Coming Apart

A couple of months ago I read Charles Murray's new book Coming Apart. I doubt there will be a more important book published this year. You can view an interview of the author here. It is well worth one's time to watch this. It might help you figure out what is going on.

Afghanistan and Texas and Two Sons

I meet a lot of people in my line of work. I always say that behind every door there is a story. A man came in with a dental problem. During the course of the visit we covered a lot of ground. I asked about his son who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas. The missionary is assigned to work with Spanish speaking people. The area he is in has an LDS ward. Virtually the entire membership including the local leadership (the ward Bishop and other leaders) are in the United States illegally. We had quite a discussion on that, coming to common ground that the border needs to be secured first. His position was that the illegals here, contributing and living their lives should not be deported back to Mexico. I have to agree with that because I don't know how it could be done, and many have fled Mexico to get away from the drug wars while looking for a better life. I added the caveat that anyone here illegally who has been arrested and convicted of a crime must be deported and not allowed back. He understood that and agreed with it.

We then turned to his other son. He is an Army vet, Ranger qualified and served in Afghanistan. While on patrol one of his team stepped on and IED. The resulting explosion took the right arm off of this man's son. He has endured about 20 surgeries to develop some muscle to attach a prosthesis. He has had muscle transplanted from the latissimus dorsi to just below his shoulder. He is in pain that barely diminishes even with the continual use of oxycontin which he has become physiologically and psychologically dependent on.

He talked of the ridiculous rules of engagement our Armed Forces are being forced to follow. They are limited when and how they can use force, thus placing them in more jeopardy. He wondered what our mission was there. If it was to get Bin Laden, well, we're done he explained and we need to bring everyone home. He said he asked one of our US Senators that question at a Town Hall meeting. The Senator said the mission was to keep Afghanistan as stable as possible so Pakistan does not fall with their nuclear arsenal. I listened mostly. But I did say that people either live in Liberty, Tyrany or Chaos. That is the cultural and governmental state of countries. The people in Afghanistan have mostly existed for centuries in Chaos. When looking at these countries as a whole they are use to Tyranny or Chaos, they cannot morph into a culture of Liberty. It just is not possible. I could see the moisture building up in this father's eyes as he talked of his sons. He had hope and happiness while taking of the boy in Texas, but was desperate talking of his son who had been to Afghanistan.

I have a nephew who leaves this Saturday to prepare to go over for his 2nd tour in Afghanistan, having also served a tour in Iraq.

Nightmares and Burgers

Today we went up to the University of Utah's Kingsbury Hall and saw a children's theater production of Nightmare in My Closet. My two grandsons enjoyed it. It was cute. Afterwards we frequented Hire's Big H in SLC on 4th South and 700 East. More enjoyable than the food was observing the family next to us. Three cute teen age daughters, a younger son and the mom and dad. The mother had this porcelain white skin, the father olive skin. What was fascinating was watching the back and forth in conversation between all of them. There were no cell phones out, nothing like that. I don't know about you but I enjoy watching people, looking at parents and their children, seeing the genetics passed on from one child to the other. Two of the girls had the same white skin of their mother and the middle girl had olive skin with her mother's face. I'll never see this family again but really enjoyed sitting next to them.

Hell's Angels Anyone?

Here is a collection of photos taken by a photographer for Life Magazine in 1965. They have never been published.

Stiff

I am not terribly squeamish when it comes to the human body. Unless of course it is my body with blood coming out of it or suffering some kind of pain. We all have an understanding that eventually all living things on this planet eventually go through the unavoidable gate we call death.

I was introduced to this book Stiff by Mary Roach via a friend. It was published some years ago but is still a fresh examination of the many different ways a human being experiences life (can I say that?) after he or she dies.

It talks of medical research, education, forensics, death facts and fables, ancient practices with the dead, new ways of handling the deceased and all at times in an amusing and entertaining way. Would you like to be fertilizer for and apple tree. This books explains the easiest and best way to do that. I recommend this book and give it at least 3 out of 4 stars.

Odds and Ends

Via Instapundit. 1937 advice on wives and how they should get ready for bed is visibly displayed here. It is pretty interesting.

Along those lines there is this. "Why does a woman always want to change a man?"--Rooster Cogburn.

Update: Vox Day throws this out too. Maybe the eternal ethos and pathos of man and woman will always exist, one way or another.

Critical Race Theory

I watched a clip of Joel Pollak being interviewed on CNN by Soledad O'Brien. They discussed a clip released by Breitbart.com with Barack Obama as a law student talking about Derrick Bell. It relates to something that I, frankly, had never heard of--critical race theory. This gives a pretty good synopsis for the lay person.