Facing Life's Tests

Janis Horne reads the NT lesson.

Today's New Testament reading was from 1 Corinthians 10. Here's the excerpt that has given comfort to Christians over the centuries:

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

Sometimes our problems seem to be overwhelming--last year various family members and friends had serious health issues--and everyone followed all the doctors' instructions in addition to praying regularly. A number of congregations also put us on their prayer lists. We were able to get through the dark times by referring to Paul's words that we could endure the most trying tests.

The science is inconclusive about whether prayer really works to heal illness directly--and not everyone got the health outcome we hoped for--but most of us ended the year in reasonably good shape and good spirits. From where we were a year ago, it's a win and I'll take it.

Greenpeace: the Sword Cuts both Ways

Greenpeace ships in 1976 (Wilson/SFGate)

As I entered the working world in the 1970's, the first non-religious, non-educational charity I donated to was Greenpeace. I agreed with its save-the-whales campaign and didn't see any compelling reason that whale-hunting benefited humanity, especially if it meant the extinction of a species.

A few years later I found that my donations had been redirected to Greenpeace's efforts to shut down nuclear power plants. I called, first to complain that their advertising was dishonest, then to ask that my donations be allocated solely to save-the-whales.

Instead of listening to my request, the Greenpeace person spoke about the dangers of nuclear power and why Greenpeace was right to prioritize stopping nuclear. I immediately ceased donations to Greenpeace. I had learned a valuable lesson about the fungibility of money and the trustworthiness of organizations, even those that are titularly non-profit.

Since then Greenpeace has expanded to embrace other leftist causes, most of which I do not support. Advocacy is one thing, but they've finally been spanked for crossing the line to property damage and blocking business operations. [bold added]

The environmental lobby Greenpeace is finally getting its just deserts after a North Dakota jury on Wednesday ordered it to pay $667 million in damages for its thuggish campaign last decade to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Pipeline company Energy Transfer LP provided compelling evidence during a three-week trial that Greenpeace defamed the company and abetted vandals. Its organizers trained protesters and even brought lockboxes they used to chain themselves to construction equipment. Protesters lobbed human feces and burning logs at security officers and vandalized construction equipment.

Greenpeace sought to get the pipeline’s financiers to pull out of the project by erroneously claiming the company’s “personnel deliberately desecrated documented burial grounds and other culturally important sites,” among other falsehoods. Energy Transfer said this malicious campaign delayed the pipeline’s construction and increased its costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Greenpeace’s defense? Not our fault since it didn’t expressly order the vandalism even if it did train protesters. But even Greenpeace USA’s then executive director boasted it had played a “massive role” in the protests. The jury agreed.

The judicial system is often used by leftists to halt activities that have been approved by the legislative and executive branches. The verdict against Greenpeace shows that the sword can cut both ways.

Beautiful on Many Levels

(Photo from NASA/YouTube video)

Tuesday's splashdown was beautiful on several levels.

The esthetic beauty of the capsule being framed against a bright blue sky and deep blue ocean, surrounded by four symmetrically arranged orange-and-white parachutes;

The epistemic beauty of American technology that gave stranded astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams a ride home; and

The empathic beauty of the safe return of two people from a parlous situation.

It'a a relief to celebrate a happy event while keeping politics mostly (but not completely, sadly) out of it.

Social Security Nostrum Undermined

In one of his usual tweets slamming the Trump Administration, Mark Cuban undermines a Democratic nostrum for social security funding:

You do realize that social security is returning the money you pay out of your paycheck ?

And the administration said they would not reduce payments in any way

You good with making it harder for seniors to confirm the bank accounts ? Potentially leading to them not be able to…

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 19, 2025

Social Security payroll taxes are imposed upon wages, salaries, and other earned income up to a ceiling of $176,100 in 2025. The employee pays 6.2%, or $10,918.20 into the SS system, and the employer matches the tax so that a total of $21,836.40 is credited to the employee. When he retires, the employee gets his money back, plus a return, as Mark Cuban says.

Some liberals want to eliminate the tax ceiling so that executives who make, say, $2 million, will remit payroll taxes of $248,000. Left unsaid is their advocacy of a ceiling on benefits; the millionaire retiree won't get his money back in order to keep the system solvent.

The problem with the liberal solution is that Social Security will stand revealed as just another welfare program, another transfer from rich to poor. Social Security was never sold as a transfer program but originated by FDR as a retirement program where participants received benefits proportionate to their contributions.

Although I disagree with most of what Mark Cuban says, give him credit for acknowledging a truth about Social Security that many on his "side" won't acknowledge.

Would You Keep Paul McCartney Waiting?

CNBC's Jim Cramer was bantering with fellow stock market commentator David Faber when Jensen Huang (shown in background) arrived nearly half an hour early for an interview with Cramer.

Jensen Huang and Elon Musk are the rock-starrish two most famous businessmen on the planet (the difference is that they're mobbed by nerdy guys instead of women).

Others who used to hold that lofty position, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, have reduced their roles in the companies that made them centi-billionaires.

It's a sign of Jensen Huang's humility that he patiently waited for Jim Cramer to finish his segment, although Jensen is even busier than normal at this week's Nvidia GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in San Jose.

This blogger's question to Mr. Cramer: would you keep Paul McCartney waiting?

It's Only Abnormal to Some

Pride parade on 6/30/24 (Zimmrman/SFGate)

The SFGate reporter calls it a "very abnormal" development, but to this observer it's not surprising at all. [bold added]

Several longtime corporate sponsors of San Francisco’s Pride celebrations are pulling their funding for the festivities, leaving Pride organizers searching for another way to raise $300,000.

In the past four weeks, multiple companies told San Francisco Pride, the nonprofit behind San Francisco’s annual Pride Parade and Civic Center celebration, that they would not support the 2025 Pride celebrations. In an interview with SFGATE, San Francisco Pride’s executive director, Suzanne Ford, said she was “really disappointed” by the developments.

In their communications with San Francisco Pride, the sponsors all cited a lack of funds. None of them mentioned the political climate. But Ford noted that it was “very abnormal” for several multiyear sponsors to suddenly drop their support for the event...

Ford told KTVU-TV that those sponsors included Comcast; Anheuser-Busch, the company behind Budweiser and Beck’s beer; wine company La Crema; and Diageo, the beverage company that produces Guinness, Smirnoff and other alcoholic drink brands. Aside from Comcast, all of those companies specialize in alcoholic beverages, a market that has become more volatile as Americans’ drinking preferences shift...

San Francisco Pride has budgeted $3.2 million for its events on the weekend of June 28-29, Ford said, and of that sum, corporate sponsorships are meant to cover $2.3 million. The companies that withdrew represented a combined $300,000 in funding.

Earlier this month, Ford announced that San Francisco Pride was ending its relationship with Meta, the parent company of Facebook. The social media giant recently ended its major diversity, equity and inclusion programs and scaled back its content moderation policies. In an interview with KGO-TV, Ford noted that the nonprofit was pausing its relationships with sponsors that don’t align with San Francisco Pride’s values.

One interpretation is that the "political climate" risks harm to sponsors of LGBTQ programs. A different explanation is that businesses are finally free to say "no" to causes that they felt they had to support because of what could happen if they didn't (see Tesla cars and dealerships for examples). I don't wish ill upon Pride and for their sake hope that a trickle doesn''t become a waterfall.

St. Patrick's Day 2025

San Francisco's Front Street is traditionally closed on St. Patrick's Day, when crowds descend upon Harrington's Bar and Grill. Mayor Daniel Lurie posted photos on X (example right) earlier today to show that San Francisco party life is coming back.

This was the first major San Francisco example of California's "Entertainment Zone" bill that was passed last September: [bold added]

Existing law authorizes the creation of entertainment zones (via local ordinance) in the city and county of San Francisco. The legislation permits consumers to leave the premises of a beer manufacturer, wine manufacturer, or on-sale licensee with open containers of alcoholic beverages for consumption off the premises within an open container entertainment zone if the necessary conditions, requirements, and guidelines are adhered to.

Good on San Francisco and the State for legalizing what thousands of people do anyway every St. Patrick's Day. Below is a photo of Front Street on St. Patrick's Day 2005, when your humble blogger worked in the Financial District.

Front Street, St. Patrick's Day 2005

Simply a Return ro Mainstream Liberalism

(Image from US Catholic)

Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Erika Bachiochi pushes back against the extremes (radical feminism to women's inferiority) of Catholic views about women by asking Catholics to take another look at the "feminist" Pope John Paul II (1920-2005): [bold added]

As a Catholic legal scholar, I have been an outspoken critic of a radical feminist ideology that treats transgenderism and elective abortion as core elements of “gender equality.” I agree with ["The Case for Patriarchy" author Tim] Gordon that those ideas are antithetical to Christianity. But by misreading fringe views as central to the early cause of women’s rights, he and other like-minded reactionary Catholics now claim that all feminism is “diabolical” or, in the words of the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, “one of the worst things to ever happen to Western civilization.”

John Paul II would beg to differ. Thirty years ago he called on women to “promote a ‘new feminism’ ” and thereby transform “culture so that it supports life.” Seven years earlier in his apostolic letter “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,” he corrected historical interpretations of Scripture that had assumed women’s inequality. Affirming husbands’ responsibility as leaders, the pope wrote that “in the relationship between husband and wife the ‘subjection’ is not one-sided but mutual.” The “new feminism” he described wouldn’t imitate “models of ‘male domination’ ” but rather work to “overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.”

It would be disrespectful of the thought that went into Pope John Paul II's letter to excerpt a phrase or two, so your humble blogger won't do that. Let's just say that the apostolic letter spends some time on Genesis 3:16 ("Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you") and why the interpretation that women are inferior to men is incorrect.

In politics, religion and culture much of what people call "conservatism" is simply a return to mainstream liberalism as it was 15 to 30 years ago.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March (March 15) was marked on the calendar centuries before Pi Day (March 14). According to Grok:

The Ides of

(Image from Getty.edu)

March is a date on the Roman calendar that corresponds to March 15th. In the Roman system, the "Ides" marked the middle of the month and were originally tied to the full moon. For March, May, July, and October, the Ides fell on the 15th; for other months, it was the 13th.

Historically, the Ides of March is most famous for the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. A group of Roman senators, led by Brutus and Cassius, stabbed Caesar to death at a Senate meeting, fearing his growing power threatened the Republic. The event was later dramatized by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, where a soothsayer warns, "Beware the Ides of March."

Today, it’s often referenced as a symbol of betrayal or a turning point. Since it’s March 15, 2025, right now, you’re living through it—hopefully with less drama than Caesar! Anything specific you’re curious about regarding it?

Julius Caesar was the first Shakespeare play I read. At first I was disappointed that the play was really about Brutus, who was one of the assassins of the famous conqueror. Then we delved into the play, stewarded by our very capable 7th-grade English teacher. To this day I remember "et tu, Brute", "the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones" and of course "beware the Ides of March."

Were it not for Shakespeare, I doubt anyone would know--or care--about "Ides" (the middle of a month).

3.14159265

Today is Pi Day, and we commemorated the occasion by ordering an extra-large #2 (salami, mushrooms and sausage) from Toto's.

π is the Greek symbol for the value of a circle’s circumference divided by its diameter. Pi is the first irrational number (a real number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers) that I ever came across. The elementary-school arithmetic books only took pi out to four digits, i.e. 3.1416, but that felt unsatisfying. I looked up pi in the library and memorized it to eight digits,3.14159265. After high school I never had to use pi in a calculation, but I still know it, just like long-defunct telephone numbers.

BTW there was a lunar eclipse today. The congruence of the moon and pizza on the same day prompted me to play the 1953 Dean Martin hit while munching on Toto's #2.

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie, that's amore
When the world seems to shine
Like you've had too much wine, that's amore

I'm a Takeout Kind of Guy.

Before

I was going to prepare the calamari this weekend, but the box defrosting in the refrigerator started leaking, and evening plans changed.

In order to reduce the fishy smell I wiped the refrigerator right away. Then I had to clean the squid. I reviewed various YouTube videos to remind myself of the steps involved, and it looked easy. Of course. reality was different.

Removing the spine was difficult. It didn't just pop out with a tug from my fingers as the YouTube instructors demonstrated. I had to slice off the tip and pull the spine from the tail end.

After

After a little over an hour I had finished cleaning the squid. I squeezed some lemon over it and put it in an airtight glass container before it went back in the fridge.

I do get satisfaction from cooking but don't plan on doing this again soon. With regard to calamari I've decided that I'm a takeout kind of guy.

If You Walk on Four Legs It's OK

Last month we noted how coyotes were responsible for decapitating baby seals. No action is being taken against the culprits, although "coyotes are not threatened or endangered in California" and estimates of the population range between 250,000 and 750,000.

I suppose the killing of baby seals by coyotes is regarded as just the natural order of things. What is not part of the natural order is the killing of seals by humans.

The government is above anthropomorphizing seals to
get your sympathy (CA Fish & Wildlife--Bodega seals)

Headline: Authorities investigating sea lion beheading offer $20K in rewards

Federal authorities are offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information about who may have decapitated a sea lion that was found on a Bodega Bay beach on Christmas Day...

An eyewitness told law enforcement that they saw a man decapitate the dead sea lion using a black 8-inch knife, place the head in a clear plastic bag and then ride away on a black fat-tire e-bike, NOAA Fisheries Public Affairs officer Rachel Hager confirmed to SFGATE in an email. The suspect is described as being approximately 30 to 40 years old, dressed in all black.

Sea lions, like all marine mammals, are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits the harassment, hunting, capturing or killing of these animals. Violating the act can result in hefty fines and even jail time.

Despite their protections under federal law, California sea lions continue to face threats from human interactions. In October, a man in Monterey was caught on video whipping sea lions with caution tape, causing them to stampede down a ledge along the Monterey Bay Coastal Recreation Trail. The NOAA previously confirmed to SFGATE that it was investigating the incident for harassment.

Earlier that month, a 2-year-old sea lion was shot on Bolsa Chica State Beach in Orange County. The sea lion was taken to a rescue center, where it later succumbed to its injuries and died. NOAA spokesperson Michael Milstein previously confirmed to SFGATE that sea lion shootings are a regular occurrence in California, with an estimated 20 killed each year.

Your humble blogger could point out that the logical conclusion of the new hierarchy of values is that coyotes have more rights than human beings (who can't kill or even "harass" seals) or that seals have a greater right to life than human fetuses (whose killing is not a crime in California), but that would not change the mind of any one who subscribes to the new values.

Maybe we can agree that what's happened to English grammar is abominable? "An eyewitness told law enforcement that they" avoids using "he" or "she" but clearly can't be "they" because there's only one eyewitness. "They," however illogical and grating, was chosen to avoid the toxic masculinity of the "he" in traditional English.

By the way, I do agree that some action should be taken against the man who decapitated the seal, especially if he killed the animal. If it was dead already, then public exposure IMHO would be sufficient.

I Like the New Rules

Ribeye steak

The efficacy or non-efficacy of vaccines get the headlines, but the Trump Administration's challenges to long-running assumptions about diet may turn out to have greater significance. [bold added]

In 2005 federal recommendations dropped from 6 ounces of animal protein a day to 5.5 ounces of any type of protein. Worse, the guidelines use an inaccurate “ounce equivalent” measure to equate different protein sources. The body can synthesize at least two to four times as much protein from beef, eggs and pork as it can from “ounce equivalent” quantities of kidney beans, nuts or peanut butter.

[Brooke] Rollins and [Robert] Kennedy should reject suggestions from an expert committee that the 2025-30 federal guidelines place an even greater emphasis on plant-based proteins and that they recommend “reducing intakes of red and processed meats.” As the Agriculture Department found in 2010, there is either “no relationship” or a “limited inconsistent” relationship between any protein type and chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The National Academy of Medicine should also increase its recommended 0.8 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Studies find that 1.2 to 1.6 grams is a better range for weight loss, muscle maintenance, recovery from illness and overall well-being, especially for children and older adults.

In short eat more protein, and get it in the form of meat, not plants or insects.

Searching for Squid

For the first time in a long time I had a hankering for home-cooked calamari. Back in the 1980's it was plentiful and cheap, and I became reasonably proficient at cleaning and slicing squid.

I was surprised to see that Safeway did not carry calamari, either fresh or frozen. I searched Lucky supermarket and got the same result.

Finally, I went to 99 Ranch, which has a large selection of fresh fish and shellfish, but I had to go to the frozen section to find calamari.

The 99 Ranch freezer had a half-dozen calamari items, and most were from mainland China. The one box that was sourced in the USA was more expensive ($19 for three pounds) than the Chinese products, but I wasn't going to risk consuming a product that probably had higher levels of heavy metal contamination.

The box label said that the squid was "wild caught in area FAO77." Below is the world fishery map from Wikipedia. Area 77 is the Eastern Central part of the Pacific Ocean.

The squid is defrosting in the refrigerator. In a few days I'll wash, clean, and braise it. If it turns out well, I'll be returning to 99 Ranch for another box.

Lent: No More Happy Talk

It's the first Sunday in Lent, so Christians know what that means: no more happy talk.

The Gospel was from Luke 4, which describes how Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, where the devil tempted Him to use His power to feed Himself, seize authority over all the kingdoms of the world, and show that the angels will guard Him from harm. Jesus, of course, turned down the devil. On the latter temptation the lady minister said:

And then there’s what I see as a temptation to see God as the cosmic protector. If we believe all will be well, our lives will run smoothly. We’re going to be sheltered from all those bad things that happened to other people, people who don’t believe like we do, right? We won’t even dash our foot against the stone-- that’s what scripture says, right?

But God doesn’t prevent bad things from happening to us. That’s not how it works. Some people are miraculously healed. Others aren’t. Some might lose their home in a flood or a fire. Others don’t. Some people die at the hands of others, or in plane crashes or natural disasters, and some people seem to live lives of ease while others endure great suffering. I don’t know why. Things happen and at times it seems that there is no rhyme or reason.

Lent is a time of reflection, and of the testing of the faith with age-old questions of why bad things happen to good people and innocent babies, and why a just God would allow a terrible thing to happen. The usual words of comfort seem hollow, and we are in the wilderness.