Are any other Substack content providers having trouble with Stripe? Just a few weeks ago, Stripe began asking me for new information about this newsletter. Suddenly, they have problems with my URL even though it has been the same for about two years.

I provided the information that Stripe asked for more than five times now with added information each …

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Do any of you who also post on Substack have a recommendation for which browser to use when you’re using your phone to edit and publish?

If you see any weird errors in my last few posts, don’t be shy about pointing them out. Since December, I’ve been publishing with my cell phone. Now I don’t know if anyone else is having challenges with this, but all of the browsers I use with Substack have some serious drawbacks.

Safari: the text is entirely too small for me for me to read and I can’t figure out how to enlarge it. The usual methods don’t seem to work.

Chrome and Firefox: both browsers lock up whenever I try to add a photo. And I can’t resize them.

With all the browsers, there’s a great lag in time from when I tap my digit on the screen to when it responds. I’m using voice text to “type” this, but you gotta use your thumb sometimes. I end up tap tap tapping on my screen, then switching to the next browser to see if that one will behave. It takes up a lot of time.

Suggestions?

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Originally posted at Da Tech Guy Blog on January 28, 2014. I may have posted it here already, but I can’t find it so here you go again!

*****

Over at Ace of Spades HQ [dead link], my friend Monty expounds on a concept which I coined a number of years ago and that I often mention: The Coconut Treatment.

There is a price to be paid for divorcing actions and concepts from the words that describe them. Government, and the law that undergirds it, is made up of words. Devalue the words, strip them of meaning, and you do the same thing to the concepts those words describe. Action follows Thought, and for Thought to exist there must be the Word.

The sundering of meaning from the words to which they are assigned is merely a foundation for the hollowing out of the Old Order of things great and small. It is a demonic seed which mirrors the mustard seed concept of the Kingdom of Heaven as illustrated by Jesus the Christ.

Where God is the author of Order, he who wishes to be His counterpart sows the Tree of Chaos. Meet the New Boss.

Seeds require nourishment in order to flourish. And just as the seed of Faith will flourish with specific items - prayer, reading God’s Word, fasting, giving, and obedience to God - so it is with the seed of Lies.

In his short, excellent post, Monty references Orwell’s Newspeak coinage, but the concept is much older than 1984; it’s one which started very simply in the Garden when the Enemy planted doubt about the truth of God’s Word. Since then, the war has been ongoing and the enemy has always been able to find foot-soldiers -individuals, groups and nations - who will water and most definitely fertilize his tree of Lies.

That tree has a fancy name now: postmodernism. But postmodernism is merely one of the many tools used to deceive mankind and, ultimately, to separate as many of us as possible from our Creator.

Primary Example: Love

God defines three types of love - agapao phileo and storge. (Other types exist, but these are in the Bible.)

The new Love has a two-pronged definition: 1) giving a person whatever he/she wants, and 2) approving anything another wants to do. Its basis leads back to the disobedience in the Garden.

And from the seed planted by the new definition of love we get the conceptual fruit: new definitions for rights, racism, oppression…the list is endless.

The fruit and the branches are manifold. From the new “love” seed we get conceptual trees such as communism/progressivism/Marxism/socialism, “settled” science, and the Common Core(d) method of education—concepts with evil foundations and self-contradictory foundations or those in which foundations are unnecessary.

What to do? I’ve mentioned the solution in almost every one of my posts here [sic] at Da Tech Guy blog. But the first thing to do is recognize the faulty seeds which have been planted in oneself and to root them out. The usual evil seed which needs weeding is that same one which got the Enemy thrown out of Heaven: pride.

According to God, pride is always a sin. This includes pride of race, pride of ethnicity, pride of gender, pride of accomplishment, pride of relation, pride of nationality (yes)—many types of pride which we erroneously view as harmless or even good. That view is a seed for the larger tree: the “bad” types of pride; they all supersede the hand of the Dispenser of all good things. (To turn another concept on its head, you didn’t build that. God did.)

So, I suggest that we each start with letting God remove the weeds from our individual souls—rebuilding the foundation of Truth in our individual thinking. In turn follows the larger removal of weeds from our families, and, after that, from our nation.

The weeding and watering have to start somewhere.

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But Kanye is not the only one with a huge dearth in that area of knowledge. This morning I was thinking about when he asserted that slavery was a choice and how some of my acquaintances who are also black agreed with him based on some of the dumbest premises imaginable.

As it happens I agreed with him, too, but my premises - and my conclusions - are not the same as yours.

The following was originally published in 2018 and I also shared it this morning on Facebook.

Yeah I realize that I may be starting new skirmishes with new/old obliviots who refuse to understand what context is. I’ll risk it.

*****

War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

On this, both Edwin Starr and Quark were wrong.

Just a random thought. Okay, what it really is: an excuse to quote a 70s R&B star and a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character at the same time.

Kanye West’s public support of Donald Trump is far from new, but people began to take notice when West tweeted in agreement with Candace Owens.

So, now the online public is paying close attention to everything West says, including this line, spoken during a TMZ interview:

400 years [of slavery] sounds like a choice.

I haven’t listened to the interview, so I don’t know the context but, guess what: he’s correct.

The choice was enslavement or death.

Now, before you decide that you already know where I’m going with this, keep in mind that I am often not going where you’re going and that I have a load of personal commentary to draw from to make my points.

On my Facebook feed, I have several people who are agreeing with West for all the wrong reasons. “The slaves should have gotten together and fought back. Look at Nat Turner,” I swear, these people think slaves could have sent out mass text messages to surrounding plantations and bought their equipment on Amazon.

And Nat Turner? There were close to 2 million slaves - obviously including women and children - in the United States of 1831, the year of the Nat Turner Rebellion. That rebellion lasted for two days and consisted of a force that grew to 75 people before it was stopped dead in its tracks. And I do mean dead.

I’m retired from the USAF, so I haven’t experienced war up close and personal. But I have read a book or 20 about wars and violence. Off the top of my head, I know that, for a war to have any chance of success - especially a war of rebellion - requires:

• Clear chain of command

• Training

• Planning

• Weapons

• Ammunition

• Food

• Water

• Shelter

• Secure communication

• Supply lines

• Allies

These are the bare bones, but the bottom line is that a combat force seeking to free itself and its related non-combatants against a better-trained and better-armed foe needs to know WTF it’s doing in the short-term and have long-term goals – like what to do and where to go if victory is achieved.

Think about what slavery was back then. Most slaves could not read, much less read a map, and, of course, the whole reason for keep slaves illiterate was to reduce the likelihood of this very thing.

War against the master-class and other whites? Please.

So, it is that most slaves chose to live. Good thing, too, because dead people cannot procreate. Don’t believe me?Ask the descendants of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade - if you can find any.

A comparison of the Islamic Slave Trade to the American Slave Trade reveals some extremely interesting contrasts.

While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic Slave Trade: two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate of slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as ten percent, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans-Sahara[n] and East African Slave market was a staggering eighty to ninety percent. (...)

While many children were born to slaves in the Americas--the millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the United States of today--very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survived.

While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.

– John Alembillah Azumah

Most of those slaves had no choices.

Personally, I’m glad that those on my mother’s side of the woodpile chose to live. Their descendants received liberty anyway - and those descendants include those who are still mad at Kanye West for being freer than they are and for taking advantage of it.

*****

ADDED: … and paying the price for it.

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I just want to pay my rent and catch a Lyft to church this morning rather than catching the bus. I don’t grift you; I ask up front.

Thanks.

UPDATE: $25. I have almost enough to ride.

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Most of you know that I am descended from two men on both sides who were famous in certain circles: my father, Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng, and my maternal grandfather, entertainer John E. Thomas (scroll down for photo). However, there’s another man in my family who is less known, but achieved a milestone of his own.

His name was James W. Kirk. This was fun to know after Star Trek became a thing in the 60s, but everyone called him Walter. He was my mom‘s stepfather.

This story was told to me by my aunt, Cheryl Kirk Jackson who passed away back in 2023, so I am passing this lore along via memory.

Grandpa Walter was born in Alabama and had a college degree in finance probably from Grambling University. Later, he moved to Chicago, which is where he and my grandmother met.

Back in the days following his graduation, there were few if any places in which a black person could use such a degree to make a living. So Grandpa Walter became a Pullman Porter.

Here’s a bit of Pullman Porter history from Wikipedia.

Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars.Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers’ baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths, and serve passengers. Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased its United States operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. The Pullman Company also operated sleeping cars in Mexico from the 1880s until November 13, 1970. The term “porter” has been superseded in modern American usage by “sleeping car attendant”, with the former term being considered “somewhat derogatory”.

Until the 1960s, Pullman porters in the United States were almost exclusively black, and have been widely credited with contributing to the development of the black middle class in the United States. Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, Pullman porters formed the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in 1925. The union was instrumental in the advancement of the Civil Rights Movement.

Pullman Porters were chosen for being tall, good-looking and well-spoken; Grandpa was all of those things. His Alabama cadence was mixed with proper pronunciation which I bet meshed together over time.

According to Aunt Cheryl, Grandpa Walter worked a regular route and, therefore, became familiar with his charges - mostly white men commuting to and from work in Chicago. One of them was a man who was an executive with Schlitz Brewing Company’s location in Chicago. The two men often discussed financial issues and the news of the day. Apparently, the man realized that my grandfather was well-educated and smart. And that’s how James W. Kirk became one of the first black executives in the Schlitz organization. I think this happened in the late 50s or the early 60s.

My grandparents lived on Chicago’s South Side which, back then, was a primarily black middle- to upper-class neighborhood. (Side note: I grew up in Los Angeles and was shocked at how strictly segregated Chicago still was even into the 80s. On one side of a freeway an expressway overpass, all the pedestrians were black. Then, on the other side, all the pedestrians were white.)

It is certain that Grandpa had a good salary from Schlitz. But it was well-known that Pullman Porters could become financially stable and successful through generous benefactors, so that job was highly sought after by black American men of the day. In short, my grandparents had a few bucks.

I like stories like these and I’m grateful to have been related to a person who used his personal gifts to advance himself and his family while being in the right place at the right time.

By the way, Don Surber‘s excellent piece on hidden black history jogged my memory. You should read it.

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****

In honor of Black History Month; spoiler alert: it’s not about these HoRs.

Several links in the original post - from NYU and from YouTube - are dead. I will look for others, but in the meantime, here you go.

UPDATED: NYU’s new URL on the topic.

*****

In the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War and during what is known as the Reconstruction period, sixteen black American men - several of them former slaves - served in the US House of Representatives with most being from states of the former Confederacy. All were quite literate and some were self-educated. What is certain is that these men saw hardship and racism that most of us 21st century brats of all colors cannot begin to conjure.

What is also certain is that each of these men were Republicans and for a very good reason: the Democrat Party of that time was the self-described Party of Slavery and remained the Party of Black Oppression long after. (Arguably, this legacy continues.)

Linked above are the fascinating biographies of each congressman and some of the speeches the men gave during the debates for the Civil Rights Act of 1871 - also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act - and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

The site linked is called Neglected Voices and the voices of these men have indeed been neglected but the title is so … weak. These men were anything but weak, hence the title of this post. I’m sure, however, that they’ve been spinning in their graves of late at the words and deeds of those for whom they set precedent.

These men didn’t have to invent tales of racial epithets hurled or of racial violence; such were their constant companions throughout their lives. Yet they did more than muddle through life, they soared. These were real men, not victims; our current crop of representatives looks microscopic next to them

At any rate, here are excerpts of a speech from Rep. Richard H. Cain (R, SC), in which he contradicts overt assertions by his white colleagues regarding the black race’s alleged inferiority:

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman states that during the struggle for freedom four millions of negroes lifted no hand to liberate themselves; that no stroke was made by them to deliver themselves from their thralldom; yet a few moments afterward he makes the statement that their kind-heartedness prevented them from rising up and destroying the wives and children of the rebel soldiers who were at the front. I accept the admission. Sir, there dwells in the black man’s heart too much nobleness and too much charity to strike down helpless women and children when he has a chance to do so. No; though the liberty of our race was dear to us, we would not purchase it at such a dastard price as the slaying of helpless women and children, while their husbands and fathers were away. I would scorn the men of my race forever if they had lifted their hands at such a period as that against helpless women and children, who were waiting in silent anxiety the return of their natural and lawful protectors. Our strong black arms might have destroyed every vestige of their homes; our torches might have kindled a fire that would have lighted up the whole South, so that every southern man fighting in the army would have hastened back to find his home in ashes. But our race had such nobleness of heart as to forbear in an hour [of] such extremity, and leave those men their wives and children.

Sir, I mean no disrespect to the gentleman, but I think the facts will bear me out in the statement that on every occasion on the battlefield where the black man met the white man of the South there was no flinching, no turning back, on the part of the black man. He bravely accepted his part in the struggle for liberty or death.

The gentleman says he still looks upon the whites as the superior race. That may be the case in some respects; but, sir, if they educated us they certainly should not find fault with us if we follow out what they have taught, and show ourselves obedient servants.

But, Mr. Speaker, there is another point. The gentleman states that we would make no movement to achieve our liberty. Why, sir, the education which those gentlemen gave the southern slaves was of a peculiar kind. What schoolhouse in all the South was open to the colored race? Point to one. Name the academy where you educated black men and black women as lawyers or doctors, or in any other department of science or art. Point out the county. Give us the name of the district. Tell the name of the school commissioner. Name the teacher. I will name one. Her name was Missa Douglas. And for the attempt to educate those of our race she was incarcerated in prison, and remained there for five years. That is the only instance, so far as I remember, of the education of the colored people of the South.

Examine the laws of the south, and you will find that it was a penal offense for any one to educate the colored people there. Yet these gentlemen come here and upbraid us with our ignorance and our stupidity. Yet you robbed us for two hundred years. During all that time we toiled for you. We have raised your cotton, your rice, your corn. We have attended your wives and your children. We have made wealth for your support and your education, while we were slaves, toiling without pay, without the means of education, and hardly of sustenance. And yet you upbraid us for being ignorant; call us a horde of barbarians!

(...)

Tell us of our ignorance - the ignorance of the colored race! Why, Mr. Speaker, it appears to me to be presumption on the part of the gentleman to state that we - we whom they have wronged, whom they have outraged, whom they have robbed, whose sweat and toil they have had the benefit of for two hundred years; whose labor, whose wives, whose children, have been at their beck and call - I say it ill-becomes them to taunt us now with our barbarism and our ignorance. Sir, if he will open to us the schoolhouse, give us some chance, we would not have to measure arms with him now. But even now, Mr. Speaker, although there is such disparity between us and him so far as relates to education and resources, even now we fear not a comparison in the condition of education in the last eight years between the whites and the blacks of North Carolina.

The gentleman, moreover, states that the reason why they did not educate the colored race was that the colored man was not ready. Not ready, Mr. Speaker; if I had that gentleman upon the floor, with my foot upon his neck, and holding a lash over him, with his hands tied, with him bound hand and foot, would he expect that I should boast over him and tell him “You are a coward, you are a traitor, because you do not resist me?” Would he expect me to tell him that when I had him down under my foot, with his hands tied and the lash in my hand lashing his back? Would he tell me that, in conscience, I would be doing justice to him? On, no, no! And yet such was the condition in which he had my race. Why, sir, the whipping-post, the thumb-screw, and the lash, were the great means of education in the South. These were the schoolhouses, these were the academies, these were the great instruments of education, of which the gentleman boasts, for the purpose of bringing these barbarians into civilization. [Applause.] When men boast, they ought to have something to boast of. When I boast, Mr. Speaker, I shall boast of some noble deed. I will boast not of the wrongs inflicted upon the weak; I will boast not of the outrages inflicted upon the indigent; I will not boast, Mr. Speaker, of lashing the weak and trampling under foot any class of people who ought to have my sympathy, nor will I reproach them for being ignorant, when they have been kept away from every means to educate them.

Ironic how so many so-called proud black persons disdain education today. It is easy to see why the stories of such men are left out of the NEA-approved lesson plans--and easy to see why they should be re-remembered.

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When I read the Bible, I do it in an unusual fashion. Many years ago, I committed to reading the Bible all the way through starting at the beginning of the year and I did that maybe seven or eight times. Now I do it differently. I have four Bible apps and what I do now is note the verse of the day and then read the entire chapter. And sometimes I will embark on a project for many days. I will take one of the narratives and read it all the way through until the end, a chapter or two a day.

At present, I am in the midst of the saga regarding the prophet Samuel, King Saul, and King David. This is in the Old Testament, of course. I finished the first book of Samuel last week and I’m on chapter 8 in the second book.

From the minute Saul, king of Israel, disobeyed Samuel regarding the fate of the Amalekites and with the offering to the Lord - he tried to gaslight Samuel about both! – his descent was just crazy. And after Samuel told him that he would no longer be king, Saul just kept screwing up and screwing up over a period of many years.

The narrative says the spirit of the Lord left him and that an evil spirit had begun to torment him. From that point, stupidity was the defining quality of Saul’s life.

• When Samuel anointed David to be the next king, Saul tried to kill David. David fled and Saul hunted him for the next 10 years to the exclusion of all other matters.

• After Samuel died, Saul consulted with a witch to bring up the spirit of Samuel – an action which Saul himself had forbidden throughout his kingdom under the pain of death.

• Saul murdered a tribe of priests. These priests had helped David during David’s escape, but they did not know that Saul was after him. Saul killed them anyway, leaving only one alive. That one moved faster than the others.

• While Saul was laser-focused on David, the Philistines – Israel’s sworn enemies – grew stronger and by the time Saul noticed, they were too strong for Saul’s forces to defeat. He and three of his sons died in battle.

Saul had moments of clarity in between, but the crazy was too strong for him to hold back. He had passed the point of no return.

I wonder how things would have gone had Saul simply stepped down as king when Samuel told him that the Lord had picked someone else. But humility wasn’t part of Saul’s personality.

I think I like doing recaps of Bible stories! Might we call this a review?

Some who think they will spontaneously combust if they touch a Bible think it’s full of rules and regulations. But there are a lot of wild and very human narratives in it and this one is as good as any.

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This morning, I had decided not to walk today. I was about half an hour into my walk when I remembered that decision. 🙂

I have a bit of a new routine. The previous one was six days per week. Now it’s seven days straight with a break of one day in between.

More new: I used to do my 3 miles, then get in my car and drive over to Planet Fitness to do extra things and to lie on the massage bed there for 10 minutes. Due to circumstances, I now walk straight over to PF, do my things, then walk home. This has increased my distance to 4.16 miles. I like it!

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The Bible says that we are created in God’s image a lot people read it and say yes we created to look like God, but I think it’s more than that. We are created to have His attributes; to do the things that he does on an infinitely smaller scale. I felt this way when I was composing my novel - creating a world with people, interactions, and occurrences.

I made a huge mistake when writing. A lot of it was composed orally and this was in the days before smartphones which have voice recorders. I had a small MP3 player that I spoke a lot of my ideas out and some of those ideas are in the novel now. However, the voice recorder came about because of my mistake.

I remember sitting out in my backyard thinking my novel all the way out to the end, but I didn’t record it or write it down right afterward. Later, when I went to record those things, I had forgotten it all!

We human beings imitate God all the time. We write novels/plays/movies, compose music/lyrics/melody. We create countless pieces of art in various forms.

But because of the Fall, sometimes things happen to our creations; they become twisted and perverted. Thinking about the the tapestry that God creates with humanity over long periods of time, we do that too. We copulate, get married, have children and those children do the same. We create organizations and governments and all kinds of other things – again, because of this world being fallen sometimes those things go bad or become twisted and, right now, communications do this very thing.

I’ve been trying to put into words what I see/read over social media, mainly on X and Facebook. I watch as people pass along false information or something which I think is worse: true information without its context. Why is that worse? Because truth sometimes creates a basis for falsehood and then gets lost in the mountain of lies built on top of it. sometimes you can see it in innocuous conversations that don’t really seem important.

I’m going to give at least one example in a subsequent post.

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Xx

Also, you should read my post on Christmas and Kwanzaa.

UPDATE: Laundry done, but gym membership still overdue. Outdoors it is, for a few days.

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This has been an extremely tough year for me, but as we know from the news, there are people having infinitely tougher years. But don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about that in this offering. On the contrary, I want to talk about refusing to stay in the muck.

One of my iniquities is procrastination; heck, I’ve had this essay almost done for a week. In the specific area of reading, I have several unfinished audio-books on my Audible app and I guess you could say that my pre-New Year’s resolution is to finish them.

Done:

The Gift of Rejection by Nona Jones

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17 by G. Edward Griffin; some may recall that Griffin is the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island

48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

In the last few weeks, I finished the first three books, and I’ve restarted 48 after many years. I listen to them while I’m on my walk, but only in one ear because when you’re walking down the street, you need to be able to hear what – or who - is coming at you before it gets too close.

Is there a pattern in this material? I think so. In the wake of all the bad things that have befallen me – not just in this year but since about 2014 – I want to level up. These years have seen my life go up, down, up, and then down again. Crazy “accidents” and I’ve had several people who claimed to care about me, even to love me, enter my life then leave it.

However …

I have many steadfast, loyal and trustworthy friends. That list is much longer than those who were temporary and treacherous.

And then there is the One who will never leave me nor forsake me.

Both Goggins and Jones suffered from horrific upbringings and both experienced lots of rejection and failure. But their messages are identical: keep pushing. And I think it’s more than just the action of pushing forward.

94-year-old Griffin has dedicated his life to exposing the many secrets held by the world’s elite class. Wikipedia calls him a conspiracy theorist, and I bet he embraces the moniker. He was warning the public about the ascendance of communism in the U.S. in 1961 - the year I was born.

I don’t have cancer that I know of, but it is certain that the topic is relevant to all our lives. Aside: it is my opinion that God has provided healing of all diseases and conditions and that the medicine is all around us.

Goggins puts forth many ideas that spoke to me. One of them: that many people die and leave incredible amounts of potential on the table; things they were capable of doing but never tried.

Goggins would know. He went from a 300-pound KFCEMF who could only run a quarter of a mile to a Navy SEAL that routinely takes part in 100-mile races. I have no intention of doing any such craziness, but I have upped my daily exercise game and seen some great results.

Thinking about this idea of tapping into previously unknown ability potential, I realized that I did this too when I wrote my novel and had it published. I’ve always been a reader and, one day, after finishing a novel by Octavia Butler (I think), I said to myself, “I can do this.” And I did it. It was over a course of years; more time than it should have taken, and I let it go a few times. But when I moved in with my great-aunt to care of her in her declining years, I finally finished Tale of the Tigers. I was already a well-known blogger by then and, because of that I got some publicity and cover design by one Chris Muir.

I had stopped reading 48 way back when because of its inherent amorality. It was very early in my life as a Christian and I was cautious about reading material that could lead me astray. Now, however, I’m much more secure about trusting God even as my life has seemed to worsen. But I do pray for discernment whenever I ingest any material into my consciousness.

Honestly, I do feel responsible for some of the bad things that have occurred in my life, but if I’m responsible for those things, doesn’t it follow that I’m also responsible for powering through the bad and, further, for making good things happen? I think it does.

There’s another book I have in my queue entitled Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispensa and another one entitled Unf*ckology by my old blog friend Amy Alkon. I think that Amy’s book is next in line since I’ve been promising her that I’ll read it for a while now.

By the way, all of the books have Amazon links and if you use the link to buy one of them, I’ll get a few pieces of change.

The bottom line is that I’m tired of allowing shit to happen to me and I want to listen to others on how to make shit happen. Of all the books on this list, only one is Christ-centered, but I’m not worried about that. My view is that God often rewards effort whether we serve Him or not, but there are two things to keep in mind.

With Christians, it’s a matter of faith, acting on that faith, and being confident that the Lord is their provider. And, as for non-Christians - even atheists – it’s a matter of how they will think/feel after their efforts come to fruition. Will they feel grateful/happy? Will they lord it over others who are not as successful? Will they discover that worldly success alone is not as fulfilling as they thought it would be? Will they be afraid of losing what they have gained?

Will they have peace? I theorize that is the primary difference.

Of course, I’m only guessing. Let me see if I can find out if these things are true. I’ll let you know.

Merry Christmas!

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I posted the following on Facebook this year and, if I remember correctly, it was during the illegal alien riots.

I have not talked about the other thieves before: a stranger who absconded with my iPad while I was giving him many of my old belongings and a room renter recommended to me by some of my relatives(!) She skipped two months of rent; that money was intended to keep my car from being repossessed. Yes, that car.

This year I’ve had three more injuries to my present car.

I should hate people, but I don’t.

That guy I told you about last week is among the number mentioned. As I’ve already said, he has started paying me back and has promised to pay on the first of every month. I will still send him an invoice because he has already shown that his promises are worthless.

If he had not begged me to take out a loan on my old car, then disappeared and then had his girlfriend tell me to not contact him, I would have let this go.

Many have urged me to republish the post in which I gave his identity details, but I took it down because my purpose was not to ruin him - to seek revenge - but to make it worth his while to pay. So I won’t put the post back up at this point. But I will send him a copy of it, should he fall behind.

He pretended to be a Christian back when we were “friends” and maybe he’s had a true conversion now. But I will pray for his salvation anyway. Hers, too.

There are no people of my acquaintance who I hope end up in Hell. However, I can honestly say I was indifferent to the fate of his soul and that of his ex-girlfriend.

I still am a little.

And I don’t think that’s the right attitude to have for my own soul because it is in disagreement with God’s will.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

- 2 Peter‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬ KJV

Therefore, I’m praying for the thief and the obliviot for selfish reasons and I’m good with it. Thankful even!

By the way, I love you, faithful readers.

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Occasionally I think about how all the words that we put up on the Internet, will be read by people in the future after we are long dead.

I also think about and am unnerved by the notion of having to explain myself to God for everything I say and do. Therefore, I am not totally comfortable about my last post. We are supposed to forgive as we have been forgiven, right? Have no memory of the trespasses against us, right?

Part of my devotion for this morning was a full reading of 1 Samuel 23 and I continued on to chapter 24. This was where King Saul was in the midst of his ten-year hunt for David. Remember that David had done nothing to Saul; the hunt was merely due to Saul’s jealousy because he knew that the Lord had appointed David to be king of Israel over him. Saul lost his anointing through disobedience to the Lord’s instructions as relayed by the prophet Samuel.

In passages I read, Saul’s army is chasing David’s much smaller army while the Lord is providing ways of escape for David and his men. Finally, the Lord delivers Saul into David’s hands and tell David to do with Saul what seems best to him. Saul and his army are asleep and David’s men are urging him to kill Saul. But when David goes to do so, his conscience takes over. Instead, he cut’s off one of the tassels on Saul’s robe while the sleeping Saul and his men are none the wiser.

Later, when Saul and his army have awakened and are on the move again, David comes out from his hiding place to show Saul the tassel; that he could have killed Saul, but didn’t.

For ten years Saul wasted his time seeking to kill David over something over which David had no control.

I’m not totally sure how the lessons of this story might apply to my situation - except for the forgiveness part - but there it is.

I have considered unpublishing the post a number of times already. However, when I read it again, that instinct goes away. Is that vengeance talking? But I don’t want anything bad to happen to TLA; I just want my money. I haven’t posted the full essay in other platforms yet. If I do that, there will be no going back, especially if I post it in Instagram.

Progress: the roommate asked for my PayPal information. So, I will change the word “bitch” in the previous post. Words matter.

If TLA starts paying what he owes me, I will unpublish it, but not delete it. Thieves and liars need motivation to do right.

Of course, I will be turning these things over further in my mind.

UPDATE: TLA started paying me back so I unpublished the post.

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A few years back I bought a big yellow rain poncho just for days like today. But the rain wasn’t the only unusual thing.

My normal distance target is 3 miles which is around 57 to 61 minutes. Today my time was 74 minutes. The book Can’t Hurt Me is definitely having an effect on me.

The new goal is 120 minutes. No more than that, however.

Again I cut a new path. My old reason for doing this was to avoid a certain person, but the new one is to push myself past my comfort zone. I did that today.

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- David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

I reached 3 miles at 57:26. The audiobook of Goggins’ autobiography makes you want to push just a little bit harder.

Also done this morning: abs, biceps & triceps with free weights, and planking - two sets of 60 seconds. I hate planking, but I hate that slight hunchback I had even more.

I was done at exactly 5AM.

Let’s just say that I sleep very little.

No matter. I’m making change in body and mind. Altering one’s way of thinking is much harder than dropping weight, but I have things to do and not a whole lot of time left.

So why not?

*****

My exercise clothes can almost stand up on their own. Hit the tip-jar for laundry!

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¹⁰ Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.

Here’s my mood from yesterday.

It certainly is not new, but yesterday things came to a head.

I can’t drive (legally) and because of a glitch in Stripe’s system, I was unable to access any of the money that has been donated or paid to subscribe here. It will be two days before that ends. This is why I’ve been urging you to donate via cash app.

The thing about today is this: I have a regular volunteer commitment at my church on Mondays and, while it’s sometimes a little stressful, it keeps me sane and focused on the Lord.

With no access to money however - not even enough to catch the bus - I had to stay home today, and I felt like a trapped animal, only worse. Useless and hopeless.

I rarely sleep past about 2AM anymore and today was no different. I did the usual: listened to my daily Bible chapters from one of my phone apps and talked to God, but both felt hollow.

Most readers know that I’ve been doing a 3-mile walk, six days a week since March and it has paid off well; I’m 30 pounds down, right where I wanted to be. So, I was thinking about today’s walk which usually happens around sunrise. Instead, I went out at around 2:45 AM on my normal route.

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Dangerous? Maybe. There are a lot of jokes about the following - see the subtitle – but I figured out a long time ago that I’m nearly invisible at night when wearing black. So that’s how I dressed. I wore street clothes, not exercise clothes and instead of power-walking, I walked normally as if I were going to the store. Good news: because of my weight loss, I was able to zip up my thermal jacket easily and not struggle with it.

There weren’t many homeless on the street at that hour. Most of them had found a place to hide. There was a guy I see regularly who sleeps in an indention against a business buildings and there was another person who was asleep in the middle of the sidewalk with a blanket. He/she was snoring.

Not many working girls out. I guess most of them found customers and were done for the evening. There was one who seemed afraid of me, but I told her to be careful out there and God bless. This seemed to calm her down, and she thanked me.

And in between making these small short observations, And I duked it out with God, even though I always know He will win. And I made it home safely.

I’m still talking to him and not all that politely - not just about these recent ill winds blowing against me, but about my entire life. I’ll give you more today.

Thing is, I’m in too deep now.

*****

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Originally post on December 4, 2013. I think this one was published at Da Tech Guy Blog.

A little out-of-date? I’ll risk it.

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Over two decades ago, when I was a student at a community college, I took a government class, taught by one Professor Cohen, as an elective. I asked around about him and received a flood of answers; the word was out that he was tough and it that was difficult to earn an ‘A’ from him. Most advised me to drop his class and choose an easier professor. I didn’t and earned an ‘A’ in the course. (Those who have read my novel Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game will recognize this scenario.)

Since taking the course, I’ve long pondered Professor Cohen’s alleged toughness. All he required was that a student read diligently - example: read the US Constitution in its entirety once a week - and regurgitate those readings and notes from his lectures on tests. Having been in the military and, therefore, having taken many military courses, this was an easy thing for me to do. It’s notable that the only other person in this class who received an ‘A’ was an Army veteran. We were both used to high and objective standards.

But even back then, it was becoming plain that most other students were not used to them, hence the idea that Professor Cohen was so tough. Now, however, high standards are not only something to be avoided, but expecting students to meet them is an act of violence and, of course, racism.

Current and former students in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies expressed their support for professor emeritus Val Rust following a demonstration in one of his graduate classes last Thursday.

Student demonstrators alleged that there is a “toxic” racial climate in the graduate school, including in Rust’s classroom. Organizers told the Daily Bruin last week that they decided to host the demonstration after a recent report examining racial discrimination among the university’s faculty stated that UCLA’s policies and procedures do not sufficiently address racially motivated instances of discrimination.

[...]

In a letter sent to colleagues in the department after the sit-in, Rust said students in the demonstration described grammar and spelling corrections he made on their dissertation proposals as a form of “micro-aggression.”

[...]

The demonstration’s organizers said they are aware of several examples in the graduate school where minority students claimed they faced challenges and “micro-aggressions” from professors.

Emphasis mine.

This is what decades of indoctrination - rather than education - and entitlement hath wrought. In this case, the entitlements which such students have already received are as follows: high school diploma, undergraduate degree, and acceptance into a graduate program. They expect to accrue their next entitlement - a master’s degree and/or a Ph.D - on schedule and this professor won’t gift wrap it for them unlike most of his predecessors. Such students have been told overtly and subliminally that these credentials are their “just due” - due to them not because of their abilities, but because of their very existence.

Moreover, these students and the systems which have promoted them have internalized the alleged inferiority of blacks. I knew even before I read the story, that the protestors were black because I’ve seen this type of reasoning all my life. It produces the same phenomenon in which black K-12 students who attend schools with majority-black student bodies and who excel academically are teased by their peers for “acting white.”

Here’s how the reasoning works: black persons are genetically unable to master correct grammar, so it’s pointless to attempt to teach it to them or expect it from them. And if a teacher, professor or boss expects such, that person is guilty of perpetrating “micro-aggression” on a people.

This widespread mindset does not exist by accident. It’s a plan, I say; one which makes ignorance not only prevalent, not only celebrated, but fecund. And, regardless of your color, if you don’t think this way, you are not “of the body“ and must be purged.

The plan: the hollowing out of education, institutions, and, most importantly, a people.

*****

I am mostly immobile. Donate at Cash app: $jbaldilocks

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My Stripe account is still inaccessible, but it won’t always be, so go ahead and subscribe for money - or for free - if you’re willing.

Here’s a list (.pdf) of posts I lost in the dissolution of Typepad. [See update below!] It’s only a partial list - 464; there were, as I recall a couple of thousand. My friends had advised me to write a book using old posts and I compiled this list for that purpose. Now it’s a victim of my chronic procrastination.

However, when I looked in my Dropbox files, I found a few of these posts as is, along with a number of posts that were lost when Da Tech Guy Blog also became a victim of blog murder. So it is that I will be sharing some of them like I did here.

Original date: August 15, 2017.

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It’s strange how mundane things can trigger memories. That happens to me here in my native Los Angeles whenever I drive on one of the connections between Interstate 5 and Interstate 110.

The southbound 5 to southbound 110 transition is a little stretch of two-lane highway which looks like it was carved into a hill. Though it’s in the process of an upgrade [Ed note 2025: finished a number of years back], for decades it looked rickety enough to crumble with a good Southern California shaker.

But there it hangs, for at least as far back as I can recall. Trucks, buses, etc. have sat on it in traffic jams headed toward downtown LA for decades and probably are doing so right now.

Long ago, another vehicle took this tiny stretch of highway: my great-uncle, great-aunt and I would be on our way home from Lake Isabella and, when we hit that part, I knew we were close to home in South Central LA.

My uncle had one of those pick-up trucks with a camper on the back. We’d go over that road and, I, with a six-year-old’s imagination, would think that our truck was too big for the road and that we were going to fall off into some abyss. Fortunately, it takes about fifteen seconds - traffic willing - to run over this part of the freeway, so my imaginings never had time to bloom.

Much later on, I used to get an inkling of that panic when I drove over the stretch, but now, only the sweet memories of a happy childhood remain.

RIP Uncle John (1920-2000) and Aunt Alma (1921-2012).

UPDATE: A loyal reader says that a lot of my Typepad post are available via the web archive!!!

*****

My stripe account is still inaccessible and I still don’t have enough to give $820 to my landlord. Cash app: $jbaldilocks

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In my post about accusers, I mentioned that one of the naysayers claimed that, by exhorting my Facebook followers to pray that Hurricane Milton (2024) be rebuked, I was violating one of Jesus’ admonitions about prayer.

⁷ But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Matthew 6:7 (KJV)

Here’s the NIV translation.

⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

From the context, Jesus is cautioning the individual who is praying and not many individuals who may be praying for the same thing. But I got to thinking about the individual.

When I pray for something, then pray for the very same thing the next day, and the next, am I praying like a pagan? Maybe yes, maybe no.

When my friends, Tom and Clarice, prayed that God would give them a child, it’s certain that the prayer went up to Heaven many times on repeat. Go back, however, and read the story again. It seems to me that when Tom decided to let the Lord’s will be done and declared his love for his wife and no other, they got what they had been praying for. A double portion in fact.

The great thing, however, is that the Lord Himself provides a solution to this conundrum.

²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:24 (NIV) and other places in the Gospels

I’ve had to learn to pray like this and just when I think I’ve got it down, some more poop falls on my head, and I must learn it again. And I can hear it now: “what if you’re praying for something that is against God’s will?” God is perfectly capable of letting you know that, usually via His word, but not exclusively. The key is to examine your own motives.

And I am learning all of these things today.

I’ve accepted the fact that school never ends, not in this life at least, and probably not in the next one.

UPDATE: Jesus is even more specific in Luke 18:1-8 (NIV):

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

The emphasis is mine.

Crazy fact: more than once, I have cited this parable during my prayers, but forgot it when I was composing this post! Thank God for my siblings in Christ, like Eric I.

So keep on asking!

*****

Read the updates about my financial situation in previous posts. Temporarily, my Stripe account is down so I have changed my donation button to Cash app: $jbaldilocks. I’ll revert to Stripe this Monday.

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