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description= 7 posts published by Bill Borst during January 2013;
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the, in, gospel, truth, god, locker, room, hell, bells, gaby, people, big, have, happy, pencil, 2012, review, hollywood, history, lesson,
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the (489), and (198), that (156), you (102), was (101), his (91), harry (81), for (80), gaby (76), with (66), have (61), had (57), this (55), but (48), not (41), one (39), what (39), just (37), your (33), about (32), she (32), are (31), all (29), don (29), who (28), they (27), more (26), hell (26), stan (26), can (25), years (24), has (24), like (23), would (23), #people (23), her (23), most (23), from (22), when (22), know (21), him (21), how (21), will (21), 2013 (20), out (20), think (20), get (19), first (19), were (19), man (19), their (19), 2012 (18), after (18), lincoln (18), see (18), some (18), january (17), many (17), old (17), which (17), movie (17), never (17), did (17), them (17), good (17), right (16), there (16), only (16), than (16), now (15), day (15), its (15), really (15), god (15), life (15), starts (15), two (14), way (14), take (14), great (14), time (14), much (14), over (14), said (14), 2011 (13), new (13), also (13), even (13), been (13), body (13), off (13), 2010 (12), 2014 (12), while (12), because (12), should (12), film (12), could (12), hear (12), look (12), 2015 (11), history (11), louis (11), happy (11), well (11), other (11), told (11), big (11), bob (11), baseball (10), led (10), state (10), left (10), our (10), thought (10), every (10), here (10), where (10), book (10), didn (10), another (9), very (9), before (9), year (9), part (9), since (9), something (9), better (9), love (9), pencil (9), friend (9), got (9), say (9), any (9), church (9), why (9), massage (9), room (9), touch (9), stika (9), truth (8), comments (8), february (8), september (8), uncategorized (8), last (8), high (8), family (8), radical (8), always (8), made (8), little (8), call (8), ever (8), night (8), problem (8), nice (8), game (8), ago (8), mean (8), women (8), came (8), trust (8), heaven (8), com (7), october (7), december (7), may (7), july (7), home (7), course (7), posted (7), lewis (7), almost (7), things (7), rules (7), same (7), kind (7), end (7), 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ces who saw the evil these are just a few thoughts for you to ponder on this the darkest of all anniversaries i think 1 22 with its 55 million dead will rank in infamy with 9 11 3700 dead and 12 7 2700 dead has choice been worth it to women are they any happier to america what do you think the big 4 0 http wp me pgh83 1ce posted in uncategorized tags brent musburger cider house rules judd apatow katherine webb the woes of roe turning 40 have a happy pencil january 10 2013 4 comments i promise this will be the last post about my hearing loss the above title makes even less sense than the i tell jokes statement of my bible nemesis geoffrey but taken together both have what i hope will be real significance with my adjustment to chronic hearing loss by that i mean i am hoping that the one will be the alpha and the latter will be its omega the beginning and the end of my inability to hear language correctly high maintenance the night at the parish dinner when i thought i heard geoffrey say i tell jokes when it was really father issac joques was the first indication that something might be wrong that has to be over 20 years ago at a cardinal baseball game last september the day before my september 6th birthday my wife told me something that sounded to me have a happy pencil a happy pencil at rest since it was very close to my birthday my first thought was that she was extending some sort of weird birthday salutation what she really said was a woman friend s name kathy kingsley which is obviously nowhere near what i thought i had heard i had to laugh both at the inanity of what i heard and the existential applications of the phrase have a happy pencil there is a revision with a new translation of an old russian novel book out that was reviewed in the new york times at the end of the year its title is happy moscow written by the late russian author andrey platonov i just had to get it which i did last week i think i have stumbled on to something doesn t everyone seek personal happiness isn t that the focal point of most people s lives since then i have been having a grand old time trying to set a trend what if you don t know what to say when an old friend whom you will probably not see for sometime leaves you just say have a happy pencil and wait for the reaction after someone waits on you or briefly helps you with some task just utter have a happy pencil you have to admit it is far better than have a nice day and implies a good feeling that can last for months it is a great conversation starter you never know where it will lead the other day i was telling my sad tale to a guy and he said he had read about a man who was a pencil sharpener that s what he did get happy folks his name is david rees and they call him the proust of pencils he has a book out entitled how to sharpen your pencils one of the things i liked about starting the artisanal pencil sharpening business was that it made me think about pencils in greater depth than i probably ever had in my life and the more i thought about them the more i appreciated them as really efficient elegant tools he had a whole bag of tools with which to sharpen your pencils wrote the book that reminded me of the old saturday night live routine where a small shop sold only scotch tape they later expanded with a 10 cent copy machine how could they afford to stay in business and he wasn t cheap but i digress just before the end of 2012 i got my new state of the art hearing aids yes i said aid s i now how twin aids one for each ear just tape yes even judy s ear gets one though i hear very little but white noise in it this aid which is a wireless microphone transmits sound to the receiver in my good ea r it will remove the awkward gymnastics that i must perform to hear anyone on my rights side this ensures me that i will never get nostril prints on my eyeglasses ever again the day i went to have them tested fitted and explained was filled with high anxiety the night before i had read the story about the old man who was in a similar position as i was he tells his friend that he had just purchased a state of the art hearing aid that worked perfectly yet he bemoaned how much it costs his friend asked him what kind is it the old man responded about 10 30 when i met with amanda my audiologist i was afraid she would give me another one of those dreaded hearing tests i hate so much no she said not this time her computer calibrated the aid for me and after nearly two hours of explaining its complexities i was good to go there have been a few bumps in the road being right handed the right one is extremely hard to put in for me i still have a wax build up problem but the aid comes with a wax guard that can be easily changed the batteries have the same life span as a turkey on thanksgiving i have to change them so frequently that i now wear a cargo vest or whatever they call what a photographer wears with all the pockets i buy my 13s by the gross holds a ton of 13s despite all the high maintenance i think i have finally settled into a routine that will enhance my ability to hear sounds beautiful worldly sounds of all kinds the best place to test it has been a saturday mass i was the lector recently and when the priest reads the gospel and gives his sermon i am lucky to hear a half dozen words this time i heard virtually every word monsignor has always been difficult for me to understand but this time i was amazed at how lucid and clear his sermon was he compared einstein s 1905 formula e mc2 where he had discovered the quantum theory of light that boasted of capturing the energy of the universe he compared that with god s infinite grace and how great it would be that could be captured to energize all the catholic families of the country a religious application i immediately wondered how many other brilliant sermons i have missed these past few years the thought also occurred to me that to people who are ignorant of god s truth or refuse to hear it or even those who fill their lives with so much white noise the word is merely static or gibberish that was probably the hardest thing to endure not being able to hear the truth when it was presented to me i now realize just how much i have missed after my service was rendered i returned to my pew where i was nearly over whelmed by the richness of our cantor s voice as well as the organ music i even delighted in the loud turning of pages and the constant squeaking of the pews as some heavy set parishioners shifted their weight it was all so rewarding i felt like an explorer who made a great discovery or someone who found something he had lost all these sounds encouraged me to make every new day a happy pencil posted in uncategorized tags happy moscow high anxiety high maintenance saturday night live the proust of pencils white noise 2012 in review january 8 2013 leave a comment the wordpress com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog here s an excerpt 4 329 films were submitted to the 2012 cannes film festival this blog had 24 000 views in 2012 if each view were a film this blog would power 6 film festivals click here to see the complete report posted in uncategorized a hollywood history lesson january 3 2013 8 comments while i love both movies and history i cringe every time i see or read about a new hollywood movie that attempts to give the definitive interpretation of a historical event the two are more like oil and water hollywood never seems to get it historically right i think that is true and i would add it is also true of many current historians because their interpretations are driven by a particular agenda that agenda usually has something to do with social justice abortion rights civil right or the environment i recently spent a sunday afternoon watching the new steven spielberg movie lincoln a cold feeling the movie was highly touted because of the quality of its ensemble cast led by oscar winners daniel day lewis and sally field as lincoln day lewis artistically caught many of the nuances and mannerisms of america s most popular historical figure as lincoln s melancholic wife mary todd lincoln sally field who looked much more matronly then when she was forrest gump s mom was voluptuously seductive in her nightshirt she had to lose 25 pounds to get the role and then had to gain 25 to keep it only in hollywood a weighty role i thought she was far better than many reviewers had led the public to believe the overall effect of the movie left me a little cold since it was billed as lincoln s second struggle to get something concrete after his symbolic victory with the emancipation proclamation two years prior i smelled a civil rights agenda brewing in the hollywood coffee pot historians call that historicism it is a fallacy that i define as the viewing of past history through the ideological prism of the current day s driving mores the movie underscored several interesting things about america s political system it reminded me of another movie about congress allen drury s 1959 novel advise and consent it stands out in stark contrast for its accuracy and its attempt to portray things in a much more realistic fashion it was based on the sad tale of a homosexual senator lester hunt from wyoming who ultimately killed himself in 1954 after being pressured to resign by colleagues it captured the ruthless attempts by our leaders to maintain maximum control in congress unfortunately as with lincoln millions of people will go to this movie and believe that this is the way it really happened probably would have liked the movie lincoln did go a long way to show the congressional divide that made the viewer think he was caught in a 2012 time warp two congressional factions had coalesced around the subject of reconstruction taxes and spending had nothing to do with their divide a majority group of moderate republicans in congress supported lincoln s position that the confederate states should be reintegrated as quickly as possible lincoln believed that the union was morally and politically indivisible to him the south had never really left it was akin to the child who runs away from home the south would almost be part of the national family a minority group of radical republicans led by thaddeus stevens in the house and ben wade and charles sumner in the senate sharply rejected lincoln s plan they believe the south had really seceded they claimed reconstruction should involve a re admittance to the union at a great penalty for their secession a sterling performance thaddeus stevens played admirably by tommy lee jones al gore s old roommate at harvard took his commitment to racial justice to his bedroom as the movie showed his getting into bed with his black housemaid this stretches history a bit though he never married stevens was rumored to have carried on a 23 year relationship with his widowed quadroon housemaid lydia hamilton smith a victim of washington gossip in the film stevens fudged his belief that the races were equal in all matters and not merely before the law these radical republicans wanted their pound of flesh they wanted to destroy the south s ability not only to wage war but to ever be a threat to america s social and political unity they wanted to effect sweeping social and economic changes in the south and grant the freed slaves full citizenship before the states were restored they wanted to pick its bones clean the influential group of radicals also felt that congress not the president should direct reconstruction in july 1864 the radical republicans passed the wade davis bill in response to lincoln s 10 percent plan this bill required that more than 50 percent of white males take an ironclad oath of allegiance before the state could call a constitutional convention the bill also required that the state constitutional conventions abolish slavery confederate officials or anyone who had voluntarily borne arms against the united states were banned from serving at the conventions lincoln had pocket vetoed or refused to sign the proposal keeping the wade davis bill from becoming law the radical republicans assault on the south in the post bellum led to nearly 100 years of violence and repression lincoln s sense of magnanimity that grant had so aptly displayed at appomattox was quickly discarded death changed everything the film was very contextual movie in that the debate seemed to imply that it would on a high note that is the end of slavery the movie made little mention of the fact that three fourths of the state legislatures had to approve the amendment this was not accomplished until december of 1865 several months after lincoln s assassination that was no easy battle spielberg should have implied that lincoln s death made the 13th amendment almost moot and changed the entire nature of the post war debate i do understand that lincoln was not a documentary nor was it bound by the rules of truth and accuracy but when movies do history they almost claim the same of kind legitimacy this in itself underscores just how powerful hollywood has become lincoln the film missed the historical consequences of lincoln s actions having the gift of historical foresight film makers should always be faithful to the way things really happened they should imply that things are not always as rosy as they appear and that many political victories turn out to be hollow and often filled with a den of vipers the legacy of the 13th amendment and its sister laws the 14th citizenship and 15th amendments male suffrage was filled with a den of unintended consequences such as the kkk jim crow laws and segregation the klu klux klan was founded in pulaski tennessee in 1865 by nathan bedford forrest f gump s namesake this led to another 100 years of racial strife and social disruption millions voted for a black man for president twice now hoping to heal the sins of radical reconstruction only to find out that we are now almost as divided as we were in the 1840s there is a history lesson to be learned from this movie but i doubt it is the one that spielberg had intended posted in uncategorized tags daniel day lewis radical reconstruction steven spielberg thaddeus stevens about author after graduating from holy cross bill borst earned an ma in asian history from st john s university and a ph d in american history from st louis university 1972 a former new yorker he taught for many years in the st louis area while also hosting a weekly radio show on wgnu from 1984 2006 he currently is a regular substitute for conservative phyllis schlafly on ksiv radio 1320 he is the author of two books on social history liberalism fatal consequences and the scorpion and the frog a natural conspiracy he just retired as the features editor of the mindszenty foundation monthly report in his 11 years from 2003 2013 he wrote nearly 130 essays on catholic culture and world affairs many in st louis also know him as the baseball professor because of a course that he offer...
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