Tuesday Afternoon and I'm just getting around to writing my first blog of the week. Part of the reason for that is that we have been busy doing some things around here that needed doing. Yesterday we did some shopping and took Ms. Kate to the doctor to get her poison ivy infection treated. They gave her a prescription for some strong creme and it seems to begin having some good effect. It certainly got nasty and whether it was poison ivy or poison oak --- she is certainly allergic to it.

Today we took my truck to Sam's Club for new tires. The tires on it were the original tires put on by the manufacturer ten years ago. I still only have less than 44.000 miles on the truck but the tread was below the "Lincoln Head" test on a penny and frankly they might have started to dry rot by now. So, I put new shoes on Big Red. On Thursday I'm taking the truck back to Sam's and having then refinish the headlight lens. I told Ms. Kate it will be like having Big Red's cataracts removed.

Sunday we went to church at our home church and the pastor gave a great sermon. The service was held in our outdoor chapel and during the service, Pastor Art was holding his Bible and giving his sermon and a butterfly landed on his Bible. I thought it was an awesome event.

I've been having a hard time putting my thoughts together about an incident that happened in Charlottesville, VA on Sunday. A large group of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists  were holding a demonstration in the streets. They were carrying Nazi flags and shouting their particular brand of hate speech. They were allegedly protesting the removal of statues of Confederate War Generals. Then another large group of demonstrators charged them with clubs and iron pipes etc and a huge violent demonstration broke out. At some point, one of the white supremacists got in a car and drove into the crowd and killed one person and injured 23 others.

The President of the United States has since been under fire for not "immediately condemning" the white supremacist. Instead he came out and said there is no room for hate and violence of any kind in our society and that there is blame for this incident to be shared on all sides.

My take: ---- First of all, I hate the thought of anybody marching and chanting hate and crap under any flag, let alone a Nazi flag. We had a world war  to stop that. I don't believe in White Supremacy and actions that support it. On the other hand, I don't believe in counter-groups like "Black Lives Matter" because I don't believe that black lives matter any more than any other color of people. I believe that President Trump is correct; there is blame for every side and this country will destroy itself if we don't learn that fairly quickly. I found it also repulsive that reporters wouldn't even let the President finish his statements without shouting interruptions because they didn't like the words he was using. What happened to common decency and respect for the office?  No wonder he calls the reporters "fake news" because they twist every word he says.

As I said, I have no room for violence  and hate and repugnant behavior such as destroying personal and public property. There is a proper way to handle all of these issues facing our country. Unfortunately,  we have a generation and a half of people that refuse to be held accountable for anything and believe that they can hide behind mob violence.  If they were willing to be held accountable for their opinions they wouldn't be out there with their face covered so no one recognized them. This happened from both the Left and the Right sides of the political stream. Just because your side loses an election doesn't mean you now have the right to reject the election by violence.

Let me step off of my soapbox with this. Prayer, kindness, peace, love, caring about our neighbor, respect for life and other people's opinions and property, and open dialogue have to become the watchwords of this nation. I bid you peace my friends. If you disagree with what I have said today, I'm okay with that. I will still love you and I will still pray that God gives you a boatload of blessings each and every day.