Something missing
For the past 30-plus years our citizens have increasingly valued wealth and gold. This is somewhat surprising as you would think that today food, water and renewable resources would be more valued when it comes to material things.
In this present era of greed and power, gold still holds the place that folks most pay attention to, and its current worth. The real truth is that another thing has become far more valuable due to the obvious dwindling use of it. That fact has and is causing our level of daily living standards to take a nose dive. It has caused our once United States to be broken up into many different self-centered faction groups who no longer pull together to solve major problems, even down to the smallest communities we live in.
The thing that is far, far more valuable than gold is TRUTH! It was once strongly held to be the measure of a person’s worth, a businesses worth, and most of all a nation’s worth. Sadly, that is no longer TRUE! We have gradually, if unwittingly, accepted non-factual information as to the worth of statements, products, and worse of all, whether it matters if we are honorable citizens of this nation or the world as a whole.
This fact is more dangerous to our everyday lives than ISIS, or weapons of mass destruction, or any other threat to mankind and we would be wise to understand and work on changing that.
Jim Hall, Clearlake Oaks
The terror “threat”
I don’t understand why so many people in the U.S. are worried about Muslim terrorists.
Consider the headline report in the recent Record-Bee stating that 19 people died in Lake County traffic accidents last year. Given the population of the city of San Bernardino, they would have to have suffered 63 deaths last year to match the Lake County rate. The terrorist attack in San Bernardino only resulted in 14 deaths. This is also the first terrorist attack for this city while traffic deaths continue year after year. I am surprised that they aren’t more afraid of getting into their cars than preventing immigrants from coming into the country.
Just over 10 years the residents are 45 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than by a terrorist attack. And what kind of punishment are we handing out to the driver whom is exceeding the speed limit and causes a death? Maybe a manslaughter charge and 2-3 years in prison even though they knowingly exceeded the speed limit and knew how dangerous that is. But, of course, they were a good driver and could safely travel at an unsafe speed. Just ask them.
Being killed by a terrorist? Inconsequential. Being killed in a traffic accident? You should reconsider violating the traffic laws.
Kevin Bracken, Kelseyville
Word and thought
Whether or not language and thought are two parts of the same function is a very old and still prevalent point of contention; the older contenders believing language is part of thought.
I too, on reaching middle age, decided language was part of thought. My opinion when I was young, that language and thought are two entirely different functions, was based on my deference to thought’s pursuit of and association with truth and honesty, as opposed to the indiscriminate associations of language.
But now, well-pickled in worldly experience, I feel the vulgarity is there and must be acknowledged; and language, I now think, corresponds to thought as a container corresponds to its contents. Some containers carry articles whose qualities and value warrant special form and selective strengthening, as it might be a violin; but, while this makes the containers specific in relation to the violin, as a horse’s saddle might especially fit a specific horse, this specification does not make the saddle part of the horse, nor the container part of the violin.
By the same reasoning the word is not part of the thought it expresses, just as ore is not part of the gold it yields. Further, “thought” contained in the word “yes” can be expressed by nodding the head. This changes the container of the thought, but it does not change the thought. I make, at last, thought and language to be entirely different entities.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
