Saturday Work

I spent the day installing a new door in our new - old house, 173 years old in fact. Now that section of the house will be much warmer. The old door was a cold air sieve, completely uninsulated, and kept locked with an old skeleton key. It was a security hazard.

We knew the house had problems. Here I thought the installation would be simple. I ended up have to go right down to the masonry foundation, installing a new sill plate, putting in two new floor joists, and rebuilding the opening. Fortunately I am the labor and labor is cheap. I have not found a way to charge myself. This is a $800 to $1,000 job if I'm working for someone else. That's just labor.

I was away from the computer all day and see we've had another mass killing, this time three cops down in Pittsburgh. I can only imagine the grief that the families of those guys are experiencing. The suspect is alive and in custody. What on earth would possess someone to shoot at cops.

The thing of it is there are way too many objects of violence in our culture. People then use these models in their own lives. Its a contradiction to say this but for many people there is a positive model that is violent. People feel compelled to model themselves as a violent being. How do you stop that? How do you pick violence out of the mix when it seems to be increasing. There is a business of violence. I'm not talking films and TV and CD's and such, I'm talking about actual patterns within the society.

BBC: Roman police find sewer children

Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome.