Governor Rockefeller once told a reporter, "A million here and a million there - it can eventually add up to some real money."
Ah, the luxury of wealthy thinking.
Posts by Terry
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16What's the difference? Million? Billion? Trillion? For the curious among us ...
by Terry inwhat's the difference?
a millionaire, a billionaire, and a trillionaire recognize each other outside an attorney’s office.
chat reveals each of them just signed off on their last will and testament.millionaire: “i feel really good about what i did here today.
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Terry
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Behold the face of JESUS!
by Terry ineight years ago, i lived in a kind of "retirement" hotel.the palm house.no - it wasn't an old folks home.
it was an ancient folks home.mostly senior ladies living off of faith and a dead husband's money.. my encounter with jesus came about in that environment.. once a week there would be a coffee and doughnuts get-together to get to know your neighbors.. well .
.i got invited repeatedly, badgered, coaxed, pestered and i gave up.
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(Disturbing) Thought For the Day
by Terry in(disturbing) thought for the day.
what's happens when you get really sick?.
a. you get worse and worse, then - better and better till well.. .
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Terry
I'm surrounded by True Believers who think it is arrogant and ignorant to question graduates of medical school
But, I have 73 years of life experience to bring to bear (anecdotally) which tempers my "belief" in total anything.
i keep one eye open. -
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SOUP HERB (A memory from 1980)
by Terry in(culver city, california 1980).
the tiny diner was empty - and it was a minute past noon!.
i walked into the little shop chuckling to myself, that name!
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Terry
If you live in interesting places during interesting times - and just engage the most ordinary people ...it is astounding what you find.
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SOUP HERB (A memory from 1980)
by Terry in(culver city, california 1980).
the tiny diner was empty - and it was a minute past noon!.
i walked into the little shop chuckling to myself, that name!
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Terry
Thanks, under the radar
I've tried making great soup and it seems like the secret is leaving in the boiled fat of whatever meat you add. Sort of semi-disgusting until you remember we are creatures who have a distant history as natural species surviving by hunting feral animals and stalking the wild mushroom :) -
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SOUP HERB (A memory from 1980)
by Terry in(culver city, california 1980).
the tiny diner was empty - and it was a minute past noon!.
i walked into the little shop chuckling to myself, that name!
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Terry
______SOUP HERB______
(Culver City, California 1980)
The tiny diner was empty - and it was a minute past noon!
I walked into the little shop chuckling to myself,
That name! SOUP HERB...hilarious!In the corner at a small table
a man in a chef's costume sat smoking an unlit cigar, flipping through a daily Racing Form."Ah, good day to you, Sir" His mustache drooped as his smile beamed.
"You're my first customer! You eat for Free today - but you must promise to tell all your friends how wonderful we are - (he added with a wink) even if it is lousy- which it never is!"
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AN HOUR LATERBy the time I walked out of SOUP HERB...
I had - as Rod Serling might well say, "Witness a man for whom success will never arrive even as his bright dreams slowly die."Herbert (last name now unremembered ...too many consonants) had not only served me hot soup with fresh rolls and brisk iced tea, he had dumped a platter filled with autobiographical remembrances on my soul as well.
In short, he had come from Serbia - escaping from Kosovar Albanians hellbent on wiping out every living thing from his village. Parents: dead. Friends: dead.
I confessed I knew nothing about Serbs or Albanians.
He was unsurprised.
"Nobody knows - or cares." Then he added, "Why should they?"He traveled West, joining a crew of sailors heading to America and landed in New York.
He discovered a job in a delicatessen as a short order cook.
Eventually he moved on, learning his trade as a Chef.He'd saved all his money for the dream: his own business.
He was Catholic. Through his church he made contacts and found a landlord who felt sorry for him and granted one month's free rent. California was paradise - this would be an incredible new life - new beginning for him.
___The shop I was sitting in was cobbled together with his own two hands from scratch.
"How'd you come up with the name SOUP HERB", I finally asked - expecting a delicious snippet of genius - a clever story or a shrug of modesty.
"It's easy to make, it's delicious, there is a good profit margin - and - well, my name is Herb."
I thought he was testing me. For a minute, anyway.
"Are you trying to tell me "SUPERB" never entered your mind?"
He stared at me ..."No - what is that - a word?"
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TWO WEEKS LATERI stopped by again and walked in to find the Chef sitting in the same spot in the corner - no customers around - but no smile this time.
He slowly revealed to me how he had been robbed and the money he was saving for the new month's rent was gone.
"I apologized to the little man with the gun. Yes, I did. I told him I knew how desperate life can make you --and how you'll do anything - no matter how awful - just to escape."
_____A MONTH LATER
The sign was down and Herb had vanished from the chalk board of dreams.
Chalk dust on fate's eraser.This isn't a happy story but it's a true one.
Funny thing about it -I can't get rid of it from my memory.
Herb haunts me in quiet moments.He is a man with big dreams, a tragic past, an iron will to survive and when his chance at success comes - a little man with a pistol snatching it away ...
BUT HE APOLOGIZES to the thief!Why?
I think it is called "empathy".So...
A LIFETIME LATERToday, every time I see the word "superb" I stop what I'm doing and feel my heart forming the ghost of a prayer for him...and I think - "No, it's SOUP HERB!"
Heartbreaking and hilarious inside my head.
Why not?
A Serb named Herb? REALLY???
A diner called "SOUP HERB" - REALLY?I dunno.
God must have a sense of humor - that's all I can say about it.Now he's your problem too.
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(Disturbing) Thought For the Day
by Terry in(disturbing) thought for the day.
what's happens when you get really sick?.
a. you get worse and worse, then - better and better till well.. .
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Terry
(Disturbing) THOUGHT FOR THE DAYWhat's happens when you get really sick?A. You get worse and worse, then - better and better till well.B. You get worse and worse, then - you die.That's a very Binary set of possibilities, right?Now, prepare to become fascinated!_____We don't know if we will be the person who gets better anyway or if we will die. This compels so many of us to seek treatment...just in case we are B instead of A.Now slow down with me here for a minute.Are you ready?If we are B instead of A, no matter what treatment we follow or refuse to follow...WE DIE.If we are A instead of B, no matter what treatment we follow or refuse to follow ---WE GET BETTER.Are you still with me?_______Alcoholics who quit Cold Turkey have a recovery rate of 13%success.But wait!Alcoholics who go through A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) have a recovery rate of 13% as well.We can't EVER know.We can only insert opinions into our conclusions based on how persuadable we are or how obstinate._______Science is measurable and testable, right?But MEDICINE is not the same as SCIENCE because it is statistical and follows models based on sampling of groups and the extrapolation to a much larger population is SELDOM ACCURATE.**(How can I state that? Insurance companies pressure hospitals, doctors, and clinicians toward or away from certain ways of framing an illness with $$ rewards and penalties.)Individuals are (duh) individual in how each personally reacts to treatments which
(see A. above) my be entirely redundant.If you are in the A category - IT DOESN'T MATTER what treatment(unless it is intrusive in a bad way)you receive.An A category person will attribute recovery to (X treatment) and the statistics will be corrupted in conclusion as to effectiveness.Conclusion?Each of us when afraid, is more vulnerable to persuasion.Quack medicine exists in that space.Quack science exits in that space.Quack politics exists in that space."Faith Healers" are sought (for the A person) when they go from bad to worse.
Insert the "healing" into the natural cycle of better and better and - Presto! - the Faith Healer gets the credit.WE CAN'T EVER KNOW what'might' have happenedhad we NOT done
(X treatment). Statistically it seems true (or not) but individually, there is no certainty.SPONTANEOUS REMISSION in cancer, for example is said to be recovery without treatment "for no apparent reason."That's an argument from ignorance, isn't it?See the problem?If you don't - then you've wasted your time reading this :)
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** Under the head of
"Absence of Evidence isn't the same thing as Evidence of Absence)Q: Are hospitals inflating the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths so they can be paid more?
A: Recent legislation pays hospitals higher Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients and treatment, but there is no evidence of fraudulent reporting.
Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital, you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.
NOTE: "Medicare says it does not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and placed on ventilators. The $13,000 and $39,000 figures appear to be based on generic industry estimates for admitting and treating patients with similar conditions."
From their lips to God's ears.
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Re: Medicine and statistical analysis
Laboratory mice used for testing the effect of drugs on humans (it has been 'discovered' and affirmed) have been inbred into a population of abnormally long-lived (telomeres) mice inadvertently.
we have been over-approving drugs that cause chronic cell damage (because the mice are able to heal from it and so the effects are missed) while under-approving drugs that might have cancer-causing agents (because mice already have a high base-rate of cancer).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0531556502000128 -
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Behold the face of JESUS!
by Terry ineight years ago, i lived in a kind of "retirement" hotel.the palm house.no - it wasn't an old folks home.
it was an ancient folks home.mostly senior ladies living off of faith and a dead husband's money.. my encounter with jesus came about in that environment.. once a week there would be a coffee and doughnuts get-together to get to know your neighbors.. well .
.i got invited repeatedly, badgered, coaxed, pestered and i gave up.
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Terry
And then...there is the grilled Jeez(us) sandwich...
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/196432/20170207/harambe-shaped-cheeto-sold-100-000-ebay.htm -
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Behold the face of JESUS!
by Terry ineight years ago, i lived in a kind of "retirement" hotel.the palm house.no - it wasn't an old folks home.
it was an ancient folks home.mostly senior ladies living off of faith and a dead husband's money.. my encounter with jesus came about in that environment.. once a week there would be a coffee and doughnuts get-together to get to know your neighbors.. well .
.i got invited repeatedly, badgered, coaxed, pestered and i gave up.
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Terry
Eight years ago, I lived in a kind of "Retirement" hotel.
The PALM HOUSE.
No - it wasn't an old folks home. It was an ancient folks home.
Mostly senior ladies living off of faith and a dead husband's money.My encounter with JESUS came about in that environment.
Once a week there would be a coffee and doughnuts get-together to get to know your neighbors.
Well . . .I got invited repeatedly, badgered, coaxed, pestered and I gave up.
"Just once!" I told myself.I went to one and made excuses each week after that until once again compelled to attended yet again.
Walking in with an enlarged fake smile I greeted the crowd.One white-haired deary said to me, "I thought you were the one who died."
I assured her I was not.
As far as I could tell, there were only two (count em') TWO guys still alive and I was
(presumably) one of them.But then, one day another fellow moved in who had retired with plenty of money (apparently). The gossip among the ladies emphasized his friendly 'generosity.'
Those ladies just adored him. ($$)
Well, one Sunday at the coffee thingy, I say hello to the new guy and he says to me all excitedly, "Have you seen Frankie's clock?"
I thought that sounded like a straight line if ever I had heard one.
"You did say: CLOCK, right?"
"What'd you think I said?"
I told him I didn't think a woman with a clock was quite newsworthy enough to warrant his enthusiasm, so I . . . well, never mind!
(His name was Stan, by the way.)
Stan didn't miss a beat.
"Oh come one, come on--you gotta go with me--Frankie would be happy for you to see her big clock. You've never seen anything like it."
The other folks were listening to Stan and they suddenly jumped in all at once.
"Oh, that's right! YOU CAN SEE THE FACE OF JESUS in the wood grain!"
I laughed.
Shouldn't have.
Stern faces of the others told me not to scoff. There were more of them than me, so . . .Cut to the chase.
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I end up, along with all the others, standing in Frankie's room.
We formed a semi-circle around a replica Grandfather's clock.
We probably look a bit like those ape-like hominids at the beginning of Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey.
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One by one the lady hominids lurched forward and touched the sacred "face" of phantom Jesus, "oohing and ahhing" and the others were purring like shaggy kittens with blue permed fur.
"You see it?"
"You do SEE it...right?"
"Do YOU SEE it?"
Each one of them was cocking their head this way and that like a puppy in a pet shop window.
"Isn't it amazing?"
I stared. I blinked. I squinted. I got closer, then farther away.
My internal dialogue went like this, " ARE YOU NUTS?"
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A few minutes passed and tempers were getting short with me.
Some were making excuses for me, while others were suggesting I was Atheist.
"Tell us what you think!" (It was a command.)
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"I have to tell you, I was really filled with doubt about your sanity - but now - I can say confidently - I NO LONGER DOUBT!"
For some strange reason - this was taken as an affirmation.
(Don't judge me too harshly.)
I went with it. That's on them (Heh heh heh).
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One by one the congregants drifted out and into the hallway all aglow and deeply spiritually satisfied.
It was just Stan and Terry left, alone.
Frankie had sauntered off to go back to the coffee and doughnut soiree' in the recreation room.
Stan turned to me and said, "I was hoping you couldn't."
"Couldn't what?"
"Couldn't see it--I can't see a damn thing!"
"WHAT? I can't see anything but rather ugly wood-grain. There is not a trace of the Lord Jesus - unless he looked like a knothole!"
Stan gave me one of those inscrutable looks for a second and shrugged his shoulders.
"I wish you had said something. They browbeat me for a solid hour yesterday until I gave in!"
I smiled.
"You never know -Maybe, this is exactly how Christianity spread in the first place!"
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"You Had to Have Been There"
by Terry infrom my memoirs ...______.
.....moments later, thoughts inside my head still reverberated as though i were a bell struck into vibrations beyond control.
i trembled.
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Terry
Thank you.
Yes - Worldly people were the nicest people to me out of my entire life.