Unnamed Thursday

 

Hot & black with a treat, two saltines, each with a spoonful of purple muscadine jelly jam. More often no cracker, just a spoon of jam straight from the jar.

Same with the whole fig preserves from Tanya's Garden on 77 heading toward Lynn Haven.

Strange dream, stranger still to remember it. St Paul was inside the house, and someone told me that he had played golf with Jesus' older brother and knew his sister. Disbelieving I called out, "Paul? Paul?" and he answered from inside the house, I never actually saw him, "Yes?" "Did you play golf with Jesus' brother?" "Yes, I did." "How old was he?" I don't remember the answer. "How old was hs sister at the Time?" "A couple of years younger." "How old was Jesus at the Time?" I think he said Jesus was a baby at the Time, but my mind started boggling that this was crossing a doctrine dogma line, and the dream shifted to something else. 

Temperature 71° dew point 70° so ripe for fog, eh?

Who besides me remembers the 49 star flag that's pictured above? I was a new Navy ensign. We had it for a year until Hawaii became the 50th state, not even enough Time for me to make jay-gee. An imaginative flag designer can work a nice 51 star arrangement for the Anschluss as our tanks roll across the border into Canada; and then a 52 star arrangement for the victorious crossing of Baffin Bay, probably a historic repeat of Washington crossing the Delaware, with the new flag. 

Probably best to do it in summer.

That will mean four more senators and reapportioning the 435 seat House; 

OR, if each Province becomes a State, 20 new senators, plus three for the Territories, with Canada taking a total of some 50 of the 435 congressional seats, and a 50 states + 10 provinces + 1 Greenland = 61 star Old Glory. In fact, it's already been designed.

Computing Apportionment

Article 1, Section 2, of the United States Constitution states:

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."

Therein lies the primary mandate of the U.S. census, apportionment of the House of Representatives. Since that first census in 1790, five methods of apportionment have been used. The current method used, the Method of Equal Proportions, was adopted by congress in 1941 following the census of 1940. This method assigns seats in the House of Representatives according to a "priority" value. The priority value is determined by multiplying the population of a state by a "multiplier."

Each of the 50 states is given one seat out of the current total of 435. The next, or 51st seat, goes to the state with the highest priority value and becomes that state's second seat. This continues until all 435 seats have been assigned to a state. This is how it is done.

Equal Proportions Method

P - represents a state's total population

n - represents the number of seats a state would have if it gained a seat (because all states automatically received one seat the next seat gained is "seat two," and the next "seat three," and the next "seat four," and so on.)

The multiplier equals:

[which is called the reciprocal of the geometric mean]. Computing these values is quite easy using a computer with spreadsheet software (such as Excel).

Thus the formula for calculating the multiplier for the second seat is:

or 1/1.414213562 or 0.70710678

the multiplier for the third seat is:

1/2.449489743 or 0.40824829

the multiplier for the fourth seat is:

1/3.464101615 or 0.288675134

Continue until an appropriate number of multipliers have been calculated.

Once the "multipliers" have been calculated, the next step is to multiply this figure by the population total for each of the 50 states (the District of Columbia is not included in these calculations). The resulting numbers are the priority values. Make sure you compute enough multipliers and priority values to cover the largest number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives that any one state stands to gain. For example, if the largest number of seats currently assigned to a state is 60, multipliers and priority values must be calculated for at least the 60th seat. If you are using a computer, you should compute multipliers for seats 2 through 70. This will assure you have enough multipliers and priority values for apportionment.

Once you've calculated priority values for the total number of potential seats for each state, the next step is to rank and assign seat numbers to the resulting priority values starting with seat 51, until all 435 seats have been assigned (remember, each state automatically received one seat). Next, tally the number of seats for each state to arrive at the total number of seats in the House of Representatives apportioned to each state.

This will give Greenland one seat in the House of Representatives, and Canada's ten provinces and three territories a couple more seats than California; and a similar reapportioning of Electoral College votes. It's unlikely that anyone has thought that far about political numbers, and shifts, and ramifications of this off the wall nonsense.

At any event, in centuries to come, the transaction(s) will be affectionally known as "Rubio's Folly," outdoing Secretary of State Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia (The United States' purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, brokered by Secretary of State William H. Seward, was initially ridiculed as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox" because many Americans viewed the territory as a barren, remote, and worthless landmass). Everyone has their price: Go Marco, GO!

No one has yet mentioned inviting Mexico to join: probably too many Brown people, eh?, too much diversity.

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Our gospel for Sunday is below. Jesus and friends are in Bethany just outside Jerusalem having dinner at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Mary anoints Jesus with costly perfume, and Gospel John further degrades Judas Iscariot into not only a betrayer but a hypocrite and embezzler as well. 

By this Time in Gospel John's story, Jesus raising Lazarus from his tomb becomes a prime reason for the Temple authorities to want to kill Jesus, in their resentment and jealousy that Jesus is now getting more admiration from the multitudes than they are.

 

Other gospel writers use the little story of someone anointing Jesus at the supper table in different Times and places and with different people. John's story seems the most powerful.

This gospel story continues Gospel John's links involving Jesus being summoned to Bethany because Lazarus, the one he loved, was deathly ill, and the proximity of Bethany to Jerusalem of the home of the socially prominent and well to do Lazarus family, and the presence of the beloved disciple at John's account of the Last Supper, and the disciple whom the sentry knew well enough to get Peter past the guard could only be Lazarus a local, and Jesus-on-cross giving the beloved disciple his mother and that beloved disciple taking her around the corner into his home in Bethany from that hour, and the beloved disciple's presence in chapter 21, the second ending of John's gospel. There is nothing new to the fact that many scholars say that Lazarus, not John, was the beloved disciple. Even though we like to continue believing what we've always believed notwithstanding evidence; it's true on the political scene as well.  

And the most intriguing Secret Mark gospel, which Bible students have studied with me in years past, adds a Lazarus figure to Mark's story, while also explaining a couple of questions or empty spots in canonical Mark.

These are great Times for Bible study in small groups. I miss that!!

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Is old Father Weller finally descending into more than just the physical retirement of melting into an easy chair looking across the Bay? IDK, one reason I keep writing these +Time blogposts is so Linda can judge that over the years for herself, and know when it's Time to make the necessary decisions and arrangements. 

Anyway, here's John's gospel for Sunday. It's a super story, enjoy! 

 

John 12:1-8

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

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The Anointing at Bethany, Painted by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), Painted in 1618, Oil on canvas © The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg