Thinking of You

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Today is a special day, one of those I commemorate, and I thought that it would be one I celebrated for the rest of my life.  Things change, and although I think it's probably for the better, losing things always seems to hurt, and in the spirit of that, I'll borrow the words of Christian Kane because they basically say it better than I could:

Well, I know they say all good things, must come to some kind of ending. We were so damn good, I guess we never stood a chance. Go on and find what you've been missing, And when that highway's tired of listening. You'll see I'm not that easy to forget.

When a new moon shines through your window, Or you hear a sad song on the radio. And you don't why, but you just start to cry. Or you're driving around on a sunny day, And out of nowhere comes a pouring rain. And a memory hits you right out of the blue, that's just me thinking of you.

I'm not gonna try to stop you, but that doesn't mean I don't want to. If I know you, you've already made up your mind. So, go on and go, if you're really leaving, put a million miles between us. But you still feel me, like I'm right there at your side.

When a new moon shines through your window, Or you hear a sad song on the radio. And you don't why, but you just start to cry. Or you're driving around on a sunny day, And out of nowhere comes a pouring rain. And a memory hits you right out of the blue, that's just me thinking of you.

And I'm thinking about the roads you're on. I'm thinking about you coming home. I'm wondering if you got your radio on.

When you find your way to another town, and someone tries to lay you down. And a feeling hits you right of the blue, that's me thinking of you. That's just me thinking of you. That's just me thinking of you.

Glaciers, Goons, and Geysers

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I returned early Monday morning from a trip last week to Montana. I experienced many surprises during my visit, saw some pretty country, some petty people, and some of God's many wondrous creations. I saw things men have done to beautify the land, to beatify consumerism, to validate immorality, and to control (or at least attempt) nature. Once again, I made the trip alone, because nobody I know was willing and able to come along, and so as aforetime, it was good that I enjoy my own company. The parks are beautiful places, and I am sure Montana has beautiful people. Unfortunately I saw much of the opposite as well.

I was disappointed by the scenery. Last Friday morning, I left the hotel to drive to Glacier National Park. As I approached, even though the mountains loomed larger, they looked the same distance away for hours, and I wondered how rough that would be for the pioneers to see the mountains never get closer for weeks on end. Glacier was a quiet and reverent place. Bordered by the Blackfoot nation, the park isn't as commercialized as other places or as busy as it could have been given its popularity. Despite the late date in teh season, the signs at the gates, and the people I met, I found a parking place in almost every place I wanted to go. Since I was alone, I didn't go to some of the places I planned, hoping to avoid a bear encounter. Since I was alone, the things I saw were completely silent and wild when I arrived, and I got to see the wilderness as it really is. Since it's late in the season and I already saw Alaska, I found the glaciers less impressive than might otherwise be the case. You can see them from hours away, but they're not as impressive as the ones in Alaska. Still, the waterfalls were abundant and amazing, the wildflowers were in bloom, and the berries weren't on yet, meaning the bears weren't as close to the trail as I feared.

The people of Montana surprised me. Montanans were not especially friendly or excited to have me visit and spend my money there. Granted, I am a bit eccentric, and my visit was marred by multiple complications that created problems. We didn't arrive at the airport until over an hour after our scheduled arrival, but we spent most of that time sitting on the tarmac in Montana waiting for them to fix the jetway. I waited another half hour to get a rental car, and I was so unimpressed by the representative that I complained to Budget. By the time I arrived at my hotel, the clerk had a chip on her shoulder since I was the last unkept reservation, and she had to stay at work longer. Yeah, so they were surly, unfriendly, and self important, which I expect in Vegas where everyone is plastic but not in Montana. Elsewhere, i found the people standoffish and agrarian, unkempt and unattractive, unsullied, and unencumbered. However, they all live in palatial estates, drive exorbitantly priced SUVs and have attractive girlfriends. I guess money makes the man. The people of Montana were the barbarians, but the Blackfoot nation surprised me by being the most civilized part of the state. The people seem interested in their own politics, work hard, built a thriving community, and don't mess with us. If all tribes were like this, the Indians would be far better off in America than they are.

Before I returned home, I visited Yellowstone for the first time as an adult. I remembered Old Faithful being taller, but that's probably because I was smaller. I found more trash there than we d at Mt. Charleston, which surprised me greatly. One geyser has even been turned into a wishing well, and others were covered with hats people lost in the strong winds. Most of the people were nice, and I took a lot of group photos for people. What struck me is that nobody EVER offered to return the favor, so I eventually had to ask someone to take my picture as I vacated the park. Although it was busy, there was plenty of parking here too even into the afternoon at most places, but I did skip some. Despite the abundance of hiking trails, I don't think anyone ever really hikes in Yellowstone. The landscape as I wound through the woods looks probably exactly as it has for centuries with accommodation for tree aging, wildfire, etc. There were some idiots who caused wildlife traffic jams, but because of one of these, I saw my first grizzly bear in the wild, only about 15 feet from the road in a berry patch surrounded by foolish tourists snapping pictures. I saw a few bison, some elk, and a moose, but I saw more wildlife in the Tetons than in Yellowstone. You can tell that the wildlife track through the protected areas by the footprints, but the people mostly stayed on the paths and respected the park, which hopefully means it will last a long while yet. Surprisingly enough, I encountered a ranger on a trail, making this the third time ever, but she couldn't answer ANY of my questions, and so I wonder how in Hoboken these people got jobs with the Park Service but I couldn't even get an interview. The Montana part of Yellowstone is the ugly part, except for the Mammoth Hot Springs resort which is interesting if you want to see what a western hotel looked like in 1920. It was not the kind of visit I expected.

I enjoyed my vacation despite the complications and surprises. The TSA broke my camera, so my photos are all small and low quality shot with my RAZR V3 phone. Truthfully, I was appalled by Montanans and in no hurry to move there. Montana was essentially the same as Idaho and Wyoming, so unless you go for the parks, there's nothing there you can't see anywhere else. I went without cell service almost the entire time unless i was within a mile of the Post Office. After other hikes and trips, I was disappointed by Glacier National Park. The mountains there are lower than the hikes I do at Mt. Charleston back home, and the glaciers are smaller than those I saw in Alaska. If you go, visit Glacier, THEN Alaska. The Blackfoot reservation outside Glacier was the most interesting part to me, since I didn't know there was one there, but I definitely recommend you just go to the Many Glacier entrance directly. The road between the eastern gates is in a state of awful disrepair and curved and narrow. Finally, I was saddened by Yellowstone since it's being loved to death. The people mistreat it, the people abuse it, and it's a good thing they preserved it, because with as many visitors as it gets i know they would have destroyed it for others to see. Maybe some day I'll have a reason to go back and share it with someone special.

Narcotics and Cell Control

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They say that if you aren't liberal when you are young, you have no heart, and if you aren't conservative when you are old, you have no brain. I think that's because so many liberal leaning people did too many narcotics when they were young. You are changed by everything with which you come in contact, by every person you meet, and by things you don't know you encounter. You hear the warnings for drugs but somehow you think that the warnings about narcotics don't apply where those from pharmaceuticals do. I love when nursing students vilify evil pharmaceutical companies but totally trust their dealer down on the corner. At least in part, our nation is spinning out of control because of too easy access to, too open acceptance of, and too universal reliance on drugs, pharmaceutical and narcotic, and we don't know that they are killing us softly.

Many narcotics alter the cell instructions. Simple and legal narcotics like nicotine and caffeine act in ways that prevent cells from reacting to stimuli and resetting processes naturally initiated. Eventually, the nucleus stops sending instructions that are ignored, and the cells become dependent on these stimulants in order to initiate those processes. For this reason, many people you know can't function at all until they have one or two or ten cups of coffee each morning. Alkaloids share structural similarities with nucleic acids and hormones, and so they impact the cell's ability to control itself. We know they are called controlled substances, but they are also controlling substances, chemicals that alter the cellular chemistry. Since transcription, translation, metabolism, transport, and virtually every other cellular function is actually chemical at least partly, these narcotics interfere with the search for cellular equilibrium. As LeChatelier teaches us, when you tip the scale one way or the other, it gives us a reaction in the chemical reaction, which is not something the cell did on purpose.

Doing too many narcotics hampers emotional development. Perhaps this is why liberals all too often hold to naive notions and utopian ideals. One of my students confessed Wednesday night that it wasn't until after she got sober two years ago (she's 48) that she finally really started to grow up. I think about some of the volunteers on the mountain and how much they annoyed me, and I know that other employees commented that those volunteers were only interested in the next party, the next fix. So many of these young people I teach and their elder compatriots go back to school because they mucked up their first chance by getting into partying instead of paying attention to their studies. Almost all of these liberal politicians, including the President, proudly confess themselves adroit as members of choom gangs but shy away from touting their academic accomplishments. I think too many people are actually teenagers stuck in adult bodies, and at least emotionally their development was directly retarded in part by the narcotics. Smoking dope makes you one.

Narcotics can directly damage neurological networks. Like pharmaceuticals, narcotics also have side effects, and that's because these are chemicals. Chemicals cause reactions. Chemicals transfer energy, move ions, and break bonds. We know that there are drugs that interfere with neurological networks; we call them anti-depressents, but in reality all they do is alter the balance of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which affect your mood. Most young people take them because they are depressed or bored, to make their lives more exciting, and to feel like they mean something. The saying claims that alcohol is for those who can afford to lose brain cells, but all too often the people consuming it don't have enough now. All of these drugs cause potential for damage ot the cell, the organ, and the organism. You are affected by everything you take in, willingly or not, wittingly or not, and one thing I learned teaching chemistry is that chemistry does not discriminate. It breaks bonds, and it can and will break you.

I laugh a little when I think that Bill Clinton gave Hillary Clinton "blades of grass" as a gift, because I don't think it was the book of same name. I am coming to believe that all the nincompoops who want to save the snails, the whales, and the planet do so because they used narcotics when they were young. Far too many of them admittedly did so. In a misguided and vain attempt to seize control of their lives, young people surrender control of it to narcotics, ultimately altering their cells, damaging their cells, and changing the rate or outcome of their own development. If smoking and drinking during pregnancy affects an unborn child, it can and will affect as yet undifferentiated cells in an adult. We are so vain and arrogant to think that we can't be hurt by things we allow in. My paternal grandfather John used to quote a poem that I share with my classes: "All the water in the world no matter how it tried could never sink the smallest ship unless it got inside." You want to be different, to be in control, and to be better? Drugs don't give you an edge, an advantage, or answers; they take them from you, maybe not all at once and not instantly to be sure, but you will suffer and fade away, whether you get them from a street pharmacist or from a legal one. For EVERY action there is an equal, and opposite, REACTION.

Why Young People Trust Me

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As a rule, I don't seek the company of or spend time with young people unless I am forced by circumstances to do so. Most of the young people I encounter come through one of my classes, either at university or at church now, and for some reason they trust me. They really seem to like me. The young men at church tell their leaders that I'm the coolest/best Sunday School instructor they've had, and although the bar for that is pretty low, they come back and retain things I say. I really do think they realized that I earnestly and honestly have high hopes for them and their futures, that this is my agenda, and that I'm not painting myself as an expert even when I'm correct. I want them to be better than I was, which is not a common theme of their interpersonal reactions, and I think they are young enough to believe in that, desire it, and leverage off of it to their gain.

I am not a threat. I'm not seeking out their company for some ulterior motive. When it's at work, the students generally choose me and not vice versa, and at church they come into my class based on their birthday, in the making of which I had zero say. They know that I am an adult, making me older than they are, but they really don't know that I'm very close in age to their parents. You see, they can't really gauge my age any better than I can gauge theirs, and since they usually guestimate based on the age of the children and I have none, they would have to piece things together and do the math. I'm not a parent, and I'm not their parent, and I'm not really friends with their parents necessarily, so they tell me things they wouldn't tell their parents knowing that I'm not going to betray that confidence. I'm not there to judge them; I'm not there to rob them; in fact, I have defended them in several instances, and they know it. When they take my advice, they benefit from my perspective and experience; when they ignore it, they gain their own. No matter what they choose, I don't gain anything or lose anything, and so they are free to take it or leave it because I don't live there and because there's no drama between us. I see them for a few hours per week tops, and then I leave them to their own lives. In other words, "I teach them correct principles, and then I let them govern themselves." Unfortunately some of them decide to turn their noses at and their backs to me, but tempis fugit...

They relate to me better than many other adults. Despite the number of years I have on them, my life is more like their life than other adults they know. Sure, I finished college and have a job, but I also work at a college, and so my life is just an advanced version of theirs and from the opposite perspective. The things that trouble them are the things on my mind, and most of what's on my mind crossed theirs. Although I am serious, I am also fun, doing the things that interest me whenever I like, and because I'm an adult with a real job I am able to do those things more frequently and with more flair and expense than they can afford. When I was young, I had an adult male role model who empathized with and related to me to help guide my choices, and I think young people want an adult friend. Sometimes parents attempt to do this, often with disastrous results, because they need their parents to be their parents, and then they need someone else like me to give them the tools, show them the ropes, illustrate the pitfalls, and point of without guile why I went where I went and why I think they should go where I suggest. I'm hilarious. I'm intelligent. I care about them (God only knows why). I listen to them. I remember things about them. I relate things to them. I don't really know about them personally, but I was a young man once, and I know what I faced and how I faced it. Things have changed in semblance, but in substance things pretty much remain the same, and the principles that helped me navigate well ought to help them do in kind.

I know things that can be of use to them. For many of the young people I meet, I am actually old enough to be their biological father, giving me the benefit of those years consequence of both mistakes and triumphs. Usually, I pass on the things I'm glad I know and the things I wish others had been able to tell me. It helped my sister prepare for her military career, it helped the USFS supervisor for whom I worked last summer get into and prepare for graduate school, and it helped several students navigate through and graduate from nursing. I'm a useful mammal. Sometimes, this gets abused, and they regard me as more of a resource than an actual friend. Many of them might consider us friends, but if they only talk to me when they need money, advice, comfort, or some other kind of help and then go have fun with other people, they're wrong. I know that the leadership of my congregation regards me as the right choice to teach the youth for this reason. Who better to teach them and act as an example of faithfulness and faith than someone who does his level best to live the principles he verbally espouses? I am an example, a beacon, someone who did it and does it and keeps doing right no matter what happens. That's the kind of person I would want to teach my kids if God ever grants them to me- someone who practices what he preaches and who practices what I preach.

Admittedly, it baffles me that young people listen to me and take my counsel. When I spoke in church on Easter Sunday, several of the youth with whom I have never spoken and who I do not know not only listened to my remarks but also remembered things I said. Most of them vanish into the ether once our time together ends, probably because neither party truly chose to spend time with the other, but sometimes students take another class I teach or recommend their friends come to mine because of things they enjoyed. Sometimes, I know it offends the parents that their youth talk to me about things they don't share with their parents and then follow my advice after their parents told them the same thing. I don't have an ulterior motive. I am not trying to be the panacea. At church I point them to Christ, and at school I point them to truth, and so my message is always the same- find out all the truth that you know and use it wisely. Now, I know the disappointment the same as parents when they choose another path, but since most of them are not emotionally attached to me, it's not the same as a wayward child or a painful consequence. One rejection still stings today. The rest, I can live with their choices. I did my part, and I know that it will be with me as though all men accepted my message, that God will send blessings without compulsory means because I treat them as agents and let them choose their own adventure.

Why I'm Not a Cop

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It's a dangerous time to be in law enforcement, but it was one of the things I wanted to do when I was a small boy- become a cop. As a matter of fact, the last year I remember dressing and going door to door for halloween, my parents helped me look LIKE a cop. Although my educational pursuits took me on a different path, when the opportunity arose to attempt that path, however roundaboutly I attempted it, I pursued the matter and applied for jobs in law enforcement. I know it comes as no surprise that I am not in law enforcement to regular readers who know I work as a chemistry/biology professor instead; every attempt I made was thwarted somehow by either incompetence or collusion. They did not want me among their number, and aside from the pay which is the worst reason to take a job I don't feel cheated. When I was a boy, I respected, admired, looked up to and trusted policemen, but now I see that they are humans too and sometimes even worse than the average. Apparently, uniform officer doesn't refer so much to the dress as much to the behavior, which explains why women I know like a man in uniform. Finally, I am not sure I would have enjoyed a long life as a uniformed officer, and I like the thought of living long AND prospering, not just having a lot of money. I admire those who choose to go into law enforcement; I am also however old enough to know better than to assume they are all virtuous and all worthy of praise.

I believe that the laws apply to everyone. Cops should set the example for others to follow. Last Saturday on Mt. Charleston, I confronted three adults who were cutting trail only to discover that they were Federal Marshals. When one of them said "the laws don't apply to us", I lost it completely and read them the riot act. I told them that since they were not on duty or at work or in uniform or displaying badges that I was the law on the mountain. I was sent to that trail; I was in uniform; I was expected to report back by 3PM. I was the law up there, and they were just as obligated to follow it as everyone else, their concealed weapons and badges notwithstanding. It's the same thing that annoys me when I see cops talking on cell phones while driving or breaking the speed limit or running a red light without their lights on. By the time it escalated to where they exposed their concealed weapons (mine is in a holster on my waist in plain sight), a small crowd had gathered. I told them at that point that people were watching them and that of all people they ought to set a good example for the people to follow. Far too often people preach "do as I say, not as I do" and the attitude towards law and order reflects the attitude of leadership that the law applies only to little people, and of course we all think we're important. His threats didn't bother me; his gun didn't bother me; his dog actually came and stood next to me. I knew that justice and the law were on my side and that the highway patrol and metro officers wouldn't care if he was a marshal. He wasn't looking for a fugitive; he was about to be one. You are not special because you enforce the law; you are under the obligation to set a good example. In my experience however like these marshals on the mountain, I find that all too often bullies become cops in order to get paid to push other people around and maintain the illusion of power. I did not like these men or really respect them, and part of me actually hoped they would push things just so I could stick it to them in the court or with their boss or in the papers; men like this are a stain on everyone else who wears a badge.

In hiring cops, they look for people who can be broken down and rebuilt into what they like. This week, the new class of law enforcement officers started their training on campus. Families lined up with their fresh faced young sons and daughters as seasoned veterans barked orders at them like they were lesser beings or cattle or worse. Some of these people have had real jobs, earned college degrees, and know things, but that doesn't seem to interest them. It's a cookie cutter GOBNet that molds everyone into the same Brotherhood of Blue. Part of this is for efficiency, which I get; the rest is to entrench favors and exempt cops from following the laws mentioned previously. When I applied to be a highway patrolman, they were not impressed that I had an advanced science degree or that I kept my nose clean and never did drugs. In fact, I asked the sergeant leading the interview if it was preferrable to have a criminal justice degree and some ride alongs even if I had done drugs to being a good example. Yes, they like automatons. It's an assembly line process, where you get in line or you get out. When I confronted the marshals, they stuck together like a clique. It was other citizens around me, parents, teachers, hikers, climbers, and children, who actually took my side, stood behind me, and eventually provided the impetus for the cops to back down from their unprincipled position. I understand wanting uniformed officers to be uniform, but the problem is when they are wrong, they are wrong as a unit. The highway patrol didn't seem to see any value in the diversity I offered. My dad saw that I offered something unique as a biochemist, but they wanted people who thought the same way, knew the same things, and behaved the same way. They like order. I get that. However, they talk of diversity and do something else, sort of like young people who want to be "different" which amounts usually to nothing more than outlandishly defying their parents even as they become more uniform with their peers in deviance and decadence. Now I finally understand all the girls I know who wanted to marry cops, marines, firemen, etc., because they wanted a man who knew how to take orders. Clever.

Working as a cop is hazardous to your health. Emergency responders face many risks in their jobs. I don't think many of them understand that's the reason why they are paid so much; it's difficult to live long enough to spend it all. The risks are many, to life, to health, and to quality of living. Of course, obviously, we know of late how many cops have actually been assassinated in the course of their duty. You never know when you respond to a call or confront a driver if your life may be in danger. You don't know who carries a weapon, who carries a grudge, or who carries an outstanding warrant, and you get to find out. You risk your life because you're supposed to go looking for villains, and eventually you probably start to see everyone with suspicion, because you realize that nobody's perfect, most people are lying and everyone makes mistakes. Even if you live long, sometimes it comes at risk to health factors. The NHP trooper in my congregation at church confessed that most older cops get fatter and fatter as they progress in their careers. Many of them do not live very long after they retire. He mentioned some things I didn't think of, like exposure to flares, but I thought of all the hazardous material exposure associated with policemen, firemen, etc., in addition to the weather exposure, the stress, the bad diets, and all the other things that contribute to a piss poor lifestyle for our emergency responders. Add to that diseases, and I think I'd rather work in chemistry where, although I run risks too, everything I encounter is supposedly labeled, so I know what to do when there is a spill. I have one student this term whose boyfriend is a fireman, and I think she actually understands that he will probably die young. Joe told me that any lung health issue is paid for as an NHP Sergeant, because they know there are risks. I don't know if their wives understand that. Maybe that's what they're hoping. Particularly today, it would be frustrating to be a cop. They have body cams, protestors, litigious firms, terrorism, and a whole slew of new enemies to face in doing their job every day that interfere with their ability to do their job well if they get to do it at all. If I had taken the DHS job for which I applied years ago, I would have been ordered to NOT do my own job. Federal law enforcement continues to find itself under greater restriction that prevents or discourages it from doing its job as they refuse to defend officers and take the side of criminals. It would have been hazardous to my health to have that stress and hazardous to my life to have a job I could not do or a boss I could not in good conscience obey, and I would have had to resign in protest. At least local law enforcement in NV have the backing of government leaders.

As attractive as the perks, pay, promotions, and pageantry may be, I am glad I chose another path for my career. I don't think I would enjoy being a first responder. I don't really like people enough to risk my life to save people I don't know who probably hate me just because of my uniform. As attractive as the money may be, I earn enough and would either use it stupidly or just shove more into savings like I do now. I like the flexibility to work extra hours when I like, to go to the gym when I like, to do something for a living that I actually like. Academia affords me the opportunity to tackle the subject with some flexibility as to how, as long as I cover certain specific topics completely and accurately, and so I kind of have my own courses that vary from those of my contemporaries, even within the college. I will never be rich, but I like what I do, and with all due humility, I'm pretty damn good at it too. Lawless individuals among us declared open season on cops, slaughtering them at will and in regular intervals. No excuse is given or needed, and the top cop in America, the President of the United States, stands with the dissidents, miscreants, and malcontents when he ought to defend his own. When you do not stick up for your own, you in essence betray them, and the president has betrayed law enforcement. I didn't like the former Dean because she didn't stick up for me. I think her replacement is 180 degrees opposite in that regard, and so I look forward to better years ahead and a more rewarding experience. Maybe I can teach young people to be the kind of people who no longer need law enforcement except as protection against the rest, and maybe those I teach who become or are partnered with first responders can brush off a little on them and make law enforcement more venerable too.

Memory Problems

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New studies show that memory really isn't as fixed as we like. Everyone knows that, with every retelling, the story changes, and that as people grow older their ability to recount specifics and consistent details fades. Part of that is age related, but part of it is I believe done by choice. You see, we also have selective memory and can choose to remember certain things preferentially to others and certain details because we enjoy them while we eliminate others. Sometimes this is done for innocuous reasons; sometimes it's done for villainous reasons, and sometimes it's done for inexplicable reasons. Memory is a tricky thing, and I'm starting to think that plays a huge role in how people treat each other. We each remember different details and impressions about the same experiences. When I went to Washington DC, I shared my journal for their benefit, but none of my companions reciprocated, and it would have been illuminating and interesting to see what they took from the trip and how they perceived it. All of the accounts might have been true; some of them would not have been useful to me. Then again, most of what I know and remember doesn't seem to be of much use in the real world, and one day I will be but a passing memory to those of you who remain in this audience. Maybe something I do or say or help you realize will persist even if you cannot recollect correctly how you arrived thereat.

When the memory is painful, damaging, traumatic, or similar, often our brains rewrite the memory to protect us. Rather than relive something deleterious, the brain, like the rest of the body, can scab over or skim over details until eventually the neural pathways that linked those events to our memory are so deprived that they can actually die. That kills the memories essentially at least to our conscious recollection, and it allows other memories to take a more prominent role in the December of our life. Over time, the memories fade and diminish, and in the wake of new ones, they loom less litigious on our limited resources until, although they remain, other things overshadow them and outcompete them for our attention and computational capacity. While they do not go away per se, we can rewrite them in order to make them less important. This becomes easier as we age, since the amount of experiences we enjoy grows larger and those experiences hopefully become an increasingly minute fraction of the total memory cassette.

The more time that passes, and the more varied the setting, the more the retelling may vary. Often your brain rewrites a story because you're not sure or because each time you tell it different things seem applicable or vivid or integral to the tale. It doesn't mean that you are lying, but it does mean that you can honestly retell the exact same tale repeatedly and to different people and produce vivid variations or minor detours from the original, all of which are true because none of them contain the entire truth. None of them are dishonest, but they are told to different people at different times to serve different ends, and rather than tell the entire novella, you distill it down for your audience. Other times, as others with whom you experienced something are absent or different people are present to encourage different emphasis, your brain varies the tale because it's not sure what it remembers. For my own part, I have done many things by myself, and if not for the pictures, sometimes I would wonder if I actually did those things or if I just made them up out of thin air! I am not lying; it is truth, and it varies in its telling each time, which is why I keep a journal and write a blog, to keep and set the story straight.

Unfortunately, sometimes the story varies for less than virtuous means. Many people rewrite the story because it was a lie. I wonder sometimes how many people made promises to me that they never intended to keep or told me things that were never true or never going to be true, not to hurt me but because they were hoping that they would be true. When I finally "dumped" a girl, it was hard for me initially to do so since I had made representations; they were contingent, to be sure, and when we were obviously not going the same direction, it no longer mattered what my intentions were. I made those representations based on assumptions of facts that were not true, and so my story didn't need to be either. When my attorney and I left my divorce proceedings, he told me that both she and I would probably pass a lie detector test because, even though she couldn't demonstrate with facts that her story was true, she had told herself the lie so many times that she actually believed it. That's the problem with actively rewriting memory in order to justify and rationalize yourself, because it actually makes meanness in men where once you saw virtue and creates virtue in you where you are actually mean.

For some poor unfortunate souls like me, rewriting the memory doesn't work very well. My memory is sufficiently advanced that I can recollect sometimes entire conversations verbatim even if the other person in that conversation cannot recollect saying a single thing documented or redacted every comment. Even when I can prove they said those things with video, audio, or written transcripts, sometimes I discover that they completely cancelled out those conversations from their memory. I feel like a fraud, but I can prove that it happened that way, even though they deny it. I can remember many wonderful things like quotes and poems and songs and scriptures; I can remember many experiences like hikes and butterflies and pigeon fights and my grandmother's voice or how my Kat would smile with her entire body when she was happy; I also remember that people made promises they didn't keep, that when I am sick or hurt I usually face it alone, and just how miserable I felt to be divorced and then to lose in court and have to pay so...much...money to a woman who didn't even appreciate it. I remember you; I remember everyone who comes; I remember everyone who leaves. Students from past semesters seem stunned that I remember their names. Some of them never really learned mine. It has saved my bacon more times than I can count that I could recollect the details correctly, consecutively, and consistently, because I would not crack and eventually something else gave way.

When I open each class in which we discuss the scientific method I stress the importance of good record keeping and providing good data. Everything in my life that I wish turned out differently did so because I acted on inaccurate or incomplete information. The choice was good and brave and true assuming that the information was, but since it was predicated on bad information now I just look stupid. I wonder sometimes if the people who provided me that information ever feel bad. I hope very few of them misled me on purpose. I know people change and these things happen, but I know that some people have rewritten their memories in order to make me the bad guy. I take time to remember the good times and the better times, because as I grow older and time passes other things drown out memories of times long passed and people dearly considered and possibilities that bolstered my hopes and my dreams. They were people and experiences that enriched and enlarged my life, and so I want them to remain part of my memory even if they have rewritten me to a place of lesser import in their own.

Criminals and Their Targets

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We hear a lot of myths nowadays about crime. I have my own experiences, and I can only speak to my own experiences. I am also aware of the statistics, both that are published to the public, and that are reported to me directly from the police with whom I have had unfortunately frequent reason to interact as a victim. Cops go where the crimes occur, and so eventually they notice as well as the district attorney's officers, that certain people possess a penchant for particular perniciousness, particularly when it comes to personal violence. It struck me as a great paradox that the protesters in Dallas complained about the police and then demanded that the police protect them when bullets started to fly. Far too many people demand that you tolerate them as they are and then that you become what they tolerate. In my experience, unfortunately, I have had negative experiences predominantly with black people. Although I know a fair few who are decent members of the community, far too many seem to follow the example of our president and rabble rouse. It is no sign of maturity to resort to miscreantism. It is no sign of civil behavior to flaunt the law when it serves you and then demand it protect you if you become a victim. That's hypocrisy. You are being lied to about who the criminals are, how they perpetrate the crimes, and the rational for being criminals. Let facts be presented to a candid world...

Every time a personal, violent crime has been committed against me, at least one of the perpetrators was black. I have only been targeted for violent crimes three times, all since moving to Las Vegas and living at my current address. The first instance involved an older black woman who approached me in the parking lot of the only Walmart in town shuttered by the company this year who then demanded my wallet. The second instance I walked past a teenage black man on the way home from the grocery store who ran up to me from behind after I passed and threw me to the ground. The third instance two teenagers decided to kick down my door and steal things, and the older boy was black. Additionally, at work, I continue to face accusations of bias and discrimination by black students and coworkers. One of them filed a racial discrimination case against me with the EEOC, and although it was cleared without incident for me, she faced zero ramifications of which I am aware. Every student who thought I gave them an F because of their race was interviewed, and in every instance so far, the investigators have exonerated me. I am just a guy, and they decided to attack me. The only other crime committed against me was a Russian who stole my identity, and I doubt he was black.

Guns are not integral to the plan of attack with criminals. When the woman approached me in the parking lot at Walmart, she brandished a knife. Having my own 10" bowie knife with me, I pulled it out and told her she'd made a mistake. She fled. When the teenager attacked me from behind, he initially hit me only with himself, and then when I tried to flee the scene, he threw a floor tile at me and hit me from behind. The teenagers who tried to kick down my door didn't have any weapons at all. I have never seen a gun brandished against me by any criminal, thank God, let alone an assault rifle, and although I do own a firearm, I was not carrying it because I hope I never ever have to use it to defend myself. The police strongly encouraged me to carry it and to shoot if I feel my life is in danger. I don't see how I really win. If I kill the attacker, two people die- the man I shoot and the man I used to be. Even if I had my gun with me, it wouldn't have been an "assault rifle"; it's a revolver.

Most of the criminals who targeted me were instances of opportunity. My attacker at Walmart did so in the dark, away from lighting, and so I think she was looking for anyone parked there who wandered too close. The attacker who mugged me probably decided in the 30 seconds that passed after we walked by each other that he was going to pick me. The two teenagers who kicked down my door decided on my house because it afforded the best cover from the street even though the other nearby houses were also dark. The police think, despite the fact that I was mugged and these kids attempted to rob me within an 11 day period and no more than 200m apart from the two crime scenes, that I am just a random target and not part of a protracted campaign. Even the students who complain didn't pick me out in order to leverage their race against mine; I don't think they knew my race, and I think they probably took the class because it fit their schedule rather than as part of a plan to complain. As for my coworker, I am the only white male who worked with her at the time, so I think she figured I was the weakest link; she has since plied the same tactic on a hispanic male who replaced me in that position, also to no avail. I think she's just looking to target other people in order to distract them from looking closely at her. You really only hurt people that you do not know and do not like. Far too many of these criminals are bored, selfish, and angry, and when they encounter someone who has something, like the pirates, they only really seem to care that I have swag that they have not yet taken. Pride gets no pleasure out of having anything, only out of having more of it than the next man (CS Lewis).

You are fed a lot of lies about crime and criminals. You see a lot of statistics. The simple fact of the matter is that in my area black people are the most likely suspects. In my life, in my experience, they are always culprits even if they are not the only ones. When I was mugged, one of the felony secretaries in the district attorney's office asked if the attacker was black and then said, "figures" when the answer came in the affirmative. These people see the paperwork. Who is most likely to attack? People who do not know or like you. They are not using guns. In fact, guns are usually a deterrent, and guns are used in a statistically small fraction of violent crime. They are illegal in many states and for many people, yet criminals consistently find a way to get their hands on guns and commit crimes with them. We do not need more laws. We need more people who respect the law, and these protesters are not those people. Most people manage to commit crimes because they dehumanize others. You don't know the other drivers, so you think nothing of cutting them or flipping them off; you don't know your neighbors, so you think nothing of littering on their lawn; you don't know strangers, so it's easier to rob them, snub them, exclude them, persecute them, etc. In extreme cases, they will make out a certain group to be less than animals as an excuse to enslave, slaughter, or extort them. That's not a human thing to do, but then we don't really have communities anymore. We have people who are neighbors because their property lines collide, and when that happens, sometimes other things do too leading to violent crime. I am sad to have these experiences, and I am glad, because they taught me that what I hear in the media is not the whole truth even if it is true. Like I tell my students the first week, everyone has an agenda, and my agenda is to convince you that they have an agenda.

What Are They Celebrating?

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I stepped out last night to a barrage of illegal fireworks set off by the neighbors all around me. I shouted aloud to the darkness, "Do you even know what you are celebrating? Do you even care?" I don't think they do. I don't think most people, even people who live here, really appreciate what it means to be an American. Last Thursday, I watched a video on youtube where students at UC Berkeley didn't know what the purpose of the 4th was. I've seen videos from UCB before in which students display a wanton aversion for everything American until they stand to benefit from it. We all make jokes about holidays created by the greeting card companies, but I think even Independence Day has been bastardized by commercial interests until people look at it only as an excuse to get off work, light things on fire, and gorge themselves on traditional foods. We have fallen out of touch with America; we have fallen out of love with America; we have allowed too many people into America who do not want to be here and do not respect our history, traditions, and government. Like Rome before us, it becomes more and more about less and less until we celebrate absolutely nothing.

Many of them actually hate America. I hear complaints all the time about America, Americans, and American traditions. Even Americans seem to hate America, to be embarassed to be Americans, and to desire to radically transform it to be more like the socialistic cesspools in Europe. This one day a year, they all rush out to buy fireworks, which you can't do in most other nations, and then they violate our laws by shooting them off into the air. Monday morning, there were two cops parked in front of my house responding to underage drinking and illegal fireworks; if you love America, why do you violate our laws? If you really think it's virtuous and right to come here, why do you violate our laws in order to come? They are celebrating the power to do something you can't do anywhere else and get away with it. If you did this in any of the tyrannical regimes they think we ought to resemble, you'd probably be beat by the cops, not to mention arrested without charge, convicted without testimony, imprisoned without appeal, and executed without mercy. This is the best nation on the earth, perhaps the best one that ever was, but the people who live here fell out of love with America, much like the politicians who lead them, and who caricature their enemies and lionize people they do not know and would not probably like if they ever actually met. Almost nobody seems to follow the law anymore, and despite the lip service paid by politicians to Constitutional Law and the oaths they took to sustain and defend it, most of them tear it to shreds in order to elevate themselves and then demand its protections. You can't claim the benefits of America if you flagrantly defy and denigrate its principles, values, precepts, and policies. You do what it takes to please someone or something you love; you don't treat it like garbage and expect it to love you anyway.

Many of them aren't American citizens. Last time I saw my neighbor to the south when I put up my flag, he glared at me. I know they are Mexicans, and although I don't know if they're here legally or not, I do know that he looked at me as if it was a "I hate Mexico" flag. It says nothing of the sort. I fly it because I respect my ancestors who fought for this nation, for my family members and friends who fight for it, and for all the good things it represents. When I jogged through the neighborhood to the north of mine, peopled predominantly with latino families, I balked at the piles of rubbish in the streets and gutters from their pyrotechnics last evening, because I know that they are not from here and probably complain about the people who are and what we do. It amazes me that so many people are willing to come to a nation they consider to be so mean and racist; if America is evil, why are they here, and why in Hoboken do they light off fireworks to commemorate her official birth? My British friend was deported several months back, because he's been in America in violation of his Visa for 20 years, but he would sing in church on the 4th. I doubt these people really cared about America. I didn't see a single flag in the neighborhood, but they sure drove my dog crazy with fireworks last night.

Almost none of them really understand the purpose of the day. Far too many of my text messages were "Happy 4th". Fourth of what? It's not any more significant that it was the 4th of July than Cinco de Mayo. Unlike Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates a minor battle in an insignificant war (when Mexico defeated France at Pueblo), the 4th of July celebrates the very first time in world history that a nation declared that the people were more powerful than the government. Our declaration of independence declares that men have the power to alter or abolish government if it becomes corrupt, overbearing, or contrary to their laws of happiness. Even some guy at church, with a JD and a PhD in American History wrongly declared from the pulpit that our rights come from the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence clearly delineates that we are endowed by OUR CREATOR with rights. If they come from government, which is comprised of fallen men, they can be taken away from us by government when men fall into the trap of tyranny, debauchery, greed and anarchy, but if they come from God, then no man or woman can take them from us without consequence. Then there are the families. I think far too many people think this is just another day to ignite fireworks. I took my framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, which hangs above a model of the USS Constitution, off the wall in my library to read in the handwriting of the men who committed treason in sending it to King George in the first place. Then again, one among them declared that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God (Benjamin Franklin), which I honor above all earthly kings, powers, rulers and magistrates. That's what today is really about- America exists because God loves men and wants them to be free, even if they desire to ignore Him, and to always be free from the chains of bondage of every kind. That's what the Fourth of July is all about, and it has never happened in modern history. It is not an accident that the header to this blog quotes Leviticus 25:10 "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof". That's my mission. I declare that God's purpose, that America's purpose, and that my purpose is to proclaim liberty- politically, spiritually, physically, financially, socially, vocationally, intellectually, and in every other way. Like the author of our Declaration, Thomas Jefferson wrote, I have sworn on the altar of freedom eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of men, and I mean it. I detest bullies.

I know that these opinions are probably not very popular, but I don't really care. I pledge allegiance to this flag, and if that bothers you, then that's too bad (Aaron Tipton), and if you think that I should tolerate your aberrant and abhorrent behavior while demanding that I acquiesce to your every demand, you have another thing coming. I am not going to become what you tolerate. Happy is the kingdom whose God is the Lord. I pledge allegiance to Him, to that Constitution He inspired those men of Philadelphia to write. For me, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are akin to holy scripture. For me, this nation is a great blessing, a sign of His approbation and love for His children. For me, this is a place to live according to the dictates of my own conscience. It's not just about doing what I like; it's about doing what I ought. Freedom isn't in giving in to your inhibitions. Freedom exists in being the best you can be in all circumstances, and nowhere else has that ever been possible to my knowledge like it is and has been here. God bless America and all those who love her, love to be here, and love those who made her possible more than two centuries after her inception. Let freedom ring.