So I went to my doctor for my annual assessment two days ago. It was a joint visit for both my wife and me. It’s a weird arrangement, but we have the same doctor and think it is important to always have someone with you when discussing potentially serious medical issues. Neither my wife nor I have any serious problems yet but we have chosen to be in life together, so there we were.

I have been ridiculously healthy my entire life. I have never had a headache, a stomach ache, significant back pain, constipation or even any significant insomnia throughout my years. I have recently been plagued by muscle cramps at night while I sleep. Not just simple calf muscle cramps but spasms in muscles I didn’t know I had, particularly in my hands and feet. My doctor thought that that might be a manifestation of restless leg syndrome. I told him my legs weren’t restless, they were sound asleep until they decided to cramp… Anyway, he prescribed a low dose of ropinirole which was developed for the rigidity of Parkinson’s disease but which helps restless leg syndrome.

I used to enjoy Facebook.  In fact, I thought it was performing a valuable public service, helping families and friends stay in touch with one another, sharing pictures of kids and pets, and bringing us all closer together.  When I realized that Facebook was collecting information on all of us to sell to the highest bidder, I became less of a fan and spent a lot less time on the site.  But I have changed my mind again.  I found a page that has renewed my faith in Facebook, and even, dare I say, in humanity itself.

I speak, of course, of the Facebook page dedicated to Bad Album Art.  It’s simply wonderful.

As I scroll through this page, and lose myself in the sheer beauty of the ugliness of it all, I find myself strangely drawn to the music on these remarkable albums.  I haven’t actually had the courage to listen yet, but after a couple more bourbons, perhaps I will.  Maybe today is the day.  After all, today is YOUR lucky day, because I’m going to share my joyous discovery with you.  Take these, for example:

Apologies for the way I’m easing myself into this post.  And thanks to the Ricochet member (you know who you are) who read a comment of mine on this subject elsewhere and suggested that I post it separately.  You deserve what you get.

“Kamala,” I suppose, passes in an odd way for a first declension Latin noun.  When I was ten years old and going through my first Latin grammar lessons, the object lesson for first declension nouns (which generally end with an “a”)  was “Mensa,” meaning “table.”

The second declension example was always “Dominus.” Meaning “master.” (I don’t think the word conjured up any other connotations at the time, and wasn’t necessarily in opposition to any other term indicating servitude.)

“Haughty, shallow with an utterly mediocre intellect such that the increasingly error-filled zeitgeist of one’s peer group has entirely devolved into a kneejerk partisan creed.”

The above description is:

If you had to move away to any state in the country, which one would it be?  Many years ago, my wife and I had a decision to make: Do we stay in liberal Massachusetts, or start a new life somewhere else? It really didn’t take us very long to decide to stay where we were. I’ve never lived more than five miles from Podunk. This is where I will stay. This is where I’ll die. Family is everything.

However… (Yes, this sounds like a big BUTT.) But should I have to move out of state, there is only one place for me: western North Carolina. My job brought me all over this country. I have spent time in every state other than the Dakotas and Oregon, (Not organ). This area of the Southeast is truly a jewel of the country.

Tim Walz perhaps just turned himself into a viral internet meme as a result of that debate. The one line that absolutely cracked me up in disbelief was when he stated: “I’ve become friends with school shooters.“ Ooph, that’s a rough gaffe. And the expression on his face when he said it just enhances it.

I thought I might have misheard it, so I searched online and found the New York Post had already clipped it and put it in a post here.

“If blood, suppuration, and pus, were to pour from the husband’s nose and the wife licked it with her tongue, she would still never be able to fulfill his rights over her.” (This Hadith is repeated, also with great reverence, five times by commentator Imam Suyuti who is regarded as one of the greatest of all Muslim scholars.)

The West often sugarcoats cultures with whom we are not well familiar. My local newspaper will do anything to make Catholic schools a hotbed of the most vile crimes against humanity. But “natives” in other countries are perceived as noble savages, above all criticism or condemnation — even they happen to, from time to time, eat other people. Or just the odd household pet.

One of the differences between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity is more prone to simply labeling things in this world as “good” or “bad” and acting accordingly. So, for example, alcohol, to many Christians, is “the devil’s drink.” But to Jews, everything in the world can be used for holy OR profane ends. Nothing is considered inherently positive or negative.

So we could, for example, look at the 7 Deadly Sins. Though, to my reading, they really ought to be considered “desires” or “temptations.” Nevertheless, I’d like to offer a quick Jewish defense of each of them.