SCREWTAPE

 

BREAKING NEWS!

Screwtape Post-Xmas

dispatch intercepted

In Case You Missed It:

Long before anyone had even heard of any Grinch the famed English scholar C. S. Lewis leaked thirty-one dispatches sent from Hades by senior demon Screwtape. They were designated as for his nephew Wormwood, an apprentice demon. This dossier came to be known as The Screwtape Letters. C. S. Lewis (being an Oxford professor) had translated this correspondence from the original demonic languages, or so the story goes.

Painstaking reading of those texts revealed Screwtape was a senior demon with uncontrollable control over Wormwood. Wormwood receives in the letters detailed instructions on how to deviate mortals away from Heaven and lead them into Hell. Specifically, Wormwood was to do this by emphasizing the distraction, discouragement, and dread common to humankind which so often take their minds away from depending on God.

Exclusive Update:

Recently this writer came into possession of a current Screwtape letter written to an apprentice demon known only as ‘Dimwood’. Source of this acquisition cannot be revealed, a decision for which there is ample precedent: to quote C. S. Lewis, “I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands”.

With the coming of Google Translate this new letter can be revealed herewith in the human vernacular. For whatever it is worth, this translation revealed the letter centers on 2021 skirmishes of this writer.

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The Disgraceful Lowest Domain

office of Screwtape, senior demon

2021 year-end review

To apprentice demon Dimwood,

It is time for your year-end, with-malicious-intent review. Thus I find myself with the gleeful task of pointing out your recent incompetency and unmitigated failures in regard to the assigned task of depressing one David Lewis, a would-be (forgive the expression) Christian.

#1) We are disappointed his heart odyssey did nothing to make his life unbearable. It was bad enough he had better than we wanted medical care. But, added to this our-Enemy-Above sent His angels, disguised as humans, whenever they were needed to comfort and encourage, to wit:

• To your demonic discredit you allowed you-know-Who to inspire that unbearably goodhearted first born son, Kenneth, to drop everything come 200 miles at exactly right time just because he was needed.

• Also as an apprentice demon we hold you personally responsible for that do-gooder third son, Matthew. You should have been warned what this kid was like when he drove all night to be there when his daddy went into heart surgery. Then he goes out a buys his parents a 50-inch TV for your would-be (forgive the expression) Christian to enjoy. Just an awful kid!

• Then, while your back must have been turned, people he didn’t even know sent him a handmade comforter to keep him warm. Disgusting!

• Finally, there was that woman whom our-Enemy-Above gave him. You totally failed to make him such a burden on her that she would not continue to love him too much. A Total Failure on your part!

As a result your designated would-be Christian got whole in spirit in spite of all our attempts to scare him into denial of you-know-Who.

#2) Now we come to the matter of that family Christmas gathering, a most horrid occasion indeed.

• Yes, must admit you did an adequate job last year in getting this event canceled due to our virus panic. But, this year you totally failed to scare these people out of expressing their love for each other. Even before the event you couldn’t even scare your assignee and his bride into not getting that darn vaccine thing!

• Were you aware this family has so much of that hideouts thing called ‘love’ that thirty-nine of them would go to so much trouble to get together? They even came from one side of the country to the other! Who would have thought? Nobody fought, nobody got irritated with another. The shame of it!!!

• And, they had such a good time everybody left glad they’d come. Food, games, freedom to tell stories of things done the parents hadn’t ever heard. Doing of bad deeds is okay, but the freedom to talk about it? Awful, just awful.

#3) Now we come to that day which our-Enemy-Above most wants celebrated, the birth of the One who can save so many souls from our domain of evil. With the coming of yet another yukky Xmas, as an apprentice demon you have failed to leave your assigned would-be Christian totally depressed.

• You thought he and that woman our-Enemy-Above gave him being home alone would be a bad thing. Don’t you know it’s only because his children heeded their council? They were content being alone because their children fulfilled their parent’s hopes! Hope for each child to make their own Christmas memories of being at home with their children.

  • This resulted in the worse, for us, possible outcome. Now there are five families enjoying the most hated by hell day, Christmas.

  • Five families who will, forgive the expression, make good memories which will stay with those little urchins forever.

• As an apprentice demon you allowed terrible behavior by those same children in how they (forgive me Satan for using the word) honored their father and mother. Just look at what those diabolically selfless kids did to us!

  • First, David woke up on an adjustable bed purchased for him by their youngest son, Benjamin. Were you not warned that after all our attempts to pull that boy astray when he was young, he had turned out – from our perspective – so bad.

  • Then your assignee sat down in that new easy chair his daughter ordered without telling in advance. Terrible thing this love of a daughter for her father, terrible. And, it’s obvious with all our small victories over the years he doesn’t deserve it; but still she loves him.

After all our efforts this David person still has all those dreadful blessing to be counted as the New Year comes. All of this we here in the lowest realm are blaming on you. Your assigned (forgive the expression) Christian is not discouraged and still loves his wife and children despite all attempts to leave him depressed.

With all appropriate disgust, I remain your taskmaster until you arrive to suffer forever in our lord Satan’s domain! Yeah, well, right, okay, you know, Merry Christmas and all that.

with all due malice intent I remain your dictatorial uncle,

Screwtape

Screwtape

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ON BEING PRESIDENTIAL

 

PRESIDENTIAL

In this observation of too many years most men coming to the office has to learn how to be President of the United States of America. It is not intuitive knowledge. In my lifetime I have seen only three who came to the game equipped for the contest: Lyndon Johnson, George H W Bush and Joe Biden. And, I have only known of one never learning how to be Presidential.

Now, I do feel compelled to reiterate that since he was introduced by then Senator Obama as his Vice-President candidate in 2008 I have never thought Joe Biden a particularly good choice for President. Nothing personal against the man, and at the time had not had occasion to give it much study. This was just my general impression after seeing Biden only in scattered news reports over the years. And, in interest of full disclosure, President Biden displays a worldview of what is commonly called a ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’. After voting Republican since Goldwater, this is not a worldview with which I am in complete agreement or comfortable.

Now that he has been President for a while, and after actually boning-up on the subject, my opinion is not much changed.

It is unlikely any would call him ‘charismatic’. Personally, tend to think of him as ‘uncle Joe’ type. If I may be allowed an opinion, and this is my blog, everything seen and reported about his life of service and personal decorum indicate the world would have been well served if the man had been a priest.

What Joseph R Biden Jr. is is experienced in what government can do when government is needed, and how to get that done. This is what we need from our government and in our President when the hour of need comes.

Now comes such an hour, a natural disaster of the highest magnitude. The type event which can make or break a President’s heritage. No one blames the President for a natural disaster. It is what he does thereafter which is remembered about the man: Did he listen? Did he take command? Did he accept responsibility?

There has been and will continue to be moments of compelling crisis. Which means there will always be instances when calm, knowledgeable, tell-it-like-it-is leadership is needed... 

     When we do not get such leadership America suffers. 
     When we do get such leadership the nation unites and works together through to a better day. Its call being Presidential.

 

FACEBOOK

ZUCHS!

or

The Hydra in the Metadata

It has recently become popular to blame Facebook and/or YouTube for “Censoring” content. In this observation these complaints boil down to: “Right Wing” pundits saying Social Media is “Left Wing” and “Left Wing” pundits intoning the opposite. And, yes, I have literally seen both arguments on Facebook, YouTube, and the TV machine. Each side had some “study” which they’d quoted as authoritative which resulted in censorship. Studies which just incidentally were usually based on undisclosed numbers of people.

Perhaps, though, the root problem is the unimaginable volume of ‘numbers’ that have to be sorted through. According to available sources, as of June 2021 Facebook has 2.85 Billion active users worldwide and is translated into multiple languages. There are an estimated 55,000 Posts per second to Facebook and 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s a lot of the ones & zeros which create those posts.

Also, it might be suggested none of current problems are particularly new. Following is from my Brazil Times article published October 28 2013. For any reader in the know, yes, it was Nathan edited and approved.

The Facebook Slowdown

The single most common complaint we’ve heard in 10+ years at Computer Central in Brazil is that a computer is running “slow”. There are probably as many reasons why this could be as there are complainers. In the past year or so, however, when people come in or call complaining their computer is “slow” what they actually mean is “my Facebook is slow”.

“Social Media” is the politically correct buzzword, but Facebook is the Godzilla in the room. It was once reported that the average “facebooker” returns to their account seven times a day.

Nathan, who is the real geek here, gives a really good explanation why Facebook is always going to run “slow”. Has something to do with the mathematical equations programmers have to do, or some such.

Here’s why Facebook is slow: There’s a whole bunch of stuff for it to do.

When you open to your account your computer is going out somewhere in never-never land looking for Facebook’s servers. Those servers have to figure out who you are and which page you want.

As soon as they do this they need to pull up the advertising which fits your profile and/or scan your computer to find out what things you may have ordered online. If I were to load Facebook on my office computer, for example, I’d get advertising for office supplies. Opening the same account on our home computer gets all kinds of old folks advertising.

Only after finding out who you are and what advertising to load, do they dump all this stuff on your screen. Then, when you scroll down the page the whole process starts over.

All this happens as millions of ones & zeros transfer back and forth every millisecond.

No wonder it is “slow” -- between your computer and Facebook there is a whole bunch of stuff for it to do. It can help if your PC has enough RAM, but that’s another subject...

Whatever you think of “social media” it has changed your life because it has changed the world. And, it is going cause problems and it is going to run “slow”.

2021 Postscript

In ancient Greek mythology the Hydra was a serpent-like monster with many heads. The fable being when one head was cut off, two more would inevitably grow back in its place. May it be herewith respectfully submitted that maybe, just maybe, the more they try to solve the problems of Social Media the more problems social media will ‘grow’. And maybe, just maybe, Mark is doing the best he can to slay the Hydra he somewhat unintentionally incarnated.

 

TENNIS. ANYONE?

Adapted from Brazil Times blog of October 14, 2008

(because I still think of myself as not gotten any older!)

It is probably because I don’t know much about my father’s youth that I have trouble seeing him as a tennis player. He told me once about a certain day when he was seventeen -- before the Depression, before The War, when he was still a promising athlete. He spoke of a perfect spring day, of playing tennis, of having won the match. He told me:

“Somehow I have never thought of myself as being any older than I was on that day.”

I had such a day when I was nineteen. It could have been yesterday, maybe it was. I was picking up a suit at the cleaners for a date with a beautiful girl. It was one of those purely perfect days – perfect temperature, perfect humidity, just enough clouds floating overhead. I had a brand-new, straight-off-the-showroom-floor Buick convertible with a mystic blue-green color I never saw again or could describe. [It could do 90 on the highway; but, that is a different story.]

Somehow I have never thought of myself as being any older than I was on that day.

As of the day I post this blog, October 14 2008, I have somehow lived through exactly sixty-five years. There has been now-forgotten pain and unforgettable blessings, incalculable failures, marriage to a woman I would not have lived it without, and five things I seem to have done right. However, like the fiddler on the roof, I don’t remember growing older. All I remember for sure is the “sun rise, sun set” part. Whatever happened to that 18 year old with his perfect day? How and when did he get to be 65 [OK, now 78]?

Tennis, anyone?

TRAFFIC IN BRAZIL?

 TEN DAYS OF TRAFFIC

(edited from 2009 Brazil Times blog to acknowledge passage of time)

Fifteen years ago our children determined we move into “town” to be close to church, stores, and Computer Central. Our home is on North Forest Avenue (that’s Hwy 59 to you interlopers). If ever it could be said the Lord gave the desires of one’s heart, it would be this house.

It does appear that the Almighty either was not aware of, or humorously decided to include in His divine provision, the ten days of traffic which I like to call the Bizarre Bridge Bazaar.

In this our fifteenth go-around here we’ve adjusted to the schedule: Noisy in the AM with cars moving so slow you could sell Lemonade in the middle of Highway 59 North. In the late afternoon don’t put a toe in the street when everyone is speeding home. The extent of my interest in the Bridge Bazaar is watching the cars and trailers, trucks, and motor homes go by. Fortunately we have a back way in and out, so are not trapped by the onslaught of vehicles.

Except for a couple of summertime tours of the various bridges of Parke county and envious, I have never paid much attention to the bridges. No particular opposition I don’t suppose, just that as a matter of principle never do any thing involving a lot of walking. My active participation was again this year limited to being extra diligent in locking all doors and windows.

What has always struck me about it all is what little value the whole shebang seems to be for Brazil or Clay County.

The place up the street where we normally get gas does well, and we’re told the local restaurants benefit some. That seems to be about it. When still new to the area I tried to organize a promotion of local business during October and was told by every merchant contacted it was a waste of time. Brazil, they said, simply cannot profit from the traffic rushing past on the way there and back home. Since then I have seen it for myself; even learned of two area small businesses that closed down for the ten days.

A lot of folks along Forest Avenue set up yard sales and such. [In 2009] our daughter Susan came from St Louis with two car loads of stuff. Daughter, daughter-in-law and wife set out a bunch of junk no one in the family wanted. Daughters and grandchildren “made” about $5 each.

I doubt very much if the City of Brazil collected anything from all of this other than maybe part of the sales tax from the gas station. Even if the city charged for permits and got sales tax from the yard vendors (which I doubt very much they could), it wouldn’t cover costs of police patrols and extra trash pickups (what, you thought all that unsold junk would be put back in my closet?).

Hope you had fun at that bridge bazaar thing. For me it is just ten days of traffic. If our town actually benefited from it all, let me know how.

WINNER!

 

I MAY BE A WINNER!

Our children will remember how daddy would always enter the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes even though I knew odds were quite long. According to Wikipedia “as of June 2020, the odds of winning "$5,000 a Week for Life" were 1 in 6.2 billion. To put that in perspective, the world's population is 7.7 billion”. But, it only cost one stamp to enter, so risk-reward factor was good. Actually won something about 40 years back – a scissors set, of which we still have one pair.

Over the years in my many entries only bought a few CDs. Entering at all, of course, was my first mistake; buying something my fatal error. Know a bit about mail order promo, and even with mass production it has to cost from fifty-cents to a dollar to get that entry into my hand. And, they have to send out a million or so to get that cost break. Because of cost factors, if you don’t send them back often enough they’ll drop you from the mailing list. Not sending them back is why I hadn’t gotten my fair share of chances to win last couple of years.

Ever wonder why it’s called Publishers Clearing House when (a) they sell a lot of stuff and (b) all anybody knows about them is they are the Win-A-100-Million-Bucks guys?

Remember magazines – printed on paper, came in mail once a month? There was once a real market for them. One of mine and Matthew’s first jobs was selling subscriptions door-to-door. He, at least, was good at it. PCH began in 1953 as a way to sell magazines using direct mail (junk mail to you and I) to reach more homes cost effectively (Rule #1 – Follow the Money!).

Direct mail works. If it didn’t junk mail would have ceased to show up in mailboxes fifty years ago. Success meant expansion, with TV promotions and sweepstakes coming in 1967. As interest in magazines faded additional items were added. It worked! More people would buy more stuff if you just presented it right (i.e. the con). Because of this success prize money got bigger and bigger. That’s how, as of last year it got to $5,000 a week for life.

At risk of getting into the marketing ‘weeds’ of this, most entrants are older and winnings are necessarily what they appear (us old people’s ‘for life’ ain’t what it used to be). But, these sweepstakes are controlled by federal and state law, and somebody can win. If I happen to get the one and only mailer which includes the winning number, and if I send it in, I may well be a winner. In the marketing genre we call folks who don’t get the golden ticket the ‘mark’.

In my own defense my mother got me hooked on the sweepstakes opium. She entered every one that came in her mail. And, as it was with older folk (not me), she really thought she’d have to buy something to win. Sometimes wished she’d left me all those cassette tapes. Ultimately I entered for the same reason as my mother, hoped to be able to provide for my kids.

Somewhere while making other plans life happened. The kids grew up, made their own lives, and not sure a lot of money would make them better people. If I won now might do what #2 son Nathan once told me he’d do: Set up a grant program to provide money for any graduate of local high schools to help them ‘escape’ Brazil Indiana.

A few years back I quit returning the “you may be a winner” mailings. In time they quit coming. Until now.

In this weeks mail came an “ALERT: Time Sensitive” notice that my “name has been authorized for processing on the Winner Selection list”! I could now go on-line and enter without a stamp! Even has an Activation Code so they will know which mailer is getting best response. The most interesting element about this mailer to me is the cost factor. It’s almost a ‘cold’ solicitation for new customers, and it can’t have cost more than fifteen-cents to print and mail 1-million pieces.

If I enter this time, PCH will want an e-mail address. Because of much reduced cost factors this means I’ll get a LOT more junk mail than ever got in snail-mail. But, hey, what else have I got to do but delete spam? Maybe I should enter? I mean, you know, after all, the cost factor is in my favor; my mother would be so proud; would enjoy kids rolling their eyes and saying ‘daddy’s at it again’. And, who knows, I may be a winner!

If you don’t hear from me for a while, I may be in the Cayman Islands.

RESPONSIBIITY

 

RESPONSIBILITY

On the night of June 5 1944 Allied Commander General Eisenhower gave the command, “Okay, we go”. Those simple words launched what would ever after be known as D-Day. Over 150,000 men, some 5,000 ships, and about 10,000 airplanes were unleashed onto the beaches of Normandy. If they failed, if they were thrown back into the sea, the results of World War II would be in peril, the outcome unknowable.

From the moment he uttered those simple words the Commanding General lost all control. Whatever happened, whoever failed in their duty, whichever part of the plan was flawed, there was nothing he could do about it. Failure would not be the personal fault of guy who gave the order, but it would have forever been his responsibility.

Eisenhower recorded two statements for public distribution. The first announced the beginning of the invasion. In the second never needed statement he took total and personal responsibility for all failure. The commander cannot say “No, I’m not responsible at all”, that is a recourse of failures. Taking responsibility is what the person in charge does, the credit for success is given to those “who are actually in the arena”.

As a society we accept the person at top is of whom we demand responsibility. Holding the person at the top responsible for failures not their fault is the reason baseball managers or business CEO must resign when the team or business fails.

Thus, as a nation the President of the United States bears ultimate responsibility for failure, even where he is not personally at fault.

Take the case of the Vietnam war. Eisenhower started it. Kennedy is said to have wanted out, it’s not his fault he was assasinated. Johnson, scholars contend, did want a war. Nixon was convinced by the military it could be won. When all was lost, failure was the responsibility of President Gerald R. Ford, who had come late to the game at best.

As this is being written hearings on going on in the U.S. Senate examining the ‘story’ of American withdrawal from Afghanistan. One political side seems almost desperate to assign fault, the other to determine responsibility. As it was in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, the military just wants somebody to fight. [SIDEBAR: If in November 1962 President Kennedy had followed the advice of military advisors regarding the Cuba Missile Crisis, nuclear war would have followed. It would have been Kennedy’s responsibility, and he knew it.]

Seventy-five years later it remains true that no one will ever tell all the story of World War II. I await to see whether the whole story of Afghanistan may ever be told.

Given that part of the story I know, of only this am I sure: A vast chasm exist between responsibility and fault. At fault is failure, not at fault is not. Not accepting ultimate responsibility when ultimate responsibility is yours, that is failure in every arena, whoever be at fault.