Stormbringer's Thunder

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen In my younger days, I was excited about Halloween. Not just going door-to-door and getting candy from neighbors who were pressured into giving it out (although some liked doing it), but doing scary stuff and wanting people to be frightened by my lame costume. (Big scare, people are expecting diminutive people to show up in costumes on that day.) My mother made me take down the decorations I had up in my room. As I grew older, I put aside those things and realized that I hate fear, and am not a fan of Halloween. Isn't there enough death, fear and evil in the world without celebrating it? Yes, I realize that some people believe it's a way of coping with the fear of death and fear of the unknown. There were tasteless jokes made about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and of the space shuttle  Challenger  disaster in 1986 that I regret ever hearing, and I was told those were coping mechanisms. I don't buy it. I don't get into horror ...

Buona sera. My father was a pastor. He was not very fond of enthusiastic people forming Bible study groups without some form of leadership or guidance. His response was, "A pooling of ignorance". I saw later that it was true to some extent. When you have people sharing thoughts but nobody has studied the subject or had a study guide, people can arrive at completely wrong ideas through a type of democratic process. (I am not advocating the other extreme, that you cannot understand anything without approved leadership, otherwise we should all become Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses and be told what to think.) Some degree of knowledgeable leadership can help. The same pooling of ignorance happens in atheist circles. Recently, I have been reminded of the "Old Testament God is evil" mindset. How did they get their ideas? Certainly not through researching or consulting experts, which would be imperative with such a serious claim. Referring to Richard "Daffy...

Buona sera. Today's rant is a bit different. It's from the heart (I do have one despite what my ex will tell you), there are no hard facts — but some reasoning. Lemme 'splain, Lucy. I'm going to connect my conclusions with my observations, and I'm going to show a bit of "two can play at that game". Due to circumstances that I will not discuss, I had to watch some of a soap opera. (To be politically correct, "daytime drama". To be honest, "waste of time".) But I have to give some credit to the actors, actresses, writers and director because the cast was doing quite well in looking like the infant on the show really was in imminent danger of dying from a virulent disease. I almost wanted to reach out and comfort the sobbing babes. One scene set off a mental chain reaction for me. She was in a hospital chapel and saying to God, "Is this what you want? What are you doing? Spare the child" and that sort of thing. Well, that sort of...