Of Horses and Horsemen

A friend once said to me, "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a mechanic."

Likewise, owning a horse doesn't make you a horseman any more than owning a book means that you can read. In fact, it looks like a lot of people own horses the same way that an illiterate man owns his books -- yes, they belong to him, all right, but he hasn't the faintest idea of what's inside them.

Too many people people "love" horses, not for what the horse is, but for what the horse can do for them. For them, the horse has only instrumental value, no inherent value. So when they get done using a horse for whatever it was they wanted for themselves, they cut it loose, sell it, neglect it, abandon it, put it down, send it to slaughter. Use it up and throw it away. No compassion, no remorse.

Of course, there are some people who treat other people that way, too.

They're called "psychopaths."


sj

If you can knock over ONE domino...

If the civil suit succeeds, wouldn't you call that "probable cause" to indict on criminal charges?
Rumsfeld and the rest of the bloody Bush gang --- now including Obama as accessory after the fact -- should ALL pay huge civil damages AND go to jail for life.

sj

How to Respond to Police Brutality: A Tutorial

And this was just a football game.


sj

Good Hunting, Will

A primer on taking responsibility for your actions -- and the ramifications of those actions.


sj



(Thanks to The Lonely EMT for send this along.)

Tough Guys

I love this scene from Robert di Niro's "A Bronx Tale."
First, it kind of makes me homesick, although I'm from Chicago and not the Bronx. The Italian neighborhood I grew up near was a VERY safe, low-crime area. Know why? If something happened, they didn't call the cops. They called somebody else. And then, God help you.

Second, it's my experience that if you scratch a bully, you find a coward just under the surface.
Gangs, like this biker gang, depend on strength in numbers -- and sometimes superior fire power. They wouldn't hesitate to go 8 against 1 or 2 or 3, or to use weapons against an unarmed person. It's easy to be a tough guy when the odds are all in your favor.

Now suddenly. it's a reversal of fortunes.
It doesn't get much better than that.

But one more thing.
At the end it's a bunch of KIDS who chase one biker down the street and stomp him.
There's something about that.

It harkens to me images of hundreds of (unarmed) Jews being loaded into trains, guarded by just a handful of (armed) German soldiers. What if ALL those people had said, "To hell with it," and jumped those guards?

Or when a half dozen cops are beating down some poor guy, or tasing someone, while dozens of people watch, what if all those people jumped those cops, disarmed them, cuffed them...

I wonder.


sj

Legends

Sing Along