Crime Spree

I recently heard Ethan Orr (Executive Director For Linkages, here in Tucson) point out the following:
Statistically, most crime is committed by a certain demographic, the 16-24 year old male group.

Local Law Enforcement officials have touted a drop in crime over the past few years. This drop in crime also happens to coincide with a drop in males age 16-24 in our community.

In the next several years, there will be a spike in males age 16-24. Will crime spike as well?

Our Sheriff has pointed out how much lower the crime rate is in the unincorporated areas of the County than it is in the City. While I appreciate the efforts of all the Deputies, I wonder if the demographics reflect a lower rate of males age 16-24 in the County than in the City limits.

Expelled on Video Now

Now you can see the video

I emailed KVOA and they put the video up for the thing about our unit. It looks like you can't embed it, so follow the link and click on the video. It makes us look cool. You can also listen to the 911 call.

Here is the link.

My Dad would have liked this place

We took the Drive (about a two hour one) to Ft. Bowie yesterday. It is 1.5 mile hike to the fort from the trail head, so it was a good start of the hiking season for our crew.

Along the way, there are signposts and sites for some of the history that occurred here, including:
the spot where Cochise was captured by and escaped from U.S. troops and the Bascom Affair begun, a Butterfield Stage post, an old miner's cabin, the post cemetery, which, among others, holds the remains of medal of honor winner O.O. Spence, a mock-up of an Apache wikiup, info about the doings of Geronimo in the area, and Apache Springs where California troopers on the way to New Mexico during the Civil War were attacked by Apaches.

We also saw and held a couple of Great Horned Lizard, one of which is blurrily pictured above, saw a dead snake and plenty of wasps, bees and grasshoppers.

But, what everyone, myself included, probably enjoyed the most was blowing the bugle at the visitor center.

Another news article

Well, it was supposed to have video, since it was a tv broadcast, but it doesn't. Click on the picture for the latest news item about our unit.

(the picture is the one from the KVOA website. It shows a couple of our guys at the range.)

Abandon All Hope......

I have recently been studying Dante's Inferno. I previously had what I think are fairly common stereotypes of the work. I thought it was primarily weird images of where different types of sinners spent their time in hell, according to Dante's ideas of justice and punishment. I found something a bit more interesting and engaging.

Dante's journey is an allegory of what unrepentant sin does to a person, to society in general and to the universal Church. He draws heavily on characters from his own time, biblical references and mythological stories, all things people of his time (circa 1300) were familiar with.

Even tho some of the character references are dated, it is easy to recognize their flaws in our own lives. One thing that struck me was the fact that most all of the people in hell passed off responsibility for whatever they had done wrong. It was always the fault of circumstances, other people or other outside influences that they behaved the way they did. A very contemporary problem.

But, for those that do want to see the weird ideas of who is in which level of hell and why, here is a flash site with an overview of each level.

And here is a new movie about the story.

With an Eye to the Future

And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. - Zechariah 14:16

Yesterday, we had our lunch under the Sukkah(pronunciation is like soo-kuh, not sucka, as in "I'm gonna get you sucka"). A Sukkah is a temporary shelter that was used during the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. Sukkot is the holiday that God instructed the Israelites to observe to remember the forty years of wandering in the desert after Moses led them out of Egypt.

Sukkot reminds us of both God's provision during the wandering and how man's sinfulness led to the wandering in the first place. According to Zechariah, all the nations that opposed Israel will celebrate this holiday every year in the future.

So it doesn't start until Tuesday, but at the new building they put one up this weekend so everyone could share a meal in the sukkah, since most have jobs and such during the week.

We also built a sukkah for our tortoise. Well, a den, kind of like a hobbit hole. Apparently, they need one to hibernate in the winter.