Thank you VP Pence - one step toward cutting Planned Parenthood's funding

Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the tie-breaking vote Thursday to advance a bill that will allow states to cut Title X "family planning" grants.

After all, Planned Parenthood's idea of family planning is aborting children - 300,000 on their own part.

If the resolution makes it to President Trump and he signs it, it will reverse a pro-Planned Parenthood rule issued by former President Obama, who was an ally of Planned Parenthood and an extremist when it comes to abortion.

One small step - but it's in the right direction.

Read EWTN's coverage here.

Pax et bonum

Brother (Cover) || Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

Ah, Franciscans.




Pax et bonum

Relevance

A little boy is relevant.

I said that once in our family room.
My parents ignored me:
they were used to my absurdities.
The dog slept at my father's feet
and somewhere in the house,
the cat chased his tail.

On the night that I left,
the cat was sleeping with my parents
and the dog, well,
he looked up at the door
and rolled over.

(Note: One of my first poems, written when I was around 15.)

Pax et bonum

Bob Dylan - Walkin' Down the Line Cover (just because)

Interesting cover.

Ed Wood Clerihew

As a director, Ed Wood
was not very good.
But few men of his time looked better
in a cashmere sweater.

Pax et bonum

Nancy Pelosi Clerihew

Nancy Pelosi
is fond of the Ed Wood films of Bela Lugosi.
Behind closed doors she has a thing
for loudly declaring, "Pull the string!"

(FYI: Ed Wood was considered one of the worst directors of all-time; his movie Plan Nine from Outer Space often makes worst films lists. He met Lugosi when Lugosi was an old, sick man, and featured him in a number of his films  - they mark Lugosi's last films, In one of them, Lugosi, like a puppet master, declares "Pull the string.")



Pax et bonum

My brother's coin collection

Decades ago, my brother, then a teen, did some yard work for an elderly neighbor. As he worked, they talked, and he mentioned that he had begun collecting coins. When it came time to pay him, she gave him the money they'd agreed to, but then she brought out a piggy bank that she'd had as a child. It still contained coins from her childhood, and she offered them to help him start his collection.

He brought the coins home, and checked them in a coin collecting book. He discovered they were worth a couple of hundred dollars. He immediately took them back to her and said they were worth a lot of money and wanted to return them. She said she didn't care, and that he could keep them.

My brother collected for many years after that, well into adulthood, and mentioned a couple of times that he'd built up a good-sized collection worth a bit of money.

Sadly, my brother later passed away in another state. His personal effects were sent back to my parents, including his coin collection. But my father was always convinced that some of my brother's more valuable things had been stolen after he died by people who knew him. He did have some sketchy friends.

After my parents passed, I inherited some of my brother's effects, including his coin collection. Hundreds of coins, in books, plastic sleeves, envelopes, a metal box. I'd put it in storage, and did nothing with it for more than a decade.

Having a little time to spare today, I got a coin book and sat down going through the oldest coins (I was enough of a collector myself to know that the more recent coins that made up the bulk of the collection were not worth a great deal.)

There were some nice ones, some from the early 1800s even, but nothing exceptional.

After getting through the older coins, it was pretty clear this collection was not worth as much as I'd thought, or as my brother had suggested.

Could some of the more valuable coins had been stolen as my father had suspected? Perhaps. Or my brother may have sold some off over the years. Or maybe he just overestimated the value.

Ah well, no significant retirement savings boost.

But the sentimental value is still there.

I wonder if any of these coins were ones the elderly neighbor had given him? That would be nice - a bit of continuity from our youth.

Pax et bonum