Beat me, Daddy...eight to the bar....

Today I watched the former VP of this nation [USA] tell us that waterboarding is NOT torture and suggest that we not burden him with 'hypotheticals'.  One such hypothetical HE wouldn't want to deal with is... "If his own child was so treated would it STILL not be torture"?  Or, under what circumstances might it be torture?  Or is there any circumstance under which torture would be/should be allowed? 

He's answered that, of sorts, suggesting that IF it does a great public good, then it might not only be allowed but it should be 'praised'...the perpetrators held as praise worthy.

To this man and those who side with him I suggest that it is not I that needs to 'love it or leave it';  it's they that should be banned from the borders of this country...  a country  that should restore itself to greatness...a country that should insists on remaining true to the principles of its founding, refusing to become like those we abhor. 

America does not torture?  Sadly, "Does so".  And with a population that believes that protection trumps our humanity, double sadly it will continue to do so.

On being "All Grown Up"

It's a strange moment, this birthday. It's strange to know that this is as old as my father ever got...and eleven years older than my mother.  I don't know what to make of it, really.  It's just a strange reality.

On Randomness, the existence of a God(dess), and other light subjects

I stand with the thinkers who, when they hear religion discussed/professed, twitch and bite their lips because THIS is a subject off limits to the 'non-believer'.  We are told, in words and in deeds, that to challenge the popular though, someone's beliefs is, well, off limits.

To me this is made more difficult knowing that, should a candidate for a job or a public office, tell us that she/he accepts on faith that Elvis lives, well, the people who profess a belief in an un-see-able god for which no credible evidence exists, would snicker and vote NO...perhaps even make a little circling motion near their ear to indicate their true feelings for the 'Elvis Believer'.

Ok.  Hold your hand up...  Who thinks I'm making a case here for the fact that ELVIS LIVES?

The one interesting argument for the existence of a god, (once we've set aside the Bible or other writings of man as clearly NOT the word of god), is the existence of 'order' in nature.  "How could", a true believer offers "all this beauty and order form randomly?  And what of the thought that it MUST have a maker to start it all".   Any straight thinker ought to be able to arrive at the realization that the only plausible answer IS random order.  Why, I ask you, is it somehow easier to say things couldn't just start, and therefore ascribe this thing I can't understand to something like a Creator, thereafter resigning myself that the creator's beginning is uncomprehending, requiring faith without explanation?

The world I was raised in made me a religious young boy, taught by very, very human people;  none of them scientists or particularly deep thinkers.  All of them guided by the principle that there are things that are unquestionable, by pain of damnation of the soul for eternity.  What a marvelous basis on which to perpetuate a belief; no challenges allowed that do not 'prove the existence of God'.  What a completely child like people are we to be lead without questioning.

Think.  Reason.  These are things we can do.  No Almighty Being could (or would) forbid us from them.  We must use these tools to guide our lives, or live forever in war and ignorance...ultimately for no reason at all.

Derive your sense of purpose from life, not fables.  Be brave...  Face the world eyes wide open.  See the wonder that is...randomness.

Almost (cut my hair) ... it happened just the other day...

Yeah, well...don't ask me about the title.  Just something that popped into my head as I was thinking about my River Trip first weeks in July '13.  Ten days of magic...some of it'll be black magic, some of it white I'm sure...but that's just life, right?  Ying and Yang.  Things we like a little, peppered with things we really hate, add a dash of what we really REALLY love.

Would I have it any other way...my life?  What's the point of going there? "It is what it is", they keep telling me.  And you know, That's alright, moma...that's alright with me.

Long as I get to breathe some fresh mountain air SOMETIMES,... See my kids SOMETIMES... be with my Julie SOMETIMES.  It's enough.  Dyanu.

Really excited to be there though.  My first extended stay in awhile.  Fish a little, walk alot. See folks having fun along the Metolius.  Let all the fires be camp fire, please.

The river calls, but

I hear the river call me from so very far away.  Bubbling from its spring just up stream and around the bend from the cabin I so often picture in my minds eye.  It's still beautiful there.  Still timelessly flowing threw rock creek bed in its slow and deliberate search for the ocean.

I want to answer.  I want to be there, walking along your shore... Hearing the children play, watching the Osprey and the Eagles hunt...  Smelling the sun bake the pine needles till they release their magic.

I'm coming... Just as soon as the world releases its grip on me.  Then I'll be in your embrace, and you in mine.  Wait for me.  I know you will.

Do we always sow what we...

Do we always reap what we so?  A question most poised by people who believe "things always happen for a reason".

I've come to believe in my current years in the randomness of all things.  And I'm totally comforted by that.  I've so often been disappointed by the other... Waiting to reap something good from all I sow and then suffer through disappointment when the crop fails.  " oh it's me...it HAS to be me" if and when lemons come from strawberry seeds.

It's not me... It's just the oh so comforting randomness of the universe.

What then when some thing GOOD happens at exactly the right moment?  No more puzzling to a stoic then something BAD happening at the WRONG moment.

The stoic doesn't so much long for things to be better as he/she acknowledges : could be worse.  And it could ALWAYS be worse...  Maybe become worse...probly WILL become worse.... 

Or not.  THAT occasional reader is the randomness of the universe(s).  It's more than ok...it's an unchangeable reality worth celebrating.  Where is the joy in that?  Lets talk about it over a glass of chilled White Wine

It's a crying shame...

Have you ever (and don't lie now) broken into tears for no reason that you can think of?  Just one minute you you're fine..doing whatever you may... the next you're sobbing almost uncontrollably?

Huh...  what'd ya think causes that?

I mean, it might be a song...but the song, I mean...what's the connection?  Oh sometimes it's obvious.  But if you're like this person I know (not ME ya understand) sometimes there seems to be no thread you can grasp.

It's powerful, though.  Grips you and shakes you and its sooooo very intense.   But you never want that feeling to stop.  That sweeping feeling that comes from ...where?  Nowhere?  Somewhere?  Everywhere?

Crush me and restore me.  Make me cry.  Make me whole again.  Repeat.  Forever....


"And every time he appears it comes as a surprise
He thinks he's clever as foxfire
Dancin' on a distant rise
Then when I catch that devil, ooh...
There's gonna be a slow-down; There's gonna be a mighty slow-down
He's not so clever as foxfire, dancing on the distant rise"