Category: Review

May 30, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Chapters 10-12

May 30, 2025 /

This week we have three chapters that are all about personal protection in action. Some anecdotes are personal while others are first hand. I will spend the majority of today’s work talking about the last one but each chapter will get a little bit of analysis at least.

Before we actually get into the specific chapters this week, I have been reading mention of the term “Super Vel”. I figured that it must be some sort of ammunition but I have never heard of it. I decided I would look into it a bit. As it turns out, Super Vel is a brand of ammunition. Based on the history (in the link), I would say that it was one of the first boutique, high performance cartridge manufacturers. Today’s equivalent would be Double Tap or Buffalo Bore. Sadly, Super Vel went out of business in 1981 right after this book was published.

The good news, a contemporary of Ayoob at Guns Magazine purchased the name and is producing Super Vel again. I have never seen it in the stores but looking around it can be purchased over the internet at what appears to be reasonable prices to me. It is 50% cheaper than the Underwood, hard cast lead .38 special I just purchased. Cool, retro packaging and story, now I know.

Chapter ten, I think is about justifying an informed choice to carry a handgun. While I am no Massad Ayoob and I do not claim to be, I don’t think that the advice is that good. What Ayoob is implying is that flashing your firearm (brandishing – see last week) can be a deterrent all on it’s own. While I believe that can be true, what if there was another assailant behind that I didn’t see. I repeat again, only show a firearm when you are justified to use it. An intimidating guy leaning against a car does not meat that standard.

There is also another phenomenon in self defense. The first person to contact the police is the victim. It would not be beneath a low life to call the police on you for flashing a firearm and all of the sudden you are arrested. Show your firearm only when you draw it. Draw it only when you are justified to use it. If you cannot shoot them on the spot, best to turn around if your are feeling intimidated.

In the next chapter, it talks about two things, discretion and competency. I made my feelings known about discretion already. As to competency, I whole heartedly agree to the concept. Some states require competency for your permit. But, going deeper than that a well placed shot beats misses every day.

When it comes to caliber or capacity, there are a lot of mall ninjas out there. The fact of the matter is that if you cannot hit your target, then all of that is moot. But even more than hitting the target is hitting the target to stop it. I have seen enough animals hit in less than lethal spots to run off or hole up to be dangerous. An animal is enacting the fight or flight reaction where as a person hellbent on suicide by cop might start coming for the person shooting at them.

Finally, the last chapter this week is the gold treasure of the book. You can do all the fundamentals right, a justified shoot, no other injuries and lose nearly everything. As soon as the ‘victim’s’ family decides to file suit, your second hell is about to begin. This happens with police departments all of the time. They have a nice insurance policy to accommodate the situation.

Criminals have figured out that they can get one more payout from the state. Generally, it is in the form of a settlement rather than invest all the resources in a trial. If $10,000 makes the problem go away then that is saving a week’s worth of lawyer fees. Hence, this is why Ayoob’s advice on cash wrapped in a matchbook is a cheap insurance premium.

Who has cash and needs matches these days? Don’t be an idiot, figure out some token that you can sacrifice to potentially eliminate years of pain (if you make it out of the situation). There are also concealed carry insurance funds out there. It would be wise to belong to one of those if you have made that choice to carry a firearm. The principle that I always go back to is “If you think that you are walking into a place that you will need to use your firearm, then it is best to avoid that place”.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are reading the book along with me and you are having a hard time with me contradicting Ayoob, I would say that you need training. I will admit that I also need more training and do not consider myself an expert. But, my words are coming from years of multiple, consensus sources in a developing field of civilian concealed carry. Don’t forget that this book was written before any of that began.

May 23, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Chapters 6-9

May 23, 2025 /

**Note: May 26, 2025 is a holiday. I am taking one, you should too.**

This week gets into the tactics of concealed carry. It covers the basics of where you might possibly have or use a firearm. I do think what is conspicuously missing is our interactions outside of our own business, home, street or car. We are missing things like church, restaurants, stores and all the places we might be besides the four that he talks about. That being said, we were years away from ‘shall issue’ concealed carry when this book was written. As a result, it is understandable the focus and the omission.

I never knew this but apparently, Ayoob grew up in a family business. A jewelry store to be specific. Rightly so that he was exposed to potential conflict while at the shop. I don’t know but that is possibly as risky of a proposition as being a convenience store owner operator. For most of us, I would guess that having a firearm stashed at work is probably a no go. Likely, carrying concealed would be a better proposition anyway.

My grandfather was a sole proprietor in an shady business. He was a landlord that dealt in the lower tier of renters. As such, he was robbed several times in his career during office hours. Unfortunately, they did get away with his Purple Heart awards from World War II. I would say that he could have benefitted from a gun at his office.

A gun in your home is the most likely place that it will be. While there are many people that are permitted to carry, I suspect that few will actually do it. But, having protection around at home is much more likely which is what makes going into somebody else’s home so risky. Ayoob offers what I think are reasonable tactics still today for dealing with a home invasion and family protection.

When we were living in South Carolina, I don’t think concealed carry was a legal construct. I didn’t investigate thoroughly, but I was told by many residents that it was legal to have a firearm in the glove box. I do know that was the case in other states and so I had no reason to doubt that. This has never been a practice that I have ever been comfortable with or employed.

Today in Oregon, to have a firearm in the glovebox would require you to have a concealed carried permit. Surely others will do this as well but it still doesn’t make it a good idea. I was home a few years ago when the police rang the doorbell. They said that the neighbor had a firearm stolen out of the car and wondered if we had any doorbell footage. I told him I would check and didn’t see anything.

The point being, is that leaving a firearm in the car leaves it out of your control. Run of the mill break-ins can have your property ending up in the black market. It also would be hard to reach when you really need it too. That being said, I could see putting a firearm in the car when going on a road trip or something. Where legal of course.

I know that I skipped around a little bit but the last chapter I am going to talk about is the gun in the street. Ayoob really is focused on the tactics of deploying a firearm in the streets but this is really the run of the mill concealed carry. I suspect that it is pretty sound advice but I do think that it should be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of this has changed but you do need to be aware of the term brandishing.

Brandishing is flashing a firearm with the intent of intimidation. I am more than sure Ayoob is not implying that you brandishing is a valid technique, but the wording and the way that it is written kind of, sort of seems that way. Once again, in states where that is a crime you are only legal to display a firearm when you are legal to use one. States that permit open carry typically do not have brandishing laws. The point remains that you need to know your state laws down pat.

There is a concept in this chapter that is talked about but it also comes up later in the book in a big way. That is, it is cheaper to not get in an altercation than to be in the right. I will save most of that for next week. Suffice to say, carrying a gun is a tool in the toolbox. It doesn’t mean that it is the first or best or only tool.

End Your Programming Routine: Good stuff. I keep saying that with all that has changed in this landscape, the tactics remain good and legally defensible. It helps to know and understand the history and evolution to be able to pick out the nuances and changes. Reading this book has inspired me to get the updated book that Ayoob has published because I suspect that most of what is wrong here gets corrected. It won’t be the next book but it will be soon.

May 22, 2025 – Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail

May 22, 2025 /

This is the self proclaimed guidebook that you don’t need. I didn’t say that, Bonnie Henderson the author did. The Oregon Coast Trail is a route that runs the entire length of the Oregon Coast. It is also one that I have hiked a portion of in the early 1990s as it was being actively developed.

One of the things native Oregonians stake their claim on is the precedent setting legislation that happened in the 1960s. But it actually starts much earlier, in 1913. Governor Oswald West declared that the Oregon Coast was a state highway. The declaration claimed that the high tide line was the extent of guaranteed access.

In the 1960s, a bill was introduced to make all beach access public. This would be all the sand/shoreline above the high tide land. After a supreme court case was settled, all the beaches became public property. The book claims that there are 262 miles of beach, other sources say 360 miles. It probably depends on how you define beach as to which number you go with.

The reason that the author says that you do not need this guide is because 90% of the trail is on the beach and therefore no trail guide is really needed. I can say with my experience that we walked a lot of the beach, in my memory it was more like 50/50. Memories can be fallible for sure and I have no way of measuring or validating that number. I simply remember spending a fair amount of time in the coastal forest.

The selling point from the author is that this book will make the experience better. For instance, if you want to keep to 90% beach hike, then you will need to ferry across some rivers. If you opt to stay on the ground, then you will need to detour up to a road, likely US101 and cross in a standard fashion. This not only adds some extra miles but also potentially makes your hike more like a highway walk.

From the central coast north, it is relatively populated. What that means is that even walking the beach you can go out to eat or stay the night in a hotel. In theory, you could walk from hotel to hotel for the night making this a very different experience than very remote Pacific Crest Trail. But, if you are more inclined for the roughing it badge, there are tons of camp grounds that provide amenities like water, toilets and cell phone charging.

I have a lot less experience south of the central coast. It is farther from me and there are many less ways to get there. In other words, it is much more wild and rugged. While the beach is 100% open all the time, the author claims that hiking October through April is not recommended due to the amount of water draining to the ocean. I can say for a fact that most cities storm water drains are piped directly to the beach. This can easily become a deluge of water given how much it rains and all of the elevation there is on the coast.

I personally think it would be crazy to hike in the wetter months to begin with. While we don’t have many hurricane type storms, I have seen roofs ripped off of restaurants due to such storms. I can’t imagine being exposed all day in that kind of weather. Not to mention, who would enjoy a day of 4 inches of rain.

My sudden interest in non-PCT trails should be obvious. With my decision to delay my hike a year due to lack of physical fitness, I need to find some places to test my abilities. Being that I am only an hour to the coast, this seems like a natural fit for more exploration. The author also claims that this is a trail that can be done in about 30 days. I am thinking that this actually seems attainable rather than the six months for the whole PCT.

End Your Programming Routine: The recommendation to hike southbound seems tame enough. That is because northbound is into the prevailing wind (which is the way I did it). Those are the kind of recommendations a book like this gives. This is a local author who has done it more than once. Even if I never do the hike, I am proud to support people who are willing to help others with their experience.

May 16, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Chapters 3-5

May 16, 2025 /

I know that I keep saying this but I feel like this group of chapters is another where time has probably changed prevailing attitudes. For one thing, the deregulation of concealed carry has created an industry of specialized civilian training. And with that, has come a plethora of resources that didn’t exist in 1980 like the internet and podcasts as two examples. I think that those resources have spread a broader net of better information.

I remember as a kid, we would say things like ‘shoot bad guys in the knee’. Of course, I grew up under the shadow of the early westerns and every TV show with a bad guy had a good guy. There was no such show concepts like Breaking Bad where the good guy was also a bad guy or you couldn’t quite draw clear lines. As such, we wanted to do the proverbial ‘shoot ’em in the shoulder’ because the thought of taking life would put us in the bad guy category.

With that strong desire to be a good guy, there was also the idea that we would put the bad guys away with a citizen’s arrest. This is probably the result of too much A-Team or MacGyver. Ayoob did a pretty good job of cautioning the bad guy could turn the tide from captive to captor. That is a pretty valid point because the best practices today would say you shouldn’t draw a gun unless you are justified to shoot in the first place. Holding a perpetrator at gunpoint changes the force equilibrium.

More so than the risks of a captive, if a third party calls in a 911 call, how do the police distinguish between a good and a bad guy? We assume that we are talking about the good guy holding the bad guy at gunpoint but it could be just as easily the other way (for lots of reasons). For reasons of both safety and liability, it is just best to not emulate TV shows with a Citizen’s Arrest.

Regardless of what the police would do, what are you going to do? There is probably a 95% chance that a man beating a woman in the parking lot is the aggressor. But what if you were wrong? What if it was two men fighting, now who is the aggressor? What if one is stabbing another, is that assault or self defense? We just don’t know. It is sad and selfish but it is best for self preservation to not try to pick.

An active shooter is a different story. In that case, there is a clear aggressor. When I talk about concealed carry, I am also talking about a handgun. If you are unfortunate enough to be around an active shooter event the best you are going to do is have a loaded handgun. Handgun against handgun and you have a chance if they are an average marksman. Handgun against a rifle and you are going to need some luck.

Every person needs to make the calculus on what you would do. My values are to get myself and anyone with me away from the shooter. That means that I am not typically looking to engage. If you did, what if the shooter is dead but you also hit a bystander? Are you legally prepared for a lawsuit? It doesn’t matter if the victim should be thankful, he might be looking to cash in or maybe he can no longer work. These are all of the tough choices that need to be made.

Really the last chapter I want to talk about today does not fit into the first two nor next week’s so it ended up here. One of the largest growth factors in firearms has been women. I have to say that his suggestion of a snub nosed 38 special is superseded by many, many better choices today. As an owner of one, it is difficult to shoot well. It also recoils like a getting kicked in the hand. That was probably the best you could do in 1980.

You all know that I am not a woman (even in today’s culture) so it is hard for me to really identify with those particular struggles. That being said, the number of products for women’s concealed carry is a lifetime away from where it was when the book was written. I know for a fact that 5.11 makes yoga pants with integrated holster as an example.

End Your Programming Routine: The fundamentals are definitely 1980s sound. There isn’t much that has changed from the legal standpoint. We are really talking about legal standards that go all the way back to middle ages England, what is another forty-five years? It is the gear that have made exponential improvements. From bullets, holsters, laser aiming devices, flashlights, red dot sights, glow in the dark (tritium) sights, magazine capacities, new calibers, etc. The one right choice in 1980 has a bunch of potential better choices today.

May 9, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Chapter 2

May 9, 2025 /

Chapter two is among the longest of the book which is why it gets it’s own week. Did you know that that there is a legal principal that force response has to be equal or lessor? Most of us would slap our foreheads when someone says you can’t just shoot somebody that simply insulted us. That seems like an obvious inappropriate response but there are more nuanced scenarios that you probably never considered or at least don’t know.

I am going to quickly cover some of the legal definitions in this chapter. To play in any world, you must learn the vocabulary. Otherwise, we cannot have any meaningful communication because it is likely two people would not understand what each is saying.

Lethal Force – This is a particular type of assault that has an expected outcome of death. This should not be confused with Deadly Force where the outcome is actually death. Depending on your skills and stature, simply punching someone may be deadly force but not lethal force. A man punching a baby is lethal force, an average man in a bar fight that ends in busted knuckles is neither.

Disparity of Force – This has multiple implications. Generally speaking in a one on one scenario, the person with the firearm has a disparity of force. But what if there are four people unarmed versus one armed? It is not favored in court to apply unequal force in the case of self-defense, particularly when it is deadly.

Equal Force – Unless you are in a Castle Doctrine state, it is generally considered imperative that self defense is only justified under equal force (or less). This is why we need to understand the concept of disparity of force first.

Reasonableness – The reasonableness standard is of course subjective and possibly changes with time. I think about the incidents where there is some kind of traffic issue and then the ‘victim’ chases the offender for redemption (or whatever). Would a reasonable person feel victimized in the situation and all of the above response reasonable? If the offense or response is not reasonable for the jury, then neither is self-defense.

Premises – The location of deadly force makes a huge difference to the standard by which you are judged. Incidents that happen at home have significantly different latitude that something that occurs at a public place.

Bare vs Reasonable Fear – Bare fear is fear that exists. It would be going to a certain part of town or someone wearing a motorcycle club vest. There must be more to the situation than bare fear like proximity and even more, belief of intent. You are on the same side of the street and they are aggressively moving toward you with agitation. Only reasonable fear is considerable for justifiable self-defense.

Innocence – The best legal defense is no protoorganism whatsoever. Remember that innocent is not the same as not guilty. If you knew there was going to be a gun-fight, it would be best to not go there in the first place.

Escalation – Escalation rarely is justified in self-defense. It get’s pretty muddy when you participate in some of the back and forth before deadly force. You possibly could have provoked the incident but met the other standards in the use of deadly force. For that reason leave the area/fight/confrontation before it starts.

This is a super quick run through of the key vocabulary terms. Many definitions have a significant amount of additional information, particularly reasonableness. So again, if you conceal carry and have not educated yourself with the intent for mastery in these subjects, you need training.

I find it untenable that someone can physically assault you and it still may not provide justification for deadly force. It all depends on what your grand jury neighbor’s feel is reasonable. As I keep saying, your particular jurisdiction may have broader interpretations of what is permissible, but if you stick to these definitions, it is much more likely that you stay in the clear.

End Your Programming Routine: In chapter one, Ayoob mentions that carrying a firearm is a privilege. I agree and disagree with that statement. It was certainly true that 1980 NYC (and today) it was a privilege because it is a very strict ‘may issue’ jurisdiction. Given more recent Supreme Court interpretations of the second amendment I disagree. Those are functions of changing opinions over time. One opinion that does not change is Ayoob is amongst the foremost experts in this topic. It would be wise to get these definitions down pat.

Next week, chapters 3-5.

May 2, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Introduction (Chapter 1)

May 2, 2025 /

If you own a firearm with the thought that you could possibly use it for self defense and you have never heard of Massad Ayoob, stop right now and go find this book. Unfortunately, it is out of print but I bought it reasonable priced/used on Amazon. So, it is still available. While the book is dated for reasons I will talk about a little later, the fundamentals of this book are rock solid.

Ayoob started as a police office and morphed his career into expert witness for criminal trials. His information is based on real life situations and trial information. I would say that he is recognized as the preeminent subject matter expert in the legal aspects of self defense. He offers some of the most well respected and sought after firearms training in the country through his company Massad Ayoob Group (MAG) as well.

There is a reason that this book is out of print. It was published in 1980 and a lot, I do mean a lot has changed in 45 years. The extremely affordable, polymer framed, striker fired, double stack magazine Glock had not yet been invented. The FBI had not yet had the Miami shootout the lead to the creation of the 10mm cartridge followed by the 40 S&W that spawned the resurgence of the 9mm that killed all of them using better bullet design.

In 1980, Indiana became the first state to change their approach to concealed carry. At that point, only Vermont had no concealed carry regulations or restrictions. They adopted a ‘shall issue’ stance meaning applicants no longer had to justify a need for concealed carry permit (known as may issue). By the late 1990s, 30 states were shall issue and by 2006, 39 had shall issue or no restrictions. A second wave of concealed carry changes started in 2003 with Alaska no longer requiring a permit to carry (known as constitutional carry). As of time of this writing 29 states have a form of permit less carry.

For those of you that have not gone through the licensing process, every state is different and the laws vary quite widely. Some require a shooting test but at the core of all is a very basic overview of the law. For example, some states do not recognize other states permits. A very convoluted affair.

One of the most significant tactical changes since 1980 has been the prevalence of adoption of Stand Your Ground laws (now 30 states). In all states, stand your ground removes the requirement of retreat until deadly force can be employed. A more extreme version of this is called the Castle Doctrine which exempts the fear from imminent harm as a requirement for deadly force.

I say all of these things not to necessarily give you a history lesson but to highlight how much has changed since the book was written. You cannot just read something and take it as gospel. That being said, if you take the more conservative advice, you are likely going to be the safest under the circumstances. You absolutely need to be up to speed on the laws of your jurisdiction if you are considering self defense.

Chapter One is three pages long, so there isn’t a ton that I can distill from there. The one thing that I can pick out that I agree with is that self defense has two key components, knowledge and skill. This book can help fill in the knowledge gap. Books can point in a starting point direction for skill but you also have to get out there and practice.

Fundamentals for hitting the target are necessary. But can you do it under stress? What about if it is dark? Maybe flipping on the light switch is not the smartest idea, but maybe it is. You can probably spend your whole life working on this. I say this, starting somewhere is a good idea, even if you decide this is not your life’s work or passion. It is not going to be mine, but I know that I need to do a little more than what I have done.

End Your Programming Routine: This is a short book. I am going to group this study into similar concepts as I cover the book. That means next week will be Chapter two which is all about the different definitions of lethal force. I will certainly point out where things have changed since its publishing because that is also important to know where the gotchas are.

April 30, 2025 – The Mushroom Hunters: A Hidden World of Food, Money and (Mostly Legal) Adventure

April 30, 2025 /

The Mushroom Hunters by Langdon Cook is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for May 2025. I got a head start compared to my normal pace due to last month being a cookbook and setting our club schedule a little bit in advanced. I started reading this at the beginning of the month and got a good way through it on our back and forth to the east coast.

This is one of those rare books that our club reads that is not fiction, not a memoir and not a cookbook. It is culinary non-fiction. It reminds me a lot of the book Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker that we read in some of our earliest days of the club. It was so early that I didn’t have AltF4.co running yet and I never reviewed it here. But, essentially it is a story about Bianca’s quest to become a sommelier.

I cannot say what the exact motivation for writing this book was but it sure appears that the author Cook is very into mushrooms. The number of miles driven and time spent over the span of the story is significant. I suppose that is a mark of a good journalist to really get into the story, to get it right and not just phone it in.

Cook is from Seattle and most of the story takes place in the Pacific Northwest with a couple main characters. One is a mushroom picker and the other is a buyer/broker. They run up and down from Canada to California and from the ocean to Missoula as the parameters of their picking seemingly on an instant.

I would love to know more about personal mushroom picking. But, to tell you the truth I am scared to death of eating the wrong mushroom. I have have heard too many stories of mistaking the variety and either puking all night or even dying. I had no idea that there were so many varieties of edible mushrooms that grew wild here. According to the book, they happen most of the year.

The thing that I liked the most about the book is that the action was all around me. I kept reading and saying to myself ‘I know that place’ or ‘I had no idea this was going on around me’. In particular, there is a tiny town near the place that we have been deer hunting that turned into an Asian shanty town at the same time deer hunting was going on. The impromptu camp had a popup karaoke bar and pho restaurant. All this and I never even noticed.

Reading the book took me back to my youth. As the primary picker was a former logger, I got to thinking about the impact of the timber drought that began in the early 1990s. Once those mills stopped operating, loggers were out of work too. There was a whole genre of forest literate men but lacking transferable job skills. This in turn gave way to government assistance, poverty and drugs.

There is a 20 mile stretch between the town I grew up in and a reservoir that we water skied. There were at least four mills on that stretch. Now, there is one and it is a Weyerhaeuser mill. The biggest survived. It wasn’t totally an environmental situation as much as it was all the old growth was logged. Combine that with a US policy of conservation rather than production and only the companies that owned vast tracks of their own land survive. The good news for mushrooms is that second growth opened the door for a lot more production.

If you ask me, I would say a lot more of the mushroom harvest (written about) was more gray market. There was a lot of situational ethics in play such as ‘they don’t care about the mushrooms, only the timber’. Or, that No Trespassing sign is the result of equipment damage, sabotage and environmental damage. It doesn’t actually mean me who is not hurting anything. There is a lot of truth to that sentiment.

When timber comprised a significant portion of the economy, companies made a much greater effort to have a symbiotic relationship with the public. It seems like in today’s world that attitude has changed. I don’t remember a single locked gate growing up and now most private timber is access by recreational lease holder only. When you couple that with the vast amount of land owned and the semi-dubious methods by which it was acquired, it does seem like situational ethics are appropriate to a point.

I loved this book and thought it was fantastic. But the reason I did was because I could picture probably a quarter of the book. If you don’t live here, it may not hold some of the same romance. It doesn’t really tell you where to go specifically or how to identify mushrooms but that there is a whole cash based, gray market subculture feeding the finest and trendiest restaurants in New York as well as the Pacific Northwest.

End Your Programming Routine: Cookbooks are fine. The truth for me is that most of them I don’t get a lot out of. I am grateful that we step away and read something else, particularly something as fascinating as this. This late in the game, I won’t get into the storyline but the broker is still in business. I thought about e-mailing him and thanking him for participating even if it left his situation a little vulnerable. Part of me thinks that he won’t reciprocate or care. I don’t know but I sure admire his passion.

April 25, 2025 – Revelations 21-22 and Conclusion

April 25, 2025 /

We have turned a corner here. We past the rapture and now we are onto the reward. Gleaming cities of gold and jasper etc. I wonder if this is where the ‘pearly gates’ descriptor comes from? It is described as the new Jerusalem for a new earth prepared for those that are worthy.

First, God cast out Satan forever. Then He prepared a new city. The tree of life was available for the first time since Adam and Eve. John was explicitly told to proselytize that this is a new world order.

Among the couple of things that I found interesting is that there is talk about no temple in new Jeruasalem. There is no longer a need for priests to act as the mediary between God and the people. For the uninitiated, there was a curtain called a veil in the temple. The priest was the only one that could go behind the veil because supposedly that is where God was.

It was the promise of Jesus, also called the ‘New Covenant’ that was supposed to break that requirement. This was allegedly authorized at the last supper with the bread and wine (what we colloquially call communion to memorialize the event). I guess I don’t totally understand why this is coming up now when I believe it comes up earlier.

I don’t think that you get to pick your truth, even when it is conflicting. That being said I would like to know more about the origins of the Bible. What books were stricken and for what reasons? Since the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have very similar accounts, your can reasonably assume corroborating facts are true. Revelations was controversial and it seems like for good reason.

Jesus told them to expect his return after crucifixion (remember doubting Thomas) but why this new development? Why a whole new purging of the earth and starting over? It does seem to contradict the whole premise of Christianity provides salvation with free will. The vengeful God was supposed to be replaced with the loving God post Jesus.

It would be very presumptuous of me to say that this book seems a little far fetched. But I am going to say it anyway. We can’t just ignore controversy because it is convenient. It seems pretty likely that John would have communication with God considering how close he was to Jesus. But just like the Fourth Turning, why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely a millennium has passed by now.

For all I know, it happened at or near 1000 AD. It is not as if recorded history was the best it could have been. What if it was the black plague in the 1300s? I don’t think Satan has actually been banished considering the state of the world. But, I would also expect humanity to be gone as well and we would all be living in New Jerusalem.

What that says to me is that there is something up with the interpretation. I don’t know exactly what that is aside from the calculation of time. If one thing is off, what about other aspects of the story? As a result, it is probably best to live as if the rapture could come anytime.

End Your Programming Routine: I always knew it but now I can concretely say what fascinates these doomsday groups. A strong faith and a strong fatalism combined with timing of the Julian calendar and who knows what will happen? This definitely wasn’t my favorite Bible foray, but it leads me to believe that I will do more because I have not read all of it myself. Next week is the introduction to “In the Gravest Extreme” by Massad Ayoob.

April 18, 2025 – Revelations 8-20

April 18, 2025 /

He has risen… again? At least that is what the prophecy of Revelations claims. Since Easter is this weekend, I want to be the first one to wish you a happy Easter. Unlike Christmas, this is a true Christian holiday. A day of salvation and redemption for all that seek it.

Today is actually Good Friday. This is the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. The day that he was nailed to the cross and hung to die. But it is also the day that mankind’s sin died as well. So while it is bittersweet for Jesus, that was his purpose on earth and a victory for eternal salvation.

From what I have gathered reading these chapters, this is the rapture. As soon as the seventh seal is broken, the action begins. One third of the plants, water, animals and sunlight. Then, god sends down the devil and locusts.

Something that I found kind of interesting when I was reading some commentary on Revelations came up. In Chapter 12, it says that Satan was thrown to the earth. What? I thought that he was already condemned to Hell? Yes, but no. Apparently, Satan has the ability to go back to Heaven in order to lobby for his case. Meaning that if he sees some soul go the opposite direction, he can appeal to God.

Remember, this is a vision of the Rapture. This has not really happened yet according to Biblical belief. So if that is really true, then that means that Satan currently has the ability to appeal for souls. Interesting.

Revelations 13 is a good one. This is the chapter that identifies 666 as the mark of the beast. I remember the first time I ever heard this concept back in the early 1990s. My scoutmaster affirmed that if we were ever to get some sort of tattoo that was the mark of the beast. Now, I am not totally sure about just any tattoo but I am a little bit conflicted.

You may have heard of people embedding RFID microchips into their skin so that they can just wave their hand over some sort of scanner to check-out in something like an Amazon store. I am not sure where we are with that experiment at this point but I think that this is coming much closer to the mark of the beast than a tattoo.

I will not make comparisons between Amazon and Satan. But, I do have to say that permanently forfeiting your sovereign humanity at the expense of convenience is starting to tip the scales. I don’t think that Amazon is pure evil but they are surely not benevolent either. RFID implants is definitely a step too far for me.

Much of today’s readings focus on what happens during tribulation, particularly when you have accepted the mark of the beast. Chapters 19 and 20 finish that and see Christ’s second coming. Satan and the False prophet are cast off the earth forever.

I think that there are two things that come to mind reading Revelations that are somewhat puzzling. The first goes back to Revelations 10. John is instructed to eat a scroll of judgement. This has two purposes. One is so that he can ‘ingest’ the real sins and the vision as it is revealed. The second goes hand in hand with not revealing the details of the vision. How is it that John is writing this book of the Bible if he promised God that he would not reveal the vision? That seems in direct violation to something the John holds so personally.

The second is God’s promise of judgement after a millennium. By our time measurement, we have seen at least two since the prophecy. This of course added extra significance to the Y2K hoopla. I have often pondered the Biblical accounting of time. This is particularly true with Noah living 900 years. He wasn’t the only one but he was remarkable at siring children at such an advanced age of 500.

I do believe that miracles are possible through God. I just wonder about some of the accounting. Further more, why? What is the purpose of Noah living 950 years? Did it really take that long to establish a flawed, human civilization? It almost seems like the early Bible was trying to fill in the gaps of known time versus known people because in the New Testament people seem to have more typical lifespans.

This is all to say that I have no idea of what measurement a Millennium really is. I tend to think that because this is New Testament text, it is more similar to our modern calendar. But then again, I don’t understand the rhyme or reason to the Christian calendar either. As a person that is pretty good with patterns and algorithms, how is it that Eater changes every year? You try to understand it so you can explain it to me.

End Your Programming Routine: I am sort of getting the gist of why this book is controversial. From the Jewish standpoint, they are waiting for the first coming and the Muslims have already had the second. The best policy is to be faithful just in case. It might not be the rapture but it might be a sudden car wreck which has the same result as a religious cleansing. Next week we will close the book on Revelations. “He has risen indeed.”

April 16, 2025 – Local Dirt

April 16, 2025 /

Local Dirt by Andrea Bemis is one of several books for the April Left Coast Culinary Book Club meeting. When I say one of several, what I mean is that sometimes we pick an author and it is Sophie’s Choice for what you want to read. Local Dirt is the second of a two book series. The first one is titled Dishing Up the Dirt.

She has a third book called Let Them Eat Dirt which seems to be recipes oriented towards children. I elected to purchase just one because I can always buy the others if it turns out that I like the author. I will say that I do like the author but it is unlikely that I will purchase any more books. There is only so many cookbooks I will use and reference and my shelves are quite full.

Why Bemis resonated with me is that she is from Oregon. If you are going to have a reference for eating locally and seasonally, it is nice to have guidance where there is a shared experience. I talked about this in my podcast last week but it is pretty hard to follow someone eating seasonally that lives in a climate that produces all year long.

That being said, my earliest growing season would be for me early May and would run until late October. So we are realistically talking six months for the most enthusiastic gardener. Our farmers market is just getting started for the year and it will be plant starts and Beanie Babies until about July. I jokingly told my wife that I will be making a dish with Beanie Babies since that is what seems to be abundant in this season.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Portland Saturday Market has vendors that have some year round produce using artificial methods. The rub there is that no longer becomes local to me. Bemis does reference preserving and using preserved foods. For me, that is going to be the only way to make it from a strict local standpoint.

The book is presented in a way that you would expect for seasonal eating. Hearty meals in the winter give way to heartier greens in the spring to fruity bounty in the summer and moving back into the richer foods of the fall. Because Bemis owns a vegetable farm (for retail sales) there are some interesting ingredient choices. For instance I would wager that 20% of the recipes have kohlrabi in it. I’ve never even seen that.

Despite my aforementioned grievances, I do find it inspirational to consider local and seasonal. I used to spend more effort in steering out diet that way but it has been difficult as the family grows. That comes with strong preferences and busy schedules. It also made me want to keep up with my gardening this year. I had moments where I was disappointed with what germinated. It made me want to give up and just get starts for everything.

The other thing that I appreciate about Bemis is that she recognizes that what is local to me may be exotic to you. Each recipe has some suggested substitutions. For example, this is Hazelnut (filbert) country. They are abundant here but if you live in almond country, use those instead. Think texture and purpose rather than specific ingredient.

Do I recommend this book? The short answer is no. But, if you are part of a Community Supported Agriculture share and don’t know how to use all of the ingredients then this might be the book for you. I think it would be a good reference for trying to keep up with all those weirdos like kohlrabi. I do also wonder what the difference is in book one versus the one that I purchased.

End Your Programming Routine: It is the mark of experience to have an opinion. When I was a kid and saw very few movies, the ones I did see I loved. This is no different. Our group is very eclectic and I appreciate others interest and ideas to get me to try new things and get out of my shell. This is a good book and I respect the author’s attempt, it just doesn’t hit my mark.