A couple of thoughts on mass shootings and terrorism.
I propose that we drop all terrorism laws. Instead we call and charge these people with murder, plain and simple. First off terrorism is a political label that implies the perpetrator has a political/religious message to convey. Calling them a terrorist gives them a forum to shout their message. Secondly, terrorism is not applied uniformly. By just calling what these people do murder we call the act what it is; no message just killing for killings sake. Any message they may have is no longer listened to.
Secondly, I think a majority are attempting a loud suicide that will give them some fame. Do not publish the names or particulars of the perpetrators. Leave them unknown. This will not stop all but I believe it will greatly reduce the number of occurrences.
Thirdly, do a lot more research into providing police with non-lethal ways to subdue suspects. The goal is to reduce death by cop and death of cops to zero.
Monday, November 6, 2017
We visited St. Luke's Episcopal in Kalamazoo, Michigan yesterday. In his sermon the Rev. Dr. Randall R. Warren talked about Jesus welcoming all. I was reminded of my rereading of Exodus a couple of years ago where I realized the book is about the long, hard journey moving from slavery to freedom. The slavery can take many forms, addiction, money, profession, abusive employer, ownership, bigotry, judgement, etc. The road is long and hard with slips backwards.
Judgement and bigotry are two sides of the same coin. Rich looking down their nose at the poor. Egalitarians condemning White Supremacists. Democrats condemning Republicans and vice versa. Christians damning everyone that does not toe the strict line of their God.
These actions of judgement often strike me as sad acts of desperation (I also often find myself in this cart). We all act as though love (acceptance) is a resource in short supply. Because we are taught that we are flawed, not whole, and not lovable; we attempt to improve our standing by showing that others are worse than we are. Sort of like the story about a man putting on sneakers realizing he only had to run faster than another when a hungry lion chased them. We keep score as if it mattered.
God loves each of us equally! There is no shortage of acceptance (love). To compare you and me is an act of futility. We are not the same person; our different perspective can enrich both of us if we are willing to accept. Jesus condemned actions not people and never sent anyone away. We each of us is incomplete, not flawed. Is God a poor artisan?
We can look for the good in other (serve Christ in those we meet) or look for the bad. We will find what we look for. I find more joy in looking for the good; not necessarily comfort, remember Exodus. More anger and hate looking for the flaws.
Our journey as individuals, community, country, and people has setbacks as well a victories.
Judgement and bigotry are two sides of the same coin. Rich looking down their nose at the poor. Egalitarians condemning White Supremacists. Democrats condemning Republicans and vice versa. Christians damning everyone that does not toe the strict line of their God.
These actions of judgement often strike me as sad acts of desperation (I also often find myself in this cart). We all act as though love (acceptance) is a resource in short supply. Because we are taught that we are flawed, not whole, and not lovable; we attempt to improve our standing by showing that others are worse than we are. Sort of like the story about a man putting on sneakers realizing he only had to run faster than another when a hungry lion chased them. We keep score as if it mattered.
God loves each of us equally! There is no shortage of acceptance (love). To compare you and me is an act of futility. We are not the same person; our different perspective can enrich both of us if we are willing to accept. Jesus condemned actions not people and never sent anyone away. We each of us is incomplete, not flawed. Is God a poor artisan?
We can look for the good in other (serve Christ in those we meet) or look for the bad. We will find what we look for. I find more joy in looking for the good; not necessarily comfort, remember Exodus. More anger and hate looking for the flaws.
Our journey as individuals, community, country, and people has setbacks as well a victories.
40 Years of Voyager
I recently read an article on the 40th anniversary of Voyage I and II. The article also referenced John Kennedy's 1961 speech about putting a man on the moon. That got me to thinking about what thinks were like then and the changes we have seen.
In 1961 I was in Germany. Transistor radios had just come out. Their big feature was they were instantly on. There was even a top song about them. We did not have a TV in Germany. The Armed Forces Radio broadcast old radio serials; Inner Sanctum, The Lone Range, Johnny Dollar, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen to name a few. The radios we used were big bulky affairs that took several minutes to warm up and activating the speakers.
Back in the states we had black and white TVs that took several minutes to warm up. One of us children had the duty of turning on the TV for the warm up period while the rest cleaned up from dinner. The warm up took anywhere form 90 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on the age of the tubes. Most convenience stores had tube testers and I spent many an hour testing tubes. The kiosks almost never had the tube we needed.
Radio and TV was over the air. Until UHF came available sometime in the 60s there were usually only 3 channels to watch.
Sometime in the 60s TV manufacturers came out with Instant On TVs. This worked by keeping the set on standby with warmed tubes all the time. electricity was cheap. Even the Instant On TVs were not instant on. They took about as long as current LED TVs to show a picture.
Color TVs were only for the rich. The NBC Peacock's purpose was to allow you to calibrate your colors as the color settings would drift. I never saw the utility of the Peacock as it was never on long enough for you to calibrate the colors. A tedious process. There were even psychological studies on your personality type based on the color setting you used. Football was one of the last shows to switch to color; as my father said it was too fast for the cameras to follow.
Computers where huge room sized machines. The first third generation language (FORTRAN) was not developed until the late fifties. The machines were slow and very limited by today's standards. I wrote my first program in January 1974 on a machine that was first released in 1962. It had a maximum of 64KBytes of RAM. Disk space was around 1-2 MBytes of removable storage. The machine ran at around 600KHz. We eventually sped it up to 1.1 MHz.
Now to 1977. Apple had just released their Apple II. Personal computer were for hobbyists and we mostly considered to be toys. There was no internet. We were coming out of the fuel crisis and a lot of cars smelled like rotten eggs and most had fuel economy in the teens with horrible quality (Vega). HBO was about the only TV subscription available and only was broadcasting from 3 pm to midnight. The shuttle Enterprise had its first test flight in 1977. No shuttle orbited until 1981. The AT&T Antitrust case was only about half way done. AT&T was accused of stifling innovation in phone systems. We were still tied to our land line phones. Most of us did not even have answering machines. Most people had instamatic cameras that used one time use flash cubes. We waited for up to a week for film to be developed.
In 1961 I was in Germany. Transistor radios had just come out. Their big feature was they were instantly on. There was even a top song about them. We did not have a TV in Germany. The Armed Forces Radio broadcast old radio serials; Inner Sanctum, The Lone Range, Johnny Dollar, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen to name a few. The radios we used were big bulky affairs that took several minutes to warm up and activating the speakers.
Back in the states we had black and white TVs that took several minutes to warm up. One of us children had the duty of turning on the TV for the warm up period while the rest cleaned up from dinner. The warm up took anywhere form 90 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on the age of the tubes. Most convenience stores had tube testers and I spent many an hour testing tubes. The kiosks almost never had the tube we needed.
Radio and TV was over the air. Until UHF came available sometime in the 60s there were usually only 3 channels to watch.
Sometime in the 60s TV manufacturers came out with Instant On TVs. This worked by keeping the set on standby with warmed tubes all the time. electricity was cheap. Even the Instant On TVs were not instant on. They took about as long as current LED TVs to show a picture.
Color TVs were only for the rich. The NBC Peacock's purpose was to allow you to calibrate your colors as the color settings would drift. I never saw the utility of the Peacock as it was never on long enough for you to calibrate the colors. A tedious process. There were even psychological studies on your personality type based on the color setting you used. Football was one of the last shows to switch to color; as my father said it was too fast for the cameras to follow.
Computers where huge room sized machines. The first third generation language (FORTRAN) was not developed until the late fifties. The machines were slow and very limited by today's standards. I wrote my first program in January 1974 on a machine that was first released in 1962. It had a maximum of 64KBytes of RAM. Disk space was around 1-2 MBytes of removable storage. The machine ran at around 600KHz. We eventually sped it up to 1.1 MHz.
Now to 1977. Apple had just released their Apple II. Personal computer were for hobbyists and we mostly considered to be toys. There was no internet. We were coming out of the fuel crisis and a lot of cars smelled like rotten eggs and most had fuel economy in the teens with horrible quality (Vega). HBO was about the only TV subscription available and only was broadcasting from 3 pm to midnight. The shuttle Enterprise had its first test flight in 1977. No shuttle orbited until 1981. The AT&T Antitrust case was only about half way done. AT&T was accused of stifling innovation in phone systems. We were still tied to our land line phones. Most of us did not even have answering machines. Most people had instamatic cameras that used one time use flash cubes. We waited for up to a week for film to be developed.
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