Because Sometimes, Things Make Absolutely No Sense Whatsoever.
I've always thought that the worst kind of life to live is a boring one. Good times, bad times, successes and failures - these make life interesting. The worst life one could live in my estimation is one that is colorless and bland, devoid of any interests, conflicts or intellectual pursuits.
The good news is that world events are doing their part to keep our lives interesting. Pope Francis, in what I find to be an unfathomable move, recently announced that atheists can go to heaven if they follow their conscience. Now I'm not here to debate this, but it seems to me that if this is in fact true, why should anyone bother to go to church and study the bible? After all, if all we have to do is just follow our conscience, with no regard as to whether our conscience is right, we could close every church tomorrow with spiritual impunity.
Add to that the open letter of Russian president Vladmir Putin published yesterday in the New York Times. For the first time that I can ever remember in my life, the Russian sounds more rational in his assessment of the Middle East goat rodeo du jour than his American counterpart. Aside from his nonsensical dicta about how American exceptionalism doesn't exist (we have some 400 years of history, before which the eastern hemisphere of the planet had a sizeable head start, evidencing our contribution to culture, self government and technology far beyond what other countries have done), President Putin makes a good point:
We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.
That's from the former KGB operative and not the U.S. constitutional law scholar.
All of this serves as a good reminder: there are few constants here on earth. Aside from our faith in God, most everything else is up for grabs. That's why we who watch the news on a regular basis struggle to make sense of it. The reality is you can't.
Don't let that depress you. It's simply the nature of the world in which we live. Our job is to figure out how to excel under a myriad of conditions and scenarios, rather than to just ride it out.
In Other News And Info...
The Art of Manliness makes a number of good suggestions for podcasts you should be listening to.
In following up on the student responder class at Webb this past weekend, I'm thinking of going to an ankle rig trauma kit, much like the one Caleb of Lone Star Medics wears.
Please pay attention to interest rates. One thing climbing interest rates will likely curtail is the acquiring of new mortgages and sales of homes. One news source reports that "Citigroup Inc., the fifth-biggest U.S. mortgage originator last year, shut an office in Illinois and is eliminating jobs as rising mortgage rates drive off borrowers."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday announced "the anarchists have taken over" the House and Senate. If he had a radio talk show, the main stream media cognoscenti would label him a conspiracy theorist. For now, we can just call him the Senator from Nevada.
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