I woke up this morning with a word on my mind. The word was “mine.” What does it mean that something is “mine.” It struck me that there are a variety of things that are spoken of as mine. This key is mine. This wife is mine. This God is mine.

The key is physically mine. Or is it? It is the key to the car (mine!) and so it has a relationship to the car. Indeed, the key is useless without the car, and the car is useless without the key. The relationship the key has to the car really makes the key the car’s. As a unit, then, they are both mine. My relationship to the key has a built in relationship to the car as well. But it is a physical relationship of me to “thing.”

My wife is mine, but in a very much looser way than the car. My wife is a separate person with her own relationships, only one of which is me. She is not useless without me and I am not useless without her. Our relationship is a more interdependence than an ownership relationship, unlike the car and key.

My God is mine, but only in a relationship in which I am dependent for my very existence on Him. As is everything else that is kept in existence by the power or force of a creator. More accurately, I am His. I guess an artist in creating a painting always has a relationship to it as its creator even after he gives it up to others and it leaves him physically.

My nephew, when he was little, saw and internalized the J.C. Nichols statue in the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. He referred to it as “Mine fountain.” And in a way, it was. And though he is now over 40, I hope he still has the internal relationship with that fountain in his memory. Our memories seem to maintain all the relationships we form with things, persons, and bits of knowledge, words, images, and sounds.

As I get older I find myself craving less and less. I don’t really need things to be mine. I am starting to think of my being theirs. Except for money. That’s mine.

Well, the first pesidential debate is over. Interesting, but not a world changing event. Each candidate got to take potshots at the other, and both got to express some thoughts. One thing I still can't figure out. They both call out the other on his lack of "details" about future policy. This strikes me as odd because there are a couple of issues in that one statement about "details."

First, the president gives suggestions and policy principles but is not the "lawgiver" like Moses, or somene of that ilk. Oh, I know Obama wants to be and DOES issue laws of his own making, as well as undoing laws passed by congress and signed by a president. His "orders" to ignore enforcing some laws that he disagrees with are a shredding of the constitution, and his directives to his agencies to impliment policies that are just new laws that the executive branch is "passing" without congress. Pocket appointments of a congress that is still in session (technically) is another end run around the constitution. Etc. This has all been going on for so long by presidents over the last 40 or 50 years that I guess the public thinks that this is the way laws are passed. Since civics classes are passe (right?) there is no more schooling on how a law is created and passed, and the constitution is in shreds because of the two parts of government have assumed the role of creating laws (executive and judicial), the constitution is becoming null and void. Or at least moot.

Second, once the president has set down his suggestions, in a broad or narrow brush sort of way, with goals, policy guides, and his political desires in what I consider draft form, he is duty bound to submit his wishes to his paid consultants for their review and decision. These consultants should not b e confused with lobbyists who are paid by employers that have specific, special interest, and who want to affect the executive branch suggestions. No, I mean congress, all 535 consultants who are paid by the citizenry to represent them. The executive branch can certainly communicate with congress, apply pressures of various sorts, and as we have seen offer special deals to individual members to get the vote the executive wants, but this turns into a foul process after a while. The judicial branch hovers over all this to stand ready to stop any law that gets passed from violating a constitutional principle. This has deteriorated, however, into such open ended judgments that the constitution is hardly a barrier anymore to anything. Take for example the "fine is really a tax" conversion of the so-called Obamacare law (that was illegally introduced by the Senate) and you begin to see all three branches making laws.

And the result is a tyranny that the constitution was supposed to prevent. Ah me. Still, civilizations come and go, countries come and go, politicians and political parties come and go, and we ... well, we come and go. I might not like the changing parade, but it changes anyway. And one actually can't ever "go back" even though such talk is used to make people feel better. The United States had a long, torturous run, but it certainly looks like it is trouble. It has changed, and will continue to do so, but along with the rest of the world is is changing in such a way that anyone who has read some history will recall the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. There are some similarities, and the end results may end up the same. Something new will come along, and mankind may or may not survive.

You know, the Earth is in a far arm of a galaxy that turns once in 2 billion years and has turned more than twice already. "There has been joy. There will be joy again." Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man

Friends: Okay, I’m puzzled. I have sat at my television and watched as Fox (mostly) and MSM (almost none) gave us coverage of the attack on an American Embassy in Libya. Not only was the story of this disgrace muddled and spun by our own administration to support the idea that it was a “spontaneous” action of a mob, but came about because of a trailer of a to-be-made file about the prophet Mohammad. So, at the end of a couple of weeks of back and forth we can come to some conclusions: it wasn’t “spontaneous.” It was a planned attack by militia in Libya, connected more or less with Al Quida, and was specifically timed to occur on 9/11, believed by some to be a response to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Well, maybe. (And what’s this “preplanned” crap? Something done before it was planned? Doesn’t anyone know English any more?) The reason I’m puzzled is that I have been reading the Koran for myself for a year now, in several translations. They substantially agree. Here are some snippets from it, which I hope you will follow up on and read for yourself. It’s tough going, but worth the effort, I think.

Surah 3. Al 'Imran (The Family Of 'Imran, The House Of 'Imran)
28. Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah. except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.
32. Say: "Obey Allah and His Messenger.: But if they turn back, Allah loveth not those who reject Faith.

Surah 4. An-Nisa' (Women)
76. Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject Faith Fight in the cause of Evil: So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan.

Surah 5. Al-Ma'ida (The Table, The Table Spread)
33. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
38. As to the thief, Male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power.
51. O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.

Surah 9. At-Tawba (Repentance, Dispensation)
29. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
30. The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah.s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!
31. They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah. there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him).
33. It is He Who hath sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion, even though the Pagans may detest (it).
123. O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.

Surah 48. Al-Fath (Victory, Conquest)
28. It is He Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion: and enough is Allah for a Witness.

I won’t try to interpret any of this. You do it. Best --- read the thing yourself. I have plowed through three versions so far and I don’t find much difference. I will try others. It’s fascinating. I see a group that wants to dominate the entire world, convert all to Islam, apply their law which varies all over the place depending on which Imam you listen to last, and punish, kill, and dominate anyone else than Muslims. So, is it a religion we can coexist with, a philosophy that makes sense, or a government structure that works? You decide. I think it isn’t, but that’s just me.

Now, here is another “film” available on Youtube.com. It was put up in August, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MEquLcPomM Have you seen any Jews in any of the countries where there are Jews (how many is that?) burning Mosques or killing anybody? is the link to one of what I suppose is many lies on the Internet? There appear to be many more posted by Memri on Youtube.com. Check some of them out.

Now for my puzzlement. We have (had?) free speech in the United States. It is in the founding document of our nation, the Constitution, large trashed and shredded for many years by a bit by bit process of misinterpretation by courts, congress, and the public in general. People seem to believe what they want or what they are told without any thinking facility being used. Well, that’s freedom for you. As long as the free speech is SPEECH, and is not DOING, I support the freedom to say what you want. (I hope you give me that some courtesy.) But when free SPEECH progresses into DOING (like burning things down, killing those who disagree with you, and intimidating those on the sidelines, I don’t give the DOERS any right to do what they want. We are supposed to believe that because the Muslims involved (millions, apparently) are outraged, they are entitled somehow to do whatever their Imams tell them to do. Islam, if we are to believe the Koran, is “religion” of hate, barbaric DOING, in the name of prophet who was a warlord in 10th century Arab lands. I think he spoke to “current events” and gave instruction on how to live in a multicultural world. One tenet is that Islam must take over the world and make it ONE culture. That is what I think I see in the Koran. I have also seen many Imams giving different and sometimes conflicting instructions on how to deal with life in the 20th and 21st centuries. So, I’m puzzled. I’m willing to believe (am I gullible?) that most of the Muslims who rioted around the world at the urging of their leaders never knew of or even watched the Youtube trailer. I did. It’s stupid, annoying, and certainly meant to disturb Muslims. But it does fall into the free SPEECH area. It’s the DOING I object to. Our fearless leaders seem to live in the chaotic kneejerk responses of their minds, going to several directions at once, with no one in charge, or willing to take a stand other than one that says, “Not me!” or “Not us!” Nonesense. Somebody has to be in charge.

And here I sit, confused and puzzled. We are in the midst of a bitter contest to see who will be put in charge: the man who currently IS, and doesn’t do anything except pettyfog, or the man who says he’ll do something about it, which may be a dangerous path for us all. What a choice, but one we have to make. I am puzzled. What do you think? (Please, if you don’t THINK, don’t bother getting involved with this complex issue.

Well, here I go again. I have spent some time rethinking why I wanted a blog in the first place. The reason remains pretty much the same as always: I feel I have something to say. As I watch the world events down to the local level, I am shocked at the lack of understanding most people seem to show. More and more all I see is "feelings" and greediness. No thought. No knowledge. No effort to dig for further information. It's the same thing I saw in most of my students when I was teaching. So, I find myself frustrated, annoyed, and in many cases angry. Thus, the blog. But I have never made the effort to make the blog available in any real sense. That would require advertising. So, if I am ever to get any feedback as to whether I am on a right track, a wrong track, or any track at all, I am going to have to make effort to "spread the word." Let see if any of my attempts work! A new approach but with much of the same level of commentary. I hope anyone reading my blog (if any) will take the time to mention it and/or respond to me. I encourage debate, after all. This is solely my challenge. Can I do anything about this? I'll see. Perhaps no one else will....