Almost buried in the coverage of the atrocity committed in Newtown, Connecticut, was another story of an act of “rage”: An attack on three elderly Mennonite ladies in nearby Clay, Pennsylvania. A young man posing as an insurance salesman gained admission to the residence occupied by three sisters who ranged in age from 84 to 90. Once inside, he donned a mask, and assaulted the ladies with a stun gun; he also punched, slapped and kicked them over a two-hour period. During his rampage he indicated that he had been a Mennonite, although people who knew him said that he never was a member of that faith. He also read from the Bible, and vandalized the one belonging to the ladies. Finally he spread a variety of household chemicals – bleach, vinegar, pesticides, etc. - throughout the house, and left the ladies tied up. Had it not been for a relative who stopped in four hours later, they might ...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.