My nephew’s appendix has burst so he has now got drones in. Thank God for the NHS as we cannot thank man.

My sister can’t speak. She’s got long cancer. Well you heard of long COVID. Use your imagination.

So far they are not using nuclear weapons. Let’s hope chemotherapy might be better. If only we could give it to the Russian army. Or at least to Putin.

The trouble with cancer is you can’t always remove the organ. Especially if it’s in your brain.

My nephew was in pain all the weekend but did not want to disappoint his children. Remember your children will be more disappointed if you die than if they miss you dressing up as Father Christmas

This is a case of being too good and not wanting to upset other people and his wife is a vet so I can’t help wondering why she didn’t know what was happening. Unfortunately she works mainly with horses.

In my family 3 of my siblings had burst appendixes. The 4th one is dead. He had pneumonia. Can I draw any conclusion from this? That we will all die in the end and it’s not always the people you expect to die whi8 go first

Families are a good idea because we all need somebody to hate.

According to some modern theologians there is no hell. It’s either heaven on earth or extinction. If Ian Paisley is in heaven it will be a miracle.

I keep forgetting that we Catholics are meant to worship statues. Most of us seem to worship cars, expensive clothing, le creuset pots and sex

Can you worship sex without another person being involved ?

They say my husband worshipped the ground I walked on. That’s why I bought a bicycle.

Before I rode to work I used to pray to st. Christopher although there where no cars when he was alive.

I wonder why Jesus actually walked on the water. After all they did have boats. Maybe he could not row.

I sure in the newspaper that some doctors were suggesting that we should assess our elderly relatives for dementia over Christmas dinner. The problem is that I am the elderly relative. Anyway they forgot to do it and I didn’t mention it so I should be alright for another 12 months I don’t know what they can actually do for you.

Christmas comes but once a year. Really that is so unfair.

The sun makes autumn leaves look like gold flowers
Vibrant, energetic in the wind
Waving to small children with love’s power

As Jesus looked out from his wooden tower
Was he severed from all humankind?
The sun makes autumn leaves look like gold flowers

Forsaken by his Father, thunder lowered
The screen was cracked and shattered, by us blind
A menace to small children and love’s power

From the Christmas tree, gold coins had showered
Are these gifts from Judas or demands?
The sun makes leaves look like real golden flowers

Can God be that old vanished point that lures
To infinity what shall remain
A solitude for worms, a love that cures?

Every figment has its own domain
From imagination, truth to human shame
The sun makes autumn leaves look like love’s flowers
Attention must be paid while demons howl

I am a kettle made of stainless steel
I am a saint, for tea is brewed to heal
And, unlike kettles on an old coal fire,
I am not dirty nor do I perspire.

My mirrored sides reflect you as you cook.
Look at me and read me like a book
I’m full of love and hotter than a man
Oh, dear lady, love me while you can.

Superior mother, yet inhuman I;
Even electric kettles sometimes lie.
I shall never punish you, my dear
For perfect love like mine shall wield no fear.

All I ask is that you polish me.
For, in between your hands, I yearn to be.

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-some-of-the-smartest-people-can-be-so-very-stupid?utm_source=Psyche+Magazine&utm_campaign=2a2d81950f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_12_15_10_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-2a2d81950f-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

I wish we were in Kent in cliff top sun

Butterflies float gently overhead.

With loving thoughts my mind is overrun

I wish you were at home and in my bed.

I wish we were on Portland Bill today.

The violent sea the rocks the seabirds near.

Yet we loved the peace of Studland Bay.

Silence with small sounds that few can hear.

The music of the sea the tides don’t lie

Sucking shingle runs back to the sea.

In between the low tide and and the high

Children play forever, always free.

In Old Hunstanton we walked on the beach.

Now you are gone far out of my love’s reach

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-virtue-of-aristotle-s-ethics/

The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, comprising chapters 1-5, Gottlieb presents her own account of how Aristotle’s virtues of character should be understood. She singles out the doctrine of the mean as the key to that understanding. A virtue of character is an action-guiding disposition to hit the mean between two extreme emotions within a certain field. Courage, for instance, is the disposition to hit the mean between cowardice and rashness in the field of danger. The mean is determined not by the extremes alone, but by these in relation to the demands of the particular situation, including facts about the agent herself. She also defends Aristotle against misgivings about the virtues of character …….

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/27/walkers-upland-britain-told-not-rely-on-smartphones-rescuers-compass-maps?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I wonder why why we were made to spend hours solving quadratic equations using the formula so it was not in any way using thought let alone creative thought.

There was no discussion about what quadratic equations are useful for and for people leaving school at 16 in those days they never would discover any possible use of these equations.

I don’t think the learning that we returns will be transferable to any other subject.

But we learnt to obey the teacher and do things which seemed meaningless. And not just once but for 45 minutes we were ordered to keep on doing more and more of these equations.

In that way school is like a prison where you do tasks the other people have decided are necessary. And if you can’t see any meaning in them you are not allowed to say so.

I have often wondered why obedience is considered to be such a wonderful thing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/04/margaret-atwood-hitchens-prize-speech/629443/

The moderate center is a preferable place to live. There’s more respect for the individual, or that is the idea. There’s at least some desire for human rights for everyone, or that, too, is the idea. There’s less fear, and that is the idea as well. But the moderate center is also the hardest position to defend. It lacks a Big Slogan. It lacks hordes of robotic followers. It’s untidy. It resists the homogeneous. And it’s under constant attack from both extremes, those on the so-called right and the so-called left.

It is this dream of a moderate democratic center that Ukraine has been defending, and that defense has had a broad effect. Suddenly, the recent detractors of democracy are concluding—or some of them are—that maybe democracy is a system worth fighting for, because the alternatives are so much worse

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-leon-kass.html