The Oath of Office

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States

The oath of office of the President of the United States is an oath or affirmation required by the United States Constitution before the President begins the execution of the office. The wording is specified in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Let's face it, folks. He LIED.

Wisconsin and me

By George, I have thought of something.

According to the sources on both sides I have read, the one side says there is not enough money and cuts have to be made. The other side says the cuts are too drastic and will hurt people.

My situation (I think exactly analogous) is this:

There are two eat joints here I positively love, and if I could, I'd eat at one of them almost every day. My business would help them, both owners have said or hinted as much.

But right now today my savings account is $0.00, checking ditto, credit card maxed, and debts all over the place not counting the mortgage, plus about $350/mo in unreimbursed medical expenses.

So what's just? To keep the money in my own pocket so I can survive, or risk being in worse financial condition to help out good local businesses I like very much?

What's just? What's fair? What's moral?

More sweet honey for Granddaughter

Last night I wrote a short note to my granddaughter, first one ever completely in Ukrainian. Fifteen words took me half an hour, and I consulted five reference books. I used to be an ESL tutor, and I can tell you Ukrainian is a piece of cake compared to American English. So I sympathize more and more with her struggles with this language. Here it is:

золото і самоцвіти

Найдорошка ♥ Внучкo ♥ Марійка,

Моє серце ставало золото колй ти усиновляла мене як дідусь, і ти -- дорогоцінни камінь його.

любов ♥ завжди,

твий ♥ люблачий ♥ Дідусь

Gold and jewels

Dearest ♥ Granddaughter ♥ Mariyka,

My heart turned to gold when you adopted me as Grandpapa, and you are its precious jewel.

Love ♥ always,

THY ♥ loving ♥ Grandpapa

And when typing in Ukrainian I have to do it one character at a time. Allied problem is that I'm still thinking in English. But for her it's worth the work. She's trying hard to be at home in an English-speaking environment; the least I can do is try to enter her world, so to speak.

Letter to my Granddaughter Maria

Найдорошка ♥ Внучкo ♥ Марійка,

[Very dearest ♥ granddaughter ♥ Mariyka]

I was watching a speech by a guy named Herman Cain, a black man from Georgia (USA, not Caucasus), who is considering running for president in 2012. He said a lot of great things about America, and he said them very well indeed. Watching him brought you to my mind.

Now you may well ask: Why?

You said once that I'm the grandfather you never had. I noticed too that in your photos from Ukraine I didn't see any old people - my age or older. I really don't know at all -- "Не знаю ничого" ["I know nothing"] is one of my favorite Ukrainian sentences -- but please allow me to guess that a lot of Ukrainian people about my age might have been patriotic dissidents against the Soviet regime, and were either executed or exiled to the Gulag for it.

(I have read "The Gulag Archipelago," all three volumes, three times. Also Orest Subtelny's book "Ukraine" twice.)

The point, dearest Granddaughter, is that back in your family history there undoubtedly were people who knew what slavery under the Tsarist or Soviet government was, just as Herman Cain's ancestors were slaves on plantations in the American South before the Civil War.

I know that some of the very old Ukrainians at St. Constantine lived under the slavery of the Soviets and the Nazis, and when they came to America sixty or fifty years ago, they cherished the liberty that this country gave them -- and an unfree Soviet Ukraine never gave them.

I remember Maria Iwaskewycz showing pictures of a new little village church, and saying with tears in her eyes that they will have Divine Liturgy again -- after seventy years. Seventy years without God! It was she, or perhaps Katherine Zastawny, or Julia Maksimkiw, who said, "Never trust anyone who wants to do away with God, Marriage, or the Family!"

So, Dearest Granddaughter, at the same time I ask you to never forget you're a daughter of God and a daughter of Ukraine, I ask you to remember that you live in America now, and likely will your whole life. Please remember that you, who have in your Ukrainian blood a longing for liberty, can put that longing to work as a voting citizen of the United States.

Be a good student, be a good doctor, and be a good American too.

твий ♥ люблачий ♥ Дідусь

[thy ♥ loving ♥ Grandpapa]

PS – Today is Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (it used to be a national holiday). I ask you to look up his Gettysburg Address and read it very carefully so that – as he said – "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

God bless you richly, Dearest Granddaughter Mariyka!

PPS for Americans - "Mariyka" is an endearment-diminutive of "Maria."

Rome, Sodom, Gomorrah . . . that stuff, you know.

Today I accidentally stumbled across a Facebook application called something like "being really really ridiculously good-looking." The pix are not really that bad, but the young people's language would make a whore blush. This is America's future, folks.

Boy or girl? Look closely.

Random Idle Thoughts

If we lived in an unfallen world, Murphy's Law wouldn't exist, because it wouldn't have to.

I'm a prude because I know what a libertine I could be.

Being ill is aggravating, but it makes me realize my dependence on God, and that's very good.

How much ground would a ground hog hog, if a ground hog could hog ground?

Thank God for Purgatory! I don't care if I have to stay there till the end of the world, if I may just get in the door.