Category: Uncategorized

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Be a neighbor not a nut

Most of the pro-gun folks have serious insecurity issues that need to be addressed. Phobic fear of your neighbors and “the government” is what fuels most of these kooks. Just today while waiting to purchase a coffee and sandwich in a fast food establishment I heard a couple of sixty-something fellows blathering about their right to own an assault rifle. The AR-15 is a weapon of war. It’s not designed for accuracy. It’s designed for maximum rate of fire. They are not good for target practice and they’re less than ideal for serious hunters.

Occasionally I hear folks thanking me for my military service. If you’d really like to thank me in a meaningful way, advocate for serious gun reform. The rest of us law abiding citizens shouldn’t have to abide your desires to own military hardware. Don’t tell me it’s your 2nd amendment right. It’s not. The 2nd amendment is about being part of a well regulated militia. If you want to be a real member of the militia then join the National Guard, Army Reserve, Marine Reserve or sign up for the regulars. Visit your local recruiter for details. Serve your country not yourself. You’ll get great training and maybe some marketable skills too.

I spent five years in the United States Naval Reserve. I have fond memories of service to the United States of America. Fortunately I never experienced combat nonetheless I took the same oath of enlistment as those who did see action. Volunteering to put your ass in harms way is not something to be taken lightly. One of the greatest things I learned was how to be part of a team. Working with others for the common good is something everyone needs in their life. Moving away from parochial views and seeing a wider world was a great experience. It’s been four decades since I wore navy blues but it’s an experience I will never forget.

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He has cast down the mighty

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJGs8-uh4NS/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

This magnificent image from Thomas Mainardi was shared on Fr. James Martin’s Instagram feed. It’s one of the most powerful depictions of the Mary I have ever seen. I carry a rosary with me everyday and pray it frequently. Maybe it’s all the heartache and crisis of this year. Maybe it’s because in the middle of this pandemic we had our own Madonna born in August. A beautiful granddaughter born amidst all the tumult and chaos of this year. In all the darkness there has been incredible light

 His mercy is from generation unto generations to them that fear Him.He has showed might in His arm: He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.He has cast down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble.He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

Ave Maria Gratia Plena Dominus Tecum!

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We can’t breathe

It’s been my privilege for the past couple of weeks to be a student once again. I’m auditing a course at nearby Houghton College and thanks to this pandemic and social distancing we are using Zoom. Race and American Christianity is the title of the course and our professor is Julian Armand Cook. i love the course and following last Thursday’s lecture I took Dr. Cook’s invitation to visit his church. I couldn’t make it in person but again thanks to the miracle of YouTube I listened to the service for this Sunday. I decided to look around on the church’s YouTube channel and found Julian’s sermon for May 31, 2020 which followed the death of George Floyd. His preaching is powerful and I wanted to share it and invite us all prayer. We are at a pivotal point in time. Thanks Julian for your invitation and your passion. I invite you to listen to the sermon beginning at 40:25 minutes of this video.

https://youtu.be/bc78Dm0X4FI?t=2422
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Shelter Us

This has been an apocalyptic day in an apocalyptic time. We have had nearly a week of looting and rioting following the murder of an innocent black man by police in Minneapolis. The country and world are enduring a pandemic and now we are beset by civil strife the likes of which we have not seen in over fifty years. We are descending into chaos and perhaps worse. Tonight our president threatened to send the military into states that did not meet his ultimatum to end the uprising. It’s all bound to fail as only love can conquer hate but our president is not a man who loves anyone. I pray for him everyday. He’s out of his depth. Worse yet we need real leadership at this time in our history and in the world as we grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic.

People are hurting and sending in the troops is not going to allay their fears nor will it end the strife. It will likely cause the pandemic to worsen. Recently I read that Michael Joncas had released a new hymn in the midst of this chaos. It’s called ‘Shelter Me.’ It’s going to be a classic and maybe it will bring peace to our strife torn country and world. The enemies of peace and freedom seem to be winning tonight.

https://youtu.be/F3KifN7Jfpc
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Handbrake to the rescue

Recently my son asked me if I could locate a video of him scoring 35 points in one half of a high school basketball game. The game happened about eighteen or nineteen years ago. Fortunately many years ago I transferred the VHS-C format video to a digital format and created DVD’s of each of the games from his senior season. Thank goodness my wife is much more organized than me and she remembered where the DVD collection was. Now the problem was moving from the DVD format to digital video that could be loaded onto our son’s iOS device for playback. That’s where Handbrake came to my rescue. If you’re not familiar Handbrake is a great tool for video transcoding. Add to that it’s open source too.

My daily driver is a System76 Darter Pro and it’s currently running Pop!_OS 20.04. I had to install Handbrake which is easy from the command line, $ sudo apt install handbrake. After that I attached a USB connected DVD drive and in about thirty minutes I created a video which can be uploaded to my son’s iPad. Open source software is an incredible bargain and tools like Handbrake are great. You can run Handbrake on Windows and MacOS if you don’t have a Linux computer.

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Pandemic is good for Linux

A month or so ago after receiving calls from friends that their Windows machines were having troubles and needed attention I thought this is the perfect time to switch to Linux. Apparently I wasn’t the only person thinking that way. Jason Evangelho who has a regular column at Forbes shared a tweet today that said Ubuntu enjoyed a 599% uptick in users. That’s a very significant number.

https://twitter.com/killyourfm/status/1257932439370039296?s=20

With more and more people working from home and a growing segment of the population videoconferencing in education and other sectors of the economy Linux just makes sense. I’ve been doing a lot of videoconferencing lately to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Besides great open source conference platforms like Jitsi and BigBlueButton there is Linux support for BlueJeans, Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts.

You can go purchase a new Linux laptop from System76, Purism, Dell and other vendors but more importantly you can easily refurbish an older system and run Fedora, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, ElementaryOS or any other Linux distribution and be reasonably productive at a fraction of the price. I have a number of laptops and only one is not running Linux.

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Pop!_OS 20.04 Window Tiling

One of the really useful and neat features of Pop!_OS 20.04 and what sets it apart from the standard Ubuntu 20.04 release is window tiling. It’s quite amazing and I know that I’m going to find this really useful going forward. I really have to hand it to the UX team at System76 who thought of this in the first place. Jason Evangelho has a great article about Pop!_OS and shared this video from System76 about the new UX feature.

If you’re not familiar with Pop!_OS and or new to Linux you really ought to give it a try.

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Upgrade Day

Pop_OS 20.04 was released a couple of days ago and for whatever reason my System76 laptop wouldn’t upgrade to the latest release. I had rebuilt the computer is February after outsmarting myself one day. Learning the hard way is frequently the best way to learn. In any event I had been running Pop_OS 19.10 and the automatic update just wouldn’t work even after following the excellent documentation on System76’s website. I followed the link to download Pop_OS 20.04, burned the ISO to a USB drive, backed up my system with Cronopete and did a fresh install on my Darter Pro. It all went well and now I’m back in business and blogging. I installed Ubuntu 20.-04 earlier this week on a 2015 MacBook Air that I own. Earlier today I installed a Chromebook for a friend and she returned a Dell 7470 that I had loaned her last year. After getting home I installed Pop_OS on that computer too. This has been upgrade day at the house. I’m eager to explore the nuances of Pop_OS 20.04. What version of Linux are you using? Be sure to leave a comment. Some of my favorite Linux apps are Gnome-Tweaks, GnuCash, KSnip and Cronopete. What are your favorite Linux apps?

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May the Lord Give You Peace

This has been a far from normal Easter but it’s also been a day when families are united by technology across hundreds and thousands of miles. We all live in fear and many are looking for relief from that fear. It’s a bit like being in a war zone. Knowing that death and suffering are just around the corner and taking precaution to keep that at bay. Physical distancing has led to isolation for some and exacerbated already lonely lives. I have tried to do something each day to shorten that distance for those around me. For some it’s been a e-card from Gratefulness.org for others it has been a phone call or FaceTime. Today we had an Easter Zoom with our children and grandchildren. It’s also been a time of prayer. Rote prayers for some or just talking to the higher power for others.

Last night I was able to find an Easter Vigil Service on YouTube. While it wasn’t the same as the service I normally attend it was reassuring to hear the familiar readings and hymns. Tonight while looking at social media I found a healing message from Fr Conrad Targonski, OFM who led the two veterans pilgrimages to Rome and Assisi that I have been a part of the last two years. It was his Easter greeting from Viterbo University where he is the chaplain. Fr. Conrad is a thirty year veteran US Navy Chaplain who’s been in the thick of combat in Fallujah. His voice was a calming presence tonight.