It’s a great looking house. It’s Italianate. It probably has 5 bedrooms, 5 full baths and a powder room. The kitchen probably has all stainless steel appliances and granite counter-tops or whatever the 2006 equivalent for these might be. It probably has a huge living room and a separate family room, library with marble floors, and a Florida room that opens to a pool. It’s in South Florida between the Intra-coastal and the beach. However, it isn’t on the beach, and besides, It’s just a huge yellow block (HYB)! To see other houses/small mansions and large mansions of this kind in South Florida go to Corcoran Group Real Estate.

“You’re probably just envious as hell, because you can’t afford the front door and steps, Isaac.”

Yes, I’m talking to myself again. In fact, the longer I’m away from THE BIG NEEDLE and on my own, the more conversations I hold with myself. I guess I’m crazier than a coot, or perhaps I’m my own best friend. Be that as it may, I couldn’t climb all those stairs in the HYB anyway, and I certainly don’t need all those extra bedrooms. Nor do I want to clean that huge space.

So, I’m still looking for my 2 to 3 bedroom (small) condominium, and it looks like it will cost at least a quarter of a million, probably twice that. So, a mortgage will definitely be in order. Will I be able to get one at my age?

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Senator Mark Pryor writes on his website that there are thousands of FEMA trailers sitting parked hundreds of miles away from New Orleans in (HOPE – Yes – HOPE!), Arkansas because President Bush refuses to sign the papers to deliver them. Why – because FEMA will not deliver trailers to a flood plain and New Orleans is in one. Senator Pryor is asking for a one-time exception to the rule, and hasn’t gotten it. Instead the citizens for whom the trailers were made are still living in tents 6 months after Katrina. It is my understanding that 4 and 1/2 million dollars had already been spent to prepare the area to receive the trailers.

What utter ridiculousness!

I say, don’t ask for a one-time exception. Instead, ask that the rule be dropped. New Orleans isn’t the only city in a flood plain. Heck, we can’t even up-date our railroad infrastructure - as has the rest of the West and Japan - much less move entire cities and their populations to higher ground.

This situation proves but one thing. We are increasingly a self-satisfied and pious, heartless and stingy people, and this president is the perfect example of our niggardly behavior.

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Forgive the Pennsylvania Dutch, Dear Journal. It’s terrible English, but it sounds better to my ears than the alternative good English.

“One incident does not make this a bad place.” How dull!

Okay, so my insurance company will have to shell out eleven hundred dollars, and I will have to fork out five hundred dollars to repair my car. At the same time, I don’t know who damaged my car, or why. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the - “Enough is enough. Vote Democratic.” - bumper sticker. It might have been a bunch of hooligans with no particular agenda but to make mischief.

South Florida has but one strike against it. Thus, the old gay fart has changed his mind and unpacked his bags again.

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Binarized Christians

Yes, there is such a dichotomy, Virginia, even though I often worry about the over use of binary thought processes because they are simplistic, and because Western societies are so dependent on them. Oppositions like black versus white, male versus female, heterosexual versus homosexual, good versus evil, and young versus old are so embedded in our thinking that we don’t notice. However, a dichotomy may be useful if one explores the relationship between the opposition. Jacques Derrida explored binary oppositions in great detail in deconstruction theory though it is extremely difficult to essentialize deconstruction because he made the greatest effort to fashion it so. I have read some Derrida and I have misgivings about my own use of the dichotomized pair in the title above. Thus, I have carefully avoided labeling any particular branch of the various Christian churches as evil in the statements below and instead, I hope and pray that all Christians would carefully consider the teaching of Jesus Christ and adopt a large and inclusive world-view.

Good Christians are those who know that God wishes to share the universe with us all. Good Christians believe in the sanctity of all men and women as did Jesus Christ, not the institutions our culture creates (including the various churches). Good Christians know that there are many paths to God, and that God accepts any/all of us no matter which path(s) we choose. Good Christians also know that God resides within each of us as well as without.

Good Christians know that the Bible is best able to teach those who approach it with open minds and hearts. Good Christians know that the Bible is the word of God filtered through the hands, hearts and minds of many writers. Good Christians know that the writers of the various books of the Bible were bound to an understanding of God's word based on the time and place in which they lived. Good Christians also know that the leaders of the Church chose only those books they wished to include in the Bible and that their decisions were biased by the Patriarchal culture in which they lived.

Good Christians know it is evil to project a personal or institutionalized belief system (ideology) on God. Good Christians understand that God created a complex and difficult universe because He/She is complex and difficult to comprehend. Thus, good Christians know that there is no such thing as an easy and simplistic knowledge of God. Good Christians also understand the difference between belief and dogmatic certainty.

Good Christians understand that all of us are capable of evil even as God is present within us. Good Christians recognize the evil present in any Christian who preaches hate and division. The single, and only evil that good Christians exhibit in large numbers is temerity, for if good Christians do not speak out against hate and divisiveness, we are actually aiding and abetting malevolence.

To look at a book that dares to go much further than do I, go to Nicholas D. Kristof’s critique of John Shelby Spong’s The Sins of Scripture. In fact, I think I am going to buy it.


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Priests had to purify Gandhi’s sacred grave today after Bush’s visit there because our bomb-sniffing dogs desecrated the site. A fair comparison might be the Indian president, Abdul Kalam and the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh bringing bomb sniffing elephants with them and running them through the National Cathedral in Washington DC before attending services there as guests of Mr. Bush.

Under the circumstances there must be a better way to check for bombs.

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While the teacher’s comparison of Bush to Adolph Hitler may be unreasonable, it is anyone’s right to state an opinion, including a teacher in a classroom. I doubt that the man in question, Jay Bennish, forgot to mention that he was giving an opinion and that everyone is entitled to hold his or her own opinion including his students. Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect to hold opinions that are not those of the extreme right Republican Party and evangelical Christians in this, the land of the free. I doubt that the school district’s policy requiring balanced viewpoints would have been used to remove a teacher who expressed support for Mr. Bush’s 28th Amendment to create a 2nd class of American citizen by making gay and lesbian marriage illegal in the United States. Yes, Virginia, this country is becoming a Fascist state.

Keyed Car

In a related incident, my car has been keyed from stem to stern; hood, sides, roof, and back of the car are marked through the finish with huge X’s. I’ve had an estimate, and it will cost $1600.00 to have the car refinished. I say this is a related incident to Mr. Bennish’s suspension because the guy at the company that will do the painting of my car pointed to the “Enough is Enough - Vote Democratic” bumper sticker on my car and said, “There’s the culprit. You’d better remove that if you don’t want this or something worse to happen again. It’s not a good idea to be so openly Democratic in South Florida.” I didn’t believe him at the time, but several other local people have expressed similar sentiments since.

I must ask the question, are there super conservative Republican vigilantes roaming the streets of South Florida? Do I really want to live here? Perhaps my daughter, Ruth, is right and I should be happy to go back to Pine Needle Manor and live out my last days in the algid North.

I’ve put my search for a house/condominium on hold for now.

And, I’m packing my duds for the return trip home to Pennsylvania Dutch country.

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As frightening as it seems to me, major political and religious figures in this country are still pushing for an amendment to our constitution that will make lesbian and gay people second-class citizens. I read in an article in USA Today, Tuesday, February 21, 2006, by Andrea Stone, “Both sides say their concern is the children,” and am shocked to see that my fear as stated two weeks ago in “Stephen Gulliver’s Journal” is one small step away from becoming reality this year.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the U.S. Senate will vote again on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in June. The House of Representatives passed such a measure two years ago.

Thus, if the Senate should pass the 28th amendment in June, it will become law!
It is time for every gay man and woman, liberal Christian straight man and woman, Democratic Party man and woman, moderate Republican man and woman, or any combination thereof to write their Senators and threaten to vote the jerks out of office should they vote for such a travesty.

I know that the tone of this entry conveys my concern, fear and anger about living in a United States of America that is in danger of becoming a fascist state. At this point in time, Stephen Gulliver’s reality and ours are but a smidgeon apart.

Nasty Cold

I have been under the weather during the past week, so please forgive the lapse in my writing, Dear Journal. Now I feel better and I promise to be in touch more often.


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