zutroy.net

I’m sick of it! I remember commenting to my business partner after President Ford passed away “I can’t remember the last time I saw a flag flying at full staff.” Not that I have anything against mourning a past presidents death. We just have too many causes to mourn that don’t have to be there. A gunman wonders into a Salt Lake City shopping mall (Where I have personally walked on occasion) and kills as many as he can until an off duty officer pins him down and he is eventually shot and killed. A disturbed father who lost a daughter systematically plans the abuse and slaughter of innocent Amish school girls. A couple clueless kids take several guns to school to take out their revenge on schoolmates that have not seen reason to allow them into the “popular kids” group. And then this week, a truly messed up moron decided that because life isn’t fair, that the only real solution is snuff out the life of all the rich snobs that can only afford to attend the same college as him. Then the real tragedy starts. When most of us are mourning and healing, several soulless individuals take tragic events and use the power of the emotion that the nation is feeling to push their own agenda. The first report I saw about the Virginia Tech shootings actually included comments on who was to blame. They hadn’t even got a clear number of dead and wounded and they were already pushing their agendas. Blame it on the guns. Blame it on the video games. Blame it on the media. Blame it every little thing I don’t agree with. Everyone needs to know who to blame, I understand that. But no one is really understanding who really is to blame here. It’s not the guns. It’s not the video games. It’s not the TV. It’s not the movies. It’s not the media. It’s no single thing. Everyone wants to fix the problem. The problem is that the problem is more than just one problem. I do think there is a solution. But I have no hope for this nation. The solution lies in the home. Until this nation can return to a point where parents can make sure that children know and love their mother, that children know and respect their father, that children live their entire life only having one father and one mother, when children are taught the sanctity of marriage and to respect virtue and chastity, that children have respect and courtesy for everyone else, that children are taught the commandments of God, that children are given a sense of worth and individuality; until then, I have no hope. I don’t see that it can happen because too many are past the point of feeling. Too many are lifted up in their own eyes and see themselves as greater than God. So what can we do? The only thing we can do. Teach our children a little better. Know our children a little more each day. Love our children a little more.

I played football during my junior year in high school. K, let me rephrase that. I was on the football team my junior year of high school. I was the only “skater” that tried out for the team. Most of the team mates hated me because I had “long hair”. Course, many of them had long hair the next year. It just hadn’t come into fashion for non-skaters yet. I did actually get to play a few times on the special teams a couple times. Once early in the season, I didn’t stay in my zone and the other team scored a touchdown because of me. I didn’t play much after that. Once in a JV game a little later in the season, the coach felt sorry for me or something and sent me in for a kick return special teams. I set up in the middle of the field. They almost always never kick it there. Course this time I saw the kick come off the ground and come straight towards me. Then it stopped going straight. If you have ever watched a kick, the usually have somewhat of a spiral and go more or less straight. This one didn’t. I could actually see the threads hold their position on the front of the ball with zero rotation. It began to wander (in slow motion of course). First to the left, then down to the right. Then back up to the left, no right! Then back down at the last minute. I stooped low to catch it and it plunged even lower hitting me directly in the shin. Suddenly the slow motion went in to fast forward. The ball bounced to a teammate that was polite to me but I knew didn’t particularly care for me. Off he went to gain some respectable yardage and there I stood looking like a moron. What happened? I kept my eye on the ball. Could it be that sometimes it isn’t enough just to keep your eye on the ball? Elder Worthlin just gave a very good discourse on the subject and we would all do well to follow his council. But I would go a little further to say that the ball doesn’t always hold still. We must remain vigilant and always prepared to catch the ball if by chance it is to dodge at the last moment.