This morning I pulled my trash bin to the street, I was struck with just how heavy the trash bin was this week. I think that I am getting weak or my family is generating more trash than it has last week.
Trash is an odd concept. We have things that we can no longer use so we throw them into a indoor waste bin, then when the bin is filled we place them into an outdoor bin and on Tuesday a trash truck swings by and empties my outdoor bin. The trash truck takes the trash away but there really isn’t an away is there? No not really away is a journey usually to a dump site where the trash is burnt or buried.
The concept for hell in the Old testament and Torah has roots in burning of a communities trash. The Greek work Gehenna refers to the valley of the son Himmon where trash and dead bodies were burnt. Many soldiers and veterans of the US army are getting sick and dying from living near trash burring pits. Burning our trash pollutes our environment and makes our bodies ill. When trash is burnt it is not destroyed the matter simply changes form to something poisonous.
Buried trash changes it form underground through decay and over time. The changed matter then makes it way to the communities water table and poison’s the community. The matter that does not escape the soil into the water table becomes dangerous gasses and poisons our air.
Nothing is every destroyed it just changes shape, this is the first law of thermodynamics. We are not throwing anything away when we put something into the trash.
When I was a kid I was taught that I should not litter. All trash should be put into trash cans. This lesson well good intentioned helped create a disposable consumable and dangerous culture. The idea of away made waste something that was ok and manageable through just putting something into a bin and then putting that bin on the street, this is wrong. Waste is not ok.
Starting tomorrow you will see a number on all my blog post titles. This number will be the weight of my families trash. The average U.S. American family produces 18 lbs of trash a day. I will try my best to be under the 18 lb goal. For every lb over I will donate 2 dollars to the sierra club. My donation will hopefully be small and in addition to the charities the family already supports on a regular basis.
I encourage everyone to add the sierra club to their households monthly donations. It is a great organization fighting for climate change. Here is a link for donations to that group.
We are all on this earth together and nothing we make or do goes away ever so lets make sure we make and do things that are good and not poison.
Last week in the news there were two stories. One story was about the shooting of a 15 year old girl. Another story covered the shooting at a senior living facility. The victims at the facility seem to be workers not the facilities customers.
The two things that struck me right away concerning these stories were; the dichotomy of the demographics and the similarities of the tragedies. One story involved a child whose whole life was ahead of her. Chances are high that she had plans and dreams but these dreams and plans were killed when she was gunned down. The other story involved men and women who had lived a lot of their lives and dreams and hopes. Both stories involved gun violence.
Here is another story about gun violence in the United States. It seems that this year 2021 is on track to be the most violent year in regards to to gun violence in the last twenty years.
Prior to this year America was living in one of the safest times ever. What has happened? The last time major change has happened from the Federal government with regards to gun control was about 25 years ago during the Clinton administration.
Both the Brady Bill and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban were signed into law while Bill Clinton were enacted during the Clinton administration. These two laws did a lot for the safety of the country with regards to gun violence. Some interesting numbers here, show that 1993 had the most gun deaths and that 2021 is now on track to beat that number.
Through the years the Brady Bill has had much of its rules stripped and the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire. After the expiration and the watered down Brady Bill gun violence went up quickly. This is strong evidence that the federal laws worked to keep the guns out of the violent peoples hands and protect our children.
Despite evidence for the importance of gun control many people believe that gun control is not needed.
Hope and denial are two human traits. Hope is trust that something good will happen. Denialism is a persons choice to deny reality despite the facts. Denialism is unfounded hope. Denialism is a trait that has no power. Denialism is what seems to have fueled the push for the lapse of the Assault Weapons Ban and the stripping away of the Brady Bill. Denialism masquerading as hope.
There is a hope that people will not harm people but this hope seems to be unfounded when people have the massive firepower in hand(pun intended). Throughout history we have seen that un checked power results in human devastation. In biblical times all the way through current history this has been the theme.
When someone has a gun or access to a gun with little to no checks or rules in place we see extreme acts of violence. We have twenty years of a study in place to prove that this is truth and yet the debate is still raging on.
Lets live and work together with hope not denialism. Lets end the needless debates and do some good.
The heroes used math to predict when society would collapse and their reward for this insight was exile from the society they served. No good deed goes unpunished, am I right?
I have always been intrigued by the capabilities of predicative algorithms and probability. Right now algorithms are used in our lives everyday, often unknown working behind the scenes algorithms influence our career home choice where we are seated on public travel. There is a pretty good book Weapons of Math Destruction. The book outlines how and when algorithms are used in our lives.
The stock market is a pretty volatile business world. Fortunes can be made and destroyed in short spans of time. There are some pretty interesting predictive algorithms that are used by powerful players in the stock market that work well to make many fortunes.
There are some very accurate algorithms out there and some of the predicative algorithms are becoming more and more accurate. I for one love the idea of knowing what the future can hold. I think I like it because I understand that the future is not written it doesn’t even exist time doesn’t exist really. The future is simply the effect of the cause and the cause is the present. Pulling levers now makes a difference immediately and in the future.
I have some children and my major desire for my children was, initially for them to be healthy and happy however I quickly realized I had very little influence over those aspects of their lives and happy is pretty subjective. Now that the children are older I just want them to do the right thing. I want them to be Good with the capital G. I myself also want to do as much good as I can.
I really think that this is the most we can do. With all the predictive algorithms and formulas and tools we have doing good is still the best thing we can do. Thwe formulas and tools can help us choose the most good thing to do but at the end of the day it is doing the good or right things that will save humans and the world.
Rhianna is an amazing artist, entrepreneur and mogul. She has grown her business at a meteoric rate and it has taken hard work, ambition, a god-like drive and some luck. Being god-like, specifically the omnipresent part, can be overwhelming. The Fenty empire is sprawling and has a lot of moving parts, makeup, clothes and tourism to name a few. Rhianna has been involved and worked in all of it.
You and I also having many parts in our mini empires our commonwealths if you will. But our common wealth’s have many moving parts to and we have to manage. Some of us are caretakers for people other than ourselves. Wake up, wake up loved ones, prepare for commute to work, answer emails, answer phone calls, do daily work, take care of the loved ones, commute home, cook dinner, clean, rinse repeat. Just typing the simple day gave me anxiety..
Mental health is health. I know it seems obvious but it isn’t always for us. We see and feel a broken arm and get that treated but sometimes life can be overwhelming. Just typing a few of the elements for a regular day made me feel overwhelmed. Always on, always overwhelmed can take a toll on our mental health and cause serious harm.
Rhianna puts a P in her calendar and takes that time for herself. Here, is a pretty good article about why and when she started doing this.
You cannot count on anyone else to take care of and know you like you will and do. Being self aware comes through quiet meditation and focus but once you reach this self awareness listen and take action before you harm yourself.
Put in that P and unwind. Go to the beach the park the mall, spend time by yourself or with loved ones. Once you know yourself you will be able to take care of yourself.
When you get the chance you should watch the video on this post. It is a dark humor type of video and when I watch it I am taken back to my junior year of high school . I was in Mr. Millers U.S. history class in Lorain Ohio. I cant remember exactly how the discussion was started but I remember Mr. Miller telling one of the students that soldiers in war believe that they are fighting for just causes on each side of the war.
I grew up and joined the U.S. Army and I got to say Mr. Miller was right. I never once thought that I was involved in something wrong. I am not sure if it was patriotism, or duty but I always felt like the United States was the just party.
Look at that two videos in one post. I love that song and the lyrics are pretty interesting. They speak to how many nations use the blinders of patriotism to get citizens to go to war. It doesn’t mention one particular nation, I assume that is because this is done by all nations throughout time. St. Augustine struggled with the concept of just war and came up with philosophy surrounding making war as just as possible. Many argue that this just war theory or philosophy is where modern day war crimes originated.
You know that you have devolved as a species when you are coming up with the most humane way to wage war. To go to war a nation must convince its citizens that war is necessary. Conscription is used but then there is desertion to deal with and traitors. The best way is to convince someone that they are fighting evil or bad guys.
The gun lobby promotes gun ownership as self defense because of “bad guys” with guns. Since you are a good guy you should buy a gun register the gun and when someone breaks into your house shot the bad guy with that gun. In Louisville Kentucky men with guns kicked in the door to Kenneth Walkers house. Kenneth Walker had bought and registered a gun for self defense he thought he was a good guy. Kenneth the good guy with the gun shot at the bad guys with guns. In effort to defend his girlfriend. You can read an article about Kenneths actions here .
Kenneth didn’t stop the bad guys with guns, they killed his girlfriend with their guns and shot Kenneth. Kenneth’s girlfriend was Breonna Taylor and the bad guys who shot and killed her were; Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove. You can read about them here. These guys thought they were good guys.
In the video there is a scene where everyone is pointing guns at everyone else and someone asks a woman who the bad guys are and she says something like you all seem terrible to me.
Shooting someone is bad full stop. That is a great rule to live by. Shooting someone is wrong. The police officers were wrong and they murdered Breonna Taylor. Honestly Kenneth was also wrong. In hindsight maybe if Kenneth were to not have fired at the police they would have only kicked in the door and arrested the wrong couple (yeah the police kicked in the wrong door it was the wrong address!). We will never know though because Kenneth thought he was shooting bad guys with guns and police thought they were shooting a bad guy with a gun (even though they did kick in the door to this guys house, breached his inner sanctum in a violent manner).
The bad guys with guns who murdered Breonna Taylor and tried to murder Kenneth Walker, were not sent to prison. It breaks the heart truly that Breonna is dead and there is no justice. The jury and broken justice system that could not find a fault with the bad guys is a problem. I think maybe a big part of the problem is that the justice system itself is a “bad guy’ with a gun. Anytime you must use violence to enforce justice I would argue that you are far from policing by consent. There is no one that would want a police officer to kick in there door to their home ever and shot their significant other.
I think maybe that is what makes someone a good or bad guy. Inflicting ones will on someone without consent. Sadly throughout the world this is happening everyday by millions of people.
Breaking the cycle is painful but possible I hope and it has to start with someone. It doesn’t look like it will start with those in authority anytime soon so I will try to have it start with me. I will work towards respect and empathy for others in all my actions and when I get the chance (which I should in a democracy) I will vote for authority that has respect and empathy for others and not in one that declares “good guys and bad guys”. It is this good versus evil reductive nonsense that has and continues to hold our species back for forever. There are no good guys or bad guys when everyone is holding a gun period.
A good guy finds a way to help others that doesn’t involve shooting them or kicking in the door their home and shooting them.
Me my wife and kids (I almost typed “My Wife and KIds” there, man I loved that show) worked in our church’s soup kitchen for about 8 years. I loved seeing and helping people my wife loved feeding people and the kids were young enough that they still did as they were told.
Working in the soup kitchen was strange. We would check the supplies and if needed head out to a grocery store and purchase supplies. The grocery store was full of food. The grocery store has always been full of food even at the height of the pandemic very few food items at our local grocery store went un stocked. That abundance seems to be the evidence for success of the United States social system. Here is an interesting article comparing the shopping differences in different countries. The grocery stores in the United States are amazing we do not seem to be bound by geography or season, you can get food from all around the world in and out of the season that the food is grown in. I am no longer working in the soup kitchen however I enjoy cooking at the house and it is not uncommon for me to find a recipe online travel to my local grocery store and get the ingredients I need to prepare the food, no matter what time of the year it is.
After picking up all the needed supplies we would go back to the kitchen and start cooking. Quick note here, most of the supplies we picked up were perishables, the community and church patrons have been very generous and we always had supplies on hand. As we started cooking and opening up the kitchen to the public folks would poor in. It took time and there were lulls in the customers coming is so my wife and the kids would spend that time playing scrabble of course
Something that struck me then and I still find startling is the demographics of the hungry in the United States. Most of our customers were children under 16 and adults over the age of 55. So basically people who could not work.
The same system that created the circumstances for the abundance in the grocery store has also created a rather high amount of poor hungry children and senior citizens. Economics is a required class for most in college. When I first got out of the US Army I spent a fair amount of time at the employment office looking for work and speaking with the veterans assistant. When I couldn’t find employment I was told that “it was the economy”. Being the smart alec that I am I asked the assistant to define the economy he couldn’t. The economy is; the resources of a group and how they are managed. That is it simply put it is how we get all that food in the grocery store onto our plates or how it is kept away from our children’s plates. That is the economy and it is not working.
Children are staving while food spoils. Ecological systems collapse and parts of the world become unlivable for humans and almost any animal. I think about the Cedars of Lebanon and their destruction and I see a parallels to the logging that the United States has done out west and now what is left is being destroyed in fire and drought. In Flint Michigan the drinking water was poisoned and there are cities in Pennsylvania that people cannot live in and have fires that have been burning for over 50 years.
I know todays post seems like a bummer and it can be easy to dismiss it all by saying I am not responsible for the hungry children because they are not my kids and I go to work and kill myself everyday to make sure my kids are not hungry. What happens when you can no longer kill yourself? Will you be at the soup kitchen? Many of the retired soup kitchen customers had family. I know because they would show up when tragedy struck for the customer. We like to believe as parents that our children would not abandon us but what if our children are killing themselves to provide for their children and do not have the bandwidth for us. Well then we can dismiss the system with our 401k’s pension plans and medicare right? I have seen story after story of cases were 401ks and pension plans have been robbed and where medicare has not covered the bills. I am not trying to scare anyone but I am beginning to frighten myself. My dad is preparing for retirement right now and I cannot imagine what his anxiety level looks like. Dad and mom worked ungodly hours to take care of me and my sisters for years. Me and the family recycle and I find it tempting to dismiss the ecological disasters with the idea that we recycle so we are not adding to the problem but aren’t we?
See there is a difference in thoughts and idea here. The current economic system in most of the world involves induvial rights and freedoms and no responsibility. Instead of being responsible for our success and our families success the attitude has to change to a sense of obligation for everyone and everything. Here in the United States we are taught that, we are born with rights. In the document that declared Independence from the Monarchy the founding fathers spoke highly about the rights. The founding fathers called them Unalienable. Unalienable means that the rights are impossible to take away or give up. They say that in mans creation they are endowed the rights by the creator but these rights cost something don’t they? The rights are LIfe, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Life requires food and our children are not getting food. Liberty requires freedom and in the United States for every 100 000 people there are 655 that are incarcerated. Happiness is a hard one isn’t it. “Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them” – Tolstoy. It is hard to define and hard to be happy with the current world state. How can we take solace in the poverty, pestilence and war?
Working at the soup kitchen would seem depressing seeing hungry kids and senior citizens should have really bummed me out but it didn’t. I am not cold and unfeeling that is not why it didn’t bum me out. I got to connect with these folks, by talking and playing board games and on nights when me and the wife cooked enough eating with them.
That community helped me realize the major problem with society. We think about rights instead of obligations. Instead of protecting everyone and everything we decide to take care of our rights and our family rights. This thinking causes stockpiling and the few times grocery stores have ran out of food was do to families buying more supplies than they needed.
It is fear and lack of knowledge that keep us away from our obligations. You have an obligation to humanity and the world you live in. We have to take care of each other and the world. When I think of obligation I think of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
We are commanded in the Christian religion and every religion to Love each other and we have that definition for love. This is what we should live by. Love should enforce our sense of community and obligation to others.
I am not sure about you but freedoms and rights give me little solace with the current state of the world but love and the power of love… That is my happy place. Love is the only hope I see for my children and it is the only path that has seemed to work in the past.
My favorite time of the workday is when I get home and see my wife. She is my best friend and I love spending time with her. My second favorite time of the work day is when I get home and see my dog.
Even when I worked from home and had to run out my dog would love seeing me. It could be an hour or 3 hours and he was always giddy to see me. Tail wagging ears up he just loves giving and receiving attention. I don’t know why he loves attention. I mean I know that wolves have evolved over time and there was a split. The dog became humanities best friend and the wolves are out there doing there own thing. I also know that dogs have been breed and were literally made for human companionship and it shows when I get home.
Originally dogs as companions had the major duty of protection and when the moment arises dog parents will tell you protection is still high for a dog but as humans lives changed so did the dogs. We now live longer and need more than protection we need affection and love and dogs show that in spades.
The thing about a dogs love is that it is present no matter what we do. If we deserve it or not. Our dog doesn’t care about how good or bad we were all day it will still greet you at the door show you an enormous amount of love. I think only when a dog is scared will that dog not show you love. When you are down the dog will find a way to physically position his or herself so that you can pet them. Many people who suffer trauma have found helpful therapy in being a dog parent.
I think this all out love we see in our pets that has been breed into them is something we need to learn from them. There are the terms “kicking them when they are down” and “piling on” and “even Killing them with kindness”. All these terms involve hurting someone. It is easier to harm someone than it is to help them. We pile on or kick people because we feel they deserve it but do they?
Deserved implies that we earned something. I don’t think anything is earned. I think that God, nature, the universe has given us everything, including a role model in our dogs. The giving nature of God and our dog should be our guide when we begin to decide what we and others deserve.
There is a podcast that I absolutely love. It is 99 percent invisible. When you get the chance you should definitely give the podcast a listen. Roman Mars is a great host and the staff has some amazing shows.
Me, my wife and kids love to visit museums… Ok ok me and my wife love to visit museums and of course my wife and I always read the plaque. The always read the plaque is a thing that Roman Mars encourages all his listeners to do. I have done this since I was a child. My wife and I have children from our first marriages we are a regular Brady Bunch one weekend we were at a revolutionary war fort and museum and my wife could tell that she was “loosing the crowd” so she had each child read a plaque out loud to the group around the fort on our ad hoc self lead group tour. It was moments like this that made me want to marry that woman (still shocked she said yes to this day).
Me, my wife and two step sons were at the Jacksonville Museum of Science and history and I was reading a plaque. In front of a skeleton, the skeleton was a skeleton of a whale. Honestly if I were to only see the skeleton of the whale I would have assumed that the whale was much smaller than it actually is. Whales are massive creatures and much of their mass is not in the skeletal structure.
The podcast 99 % invisible had a show that explained how the shape of dinosaurs has changed over the years. It was a great show and explained that with skeletons and fossils there is still some guesses that are made about the dinosaurs appearance and the guesses have changed or evolved with new evidence. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/welcome-to-jurassic-art/
When you get the chance check out the podcast show it is worth listening too. I mentioned the podcast to my wife at the museum and I again thought about assumptions, best guesses and life.
Everyday we make decisions, some ae big and others are small but we have to use the information we have to make the gest guess. We are not always going to have the best information possible and over time we will get more accurate information and when presented with this information their is absolutely nothing wrong with changing our decisions.
Best guess
There are many people that have or are experiencing midlife career changes, and they can be scary and provide for a lot of anxiety however let me tell you that if you evaluated all the facts and made a change based on the facts than there is nothing wrong with that. As long as everything we do is done in a loving manner then you have not made the “wrong” decision.
What matters more than what we do is often how we do something. As a child I was often reminded of the words from 1 Corinthians 10:31 by my mother. “Johnny whatever you do you should do well for the glory of God”. I can still remember those words today and they help. I have done and still do work that seems menial, but I just recall my mothers words and that helps a lot.
So whatever choices you make today just remember that you can do it. Analyze evaluate and if needed correct course. In other words “Keep calm and make your best guesses”.
Most local auto parts stores have a program that allows the client to rent a tool. In 1885 Carl Benz created the worlds first automobile. Over the weekend I visited the Jacksonville FL museum of science and history. The museum is amazing and has a wonderful planetarium. If you are ever in the Jacksonville area you should certainly visit the museum I am sure you would not be disappointed.
The museum had an exhibit it was an exhibit that me and the family had seen before and one that will never grow old looking at. The exhibit was the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was recreations of Da Vinci’s diary actually. For my oldest sons birthday the diary was one of his gifts from me. In the creations there was of course an automobile. Well more like a spring powered carriage. Some historians would argue that this was the worlds first automobile. Ever since humanity traded travel by beast for automobile travel we have been living in a new world and have needed new tools to navigate it.
Automobiles, travel and repair is and continues to change and the tools to repair our vehicles change along with it. Some of the tools are special and can be quite expensive, so I have used the tool loaner program often.
I have heard someone say that, with the right tool a person can fix anything and I think that the statement is only a third true. With the right tool, work and time anything can be fixed. To have access to all the tools in the world is worthless if one does not use them or borrow and use them. That is the effort the use and then there is the time. Anything worth doing will take time and one must remain patient. There is a book called GRIT in which Angela Duckworth outlines what grit is and why we need it. Grit involves determination over time.
Today in life we will face a myriad of problems. Big ones small ones we have all kinds of issues that we have to deal with it and their all tools to help us with these issues. The biggest amongst them being knowledge. We have two kids in high school and I cannot encourage them enough to learn as much as they can everyday.
As adults our education should never stop. The maxim learn something new everyday is an important one. Knowledge is what we have learned or what we know. Wisdom is the effort and and use of this knowledge. Most of our knowledge is borrowed, through reading the works of brilliant minds like Leonardo Da Vinci we borrow the knowledge and then with wisdom folks like Benz use the tools to make machines that make a weeks journey possible to complete in a day.
No matter what you are facing no matter how hard it seems the tools are around you and often within you.
For as long as I can remember I have been a comic book fan. I love the stories, the art, the heroes and the villain’s. In a good comic book it all comes together for an enjoyable read. A real treat.
Most comic books feature a main protagonist, their name is usually plastered on the front of the magazine. The worlds our heroes protect and villain’s terrorize are mythical landscapes some are dystopian style and others are more balanced but in almost every comic book the villain is awful in their deeds. Some comic books have taken strides in humanizing their villains’ through back stories but still the actions of the villain’s are big. What the villains do gives the protagonist a mountain to climb and provides drama that propels the story forward. In the new comic book from DC Superman:Son of Kal-El. Jon Kent son of superman and Louis Lane does take on some real life villains like climate change, as well as a pretty bogus villain that was just introduced this month, and in the Marvel property The Black Panther, our heroes take on racism’s as well as the heinous villains. In the comic book Superman Lex Luthor the CEO of Lexcorp ran for and became president of the United States. Lex Luthor Divested from his company and made Talia Al Ghul the president of Lexcorp. Donald Trump never divested from his company while he was president, so the writers could not even imagine a world where someone would be as awful a president as Donald Trump was.
In the comic books good always wins, this is also true for the real world however in most comic books our protagonists defeat good on their own or with a partner, this is not how it works in the real world. To defeat evil or bad things we all have to work together. We can’t strap on a cap and eradicate diseases, poverty, climate change or crime.
Right now the world is experiencing a health pandemic with Covid 19. The last case of Polio in the United states was recorded in 1979. The scientists worked together with the doctors to craft a vaccination against Polio. The hospitals worked with communities to administer the vaccine and the citizens took the vaccine. Right now scientists and hospitals have done their part now it is time to step up and do ours. We have to get vaccinated. Herd immunity is essentially a myth. The mythical nature of herd immunity is being proven with the Delta variant of Covid 19. We have proof in nations that have not embraced the Polio vaccine like the United States that without a majority of citizens doing the right thing through vaccination we will never beat this villain. Afghanistan and Pakistan have been vaccine hesitant with the Polio vaccine and Polio still exists there unfortunately it seems that the children suffer the most.
There was just another story this morning on the news about a healthy college student Freshman that would not get vaccinated who died from Covid 19. If you love your children, grandchildren, family and neighbors it seems like you would jump at the chance to be a hero.
If you have already been vaccinated I salute you and thank you for doing your part you are a hero. If you haven’t been vaccinated I implore you to be brave. Joshua 1:9 Tells us to be brave and of good courage. Roll up your selves and get the jab.
This link will give you more information on where and how to get vaccinated.
The Corrigan Encore 