Bob Jurgensen, an All Saints friend, forwards a lot of stuff to me. This one might be something Maureen will find intresting as she starts work on her new job.

The minister was preoccupied with thoughts of how he was going to ask the congregation to come up with more money than they were expecting for repairs to the church building. Therefore, he was annoyed to find that the regular organist was sick and a substitute had been brought in at
the last minute. The substitute wanted to know what to play. "Here's a copy of the service," he said impatiently. "But, you'll have to think of something to play after I make the announcement about the finances." During the service, the minister paused and said, "Brothers and Sisters, we are in great difficulty;the roof repairs cost twice as much as we expected and we need $4,000 more. Any of you who can pledge $100 or more, please stand up." At that moment, the substitute organist played "The Stars Spangled Banner." And that is how the substitute became the regular organist!

Yesterday I quoted Thomas Friedman, a New York Times writer. Today I repeat a comment by E. J. Dionne, Washington Post. "The individual mandate was a conservative idea that President Barack Obama adopted to preserve the private market in health insurance rather than move toward a government- financed single payer system. What he got back from conservatives was not gratitude but charges of socialism for adopting their own proposal. The irony is that if the court's conservatives overthrow the mandate, they will hasten the arrival of a more government-heavy system." Justice Kennedy even hinted that it might be more "honest" if government simply used "the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single-payer." Dionne added: "Remember those words."
My view - chances are that something will be done about healthcare that's better than what we have now. I'm pretty sure there will never be a mandate to buy broccoli, cell phones, burial services or cars.

Thomas Friedman is one of my favorite columnists. He is on a trip to New Zealand and Australia, and had some intersting comments. Both countries, by the way, have single payer national health-care systems and New Zealand has compulsory voting. You get fined if you don't vote. Friedman writes, "Looking at America from here makes me feel as though we have the worst of all worlds now. The days when liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats nudged the two parties together, appear over . Special interest money is out of control. We've lost our ability to do big, hard things together. Yet everything we have to do - tax reform, fiscal reform, health care reform, energy policy - is big and can only be done together."
Nearing ninety-two, I won't live long enough to see it, but I wonder what will have to happen to make that change?

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY, MELANIE AND DANIEL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!

Thanks for the postings, Megan. Good pictures.

Mike, Tara, and the kids were in Omaha this weekend to see Erica's show choir perform in a competition. We were so thrilled that they contacted us about meeting them for dinner tonight! We met them in Omaha and it was great catching up with them.

Dinner last Saturday at Bob Boyer's and Marge's. I made Mom's lasagne recipe!

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY, JACK!

If you want a good laugh during the torrent of current and future political speeches, Google mad magazine political speech and click on Non-slanderous Political Smear Speech. I remember it from way back and was hoping I could find it. It's really clever. Writer Bill Garvin sure knew how to make favorable comments that could be considered otherwise by some with limited vocabularies.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDY!

HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY, ALEX!

Boston Marathon Fund Raiser

Andy is running the Boston Martathon to raise money for Dana Farber cancer research.

Here are links to his web site for the race and his blog.

http://www.runDFMC.org/2012/andym

http://bostonfordad.blogspot.com/

You may have to copy the URLs and paste into your browser.

A picture of my first duty station is at the link below. I finished at Columbia University but was back on board with Mom for the graduation dance on the main deck of the old ship.

www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/IX/IX-15_PrairieState.html

I did something new today. Googled robert truman murphy and found an entry Mansfield High School Manhigan Yearbook. My name was there and a list of my activities: Class VP etc. The link takes you to some yearbook covers. Click on Class of 1938 to get a list of pages. Go to page 27 to see the four class officers and page 30 to see my picture. I tried the same for Mom, but couldn't find a similar entry.