A Day in the Life of Chaos

I hate guns.  Well I don't hate them, I just don't care for them much.  I have gone shooting but killing is simply not my thing and shooting at a target for hours loses its fun after about 15 minutes.   I grew up in a gun culture, how could Alaska be anything else?  When I was 15 one of my friends had a semi-automatic rifle.  Another friend had a pistol with a laser site.  We used to go out and shoot at cans from time to time.  I have never owned a working gun and really I don't have much desire to change that.  I think in my mind guns represent an expression of power over another person.  It is an artificial expression of power supported by a tool that can take life in an instant. Sure I suppose I would feel differently if I lived on the frontier.  If I had a cabin in the mountains I might even buy a shotgun.  In my professional life I am surrounded by guns.  I quietly work around more weapons than most people might see in their lifetimes.  Still, these guns are all t

Sally Goodloe Christmas and the New Year is a time of reflection. In truth it is simply an artificial line in the sand yet for some reason, it serves as a bookmark, the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one.  A book is a wonderful parable for life.  It has a beginning and an end, a start and a conclusion. When it comes to an end we place it on a shelf where it eventually becomes forgotten.  Perhaps someday, someone will pull the book down and re-read the story, bringing the characters to life once again. We all change in life.  Day by day, hour by our we age and the exterior shape we once occupied ceases to exist.  Despite this fact, sometimes things in life are hard to accept, even hard to look at.  They can be things we love or things we hate.  Either way, there are times when the healing process is so slow the reintroduction of them into our lives takes time.  Sometimes it never happens and we end up dying with the ghosts of our past.  Sally Goodloe

Recently former and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a minster from Arkansas and darling of the conservative Christian community gave a speech about health care.  As a minister I anticipated words filled with compassion for the sick and care for the poor.  This was after all the message of Jesus.  Throw out the money changers in the temple and care for the down trodden.  Had I lived prior to 100 A.D. Jesus would have likely found me to be a great sympathizer.   Well Minister Huckabee spoke concerning the issue of the new health care reform, specifically the new law that now forbids insurance companies from not insuring a person with a preexisting condition.  No longer can an infant born with a condition be denied.  No more can a person with a medical problem be denied coverage and sentenced to either death or poverty in the face of medical bills they can't afford.  While I would think Minister Huckabee's Christian leanings would have caused him to laud