With the weather getting nicer, a lot of motorcyclists are dusting off their motorcycles and performing their routine spring tune up. One very important area to check is your brakes. Otherwise it will be very difficult to stop by just dragging your feet going 50 mph.

I will mainly focus this article on replacing the rear brake pads. This job is very simple, and takes less then a half hour. Even a government employee could do it.

1] For this step you will use a flat tip screwdriver between the pad, and rotor. Gently pry the pad outward to push the piston back in the caliper.

2] Find and remove the retaining clip on the pin. Remove clip.

3] Using a small punch drive the pin half way out. You will want to leave it so that it holds the inboard pad in place.

4] Remove, and replace the outboard pad. Make sure that it is seated in the caliper. Slide your punch in the hole so that the pad stays in place.

5] Pull pin the rest of the way out, and replace the inboard pad.

6] Re install the pin through both pads. I use a long extension, and go through the wheel to knock the pin in completely.

7] Finally, reinstall the retaining clip.

Now for the helpful hints.

First only replace one pad at a time. If you remove both pads at the same time the anti rattle shim will fall out, and you will have to remove the wheel to get it back in place
Do not attempt to remove the caliper. All you will get for your trouble is heart ache
Once you are done follow this pad break in procedure to avoid noise, and premature wear
Get to 30 MPH, and slowly apply rear brake till a complete stop. Count to 30 and do it again. You are trying to stop without heating up the pads: so go easy. Repeat this procedure at least 10 times. 20 is better.

Contributing author to Cycle Solutions
http://www.cyclesolutions.net

and Kingpin Cruisers
http://www.kingpincruisers.net

If you’ve reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you’re ready to learn about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they’re eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive – or even free – method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website – for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company’s server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It’s a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company’s reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests. For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It’s a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

Surveillance equipment usually reminds one of “007″ but with the recent rise in crime rates it is more a necessity than just spy equipment. The surveillance equipment allows you to keep a watch even when you are not physically present at the scene. These are used to monitor the behavior of people (like stealing, harassing etc.) or procedures that do not act desirably. These appliances are thus concealed and obvious.

Since there is always a chance of improper activity in places like shopping malls, public schools, warehouses, parking garages, airport terminals and offices, these places are the ones mostly investing on surveillance equipments. A wide variety of such equipments are available in the market with highly developed technology.

Surveillance equipment mostly combines audio and video data transfer and may range from Internet based equipment and wiretapping phone to biometrics (advanced facial aspect identification computer software).

The recent development of ‘wireless’ technology has its own set of problems. The wireless devices transmit information either by radio waves or infrared light, which can be intercepted. Therefore, such devices are not reliable regarding the transfer of important information.

Surveillance equipment is used to record conversation or acts, but these are possible also on a normal recording machine. Some options are:

• Clandestine miniature devices linked to a small microphone, externally mounted to pick up the audio.

• Digital gadgets like minidisk recorders or the most recent diminutive camcorders are small enough to be carried easily, but produce very high quality recordings.

• The common ones encountered at offices for monitoring staff are usually perched from a ceiling.

• The most advanced ultra-directional microphones, or parabolic microphones can be used to overhear conversations from a hundred meters away or more.

• Extreme clarity is possible only via a laser microphone, which are again, expensive and highly technical to operate.

• Since mobile phones nowadays can record both audio and video, therefore they can be used as surveillance equipments as well.

Surveillance equipments normally emit radio waves, however the more sophisticated ones are not dependant on Radio Waves and are extremely hard to detect. The only way to detect them is by using sensitive gear to seek out magnetic fields, or the common electrical ‘noise’. Another way would be to use sensitive infrared cameras for identifying waste heat of a Surveillance equipment.

Gone are the days of the private eye, now you can get information yourself via these fascinating surveillance equipments. Finally, the best benefit these devices afford is that they are successful in doing away with the incentive to commit crime. Since a person’s inclination to commit crime is decreased once he/she is aware that someone is there to keep an eye on him/her.

John Dougherty publisheds tech articles from his site at surveillance.metro-max.info

Are you having megapixel envy each time you walk by the camera section of your favorite electronics store? So do I. But, do we really need more and more pixels? The answer depends on what we intend to do with the images.
First, a quick definition of megapixel:

Megapixel is a technical term for “million pixels”, where a single pixel is the smallest unit of color that a camera’s sensor is able to capture. The more pixels in the sensor, the sharper the image a camera can reproduce. Note that some camera specifications abbreviate megapixel as “MP”.

Determine Image Use

Now then, how many of those pixels do we need? The first task in answering this question is to determine how we intend to use the images. We are mainly concerned about uses that require a high resolution digital photo. Putting a photo on the computer’s screen requires a low resolution image, so any camera is sufficient, if this is our only intention.
The most common need for high resolution photos is to print or develop pictures. Let us then focus on putting pictures on paper to answer our megapixel question.

Determine Largest Print Size

The second task is to determine the largest print size we would like of our photo. Sure, it would look cool to have poster-size images all over the house of our sweetheart, but are we really going to go through that expense? I assume for most of us, poster size prints fall into the “rarely or never” category.
Having ruled out extreme sizes, we have the three most common photo sizes to consider. According to online photo labs, the following minimum resolutions are sufficient to produce high quality prints:

• 4 x 6″: 640 x 480 pixels (0.3 megapixels)
• 5 x 7″: 1024 x 768 pixels (0.8 megapixels)
• 8 x 10″: 1536 x 1024 pixels (1.6 megapixels)

I know from personal experience that my 3 megapixel camera is as low as I want to go for an 8 x 10″ print; any less would start showing pixilation at close examination. Based on this experience, I suggest doubling the above megapixel recommendations when buying a camera.
This exercise has taught us that if we only want 4 x 6″ prints, then 0.6 megapixels are sufficient. Most digital cameras start at 2 megapixels, which is sufficient to produce quality prints up to 5 x 7″.

Focus On Other Camera Features

Now that we know the minimum megapixel requirements for our needs, we are free to focus on other important features of the camera such as lens quality, color reproduction, optical zoom, body size, etc.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Kerekes is an amateur photographer and maintains the Flying Sam Digital Photo Guide (http://FlyingSamPhoto.com) web site to help others find fun and unique digital photo finishing products and services.

A good logo design is highly instrumental in establishing a business brand and creating a long lasting impression among its customers. It should be able to create a powerful impact on the viewers and successfully exude the nature and attitude of a business. Ideally, a company logo design should be able to communicate your company ethos, principles, mission and the nature of product/service offered, to the viewers.

A professional logo design would establish a professional image of your company and strengthen your brand. Actually, in most cases the consumer gets the first impression about the company through your logo. Your business logo should build a brand that is strong enough to give your consumer a visual imagery of your company. People should be able to identify your company on sight of your logo.

Trend shows, most of the good logos are simple and often text based. Think of the IBM, SONY or Microsoft logo, even if you view a part of it you will be able to recognize the company. It is extremely essential for a logo to be easy for people to remember.

This principle of simplicity applies n most cases, however, we often see exceptions in Government Organizations, Hotels and Luxury resorts etc because they want to put up a classical exclusive image. This again brings us to a very important point that should be considered for a good logo design — the nature of business.

While simplicity can be the basic principle for any logo design, the designs might vary widely depending on the nature of business. For example, a financial institution might like to use a bold face font to express solidarity and stableness where as a courier service or transport company might prefer italicized fonts to express the speed and movement involved in their business.

In addition, while specifying the design requirements for your logo you should consider the fact that you will probably have to use your logo on your fax cover and other places where it will be in black and white. You should ensure that your logo looks equally good and attractive in black and white.

I would also suggest avoiding a very trendy look for your logo if you are planning for a long-term business because what we concern “modern” today might be backdated tomorrow. It is very important that your logo designer knows how to maintain this balance.

While any professional logo designer should be able to create a Custom Logo Design once you have provided them with your specifications, you should be careful to select an experienced designing company and not land up with some single designer start up venture.

Last but not the least important factor is price. You are paying for your logo – something that is going to be used to establish your brand and represent your business for years, so you should be ready to pay a decent amount while it is also not necessary to pay some big amount like $350 for a logo. With the online logo design firms coming into business, now you have a wide choice of price for your logos and it should not be difficult to find a logo designer that fits your budget. Some logo design sites would even allow you to quote your own price for your logo.

If you have still not got a logo for your business or are not happy with your existing logo, it’s time you get your new logo. Wish you lucked with your logo hunt.

Ray Smith is a marketing Expert with years of experience in different industries and specialized knowledge on branding and Internet marketing.
Custom Logo Design

House of the Goblin
[Part Two of Three]

Here is where, where the air is still

And the mountains shadows disappear!
Here is where, unnumbered spirits dwell

Where harp and memory expire…

Where the rainbowleaps, from its

Storeroom-keep, and cries;
And the sands along the oceans coast

Echo then die…as in sleep…;

And where enchantment turns into ghouls!…

Who be these spirits, which charm and gleam?

A fabric from the “Inferno,” I think
Or a symbolic language in a forgotten dream

Yes! We are all exiled from beauty…

Yes, we are exiled from beauty unseen…

Where fragile-wings and tenderness
Meet; meet with the seraphim.

Yet we must lock the keep…

So no man may walk among our sleep

Yes, yes, oh yes, we all live
We all live, do we not, you and I,

In the House of the Goblin!…

Muffled in a black lily; smiling, smiling

To find a way outout, out;
Sorceress posing as Almighty God…

‘Thou art, as a violent worm!’

(I am more noun than verb, yet the
verbs are winning, with the worms.)

Notes: Part II, #753 7/8/05 “In doing this poem, images seem to flash through my mind, as if I found myself in a lockup on planet earth.”

Poetry In General by dlsiluk, “To achieve ones meaning in poetry, you may have to drop the musical ascent; or so I’ve often found myself doing; not sure if there is a right or wrong way in this. But what I do know is that, if I do not drop it, I can not become engulfed with the wholeness of the poem I want to produce. Yes, we have to fight against spirit and experience; and in order to win you must chew on whatever words fit.”

Poet/Author Dennis Siluk’s new book on poetry: “Spell of the Andes,” can be seen at http://www.abe.com or http://www.alibris.com

Scouring the web you are sure to find thousands of web sites and products that claim to be able to make you web site into a miracle success. Build it once, walk away, and reap the benefits for years. They are selling services such as redirected traffic, free banners, auto surfers, and site submitters. While they may help, obviously they are no panacea.

The true winners are the people that are able to get their web site listed in the top spots on the main search engines. Submitting is a simple process but does not guarantee that Google or anyone else will list you. You can increase your chances by building what is commonly called inbound links. I am not talking about those stupid pages full of thousands of links (a.k.a. link farms). Search engines are smarter then they used to be and some will actually penalize you for being a part of a link farm.

What search engines like to see is your link on another site that contains highly relevant content. Some people are able to achieve this be paying for links and advertising, but why pay when you can build these links for free. By writing articles and submitting them to free article sites, you are creating those inbound links that become gateways for search engines to find your site and build up your page rank.

When choosing those sites to submit to there are a couple things to consider.

– Does the site have a high PR?
– Does the site have high traffic?
– Will the site accept my article?

High PR may help you get listed in search engines. It may also help your own PR.

High traffic obviously may help get people to your site quicker and directly from another site. Not all high PR sites have high traffic.

Even though a site is new I would not write them off. New sites often are more likely to accept your articles in an effort to build up their own site. Today’s PR0 site could become tomorrow’s PR9.

George Hubka has a masters degree in software engineering has been building and running web sites for more than a decade. Visit www.AtTheBoard.com to get started published today.

Coming up on its eighth year, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is good get away for birders. Of course, a chance to visit Salt Lake City isn’t so bad either.

Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival

The Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is both a mouthful and a great event. Close to Salt Lake City, but actually centered in Farmington, Utah, the festival is put on by the Davis County Tourism agency and typically runs for five days in the last two weeks of May each year.

As with many birding festivals, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival offers workshops for kids and adults. Workshops include everything from building bird houses, birding for kids, and lectures on a variety of bird species with physical birds present.

Of course, field trips are the key to any bird watching festival and Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival doesn’t disappoint. Traditional sighting trips can be taken on land. The added bonus, however, is the fact birders can rent kayaks to float about the lake looking for new life birds.

Common Sightings

While each year will present variations, a birder can expect to see a variety of bird species at Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival. A variety of Heron, Pelican, Grebe and Cormorant species are plentiful. White-faced Ibis and Snowy Egrets are also often seen as are a variety of geese and ducks. A variety of falcons and hawks are surprisingly plentiful, but there is one prize sure to make it on you life list.

The rare American Bald Eagle lives in the area. Due to low population numbers, there is no guarantee you’ll see one, but at least four sightings occurred at the 2004 festival.

Whether you attend for the chance to see a bald eagle or the chance to meet other enthusiasts, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is a good time.

Rick Chapo is with www.nomadjournals.com/bird_watchers.cfm – makers of writing journals. Bird watching journals are great bird watching gifts for bird watching tours and vacations. Visit www.nomadjournaltrips.com for more bird watching articles.

This is story one out of 50 from my book, My Walk with the Lord, http://www.selahbooks.com/.

2 Kings 20.1 “In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.”

This is a short version…One Tuesday morning, I went to an 11 A.M. prayer meeting at a local church. Names on a list were called out; some were sick, some were in need of salvation. I recognized the name of the husband of one of the women attending the prayer meeting. He was a good man, attended church, but had never been born again. As his name was called out, the Lord spoke to me and said, “I want you to go see this man after this meeting is over.” The command was urgent, so as soon as the meeting was over, I drove the three miles to see him.

I knocked on his door, he came to the door, opened it and asked me, “What are you doing here?” I replied, “I came to pray for you.” He tried to change the subject. Suddenly, the anointing of the Lord came on me, and I looked directly in his eyes and said, “Get your affairs in order, you are about to die.” He looked at me in a shocked manner, and I said, “Now, let me pray for you.” He sat down in his easy chair, and I laid my hands on him and began to pray and asked the Lord to reveal his love to this man.

Immediately, Jesus came and His presence filled the place. The man was born again. I saw the tears flow and felt the blessed assurance. He told his family what had happened and testified to his spiritual rebirth.

Saturday night, four days after he was born again, he went home to be with the Lord.

Lord, I pray that whosoever reads these words would recognize the shortness of our life here on earth. They would understand the everlasting importance of being born again.

John 3.3 “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Irvin at iwcroga@aol.com

About the Author

author, preacher, retired military

Flashes of memory stream into my consciousness. They take me back thirty years plus. I was a boy then, a newcomer to a poor and tough neighborhood. My parents, of moderate means and daring to a fault, had decided to move there after my father had accepted an editing job in the federal government. They had taken a lease on a low-rent brick house, which was also run-down, covered in filth, and littered with trash. I do not mince my words: Previous tenants had been pigs that got along with bugs and rats.

“The house has potential,” my mother had said to reassure me, seeing that I was aghast at its sordid aspects. Its one redeeming feature, besides its solid construction, was a large woody front yard, neglected, allowed to become a large dumping ground, as weedy as it was woody, but potentially attractive and pleasant, to be sure.

My mother was a hard worker with a great deal of stamina, creativity, and tastefulness. She mastered the art of doing wonders with little money. After three months of intense labor – which for the first week involved a carpenter and two garbage collectors plus two dump trucks – the house was transfigured, quite presentable, even nice, much to my amazement. It now contrasted sharply, cuttingly, with the slums at the rear of the house and on the left of it. On the right was a school and at the front, across the street, was a nunnery on a large piece of land. My parents had conveniently focused their attention on these establishments, as if the good education and good disposition of their teachers and sisters could shield us from the evils of the slums.

Needless to say, they did not. Violence was rampant in this neck of the woods and I was elected punchbag with only one dissenting vote: mine! At the root of this violence was malevolence, which grows from resentment, after one has been subjected to mistreatment. As much as my family projected an image of distinction, the neighborhood boys were malevolent and violent toward me. To them this image of distinction was an act of humiliation; their feelings were hurt and it was natural for them to hurt me. Of course it is a lot worthier to elevate oneself than to abase someone else. It is also a lot harder, and nature spontaneously levels everything the easy way. Moral excellence relates to culture, is an acquired trait, by virtue of which a human is courageous and just, worthy of praise.

One winter evening, I was crossing the field next to the rink where I had played hockey, when a gang of hoodlums encircled me like a pack of wolves. There were six of them, one of whom – a weakling who always relied on others to feel powerful – lived three doors down, east of my house, across the back street. The leader stepped forward and turned around with a snicker. “Hey shithead, come and kiss my ass.” I was tempted to kick it, not kiss it. “No thanks. Please let me go; I don’t care for trouble.” As I was finishing my sentence, one of the boys lunged toward me from behind and shoved me forward. I dropped my hockey equipment and braced myself to fight and suffer. I was big for my age, but big is small when outnumbered by six to one.

Again the leader took the initiative; the fight was on. With several thrusts, punches, and kicks, I repelled my assailants momentarily, until I was knocked and wrestled to the ground. Fists and feet hit me everywhere, nonstop, from all directions. Suddenly I heard a menacing shout and everyone slipped in a last blow before fleeing. A brave and kind man had caught sight of their misdeed and chosen to intervene, armed with a hockey stick. I was hurt but saved.

A few days later, still aching all over, I saw the weakling, alone by his house – his hovel to be exact, which was covered with old imitation brick, torn in places, and infested with cockroaches, rats, and woodworms. His face was bruised and wet from weeping, as he screamed with rage, “Fucking bastard, fucking bitch, fucking life, fuck, fuck, fuck!” My anger was now tempered with compassion. I unclenched my fists, prompted by a desire to spare him. I could not demean myself to add pain to his pain, already so excessive that it overflowed in streams of tears and curses.

His father was an illiterate and idle drunkard who collected welfare and spent considerable time and money at the tavern. At home, slouching in an armchair, he forever watched TV and drank beer or liquor. When grossly intoxicated, he sometimes vomited before reaching the bathroom and, without cleaning up his mess, fell unconscious on his bed, the armchair, the floor, or wherever. He was also vulgar and brutal. He often battered his son and his wife, and heaped insults on them.

His wife was an abusive and sluggish woman who had grown obese from attempting to fill her inner void with chips, cookies, and pop. Day after day she wore the same tattered nightgown and constantly found reasons for bawling out her son and swiping him. She drove him insane, then used this insanity as another reason for persecuting him.

These two loathsome and pitiful parents rendered his life at home unbearable. He usually roamed the streets with fellow-sufferers from similar – miserable and violent – backgrounds. Together they ganged up and took their resentment out on other kids such as me. My aggressors, first, were victims.

My insight into the origin of violence came to me at that time and has never left me. I saw then and still see a victim in every aggressor. Some say there is such a thing as gratuitous violence, committed by individuals whose youth was favorable to all appearances. Violence for the sake of violence, an exercise in brutality at the expense of others, without provocation, past or present? I beg to differ.

Appearances are not a valid means of assessing someone’s youth, whose favorableness or unfavorableness is a subjective, not objective, matter. Circumstances have no value in themselves, but in relation to people who consider them favorably or not. Attitude is here the only relevant concept. Also, brutality cannot be exercised at the expense of others unless these others are viewed heartlessly as expendable. This heartlessness is greatly suspicious, unlikely to belong to someone who regards humans with favor, thanks to a feeling of solidarity, of mutual benefit.

In my opinion, aggressiveness is triggered by hostility, without which it is dormant: a mere potentiality incapable of harm. It may include an abnormal sensitivity or intellect that intensifies or alters someone’s perception of the environment. The fact remains hostility, as perceived by someone who feels painfully antagonized and proportionally victimized, is always a factor. Therefore, aggression cannot be dissociated from victimization, not only that of the victims but also that of the aggressors. These aggressors are victims of their sick minds or of the ill treatment they have endured. They deserve compassion, besides indignation.

They are liable to a punishment that ought to be effective and exemplary, not vengeful. Vengeance and violence are one and the same thing. Both are resentful and harmful. Both are reprehensible. The harm inflicted does not remedy the harm suffered; it simply compounds one harm with another, and invites yet another harm. It lengthens the chain of savagery from x (a frightening number of savage links) to x+1, potentially +2, +3, +4, etc., instead of breaking it and helping to free humanity from it. There is no worse slavery than savagery. The best course is to make every effort to get over a wrong and forgive it, while bringing the wrongdoer to justice.

In sum, justice should not serve to avenge people. It should serve to prevent crime and protect the public, by intimidating or incarcerating those who are a menace to others except under threat or behind bars. It should never push the severity of this mandate to the point of cruelty, in which case it would be a perversion of justice, an ominous sign of barbarity. On the contrary, it should be a jewel in the crown of civilization and foreshadow the coming of a better humanity, more consistent with its true nature and purpose – in a word, more humane.

The difference between severity and cruelty is radical yet subtle; it must be emphasized. Cruel law enforcers delight in the punishments they inflict and readily overstep the mark. They are vicious and blameworthy, like the criminals they punish. Law enforcers who are severe, but not cruel, administer punishments reluctantly or regard them as a necessary evil they would gladly forgo if they could. They deplore the criminal element in society and strive to neutralize it through intimidation, or incarceration as a last resort, and preferably through reformation, a fundamental change of the criminal mind for the better. Their ideal, as unattainable as it is elevated, is the supremacy of justice without the institution of justice: no threats, no prisons, only people who deeply understand and freely exercise the principle of justice.

Impossible as this supremacy is, it is usefully pursued. The institution of justice can become less and less necessary for the manifestation of justice, which can become more and more customary. This progress depends on the wisdom and willpower of its proponents who make it their duty to educate, assist, and encourage potential followers. It also presupposes that these potential followers take an active part in this endeavor. They cannot be actual followers unless they welcome this education, assistance, and encouragement, and display intelligence and determination of their own.

How much can we collectively be civilized – that is, mutually respectful and helpful, in the knowledge that this high goal can unite our wills toward a common good of colossal proportions? In other words, what is the ceiling of our possible civilization, which implies responsibility and solidarity, an elevation of life to love? Nobody knows the limit, so none should be set but the sky!

Generally, in a loving environment, human beings show humanity as naturally as fruit trees give fruit in the summer. Love is to these beings as sunshine is to these trees. It helps them grow into what they are meant to grow into (unless their nature is flawed from the start, which is an exception to the rule): beautiful and bountiful creations, as opposed to ugly and puny aberrations. Yet, beware of love; it can be possessive and manipulative, selfish and devilish! Yes, some angels have horns, unnoticeable at first sight under their pretty hair; their paradise is hell.

True love is in the image of God (by God I simply mean the fundamental cause of everything. It brings us into existence and, within the limits of its might, supports us in our quest for fulfillment). It is a desire to nurture, not to capture. Under its divine rule, one always has the other’s best interests at heart. No one, however, should be supportive to the point of being an accomplice in someone’s oppressive or destructive acts of egocentricity, folly, or injustice. These evils should not be loved and served; they should be hated and combated.

Hate is legitimate toward them, whereas the people who embody them are worthy of love because they exceed them by their ability to do good. They are indeed greater than the sum of their evil ways; they include the power to improve them. Therefore hate is directed at these ways, and love at this power: It promotes the people’s ability to do good. What if a person who is oppressively or destructively egocentric, foolish, or unjust never responds to this love? In that case it is lost and the life of this person shamefully amounts to a waste of soul.

By a stroke of luck, my parents were bright and warm people who helped me blossom into a joyful and respectful individual. Their love was true and so was the love of many others who took part in my life. I was also lucky enough to be a good seed. I was a strong and healthy boy, extremely lively and moderately clever, cheery and gentle-natured, though impatient and self-assertive. In my eyes, until my family moved to the poor and tough neighborhood, civility was the norm among the members of society; it made sense. Barbarity, on the other hand, was a stupefying rarity. The abused weakling gave me an understanding of barbarity – which was common in this neighborhood – and replaced my stupefaction with commiseration.

Laurent Grenier’s career as a writer and philosopher spans over twenty years. During this time he has broadened and deepened his worldview, through much reflection and study, and in the end has crafted A REASON FOR LIVING, his best work to date.

Official web site: laurentgrenier.com/ARFL.html