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Post by kungfuzu on Oct 27, 2019 17:29:29 GMT -8
For those of us who believe life has dealt us a lousy hand, I would like to submit the following story to give us all a little perspective.
I have known a fine young man, who is in his mid-to-late twenties, for close to three years now. He is well groomed, polite, speaks intelligently, and to top it all works with the mentally handicapped. Not only does he work with the handicapped, he does it well with a cheerful demeanor and treats them with the respect one gives normal people. Needless to say, he is loved and admired by his wards.
Yesterday (Saturday), my wife was speaking to this young man when he pulled a sack out of his bowling bag (he had taken some of his wards to bowling practice for the Special Olympics) and started to take out many plastic bottles of medicine. My wife was surprised, which he clearly noted. He told her that he had "childhood diabetes" which had steadily worsened as he got older. These days, he had high blood pressure and numerous other health problems although he was thin and looked healthy. He told her his kidneys performed at about 8% of normal function and that he did peritoneal dialysis everyday at home. (I believe several times a day as my mother did the same thing before she died.)
He is now on a waiting list for a double-kidney and pancreas transplant. As one might suspect, it is much easier to find a single kidney than it is to find two kidneys and a pancreas from a single person. He told my wife that he did not know when something would come up, but that it would probably take months to happen. None of this was said with self-pity and he only mentioned it as my wife came upon him preparing to take his medicine.
In the past, I have wondered what motivated this young man to work with the handicapped, which can be a very difficult occupation. Perhaps his own situation helped him realize what is important in life and led him to be someone who actually did try to improve the world as opposed to just talking about it.
For those who think life is tough, I suggest they take this young man as an example and do their best to buck up. No one says it is easy, but how can anyone not admire and try to emulate this young man? With such people, America still has a chance.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 25, 2019 8:34:37 GMT -8
What a wonderful and difficult story, Mr. Kung. Best wishes and prayers for your friend.
We are all such thankless, spoiled pussies as a matter of course. It’s wrong to use such people, such as this fine young man, as a reminder (which is not what you’re doing) that we don’t have it so bad. I think your message is that, like you and your wife, to offer people like this whatever support (even if just moral) that you can.
Here’s hoping you and yours have a meaningful Thanksgiving. It’s not always easy to do. There’s so much gunk out there. But then there are those souls who shine through even though they’ve had more than their share of gunk. Inexplicable but inspirational in its own way.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 25, 2019 8:57:58 GMT -8
My basic message is that regardless of how tough things are, there are some people who can rise above themselves and shine the light of kindness on the rest of us. Where would the lousy world be without people who, whatever problems they have, get on with life spreading goodness and strength around them?
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 14, 2020 13:45:12 GMT -8
A brief article about a young Chinese woman who died from malnutrition. This story lays out the bad luck this woman had, her good heart and the fact that communist China is not the workers' paradise Western leftist would have us believe. A good heartGuizhou is historically one of the poorest regions of China.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 14, 2020 16:19:39 GMT -8
An adult woman weighing less than 50 pounds? I probably weighed that in grade school. The Flores hobbits probably weighed that much. This sounds like something out of the second "Holy Thursday" by Blake.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 4, 2020 16:20:22 GMT -8
The link is to a nice piece about Tim Tebow and his work for charities. Tim TebowI can't help but compare this to the garbage flowing from the Super Bowl Half Time. Tebow appears to be a very kind person. |
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 5, 2020 22:08:56 GMT -8
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 6, 2020 16:16:41 GMT -8
Here is an inspiring story of American Christian bravery. We fall out togetherThat this man was not awarded the Medal of Honor is ridiculous. It is an example of how chicken-shit military bureaucracies can be. What he did took more bravery than any of us can imagine. |
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 7, 2020 8:43:10 GMT -8
Standing up to bullies. The man should be posthumously given the Medal of Honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, a tall statue, and have an aircraft carrier named for him. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what conviction is all about: standing up in the face of evil and being willing to pay a price. Contrast that with all the creepy and dishonest yutes who supposedly “stand up for this and that.” But it’s all a self-absorbed, narcissistic standing-up. Here’s the Kindle version of the book: No SurrenderLove this part; Love this comment: That gives such shame to the idiots who tattoo themselves head to foot. There were real tattoos once that unfortunately meant something. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 7, 2020 9:18:41 GMT -8
I can remember meeting one such camp survivor when I was a teenager. He was an old man and you could see he had suffered.
I knew of another who had survived camps as a child. He had been able to keep a Teddy Bear with him during this period. As a man, he still loved Teddy Bears. He had Teddy Bear cuff-links and tie pins, among other things.
It is amazing (awe inspiring in the true sense) the courage some gain from having "goodness and morality," shall we say, "righteousness" on their side.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 7, 2020 9:39:28 GMT -8
From 2000 to 2004 I was program manager for the Agency on Aging of Salt Lake County, (meals on wheels). During Thanksgiving and Christmas I delivered meals so my staff could have the time off. In 2002 I delivered to a senior citizen high-rise in the downtown area. One apartment was an old woman 96, as I remember. I took her meal in the apartment and checked on her, wishing her a happy Thanksgiving.
She looked at me, "young man, (I was 52) I'm 96 years old and all my children are dead". It was then I noticed the numbers on her left arm. The next time I delivered that route she was gone. My heart, was and still is broken thinking of how she ended up in SLC. I wish I knew the entire story.
My Zionism was made stronger that day and stands stronger daily.
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Post by timothylane on Feb 7, 2020 9:58:26 GMT -8
I'm not aware of ever having met such a survivor, though I've read enough about such things going back to grade school, when I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as well as a book about World War II stories (non-fiction) that included an article on Ann Frank and her diary.
By the way, in one of these books I discovered an item with a lovely serendipity. In World War II, the Gestapo chief in Poland (who oversaw so much of the Holocaust) was named . . . Friedrich Kruger.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 7, 2020 10:10:22 GMT -8
I feel the urge to grab notebook in hand and go around and get some of these life stories.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 7, 2020 10:18:52 GMT -8
Brad,
I know I have mentioned it before, but start with your story for your children and grand children. Mine is now almost 300 pages and 100,000 words.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 7, 2020 10:51:18 GMT -8
No children. No grandchildren. I’m a Darwinian dead end, Artler. And my nephews and nieces could care less about history. Still, there could come a time when the yutes grow up and want to read some of these stories.
One of the stories I consistently run into regarding the Pacific Northwest is how many stories are about running away or abandonment. No doubt the entire westward movement contained a variety of motives. But my guess is so many of my generations grandparents and great-grandparents were getting the hell out of somewhere else for some reason…not always glorious reasons. The went as far as they could and hit an ocean.
My father’s father, for example, had abandoned his family to (I think) chase some floozie westward. I’ve only ever gotten bits and pieces of this story and may be one reason many aren’t particularly drawn to writing down these stories. And doing a DNA search, which is all the rage these days, is basically value-neutral. It may be interesting and worthy to be able to sketch in more detail of a family tree. But it doesn’t necessarily tell you what the individual apples were up to.
Apparently my grandmother followed my deadbeat grandfather west and eventually corralled him. Much more than that, I do not know. But even with warts and all, I would love to know more.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 7, 2020 13:00:51 GMT -8
American was lucky to have a vast area toward which the various fruits, nuts, crooks and general malcontents could immigrate. This made it easier for the rest of society to establish and build solid communities with fewer distractions than would have otherwise been possible.
Unfortunately, this movement finally reached the Pacific Ocean and that put a stop to that. Now the crazies just go to Nevada or Alaska.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Feb 7, 2020 13:37:07 GMT -8
So that's why the nuts, flakes, and kooks congregate in California. They hit the Pacific Ocean.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 7, 2020 13:57:48 GMT -8
Remember the character Ben Rumson, from Paint Your Wagon, drifter, gold-miner, drunk, philander and destined to die in an unmarked grave? And of course the saloon dancers, (prostitutes) who followed men like them west. If you could get an accurate genealogy of the leading families on the west coast from 1840-1900 the blank spots most likely would be filled with people like Ben and his cohorts. It is not that there were immoral, illegal or fatening. They built a nation and far too many of them have been relegated to the dust because their life style did not measure up to modern standards.
Steinbeck wrote in Cannery Row, that the row was made up of criminals, drunks, bums and whores, but if you looked through the other eye you would see saints and angels. We all have family history that may not engender ohs and ahs but that is life. It is a short trip from womb to tomb but if you don't know history it will seem like a long one, full of malice, distrust, depression and disgust. It is up to us to educate our youth, even if they refuse to listen, about history; the nations and our families. It is the only way to turn back the empty headed fools like AOC, who really is a dumb as she acts, but is also uneducated. My guess is she never listened to the stories of her elders. The time will come in her life when she will regret it.
Mark Twain tell the story of when he was 18 and he did not understand how a man as old as his father could be so stupid. By the time he was 25 he was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just a few years.
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Post by kungfuzu on Feb 7, 2020 14:05:12 GMT -8
I hadn't read that Mark Twain story, but strangely, I had a similar experience.
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Post by artraveler on Feb 7, 2020 14:09:23 GMT -8
American was lucky to have a vast area toward which the various fruits, nuts, crooks and general malcontents could immigrate. This made it easier for the rest of society to establish and build solid communities with fewer distractions than would have otherwise been possible. Without yeast it is impossible to make anything but crackers, and matzo. Yes, America is lucky to have these people, they built roads, mines, telegraph lines and a transcontinental railroad. However, it is also impossible to make bread with too much yeast. America was lucky, for over 100 years the mix was about right. In recent years the reaction of the yeast, converting sugar to C02 and leavening the loaf has gotten out of control. It may look good right out of the oven, but it will fall flat as it cools. |
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