Fishermen

 There's that story in New Testament where Jesus and disciples are on Sea of Galilee and a storm comes up and disciples are afraid and wake Jesus up to calm the storm. Very strange story as these are fishermen who have been on the lake all their lives in all kinds of weather, why would they be afraid and why would they wake up a landlubber for help? Why would they even be following around an itinerant preacher and not fishing? Why would Jesus be traipsing around the countryside, depending on rich women to support him and having people following him and neglecting their jobs and families? And what about the story in Old Testament about God giving Palestine to the Israelites? Was it put in by some outer space alien to cause the problems we are having today in Middle East that could lead to nuclear war and then the aliens could swoop in, clean up the radiation and take over the planet. And what about having an all-powerful God that sets the example for kings and powerful leaders. And then a few get the idea in 1776 to say, we don't need no stinking king, but that only lasted a few years, until 1787, when a Constitution is adopted that's almost a replica of the British system with a President to replace king and a Senate to resemble the House of Lords to protect monied and property interests, instead of having a single house legislature voted by all the people. Strange religious stories that can have long range implications.

Your mind at death

 Psalm 146: 3-4: Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.......the last sentence seems to suggest that when you die, there is no life after death. Which is what I think. If people lived after death, there'd be a lot of confusion in the ether. It'd be like listening to a radio station switch a lot of interference. The energy in your body is repurposed, but the switch to your thoughts is turned off. 

End of the Earth?

 2nd Peter 3:10:  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up....... This sounds like 4 billion years from now when the sun will expand to a red giant and burn up the inner planets.

On Eternal Life

 Mostly I believe when you die you die. The blackness slowly comes around from your peripheral vision and then you're gone.

But sometimes, I think maybe I won't die. Maybe I'll be around for the second coming. But maybe not the second coming, but just an end-of-planet event. Maybe everyone thinks that as they can't really process their own death. 

But, the brain activity is electric impulses between neurons. What if that information of everyone's thoughts was somehow stored in the Earth's magnetic field or some stable part of the Earth's core or mantle. 

And, then right before planetary destruction( ours or any planet), from a large asteroid or the expansion of the sun into a red giant, all the collective intelligence stored in the Earth, was somehow transmitted to the DNA of the Universe. Bingo. Eternal life. Well, it's just something I think about now and then.

Philadelphia Aurora

 

This book is like reading current events. American Aurora by Richard Rosenfeld.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1216800.American_Aurora

Richard Rosenfeld's dramatic epic traces the incendiary history of the young American nation in the 1790s, and chronicles the birth and near-death of civil liberties in that turbulent decade via the story of a Philadelphia newspaper, the Aurora. The story of this newspaper, Rosenfeld argues, is the story of young America.

Rosenfeld has chosen as his heroes its two young editors, Benjamin Bache, Benjamin Franklin's grandson, and William Duane, who fearlessly waged a decade-long campaign to keep America's Founding Fathers true to their original mission.

They claimed that George Washington was not the true "father of his country," but a completely incompetent commander-in-chief, and that John Adams, his presidential successor, wanted a monarchy and was plotting to be king. As a result of their inflammatory articles, both editors were arrested. Bache died awaiting trial, and the paper was briefly silenced.

Nonetheless, the Aurora was eventually successful in persuading the nation to oust Adams and to usher in a Jeffersonian democracy, of which Benjamin Franklin, the true father of our country, could only dream.

89%

 Marie Perez ( Washington 3rd district Congressperson) said in a recent interview: politicians and media talk about the top 1% and the bottom 10% and a lot of the time they forget about the other 89%.

As part of the 89%, I'm going to give some of my ideas of what I expect out of government and then why the 89% matters.

On the local level, there's 3 things cities need to do: provide clean water, working sewers, good streets. Everything else is gravy.

On the state level, back in the day, if you broke down on the highway, you knew within a half hour a State Patrol would show up. Now, you never know. So, fund a 24/7 state patrol.

On the federal level, the less we see or hear of the federal government, the better.

Now those are my ideas. I'm  sure other people in the 89%, will have different ideas. But the common denominator is that people expect government to show a level of basic competency. 

It's not that we don't care that the top 1% is oblivious to everyone else or that the bottom 10% deserve some hands up. But the price of everything is going up and no matter what they say about taxing the rich, the tax bills are so full of loopholes, that the rich still end up paying nothing and the bulk of taxes falls on the 89%. And you can only get so much blood out of a turnip. Money gets thrown at everything under the sun, there is no accountability and nothing gets done.

And right now, the competency level of government at any level is close to zero. So just Keep It Simple. Do the basic stuff and keep things stable, then the politicians can work on all their pet projects.

Baseball

 Well, here we are. Mariners are in 1st place by themselves for at least 2 days. But the Astros and Rangers are fighting hard, also. All fans will be walking on eggshells for the last twelve games. We need strong hearts and calm demeanors. Even though we might wish to have already clinched a division title, it seems like as Pacific Northwest fans, we have to go to the end on a wing and a prayer. Play ball!

Greed

 I've been reading the Revised Common Lectionary every day. And there are usually Old Testament reading. And usually the prophets are railing against the Israelites about this and that. I don't mind when they fault people for cheating or mistreating the poor. But I got to thinking about when they chastise people about praying to Baal or Ashtoreth. Basically, the priests at the temple wanted everyone to come to the temple at Jerusalem to pray and bring their money. But the poor can't always afford to quit their job for two weeks to trek to Jerusalem, so they set up a little carved idol in their house or on a hill close by to pray to and it was cutting into the priests' profits. So from now on, when the Bible says, God or the Lord doesn't like this or that, I'm going to read, the priests at the temple don't like this or that.