zumalicious's Open Salon Blog

Happy Sunday

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:11:33 -0500

A psalm of David.

¹ O LORD, our Lord,
       how majestic is your name in all the earth!
       You have set your glory
       above the heavens.

² From the lips of children and infants
       you have ordained praise ^[b]
       because of your enemies,
       to silence the foe and the avenger.

³ When I consider your heavens,
       the work of your fingers,
       the moon and the stars,
       which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings ^[c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.

⁶ You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:

⁷ all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,

⁸ the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.

american indian - lakota - chief yellow lark - 1887

My God, I am yours for time and eternity.
Teach me to cast myself entirely
into the arms of your loving Providence
with a lively, unlimited confidence in your compassionate, tender pity.
Grant, O most merciful Redeemer,
That whatever you ordain or permit may be acceptable to me.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety;
let nothing sadden me but sin,
nothing delight me but the hope
of coming to the possession of You
my God and my all,
in your everlasting kingdom.

Amen.

suscipe of catherine mcauley - 1778-1841

Is It all about how you look at it? Is It Really? Is It?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:11:24 -0500

UPDATE: I WENT TO DELETE SOME OF MY OWN COMMENTS AND OS ACTED UP. IF I DELETED ANY OF YOUR COMMENTS, PLEASE PUT THEM BACK!!!!

It's Attention Deficit Conflict Resolution Discussion Time!

Arizona gets these. That grit gets everywhere, even in your cootchie!

OD closed comments to a very good post, and that is understood and supported. But OD wrote a very thought provoking post on the comment/pseudo advice: "It's all about how you look at it."

I am with OD, and get furious, sometimes, when people blather on about "perspective" without offering any. Bah!

Let us see what we have to say about that which motivates us to get perspective, agree, walk away, mix it up, give advice to settle down, call for peace in our times, or to passively aggressively agree to everything without actually agreeing to anything.

Is this truly what we seek? Is there a foot hole that allows breathing?

Do plastic feet stink?

DO WE FLAG, FLAME OR FUME: HOW, WHY AND WHEN?

Without getting into the factoids of specific dustups, what motivates us to do what we do in a dispute?

Here are some, but obviously not the only, conceptual frameworks that might help to start a dialogue.

Do we usually walk away without saying anything?

When we have a dog in the fight, do we get in there and support one side or another...or try to be peacemakers because we like both sides?

Is there a point when we don't have a dog in the fight, but want to express our opinions and feelings about the general issue?

Are there group values, norms, etiquette, or behaviors that we want to bring up and reinforce?

Are there interpersonal behavioral limits or lines that have been crossed?

Do we step in to express that the site or group image, atmosphere, or mood is at risk?

Who is more evil, Dwayne or Jim?

BUTTONS? DO WE HAVE BUTTONS? ARE THEY SHINY?

What is a person's button pushing point? Here are some frameworks, but not the only frameworks.

As OD indicated, is it being told to take an approach that sounds lofty, but which says or does nothing useful to resolve matters or to express feelings?

Is it being mentioned or drawn in by name or by indirect reference?

Is it being named in a negative title by someone who thinks that they are entitled to name you in a negative title? How about a friend, frenemy or enemy being named in a negative title?

Is it when fluffy, squeezable Canadians try to invade America, or when Pirate Wimmin have to re-establish their rightful control over OS?

Is it when some agreed upon group rule, boundary, group norm or value is violated?

Is it when a personal standard is violated?

Do tornadoes look like penises to you?

TRUE ATTENTION DEFICIT CONFLICT RESOLUTION:

Finally, what techniques, mechanisms or policies do we use to resolve matters when misunderstandings lead to flareups? Be generous with these, as they are helpful or funny.

I'll be back....oooh...the puffy pancake is done....oooh shiny!

Zuma's Fifteen Reasons For Not Doing Homemade Gifts.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:11:14 -0500

1. I don't have enough rubber bands

2. The FIMO clay dildoes were NOT a hit ten years ago.

3. You can't mail chicken.

4. It is not smart to use baggies filled with baking soda for stuffed animals.

5. Fermentation is a complicated process.

6. Sewing is a complicated process. You have to get all of the pins out.

7. Getting a "round tuit" is not funny to some people who have no humor.

8. Men eventually sober up.

9. Gift certificates for free babysitting are nothing but an invitation to trouble.

10. Mrs. Lopez was using marijuana, not flowers, for her "special" sachet stuffing. Even the mayor got arrested.

11. The post office had roaches.

12. You can't watch the thirteen month old who knows how to take off her diaper EVERY minute while you're packing the homemade cookies!

13. You REALLY need to know Chinese writing if you're going to do t-shirts.

14. Just because it can be knitted, doesn't mean that it should be knitted.

15. A how-to book on taxidermy can cause terrible things to happen when people really love their older pets.

Sexiest Men

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:11:43 -0500

Stupid-Americans Have Rights! Leave Them Be, OS!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:11:37 -0500

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and

I'm not sure about the former."

- Albert Einstein

I am appalled at the vicious attacks that are being written at Open Saloon regarding Stupid-Americans! They are being called "Tea Baggers", when they actually mean to bag tea, not tea bag. They think that tea is a sissy drink that those foreigners use to tax us in the bay, so they want to toss it in there. What is wrong with a good, patriotic American tea bagging in the sense of good old American liberty and values?

Fig. 1 A stupid-American demonstrating American ingenuity.

Stupid Americans are based in the depths of our history as a nation. They are the ones who taught us how to throw perfectly good DUTCH tea into Boston Harbor after the British allowed competition and after the price of tea had never been more reasonable!

Stupid Americans gave us the first Affirmative Action programs when they 1. Either Ran off or, were too stupid acting after the Civil War to serve in the Army, leaving openings for the Buffalo Soldiers to fill. and 2. Threw the brothers out of planes to become the first "Smoke jumpers". (Of course, once they figured out that White guys could get paid, the brothers were kicked out.)

Fig 2. Stupid-Americans know how to have great fun, and with style.

Stupid-Americans are masters of the logical fallacy, and use it to further their benign and nation building goals. They are the very rightness of our nation, the white that is in the "Red, White, and Blue". They are the engine of our economy that keeps our Wal Marts open and full of Cheap Chinese Crap. They attend the University of Reality Show and matriculate at teabagging parties across the nation, serving no purpose whatsoever.

JUST LISTEN TO THEIR LEVEL OF WISDOM AND HEED: THEY WILL NOT GO AWAY.

“If you can't live without me, why aren't you dead already?” - Cynthia Heimel, Author

"The world is more like it is now then it ever has before." - Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States.

"Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says 'Chicken by the Sea.'" - Jessica Simpson

"When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a year, that's middle class." - Fred Heineman, former Republic representative from North Carolina

“So you’re behind this Passengers’ Bill of Rights move. I have to tell you, in general, I’m skeptical of anything that has Bill of Rights tacked on to it.” -Michelle Malkin

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much. -Ann Coulter

" I am a fashion god. I got it at Nordstrom's. ... Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I come home now?" - Michael Brown (Brownie "Heckuva Job") in the midst of Hurricane Katrina.

"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

"...and of course there are the 39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security. The greatest generation rewarded itself with a pretty big meal. -Ann Coulter

"Every person who opens the door -- as long as they are white -- I'll say 'I'm James Hart and I'm running for Congress."- Eugenics fan James Hart, running as a GOP Congressional candidate in Tennessee

"Some of these babes, I'm telling you, like the sexual harassment crowd. They're out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes."-Rush Limbaugh

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." -Sarah Palin

"I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out." -Sarah Palin

“The sex curriculum will be essentially by taught by the local gay community.” - Michele Bachmann

"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong?" -Glenn Beck

"O-L-I-G-A-R-H-Y."-Glenn Beck

In summary, the contributions of Stupid-Americans are endless. They make the rest of us feel like geniuses, especially when we cannot, for the life of us, figure out how to install the new windshield wipers; or when we cannot remember the name of that guy on the old westerns with the froggy voice...Jingles! That's who! Jingles!

They are the Billy Mays of political discourse, the Eddie Haskells of ethics, and the women are those hookers with the hearts of political gold!

Stupid-Americans are the hamsters on the wheel of life, and they deserve to be left alone to write the specious anti-American drivel that entertains the hell out of us and forces us to dust off and to review our rhetoric course material from ~~thirty~~ ten years ago.