Author Archives: bfrhodes99

Three Very Unproductive Ways of Spending Time

Posted in CEO Princeple by
  1. Waiting for a car to be serviced. Last time for me was to replace a battery. Over four hours. Most of that was spent waiting for a new battery. I guess I should have brought my own.
  2. Waiting for a doctor. Normally it is a two to four hour wait. It is the one time I really would like to be a multi-millionaire. People who have a lot of money don’t spend much time waiting for doctors.
  3. Certainly, the one thing that irks me more than anything is spending 10 to 15 minutes finding and opening the end of a large leaf bag. Sometimes they don’t even let you know where one bad ends and the next begins. It is intentional. They could make the bags easy to open. Of course they can. But they don’t want to do that. You would use more and then they would have to make more. Do you really think they would want something like that? It does make me wonder though. Do the CEOs of these companies use these bags. Do you suppose they know how difficult they are to open. Probably not. They are very rich. They don’t wait for car maintenance, doctors or dentist. They certainly would not rake the leaves. If they did, they would have someone else open the bags.

Do you suppose they have a secret they are keeping to themselves?

Painter of Light

Posted in Uncategorized by
Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite artists?
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That is what Thomas Kinkade got to be known as. If you are not familiar with his work, you might look him up. It’s not difficult. If you don’t remember his name, just enter “Painter of Light.” The reason he was given the title was because he generally painted landscapes with houses at dusk. The houses, the streetlights and even the moon seemed to give off a glow.

I have heard of people who had more copies of his paintings than they had room on the walls to hang them. It forced them to rotate them around from time to time.

He died a few years ago I am sad to say. I do believe he did bring a little light to us all who bought copies of his paintings, or just had the opportunity to see them.

Many did not like the way he did things. While all of his paintings were real, he had talented people make copies of his painting under strict supervision. As a result, there were many copies. Those in the world of established art believed in one copy of each painting and only by the artist, this despite that most of the Sistine Chapel was painted by assistants of De Vinci. The nice thing about the way Kinkade did it, he brought much more beautiful art to many more people. By the way, he also gave many aspiring artist a way to feed themselves while practicing.

I used to draw and paint when I was younger. I even considered painting the covers to my books, or at least a few of them. However, my painting is about like my books, not that good. Would anyone like to offer to do it for me?

Not all art is on canvas. Actors are considered artist too. I have many actors that I have liked over the years- Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Dorthy Kirsten, Gordon MacRae, Doris Day and a few others. However, Topol in “Fiddler on the Roof,” has to be my favorite. I have the DVD and have watched it many times. However, I also saw it on stage at the Orpheum in Memphis, with Topol. It was the last time he toured with the show and I just knew I had to see it.

I managed to get the night off of work. ( I had a very good boss, thankfully ) I went with my wife and we settled into our seats. The lights were lowered and a man stood on the stage. Topol had likely played the part thousands of times before. However, almost instantly, he was playing the part for the first time. Instantly, he was not Topol, but Tevye, a poor dairyman in early 1900s Russia. I wish I had some way of telling the man what a good and convincing performance he gave that night. I have tried.

However, he, his performance, the other actors, and the show brought to my mind something I just simply did not know before. There were tears in my eyes as I realized that as bad as the Russians were on the Jews, they chased the them into places such as east Europe, like Poland, Like Hungry, Austria , and of course, Germany. In truth, the mistreatment of the Israelites did not start in Germany and Poland. It was simply a stop along the way. It started in Ukraine. It went through Europe and it is going on this very day with help of our current occupier of the Oval Office.

And, by the way, did you know our very own Roosevelt (FDR) had a part in it. He refused to let them leave Germany and enter the US, even though they were well under Quota. That’s right, FDR was a viscous racist and he didn’t do much to hide it either.

I used to like to take pictures. I had about 160 slides of Vietnam. I used to look at them from time to time. An older woman I met took pictures too. She had been all over the world. Now SHE was an artist. I could have sat and looked at her slides for hours. It does make me wonder, where are those slides now. I certainly hope whoever inherited them knows what a treasure they have. More likely, no one has looked at them for years, if at all.

I don’t know the woman’s name. I wish I had thought to ask her for copies, but I wouldn’t be able to afford them anyway. It would be a tragedy if they have been lost. To me they would be worth more that anything that Leonardo de Vinci painted.

Sometimes, people underestimate the value of their art. I suspect all the artist I mentioned here didn’t really truly know what treasures they really brought into the world. I know Thomas Kinkade had an idea of it, but he couldn’t have really known. Topol has no idea what he brought into my life that night, and it wasn’t just the art. That woman with her slides. I know she wanted to bring something into everyone’s life. I just wished she had the vehicle for it. There is no doubt in my mind she had the talent and heart for it.

The Evil that Men Do

Posted in Abuse of Power, Biden, Christian values, Climate Change by

Here is your question of the day, one for you to contemplate. Do those who are good do evil? Do those who are evil do good?

To some degree, we all sin. To deny it is a lie. The best of us do things we shouldn’t. It is in our nature since the fall of Adam and we simply cannot avoid it. It is why Jesus came to be born and suffer his death on the cross. It is why we die. It is from the curse and it cannot be avoided. It is why the only way we can go to heaven is to accept that we are sinful and that being covered by the blood of Jesus is the only hope a man has.

However, there are men who have been or are particularly evil. Satan is evil and those that do the will of Satan do evil things. We all know people down through history that have done particularly evil things. Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on the Christians. Hitler blamed all the woes of Germany on the Jews, giving him the false reason to kill the Jews. Even to this day, there are tyrants who do evil things and, apparently have no conscience about it. They kill people by thousands, oddly, in some cases claiming that they are doing good.

To be sure, not all evil men are leaders of nations. Charles Manson and his crew was full of evil. Jim Jones orchestrated the deaths of more than 900 people. The man was evil and he did evil things long before he led all those people to their deaths. Indeed, he led them to their deaths because he realized he’d been found out of his evil ways.

Mostly, we can generalize, those who are evil do evil things. Those who are good do things that are good. However, we must remember that there are exceptions to the rule.

Today, we look over at the Middle East and what we see is just almost total evil. The Jews did nothing to deserve the attack by Hamas. However, with some encouragement from Iran and Satan, they decided they wanted to kill, take hostages, and rape. That is not the act of good men, but evil men. There is no other way to put it. Good men don’t do that sort of thing. Good leaders do not lead their people to do evil things. Because Hamas has continually done that which is evil, we must consider them to be evil. They are doing the work of Satan by trying to destroy God’s people. That, in itself is a subject that deserves an extensive explanation.

Death and destruction follow evil and evil follows Satan. The leaders of Hamas hate the Jews so much that they are willing to use their own women and children as shields to accomplish their evil.

When Old Joe and his cohorts turned 6 billion dollars over to Iran, they knowingly assisted in the evil. They aided and abetted evil intentionally. It is why I call him Old Joe. He is a murderer and the only title he deserves is murderer. His description is evil. He deserves not the title of president.

From the way he looks, he is likely not far away from meeting Jesus face to face. I mean I have a whole lot to explain when I meet Jesus. But Old Joe… He’s in worse shape than Jim Jones or Charles Manson. They only have a few deaths to their name. Old Joe is going to have to answer for thousands, perhaps millions. That just almost puts him in the same situation as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

One more thing. If you help Old Joe, you are going to have some explaining to do, too. Indeed, if you helped him, then you helped the Iranians and you helped Hamas. You just might want to think about asking for forgiveness. You just might want to seek the salvation of the Lord. The way I see it, that is the only way to avoid your current destination. Do you really want to come face to face after rejecting Him and the salvation He gave died for. Somehow, I don’t think he will be impressed by what you did to stop climate change.

TV Ad of the Week

Posted in Advertising, Bribes, Fast Food by

I certainly complain about the bad ads enough that I think I should call out the good ones, in the rare instance there is one. This one is especially good because of what is being advertised.

Picture this. Two very good looking Burger King Whoppers on the screen. Then, the voice comes on, “If you eat both of them, don’t tell her.”

There was a time I could have eaten both of them. Maybe Big Macs, but those Whoppers are whoppers.

As an aside, I would much prefer the one Whopper over the Big Macs. More meat, more lettuce, more onions and more taste. I can’t eat 2, but I would like to try. And I got a good laugh off the ad too.

Incidentally , if it were only legal, I suspect one just might get me out of a ticket, that is, unless the officer is vegetarian. Who knows, it might even work anyway. Those Whoppers sure are tempting.

There is a Word I Am Thinking of

Posted in Abuse of Power, Being woke, Biden, Cancel Culture, Controllers, Deceit, Fight or Flight, Important things, Politally Correct, Social Media, Uncategorized by

I saw a pickup today that obviously belonged to a marine as it had a Simper Fi and a few other markings on it. However, the one that really caught my attention was the one “If you haven’t been there, shut your mouth.”

Well, I was a marine too. however, I repaired airplanes. I very likely was never where he was but I still have an idea of what he means. I have been close enough that my garments were partially singed so I do have something of an idea of what he was saying and why.

People all the time like to “play” expert, as if they are smarter than those who have been there. No one, not even me is smart enough to know until they have been there. It is a strange place. It makes cowards out of the brave and it makes heroes out of boys. I have seen both. A man does not know until he’s been there which one he is. When the bullets start flying and the rockets start falling, it is a different world.

First, it is loud. Have you ever shot a weapon? Do you have any idea how loud they are. After a year in Vietnam, I still flinch when I hear a loud noise and that was over fifty years ago. Second, it is a world of death. That men with which you go through training just might end up with a bullet through him. Those bullets are very impersonal. It could have gone through you just as easily and when you’re there you suddenly realize it to a point you never knew before.

It is a world where you, that’s right, you pull a trigger as you look at the man coming at you. Then he falls in front of you none too soon. It is a place you didn’t want to go and you never want to go again. Yet, some men do. It is a scary, bloody place, many times a place of confusion. One minute, your convinced that the enemy is in front of you. Then suddenly, you hear shooting at you from the right or from behind.

When the marines landed at Da Nang, the Viet Cong hid in holes and let the marines by. Then they popped up and fired on the marines from behind them. How would you like to face a surprise such as that. The problem is that every war is different. The methods used in the last war just might not work.

I can’t tell you what it was really like because I’ve never really been there. Maybe I should shut my mouth but for one more thing. I did know what it was like to wake 2, 3 times at night to the horrendous, loud sound of rockets exploding. The only reason I lived through it was because they missed me. Some were not so fortunate. I arrived a little after the Tet offensive. Fortunately, I got all my education from that second hand. That was more than enough for me.

Then I come home and I hear what the experts say about the military, experts who have never been there. They say we should allow women at the front. I am no expert, but I have seen enough of it to say that’s not right. Putting women at the front lines should be a last resort, not SOP. I know it Mr. Expert because I have seen women close to combat situations and I know the problems it creates. When you are in a fight for your life, problems are one thing you don’t need.

The experts say that women are at the front now and just fine. Well, I would argue that point twice over. First, no women have ever been in a real battlefield condition. We have always had to superior forces by far. Secondly, every time they have been close, they have caused problems. The experts don’t want to believe it because they are all wrapped up in their cause of equality for women. “If they aren’t treated equally, they will not have the opportunity to advance in rank.” By the way, my best guess, if there were problems, they were covered over. The experts don’t like to admit failure.

Let me put this on you. When you are at war, the object is to win the war quickly with as few casualties as possible. The concept of equality for women’s rights is the furthest thing from my mind, or at least it should be. The job of an officer is military tactics, not social engineering.

The word I am thinking of when we turn officers and generals into social engineers is DISASTER. And all will know it if we send women into a real shooting war.

I know the experts disagree with me. However, most of the experts have never been there. Until they have been, they need to keep their mouths shut.

Retribution

Posted in Abuse of Power, Biden, Build the Wall!, Cease fire between Israel and Gaza, Christian values, Communism, Lawyers and Representation, United Nations by

There is no doubt. In retribution for Iran’s part in the attacks on Israel, we should immediately require Iran to withdraw their ambassador and all of his mission from the US.

Wait a minute. We already did, let’s see, a long time ago. It was done when they took hostages from our embassy.

Now let me see. Again, why is it that Old Joe gave 6 billion to Iran? Just what purpose was it supposed to serve? What good did it serve?

Looks to me like it caused a whole lot of death and destruction, for Israel to be sure. But also for Hamas. Does anyone really think Israel will let Hamas get away with a slap on the wrist?

As usual, the dems are doing the things that result in death.

Oh yes. And by the way. This just might be the start of something bigger.

Let’s all say… thank you, Joe. Thank you very much. And let’s not forget all the puppeteers who are pulling Old Joe’s strings.

As my aside… Aren’t you really glad of all the United Nation was able to do. Sure am glad that they were able to do so much to preempt the disaster. Wait a minute. I am not sure they did one little thing to stop the attack. My guess is that, as usual, they were useless.

Does it Really Help to Know

Posted in Abuse of Power, Auto Quality Control, Being woke, Bribes, Christian values, Communism, Communist Takover, Customer complaints, Elections, Liberals, Politcal Opinion, Socialists, Supreme Court, Truth by

I took my Ford Taurus into the dealership to have some minor work done on it. When I went to pick it up, the service manager informed me that the anti-lock brakes control went bad. Then he suggested it might have been battery acid that dropped down on it.

I actually thought about arguing the point. The battery was relatively new and there was not one drop of acid around it. Moreover, it was in a tray which was also dry. I decided against it. I knew it would do no good.

I knew the guy was handing me a line but sometimes it isn’t enough to know. I wasn’t there to see it and I could see no evidence of anything that his man did. So that was it, more-or-less. Of course, the customer always has a last resort. I had owned three Fords before; none since.

The point is that sometimes, sometimes, it does not do any good to know. I knew the man was lying to me, but it did not do be any good. Anything short of having a video of the whole thing, I am doomed to lose the argument before I start. Even then, they might not accept a video of proof.

Well, there is another thing I know that will never do anyone any good. I know there was major cheating in the last election. Guess what. The dems know it too. The problem is that there was never a way to get it into the courts to prove anything; this even though some in position of authority outright admitted to not following the law. Incidentally, I believe the courts knew it too. I mean, it was a poorly kept secret.

The dems decided to ignore it and they insisted that everyone else ignore it too. Moreover, if anyone brought it up, the dems made sure that they suffered for it.

Now we stand on the brink of another election. You think they will do it again? They certainly will, if we permit it. Actually, they just might have obtained the power to do it even should we do not permit it. It may have already reached the tipping point. We, even now, might be living in a one party country. If so, it won’t do any good to know it. It will be too late. Very soon. we will all know. A lot of good it will do then.

Where’d all Those Rockets Come From?

Posted in Biden by

Do you suppose Iran provided the rockets and money for the attacks by Hamas on Israel?

Do you suppose Iran is using the money provided Old Joe?

To my greater point, do you really think the dems place any importance on human life and safety?

Finally, do you really think any of this would have happened if President Trump were still in office?

For that matter, what about the disasters in Afghanistan and Ukrainian?

People are dying directly due to Old Joe’s foreign policies!

Brandon Presley Says he is Pro Life

Posted in Abortions, Christian values, Planned Parenthood by

If Presley is pro life, he is in the wrong party. Should he become governor, they would toss him out of the party should he make one pro life decision. He is just carrying the pro life banner long enough to get elected. Then he would show his true colors.

Let’s face it, the dems are 110% pro abortion and they are proud of it. By the way, my guess is that Planned Parenthood is contributing to his campaign and I am sure Presley is making sure they know they have his support.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely

Posted in Abuse of Power, Bribes, Cancel Culture, Christian values, Communism, Communist Takover, Controllers, Deceit, Fauci, Hillary Clinton, law enforcement, Newsome, Obama, Planned Parenthood, Politcal Opinion, Religion, Schools, Social Media, Socialists, The god of education, United Nations by

John Dalberg-Acton is credited with the above statement. The other day, I was considering it and what the Bible says about the love of money being the root of all evil. (1st Timothy 6:10). As I thought it over, I realized that the love of power certainly has it’s part in it too.

However, there is a difference. Not everyone thirst after power as they do after money. Most of us wouldn’t want the power if it was given to us. I certainly don’t.

On the other hand, there are those who lust after power almost since birth. History is replete with them, mostly bad. Moreover, as the above saying suggest, the more power a person has, the more he wants. It becomes, as has been said by others, something of an opiate.

However, it is also true of groups and organizations. Indeed, some generals have gone insane from it. Those like Nero went absolutely mad with it. There has been more than one fight over throwns because of it. Europe was full of one war after the other during the dark and middle ages. Modern wars have been fought to either maintain or gain power, such as both world wars. The Soviet Union was formed to take power(control) of the world by lying that communism would fix everything.

The western world was not alone in the striving for power. I mean, just why was the Great Wall of China built? By the way, did you ever notice all the ancient cities were built with walls around them. For sure the walls were built frequently before the homes. Why? Because there were those who sought to rule over other cities and other nations.

Now, I ask you, what modern day organization seeks power? I’ll give you a hint. They break the law all the time and claim that others are breaking the law. They promise the moon but provide little or nothing. They break the election laws and claim their opponents do.

They take away our freedoms, (the Bill of Rights) while claiming others are trying to take away our democracy. They lie while claiming everyone else is lying. They promise life but kill by the millions.

Now let’s see, it is the dems that fraught for slavery. It was the dems that tried to keep the Black race from voting. It is the dems that tried to keep the Black people from learning to read. Now they have the nerve to try to claim the Republicans did it.

It is the dems that will not let people pray in school. It is the dems that try to make everyone pay for the killing of Black babies. (abortion) And it is the dems that are trying to keep people from having their say in colleges.

Sounds to me like those dems are maybe just a bit power hungry. Sounds to me that those dems have been corrupted by that power.