Blog Archives - ROBERT E DUNN

ukrainian catholics

2/28/2022

About 9 percent of Ukrainians, approx. 3.6 million people, are Greek Catholics who belong to Churches of the Byzantine rite. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was outlawed under Soviet rule, from 1946 to 1989, and the Ruthenian Catholic Church was suppressed in 1949. Read the Feb 24 CNA report about what they have faced.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250474/things-to-know-about-the-catholic-church-in-ukraine

Gas in my area is $5/gallon, one reason to constrain religious practices to one day a week. The distance is 60 miles round trip. I get about 42 miles per gallon. 42/60 = .7, and .7 times $5 = $3.50. That is the cost just to go to church, excluding my obligation to support the parish every week, as well as charities. A pittance? That is 52 weeks, plus Holy Days, and there is wear and tear on the car, too. As a boy in San Francisco, I could walk 10 blocks in either direction and be at Mass. The cost - wear and tear on shoes.

My conservative views began forming toward the end of high school and persisted. I knew when something I heard was plainly wrong, causing me to stick to basics because they are tried and true.

In 1973, when I was at Loyola in LA, friends invited me to a Catholic charismatic group gathering. Though still fairly innocent at 21, I lasted 20 minutes. Something was off. I credit my Catholic faith and Jesuit education with being able to stay away from goddesses and gurus, religious profiteers on television, pop psychology frauds, and dissenters. I didn’t defeat the sexual revolution. Who could?

I keep politics out of the lives of my students.

Linked is a video visit to a Byzantine Catholic church in the USA.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bOZ9ii87tE

school choice

2/27/2022

I spoke with Keven, our music director at St. Stephen the First Martyr. He has five children, ages 16-2, and all are homeschooled.

“... The right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.” Catholic Church. “Part 3, Section 2, Paragraph 2221,” Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012. Print.

convert surprise

2/27/2022

Today, I met Carl, a rancher from Red Bluff, CA, who also owns a business in Salinas, CA. The distance between the two cities is approximately five hours by car. After carefully researching Christianity, which was facilitated by COVID, he was led to the 1962 Missal/Traditional Latin Mass at St. Stephen the First Martyr, Sacramento, CA, and became a Catholic at Easter of 2021.

The church is approximately halfway between Red Bluff and Salinas. Thus, he travels 2 ½ hours to get to Mass every Sunday, which makes my half-hour trek nothing. Before his reception into the Catholic Church, he was not interested in any religion. It is an amazing story any way you look at it. “… Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever. …” - Psalm 144, 10.

Carl, the point man, could rebrand his cattle this way … !

fbi on chinese infiltration

2/27/2022

April 1, 2020 (Persons charged with a crime are innocent until proven guilty.)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-warned-about-biosecurity-risk-after-chinese-nationals-snuck-suspicious-vials-into-us

hawaii snowy evening

2/26/2022

My sister said that there is a way to convert everything from English to Hawaiian on my laptop, but I was nervous about doing that, so, instead I entered the title of a famous poem and got this…it is all I dared do.

ku ana ma ka ululaau i ke ahiahi hau
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Hawaii gets snow in one place, Mauna Kea, and there are buildings up there for 13 telescopes. However I am pretty sure that no one will be stopping at a farmhouse, and the gravelly summit has no woods. See the Photography category for my sister’s pictures of the snow-covered top.

Here is the poem in full (the Hawaiian title above rhymes!):

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

rhyme scheme AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD

My mother read us rhyming poetry at night in bed. She read beautifully, and every night we begged her not to stop. She would say no, go to sleep, but once in a while she would recite one more.

drury

2/26/2022

On this date in 1607, Father Robert Drury was murdered at Tyburn, for although he and other priests had sworn their loyalty to Queen Elizabeth I and the Pope, when James I issued a decree requiring all clergy to abjure allegiance to the Pope, Drury was executed for refusing.

environmental commercial

2/25/2022

After months of watching America’s largest corporations peddle the latest version of morality on television, I saw a commercial worth seeing: protecttheharvest.com/ Thanks, defenders. Our natural resources are a gift. My family and I have hiked well-groomed trails in Yosemite National Park. One hike climaxed at 11,000 feet.

For too long now, extremists have trashed the pride we take in balancing the ecosystem with commerce. The Sierra Club climbed the highest peak, teetered, then nose-dived into Anger Gulch and caromed off Envy Gorge. See the Feb 18 monger here; click once because a daily limit is imposed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/sierra-club-ramon-cruz-corner-office.html

family

antelope

2/24/2022

This video comes from a retired cop friend and shows antelope jumping fences to enter Wyoming. He commented that they are not smuggling people or illegal drugs, such as illicit fentanyl! Yellowstone NP in Wyoming is 3,472 sq. miles and has no fences inside the park. San Francisco is 47 sq. miles.

venus

2/24/2022

Did you know that Venus spins backward, not counter-clockwise like Earth? As a result, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east on the second rock from the sun. There are several theories on why this is so, yet Venus is referred to as our sister planet. We are the closest neighbors in the solar system, but the fiery planet cannot support life.

Is there life anywhere besides Earth? Elon Musk says no, but Alexander (8) thinks there is. He told me that he wants to write to Elon. Alexander has been instructed not to look at my website, but he knows that I blog about him.

chopin and aurore

2/24/2022

“It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.” Chopin

Aurore Dupin, aka George Sand, began her relationship with Frederik Chopin in 1837. Before it began, however, he was disgusted by her appearance. She wore trousers and smoked in public. Chopin and Sand stayed in Nohant, her home, where one can still see the sound boards Sand installed to keep out the sound of the piano when Chopin was composing. [Ironically, my piano teacher married a man who could not stand to hear her play.] Sand and Chopin lived in Nohant for half the year and in Paris the other half. While in Paris they did not live together, but their respective apartments were just a few blocks away. In 1843, they moved into adjacent apartments.

After a falling-out in 1848, Chopin was never invited back to Nohant. He died in 1849, alone and poor. Check out my story labeled Piano under the More tab for a painting of Chopin on his deathbed to understand that he died poor but, technically, not alone. There were close to 3,000 people at Chopin’s funeral at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris. Sand was not one of them.

It is difficult to figure out their relationship, which is for the best. Chopin was deeply Catholic, and that makes it problematic, for Chopin would have pursued a life in accordance with the faith. In today’s culture, every item of a person’s life is revealed. Personally, I find the culture of today, not Aurore and Frederik, sickening. I am not interested in celebrity. I just have a soft spot for Frederik that is only distant in time.

Sources – Molli, a travel guide in Paris, and Wikipedia.com

Anyway, I have a session with Alexander today. I’d rather spend time with kids because they believe me, know I’m not selling them a load of garbage, and don’t get nosy. Most adults don’t believe me, so to hell with them.

survival

2/23/2022

Mom cut chicken, chopped eggs, and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no Clorox. She defrosted hamburger on the counter, and we dared each other to eat it raw. I know I did once. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers. I mixed every spice and liquid in the food cabinets and every liquid in the fridge and told my sister to drink it. She did. If you didn’t participate in the conversation, you heard, “What is wrong with you?” Occasionally, we got hit for talking back.

When my brother, Tom, 13, was walking home from St. Mary’s Playground with two of his buddies and they were jumped by three black boys and money was demanded, my brother said, “We don’t have any money.” (It’s true – we didn’t.) The other white boys ran home, the thieves took my brother’s new mitt, and Tom came home to tell us. Mom kind of looked proud but said, “That’s life.”

When Billy down the street scratched my face and I wrestled him to the ground and scratched his face the same way, his mother came to the front door. I was called down to face the consequences. Mom said, “I will take care of it,” and shut the door. I explained that he did it first and got smacked before I could finish.

No one was ever rushed to the hospital, except when I conked my head on the corner of a glass-topped coffee table. The four of us - Tommy, Kathy, Joanie, and I - were quite physical with each other and had some, um, “minor altercations.”

Desirable family anthem next? Pain does not remain, and I learned how to convey because of them, and yet, and yet I did not realize that everything I needed was in my arms, and the crown was real.

hypocrite

2/23/2022

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypokrites, meaning actor. The word took on an extended meaning to refer to any person wearing a figurative mask and pretending to be someone or something they were not.

I don’t even like the word “professor”. It is inflated. Proud to say the Academy of Art calls their own, teachers. I’m good with teacher, tutor, or guide.

California College Faculty Salaries
data.chronicle.com/category/state/California/faculty-salaries/

California 4-Year College Annual Tuition
I picked locals/well-known/preferred and rounded off. Which ones do I prefer?
Two tuitions are in-state first and out-of-state second.
Academy of Art University $25,000
Cal Tech $56,000
Cal State Sacramento $7,400 $19,000
City College of San Francisco $1,600 $8,000 (2-Year community college)
Golden Gate University-San Francisco $13,000
Stanford $56,000
Thomas Aquinas College $26,000
University of California-Berkeley $14,000 $44,000
University of San Francisco $52,000

For the complete list of California college annual tuition, look here
https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=CA

pho-net-ics

2/23/2022

Eons ago, the term "cell phone" would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell.

dinosaurs

2/23/2022

Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892) gave us the word dinosaur. Greek: deinos meaning “terrible” or “fearfully great”, and sauros meaning “lizard”. He disagreed with Darwin and believed that dominant life forms had arisen through special creation without ancestors. The debate about evolution is boring and authority belongs to the scientists. Similarly, the debate about faith is boring and authority belongs to the Catholic Church. I avoid arguments with invincible ignorance.

3D-printed finger

2/22/2022

www-theverge-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/7/21/12247370/police-fingerprint-3D-printing-unlock-phone-murder

love opinions

2/21/2022

How do you get a farm girl to like you? A tractor.

countdown

2/21/2022

Septuagesima. Sexagesima. Quinquagesima. Don’t you love the sound of Latin? Yesterday was Sexagesima Sunday. Listen to this smart girl explain what Septuagesima Sunday is, from the Latin septuāginta, the number 70.

I do like my pronunciation a little better than hers. The e in ge is a long a. Wikipedia says the e is a short e. The problem is that there is no macron over the e, which Romans did not use, but sometimes you will see the macron over vowels in texts. I thought it was a long a if the primary accent, but I digress.

prayer anytime

2/21/2022

Discover to me, O my God, the nothingness of this world, the greatness of heaven, the shortness of time, and the length of eternity. Grant that I may prepare for death, fear Thy judgments, escape hell, and in the end obtain heaven. Amen.

memorized

2/21/2022

my first recital, 13

my third recital, 15
(I would have clapped for her.)

pre-positional puddles

2/20/2022

Alexander scores high on much more difficult challenges than this one, and he wants to be a spy, seriously, but I tell him during writing challenges not to use too many prepositional phrases in a row on his iPad at the table under the chandelier before noon per the manual together with his knowledge of great repute apart from common sense … or love, its direct opposite and indirect object. Savor this challenge.

H0ng Kong South Vietnam Tatarstan

2/19/2022

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe1gTPcWyds Chinese and English
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8eAcDYFkGA Vietnamese and English
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WyN7Sbes4A Tatar and English

anthem of spain

2/19/2022

National Anthem at the moment of consecration
beautiful amalgamation of nation and faith

bad breath

2/18/2022

I scanned the story about an executive resigning from Levi’s recently over school issues. The story is bizarre. What I can say is that my students dislike distance learning. Currently, one is homeschooled and the other is in 8th grade, and I am so glad I spend time with them. All these people in the public square are eating each other up and have bad breath.

than/then

2/18/2022

In today’s lesson, Alexander was tasked with picking one homophone pair that is one letter different from among five pairs and writing a sentence using one or both words of the pair. This is the third or fourth time I asked him to do the exercise. Today and on the previous occasions, I included the pair than/then. Every time, including today, he repeated than and then and changed the words into land and lend and laughed and laughed. Each time I said no, not land and lend. But … today, after the lesson was over, I realized that the rapscallion is smarter than I. There are 60 years of education/experience between us. What? Than and then do not sound the same; they are not homophones! He picked here/hear.

comfort

2/18/2022

It is not what you think. I know. I thought ease. Comfort comes from the Latin comfortare, meaning “strengthen greatly.” I have it heard it said, “Your faith must be a comfort.” No. Practicing my faith isn’t easy. My students are in sports and practice a lot, which strengthens them greatly.