Going on Wacation

Blogging will be intermittent over the next several days. Not that anybody cares, but just in case. We're on vacation from our problems. We may go sailing. ("I'm sailing! I'm sailing! Far away from the dock! Ahoy!") Work will not be missed. School will not be missed. The dog will be missed a bit. But not enough to get us to take her with us. No sir.

I've got to say one thing, though: Just read about the two Colorado teenagers who killed a 7-year-old by beating her to death using moves from the "Mortal Kombat" video game. This isn't going to be a rant about video games inspiring violence, because, in fact, they don't. At least in everybody. But ya gotta wonder about these two simpletons, and the drunk idiot who didn't intervene. It's just stupidity, plain and simple.

I have three kids of my own. Each time I read of someone hurting or killing a child, I cringe. I cringe at death in general, of course. Even for those who may "deserve" it, as many people say in justifying their blood lust. I don't buy into that. Guess you could say I subscribe to the Gandalf/J.R.R. Tolkein view: Many deserve death who live, and many who die deserve life. I also believe in that funny little commandment that says "Thou Shalt Not Kill," and don't agree with any Orwellian tinkering with that commandment, even as such tinkering appears in the Bible. Don't like that. I have a hard time reconciling it. I haven't succeeded, because it's hard to me to see how anyone can add "without a cause" to that commandment. Can we give life to people? We can't. So we shouldn't encourage dealing it out, whether through the death penalty or our own fists. Death for death, tit for tat shows weakness, not strength.