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Our Daily Thread 9-11-12

Good morning folks! This is the Daily thread. Talk about whatever is on your mind.

Quote of the Day

“Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.”

George W. Bush

Question of the Day

Do you remember what you were doing when you first heard of the attacks in NY and Washington?

105 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-11-12”

  1. Good Morning all.

    QOD – I was at work. A group of us huddled into the bosses office as he was the only one who had a TV set. We were watching, all of us convinced that it had been a terrorist attack on the Towers when my boss, who had been facing the window turned around, looked at us and said “Guys, look at the Pentagon.” We looked out and saw black billowing smoke. Ashen faced my boss looked at those of us who managed staff and said get everybody ready to leave. I went back to the office figured out where everyone was, started shutting down computers and such, sent my secretary to find the ones in meetings and when she returned told her and everyone else to go. As I was walking down the hallway the building alarm sounded to evacuate. I wound up in the Dupont circle area after that with some colleagues as metro was shut down and the city was completely gridlocked. And we watched. That’s not a day I will forget.

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  2. Good morning, AJ and all!

    I was sitting on my living room couch nursing 4th Arrow, who was almost 4 months old, when my husband came in the room and told me he had just gotten off the phone with a former co-worker who had told him about the attacks. I remember it was a Tuesday, just as today is.

    Later, we learned that our neighbor, who was out of town on business, was originally supposed to be at a meeting less than one mile from ground zero, at 9:00 a.m., but the meeting had been changed the night before to a location in New Jersey.

    Another neighbor had a daughter who had married a Moroccan man who lived in the States, but whose parents still lived in Morocco. Our neighbors’ daughter had never met her in-laws, so early in the summer of 2001, she and her infant son (who had been born in May) traveled alone to Morocco to spend the summer with her husband’s parents. (Her husband stayed back in the States to work.)

    The daughter and her baby were scheduled to come back to the States in September, and on 9/11, she found herself stranded in an airport somewhere in Europe, hearing the news and finding all flights into the U.S. grounded for a few days.

    We live near an airport, and I remember how strange it was, the silence overhead, when we were accustomed to having numerous planes a day flying fairly low over our house.

    An unforgettable day that will forever be etched in my memory.

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  3. I was in a classroom of third graders. One of the teachers dated an Alabama Supreme Court Judge. She called him and it was the first time I had heard the name Osama Bin Laden that I could remember. I was later chilled to watch old video of Oliver North telling who he was afraid of….

    I probably don’t have a lot of the memories a lot of you have because Central Office locked us down. They decided the children were safer at school than causing parents to have to get off work, etc. We were not allowed to have TV’s, radio, or any other news source…we were to protect the children’s innocence just a little while longer.

    I do remember drawing the Twin Towers on a white board and explaining how the plane crashed in.

    When I got home I chose to protect my own child’s innocence just a little while longer too.

    I also remember that every church parking lot was crowded …

    I did not know the whole sequence of events and how the day really unfolded until last year when the Memorial Service was aired on TV in real time. I sat on my sofa with tears running down my face. I cannot imagine what it was like for those of you who watched it as it was happening.

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  4. CB, How long did it take you to finally get home?

    I had a hearing in another town 50 miles from my office. Before I went into the courthouse, the sports radio announcer said it looked like a “small plane” had hit one of the towers. He turned into a news reporter from that point. In the courthouse, one of the clerks told us that a commercial jet had hit the second tower. It was at that moment that I remembered that my parents were flying to Boston that morning. We held our hearing, but everyone including the judge, was pretty shaky. When we left the courtroom, the clerk told us about the Pentagon. By the time I got back to the office, my wife reported that my parents, and all our friends who were pilots or stewardesses were safe.

    Meanwhile, my son and his fellow 7th graders were watching TV at school when the towers fell. They were soon sent home and his first-ever football game was cancelled.

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  5. I think it would have been tougher to be with a classroom of kids and try to explain it to them than it was to be in DC.

    Ricky

    I made it home around 3 PM. Talk about more than a few moments of angst with parents flying from Boston! Again, tougher than being here, I think.

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  6. QOD: I was at home in the living room, sitting/lying on the floor doing schoolwork. (I was homeschooled). First we heard it was just a small plane, then we heard a second plane had hit the other tower and they were both airliners – obviously a terrorist attack. Then we heard that the towers had fallen. Stunning.

    Not having a TV, we went to my uncle’s to watch President Bush’s address to the nation that evening.

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  7. I remember seeing the planes crashing into the towers on TV and being quite upset about what was happening to our country. Later in the morning I ran into an acquaintance who had just come in from the field and he was beaming with excitement. I couldn’t understand how he could be so over joyed on a day like this, but he quickly explained that the mystery of the gospel wasn’t as mysterious to him anymore and he had left his sin with Jesus that morning for the first time. He wasn’t even aware of what was happening in the news.

    It was a very sad day that showed me that even at times like that the power of Christ was still working and evident.

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  9. You too, Kim.

    My dad has a cousin, the mother of two, who has a deep love for studying American history. My dad always talks about how interesting it was that his cousin had had one of her children on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, December 7. It wasn’t until many years later that they discovered the significance of her other son’s birthday: September 11.

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  10. I was walking my dogs before work (our shifts started late and ended late as they tend to do now).

    I had just stopped to chat with Mildred, the retired librarian who often waited on her front porch for us to pass by every morning (she loved dogs).

    We were talking when Mike, the man who lived across the street from Mildred, walked out and asked if we had heard what happened.

    Nope — I typically walked the dogs first thing back in those days, it was never my habit then to turn on the news (after that I began checking the news every morning, of course).

    He said a plane had crashed into the WTC. I assumed it was a private plane and an accident, and I can’t remember if it was Mike or another dog-walking neighbor I came across on the next block who told me it was an airliner. That’s odd, I said. Do they think it was deliberate, I remember asking the 2nd neighbor. She nodded. I said but who and why? She just shrugged, said it looked like it was some kind of terrorist act.

    From there I cut the walk short, hurried home to watch the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower (I don’t know if I saw it live or on replay, we’re of course 3 hours behind NY out here; but I remember gasping at the sight).

    Then I leaped up and raced to get into work where we were putting out a “special” noon edition as the Port of LA and LAX were shutting down as a precaution (at least one of the planes was bound for LAX) and we were all busy making calls and throwing together local impact stories. (If we had a website back then it was very rudimentary; putting out an extra print edition now sounds so quaint.)

    As I drove into work the next day, it brought tears to my eyes to see all the U.S. flags hanging on houses. Block after block, nearly every home had a flag out in front as I drove down the residential street that led into the back parking lot of what was then our old newspaper building.

    I’d never seen a spontaneous, grassroots display like that. I’m not necessarily a big flag waver myself, but at that time it struck me as the most moving, silent — and dignified — testimony to America’s resilience and strength in the face of something so horrendous.

    We did a story that day or the next on the run on U.S. flags. Stores could not keep them on the shelves.

    Two years later I was visiting friends on a farm in NY at Christmas time and a couple of us went into the city one day to see ‘ground zero’ where the cross was so prominent.

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  11. Question of the Day:
    Do you remember what you were doing when you first heard of the attacks in NY and Washington?

    I had come to work at Rockwell Automation Technical Support Center. A close friend asked me if I knew about the attacks. There were people listening to news on private radios. It seemed surreal. In our group, there was this Muslim fellow. He was absolutely overjoyed with what happened. Also in our group was a former Marine Sniper. After a few well delivered verbal broadsides, the Muslim fellow wisely kept his emotional exuberance under control. The next day, there were American Flags hanging everywhere.

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  12. QOD. I was checking my computer (just like now). Saw news item about crash into WTC, thought it was a standard plane crash. As day progressed, realized magnitude. Friend had just moved to NYC; worried about him. (He turned out to be fine.) I was working for a library system. We became a kind of information gathering and dissemination place for people in Seattle area worried about friends and relatives. (Many people in this area who use the library are Muslim, so they had many questions and concerns, as did everybody, of course.)

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  14. Continuing my imagination exercise about a society where children are raised without instruction about God.

    3 of 7

    [b]How the experiment would proceed.[/b]

    All the children born in this country (which I call Cyberia) are raised without any mention of God.

    Cyberia has rules. Children are forbidden to murder, to torture, to rape, or to steal. As a general, common sense principle, children are told, “Don’t do things to other people you would not like to have done to you.”

    Besides forbidding children to do bad things, Cyberia encourages children to be kind and helpful to others, providing a positive framing of the same principles that discourage harmful actions. Cyberia explains to children, “When you are hungry, your parents feed you. When you are sick, they care for you. They clothe you and house and shelter you. Think how it would feel if you were thirsty and hungry, unclothed and living out in the cold and rain. Help people in such situations. The feelings we describe which you experience when you observe suffering are called ’empathy”’and ‘compassion.’”

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  16. I was at home and had turned on the television to check the news. I could not believe a plane had hit the first tower. I went to tell my husband. While watching it all unfold I could not believe what had happened. It was like I had to keep watching the replays to realize it was really true. And I was so sad. I think I cried more over that than anything else in my life. All those people were trying to get information about their loved ones. I found a wonderful prayer that Max Lucado did and asked our pastor if he would do that as part of our service and he did. It was a time to hold your family close. And I did feel the silence of no airplanes flying overhead since we are often under a flight pattern. I still think differently about the buzz of planes overhead. I am thankful for that sound now.

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  17. Interesting rules. They sound so…Biblical. I wonder why people would need rules? Maybe because people are sinners in need of direction. Will there be a system to deal with people in the unfortunate event they are unable or unwilling to abide by the rules? Will they be cast out into utter darkness? Will they have their knuckles rapped?

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  18. Sitting around in a two room A frame in Utah, homeschooling the last couple of our bio children. Son called to tell us. I went to check in at the campground office to ask for more info, they directed me to a trailer with a television. We also noticed the change in airspace as we were used to seeing hot air balloons traveling around.

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  19. Where’s Chas?
    Qod…..I was driving my daughter to school….the radio was on and we were totally ignoring what was being broadcast. There was a lull in the chatter going on in the car and we heard it…two planes had crashed into the twin towers. I pulled into the parking lot and sat there…stunned. No airplanes in the air…it was eery. I decided to turn around and head home…no school that day for us. I put our flag out on the porch…it was stolen within the hour….
    MP’s imaginary world is interesting…all of the “rules” are exactly what our Creator has laid out in His instruction manual….the Bible…He is the author…the beginning and the end….the Alpha and Omega….so you see…they could not be “raised” without God 🙂

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  21. Wow CB, amazing story!

    QoD: My hubby pulled off the freeway on his way to work and told me two planes had crashed. Like others I was stunned. I woke my kids up to watch the news. There was a sense that this changed everything. The kids went to school and watched the news there too. Being between two major ports, two major military installations and a nuclear power plant, we had F-someteens flying overhead all day.

    AQOD: Two people come to mind right away. Gen. Omar Bradley and Tom Morey. Bradley because on the afternoon I got to pick his brain he had an understanding of how things worked, but was always careful to factor in the human element. Morey, though known as the inventor of the Boogie Board, could explain quantum phyisics to me on a napkin. Space/time travel I actually understand if I have his napkins. In Cyberia a truly benevolent dictator would have forced those two to be teachers.

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  22. I was still in bed, listening to the radio when the news broke. I spent the rest of the day shocked and stunned, watching the footage on TV.
    I was also very proud of my country for opening their homes to all the stranded air travellers.

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  23. I was in a hospital recovery room where Hubby had just had Carpal Tunnel surgery. The nurse came in, told us about the first plane and turned on the TV. We saw the second plane hit live.

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  24. It was very early in the morning here and I was dressing for my commute to work in Orange County. The first announcement was that it was a small plane, an accident like several that had happened to the Empire State Building years before. By the time I got into the car that was picking me up, the radio news was reporting the second plane. We went to work anyway, but were soon sent home. I spent the rest of the day watching reports on TV, praying for the families & first responders, and comparing thoughts with family and friends.

    Days later I learned that my friend, Mike Hingson, who had moved to NY for a new job several months before, had been in the North tower when it was hit. Mike is blind and was led out of the tower by his guide dog, Roselle. He later changed jobs and came back to CA to work with a guide dog foundation.

    One of the things I remember most about that time was the profusion of flags every where I looked. When I opened my blinds this morning, I didn’t see one flag.

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  25. All things considered, I think my husband is the smartest person I know. He has no formal education beyond high school so doesn’t know a lot of “stuff” but he is incredibly sharp (has a great career “in computers”) and is very wise. In addition, he is very kind and gentle – as far as I know, there isn’t a person in this world who knows him who doesn’t like him. He never makes me feel dumb, even when I do dumb things. I guess it’s why it’s so easy for me to respect him in our marriage.

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  26. Mumsee [in regard to rules of Cyberia]:

    Interesting rules. They sound so…Biblical. I wonder why people would need rules? Maybe because people are sinners in need of direction. Will there be a system to deal with people in the unfortunate event they are unable or unwilling to abide by the rules? Will they be cast out into utter darkness? Will they have their knuckles rapped?

    All current societies (regardless of religious belief or political system) have rules. Generally, people who disobey the rules are imprisoned, tortured or “shunned” (less common today), occasionally executed. To some extent, these approaches deter or reform; to some extent protect society by keeping bad people out of circulation. No attempt I know of to make people “behave” is entirely successful or entirely unsuccessful.

    Cyberia (my imaginary society) is not offered as a perfect society or a utopia. It’s simply an “OK” society that functions reasonably well as far as well-being and protection of its members. Examples of “OK” societies I can think of include the United States (very diverse in religious belief and political practice), Canada (similar, more liberal and more secular), Australia (similar to Canada and US), Western Europe, Singapore (more conservative and less Christian). I may be in error in regard to these example and descriptions. I may have left some society out that should be included.

    Again, I stress, I am not offering Cyberia as an example of a utopia. I imagine it providing rules, deterrents, and punishments similar to any of the counties I have just listed. All Cyberia is doing is raising a generation of children without instruction about religious belief, and a society that does not say anything positive or negative about God. I am just wondering what would happen. Would the society fall apart? Would the “unchurched” generation turn into monsters? Would they destroy the society?

    Or would they “invent” or “discover” God? If they did, what kind of religion would they come up with? Would it be similar to any religious belief practiced in the world today? Would a charismatic person (similar to prominent religious leaders of the past) emerge? If we go by the most recent leaders – ones we can document pretty well such as Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and the recently deceased Rev. Moon, we encounter people who attracted large numbers of credulous followers, gained lots of money, attracted a lot of willing women, took severe action against competitors and obstacles, and generally seem unscrupulous and unpleasant.

    We simply don’t know enough about religious leaders of the distant past such as Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, etc. to draw similar conclusions. I realize everyone reading this thinks you do know enough about Moses and Jesus to draw different conclusions.

    Perhaps if Cyberia existed, God would deliver a prophet just to get the show back on the road.

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  27. Is it still a crime in Singapore to chew gum?

    I suspect you are correct. Some people will go on being nice ethical people. Others will fall to the lowest level. Others will make their own gods. But some will hear the still small Voice and will heed Him. And the Truth will be made known.

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  28. MP, as someone who spends a lot of time with children, I can say they are encourage everywhere, school, home, TV, Church, sports, to be kind and not do harm. There is hardly anyone who tells them differently who isn’t rebuke immediately. Still children are not always kind and do do harm. I wonder why?

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  29. Linda Shaffer [on most intelligent person known]:

    All things considered, I think my husband is the smartest person I know. He has no formal education beyond high school so doesn’t know a lot of “stuff” but he is incredibly sharp (has a great career “in computers”) and is very wise. In addition, he is very kind and gentle – as far as I know, there isn’t a person in this world who knows him who doesn’t like him. He never makes me feel dumb, even when I do dumb things. I guess it’s why it’s so easy for me to respect him in our marriage.

    As I mentioned, the most intelligent person I have known was Donna Wiestrop. We attended high school together in Spring Valley (suburb of NYC). I took a couple of math classes with her. I did OK; she never missed a math question on an exam, with one exception. She excelled in all her classes; both because she was so smart and also because she was so diligent. (While most of us procrastinated about homework; she always sat down and did it right away.)

    In the 1950s, it was not considered “cool” for a woman to be very bright. I remember a classmate saying to me, “There’s just something about Donna I don’t like. Can’t put my finger on it, but she really rubs me the wrong way.” Although I was not an example of male-feminist open-minded admiration of womens’ rights and need for equality at the age of 15, I remember thinking, “Bud, the only thing you can’t stand about Donna is that she is so much smarter than you, and you can’t stand that in a girl.” In fact, she always presented a modest, pleasant, self-effacing demeanor. I don’t know if that was just her natural bent, or self-protection.

    I didn’t know her well (and was not especially attracted to her), aside from the way any adolescent boy is attracted to almost anything that looks like a female human. One day a group of us gathered at her house to work on a class assignment. After everybody else left, we chatted for a bit. I asked about career goals. She said, “I want to be an astronomer. In fact, I want to be a cosmologist.”

    I knew what that meant (as I read too much science fiction): a person who studies the “an astronomer who studies the evolution and space-time relations of the universe.”

    Donna’s dad was a milkman (in those distant days when people would have milk delivered to their homes. They weren’t rich, though not poor. Her parents encouraged her with her dreams of becoming an astronomer. She was the valedictorian of our class and won a scholarship to pay all her college expenses. Her father said to her, “You are too smart for the boys; you will make them insecure and they will give you a hard time. I think you should go to a woman’s college.” So she applied to Wellesley (at that time, a college only for women).

    I lost track of her for many years, but I always wondered about her. When the Internet began, I put her name into a search engine and quickly found her. She had graduated from Wellesley and then gone to Cal Tech in California, a school where people too smart for MIT go, especially to study science or engineering.

    I also found that she was a full professor of physics at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. I thought, “If you are going to be an astronomer, I guess you go to work for a university in the desert.” I also saw that she had a distinguished record, with many published articles on cosmology and having worked on the Hubble telescope project analysis of astronomical data.

    I wrote her a letter, saying “Hi, you don’t remember me, but we went to school together in Spring Valley. A lot of people who follow the career they envision end up disappointed. I see you did every thing you said you did. Are you still glad you followed this career path?” I also asked her if she had studied under Richard Feynman at Cal Tech. (He was one of the most distinguished scientists at Cal Tech, having won a Nobel prize, being known as a distinguished polymath with talent in art and music, and famous for helping discover the cause of the Challenger space shuttle disaster.)

    She replied, telling me that she remembered my name (if not me), that she loved her work and could not imagine doing anything else. She also said that there was quite a bit of discrimination against women in science. I don’t have the exact words, but they run something like this, “There were only 3 women in my astrophysics program at Cal Tech. One day a male professor called the three of us to his office. He chastised us for enrolling at Cal-Tech. ‘You are taking up spaces that should go to men. You will all get married, get pregnant, and drop out of science.’” She continued, “Since that day, I have always encouraged women in science and tried to mentor them.”

    As far as Feynman, she said [again going off memory], “I even have a drawing of me he made at a party. I took seminars from him. However, his mind functioned at such a high level that it was difficult to keep up with him. Unless you already knew 95% of what he was talking about, you were soon lost in one of his classes.”

    What Donna said has always stuck in my mind, and indicates the huge range of human ability and intelligence. Her was the smartest person I have ever known, a person with a doctorate from probably the most difficult science-oriented university in the United States, telling me about a person so much more intelligent than she that she could hardly understand what he was talking about. I didn’t ask her whether all her study of the universe had led her to conclude anything about God. I am sure anyone reading all the way through this has something intelligent to say about it.

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  30. Random,

    I think someone in the socety would invent a moral authority akin to God. Every society has something like that.

    Janice

    Planes to close overhead can still have the effect on me of looking up with a moment of uh oh. Not panic, but a what thee heck was that moment.

    Aqod: I worked for a fellow earlier in my career who was an extraordinary negotiator. Definetly the smartest man I’ve ever worked with. His hallmark quality was listening.

    Aqo: I

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  31. “So she applied to Wellesley (at that time, a college only for women). ”

    Still is. Only for women, I mean. My friend’s daughter goes there. She’s pretty darned smart herself. She’s studying neuroscience.

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  32. “I think someone in the socety would invent a moral authority akin to God. Every society has something like that.”

    Could it be that every society has “something like that” because “something like that” actually exists and has revealed Himself to each one of us through nature and the conscience?

    Or does it somehow seem more reasonable that every society has “something like that” because nothing like that exists?

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  33. Random,

    In this perfect society of yours I see no reason to even exist, let alone any reason that anyone would restrain themselves from doing whatever they wanted. A society without God would be kinda pointless. It’s just 80 years or so, death, and then dust. Poof. Gone. Why bother worrying about anything if this is all there is?

    A society without God and the hope that there is more to it than this will quickly turn to a me centered one. There’s no Savior, there’s no hope of an afterlife, there’s no reason to not just make the most of it for your own gratification and who cares what others want or think. I’m dead in 80 years, why should I bother to care? Without the building blocks for society that religon has put in place it never could be as it is now.

    I don’t believe such a society could ever even “evolve” to anything close to what we have now. I think it’s one that would quickly destroy itself, despite the best intentions of those like yourself. Look around at the places where God has been removed from the public discourse and consideration. You have a segment that does whatever they want, regardless of what society as a whole thinks. You have overreaching govt. in many cases that govt. is backing the more radical elements. You have a me centered society, or a collectivist fantasy, whatever suits ya’, and you have a society in decline. Societies with perverted versions of religon suffer from the many of the same problems. A society without God deteriorates time and again. We are witnessing that in this country right now. And I think people like you are playing a part in that, despite the best of intentions on your part.

    Hitler, Stalin, and the like all knew religon was their enemy. It was part of what restrained them. What restrains them without God? What restraint would any man show if there was never the possibility of an eternity in misery for your crimes? You’d have no need of a Savior, you’d be your own god, at least in your mind. How long do you think it would take someone in your society to figure out that the one with the most guns rules? And what standard is there to say he doesn’t have the right to do whatever he sees fit? Your society would fall rather quickly in my mind, good intentions or not.

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  34. QoD: I was in the office when I heard a radio playing news nearby, so I went to investigate. It was before the second plane hit and we could still think it was an accident.

    After the second plane hit I called my wife, home-schooling our 9- and 4-year olds. I wanted to be sure she knew what was going on before the TV went on later.

    We had a scare either that day or the next when the roar of fighter planes passed very close. Apparently there was an authorized flight of some sort nearby, but not everyone was notified about who should have been, so they scrambled the fighters to go after it in case it was a threat.

    We lived near Michigan Stadium and were accustomed to planes circling over the area on football home game days towing advertising banners of all sorts. They were banned that fall and the skies were very quiet.

    My 4-year-old had a little fire-truck riding toy, the kind you sit inside and pedal. One Saturday we decided to go for a stroll down toward the stadium to enjoy the fall day and the crowds. I was walking along, he pedaling his fire truck and wearing his fireman hat. I didn’t realize what a reaction that would get, at a time when firefighters had become such heroes on 9/11. He got thumbs up, smiles, and cheers of all sorts from the throngs of people heading for the stadium and tailgating nearby.

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  35. I do, of course, remember where I was but it was somewhat routine and like the rest of yours so I won’t go into it. Two memories of the event, though. One is how, at first, they called for blood donations and cleared the hospitals for the injured, only to later realize there weren’t that many injured. The other is from my sister-in-law who worked in NYC and took the train from NJ everyday. She told us that the the following Friday night when the parking lot at the train station in Princeton would normally have been empty, there were many cars still there – cars of those who were never going to return. That mental image remains with me – almost as though it’s my personal recollection of that event.

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  37. Joe,

    I know you did, and you did a much better job too. I just don’t get how Random thinks this could work. I don’t see it. I see a society with no purpose, no restraint, and worst of all, no hope. And eventually it will be ruled by the evilest of men, who would seize control thru the evilest of methods. No thank you.

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  38. A lot of people have come up with the idea that the world would be much saner without religion. But it never seems to happen. Because we are Image bearers. We need God. And when people try to live without God, people begin to do whatever is right in their own eyes and it is not pretty.

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  39. Joe,

    I also couldn’t help but notice a few scriptures you have posted on your blog which certainly seems relevant to the discussion. From your Leviticus 17 post.

    “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Proverbs 16:25”

    “Little children guard yourselves from idols.
    1 John 5:21”

    I think in Random’s ideal world these two are especially problematic. People would quickly become their own idols, because it would seem right to them. But Proverbs points out where that leads.

    I’ve been enjoying reading your posts.

    Anybody who hasn’t yet stopped over really should do so. Good stuff.

    http://cuttingthescripturestraight.wordpress.com/

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  40. AJ. One of the problems that face those who say that there is no God is that they cannot explain why evil exists. They acknowledge evil exists, but they cannot explain why it exists. Everyone seems to recognize the Hitler was evil but they have no real understanding how a man who could love his mother yet have such great hatred for his fellow man. Although people like to say there is no God, the very guiding principal of recognizing good from evil is correctly answered by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1.

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  41. QoD:
    I was working as a consultant in downtown Columbus on 9/11. I was carrying a pager (remember those?) and the doggone thing started going off every five minutes with alerts – “A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center”, “A plane has crashed into the Pentagon”, and one false one I remember “A plane has crashed into the State Department”.

    Folks were gathering around the TV sets in the elevator lobby and watching CNN. Everyone was wondering what was going on. Finally, the company issued an announcement that everyone would be dismissed around 11:00 or so; I can’t remember the exact time. After I left the building, I remember walking the few blocks south to the state Capitol with my girlfriend (the future Mrs. R). The area was almost completely deserted, just a few people like me walking around and mounted policemen surrounding the Capitol

    When I got home, I turned on the news and watched the coverage of the towers collapsing (like everyone else). I juste remember it all as a very sad and strange day.

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  42. Side note, the washer is broken. The repair guy will be here in three weeks. That is a long time for thirteen people in this day and age to go without a washing machine. I suspect a sock got stuck in the pump and will have to be vacuumed out, wish I had paid closer attention last time.

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  43. Mumsee, there may be a repair manual for the washer online. Some manufactures have those available along with a parts list. If Mr. Mumsee is handy with his tools and has the repair book, you might be able to order the parts and get the washer fixed sooner. Google the manufacturer, model number, service manual and see what comes up.

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  45. As to the little village of no religious influence: people will disagree and disagreements will build. It might be over the height of the grass, the amount of debris allowed in yards, whether skateboards belong on sidewalks, whether or not the village can have a no smoking region, etc.

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  46. Ah ok. I understand. The machine is under warranty. Sorry about that. Cindi and I both do our own repairs. I have a good one for you Mumsee. I was out to sea and the window washer motor went out on Cindi’s car. She called a friend from church. He offered to replace the motor. Cindi said she wanted to do it herself. He told her she needed a special tool. She bought the tool and he showed her how to replace the motor. She never again questioned me buying a special tool I needed to effect a repair around the home.

    😆

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  47. Wise woman. I have never been handy with machines so leave it to others. We normally would call my brother and he would get down here when he could but we figured with the warranty, why not use it. And we suspect it will be a continuing problem. Based on where we live and the distance from repair folk, he is picking up another machine while in town today.

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  48. Nancy Jill, I was wondering about Chas, too. I was just going about my day this morning and thought, ‘Did I see Chas on any of yesterday’s threads?’ I couldn’t remember. I see he hasn’t been around since very early Sunday morning.

    Hopefully, it’s just a computer problem or something. I’m still praying, though.

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  49. Mumsee,

    The problem, I’ve found, with warranty repairs is that they’re always low priority for the repair company. Since they don’t make money on it, they just take their sweet time–maybe hoping the owner will just say forget it and hire someone else to fix it. About 20 years ago, our only TV broke, and it was still under warranty. This was a good thing, but they took six weeks to fix it and get it back to us. It was kind of a good thing in that it weaned us from the TV for a while, but it was still kind of annoying that they could do that.

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  50. I appreciate all the comments in reply to my series about Cyberia, an imaginary society where children are raised without being told about God. I know it is not an essay that quite meets your spiritual needs or inspires you, but if it does stimulate conversations and examination, perhaps it serves some useful purpose (even though I don’t think there is any “purpose” in the universe).

    AJ said In this perfect society of yours I see no reason to even exist, let alone any reason that anyone would restrain themselves from doing whatever they wanted. A society without God would be kinda pointless. It’s just 80 years or so, death, and then dust. Poof. Gone. Why bother worrying about anything if this is all there is? .

    Humans, in my view, are animals, primates with especially big brains. Looking out on our five acres in the woods, I see lots of animals. I don’t know where the universe came from, but here we are. I see squirrels and chipmunks; occasionally a deer, raccoon, or coyote. These creatures do not ask what their purpose is or reason for existing. The raccoons and coyotes regard their purposes as eating squirrels and chipmunks (and a fawn or two if luck goes their way) and making baby raccoons and coyotes. The squirrels and chipmunks regard their purpose as escaping the raccoons and coyotes, eating nuts and making baby squipmunks. The deer regard their purpose at eating my wife’s favorite plants and making little bambis and protecting them from the wolves.

    Only humans wonder “Why am I here?” Only humans (with a possible exception of an occasional whale) commit suicide. Only humans I am pretty sure worship deities. Well, we do try not to get eaten by the wolves, though the wolves have more to fear from us than we do from them for the most part. (There are no wolves on Whidbey Island, but there are some wandering around now in WA, and I am not sure but that some will smell our chickens and cross the bridge.)

    Again, I am not trying to describe a “perfect” society. Nor am I trying to “convert” you to atheism. I think this is the only world we will ever see, whether we like that situation or not. If your belief system seems credible to you, and you regard as one that leads to a better world here, than I guess that is what you should believe. The problem is that the world is full of many people who believe a variety of different interpretations of reality, and somehow we need to get along as best we can. So the fascinating question for me is, “How do we make the best possible world (knowing full well it is not perfect) for all of us?”

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  55. I was at work when someone called to say he would be late as he was watching the news about the first plane. It was a somber day.

    Mrs L had an aunt and uncle visiting in Europe. They had to extend their trip a week.

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  61. I can get in touch with Chas but I don’t want to sound the alarm too soon. I am not here all the time like I was. If you guys don’t hear from him in the next few days or so, someone email me or FB me and I will check on him.

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  63. Hi everyone. Mumsee told me I need tosay hi.
    I’m at Virginia Baech and:
    1 I couldn’t couldn’t get onto this websiet until this afternoon.
    2 I thought I said I was going
    3 I am on a laptip and typind is difficult because the keyboard isn’t the same
    4 We’ve been kinda busy
    I am about ready to go home, but we won’t for a couple of days.
    Thanx for the concern.
    Chas

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  69. It seems that just as there is no vacation from God, that there is no vacation from the WV crowd.

    Oh, and if I disappear and you get concerned, Michelle has an email address for me. Not that anyone would miss me. Other than those dependent on Friday Funnies. And according to some, there would be more cake when it’s around.

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  70. There’s going to be cake every Friday? 😛

    BTW, who is going to make Mumsee’s cake when it’s her birthday? Isn’t that a couple days from now?

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  71. But wait a minute, how do we know that’s really Chas? There’s no photo. It’s labeled “Anonymous.” And, heavens, there are more typos in that message than I care to count.

    “We’ve been kinda busy” ??? Call me a skeptic, but I’m not entirely convinced.

    What if Chas is tied up in a chair, with a gag in his mouth? What if someone has taken him hostage and is just pretending to be him here because he has heard about Kim and what she does when people go missing?

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  74. Even though I bothered him on vacation…he let me know that he is fine…like Mumsee said…I just couldn’t recall his saying he would be gone…now…not that anyone would worry anyway….I’ll be gone all next week..beginning on Saturday 😆

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  76. Somebody needs to keep a calendar of when each of us will be absent from the blog. Perhaps AJ can set something up for us on the side of the threads? 😉

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  81. Actually, hubby is bringing home an extra this evening. We will keep it on hand for such “emergencies”. We could go to the laundromat, but it will quickly pay for itself based on those prices. Let’s see, thirteen people doing approximately three loads per week….and what do laundromats charge these days? And the drives down and time spent….

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  83. Neither, I will be closely watching three very active and curious small children. It will be a vacation from my usual life of watching eleven very active and curious children. We may do some gold panning though.

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  84. Mumsee,

    How can you call it vacation if there’s no fishing? I require it on all of mine. I’ll go anywhere the girls want, as long as I can fish at some point while there. I’m easy to get along with. 🙂

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  86. Nancy Jill, praying for a safe trip for you. You’re going to your mom’s, right?

    Mumsee, safe trip to you and those three young ‘uns. Are you going to be around here for your birthday?

    Peter, how’s your school year going so far?

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  90. Oh, my, I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz. Anyone want to assign a birthday to Mumsee?

    (You can tell the school year has started when I start using words like ‘quiz’ and ‘assign’.)
    😉

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  92. It is the thirteenth but I did not know what day of the week. I believe it is Thursday.

    We will be taking some schoolwork with us as one of the ones I am taking cannot go a whole day without schoolwork or she forgets it all and has a melt down. So we stick with it. Camping or no camping.

    I have just prepared the lesson plans for two others, to leave behind with hubbykins. He prepares the lessons for the other however many there are.

    But mostly we will be very busy having fun.

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  93. I will give the list of things to the eleven year old. She will be responsible for loading all of our camping gear. It is always fun to see if anything gets forgotten but so far, we have done pretty well.

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  96. I’ll volunteer to make Mumsee’s cake. She was kind enough to make me a cake for my birthday last weekend, so I will reciprocate. How about I prepare it tomorrow night so she’s sure to get some in case she cuts out of here too early Thursday for me to get it done? I’ll post it after midnight Eastern tomorrow night, so it’ll be officially September 13 (sort of). We’ll pretend she’s an Easterner. She once told us on WorldMagBlog that Idaho was east of the Mississippi, so close enough.

    Now remember to go easy on me–I’m a virtual newbie at virtual cakes. 😉

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  97. “My answer would be because God exists, guess that wasn’t inherent in the statement.”

    Yeah, I wasn’t sure what your answer would be because I’m not sure who you are. If I knew your name from WMB, I’d have known whether you’re a Christian or not, but I can’t keep these crazy letter number combinations straight!

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  99. In other news, because I see we’re close to 100, when I couldn’t log on to World Mag owing yo technical difficulties, I sent Janie Cheany an email comment.

    They liked it so much, they’re going to put it as letter to the eitor in the mailbag portion of the paper magazine.

    A little dizzying, all those words transmorphing through cyberspace!

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  101. My neighbors head out to somewhere & pan for gold quite regularly.

    Will you strike it rich this time? Then you could buy a new, really gigantic, laundromat-sized washer and dryer.

    Tess has developed a serious grudge against a Great Dane named Dakota in the obedience class. She’s also not very fond of a particular German shepherd, also a very large dog.

    They annoy her.

    So we have to be careful not to be positioned too closely to those dogs if we can help it. 😦

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  102. Peter L, not true that you would be missed only for Friday Funnies. Why I’d be happy to take that over if it ever became necessary. But I would miss advice from my big brother.

    Ree, the person you couldn’t identify was Coyote Blue. She has a great picture with her name. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s quite distinctive, so I always know it’s her whether she her name shows as CB or g2-31…

    6 Arrows, thanks for taking care of Mumsee’s cake. I did one for her a few years ago, but my virtual oven is broken so I can’t do it this year.

    Michelle, are you related to anyone named Eldridge? You look so much like a friend of mine, every time I see your picture I have to work not to think you’re her.

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  105. Sorry about that Ree, the numbers come up when I’m on the smart phone — haven’t figured out how to fix that as yet, mostly haven’t spent the energy to work on it.

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