Opus 2020-233: Ode to Old: Boring Yourself to Death

 ave you known people who retire and die in a very short time.  I know I am not the only one to notice it.  When I got my first teaching position, one of the men on staff had been a teacher at my junior high school.  Keep in mind I was 40 when I transitioned to the classroom.  He was still going strong.  He seemed in the peak of health.  A few years later he retired and was dead within a year.  It makes you think.

I was going through some notes from Pensees and Blaise Pascal had a thought that might give some insight into this.

“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.”  Highlight Loc. 900-903

Often when people retire they find that there is nothing to do.  Their whole life was their job.  Without it they are lost.  There body starts to wind down.  Before you know it they have bored themselves to death.

I can sympathize.  I am retired.  It is really hard to get up and get going when you don’t have any deadlines.  I make my own deadlines.  I set the alarm for 5:00 so I can get up and spend some time in worship and study.  I also have children and grandchildren that bring constant joy to life.  It helps to have things important to care about.

Stay active.

Pascal, Blaise.  Pensees.  Project Gutenberg.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-232: Personal Hangup

I am thinking about getting a MAGA hat.  It would be more of a collector’s item than part of my wardrobe.  I don’t like caps.  They don’t cover my ears or the back of my neck.  I also am not big on wearing advertising.  I avoid clothing with logos.

I have a long history of not liking bumper stickers.  I enjoy reading them on other people’s cars but don’t want them on mine.  For one, they are hard to get off when they get ratty.  For another it means I have to be really careful when I drive.  I don’t feel good about cutting someone off when I have a Jesus bumper sticker.  In today’s world there are a lot of bumper stickers that will get your windshield busted.

I can still talk though, and I can still vote.

Join me either way.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-231: Payday Required

I saw it again.  A couple of women attacked a child holding a Trump sign.  In the first case they grabbed his hat, stomped on his hand, smacked one of the adults and generally acted like spoiled bullies.  The last I heard they had both been arrested.  In the latest episode I didn’t get past the headline but it sounded like the same kind of aggressive behavior.

I think this kind of thing is only partially about Trump.  Yes, they hate him and everything he is trying to do.  The only problem with that is they probably could not tell you what he is trying to do.  It is more endemic than that.  It is about human nature and what Christians call original sin or the carnal nature.  There is something built into human nature that tries to get away with things and is only held in check by concern about possible consequences.  We have all done things that were technically illegal.  Haven’t you ever thrown an apple core out the window as you drove across the desert?  Technically it is littering.  It is illegal.  If there had been a snitch watching you might have restrained yourself.  Have you ever parked in a spot reserved for pregnant women?  Have you ever gone in the exit or ducked under the ropes forming a line?

Most of us have had an adult pounding a sense of right and wrong into us so we only violate minor issues.  The young women involved in these attacks on children with Trump signs were not taught right and wrong as absolute values.  They were taught that right is anything you can get away with and the big crime is getting caught.  It is one of the reasons why the millennial snowflakes are willing to be a part of insurrection.  They are convinced they will not be caught and if by some chance they are, they will be bailed out with no consequence.  So far they have been right.

Sin is fun.  Evil kind of grows on you.  Who has not wanted to throw a rock through a window?  Most of us restrain ourselves.  The rioters don’t.

Trump is not really the problem.  He is the excuse.  The violence will continue until the price paid for uncivilized behavior comes due.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-230: Headlines: Civil not Martial

I have friends who want Trump to send in the troops and take back the cities granting riot privileges to Antifa and BLM.  I keep telling them that it is not a good idea.  When I pointed out that the Progressives* are looking for a “Kent State Moment” they seemed to get the idea.

If you want a good explanation of why sending in the Mounties is not a good idea I would recommend this article from Townhall.  I found it in a link from Free North Carolina.  It explains the law and the complexity of a military solution.  Some I already knew, other points were new to me.

In case you missed it, Trump has shown his creativity.  He is deputizing the local police as federal law enforcement.  That will mean that the rioters can be arrested and prosecuted in federal courts and get around the catch and release local Democrat imitations of a legal system.

Stay tuned and keep praying.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-229: Plow and Crown: The Return of the Nobles

During the feudal era in Europe you had no countries and few large cities.  Power was in the hands of a group of nobles.  They had become nobles because they had the swords and the ability to use them.  They promised to protect those under them in return for obedience.  Thus you had a few living in what they considered luxury and the masses living hand to mouth or worse.  Everything was based on personal power and pledges of loyalty.  Allegiances were constantly changing and life was dangerous.  During this time you saw the gradual development of nations and cities.

A noble would get enough power to call himself a king.  The nobles would support him as long as they felt like it but his only loyal army was a small group of knights and peasants who became his men at arms.  The king gained greater power by reaching out to the common people and the cities.  This gave him a base for the battle with the nobles.  What you had over time was a king with loyalty among the lower classes trying to bring the nobles into submission.  Sometimes it worked.  Usually it didn’t.

Today Donald Trump would have the part of the king, The Progressives* of both parties would be the nobles and then there are the rest of us, the common people.  What is going on now is that Trump is trying to side with the masses in order to keep the elites from taking all our liberty and making us into an aristocracy.  Everywhere you see them taking power under the banner of socialism you see emerging a society in which there is a small, exclusive group at the top living in obscene luxury and the masses struggling to stay alive.  Look at Cuba or Venezuela.  The Communist overlords don’t go without anything but the people are sorting through the trash piles and hunting rats for dinner.

It is what Antifa would like to see.  It is what the liberals are working for.  I don’t know how much attention you are paying to Portland and Seattle but you have Democrats in position of power doing everything they can to keep the violence and anarchy going.  The police are told to stand by and watch.  When they do arrest someone the local D.A., a Democrat, will release them with no bail before the police get the paperwork done.

The coming election is of vital importance to the future our children will face.  Pay attention to the local elections.  Have your politicians forced you to wear a mask?  Have they refused to allow the police to deal with violent insurrectionists.  They need to be removed and that starts at the local ballot box.

And don’t forget to vote for Trump while you are at it.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-228: Vast Wasteland

I am constantly reminded of why I don’t watch TV if I can help it.  At this point I am not evaluating the content, although that should be enough reason not to watch.  What keeps coming home to me is the amount of time wasted on posturing and self aggrandizement.  I have been trying to come out of my protective shell a little bit.  I have people telling me I need to watch this or that.  They send me links to interviews and documentaries.  I have watched a few.  Some are of value.  I could get the same value if a trustworthy source would cut out all the self advertising and bloviating.

Today I came across claims involving the CDC theoretically admitting that the China Virus deaths are grossly exaggerated.  One of the sources I found for information was a video by Ron Paul.  Sounds good.  He is a generally reliable source and a doctor.  So I clicked on the little arrow.  It was a 27 minutes video.  Three minutes into the video he and his co-host were still chewing the fat and socializing.  I went back to looking.  I don’t want to sit listening for 30 minutes to get what could be conveyed in 5.  It isn’t like I am listening to my wife.  I have no commitment to them.

So TV still has not won my heart.  I learned to read years ago and I can still read much faster than people can talk.  Factor in all the warm, fuzzy conversations and reading is far faster.  I am getting old and I don’t have time to waste on ego gratification.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-227: Horseman #?

Most people have heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  The source is the sixth chapter of Revelation.  In that chapter there are four horsemen and each is associated with different disasters.  The traditional names don’t necessarily match up, but that is the way tradition goes.

The first horse is white and seems associated with conquest which is strange because the second, on a red horse removes peace and set the killing going.  He is associated with war which seems the same as conquest, but noone asked me.  The third is on a black horse and carries a balance beam scale.  He is measuring out grain and is identified as famine.  The last horse is pale and the rider was Death.  With this is associated plague.

Trying to explain Biblical prophecy is a dangerous thing to do if you are at a Bible conference.  With what is going on I would wonder if we are in the midst of any of these horses.  My question would be “Does it matter?”  Would it change anything you do today or next week?  I think the purpose is to warn people and get them to think.  If you are afraid of the haunted house you will stay out even if it is not haunted.  If the yard has a “Beware of Dog” sign you will stay out even if they don’t have a dog.

If we are crippled by fear then we are in the reincarnation of the Black Death even if very few people are dying.

Pick a horse if you want.  Things may fall apart but we are not even close in the area of plague or war.

homo unius libri