There is good and bad in this world. There are good people and bad people and the seething mass of humanity mixes the two factions together in such a way that collisions occur. When these 'collisions' happen, it's usually the weak, the uneducated, the poor or the mentally ill who suffer for it. Bullies come in lots of forms. Some bullies wear suits and ties and the latest $800 shoes from Italy. Some bullies wear blue jeans, T-shirts and have long, short, slicked-back, uncombed, well-coifed hairdos.

To recognize a bully can be a dangerous exercise unless one is able to make oneself either invisible or so visible that too much light shines upon one for the bad to attack. The bad prefer the dark, the shadows, the alleyways and country roads where weeds grow tall and sick fantasies are given free rein to flourish.

}:( It's a deadly world for many, especially for those who seem defenseless. It seems to me that many men who hold high office or are given special powers attributed by their jobs, e.g., police officers, politicians, corporate leaders, gangsters, psychopaths and well-groomed rich egoists.

For the police to shoot an unarmed man 41 times and have no disciplinary action taken against those who killed is not justice – it's sanctioned murder and, in my opinion, murder for sport.

So how does a philosopher or a minister or a priest, a father or mother or someone seeking the "light" of life explain the cruelty that is allowed to continue to a child? From the open prairies to the mountains to the seas, to the little dying towns in the hinterlands and the metropolises nestled around the edges of the continent's borders, pockets of crazies thrash and crash their ways through other peoples' lives with seeming impunity.

What can one say but life is unfair and bad things happen to good people, and the usual litany of cliches that leave one feeling bewildered and befuddled.

Well, I must run to Hastings to purchase a copy of "Beowulf," the cliff notes, of course, for D's teenage daughter. So walk softly and carry a .357 magnum, if you must. Or better yet, learn to recognize trouble before it nears you and avoid it like the plague, for plague it is!

I bid you farewell.