miscellaneous, The Teachings, Writing

The View From The Dungeon

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Clouds have obscured the bright sun disk of early morning.

The windows in The Dungeon face east, and that’s the direction I face when sitting and working at my computer. On sunny days like today I will be greeted by the sun. Since we are not far from solstice, the sun, as it frees itself from the horizon, comes blazing through the windows into my eyes. I have to adjust myself in the chair, lean a little to the left, so that the sun is blocked. Otherwise, I’m sure my eyes would become painful and eventually I’d go blind. Oh, the windows have blinds, long vertical slats that go to the floor (well below the window bottoms), but the tangle of computer cords causes the slats to separate and allow the bright rays to come in.

This condition lasts only a few minutes. The sun rises above the cut-out at the back of the upper unit of my computer desk, and the sun no longer torments me. I can shift my torso back to upright. At some point this spring/summer the sun will rise early enough that perhaps it will already be above the critical point when I arrive in The Dungeon to start my workday. But, by then other conditions will have changed as well.

Right now, the woods behind our house are at or just past their barest point. The Bradford pears have bloomed and just leafed out. The wild dogwoods are blooming. The oaks are a couple of weeks away from their initial budding. But, the pin oak trees among them have finally lost their leaves. Yes, those pin oak leaves hold on through the winter, dropping in the early spring just before everything else starts to bud. Once the oaks do bud then leaf out, the sun will be totally blocked until it is well up above that desk cut-out. I will come to The Dungeon when it is lighter and not be bothered by the sun.

With the solar disk so bright, and with the windows so dirty, and with the slats blocking much of what would otherwise be visible, what do I see? Bare oak branches show from the nearest trees, and behind them the mass of trees on the other side of the hollow. They are, perhaps, seven hundred feet away. If I would stand up and find a good viewport through the windows I might just barely see thy walking/hiking/biking trail, in the hollow. I walk that trail a fair amount and, until the oak forest leafs out, can see our house from it.

You wonder what the point of this post is. I’m not sure I have one. Just thought I’d take a post now and then to record something of interest. The hollow behind our house is unplatted land, belonging to the POA. It is considered unbuildable due to the steep slopes. However, if hard times would come, I’m sure the POA would figure out a way to build on it and homes would spring up. Given the nature of the geology, it would have to be very hard times indeed. So, we are destined to have a wooded valley behind us for as long as we stay here.

It is now just after 10 a.m. The sun has moved higher and way around to the right. It no longer bothers me or causes me to dodge and weave to avoid looking directly at it. The eastern sky, what little I can see of it, appears cloudy. The tree trunks at the edge of the forest aren’t bright. It would appear that cloudy conditions are developing.

The day is starting to drag. I’ve been looking for maps to illustrate my novel and am having trouble finding suitable ones. Before much more looking passes I’ll just break down and draw my own.  My cold is better, but I think I need one more day before I resume walking. Friday is April 2, Good Friday. It will be the day for me to post my progress and plans for the month. I’ll see you all then.

family, Writing

Ready To Get Back To Work

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For almost two weeks just past we have been much tied up with the grandchildren. We left for Texas two weeks ago, dropping recyclables in Oklahoma City, then six more hours to West Texas. We spent three days there, then on Sunday we drove back to Bella Vista with four grandchildren.

They were here a week. I wrote about them in the last post about some of the things that filled the week. We took them back on Saturday, another all-day drive. We spent four nights there, driving back Wednesday, dropping more recyclables in OKC as we came back. We stayed up a little late that night, and Thursday took a day of rest. We watched two of my favorites, Lawrence of Arabia and My Fair Lady,

Now, it’s time to get back to work on my writing. During the last two weeks I began going through my novel-in-progress for the third time. I also got some mock-ups of the cover for it and for the whole series. It will take another three days of reading to get through it.

I need to get back to the church history book. I’ve been brainstorming it while I was otherwise engaged the last two weeks, but didn’t add any words. I also need to get back to the Bible study I had started on. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but I need to get a little farther into it before I know if it’s a viable project.

Yesterday it became painfully aware to me that I have to do a lot of work on this website.  I hate the thought of that. The person suggesting I need to make changes said I first need to back up what I have. I have no idea how to do that. I know I need to learn how to but hate the thought of it.

But, today I need to work on all these things. Hopefully, I will be able to apply my mind to it.

family

A Good Reason to Interrupt Blogging

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The day before we left Texas for Arkansas we endured a hailstorm with golf ball size hail, and some bigger.

My last blog post was on March 8. As it’s now the 22nd, that means I missed three of my regular blogging days. I hate doing that, but I had a good reason. We drove to West Texas and picked up our four grandchildren bringing them back to Arkansas for their spring break.

Due to the covid pandemic, which included Lynda and I contracting it but processing through it easily (for me) or at least not severe (with Lynda) was reason enough to cancel any hope for a family Christmas. We had already decided not to have Thanksgiving together, so that meant we hadn’t seen our grandkids since last June—except on Messenger or Zoom calls.

The two 11-hour drives gave plenty of opportunity for food and treats.

So we had the kids from Sunday though Saturday. E1 and I worked on repairs to the fort in the woods across the street, which had a wall damaged from a leaning tree. We had to untie a number of posts from the damaged top bar, the try to push the tree in a way that it would not damage another wall. We could only do this after I sawed the tree into two pieces. I had already cut a new top bar from a dead but not yet rotted tree on our property. I carried it to the street then E1 took it across the street into the woods and to the fort.

Ice cream on the chin mitigates a lot of hours in the safety seat.

E1, who is in junior high track and ran cross-country last fall, did a timed mile on our hill. He did this in new running shoes we got him, well fitted at a running shoes shop.

E2 was his usual quiet self. He pulled out our set of The Chronicles of Narnia and picked up reading in them where he had left off at home. He is reading the Bible through, now in Job, and we read with him several nights. He went on a couple of walks with us. One evening, as twilight was beginning to fall, he and E1 went into the woods chasing after a herd of 10 deer that passed through our yard. They went through the deep ravine and made it back to our house via the street just as dark was closing in.

E3 enjoys art and making displays such as this.

E3 really enjoyed her walks. She and E4 and I played with Leggos in the play room. She reads a lot, and was always ready to go on a walk with me and Grandma, or sometimes just with me and “the two littles” i.e. E3 and E4. E3 also helped me put away the winter display and put up and Easter one. She especially enjoyed putting the tiny eggs on two little trees.

The youngest, E4, had the job of gathering up the lengths of twine and putting them in a bucket for re-use.

E4 worked on his potty training and did well with it. Since Grandma has had relatively little snuggling time with him, she was the designated “read him to sleep person”. Sometimes Grandpa had to come in to take him from her arms and put him in bed. A few nights he wanted me to sing him to sleep. He kept wanting to be on screens like his older siblings.

Mindful that this was their vacation, Grandma and Grandpa were somewhat lax with bedtimes and the amount of screen time we let them have. Hopefully they will fall back into regular routines quickly at home. The three older kids also got in some laser tag with the boy up the street (who was not on spring break) for a couple of days. But they all had opportunity to work on making words from longer words for money. The three older ones all earned something. And they wrote letters home to their parents and to their other set of grandparents.

They could do as many words as they wanted, limit of $15 per word at 15¢ per word made.

The two adults in the house are beat. We will be glad to be home soon and to wind down from all the work, but we wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Possibly we’ll get them back sometime this summer, when they will have another large pot of Grandpa’s Mythical Sandwich for supper over several nights.

memories, miscellaneous

R.I.P. Victor Turnage

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The corona virus pandemic may be in its waning moments (can’t be sure yet), but it has claimed the life of a good friend, Vic Turnage.

About five months or so into the corona virus pandemic I began seeing social media posts to the effect “Do you know anyone who has had covid? Do you know anyone who has died from covid?” The implication, of course, was that this disease wasn’t so bad and was being blown way out of proportion by individuals in the government who wanted more control over our lives. The longer we got into the pandemic you saw fewer of such posts as more as more people caught it and more and more died. Yes, it was then and still is a serious disease, worthy of being treated seriously.

For Lynda and me, an acquaintance in our daughter’s church died from it last spring/summer. Then, on Saturday a second person we know, Victor Turnage, died from it after a long battle in the hospital. He leaves his wife, Joyce, two sons, and four grandchildren.

They came to the Northwest Arkansas around 1995 or 96 from central Missouri. Vic worked then for Contractor Supply. They lived in Bentonville and began attending our church. Within the first week or two we had them over for dinner after church and we hit it off as good friends. Vic is about my age, was involved in construction, was interested in serving in the church, and so we had much in common. We went out for lunch often after church and were frequently in each other’s homes in evenings to play table games.

Such good people and hard workers. Vic will never be replaced as a husband, father, grandfather, and servant of God through the church.

When the church put together a building committee to construct a new family life center, Vic and I were both on it. We worked together on closing out things in the old church, on working with the architect as he developed concepts. Once construction started, Vic was our eyes and ears in daily dealing with the contractor. His knowledge of how construction took place was invaluable during that time. He and I and some others conducted the final inspection of the new building. Together we looked for those nicks and dings and bigger items that the contractor might have overlooked.

Later, he came to work where I worked, CEI Engineering, as a construction observer. He and I worked together on getting contractors to do the right thing on various development and public works projects. Vic wasn’t much on paperwork. which drove me nuts. I had to keep after him to fill out daily reports. But he sure knew construction, knew his way around a job site, knew how to handle contractors, make them follow the construction plans. The local business slowdown hit NW Arkansas in 2006, ahead of the rest of the country, and Vic was laid off by our company the next year.

After that, we kind of drifted apart. Life circumstances resulted in our having different goals and going in different directions in life. We saw each other at church, but Lynda and I stopped going out to eat due to salary cuts. Eventually we quit the evening get-togethers.  Whenever we did get together it was good times as always. During these later years, Vic was heavily involved in physical needs at the church. He ran cables, worked the sound booth, maintained just about anything and everything inside the buildings and on the grounds. He was the guy you would see bring a new microphone to the platform in the middle of a church service when the pastor’s mic died. When someone needed to climb a ladder to push the reset button on the ceiling-mounted projector, Vic would be the one to climb, as five of us down below would steady the ladder and encourage him.

The last paragraph really understates all that Vic did for the church. He truly had a servant’s heart and followed that up with action. If he saw a need he moved to fulfill it. He didn’t need to be asked. Yet, if you did ask him for anything he would do it. He had the gifts of both serving and helping.

Vic will be much missed by many people. We mourn, along with his family. What will help all who do mourn him is knowing that Vic has now heard those words from his heavenly Father that we all long to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter now into the joy of the Lord.”

book reviews, fiction

Book Review: The Body In The Library

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A good Miss Marple Book, but not a keeper. We will be passing it along.

Continuing with our reading books in the house that look like they would be good to read but not necessary to keep, my wife pulled The Body In The Library from the Agatha Christie box and we read it. This was the first of her books featuring Miss Marple that we’ve read.

It’s a good book, as all of hers have been. A servant, in the midst of her morning duties, finds a body in the library of a manor house. She tells the lady of the house, who doesn’t believe her at first. Finally the lady goes downstairs and sees for herself. Before long the police are called. The lady knows Miss Marple, who is from that village, and calls her to come over. She arrives before the police do. Her reputation as an amateur crime solver is already well established in the village, which seems to have an above average murder rate for cute English villages.

Since Miss Marple will be the one to solve the crime, I figured the murderer had to be someone she comes in contact with. She’s there at the manor house and encounters three people, plus the police. The story then moves away from Miss Marple and follows the police as they do their work. The dead woman is identified as an 18-year-old professional dancer at a hotel in a nearby town. She’s newly studied at a dance school. Her older cousin has a solid position as a “mingler” with the guest of the hotel, dancing and playing bridge and being friendly with the guests, who are mainly upscale tourists.

Miss Marple has a number of other contacts. A retired Scotland Yard man is called in on the case, and he knows and thinks highly of Miss Marple. It isn’t long before another woman is found murdered—or presumed murdered—in a burning car. When this happens, Miss Marple is then certain who committed the first murder. Actually, she was pretty certain of it even in the first meeting at the manor house.

My main complaint about this book is it was difficult to tell how much time passed from one event to the next. Most of the action took place in the same day, or at least I think it did. Yet, there seemed to be too much going on for it to be happening in one day. Perhaps a second read would help sort that out.

I did not have the murderer correct. My thought process as to who it would be was correct, but I chose the wrong person. In my defense, the clues were not as well laid out in this book as they were in the previous Christie books we read.

I give it 4-stars. A good read, well worth the time it took. It’s not a keeper, however. I see no chance of ever reading it again.

goals, self-publishing, Writing

Writing Progress and Goals

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Monday, regular posting day.

First of the month, a day to discuss progress last months and goals for this month.

Perfect.

So how did I do last month relative to the goals I set? I’ll paste the goals in and say what progress I made, and we’ll see.

  1. Continue to work on The Teachings. At the rate I’m writing now, I should write “the end” somewhere around Feb 15.  I got this done. I finished it somewhere around Feb 10. I already have full comments from one beta reader and partial comments from another. I’ve been through it all the way once and made edits and my wife has been most of the way through it and given her edits. I also made contact with a cover designer who says she will take on the project
  2. Continue to work on the 100th Anniversary book for my church. I’ve made a start with the book somewhat planned out and the writing started, now sitting at 1,675 word heading towards 20,000 words, maybe a little longer. Another goal I was able to meet. I did a lot of research this month into our charter members, and was able to learn much and write much. I’m now at about 6,000 words and feeling good about how the book is going. I think, however, the hard parts are ahead.
  3. Get back to research into my next Documenting America book. I call this Run-up To Revolution. It’s about the period before the outbreak of fighting in 1775, so say from 1761-1775. I didn’t do very much on this. I pulled out the one main reference book I have at the house and looked over, but didn’t read, the documents in it. I satisfied myself that, between them and the ones they will lead me to, I should have no problem getting enough source material to make this a viable book. Time to knuckle down and research in earnest.
  4. Continue to blog twice a week. Very doable. Yes, did this, including a couple of posts that I’d held off on due to the difficulty.
  5. Continue to work on my bibliography. I started this some time ago, maybe three or four years, after I found joy working on a chronological bibliography for Thomas Carlyle’s writings. Every now and then I open it and add a few more things to it. I did some work on this, but not a lot. I’ve fallen a bit behind keeping up with what I’m currently writing. I think today, before getting on to other writing tasks, I’ll work on this.
  6. This is more publishing than writing related: Begin to improve my books to try to 1) get more reviews and 2) improve the click through and purchasing rates on my ads. ….For February, I will plan on doing the ones advertised. Nope, didn’t do any of this. 
  7. Advertise one more book. I’m thinking it will be Acts Of Faith, but we shall see. Again, I didn’t do this. I’m afraid advertising and promotion took a back seat this month to writing.
  8. Not listed as a goal last month, but some writing work I did, was to start on a new Bible study. Well, not a Bible study exactly. I’ll explain more in a future post, after I get further into it. I’m not sure yet if it’s a viable project.

Thus, February was a mixed bag as far as progress was concerned. Now, what’s on for March?

  1. Make one more editing pass through The Teachings, and decide if it is ready for publishing. Get my ideas for the cover to the designer and get things rolling on that.
  2. Make major progress in the church 100th anniversary book. I’d like to be close to 15,000 words by the end of the month. That depends, however, on getting into the library for research, or having a librarian help me.
  3. Read for research in the next Documenting America book, including taking notes. Begin to sketch an outline of the Table Of Contents.
  4. Continue with my current Bible study project and see if it’s something I should turn into a writing project with the intent on publishing.
  5. Get my personal bibliography up to date for current works. This should be doable. In fact, I may go work on it as soon as I finish this blog post.
  6. Blog twice a week. That may be interrupted if we bring the grandkids back here for spring break.

I think I’ll leave it at that. I still have work to do on my already published works to make them a little more enticing for buyers, but that may have to wait.

Bible study, books, Christianity

A Determinist Sociological Development

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In our evening reading aloud, Lynda and I are reading in two books right now. One is our denomination’s Lenten Devotional book Sacred Invitation: Lenten Devotions Inspired by The Book of Common Prayer. It’s been good, though for thirty years I never once heard celebration of Lent promoted in our church and don’t understand why it is being so now. But perhaps that’s a subject for a different post, or an essay. The book is an easy read. Daily morning and evening scripture readings (which I assume come from the Lectionary) along with a couple of pages of text and a page of questions to spark spiritual growth. The text is small, 11 point font or less—I think 10 point font.

The other is A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson. This was a book of our son’s when he was in college, for it has his name and a date from his college years written on the inside. It includes marginalia that does not appear to be his handwriting, so perhaps he got it used. In that case we are at least the third owners of it. It’s 595 pages of text, plus a lot of pages of endnotes. It is also in 10 point font, so it’s a lot of reading. We’re only on page 37 after three or four days.

Whether we finish it or not is a big question right now. I’m re-reading some of the early pages which Lynda read aloud and I was a little distracted in my listening. On page 6 I ran across this statement:

Under the influence of Hegel and his scholarly followers, Jewish and Christian revelation, as presented in the Bible, was reinterpreted as a determinist sociological development from primitive trial superstition to sophisticated urban ecclesiology.

That’s a mouthful, for sure. I know who Hegel is but know nothing about what he thought or taught, nor about the “school” that follows, or followed, him. That phrase though, “determinist sociological development”, threw me. What the heck does that mean? I looked up “determinist” and had a sort of idea of what it means: the opposite of free will. I kind of know what ecclesiology is but looked it up to be sure: the study of church doctrine is the way I would say it in layman’s terms (the definition wasn’t real clear to me). So this is saying that Hegel and the folks who follow his teachings consider the history told in the Bible moves from lack of free will to something scholarly, something sophisticated, something urban.

I’m sure I’ve got that wrong, but that’s the best I can do. Now, a couple of things come to me from that. I find those kind of hard to understand statements a couple of times on each page. I spent ten minutes or so trying to riddle this one out. If I do that on every page, we’ll never finish the book. On the other hand, do I really need to understand that to understand the history of the Jews? Do I need to know that some dude (I guess he’s a man) and his minions have a complicated idea of what Bible history is teaching, that the author is getting ready to say is not correct? Probably not.

Elsewhere in the book, we’ve been running into lots of words that need looking up to understand, two examples being adumbration and aggadic. Thirty seconds on the cell phone provides those definitions but perhaps not that much greater understanding. Which makes me think this book is not for us.

Meanwhile, in other writing work, I’m engaged to write a book on the history of our church for our 100th anniversary. That happens in July, but because of pandemic fears and some major construction adjacent to the church, the actual celebration has been pushed back to a date not yet established. For that book, I’ve been researching our charter members. I’m probably doing too much research into our charter members. But given how research way leads on to way, I’ve pulled up some interesting church history documents. I have allowed myself to go down these rabbit holes. One document I was in today, a PhD dissertation, included this statement.

The manner in which nineteenth-century advocates of holiness reconstructed the Wesleyan/holiness cultural-linguistic system emphasized an imagistic religiosity which heightened individual awareness of spiritual autonomy.

Cultural-linguistic system…imagistic religiosity? This did me in. I have no idea what the PhD is talking about. This tells me nothing about the history of the church or the particular religious movement, nor does it help me live a better life. Nor will it help any Christian minister to be a better pastor of their flock. So what is its purpose? I’d answer that question, but I don’t have a spare week of continuous study that I would have to spend to do so.

All of which tells me I should do what I just read in a different book. I should stick to my lasts and leave the scholarly documents to the scholars. Back to my the Bible itself, a devotional book, books of letters, and Agatha Christie books.

America, Politics

January 6, 2021 – Part 2

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So, in my last post I laid out the things I wanted to know, what I was able to learn, and what I haven’t been able to learn. In my research I’ve been really surprised at the difficulty of getting the facts. Even just the number of people at the rally and the number of attackers. That should be easy to find, but it’s not. I’m going to interrupt this post and go look for that again. Be back in a minute. … Neither the New York Times, CNN, or Wikipedia indicate the number of people involved. One Wiki reference say it’s impossible to know how many people were at the rally. Sure, estimating a number of people is difficult, but estimating ranges are possible. Why has no one estimated how many were 1) at the rally, 2) showed up at the Capitol to protest, 3) took part in violence at the Capitol, and 4) actually entered the Capitol? I think these numbers are very important to draw conclusions about what happened and why.

We know what happened: Following a Trump rally, a mob showed up at the Capitol, became violent, breeched barricades and thin law enforcement lines, entered the Capitol, and vandalized it. The various chants and statements reported indicated that they intended to do harm to members of Congress. Maybe that’s so, maybe it’s bravado. I’m glad that MOCs and VP Pence were protected from harm.

I’m suddenly tiring of discussing this. About two weeks after the attack I had come to the conclusion that the thing was pre-planned. I see now that the FBI and other groups have come to the same conclusion. Obviously, if it was pre-planned it wasn’t incited by the president’s speech that morning. That doesn’t mean, however, that Trump’s rhetoric over the period between the election and the speech didn’t move the attackers to plan it out. I don’t know if we’ll ever know that for sure.

I don’t wish ill on any MOC. But I find their indignation over the attack of their own building to be too little too late. They care about themselves, not us. When their overpaid asses are in harm’s way they demand protection. But when your little building is being burned they could care less. They talk about the Capitol being a “sacred” place and they believe it. Sorry, but it’s not sacred. Or, if it is, we have let the government become way too powerful. To me the Capitol is just a building, like any other. It’s no more sacred than Jane’s Nail Salon or Tony’s Pizza Shop. All should be protected. But that’s just violence against property, some say, which is different than violence against people. I understand that 23 people were killed in riots in 2020 and over 2,000 were injured. Many of those were business owner’s whose only sins were to be located in the wrong place and try to defend what they had taken a lifetime to build. Others were law enforcement officers, trying to keep the peace. Others were protesters themselves. 2,000 people injured, 23 dead. So don’t tell me that was violence against property.

I’m more than ready to get rid of every member of Congress and start fresh. Their hypocrisy is overwhelming. I’m so tired of them.

And tired of the news media who filter the news and keep us from learning the truth. Please understand. I’m not saying that the media is involved in a conspiracy, that they colluded to withhold any facts that might be favorable to President Trump. I don’t believe they are guilty of collusion or conspiracy, but that they are guilty of groupthink. In their hatred of Trump they all think alike, they all do the same things. So yes, I think the media purposely misled the nation.

So we have a Congress more concerned about their own house and person than your house and person. And we have a news media more concerned with their own agenda than telling the truth. And this is why I believe the U.S.A. is on its way downhill.

America, Politics

January 6, 2021 – Part 1

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I’ve been planning to write this post for a long time, since shortly after the events of January 6, 2021, but I wanted to do it carefully, trying to make sure I got my facts correct, that I was interpreting them correctly, and that any conclusions I drew were correct. Unfortunately, the world has moved a long ways since then, more or less to my original conclusion. So even though I’m late to the table, I’ll write my post anyway.

It was sometime early afternoon on January 6, 2021, when I checked in on Facebook during my reading time and began to see posts that something was happening at the Capitol in Washington D.C. It soon became apparent that a group of protesters were attacking the Capitol. As I said in my previous post about this event, I elected not to rush right to the TV for more news, because the early reports are so often exaggerated or wrong. A few hours later I began checking in with news sources, and over the next few days did a lot of digging.

The main thing I wanted to do was determine what the facts were. I didn’t want newscaster, anchor, or commentator opinions. I wanted the facts. What exactly happened? Don’t give me interpretation; tell me what happened. Alas, I found very little of that. What passes for news today on television is mostly commentary.

What I wanted to know was (still is):

  • Why did the protesters attack the Capitol?
  • What were the aims of the attackers?
  • How many people were involved? A corollary question was how many people were at the rally just before the attack.
  • Was it spontaneous or planned?

What I found was none of the news outlets, either on TV or their on-line news feeds, gave me that information.

Why did the protesters attack the Capitol? According to most news outlets, because President Trump incited them to. Or urged them to. Or asked them to. Depends on what news outlet you talk with. Okay, I thought, let me listen to what he said at that rally. So I went to look for a link to his speech but—I couldn’t find one. There were links to about 5 seconds of his speech, but none to the speech itself. Why, I wondered? Were the news outlets concerned that the mere replaying of the speech would incite further violence? Did they not want to give him anymore air time? Did they realize the speech, if viewed in full, would contradict some pre-conceived notion? Even now, when I look for that speech on-line, I don’t find it. Maybe I’m not searching correctly, but I don’t find it.

The question of how many people were at the rally and how many attacked the Capitol has been equally difficult to learn. I heard a report that a million people attended the rally, but this seemed impossible to me. Such a huge attendance would have been reported. So how many attended? I spoke with someone who saw a shot of the crowd and he said he thought 10,000 or so. That sounds more realistic. As to how many attacked the Capitol, I again have had trouble learning that. The frequently posted footage makes it seem like a lot of people, but was it? Was it 100? A thousand? More? I saw a report about two weeks ago that suggested it was 400 to 500 people that actually entered the Capitol. That seems realistic.

What did the attackers hope to accomplish? A takeover of the government? An interruption of the counting of the electoral votes, a.k.a. “Stop the Steal” as it was being called? Or was there no real aim? Were they whipped into a frenzy by the president, went the short distance to the Capitol (about a mile), and, without much thought, showed their displeasure by resorting to violence? I suppose that’s possible, but do the facts suggest that? That’s part of answering the question: Was the attack spontaneous or planned?

Here are a few things that suggest it was planned.

  • At least two different people in or just outside the Capitol were carrying zip-tie hand restraints, the kind that police sometimes use. I doubt if anyone at the rally found a vendor selling those between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. No, they had to have brought those with them to the rally—if they were even at the rally as opposed to just going to the Capitol that day. This suggests a planned attack.
  • At least one person had a diagram of the layout of the buildings (didn’t see this; that’s based on news reports). Did someone bring that with them that morning, or did they divert to a bookstore or the Library of Congress and get one? More evidence of pre-planning.
  • At least one man had a sledge hammer. Some thing; he had to have had that when he got to the rally, because I doubt very much that law enforcement officers protecting the Capitol were armed with sledgehammers. More evidence of pre-planning.
  • It’s been reported that two pipe bombs were found, planted adjacent to the office wings of the Capitol. I saw photos of the bombs, but no photos of the scene. Nor have I seen any reports as to whether these were real bombs or dummies. Again, I don’t think someone was selling pipe bombs on the National Mall that day, so that had to be pre-planned.
  • The breaking down of the minimal barriers was horrific in the footage I’ve seen. This could well have been spontaneous; it’s hard to tell. It could also have been pre-planned. Certainly, the breaking of doors inside the building seemed to be done with whatever materials that had at hand. No one brought a pallet of bricks with them. Evidence of spontaneity, though it doesn’t preclude planning.
  • Almost none of the attackers were armed with firearms. I think I saw one photograph of one attacker having a rifle. I’ve not read any reports indicating other protesters had firearms. This suggest the aim wasn’t an insurrection, a takeover of the government. You don’t bring a Confederate flag or a Viking hat if your aim is a putsch. That could suggest spontaneity.
  • The behavior of the attackers once inside the buildings seems less of an attack and more of a lark, like a bunch of boys who broke into the school during summer vacation and vandalized the building. Maybe that’s because the Congress had been moved to a secure location and there was no one to vent their anger at. Or maybe it’s because the thing was really spontaneous and they didn’t have a real plan.

This post is now quite long and all I’ve managed to do is mention the problem, not draw conclusions. I’ll have to finish it later. Let me just conclude this much: I’m amazed at what appears to be an attempt by the news media to keep us from knowing the raw facts of what happened that day.

More to come in another post.

miscellaneous, research, Writing

I Should Have Written a Better Post Today

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This morning, on the Presidents Day holiday, I was up as always around 6:30 a.m. With no stock market work to do, I decided to download income tax forms and organize the folders and files. Still waiting on one critical income form so I can’t quite start on them in earnest.

The last forecast before the snow began was for 3-6 inches. We got 5, though it took 33 hours of light snowing to for that much to accumulate.

After that I shifted to work on the church 100th anniversary book. I like the progress I made. I’m researching charter members. Wrote the short bio of the one who organized the tent meeting that got it all started then began researching another family of charter members. That took me up to noon or later.

Then it was reading time. After lunch it was reading time, walking time, and phone call time. Now here it is, almost supper time, and I’m just getting around to a post. My only excuse is: the snow made me do it.

Yes, another day, another snow storm. It started around 8 a.m. yesterday and is just about now quitting. In those 33 hours we have had only 5 inches. I went out in it around 2 p.m. Walked about 1/4 mile out and was so cold, even with several layers on, I turned around and came back. I love walking in the snow, but thought I’d better not push it in this bitter cold.

But all day, from The Dungeon window, the sunroom windows, from my reading chair in the living room, and wherever else I was, the snow captivated me enough that I couldn’t concentrate on blogging. The important post I’ve been putting off is still important, but not so timely as when I first envisioned it. I may start a draft of it tonight, after dark, because if it’s snow that distracts me…

…The current forecast is for another storm to start tomorrow evening and rage into Wednesday, giving us another 4-10 inches. Well, the latest forecast has it 4-9 inches. I don’t want to exaggerate. Tomorrow I’ll have to shovel the driveway. Not because we are going anywhere, but shoveling 4 inches twice will be a whole lot easier than shoveling 8 to 10 inches or more once.

Snow exhilarates me. I don’t even mind the cold so much. Hopefully despite the flakey distraction I’ll be able to get my work done.

Author | Engineer