Great Wall

Great Wall of China, January 13, 2005: With a friend, I hiked up the mountain on the Great Wall today. The air is crisp and cold, and it amazes me that men could carry stones to these remote mountains and build, and build, and build. I touch the stones, and feel the strong hands of men working in the cold so long ago, hundreds of years before Pilgrims arrived in America.

The mountains are shaped oddly to my eye. In fact, they're the shape that you see in those misty watercolors, as you see here, going on, apparently, forever.

Liberal and Conservative

"A man of 20 who's not a liberal has no heart, and a man of 60 who's not a conservative has no brain." -- variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill

Is it true? I don't know, but it sure describes my experience.

We in America, lulled by years of prosperity, find it difficult to believe that barbarians still exist in the world.

But, yes, Virginia, there are humans who are not "civilized" as we know it. People who will kill you for your sneakers, and people who will torture you for the giggles of seeing you twist and scream. These are facts.

In our shrinking world, the far-away barbarians are now next door. With our transportation, communication, information, and weaponry, they're here among us.

We got trouble. That's a fact. And talking liberal at them won't do a bit of good.

Some folks just need killing to dissuade them from their foolish ways. Maybe we don't like that, but we don't get to tell the Universe what's true. We must have the humility to listen. The Universe will tell *us*.

And it's telling us loud and clear, soldier.