RANDOM THOUGHTS

• Meth is a profitable drug that in the short term offers the maker a good living and the user a bittersweet high. In the end, both maker and user will succumb to one of three results: prison, insanity, or death.
• Being somewhat of a curmudgeon, one of my acquaintances recently suggested that I read Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking." I asked what the hell good that would do?
• I think about my father a lot. I suppose one of the reasons is that he died suddenly when I was 18. He was 46. (I played softball against him the night before. The young guys won). Our relationship was close, but at my young age, not near complete. I think it is the unfinished business that keeps its presence with me after 46 years. The wondering what our relationship would have developed into? What he would have thought of me? I am much different from him, yet in many subtle ways, the same. Had he live, he would now be 92. He would have lived another lifetime. That would be a lot of time for things to really go good, or really go bad. It's funny to think that death ends a relationship. It doesn't.
• I think I thought up a new word: automagical. It's when something happens but you are not really sure how or why. It happens out of thin air. No planning. A big surprise. Automagically.
• For all you patriots out there who think the United States is the greatest democracy in the world, forget it. We rank 17th. Waving the flag and singing the song won't help.
• I asked God the other day why he allows homelessness, poverty, hunger, and injustice in the world when he could do something about it. He answered by asking me the same question.
• You can't kill your way to peace. Even a child knows this.
• I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Keep Christ in Christmas." Why not, "Keep Love in Christmas," or "Keep Peace in Christmas." Christ has to be in Christmas, or it would be "mas."