Timm's 2 Cents Worth

What the recent sexual misconduct allegations should tell us Unless you’ve been living under a rock or have been in the Saskatchewan outback looking for Bigfoot, there’s no way you haven’t heard about the numerous sexual misconduct allegations and accusations that seem to have exploded over the past month.  If I remember correctly, it all started with the Harvey Weinstein allegations.  Then Judge Roy Moore.  And now Senator Al Franken.  Many of us are outraged, some skeptical.  In looking at this from strictly an outsider’s perspective, I think there are several things this situation should tell us. Men in positions of power and influence have historically taken advantage of the more vulnerable.  King David in the Bible took advantage of his position as the king of Israel to take Bathsheba, wife of one of his captains, for himself and ensured his captain died in battle to hide his transgression.  You can’t get much further back than that....

The 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Over the several weeks, we’ll see quite a few photos of the solar eclipse.  Most of them will be a heck of a lot better than mine (two are above – It’s a lot harder to take these types of photos than you’d think).  So, rather than post a bunch of out-of-focus photos, I thought I would describe the experience instead.  This was my first total solar eclipse and all the photos I’ve seen over the years don’t do the experience justice. I knew you needed special viewing glasses to prevent eye injury, but it never occurred to me that your camera needed protection, too.  There’s a special solar filter you need to use otherwise you can actually melt the innards of your camera.  Except during the period of totality.  It’s still hard to focus though, mainly because I was so excited and was just trying to get as many photos as possible in the short amount of time.  I was going to start a live FB session, but forgot until abo...

  Some self-Actualization from time to time is sometimes a good thing Without reiterating the entire theory of hierarchy of Maslow, self-actualization is, very simply put, the highest level of self-reflection and improvement an individual can achieve. So first, I need to make a disclosure:  I’m a Christian first, conservative second, Republican third (shakily so at times).  (Liberals at this point are all going “Boooooooo!”)  What do I mean?  I try to look at the world around me with the Bible as a filter.  I also try to ensure that my reaction to the world around me is also filtered through the Bible as a filter.  This doesn't mean I'm perfect or don't make mistakes, it's just the world view I have through which I evaluate the world.  Some people might confuse #2 and #3 as the same thing, but they’re really not.  It merely means that I apply the standards of conservatism before the standards of a political party, even when sa...