October 11, 2004
I blew it on two points yesterday. We were driving back from Flag and Tomcat called us on his cell, telling his mother that several of the Phoenix Suns were at the same coffee shop they were at (the Suns had an intramural game on Saturday night at the NAU Walkup Sky Dome). Kathy relayed this to me as I drove.

As Jerry Joslyn gleefully informed me by Email this morning, Stephen Marbury hasn't been a Sun for over a year. My gaff. I think T. Bell said it was Shawn Marion and the car was a Cadillac Escalade, not an Escalante, also my boo-boo.

Allen Fossenkemper sent me this: "Don't let your worries get the best of you. Remember, Moses started out as a basket case."

One of the subjects the entire family discussed this past weekend was on the topic of attention. As in, "Attention seekers get unwanted attention." Boy Howdy. All of us, Kathy, Deena, Tomas and yours truly are often the victims of the proverbial backlash, and we all have had our share of comments like, "Why do you say things like that?" and "You’re so gross!" and "Why can’t you just be professional?" and "That’s not funny, it’s sexist!"

And that’s just my mother's complaints.

I read one of the most informative articles on the current war, which basically said this: we aren’t fighting a war on terrorism. It is a huge mistake to think of it that way. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. It would be like calling WWII a war on blitzkrieg. This is a war between theocracy and secular democracy. This is a war between those who want their religion to be the center of government (i.e. radical Muslims and radical Southern Baptists) against those who believe in government sans religion (the U.S.A, England and parts of Spain). There. Glad I could clear that up.

So I’m reading Lynn Bailey’s "Too Tough to Die! The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of a Silver Camp: 1878-1990" and in this great Tombstone biography is a section on the Apache Wars, when Geronimo broke out of the San Carlos res (1882) and all hell broke loose around Tombstone, and the citizens formed Ranger groups to go kill all of the Apaches and U.S. President Arthur commanded "insurgents" to retire "peacefully to their respective abodes." And of course, they didn’t and went up to San Carlos to kill all the Apaches and teach them a lesson. Ah, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

"Life only demands from you the strength you possess.”"
—Dag Hammerskjold