The Peaceful Gnome

As I thought, there is a reason land here is so very cheap.  Thorns and rocks.  Yeah, that about sums it up.  :-) Thorns Rocks. Lots of sunshine, of course.  :-) Serenity said "I don't think so Papa." I agree Serenity!  I don't think so. Well, the search goes on... Here is Serenity in the lobby of the Gadsen Hotel :-)

I'm near the border of Mexico in Arizona, currently in the Gadsen Hotel , a Historic and allegedly haunted hotel in Douglas.  Our trip to get here has not gone as planned.  :-)  We had intended to either visit the Grand Canyon or some Indian ruins up near Flagstaff on our second day, but instead we found our selves in the midst of a snow storm, hiking in the snow did not sound very fun so we skipped on to our next spot which was St. Johns where I wanted to look at some property at Sierra Highlands Ranch .  On our way to St. Johns I saw this great rainbow, very pretty. As it turned out the road leading to Sierra Highlands Ranch it is a bit questionable just after rains... especially if you are driving a low to the ground Toyota Corolla. We went about 15 miles on a fairly good mostly graveled road until we got up to the top of the mesa where the 36+ acre plots I wanted to look at were, it was actually quite lovely, lots of trees and great views.  The ro...

For the last few days I've been pondering the ideas of nonviolence as taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.  As a result of this recollection of what I knew once I've been looking online at some websites of the traditional "Peace Churches."  These are the Mennonites, the Brethren and the Quakers, among others.  I looked at them because of my dissatisfaction with the teachings of the more mainstream denominations, especially the two that I have most recently worshiped with, the Lutherans and the Catholics.  These groups use something called " Just War Theory " to identify which wars are "Just" and which ones are not justified.  Supposedly this puts some major restrictions on when nations could go to war and have it be considered OK for a Christian to participate.  The problem with Just War Theory, as far as I am concerned, is that it can be, and has been, used to justify virtually every war ever fought.  Pretty much the only...

So, at long last the bitter election for President of the United Sates is over.  Around this part of the empire the vast majority of people are sorely disappointed by the results, to the point of anger or depression.  I try and let them know that the POTUS doesn't have all that much influence over the things they are upset over, domestic policy is not really that easy for a POTUS to change.  It's only in foreign policy that he can directly impact things in any way, he is the Commander in Chief after all and can rather quickly pull troops out of our wars if he so chooses.  Of course I'm under no illusion that he will do this any more than the last man who occupied that office and promised to get us out of all of our wars of conquest around the world, and he even got the PEACE prize just for saying he'd do it, and yet we are still in every spot we were in then and then some. Peace does not come from governments.  Governments are nothing but violence, it is...

For many years I've been here as "The Angry Gnome."  I suppose for the most part I've lived up to (or down to?) the name.  Recently I have written here very seldom, not being quite sure what to do with a blog these days, most of my Angry Rants went straight to Facebook and I pretty much never bothered with more than a line or two of introduction to material written by someone else.  I will readily admit to having a quick fuse and a pretty angry demeanor, but inside I'm not like that at all!  Really :-) Obviously the name Angry Gnome had a nice ring to it and aligned nicely with the way I tend to present to the world at large.  I am under no illusions about changing the name of my seldom used blog having any real significant impact on my cranky nature... but it certainly couldn't hurt. :-) I'll tell you what has brought this on, it's the recent regrettable election for president we've all had the misfortune to experience for the last year ...