canvas. I’ll show you the others in the next blog.
Humor:
Before and After:
Or after and before, you will be able to figure it.
Listening:
I Love this song...sad but a remberence, especially if your father flew in WWII. Warning, bring a tissue
Bang the Drum Slowly
Lisa O'Kane version is also good, little more upbeat.
Watching and Listening:
The Who
Reading:
You can see why Elizabeth Taylor was sInteresting:
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St. Bernadette Subirous once complained that writings about saint’s lives tend to focus on anything but the often long and slow process by which their lives of prayer and of virtue developed day by day, month by month, year by year. Records of virtues already attained do not explain how to foster their growth. Conversions from lives of sin show us how people began to live the life of grace rather than how they moved on to perfection. Such external actions as founding religious orders and missionary work have been performed by great hypocrites as well as great saints. Miraculous phenomena are experienced by only a few of us. And so, inclined as we may be to defend traditional hagiography from modern skepticism, we must recognize with St. Bernadette how works in that genre just provide a spur to spiritual commitment. Models for how to live that commitment out in all its daily details foster more growth in holiness.
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Something to think about from Helen Alvare" at George Mason U:
But Catholic teachings on sex, marriage and parenting (“sexual expression” for brevity) are simply the application of the Good Samaritan principle to our very nearest neighbors: boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, children and extended family. This characterizes their earliest appearance at the origins of Christianity, and is supported by contemporary empirical data that evidences the rather astonishing overlap between Catholic sexual expression norms, and the well-being of individuals and families, especially women, children and the poor.
According to the Old and New Testaments, and Catholic theology from its beginnings to today, Catholic sexual expression norms are a crucial way of coming to understand what God’s love is like, and how we – made in his image — are to love one another. In brief, this love is specified or characterized by features visible in God’s creation, and affirmed and clarified by human experience. It involves differences (represented by two sexes) brought into a unity that not only enriches the other, but also transcends itself with the creation of new life. It links love with new life, and affirms the necessary coexistence of equality alongside diversity (also symbolized by male and female). This love engenders freedom because it is completely faithful and permanent, and demands mutual sacrifice. Then these principles, which characterize but apply beyond romantic love, are indispensable in helping us to understand a triune God (who exemplifies perfectly difference in unity) and the standards for real human love: sacrificial, a fruitful exchange of different gifts, and staying true. This is what the early Christians discerned, even as God’s creative design retained elements of mystery for them and for us. And contemporary empirical data robustly reveals its truth.
Empirical studies from leading secular journals reveal that today’s legal and cultural program of separating sex from “tomorrow” — from marriage, kin, children, and even love — has wreaked havoc in the Unites States. Children and poor women suffer the most because it produces high rates of divorce, nonmarital parenting, cohabitation, abortion and father-absence. We also have better evidence than at any time in history that children flourish best with their married, biological parents. It is a beautiful thing to arrange for alternative care for children when this structure is missing, but it is another thing entirely to promote laws and policies such as same-sex marriage or surrogacy that will separate every child involved from his or her mother or father or both. The unlinking of sex, marriage and parenting is also a huge driver of the gaps between socio-economic groups, because these gaps correspond a great deal to family-structure differences between richer and poorer and between those with more and less education.
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From my friend Jim: As I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around.
We walked side by side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, “this is the receiving section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.”
I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all of the world.
Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.The angel then said to me, “this is the packaging and delivery section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.”
I noticed, again, how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth. Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the front door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing.
“This is the acknowledgment section,” my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed.
“How is it that? There’s no work going on here?” I asked.
“So sad,” the angel sighed. “After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments.”
“How does one acknowledge God’s blessings?” I asked.
“Simple,” the angel answered. “Just say, “Thank you Lord,.”
“What blessings should they acknowledge?” I asked.
“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep…you are richer than 75% of this world”
“If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.”
“And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.”
Going on:“If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.”
“If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation…you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.
“If you attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death…you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.”
“If your parents are still alive and still married….you are very rare.”
“If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you are unique to all those in doubt and despair.”
OK, what now? How can I start?If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.
Below The Fold-------------------------------------Or, as I have learned from your input, Preaching To The Choir vs Unbelievers Enter at your own risk:
Biden/Haris friends, remember:
As the speaker began to discuss corporate income taxes, Ronald Reagan lowered his head into his open hands and said, in a very soft voice, “Don’t they understand? Corporations don’t pay income taxes.” And, of course, he was correct. In order to remain in business, a corporation needs to price its product or service at a value that covers its costs, plus all taxes, plus an amount that allows the firm to have a net profit adequate to replace worn or obsolete equipment, conduct research to improve current products or services and be able to service debt it may have.
As a consequence, the price of a firm’s product or service includes what it must pay in corporate income taxes. To the firm, its income taxes are a cost of doing business. Therefore, the purchaser of a good or service is, in fact, paying the income taxes of all of the firms involved with the creation and delivery of every good or service.
Interestingly, though it appears to be overlooked by many, this logic also applies to the firm’s employees. When an individual is offered a position, the salary for the position plays the same role for the individual as the market price of a good or service does for the firm.
Whereas a firm needs a specific amount of net profit to survive and prosper, an individual needs a specific amount of net income to survive and prosper. So, when an individual is offered a specific salary, the individual must consider his/her cost of living, including the city, state and/or federal income taxes he/she must pay.
As a consequence, to an employee, income taxes are, similar to the firm, a cost of doing business, i.e., having a job. Therefore, when evaluating a salary offered to a prospective employee, he/she considers the ‘take-home’ amount. As a consequence, when the firm pays an employee, part of the salary the firm is paying is eventually going to the city, state and/or federal income taxes of all employees.
Another thought, some of you might receive a letter similar to this one a year or so from now thanks to Biden/Harris choices...
Dear Employees:
As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Joe Biden is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way.
To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.But, since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off sixty of our employees instead.
This has really been bothering me since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.
So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lots and found sixty 'Biden Harris' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more, fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change.....I gave it to them.
I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.
Remember That there are many more blogs in the archives section.
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