Roe vs. Wade

I belonged to Toastmasters International for more than 25 years. Early on, I learned that the topics that you always wanted to avoid were religion, sex, and politics.

We just passed the 38th anniversary of the passage of Roe vs. Wade. Regardless of how you feel about the ruling, abortion is the only topic that I can think of (other than pedophilia) that manages to involve all three.





I grew up in the conservative 1950’s, and “came of age” during the very turbulent 1960’s. Over the years, my outlook on most topics has shifted from conservative to liberal to conservative and back to “liberal”. As a result, one of the newspapers that I read pretty much on a daily basis is The New York Times, and I tend to cringe at the views that are presented in the New York Post, a VERY conservative newspaper that is owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, coincidentally, also owns Fox News, which hired Sara Palin as a regular commentator in January of last year. Although Fox News will not disclose her salary, her income from all sources between the time that she resigned as governor until April of 2010 was in excess of $12,000,000

The article that triggered this post was the one published this morning by Nicholas D. Kristof, which he titled, “Tussling over Jesus”. The link below will allow you to read the entire article, which I would strongly recommend.

Tussling Over Jesus.

Prior to the Supreme Court ruling of 1973, it is estimated that there were an estimated 250,000 illegal abortions performed each year in the United States. According to the most reliable estimates, 90% of the illegal abortions were performed by “reputable physicians in good standing in their local medical communities”, and they were completed in the office of the physician. The highest known number of maternal deaths from the procedure was 388 women, in the peak year of 1948. Starting in 1972, improved antibiotics reduced the number of maternal deaths substantially, to a total of 39.

The legalization of abortion hasn’t eliminated maternal deaths, since an estimated 30 women a year die from infections or adverse reactions to general anesthesia.

Texas and other southern states have recently passed some draconian abortion laws, which has led to an increase in what the state would consider to be illegal abortions. On February 14, 2014, the state suspended the license of a Houston doctor who had performed 268 abortions between November 6 and February 7.

The irony of restrictive abortion laws is that they actually lead to an INCREASE in the number of abortions. Since Texas passed its more restrictive law in the summer of 2013, roughly 30% of the safe abortion clinics in Texas have closed, and that total includes a number of Planned Parenthood clinics. Only 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are abortions, so closing them means that impoverished women no longer have access to medical care and birth control. Since Texas has the 10th highest rate of poverty in the country, that's an awful lot of people. On top of that, sexual education is not mandated in Texas, and when it is taught, the focus in on abstinence, rather than an birth control. The result is that Texas has the fifth highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.

As of February, 2014, the abortion rate in America is the lowest it has been since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. The actions of Texas and other states can only lead to an INCREASE in a practice that they are trying to stop!

Just as the Volstead Act was ineffective in curtailing the consumption of alcoholic beverages in this country, abortions will be performed in this country whether they are legal of not. Contrary to what you might think, though, this article ISN’T about abortion - it’s about compassion.

Although Mr. Kristof’s article mentioned the Roman Catholic church, the fact remains is that virtually all of the world’s major religions are opposed to abortion. The controversy in the case that he cites was that a Catholic hospital (St. Joseph’s in Phoenix) was punished by the Catholic church because it allowed an abortion to be preformed on a woman who, without question, would have died otherwise.

Regardless of which religion you’re talking about, I’m opposed to the strict adherence to dogma when it overrides a human act that is a more compassionate approach, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Ancient Jewish law prohibited work from being performed on the Sabbath. Even though Jesus was born a Jew, he is know to have performed at least seven miracles on the Sabbath, and (in all likelihood) he probably performed more than that.

At my Catholic grade school, I learned the definitions of mortal and venial sins. It was said that if you died without confessing a mortal sin, you would be condemned to Hell after death. Although mortal sins could vary by degree of seriousness, eating meat on Fridays and masturbation were both considered to be mortal sins, as was homosexuality.

The Second Vatican Council in 1963 made a lot of changes in the then existing rules of the church. Along with dropping the requirement for celebrating mass only in Latin, the Church also dropped the requirement of abstaining from the eating of meat on Fridays throughout the year, although the prohibition still exists on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays during Lent. The Catholic Church still RECOMMENDS that Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays throughout the year, and it REQUIRES that some other form of penance be substituted if meat is consumed on a given Friday.

Some of my classmates at the Catholic high school that we attended in Minnesota were killed in Vietnam. To my knowledge, none of them went to Hell because they had masturbated the night before they died.

Although Dr. Oz strongly recommends frequent sex “even if you’re alone”, a number of other medical institutions feel the same way. According to BBC news, masturbation greatly reduces the incidence of prostrate cancer in older men.

Like many churches, the Catholic church is opposed to homosexuality. Without belaboring the point too much, I’m of the opinion that sexual preference is much more due to biology than a conscious choice, and should not be considered a sin. However, picketing at military funerals in order to advance a strident anti-gay message should definitely rank high on a list of “grievous sins”

In spite of the fact that the Catholic Church has paid more than $2 billion to victims of sexual abuse, there hasn’t been a mad rush to the exits among American Catholics. For a number of years, the percentage of the American population that considered themselves Catholic has remained a very steady 23%.

Although the actions of St. Joseph Hospital manage to put more compassion into an ancient church with a long and storied history, meaningful change will come about only when the shortage of priests escalates to the point that it’s a full blown crisis. Not only has the number of priests continued to decline, they are also getting a lot older.

In the early days of the church, women were ordained until the 4th Century, and priests were allowed to be married until the 12th Century. Surprisingly, there ARE women priests in America today, and their stories will be told when the movie “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” comes out later this year. If the Catholic church worked to incorporate that group into the larger church body, and simultaneously allowed MARRIED MEN to be priests, the church would again be truer to the mission outlined by its founder nearly 2000 years ago.



At that time, we can all say “hallelujah”.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

“Guess who’s coming to dinner” was a GREAT movie from 1967 that included Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn as the main characters in a plot that involved their Caucasian daughter bringing home her fiancé, a black man played by Sidney Poitier, to dinner.



Now that we have a black man in the White House, who recently met with a visitor from overseas, the story takes an interesting twist.

A few months ago, Barrack and Michelle Obama were taking a mid-morning coffee break when, out of the blue, the President said “Hu’s coming for dinner”.

Michelle said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to check with Julianna Smott (current social secretary who is in the process of moving to Chicago to help President Obama’s re-election campaign) to see who is scheduled."

The President responded, “ Michelle, what I meant was that Hu Jintao, the President of China, is coming for a brief visit in January.”

Michelle said, “That’s good news! Since he’s probably tired of Chinese food, let’s have an “all American” menu, and let’s include things like poached lobster, aged rib eye steak, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

you are invited to a dinner at The White House

The President said, “ The menu sounds good to me, but who should we include on the guest list?

Michelle said, “ Julianna will take care of most of the invitations for us, but for starters, we probably should NOT include the Dalai Lama” or the family of Liu Xiaobo (the Chinese winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize).

“I agree. How about a heavy concentration of Chinese-Americans?”

“Well", she said, "there’s B.D Wong and Vera Wang, Elaine, James, and Wang Chao, Steven and Jean Chu, Charles and Ying Woo, and David Wu.”

“Anybody else in that category?”

“Perhaps a few people in the entertainment business, like Jackie Chan and Michelle Kwan.”

“Other categories?”

“Maybe a couple of guys from The New York Times, like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristoff”

“Any business leaders?”

“ Well, I’d invite people like the Chase Chairman, Jamie Dimon, and the GE Chairman, Jeff Immelt”

“:Anybody else we haven’t thought of?”

“How about Ma?”

“Honey, your mother has lived with us for the last two years .....

“No, Barack, I meant Yo Yo Ma, the cellist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”

“Oh, yeah”.

“Speaking of Chicago, we should probably invite Richard and Maggie Daley, since Hu will be in Chicago later on this week”

“Agreed”.

“ I think we’ve got a good start, honey. We’ve got a Wong and a Wang, some Chaos and some Chus, some Woos and a Wu, a Chan and a Kwan, and a Ma”.

“Sounds good”

“Hey, it’s getting close to lunch time. Are you up for some Chinese food?”

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Richard and Maggie are taking a mid morning coffee break ………

What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve -

One of the best selling books of all time is a book called “Think and Grow Rich”. It was written by a man named Napolean Hill, and was published way back in 1937. I’ve read it several times over the last 40 years, and I gave my son a copy for Christmas this year.



Since the publication of the book, there have been countless people who have accumulated amazing wealth purely because of their belief in an idea. Recent examples are Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). The MOST recent example is a story that was published in the January 16, 2011 edition of Parade magazine.

Cynthia Stafford, a single mother of five children, started to lull herself to sleep at night in 2007 visualizing that she had won the lottery, and she pictured the EXACT amount - $112,000,000. In her dreams, she not only saw the amount on the check, she also could see the clothes that she would be wearing when she learned that she had won.

As crazy at it sounds, her dream came true less than six months later!

The amount that she won in the lottery was EXACTLY $112,000,000, and she was wearing the same lime green blouse with a leaf print that she saw in her dreams when she learned that she had won.

The MOST remarkable story about achieving what the mind can conceive occurred almost 600 years ago, and had absolutely NOTHING do with accumulating wealth.

The video below will give you a a quick summary about an important historical figure, but the facts that surround this individual are even more remarkable.

Joan of Arc on YouTube

Joan of Arc was born to a poor French peasant family in the year 1412. Her family lived in a portion of northern France that was controlled by England, during a period of time that was known was The Hundred Years War.

At the age of 12, she was out alone in a field when she saw visions of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, who told her to drive out the English army, and restore the rightful king of France to the throne in Rheims.

At the age of 16, she petitioned the garrison commander for permission to visit the royal French court at Chinon. Although her first attempt was not successful, her second attempt was. On that visit, she predicted that the French would achieve a military victory over the English at a town called Orleans.

Less than a year later, the acting king of France put her in charge of the French army, a remarkable move in view of the fact that she was 17 years old, illiterate, and that she claimed that she was motivated by the belief that the voice of God was instructing her to take charge of her country’s army and lead it to victory.

Amazingly, she soon led the French army to a series of victories, and reversed the side of the war.

Ultimately, she was captured by the opposing army, and was brought to trail, where she was accused of heresy. She was condemned to death by burning at the stake, and she died on May 30, 1431. Although the Hundred Year War continued for 22 years after her death, the French ultimately prevailed.

After the war had ended, Pope Callixtus III authorized a retrial due to the urging of the Inquisitor-General, Jean Brehal, and Joan’s mother, Isabelle Romee. At the end of the appellate trial, she was declared innocent on July 7, 1456.

She became a symbol of the Catholic League during the 16th century, and in 1849, the Bishop of Orleans declared a fervid panegyric on Joan of Arc. His act attracted attention in both England and France, which eventually culminated in her beatification in 1909, and her canonization on May 16, 1920. Along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Teresa of Lisieux, she is considered to be a patron saint of France.

For a lot of reasons, the accomplishments made by Joan of Arc would be impossible to achieve in today’s world. However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that, even today, a single individual with a compelling vision can accomplish impossible acts.

Before you put your head on the pillow tonight, repeat the sentence in the title above. You may never win as much money as Cynthia Stafford did, and you’ll never change the course of history as much as Joan of Arc did, but at some point in time, your tomorrows are going to be a lot different.

To quote Moya Brennan, you’ll change your world.

what a friend we have in cheeses

We lived in Wisconsin for nearly five years in the early 1980’s, and quickly found some great, and lasting, friendships. It was a great time for the Brewers, who came within one game of defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1982 World Series. The mighty Green Bay Packers weren’t as fortunate, since the team only had one post season appearance the nine years that Bart Starr was the head coach.

It’s a well known fact that Wisconsin produces more cheese than any other state, and is second only to Californian in total dairy production.

In spite of the fact that there’s a shrine to the Virgin Mary at a place called Holy Hill there have been no known apparitions at the site, nor any events that would be considered out of the ordinary. The closest that Wisconsin has come to anything resembling holy is the well known phrase, “holy cow!”



Wisconsin’s status took on a whole new direction earlier this month, in a way that very few people would suspect.

Since WWII, there have been 29 sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States. Until very recently, NONE of them have been validated by the Roman Catholic Church. I’ve been to Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, and I strongly suspect that there’s a material spiritual force at work there. However, the Catholic Church still does not officially recognize the events that have occurred on the site, so I guess that my opinion doesn’t count.

The surprise entry into the “holiest of holy” sites is the Chapel of Good Hope, in Champion, Wisconsin, just a little north of Green Bay. It is one of only about a dozen sites worldwide that have been validated by Rome, and the first one in the United States.

Now that the chapel has been officially recognized, it’s entirely possible that there will be more pilgrimages to the town, but it’s doubtful that it will ever get anywhere close to Lourdes, France, which has had as many as 450,000 visitors on a single day.

By the way, if the title to this article sounds familiar, you may recognize the song posted below:

what a friend we have in Jesus

Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

The greatest Christmas gift ever

During the waning days of the Roman Empire, it was still a crime (punishable by death) to be a Christian. By the year 350 A.D., the Roman Empire was on a downward spiral, so Pope Julius I felt confident enough to officially designate December 25 as the date to celebrate the birth of Christ. By the year 380 A.D., Christianity was the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

The tradition of gift giving at Christmas originated with a Christian bishop, St. Nicholas of Turkey, in the 4th Century. By the 10th Century, the custom had spread around the world. Arguably, the tradition could be traced back even further than that, because Three Wise Men from the East brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to a small child who was born in Bethlehem.



It may surprise you to know that giving gifts in December actually goes back even BEFORE the Three Wise Men made their journey to Bethlehem.

Most of the customs now associated with Christmas were not originally Christmas customs but rather were pre-Christian and non-Christian customs taken up by the Christian church. Saturnalia, a Roman feast celebrated in mid-December, provided the model for many of the merry-making customs of Christmas. From this celebration, for example, were derived the elaborate feasting, the giving of gifts, and the burning of candles that we associate with the Christmas holidays.

In America, from time to time, controversy has arisen about the practice of putting Christmas trees, or manger scenes, on public property, due to the idea of separating church from state. In the spirit of compromise, Daley Plaza in Chicago has both a Christmas tree AND a menorah, conveniently overlooking the fact that many of the traditions that we associate with Christmas are actually derived from a pagan festival.

Like many people, I’ve long felt that the celebration of Christmas has become WAY too commercial. Black Friday sales the day after Thanksgiving have absolutely no appeal, and neither does anything in the Neiman-Marcus catalog.

I’ve lived long enough that I’ve already accumulated enough “stuff”, so I’ve asked my family to try a different approach this year. I’m fully capable of buying my own scotch and cigars, so I don’t want them to feel obligated to give me any presents. Instead, I’ve asked them to donate some money to a charity of their choice in my name, since that act is, in my opinion, more in the true spirit of Christmas.

The majority of the people that live in this world aren’t Christians. As a matter of fact, a majority of the people that live in this world don’t even belong to an organized religion. In spite of that fact, though, there actually was a time that even those engaged in warfare had a one day truce on December 25, and most of the world pauses to pay homage to a small child who was born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.

In the Good Book, Matthew 1(23-25) reads "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus."

What could be a greater gift than that?

Bingo !!

It was a good crowd for a chilly winter night in Minnesota.

The KC hall was packed with the Friday night regulars, but there were also a few first timers in the mix as well.. Some of the gray haired ladies in the room resembled Maxine (of Hallmark card fame) but the clouds of smoke surrounding them had disappeared a few years ago, a victim of political correctness.



Rick held sway at the front of the room, calmly calling off numbers as they popped out of the container, a position that he had volunteered to do for at least a decade. After about 10 minutes, Rick called out “B14”, and the room exploded in a frenzy of excitement. Kathy, one of the regulars in the third row, hollered “BINGO” at the top of her lungs, and the attendants quickly scurried to verify her win, and to dole out her cash.

At some point in our lives, we’ve all played bingo, either at a church or at a Knights of Columbus hall. Chances are pretty good, though, that you have no idea how bingo originated, or why the Catholic Church has a strong connection to it.

Bingo as we know it today actually started in Italy in 1530, when the country was reunited, and it’s actually a variation of the lottery games that are currently played in nearly every state in America. The game has been played almost continuously since that time, and it’s an important contributor to Italy’s economy. The best estimate is that it contributes the equivalent of $75,000,000 to the Italian economy every year.

The game migrated to America at the start of the Great Depression, and the person most responsible for its transplantation here was a toy salesman named Edwin S. Lowe. H e observed a crowd of people playing a game called “Beano” at a carnival in Jacksonville, Georgia, and was captivated by the intense interest in the game.

When he returned home to New York, he started playing the game with a group of friends at his apartment. On one especially exciting evening, one of his friends got so excited that that she stammered out “b-b-b-bingo” instead of “beano” - and the name stuck.

Not long after returning to New York, Mr. Lowe was approached by a priest from a parish in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who saw the game as an opportunity to rescue his parish from its dire financial situation. The scheme worked, and shortly thereafter, bingo games also saved a Knights of Columbus hall in Utica, New York.

News about these early successes spread fast, and by 1934, there were an estimated 10,000 Bingo games played every week. In the early 1930’s, the largest Bingo game in history was played in New York’s Teaneck Armory. 60,000 people participated in the event, and 10,000 more were turned away at the door. In addition to the cash prizes, 10 automobiles were given away.

In the last decade, interest in Bingo has faded, in large part due to state sanctioned alternatives like lottery games, off track betting, and state casinos. In spite of declining revenue, though, it’s unlikely that Bingo games are going to disappear at any time in the near future. Decades before Facebook came into being, Friday night Bingo games were the original “social networking” outlet for a LOT of folks in America- - and they still are today.

If you haven’t played Bingo for a while, I’d recommend that you find a game in your area, pay your admission fee - and start “stamping”.

To quote Humphrey Bogart (of Casablanca fame) it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

We’ve all gone to look for America

One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs is one that you can listen to by clicking on the link below:

We've all gone to look for America

It took Simon and Garfunkel four days to hitchhike from Saginaw.

In recent years, it’s definitely a good place to be FROM, but not a good place to go to. Throughout most of the 20th century, the economy was dominated by manufacturing related to the automobile industry. As the domestic auto industry declined, the unemployment rate in Saginaw skyrocketed, and crime has been a major problem in the city in recent years.At 20.9 %, the unemployment rate is twice as high as the national average.

According to the FBI, Saginaw has been the most violent city in America since 2003.

Fortunately, the city’s fortunes will start to improve in the near future due to help from an unlikely source: the Chinese.

On November 29, General Motors announced the sale of Nexteer Automotive (a manufacturer of power steering components) to Pacific Century Motors, an affiliate of the Beijing municipal government. The $450 million purchase represents China’s biggest single investment in the global auto parts industry. It will also make Beijing into the largest private employer in the City of Saginaw.

At a celebratory luncheon earlier this week, chairs were lined with Chinese flags, and guests were served egg rolls.

Although $450 million is a lot of money, it pales in comparison to what the Chinese are doing in California.

In June of 2010, the Chinese government signed a contract with the State of California to build high speed rail lines in the state. The Chinese bullet trains are capable of speeds up to 215 miles per hour, and are touted as being environmentally friendly. Most of the funding for the $43 billion project will come from China. After its completion, the line will run from San Francisco all the way to Aneheim, which should be good news for Mickey Mouse. Since Anaheim is located in Orange Country, the best name that I can think of for the new railroad is “The Orange Blossom Special”




By the way, the Chinese will also become a big help to us in getting out of Afghanistan due to the fact that Chinese companies are currently mining for rare minerals in that country. Even though the current government in Afghanistan continues to struggle with problems of corruption, it doesn’t take much of a genius to figure out that the current troubles in the country will diminish if public and private companies have a vested financial interest in making sure that the violence goes away.

From 1970 to today,Spanish has been the most popular foreign language studied in American schools. However, the languages that have grown the fastest since 1970 are Chinese and Arabic. Due to the fact that the Chinese government is paying the salaries of the Chinese nationals who are teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture in our schools, it’s likely that the study of Mandarin will continue to grow dramatically.

The thought of the Chinese people running our country is not going to set well with a lot of folks in this country. To put our current situation in perspective, if Hop Sing bought the ranch, Ben, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe would be working for HIM, and that would DEFINITELY be a culture shock for the rest of us.



As they continue their search, Simon and Garfunkel will eventually find America, and it’s going to be stronger and better than ever, However, it’s going to SOUND a lot different than it used to, so I’d recommend improving your Mandarin skills as rapidly as you can.