So?

Those so often charged as being the source of hate are not.  NRA members love their country and seek to protect the country and themselves.  There are many law-abiding people who seek to prevent crime and injustice.  These people tend to be motivated by love, not hate.  Hate's source is evil, and evil's source depends on deception.  If this could just be understood a little better, and news services return to reporting factual information, we'd all be better off.

Maybe Better

Was pondering back recently to the junior high/high school/college days.  I seldom paid any attention to the news on TV or radio.  I would occasionally look at a newspaper - didn't read it, just looked through it - paying attention mostly to the funnies and the motorcycle section of the want ads.  I didn't care about what was happening in government, what kind of protests were going on, issues of the day, etc., with the exception perhaps of paying a little attention to what was happening in Viet Nam.   My emphasis was on oil changes, points and spark plugs, tires, cutting grass, playing records, and - later in the period - studying for grades.  It wasn't great, but I wonder if it was better than now paying attention to the news, government, and issues of the day, understanding almost totally that there isn't a single solitary thing any of us individually can do to improve any of it.  At least, back then, when I put a tune up on a car, it ran better.  The command, "vote," seems so brutally inadequate.

Remorse

I would like to formally apologize to all the neighbors I no doubt terrorized on every July 4 night from about age 6 until 14.  At least I had finished up shooting my little brown bag of firecrackers, fountains, bottle rockets, smoke bombs, and Roman candles by 10 p.m. or so each time.  However, the compact nature of rows of city streets packed with 1,000 square foot, single garage houses, sitting about 12 feet apart from each other really was not an environment conducive to such activities.

Prophecy

Prophecies say that Christians will be persecuted, especially as the end times approach.  It just seems overwhelming that a set of religious beliefs purely established in love, can create so much hatred among those who do not share those beliefs.  Religions that manifest themselves in threats and hatred aren't able to see that they are allowed to believe as they do because Christians have allowed and support their freedom to believe as they wish.  And as the prophecies continue to approach, so many people seem to take pride in being on the bad side of the prophecy, claiming all the while that they are being treated unfairly or discriminated against by the very people who would love them, if allowed - and even when not allowed, the persecutors will be fed, clothed, and provided basic protections by those very Christians they persecute.

Demonstrations of love are easy to rebuff, with the only loss being the lack of acceptance - no physical or visible damage.  Hatred is strengthened, love is lost, with the damage being emotional or mental.  Demonstrations of hatred produce injury, destruction, and defensive responses - visible reminders, scars, and loss.  Turning the other cheek is hard, when it just gives the hater another opportunity to create lasting damage.

Truth always eventually wins.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  Arguing about what is truth is a fine academic pursuit, if that's your bag.  A promise of everlasting love and life seems a better truth to stick to, than promises of death, pain, threats, and loss.  Even scientific method allows belief in a premise, while researching its proof, as long as that belief does not inappropriately bias the interpretation of the evidence.  Investigating with love as the underlying basis assures clarity of the interpretation.

Promises of virgins in the hereafter must lead one to eventually ask the questions:  What's in it for the virgins, and what did they do to deserve an eternity of slavery?  There can't be any slaves in heaven, it's inconsistent.

Kinda Sad

Yesterday, I drained the oil from the old 1977 model Target Murray lawnmower and its companion K&S edger for the last time.  Took the handles off them, and stacked them out by the curb, for the garbage collection to pick up today.  They were just too old and too worn out to even keep as spares any longer.  There's no telling how many linear miles I have walked behind those two.  It's kind of like letting two old friends go.  The new Toro is back to being red and black, like it's two elders, so there's a little harmony there across the generations.
 

Saturday

Quiet morning broken up drastically by an onslaught of '90's alternative rock.  Even with a country music and '70's acid rock background, there's not much to match the '90's.  Don't understand what brought this on, unless it's the brief interlude of prosperity delivered by Ronald Reagan's years, and now certainly probably squashed forever by the gray, downtrodden, depressing motivations of Obumma.

Average

If somebody doesn't do better than average, then the average becomes the maximum. If there is some level of anything for which there is a maximum, then there is only so much that anyone can do. If that propogates through society, no one ever accomplishes anything and nothing ever gets better. The maximum and average converge to zero, and existence disappears. Without a striving for excellence, people can't survive.

Retrospective

About 35 years ago, I went to DeBarr Hall at OU on a non-football game Saturday (now simply called the Chemistry Building, since Dr. DeBarr was found to be quite active in the Klan), to run an experiment in the lab. The experiment was an organic synthesis based on the Grignard (pronounced grin-yard) reaction, a catalytic reaction done on the surface of a magnesium catalyst. The reaction requires the magnesium metal to be floated in ether, while the reactant chemicals are dripped slowly onto the metal. The trick is to get the reaction started, then slowly meter in the reactants, to sustain the reaction. This must be well controlled, or the reaction will happen all of a sudden, and being exothermic, the ether will boil away and a nice little magnesium fire will result.

What I thought was a well controlled reaction, wasn't. When it did take off, it did what it was supposed to, and began to cook off all the ether. Our PhD candidate had also come in by then, and he helped me keep the reaction flask cooled off by adding ether, until we got it cooled down enough to shut the reaction down. He had gone out to feed his cattle that morning, and he was dropping cattle dung all over the lab floor from his waffle stomper hiking boots, as we ran back and forth to get more ether. I was dodging the slippery piles as we worked in and out of the fume hood, to keep the reaction from lighting off. We were successful.

Post reaction analysis indicated I hadn't created a single desirable product from the reaction. I went back in the lab, cleaned up the mess in the fume hood, then swept the floor and fertilized the oleanders outside DeBarr Hall.

My prof, the PhD candidate, and I mutually decided my abilities were probably more supportive of an analytical or custodial future, rather than organic synthesis. I chose the analytical.