My Space Buddy and his health care plan . . .

Yeah, he showed up again.  This time I was putting a shirt back on the rack at Target and when I pulled the other shirts apart to make a space, his face was there.  That's all - just his face.  When I jumped back I ran into somebody.  It was him.  With his face.
He gets a kick out of this stuff.  I can tell because he always has this weird grin on his face when he does it, like maybe he would if he told you he'd set up a microphone in your room one night and streamed your snoring on Netflix.  Anyway, he insisted on buying me lunch. 

Watch your mouth . . .

Iraq.
A single Humvee with 10 soldiers aboard was making its way along a stretch of highway performing some sort of routine operation, but it didn't stay routine.  A small IED detonated under the vehicle, instantly destroying three tires, bringing the heavy truck to a stop and seriously injuring the roof gunner.  The vehicle then came under small arms fire from 10 enemy fighters.  In their youth and inexperience, and the shock of the explosion, all the fighters were disoriented, some frozen in shock - except for one.  This one climbed to the roof gunner and pulled him behind the vehicle where he had directed the rest of the troops to seek protection from the assault.  This done, he climbed back into the turret while dodging fire, turned the M2 .50 caliber automatic rifle into the fight and engaged the enemy, killing all 10.
This same young man went on to earn a number of awards as a result of his service.

This one is for a friend . . .

. . . who mentioned it yesterday while we were in Barnes and Noble.  I may have misread her intent, but I got the impression she wanted to see it again.  Maybe you'll get a smile out of it, too . .

This year's Christmas story . . 

As most of you know, the roommie acts as a commercial and private driver, coming and going on a schedule that defies the common meaning of the term.  Not yet having mastered the science of being in two places at one time, he will call upon me or others to handle the occasional overflow.

Photographs of the Soul

It's a thing you wish you could remember, maybe after 40 years or more of never giving it a thought.

It was probably 1967, the year after I moved here with my folks. She lived behind me and off to the side, around the corner if you took the street, but why bother when you could just walk between the garages and into her back yard?

Off to the left of the couch, high up on the wall in her living room there was a picture of her, one of those portrait-style things that looked like an oil painting. I didn't care for it. She was only a few years old when it was taken, and it wasn't very flattering. Disturbingly curly hair. Eyes too big, even for a toddling girl. I suspect she wouldn't have cared for the idea of publishing it on a social website.

Why I say the things I do . . .

This is as brief an explanation as I can make regarding my political philosophy.  It springs from natural law, which itself is informed by Scriptural principles.  Anytime you hear me railing against something, it is because it violates these principles . . .

Libertarian philosophy teaches us that it is always a criminal act for an individual or a group to initiate force against another individual or group unless such force is directed at those who have first initiated force.

In a group of five people, it is morally criminal for three to force the other two to live by their choices; the reverse is also criminal, should the two have bigger guns than the three. From this, we immediately see that democracy is a criminal enterprise, no better than despotism; both will be rejected out of hand by a thinking person.