dual personalities

September 24, 2025

“The most fraudulent case of false advertising since my suit against the film ‘The Neverending Story’.”*

by chuckofish

Today we remember and toast the great Phil Hartman, comedian, actor, screenwriter and graphic designer, who was born on this day in 1948. Did you know that before he was a TV personality, he designed album covers–including this favorite from my youth.

He was a voice actor extraordinaire:

as well as a sketch comedy star…

We miss him. SNL and The Simpsons have never been the same without him.

On another sad note, Italian actress Claudia Cardinale died yesterday at age 87. I always loved her, especially in Circus World (1964) and The Professionals (1966).

Her delivery of the line, “Go to hell” in the latter film was classic. She was also great in Fellini’s 8 1/2 (1963), Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), The Pink Panther (1963) and as the woman caught in sin in Jesus of Nazareth (1977).

Riposi in pace, bella.

In other news, I love stuff like this: here’s a list of questions that evolutionists need to be able to answer if they want to remain plausible.

And here’s the story of the “watchmaker who forgave her enemies”: the wonderful Corrie Ten Boom. It’s always a good reminder!

Have a good day–hang in there!

*Lionel Hutz (Phil Hartman)

3 Comments
September 23, 2025

Three cheers and a toast

by chuckofish

Well, as of yesterday it is officially fall. It is a little cooler and we have had a lot of much-needed rain and we are grateful.

Today we toast the 219th anniversary of the return of the exploring expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark back to St. Louis in 1806. The people of St. Louis, we are told, “gathered on the Shore and Hizzared three cheers” and rifles were fired in a welcoming volley as they landed their canoes on the levee.

Two years and four months earlier, the band had departed quietly from a gathering point at Wood River, Illinois, for their 8,000-mile expedition through the Northwest. The Corps of Discovery encountered a wide variety of natural landscapes on their trek to the Pacific coast, including rolling prairies, vast rivers, towering limestone bluffs, and rugged mountain ranges. They also encountered hardship, privation, extremes of temperature and climate, danger from Indians, grizzly bears, and a wide range of physical discomforts. Several times they were presumed lost.

The two captains were fetted that evening at a state dinner followed by a grand ball. The rest of the crew were eager to resume civilian life and quickly spent their accumulation of two years’ pay in the frontier village. One can only imagine their relief and joy upon returning.

By the way, the 22 foot tall bronze statue, The Captains’ Return (shown above), depicts the return of William Clark and Meriwether Lewis to St. Louis in 1806. It was commissioned by the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation to mark the bicentennial of the end of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After its initial placement in 2006, flooding of the Mississippi River often led to the statue being partially submerged with the result that Clark looked as if he was waving his hat as in distress. In 2014, the statue was removed and restored to fix damage from the floods, and in 2016, the statue was returned to the riverfront to a location slightly south and about 17 feet higher than before.  The sculptor, Harry Weber, has thirty-one works displayed throughout the city.

And this is a good opinion piece by Albert Mohler, Jr. about the Charlie Kirk memorial service. As he says, “We will be thinking about this service for a long time.”

(Photo from Pinterest)

Information for this post mostly gleaned from St. Louis Day By Day by Frances Hurd Stadler.

2 Comments
September 22, 2025

Our hope springs eternal

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Since daughter #1 was out of town and I had no plans of my own, it was a pretty quiet one for me. There wasn’t even a good estate sale to go to!

I did watch some good movies…

Friday night I watched The Natural (1984) and it was great. Just great. I loved everything about it. Robert Redford was perfect as were all the supporting characters–especially Richard Farnsworth with his sad blue eyes.

The cinematography was exceptional, the music was perfect, the direction A+. The script was unusually restrained and, may I say, profound. I cried at the beginning. I cried at the end.

I also watched Tom Horn (1980) which is Steve McQueen’s penultimate movie and a favorite of mine. It also stars Richard Farnsworth.

Directed by William Wiard and adapted to the screen by Thomas McGuane and Bud Schrake from Horn’s own autobiography, it is a sad, serious movie about changing times.

I highly recommend both movies.

We went to church as usual on Sunday; the twins were great. Lottie took good notes–writing down the words she didn’t know for clarification later: “vindicate ungodly”. I hope her dad obliged!

We had a great sermon on Philippians 1:18-26 and a wonderful adult class on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

After church the boy and the twins and I stopped at the kennel to pick up Mr. Smith. He rode to my house with the boy and behaved himself.

(He was a little bedraggled from having played in his water dish.)

When we got home, the boy helped me move some furniture out to the curb where it will be picked up on Bulky Trash Pick-up day. So grateful for that help!

After they went home, I watched the livestream of the memorial service for Charlie Kirk–100,000+ (original estimates of 100K bumped to up to 300,000) people in a stadium and the President of the U.S. plus most of his cabinet and Elon Musk in attendance. Impressive. You can watch it on Youtube.

Yup.

Daughter #2 arrived back from the prairie and she picked up Mr. Smith and stayed for a glass of wine.

Happy Monday–have a good week!

4 Comments
September 19, 2025

Count It All Joy.

by chuckofish

Well, Hello, dear readers. Daughter #1 here after quite the hiatus. My mother and I continue to cross things off the massive to do list, arguing at least once a week with an AI bot about whether or not a REPRESENTATIVE! is available. Lol, except seriously.

As my mother has said, Mr Smith continues to serve as emotional support dog during the 12 minutes a night when he is not keeping a close watch and discouraging those meddlesome neighbors from walking down the sidewalk in front of our house. “OH HELL NO, I know that hunched over old lady with a cane on the far side of Hanley is not walking through my line of vision,” he barks, practically spitting with rage. I can translate, clearly.

But for a few minutes each night (more and more as it gets darker earlier), he sits in my lap like this.

I dropped Mr. Smith at the Kennel this afternoon because I’m heading to Illinois for a little sister time this weekend. But first I have to get through the Mideast District Meeting for the Missouri DAR on Friday morning–always a lesson in patience.

At church, our current sermon series is a study of James, where, of course, we are reminded to “Count it all joy, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

And with that, happy weekend!

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September 18, 2025

As lost as Carthage

by chuckofish

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.
There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.
There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.
There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.

–Jorge Luis Borges, “Limits”

A poem for Thursday. Have a good day!

3 Comments
September 17, 2025

“Pick me out a winner, Bobby”*

by chuckofish

Yesterday Robert Redford died in his sleep at his home in Sundance, Utah at the age of 89. He was never a particular favorite of mine, but it is always sad to see a Hollywood icon from the olden days die. He was undeniably handsome, but he had a cold, cynical look in his eye that made him less attractive to me than, say, Paul Newman. But I really liked him in The Sting (1973) and The Natural (1984)–two of my favorite movies.

Maybe I’ll watch The Natural. Sigh.

It’s been a sad week.

This is a good one about reading as the best way to rebel in a world that can glance at everything and gaze at nothing. “In our world today, many voices seek our attention. Influencers everywhere hawk their wares. How tragic if we develop the capacity to attune to everything but the Word of the Lord. The most radical, countercultural practice we can cultivate today is an intensity in reading and listening to the Scriptures.”

So watch an old movie, read an old book, read the Bible!

103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

104 Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

(Psalm 119:103-105)

*Roy Hobbs in The Natural

3 Comments
September 16, 2025

How’s it goin’?

by chuckofish

It’s still very hot here–but it is not officially Fall until next week on September 22–the Autumnal Equinox–so what are we all complaining about?

I went in for my semi-annual cancer check yesterday, which is always stressful, but I got through it by leaning on the everlasting arms.

This made me smile:

And finally…

Hang in there!

4 Comments
September 14, 2025

O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise

by chuckofish

Well, how was your weekend? I enjoyed some quality time with my therapy dog…

We celebrated daughter #1’s birthday, but it was pretty low-key–burgers ‘n fries at the boy’s house and a French Silk pie…

It was quite hot on Saturday so we bailed on the Greentree Festival in our flyover town. I did, however, go to the bud’s soccer game on Sunday–so hot–96 degrees–but I am a devoted Mamu!

We went after church and Sunday School and a change of clothes at my house. By 1:30 I was wiped out!

Our current sermon series is on Philippians, so Sunday’s verses were very appropriate to what is going on in our country.

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Phil. 1:12-14)

Christ reframes everything, including the way we see our trials. Never forget that God is in control. Our Sunday School class on C.S. Lewis was also excellent and I appreciated that our teacher opened up the last 15 minutes of class to a discussion about Charlie Kirk–something we would never do in church or our sermon.

And this is the transcript of a podcast with Kevin DeYoung which is very helpful about processing violence and grief. “We never want to normalize evil, but we are trying to normalize that God has been with his people and has been with us personally through difficulties, national tragedies, and that same God is going to be with you…They need to know and hear from us a faith that we have, that God has not left the throne, that this did not take him by surprise, and that the end of the story has not yet been written for us, but it has been for God, and it’s ultimately a good story, right?”

Amen.

This is a new Lauren Daigle song (at least to me)–a re-working of the well-known Frances Ridley Havergal (1874) Anglican hymn:

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.

3 Comments
September 11, 2025

Highs and lows

by chuckofish

Today is daughter #1’s birthday.

She shares it with Mungo Park (1771-1806), O. Henry (1862-1910), D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Bear Bryant (1913-1983), Tom Landry (1924-2000), Earl Holliman (1928-2024), Harry Connick Jr. (b. 1967), Ludacris (b. 1977), and a host of other people whose birthdays will never be quite the same since the events in 2001.

Later today we are going to our favorite local hang-out for Happy Hour. And tomorrow we are going to the boy’s house for a bar-b-que. Too bad we can’t have a donut (“wif yots of sprinkles!”) with the Prairie Girls.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (3 John 1:4)

I don’t like to get political on the blog, but I have to say something about the political assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday at a campus event in Utah, because it really upset me. Here was a young man–31 years old–who was totally committed to civil discourse. He believed in the power of free speech and debate. He would answer any question and talk to everyone.

But he was so successful in his use of the Socratic method that the opposition couldn’t win in a debate with him.

They hated Charlie because he was so effective at what he did. So they murdered him. They’re trying to scare us into not attending events and speaking out. This is biblical level evil.

Pray for his wife and two children. Pray hard for our country. Charlie was a Christian, so we know he is in a better place…

1 Comment
September 10, 2025

Non-relatives of note

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Confederate General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler (1836-1906). He was a calvary general in the CSA during the American Civil War, and then a general in the U.S. Army during both the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars near the turn of the twentieth century. He also served several terms in the U.S. Congress representing Alabama.

After graduating from West Point in 1854, while stationed in New Mexico and fighting in a skirmish with Indians, Wheeler picked up the nickname “Fighting Joe.” He is one of the few Confederates who is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

It is worth noting that Wheeler was of New England ancestry–descended from the English Puritans who came to New England in the seventeenth century–so it is possible that he is a distant cousin of our own Connecticut Wheelers.

Today is also the birthday of Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962), the American particle physicist who shared the 1927 Nobel Prize for Physics with C.T.R. Wilson for his discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.

(Compton on the cover of Time magazine on January 13, 1936, holding his cosmic ray detector)

Compton was a key figure in the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear weapons. His reports were important in launching the project. In 1942, he became a member of the executive committee and then head of the “X” projects overseeing the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Throughout WWII, Compton remained a prominent scientific adviser and administrator. In 1945, he served, along with Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi, on the Scientific Panel that recommended military use of the atomic bomb against Japan. He was awarded the Medal of Merit for his services to the Manhattan Project.

After WWII he became the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. When I worked there, forty-plus years after he retired, people were constantly asking me if I was related to him. I would say, no, and my husband isn’t either.

So a toast to famous non-relatives Fighting Joe Wheeler and Arthur Holly Compton! Have a good day!

2 Comments