An evening with an ancestor

Think of one of your long gone ancestors. Imagine they could come back to spend one evening with you. What would you most like to show them?

My paternal grandfather died in 1937. I remember him when I was a child. If a small airplane flew overhead, he would look up at the sky and mutter, "I'd just as soon he flew over someone else's house!". I think it would be great fun to take him aboard a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. How may he react?

My father died in 1968. Dad had a very curious mind. And he had an unyielding urge to solve problems quickly. If he heard a new squeak or rattle when he drove his car, he would want to pull over onto the shoulder and try to find the source.

He had the same sense of urgency for learning the correct meaning of new words, and kept one of those huge unabridged dictionaries at hand. How I would like to demonstrate the internet for him. Not only could we find the meaning of a word lightning fast, we could hear a speaker correctly pronounce the word... something his great dictionary could not do.

Arab contributions

Long, long ago, before Islam, Arabs made important contributions to the civilized world. They devised a number system that was hands down better than Roman numerals.

It was an Arab shepherd boy who discovered he could stay awake by chewing coffee beans! Wow, do I appreciate that!

But today, it would seem, the Muslim Arabs spend their time dreaming up new ways to kill innocents. After World War II and the Korean War, civilized nations went to great lengths to protect against invading or attacking armies.

But, a small group of Muslim people-haters, dreamed up a way to kill innocents: by hijacking our own airliners and flying them into office buildings. Okay... a new threat revealed. So civilized peoples quickly developed security measures for airline travel.

Now what have the Arab Islamists done to attack Israel? They build an elaborate network of tunnels reaching deep into Israeli territory, so they can suddenly pop out of the ground and slaughter unsuspecting civilians. Or they kidnap innocents, knowing that civilized people place great value on every innocent citizen. Kidnap one Israeli citizen, even one soldier, and you have a valuable bargaining chip.

How sad to see minds twisted  by hate.