2000-07-05 - 12:56 MDT

July 5, 2000

Ships & Ivins

Tall Ships on the Hudson. What a wonderful comparison, the best ot the best in sailing days, majestic, magnificent awe inspiring yet today. Compared to the best of the rest now days, demonstrating that utility and capacity override beauty.

In the sailing days, shipowners and mercantle companies would have made full use of what we now have. And maybe for better use than war - - - but John Paul Jones and the rest would probably dispute that.

It said in the paper that wind and weather let the windjammers sail as they were built to do yesterday. They ran on wind and muscle power guided by intelligence. The forerunners of the modern designers worked with wood, canvas and rope. The tradition and legacy of those ships and designers are behind every improvement on ships since then, made by people of the same ilk as the old time wooden vessel and sailcloth design engineers.

I think that we as people of the United States should strive to emulate our ancestors and get with the program of making our country greater yet.

Molly Ivins the newspaper columnist is a person that I don't always agree with, just like I am with our local shrine, Gene Amole and his column. Nor am I required to be in complete agreement with anyone about anything. But I feel that what she writes deserves attention and consideration. By golly, I have even changed my mind from reading some of those columns. Her title today is, "The paranoid style won't go away." I am trying to think of a way to get to the pith without copying the whole thing. She tells of Received Authority - - which includes from what I read - God - a guru on a mountaintop - a devilish man riding on a white horse wearing a white hat spouting nonsense. These previous words are mine - - now here is what she says, "The problem with those who choose Received Authority over fact and logic is how they choose which part of Authority to obey. The Bible contradicts itself at many points (I have never understood why any Christian would choose The Old Testament over the New), and The Koran can be read as a wonderfully compassionate and humanistic document. Which suggests that the problem of fundamentalism lies not with authority, but with ourselves."

She previously in this column said, "Since people allegedly relying on the Word Of God have come to some truly appalling conclusions over the centuries, it seems to me necessary to at least keep the discussions going to keep our brains limber.

This lady I guess, writes for the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph, anyway that is the source shown in the Rocky Mountain News. If the column had been mine I would have put in parentheses after the Word of God (any diety worshipped as God) but that is a niggling, picky thing. Her article over all discusses the radical types - - - - whatever you want to call them - - - - who try to force people to toe THEIR line. Jihad, terrorism, causes with many names - - - have it seems to me too, radical and closed minds and in the face of fact before thier eyes will maintain, "It jes' ain't so and you are Heretics and deserve to be slaughtered." (Spanish Inquisition for one) Both sides of a conflict kneel and pray to God for victory - - - - how ridiculous that is. I don't think the Deity will listen to things like this with a compassionate heart. Maybe I am wrong, convince me.

Note if Diaryland will print a link, I haven't found out the method yet. Tried your way Bev and it wouldn't go.

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