Brain, Brain, What Is Brain?

Nine years ago ...


1 Timothy 1:12-17                                                   September 15
hospice staff and volunteers; online                        10709.15


Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 17


Psalm 145 -- David's Psalm of praise.


I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.


Jeffrey ate eight ounces at five this morning and it took Martha holding him to get him back to sleep! Now I'm taking Jeffrey to Saturday morning breakfast at church, and it's getting a little chilly out, so dress warmly!


[Keep in mind that in this entry our son Jeffrey is two months thirteen days old. And today he's getting his fourth grade picture taken! And Sarah her fifth. -- D.]

I had to search a little for the meme that I wanted accompanying today's post, and that is the random question that came to my mind when I saw it! (AND not every journal entry I made/make has profound insights! Go figure.) It's actually from the Star Trek Original Series episode "Spock's Brain", where an alien woman boards the Enterprise and takes ... Spock's brain and the Enterprise crew has to put it back before he dies. I'm reading that now as I wrote it and I agree, it seems silly! (Though this episode also introduced ion propulsion, one of those fiction getting ahead of fact developments Star Trek is famous for.)


"The City on the Edge of Forever" on the other hand, about a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy who goes back in time and changes history, consistently gets top marks among the best Star Trek episodes (among five series over the past fifty years) ever. I do not understand why. If you tuned in at the wrong time, and there's plenty of opportunities to do this, you would think you were watching a different show. And pretty much having the conflict resolved with only a moment having gone by from the perspective of everyone who isn't Kirk, Spock, or McCoy ... look, I feel cheated by it.


But I digress.


Today at school the kids are getting their picture taken (oh wait, I already said that). Last night I met them at church after I'd gotten to pick up some dinner for myself -- at Wendy's, Jeffrey predicted I'd go there as the rest of the clan went to McDonald's! Last night was also the opening night of choir practice, carol choir for the kids and sanctuary (re: adult) choir for Martha, and they were done by the time I got there after work. So we headed home and waited up for Martha to come home. The kids haven't fought me on going out the door the last few days either, yay us!


Cam Smith is one step away from getting the "yes" to be admitted into Princeton University. Too bad Stephen "Skip" O'Rourke's family isn't so thrilled about it, yet why is that important? Cam and Stephen are the same person -- and in Billy Taylor's novel Thieving Weasels (ISBN 9780525429241) that debuted last month, Cam's approached by his criminal mother, uncle, and cousin and blackmailed into doing one last job with them. Then they'll disappear from his life for good. And he's trained for this since he was FOUR, but as Cam/Skip hides this double life from his girlfriend and vice versa, he gets confused as to who the mark is.


Always know your mark. And if you don't know who your mark is ... it's probably you.


Marching to the beginning of National Novel Writing Month in less than seven weeks, I'm trying to balance my reading between fiction and fact to get a feel for reality. I got through Arthur O. Naujoks and Lee Nelson's The Last Great Secret of the Third Reich (ISBN 1555175511) in one afternoon, and while Johann Heinrich Fehler may not have quite the same clout as, say, George Patton or Adolf Hitler or Winston Churchill, Fehler's revealed actions during World War II may have made WAY more difference. It's almost an underdog story if you think about it.


But don't "Great Secrets" get revealed every decade or so?


Maybe, but this tale of U-boat Commander Fehler's decision to surrender his submarine to the Americans as World War II ended in Europe kept Japan from getting and in all likelihood using the atomic bomb first ... is succinct and unforgettable. German scientists had already done the preliminary atomic research and all the materials along with the experts were packed onto U-234 as the allies advanced on Berlin. One of those turning points that makes all the difference, and you don't even realize you didn't know it.

And that concludes this Random Question Thursday post,


David