Author: admin

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Morality

“Some have suggested a barrier is immoral. Then why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside. The only thing that is immoral is the politicians who do nothing and continue to allow more innocent people to be so horribly victimized,”

President Donald Trump

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Palladium of Liberty

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

– Joseph Story

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Humiliating

I am determined to catch my own live bait, so I bought a 5 foot cast net a few weeks back. I’m (so I tell myself) manly, strong, smart, quick, and fairly coordinated so this should be no great challenge. After watching several video’s and applying a few discontinuous practice session I’m no closer to mastering this manly task than I was before I started.

Then I see this video. I am now a completely broken man. She is better at 90 lbs with a 8 ft net than I am with a 5 ft net.

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Another’s Random Theory

An anonymous writer equates the life of Jesus to the ‘escapee’ in Plato’s Analogy of the Cave: I don’t agree with all that he says, but his thoughts are worth sharing. He writes:

“Around 2000 years ago, someone escaped from the world of shadows and came back to tell those who stayed behind of the real life and to show them the way out.

At that time, they claimed he had risen from dead, became man or had awoken. Nowadays, people would claim he had reached enlightenment. He had experienced that righteousness is the condition to reach simplicity and blessedness and that it is difficult to live as a righteous in an unrighteous world, as a living among the death.

The righteousness and compassion with the chained ones demands you to go back. He preached a completely different way of life and not a different way of thinking.

The story is that the establishment killed him, his words are misunderstood and that they turned his life into a religion.

Humankind took possession of the messenger and did not understand the message. If somebody has seen a beautiful theatrical performance he can tell about it enthusiastically, but he would better show people the way to the theater. His metaphors of the unspeakable made his message unclear. The experience is not expressible in words. For that reason, he gave people the opportunity to take his words figuratively and his life literally. “

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Horrid Mischief Would Ensue

“… arms  discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.  Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.”

– Thomas Paine

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The Dangers of Good Intentions

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

– Daniel Webster

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Never Too Late To Learn

While surfing the other day I found the following ‘news’ article on one of the many sites I stumbled across. So I followed it just to see what was behind the door.

Turns out there is a tremendous number (well beyond 600) of courses available on line for free. Keep in mind that the courses are free, not the diploma or the certificates . Given that I already have my Bachelor’s and two Master’s, not to mention that I have absolutely no intention of reentering the workforce, I could drink from this well free of cost. Here’s the link to the ‘600 courses’ site.

So, the link will take you to the article. The article list courses that are provided on several different platforms. If you were to drill down on each platform you’ll find that it offers courses far in excess of 600. For instance, I wanted to learn more about photography. I found it on the ‘600 courses’ article, followed it to the ‘Coursea’ site, and then found that Coursea (here) offers more than 2700 courses. Note that you get past the costs they indicate by selecting the ‘Audit course’ option. Other links on the ‘600 courses’ article lead to platforms other than Coursea..

Fans will be pleased to know that I will be taking English and Grammar courses in due time.

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In My Neck of the Woods

The last couple of days have been great and both today and tomorrow promise clear skies, light winds, and warm temps. It’s hard to believe its the early half of January and we such great weather. I’ll take it.

I charged the batteries on the boat yesterday afternoon and have a full tank of fuel. The better half promises a hearty breakfast after which I’m headed for the Elk River.

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End of the Road

I drove into Pulaski Tennessee on Friday to do a little shopping and drop off the boat payment at the post office. Because I rarely travel there, I ended up taking a wrong turn and found myself in a portion of town that was in slow motion decay. It was a mix of 60 or 70 year old cheaply built homes with clapboard siding interspersed with a type of light industry that lent itself to gravel parking lots and rusting, outdated, equipment waiting to be reacquired by nature.

The homes were badly rundown. Here and there you could see where folk were battling back against the unrelenting decay, but their cause is lost even if they were unwilling to concede the battle to time and the elements.

Near the center point of this area there was once a cemetery. Many years ago the city threw in the towel on trying to keep it maintained and turned it into a park of sorts. You could call it a memory garden without the garden. Soon it will be without memories as well. Such is our lot.

It was a cold and gray day that was perfectly lousy for photography and yet the weather, neighborhood, and the gray stone and headstones put me in a mood that I thought could be shared through photo’s, and importantly, I could photograph. I failed, but not miserably so I do have a little to share of what I found.

The photo’s do a poor job of capturing the mood. It was not sadness, not remorse nor even melancholy. It’s that mood that comes when you meld the awareness of the inevitable with recognition of the smallness of our individual lives. Wish I could capture that feel on film.

A parting note. There were many of these (below) throughout the garden. You would expect as much from frontier living in rural Tennessee in the 1800’s. Whenever I see one of these I think of the unspeakable sadness of the parents as they placed the stones. This stone is particular in that, I suppose, the parents spent their last penny on purchasing her marker.

Give a little thought to how you spend your day(s).

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President Pelosi?

Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan

It is entirely possible that Nancy Pelosi could be the next President of the United States. She is now next in line behind Pence. Were Trump impeached and the VP torpedoed, we’d wake up to that nightmare.

I’m sure that that thought never crossed her mind.

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The Kingdom

I’ve named the last category of questions by the disciples in the Gospel of Thomas as ‘The Kingdom’. Again, these are just the questions.

What I think is important to consider about these questions is the disciples thought Jesus knew the answers. Unlike the questions that I grouped in the area titled ‘Blindness’, where the apostles wrestled with understanding who Jesus was, in these questions they understood who he was and believed that he knew of the ‘Kingdom’. If this is so, then it reinforces my assertion that the sequence in which the sayings of Jesus are presented in the Gospel of Thomas is not the sequence in which they occurred. (Else wise how could the questions that exist sayings 20 and 22 be asked by someone who later asked the questions in sayings 43 and 91.)

The Kingdom:

(18) Tell us how our end will be.

(20) Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.

(22) Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?

(51) When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?

(113) When will the kingdom come?

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Even Still

Hillary was back in the news this week, she has provided the nation some more gloom and doom in an Instagram post that is undoubtedly designed as an ‘I told you so’.

I suppose the constant rearing of her self centered head can be thought of as therapy, or perhaps she is trying to stay relevant in case she is called on by the nation to save us all.

I did not bother to peruse her post, just knowing that she posted was enough for me to pity her further.

What the enemies of Trump don’t understand is that his supporters agree with them to a large extent: he is brash, self centered, and contorts the truth beyond understanding. We know this, and in knowing this we would elect him again in a heartbeat. We don’t care to hear about it any longer, what we do want is for him to continue his America first fight.

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Housekeeping

Within the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas there were three sayings, containing six questions, that are ‘housekeeping’ in nature. By housekeeping I mean that they were either about how the disciples were to conduct themselves or what rituals were to be observed.

Again, because I’m less interested in the answers to the questions right now than I am in what these folk asked of Him, I’ll pass on providing His responses other than to opine on what I believe the meaning of His responses, at a high level, indicates: He provided no directions for forming or maintaining a ‘church’ or an organized following.

Keep in mind that the answers to the questions asked in Saying 6 are found in the first two sentences of Saying 14 (this is my take). Without a drum roll or further blathering, the questions were:

(6)  Do you want us to fast?  How shall we pray?  Shall we give alms?  What diet shall we observe?”

(12) We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?

(53) Is circumcision beneficial or not?

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List of Shame: Top 20 Quotes of 2018

20. “We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness.” — CNN host Andrew Cuomo

19. “And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit. I’m sure if we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.” – Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)

18. “‘Don’t vote for the ching-chong!” —Detroit Rep. Bettie Cook Scott on Asian opponent

17. “‘But I can’t afford to pay my employees $15 an hour! I’d go out of business!’ Then go out of business. If you can’t afford to pay a #livingwage & make payroll, you shouldn’t be in business. It’s not your workers’ responsibility to subsidize your sh*tty business #FightFor15” —Civil rights activist Danielle Muscato

16. “I’m sorry, I know he lost his eye in war, or whatever.”— Pete Davidson on SNL mocks ex-SEAL Dan Crenshaw who lost his eye to an IED

15. “You’re a slave to free thinking.” — Blogger Perez Hilton

14. “Time for us white male Christians to take a step back and give power to others, and make ourselves dispensable.” —Political consultant Matthew Dowd

13. “They’ll say, ‘Well, I’m not racist. I just voted for him because I didn’t like Hillary Clinton.’ And I just want to say that’s not — that doesn’t make you not racist. It actually makes you racist.” — CNN analyst Kirsten Powers

12. “Never trust anyone who doesn’t regularly french kiss animals.” — Actor Lena Dunham

11. “Guess who’s perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It’s the men in this country. I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up! And step up. Do the right thing for a change.” — Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)

10. “Divorce your Republican husbands.” – Attorney Jill Filipovic

9. “Almost every single person I’ve ever heard of with an AR-15 has been a mass murderer.” — Author Nina Burleigh

8. “There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia — and the United States.” – New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

7. “The next Supreme Court justice should be an illegal immigrant.” — Maxine Waters

6. “White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled a cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.” — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

5. “We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them.” — CNN host Don Lemon

4. ” We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles and see if mother will stand up against the giant @sshole she is married to.” — Actor Peter Fonda

3. “The virgin birth story is about an all-knowing, all-powerful deity impregnating a human teen. There is no definition of consent that would include that scenario.” — Minnesota State University associate professor Eric Sprankle

2. “I have noticed that [Trump] Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up. Please, keep it coming Jr – it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month. ” — Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)

1. “If you see anybody from that [Trump] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)

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The Gathering Storm

With a divided congress and a democratic party that resembles a circus, the constitution is guaranteed to be tested this year. In times past the democrats could rely on the courts to codify what could never have been written into law, now that the Donald is mainstreaming the courts that avenue is dead to them. I expect the rhetoric to go off the charts and outright tantrums to grow. This new year promises to be entertaining if nothing else. Enjoy the **it show.

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Blindness

I took a little time yesterday to look at the questions that were asked of Jesus by his apostles in the Gospel of Thomas. Essentially I just looked at the questions that where asked of him and not any answer that was given. I quickly realized that the results could be pigeonholed into three categories. I think of them as: “Housekeeping” , “Blindness”, and “The Kingdom” .

I’m not sure what this little (and very quickly done) exercise tells us other than this was a pretty unimaginative and self centered group of folk.

To me, the most interesting question asked of him was not by an apostle, it was by Mary. It’s odd that the question she asked could not be neatly tucked into any of the three categories, it reads ” Whom are your disciples like?”

Anyway, here are the four questions that were asked that fall into the ‘Blindness’ category. I title it blindness because they could not see who was before them.

(24) Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it.
(37) When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you?
(43) Who are you, that you should say these things to us?
(91) Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.

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116th Congress

The 116th Congress is scheduled to convene at noon (EST) on the 3rd of January 2019 and we can expect plenty of fireworks throughout it’s tenure. No doubt the new Democratic majority in the House will provide all of the fireworks our young nation can endure. The word on the street is that the incoming batch of clueless communists are already pressing the aged and senile ‘leadership’ of the left into submission on a range of issues.

I for one cannot wait to see what fresh hell the ‘New Green Deal’ will unleash on the Country.