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OK, since Greg England shared that his sister is a fugitive from Canadian law, I thought I would share my brush up against Canadian vigilance. Before I do so, I really, really have to stress that my experiences in Canada have been almost uniformly wonderful. I say "yes" to every invitation I get from churches and law enforcement circles in Canada. Even during the times that their money was worth very little and I would barely break even (or fail to do so), I tried to get to Canada. 

That said… there have been a couple of interesting times.

When the FBI held their 25th anniversary meeting of the FBI Association (made up of all law enforcement personnel who have graduated from the Academy) in Windsor, Ontario, I was asked to speak for them. That is a story in itself as everyone thought someone else had arranged for the speaker. The night before the event, they realized they had no one to address the crowd! One of them, a State Police Inspector here in Michigan, tossed the dice and called me. He is a brother in Christ and was in a bind so I immediately canceled my plans for that day so that I could make the trip across the Detroit River to Windsor.

I came up through the tunnel that connects our two countries and stopped at Immigration and Customs. They asked the routine questions:

"Where are you going today, sir?"

"Patrick O’Reilly’s pub." (which was true. It was where the lunch was being held)

"And how long will you be in Canada?"

"Just for lunch. I am addressing the FBI Association meeting."

"I see. So, what are you? Marshals? FBI? State Police?"

"No, I’m a pastor."

At that, the customs official smiled broadly and said, "I see! So, there’s no need to be asking you about weapons. Have a great day, sir."

As a matter of fact, I didn’t have a weapon on me. I had taken pains to make sure nothing even vaguely gun shaped was in the car. I respect the laws, even when I disagree with them. Still, I found it funny that he assumed that I wouldn’t have a weapon when almost everyone who knows me assumes I am armed to the teeth.

Another time, I was entering Canada and the agent saw an NRA sticker on my car. Uh oh.

"Do you own firearms, sir?"

"Yes, but there are none in the car."

"How many firearms do you own?"

"There are none in the car." (I was under no legal obligation to tell anyone how many firearms I own. I limit my statements to those required by law. I kept smiling)

"Are your firearms locked and stored safely?"

"My firearms are a long, long way away from us, sir."

"Are you a member of a sporting club?"

"No."

"Do you usually carry weapons?"

"There are no weapons in the car."

This went on for quite some time. Finally, he directed me over to the side for my vehicle to be searched. The police officer who came out must have been having a bad day. He majored in "Ineffectual Scowling" at university. He asked me to tell him where my weapons were. I told him "West Virginia" but that didn’t seem to satisfy him. He began going through my luggage as I stood there in a cold drizzle that threatened to turn into snow. For the next forty minutes, he pawed through everything in my car while telling me what would happen to me when they found the guns. He asked me, "Are you aware of the laws in Canada concerning bringing handguns into the country?" I said, "No, and I’m not interested in them since there are no guns in the car." We danced like this until he had looked everywhere. With a disgusted finally shove of my suitcase (now disheveled and well stirred) he shut my trunk lid and told me I could go. No apologies. No "have a nice day."

I really didn’t have any guns on me, but I could have. I, personally, was never searched. I was wearing a loosely fitting sweatshirt and a jacket. I could have had two Colt 1911s and a Claymore under there… but I didn’t. I shook my head at the amateurism and silliness of it all and drove away. I confess I had a bit of an attitude about Canada after that, but it didn’t last. The people of Canada won me over again in short order.

When I come back to the US, it is always a treat. You see, some of the weapons I have must be registered with the Michigan police. Anytime my license or plate is run, a notice pops up on the police computer that I have certain weapons and am licensed to carry them, open or concealed. The idea of the law was to warn the police that they were dealing with someone who might be dangerous. The reality is that every time my license or plate is run, the police see the notice and know that I am the most law abiding, checked out, and investigated person they are likely to meet that day. They smile and wave me on… and I am back in the USA. Cool.

Oh…by the way, whenever a cop asks you if you have weapons, the wrong answer is "What do you need?" There’s an interesting story behind that, too, but I’ll leave it at this: after the third or fourth body cavity search, they lose their novelty.

From time to time I get to go across the bridge to Canada. I always enjoy that. I find Canada to be a very interesting place full of interesting people. It is so similar to the US in so many ways that you can be lured into thinking it is the same… and it isn’t. It is unique, beautiful, and wonderful. I wish I could go more often!

As you take the bridge from Port Huron, Michigan over to Sarnia, Ontario (a beautiful bridge in a fantastically beautiful setting — worth the drive) you might notice uneaten or half eaten fruit littering the bridge from one end to the other. What is going on? Canada and the US do not want to import each other’s pests (and they assume they can’t travel across that 1000+ miles of unprotected, unguarded border regions we share across the Midwest and West…) so they will not allow you to bring any fresh fruit into their countries. On both sides of the bridge, travelers see the signs and begin to panic, eating as much as they can before tossing it out the window. There is even a group of employees whose job it is to collect the fruit (and other paraphenalia) tossed out on the bridge.

I was thinking of this last weekend when I read Luke 10 again. When Jesus sent out the 70 he required them to toss out everything they would normally have considered a resource. They were not to take any provisions or money with them and they were not to deviate from their mission for social events. Empty, they went out on the mission only to discover that they were not empty at all; they were filled with power and authority. The Holy Spirit had shown up. Would He have shown up had they not first emptied themselves? I doubt it.

If you want to get into Canada, you have to toss those grapes, buster. And if you want to get to heaven and, while you’re waiting for the trip, do some seriously good stuff while on Planet Earth, you might need to check the signs alerting us to drop the things of this world. It seems that God says some things just aren’t welcome in His house. Before we make the trip, we should clean out all those things that entangle us, beset us, and trip us up. It’s hard to do and, if you’re like me, a constant chore but, if you want to get to the other side, you’d best have clean hands. If you want to be filled with power, you need to empty all that power-killing stuff the world poured in you first. 

Because wouldn’t it just stink to have God hand you a crown of life… and you couldn’t grab it because your hands were already full? 

If you’ve never been to Woodward Avenue in August it is time you made plans for next year. Even if you don’t have a particular enthusiasm for old cars, the spectacle is worth the ride to Royal Oak, Michigan. I don’t know what the economy might have done to this year’s numbers (and it looked well attended to me) but most years will see nearly 2 million spectators and/participants flock to a five mile stretch of the famed Woodward Avenue every year. That makes this the largest spectator event in the USA.

I let Duncan and his girlfriend take the Torino and cruise last night. I went this morning and afternoon as he was at work. I don’t believe I’ve seen as many cars in previous years as I saw this one. It was wall to wall cars. Sweet. The oldest car I saw was a Model T and the newest was a new model Dodge Viper. My electric blue Gran Torino was the only Torino I saw all day. Usually I’ll see two or three a year but not this time. Tons of Chevelles, Corvettes, Novas, Camaros, Prowlers, Mustangs, and pimped out trucks, Jeeps, and even a jacked up International Scout that was made into a convertible. I have to admit, that was cool.

I drove past crowds being entertained by an Elvis impersonator, Andrew Sister-style singers, some cool jazz bands and one extremely tight blues band. Duggans, a famous Irish pub on Woodward, folded its large floor to ceiling windows back so that the top floor was open to Woodward. I was enjoying the music when a tricked out Smart Car passed me. Since I was on my own I couldn’t get my camera up in time to get a shot. It was the coolest Smart Car I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen them over the last dozen plus years since they showed up in Scotland. I even remember when they were known as the Swatch Car). There were extremely cool hearses with flames painted on them (complete with coffins) and one dude on a Segway scooter. Dude, I have to tell you, it is impossible to look cool on one of those things. Period.

A big part of the fun are the spectators. They run out into the road to take your photo (which is fine with everyone. You are only crawling along anyway). It can easily take two hours to make the four or five mile circuit. Pretty girls run out to give you beads (no, I didn’t have to… uh… they just give them to you, ok?). People bring you bottled water and anything from oil funnels to catalogs advertising their companies. Kids hold up signs saying "Light ‘Em Up!" and some people do — goosing their throttles and burning some rubber off their tires. Some are then promptly ticketed since that’s been illegal at the Cruise for the last few years. Most pay the fine happily and do it again a block later. People talk to you through your windows (remember, you’re going slow and your windows are down because few of these old cars have air conditioning). Some neat conversations, shared memories of old cars, etc. come through the window. Where else can something like this happen?

And to think — they WANT us to cruise! I’ve been in some towns where a sign was up warning that going down the same street a certain number of times would be considered cruising and open you to being ticketed, but Royal Oak — a residential community just north of Detroit — welcomes us. (quick joke: what do you call twelve John Deere tractors circling the Dairy Queen in Searcy? Prom Night!) Duncan has the Torino out tonight. I’ll hear him when he comes in — the rumble of the dual exhausts is sweeter than most any radio station.

After our three worship services tomorrow I’ll probably head back out for the last few hours of cruising. The weather is supposed to be like today (mid 80s, just a few fluffy clouds in a pure blue sky). And why not go again? This is a uniquely American, uniquely Midwestern event. It has to be seen to be believed. If I can, I’ll post a few photos here or over at my Facebook page. More to come…

A great point was made by one of my regular readers. He lamented that pure athletics are sometimes frustrated by poor judging. So true! We’ve seen some of this at the Olympics this time around — as we always do. Some of the women’s gymnasts were interfered with by judges and floor personnel a couple days ago. Right as one of our girls was about to start a routine or do the most difficult part of it, music would suddenly blare real loud or music that had been playing loudly would suddenly quit or switch to another song. They still took Silver. I don’t think our girls deserved the gold medal but it made it very hard for them to concentrate and some of them faltered, frustrated at the gamesmanship. It wasn’t just our athletes. One Chinese gymnast did perfect routines and yet got deductions for faults none of the announcers — or I — could see.

Some of the interruptions and confusion might have been something or than gamesmanship: incompetence. Did you watch Michael Phelps get his first gold of these games? They played the first two phrases of the Star Spangled Banner several times too many and then, after a squeaky instrumental attempt at the bridge of the song, it just suddenly stopped. I don’t think they meant disrespect; I think they were just in over their heads on this one.

Reports are in of hotels being nearly empty. I believe it after seeing so many empty seats at most events. Smog, invasive security, difficulty getting visas, and China’s reputation in human rights has hurt this Olympics. The Chinese press has barely mentioned Phelps, by the way. Today’s Chinese papers proclaim that these Olympics are all about Chinese domination in medals, industry, and society. OK. Good luck with that.

My wife was a figure skater before I married her and ruined her life. She still gets Figure Skating magazine (seriously) and DVRs every single skating event. They bring a lot of those right into our backyard at the Palace of Auburn Hills and she is first in line for the tickets. Yet… even she is getting fed up with the politics and rotten judging that has ruined that sport (art? activity? Flounce-o-rama?). Favorites will be moved ahead and those who are not favored will be shut down even if their routines are superior.

This was very obvious last time around (she makes me watch it. Pray for me). Unlike, say, the way the Olympics has welcomed back Dana Torres at 41, skating has no time for those "old" skaters who might be in their mid twenties or so. In the last Olympics a couple skaters tried to make comebacks. Their routines were perfect — absolutely perfect — and yet they were given marks that were far, far lower than the stars who fell, missed jumps, etc.

So the reader was right: the sports are great, but the judging is terrible at times. Still, I am enthralled by it all. I have appreciated NBC backing off some of the personal segments this time. Sure, they still have a ton of them but the last few Olympics have been absolutely ruined by constantly cutting away from the sporting events, playing smaltzy music, switching to soft focus lenses and telling us about somebody’s grandmother, covered with hairy moles, who has to watch her granddaughter participate while "mamo" stays her a darkened room in Hoboken. Please.

This weekend is the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise. Three days of classic cars on one of the most famous roads in America, baby! Bars and shops have exterior walls that fold completely away so that everyone inside can watch the parade of muscle cars, antiques — everything from bubble cars to concept vehicles to Mustangs to… yes…. our Gran Torino. Two million people usually show up over the weekend. It will be interesting to see what the economy, gas prices, and Mayoral crisis do the crowd this time. Duncan is planning on driving Friday night. I’ll drive Saturday.

Vroom! 

OK, I’ll say it… I’m an Olympics geek. I know, I know, there are other important things going on. Pelosi is too busy selling hundreds of copies of her new book (hundreds!) to do something like, say, her job. Putin is trying to murder a democracy in Georgia. Paris Hilton’s energy plan has been released proving she knows more about energy plans than Obama… but none of this matters. I’m watching the Olympics. My Netflix disks are sitting on the counter collecting dust. I’ll get back to them later. I speed up as I pass Blockbuster. I’m headed home to watch NBC, CNBC, and — almost a first for me — MSNBC.

I know next to nothing about sports. I watch as much American football as I can — college and professional. Soccer would only get my attention if they widened the goal by ten feet, allowed more contact, and made the ball smaller. If that meant more scoring, I might take some time and watch a game. I’ll watch baseball and basketball during the playoffs but that’s about all I can take of them. NASCAR? Sorry, TG, but that’s just men turning left as far as I can tell. Golf? Funny thing about golf — I love the game but can only watch it if someone I like is in contention. Duddy Mudflap from Possum Kiss, Mississippi is just not going to capture my attention long enough to sit down on the couch and watch.

But put Duddy in the Olympics and I will root for him like he was human. Or important. You get the idea. I watch gymnastics and marvel — how do those guys and gals DO that stuff? I watch swimming and don’t even mind my wife rooting a little too enthusiastically for Phelps. Hey, he’s gorgeous. I’m fine with that. I even watch women’s beach volleyball and I’m not at all sure that Christian men should be allowed to do that. At least I only watch when my wife is in the room to monitor my heartrate, etc.

I don’t just root for the Americans. The Chinese were spectacular in men’s gymnastics. I know they got gold but I still think some of the scores they got were WAY too low. One man in particular did an absolutely perfect, impossible, jaw dropping routine on the rings and got a middling score. What’s with that? I hope Phelps gets gold in every event and I hope NBC had the brains to sneak Mark Spitz away from his dental surgery practice and over to Beijing to congratulate Phelps on breaking his long standing record.

I remember the horrible cheating of the 1968 Olympics and the massacre at the 1972 Olympics. I remember America’s hockey team taking gold. I remember Britain’s Eddie Eagle, one of the most ill prepared, accident prone, and unlikely Olympians of all time. I remember leaping from my chair and cheering when he managed to survive — and nearly land –a ski jump.

I’ve got it bad, people. The lovely and gracious Kami has just fed me a wonderful dinner and we are planning to adjourn to the basement — our media room — to watch for the evening. After a day when my office computer malfunctioned, I was surrounded by too many people, too many interruptions, and National Get In Front Of Patrick And Drive Slow Day I will let the smog of China and the sweat of champions wash it all away. When the games are over it will be back to our Netflix, especially since TV will be taken over by the Democratic Convention. We go from Must See TV to Must Flee TV way too quick. I’m getting a foam collar to prepare for the metaphysical whiplash… after I watch more of the games tonight.

Braving winds, light rain, and high temps in the 60s (to say nothing of the danger of taking a Michigan tagged car into Ohio) I turned my car south after preaching the three AM services at Rochester. I will be in Columbus, Ohio tonight and all day tomorrow as I teach a class on Death and Dying and another one on the latest information on Alzheimer’s disease. It is an 8 hour teaching marathon but it pays well and I enjoy getting to do/teach science again. I will head home tomorrow and be with my sweetie again.

Yesterday, I got to be at the PGA championship at Oakland Hills. A friend of ours who is a member at Rochester and a member of our small group called me and asked if I would like to go — free. I was at his house before he got the entire word "free" out of his mouth. We got to see a lot of great players such as Rocco Mediate, Rory Sabatinni, Jim Furyk, Phil Michelson and many others. We left just before the deluge of rain and wind struck the place and shut the tournament down for the day. All the way from Detroit to Columbus I listened to the championship on my XM radio (yes… golf on radio…). Once again, Phil broke the heart of anyone who counts on him to play well on Sunday and Sergio came up short. Yet, I am happy that my Celtic buddy, Padraig Harrington, won the day. With two straight British Opens and now the PGA, Padraig is a force to be reckoned with on the tour. He is also an unfailingly polite and decent man. I love it when the good guys win (that doesn’t mean Phil and Sergio aren’t good guys, by the way).

Greg England is gone on a cruise and I am going through withdrawl. I need my blog fix!

Oh well, I’ll watch the Olympics tonight in my hotel and get ready for teaching and driving tomorrow. Cheers.

After reading Greg England’s recent post on "JD," I thought I’d share one of my most unforgettable characters with you. (See, there I am again, just walking in Greg’s footprints!)

We worked in Morgantown, West Virginia for 8 happy years. Shortly after joining that work we met Lou Conn, an elderly woman with a personality that was, frankly, odd. She rarely smiled, rarely engaged in anything approximating a conversation, and often hovered at the edges of any group that was doing something. If food was on offer, Lou was there first and left last. She was a thin, short woman, but she could put the food away better than people twice her size. If your eyes met hers, she glared at you as if daring you to make a comment about how much or how long she was eating. She was quick to glare, quick to assume she was being insulted. One walked carefully around Lou.

She didn’t drive, so people had to take her to church and to the senior center downtown. I volunteered to do that quite a few times but I learned almost nothing about her as we drove together. She wasn’t much for talking.

It was much later that bits and pieces of her story came to me via a dozen or so people who had known her a long time. It seems that Lou’s early life was harsh and brutal. No love was forthcoming from her mother and her father was angry and quick tempered. She fled at her first opportunity and went to work cleaning rooms and washing dishes and clothes at a boardinghouse. Still in her late teens — or maybe her early twenties — a salesman started staying at the boardinghouse frequently. He smooth-talked Lou and won her over. They were married shortly thereafter.

What should have been a happy story turned horrific not too long after the wedding photos were put away. Lou’s husband was set upon and severely beaten by a group of men. Lou was certain they were black men and, sadly, she never forgave the black race for that. Remember, she grew up in the 20’s and 30’s in rural West Virginia. There wasn’t much in the way of progressive thought lying around.

The rest of Lou’s married life was a nightmare. Her husband was brain damaged, unable to work, and usually confined to a State Hospital. Lou was once again sentenced to a life of working day and night, doing the most menial of jobs, catching a bus or a ride from a kind hearted person so that she could sit beside the bed of the man who was supposed to take care of her. Decades and decades passed and so, eventually, did her husband.

By that time, Lou’s life had taken on a form that was entirely encased within the need to survive and nothing more. Baptized and welcomed into a church family, she had no way to show love in return. My family decided to "adopt" her as a grandmother. The kids were fine with it, knowing they would have to parent her but they were into service even at their every young age. We brought Lou up to our mountain home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She would sit quietly on the couch, saying nothing. When the food was ready, she would eat slowly but steadily, always with a little aura of fear around her that the food would disappear. Shortly afterwards, she would ask to be taken home. She never stayed for games or TV or conversation. We understood that and accepted that about her. One Christmas she brought a handful of pencils up for the kids. They acted like she’d given them a pony. She was so pleased!

When we would go to restaurants as a church, or as a senior group, Lou would bring her big purse. One of us would pay for her (and she always remembered to say a quiet thank you). Before we left the restaurant, she would stop by anything free — a bowl of mints, packets of salt or sugar, etc. — and load her purse up with it. We would later go to the manager and apologize but none of them were ever upset about it. Evidently, Lou wasn’t the only one who did that on a regular basis.

I would take her home to a dark house. We’d walk her to her door where, without the benefit of a porch light, she would find her key and let herself in. I would go back to my car and wait for a light to go on… and it never did. She didn’t want to spend the money on electricity. She would sit in her house wearing her coat so that she didn’t have to turn on the heat.

Lou wasn’t alone. A young couple in our congregation served her continually. They took her places, mowed her lawn and trimmed her bushes. They made sure she got her medications and checked on her daily. Another man made sure her bills were paid. One day, years and years after he proved himself a faithful friend, she admitted that she had another account he didn’t know about. Well, it wasn’t an account really, it was a box where she put Savings Bonds she had purchased over the years. There wasn’t a lot in it, she said, but she admitted that she had never counted it. He counted them, checked the maturity dates, and found out that Lou had around six figures in savings… and she didn’t know it. She came to me the next Sunday and drew me close. She whispered, "I’m rich!"

Finally, I was invited inside her house. The living room had a folding chair and one other chair. The only other piece of furniture was a small table on which was her new 32 inch television, the first nice one she’d owned. That — and a two liter bottle of soda — were the only splurges I would ever know her to make with her newfound wealth. Her habits were just too deeply ingrained by this point. She asked me once if she could leave her house to me and I asked her not to. I told her that wouldn’t look good and people would wonder if I talked her into it. We agreed that she should leave it to the church to sell for a mission work or she could leave it to the man who had helped her with her finances all those years (she did the latter, I believe).

Shortly after this, Lou was struck by a truck as she crossed the street in downtown Morgantown. The best guess the doctors could make was that she blacked out, suffered a stroke, and fell forward off the sidewalk into its path. Not long afterwards, Lou went on to glory.

I preached her funeral — just a graveside service, really. She had no family to attend but there was a good number present from the church. I spoke of the beautiful sights described in Revelation that Lou was now seeing. I especially centered my talks around the lights in heaven. At the end, in my prayer, I asked God to tell Lou that it was all right to leave the lights on; the rest of us would be right up."

Were it not for the promise of heaven, stories like Lou’s would be too awful to bear. But with heaven a certainty, I can’t wait to see the instant replay of Lou’s face when she first got a look at her new home, her new life.
 

Sometime back I confessed that I was about to backslide away from Windows machines and go for a Mac product. After a couple months of saving, I was very close to buying one when we got hit with Governor Jennifer Grantholm’s new Michigan taxes. We pre-pay taxes and thought we were paid up. We were only $90 off on our federal… but the new Michigan taxes hit us across the face with over $2000 due immediately.

There went my Mac.

I paid the bill — with great difficulty — and thought about the long months of saving ahead of me, wondering if I would have the heart to do it again. Then, I heard that our church satellite, Christ Church: Macomb, was having to make due with borrowed equipment every Sunday. They didn’t have their own projector, laptop, etc. and so relied on the kindness of others to supply these things in time to get ready every Sunday.

Sigh. It was decision time. I talked to them last week and my laptop would work great for them. So… probably sometime this week I will give them my laptop and go buy a replacement. I can get a good Windows laptop with 4meg RAM and a decent hard drive for $700 or so locally. That is half what it would cost me to buy a Mac. I think I’ll pull the trigger, donate my current unit, and buy another Windows machine sometime in the next week or so.

Yeah, it will mean a financial hit, but we believe in Christ Church Macomb. It is a satellite of Rochester Church. They use my lessons (via video) and have their own site ministers and praise team. They are a remarkable, spiritual, and friendly group of people. They meet 10 miles or so east of our main building and it is impossible for me to get there most Sundays, so this may be one of the few ways I can show my support and love for them.

But it means another four or five years before I can move to a Mac. That’s okay. Using Windows makes me long for heaven and teaches me patience. And not switching to a Mac means I don’t have to vote for Obama, drink green tea, live at Starbucks, or pierce any of my body parts. That’s pretty cool.  

LATE NEWS: just got a call from Kami. In today’s mail came a bill from the State of Michigan. Seems they didn’t like the fact that we didn’t pay high enough quarterly taxes. That we paid as soon as they were due means nothing (I.e. When we paid our federal taxes). They want another $510 in interest and penalties immediately. Thanks to all who voted for Grantholm. Only 40 percent of us in Michigan pay taxes and no wonder so many of them are looking for the exit. My donation will have to wait awhile. My money just went bye bye!

I got back from a three night VBS in Marysville, Ohio yesterday at about noon. I had a joyous reunion with my sweetie and we decided that we should go out to celebrate the end of two weeks of madness (on my part). I’ve had 9 flights, driven over 700 miles, and given 14 talks in the last two weeks. Enough. 

We went to see "The Dark Knight" at our local AMC theater. Gotta say, it is a brilliant movie. Heath Ledger did a fantastic job playing the Joker. Christian Bale’s Batman is more like the original comic book depiction than any other I’ve seen on screen but that means he is rather monotone and flat faced throughout. The Batman mythology is a whole lot darker than most people know. This movie actually mines some of that and, if you know your Batman myths, you will be ahead of the curve on a few plot points. I won’t spoil it for you, but this 2+ hour movie seemed a lot shorter than that and left me looking forward to the next one (I could never say that about most Batman films and certainly not any of the Spiderman movies which were okay movies but… just okay).

Here’s the thing, though. It was the 5PM showing and we had to pay $20 for our two tickets. Add another $9.50 for the two sodas and you are into serious pocket change not even counting the price of gas from our house to the theater (minimal in our case, but still…). After the movie we went to On The Border for dinner. The meal came to $24.00 and that was with a way over 20% tip on my part (I’m a good tipper, what can I say?). That was a very reasonable price for a very good dinner in a nice atmosphere. But the movie/soda price still rankled me.

At home, I ran through the list of On Demand movies our cable system offers. Many of them were movies we wanted to see but had missed in the theaters. Each cost between 3.99 and 4.99 and we could watch them as much as we wanted for 24 hours. We also use Netflix and that costs us 14.95 a month for three movies at a time, as many as we want to watch that month, along with the ability to watch online several movies a month at no additional charge.

While at the theater, we had to decide among four movies. Along with Dark Knight, we also wanted to see Wall-E, the Mummy movie, and the X Files movie. At $10 a pop per person we might just decide to wait them out and see them at home. With the high price of gas, movie tickets, and movie concessions the industry might find out it is driving more and more people back into their homes. I understand that Hollywood’s profits are up this summer so most people haven’t stopped going to the theaters… but that time might have just shown up for us. Some movies have to be seen on the big screen but most are just fine at home.

And I like home. It’s where Kami is. And my guitars. And my refrigerator with a big 2 liter of Diet Pepsi in it. Ahhhh……
 

I’ve written before about the United Kingdom’s idiotic gun laws. For those who are behind the loop, the UK has had some of the most restrictive gun laws on the planet for many decades but they got even more restrictive during Tony Blair’s terms as Prime Minister. No handguns are allowed. The British Olympic Shooting Team has to go overseas to practice. No semi-automatic rifles or shotguns are allowed. To get a bolt or lever action rifle or side by side shotgun, you have to go through a long and invasive licensing process and then submit to no-knock-no-warning searches of your house whenever the police decide to make sure your firearm is unloaded, locked in an officially accepted gun case, and that all ammunition is accounted for and it, too, is locked in a government approved case… in a different room. 

Laws were passed against self defense in public or in your own home (recent court decisions have restored that right somewhat in a person’s own home, but with draconian restrictions and a Rules of Engagement chart that is confusing, at best). Predictably, crime skyrocketed in the UK. You are now more likely to be mugged, robbed, or the victim of assault in the UK than you are in the United States. Murder rates are also much higher in the UK than they are in the US.

Criminals continue to use guns but that isn’t stopping the government and police for calling for more gun laws. In Scotland, BB guns now have to be registered with the police and stored in the same way as "other firearms." Recently, they have turned their attention to knives.

Yes. Knives. Already, it is illegal to carry a knife of any kind, but that isn’t enough. Now, there is a big push from government and emergency workers for the Parliament to ban tips on knifes. All knives — steak knifes, kitchen knives, etc. — are to be modified so that there is no tip. Edges are, for the moment, still acceptable. Rather than restoring the right of citizens to fight back, they want to chop the ends off their steak knives and declare victory.

Perhaps in reaction to this, London’s Harrods Department store is now selling bulletproof fashions to the public. You have to be wealthy to be able to afford that protection of course (shades of left wing politicians in the US who want to ban guns for all but people like them), but they are guaranteed to stop 9mm bullets and, with an upgrade, knives or a round from a submachine gun (which is usually a pistol round fired with a bit more velocity).

A polo shirt costs $7500 unless you want that extra knife and sub-gun protection in which case the price rises to $9800. There are leather jackets, dress shirts, etc. and even a line of bullet proof clothing for your children.

At the same time in the UK, judges have been cautioned by the Queen’s Prime Minister not to jail Muslim young men who commit crimes such as rape, assault, and attempted murder if jailing them would be seen as anti-Muslim by the larger Muslim community in Britain.

Didn’t any of these people play with dot-to-dot puzzles when they were kids? It would seem that someone would notice their current trajectory and cry "enough!" But then again, one of our presidential candidates has praised the UK for their gun laws and called them "reasonable." Wanna guess who?