Where’s Barney?

Raoul’s Two Cents: September 12, 2025

September Memories

Warning: Serious topic. Move on to the jokes if this isn’t your interest.

It’s official. September is my least favorite month of the year. It’s a month notorious for deaths.

You probably know about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. For me, this shot hit hard and opened my eyes to:

• A false sense of security – If they can do this to someone in broad daylight and get away with it, who is safe?
• A defective judicial system – You can get away with murder.
• The preciousness of life – People may die young but we who are alive, must keep on living.
• Evil – There are those among us who have no conscience. For them, the end justifies the means.
• A divided country – No sympathy for the other side just because their value system is different.

We all have our way of coping. Here are my steps to sanity:

• I recognized the evil orchestrating these events. I can see the end game: A polarized nation leads to civil unrest which ends in self-annihilation. We must not fall into the trap. We must not take matters into our own hands
• I should remember I am a Christian first and foremost. I am compelled to love my enemies.
  ” By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”— John 13:35
• I have to forgive even if I feel shortchanged in the process because I will never be fully satisfied and neither will they.
• Do what is right. There’s nothing to fear. What’s the worst that could happen? Death? Then what? Eternal glory for we who believe. Not a bad deal, huh?

When life was simple, one of the first songs my Mom taught me was this song from the Off-Broadway play, The Fantastiks. Today, in a world filled with anger and hate, it may do us good to recognize how far mankind has deteriorated and return to a time of beauty, goodness and innocence. After all (starting with Adam and Eve), it was the grownups who messed things up. Who says life has to be complicated? If enough of us want it, we can certainly aim for it.

TRY TO REMEMBER

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow
Try to remember the kind of September
When love was an ember about to billow
Try to remember and if you remember
Then follow, follow.

From the play Fantastiks! Songwriters: Tom Jones / Harvey Schmidt

Of course, this is just me. TGIF people!

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Quotes of the Week

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” — Isaac Asimov

“I saw a Satan laughing with delight the day the music died” — Don Mclean, American Pie

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent,” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,”
— John F. Kennedy

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” — Genesis 50:20

“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.” — 2 Corinthians 10: 3-4

“For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.” — Galatians 5:14-1

Joke of the Week

Thanks to Art of Sierra Madre, California

Original art by Raoul Pascual.

Parting Shots

Thanks to Garie of Paranaque, Philippines

Thanks to Kanye of Ontario, CA

Thanks to Richard of New Manila, Philippines

Thanks to Fred of Long Beach, California

Thanks to Art of Sierra Madre, CA

Thanks to Tom of Pasadena, CA

Thanks to Norm of Encino, CA

I found these:

My good friend (and jokester) Terry and I came up with these.

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