Hiking keeps me young

` I hike every weekend if I can. Mostly I hike in the Red River Gorge near Slade KY, but I'll hike just about anywhere with anyone. I even take hiking vacations. Whether I'm in the woods in Kentucky or in some canyon in Utah, I feel at peace, like I'm being embraced by Mother Nature. The physical and psychological benefits are amazing. If I've had a bad week, I hike and the bad week melts away and I'm new again. But then exercise in general is good for your body and your mind.
` Americans are not getting enough, if any, exercise. Obesity and depression are increasing at alarming rates. Our economy is slowing, the news is always bad (but then, good news is not reported, it doesn't sell papers on attract viewers), and things seem to be getting worse all the time. If you aren't getting any exercise you should get started, it will make you feel better, look better, and live longer. It helps relieve the stresses of everyday life.
` Hiking and walking is my exercise. I met my wife through my hiking club. So my life has dramatically improved. So pick some form of exercise that you'll enjoy, walking, biking, swimming, or whatever and start making your life better.

Litter Bugs Me

` I'm getting tired of all litter I see in my neighborhood and on the roads in my community. It used to be that all you would see along the roads and highways were pop cans and paper cups, but now it seems that the pitiful people that litter are throwing out their entire fast food meal containers - cups, styrofoam containers, bags, wrappers, plastic utensils, everything.
` I got to wondering just why this is and the only thing I could come up with is that these people must be unhappy in their lives and they want the world around them to reflect what they look like on the inside. They're stuck in jobs they hate, or marriages that don't work, or their health is failing because of lack of exercise, or tobacco addiction, or obesity. Basically I think they're suffering from poor choices they've made in their lives. Many of them might be depressed. Regardless, they're messing up our world.
` Cigarette smokers who litter our streets with butts are a different story. They've trained themselves to believe that cigarettes butts aren't litter. They're addicted to nicotine and they don't want the debris from their addiction around them to remind them just how seriously their addiction is. It's amazing how fast an ashtray fills up. And cigarette butts stink like death, like the lungs of smokers. So they casually flick away any reminder that they're going to die a slow breathless death. That's why they use our streets for their ashtray. I have no sympathy for cigarette addicts. Please dispose of your butts properly.
` I suppose I have some sympathy for the rest of the litter bugs out there, not much, but some. I'm sorry your life sucks. I'm sorry you feel the need to trash our world because your life sucks. Next time you feel like throwing out your super-size pity-me meal out your car window, stop and think about your children. Do you want them to live in trash? Stop yourself and think of something positive you can do to reverse the poor choices you've made. Get more education, work on your marriage, get more exercise, do something positive for yourself. Quit taking out your frustrations on the rest of the world.
` Personally when I'm walking in my neighborhood getting the exercise I need, I carry a bag with me and I pick up trash. One person can undo the work of multiple litter bugs in just a short time. If all of us would just pick up one piece trash occasionally the world would be a lot cleaner. So keep the faith and do something good for you and good for everyone else. Make your piece of the world a nicer place to live.

God is not on your side so get busy!

` God is not looking out for you, nor is God out to get you. I always get a kick from people who escape unharmed from some hazardous event (a storm or a car wreck) and claim that "God was looking for me," or "God must have a higher purpose for me," or "I must have a Guardian Angel." The reason that they make these claims is the fear of death, it makes surviving a catastrophe seem miraculous.
` Of course the other side of "God was looking out for me during the plane crash," is "God had it out for everyone that died in the crash." You never hear anyone say that, other than a few confused religious fanatics - ridiculous from any one's lips. If you happen to be in the right place at some critical moment you survive, if not, you die. It's pure chance.
` Death is only important to us. Death is not important to God. God is infinite and death plays no part in the infinite. When we die we simple return to God's fold. If you believe in a continuous soul then death is just a transition from this world to the next. However, having a continuous soul is a matter of faith and things that require faith, by definition, can't be proved. That's why we fear death. We can't know absolutely that our essence, our soul will continue after death. If death was a bad thing it wouldn't be part of nature. All things die.
` If you survived a hurricane because your home held together and your nieghbor's didn't and you now feel the need to get more education, to help the homeless, to start going to the church, to fight crime, to get into better shape, then by all means do so. Sometimes we need a boot in the butt to get started. Too often we don't do things we should. We'll get to it next week when we feel better, when we don't have so much on our mind, so much on our plate.
` You're not predestined to any thing, place, or event. The best part of our earthly life is that we have Free Will. We choose what we do, where we go, what seat on the plane we want (sitting near the back of the plane will increase your odds of surviving a crash - so much for First Class - God must out to get those people sitting in First Class).
` Don't wait for your "brush with death" to accomplish the important things, after all, you have no proof of a continuous soul. Accomplish what you can now. Get in touch with old friends. Mend broken family ties. Tell the ones you love that they are important to you, that you love them. You make your own Heaven or Hell right now, right here. Don't give up. Don't surrender an unfinished life to death. You have Free Will. Exercise it. Don't wait for God to remind you. Our world is full of dangers from which you have no protection, so get busy!

Prescription TV - "Ask Your Doctor"

` I don't know about you but I can hardly watch TV any more because I can't stand all the Drug Prescription Ads. I don't want to "ask my doctor" about some drug invented by some large Parma that needs to recoup its investment.
` The worst part of these commercials is all the "legal speak." Let me paraphrase - "Do not take these drugs if you're a living, breathing human being. Serious side effects such as heart attack, stroke, and death have been known to occur. If you experience one of these side effects please don't sue us. We only have your best interest at heart (that and we need to make the maximum amount of money) so 'Ask Your Doctor' if you have a newly coined term for one of our newly imagined diseases that our newly invented drug can cure. Your life (if you survive our drug's side effects) will be so much better."
` Americans are now so over-prescribed that all of those newly invented drugs are (from our treated sewage) showing up in our water supply. That's right, your tap water contains prescription drugs that apparently filters don't remove. Ask you doctor if you should be drinking the water. But don't worry - Big Brother Pharma will invent a new drug to counteract the side effects of tainted tap water.
`They'll probably call the new syndrome TWIT (Tainted Water Ingested Trauma) and the new drug to cure it CUP (Complete Unregulated Profit).
` The TV Ad campaign showing a young happy family laughing and splashing in a mountain stream near a waterfall while a voice tells you, "If you're one of those people that need water to survive you might be suffering from TWIT. Symptoms include: thirst and dry throat after hard work or exercise, headache, and feeling bad sometimes. Side effects include death, but not for everybody." Scene changes from close up on waterfall to water pouring from a home faucet and the young, happy mom giving her children glasses of water while her young, happy husband smiles knowingly. "Don't be afraid of your faucet. CUP is for your whole family" the voice continues. "Don't be a TWIT, Call Your Doctor today and have a CUP. " The scene fades while the happy couple hugs and shoos their happy children outside to play.
` Don't get me wrong, I'm not against taking a prescription drug if I need one. I get sinus infections from time to time and I go to my doctor for his advice. I don't ask him if I should take something I saw on TV. He's the professional, I trust his judgement, I let him tell me what I should take. He's much better informed than I am on the subject. I just happen to have a male doctor. Women doctors are just as imformed as male doctors.
` I think drug commercials should be banned from TV just like tobacco commercials were several years back. Ask your doctor what he thinks.

Politicians

` The lowest form of life on the planet is a politician. They don't "feel your pain." They don't care about you in any way, shape, or form. Their only interest in you is during election season. They will say anything and do anything to get elected. After they get in office they're only interested in the machine that got them there.
` I get a kick out of reading letters to various editors from people caught up in some candidate, claiming their particular brand of politician is better than your brand of politician. Politicians are all the same - they're politicians - interested only in themselves.
`How can you tell if a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.
`Why do politicians run smear campaigns against their opponents? Because they can. You don't have to look too deeply into a candidate's past to find dirt. Politicians live in dirt, they're politicians.
`Not that I don't vote. I vote. I hold my nose and try to pick the candidate that will be the least embarrassing to our country. The last two U.S. presidents have been nothing but embarrassments. We need to find some way of finding people for public office that actually care about us common-folk. The political machine that currently exists is broken.

Coming soon.....

I'm a writer and a musician. I will be posting short stories and free music download as soon as possible. Thanks, Gayle.

Why I believe in God.

` My belief in God has nothing to do with religion. Let me try to explain. We humans like to think of ourselves as intelligent beings capable of understanding all that surrounds us - capable of analyzing the all forces of nature - of defining everything. And I have to admit that science has analyzed and explained some amazing things. It's an intricate and wonderful world in which we live. Still, there are things we don't understand, things we can't quantify.
` I'm always amazed that science can't seem to get a handle on gravity. Gravity seems so basic. What goes up must come down. We stick to the ground because the earth and our bodies both have mass, and mass attracts mass, gravity attracts gravity. According to our scientists, gravity is mathematically intertwined with time and mass, but that's about all we know on the subject. It's fabric and substance escapes our understanding. And where would we be without gravity?
` It's the engine of our physical universe. It ignites suns and embraces solar systems and galaxies. The moon's gravity causes the earth's oceanic tides. Still, we can't quite grasp gravity. It simples exists and we don't know why. We can measure its effect, use it to slingshot satellites around planets, but we can't generate gravity, or repel gravity. It just is. And here of late, with the discovery that our universe is expanding at an accelerated rate instead of slowing down from our understanding of gravity's pull, scientists have a new theory called Dank Matter and Dark Energy to explain their lack of understanding of gravity. It goes to show how little we actually know.
` However, the most mysterious of unquantifiable forces, that science desperately wants to quantify, is our most precious commodity - Life.
` We cling to dearly to life. We fight to keep it at all costs. If someone's life is at risk, we throw all of our science and medical knowledge in full gear, and if we hurry, sometimes we can save that life. We can repair the various systems of the body - the structural bones, the electrical brain and nerves, the plumbing of the heart and veins, the gastric energy system and waste removal, the sensory inputs of smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing. We can, if we hurry, repair all those things. But once life has left the body, there's nothing we can do. We can't give life. We've no clue what the life force is or where it comes from. It's even more mysterious than gravity. It has no measurable fabric, no definable substance.
` I've heard scientists claim that they control the fabric of life because they understand and can manipulate DNA. But DNA is just the instruction manual for the biological form. It's the mechanics of growth. So intriguing and intricate that, to me, it seems a good argument for Intelligent Design. But DNA is not life.
` We can manipulate DNA strands, splice this with that, but it has to be living DNA. We can't create DNA. We can measure and define every element and atom of DNA, but we can't stir together those elements and atoms and create a human. We can't even create something simple as a seed. We can't press together the elemental componets of a seed and make anything that will grow. We can't make it be alive. Life is completely out of our hands.
` And the life force is strong. If you've ever tried to get rid of weeds in your yard, you know that those pesky little seeds seem to take hold everywhere. Every nook and cranny has something growing in it. Life is everywhere here on earth - an incredible diversity - even in places where we're stunned to find life.
` Up to now, it was believed that life could not exist without some relationship with the sun. But recently, a very diverse population was found living in complete darkness at the bottom of the ocean by thermal vents. Apparently these life forms get their energy from minerals that spew from those thermal vents. We surface dwellers get our biological energy from the sun. I suppose the only connections between the newly discovered sun-deprived ocean life and us are: the life force, DNA, and the fact that the thermal vents and the sun both owe their existence to the effect of gravity.
` Life is a very powerful force. Life comes from somewhere. That "somewhere" to me is God. I believe in God because defining the life force is so far beyond our abilities. This mysterious, wonderful force can be whisk away form us in an instant and there's nothing we can do about it. ` We have no power over life. We can't create life. We can't give life. It's true that our understanding of the biological vessels of life has grown, but we're no closer to understanding what "life" is than we are to understanding what "gravity" is.
` It all seems so infinite, so beyond my comprehension. All I can say is, "thank you, God," for life and for all the forces that control our physical universe.