Category: random

Stop trying to hold onto the past.
You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.

A few years back there was a popular book series called, “Left Behind,” and now there is a new film starring Nicolas Cage. I however could never get into the series.

In the books as well as in the television series that followed, cars crashed and airplanes fell from the skies as people disappeared. These disappearances came as a result of the end of the world and the coming of the Christ.

While it may make for good TV or a good read, I cannot believe this is how Jesus would treat those that God the Father made in his image. The Lord I worship, pray too, believe in and have a relationship with is not a God of chaos.

Therefore, I’m certain that when it comes time for the ‘rapture,’ a word not even in the Bible, it will be a gentle event. And while those of us ‘left behind,’ will notice, it will not lead what the books depict.

Time and again politicians and the media claim moderate Islamists are not a part of the violent wing of the Islāmic extremist movement. Yet, they are jus’ as violent, however we neither hear nor see this as we have the beheading of Americans and Brits.

Our supposed allies, the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia lops off the heads people, stone women and hangs homosexuals, jus’ like they do in Iran. Unfortunately, the American public is unaware of this.

I don’t understand why we are willing to put up with such crap.

Imagine if he Pope declared that anyone who left the Catholic church, painted-by-number a picture of Jesus Christ or disagreed with the churches doctrine, were to be killed by faithful followers. This would lead to a world-wide outcry and the end of the Vatican City State.

Thankfully, Christians (including Catholics) are not calling for the beheading of non-believers.

Sadly people are too burned out to look up the differences between ‘ISIS,’ and ‘ISIL.’ ISIS stands for the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,’ while ISIL is the acronym for ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.’

The Levant is a land mass consisting of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Southeast Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of southern Turkey. Syria refers to ancient Assyria, which is northern Iraq, northeast Syria and southeastern Turkey.

These land masses are in line with what militant Islamists call the Caliphate.

My folks were not strong on encouraging me or my siblings as we were growing up. I don’t hold this against them or feel anger towards them for this as I know they did the best they could.

It was jus’ the way it was in our family. Yet there was at least one time when Dad came as close to encouragement as he was able.

One evening we were all gathered around the television watching a ’60 Minutes’ segment about a photographer commissioned to create a portrait of England’s Queen Elizabeth. As it played, I complained that I wish I could afford an expensive camera so I could take great pictures too.

Dad responded, “You can take pictures like that using the 126 you’ve got if you learn about light and composition.”

As I laid in bed that night, I thought about what he’d said and concluded he was right. I’m still learning about light and composition.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, my friend Kay purchased a nice turkey. She brought it home, unpacked it and slipped it into the refrigerator to defrost.

Some back story is important at this point. I had recently read a funny story about one family’s a turkey dinner.

“Last Thanksgiving, my mom decided to play a trick on my sister. To get her out of the house, she convinced her that we needed more half-and-half for the coffee.

While my sister was out, my mom took the turkey out of the oven, removing the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish hen, then put it inside the turkey, packing stuffing around it. She then put the turkey back in the oven.

When everything was ready, my sister took the turkey out of the oven and began removing the stuffing. When she felt something, she reached in pulled out the Cornish hen.

Pretending to be shocked, my mother exclaimed, ‘Patti, you’ve cooked a pregnant turkey!’

My sister began to cry and was inconsolable. It took us half an hour to convince her that turkeys lay eggs.”

The same evening Kay brought home the turkey, I went to the store a bought a hen. I then sneaked it into the larger bird.

Early Thanksgiving morning, Kay was up before Mary and I putting together that evenings feast. She already had a pumpkin pie in the oven and was putting the finishing touches on the stuffing when I wandered out and into the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee.

Kay pulled the turkey from the fridge and began stuffing it. I sat there sipping my coffee, trying not to look puzzled as she scooped handful after handful into the bird’s cavity.

“You hungry?” Kay asked.

I nodded that I was.

Smiling, Kay responded, “Great. I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you.”

She then pulled the cooked Cornish game hen from the oven. I knew at that moment, the jig was up.

“Yeah,” she laughed, “I read the same story.”

In the early part of this century, the media was against President George Bush, saying he wasn’t elected, rather he was ‘selected.’ Prior to that, when he picked Dick Cheney to be his running mate, they went on the attack claiming Bush picked Cheney only so he would have ‘gravitas,’ or some weight behind him.

Recently I’ve noticed the same media is using a new term: optics. I’m guessing its supposed to be a more adroit way of saying, ‘how things look.’

It’s actually a bull-shit term, especially when used to describe what the Obama Administration is doing publicly. Of all the administrations I’ve lived through, this one cares the least about how it looks to Americans than any other.

For years I’ve claimed that the media in general is much like a school of sharks, feeding on whatever ‘bloody’ morsel it can find. And when that morsel is gone, they start cannibalizing each others’ words.

I’m guilty of this too, yet when I use the progressives’ words against them, I’m accused of plagiarism.

Following President Obama’s tenth address to the nation, where he tried to outline his plan to deal with ISIS, the media coined a new label for him: reluctant warrior. These two words were used at least 20 times to describe him the morning following Obama’s speech.

It’s unfortunate that the media has no original thought of its own. Meanwhile, the sharks continue to circle.

In 1976, the Del Norte County Unified School District was looking to change the location alternative education sites and creating a continuation high school. The preferred spot was the old Dodge garage on Northcrest Drive.

The garage building was leased and included the relocation of the agriculture program that has recently lost its “home.” The owner of the building, Ardella Miller lowered the rent from her original asking price of $1,200 per month to $700.

An additional $71 a month was earmarked for insurance to cover the continuation and agriculture programs.

The district also hired Max Riley to head the continuation high school program. He had served in the psychology department of the school district, working with Roy Krause and Barbara Clausen who gave positive reports about his abilities.

He was placed in charge of selecting five teachers who would press a reality-based curriculum, complete with basic education plus the ability to stay current with what the students need to succeed in the world. Riley planned to model behavior he wanted to instill in the students and wanted to do everything possible to keep them in school.

The expanded continuation program expected to have 50 students the first year and would have as its goal the support and input of the parents, instilling the basics needed for work, taking care of truancy problems, and “teaching them to fish instead of giving them a fish.”

Slowly but surely the national Football League is helping to eliminate itself from existence. It’s not the murderers, abusers or gangsta-types that are doing this either.

Rather it’s the NFL’s managements listening to outside activist organization like the ‘National Organization of Women.’ They, among others, charge that the NFL is rife with domestic abusers and that the league is covering up the problem.

A quick check of statistics on this crime show that domestic abuse is no more prevalent in the NFL than in all of society. So NOW really has no footing when it comes to its accusation.

The politically correct pressure is so great on the league that before every game there seems to be some dumb-ass commentator spouting off about the leagues’ evil. I’m certain that no-one tunes into a televised game to hear about the nation’s social ills.

Couple this with the leagues capitulation to the PC crowds attack on ‘hard hits,’ during the game, causing concussions, that left untreated can lead to dementia, et. al., and you have a good foundation to rid the country of the sport. By the way, there is no scientific proof that concussions lead to any brain dysfunction or any other disability it’s blamed for.

Also, if you look at the growth of the Latino and Hispanic populations in the U.S. and how the media hyped the 2014 World Soccer Cup, the NFL’s days are numbered. And sadly, the league is assisting by pound nails into its own coffin.

It was sometime during the Clinton Administration when I concluded the helicopter jus’ might be to my generation what the gasoline powered automobile was to our grandparents. Both were around when we were born and both have become vital to our society within our lifetimes as the technology advances.

At the time of writing that, the Internet was jus’ beginning to take hold around the world. In fact, not only have computers improved, so has the Internet.

When I finally invested myself in the understanding of this burgeoning technology, there was but two ‘search engines,’ available: CompuServe and America Online. And honestly, until Yahoo, Google and Bing — neither were much in the way very good at ‘searching the net,’ rather they were more for opening ‘chat rooms’ and such.

Also jus’ starting to find its place in society was the cellphone. Though I had seen one back in the early 80s and even owned a so-called ‘Brick,’ I didn’t have an operable one until 1995.

Today, cellphones are not only smaller than the palm of one’s hand, they are prolific. Even many homeless people seem to have cellphones as well.

There are some days I’m left to wonder — do we own this technology, or does this technology own civilization? It’ hard to tell.

With all this said, I still look upon the helicopter with fascination as I do the Model-T. Both are agents of change for their times.

It is with equal fascination that I view both the Internet and cellphone as great equalizer within the bounds of society’s structure. They are both so revolutionary that it is hard to see life without either.

Lastly, as technology finds its way into the weave of everyday life, I cannot even begin to dream of what our great-grandchildren’s lives will be like or what great invention waits their future. For all I know –it could be sticks, stones and the simple foot-fall.