Use Back button
to return. Features
|
By
JIM STREET Ed
& Pub Once again,
our response to the terrorist attack on the United States by an attempt to blow
a commercial airliner out of the sky – on Christmas Day no less – is to show
we are “doing something” without a meaningful response to the problem. A Nigerian
man, whose own father reported him as a threat, strapped a high-powered
explosive to his underwear and tried to detonate it in midair. As in United
Airlines Flight 93, the fourth plane in the “9-11” attack that never reached
its target, passengers and crewmembers aboard Northwest Flight 253
overpowered the perpetrator and, except for some burns and scorched property,
no damage resulted. OPINION But the threat
is very real and there were indications we can expect them to try again,
probably on another Christian holiday. So what do we
do in response? Why we decide people can’t use blankets, pillows or laptop
computers during the last hour of a flight and can’t even use a rest room
during that period, as if that would make any difference. How did Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab even get on the plane with the highly-explosive PETN in
his shorts in the first place? We have
stepped up security with each threat but it’s never meaningful security –
just something to make it look like we are “doing something.” And most
people, even those with a conservative bent, support the invasion of their
privacy in the mistaken belief it is making a difference. It is, really.
It is making commercial airline travel a nightmare for law-abiding citizens
while obviously not making it harder for people to try to blow up airplanes. To be sure,
commercial air travel is a highly-attractive target to the radical fanatics
who are our real enemy. They are jealous of our prosperity and believe we
must be killed because we view God a little differently than they do. The airlines are
a very visible metaphor for our success – and taking over a 250-ton airplane
loaded with people – and highly-explosive fuel – gives them a powerful weapon
they can “purchase” with a box cutter or jar of liquid explosive. Security
experts said Abdulmutallab would never have gotten aboard the plane if a
security device in addition to the usual metal detector had been used when he
boarded the flight. They said
"puffer" machines, full-body imaging scanners, a simple frisk or
bomb-sniffing dogs all would likely have detected the chemical explosive. But the
23-year-old Nigerian suspect encountered none of those deterrents when he
traveled from Nigeria to Amsterdam and ultimately to Detroit. Just some
old-fashioned common sense might have helped. He chose a vulnerable spot on
the airplane to sit, paid cash for his ticket and didn’t’ check any luggage.
Why did that not raise suspicion? Meanwhile
grandma had to take off her shoes and couldn’t take shampoo or mouth wash
aboard in a false show of “protecting” the public. There were
reports at press time that TSA was considering adding more machines and this
is good news. Technology is the answer, not meaningless exercises that
frustrate and delay air travel while doing nothing to deter the bad guys. But, really,
the less said, the better. Each threat has brought a very visible
counter-action, which only told those bent on destruction what they must do
to carry out their evil deeds. In the real
world, if someone wants to do harm, he will find a way. Security may slow him
down but announcing what our security will entail can only serve to tell him
how to get around it. In each new
threat, additional security measures have been put in place that made
commercial air travel more of a hassle but didn’t stop the bad guys. After “9-11,”
you could no longer go into the concourse without a ticket, meaning you had
to meet Aunt Agatha at baggage claim rather than at the gate. After Richard
Reid tried to blow up an airplane with PETN in his shoe, the TSA now required
us to take off our shoes. And after a plot was uncovered to carry liquid
explosives board an airplane, we were now severely limited in our carry-on
items – particularly liquids. To be sure, we
need to protect ourselves from the bad guys and only the most naïve among us
would suggest it won’t happen again. But we need to
concentrate our efforts on technology and things that will work. Not on making
it more difficult for the law-abiding citizen to use the airline system. They may make
us “feel better” about flying. But if they
aren’t stopping the threat, they are worse than useless. Out with the
Old About this
time of year, many people make all kinds of New Year resolutions. I do something
a little different and it is more of an annual spiritual review (Ephesians
5:15 to 21.) I use the
Christmas Season – the celebration of Christ Jesus birthday – as a review
time. I usually try
to look back over the year and ponder my successes and failures. My plan of
action (Psalms 37:5) always centers on my relationship to God. Many times, I
tend to focus on the failures and not the victories. We should give thanks
and praise God for the victories (Colossians 4:2, Psalm 95:2, 100:4.) In regard to
failures, sometimes I have many. With deep sorrow, I ask God for forgiveness
(1 John 1:9) and ask Him for help in those areas. I also review
my Church-worship attendance, tithing- giving record, prayer and then service
in my local Church (Hebrews 10:25, 12:28.) One area that
I think is a lot more important or that should come first is my personal
relational to Christ Jesus. Do I really
love Him and spend time with Him in a personal Quiet time and a daily Bible
study? I find that
when I do spend time with Him I have a lot more joy and peace in my life (2
Corinthians 4:16, Galatians 5:22 to 26.) As we draw
closer to the Lord’s return, let us make 2010 an even better year in our
relationship to God. See you in
Church next Sunday. Brother
J Galileo's Moon In December,
1609, 400 years ago last month, Galileo began his telescopic study of the
Moon and almost immediately found evidence that challenged the Aristotelian
view that was fundamental to much of the scholarly and ecclesiastical
thinking of the day. The ancient
Greek philosopher Aristotle set forth a world view that still influenced
Galileo's 17th century world nearly 2,000 years later. Aristotle said
Earthly things, composed of earth, water, air and fire, were imperfect,
changing and subject to death and decay, whereas heavenly bodies, composed of
aether – quintessence – were of a completely different nature. They were
perfect, eternal and unchanging, thus objects beyond Earth were perfectly
round with perfectly smooth surfaces. Viewed with the
naked eye, the Moon appears perfectly round and, even with its obvious darker
and lighter areas, it could well have been perfectly smooth like a
multi-shaded marble. But that's not
what Galileo's telescope revealed. He saw what appeared to be mountains and
other seemingly uneven terrain. After
observing the same areas several nights and giving attention to the changing
shadows they cast, it became clear to him that the Moon was not perfectly
smooth. Indeed, in
many ways, its surface resembled that of Earth's – the Moon appeared more
Earth-like than heavenly. Being an
astute mathematician, Galileo even used shadows and basic geometry to
estimate the highest lunar mountains to be some four miles high. He also noted
that the Moon's surface was covered with countless roundish areas of widely
varying sizes. By studying
their shadows, he determined that they were depressions in the Moon, although
he never knew what caused them. We now know them to be craters formed from
meteor impacts. When the Moon
is in its thin crescent phase, one can easily see its faintly lit night side,
even with the naked eye. In Galileo's
day many assumed the glow came from the Moon itself but, from his
observations, Galileo correctly deduced that earthshine – sunlight reflecting
off Earth – produced the faint glow, showing that imperfect Earth could have
an effect on a heavenly body. Galileo's
lunar discoveries put the first cracks in Aristotle's world view and there
were more to come which we will look at in future columns. Sky
Calendar. Saturday, Jan.
2, Earth is at perihelion, its nearest point to the Sun in its annual orbit. Thursday, Jan.
7, the Moon is at last quarter. Monday
morning, Jan. 11, a thin, crescent Moon less than a moonwidth from the star
Antares low in the southeast just before dawn. Wednesday
morning, Jan. 13, a very thin crescent Moon is to the lower right of Mercury
near the east southeast horizon as dawn breaks. Friday, Jan.
15, the new Moon produces an annular eclipse of Sun which, unfortunately,
won't be visible over the US. Naked-eye
Planets. The Sun, Moon
and planets rise in the east and set in the west due to Earth's west-to-east
rotation on its axis. Evenings,
Jupiter is the brightest object in the southwest. Mercury is just above the
west southwestern horizon at dusk. Mars now rises late in the evening. Mornings,
Saturn is high in the south with Mars high in the west southwest. Stargazer
appears every other week, space permitting. Paul Derrick is an amateur
astronomer who lives in Waco. Contact him at 918 N. 30th, Waco, TX 76707,
(254) 753-6920 or paulderrickwaco@aol.com. See the
Stargazer Web site at stargazerpaul.com. A crow makes
an unusual pet By
TUMBLEWEED SMITH Butch Ragsdale
has lived in Seminole all his life. He retired from selling oil field parts,
got restless and started the Seminole Trade Days, which attracts more than
100 vendors and tons of shoppers from a large area the third weekend of every
month. Butch had a
great time growing up in Seminole. He said he wasn’t much of an athlete but
sure had a good time chasing the girls.
“We just got in
our cars and had a special drag we made, going from one drive in to another,”
he said. “You don’t really go anywhere, just in a circle. “Everybody
hollers at each other,” Butch said. “That was just the way it was in most
small towns.” For
diversions, Butch hunted jackrabbits. “We’d get out
in the pasture and start walking, shooting jackrabbits,” he said. “There was
a bounty on the ears back then. I think it was five cents an ear. That was
back when a nickel would almost get you in a picture show.” When Butch was
12 years old, he acquired a pet crow. “My brother,
sister and I were out in the back yard one time and we saw these kids coming
down the alley with a pet crow,” Butch said. “We went over there and one of
those kids had that crow on his shoulder.
“We asked them
where they got that crow and they said ‘out in the country,’” he said. Butch and his
siblings ran in the house and asked their dad to take them out in the
country, that they were going to catch a crow. Butch said in
later years, if his kids asked him to take them out to the country to catch a
crow, he would just laugh at them. But
his dad said nothing and just loaded the kids in the car to go hunt for a
crow. “We went about
five miles out on the “We jumped out
of the car and ran up the hill and all the crows flew except one,” he said.
“There was one young crow in the bunch and he could barely fly from tree to
tree. We caught that crow, took it to
the car and told Dad, ‘let’s go.’” They kept the
crow a couple of years. “He lived
outside of the house,” Butch said. “Every once in a while he’d fly in the
house and my mother would chase it out with a broom. “The crow was
never caged up,” he said. “He just kinda hung around a barn behind the
house. “We’d walk out
the back door and he’d see you coming and here he’d come and land on your arm
or shoulder,” he said. “He loved light
bread. “I think that
was his favorite food,” Butch said. “He loved shiny things. We’d be working on a car and he’d pick up
parts and hide them. “We’d have to
bait him with another part so we could go find out where he hid them,” he said.
“He was a lot of company for us.” |
|
|