Friends

Mark wrote an introspective post, "101 Things About Me", & it got us thinking about doing something similar. This is a tad more focused & a hell of a lot shorter. It is about friends. You know, that species that you just wanna kill sometimes if they weren't your friends. We also feel that we are on the verge of losing a friend for reasons unknown to us. Considering the, umm, circumstances with this friendship, it's probably for the best. Sad, truly, but past experience has shown us that friends can be fickle indeed- here today, gone tomorrow. Feel free to post your own answers to these questions in the comments link.

1. Do you have many friends (not acquaintances)?
No - about a dozen.
2. Do you have any close friends?
A few - to a point.
3. Is your closest friend male or female?
Male.
4. Do you have a lifelong friend?
No.
5. Do you share your most guarded thoughts with any friends?
No.
6. Does anyone consider you a close friend?
A few - to a point.
7. Do any friends share their most guarded thoughts with you?
No.
8. Does anyone consider you a lifelong friend?
No.
9. Are your friends mostly from work or personal life?
Personal life.
10. Do you go out of your way for friends?
Let me count the ways.
11. Do friends go out of their way for you?
A few - occassionally.
12. Do you have a trusted friend?
No.
13. What single-most quality do you look for in a close friend?
Honesty.
14. Have you ever lost a close friend over a silly argument?
No.
15. Have you ever lost a close friend over something important to you or him?
No.
16. If you could have 50 friends or just one close friend, what's your choice?
One close friend.
17. What's the most important thing you can contribute to a close friendship?
Being there when needed.
18. Do your friends share similar interests with you?
Most do.
19. Would you rather have your significant other as a lover or as a best friend?
Best friend.
20. Is your significant other your best friend?
No.
21. On a scale of 1-10 (10=most) how important is it to have friends?
7

There's something to be said about this:

I am a Rock (by Simon & Garfunkel)

A winter’s day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don’t talk of love,
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room,
safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Theological Musings

Looking up at the night sky, filled with countless stars & galaxies, one can't help but wonder at the enormity of the universe & the timelessness of it. This gives one pause to reflect on its meaning & ones relationship to it. Why is the universe here? Why indeed are humans here? The seemingly imponderable seems ponderable when one turns to religion: God. But whose religion? Whose God?

Since we are living in a predominantly Christian nation & society, it seems natural to pose a few questions in line with Christian belief. We do not know whether there are valid answers to them & we are not asking in a mocking way. We are just trying to ponder the imponderable.

The first question. What does one do in Heaven? If Heaven means eternity in the realm of God, what does one do there? We have heard that the purpose is to glorify God. But is God so vain-glorious that he needs such eternal adulation? Even so, what does one do when one is not glorifing God? One may be reunited with loves ones. Okay, but after the reunion, what does one do? Humans are driven by purpose, by goals. What purpose is there in Heaven? What goals to be met? Walks through the Heavenly Garden seem not enough. Is there learning to be had? Even so, then what? Is Heaven all play? Well, all play & no work would seem to make an Angel a bored boy. Just what the hell does one do in Heaven?

Second question: Why is the universe so vast? We are talking at least 15 billion light years. It is incomprehensibly huge. 186,000 miles per second for light, times 15 billion = well, it's a lot of miles. If we humans are God's only creation in the universe, why did He make the universe so big? Why not have the universe end with the solar system? Why not have it stop at Mars? What is the purpose of all that extra universe if humans cannot possibly hope to travel very much into it? Or did God create other forms on other planets & galaxies? Then we are not alone. Well, if there are other life forms with souls, has God touched them? Has Jesus been to them as He had been to us on Earth? If not, why not? If so, did He die there in some manner for their sins? If they have no souls, what purpose for them?

There are other questions, but they will wait.

Congratulations Jessica!

Congratulations Jessica upon completion of the police academy! Good job. We are proud of you.

And They Wonder Why Dems Lose Elections

So they had a march in Atlanta commemorating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act & Harry Belafonte, the has-been entertainer & now a decrepit, current "activist", was a featured speaker. Here's what Harry-bats-in-his-Belafonte had to say:

He referred to prominent African-American officials in the Bush administration as "black tyrants." Recall that 3 years ago he referred to Colin Powell as a "house slave" , comparing Powell to a slave who will say only "what the master wants to hear."

Brilliant political anal yst that he is, Belafonte went on to compare the Bush administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany (move over Dick Durbin). He was asked about the impact of prominent blacks in the Bush administration & he answered, "Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich (wrong Harry, Hitler had none-ed.). Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value. If a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated. "

A Cybercast News Service reporter who interviewed Belafonte asked him who was a "black tyrant?" Belafonte, whose only claim to higher education was to play a gig at Yale, said, "You." When the reporter reminded Belafonte that he, the reporter, was Caucasian, Belafonte ended the interview. We can only conclude by his answer that Belafonte is either color-blind or has gone Stevie Wonder on us. Belafonte is "way-o" out in space.

Then there was Dick Gregory, a former "comedian", who looks like he should be selling Famous Amos cookies. Another graduate of College Entertainment University, Gregory said, "They (black conservatives) have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it (the swastika symbol) up?" ("Done messed it up"? This from a college entertainer?!). Gregory went on calling the USA "the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet." But that didn't stop Gregory from staying in the USA so he could earn a good living on his comedy.

About Bush 2004 election, Prof. Gregory said, "They didn't win, and I got that from the white press. At four o'clock [on Election Day 2004], that evening, the white press said from the exit polls that [Democratic presidential nominee John] Kerry had won by a landslide and then three hours later something funny happened." Whatever happened that was funny, it was a hell of a lot funnier then his old comedy routine. He should have dropped comedy & been a political science professor. We all could have learned so much from him. And what's all this "white press" stuff? He doesn't trust the black press? Or is he prejudiced?

Next up to the podium was Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show." "(Republicans) all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves. " (Howard Dean move over) "It is indeed criminal to steal an election and within two years run up a federal deficit of half-a-trillion dollars, send our young people over to Iraq to die for an unjust war. What they are doing is criminal." "[The] Supreme Court was an accomplice to the biggest election crime in history in 2000. And I call it a crime because indeed that is exactly what it was."

"They shot and missed when they enslaved, segregated and oppressed our people. They shot and missed when they stole the past two presidential elections. They shot and missed when they denied our right to vote," Mathis said. (No Judge, ya got it backwards - it was the Southern Dems who did all that to your people). But we gotta believe the judge because...well because he's a tv star!

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is as intelligent as a message in a Chinese fortune cookie, put her 2-bits in. "Some changes have to be made so we don't have a repeat of 2000 and 2004 where there was intimidation and discrepancies at the polls." Hush, Nancy! Didn't you read the latest report of the 2004 election? It seems the Dems were in the forefront of intimidation & discrepancies.

Then there was Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.): "The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about." Lee also called the war in Iraq "unnecessary, immoral and illegal" and added "our nation was lied to in order to justify this invasion and occupation." To think, your tax dollars pay her salary.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) declared that the president's "record against human rights, civil rights, economic rights, is absolutely terrible." Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said America was being ruled by the "Bush mentality," where "crony capitalism" was supreme.

Only Stevie Wonder came closest to sanity: "At this time we have a choice to make. Father God is watching while we cause Mother Earth so much pain. It's such a shame. Not enough money for the young, the old, the poor, but for war there is always more." Could he be the black Michael Jackson?

Naturally, the crowd in the audience fell over each other in cheers & applause for the gathered wisdom of their leadership.

Folks, this is all the Dems have to offer: wild accusations with as much thought behind their statements as they can avoid. You see it with the rants of the Hollywood crowd, the screels of Howard Dean & the moaning of the Liberal media. They offer nothing concrete for legislation, no plans, no ideas. They are devoid of them & can only resort to the smart-ass, brainless comments that prove that they are indeed stupider than they look.

This is why Democrats will continue to lose elections. Maybe we should thank them.

Hiroshima - 60 Years

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. The death toll exceeded 100,000, with countless dying for years afterwards due to radiation sickness.

There have been 60 years of debate as to whether the United States should have dropped it. Some argue it hastened an end to the war. The alternative was to invade Japan & fight a long, protracted ground battle with the resultant deaths of thousands of G.I.'s as well as Japanese citizens. Others argue that Japan was on the verge of surrender & there was no need to drop the bomb.

We are inclined to believe that dropping the bomb was a surgical way of ending the war without a single U.S. soldier being killed. To that end, Japanese civilians were sacrificed over our soldiers. Whether or not Japan was on the verge of surrendering is a question that we will never be able to answer. Maybe they were. But war marches on & sitting around waiting to see if a surrender would come is not a luxury to be envied in battle.

On a less emotional level, we are sure that the powers that be in Washington were curious to "field test" this new weapon, as opposed to the antiseptic desert test.

What piques our interest in the yearly protests against the bombing of Hiroshima are the reasons for the protests. Are they protesting the use of a new horrible weapon of 1945? Well, if the U.S. did not develop the a-bomb, in time some predatory country would. So the U.S. did not let the "genie" out of the bottle, as it is accused. There were many bottles out there for any country determined enough to find them.

Are they protesting the number who died in the bombing or the manner in which they died? It is truly regrettable, but no more than the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany in 1944 in which up to 130,000 may have died. The manner of death in Dresden was equally horrifying, with temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees as a result of the incendiary bombs. What of the daily London bombings by Germany where thousands died. What is the starting point of protest? 100,000 dead? 50,000? 10,000? 100?

Twentieth Century-era war was not a gentleman's game. It came with a price - to soldiers, civilians & many countries' resources. The aggressors, the initiators of such conflicts, paid the most heavily in their losing endeavors.

As terrible as war is, it will always be with us, it will usually be necessary to thwart an aggressor & it will always have its innocent victims. It matters not whether a bullet or an atomic bomb does the killing.

Chess & Children

We'll come straight to the point - If you are a parent, get your child involved in chess. If you are an aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent to children, get them involved in chess. If you have a friend or neighbor who has children, urge them to get their children involved in chess.

Chess is the one game that they can enjoy equally in childhood & adulthood. But besides the fascination of the game, chess has been proven to be an important tool in developing children's skills in other disciplines, improving their I.Q. & improving their school grades. Chess is inexpensive - the equipment costs are nominal. Later on if the child plays tournament there may be a nominal entry fee. Like music lessons, chess lessons can be taken & at less costs.

Chess is not the stodgy, geeky pursuit a lot of people may think it is. Chess is pure intellectual challenge. The power of the mind dictates the outcome, not chance, not luck, not roll of the dice. Some of the benefits of chess include:

Math Development
Pattern Recognition
Science Achievement
Sportsmanship
English Skills
Dealing With Undesirable Situations
Communication Abilities
Learning From Mistakes
Creativity
Responsibility for Actions
Concentration
Discipline
Logical Reasoning
Measurable Individual Accomplishments
Critical Thinking
Team Spirit
Memory
Commitment
Problem Solving
Academic Competition for All
Intellectual Maturity
Belonging to a Good and Diverse Crowd
Self Esteem
Cultural Enrichment
Analyzing Actions & Consequences
Social Skills
Planning Ahead
Empathetic Awareness
Complex Decision Making
Improved Attendance
Higher Grades

Read these studies on how children benefit from playing chess, here, here & here

Here is a site that provides many links to beginners chess, scholastic chess, instructional chess, etc. There are many on-line sites where you can play opponents in real time, such as Yahoo Chess, Pogo.com or WorldChessNetwork.com

Chess can be slow & deliberative in long games or it can be a frenzy of pieces flying in exciting 5, 10, or 20 minute time limits. The best learning process is "over the board", rather than on-line, meaning the child will learn more with someone sitting across the board from him or her then playing a computer program, although software programs are a great secondary tool. Chess is awash with beginner books & beginner software that can help a child learn the game. If you know how to play, even at an entry level, then you can teach a child. Check your schools to see if they have a chess club, check area towns to see if there are local chess clubs. Start a school or local club if there are none. Many elementary schools have tournaments in-house or against other schools. Besides the dead silence that you usually don't associate with children, it is fascinating watching a room full of 10 yr olds deep in thought & puzzlement.

The United States Chess Federation (USCF) provides free scholastic chess materials & support.

You can start a child on the road to a rewarding endeavor which will carry him or her through life in ways that are directly related to what they have learned through chess. It is a joy to behold your child or any child as he or she sits at a game totally focused & using his or her mind in trying to work out the conundrum of the game in progress. It is joyfully humiliating to have that child, in time, regularly beat you at the game.

Amnesty International Gets It Right. Finally

Amnesty International released a report called "In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups". In regards to the conflict in Iraq, it stated that there was a "failure to abide by even the most basic standards of humanitarian law." Geesh - here we go again. It wasn't enough of an embarrassment to Amnesty when they compared Guantanamo to the gulags, now this. Now they have to pile on to that & attack the U.S. again.

But whoa, guess what? They were talking about the so-called "insurgents" this time! "There is no honor nor heroism in blowing up people going to pray or murdering a terrified hostage. Those carrying out such acts are criminals, nothing less, whose actions undermine any claim they may have to be pursuing a legitimate cause." Amnesty International said insurgents were guilty of direct attacks intended to cause the greatest possible loss of civilian life, indiscriminate attacks resulting in the deaths of civilians, targeting humanitarian organizations, abductions and killing captured and defenseless police and military personnel. "We urge armed groups to immediately cease all attacks against civilians and all other abuses," Amnesty International said. "Armed groups, like other parties to the conflict in Iraq, are required to comply strictly with international law in all their acts and remain accountable for their actions."

Maybe the people at Amnesty have finally come to their senses. But where were they last year or the year before in their condemnations of the "insurgents". Well, better late than never. Of course, Amnesty is not quite the rehabilitated organization we would like to think it is. In a caveat, they took a swipe at the U.S. It said U.S.-led forces had used excessive force in response to demonstrations and gatherings, resulting in civilian deaths, and had tortured and abused detainees. This is not quite on a par with beheadings & car bombings, but for Amnesty International its a start.