March 12, 2021
President Biden has signed the new $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, and we’ll receive some more free money. Free money is great, but with it comes the need to be smart and careful.
During the last go-round consumers were contacted by people who said they had a way to expedite a stimulus payment. If the consumer signed an electronic document, the scammers have his e-signature. If you haven’t requested any documents, it’s likely a phishing attack.
The Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division warns of text messages that ask taxpayers to disclose bank account information. There is a URL to click and if you do you’ve plunged down the hole of another scammer. The IRS isn’t going to send a text relating to a stimulus payment or a text asking you to share your bank account information.
Exercise common sense and wait for your check to show up in your bank account by electronic delivery or in your mail box by snail mail. Anything else is likely to be a scam.
👉 I found the following under the heading “Clever Sayings:”
Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.
I changed my password to “incorrect” so whenever I forget it the computer will say, “Your password is incorrect.”
I hate when people use big words just to makes themselves sound perspicacious.
👉 Several QBs ago I mentioned phobias, and a reader asked for more information about them. So, here you go.
The National Institute of Mental Health suggests that 8% of U.S. adults have some type of phobia. One site I looked at listed more than 100, and I’d guess that’s a short list (Trypophobia: fear of short or small things).
There is also fear of short people: Achondroplasiaphobia. Among other things, anxiety is caused by the movies “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (with the Oompa Loompas – little people with magical abilities who tend to play tricks on naughty children), and “The Wizard of Oz” (with the Munchkins).
Micrologophobia: fear of short words.
Tonsurephobia: fear of short hair, or getting a haircut.
Onuxophobia: fear of short fingernails or toenails.
And the opposite fear – hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia can actually be broken down into several parts: Hippo is “horse” in Greek and “potamos” is river. Thus the first part of the word refers to a “water horse” also otherwise known as Hippopotamus. The Oxford Dictionary uses the word: Hippopotamine to refer to “something very large.” The word “monstr” is the Latin origin of a “monstrous being” or something that is huge or terrifying and “sesquippedalio” is derived from Latin “sesquippedali” meaning “measuring a foot and a half long.” Phobos stands for morbid fear.
Nothing to do with “short,” but I have grandchildren who are afflicted with “nomophobia” – the fear of not having mobile phone access. Or at least their near 100% attachment to the device may indicate it.
There is even a song about phobias, called cleverly, “Phobias.” It is by 18 year old Johnny Orlando, who released his first Extended Play mini-album when he was 12. “Phobias” on YouTube has 6,512,112 views.
👉 Brian and Elizabeth sent more signs and sayings. On this day that is being called the first anniversary of the coronavirus (the day schools closed) I offer the following:
👉 Let’s go to the jukebox before we close and spin a couple of tunes by The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra.
“Fly Me to the Moon” is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Kaye Ballard made the song’s first commercial recording, released in April 1954. By the time Frank Sinatra covered the song in 1964, more than 100 other versions had been recorded. A copy of Sinatra’s rendition was played on a portable cassette player on the missions of Apollo 10 and Apollo 11. Diana Krall, Canadian jazz pianist and singer, sang it at Neil Armstrong's memorial service in 2012.
“It Was a Very Good Year” was composed by Ervin Drake in 1961 and originally recorded by the Kingston Trio. It was made famous by Frank Sinatra’s version which won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male in 1966. It became Sinatra’s first #1 single on the Easy Listening charts. Here is a clip which runs just over 7 minutes (the song itself is 4:12), but it is rare glimpse of Sinatra in the recording studio laying down the song.
And just for fun, Mike Douglas Show, here is William Shatner singing.
👉 The Way.
Mississippi John Hurt was a country blues singer and guitarist. Born in 1893, he worked as a sharecropper and began playing at dances and parties. His first recordings, made in 1928, were commercial failures, and he continued to work as a farmer. In 1963 a blues enthusiast persuaded Hurt to be recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964. One of his best remembered songs is “You Got to Walk that Lonesome Valley.”
Mississippi John said you’ve got to walk that lonesome valley by yourself. Loneliness is a universal condition. When we think of loneliness we think of a derelict on a park bench, or a single person who has moved away from home for the first time, or a worker laboring away unnoticed and unthanked in a dead-end job.
But loneliness has little to do with the absence of people. In the middle of a crowd you can feel alone if there is an emptiness inside of you. Lloyd Ogilvie said, “Loneliness is not isolation; it’s insulation. It’s the fear of knowing and being known.”
And so Mississippi John says, “I’ve got to walk it by myself.” It makes a moving song, but we do not have to walk alone. Loneliness is homesickness for God. Blaise Paschal said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Jesus’ disciples were troubled. He has just told them that one of them is going to betray him. Then he says, “Where I am going you cannot follow now” (John 13:36 NKJV). He tells Peter that before the night is over Peter will deny that he has ever known his Lord.
You can feel the tensions, the anxiety, the loneliness in that upper room, but Jesus, in the next breath says, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know” (John 14:1-4 NKJV).
Thomas, I think with a certain amount of petulance and fear, said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5 NKJV).
Then in one of the most powerful of all of his “I am” statements, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6 NKJV).
These verses are usually taught and preached about heaven, but think for a moment, if there is a way prepared to heaven, what is it? Heaven is a place of forgiveness, reconciliation, and acceptance. How is that prepared? Where do we find it? There is only one place – at Calvary. “I am. The way.” And that is the answer to loneliness – it is the way to the heart of God, prepared through the sacrifice of Calvary. Jesus takes us by the hand and shows us the way home.
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