Hating the hunter, loving the Italian beef.

Sorry, another internet outage.  It's an outrage.

I never liked that hate the sin, love the sinner phrase.  I guess it's okay if the sinner is a bank robber or a hooker or something, but if they are gay, or like a hunter, they don't necessarily see what they are doing as a sin, and doing it is kind of who they are, and so if they continue to do it, and all you can do is try to stop them from doing it, it doesn't sound much like love to me.

I don't know that anybody is calling gayness normal.  Estimates vary, let's say 5 percent, and google confirms this at about 4 percent.  So that's a little more than rare, but still probably unusual.  Well normal has a mathematical meaning, but it also has another meaning sort of as not unhealthy.  How's my baby, Doc.  Oh he's normal.  I guess in the total world population probably less than four percent are blonde, but we don't think of blondes as abnormal.

So what, you think public opinion should never change, it should always be, oh I guess the way it was when you were a lad, go a little before that and there is nothing wrong with slavery, and a little before that and there is nothing wrong with torching witches, and go way back and the Christians are ruining the empire and the lions are hungry.  And why are we even talking about public opinion?  When were you ever a fan of public opinion?  The only time you like it is when it agrees with something you believe, and anymore that isn't very often.

And again you are believing that there is some group, Them, I believe is the word we decided on, that is controlling everything.  If everybody believed something at one time and now they believe something else, you think it must be because They decided They want them to.  Rubbish.

How about this theory:  We are all have a vote, and when it comes to an issue, we need to think about it.  We can't just say, this is the way we think and there is no reasoning about it.  What if a bunch of us got together and we all hated hunting, and it turns out there were 51 percent of us, and we all wanted to pass a law making deer hunting illegal, and one of our issues was that deer were being hunted to extinction.  And you would want to tell us that there are plenty of deer and no way were those two a year in Beaglesonia going to make them extinct, and we said, we don't care what you have to say, we already believe what we are going to believe and we don't intend to ever change that, so give up old Betsy Beaglesonian Boy, and by the way, here is a gay dog we want you to marry.

But there is something to what you say about disapproval.  Logically I think most hunting is just fine.  People enjoy it, it keeps them from doing drugs and joining gangs.  Nowadays whenever you are doing something, skateboarding or collecting stamps, or blogging, that doesn't involve doing drugs and joining gangs, Society smiles.  Anyway no harm in some good old boys roaming in their orange vests, putting a piece of meat on the table. 

But you know, deep down I don't approve.  It's at that moment when the target is in the site and the trigger is pulled.  One minute Bambi is happily munching vegetation in a sylvan glade, and the next thing his whole life is gone, and what does Elmer get out of it but a mess of meat which he could just as easily have gotten by driving down to the Jewel.  Of course all that meat at the Jewel, somebody pulled a trigger on it, well pushed a button, something, and isn't that an Italian beef in your hand City Boy?  Well yes it is. 

So I don't know, it's not logical.  But still I disapprove.  Why would somebody enjoy reducing that magnificent beast to a pile of meat?  On the other hand isn't that sandwich tasty?  I can give it the logical argument, and I can see no error in my logic, but still I disapprove.  Does this describe the way you feel about the gays?

But I recognize that it's illogical, and so should a vote come before me on whether or not to allow hunters to marry, I would have to vote to allow it, whether it be their hypothetical wives or their gay dogs.

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner

That's an old Christian saying, but I don't think it's from the Bible, I think it's just something that somebody made up. I don't know if it applies in this case or not. I have known a few gays in my life and, while I wouldn't say that I loved them, I can't say that I hated them either. As for the actual practice, I certainly hate that. Well, hate is a strong word, let's just say that I disapprove of it. I suppose it's none of my business what people do on their own time, as long as they don't try to involve me in it but, if someone asked me if I thought they should do it, I would tell them "no".

As I have said before, first it was a crime, then it was a sickness, and now people are saying that it's normal. I think making it a crime was a bit harsh, and I wouldn't recommend going back to that. I was comfortable with calling it a sickness, but maybe that's just because I grew up hearing that said. Normal is a funny word, and I suppose it has more than one definition. So, by what definition is this thing normal? In Greek, a norm is a standard, and I think that's the origin of our word "normal". Maybe the ancient Greeks thought it was normal, but that's because they didn't know any better. If they were so smart, why did they take a perfectly good empire and run it into the ground like they did? Now their country is bankrupt and  they're crying for the rest of Europe to bail them out. If I wanted to hang out with people like that, Detroit is a lot closer to Beaglesonia than Greece is. I don't approve of Detroit either. If I had my way, Detroit would have been kicked out of Michigan a long time ago, but that's a whole nother story.

Maybe common sense isn't the right term for it either. As you pointed out, common sense implies that a bunch of people thought about it, and I don't think this thing needs to be thought about. It's just naturally inherently wrong and that's that. Fifty years go, if you asked anybody, including most gays themselves, if it was wrong, they would have said "yes" without even thinking about it. Since then, public opinion has changed, and without my vote. Who makes these decisions anyway, and why do people listen to them instead of to me? How do you get the job of telling people what to think? Do you have to take a test, or do you just have to know somebody? In the army we used to say, "It's not who you know, it's who you blow." I believe the original saying was, "It's not what you know, it's who you know.", but I like the military version because it's more evocative, and probably closer to the truth.

I have the right to not like homosexuality just as you have the right to not like hunting. That doesn't mean we can do anything to stop it, it just means we don't have to like it. Those trophy hunters that go trekking off to Africa are a different breed than the good old boys who take Old Betsy out to the back forty to put a deer in the freezer. I suppose they are a lot like those mountain climbers, now that you mention it. It's not just Africa anymore either, Central Asia is getting in on it, I suppose for  money. They have a number of exotic goat and sheep species that live so far back in the mountains that they have to pipe sunshine in just so the hunters can see to shoot. A guy has to be in top physical shape to go on a hunt like that, and they actually train for months to get that way. More power too them, I say, as long as I don't have to do it too.

the crucible again

A day without internet is a terrible thing, but now it is over

I don't know what you mean when you say you disapprove of homosexuality.  Do you want to put them in prison?  Do you want to segregate them?  Do you not want them as coworkers or as neighbors?  Do you not want to do business with them?  Do you just not want them to be legally married?  Is marriage ok, but you don't want to have to bake the cake with the two little grooms on top of it?  How does your disapproval translate into action? 

How is it common sense?  To me that implies a little thinking, usually one step thinking, one if/then like watching the sun rise and fall and thinking it must circle the earth.  I think common sense is way over rated.  The basic premise of it is that the world is a simple place, and those of us who have been living on it for a little while know that almost everything is more complicated than it seemed at first.

Who came up with 'when there is no reason to change, there is not reason to change'?  I never heard it.  I imagine it means the same thing as if it ain't broke don't fix it.  But the problem is how do you determine whether it is broken or not?  Generally the phrase is used by people who don't want to fix it whether it is broken or not.  Maybe like the automakers in Detroit who never saw a reason to fix their theory until it was way too late.

I don't know why the burden is on me.  You are the one who has singled out certain people for disapproval, you are the one who has taken action, by making a decision.  You must have made a decision somewhere because I don't imagine you were born disapproving of homosexuality. 

Well maybe you disapprove of homosexuality.  Maybe the people who do it, the homosexuals are ok in your book, but you just wish they didn't do that stuff, you just want to walk around going tsk tsk all the time.

Well you know what i disapprove of, people who are unwilling to put their believes to the crucible, people who say in effect, maybe my opinions are true and worthwhile, and maybe they are full of shit, and I don't want to bother to find out which is the case.


The main thing I wanted to do with Cecil case was express my disapproval of those big game hunter types.  I don't care that much whether he gets arrested or not.  I imagine the laws of Zimbabwe are pretty fuzzy, and surely there is a lot of corruption and all.  I just wonder what kind of person does a thing like that.  I don't understand why people climb mountains either.  Well maybe I can understand it a little.  It does take a lot of skill, takes a lot of overcoming discomfort, even if the goal is pointless.  I guess the big game hunter is like a mountain climber who is carried to the peak in one of those chairs supported by guys carrying the poles.

Breaking News

We just found out that there was a fire today in the duplex that my daughter, my grand daughter, and my grand daughter's boyfriend were renting in Petoskey. No one was hurt, but the house is unlivable and everybody is settled into temporary quarters. They were going to have to vacate next month anyway because their lease will be up and the place is going condo. They are in the process of buying a house in the nearby town of Ironton, but that won't be finalized for awhile yet.

Speaking of houses, our place in Beaglesonia is the third house we have owned. Before that, we were living in a rented trailer. We were married in February, 1969, and moved into out first house in January, 1970. Jenny was born in July of the same year.

I don't think I ever decided that I disapproved of homosexuality. As near as I can remember, I have always been that way, and I don't think the Bible had anything to do with it. To me it was just common sense. Why should I have to defend that position? It seems to me that the burden of proof should be on you. Like the old saying goes, "When there is no reason to change, there is reason not to change."

The lions are not to blame for anything that happens to them because they are just animals. They operate on their instincts, and so do we, but we have the ability to over ride our instincts and they don't. I understand that lions are endangered in some parts of Africa, but I don't think they are endangered all over. I'll have to look that up this weekend. There are places where it's just not practical for lions and humans to live side by side, so the humans have provided sanctuaries where the lions and humans can be safe from each other. That the boundaries of these sanctuaries are violated by both species is unfortunate, and they've got people working on that. If people weren't working on it, it wouldn't be worked on, because the lions don't know how.

Part of almost all game management plans is the culling of surplus animals, the exception being truly endangered species like the whooping crane or the California condor. The habitat will only support so many individuals, and then their living conditions start to degrade. That's true of humans too, but humans have displayed a remarkable ability to adjust their lifestyles so as to increase the carrying capacity of their habitat. There may be a practical limit on this, but we haven't reached it yet. Overcrowding has historically led to wars, famine and disease, and it still does in some parts of the world. There is no need for space aliens to cull our species, we are perfectly capable of doing that to ourselves.

8/9/15 - If left to their own devices, the lions will cull themselves too, so I suppose there is no need to hunt them except where they are causing damage to livestock. I looked it up on Wiki, and lions are considered endangered by U.S. and international agencies, but I don't know how the Africans feel about that. There are an estimated 20,000 lions spread out over a dozen or so African countries, and I doubt that they all collaborate on lion management plans. Zimbabwe allows limited sport hunting by special permit. The guide who set Cecil up claims that he obtained such a permit, but the Zimbabwe government denies this. They have suspended issuing lion permits in the wake of the scandal, but I don't know for how long. The American hunter says that he paid the guide $50,000 for the hunt, and that was supposed to include any required permits. Zimbabwe officials say that the permit would have cost $45,000, which sounds like a lot of money, but they say that Cecil was worth more to them alive than dead because tourists were paying more than that collectively in any given year just to observe him. There is also an American university doing a long term study of the lions in that park, and I'm sure that's doing something for the local economy as well. Cecil was supposed to have a GPS tracking collar on him, but nobody knows what happened to it. It appears that the hunting party took Cecil's head but left the body for the scavengers. I'm pretty sure that they eat lions in Africa, and that somebody would have salvaged the meat if they had known about it. The only good news is that Cecil's brother Jericho seems to have adopted his cubs and is protecting them and their mothers from the other males in the area, at least for now.

the words of the preacher

Oh that's right, first Alaska then the army, still twenty-five is a little early to be all settled with wife and mortgage and dogs, in the house I assume you will live in the rest of your life.  Myself I was halfway through my CO stint in Herrin pining to join my beer drinking buddies in Champaign. 

But I said at the time, I was using a little dramatic license, to show the fallacy of making decisions on our values, ethos, morals, I don't know exactly what to call it, but you know what I mean, then and considering that to be a done deal.  I mean we have learned a lot, and thought a lot since then, haven't we?  Maybe we were wrong fifty years ago. 

So no, on the Dinty Moore, huh?  I may try it yet anyway, just to once again taste the food of my youth.  We sixties types are hung up a bit on our youth, talking 'bout our generation, hoping to die before we get old, never trusting anybody under thirty.  Well I suppose it was a good thing I didn't carve my values in stone at that age.  Still we sixties type put a lot of value in our youth, we still pine for it, we are still wild hippies with hair down to our assholes inside our bent and white-haired bodies. 

Well I have admitted to taking literary license, but you are no stranger to hyperbole.  I was just going to make one of my analytical comments about your second paragraph, about gays renouncing their wickedness and rehabilitating themselves, but the second reading around I believe that you make big joke.

That thing about man being man's biggest enemy was in response to something you were saying about the Cecil thing, about how lions kill each other, the implication being that man wasn't such an enemy of lions as they were to themselves, like somehow they were the reason for their extinction (by not renouncing their wickedness and rehabilitating I guess) and not man.  Maybe I should have said that the animal that kills more people than any other animal is man.  Did you know hippos kill more people than lions, and domestic dogs more than either?

I don't remember a plan at the end of the Lost City, but I like it very much, maybe we can get to talking about that, two old dogs talking about their youth, what could be more interesting?  We didn't get as much out of the other book did we?  I am still about halfway through it, still slogging, skipping here and there.  Am surprised there was so much violence in Gage Park, wish they would say exactly where, in front of St Galls, by 63rd and Western?

A friend of mine has been reading this.  I joke about our audience but I never thought we had one.  She will be nameless of course, but she did call me preachy.  Preachy?  Me?  Kindly Uncle Ken?  Can that be?

Well maybe.  Sometimes I reread stuff I have written and I think who the hell does this guy think he is.  Well I do have this belief, pretty close to being carved in stone, that if you believe something you should be able to say why you believe it and not just say you believe it just because.  Am I right or wrong here?

Tin Can Cooking

I was 18 when I drove back to Chicago from Alaska. By the time I was 25 I had a steady job, a wife, a kid, a mortgage and a couple of hound dogs. I never did finish that case of Dinty Moore I bought for the trip. I grew tired of it by the sixth day and ate in truck stop restaurants for the last four days. I gave the rest of the cans to my parents, and I don't think they ate many of them either. They probably ended up feeding the remainder to the dogs. I bought a few cans for a camping trip in 1986. Nobody was crazy about the stuff, we ate it, but I never bought any more after that. I haven't done any tin can cooking in a long time, I suppose the microwave made it obsolete. The fact that I never go camping anymore might also have something to do with it.

 I said that I might reconsider my position on gay marriage if somebody could convince me that it was good for the country and it made lot of people happy. Well, it seems to have made some people happy, but certainly not everybody. Like abortion, there will always be people who refuse to accept it. Unlike abortion, I don't anticipate that it will ever be overturned. What would they do about all the gays that are already married? No, I think we're stuck with this one, maybe forever. The best case scenario would be that the younger generation of gays renounce their wickedness and rehabilitate themselves. The existing married gays would die off eventually, and that would be the end of it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. The only thing I can do about it is stay away from those people as much as possible, which shouldn't be hard to do, since I already stay away from everybody as much as possible.

I don't have the numbers at my finger tips, but I'm pretty sure that the biggest cause of human mortality is not other humans, at least not on purpose. Accidents account for most of the deaths of young people, and illnesses eventually knock off most of the old people. I guess you could say that accidents are caused by people, but not deliberately, which is why they call them accidents. Some illnesses are caught from other people, but modern science minimizes that anymore. It's things like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer that do most of us in eventually. As late as World War I, more people were being killed by disease than by combat, but I think the trend was reversed by World War II. The little brushfire wars they have today don't kill nearly as many. I read somewhere that more Americans were killed in the D-Day invasion than by all the Middle East conflicts we have been involved in over the years.

I am almost half way through our other book, "Lost City", and it's a lot easier to read than the first one. The author doesn't claim that we should revert back to the 1950s entirely, just that there are some things from that era that we would do well to restore. By the end, we are supposed to find out his plan for doing that without dragging all the bad stuff along with it.

more Dinty Moore

I set the whole thing up to challenge your statement that you have been believing the same things since you ate that last can of Dinty Moore on the drive back from Alaska.  Actually I made up that last part, but you said you had made up your mind about morality a long time ago and that it was carved in stone.  It has been my observation that some people form their beliefs in their middle twenties and never revisit them again, and I assumed you were one of them and it seemed like you were approximately in your mid-twenties when you took that wild ride. 

I didn't do anything like that when I was that age, but I did a lot of hitchhiking which was in retrospect a bit risky.  And I ate a lot of Dinty Moore beef stew.  I think I have lately explained about heating it in its can in a pot, and how it was the king of the canned food back in my heyday. 

Every time I write about this I think I ought to try a can, it's probably been twenty years.  Nice big can of Dinty Moore, maybe a little sourdough bread, that would be nice, remind me of my youth.  That's what I think early in the morning, but later in the day when I go shopping it doesn't occur to me.  What about you?  When was the last time you enjoyed a big full rich can of Dinty Moore?  Maybe we could revisit this food of our youth and compare notes.

Where were we?  Oh, what you had said was that you  had some morality carved in stone and not amenable to the calm cool logic discussion that can be found in this very blog, and you were taking those beliefs to the grave and therefore you would never, regardless of arguments to the contrary, change your mind and vote to allow gay marriage. 

But now it appears that you 'might reconsider' your position.  You do quibble about long term effects, but I don't know what those might be.  So I think maybe you were overstating the case when you said these things were carved in stone. 

I'll make the argument for gay marriage short.  You were against it before because you thought it would hurt your marriage, and since than you have admitted that it hasn't, and as for making people happy, didn't you see all those gays making spectacles of themselves after the supreme court decision?


It's true that male cats are always fighting to be top cat, and that males will kill cubs that aren't their own.  One of the worries about Cecil is that his cubs will be killed my his mother's next gentleman caller.  I had a male cat along with my female cat who had seven litters, and he never touched a hair on their kitten heads.  I always assumed that since they lived together they were like brother and sister, and he wouldn't be waiting in line when she went into heat, but that was shortly after my Dinty Moore days, and anymore I would have to believe he didn't kill them because he was the daddy of some of them.

But you know man is the biggest cause of mortality to other men, but that doesn't mean that we would take kindly to Martians coming to Earth and big gaming us.