FREEMASONRY-SHRINERS

I know very little about the Masons and the Shriners but I love discussions and controversy and so express my thoughts. My Catholic upbringing causes me to be suspicious. The church does not allow it's members to belong to this secret organization and we must wonder why.
Most Masons are fine people. I have know a number of them. I believe that most of them do not have a clue as to why they are looked on with askance. They do charitable work, build nice children's hospitals and are just a jolly bunch, not unlike the Elks. Sure they stand together and favor each other whenever possible. Nothing wrong with that.
The Shriners have 193 temples in the US. It sounds a little like a religion. They wear ceremonial red fezzes with black tassels and on this headgear are mysterious Islamic symbols. The full title of the organization is ANCIENT ARABIC ORDER OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE.
Is there a secret agenda ? I think so and present the following shocking evidence. Did you know that all US presidents were or are Masons ?( Possible exception, JFK )
This goes way beyond the possibility of coincidence ! How extraordinary! How could this be ? They seem to have their hands on the levers of power. I do not know why .Do you find this spooky ? I do.
As an afterthought, Mexican presidents are also largely Masons. I have no data on other world leaders. I suspect that many of them belong.
Just another afterthought. This is a sexist group. No women allowed

NOT SO GOOD ( conclusion )

I hearken back some 40 or more years ago to life in Mexico City. From time to time we would purchase roast chickens from any one of the rotisseries which dotted the city. They were small birds, almost skinny. One bird would make a moderate meal for two. How great they tasted, from the delicious crispy skin to the tiny wings, legs, thighs, and breasts.
Fast forward to the present: We purchase a rotisserie chicken from the local grocery store. This is one big bird, almost the size of a small turkey. Four people would be hard pressed to consume it. The slimy skin we discard at once. The enormous parts of the fowl are encrusted with globules of fat. I say, thank you very much but no thank you.
In conclusion, those of you who may have had the pleasure of eating carnitas in Mexico may look in vain for the equivalent in the US. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not make good carnitas ?

NOT SO GOOD

Another negative blog ! This is in reference to American meat products, especially sus scrofula, more popularly know as pork. As a youngster in Mexico I ate no pork since my parents felt that it was unsafe. It was not until I was 16 or so that I first experienced pork. How delicious ! I could not get enough of it. Even when Jan and I moved back to the US 35 years ago all the pig products were still great. About 20 or 25 years ago something happened. Porcine products were no longer so good. I can only think of a few reasons:1) Farmers were breeding swine with less fat; 2)Pigs varied diet was suspended and they were fed almost exclusively corn; 3) Perhaps my aging taste buds are not as good as they once were. I hope I never see another pork chop.They are generally tough and tasteless.

More about blog

As previously mentioned, I recieved my beatifully bound and printed blog from blog2print. Yesterday I spent a pleasanr hour or two reading all my posting since 2007. A few comments on that: There were about 140 real blogs ( 20 false starts ). Many of the posting were brilliant or near brilliant but some were really lousy. I also noticed that recently I have been blogging only once in a while and I intend to do more of this in the future.
I have a blog all hand written and ready to go but discovered that much of it has already been covered over the years, This unposted blog was to be about our stupid government and I listed 14 stupidities. When trying to figure out how to write such a blog without going into too much detail, I found that I was not able to read my writing on 4 of them. It was to become 1o stupidities. I found that most of the ten were enacted with the best of intentions and every one of them backfired. Herewith are the ten listed without comment:
Earned income credit
Minimum wage
Food stamps
Unemployment payments
Cost of living adjustments
Peace corp and Americorp
Bailouts
Payments for puchases of autos and other items
Earmarks and other porkers
Foreign aid

ABOUT BLOGS

This is a blog about blogs. Daughter in law Holly mentioned that she had gotten her blogs printed up by Blogs2print and I sent off to have mine printed. In a couple of weeks the book arrived. It was very well made, complete with an illustrated soft cover and included 160 blogs written since March of 2007 complete with comments. The cost was an astoundingly low $26.oo. I don't suppose anyone would care for a copy but should this be the case, I would gladly order such a book for them.

MURDER IN ARIZONA

As everyone in the world must know by now , there was a terrible, tragic mass murder
of a fine young congresswoman, a federal judge and a few others by a crazy madman.

This happened about ten days ago and the left wing nuts jumped on the occasion to
blame the usual subjects (Palin, Limbough, Hannity, and Beck). Upon a quick and easy
investigation of the matter, this turned out to be a preposterous idea and should have been
discarded. But somehow the story persists. Sad as it is, in the overall scheme of things,
this is not that big a story. By now it begins to sound ridiculous with POTUS appearing on the scene and giving yet another speech and congress taking a week off. Each funeral of the victims
is covered at great length.

No one ( but me) has suggested that it was anti semitism that motivated the crazy
idiot. I really don't want to hear any more on this greatly over reported subject.

A FEW GRIPES

Gripe #1: I have noticed with some dismay that young people have taken to using language not generally heard in old time polite society. This is offensive to older people and demeaning to the youngsters.
Gripe # 2: The English language is deteriorating at an alarming rate. No one seems to know the difference between the nominative and objective cases. Specifically, the misuse of I and me.
Gripe #3: Related to gripe # 2, it refers to the new and popular expression, my bad.
This came right out of the Ghetto . I have nothing against the ghetto except for their misuse of
our beautiful language. I think my bad means I made a mistake, or I lied, or I didn't mean to do it or some such thing. Lets just say what we mean without using peculiar ungrammatical expressions. Please, never say my bad in my presence, especially if I have a knife or a club or perhaps a gun handy. Otherwise, you will at least receive a dirty look from me.
Gripe #4: Over the years we have sent Christmas messages ( the now famous DXCM) in enormous numbers. Each year we have received ever fewer cards and messages from our vast readership. No more mister nice guy. We don't hear from you and you are off our mailing list.
Although I hate to mention it, e-mail Christmas cards don't count.