Sarah worked long days to catalog, pack and remove Sydney’s belongings from her apartment.  Knowing Sydney’s heart, Sarah arranged to scatter Sydney’s ashes in the Black Canyon, along with those of two beloved cats whose ashes Sydney had preserved.  She painstakingly folded origami swans with Sydney’s birth and death days for everyone to keep.  She baked cookies and zucchini bread.  She read a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson, We are not content to pass away entirely from the scenes of our delight; we would leave, if but in gratitude, a pillar and a legend.  Despite her fear of heights, she scattered the ashes over the 2000′ vertical drop to the Gunnison River, her red hair blowing in a strong and contrary wind.  She tried not to cry.

Not all daughters are born; some are forged from choices, and life experiences.

Dr. Warren Hoffman walked into my office wearing a Hawaiian style shirt, and a humble manner, both of which initially hid the magnitude of the man.  Fortunately for me, he was an hour early for the seminar he was to lead in my meeting room.  We had time to chat about nothing in particular-the sort of small talk that soon begins to reveal the character of the one across the table. I was quickly impressed.    

Dr. Hoffman is a man who appears completely comfortable in his own skin, and perceives no reason to raise his stock in anyone else’s portfolio.  Rather than try to list the things that impressed me, let me suggest you follow the link attached to his name above.  It goes directly to his blog, but you can explore from there.  Don’t rely on my impression, allow him to make a new one just for you.  You just won’t have an hour of face time.  Sorry.

Having counted my blessings, the fact remains that I have a long-running battle with depression.  Not the crippling, clinical variety that leaves one incapable of dealing with life, but a general sadness at the relentless stream of cancer, lost homes, broken bones, distressed marriages, and unemployment that flows across my Blackberry every day.  Some disasters are just too big to grasp-earthquakes, mudslides, eruptions, oil spills, and wars-these leave me unaffected, but the smaller, more immediate disasters leave me melancholy.

This melancholy weakens my natural defenses against life’s normal little irks-the Russian olive trees are in bloom and my nose is on strike for the duration.  If I were to allow it, the cumulative effect would be a downward spiral that would soon reach a point where I could not reverse it without help.  I refuse to allow it.  The solution is to require of myself daily progress toward the goals that have been set before me.  Even if I am unsure of the best thing to do, there is always the next thing presenting itself for my attention.  If it’s not counterproductive, it leads upward.  Will there still be sickness?  Will there still be more unemployed friends than I have positions to fill?  Absolutely.  In the meantime, I will pick the next thing from my to-do list, and thank God I can still do that one thing. 

The other alternative would be to remove myself from the church’s mailing list, and return to my former ignorance.  Hum, maybe not.  Ignorance is, after all, not bliss, it’s just ignorance.  Of that I have no shortage.

There is a tiny shop in Valley View Plaza in the Delta Center, Delta, Colorado that pays no attention to the debate, but fights mediocrity with every fiber of beef, pork and chicken they put out of the huge, competition-style smoker parked behind their building.  The Wilson Bar-B-Que and Bean Co. is one of those little places where the owner does much of the work, and closely oversees the rest.  A place where half the customers know, and are known by their first names.  A place where there is no such thing as mediocre food, or small portions.  If you want South Carolina, or Memphis style, this is not the place.  If you crave tender, moist, smoky meat, and the owner’s own special sauce, you will need to drive a long way from Delta, Colorado to find it anywhere else.  My wife, who is as opinionated as any barbecue aficionado, summed it up; “I think Famous Dave’s brisket is in trouble.”

It bothers me when people choose one narrow segment of a subject, and tar the entire subject with that view.  In this case the writers chose to hold up belief in UFOs and witches to ridicule.  If one defines UFOs as flying saucers piloted by aliens from outer space, and witches as broom-riding incarnations of the Wicked Witch of the West then ridicule might be in order.

UFOs, however, are by definition Unidentified Flying Objects of which there are many.  I may see a light in the sky and decide that I have no idea what it is (that makes it unidentified and flying) without believing in aliens.  (Yes, I write about aliens.  Some of my best characters are not human.  It’s fiction-made up in my admittedly odd imagination.  If you enjoy it, I’m glad.  If you make any of it into a core belief, you need help.)  

There is a large and growing movement called Wicca.  Many of the women in this movement define themselves as witches.  Not believing in witches is like not believing in Baptists, or atheists. 

So you see, I believe in Unidentified Flying Objects and witches, and I refuse to be marginalized. Using that sort of straw man fallacy is simply a lazy person’s way of “proving” a point.  If you would like to move my point of view in your chosen direction, I’d recommend better research and better writing.

Francis Schaefferonce noted a parallel between the decline of civilizations and their tendency toward crudeness.  In this case, crude is defined both as “marked by the primitive, gross, or elemental or by uncultivated simplicity or vulgarity,” and “rough or inexpert in plan or execution.”  The example Dr. Schaeffer used was an examination of Roman coins and the year they were minted.  One could clearly see the decline of the empire mirrored in the decline of craftsmanship in the engraved images.  There are many such parallels, but the one I want to talk about today is language.

Although I speak some Spanish, I can only look with any degree of expertise at American English .  I used to obsess over picky, esoteric facets of the language (Data is the plural of datum. “The data is wrong,” is wrong.)  Lately, it has been much more obvious stuff.  Some of it is just word use (usage and utilization are just stuff-shirt words that carry no greater weight than “use.”)  I frequently see someone write, “I like it alot.”  (Sigh) there is a word, allot, to assign as a share or portion, but the writer almost always means “a lot,” a considerable quantity or extent.  Did I mention that unique means the only oneand cannot be a comparative adjective.  Very unique is akin to very pregnant.   

The major decline I see, however is in the crudeness of language.  We commonly take a vulgar two-word phrase, remove the offensive word, and use it in polite company.  People that would never use the original incestuous phrase will call something a “big mother” and think nothing of it.  Even television commercials, where the two-word phrase for oral sex would be banned, use the term “sucks.”  I once argued with a newsroom editor about the term SNAFU, a World War II term.  The editor said it stood for “Situation normal, all fouled up.”  I suggested his history was a little shaky, the “F” originally stood for the common term for carnal knowledge.  He was not born until long after the war ended, but remains convinced that his interpretation is correct.

I once heard a young person say, “Our generation swears; get over it.”  There is no getting over it, or not.  Allowing the language to descend into the mud, and then defending it as a generational thing is simply proof of the parallel decline of our society in general.  It is not, in itself, the problem; it is the Check Engine Soon light on the dashboard of life.  A skilled speaker has no need of vulgarities.  If you have a reasonable working vocabulary, you can disparage a person’s intelligence, ancestry, and personal hygiene without using a single vulgar word.  You can be funny, express joy or sorrow, agreement or dissent, and do it in civil terms.  

We may, or may not be able to reverse the general decline of the American society, but we can learn to speak our language, native or learned, with the thin covering of civilization in place, and intact.

• Religion
• Speech
• The Press
• Assembly
• Redress

Each of these parts has seen egregious attacks, and excessive defenses over the years.  My observation today has to do with the press. 

It has been an open secret for many years that ski resorts in Colorado, and one would suppose elsewhere, spin the weather reports to favor snow.   They find ways to overstate snowfall without actually lying about it.  One can hardly blame them; snow translates directly into revenue. For example, after a recent snowstorm, Vail Resorts told the media that it had shut down its headquarters because of heavy snow. They didn’t mention that those offices are in low country, 75 miles from its closest slopes. The slopes were warm and sunny that day.  It’s probably harmless.  Still, Bob Berwyn, a reporter for Summit Daily News, had the temerity to write, “I sometimes wonder whether the ski industry wouldn’t benefit more from being completely transparent about weather and snowfall with its customers, but when snow equals money, perhaps that’s expecting too much.”

The Vail Resorts called the editor.  The editor told the reporter that he had, “a lot of groveling to do.”  The reporter didn’t grovel.  The reporter is currently looking for work.

We regularly defend the right of any reporter to say anything he or she wants as long as it’s true, and without malice.  We protect reporters even when they knowingly violate national security by reporting things that give aid, comfort, and valuable intelligence to our enemies.  Just don’t irritate an advertiser. 

With the business world arguably posing as large a threat to national security as any enemy, I believe it’s time to reign in the power of corporations to shape the news in their favor.  The problem is, I see no workable way to do that.  If any of you have a solution, let me know.

“Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America, was released Oct. 15 and is already gaining attention from national lawmakers. Four members of Congress have asked the House sergeant-at-arms to investigate allegations in the book of double agents placed inside Congress by the Council for American-Islamic Relations.”

Typically, there were comments.  One recurring theme is, “What is simply incorrect and not factual is the notion purveyed by the uninformed that all Muslims believe the same way. There are Muslims who believe in violence. There are Muslims who do not believe in violence. I think that the facts show that the vast majority of Muslims are in the latter category.”  Disregarding the unknowable nature of the last line, it’s patiently true that not all Muslims believe alike.  In fact, the Sunni and Shiite branches of the faith regularly murder each other.  They are not unique. If you have not read Fox’s Book of Martyrs, you should at least try.  I was never able to finish it. 

 I would like to propose an analogy-not an allegory, where every part has significance, but a simple analogy where one concept sheds light on another. 

Not all firearms are alike.  Some are as small as .17″, some as large as 16″.  Some fire one projectile, some many.  Some are loaded manually, one round at a time, and some fire 6000 rounds per minute.  Some are ugly, and some works of art.  I don’t fear any of them.  My grandfather’s 20-gage, Model 37 Ithaca hangs over the fireplace in my Wisconsin home.  It is out of reach of children, and has a trigger lock.  In another life, I carried various side arms and shoulder weapons through miles of jungle.  None of them bothers me-until someone aims one at me.  At that point, my choices are surrender, or quick and decisive action.

The followers of Islam come in many forms-male and female, young and old, violent and peaceful, middle-eastern, and not.  None of them bothers me until one of them cocks Islam and aims it at me.  At that point, the same two choices apply.  If we are apathetic, the freedom-of-religion clause of the constitution is in danger of being drowned in political correctness.  When you hear terms like “Islamophobic hate monger,” your adrenalin should surge.