If You Need Your Fingers Sewed Back On

If you need your fingers sewed back on after you accidentally sheared them off at your home with a saw, you can’t run out to the corner with your sign, “please sew my fingers back on.” And no, they won’t sew them on at the emergency room; they’ll cauterize the stumps, stitch you up and send you on your way.

If you have so-so insurance, they may sew a couple on until your insurance is tapped out and feed the rest to the poodle.

And if you are fortunate enough to have really good insurance or are wealthy, they will attempt to sew them all on.

Charity does not cut the mustard, or sew the fingers back on in the United States- even with all of us good charitable Americans.

The Judge Won't See What I Saw and Felt

Okay, I'm interviewing these three potential witnesses. One sister, two brothers--needed to testify on behalf of their mother.

The brothers are these two hard as rock, heavily tattooed, cold staring, mean looking dudes with huge forearms and thick necks. Their tattoos are all death, mayhem and chaos--no nice pretty flowers, poetic calligraphy, or cute animals.

I was thinking, what can these guys say that is going to really speak to the Judge, how's the Judge going to see through the tattoos if they do have something to say?

Then the less tattooed one started talking about his mother--the conviction with which he spoke of all that she had done for him and his unblinking willingness to sacrifice everything for her was so tangible it almost brought tears to my eyes and made me wish I had such an ally like him in my life.

Then, the other, who hardly had a word to say at first, whose tattoos alone seemed to speak volumes about what must have been a hard life, started talking. He spoke just what was needed, no more no less. Then we got to talking about his family and his kids. Instantly, it's like everything good, everything of value, everything of lasting worth came pouring out of his eyes, and he had this huge, toothy, wide smile that was like this window to his heart. You could feel how intensely he loved his kids, you could feel the joy that you knew they brought to him. It was different from anything I'd ever experienced.

But I can't call him as a witness. All the Judge will see are the tattoos, the Judge won't see what I saw and felt. That's the reality of things. But I saw it, and now I know.

Feral Bulls Patrolling the Spanish Countryside and Responsibility to Others

Sometimes we think we are our bald head or our bad skin that refuses to adhere to our will, or that we are our beautiful face or our perfect voice. None are true, all such perceptions are the offings of so many feral bulls patrolling the Spanish countryside.

Nor are we our car or suburban mansions, nor are we our poverty, nor our mental illness, our perfect body or our earthly cravings. While our consistent individual choices may, over time, nudge these ephemeral vessels into something sublime or into something beyond our imaginations and thereby obtain for us wealth, power, fame and favor, or by those same choices just as easily destroy what was or had the potential for greatness, we are more a product of all that have come before and we are more a reality because of all who surround us to give our efforts, our talents and our actions meaning and worth.

Consequently, we are, in essence nothing without others, nothing without the connections that span time and place. So how can we then be at times so self-despising and so dismissive of our responsibility to others?

Are You Worried You Might Be a Liberal?

On my favorite blowhard's radio program, he has a segment called, "Are you worried you might be a liberal?" and invited listeners to call in to share up to three views they held they thought might be liberal views to determine the matter. Several frantic callers dialed in to get psychoanalyzed. I'd like to try something different, and that is, "What is she/he?" (Liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc.)

Here's a guy I heard: I believe the only thing federal government should do is provide security from foreign and the only thing state government should do is protect us from threats from within. Furthermore, if this can't be accomplished within the current political process, I think we should take up arms to accomplish these goals. What is he? A conservative or a liberal or something else?

Here's another one: I believe that the federal government should control all energy, education, security, wages, commerce, capital, infrastructure, health care and environmental policies and states should protect us from threats from within and should govern our open spaces. Furthermore, if this can't be accomplished within the current political process, I think we should take up arms to accomplish these goals. What is he/she? A conservative or a liberal or something else?

Jihad Jane

Jihad Jane guilty of plot to kill a journalist for offending Islam, a Mexican journalist murdered for $250 because she offended the drug cartel, 261 Russian Journalists murdered since the USSR fell for offending the Russian government. I bless each day I rise in a country were we are free to opine without fear of death. Jihad Jane threatens our freedom more than China's 3 million man army.

The Glenn Beck Diet

Yes, Glenn Beck does incite people to violence. The other day my son came home from college with Glenn's new book, "The Glenn Beck Diet, 30 Days to Pasty, Pudgy and White." My mentor Herb Cowans was chatting with me. He saw the book and went ballistic and ripped it to shreds and jumped up and down on it claiming he tried it and it didn't work.

Store-Bought Health

"When accomplishments are few and far between, there is nothing quite like the sense of fulfillment ya get from finally, on the path to store-bought health, polishing off a bottle of vitamins." Herb Cowans, Mentor and Livestock Feed Farmer.