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| Kissing the Face of God, Morgan Weistling Prints available here Inspired by a verse of "Mary, Did You Know?" |
Quote of the Day
Listen to the passion of your soul,
set the wings of your spirit free;
and let not a single song go unsung.
Sylvana Rossetti
A Mini Rant
I wrote an earlier rant on Christmas with an ironic title. I was glancing through Google Images for more religious paintings but I ran into hundreds of images of winter themes, Santa Claus, family get-togethers, etc. I hardly encountered so much as a single Nativity scene along the way. Granted. it may have been an artifact of my search. I don't mind secular hits like "Sleigh Ride" and "White Christmas"; I just don't think finding a religious image for Christmas should be like panning for gold. My favorite card I purchased? I found a take on Michelangelos' The Creation of Adam with a mother's finger touching her baby's hand.
British Kids' Christmas Lists
#1. a new baby brother or sister
#10. Dad
#23. Mum
I hope their wishes come true.
The fact the Government Screws Up Emergencies
For real life-headlines worthy of The Onion, one needs look no further than the doings of the U.S. government and its agencies. One week after Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York area, with a new storm on the way and almost 10,000 Staten Islanders still without power and scavenging for food, “FEMA Center Closed Due to Bad Weather” hung on the door of a newly-opened Staten Island FEMA office. Ten FEMA offices in the disaster-stricken area actually closed as the second storm hit.What's that, you say? While the mainstream media was gushing over Barack "I've Got Other People's Money" Obama, posing days before the election for every photo opp he could find, including a faux "bipartisan" spot with Chris Christie, you didn't see a photo opp with Obama meeting and greeting FEMA employees in the empty Staten Island office? You would expect "fair and balanced" news coverage to at least cover government failure? Keep in mind this wasn't an unexpected earthquake or tornado: the Northeast knew for days they were going to get hit. And not to mention in the aftermath of Katrina, a monumental failure of city and state government (failing to evacuate citizens at risk), where suppliers trying to get into New Orleans were hobbled by law enforcement.
The idea that some central planners in Washington and impersonal, overpaid, tenured bureaucrats can improve over a community vested in its own recovery and not tied to a slerotic bureaucracy is hubris. Just like senior citizens managed to live and get medical care before the government established and failed to fund unsustainable entitlements, earlier local disasters were handled without federal meddlers, without Brownie doing a heck of a good job. Earle in the above link runs the gamut of key pre-FEMA American disasters, when local and state governments weren't trying to socialize losses through Uncle Sam.
Great Moments in Public Planning
In the past I've cited one of my favorite papal anecdotes:
Pope John XXIII had a warm, down-to-earth sense of humour. One time a new building had to be constructed on Vatican grounds. The architect submitted the plans to His Holiness, who shortly afterward returned them with these Latin three Latin words written in the margin: "Non sumus angeli", that is to say "We are not angels." The architect and his staff were non-plussed as to what the Pope meant, until finally someone noticed the plans did not include bathrooms.One of the problems of the DC Metro system is no public restrooms. I remember I went to see a niece in a college concert at night and almost everything was closed near the exit. I also am familiar with the BART system in the Bay Area. Oracle had leased some corporate apartments in Emeryville while I was on an Oakland project back in 1998.
Public escalator problems are notorious. I think I've embedded a relevant video or two from reason.com. But somehow I didn't catch the unique BART SF problem initially reported during the summer:
BART has 179 escalators in its 44 stations. In May, the escalator availability was just 78 percent for street and 91 percent for platform escalators. During the first week of June, a record 28 escalators were out of service. Age - many of BART's escalators are more than 40 years old - causes parts to deteriorate and fail more frequently. Most transit agencies, including BART, now buy heavy-duty escalators that cost about $1 million each
Five of the nine escalators that weren't working at BART stations on Wednesday were in downtown San Francisco. The bottom of BART station stairwells in downtown San Francisco are often a prime location for homeless people to camp for the night or find a private place to relieve themselves. The problem is tough to combat, especially with so few downtown public restrooms open late, BART authorities said. When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team.Political Humor
Musical Interlude: Christmas Retrospective
The Priests/Luciano Pavarotti/Celtic Woman, "Adeste Fideles". I wanted to give different takes. including female voices. For me, Pavarotti will always be "The Voice". I initially intended to choose Bing Crosby's version but I wanted a version with harmony, and the Celtic Woman version was more of a very nice solo performance (not those exquisite harmonies on Hark the Herald), so I chose the Priests.
