One of These Days, I'll Jump

People sometimes respond with disapproval when I mention my desire to learn hang gliding. I think the latest in that art is more like parasail. I haven't researched it much lately; that activity is not yet in the budget. I also would like an ultra light.

It is probably dangerous, but not as dangerous as driving or walking through many neighborhoods, right here in SoCal, and for sure in Memphis. Unlike strolling through gang country, if I bought the farm riding a kite, I'd be doing something that appeals to me.

The firefighters up at Mt Laguna were checking out this place I sometimes go. Some sort of fire abatement scouting I suppose. The place I like is a launch spot. The firemen told me only real experts fly off there. The number of memorial plaques embedded in the boulders is testament to that.

Those guys compete for distance and some have made it a very long way, like a hundred or so miles I think. They told me that these fliers carry a radio of some kind so people will know where to pick them up. I can see how this particular place would be ideal yet very treacherous. It has an expansive view of other mountains in the range and a very large open valley below.

Maybe if I find myself in more robust financial repair, I'll go where beginners learn and work my way up. I doubt a good rig is cheap. I'm kind of certain that if I had the gear, I'd go find a hill and jump regardless of prior instruction. I understand a little about flight and aerodynamics. And I watched the The Right Stuff, and that Wright Brothers movie. What more do you need?

Independence Day

No matter how it gets spun, once those guys signed the Declaration of Independence, it was on. They even included the word "honor" in their pledge. Sacred honor. I think the concept was more in vogue then than now.

I've seen accounts of what happened to those guys and it seems most lost everything they pledged, except their honor. I'm not of the school that thinks these were just rich guys getting richer. There are people who will forego fortune for honor and passion for a principle.

Like now, some were still a little more willing to restrict freedom than others. Those on the left of that day did not win. My version of left and right, since the published version is nonsense, would be left equals oppressive large government, and right equals minimal authority of the state. Today the right would rob certain rights and intrude in certain areas, while the left will steal and usurp what's left, and a good bit of what the right would take. Phonies, all. Misguided. The followers of these camps may be well meaning but I believe the movers and shakers of both are somewhat sinister.

The idea that the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is natural law, and not privilege granted to people by other people was not widely embraced by the world back then. I guess we've come full circle. Having such rights is not the same as being ensured success by the state. You can't have basic human rights if others enforce their view of lifestyle and private enterprise at the point of a gun.

The cool thing about having the document in its original form is that no one can dispute that it existed as written. They may find ways to misinterpret and all that, but anyone who cares can read and think for himself or herself. The absence of the universal pronoun and possessive, etc is still a pc move I lament.


If one were to write this afresh today, Homeland security would add that infidel to their ever growing list of domestic dissidents, which they often tag as potential terrorists or security threats.

"Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Another spiffy excerpt:
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
They said it, I didn't. And I mention no names.

The amazing thing is that they actually pulled it off. Many paid the price of incredible hardship, torture, death, loss of family, etc. This was a gutsy and bold move. By all rights they should have lost. But no.

Freedom is natural. The rest is unwarranted. That's all I'm saying. Maybe I'm somewhat rebellious by nature. Often, authority I've encountered was wielded by dogmatic morons.

So, have a good 4th, and for old times sake, just let your neighbor live as he/she chooses, and live your own life. Even if the miscreant dares ride down the road without a helmet or seatbelt, with a gay partner, eating food made from transfat; even if your neighbor is a Christian. It works both ways, and then some.