Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

"7 songs to help you remember Pete Seeger": For example:

Thor's Day: Socialism and the Christian Right

How can anyone be a Conservative and follow Jesus?

By Ed Rogers

Most Christians, if asked, will tell you that Socialism is anti-religion. Some non-believers call themselves socialist without other beliefs contradicting it, but almost any conservative Christian who calls himself a socialist is snared in a dilemma.

Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

My son's into sex and drugs, and there's a party happening this weekend; I need help quick!

By Susan C. Price

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

I was cleaning my 16-year-old son’s bedroom when I found a journal. I know I shouldn’t have looked but curiosity and parental urge made me, and now I wish I hadn’t and don’t know what to do! In it he talks about having sex with girls and also about an upcoming party. I want to advise him about safe sex and using condoms, and also about drugs, which were also mentioned (weed and Uppers?). I’m at a loss as to how to approach this as he will know I read his journal!
    Please help, as this party is on Saturday. –Anna

Tuesday Voice

Slow down, damn it!

By Vic Midyett

I witnessed the following spectacle in Oklahoma a few years ago, but it's still as clear in my mind as it was when I was seeing it live.
    I came out of a grocery shop and was walking to my car when my eye caught sight of an elderly couple parking their car in a handicap spot. I paid no attention until I heard what sounded like what I'll call a “geriatric domestic happening.”
    This should be good, I thought. So I stood to watch events unfold.

Fourth Monday Susan Speaks: Pammie Story #5

No, really, this was The End

By Susan C. Price

[Sequel to “The End,” published on December 23]

This is about the end of Pam and how I handled things, or didn't. The two-year process of her decline and her estate...It tells you about how I felt and what I thought. I wrote it because I needed to get the rest of her story out (somewhat) of my head so that I could maybe evaluate how I had behaved. Also, the story might contain useful information for dealing with this sort of situation. It might just be sad or ugly to you. You have been warned.

Sunday Review: Masters of Sex (TV series)

Actually slaves to love

By Jonathan Price

The season of sex has ended on Showtime. I mean of course, the series Masters of Sex, which I reluctantly got hooked on because it kept being advertised when I tried to tune in to Homeland. I had trivialized it and dismissed it from my gallery of pleasures as a knockoff of a popular book on a popular topic, sex, with all the limited appeal of a soap opera, but it is far better than that. And now you can binge on it if you get hooked, seeing it for peanuts on “On Demand” or on DVDs or by download from Netflix or another source.

Fourth Saturday's Loneliest Liberal: Communication

The key to how

By James Knudsen

Click on any internet page, flip open to any magazine article or tune-in to any program on the topic of relationships and communication will be listed as one of the key ingredients to a successful one. Having communicated successfully and poorly in relationships that have faired likewise I can attest to the accuracy of the statement, “communication is key.” And so, I’m not going to debate the point. I will argue that the “how” of communication is often given short shrift. What if the way you communicate no longer works? What then?

Fish for Friday

Russian billionaire
Roman Abramovitch's yacht

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Naysayers who derided "trickle down economics" may be amazed to learn it worked exactly as designed, and did it much more completely and effectively than anyone could have imagined: "Report: World's 85 richest have same wealth as all of bottom 50 percent."

Thor's Day: The Act of God defense

A lawyer's windfall

By James T. Carney

[Editor's Note: Our friend Jack Cover wrote us last week that he had had his big Christmas present early—the weeks of Christmas and New Year's Day off from the Torisel chemotherapy that had been holding in check the tumors of his renal cancer. The cancer was entering its 33rd year, but Jack and his doctor had decided against a birthday party now to wait until the cancer's 50th, when everyone could have a real blowout. Our friend James T. Carney responded to Jack's good humor in such good humor of his own, we asked him and Jack whether we could publish his response. They said we could.]

Hi Jack, have you ever considered the possibility that you're a hypochondriac, what with all these complaints about cancer? By my reckoning you should have been dead two years ago. I am glad you never entered hospice care, for the government would be suing you to collect all costs expended after the first six months.

Ask Wednesday: Ask Susan

How can I tell my neighbors their painter slopped paint on my fence without our falling out?

By Susan C. Price

[Questions are followed by answers and then, inevitably by ADVICE...you DID expect that...didn’t you?]

There’s a narrow walkway between my house and my neighbors that leads to a field, and a lot of people walk through with their dogs or children. This in itself is not an issue. However, I walked through today and found white paint all over parts of my fence and, on checking, I could see that this had been done when my neighbor had his fence painted. What should I do? I don’t wish to fall out with them, because I am elderly and live alone, and they are good in many other ways but this has damaged my fence, even though I admit that I can’t see the damage from my side. –Hyacinth

Tuesday Voice: Jake got me good

By Vic Midyett

Since my stroke, I have been seeing split-second shadows or movements where there aren't any. It happens mostly on my right side. I've been told that my left eye, like the rest of my left side, was affected. They think my left eye does not turn towards the right as much as it used to. This terrestrial activity is only a problem when Jake (my wife Shirley) is around, though. Why? Well, let me tell you.

Third Monday Musing: Charlatans and shopkeepers

Matthew Arnold

The continuing relevance of Matthew Arnold

By Eric Meub

Edith Sitwell once famously quipped that the only people who like Matthew Arnold’s poems are precisely those who dislike poetry. Time has not agreed with Miss Sitwell: Arnold’s work remains, unlike her own, securely within the canon. But there is some truth in her remark. Arnold was not primarily a poet of craft; he was a poet of thought. And his thoughts often found more fruitful expression in his later prose.

Sunday Review: The Debt2

Two movies, four sets of three actors

By Morris Dean

The IMDb's short description of The Debt (2010, directed by John Madden, starring in the role of Rachel Singer: Jessica Chastain & Helen Mirren) sounded familiar:

Third Saturday Fiction

Portrait of the author
by Susan C. Price

Patsy (a vignette)

By W.M. Dean

The preacher concluded his sermon and stretched his arms out to the people. “Now, loved ones, as the choir sings ‘Softly and Tenderly,’ won't you come up and be saved?”

Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Mysteries of the Human Body:
    It’s possible for your body to survive without large fractions of its internal organs. Even if you lose your stomach, your spleen, 75% of your liver, 80% of your intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from your pelvic and groin area, you wouldn’t be very healthy, but you would live.
    During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools. Actually, saliva is more important than you realize. If your saliva can not dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
    The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm. The egg is actually the only cell in the body that is visible by the naked eye.
    The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue and the hardest bone is the jawbone.
    Human feet have 52 bones, accounting for one quarter of all the human body’s bones. Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day.