WhatIf?: What if we go backwards and find our future?

WhatIf?: What if we go backwards and find our future?

What if we go backwards and find our future?

It's sad as we watch not only the tragedy in Tucson but the tragedy of bad opinions play out on television.  No sooner does the victim lie at the feet of the assassin than the blame game begins.  We can no longer let the guilty be guilty; there has to be somebody else to blame.  Surely.

This is like watching the Virginia Tech tragedy again.  Two very disturbed young men, wasting themselves on mindless violence against people they didn't even know for a reason we will never understand, but why?

Could it be because in this world inundated with mindless violence in video, movie, music, television, and in a vacuum with no moral instruction whatsoever at school and too often none at home either,  our children are growing up with no moral clarity?  Why wouldn't they be drawn to the bizarre kind of mind games on the internet that seemed to influence the young man in Tucson?

What if we had not removed prayer, then bibles, then the ten commandments from the classroom?  These tools served our nation so wonderfully for nearly 200 years.  Since we had virtually no such violent occurrences in 200 years, could we concur they gave moral clarity?  If we could simply replace these time worn and successful tools, what a difference it could make.  We would not have to instill any particular religion or dictate religion.  Teach all religions!  Give our children the TRUTH.  Let them learn what has driven history and then decide for themselves what belief will drive them.  What could be more fair?  What could be more sensible?   How many more Virginia Techs and Columbines and Tucsons must we witness before we wake up?

If we got out that old playbook and hung up the ten commandments and read a little scripture and had the kids learn about the great religions of the world and what each has contributed, well, maybe we could find our future?  Maybe we could have a future.

WhatIf?: Cats: Gotta Love 'Em

WhatIf?: Cats: Gotta Love 'Em

Cats: Gotta Love 'Em

What the email delivered recently.  What a hoot.  Actually, my daughter-in-law's cat, Torey, ate the rubber end of a door stop and after a lengthy surgery and several thousand dollars, she's on the road to recovery.  My cats are never very hungry, being grazers, so they usually prefer scratching the sofa to scarfing down rubber tips. My Gracie, however, did take a fancy to my toothbrush recently so we had to find higher ground than the vanity top to protect our interest.  I'm waiting for Henry, our male tabby, to wake me up one morning wearing John's partial denture plate!

Reader reviews of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

Reader reviews of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

Here's my two cents' worth on Walls' intriguing book and bio.

September 11, 2010: Something is changing.

Anniversaries.  What good are they?  It's 9/11 again.  For the ninth year we sit and watch the towers fall at ground zero.  We watch the brave responders do what they do.  We watch bodies fall from hundreds of feet.  We will not, we cannot forget.  We remember every detail of our day on Sept. 11, 2001.  Do we get less emotional  after 9 years?  Maybe.  But this year is different.  This year, the lines across our ideologies seem sharper, more defined, even as many voices blur our hearing.  Tolerance, rights, call it what you will.  I get the idea skepticism is a new four letter word.  Trust is the new tolerance.  If we doubt the intention of those who want a mosque next to ground zero, we are labeled intolerant- phobia- laced bigots.


The Iman who insists the mosque must go right into the heart of ground zero is now 'warning' us that to resist will inflame extremists to violence.  And my short answer is "What's your point?"  When did we not inflame extremists?  I am embarrassed by the quaking of knees all over this country that we might offend our enemies.  


Look, we just want to exercise our rights of protection from extremists.  And our critics will demand, "how do we know the mosque would harbor extremists?"  
How do we know they would not?

Revenge of the Raptors

I'm just saying...didn't dinosaurs wind up  turning into, ah, oil?  After their sudden and tragic demise, they all oozed down into the stratosphere and settled in until such time as Exxon and BP pricked the earth's crust in just the right spot to suck out the crude.  And like all such endeavors, stuff happens, things go wrong, and bang! We have all that nasty, brimstone smelling stuff spouting into the sea.  Murphy's Law in spades.  Now it's gone downhill about as fast and disastrously as we can imagine.  The oil is spewing out with the speed of our deficit clock ticking off our future prosperity.
Does anyone feel like 2010 is not going to be a stellar year?  Could it be that the Raptors are all sitting around in dinosaur purgatory laughing their scales off saying "Serves them right!"

I'm just saying.  This situation needs some serious wisdom seriously soon.  God help us.  Again.