Hmmm…40 years ago today, 4 students were killed by the national guard that were called in to keep order on the campus of Kent State University. Being a 17 year old kid at the time (and one who generally supported the government) I didn’t know what to think about our government killing people who were not much older than I was and whose only crime was to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of assembly and protest. I think that day opened my eyes and set me on the path that has led me to where I am now…believing that government can be good or evil; it depends on the humans that are making up that government….
No citizen, or no human should have to pay that high a price for his or her beliefs…but I know that’s how change happens; and it’s cost is sometime almost unbearable. Thank you to those who have had the courage to bet it all on making this country and world a better place.
I still get chills whenever the first notes of “Ohio” by CSNY come on the radio…
“What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?”
Well….still can’t get over how badly the Wings were screwed last night…but that’s over and done and I have to remind myself that it was still a great, fast game and I had a lot of fun out at Sazerac in the north end. Even had a youngster flirt with me for a while which I could say helped my ego but since I know it was just fooling around, there really is no effect there. Too bad.
I am a little irritated that Monday with G was canceled after taking care of a lot of stuff for her today. But she got to golf at one of the nice country clubs around here so how can you pass that up? And, I can use the night off from drinking since I know I’ll be out to see the Wings tomorrow…maybe she’s doing me a favor, huh? Kind of worn out so I’m going to end here for a while. Maybe more later but probably not until tomorrow…
Well…if you watched that mess last night, you saw what was probably the worst officiating I’ve ever seen in a professional hockey game. We got jobbed, plain and simple and that crew should be suspended for the rest of the playoffs. Geez….
Okay…maybe having three cups of coffee on Sunday morning is not that good of an idea…kind of vibrating as I wait for the sun to come out so I can get out on the bike and burn off some of the caffeine. One of the things that has recently made a spot in my brain is the fact that I am now the age my father was when he died. Did he think about the same things that I do now? Never really knew who he was since I grew up in a time where there just was not a lot of depth to relationships in general; even familial ones.
I’ll talk more about that at some later date…hey, that’s a little onion peeling don’t you think? I’ll score that as some revelation….even though there’s not much there.
What’s the rest of day going to be like? Hmmmmm…of course, Pink Floyd for the ride then probably just try to clean this place up a bit, it’s a small place but haven’t had any motivation lately…then out for the game later; maybe sit in the sun for a while…I know, tough day…;-))
Oh, topic for later…I will probably get into how I feel about my age and health and what it means to be getting older…
Hmmmm…just made a pot of coffee and have a History channel show on called “Nostradamus 2012″ running in the background and that kind of fits with something I read in the Washington Post this morning. In an article called “Faith Without Religion”, Martha Woodruff attempts to define what her faith is to her and how she came to hold those views; trying to get discussion going on what faith is and how other people practice theirs. What was striking to me is in the comments that were published in response to the article and points out one of problems that I’ve written about in earlier posts: that the ability to listen to new ideas that are dissimilar to our own and talk about them rationally has disappeared in today’s society.
The two poles of the discourse were represented (although the defenders of organized religions outnumbered the non-believers by nearly 10-1) and were predictable with the atheists positing that any belief in an invisible super-being was delusional and the believers predictably arguing that they have the “correct” answers and beating her over the head with citations from the Bible. What really struck me was that most of the comments were there to try to convince the writer where she was wrong, not to have a rational conversation on what they have in common. Now, I’ll admit here that I grew up in a faith that I thought had some really great principles to live by and has partially shaped who I am today, but the idea of an all-powerful, invisible, super being that controls everything is just too juvenile to me, especially with what we know of how the Bible came to be and the superstitious nature of the times when it originated. Do we still believe in the medicine of that time?
Oh, the connection between the Nostradamus show and the discussion? Well…in the show they are taking all of the obscure and murky writings of Nostradamus and devoting two hours to speculation and interpretation; taking it seriously as science when it’s just a lot of bunk. Similar to what has been done with the Bible and faith. Just my opinion…no death threats please…
Well… here we are, another Sunday, another must win Wings game. Okay, it’s not really a must win but it would be nice to win it don’t you think? I think we played pretty well last game but Jimmy Howard has to get going early, and let’s not put all of the weight on his shoulders. Getting Nik Kronwall involved with a few big hits would go a long way to energizing the whole team as would a few goals by Homer or Frantzen.
I’m still putting a buck on Hank when we go out to watch this one; at least for the first perlod (no, that’s not a typo). Three years ago FSD (or Versus) misspelled period in one of the streamers that ran along the bottom of the screen, and, when beer and shots of whiskey are involved, that misspelling seemed really funny and took on a life of it’s own. So, for a few of us, it has been PERLOD ever since…yeah, I know, but we take our fun wherever we can find it.
Well…it’s Saturday and I’ve gotten all of the things I wanted to do done…but the goals were not too ambitious so I should probably stop feeling good about it. I do have at least one musing that I need to pass on; this came from a conversation I had with a friend of mine (thanks C)…and it’s about an observation that I made a month or so ago. That was one of the first times that I walked into a bar (you can substitute a coffee shop or any other place that contain women as part of the population) and not one head turned to look at me. Not one. I’m no great shakes in the looks department but I’ve had my share of attention in my day. It made me want to jump up and down like an idiot just to see if it was a convention of blind people…no such luck since it appeared that other people were being observed. Even the completely average looking guy that walked in behind me got at least a couple of women to look at him. But he was in his 20′s so that may have made a difference, or maybe not, I don’t know. I do know that it has started to happen to some of my younger friends, too, I wonder if it is contagious? Is there a vaccine?
So, I guess my next move is to figure out how to use my newfound invisibility for the public good…like some kind of superhero….
I’ll keep you updated as this disease develops…;-)
I’ll be filling in my thoughts tomorrow…this is kind of a placeholder until then….tune in later…
HI…I’m back, I was reading the newspaper a couple of days ago and there was a story about the increase in violence that has been occurring in many of the road rage incidents that happen across Michigan. There have been shootings, stabbings, and beatings along with the mayhem of using a two ton weapon to what? Protect your manhood? Or womanhood, since these incidents are not exclusively a male phenomenon. But, the road rage incidents are not really the topic today; it is just a symptom of what I see as a lack of reasonableness that is polluting society today. It is one of the things that the great author Robert Heinlein saw as a signpost in the decline of any civilization; the lack of manners and common courtesy that the citizens show each other on a daily basis.
I know I was going somewhere with this…..well…I guess I just want to say that most times, you can choose how you react to the things that happen in life…I know I was taught that it was a value to think and to react to life and politics in a thoughtful, measured way, and the shouters were idiots that did not deserve attention. What happened??
Well…nothing really earth-shattering today, it has been a good day so far…worked out for the 5th day in a row and took a long bike ride this morning. The bike is working so well I was grinning like an idiot all through the ride and put in about 15 miles; the weather was so nice even at 10:30 that it was hard to come home. Will probably go out again for a leisure ride with no sprints to just look around and take some of the paths that are less traveled.
I know I promised that the onion will start to be peeled but it’s still rattling around in my head and I can’t make sense of how I want to present it. I probably should just make it free form and write about what pops into my head. Might be making it more work than it has to be. So, again, I promise more tomorrow.
Well…if we could wipe out the 2 minutes that the Sharks scored three goals, it would have been a good game. I think it was still a good game since we were not outplayed. Howard just looked shaky but that has been his pattern throughout he first round so that’s not really a surprise. We still need to take one in their building so Sunday should be fun…still have to go out to see it but with it being at 8, I can get some other people to go out that are real fans. The people in the bar last night were quite annoying and loud; at least the place had gone non-smoking a few days early so I didn’t have to breathe in all that smoke. Still kind of ambivalent about the new law here in Michigan but I don’t smoke so I don’t really care.
More tomorrow but it is such a nice day today that I’m just not that motivated.
Go Wings!