Life is 'funny' sometimes. Just as I think I have something figured out...

I signed up with several news services and papers to have a daily headlines edition of their work delivered to my inbox within days of the first booting up of my (first there too, I had never seen the Internet until January of 2004!) computer.

I peruse several national and international feeds.

For a while there I even hoped Al-Jazeera would start offering one, because I like to know what the other guys are saying...

Anyway, (before I digress too far, a habit I have. It can be interesting, but the original thought is lost in the crowd:) this morning I checked my inbox after trying (yet again unsuccessfully-DANG IT) to log into the company health benefits website. For once CNN beat me to the inbox, and I opened the daily shot of sorrow.

OK, here a hopefully brief digression-I am a certified news junkie. I have several reasons for having become one, first and foremost that I pray for the people and places I read about. How can you pray for folks if you don't know what is going on?

The prayers lead to social action-I was listening when God asked Cain where Able was, and when He said through the Christ to love your neighbour. I TRULY believe we are responsible for each other.

So. If your brother's house has been discovered to be slipping into a sinkhole, but you don't know about it because he lives 200 miles from you and has no other way of calling for help besides the public communication system, are you then not responsible for monitoring the publice communication system?

And then, after you get your brother and his family, and as many of their household goods (so they don't become a public burden in need of re-supply, etc.) out of the danger zone, are you then going to stand by while other's homes slip into the abbyss?

I think not. You are going to go to them and offer your assistances, including the benefit of the experience you have from helping your brother-DUH!

Certes, however, if your offer is declined, you will not force yourself on the person who has rejected for whatever reason your offer-for if you did, you would be like the missionaries who use torture as an acceptable method of bringing 'lost' souls into 'salvation', and doesn't that make you wonder what the newly saved think as they died-"EE-U-OUCH! Oh my stars, I am dying from being racked and dunked and stabbed with the devil's mark finder, and now they are going to burn me alive but hey, I'm saved! WooHoo! Thanks Father Torquemada and crew!"

Right...No damn surprise to me that so many kids have turned away from 'salvation' and I know Jesus weeps.

OK! I did it again! Sorry, but it was kinda interesting, right? Uh, right??

Back to this morning...So I open CNN's daily, and scroll slowly to the bottom, where I find a headline about Neil Young having made "...the ultimate family movie..." and I am hooked and I click, and my world view tilts just a wee bit, and I am back a hair more in the place I prefer-the land of optimism.

From Neil Young, whose music I too, (see article on CNN website under Entertainment) grew up with, especially Heart of Gold-I was looking for the male version-and the song that even now brings me to tears at the thought of the hook-"Four dead in Ohio..." comes a movie about music that makes one think about maybe turning away from the bitterness that permeats and corrodes one into total negativity. I can't wait to see it.

Once upon a time ago in America protest gatherings were termed riots by the Establishment, and our National Guard called in to enforce 'peace'. Once upon a time ago, four students, some of them not involved with the gathered but merely walking across campus-the ultimate in "wrong place, wrong time"-were shot dead by National guard troops at a college called Kent State.

Lately I had been thinking their lives had been made a vainity,

I hope you, gentle reader, will Google and find out about those four kids who never grew up. I hope what you learn makes you see that today riots are being called protests, and I hope you finally understand the true definition of 'fascism' and how it lead a nation to perdition not so very long ago, and that the learning leads you to a commitment of social action...

Maybe you will find Mr. Young's music, and listen to it, because at the heart of it is hope for his fellow man.

Hope for us, and I thank-you Mr. Young.

Happy day!