By Design

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Some think that the Memphis democrats built a worse education system by incompetence. Actually that’s not true. It is by design. They want a bad education system. It is why they objected to the state coming in and fixing it.

It is what democrats do, they destroy things by design… They do it to gain money and power. The Shelby County democrats keep making the system worse so they can ask for more funding to fix it.

If you wonder where my proof is, consider the quality of the quality of the Shelby County Schools before Memphis politicians got control of it. Consider how the county schools took a nose dive after they took over county schools.

Speaking of Coincidences

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A few days ago, I wrote a response to a prompt on coincidences. Then my wife and I went to the doctor. It was a bright, hot muggy day. Not a cloud in the sky. Well not one I could see anyway.

After waiting the better part of 2 hours, we were called back to an exam room. Within minutes, I heard a familiar noise.

Now let me pause to explain. In the waiting room, there were big windows through which I saw big blue clear skies. It was with confidence that I entered the totally enclosed exam room.

It was why I doubted my ears when I heard the little noise. A few minutes later, there was no doubt. I ran to the main entry door and realized it was to late. It would be useless at this point to raise the windows. The interior of the car was very likely soaked. To run out there would only make sure I was good and soaked too.

If we could consider rain an intelligent thing of life, I could say it did it on purpose. It had something against me or was taking a vengeance out on me. The rain poured down hard! The lightning flashed repeatedly. The sky was dark before night.

I suppose I could voice a conclusion that God was angry with me for some reason. He might have been, I guess. However, I’m more apt to write this one up to coincidence. Frankly, at the time, I was beginning to wonder.

There is no doubt in my mind that God can and does use what seems to be natural to chastise us. It is for our benefit. Certainly, it is a bad idea to ignore the chastisement of the Lord. The Jews did it dispute the warnings of the prophet, Jaramiah and they suffered dearly for it. They were told their punishment for abandoning God’s word would be 40 years of captivity and they suffered because of their unbelief. They chalked their problems to coincidence.

History does tend to repeat. Today, there are those that don’t believe in God’s punishment. They believe the problems of our country are nothing but coincidence.

For the time being I’m calling this thunder storm a coincidence. However, if coincidences as this become more frequent, I’m going to start reconsidering.

I Admit I Would not Be Good Policeman

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As a child, I had a desire to be a policeman. I really liked the idea of putting the bad guys in jail. Naturally, in my youth, I was very pretty idealistic. You know, I figured I’d always catch the bad guy and he’d be soon incarcerated.

Unfortunately, things don’t always happen that way. I wish they did. In general, most of the TV shows try to make things a little realistic, but I can’t have but think they really bend things for the sake of drama.

Perhaps, one of the most common situations in the shows is the hostage situations. I don’t know exactly what the actual procedures are but I can’t believe that a police officer should ever surrender his weapon to save a hostage. If he does, the bad guy suddenly has two hostages.

Moreover, the one holding the hostage is foolish to kill the hostage. If and when he does, he immediately looses any advantage he might have. Even more, the officer is completely justified in shooting the bad guy.

The fact is, I’d likely never be a good policeman. I’d shoot the hostage taker the first time I had a clear shot. I don’t guess that’s procedure either. However, I’d do it for three reasons. First, I think I just might stand a chance of saving the hostage. Second, the bad guy would never take another hostage. Third, if word got around that the department quickly killed hostage takers, there would be far fewer hostage takers.

I have never discussed this with an official and I would guess none would discuss with me. Nonetheless, I suspect my ideas would not be readily accepted. As I sliced to before, I would not be considered a good policeman. If I confronted a kidnapper and he was hiding his captive, I would use whatever means to get the guy to tell me.

Naturally, it would only work once and I’d be unemployed. They might even toss me in jail for a day or two. But the way I look at it, I will have quite possibly saved a life. And that kidnapper, the one that did the kidnapping, he would continue to carry around and a few permanent injuries to remember me by, though he’d likely never be convicted. And, maybe some other would be kidnapper just might reconsider.

So, aren’t you glad I never became a policeman, me and people like me. Especially if you are one of the bad guys I am referring to.

Define Coincidence

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I saw a sign that defined a coincidence as God working undercover. It is a thought. Many times we mark things up as coincidence that might be miracles. On the other hand, I suspect there are things we claim God did that were really simple coincidence. Just because God foreknows a thing does not mean he caused it. To be sure, sometimes when things happen, I become convinced that it is because God is punishing me. The truth is, mostly I don’t know.

I am very fascinated by the concept of coincidence, both in my personal life and in history. The D-Day invasion, if you closely study it, is a long list of coincidences. Or, perhaps they are caused by the hand of God, beginning with the weather. Had it not cleared on 6 June, the whole thing might have been a total disaster. I suspect Gen Ike would be one of the first to call it an act of God. On the other hand, most of the German leaders would fuss it was a horrible coincidence.

Certainly, I have had my experience with coincidence. I guess, for the most part, they were to my benefit. Some were perhaps to my benefit though I thought not at the time. must admit that God has been very good to me.

I guess there was one weird time that made me seem like the smartest computer field engineer on earth. They had been working on the thing 4 days and the customer was threatening to tell our company to just take it out.

As I was in route on the plane, there all sorts of things going through my mind, wondering what the problem might be. I was not told in advance of the symptoms so I suspected I would not do any better than the 4 previous engineers.

It is a long technical story, however, the sort story is, I told the engineers on sight to use a screwdriver to tighten some screws instead of hand tight. They objected. They logical, I had to admit, to this day.

They tightened the screws snug and 3 minutes later the computer came to life. The truth is, I’m not a genius, though I certainly appeared to be. The truth was, coincidentally, I saw the same problem a couple of weeks earlier. I knew how to fix the problem because I had fought for hours with the same problem for many frustrating .

The hitch, as I think back over the situation, I should have faked having a bunch of trouble fixing it. A. It would have made me look smarter, because I made the problem look too simple. I never even picked up a tool or a piece of test equipment. I mean, if it was that easy to fix. I didn’t need to be so smart. B. It made my predecessors look bad. I fixed the problem in three minutes. Why were they unable in four days. Actually, the bunch of them were likely better engineers than me and quickly they had egg on their faces, which, in a way, made my company look bad. C. I really wish they would have described the problem to me on the phone. I could have given them the solution more quickly and they would have been the heroes.

As mentioned before, I do have a curiosity about coincidences. The Bible speaks of many that I will like to discuss firsthand when I get the opportunity. And also there are the ones that occurred during the Revolutionary War, and WWII. It has increased my curiosity over the years.

Because of this curiosity, I have written a book that explores the idea of coincidence. It is called, “The Coincidence Theory,” in which a pair of Los Angeles detectives try to solve crimes while dealing with seemingly impossible coincidences.

If you would like, you can order the book from Amazon.com. Just look up Ben Rhodes and The Coincidence Theory. I won’t mind if you look at a few more of my books too, more than 35.

Daily writing prompt
What’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?
View all responses

Knowledge

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Today, I heard a non answer to a very critical question during a debate for South Carolina senate. Quite frankly I was stunned. Right up at the top of requirements are knowledge and honesty. It would appear that Sen Darling Graham lacks this intelligence by her own admission. “I’m not that informed.”

When asked about Taiwan, she replied in essence that she was qualified for Senate because of her brother. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Sorry. Her brother sadly is no longer around around to advise her. She clearly did not absorb his knowledge through any form of proximity. As I mentioned, she admitted it.

As a citizen of Mississippi and a former citizen of California, I must admit, I know very little about her opponent, but he would have to be pretty bad for me to now suggest voting for Graham after an answer like this.

Perhaps this reveals a different, worse problem. Maybe someone should have take MS Graham aside and asked her just a few questions to see if she had some basic knowledge of world events. It just might have avoided the embarrassment of the Republican Party.

Better yet. Maybe it would be a good idea to have someone groomed and ready to step in, sort of a unofficial vice senator. Another good practice for good leaders is to prepare for the unexpected. Unfortunately, the unexpected sometimes does happen.

My Prediction of the Year

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I seldom predict things, mostly because I am not that good at telling the future. However, occasionally something will come along that is just almost obvious.

Ever since they went to digital broadcast TV, it has continued to drift that way ever more strongly. Today, few people in this country watch radio frequency transmissions. I perceive the only reason they Will continue to produce TVs that pick up RF is that there is likely some kind of rules requiring it. If a TV did not need the radio signal circuits, it would significantly decrease the cost of modern TVs.

If you observe, as I have, most TVs only begrudgingly include the radio signal circuits on their TVs that they sell. Give them the option to stop including them, and it would immediately happen. The TVs would cost less and they would still make more profit.

And so, it is only a matter of time, they gradually decrease the percentage of units that have tuners built into them. The tuners would be sold separately, as an option. Then as the number of tuners being sold decrease, they would stop offering them for sell at all. Then, with no tuners, why build, maintain or operate lesstransmitters.

I am predicting in fifteen years, the number of transmitters will begin decreasing. The number of broadcasters will continue to grow. They just won’t need the radio transmission. That decreases operation costs and likely a lot of government regulations as well.

Those frequencies currently reserved for TV can be relinquished to other things, maybe cell phones. That way, it makes it easier for people to watch our favorite tv show on our car phone while our self driven cars take us wherever we want to go.

The world of TV will be totally different. That part is easy to predict. What I’m not so sure about is, is it all going to be so good?

The Nature of the Media

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I came across an article a short time ago about the House Ethics Committee investigation of Rep Jimmy Gomez by Heart Radio.

Just what he is being invested for, I could care less. I have observed that the article tells more about Heart Radio than Gomez. You see, nowhere in the article did it say that Gomez is a Democrat. Invariably, if he was a Republican, it would have been made obvious his particle affiliation repeatedly.

Because Gomez is Democratic, they made sure that fact was hidden from us. NOW, is that honest reporting? You decide. I already made up my mind. Though I took a few minutes to do a search, I knew he should have had a D after his name. I knew, even though I never heard of the guy before. I knew this because I know the nature of the media.

Just now, maybe you do too. On the other hand, maybe you already knew. Maybe this is just a confirmation.

Incidentally, the internet page I found his affiliation on, the word Democrat appeared once on a Washington Examiner headline. Look it up yourself. Look up US Rep Jimmy Gomez. I wonder if that was an accident. The Examiner likely will be chastised for that little mistake.

Being Smart

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Frequently people believe they are smart concerning a subject when they really aren’t. It makes them appear twice as inadequate on the subject, making them appear far more dumb in general. There was a radio station that frequently repeated a saying that summed it very well. We all should reconsider it freely.

Ninety percent of being smart is knowing where you’re dumb at.

Or, in other words, if it is not a something you have a strong understanding, your better off keeping quiet.

In other words, unless you are something of a gun expert, you might refrain from trying to define an assault weapon.

Which Way?

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My wife’s grandfather told a story on himself that I suppose we can all learn from. He was an Arkansas State Trooper traveled most of the state, though he grew up and was most familiar with the western part and particularly Fort Smith.

One day he had some private business in Fort Smith, on one of the one way streets. Noting a car going the other way he pulled it over. He had no intention of ticketing her but did give her a firm warning, which took a while.

When done, the woman said nothing but pointed at a sign. After looking at the sign, he tipped his hat to the woman and said, good day. It seems they changed the street direction and, he was likely the only one unaware of it.

It does remind me of something I heard Lady Margaret Thatcher say. No matter how slow a train is going, if it is going the wrong way, don’t get on it. My words: sounds like good advice to me. Why would anyone want to get on a train going the wrong way, regardless of its speed.