Nilknarf News

Before I get too far along here, and without too much ado, I would like to say I'm sorry that I offended some people with yesterday's entry.

Yes, there are people other than Christians who are crazy and bad and bigoted... and yes, I may be one of them.

But.

I believe that people who are religious (note: not necessarily Christian!) can get much closer to the edge of insanity quite simply because of the religion. They are labeled "religious nuts" and pretty much ignored by everyone until something bad happens. Murder and in the case of 9/11, mass murder.

We have a bunch of nuts here in Topeka, the Phelps gang, you may have heard of them... http://godhatesfags.com Headed up by a guy who, by many accounts, physically and mentally abused (and still abuses?) his family for decades under the guise of religious teaching. People look upon him as an amusement, the reverend Phelps; but he has the capacity to hate and to pass that hate on to his followers. He has managed to avoid the law, so far, and he hasn't killed anyone... so far.

But if and when he does, you may be sure that it's in the name of religion.

I do not know anyone who personally approves of his actions, or those of his flock. I know many who disapprove of him. And most of the people in these parts are Christians, and good people.

And they say... they say, not him, he's not a "real" Christian. He twists the bible to his own purpose.

I don't know. Of course, nobody can possible know what some maniac is going to do next, understand their reasoning... unless they're a maniac themselves.

What really bothers me... really bothers me... is that these people aren't in a vacuum.

Phelps isn't in a vacuum. He's being watched very closely by law enforcement and the religious community. When he makes his move, if he ever does, it will be public. That makes it much more likely that he will do nothing.

Well, damn, I did say without much ado and yet I a-did it, didn't I?

So, today I was gonna sleep in. Didn't work, got up at 08:30. Completely wasted the day, of course. Well, not really, Karen and I went out for a while and enjoyed ourselves. We were going to go to a movie and then eat at a mexican restaurant at White Lakes, but we were early... we'd gone early to Gordman's and I bought a coupla shirts. So then we went to the bank and headed to the show, but we were still early, and we drove right by the restaurant and the food smelled so good that we couldn't help but stop and eat, the hell with the show.

I do want to see the show some day, I can't remember the name, the Lord of the Rings, that's it! But the more that we thought about it, a Saturday Matinee is usually filled with kids... bad choice, almost always.

So we had an enjoyable meal, then we decided to drive over to Oakland and check out the rental house. It looked about the same as the last time I'd seen it, only the trees have been allowed to grow through the fence. We also went by Karen's aunt's house where she spent some summers as a child.

Then we decided what the hell, we'll do the whole tour, so we drove into downtown North Topeka and then into downtown. It's changed a lot lately, they're trying to drum business up for downtown so they keep changing things around, coming up with new ideas, mostly bad ones. Many of the storefronts on Kansas Ave are for lease... nice buildings.

I can't think of any reason to go downtown, though... and neither can most other people. The parking is pretty terrible, even if there actually were something to do.

So Karen and I settled in for the evening, and I remembered that she'd rented a movie earlier in the week, Ocean's Eleven, so we watched that. Pretty good, with a different, better ending than the 1960 one. But the rat pack chemistry wasn't there, and it was kinda flat, missed some character development that the first one had in favor of a romantic development. I don't remember the first one having a romantic element at all... that could just mean that I don't remember, though, it's been a long time since I've seen the original.

Maybe I can sleep in tomorrow....