August Week 2, 2008
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August Week 2, 2008
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"When faced with a choice between confronting an unpleasant reality and defending a set of comforting and socially accepted beliefs, most people choose the later course". The Chevy is running again, corroded cables, makes me feel sort of pathetic... I really should have taken the time to clean them, I was so convinced that the trouble was a bad starter motor that I thought it would be a waste of energy... live and learn. Calie is 17 today, hardly seems possible, seems like yesterday that she was sleeping on my chest. Now she is almost grown and gone... time flies whether you are having fun or not... it just flies. Tuesday, August 05, 2008 "If a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime" I am still tired from yesterday I guess, I got some work done on the desk and bought some stain for it. Wednesday, August 06, 2008 Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862) The girls are gone for the day, Amanda is shopping in Spokane and Calie and Monica are at the dam with Trevor and his family. Monica helped me go to the dump. she drove. she is sort of funny to watch when she drives the Chevy, she is only 5 feet tall and that means she has to really stretch out to reach the pedals. I am afraid to check on my IRA, it makes me sick. The stock market is brutal Thursday, August 07, 2008 "There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement" Eric Hoffer I can't see that I accomplished very much today... I babysat and waited for UPS... whoop-de-do...I got Monica's friend Kayte in trouble by telling her mom the truth about where she was and how she got there... too bad... so sad, I am always at a loss to understand keeping a tight leash, my experience has shown that it really doesn't matter how you raise your kid, the kid is either on the right path or he isn't, the tighter you hold the leash the further the kid is going to fall when you let go. Folks want to cling to the belief that they actually have control over teenagers, apparently they are unable to remember what they were like when they were their children's age. Friday, August 08, 2008 "Beat me with the truth, don't torture me with lies" Author - Unknown Why must we learn the hard lessons the hard way. Why aren't we taught early to question authority, why must we feel betrayed when the laws create injustice when the reality is that law and justice have been at odd since laws were invented., Why do we just sit back and throw up our hands when power is abused. Why aren't we the lessons our parents and grandparents learned. Business left unrestrained will rob the country and it's citizens in the name of PROFIT. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It appears to be human nature to want to take advantage of ever ounce of power we perceive ourselves to possess. We use it to control others, we use it to abuse those we deem to be inferior, we use it to our advantage on every level of our existance. Rank has it privileges, the man who pays the bills makes the rules, might makes right, the maxims are endless. Regulators are needed in every level of business and government but who regulates the regulators. Who's watching the watchman. Where do the advantages gained by eliminating unfair practices become liabilities with impediments to progress, unwieldy bureaucracies, graft and bribery. What a mess, is there any way out of this? Monica and I went to see 'The Dark Knight'... now I understand what we lost when Heath Ledger died. It was difficult at times to realize I was watching a dead man, hard to accept that he won't be performing any more. He took Jack Nickolson's character and made him truly evil. What an outstanding over the top performance. It gives a new dimension to the word 'Dark'... Saturday, August 09, 2008 "A man who has in mind an apparent advantage and promptly proceeds to dissociate this from the question of what is right shows himself to be mistaken and immoral. Such a standpoint is the parent of assassinations, poisonings, forged wills, thefts, malversations of public money, and the ruinous exploitation of provincials and Roman citizens alike. Another result is passionate desire - desire for excessive wealth, for unendurable tyranny, and ultimately for the despotic seizure of free states. These desires are the most horrible and repulsive things imaginable. The perverted intelligences of men who are animated by such feelings are competent to understand the material rewards, but not the penalties. I do not mean penalties established by law, for these they often escape. I mean the most terrible of all punishments: their own degradation. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) I babysat for Autumn while Christy was at church... she is really getting to be a hand full. I can still Monica went to see Batman again Sunday, August 10, 2008
Samuel P. Huntington 1927 - I went to the [Memorial] funeral for Ben Chism, they called him 'Gentle Ben' it is a hard earned and justified sobriquet. He was a gentle loving man who spent his life helping others... the folks that knew him, loved him. There wasn't a dry eye in the joint. Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him. Cicero There was a lot of giving credit to God for Ben's loving soul, I think that there wasn't enough credit given to Ben for his ability to direct his own soul. God is whatever he is for everyone but our souls, our life force, are ours to to nurture. We all start of on the road that ends in death with the same potential and we all do different things with it. We are all the products of our own will or lack of it. The Pastor read this poem: LET ME GIVE But while I live, Lord, let me give Some comfort to someone in need By smile or nod, kind word or deed. To ease things for my fellow man.
To lift a tired or weary heart. And I'll not care how long I'll live If I can give ... and give ... and
give.
-BJ.Morbitzer From what I had learned and witnessed today, it does sort of cover what Ben was all about... I had to leave early to take over babysitting for Autumn from Monica so that she and Amanda could go to a baby-shower for their friend Sammy. Funeral to Baby Shower, it comforts me to contemplate the affirmation of the life process and to see the tangible continuity of it all.
"I BELIEVE that God wants me to be president." George W. Bush "I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany," Hitler - Berlin March, 1936 God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands.: George W. Bush If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us: Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937 "freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them." George W. Bush "Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!" : Hitler - Nuremberg Sept. 13, 1936.
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