Suffer The Little Chidren

Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me

I had determined that I wasn’t going to write about the terrible tragedy that took place last Friday in Newtown Connecticut. It was just too terrible to come to grips with. The image of the little children’s lives being snuffed out was like a hot knife cutting through my heart. I wanted to put a blanket of protection over the souls of their parents and loved ones against the terrible pain of loss. Their grief must be unimaginable.

But in the cold light of day I decided that I must come forward with things that are evident, but not being said. These are only my observations, but it’s time we held a mirror up to humanity to see how it really is, and what we see is that we is really a collection of murderers. And that goes right from the heads of state to the homeless person on the street.

We all have the capacity to choose to do murder. Ask any combat soldier. He’ll tell you. Of course we also have the capacity to choose not to do murder. It is a choice we make. But why in God’s name do we still do it? The people we butcher no longer care. They are in a better place. The only thing this sort of butchery accomplishes is a trail of pain and sorrow for the loved ones of the victims, and a feeling of shame and disgust for the perpetrators.

It is not enough to hug our children and tell them that we love them. That’s nothing but a feel good exercise. What we have to do it to teach them about love and respect. That’s where we are falling down. Parents, grand parents, community elders and leaders, none of us are doing our jobs. The teachers on the other hand did more than just step up to the plate. They stood fearlessly between the killer and the children that were their charges without a moment’s hesitation. And they paid the price.

 Yet, people like the parents of the perpetrator produced and raised such a killer. What does that tell you? It tells me someone was not doing his or her job. But you can’t entirely put the blame on the parents either. You have to look at the whole American structure. Ever since the second amendment to the American constitution, the United States has become a war-like nation. But the right to bear arms was intended to defend itself against its enemies, not to destroy itself, especially its children. But the arms manufacturers and the National Rifle Association who represent roughly a five billion dollar industry annually have strong lobby tentacles into Washington. They seem to be a strangely powerful group who dictate to their terms to the government. By what means I don’t know but I suspect it has something to with a lot of money. And the government by its inaction on the gun problem is directly implicit in the murders.

If you called the president a cold-blooded killer in the murder of these twenty children and six of their teachers, everyone would look at you in disbelief. How could you possibly say such a thing? He was genuinely heart-broken over the incident and would have done anything to prevent it. Oh, really? I listened to him speaking about it on the news this afternoon, and it was all fine until one reporter posed the question about the expiry of restrictions on assault firearms and munitions that had expired a couple of years ago. If he was so concerned, where had he been on this issue for the past couple of years? 

He had the most interesting answer. What he said was that when he took office he was faced with firstly, the greatest recession since the nineteen thirties, two wars, the BP oil spill, Hurricane Katrina, so his agenda was quite busy. True enough, but the mention of two wars (presumably to keep the U.S. safe) was a bit of an anomaly. In the two wars he mentions, how many women and children hasn’t he as Commander-in-chief pulled the trigger on? It’s not him, but his office. Before that it was Vietnam. Remember little nine-year-old Kim Fuk running down the street with her hair and her clothes on fire? How many people didn’t she leave behind in that terrible Napalm bombing at the hands of the Americans? That’s what Americans do – they go to other countries and they hurt people. Yet they consider themselves as free, democratic, peace-loving people, but in reality they are no different than the Syrians, for example.

And at home, there is no time for such things as keeping our children safe. One must address the “Fiscal Cliff” or go overseas to murder innocent children and their mothers. American children and their teachers will have to wait. That’s sort of like the shoemaker whose children run around barefoot in the snow except that this is a little more serious!

Well, he says he wants something on his desk by January. That might happen, and it might not. I for one would not bet on it, and even if it does, what will he do about it?

It seems to me that the administration should have a good look at itself in the mirror to see who they have become. I know I’m picking on the Americans. I should also include Canadians and all other countries because this is not an exclusively American problem, but if that country wants to lead the world, it had better take care of business at home before venturing elsewhere. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.

God and the Devil

God and the Devil

I never in my life thought I’d live to see the day that I’d witness an actual battle between God and Satan. But by gum, I’m watching it right now! The only thing I’m confused about is who is God and who is Satan. Well, it’s no wonder. God and Satan are having trouble identifying themselves. That in fact, is probably what the fight is all about in the first place.

Now you are confused too of course. Let me clear it up. The God and Satan I’m talking about are Gary Bettman and Don Fehr, fighting over the world of NHL Hockey. The absolute rage Bettman displays at Fehr and his satanic henchmen leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that he, Gary Bettman IS God, and you’d better watch out because he is liable to flood every ice rink right up to the top of the boards if Fehr and his gang don’t toe the line.

Don Fehr of course, comes off as the voice of reason, negotiating in good faith on behalf of his impoverished players, a truly Godly gesture. He is totally befuddled and saddened by this satanic windstorm called Bettman. Oh, like he never saw it coming!

And it’s all over money and the NHL (National Hockey League) and how to divide up the profits garnered from fans and advertisers. What do they think – that hockey is an essential service?

Yeah I’m sure that’s what they think all right. About the only people who consider it an essential service are the thousands that are losing their jobs because they thought it was a reliable resource. Ha! They’re about as reliable as a bald set of tires on the Zamboni. These guys have been playing really bad hockey for at least fifty years, they’ve ramped up the violence and thrown the entertainment value under the bus. Yet they’re braying away like so many jackasses that you’d think the noise is directly proportionate to their own importance.

Well I got a news flash for God and Satan (whichever is which). Your performances, whenever they air on television are even worse than the sub-standard hockey you produce. Every time we see you wagging your ‘good’ or ‘evil’ fingers we get a  little more disgusted and a little more anti-NHL. Quite frankly, we’d rather buy jerseys that say “Mighty Mouse Midgets” than those of the mythical billion-dollar Toronto Maple Leafs. And in fact, we’d rather watch them play too. It turns out to be more exciting entertainment anyway.

So we don’t care who is God and who is Satan. We don’t care who is right or wrong. We don’t even care if there is no NHL season. And get this: We don’t even care if there’s an NHL. As far as I’m concerned, you can take the whole business and stick it where the sun don’t shine and follow behind it yourselves. Gone is gone, and good riddance to bad rubbish! At least that’s the way it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.

Family Glue

Family Glue

‘- - - - - - and to my faithful servant Sarah who faithfully looked after the house and my wife and me, I bequeath the house. And to my butler I bequeath the Rolls Royce. Out of the cash in my estate, each shall have a million dollars to continue their lives in comfort. The rest of my estate shall be given to the charity selected by my solicitor. And finally, to my loser son who always bad-mouthed me and said I never gave him the time of day – It’s two o’clock.’

“And that concludes the reading of the will. Thank you all for coming. There are a few documents to sign and the estate will be distributed accordingly.”

Well, families. To tell the truth I never gave the subject a passing thought until this morning when I read a piece about families on facebook. And the subject kept growing so I started to think about it. The more I thought, the darker the cloud in my mind grew. So instead of thinking about things that could get personal, I decided to draw an analogy of the situation.

It’s a little bit like walking down the path of life’s journey and stepping on a piece of chewing gum. Even stopping to take off your shoe and scraping the gum off it doesn’t entirely do the job. There’s always that bit of residue there to stick to the pavement. It can ruin the whole trip if you let it. There’s all sorts of annoying little pebbles it picks up along the way. After a while it can get downright uncomfortable if you let it.

As usual, there’s a couple of choices you have in dealing with the problem. You can either just keep walking, slowly getting used to the lump under your foot until there’s no more room for additional pebbles, or you can keep stopping to scrape them off. Well, it’s not much of a choice when you figure that every time you clean your shoes you make room for more of these useless pebbles.

Keeping in mind what the real subject matter of this analogy is, there’s a certain satisfaction in thinking about continually stepping on these hangers-on and crushing them under the weight of your foot every time you take a step. Besides, after a while there’s no room left for additional pebbles. That’s got to be comforting.

Well let’s face it. There’s always bound to be some discomfort on the journey through life. Otherwise it would be a pretty dull adventure. And when the journey’s over, you don’t need your shoes anymore anyway so they just get tossed (along with whatever is stuck to them).

When I think about it, the journey of my life is far too important to me, with all its hopes and dreams, to worry about the odd pebble that sticks to the bottom of my shoe. As long as I keep this thought as I travel along, my mind will be on the goal (and I’ll have a little amusement along the way). At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.  

Harvey and Ethyl

This is a bit of a departure from the usual observations, but it turned out to be such a good story I thought I would share it. I hope you enjoy.

Harvey and Ethyl

 

“Harvey?”

“What, Ethyl?”

“It stinks in here.”

“It’s not bad. Just a little exhaust fumes, that’s all. Nothin you won’t get used to.”

“How long you think we’re goin’ to have to stay in here?”

“I dunno. I suppose until somebody gets up enough gumption to deal with us.”

“Well this is just ridiculous – just absolutely intolerable. I never, not in my whole life did I ever imagine we’d ever end up like this. I’m heartbroken, Harvey.”

“Good God woman! What are you bitchin’ about? You just got here last week. I’ve been sittin here for pretty near five years already. The only thing that kept me goin’ was the idea that you’d join me sooner or later, and I’d at least have some company. This business of bein’ cremated and havin’ your ashes stuck in a stupid urn sure ain’t what I figured it to be. Once they put the lid on and sealed it, I was stuck.”

“I suppose that’s partly my fault Harvey, but I’m really not sorry. I just wanted you to wait for me, so I stuck you in the garage for the time being. I didn’t think I’d last another five years and I didn’t want you Tom-cattin’ around on me in the mean time.”

“Aw Ethyl, you know I wouldn’t do that! You’re still my beautiful girl.”

“I am not! I’m a pile of bloody ashes in a cheap plastic bag inside this fancy urn. And that’s just what I feel like. You’re goin’ to get me all upset Harvey!”

“Now Ethyl, calm yourself. Get a grip. It ain’t the end of the world you know. At least you’re not jammed up against a rotten old battery like I am.”

“Haha, I got news for you Harvey. It is the end of the world – at least for us. We’re dead; remember? And they went and stuck a gerry can of gas next to me. At least that’s what it smells like.”

“Don’t remind me. I just gotta figure a way to get our spirits outa here. Just think. If our dutiful daughter and her screwball husband had done what it said in the will, our ashes would be scattered all over the rose garden by now and we could be doin’ what we used to do out there. I’m getting all horny just thinkin’ about it.”

“Aw jeez, do dead people still think about such things?”

“Apparently. What else is there to think about while we’re trying to get the hell outa here? Too bad we couldn’ta been put in the same urn. We’d blow the lid right off the thing.”

“Oh stop it Harve. You’ll get me all excited.” Ethyl gave a little laugh. “Hey, I wonder-” She trailed off.

“What? What woman? If you got any ideas, spout them out, for God’s sakes!”

“Well,” she mused, “suppose the next time they come into the garage, we yell our fool heads off. Do you think they might hear us?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. I swear at them every time they show up, and call them every name under the sun. Doesn’t help a bit except for my ego.”

“I feel terribly tired all of a sudden. I didn’t think you could get tired when you’re dead.”

“It’s these damned fool ashes,” said Harvey. “They just drag a person down. “Why don’t you just rest a bit and I’ll pretend to cuddle you – just like the old days.”

“Okay, that sounds comforting. Hey, get your hand outa there.”

“Haha. That’s not my hand.”

“Well, you old bugger!”

“Shhh. Someone’s coming.”

It was Ben Hobman, their next-door neighbor, was coming for the gerry can of special gas for the roto-tiller. As he grabbed it down, he noticed it was right next to the two urns of his late neighbors. He instinctively swept his straw hat off his head, held it to his chest and said, “Howdy neighbors.”

To their daughter Nancy who had accompanied him he said, “What in thunder are these urns doing here in the garage? Did you already scatter their ashes in the rose garden like they said in their will?”

Nancy started to cry. “No, we couldn’t,” she sobbed. “We just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. And Stan didn’t want the urns in the house.”

“Well Judas H. Priest!” Boomed Ben. “So ya stuck ‘em out here in the garage between a dead battery and a gas can! What kinda respect is that?”

“Well, I didn’t know where else to out them,” Nancy whimpered.

“So ya cleaned out the house and moved right in lickety split and stuck the old folks out in the garage like they was nobody and life goes on? Is that it?”

No, no!” wailed Nancy. “You don’t understand!”

“Oh I understand alright. I understand you got no brains in your heads at all. You’re so busy thinkin’ about yourselves and your own comfort, you forget about your own parents. You can’t just leave them in limbo like that! You’re interferin’ with the completion of the circle of life. You know – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’.  Yet you’ve got their spirits sealed up in a tin can out in the garage like so much junk. They’re locked in there and can’t get out.”

“Oh God,” blubbered Nancy.

“Listen,” said Ben, “I’ve known your parents longer than you have. We been neighbors for more than forty years so I probably know them better than you do. So if you can’t bring yourself to do it, I’ll do it for you. Actually, I’ll do it for them. It’s time that rose garden got a little attention anyways.”

He picked up the two urns and set them in the wheel barrow standing in the corner, wheeling it out toward a tattered rose garden at the end of the property.

“What’s happening?” asked Ethyl, a little shaken up.

“I don’t really know,” replied Harvey. “That sounded like Ben. I think he’s taking us somewhere.”

There was quiet for some time then a tapping on the lid of the urns. Holy crap, that was noisy! The sharp taps gave way to a prying sound and suddenly there was air. Oh my God, nice clean fresh air. Ben had already hoed the flowerbeds into pretty good shape. Now he gently dumped the ashes out into the wheelbarrow. Gingerly, as if he were dealing with living remains of his friends, he mixed the ashes of both together and spread them evenly around the bushes. They seemed to take on a sparkle as he worked. Ben felt extremely satisfied having completed the job. Looking back from the garage where he deposited the wheelbarrow, he felt a satisfaction of having helped his neighbors complete the circle of life.

“This is cozy,” said Harvey.

“Get off me you big galoot.” She was giggling gleefully.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

War Games

War Games

The kissing cousins are at it again – the Israelites and the Philistines I mean. Only the rocks they’re throwin’ at each other these days got warheads on ‘em. Well, they gotta keep up with the times I suppose. Must be the time again to collect American, European and Arab aid money again – keep the cash flow goin’.

Well you know, pretty well everybody in the Middle East except the Israelites wants to annihilate the Israelites. They’re pretty well agreed on that. I mean them Israelites have been a pain in the ass in the region since 1947 and they ain’t getting’ any more likeable with time. They just ain’t neighborly. Somebody lobs a couple of rocks at them and they get all surly for God’s sakes.

And then them Europeans who were responsible for re-drawin’ the boundaries in the first place get all upset about the turmoil. What did they expect, peace in Coocooland? And now Egypt is getting’ in the thick of things. Holy crap! There goes the Suez Canal! Well that’s just a big expensive drainage ditch anyways – used to drain the oil from the area. They might just as well fill it in. The world now has the Northwest Passage, provided global warming keeps up. And there appears to be enough oil in Canada and the U.S. it seems, to run over to China and Russia and probably Europe in the next little while.

So who really needs these crazy Arabs anyway? The way they’re goin’ at each other, maybe we just wanna pull back a bit. Look at Syria, for example. They’re makin’ great strides in thinin’ out their population. By the look of things it won’t be long before there’s only the army and the government left. So you know who’s next don’t you. The army don’t need all them palaces anyway.

Of course Iran has their noses in the business too, stirrin’ up trouble to take the heat off of their bomb making enterprise. They keep feeding rockets to the Philistines and guns to the Syrians a mile a minute. That little pip-squeak prime minister o’ theirs has got his nose in everybody’s business so far, nobody can shake him off. He’s even got Russia and China bamboozled. But he’d better watch them Israelites though. They know where he’s enriching his uranium, getting ready to make a big nuclear bomb. The only thing he’s not countin’ on it seems is that the Israelites got nuclear power too. Hell, they invented it.

So now with all the “He started it” yellin’ goin’ on, somebody’s liable to get pissed off and throw a nuke right in the middle of Iran to cause a double explosion. And that’ll be that for the Middle East. All that’ll be left will be a great big open pit oil lake where the Suez Canal used to be. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.

Motor Mouths

Motor Mouths

 

My first response any time someone under forty talks to me is – ‘Huh?’ Holy Hannah, I never figured anybody could talk that fast so consistently. They got machine gun mouths on ‘em. What? They got computer chips in their faces or what?

“Rat-tat-tat-tat.”

“Huh?”

“Oh – good morning Mr. Epp.” (translation)

“What’s your special today?”

“Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.”

“Huh? Just let me see a menu.”

Turns out the special is strawberry pancakes, brown toast and a poached egg. I figure they’re short a ‘tat’ or two. I point my finger to it and say “I’llhavethat” as fast as I can.

The waitress says “Huh?”

Ha! I got her back. Let’s see how she likes being talked to like that. I smile sweetly. She figures it out.

I don’t know how they manage to understand a word they themselves say, talking that fast, never mind anybody else. It must be an evolutionary thing that’s happening before our very eyes. Well look at the written word for example. We used to complain about spelling mistakes, but they’re not mistakes at all. People intentionally spell that way. I don’t know how that will bode for dictionaries in the future. But the screwed up written word seems to have migrated to the spoken word.

I know I’m not a fast talker, never was, but trying to keep up with these youngsters is really tough. Last week I took some of my recordings and kept cranking up the speed until it was equal to that of these young speakers. What a riot that turned out to be. It sounded just plain silly – a little like Chip and Dale, the chipmunks.

Well I don’t know where this is all going to go, but it seems like a collision course with disaster. It certainly throws a monkey wrench into my storytelling, that’s for sure. My fastest little bedtime story that I used to tell the kids for a joke suddenly becomes relevant. It’s a little like reading the title of Leo Tolstoi’s “War and Peace” and saying you’ve read the whole book.

Apparently it’s all about multi-tasking. They got no time for anything – not even talking, for heaven’s sake. They’re too busy multi-tasking. The problem is they can’t even do that successfully. There was a documentary on TV last night where one of them fast talking young people was pitted against a middle aged old klutz in a multi-tasking exercise of focusing on a particular task at hand. Turns out the old geyser had a much better handle on focusing than the young whipper-snapper.

So what does that tell us? It tells me we’re losing again. Not only do they not have time to talk properly, they can’t focus either. No wonder the world is going to hell in a hand basket. It wasn’t all that long ago that we had the ability to remember a story word for word without any written notes, and had the focus sufficient to listen to the whole thing.  Now suddenly we babble away at lightning speed, unable to understand the content of what is said, and without the ability to focus long enough to figure it out.

 To me that’s a net loss to humanity- what they used to call backsliding. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.

Achtung! The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Achtung! The Rise and Fall of the American Empire.

 

Did you ever watch a scene unfold and think ‘I’ve seen this exact same thing play out before’? I’m talking about the American race for power. Yeah I know, it’s politics again, but wait ‘til you hear what I’ve got to say. It wasn’t until after the results came in and somebody was doing a post mortem on the election that the difference between democrats and republicans really struck me. It reflects not only the position of the two parties but also the population as a whole.

The way the voting translated was this; the republicans took sixty percent of the white vote – the highest percentage ever in U.S. history. However, the minorities gave an overwhelming majority to the democrats. What does that tell you in no uncertain terms? It tells me that republicans think that the U.S. is a white man’s country that no one else has any right to. It’s sort of like post WWI Germany where Hitler figured that the Aryan people were far superior to anyone else. Well it took a bit of doing but he finally came to power and began systematically removing the inferior nations from his sight. In fact, he had plans to do this around the world and he would have, had not the ‘inferior nations’ kicked his sorry ass and larn’t him a severe lesson. He should have got an inkling about his wrong thinking when Jessie Owens smoked the competition in the 1936 Olympics right under his nose. But the lesson was ignored and well, you know what happened to Hitler and his gang. But who knows? They’re a ‘stiff necked’ bunch who don’t give up easily and some are still hiding in South America, even in Europe and they’re still plotting an overthrow. Perhaps some of them are even hiding in the American Republican Party. Wouldn’t surprise me any, given the similarities.

The Democrats on the other hand reached out to all the minorities, and were rewarded accordingly. In his thank-you speech, Obama acknowledged and thanked each group, mentioning (probably for the first time ever) Native Americans in the group, incidentally on the same day that a friend of mine was verbally attacked for being Indian. In a masterful piece of oratory he embraced all these factions and charged them with the responsibility to come together and energize the nation and bring it toward what it should become. He seemed to be speaking from the heart.

The Republicans in the meantime don’t seem to realize that they’re surrounded, with only two options: either embrace bi-partisanship and survive, or fall on their own sword and disappear. I guess they’ve chosen the latter because the Congressional speaker already announced that tomorrow it would be business as usual. That doesn’t seem to worry a wily old fox like Obama. He’ll just let them outsmart themselves. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

 

Just sayin’.