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1:06 am EST 36°F (2°C) in Marietta, GA
Calendar of Updates | First, two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued its final ruling on the time-zone situation in Indiana that had been brewing for some time. A total of eight counties that had formerly been in the Eastern Time Zone — Pulaski and Starke counties in northwest Indiana, and Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Perry, and Pike counties in the southwestern part of the state — are going to be moving to the Central Time Zone. This brings the number of Central Time counties in Indiana to 18; the other 74 counties remain on Eastern Time. Additionally, a state law passed last spring mandates the full statewide observance of Daylight Saving Time beginning this April. The net effect of all of these changes is that come April, 74 counties will observe Eastern Daylight Time and 18 will observe Central Daylight Time; there will be no more having to remember what effectively amounted to three different summer time standards for different parts of the state. I do have one problem with what has come out of this: not enough counties, frankly, went on Central Time. Using my visited-counties map of Indiana from Mob-rule.com, I created the below graphic to illustrate my point: 
(If a county is shaded in dark red, it means I have been to that county; you can ignore that, though.) The new time-zone boundary is the blue line; you can see how it goes all over the place, following the Illinois border for a long distance. My recommendation as to where the line should have been put is the bright-green line; I would put another 16 counties in Central Time — 14 of them for geographical reasons, and two (Marshall and St. Joseph) because St. Joseph County officials specifically asked to be put in the Central Time Zone. If my recommendation were to be followed, three major cities would be moved to Central Time: South Bend (St. Joseph County), Lafayette/West Lafayette (Tippecanoe Co), and Terre Haute (Vigo Co). Meanwhile, Indianapolis (Marion Co), Fort Wayne (Allen Co), Elkhart (duh!), Bloomington (Monroe Co), Kokomo (Howard Co), and Muncie (Delaware Co) would be the largest cities that would remain in the Eastern Time Zone. It makes no sense to have two small areas in the corners of Indiana on Central Time without adding Benton, Clay, Fountain, Greene, Montgomery, Owen, Parke, Putnam, Sullivan, Tippecanoe, Vermillion, Vigo, Warren, and White counties to the Central Time Zone — particularly now that all of Indiana is going to be observing Daylight Saving Time. Come mid- and late October, people with school-age children in the counties that border Illinois are going to be sorry they didn’t demand to be put in Central Time; it will still be completely dark in Terre Haute at 7:40 am EDT, and the sun won’t rise until 8:15 am EDT! Most kids have to wait for a bus long before 7:40, which means that in Terre Haute in mid- to late October, they will be doing so in complete darkness. Instead of having the sun set at 6:50 pm EDT in late October, Terre Haute should be on Central Time, and have sunrise around 7:15 am CDT and sunset around 5:50 pm CDT at that time of year. Really, pretty much all of Indiana should be on Central Time, but I drew my suggested line where I did mostly because it is very neat in a geographical sense (excepting, of course, around St. Joseph and Marshall, to honor St. Joseph County’s request). New topics, two at once: as you no doubt have heard, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., died yesterday at age 78. This was probably God’s response to the Senate’s confirmation of Supreme Injustice Samuel Alito, who is going to do his damnedest to roll back or eliminate many of the great advances in civil rights won by Dr. King and upheld so tirelessly by his wife — the Lord knew that Mrs. King couldn’t bear the thought of activist judge Alito undoing her husband’s work, were she ever to regain full functioning and consciousness after her recent stroke, and He took mercy on her soul. That said, here is a list of 19 individuals who deserve to be executed for treason against the Constitution of the United States of America:
These 19 “Democratic” Senators had the chance to prevent the ascension of a Reich-wing ideologue to the Supreme Court, yet they ignored their oath to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution. These enablers of treason are morally just as guilty as those who actually commit the treasonous acts, and must be executed for their part in facilitating said treason — it is that simple. Death to you — all 19 of you. I now move on to another topic, which came up when I was using the restroom at one of my company’s terminals on Monday evening. A couple of other drivers in the combined toilet/shower facility began chit-chatting with each other while I was in there; basically, it started with fairly typical “how are you?”s between the two men. One of them, who was obviously African-American, responded with something to the effect of, “I’m doing great! Christ’s in me — has been for eight years now!” The other driver, a white man who appeared to be using the sink to shave, apparently didn’t catch what had just been said, and replied, “What’s been eight years?” “Since I got saved — since I found Christ Jesus,” came the reply. The white man tried to crack a joke: “Uh, I think he left me behind,” to which the African-American man gave this telling reply: “That means you don’t want Him!” The African-American man’s final statement there is yet more proof of the “us vs. them” mentality that predominates in the thought patterns of so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’.” People who make such a big deal of their “Christianity” like that man did apparently have to keep reminding even themselves of said “Christianity” with “testimonials” such as what went on in that restroom, since they certainly aren’t putting any effort into actually behaving in a Christ-like manner. What that man was saying, in effect, was that he feels he is better than the man who “didn’t want Christ.” The truth is, his life has no value at all to him, and he needs to hide that fact by putting on this showy “Christianity” to feel good about himself. Let us remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:1: “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” This African-American man from my company’s terminal on Monday night would do well to remember these words of Jesus, and actually live according to the example of Christ instead of using a false form of “Christianity” as a rhetorical weapon against other people and a shield for his fragile ego. Let me repeat what I said in my essay “Christianity and Homosexuality: More Compatible Than You Think”: “Being a Christian is a state of the heart” — this means it is not divisive words out of the mouth, but rather actions that serve the greater good of all of God’s children, especially those who, for whatever reason, feel distanced from Christ. I’m waiting on another driver to meet me with a load coming up out of Florida; he apparently has some mechanical issues he needs to get fixed, so I will be taking his load to Cincinnati. After that, I should be home next week. |
