OCT 29 '98
Sorry, here comes another rant. This is what happens when I'm not kept
occupied. But I am so sick of political correctness. Sure, you are too,
and you don't care to hear this, but you're not going to stop me.

When I was young and stupid (its a natural thing), but considered myself
somewhat a sophisticated intellectual, I didn't approve of abortions, but
thought a woman had a right to control her own body, so abortions were
undesirable but acceptable. Then I grew up a little. Not nearly so
young, but not quite so stupid. It became clear abortionists always
devalue the life at stake. Its always a 'fetus' or a 'fetal mass.' This
is an attempt to give it the moral standing of a tumor. No tumor has
ever had a nose, or fingers and toes. Its a flagrant devaluation of life
to ignore that.

As you're aware, a doctor who performed abortions was shot. The
abortionists are screaming for somebody's head. I wonder if it would
calm them it they were told the sniper was his mother indulging in a
post-partum abortion. It was her choice.

They've put up a reward of $100,000 for the sniper's capture. If they
believed their own rhetoric they would use the reward money to provide
for the children born because the good doctor is no longer alive,
compassionate souls that they are.

Just recently, a woman in LeClaire was charged with murder because they
matched her DNA to two dead babies they found over the past few years.
Its, murder because they could tell the babies had breathed. If they
couldn't have told, it was legal murder. So I'm outraged. As you can
see.

Moving on.

These PETA people, what a bunch of idiots. They probably sing 'Born
Free' while freeing the minks. Minks are nasty, vicious critters.
Turning hundreds of them loose at a time could cause a lot of
environmental damage. Goodbye, native species. If anybody else did this
it would be environmental terrorism. But "Save the Minks!" A similar act
of idiocy brought starlings and sparrows to the U.S. of A. from England.
Can you imagine how many more native song birds we'd have without these
two species crowding them out?

I tell ya, I love e-mail. Its spamming family.

You've heard," a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Let me tell
you, its better than the illusion of knowledge. I was in a chat room,
thoroughly irritated. There were half-a-dozen people in there indulging
in some flirting and the most inane patter I've ever read. Every
once-in-a-while somebody would flirt and say something absolutely
mind-numbing. They would get a reply ending with "LOL." I figured this
meant "Lots of love." And as LOL's got thrown around with increasing
frequency I became increasingly irritated. A rational person would have
simply exited. But not caring to make that claim, I decided to make
things worse. Every time they started throwing LOL's, I'd enter
"SMOOCHES,"or, "SMOOCHES FOR EVERYONE.'

People seemed generally humored, one guy did not. He said, "Something in
here stinks." I replied, "Sorry, do I need to take a bath?" He said,
"Yes, go take a bath." Then another guy, who had been flirting with a
girl said, "I'd take a bath with her." At that point I said, "Alright,
everyone in the tub. Smooches for everyone." Suddenly it was complete
chaos, like watching an old 'Laugh-in.' People who entered the room
would say, "what is going on here?" I laughed for hours, and often
received the formerly irritating "LOL's".

The funny thing about this is that I misunderstood the abbreviation. I
eventually read in a manual LOL means "Lots of laughs." Oh well, even
stupidity has its moments.

It's late. Time to close my rant and my mind (again).

originally 10/27/98
I'm really running out of time, so here's the stuff..
A thought occurs to me.What does Bill Clinton do when he wants to smoke a cuban?

Time for Dale's household hint of the day- If, while doing laundry, you have an
intense need to blow your nose, grab the used fabric softener sheet out
of the dryer and use it again. If you don't use softener sheets- maybe
you should reconsider.Remember, all Dale's household hints are personally
tested for your safety.No animals were harmed, but my nose got a little
greasy.Well wasn't that fun.

I was talking to Barb McKusker at work. She wondered aloud if I had overslept
since the clocks were set back an hour.(No, I wasn't late, but not by much.)
I told her oversleeping was impossible. She began to contradict me, and in my
normal diplomatic manner, I interrupted her and said while it was possible to sleep too
late it was impossible to oversleep. She just smiled one of those smiles
that make me uneasy. And it became all the more clear that half of my
genes are DeBuhr, and they are pretty dominant genes. Not that they want
to dominate, they'd rather sleep in.

John Glenn is going back up in space. Three cheers for the old coot.
He's already an astronaut hero, let somebody else have a turn.
If it's important for somebody elderly togo, let somebody elderly who hasn't gone go.
Raffle off the chance to help pay the national debt. What is he going to do up there
he hasn'talready done, the first space-walker? Is it the bucket seats in plush
corinthian leather, or the Bose six-channel stereo he craves to
experience? It would be cheaper for the American taxpayer to buy him a Buick.

I don't know why, but it's not as funny with any other brand of
car. Launching politicians into outer space is appealing though. Bill
Clinton, and most of Congress would go if you said it was a deep-space
probe. Say, "To boldly go where no man has gone before," and they'd be
wearing the first space-suits with drool catchers. Bill's would also
have a cigar cutter. Sorry. Maybe it's just Glenn's last hurrah (or
maybe he's taking along Viagra). We all die anyway, and so will this
rant. Just wait

.Speaking of dying. Frankie Yankovic died. You know,
the King of Polka. I did not know this until I read it in the newspaper-
there are different styles of polka. Frankie popularized the Serbian, as
opposed to the Polish. I suddenly feel culturally narrow, but I am not
going to devote the rest of my life to the advancement of polka to
compensate. This is enough. But I have to admire the guy, dead as he
is. He was the King of something. Only got him an article on page 10
of the local newspaper though, and this place has the Czech-Slovak
museum.

May I contrast this, please, with the death of another member of
the music industry- one Frank Sinatra.

I don't recall anybody declaring him King of anything. This was a guy who
associated with other guys nicknamed after fruit and small fur-bearing animals.
Guys called 'Bananas,' or 'the Weasel.' I like bananas, most everybody does, but it
is not a good thing to be called one. And there are some small furry
critters you'd like to see, but not a weasel. But call a guy 'Goose
Berries,' or ' Bear,' and you know this guy could be a friend for
life. Where am I going with this?

Oh yeah, sorry.Sinatra was a punk.This was a guy who could deny
knowing anything of his mobster friends'backgrounds, and yet could
tell a reporter he could have her killed.

I can't say his singing impressed me. Again, maybe I'm too culturally
narrow. Maybe he sold more records than Frankie Yankovic. I can't say
I ever met either of them. But it would be a fair guess that Yankovic
was more loved by those around him, Sinatra more feared. And it does not
seem fair that Yankovic got buried on page 10, and Sinatra got more
adoring coverage than a foreign head of state.

Maybe Sinatra would have been a better person if he too had learned to
play the accordion. You've got to admit, it's hard to imagine an
accordion-playing tyrant. Or a mime,maybe he should have been a mime.
How could you take a mime seriously when he threatens to have you knee-capped?
Okay, it would be hard to be a singer and a mime at the same time.
I was just trying to expand my mind. Kind of like an accordion.

When I get to heaven I imagine Frankie Yankovic will be there,
playing for those who would polka on the streets of gold.
But I can't imagine Sinatra there, he and his friends couldn't
bully their way in. Fortunately, for Sinatra, I am not his Judge.
Fortunately for you, I'm out of time.

OCTOBER 20 '98
Driving home to Cedar Rapids Saturday it was raining. Somebody in a
micro-car passed me. No problem, except the driver pulled right in front
of me and it was like driving in a hurricane. I could have gotten over
it, except, his cruise control was set about a half mph faster than mine.
Of course, I questioned general upbringing, parentage, age, gender, ya
da, ya da, ya da. The only consolation was figuring my headlights in his
mirrors were probably pretty blinding. When it started getting hilly he
couldn't stay ahead, I whipped around, gave a better spacing than given,
and set the cruise a little faster than before. It was easy to imagine
the guy back there tightly clinging to his steering wheel saying, "next
downhill your butt is mine." Fortunately, no shots were fired.

It was appalling really. Thinking of anything that would differentiate
that driver from me and help justify my anger. No wonder its so hard to
stamp out bigotry. We're always looking for ways to devalue other human
beings. Anger is the natural way to react to being offended, but its a
poor way. Understanding is better, love and forgiveness- ideal. Christ
died for our sins, but I don't think we have any idea how much he died
for, or how easily we take His grace for granted. Too often our lives
are not much of a testimony. We let the days, and our opportunities to
serve Him, go by like they don't even matter. Our daily lives have
forgotten Christ.

Oh my God, I'm getting preachy! Somebody hand me a snake. Or turn on
Geraldo. Not Springer, I'm not going to backslide that far. No, I'm
not sure I understood that one either. But maybe I do. This must
somehow all be related to Dad's Christian Reformed upbringing, or my
guilty conscience.