Mon, Mar 31st - 12:55AM

As Paul Harvey would say:

And now for...  ...The Rest of the Story.

Page 1.

Jon Johnson was talking about letting go of vengance.  Knock! Knock! Who's there? Mad Mel...

(ouch)

Eve Juurik was talking about the same thing from a similar perspective when she did a rather long post (still worth reading) on Forgiveness.

Lee Volmer has known something was not quite right.  I promised her I would come clean on this when I was not so very angry.

I am not quite there yet.  But I will share a little and hope you will find it in you to pray for my peace or enlightenment, if that is what I lack.

First of all, the outer story, where my real anger resides, has been ongoing for over two years now.  That is where all of the anger still lies.  I will share little of that larger story, but I will share some so that you know what I have gone through and am going through in it so that your prayers may be more specific and your guidance more precise.

The inner story is complete.  I am relatively at peace with it, so I think I can share it and not be overly concerned about my poor attitude.  And it was very poor, indeed! (I think it is OK now...)

The day after Christmas was miserable weather where I live.  A bunch of snow, slick roads, and I had to go to work.  I left to go in early.  I didn't clean my tail lights, but only did my windsheild and back window, and a bit on the side windows.

A State Patrol officer pulled me over, because my rear lights were covered and not visible was the official reason.  He asked for the usual, license, registration and proof of insurance.  I had actually replaced my proof of insurance early, so I had proof of the continuing policy starting in February, but nothing current.  I thought, "Not good," but that didn't phaze the officer.  It took a while and he came back with some paperwork, never good.  It seems my license had been "denied" (a fancy term that meant pretty much the same as revoked, without the criminal overtones, purely administrative) for a traffic ticket I had not cleared in 2004.  He couldn't tell me what it was for, and only could tell me when and where and a ticket or summons number without being sure which it was.  He had to take my license.  He would need to tow my car to an impound lot unless I could have it towed out of traffic myself.

Well, I carry AAA plus.  Problem was, they were backed up.  The officer waited, and we chatted a few more times as he came back to me for status checks, and I got nervous. But it gave me time to figure out that the ticket in question had to be a speeding ticket, and I remembered paying it, so I was really curious as to what could have gone wrong.  Well, I would have mailed it because I had the option to automatically take a plea bargain because my recond was pretty clean, and would have mailed it on time to accept that plea bargain.  The officer told me that sometimes you think it should get there in time, but it doesn't.  So you payed the initial fine, and they accept the plea bargain based upon the postmark, but they charge a late penalty, which they should have mailed to me.  He was even kind enough to point me in the right direction as to who I needed to call in the correct order.  So I sat and waited, and waited, and waited.

The officer had to go.  I thought "Great, here we go to impound" but he only made me promise not to move my car.  Now, you know I am cynical, so this was a real shock to me.  I don't know what he read in me to make him believe he could do that in trust.  I am thankful he did.  But by the time I got my car towed home, the day was shot.  If I caught a bus, I would be there barely more than an hour before when I normally left to go back home.  Maybe he saw me reading my bible while I waited?  I really don't know.

The next day I called the court clerk.  It turned out it was a clerical error in failing to enter the clearing information into the computer.  So he wrote up the clearing paperwork, then and there telling me he was mailing me a copy and faxing the other copy to the DMV.  My ticket was paid in full clearly on time.  I was kind of mad at that, but handled it ok, just hating how stupid stuff like this could happen, and reminding myself that my speeding had everything to do with why this opportunity for a mistake even existed.

A day later I called the DMV.  Hey!  It was done already!  I am shocked again.  I've dealt with Colorado's Goverment in the past, and they are exceedingly and painfully slow almost all the time it seems to me.  Wow!  I did have to actually go in and get a replacement license, as if I had just plain lost it, or destroyed it in the laundry.  And I would have to pay for it.  Again, I was not exactly as joyful as I should have been.  Now I asked if it was illegal for me to drive in, since I physically did not have my license.  They said no, but that I could not be charged with driving without a license, but only with driving without my license in my possesion.  I understood the difference.  Now despite the fact that people can unknowingly do just that at times, I was knowingly doing it.  I deliberately broke that law.  So my attitude sucked there a little bit.  And I justified my wrong by their wrong.  Again, just plain WRONG!  (you say no big deal, I say very big deal -- it points to the heart...)

Well, if that is the worst I did that day, I think I did fairly well for me.  I am no great shining idol of perfection.  I waited.  I was even cheerful about the wait.  I was disappointed, I had hoped for better, but it was not getting me down.  I was talking to one of the Department of Motor Vehicles clerks and bemoaning the fact, almost jestingly and certainly without the acrimony I had felt earlier, that I still had to show up in court for a stupid clerical error, and this would end up costing me yet another half day.  Now they knew I was replacing my license because it was "denied" and verified that with me.  They then explained that I shouldn't have to worry about it.  The court clerk should pull the records for each docket and compare them against the charges to ensure everything was in order.  They should see in my case that there is no way a "denied" license charge was valid if the DMV had issued a new license and my current record, in fact, showed that it was already removed the same as it got there, as an administrative action.  Now I think their explanation was quite detailed because I responded with understanding of the jargon being used.  In the big picture, I had been reading and understandind much more complex legal ideas for over two years.  I think I understood them completely accurately.  I think they picked up on that and it made them feel appreciated.  But I am only guessing there.

I meant to call the court clerk and confirm this.  I never did, and did not appear in court either.  I was busy.  Very busy.   I am an accountant.   End of year is a big thing.  But I did eventually call in to check on it after the fact.

I had been charged with criminal failure to appear.  A warrant for my arrest was outstanding and active.  I was furious.  I was mad enough that my evaluation at work mentioned how badly I lost my composure.  I blew a major gasket.  Flat out.  Pure and Simple.

I did what I had to do.  I paid $750.00 in bond.  I paid $25.00 to register for a new trial date.  I appeared in criminal (not traffic) court.  And they called me forward and dismissed the case.  But the crime of failure to appear remains on my record I understand.  And I paid additional fees that were taken out of my bond.  I have been stewing on that for a while, trying to get it out and behind me.  The way it fits into the bigger picture is how it made me mad and how I eventually gained peace and closure for this part.

Now let me take you down a side track and tell you how this is actually amusing.  Well, actually, it jest set the stage for a little funny thing that God made me laugh with Him about.  I used to buy my Train Pass through a payroll deduction.  In December, I just got it in time, so I actually knew what the proceedure would be if it ever did not make it in the mail.  I was sweating it out a mounth earlier.  Well, when I lost my license, I also did not get my Train and Bus Pass in January.  On the bus, they check you every time.  On the train, inspectors occassionally will ask you to show your fare.  I didn't have my Pass, even though I paid for it.  Again, my attitude was not quite perfect.  I think that by getting off when I saw an inspector was somewhat untruthful.  But they actually caught me on the last time they could.  It was payday, and I could afford the replacement that I would be reimbursed for.  They needed ID.  I had no drivers license, so I gave them my Military ID.  They told me, no worries, you ride for free.  Apparently, it had been that way for 3 years.  I guess the loosing of my licence and my pass not making it in the mail was all meant to bring a good thing to me, despite the fact that I was somewhat deceitful in the way I tried to avoid God giving me this gift.  Yeah, He love us.

OK -- The Rest of the Story.

Wed, Mar 26th - 12:05AM

A bit of a Rant...Politics drive me nuts, sometimes...

The big news was 4,000 dead in five years:

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_8677389

Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hillary Rodham (I was a congressional aide when we took Tricky Dick down -- and I made Slick Willie better than him when we had the 900 FBI files and got away with it!) Clinton all are attempting to make political hay on the deaths of these soldiers.  Some of them (those who have fallen) would agree with the positions of these three and others if they were alive today.  Some of them would vigorously oppose them or at least part of what they advocate.  But they died, willingly or not, so that venomous political charlatans like these people even could speak ill of what they did, or as it seems to be unpopular these days, so others could even speak in support what they were doing, or at least trying to do.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a388825e95e8e.htm (just for Hillary and my comment above – and note who the byline is by: Robert Novak of CIA leak fame that was such a big thing in Bush’s White House – and he is good enough for CNN, now isn’t he?  Strange, what we should listen to and when…)

I have a real challenge for them (Hillary, Nancy and Obama):

http://www.madd.org/Drunk-Driving/Drunk-Driving/Statistics/AllStats.aspx

I want any of them to find a justification or some good served to give meaning to the deaths of 13,470 killed by just the Legally Drunk Drivers in America in the single year of 2006.  If we take the number for that year for the deaths where alcohol-related  crashes occurred, the good we need to explain had better be enough to cover 17,602 deaths, or better than the four times the five year total being bandied around as something really awful and distasteful.   It better be much better than what those soldiers died for, at least in my book, otherwise, their failure to address this makes them one thing only:  Hypocrites!  (Do you hear me, young idealists?  Run this through your philosophy class in total honesty and see them for what they are.  You are the future.  Beware those of the older generation that would purposely lie to you, even if that would be me…)

You now one reason this Drunk Driving Deaths number may mean less?  By the time we know of it, these poor people were murdered long ago.  It’s just not sexy to keep up to date on these statistics.  I’d much rather glue myself to the tube and hear about these sexy stories about deaths happening today, wouldn’t you fellow American?

“I make my living off the Evening News Just give me something-something I can use People love it when you lose, ...”  Don Henley -- "Dirty Laundry” off his album “I Can't Stand Still”  (sure this is secular, but it points straight to the dark heart of America and it’s love affair with the Lurid and how Hollywood and The News are driven by this perversion, and if a secular song from an artist like this is pointing to it way back in the early 1980’s, do you really think it’s gotten better by now all on it’s own?  BTW, I think more kindly of this man than any of these politicians…)

Let me check my math.  Isn’t that to mean that the death rate is 20 times higher?  Doesn’t that mean that for every 5 soldiers that may have actually died for a purpose, 100 died so we could be a country of irresponsible partying drunks who could not give a rat’s fat patootie about their fellow man, except how he might entertain us with his or her death?

Some of you are going to say that innocent lives are lost because of the war in Iraq.  That is true, and where it is deliberate on the part of our soldiers, they dishonor the dead as much as Hillary or Nancy or Obama do.  However, if we leave, I challenge you to even care about how many innocents die after we leave precisely because we leave.  That will be tough, because you are likely not going to get free access to that information.  Those who might discover it are not likely to share it, and if they do, examine their motivation for doing so.  And more women will die because they dishonored their family by allowing their own flesh and blood brother rape them.  That is the way of Islamic fundamental governments.  Maybe an extreme case, but it is undeniable that it is happening with more than some frequency and fairly broad consistency.  And their death is usually not humane, either, if you really care at all.  If you need to argue about this, I suspect you really shouldn’t let that bother you, either.  You don’t even care to admit that it is happening.  So what is there to care about for how they die?  You deny that they even do!

If you are going to make a point of bringing the sacrifices of these men and women in uniform into question and saying that because of the sacrifice they made, we need to come home, I demand you give me an answer as to what we are going to do for those who died, not because they were in harms way with a possible purpose (unless you intend to argue that our highways are a known battlefield that people venture onto at their own risk) but because the soccer game was farther than they could walk through the fields to, or they could not pay to have someone deliver their groceries to them instead of driving to the store themselves.

My answer:  since we are embracing other ways of thinking in such an enlightened manner, maybe we should follow what the Holy Book of El Sadr would have us do:  Just kill them in an appropriate method to match their crimes.  Burying them up of their waist in sand and having heavy vehicles drive back and forth over them slowly until they died would be appropriate, I think.  But of course, the vehicles would have to be drawn by animals. Cars are bad!  (Maybe we should just kill everyone driving a car that might kill someone, while we are at it.  After all, we need to honor their fundamentalist way of thinking…)

A gem to show the despair of those who serve:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/nationalsecurity/story/18996.html

Gee, whiz, Mr. McCain.  I think we should extend Social Security and Medicare to all Americans, even the illegal ones.  (They can vote, you know, illegally being here doesn’t stop that…)  But while you are at it, throw a bone to those soldiers who suffer mental anguish.  Remember Hanoi?  Remember Jane Fonda?  Yes, I know you do and can understand their torment in ways others cannot.  It may not be politically correct, but speak for them.  I don’t agree with how I understand your views on immigration reform should be done, but I am not sure I understand what is truly in your heart.  I look at your past and what they say about you, and I sense you and I may not be quite as different as we seem.  You are one of those people I’d like to see face to face and just talk simply to.  I have my doubts that will be so, but my doubts mean nothing.  I think you are basically honest.  I think your honesty is stolen from you at times and you hate it.  I would enjoy a chat, I think.  Dream on…(heh)

Ok.  I think I can go to sleep now...

I'll share a scripture quoting John the Baptist and share from Acts:

 ¹²Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

 ¹³"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told

   them. ¹⁴Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
      He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."

 ¹⁵The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. ¹⁶John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Luke 3:12-16 (NIV)

¹²Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. ¹³The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

 ¹⁴But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ¹⁵"Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. ¹⁶In the past, he let all nations go their own way.

Acts 14:12-16 (NIV)

If you can figure what these have to do with anything I have been talking about here, you are better than I.  I couldn't begin to tell you why they seem to be important here...

In Truth,

A very tired Mel

Fri, Mar 14th - 11:59PM

We are all kids, and still say the darndedst things...

These links are provided as entertainment or not.  I think some of you might enjoy the challenge of seeing how I put these in the same context with one another.  I am not saying I am right.  It is just a way to explain the way I think.  I'll explain if you ask, but it might be fun just to see how you would put these together.  At least I would enjoy it!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goedel%27s_incompleteness_theorem

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index/a/16155/from/yahoo

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56494

(the last one you can blame on or credit to Smokey the Dog)

Just trying to provoke a strange thought or two...

In truth,

Mel