Storming The Castle

 As I recover from surgery , and actually looked death in the face for a few moments and discovered such things as I had a silent heart attack and did not know it. I have been doing some personal rehab like getting back in shape by walking and chewing alot of nicorette gum and using electronic cigarettes. It has been a rather long process but getting better. I now have some of my voice back which has been nice. But on my walks around local neighborhoods and the beach I have been doing some thinking. My wife Beth who enjoys correcting me, likes to tell me that when I use the expression that the Barbarians are at the gate I am wrong. She tells that the barbarians run the castle .....we are ones storming the gate. She is correct on many issues and she is probably on this one as well. The forces of stupidity and brute force and hate often hold the high ground bolstered by such people as Ayn Rand. Their weapons are such items as gerrymandered Congressional districts and large amounts of cash and the ever present lobbyist with fists full of influence. Then there are  those that wish for a kinder and gentler America as former President Bush once put it. Ones that hold education and science and basic human decency in high regard.  Those that remember the slogan {peace & love}. How quaint of us. But as John Lennon once said peace and love are internal. You know there are many people that still look to improve what we see or feel in the reverence within us.  Sometimes we do take our battering ram and crash the gate or take the high ground. Sometimes by even doing simple things like putting a couple of bucks in the Salvation Army kettle those that hold the castle are set back or made less comfortable by the presence of those outside their expensive well guarded gates. So with the realization at hand I move on to what time I have left and who knows may upon occasion grab the battering ram with a few others with names Ron and Robin and John , Sandra , Beth , Kendall , etc and hit against that gate a couple more times.