Be Still and Know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)

Dear Irish:

It is comforting to learn you have arrived safely at your new abode, while it is only temporary. Still, God does provide.

I have digitized two verses of the "Be Still My Soul" hymn (Jean Sibelius' Finlandia). Listen and reflect on it during a quiet time. Here are the two verses of the hymn.

Be Still My Soul

Verse 1
Be still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Verse 2
Be still, my soul! thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul! the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.


Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna. Déan caoin an beo na domhan seo.
Rath Dé ort!

Hey, Paula

It was the moment I'd waited all evening, to be alone with her.

'I saw you and you Dad at the Institue this afternoon, Paula. You kept saying "your life is ruined". You shouldn't feel that way Paula. You are a beautiful, successful woman. Why - I'd marry you in a flash, but you probably wouldn't want to marry a pot-washer. When I saw you so upset, Paula, because of Davies, I was seething with anger. I could have strangled him with my rubber-gloved hands or drowned him in greasy suds. And I think your father could have too. I definetely wouldn't have let Davies leave the Institute alive today. There is no way I was going to let him continue to spoil your life. Paula - if you ever need someone to talk to, I'll always be an ear you can call on...'

That was my most important line as a one of the suspects in tonight's Dinner and a Murder Mystery party. My character role was a pot washer at a culinary institute where the Great Chef has just been murdered. Paula was the Chef's mistress.

I was going to sing ad-lib "Hey, Paula" to the woman who played Paula . It would not be out of character for the pot scrubber to sing. We could have sung the duet as Paul and Paula. Given my stage name was George, however, the duet would be stretching it.

Romeo and Juliet Wedded on This Day

Romeo & Juliet (1968)

Shakespeare decreed they must wed. So they did. Romeo married Juliet on 11 March 1302. Alas, there was no happy ending in this tale of young married love. The couple died - each in a painful way - for each other.

In contrast, I read of a blog few days ago in which the blogger described the romance of a young couple. The couple went against the wishes of the girl's parents, spent four years in secret trysts.

Bracing the elements they met and spent times in unsheltered places at night (sleeping on the streets and under the bridges). Perhaps this girl had bade the boy a thousand times good night or good morning each time they parted. Surely, there was no other name under heaven smelled as sweet as his. Alas, the boy left her eventually and married someone else.

Nino Rota wrote the score to the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film 'Romeo and Juliet'.

My Musical Moment

I am trying something new here. The credit for this venture goes to the proprieter of The Chestnut Club.

Go to the side-bar and click on the link to listen to the mp3. The audio quality may not do the recording justice. It should suffice for the purpose at hand. The music changes when it is time.

There will be no heavy metal nor rap music. For better or for worst, you will get an earful.

Hang 10

He: Your stint with your god-parents is almost up.

Irish: It's nearly that time.

He: Are you looking forward to going home?

Irish: I can hardly wait. But I am both excited and anxious about the future.

He: God wants us not to be a prisoner of our circumstances. I like you to read Psalm 16. Meditate and pray on verses 5 and 6. Then pray this psalm as one of your prayers. David's supplication to God is an example and encourgement to all of us. David has the right perspective in that our future and inheritance are secured in God.

Irish: I still remember what you said to me on another occasion. You said, 'God always hangs on to me. The question is will I hang on to God.'

He: Yes. He hangs on to all of us. We'd rather like hanging on to the 'Woe is me' attitude and get distressed. Let me know when you are safely arrived at home. It's rather late where you are now at this hour. Oíche mhaith agus codladh sámh.

Irish: We'll speak again. Slán go fóill.


Psalm 16 (NIV)

1 Keep me safe, O God,
for in you I take refuge.

2 I said to the LORD , "You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing."

3 As for the saints who are in the land,
they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.

4 The sorrows of those will increase
who run after other gods.
I will not pour out their libations of blood
or take up their names on my lips.

5 LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.

6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.

8 I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,

10 because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One (or your faithful one) see decay.

11 You have made (or you will make) known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Femme Fatale

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Pre-Raphaelite, Frank Cowper, 1878-1958)


The knight:
1) died for love
2) died, because she was drop-dead gorgeous
3) fell under her spell
4) All of the above

Actually, Cowper's painting was inspired by a John Keats' poem of same.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(John Keats, 1795-1821)

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

An Iraqi MiG-25 Foxbat Unearthed

The Iraqi jet, an advanced Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, was found buried in the sand after an informant tipped off U.S. troops.

The MiG was dug out of a massive sand dune near the Al Taqqadum airfield by U.S. Air Force recovery teams. The MiG was reportedly one of over two dozen Iraqi jets buried in the sand, like hidden treasure, waiting to be recovered at a later date.

Contrary to what some in the major media have reported, not all the jets found were from the Gulf War era. The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat beiing recovered by U.S. Air Force troops in the photos is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the West, and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare devices. The U.S. Air Force recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the MiG, which is over 70 feet long and weights nearly 25 tons.

The Foxbat is known to be one of Iraq's top jet fighters. The advanced electronic reconnaissance version found by the U.S. Air Force is currently in service with the Russian air force. The MiG is capapble of flying at speeds of over 2,000 miles an hour, or three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes of over 75,000 feet.

The recovery of the advanced MiG fighter is considered to be an intelligence coup by the U.S. Air Force. The Foxbat may also equipped with advanced Russian-and-French made electronics that were sold to Iraq during the 1990s in violation of a U.N. ban on arms sales to Baghdad. The discovery of the buried Iraqi jet fighters illustrates the problem faced by U.S. inspection teams searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is larger in size than California, and the massive deserts south and west of Baghdad were used by Saddam Hussein to hide weapons during the first Gulf war.

While there are rumors of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons being shipped to nearby Syria, the weapons may very well still remain inside Iraq buried under the vast desert wastelands.

Some critics of the Bush administrations have claimed there the inability of U.S. forces to uncover weapons of mass destruction is proof that the president misled the nation into the war with Iraq. However, in recent days the critics have fallen silent as word quietly leaked from Iraq that major discoveries have already been made and are not being documented completely.



MiG-25 Foxbat 1.4


MiG-25 Foxbat 2.4


MiG-25 Foxbat 3.4


MiG-25 Foxbat 4.4

Everything's Just Peachy

A Peach Orchard in Bloom
兩 岸 桃 花 夾 古 津
坐 看 紅 樹 不 知 遠

Peach blossoms are in full bloom in area orchards north of town this week. Here is a photo of some peach trees soaking up the sunshine and casting their reflections into a canal.

Viva Vivaldi!

March 4 marks Antonio Vivaldi's 326 birthday. Igor Stravinsky once said of Vivaldi as 'a dull fellow who could compose the same form so many times over'. I don't know about that.

Igor's music either makes me listless or puts me to sleep. On the other hand, the "Red Priest" Vivaldi music is fresh, zesty, and full of orchestral color and clarity.

Few years ago when I first heard the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins' Palladio Suite*, my knee-jerk impression was it sounded 'so Vivaldi'. I don't mean to impugn Jenkins. Far from it. It is just that Vivaldi is a classical musician of high order. His music is for all seasons.

* It was Andrea Palladio's architectural style that inspired Jenkins' to write this composition. The first movement of the Palladio Suite was used in a deBeers 'A Diamond is Forever' commercial.

That Was the Week That Was

A hectic confluence of security and public safety matters surfaced last week at the agency. Things have quiet down somewhat since, but the concerns linger.

Since 9/11 the Fourth Generation Warfare has arrived. It is alive and growing.