Such a waste

 Ted (UNIBOMBER) Kaczensky is dead.  He killed three people injuring 23 others by sending via US mail or hand delivering bombs.  He was on the run from the FBI for 20 years.  He was captured in 1996 after his manifesto was published by the Washington Post.  It was a 35,000 word document that spoke of how industrialization was destroying the world.  The prose was recognized by his brother who tipped off the FBI.  Kacsynski was found living off the grid in a cabin in Montana.  He was found dead on June 10 from apparent suicide.

He got the name UNIBOMBER, because he threatened universities and vowed to blow up airplanes.  He received a degree in mathematics from Harvard and then earned both an MA and PhD from the University of Michigan.  It is said he was a mathematics prodigy who in 1976, decided to leave teaching and become a recluse.  He received eight consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.  He was 81 at the time of his death.  

Now, I have only one comment to make about this man. What a waste.  This is all that needs to be said about him.  His attorneys at his trial wanted him to be declared mentally ill, but he refused.  So he got his sentence.  Life sentences aren't always what we believe them to be.  Such cases in prison often fear for their lives every day day they are incarcerated.  I am not a proponent of the death penalty, for often such cases have worse lives than dying. 

Even though he lived until 81, he had the worst possible life a person can have.  Suicide is a fitting end to his life.  I am sorry for the families of the victims and sorry for the pain and suffering of his victims, but suicide is a fitting end to his life.  Now, suicide is how it is reported he died, but he could have died in prison any number of ways.  But I'm willing to accept his death as reported.  

I am against the taking of ANY life by ANY means for ANY reason.  Often a guilty person can't live with their guilt.  I don't care what their sin is.  Guilt kills.  But then so does anger and fear.  I refuse to feel guilty and I refuse both anger and fear.  I can't imagine what those twenty years of being in hiding was like for him.  Loneliness kills just as easily as guilt, but often loneliness kills the soul.  Kaczynski was already among the walking dead before he was captured.  Guilty people are just this.  Even when one is guilty among others, it is what the guilty knows to be true.  

Ted Kaczynski is the perfect example of how guilt kills eventually.  There were people coming forward saying they were the UNIBOMBER.  Such people either want the publicity or they feel guilt for other sins they have committed.  I often have pitty for such people for a number of reasons.   

I smoke a pipe feeling guilt-free of my offenses, if this is what they are.  I just don't sit around and regret my past.  We can do nothing to change the past, but we can do what we can today to change tomorrow.  We learn from our mistakes and move forward.  My wife made an interesting comment yesterday in that we seem to enjoy the peace and calmness of living quiet lives.  And she's right.  We have lived full lives and while we're not waiting for the end we enjoy the peace of quiet living.  

My pipes make no noise.  And I love sitting on the lanai, smoking my pipe, as I am smoking my Sherlock Holmes pipe this morning, and watching the boats go by.  Sometimes the captain or passengers will wave to us as they go slowly by and we wave back.  Because they move so slowly, the boats don't make much noise.  We are thinking our next place should be on the water.  They don't call them pleasure boats for nothing.  One had a for sale sign on it and my wife jokingly said we could buy that boat.   At least I think she was joking.  I jokingly said, "Nah.  I don't want to make him happy."  Thank you for your time and Peace to each of one of you.

Dave