Potpourri

Tax day today. Wait until tomorrow and it will cost you more to file. Sure it hurts to share our income with the government but pause to think how privileged we are to live in this wonderful country. Government could be much more efficient yet we are blessed with good roads, police and fire protection plus national security. One only has to look at the ravages of the current war in Syria, the suffering of those poor unfortunate people and then contrast that devastation to the good life we live each and every day. Death and taxes — both are inevitable.

Recently at Arby’s sitting at the “table of knowledge” (no gossip—no-sir-re) with a group of us 80-year-olds someone had a question about cell phones. All six of us pulled out our wondrous little devices to add our expertise. The discussion was on how one can free up memory by deleting old messages and other expired messages. Of course, two types of phones, one iPhone and the other, Android, helped to complicate matters. What we really needed was to have one of our grandkids there to teach us how to do it. Somehow our youngest generations seem born knowing how to tap into the fantastic little computers that we now hold in our hand and take for granted.

Ah, society today. You see a couple out for dinner in a restaurant oblivious to each other but engrossed in looking at the small screen in their hand. I’m intrigued to think that they may be conversing with each other electronically rather than looking across the table into each other’s eyes. Still, I’m impressed how the younger among us can hold that cellphone in one hand and rapidly with their thumb type out a message. I text but it is slow with a two hand one finger tap — my thumbs just aren’t that flexible.

There will be no going back. Our world has changed into a digital world. Information dating back to the beginning of mankind is right there at our fingertips. One can almost instantly access the Bible, in any version you choose. Read a book — all you have to do is download the title and pay a bit. Up to the minute world news accessible as it happens. The little device knows where you are and will lead you back home or about any other location in the world if you ask. Check on your friends by reading their Facebook timeline or Twitter, or LinkedIn or myriad other apps. Who knows what the future will bring?

Your old columnist’s military background has caused me to follow with interest our recent bombing raid into Syria. The goal was to take out their chemical weapon capability in response Syrian dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad’s recent gassing of his own people. World convention has agreed that use of chemical weapons is a no-no yet Assad brazenly did it anyhow. One has to wonder why. My best guess is that he thought he could get away with it just as he has done in the past. This time with the devastation wrought by our Tomahawk missiles may cause him pause whenever he contemplates using that weapon in the future.

I’m not familiar with the Koran, the book of moral guidance that Muslims, such as Assad, uses for a rule and guide to life. Reading our own Bible I can find parallels to that kind of destruction. In the Old Testament book of Joshua, we read of the capture and destruction of the city of Ai. Responding to God’s instructions to Joshua his forces destroy Ai and kill all its inhabitants, men women and children everything. We as a Christian nation no longer do such horrible things, Nagasaki and Hiroshima aside, because of Christ’s teaching of love for our fellow human beings. Yet I know not what the Koran, a much more warlike religion teaches.

Reading the daily news about the civil war in Syria, Assad’s gas attack took place in Douma a bastion of rebel forces opposing Assad that he had about overcome. Perhaps like Joshua, he was trying to set an example for other rebel factions opposing him by wiping out all men, women and children in that town, exactly what chemical weapons are designed to do.

The whole civil war in Syria is difficult to wrap my arms around with understanding. Evidently, two factions of the Muslim faith the Sunni and the Shia are at war with each other. Then Iran, Turkey, North Korea and more plus Russia and yes even the United States have all jumped in on the fight to further their own interests. The whole thing is a mess and I think that President Trump is correct in stating that the United States needs to stand clear and let the Arabs sort it all out. Maybe with the destruction of Assad’s chemical warfare industry we can now stand back and let that happen.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail