We are privileged to have two local Bend, Oregon TV news stations to rely on for news. One actually has a “headlines” segment which brushes lightly on world events like the Hamas massacre in Israel and other spectacular events. And the weather, of course, which is about the only “hard” news to be had from any of our local news people.

The other rival TV station devotes almost the whole thirty-minute evening news program to fluff pieces heavy with news like the opening of a new bistro or a new brew pub, or plans for new bike lanes, or the opening of an additional homeless shelter, or the completion of a new round-about on one street or another. Add a light dash of high school sports and you have it all.

If I had no access to on-line news sites, or to my radio, I might be lulled into thinking we live in a happy time of sweetness and light. Somehow the increase in local crime, the out-of-control inflation, fueled by outrageous food, fuel and housing prices escapes the notice of our local TV news stations. In all fairness there might be a light touch about “falling fuel prices” where $4.39 a gallon for regular “falls” to $3.89 or some such thing. (Like it never was below that price, and our simple population can’t remember that far back anyway.)

With the exception of a local paper from Sisters, Oregon, our two major newspapers aren’t much better. Poorly written, shallow fluff pieces rule the day. And reliance on spell check does nothing to improve the quality. (I do appreciate the crossword puzzles, however.)

The question I keep asking runs along the line of whether this news shadow I live in is a deliberate plan to make us believe all is well in a world that actually looks to be coming apart at the seams.

Rod

Browsing via the internet this morning’s political nonsense. One article (I forget which website…American Thinker perhaps) showed a picture of a young woman standing in front of a crowd of protestors while reading into her microphone a list of companies that should be boycotted for supporting Israel. The list included Nike. And then there was a zoom photo of her shoes. Yes she was. She was wearing Nike tennis shoes.

The story moved on to the contradictions we find in the radical positions of the left. I was mentally nodding until the author called upon the writing of “Amateur Philosopher” Eric Hoffer and quoted Hoffer’s fine book The True Believer.

I object. There is nothing Amateurish about the True Believer. Hoffer simply said true believers such as our radical leftists are so dissatisfied with their lives they join mass movements to give them a sense of belonging. He also wrote it doesn’t matter the cause, even if it calls for personal martyrdom and death. The true believer’s behavior isn’t about the cause. It’s about self abnegation and a perverse desire to belong to something outside themselves, something larger. Logic plays no part in their behavior. (Think Jones Town.)

Hoffer also asserted that the first converts to communism in East Germany were former Nazis.

Hoffer had no university degrees, but he was not just a simple longshoreman. He was a voracious reader, a keen observer of life and people, and an extremely intelligent thinker who wrote well.

If you haven’t read “The True Believer” you might order a copy from Amazon. Read it. And please don’t call Hoffer an amateur philosopher.

Rod

My first thought was “what a good idea” after learning an old friend has journeyed from historian to book reviewer.

There are several books I’ve discovered in the past few years I tell my family and closest friends about, but that’s a limited audience. Some books deserve more. One such is the basis of a not-so-long-ago film News of the World starring Tom Hanks. Great book. (My daughter who has a Master’s degree in American Literature will feature that book in her high school English classes this coming fall. High praise indeed.)

The film deviates at times from the original story but keeps the flavor of the book alive in spite of Hollywood tampering. (I’m not sure born in Hollywood directors can do any less than tamper.) That aside, if you have not read Paulette Jiles novel, News of the World, do so. You are in for a treat. Charm, whimsy, pathos and joy rule the day.

And you are in for a history lesson about the state of Texas in the aftermath of the civil war.

You can read my review on Amazon books for Paulette Jiles.

Happy reading!

Rod

p.s. Coming soon: A review of “Enemy Women,” also by Jiles.

I’m certain most people over 60 know the cartoon figure “Weak Eyed Magoo.” As I contemplate another move, I’m beginning wonder if I might qualify as a different Magoo, the “Weak Minded” version. I’m not worried about packing the house. Books, dishes, clothes, and other household items sort of have a logic as to how you pack them.

But when I look in the garden shed and in the garage, all I can think is “Too much stuff!” Most of which I have moved six times and almost all of which I intended to dump years ago. It is the detritus from the time when money was tight and when I personally rebuilt my car engines, replaced a front spring on my pickup, did my own brake jobs, painted my own house, poured my own concrete, put new shingles on my h0use and made up for lack of money with sweat.

On one level I know it doesn’t make sense to pack all that “stuff” around with me. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t like an adult version of a teddy bear. Like a kind of safety net, one which I sort of draw comfort from, knowing I can walk into the garage, pour a box of nuts and bolts out on the workbench and  find what I need to fix things. And maybe I can match a voltage converter to a gadget and save a buck or two. And I know I can fix the old Coleman gas lantern if I can find the right washer. (It’s only been broken for the past ten years.)

What I need is a boost of realism and a touch of character to help me reduce the clutter. I have cardboard boxes and plastic tubs full of nuts and bolt…some of which are actually rusty…a box of converters for only the Lord knows what…chargers for gadgets I probably don’t have anymore…a few plugins, each with only a short cord attached to nothing, but which could be attached to something.

There is a drawer in the fishing cabinet filled with spools of fishing line each of which holds maybe fifty yards of monofilament which will never be used for anything but leader…an old Mitchell fishing reel I haven’t used in years…and will never use again. And in the pole rack…fifteen fishing poles.

Two tall cupboards sit in one corner of the garage, one stacked with cans half full of paint, a couple of which might be dated around 2003. The other cupboard has cans of oil I’ll never use, transmission fluid I’ll never use, wheel bearing grease I will never use again, and other “stuff.”

The list goes on and on. Oh, yeah, and two piles of boards I could use to build “something” some time. And probably won’t. (But how do you turn good lumber into firewood??)

I think it is time for this Weak Minded Magoo to dump a lot of stuff and move on. Now, I wonder if any of my neighbors would want…

Rod

p.s.  I’ll let you know how I did…maybe.

A brief history of my brushes with Christianity:

I’ve long been attracted to Christianity, from my time as a child in Sunday School to adulthood, enduring full blown sermons.

As a child, I was obedient. I said my nightly prayer that ended in “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” (Now there’s prayer to reassure a kid.) I learned the song “Jesus loves me.” And when the  Sunday School teacher told us to ask Jesus to enter my heart, I’d sit on a swing in the school yard next to our house and say, “Jesus, enter my heart.”

But the truth is nothing ever happened. Nothing that is until age seven. Coming up from the basement classrooms of the Apostolic Faith Church to the main chapel, I found a lady with her skirt up around her neck, flat on her back, heels drumming the floor, foam coming from her mouth, eyes rolled back in her head, and babbling like a lunatic. I was to learn later she was speaking in tongues. I reckon that’s all right for adults, but as a kid all she did was she scare the hell out of me. I ran all the way home and never returned to that place.

My third brush with Christianity happened at the Reese Creek Community Church. My grandparents took me to hear their son, my Uncle Mendal, preach a sermon as a guest pastor. He was on a roll, preaching up a storm and people were looking like they were ready to be “saved.” One man had actually started down the aisle to the altar. But…I had to pee, and the only way to the outhouse…behind the church in those days…was down the main aisle…and I was in a hurry.

I reckon my fast trot to the front door broke the spell Uncle Mendal had cast on the congregation. If he had not been a religious man, I’d say he was pissed…and I’d say he stayed pissed at me for most of the rest of his life. (He mentioned this sad event one time when I was in my late thirties.) I think he had the notion I spoiled the mood on purpose. I was labeled a bad boy, or at least I felt that to be the case. Sure made me wary of church people, especially preachers.

My fourth brush with religion came when I was fourteen. A pretty young woman in my class rode my bus and decided to sit with me going to school and coming home from school. I can honestly say I enjoyed her attention.

She finally talked me into going to church with her. She prayed, she said, for my immortal soul. So when the preacher invited those who wished to be saved to come to the altar, I obliged. After I was prayed to safety, my pretty young friend beamed and patted my arm and blessed me. And I was in love.

My problems didn’t start for almost a week. I knew I’d been had when she started sitting with another boy about a year older than me and trying her best to talk him into going to church. I guess she figured I was a finished product.

I stuck it out at church for a few Sundays until the ranter preacher started telling me if I had an unclean thought, if I coveted, etc., I had sinned and was headed for everlasting hell fire. “Well, shoot,” I thought.  “I’m not supposed to think about girls?” I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

As I studied on it, I knew I was doomed no matter what I did, so I deliberately and loudly said every $*#&! cuss word I knew…and growing up in a logging town I knew quite a few. Took me a while, it did. And so I defiantly and with some sense of freedom quit the church. (I will admit to later finding a profound belief in God and the sanctity of Christ. But not right away. That is a story about angels, and a tale I seldom tell to anyone.)

As for my pretty young friend, she aged right along with the rest of us. In fact, in our late sixties, she was working on an old friend and classmate of mine, working to get him into her church and get him saved before it got too late for his redemption. He was single and interested in her, if not in church.

I laughed when I heard the story. I thought, “Yep…there she is, still vamping for Jesus.”

Good bless her.

Rod