In old age bad habits take a huge toll but are hard to break

Doc is gradually slipping vodka back into his drinks again. He said today that he needed to get his cataracts done. I said do you plan on quitting drinking before surgery? So then he got a little testy and said he was sorry he mentioned the subject. I have been enjoying his relatively rare sobriety but was afraid that as soon he started feel better he would indulge. So I did not get my hopes up.
I put more hope in my son Raymond who is trying to get through the summer in Boulder without a break into drinking. He has been playing music like mad, waiting for a movie production to get going in Austin. He thinks it still will and that eventually he will get a chance to work on it. Of course he is never with out plan B if plan A for some reason does not materialize. He has spent the summers in Boulder hustling for work. It is mighty hard to get to be a good enough entertainer you can make money with music but he is getting more adept at that, so I have to hand it to him for tackling his addictions and attempting to turn his life around. He never stops.
For years if I am simply unable to get enough stimulation from the people around me who tend to communicate in stops and starts I always go to the spirit dialogues. They have always taken up the slack for me so I could go on developing every day as a writer and communicator. This was a bold decision for me to make but after I had several near death experiences I found it easier to contemplate the fact that we can leave this world at any time, and so best be prepared for that possibility.
I do not believe I would ever have survived without spirit dialogues.
I have been somewhat worried about the big rallies that have been occurring across the nation and for the past week in Arizona. Stand With Arizona is having a big rally out to the Capitol this afternoon. It is very hot here, so I am sure those from other states will be hit hard. I am too old and decrepit in the knees to take in the event but I plan to watch the videos made about it which will be posted on Facebook tomorrow.
If you will recall, in the fight for Civil Rights, Martin Luther King led a big rally in Washington to end segregation. This was a religious man and his speech to the multitudes has been played over and over again to remind people of what was at stake, but what greatly worries me is that the Democratic Party has departed from Martin Luther King's Christian values with legalized abortion. So that strength coming from a man who knew he could die tomorrow and was not afraid because he knew his cause was just is not there in Obama. Martin Luther King gave his life for his cause, better treatment for blacks, fighting the racism that prevented it, and I am sure that he had many talks with his creator about the possibility of being shot.
With such a determined support of legalized abortion, the democrats can be rightfully accused of having become godless. That is so dangerous in these times.
They have chosen to divest themselves of this source of power, spiritual power based on belief in the eternal verities. To support abortion. To sacrifice the child for almost any reason up to 9 months. This to me is a clearly a violation of God's law. The animals in the wilds would not do it, so why would people think that women should be able to do it and that is progress. Not regression. I always saw it as one of the horrors that can develop in modern times. Like cloning. Someone gets in power who favors this kind of thinking and before you know it, legalized abortion is a fait accompli. It is not to be easily undone because society soon gets used to it. Legalized killing is something new, something never quite possible before, not experienced before in most of our lifetimes. It is a heady business to legalize the killing of any human being. So no matter how some people talked against it, legalized abortion settled in to become our way of handling pregnancies that were not desired.
I couldn't ever accept it because I had too strong of belief in the spirit. I saw these children as too real, was certain they would be lifted up and taken home to God as his children to be loved and taken care of in a heavenly home, just as any little child who is killed after birth would be taken home to God. Once life began, I could see no way of taking this life that could be justified because it took killing and blood shed to accomplish and those were in defiance of God's law.
Some of the Republican presidents fearing they would lose the election pronounced themselves pro choice or very weakly pro life, such as Ronald Reagen. But democratic presidents embraced it with more passion such as Clinton. I remember Al Gore changed his beliefs to acceptance of legalized abortion to be his running mate. He has been strongly pro choice ever since.
I thought that Obama's strong support of pro choice would be his Achilles heel. His spirit would not be able to soar, but he would not have been the democratic candidate had he not been pro choice, so he supported everything he had to to be the nominee, and I think that this also might limit his tenure in office to one term, and that he will deserve it. I just hope that blacks will not cry racist all the way to his defeat. I did not vote for him because of this, and I will fight to get him defeated, not because he is black, not because he is not intelligent, but because his values are flawed to my way of thinking. I did not vote for Clinton and I hoped he would be defeated for the same reason. I thought he was a corrupt president no matter how intelligent he was touted as being.
I do not belong to any particular Christian faith, but I believe that Jesus Christ has great power to guide us by virtue of the life he led, and I believe that he descended to his Father in Heaven just as you and I and everybody else will descend to him in glory if we live a good life. Does anyone doubt that a soldier dying in battle for his country will not be lifted up for his sacrifice, no matter his religious beliefs? The police officer who was killed last week by a burglary suspect he encountered was laid to rest with many tears. Why, because here was a man who volunteered for the most dangerous shifts, knowing just like Martin Luther King knew that he could be shot each night. He did it anyway. So when hundreds of his fellow officers rode in to pay him tribute it was very moving, because they knew what it is to be so close to being killed all the time, still trying to do a job, protect the people.
We have had a big controversy here because a Catholic nun official in the hospital okayed an abortion because the life of the mother was threatened. This was contrary to Catholic policy and she was released from her job and excommunicated. So we have had many letters sent to the paper both pro and con debating whether she was right or wrong to do this.
Well, it is understandable why in the age of legalized abortion she would decide that if there was a threat to the mother's life, she would okay an abortion no matter what it cost her.
I was struck today by a letter to the paper where the writer said that 40 million abortions in this country since Roe vs Wade, a very conservative number, the real statistics are probably considerably more by now, have been justified in this country for some reason or another. The writer said that the womb should be the safest place in the world for a child. And I thought, that is right, that is how it used to be. A mother would even sacrifice her life to keep her child going until it was old enough to be born. I knew a woman in Ann's town who was diagnosed with cancer several years ago and elected to have the child she was carrying even though she was told that the cancer would probably kill her if the baby was not aborted and her cancer aggressively treated. She gave her life for the child, dying a few years after the child was born. And I am sure God lifted her up for it.
This is the concept of giving your life for your child. Giving your life to protect the people from dangerous criminals. Giving your life to protect your country from terrorists.
Without the idea of God in our lives, we are going to have a bleak existence. Just so we can justify legalized abortion and continue to have that privilege? That is a lot to give up for a dubious practice that in the long run is bound to make our society more violent, and therefore our lives more unlivable.
I think a lot of bad things have been done down through history in the name of religion, when the very idea of mercy has been violated and justified by a religion that had been corrupted from within. Right now the Catholic Church is fighting charges that pedofile priests were tolerated and even foisted on congregations for years, and as a result of the pedofile priests there are areas where the Catholic Church has many fewer participants than it used to have, for good reason. There is even talk that the present Pope should step down for not removing these priests by recognizing the violations.
But true belief at the core of many religions has strengthened the nation in many ways and has created a law abiding and peaceful society where citizens are committed to respecting the law and doing no harm to anyone.
The pro choice control of the media resulted in much propaganda being printed supporting legalized abortion. Now those in opposition have found other ways to fight back. When democrats talk about the evils of the conservative talk shows, they are not acknowledging the years of propaganda printed in newspapers gone pro choice where nobody gave any respect to the 'religious fanatics' from the right who could not accept legalized abortion.
It has taken a long time for conservatives to rally in defense of their beliefs and I just pray they can hold violence in check. That they truly can find a way to 'take back the country' in the name of good. I just hope that they can recognize any evil in what they say or do and can keep it under control so violence will not happen that will set this country back years.
Democrats did not support President Bush because he was president not because he did not make bad mistakes, did not come across sounding stupid. Now let us hope that republicans can support President Obama because he is the president, not because he does not have beliefs they can support, and that they will simply try to vote him out of office if they do not agree with what he has done or supports. Remove him through peaceful means.

Connie's creation in top photo.