Rest. . .

 

. . . in peace Fred


(from the website of the Westboro Baptist Church)

"Numbers

·         6801 - soldiers that God has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
·         52,335 - pickets conducted by WBC.
·         922 - cities that have been visited by WBC.
·         1186 - weeks that WBC has held daily pickets on the mean streets of doomed america.
·         138 - people whom God has cast into hell since you loaded this page.
·         218,400,000+ - gallons of oil that God poured in the Gulf.
·         $17.52 trillion+ - national debt of doomed america.
·         8 - people that God saved in the flood.
·         16,000,000,000 - people that God killed in the flood.
·         144,000 - Jews that will be saved in these last days.
·         0 - nanoseconds of sleep that WBC members lose over your opinions and feeeeellllliiiiiings."

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)

'2014' available April 8, 2014 at http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak
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So He Says . . .

. . . the cop let his friend off with a warning, after reviewing her license and registration, allowing 'just one swerve' before getting an actual ticket next time.  Shouldn't everyone be allowed 'just one swerve'?


I swerved to miss a turtle
As he watched the traffic hurtle
Past him from the center of the street
I saw him stick his snout out
Pulled off and played the Boy Scout
And snatched him from the jaws of defeat…

It was just a single swerve
And surely didn't deserve
A hundred-dollar fine for Careless Driving
But the Highway Patrol
Said “Think of it as toll --
Now please drive on, sir, I’m advising”

Just one swerve, that's all it took to
Get written up in that little black book
Just one swerve, what can I say?
One small turtle
Made it through another day

If you’re a Hindu or a Buddhist
You know there is a karma list
Good actions always earn you more
God, always thinking green,
Will use your soul again
In some new creature, depends on your score…

Just when you think you're
Doing the right thing
Life is a bumblebee
Administering a sharp sting

So with very little drama
I’m storing up good karma
One hundred-dollar turtle at a time!
But that Patrolman’s karma’s bad
It almost seems a little sad
That he’ll come back as a bug next time…

Just one swerve, that's all it took to
Get written up in that little black book
Just one swerve, what can I say?
One small turtle
Made it through another day


Swerve
(demo recording)
Lyrics by Rod Deacey
Music by Ray Jozwiak




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Words . . .

Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements. Signs are arranged in order to form semantic constructions and express relations. For many philosophers, both ancient and modern, man is regarded as the "representational animal" or homo symbolicum, the creature whose distinct character is the creation and the manipulation of signs – things that "stand for" or "take the place of" something else.

"God” is a human word but does point to something that is real; a presence, something into which we are able to live, not just an idol constructed in our own image. The word “God” points to something that human language can never encompass. We should strive to bear witness to our beliefs by the way we live. Part of loving another person is to give them the freedom to process truth and reality in their own personal way and time. The journey into the mystery of God is a life’s work. The only thing that is ultimately destructive is when we begin to believe that we have arrived and that now we possess the ultimate and final truth.
(thanks to http://johnshelbyspong.com and http://www.wikipedia.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_%28arts%29)

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Fall Like. . .

. . . a house of cards

(thanks to http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/19/20580271-pope-francis-says-church-cannot-focus-only-on-abortion-and-gay-marriage?lite)
I'm no holdout rooting for the preservation of the Catholic Church, but it can only be good news that the organization now has a man in charge who appears to be logical, reasonable and totally human.  His latest comments about the church's preoccupation with abortion, contraception and gay marriage being revisited further drives home this point.

The Pope spoke of finding a 'new balance' adding that "Otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards. . . " He also said, quite eloquently I might add, “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”


TUMBLING DOWN
©1994 Raymond M. Jozwiak





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If I Were. . .

. . . the Pope . . .

Yeah. I said the Pope.  Don't know why, but I dreamed the other night that I was elected Pope (and I don't recall that I was even running).  Well, actually I do know why I dreamed I was elected Pope.
I recently read "In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I" by David Yallop and am in the midst of "Illustrissimi: The Letters of Pope John Paul I" by Albino Luciani.
Not that by any stretch of the imagination do these things qualify me for the office of Pope.  Obviously tuna salad with extra onion and two boiler-makers do indeed qualify me to DREAM that I have attained the office of Pope.

The first action that I took in my new position, if I recall the dream correctly, was RUN.  I'm not sure why I ran nor why I was being chased.  But run I did.  And all the while I was pondering the great changes that I will make as the new Pope.  I almost made sense that I was being chased in light of the radical nature of those changes.  

Not sure if I would have been a good Pope. . . or a BAD one. . .

. . . but then we'll never really know.  Will we?

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Letters . . .

(from Illustrissimi by Albino Luciani [Pope John Paul I])

[from a letter to G. K. Chesterton. . . ]
". . . Progress that involves men who don't recognize a singe Father in God becomes a constant danger: without a parallel moral progress, which is continuous and internal, it develops what is lowest and  cruellest in man, making him a machine possessed by machines, a number manipulated by numbers; he becomes what Papini called 'a raving savage, who, to satisfy his predatory, destructive, and licentious instincts, no longer uses a club, but has the immense forces of nature and mechanical invention to draw upon.'

Yes, I know there are plenty of people who think the opposite of this,  They consider religion a consoling dream, invented by oppressed people who imagine another world, a non-existent  world in which they can later find what is stolen from them today by their oppressors.  These oppressors have arranged the whole thing for their own benefit, to keep the oppressed underfoot and to quieten the instinct towards a class struggle, an instinct that, were it not for religion, would urge them to fight.

It is no good reminding these people that the Christian religion itself favours the revival of proletarian awareness, that is exalts the poor and foresees a just future. . ."

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Bandits. . .

. . . or messiah. . .


(from Zealot;  The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. . . )
". . . It was around this time that a new and far more fearsome group of bandits arose in Galilee, led by a magnetic teacher and revolutionary known as Judas the Galilean.  The traditions say that Judas was the son of the famed bandit chief Hezekiah, the failed messiah whom Herod had captured and beheaded forty years earlier as part of his campaign to clear the countryside of the bandit menace.  After Herod's death, Judas the Galilean joined forces with a mysterious Pharisee named Zaddok to launch a wholly new independence movement that Josephus terms the "Fourth Philosophy," so as to differentiate it from the other three "philosophies": the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.  What set the member of the Fourth Philosophy apart from the rest was their unshakable commitment to freeing Israel from foreign rule and their fervent insistence, even unto death, that they would serve no lord save the One God.  There was a well-defined term for this type of belief, one that all pious Jews, regardless of their political stance, would have recognized and proudly claimed for themselves:  zeal. . . "

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Tribis Hippocriticus. . .

Mother always told us it's not nice to hate
She'd been practicing that golden rule for years
If we'd only treat each other how we want to be ourselves
God will love us
God will love us

When I first met you I was quite impressed
So much more than pretty face among the crowd
And it didn't happen overnight but the curtain slowly fell
And the colors of your rainbow were revealed

You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
We don't like you
Just trying to be honest

From your position of authority
You looked down and not across our great divide
With a smile upon your face and hands placed firm on the controls
You're so artistic
You're so artistic

Expertise portrayed for all appearances
Pure professional facade to face the crowd
But just beneath that thick veneer reside reality
The truth is evident and there for

You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
We don't like you
Just trying to be honest

'Cause that's the way we all should be
We're not islands
We're not stones
And just what will it take
To make you see this truth

Let me make it crystal clear how strongly that I feel
'Bout the way you take advantage for yourself
If you took the power devoted to your cold conniving ways
And you turned it
And you turned it totally around
Direct it to another place
Try to do what you have done unto yourself
Just a little understanding there are others here with you
This revolving's not designed for only you

You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
You are the tribis hippocriticus
We don't like you
Just trying to be honest


Tribis Hippocriticus
©2013 Raymond M. Jozwiak





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