Here is what scares me about our lack or respect for human life. I pray we can keep this thinking out of America...

Judge rules that doctors must let ill baby [Charlotte Wyatt] die - against her parents' wishes
More about Charlotte Wyatt

Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.

Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.

Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)

Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've hot him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

Okay, this song is a little harsh. But it's funny how much the Kotter analogy applies to me.

I'm going to be teaching a couple evening classes this semester at the college where I used to work. Nothing major - just a computer class and a social studies class. Thinking about taxes coming up and bills that need paid down prompted me to pay a visit to the college and see if something was open. As usual, there was something needing a teacher.

That's one of the few jobs I've had that I have a lot of good things to say about. Plus, my boss there is one of my favorite people ever (no, he doesn't read blogs so I'm not sucking up).

Classes start Tuesday for me. I won't be teach "college" classes, but rather alternative high school classes like I did before only on a much more limited basis. In other words, I'll be teaching "sweathogs" of a sort like Kotter did.

I was surprised when I started teaching there a few years ago how much I loved it. Unlike Kotter, I was never a "sweathog" myself. Well, more accurately, I didn't know I was one until after I got out of school.

What's odd about working with kids who don't quit fit into the round peg-holes the public schools offer is seeing what they rarely see about themselves. Most of the time, they've been told how bad they are at school and how they are trouble makers. And the majority learn to believe it.

The thing I ultimately try to get across to them is that not fitting in at high school isn't exactly a character flaw in itself. A lot of the folks who just love high school and fit in perfect never really leave it, at least in their minds.

Besides, just look at the most successful people now and in the past. All great men and women in history were troublemakers, boat-rockers, and just generally had a way of making just about everyone mad at them at one time or another. And I'd be willing to be many of them hated their school, their teachers, and every silly "rule" that existed with no real purpose.

I try to remind myself of that every day. That way, I never forget that there is hope for even the "worst" of us.

This morning I saw a news report on a speech Hillary Clinton gave this weekend at a predominantly black church. It was supposed to be a "celebration" of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At this event, she said something to the effect of "this administration is running this country like a plantation and I think you know what I mean by that."

Now perhaps I'm being blinded by my whiteness or my fierce loyalty to this president, but I can't say I know what that means. But what struck me is that there are two kinds of racism in this country.

One kind is filled with people who say minorities are just a bunch of stupid, lazy niggers, spics, chinks, hebes, and whatever else. The reality with these types is that they are actually threatened by other people (minorities or not) and they are trying to cover that with their hurtful words.

The other kind is populated by people who look at minorities and see people who can't help themselves and need to be given (and I stress the word "given") assistance whether by governments, communities, or businesses. What drives this type of racism is a feeling of pity for other people.

Not being a member of any recognized racial minority, I can't say for sure which would bother me more if I were. But in my life I have experienced both pity from some and being seen as threatening to others. Given my own experience, I have a feeling which kind of racism I would perceive as being more dangerous.

I don't know which pisses me off more...

* those times when I'm telling someone about something I find interesting and they leave the room and start something else like I wasn't even talking
* the fact that I didn't even realise they were ignoring me to begin with

This letter first appeared to many of us in the New York Times. They did some very creative editing, to say the least. If you want to see what I mean, you'll have to go do a search because that isn't what I want to focus on.

This is a letter found by Corporal Starr's laptop by his uncle after he was killed in Iraq. It's absolutely inspiring to read and I wish opponents of the Iraq war would recognize this.

Was the President wrong about the war? Maybe. You can make that argument. But don't dare talk about the soldiers as if they are patsies. If Bush is wrong, then so are the majority of our troops. Here is one such soldier's final message to loved ones (I can't find the full text but here is all I can find).


Dearest ----

I'm writing this for one reason only. On April 13th 2004, I thought I was going to die. My only regret is that I hadn't spent enough time with you. That I hadn't told you everything I wanted to. Being in Iraq for a 3rd time, I don't want to feel that way again because it was the worst feeling ever. So this letter is in case I won't ever get the chance to tell you.

Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.

I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.

Well I can't type forever, I know you want to read more but I thought simple and to the point would be easier.

I love you with all my heart.

Goodbye my Love.

I have many things in my life to be thankful for. But there is one thing in particular.

When we are young, we are told that people should play fair. We are told that the good guys always win in the end. We are told that people get what they deserve, good or bad.

As we mature, we learn how unrealistic some of those things really were. The world is really made of shades of gray. Most of the time, the bad guys will screw over the good guys and that's just how it works.

So having said that, what could I possibly be thankful for? Right now, the thing I am most thankful for is that I am 27 years old... and I still don't believe any of those things.

I got this email today and it was very appreciated. I don't get too many of these and always enjoy them.

Dear Lineman,

You do not know who I am, and chances are that we will never meet face to face, so I would like to say thank you electronically.

Something about myself, I am 17 and will turn 18 this December, and for the last year or so, was extremely depressed about my life. Depressed to the point of being suicidal. Everything I did seemed to blow up in my face and I was content to simply lie down and die. Fortunately due to circumstances I won't go into, life is getting better.

One of the ways I managed to pull myself out of the hole I was in, was to listen to your podcast. Line Interference. I especially like the last six minutes of the first episode. I also liked reading what you write both on lineman.net (now allyourtech.com ) and your blog.

I love your how to's and the words of encouragement you have for new writers. What you have written is of use not only to those who write tech articles, but are afraid to write in general. (But you probably already knew that)

I am not saying that the only thing I did to get better was to listen to you, but rather that it helped a lot. I am now planning to do somethings with my life that I would not have normally considered. And I owe the inspirations of these ideas to the good people I listen to. One of which is you.

And if I fail in any of my projects? Well, life's a learning experience is it not? And if an old man of 27 years can do it, so can I.

:-)

Many thanks and regards

Rush read this today while talking about Veteran's Day. I enjoyed it and thought I'd share.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity and I certainly have not done so, but Christianity has done more. It has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living, and him who dies for the sake of dying, and it has held up ever since, above the European lances, the banner of the mystery of chivalry, the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death.

Growing up in southern Illinois, country music becomes something you get used to being background noise. I don't have any problem with country music, and in fact like a lot of it, but I still have that habit of tuning it out by default.

This is one of those songs that I've heard many times but never listened to until today. It's by Tim McGraw (who has quit a few great songs that even non-fans of country can enjoy) and has some excellent advice on how to face life.

If you've never had the experience of knowing someone who is facing something terminal or possibly terminal, you've probably never had the chance to learn the difference between living and being alive (and between dying and being dead, for that matter). For most people, it seems that they don't start living until some sort of drastic wake-up call. Those who don't need it spend many more happy years that the average person.

Live Like You Were Dyin'

He said I was in my early forties,
With a lot of life before me,
And a moment came that stopped me on a dime.
I spent most of the next days, lookin' at the x-rays,
Talkin' 'bout the options and talkin' 'bout sweet time.
Asked him when it sank in, and this might really be the real end.
How's it hit ya, when you get that kind of news.
Man what ya do.
And he says,

[Chorus]

I went sky divin',
I went rocky mountain climbin',
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fu Manchu.
And I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'.

He said I was finally the husband,
That most the time I wasn't.
And I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And all the sudden goin' fishing,
Wasn't such an imposition.
And I went three times that year I lost my dad.
Well I finally read the good book,
And I took a good long hard look at what I'd do
If I could do it all again.
And then.

[Chorus]

Like tomorrow was a gift and you've got eternity
To think about what you do with it,
What could you do with it, what can
I do with with it, what would I do with it.

[Chorus]
I went sky divin',
I went rocky mountain climbin',
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fu Manchu.
And I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I watched an eagle as it was flyin'.
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'.

To live like you were dyin'.
To live like you were dyin'.
To live like you were dyin'.
To live like you were dyin'.

The idea of this song is summed up by one of Les Brown's most famous quotes -- "Most people die when they are 25. They just don't get buried until 40 years later."