The Rusted Musket

This was too good to pass up…

Large cities are constantly adding more and more cameras. Most of the time they go in intersections to “reduce” traffic violations by allowing the police to remotely send you tickets. Lovely… There is a lot of controversy over cameras like that because of invasion of privacy concerns. Chicago has a very large network of cameras and is always looking to expand them. Funny thing is that despite the city having 10k+ cameras all networked together, Chicago is still a country leader in murders… Lot of good those cameras are doing…

My beef with them though is the privacy thing. Who really wants all their actions caught on video whether sketchy or not? It is just a disturbing trend if you ask me. More and more technology and methods are being utilized to assist in catching a few criminals all while the law abiding citizen is treated more and more like a criminal, with more and more freedoms reduced. The full body scans at airports for instance. Airplane security is important, but there is a time to draw the line and that scanner is it. Don’t let the local, state and federal government take your freedoms away! It may not seem like much but little by little it is being whittled away.

Was looking at headlines on DrudgeReport.com and came across a eye catching headline: “LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation”
I couldn’t resist clicking the link and reading the article because skyrocketing school costs is a interest of mine.

The gist of it is that LA just finished building a 4,200 student k-12 school on the site of a historic hotel. It cost $578M and was designed to create a more creative artistic environment… But lets go back to the cost… $578M…. That is enough money to build several highrise condos, or pay down some of the State debt, or build 10 regular schools… Instead the money is spent on one building, a true example of the excessive spending that our education system does.

No matter how buttered up a building is its not going to get a better graduating rate out of students, not until there is some accountability among school staff and performance based metrics. Quit laying off young teachers just because they haven’t been there for long, lay off or fire the bad teachers. California with their massive debt can’t afford to be building schools like this and they certainly can’t afford mediocre performance among their education staff.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Supposedly by Lincoln, but I’ve seen it claimed otherwise. Doesn’t matter in my opinion since it is a great quote in anycase.

Of course Muslims can build a mosque at ground zero if it tickles their fancy, but in lieu of what happened just down the block doesn’t it kinda feel like a bad joke? Like in the same way a Japanese water park a ship or two over from the remains of the USS Arizona would be?

I don’t believe this is me spewing some sort of anti Muslim cyber bigotry, I’m more inclined to think it’s just some form of common sense pointing out some nonsensical-ness, like calling out a friend who accidentally walks out the door wearing two different patterns of plaid.

For instance, would it be cool if a fringe Christian group flew a plane into, and totally destroyed the Mosque of the Prophet, and then built a church by its remains a few years later? That would seem kinda tasteless, or lacking in style, wouldn’t it? Oh well…

I was laying on my belly under the shady tree by the volleyball pits; it was Bible camp week. Spread out in front of me, at the edge of my trusty Mexico blanket, sat two items. A folded up Anglican version of the Apostles’ Creed and GK Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. The Apostles’ Creed was necessary in order that I might understand Orthodoxy, for, as Chesterton put it, “When the word “orthodoxy” is used here it means the Apostle’s Creed, as understood by all who call themselves Christians… until a very short time ago.” ¹

So, a book called Orthodoxy, an Apostles’ Creed, blue sky’s in front, and volleyball pits behind. This is how I entered chapter one…

According to Chesterton, the Maniac is the type who needs all the answers, who puts fairy tales in there proper place, who, instead of floating easily “on the infinite sea” seeks to cross it and make it finite. ² This is the man who sees an unreasonable universe and tries to make it wholly reasonable, which of course it never is. The Maniac tries to fit the heavens into their head and can’t. The land of the maniac is not Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle Earth or Dagobah.

This isn’t to say that reason is bad, it isn’t, Chesterton merely warns against reason divorced from its dancing partner; mystery. For when “you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.” ³ A normal life demands the abnormalities of imagination, of this I try my best to indulge. For instance, I trend towards these fantastical images as my computers desktop background, stuff like orange hued skies with bending trees or little Gorp’s investigating flowers; I love these things, they speak the language of mystery and can be trusted to lead the way to truth and sanity.

Why after all, the universal imagination, the vivid dreams of other lands if we’re just “leaves inevitably folding on an utterly unconscious tree,” if we’re just following the “blind destiny of matter.” ⁴

Image Credit: daewoniii