A good Saturday morning to you. Yesterday was the last of the three Friday the Thirteenth days this year. And yes, most of us emerged just fine. The best bit of trivia comes from the Curtis Hotel in Denver. Instead of skipping the thirteenth floor as many hotels do, here as the elevator stops on floor thirteen the system plays a “dun, dun, dunnnnn!!” theme.

It’s been told that Mark Twain tempted fate by attending a dinner party as the 13th guest, and then reported:

“It was bad luck. They only had food for 12.” ~ Mark Twain

I am back to great health. However, I did not tempt this fact by then drinking 13 mugs of coffee (although when with good friends Thursday evening I did have one after dinner).

Paris – experienced a slaughtering of innocents last evening. Who were they? Couples enjoying a dinner at a restaurant, young folk attending a concert, and thousands appreciating an International soccer game; apparently some 158 never made it home.

This morning it was announced that one of the suicide bombers at the stadium had a Syrian passport on him which would suggest an ISIS connection.

To counter the madmen perpetrating these events what we do too little of is stand up and acculturate, with pride, our own and new immigrant populations. Let people know so that they come to understand how much we value our secular way of government combined with religious freedom based on our Constitution. The importance of our First Amendment guaranteeing to everyone the freedom of speech. These rights given through toil and battle by our founding fathers, and generations who gave it their all in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima.

Instead we find virtually no leadership coming from our current Administration. Beginning with the infamous ‘apology’ tour by President Obama, to ISIS being JV to last week’s “we have them shrinking”; all meaningless blather. Our universities have become so concerned with Political Correctness and seem afraid to teach our history – the good and the bad and our growing as a nation throughout (see what’s just happened at Missouri this past week; partially as a result). Our Churches too have become cloisters of inclusiveness and refuse to stand for anything – stand for nothing and you are nothing.

It appears as if we’ve lost our pride – not a ‘chest pounding’ exclusionary pride, but a pride where we glow with enthusiasm. And, if I am correct then the battles we’re witnessing will never be won.

The corner of Chaos & Mayhem – took front and center in last week’s Ramblings. Stated or not, many of you had to be thinking something like; that guy sure can exaggerate. Really? For half the week this is what it looked like from our window. And, that doesn’t include the lines of cars stuck in traffic in all directions as far as we could see.

DNA – A search for a mysterious recessive gene has become a bit of the latest fad. Oh, there is usefulness, especially when it’s suspected that life disrupting chronic illnesses could surface. But, on the other hand I see it as a bit of a current fad.

Anyway, Marcia was selected as the guinea pig in the elusive search for a recessive – yet undiscovered – cancer gene. Talks between her and her sibs had her selected.

A week or so ago I took her to a local hospital for her ‘swab’. Simple huh? Well that ‘swab’ took an ominous turn when a large needle emerged.

Enough said other than that just being a Guinea Pig she emerged from the hospital looking like a ‘pig-led-to-slaughter. Several pokes and eventually a ‘blown’ vein now displaying a turkey-egg sized hematoma is how I saw Marcia after the event.

And the test? Who knows, Medicare has to give proceeding with it their blessing – see, it costs $3,000 to run it. In the meantime the blood and tears collected from her are frozen it time.

Fini – After this post it’ll be a fresh veggie, eggs, and meat trip at Findlay Market. We’re meeting up with Cathy and Jason

In the meantime, make it a great week, stay safe.

Cheers.

Dirk