Doing a Jackiesue Post

 

The Case of the Missing Negative

 “Rick O’Shea”, I said to myself, “you are in trouble”. The phone message had been cryptic, “Go to 1485 Seraphim Court at 5:00 pm”. Nothing more. Now the P.I. business has been slow for a while. I had been rubbing two loonies together for a week, trying to get them to mate. I wasn’t about to pass up anything that might have a dollar in it. But I was worried.

I pulled up outside the building. A mansion by anyone’s standards. A small bras plate on the door said “Professional Photography. Strict confidence maintained”. I had to wonder what kind of pictures he took. Likely kinky couples, twosomes, threesomes, even handsomes. I opened the door and went in.

The two people in the room paid no attention to me when I entered. And only one of them was dead. The corpse was sprawled beside a funny looking camera that held one large negative at a time. It was open and the negative was missing. That likely accounted for the three shots I heard and the heavy-set man in a brown leather coat running down the backstairs through the well-manicured yard and flower beds to a car on far street.

The other, a slim red-headed female, late 20’s, sat rigidly in an armchair, staring straight ahead, stoned out of her mind. She wore a pair of large dangling diamond earrings. That was all. I admired the view. Nice, but not my type. I prefer a more robust Rubenesque body.

There is no shortage of nubile young women willing to shed their clothes at the sight of a camera. Apparently, the red head was not one of them, as a small syringe lay on the floor where the photographer had dropped it.

I figured like this. The girl comes for a professional photoshoot. The dead man slaps a needle into her and sets up the girl. Someone pegs the pervert and steals the negative. Question is, who and why? Probably to use it to blackmail someone, likely the girl’s family who are no doubt Very Important People.

I didn’t touch anything in the room and wiped my prints off the door latch. I phoned Bill, the beat cop. “Bill, I got a problem. A phone message earlier directed me to this address and now I’m in a mansion in a high-priced neighbourhood with a dead man and a drugged naked woman”.

“My advice is get out quick and hope no one saw you. Let the police ‘discover’ it in their own time. Don’t worry, we’ll get the girl to a hospital”.

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I went out the way I came in, wiped the door latches down inside and out, and ran to my car. I drove back to the office and poured a drink. Who sent me the phone message and why? Who was the girl? Who was the dead photographer? Who threatened me? Who wrote the book of love? I poured another drink. Nothing to do but wait.

Two days later there was a knock on my door. I put my .45 where I could reach it quickly and pushed the button to unlock the door. A distinguished looking grey-haired man in an expensive suit entered. He carried a photograph and showed me the back of it. I already knew what the front looked like. She was his daughter.

“Bring $10,000 in $20 dollar bills in a canvas tote bag to the park off Smith Street by 1 pm tomorrow. Tie it to the third tree to the left of the water fountain. No funny stuff. We’ll be watching. Do this and we destroy the negative. Otherwise, it goes to the press and your political future goes down the toilet.”. (Obviously he was not a Republican, or it would have enhanced it).

“Blackmail, huh? How did you get my name?”

“Police officer contacted me on the quiet. Said I should see you if I didn’t want to go public.”

“If you pay off the blackmailers, what guarantee that they will honour the agreement and not hit you again? Or that they won’t send it to the press anyhow?”

“None. What do you suggest?”

“My hunch is that there is only one person. He and the photographer were in partnership, but he double crossed the partner with three bullets so he wouldn’t have to share. Regardless of the threat, I need to stake out the drop and spot the person who picks it up.”

I parked three blocks away and watched through field glasses. At 2:45 a big burly man picked up the bag and disappeared. No indication he destroyed the negative.

I was a block away when a black Nisson N-Trail cut me off and forced me over to the curb. (The N-Trail is like the X-Trail but has more guts). The big scruffy guy got out and came to my passenger window, pointing a .45 automatic where it could ruin my social life. I wished I had a Trunk Monkey. At least he didn’t shoot me outright. I unlocked the door, like I had a choice.

“OK, Shamus, we are going for a ride. You know too much and a little guy like me can’t afford that. Life is tough enough.”

The world’s smallest violin played ragtime in my head. “Where are we going?”

“Find a dirt road out of here and don’t play any games.”

About two miles out of town I saw a gravel road and turned off the highway. I was driving pretty slow. Being late for my own funeral wouldn’t bother me and it gave me time to think of something. Thinking was never my strong suit.

A semi crossed the road directly in front of us. I hit the brakes hard, opened the door, jumped and rolled. The back tires on the trailer just missed me. The car went in under, between the tires. Sliced the top of as neat as a can opener. Sliced the top off my kidnapper too.

By the time the cops got there, I had fished the negative out of the guy’s pocket, without getting too much blood on me. Case closed.

Next day the distinguished looking grey-haired man dropped into my office and gave me a check for $5000. He declined my offer of a drink. He must have known I was down to rotgut Scotch. I poured myself a tall glass, knocked it back, gasping for breath. I sat back on my chair and relaxed.

Finding Light in Winter

 A friend sent me this. It is worth passing on in this dark time.

Monet “Snow in Argenteuil” (1875).

By Mary Pipher. Dr. Pipher is a clinical psychologist and writer in Lincoln, Neb., and the author, most recently, of “A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence.”

The mornings are dark, the late afternoons are dusky, and before we finish making dinner, the daylight is gone. As we approach the darkest days of the year, we’re confronted with the darkness of wars, a dysfunctional government, fentanyl deaths, mass shootings and reports of refugees crawling through the Darién Gap or floundering in small boats in the Mediterranean. And we cannot avoid the tragedy of climate change with its droughts, floods, fires and hurricanes. Indeed, the world is pummeled with misfortune.

We can count ourselves lucky if we do not live in a war zone or a place without food or drinking water, but we read the news. We see the disasters on our screens. Ukraine, Israel and Gaza are all inside us. If we are empathic and awake, we share the pain of all the world’s tragedies in our bodies and in our souls. We cannot and should not try to block out those feelings of pain. When we try, we are kept from feeling much of anything, even love and joy. We cannot deny reality, but we can control how much we take in.

I am in the last decades of life, and sometimes I feel that my country and our species are also nearing end times. The despair I feel about the world would ruin me if I did not know how to find light. Whatever is happening in the world, whatever is happening in our personal lives, we can find light.

This time of year, we must look for it. I am up for sunrise and outside for sunset. I watch the moon rise and traverse the sky. I light candles early in the evening and sit by the fire to read. And I walk outside under the blue-silver sky of the Nebraska winter. If there is snow, it sparkles, sometimes like a blanket of diamonds, other times reflecting the orange and lavender glow of a winter sunset.

We can watch the birds. Recently, it was the two flickers at my suet feeder with the yellow undersides of their wings flashing, the male so redheaded and protective, the female so hungry. Today, it may be the juncos, hopping about our driveway, looking for seeds. The birds are always nearby. Their calls are temple bells reminding me to be grateful.

For other kinds of light, we can turn to our friends and family. Nothing feels more like sunlight than walking into a room full of people who are happy to see me. I think of my son and daughter-in-law on my birthday, Zeke making homemade ravioli and Jamie baking an apple cake, their shining eyes radiating love. Or of my friends, sitting outdoors around a campfire in coats and hats, reciting poetry and singing songs.

We also have the light of young children. My own grandchildren are far away, but I spend time with 9-year-old Kadija. My husband and I are sponsoring her family; they arrived here from Afghanistan, with only the father speaking English, just a few months ago. Already, she can bring me a picture book and read “whale,” “porpoise” and “squid” in a voice that reminds me of sleigh bells. I know someday she will be a surgeon, or perhaps a poet.

In our darkest moments, art creates a shaft of light. There is light in a poetry book by Joy Harjo, in a recording by Yo-Yo Ma and in a collection of Monet’s paintings of snow. The rituals of spiritual life will also illuminate our days. In my case, it is sun salutations, morning prayers, meditation and readings from Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and influential Zen master. Also, it’s the saying of grace and the moments when I slow down and am present. Whatever our rituals, they allow us to hold on through the darkness until the light returns.

Finally, we will always have the light of memory. When I recall my grandmother’s face as she read to me from “Black Beauty” or held my hand in church, I can calm down and feel happy. I feel the light on my skin when I remember my mother at the wheel of her Oldsmobile, her black doctor’s bag beside her. Driving home from a house call, she would tell me stories from her life on a ranch in the Great Depression and during the Dust Bowl.

Deep inside us are the memories of all the people we’ve ever loved. A favorite teacher, a first boyfriend, a best friend from high school or a kind aunt or uncle. And when I think of my people, I’m suffused with light that reminds me that I have had such fine people in my life and that they are still with me now and coming back to help me through hard times.

Every day I remind myself that all over the world most people want peace. They want a safe place for their families, and they want to be good and do good. The world is filled with helpers. It is only the great darkness of this moment that can make it hard to see them.

No matter how dark the days, we can find light in our own hearts, and we can be one another’s light. We can beam light out to everyone we meet. We can let others know we are present for them, that we will try to understand. We cannot stop all the destruction, but we can light candles for one another.

Dec. 11, 2023, NTY Opinions

Making Sense of the World Around Us

 We had decent weather over the holidays but are paying for it now as it is -25 or -35 with wind chill. I didnt mean not to blog, just life around here was so dull, getting through the day was enough. Tanya made  nice Christmas dinner and New Year's Dinner for the two of us, three counting Lucky. I cut way back on reading my inbox. Too depressing and instead watched a few movies. 

The New Year is upon us. We have no choice but to bumble through it as best we can. Maybe it won't be as bad as we fear and maybe pigs have wings. Our Prime Minister is as popular as a wet dog at a picnic. I have not seen that he has resigned yet though the demands are deafening. There are two good candidates to replace him. Failing thst Pierre PeePee Poilievre could well become out next Prime minister. On the other hand since American billionaires are opposing him, maybe Trudeau isnt as bad as he is made out to be. But he has to go.

Borowitz has good advice for surviving 2025:

There’s no way around it: it’s 2025. And that means we’re just days away from Elon Musk’s presidency. If you’re feeling anxious about the U.S. government being run by a man whose rockets regularly explode on the launching pad, I understand.
I want to help keep you sane this year—and the next four.
I’m not recommending that you disengage from the world, swallow fistfuls of gummies, or go on a four-year hot yoga retreat. I’m offering advice to make you calmer and stronger—and better equipped to do the important work ahead.
A few weeks ago, I published an essay called In Search of Sanity, in which I recommended, among other things, the Serenity Prayer:
God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed; Give me courage to change things which must be changed; And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
TBR community members contributed many insightful responses to my essay. Here are some of them:
·         The Serenity Prayer is really a recap of Stoic thinking (sorry, Christians).
·         Epictetus: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
·         Old Epi (as his friends were wont to call him) was keen on the notion of "what is up to us, and what is not up to us." Sweat the stuff that you can do something about; getting overwrought about the rest of the nonsense is futile. Do you really think your worrying is going to change Trump suddenly from unhinged to "hinged"?
·         Figuring out the difference is not all that hard, but it takes some work, for sure.
·         I'd only add to your serenity recipe some of the prescriptions from Timothy Snyder in his pocket-sized book, On Tyranny: "Stand Out. Be Careful With Language & Listen for Dangerous Words. Investigate. Get Outside. Make New Friends and March With Them. Be As Courageous as You Can." And—support institutions that count, whether they be journalistic, non-profits, local government or whatever makes sense. We can't afford to sit back. Ever.
·         I have a suggestion which I’m trying to get myself to take a little more often: instead of listening to NPR on your earbuds or your home radio, put on MUSIC. Do you remember music? It’s wonderful! Try it sometime.
·         I would add that, in the end, we have as individuals more power over and access to change than we often realize. Look how South Korea just dealt with the martial law situation! Mika and Joe now defend their trip to grovel at Trump’s feet with “That’s our job!” I leave it up to MSNBC and the network to accept that as a proper validation of their FL trip (love your note that their show is “Fox for vegans”). The viewers took flight and if they stay away the ad dollars will follow suit. This type of action/reaction goes for any well thought out strategy to “defend” our rights, our liberty and our Democracy. It just takes a little bit more thinking and a proactive rather than passive (as in victim) attitude!
·         I’m 66, and have a lifetime of anxiety and depression behind me with lots of trauma. Along with many years of therapy, you don’t want to know how many, I started mindfulness meditation training with the Headspace app three years ago. And the main point if mindfulness, is that all we have is right now. The past is gone, and the future never arrives. None of us know what’s going to happen, we absolutely do need to focus on the micro, and do what we can to change our small corner every day. For me that means being kind, helping others when I can, and doing my best to live in the moment. Simple, but not easy.
·         I've been trying to tell my mourning friends that they're mourning before the body's dead. I believe Trump will cause great damage, and hurt a lot of people, but I have hope that the midterms will dull the pain, and in four years the Trump era will slowly start to diminish. I don't think Vance or certainly not DJ Jr. have the personal charisma to keep his rabid followers as riled up. I could be wrong, but history shows us that most political movements reach a peak, then subside. Hell, even the Berlin wall fell.
·         How about Epictetus? Basic premise: There are only two things in life that matter. First: Figure out in any situation what is the best thing to do. Second: Do it.

A friend sent these 

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Mark Twain

 If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. Mahatma Gandhi

 Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. William Butler Yeats

 I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. James Baldwin

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous. Alfred Adler

What I try to tell young people is that if you come together with a mission, and it’s grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible. John Lewis

 Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. Francis Bacon

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. Abraham Joshua Heschel

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense. Robert Frost

Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories. Yuval Noah Harari

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense. Thomas Hobbes

 Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right. Isaac Asimov

 The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense. Coretta Scott King

When I was born, my parents and my mother's parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree I learned quite early, was exactly my age - was, in a sense, me. John Updike

 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Dwight D. Eisenhower 

Ekaterina Shelehova Christmas Caroles

 Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to my faithful readers. Some Christmas Caroles for your enjoyment by a Russian-Canadian opera singer.

The Christmas Story

The Nativity

Those of us who celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus are quite familiar with what is known as The Christmas Story from the KJV. It begins with Luke 2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed through to Luke 2:18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

Then we immediately go to Mathew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. And read through to Mathew 2:15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

Yet these two gospels were written by very different authors and for very different audiences. The Gospel of Mathew was likely written about AD 55-65, primarily for a Jewish Christian audience as extensive quotations from the Old Testament (62 times) show Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies. The Gospel of Luke was written in about AD 60-80 primarily for Gentile converts to Christianity.

The authorship of the Gospel of Matthew has traditionally been attributed to Matthew who was one of Jesus' twelve disciples and a former tax collector. This attribution is supported by early church traditions and writings from church fathers such as Papias, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria, who affirmed that Matthew wrote the Gospel based on his experiences and teachings of Jesus. Many contemporary scholars consider this attribution to be uncertain, suggesting that it was written by an anonymous Jewish Christian familiar with both Jewish law and Greek language. The Gospel was likely composed in Greek, possibly in Antioch, Syria, a major center of early Christianity.

Traditionally, the author of the Gospel of Luke is believed to be Luke, a physician and companion of Paul. Most critical scholars today believe it was composed anonymously. Two main possibilities for the author's background are proposed: 1. A Gentile Christian with knowledge of Jewish tradition, or 2. A Hellenized Jew living outside Palestine. The author assumed an educated Greek-speaking audience and focused on Christian concerns rather than broader Greco-Roman issues. The gospel was likely composed in a Hellenistic environment, possibly in Antioch or cities in Asia Minor like Ephesus or Smyrna. The author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles.

Whether this is important or not is hard to say. Likely not, as the tradition of The Christmas Story is more important than biblical historical precision.

But while we are at it, the Apostle Paul who created Christianity as we know it today wrote his letters to the churches before the Gospels and the Book of Acts, between AD 48 and 64. While scholars debate the authenticity of some letters, there is consensus on seven letters being genuinely Pauline:

• 1.      Galatians (c. 48 AD)
• 2.      First Thessalonians (c. 49–51 AD)
• 3.      First Corinthians (c. 53–54 AD)
• 4.      Second Corinthians (c. 55–56 AD)
• 5.      Romans (c. 55–57 AD)
• 6.      Philippians (c. 57–59 or c. 62 AD)
• 7.      Philemon (c. 57–59 or c. 62 AD)[6]

These seven letters, along with three others (Second Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians) whose authorship is debated, were likely written before the Gospels. Therefore, at least 7 and potentially up to 10 of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels.

How Nicholas, Bishop of Myra became Santa Claus

Click to enlarge

Tanya and I visited Turkey for the first time in July 2008. We went to an all-inclusive resort near Finike and used the opportunity to go exploring by boat along the coast. Lots to see. An island filled with goats, a city submerged by an earthquake a couple of millenia ago. And Myra, home bishopric of Saint Nicolas. These are pictures we took of Myra and of the ruins of St. Nicholas Cathedral which is now several meters below the surface and was in mist of archeological  recovery and restructuring. 

Tombs in the rock

Amphitheatre

Closeup of tombs in the rock

St. Nicholas Cathedral

St Nicholas Cathedral

St Nicholas Cathedral

For better and more recent pictures go to this website: https://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/kale-church-of-st-nicholas-myra

Where does Santa come from? An article in The Economist

How a miracle-working Greek bishop, Dutch folk figure and early New York icon became the ubiquitous symbol of Christmas.

St Nicholas was a fourth-century Greek bishop, today beloved in many Orthodox Christian countries. In western Europe he became known as the patron saint of children. (One of his supposed deeds was giving dowries to three girls who otherwise would have been forced into prostitution; another was restoring three children to life after they were chopped to pieces and pickled in brine.) His feast day, December 6th, was long one of celebration and gift-giving for the little ones.

The Reformation deprecated the veneration of saints, instead encouraging the Protestant faithful to focus on Jesus. When the English church stopped celebrating St Nicholas’s day, Christmas, a few weeks later, became the main festive December celebration. This would later cause a conflation of St Nicholas with the native Father Christmas, originally a separate figure (often depicted in green robes rather than red

The mystery begins to unravel when you remember another that he bears: St Nick. St Nicholas was a fourth-century Greek bishop, today beloved in many Orthodox Christian countries. In western Europe he became known as the patron saint of children. (One of his supposed deeds was giving dowries to three girls who otherwise would have been forced into prostitution; another was restoring three children to life after they were chopped to pieces and pickled in brine.) His feast day, December 6th, was long one of celebration and gift-giving for the little ones.

But to England’s colonies in America came many Dutch Protestants. Their taboo against venerating saints had weakened somewhat, and so some celebrated the gift-giving Sint Nicolaas, who had become a kind of folk figure with his name shortened to Sinterklaas. From there it is not hard to see how English-speakers around them heard something like “Santa Claus”, first mentioned as an alternative to “St Nicholas” in a newspaper in 1773. Charles Jones, a 20th-century American historian, argued that it was American patriots in New York after the revolution who embraced the celebration of St Nicholas, reaching back to New York’s history as a Dutch colony; a saint associated with the Dutch made a fitting anti-British symbol

The Santa Claus we know and love today is a product of The Night Before Christmas and Coca Cola with a step missing. This Saint Nicholas from mid 19th century served as the precurser to 1932's Coca-Cola Santa Claus. 

Thomas Nast 1880

Merry Christmas to all