Dreaming, why not?

  So my early morning dreams are strange, they are about me in the military again... which ain't gonna happen. But I am in uniform arrived at a new post and position still undetermined. I find a very different army awaiting me.
  The commander is a woman, the CSM is a tall long black woman, with more rockers and stripes than I remember for a battalion position. Everyone is troubled by my qualifications in their unit which doesn't need my set.  The strange thing they are really stretching to understand is my double 'c' identifier. The only thing I thought it could mean was Christian Conservative.
  Like I said, it was only a strange dream.

Had a wonderful small but effective Appleseed in Custer, Andy was Shootboss, Ralph was ITT and range host.  Six shooters, two bolts, two optics, and all interested in gaining knowledge and practice. I couldn't find a motel room, seems there was a dog show in the area and I didn't want to drive far away, so I slept in the Pacifica, and slept very well thank you.

Update... nothing much here...

  No, really, I just finished my follow up colonoscopy, three pulps removed and everything looked great - for a very olde fat man. Tomorrow: banking, visit storage locker for Appleseed this weekend, YMCA and clean up my mess. The mess seems to run from one end of my life to the other, wish me luck. The grandfather clock won't maintain movement, one other clock on the wall had quit but looked like a government agent knocked it off the wall and then put it back up beyond my wife's reach (only two of us in the home, except when secret agents visit with blank warrants).
   My lovely war game has produced big spenders with no idea of how to win friends and influence people. I blame stupid youth with credit cards on that, but since they have destroyed all my forces except my attacking force of bows behind swords and a large Royal guard, and defense siege engines, all I need to do is finish my daily tasks, solo events and add to the alliance events. I have two Warchief chests of rss, and more of Ronin loot in levels five to seven, six is often double, and seven often triple. I continue to build Paragon, research, city and lots of champion items wi

Another call from the NRA... looking for money and support...

  As I wander Face book feed, I see over and over the NRA membership and contributions are swelling because of the pressure of the children for disarmament. Fine, President Obama was one of the biggest gun sellers around during his eight years in office. I have to acknowledge that there is a feeling of helplessness in not being able to stop crazy people with guns, I look at the crazy people, not the sane ones, and then I still look at all the sinners and the LOST that need God in their life. How do they not see Him everywhere?
   So there are two grave problems in America that much of those that get to make headlines and causes aren't getting safety nor good behavior from... All of us are part of the solutions and the healing and the lack of change for the better. Not one of us can be an observer and not be touched by the events and the continuing cries and oppression. People are doing things to change, not likely to change the people that are causing the troubles and problems, but they are making noise and moves.

   One of my problems with the NRA is that it has become a large power broker in the Swamp, they do lots of stuff for politics. Very much not enough for education of the masses, and promoting safe shooting sports. Shooters get what the NRA does and know they don't go around killing humans, ever. The ignorant masses aren't sure or very much are sure that without the NRA the 2nd Amendment would be repealed and government would control all the firearms and protect all the folks. Which doesn't happen in countries that have strict gun control, look at the people fleeing Central America and Mexico - where they have strict gun control, and gangs and governments prey upon the unarmed populations. For the benefit of those with power and money enough to buy great protection against the masses. Those powerful elites; government, gangs or just goofballs, have all the weapons and warriors they need and ignorant fears of the unknown or badly portrayed in media, news and entertainment will continue to keep the masses unprotected and exploited.

   I guess in the end, I will continue to do the little I can - in discussing, training, helping and educating all those that don't believe as I do, see what I see and get off my chair and away from the mindless media stream. I mean, we do live in a world that the women aren't that beautiful, available and wanton. I do thank God for the really beautiful, nice and loving women that are never portrayed in the fantasy lands of our culture.  It is exactly the same with the news (about what to fear now) or the entertainment media as Costner kills hundreds in Paris (could never happen that way).

   Oh, I did submit my ten entries to the Sweepstakes for those rifles and NRA truck, one time. But I never seem to win those things, although I won one going between countries on assignments. It was an answering machine for the old telephone systems, but I did win something once upon a time.

Protesting everywhere for and against firearms, I answer the call of Appleseed...

 Lovely looking weekend, I rise early and drive to the ferry and head for Clinton and then Coupeville on Whidbey Island. The range gate is locked when I get there, but I am early and need to rearrange my load and garb.  I remember many fine Appleseeds right here in the previous years. The crew shows up with a call from the Shootboss that he is going around the highway and bridge maintenance improvements and will be a bit late. Andy, Franklin and I carry on. I do the prehistory, what happened before April 19, 1775.  I don't notice but all the younger folks look like they have seen me before, and they have! The Shootboss and his two sons show up about nine oh nine, not very late at all. So day one starts.
    I notice all weekend that Total Participation is lacking, no one wants to be part of a chorus, they think everyone else has a better answer? Disappointing that, I must work on my choir director skill set, which I don't remember ever having. As we shoot through the morning learning steady hold factors and the six steps in taking the shot, it seems slow. Cole is having trouble using a red dot to get his rounds on paper - never having used one, I look through his sight, left handed and see that to me the sight is way off high left, to me. So we give him a large blank paper to try and put rounds into for a group. Helps a bit.  Groups start coming together and adjustments are made as we introduce instruction on the next basic building block of marksmanship.
   Lunch and a working one where the First Strike of the match is told, then the second. We have so much history to present, but limit it to no more than forty minutes total. Our reference of Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fisher is highly recommended, I had dragged my mobile library out for show and tell. One teacher wanted to get the title and author of the 23d Welsh Fusileers, the English unit that was in the Revolutionary war from Lexington to Yorktown. Interesting reading.
  After lunch we prepare to shoot the Honor Volley for the fallen of Lexington and Concord, noting that across the nation other Applesseeds are joining us in the Rememberance Volley, I think Andy recorded it, I was noticing as I read the family names where more than one died. Tough times to stand against the Crown and Parliament, and your loyalist neighbors.
   Afternoon and more positions, and instruction on marksmanship and target engagement. We are beginning to know the shooters and work on some of their challenges. Still not enough Total participation. The wind seems to wear us out a bit. But it is more that we aren't drinking enough water and are losing the concentration we should have. I notice a hawk flying above and suddenly his tail feathers blaze out in a brilliant red when hit by the Sun, ah, that is why they are called Redtailed Hawks. Franklin, who grew up on the island, mentions knowing this for a long time.  All the adjustments and the instructions are beginning to show improvement in the shooting and groups. The Third Strike of the Match is presented to get Lord Percy's rescue party and Col Smith back to safety and the siege of Boston by irate militiamen. One Appleseed Qualification Test and a Redcoat and we clean up the range to prepare for tomorrow.
    Good food, good instructors dinner, and great rest for the night.

Day two, begin it all over again, refresh and review, safety and get the cased rifles to the line. There are three AQTs shot in the morning before lunch with dangerous old men stories. Andy adds two stories about ladies of the Revolution, and I want to talk about the two sharpshooters in Boonesboro during the Shawnee Mingo attacks but that is a bit far from Boston but really in the same period of history.


  Afternoon shooting was mostly some drills to confirm zeroing and shrink group size. Trying to find the key, each shooter has different challenges and we do cover Known Distance as the Sun beats down. Lovely day, but winterized Washingtonians forget about sunscreen until it is too late. So final AQT and Redcoat and case rifles and clean up, pretty happy group of folks, shooting in the sunshine will do that. Sent everyone home hopefully looking forward to do it all again, after much dry practice. Since lots of people had come to the island for the weekend, the afternoon ferries were packed and long lines of waiting vehicles on the shoulder.
    Need to unpack the car, check the internet and have dinner and more sleep. Can't find my camera, but it did get home with my other stuff.

How do I get so fortunate? Marksmanship and Heritage and rain in Washington State.

  Drove to the Interlake Sporting Association place in Redmond, just outside of Kirkland, off of exit 18 of I-405. And promptly got lost and confused, until I stopped at a motel and the desk clerk printed me a map.  Parked and greeted the Shoot Boss and SBiT, and helped set up, then went to meet and greet those shooters arriving for Appleseed. Very young professional friendly bunch of patriots, interesting that there weren't any children and I was the only ancient of days gone by. Have I mentioned rain, yes, there in the title. This is the ending of the raining season... so being some level of wet and cooled was a constant. Tarps on the ground and and two lines of popups kept us focused on the training and our targets.
   The first Redcoat target didn't amaze the Appleseed crew, but I hope it convinced all the shooters that they had some skills that needed honing. Step by step, inch by inches minutes and clicks the groups shrank and the shooters relaxed and started adjusting one thing at a time. Still the rain came down. the demonstrators were posing on a wet shooting mat in a rapidly filling lake. Only three Appleseed crew for the seventeen shooters meant that I wouldn't be locking names in my memory very quickly, and I was line boss many times as Ben and Andy did training and demonstrations.             During lunch I put my GPS back into my vehicle, I haven't figured out the app on my new machine for finding my lost.  Becca is a new shooter and Ben has to remind me about the Ruger 10-22 and releasing the bolt, tap it and it will come.  Morning adjustments to slings and stocks and prone steady hold factors. More single point slings than I have seen before on rifles, and the shooters often seem slicker than I will ever be on adjusting them. Nat, the Blue hat, is keeping us in targets and making the admin easier during signup. New t-shirts for this weekend, Ben even gives me an Appleseed pin, which will go on my wide brimmed hat. I get out my Gortex camo parka, because the rain really is coming down, I put the work vest over it.
    I teach sitting and the NPOA adjustments and the afternoon starts after the first two strikes of the match are told by Andy and Ben.  More positions, the carding the sights and ball and dummy are taught, and we start to put it all together for one AQT and the final Redcoat target of the first day. Getting colder and wetter, Ben puts us into the clubhouse for my telling of the Third Strike of the match, and puts me on the clock, which I made with a minute left... hope everyone realized I had so much more I could have added.
   Afternoon Redcoat numbers are much improved over the morning one, something is working. We clean up and take down the popups for the night, the wind is unpredictable and the rain keeps a comin'.

     Ben doesn't mention the vitamin 'i' for pain relief, but seems everyone got home, warmed, dried, fed, rested and sheltered fine because on Sunday - we gathered again.  we get two more crew the second day, and I get to give away an orange hat to our new ITT, the blue hat has hers.  Refeshing all that was taught the first day goes quickly after the Redcoat, and that Redcoat is better still. The third Redcoat is normally the best group scores, tired sets in by the last one of the weekend. The cloudy gray skies are fading to blue, wind is constant but the rains are holding off - and seems like we are drying out today. Ben calls me over to help Brian with making a sling with a 1907 model leather sling, since I use one. Leather Sling and Shooting Positions by James R. Owens is my reference manual. But YouTube probably has some video about it. The sling helps him get several Rifleman scores in the afternoon. All the shooters are getting better although, mechanical and ammunition will always seem to frustrate at the wrong times. Everyone keeps working through their individual challenges. Justine is interesting, he has a camera to take pictures of his shot, at the end of his rifle. The number and amount of technology in sighting systems and rifles amazes me, but then I know it is always the shooter, not the firearm that has the most control of performance.  After two AQTs in the morning, and about four in the afternoon a break at lunch for dangerous old men, and a break to prepare for KD presentation by Andy and the presentation of several well earned Rifleman patches.

   Somewhere on stepping up to help a shooter I fell down, helped the shooter clear her rifle and re-engage the target, I blew my ankle out. That was it for real walking mobility, I sat, moved a bit slowly and got to my vehicle. I found a better sling for Brian and gave it to him as they fired the last Redcoat and began the clean up. Then I left and drove quickly home to recover, ice pack for a few hours, then hot soak and napped during both. Ate my dinner and caught up on my wife's weekend.  Wash the clothes, sleep and start to slowly unload the mailbox and my vehicle - have to get ready to do it again in Coupeville this coming weekend.

The real problem... is XXX violence....

  Yesterday were marches against GUN violence, I didn't join, because I believe in violence (it does exist) and I know the government can't protect me from it. Especially when I might use it to protect myself or others.  If I would use a gun or something else, not really important, just know that I would not be a gentle man if called upon to destroy something destructive. I grew up on heroes. Lots of heroes and lots of violence all for the good... Ajax, a large rock, William Tell crossbow, Robin Hood a long bow.  The weapon isn't so important the intent is. So governments go all the way to Nukes, and subtle poisons, or strange unknown weapons. But as I listened and commented on the discussion about the EVIL AR 15, military grade firearm (spoken by folks that haven't ever been a functioning military grade expert) I started to realize that Assault Rifle has reached the status of an idol.

   An inanimate object revered for mystic super powers of death and destruction, in other words an idol of worship.  Both the Gun folks and the Anti-gun goofs have elevated it way up there. Most real gun people know it is a tool, a toy, and a trial, but used properly no one needs to get hurt because it exists. Unless you really do think it is an idol of worship, then you will get hurt by it. The problem lives in the person or people that think it has intent. I have carried one like it for years and years, and seemed to be sleeping with it more than I was with my wife, periodically. I also know it doesn't do well against tanks and aircraft and trucks. I know that it may jam, break, misfire, or disappear into deep dark waters or mud when most inconvenient. One of Murphy's rules.

   I know the anti-Gun forces really believe in its mystic powers - they never give up their guns, just make the little guy, the worker, the slug, the unworthy must give up their guns so they have no power. If I were as terrified of failure as they are, the elite, nobles, special people - I might think I need those evil AR platform guns carried by my expert professional heroes to save me and mine. They really do bow down to those inanimate objects and pray they will be there when the crisis comes.  Then because they believe that power comes from the barrel of a weapon they crush the opposition... until they run into people of will to resist... and they are never ready for that. Oh, there are FBI special squads, SWATs and real assassins working for the government goofs, and they will and do kill and are seldom held responsible - but it doesn't look like any group that need force to rule will last long if the people have values stronger than the folks that think they are in charge.

   I am a fat little old man, but I don't get my power from idol worship, nor my guns.  I get all I need from the Bible, and many other readings and experiences in my life and the histories of others. I do want protection for the students in schools, I want to charge school boards and administration with failures to provide such protection. I also want the same folks to provide a quality education since I am robbed to pay for it. But if you have massive demonstrations in worship of the mystic power of the gun and not in getting those sick and sickening people that attack the defenseless help and rescue from their own demons... then I am sure the problem of mass deaths isn't going away.  Somehow the media, entertainment and educational and journalism have corrupted the whole way of thinking about everything and there doesn't seem to be any answer except to worship and lock up the mystic powers of those inanimate objects built for war, almost, but so evil regular folks can't be trusted with them.

Okay, I am now for Gun Control, and the restriction on AR type Assault Rifles from the folks...

  First, if you are so ignorant (lack knowledge) that you trust the government at any level to protect all you love you shouldn't be allowed to touch a weapon. If you are ignorant of why there is a 2nd Amendment for the original Constitution, you aren't ready to be trusted with a weapon. If you are sure that limiting the number of rounds will prevent mass shooting in the future, you shouldn't have access to weapons that could make such a slaughter. If you think that my deciding to not own an AR platform rifle means at all my years of instructing on it, running training around it, and carrying it into battle for the government will disappear when you outlaw those to civilians - you shouldn't be making decisions for others to live under. So if you can't pass a test that asks about what you are making a logical choice about the prohibited weapon, you can't have such a weapon and can't vote on this matter.

   I would love to point out, especially when people use the last Assault Weapons Ban, ten years and no mass shootings in the schools. That there were also no Alien Spaceship Battles that Earth lost, thanks to the International Space Agency, during the same period. I would also be sure to mention two states that have banned or registered all Assault Weapons and large magazine have not enforced any of the law against the population that are not in compliance. I suspect those states do not want a Constitutional Test case in the courts.

  I suspect that home schooling and private schools will produce the best thinking young people and the continued disarming of all those that just don't know enough to be entrusted with arms or the vote will increase in speed. Until only the noble class of folks armed with knowledge and responsibility will be continuing the American traditions... by some time soon after the newest AWB, the current Constitution will be replaced and we will be stuck with our enemies among the sheep in the fold. Then it really will get bloody. Does anyone study History any longer? 

Happy anniversary, yes, really have a happy anniversary...

  Today is the official date, government approved, and done without US Army assistance nor resistance, the day I stood before a Methodist Minister with my girl friend and became very much more married. My father, mother, sisters and a niece were there to officially witness and support the event. Mother went a bit beyond the call to make sure we had a wedding cake and something to drink a toast with and to capture pictures. We were blest. For it doesn't always happen so well, today marriage seems so difficult but I and my wife had our own parents and others of examples of solid long lasting unions. We were blest.

  I believed at the time, and teased my wife about it, that I wasn't going to live to forty. Now we are married forty-six years. We are thankful and know that we have been blest.

  I meander the kitchen making my oatmeal, and she steps in and out making hers, a dance we are comfortable doing, speaking in tongues and chuckles, pointing out the future, thinking about the past.
She isn't cute, her long black hairs has been cut long ago, it has grayed and now silver. I don't wear a uniform nor get up too early to go do PT. She has grown to a beauty that only God and I know, and she shares her loves.  God and I get her fears, but she loves well and deeply. We will always keep working on and around the fears. I would hope the world would find true love, for it is there. It is everywhere.
 
   Did I mention? We are blest.

What are you basing your life upon?

  The Gun Violence, Gun Control, Abortion and generally, how one is supposed to live, and why doesn't the government do something to fix it  --  has come up again. All those questions, debates and solutions circle around seemingly going no where. So I see no need to expound on any of them, as soon as you said 'the government should' you have left the playing field.

  Everything that should be better can be if everyone steps up and does the correct important things in their life and with their family and friends and to all strangers they meet. If I don't get high on drugs nor alcohol, then drunk driving won't happen. There already is law, but it is behavior that makes the best things happen, not law. Most law is punitive, some faceless fellow is going to punish you and you should be afraid. That doesn't motivate me, anyone else out there deciding that they will be good because they will be punished? No, most people are in denial, it will never happen to me, goes their thoughts.

   I wonder if any of us have looked deeply into why we do what we do, your life is patterned on a tale of success and goodness, isn't it? When you turn on the television to see Law and Order, you find the criminals hiding, lying and lawyering up. Yeah, then for a bit more drama, you have the 'good' guys cheating on their loves, the job, the rules and in general only a little bit better than the accused.  But watching the actors never registers as unacceptable behavior, someone is killed during a story, then you see the same actor in another story very much alive - you now, in your mind, think being killed isn't real. Don't teach bad behavior, teach and sell only good behavior. I am sure I have never had the romances illustrated on entertainment, really.

Go get them, Grasshopper.

   I will always go back to the fact that I am responsible for my behavior - the wonderful and the totally stupid - it all belongs to me. Do not make the same fool action that hurt the universe again. Don't repeat errors, make different ones but doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome never works there is science and engineering proofs if you care to look them over. There are people that blame the LEFT, the RIGHT, the NRA, the government and all kinds of places to lay blame for all that seems to be wrong and go wrong. Like making my shot, I am the one on the weapon and I am the only one responsible for where the bullet strikes and what happens when it does. Many may care, or very few, and the media may make a lot out of it, nor not, I will always remain the person responsible no matter what anyone says. It will never be the few semi auto rifles that hurt people, out of the millions used responsibly daily. It would be the shooter's fault.

   If you watch enough, for some reason you think you aren't living up to your mental model, making love to hundreds of beautiful women(?) only in the lives of the LOST. You wouldn't even know their names.

Might as well give up... so I did, going in circles has only a limited life...

  The Gun Violence debate is posed by the other side as a problem with the guns, access and danger... but the problem is Cain killed Abel with a rock. David killed Goliath with a stone. And current culture believes more in Road Rage than good manners. Entitlement, I have a right to be rude, crude and lewd... or so I think they think. Have a quiet conversation about the power of words with the intelligent ones, about how easy it is not to use vulgarity, profanity and obscenity. It is likely they are all telling you to take from the forbidden fruit - you won't die.  As justification for their poor choices and why I should be accepting of it - that is unacceptable. Go away!

   So we are now engaged in a conversation, a debate, a rude shouting down match between the forces of good and evil, the left and the right the up and the down. Boring, nothing new, nor better will come from it. Well, you will take care of your portion of the conversation and the conflict, and I will take care of mine and I firmly resolve that I won't kill any children because they haven't gained their maturity. Also, I know they have much more to bring to brighten our world. I also resolve to resist stupidity as I constantly run into it. There is a lot of fantasy in the media, and fairy tales have been my favorites for years and years... but I never dreamed nor aspired to be the Prince, I was more the bookworm in the stacks. I took bat, ball, glove and a good book to Little League... notice I didn't play much after that.

   Lovely wargame I was playing, I picked the name Ajax, and went about gaining experience and points learning the rules and meeting folks from far away online. But I started noticing empty castles, where players had stopped and now the castles were raided, looted and burned - no human life left inside. The computer machine age will miss human beings one day. No poetry, unfortunately I see the children I teach in Sunday school are already lost to poetry, as they sink deeper into their digital distraction device. If I were a betting man, I would say we (the tech savy civilized world) have no way to resist our end.

   When we think another government agency, law, rule or tax is going to fix everything we are lost. How does the FBI, get into defending schools from raiding savages... just because the communications seem so quick? That doesn't mean you have control of anything. I can focus on the front sight, and I don't need optics or electronic enhancements (I just am not going to shoot that far). But I know that the government can't make my shot, only I can. Over and over, I hear Liberty Mutual will fix a flat, and I laugh because thinking only the Xperts and government can handle anything means we should return to a King, a royal lineage.  Don't study History, you might find this human interaction at every level hasn't changed. Personal responsibility, personal action and don't stay on the beach waiting for orders... it is a kill zone.

 

Off to get a haircut...

  And was going to stop and get some Drambuie. And look at how much money is in my accounts, seems the property tax notice arrived at my home. So on post, to the base exchange I go. Sit and wait for the shop to empty a bit, then get up and go looking for the alcohol. I find some interesting furniture, a perfect bench for the porch, some assembly required. So I order it and intend to pick it up after the haircut.
  While I am there I decide to look at the rifles, ugly black ones especially. They have the medium level ARs but then I see a CZ, 805 Bren S1 Carbine, and ask to look at it.  It costs a bit too much, but I like many things about it and see its potential. Talking to the salesman about the price, he said they had to send a different colored one back, seems they didn't think they could sell a six thousand dollar semi-automatic. Not in the exchange for sure.

   On my way out of the exchange I find the alcohol I was looking for, so picked it up. Paying the nice lady at the checkout I wondered when they were going to stop moving all the stuff around, being confusing to us seldom shoppers. She understood, probably heard it before. I did get my haircut, and didn't get my eyebrows trimmed, love the Mentat look.
   In the real world, larger than my little piece of it, the question remains, what are we going to do to stop Gun Violence, and I know as soon as they use that term it is an anti-gun agenda. Not a real search for curing evil, bad manners, disrespect and increasing the love for all mankind... so whatever comes up, won't work. The answers have already been given to the question, but no one likes them.

Monkey see, Monkey do... childhood truths...

  I am sure that sales all know that seeing something produces desires, even if you aren't directly selling a product... They have college courses on that idea. My monkey see, monkey do was my mother telling me that just because someone else did it didn't mean I had to do it... and then she told me how my grandfather had told my grandmother he didn't have to show her how to drive, she had been watching him for a few years already.

   The mind and vision link is amazing, and does make the transfer of knowledge or skills quicker than verbal pictures alone. But having taught a few things in my life, most of them critical survival skills, I learned early on "Do not ever show the wrong way to do anything"  The mind will always use what it saw, no matter how many words were used to say do not to do it that way...  Watching a governor say that our current culture has been corrupted by visual images in media and video games is only partially true. If your favorite actor never got to act again because he died in a motion picture, or if he was wounded and would ever after limp or was missing parts in following performances, the illusions about fighting and combat and death being painless and without cost would fade quickly. But your mind notices that he or she is alive and well next week or the next episode. Real mortality like real morality isn't very forgiving, but fantasy remains a fleeing truth forever.

   So we kill constantly on entertainment media, shooting guns out of hands and capturing the bad guys by smarts is so old Western fables, we want much more blood and lust. But the real people of the old west, would really shoot you if they thought they should. They had higher standards of polite conduct and social interaction. Y'all need to really study Mark Twain's works from his world. And doctors are giving us medications to cure our pains far beyond our ability to observe the patients constantly as their mind is bent, and the side effect lists and warnings become greater for the lawyers to profit from...  but the most troubling thing to me is the lack of faith among the many that really should know better. No God, no creator, no judge, no savior and no reason to be your best always... no reason not to grab all the little monkey sees and wants.

   Often asked recently, how did we go from so many more firearms fifty to sixty years ago, to fewer now and more school shootings. One TV show about schools and teachers had a teacher bringing a gun to school taking it out and threatening his students and then firing some blanks... I as a real student would have gotten up gone out of the classroom, to lodge a complaint and not worry about the rest of the day, I would have even gone outside and smoked a cigarette. But the writers wanted you to think the students would have been terrified of the gun - gosh, I was a much tougher kid than that, much. And I was more terrified of pretty girls and being thought of as weak.

   But I am almost sure I am going to be pounded for being so sure that God loves me, than accused of sexual misconduct or planning a bloody act of terror. Where did those strange values come from? And I won't make the evening news, I like shooting, guns and good people. I won't be news worthy...

God knows and the government doesn't yet but...

   Somehow the entire idea that the government will make everything better is suspect. The FBI agents have adulterous affairs, think nothing of it, and are swayed to abuse their power for a political party or against others. And you want to understand how they could have missed preventing the shooting of so many at a public school in Florida. They were busy, likely.

  The idea that the 'we the People' gave up our ability to handle problems is new... it is not historic, rational nor holy. I can affect my life and all those that I interact with, and do take responsibility for my actions. I cannot be responsible for what they think about my actions, thoughts, nor purpose. I must always believe we are all doing the best we can with what we have.

  There are agents of evil, ill will, and destruction trying to change everything to the wrong. I don't spend anytime identifying them, but do run into them from time to time, or I see them from afar and avoid any place they would have power over me. I am at Liberty and choose to remain so.

  My view on all school shootings, is that everyone needs to be responsible for building better people.  Allow, first, adults to carry loaded firearms everywhere. The government was restricted from infringing on their right in the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. Secondly, enforce the first part of that same amendment - works for the Swiss and Israelis. To be secure in our nation the People must step up and be well regulated as part of the Militia. Train them, arm them use them to defend (free of cost) the schools and libraries.

  Yes, there should be many other things needing done, but that was the start.

Seventy-first year underway....

 Seventy year celebration done yesterday, now I am an old man. In Korea, in the old days, the celebration was when a man made sixty - of course with modern medicine and good health more men were making that mark, so they shifted it to seventy. Practical folks.

    What I marveled at was that all those beautiful young ladies are still beautiful ladies, fifty some years later. How did they do it? Good hearts, strong spirit and joy and laughter?  I met my wife some fifty years ago, married her about three and a half years later after I removed the governments from the plan - one of the reasons I know governments are made of people with fool notions. I was talking to Mister Wong, a Chinese gentleman, that thanks to his family, the communist government and Hong Kong under the British had no papers as a child. He has over the years made himself a paper trail, his name became spelled differently, and he has traveled. Kind of an Asian Obama tale.

   Anyway, fifty years with my wife has been wonderful. Even when she tries to control me from the passenger seat. Means she cares, not that she doesn't trust my judgement.