In spite of believing in God, I still have a problem with folks who pick specific words out of their translation of the Bible and try to impose modern meanings for those words onto others in spite of the fact that those words have been translated, taken out of context, aged for over 2000 years, and sometimes, believe it or not, even twisted by the translator to fit a given agenda that probably has nothing to do with God. (I sincerely believe God is with me on this... or I’m with Him) anyway...
Shakespeare is a great example of why this “strict adherence” is illogical. His stuff was written in ENGLISH and it was only written about 400 years ago. We still use today many of the same words he used back then. But even those words, which began in the same language, have totally different meanings today. In addition, Shakespeare was a master at creating contexts in which his carefully chosen words had at least two meanings... one decidedly naughty, and one that would keep him from being tossed out on his ears by henchmen claiming to represent Queen Elizabeth. (she was actually a Shakespeare fan) Anyway, that’s what made him funny. It’s what made him famous. How many people today try to read him and quit because he’s not funny anymore? That’s precisely because we don’t understand his words today as they were used when he wrote them. Nor do many of us even try to appreciate his genius. His words require some study today, some dedication, because they don’t mean the same things. Now, add another 1500 years worth of language changes, cultural changes, and translation from three different languages to that and you have only begun to scratch the surface of why it’s pointless to argue specific words out of the Bible, especially when those arguing them often haven’t done the required study, haven’t been as dedicated, and probably don’t even really have any personal understanding of what the words they’re arguing even mean. Unless of course you’re saying God’s context isn’t important... that He didn’t put as much care into His work as Shakespeare did. You’re not suggesting that are you?
That brings me to an important discovery in both my spiritual journey and in my understanding of American Politics. I’ve discovered that God is vastly different from man, in spite of having created man in His image. Here’s how it applies to politics: When it comes to God’s rules, we have the Bible. When it comes to man’s rules, we have only ourselves. I won’t get into how men have corrupted the Bible cuz that’s not my point right now. Nor will I further explain how this applies to my spiritual journey because who gives a shit? My point is man’s rules are, by their origins, as flawed as man. It doesn’t matter if Republicans or Democrats drafted them. It doesn’t matter who tries to change or duck them. They’re flawed, just like humans are, and they always will be.
God doesn’t have to deal with His rules being flawed. His rules are perfect. The problem comes when men assume we are capable of creating rules like God. See, God’s perfect rules require no explanation, no debate, no deliberation. They are a matter of personal understanding and acceptance... faith. They only require adherence... and that only from those who believe in them. Men’s rules, on the other hand, need to be explained, justified, proved beneficial to the masses in order for the masses to accept them. Only when men assume they can create perfect rules... that require no discussion or agreement, do we run into the kind of trouble plaguing the democratic process in America today.
By democratic process, I refer to the idea that rules that allow people to live together are developed by and for those people. The rules don’t always please everyone, but, if properly discussed, everyone can agree that the rules are the best for all concerned. It’s not a new idea... it was created before Jesus even walked the earth. I have to believe that He would have come up with something better if He didn’t think it would work.
Yet today, that’s exactly the problem we seem to have. Rather than discussing the rules, we choose sides, condemn each other without listening to what each other has to say, and then spend more time trying to defend our own positions, prove ourselves right, prove the other side wrong, than we do developing, discussing, revising, or even getting rid of men’s rules. At least one aspect of that problem is when men who create rules believe they have a clearer line on God’s intentions than anyone else could. The rule then becomes a matter of faith rather than a matter of discussion. Democracy requires discussion. You have discussion of the rules and faith in the method of creating them, not faith in the rules themselves. The rules are only arrived at as the result of logical discussion. Logical arguments, respect for, and understanding of the other side’s position creates the most solid rules - rules that we can all accept. We should choose the people who make those rules for us with the same idea in mind.
Our interpretation of democracy has long abandoned that kind of exchange. Instead, we figure anyone who questions our ideas, as the democratic process requires, must be a member of the other side... or they must hate America... or they must be a communist or a witch... yeah, it’s become that ridiculous. Today’s version of the democratic process looks more like “how can I make my side win.” That doesn’t leave much room for listening to the other side. Hence, it’s not the democratic process. Our chosen leaders haven’t given us much of an example to follow either if you count Howard Dean or Bill Frist... or most of the others... but every now and then, there’s a glimmer of hope.
Harry Reid and John McCain (and a handful of their colleagues) chose to remember the real democratic process. They talked to each other about solutions to the filibuster “crisis.”* They agreed that while the President didn’t seem to be terribly interested in compromise, having resubmitted seven previously rejected candidates, there were a few of those candidates everyone could agree on. From there, they hammered out a way of dealing with the rest of the candidates. The way they agreed upon allowed the long standing filibuster to remain an integral part of a proven system and the crisis looks to be averted. It wasn’t averted by some easy answer or miracle solution or by Republican or Democrat triumph. It was averted by two guys who did what we pay them to do... talk, listen, debate and achieve consensus. These two guys used the democratic process.
McCain and Reid are a glimmer of hope in an otherwise disappointing and ineffective crowd. Howard Dean uses the “new democracy” just as poorly as Bill Frist has in demanding ultimatums rather than hosting discussions. The “culprits” if you want to call them that, creep around on both sides of the aisle and always have. Unless we tell them otherwise, they always will. And that’s an even more important point - we can’t wait for them to change things. They’ll vote themselves raises after we’ve gone to bed, they’ll keep nicer apartments in Washington D.C. than we have at home and they’ll take all the money and all the benefits we provide them to do whatever they please rather than what we elected them to do. But it’s not US and THEM... it’s only US. WE elected THEM to represent US. Face it, only a third of us even care enough to vote in the first place. Of that third, how many just voted for the guy whose name they heard the most? How many of us knew what a candidate had actually done before we voted for them? How many of us just believed what a TV ad said?
Only Nevadans would have voted for Harry Reid - who has even heard of him before now? But John McCain’s another story. This guy’s the real stuff...even made an attempt at the presidency... and we (the ignorant, collective WE) shot him down in favor of a philandering Arkansas governor and a Viagra spokesman. That ignorant, collective WE needs to stop throwing insults across the aisle and pushing the blame off on the other side. WE shot down good guys like John McCain, Jack Kemp, and a giant list of others. WE did it, not the other guys. Until we starting acting more like a WE and less like an Us and a Them, we’re speeding along down a scary stretch of road. How much farther are we going to go before we turn around? We’ll probably be out of oil by then.
*Further proof that the media bends over backward for Republicans in an attempt to shrug the misnomer: liberal. Why would a “liberal” press call a successful invocation of the filibuster, by Democrats, a “crisis?” It was only a crisis for the Republicans who were pissed that the Democrats used it! Filibustering worked for Republicans when they were in the minority - it’s a pretty neat part of our checks and balances system. Now it’s worked for the Democrats and our “liberal” media calls this a “crisis.” puuuhhhhhh-leeeeaaaazzzzze! How can so many people fall for the same line over and over and over again in spite of the unlimited supply of evidence to the contrary?
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Guest post - School Funding Fun
I was working on another rant and it keeps taking on new lives, none of which is complete yet... that's way too much build up cuz it/they will make it on here and it/they will be disappointing.
Instead for today, I got an email from a regular commenter, another who, like me, left the cozy technician/government workforce to do something more worthwhile, or at least fun. While both of us could have, would have, and maybe even did write similar stuff before becoming public school teachers, it really hits home for us now... even as we have lost our credibility since we're obviously biased. We're thinking about drinking our consciences into the toilet and starting up our own for-profit magnet school that won't have to play by the rules and will thus solve all the problems public schools are strapped with and through which we could actually make enough money to put our own kids through college. Who cares that public schools are a requirement of statehood per the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Nobody, including our lawmakers, as John points out, pays attention to laws when it comes to public schools these days. Wow, excuse me... speaking of too much build up, here's John's rant in place of mine:
I just read an interesting piece in the Toledo Blade and it was not about Tom Noe. It seems the Cleveland Browns have donated $300,000 to the Cleveland Public Schools so that they might continue to have a high school football program (The NFL kicked in $200,000 as well!).
Now I'm all for rich people giving money to poor people - hell it's pretty much the basis for my economic belief system. But this is one fucked up way to fund a schools' athletic program. It seems that the Browns were not the first professional franchise to do this. Last year the Cleveland Indians put up money to help the school district fund its baseball and softball programs.
I'm not sure who went to whom with the idea. But whether the cash strapped school system went looking for a creative funding source or the good-hearted players and coaches of the Browns were looking to make a positive impact, this may actually set a bad precedent. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will get voters to the polls faster than canceling football season.
Oh, I know, it's mean. Boards of education all over Ohio have had to weigh the risk. Some have played the card and others blinked. At Lake local schools in rural Wood County, the board threatened to cancel the season and the voters turned out - the next day - at the school board meeting. They begged and pleaded and then made a deal. They signed a petition that said that they would support the levy in November if only the board would allow the season to go on. The board agreed and the season was saved. On November 2, the voters in the Lake local schools turned down the school levy by a staggering margin of 2 to 1. Can you imagine what the members of the board must have felt like on November 3rd. Damn.
This is, of course, but one ineffective way to get our students the funding they need - to threaten voters. It works in the short term just like the Browns saving Cleveland football will work in the short term. But will that organization be willing to part with that much money every year? For how long? And what about baseball? Will the Indians be willing to fund Cleveland baseball ad infinitum? And what about the students in poorly funded urban schools that don't have a major, or even minor league, sports franchise? Or for that matter, the poorly funded rural schools. I wonder if somewhere in Ohio there is a young volleyball player, soccer player, or golfer waiting for their corresponding major league franchise to send in a check.
The point of all of this is that we need to stop letting people off the hook for a problem that they refuse to solve. The they to whom I refer are the 99 members of the Ohio House of Representatives and the 33 members of the Ohio Senate. It is through their impotence, reluctance and moral cowardice that the school systems in Ohio suffer. The Supreme Court has spoken. But even more compelling than the verdict of the state's highest court - which frankly must not be terribly compelling to the legislature - is the continued failure of so many of Ohio's schools. Do they realize that these children deserve better but are afraid of the political fallout of suggesting a permanent income tax increase that is dedicated to education funding?
Or do they really not give a damn at all because they don't have to? Because, after all, they don't. The voters who were frustrated by the continued begging from the Lake school board voted to send the same two representatives back to Columbus. Why worry about the new third rail of State politics when you don't have to?
That's all I have to say about that - for now.
Thanks for the week off John!
Luth
Instead for today, I got an email from a regular commenter, another who, like me, left the cozy technician/government workforce to do something more worthwhile, or at least fun. While both of us could have, would have, and maybe even did write similar stuff before becoming public school teachers, it really hits home for us now... even as we have lost our credibility since we're obviously biased. We're thinking about drinking our consciences into the toilet and starting up our own for-profit magnet school that won't have to play by the rules and will thus solve all the problems public schools are strapped with and through which we could actually make enough money to put our own kids through college. Who cares that public schools are a requirement of statehood per the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Nobody, including our lawmakers, as John points out, pays attention to laws when it comes to public schools these days. Wow, excuse me... speaking of too much build up, here's John's rant in place of mine:
I just read an interesting piece in the Toledo Blade and it was not about Tom Noe. It seems the Cleveland Browns have donated $300,000 to the Cleveland Public Schools so that they might continue to have a high school football program (The NFL kicked in $200,000 as well!).
Now I'm all for rich people giving money to poor people - hell it's pretty much the basis for my economic belief system. But this is one fucked up way to fund a schools' athletic program. It seems that the Browns were not the first professional franchise to do this. Last year the Cleveland Indians put up money to help the school district fund its baseball and softball programs.
I'm not sure who went to whom with the idea. But whether the cash strapped school system went looking for a creative funding source or the good-hearted players and coaches of the Browns were looking to make a positive impact, this may actually set a bad precedent. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will get voters to the polls faster than canceling football season.
Oh, I know, it's mean. Boards of education all over Ohio have had to weigh the risk. Some have played the card and others blinked. At Lake local schools in rural Wood County, the board threatened to cancel the season and the voters turned out - the next day - at the school board meeting. They begged and pleaded and then made a deal. They signed a petition that said that they would support the levy in November if only the board would allow the season to go on. The board agreed and the season was saved. On November 2, the voters in the Lake local schools turned down the school levy by a staggering margin of 2 to 1. Can you imagine what the members of the board must have felt like on November 3rd. Damn.
This is, of course, but one ineffective way to get our students the funding they need - to threaten voters. It works in the short term just like the Browns saving Cleveland football will work in the short term. But will that organization be willing to part with that much money every year? For how long? And what about baseball? Will the Indians be willing to fund Cleveland baseball ad infinitum? And what about the students in poorly funded urban schools that don't have a major, or even minor league, sports franchise? Or for that matter, the poorly funded rural schools. I wonder if somewhere in Ohio there is a young volleyball player, soccer player, or golfer waiting for their corresponding major league franchise to send in a check.
The point of all of this is that we need to stop letting people off the hook for a problem that they refuse to solve. The they to whom I refer are the 99 members of the Ohio House of Representatives and the 33 members of the Ohio Senate. It is through their impotence, reluctance and moral cowardice that the school systems in Ohio suffer. The Supreme Court has spoken. But even more compelling than the verdict of the state's highest court - which frankly must not be terribly compelling to the legislature - is the continued failure of so many of Ohio's schools. Do they realize that these children deserve better but are afraid of the political fallout of suggesting a permanent income tax increase that is dedicated to education funding?
Or do they really not give a damn at all because they don't have to? Because, after all, they don't. The voters who were frustrated by the continued begging from the Lake school board voted to send the same two representatives back to Columbus. Why worry about the new third rail of State politics when you don't have to?
That's all I have to say about that - for now.
Thanks for the week off John!
Luth
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Nothing to report
Another Sunday and another week has passed without incident. I'm not complaining by any stretch, but it makes for crappy reading. It also makes for slower passage of time. There was a little excitement last night. For the second week in a row, the night before our big weekend started with our power going out... meaning no a/c, no lights, no water pumps. We really are spoiled and we can tell because everyone gets cranky when the a/c goes out. They get a little stinky when the showers quit and as for the toilets... well, they'll flush if you dump enough water bottles into the tank and there are plenty of port-johns around.
I'm reading a book about the liberation of the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Phillipines. It's the place where soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March stayed for three years. A group of Rangers (who were brand new at the time) is about to liberate the camp, but the Japanese know that it's about over for them and the race is on for the Rangers to get the prisoners out before their captors execute them. The conditions and trials the prisoners faced are beyond description here. It really helps put our relatively comfy confines into perspective, yet the mistakes made in WWII leading to that tragedy, which were repeated in the Korean War and Vietnam, and are being repeated again, are what really makes our luxurious war tough to take.
I was reading a NewsMax magazine the other day, and even a guy in there (a carefully selected "fair and balanced" interviewee) says the boss dropped the ball on this by forgetting or ignoring all of the lessons learned. Issue number one, hammered home by the dissent over Vietnam, is entering a war over ideals as opposed to necessity. The case for ideals has been repeated in various forms since it popped up as a major campaign issue, but there has yet to be a convincing argument for how our operation is protecting Americans.
What gets to most of us here isn't the inconsistent internet connection, or the com blackouts after another "protected" American has been killed, or even the frequent power outages due to poor performance by contractors who make ten times as much as we do to provide power. Hell, we're used to that... well, we're actually not because we are usually self-sustaining and we're much better at it than anyone here, but even that capability was taken away from us on this trip. Anyway, it's not the intermittent luxuries that bother us in the least. What frustrates us is how this bad decision making has trickled all the way down to our own levels.
Many of us feel in the dark as to what our priority missions are and when we guess wrong, the second and third effects of our own "bad" decisions affect the mission that we never knew about in the first place, but only the people at the bottom of the chain ever have to answer for that. It almost makes me sympathetic for those sad excuses for soldiers at Abu Ghraib. As if that's not bad enough, add to it the appearance of other priorities like proper hat and PT gear wear, and who's allowed to visit whom, and what we're supposed to be worried about gets really confusing. How untucked PT shirts merit attention over bright red shorts and logo t-shirts is beyond me. How either of those merit attention over a firm return date, clear, specific daily, weekly, or even overall objectives, or consistency in implementing the rules that do matter is just plain beyond understanding. Why people here have time to keep track of who visits whom, but no time to communicate clear mission objectives baffles me. We're tired of trying to guess what's important. We're tired of being wrong. We're tired of being given little or no input other than being chastised AFTER we've done the best we could with no guidance. We're tired of the little shit being swept under the rug until it effects someone higher up the chain, and then being blamed for it in spite of all attempts to correct and make the problems known all along, and then being told it's our fault for not fixing it even though the power to do so is several layers above us. In a nutshell, we're tired of being blamed for being here.
The frustration level that can build up under that kind of bullshit over 6 months will take a while to go away. Sure, living conditions are great. Luxuries even abound, but the frustration level is beyond repair in the time we have left here. For many of us, it's beyond repair within the time that remains in our military careers. After nearly 20 successful years of accomplishing great things with great people, this trip has been a dissappointing and unfortunate chapter.
I was looking over previous posts last weekend and was actually surprised to see so much hope in most of my posts. In spite of the constant sand being kicked in our faces, I frequently assumed it would get better as we went on. It pains me to post this conceit, but when reality hits you enough times, you have no choice but to face it. My room is comfy, my buddies have remained around me and we've all been relatively safe. The food is good and plentiful. My family is safe at home and doing fairly well. I have a lot to be thankful for still, and I am thankful for that. BUT in the absence of any clear objective, mine is simply to keep busy, dodge both the literal and the figurative bullets, and get home. We'll hand our operation (loosely used term) over in much better shape than we received it. There's nothing else left here to work or hope for.
Smile!
Luth
I'm reading a book about the liberation of the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Phillipines. It's the place where soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March stayed for three years. A group of Rangers (who were brand new at the time) is about to liberate the camp, but the Japanese know that it's about over for them and the race is on for the Rangers to get the prisoners out before their captors execute them. The conditions and trials the prisoners faced are beyond description here. It really helps put our relatively comfy confines into perspective, yet the mistakes made in WWII leading to that tragedy, which were repeated in the Korean War and Vietnam, and are being repeated again, are what really makes our luxurious war tough to take.
I was reading a NewsMax magazine the other day, and even a guy in there (a carefully selected "fair and balanced" interviewee) says the boss dropped the ball on this by forgetting or ignoring all of the lessons learned. Issue number one, hammered home by the dissent over Vietnam, is entering a war over ideals as opposed to necessity. The case for ideals has been repeated in various forms since it popped up as a major campaign issue, but there has yet to be a convincing argument for how our operation is protecting Americans.
What gets to most of us here isn't the inconsistent internet connection, or the com blackouts after another "protected" American has been killed, or even the frequent power outages due to poor performance by contractors who make ten times as much as we do to provide power. Hell, we're used to that... well, we're actually not because we are usually self-sustaining and we're much better at it than anyone here, but even that capability was taken away from us on this trip. Anyway, it's not the intermittent luxuries that bother us in the least. What frustrates us is how this bad decision making has trickled all the way down to our own levels.
Many of us feel in the dark as to what our priority missions are and when we guess wrong, the second and third effects of our own "bad" decisions affect the mission that we never knew about in the first place, but only the people at the bottom of the chain ever have to answer for that. It almost makes me sympathetic for those sad excuses for soldiers at Abu Ghraib. As if that's not bad enough, add to it the appearance of other priorities like proper hat and PT gear wear, and who's allowed to visit whom, and what we're supposed to be worried about gets really confusing. How untucked PT shirts merit attention over bright red shorts and logo t-shirts is beyond me. How either of those merit attention over a firm return date, clear, specific daily, weekly, or even overall objectives, or consistency in implementing the rules that do matter is just plain beyond understanding. Why people here have time to keep track of who visits whom, but no time to communicate clear mission objectives baffles me. We're tired of trying to guess what's important. We're tired of being wrong. We're tired of being given little or no input other than being chastised AFTER we've done the best we could with no guidance. We're tired of the little shit being swept under the rug until it effects someone higher up the chain, and then being blamed for it in spite of all attempts to correct and make the problems known all along, and then being told it's our fault for not fixing it even though the power to do so is several layers above us. In a nutshell, we're tired of being blamed for being here.
The frustration level that can build up under that kind of bullshit over 6 months will take a while to go away. Sure, living conditions are great. Luxuries even abound, but the frustration level is beyond repair in the time we have left here. For many of us, it's beyond repair within the time that remains in our military careers. After nearly 20 successful years of accomplishing great things with great people, this trip has been a dissappointing and unfortunate chapter.
I was looking over previous posts last weekend and was actually surprised to see so much hope in most of my posts. In spite of the constant sand being kicked in our faces, I frequently assumed it would get better as we went on. It pains me to post this conceit, but when reality hits you enough times, you have no choice but to face it. My room is comfy, my buddies have remained around me and we've all been relatively safe. The food is good and plentiful. My family is safe at home and doing fairly well. I have a lot to be thankful for still, and I am thankful for that. BUT in the absence of any clear objective, mine is simply to keep busy, dodge both the literal and the figurative bullets, and get home. We'll hand our operation (loosely used term) over in much better shape than we received it. There's nothing else left here to work or hope for.
Smile!
Luth
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Left handed
Laurie gets her fair share of teasing for being left handed. I can't go too hard on her since my dad was and my daughter is left handed. My roommate is left handed too. That's a pretty impressive list, or rather, the people on it are pretty impressive to me anyway and it's my 'blog so get off it. But that list doesn't even begin to cover the rest of the people I know who are left handed. So I really shouldn't pick on Laurie. Than again, some of the people I know who are left handed are complete idiots. So there you go.
The reason for mentioning this is because we discovered a new form of entertainment this past weekend while gearing up for our Memorial Day festivities here at [undisclosed location]. One of the ways we tease Laurie is by reminding her that lefties, in our righty society, die on average 5 years earlier than righties. After discovering our new hobby, I can see why.
It started innocently enough Saturday evening. Somehow we all congregated outside of Greg and Bob's room on the end of Motel 6. No, wait... it was because our power went out! Anyway, their neighbors are also part of the VM crew so there was quite a gathering. We were all just sitting around solving the world's problems when Greg brought out a wrist rocket someone sent him from home and we all took turns trying to shoot the mirror off of a truck parked across the road.
Don't worry, we're all horrible shots and the mirror is still perfectly intact. Someone commented that we might as well put the slingshot away and throw rocks left handed at the truck. While John, my lefty roommate asked just what the hell someone meant by that, someone else got up and tried it. I can't remember who it was, but it was so funny to watch that pretty soon, three more of us joined in. I think it was Greg, Bob and I who joined JLo. We'd captured the attention of the other 5 or 10 guys sitting around and they were laughing at us almost as hard as we were laughing. John soon joined in only he had to throw right handed. Pretty soon about 20 guys were throwing rocks with their opposite hands.
We'd given up on the truck since it was out of our range and instead aimed for an abandoned building. The worst of us couldn't even make it across the road, 'though as the techniques improved, so did both the aim and the range. Some of our better athletes, like Shamoken Mike, who clobbered his opponent in the Friday Night Fights last Sunday by the way... TKO in the second round! were some of the worst. His manager, Joe Mango, also rather athletic, must have been exaggerating his incompetence. He took the prize.
All told, this activity lasted nearly an hour. I've never seen anything so idiotic and entertaining with so little preparation and so little cost pop up and take over so quickly. I laughed so hard my head hurt. The next morning my ribs hurt, though my left arm still feels pretty good.
Later,
Luth
The reason for mentioning this is because we discovered a new form of entertainment this past weekend while gearing up for our Memorial Day festivities here at [undisclosed location]. One of the ways we tease Laurie is by reminding her that lefties, in our righty society, die on average 5 years earlier than righties. After discovering our new hobby, I can see why.
It started innocently enough Saturday evening. Somehow we all congregated outside of Greg and Bob's room on the end of Motel 6. No, wait... it was because our power went out! Anyway, their neighbors are also part of the VM crew so there was quite a gathering. We were all just sitting around solving the world's problems when Greg brought out a wrist rocket someone sent him from home and we all took turns trying to shoot the mirror off of a truck parked across the road.
Don't worry, we're all horrible shots and the mirror is still perfectly intact. Someone commented that we might as well put the slingshot away and throw rocks left handed at the truck. While John, my lefty roommate asked just what the hell someone meant by that, someone else got up and tried it. I can't remember who it was, but it was so funny to watch that pretty soon, three more of us joined in. I think it was Greg, Bob and I who joined JLo. We'd captured the attention of the other 5 or 10 guys sitting around and they were laughing at us almost as hard as we were laughing. John soon joined in only he had to throw right handed. Pretty soon about 20 guys were throwing rocks with their opposite hands.
We'd given up on the truck since it was out of our range and instead aimed for an abandoned building. The worst of us couldn't even make it across the road, 'though as the techniques improved, so did both the aim and the range. Some of our better athletes, like Shamoken Mike, who clobbered his opponent in the Friday Night Fights last Sunday by the way... TKO in the second round! were some of the worst. His manager, Joe Mango, also rather athletic, must have been exaggerating his incompetence. He took the prize.
All told, this activity lasted nearly an hour. I've never seen anything so idiotic and entertaining with so little preparation and so little cost pop up and take over so quickly. I laughed so hard my head hurt. The next morning my ribs hurt, though my left arm still feels pretty good.
Later,
Luth
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Kyle
I got word yesterday that Kyle, a student of mine, died in a car accident that also killed another person whose name I do not know. I can’t begin to understand why God chose to take these two people from us, from their families, from this world.
I’ve lost a grandparent and a father in the last few years and there’s no guessing, no explaining, no understanding why it happens when it happens. The only way I can cope is by remembering how blessed I was to have known, and shared the world with them while they were here.
In Kyle’s case, it’s pretty easy to see how blessed we were to have shared our part of the world with him. As his teacher, he often reminded me why I chose the profession. He often reaffirmed that decision. He was original, spirited, and often found the motivation that many students lack in the weirdest of places. He wasn’t the traditional A student, but he managed to find personal interest in his studies that led to inspired, creative, occasionally controversial views, and that drove him to produce good, original work. He wasn’t motivated by the grade, he was motivated by his own personal interest. That’s something many students have trouble finding and it frustrates them as they try to be good students as much as it frustrates their teachers who try to provide as many opportunities to create that situation as they can.
Kyle tapped the same motivation as a member of our school’s yearbook staff. A couple of summers ago, Kyle showed up to volunteer to sell advertising for the yearbook. He’d just finished his freshman year. Our sales staff numbers had been dwindling and Kyle was surprised to find out he’d have to take a leadership role. The sales drive was not without frustration and disappointment for all involved, but Kyle stepped up, recruited more help, put in the hours, and occasionally made us all laugh when we needed it most. Without his efforts, that yearbook probably would not have been created... or we would have had to charge something like $90 a copy to cover the expense of printing it.
It was this same drive in Kyle that sometimes put him at odds with teachers and classmates. When he believed in something, he explored it, and pushed those around him to explore it with him, especially when they disagreed with him. For a young man just beginning to understand what personal conviction meant, Kyle handled this amazingly well. He might leave you angry with him one day, but he’d always come back and see how you were doing the next. He often surprised me by coming back and explaining how he’d found a way to understand my perspective, a day or two after emphatically, but respectfully, arguing with me. Most adults don’t have the guts to do that, or maybe they just don’t care as much as Kyle did. Many adults even criticize young men like Kyle for having little respect, yet they also criticize today’s youth for not having the conviction that Kyle had. I know he respected his peers and his teachers because he cared enough to question us. He cared enough to push us beyond the easy answers. He cared enough to come back the next day and make sure we were still friends.
Often the source of these “discussions” with Kyle was the unfairness of the world. He was just beginning to tackle these tough questions. Like most teenagers, his initial interest in deeply philosophical queries came as the result of how the unfairness affected him directly, but it never stopped there. On his bad days it might have paused there, but he always readdressed it after cooling down. He was never satisfied with himself, or how he’d left others until he knew they were in a position to pick up such conversations again when they inevitably arose. How he knew at such a young age that these issues would arise again and again amazes me. Maybe he didn’t, but he knew it was better to leave things on good ground than bad. He knew the personal connection was more important than being right. In order to spark the same drive in others, he would occasionally play with fire on the bridge, but he always came back to make sure that bridge wasn’t burned. He always left it better than he found it.
I know my world is better now than it was before Kyle found it. How I will keep it that way is my next challenge. I do not know and I can’t even imagine how Kyle’s family and the Russia community will move on. I wish I could help them. I do know that God has never put a challenge before me that I couldn’t handle. It doesn’t always seem that way at first, but He always steers us in the right direction. Right now, I have serious doubts about my ability to do justice to Kyle’s memory... about how I will live my life differently as a result of Kyle’s positive influence. This doubt is similar to the question of how a just God could take Kyle from us, but God has never failed me in the past even when I know I’ve fallen short.
To the families of both victims of this tragedy: Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. People on the other side of the world that you don’t even know are thinking about you right now. The strength you will find to overcome this inspires and humbles us.
I’ve lost a grandparent and a father in the last few years and there’s no guessing, no explaining, no understanding why it happens when it happens. The only way I can cope is by remembering how blessed I was to have known, and shared the world with them while they were here.
In Kyle’s case, it’s pretty easy to see how blessed we were to have shared our part of the world with him. As his teacher, he often reminded me why I chose the profession. He often reaffirmed that decision. He was original, spirited, and often found the motivation that many students lack in the weirdest of places. He wasn’t the traditional A student, but he managed to find personal interest in his studies that led to inspired, creative, occasionally controversial views, and that drove him to produce good, original work. He wasn’t motivated by the grade, he was motivated by his own personal interest. That’s something many students have trouble finding and it frustrates them as they try to be good students as much as it frustrates their teachers who try to provide as many opportunities to create that situation as they can.
Kyle tapped the same motivation as a member of our school’s yearbook staff. A couple of summers ago, Kyle showed up to volunteer to sell advertising for the yearbook. He’d just finished his freshman year. Our sales staff numbers had been dwindling and Kyle was surprised to find out he’d have to take a leadership role. The sales drive was not without frustration and disappointment for all involved, but Kyle stepped up, recruited more help, put in the hours, and occasionally made us all laugh when we needed it most. Without his efforts, that yearbook probably would not have been created... or we would have had to charge something like $90 a copy to cover the expense of printing it.
It was this same drive in Kyle that sometimes put him at odds with teachers and classmates. When he believed in something, he explored it, and pushed those around him to explore it with him, especially when they disagreed with him. For a young man just beginning to understand what personal conviction meant, Kyle handled this amazingly well. He might leave you angry with him one day, but he’d always come back and see how you were doing the next. He often surprised me by coming back and explaining how he’d found a way to understand my perspective, a day or two after emphatically, but respectfully, arguing with me. Most adults don’t have the guts to do that, or maybe they just don’t care as much as Kyle did. Many adults even criticize young men like Kyle for having little respect, yet they also criticize today’s youth for not having the conviction that Kyle had. I know he respected his peers and his teachers because he cared enough to question us. He cared enough to push us beyond the easy answers. He cared enough to come back the next day and make sure we were still friends.
Often the source of these “discussions” with Kyle was the unfairness of the world. He was just beginning to tackle these tough questions. Like most teenagers, his initial interest in deeply philosophical queries came as the result of how the unfairness affected him directly, but it never stopped there. On his bad days it might have paused there, but he always readdressed it after cooling down. He was never satisfied with himself, or how he’d left others until he knew they were in a position to pick up such conversations again when they inevitably arose. How he knew at such a young age that these issues would arise again and again amazes me. Maybe he didn’t, but he knew it was better to leave things on good ground than bad. He knew the personal connection was more important than being right. In order to spark the same drive in others, he would occasionally play with fire on the bridge, but he always came back to make sure that bridge wasn’t burned. He always left it better than he found it.
I know my world is better now than it was before Kyle found it. How I will keep it that way is my next challenge. I do not know and I can’t even imagine how Kyle’s family and the Russia community will move on. I wish I could help them. I do know that God has never put a challenge before me that I couldn’t handle. It doesn’t always seem that way at first, but He always steers us in the right direction. Right now, I have serious doubts about my ability to do justice to Kyle’s memory... about how I will live my life differently as a result of Kyle’s positive influence. This doubt is similar to the question of how a just God could take Kyle from us, but God has never failed me in the past even when I know I’ve fallen short.
To the families of both victims of this tragedy: Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. People on the other side of the world that you don’t even know are thinking about you right now. The strength you will find to overcome this inspires and humbles us.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Watch out for that big cat!
Dozer boys... and girl. 
Earlier this week (or was it last week?) we decided it might be fun to become easy targets, so we all gathered around a big yellow piece of equipment and stood there for a while. Laurie decided it would be a good time to take a picture to send back to the Wharf Lounge in PC so she and Mike held up a sign for them. They threw a big party for us before we left and they always whip up a good lunch on drill weekends. Oh, and they have beer there. I sure miss home.
It's probably hard to tell, but some of the people in this picture are actually smiling. You see that around here once in a while now that we've passed the halfway point. Or maybe it's cuz Toby was in the country?? Tonight we'll be visited by Dean Cain, Amanda Swisten and Kelly Hu at the Friday Night Fights, where our own Shamoken Mike will attempt to continue the Air Force's winning streak by beating up an Army kid in a 3-round brawl... er boxing match. The Friday night fights arent' really on Fridays cuz that would establish a pattern for the enemy but we call them that anyway. They're on different nights. Pretty clever, eh?
OK, I have to get out of the office now. I'll type at ya later.
Luth
Earlier this week (or was it last week?) we decided it might be fun to become easy targets, so we all gathered around a big yellow piece of equipment and stood there for a while. Laurie decided it would be a good time to take a picture to send back to the Wharf Lounge in PC so she and Mike held up a sign for them. They threw a big party for us before we left and they always whip up a good lunch on drill weekends. Oh, and they have beer there. I sure miss home.
It's probably hard to tell, but some of the people in this picture are actually smiling. You see that around here once in a while now that we've passed the halfway point. Or maybe it's cuz Toby was in the country?? Tonight we'll be visited by Dean Cain, Amanda Swisten and Kelly Hu at the Friday Night Fights, where our own Shamoken Mike will attempt to continue the Air Force's winning streak by beating up an Army kid in a 3-round brawl... er boxing match. The Friday night fights arent' really on Fridays cuz that would establish a pattern for the enemy but we call them that anyway. They're on different nights. Pretty clever, eh?
OK, I have to get out of the office now. I'll type at ya later.
Luth
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