Neanderpundit

In catechism we had just been through Mathew 25, and it was fresh in my mind. A bright saturday morning, I was reading in the living roiom while mom cleaned (Mom was always cleaning, ironing, or something) my sister came out into the living room (She must have been five) saying “Tastes icky” and holding up a can of toilet bowl cleaner. Mom immediately called Gloria, the RN down the street, and got an emetic and proceeded to make my sister puke up the whole contents of her stomach since 1971, the contents of the stomachs of the Hungarian Militia, and a couple of Matchbox cars.

Convinced the danger was out of the way, she commenced to wailing on me for leaving the bowl cleaner out (I would no more have done such a thing than the man in the moon, there were bottles of cleansers of all types, all over the house, ready for immediate spot cleaning of home, furniture, dog, cat, kid.)

So I felt quite put upon, having been tuned up for something I clearly didn’t do, and thought of the words of Jesus in Matthew:
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

I voiced these words to my sister, who then repeated them to Mom. Mom, just coming off the near-fatal poisoning of one of her children, snapped.

Mom stomped into the bathroom and lifted me by one arm, and proceeded to ask me “AM * I * DOING * THIS * TO * JESUS?”
where each asterisk is an openhanded smack to some part of my anatomy. This went on for a very long time, at the end of which I was too enfeebled to do much but wriggle around at the end of my own arm.

I slept most of sunday recovering. This was the first time I got a mom asswhipping that dad didn’t follow with one of his own, and I wonder if it was because he felt she’d done enough for two or if I’d looked pathetic enough not to be retuned.

I’d pull out on a road, and some idiot would hit the gas to get ahead of or around me, only to slow down to 10 under the limit and STAY in front of me for what seemed like an endless time. Even driving out to pick up Partner another new acquisition (A correct CMP m1D with provenance) the roads were loaded with people that just needed to be smacked upside.

Hopefully, it’ll get better.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

here in the old U S of A, and as a general rule, we’re not too personally involved, most of us, anyway, in the individual pecadillos of other nations, unless you’re more than usually politically astute, or a world politics geek, which, frankly, outside of bloggers, is fairly rare.

So may of my regular readers might know, but the normal American might not, that the Japanse and Chinese hate, hate, hate, hate one another.

Oh, on an individual basis they’re capable of being cordial enough. But as nations, there is a good deal of enmity, and it’s pretty well deserved. The two nations have a long, long history, and a powerful lot of it is bad, bad, bad.

So it’s with some pleasure that I see things like this Money quote:

Chinese earthquake rescue crews were preparing to go to Japan Friday to join earthquake relief work if needed, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported

Look: we all have our battles, internal and external. When the Chinese people can reach out and help the people responsible for the Rape of Nanking, and do so without hope of recompense, it gives even the hardest heart pause.

Contrast this with Islam, which dances in the streets at the adversity of it’s enemies.