1. Engage brain before operating mouth for speaking or hand for writing. Generally good advice for most any other activity also. Of course there are other versions which convey the same meaning, like "think first", "look before you leap" and others which have, long ago, escaped my mind. It's the original prime directive of life.
     Engage.

     2. Snipes, snoops, sneaks and spooks. Descriptive names of the agents who work for one of those alphabetic government agencies which has "intelligence" or "security" or "investigation" connected with it.
     G-person to use the currently, politically correct terminology.
     The snipes just wander around in plain sight, waiting and watching for some victim of opportunity to cross their path. Snipes are harmless, as long as you "stay out of the way" to quote the Major.
     The snoops however do just that. They snoop through mail and trash and listen on the phone. They make it their business to be the nosy busy-body in everyone's life. Snoops are mostly harmless.
     The sneaks are tricksters, they intercept mail and phone calls, only allowing through what they think is in their agency's best interest. It's a game for them to control other people's lives. Obviously they are harmful since they make it their business to get in your life's way.
     The spooks, well they are just down right spooky. They do all that the former three do plus pretty much anything else they feel like doing. They out sneak the sneakers, out snoop the snoopers and out snipe the snipers. Harmful for sure.
     Tragically harmful the whole lot. So beware, be forewarned, and take care.

     3. There are these images formed within these old clusters of gray neurons and synapses.
     Some where out there in the local neighborhood of stars, there's a community council meeting. The humans of Earth are the topic of discussion. "They're a threat to our peace," says the rep of one race. "Not as long as they stay on their side of tracks," retorts the rep of another race. "We know they will eventually leave their planet. We must make a pre-emptive strike," observes a third. "That's doubtful, all they've ever done is fight among themselves. It requires a whole civilization to do space travel. Leave them to their own fate," replies some weird alien who seems to be on the human's side. Their debate continues and maybe that's the only real hope.
     This other image is much simpler. Some where out there in the neighborhood of stars, there's a race of beings who are planning to do, to all humans, all the despicable, horrific, tragic deeds humans have done to each other. Then they will do some things which even the humans have been afraid of doing.
     Picture this. God is sitting at the desk in the office from which he runs the universe. On the desk is a computer terminal. He is reviewing the history of humans on Earth and He is not smiling. His pointing finger is slowly moving toward the "Delete Species" key. He did it once before and He will do it again.

     4. What's the greatest threat to civilization? Buzzz, wrong, you loose. The news media. They are the new self- righteous group who purport themselves to be the defenders of free information.
     "Freedom of the press" another one of those once meaningful battle crys for a once noble cause, but which has now been twisted, distorted and otherwise corrupted into an empty cliche'. It is ill used to print and say anything they please.
     On some monolith of a mountain there were simple signs posted on the trees beside the trail. "The news media deceives us", "News media, prophets of gloom and doom", "Exploiters of tragedy", "Descent into deep, dark depression", "Stop! Turn them off. Cancel them out", "Pause and lift up your eyes unto the hills and mountains from whence cometh strength." The trail ended at the top of the mountain's granite face and from which could be seen the water basins, hills and mountains.
     Such is what one other thought of the news media.
     The news media. They invade people's lives at the most private moments of grief. They seek out murders, killings and other connections with death. They pimp sex scandals like pimps do their hookers. They insert expletives to hype the news stories faster than tricky Dick deleted them from recording tape. They select what is, what is not and how it is reported. They are their own biased censors. They treat general mayhem and chaos and individual misfortune as commodities to peddle before the public. They do all the former and more while hiding behind "freedom of the press."
     There's not an honorable journalist left in the profession. Writings and readings the likes of Edward R Murrel, Hughes Rudd, Chet Huntley will never grace newsprint or airwaves again.
     However there may be an exception or two on some wholesome news network on a broadcasting company during the wee hours of the night.
     {Post thought. The reason for the council meeting in three above is because the participants have only the news media view of the human condition to judge.}

     5. Most despised cliche' #666, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
     It's usually quoted by some snipe, snoop, sneak or spook official when they've made a mistake and don't really want to admit that their agency is capable of making mistakes.
     It means some poor bloke has innocently done some harmless deed which has been deemed illegal even though said deed has little to do with the intent and/or spirit of the law/rule/regulation. Written into the details of most any specific law, is the implication of "presumed guilty till proven otherwise."
     Of course there are more subtle meanings. One of which is that the person doing the quoting implies they can recite the complete text of every federal, state, county, national and international legal and regulation code.
     Another one, which happens to be a silver, lined cloud thing, is that all citizens are truly knowledgeable of the the law and there's really no need for any of these lawyers who use the incomprehensible detail of law to prey upon the populous.
     "Just plain ignorance is no excuse to prosecute, or is it persecute, the citizenry over meaningless details."

     6. Most favored quote #9, "Reason obeys itself, ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."
     Someone else's thought, not mine. Occasionally an effort is made to determine who originated this order of words, but without success. Which may mean the thought is mine, although it's doubtful.
     "Reason," implement the original prime directive and engage brain, think. "Obeys," follow the path of thoughts into action, do. "Itself," exclude the irrational observations of others, banish.
     Think and do for yourself and you will banish the ignorance which is sustained by the news media and used by the snipes, sneaks, snoops and spooks to dictate submission of the citizenry.

     7. Most pre-eminent utterance #3, "A man can enlarge the principles which he follows, those principles do not enlarge the man."[3]
     Some twenty-five centuries ago in the Far East cradle of human thought, the master spoke words of wisdom which have seldom been surpassed.
     The utterance was aimed at those who thought better of themselves, and believed others thought the same, because they lived by principles. The master believed the reverse to be true, principles are good because people lived by them.
     Conversely, man can, and more offer does, decrease the principles by which he claims to live but doesn't.
     But alias, these words are only a truism.
     Principles, the master does not say good or bad though most scholars assume he meant honorable ones, are generally as flawed as the character of the practitioner.
     "All [people] are created equal," is one of the better principles to live by. Written by a people who owned other humans as property; practiced by a succession of people who decimated a native people.
     "National sovereignty," is another way of saying that other prime directive of "non-interference." Loosely translated it means national leaders can and have done anything they want with their own people as long as it's done within political borders. Examples of good principle practiced by bad people in human history too numerous to even begin to list.
     "Live and let live," 1960's counterculture version of "Thou shall not kill" from circa 1400 bce. When has either principle been enlarged by lives of humans?
     "Let he whose ancestry is without sin cast the first stone," would make little difference as a good principle to live by. If all people lived in peace and harmony, there's always a few who will agitate memories of whose 4th great- grandparents did what to someone else's ancestor.
     Fersure, they're those who are still bitter toward Eve and Adam for letting themselves be tricked and getting themselves and all humans kicked out of Eden.

     8. Humans have always believed what they want to believe; either that or what they've been trained and told to believe. It is upon this that the news media, politicians, and organizations have preyed to obtain their own personal goals.
     Bartolome' de Las Casas, Roman Catholic bishop of Chiapas, proposed in 1509 that each Spanish settler should bring a certain number of Negro slaves to the New World. So the populous heard and so they believed. It took more than three centuries for most people to figure out that was a bad idea. The indentured servants sent to colonize far corners of the world knew it was a bad idea from the beginning.
     Persecution of an ethnic, religious or political group has always been and is now a belief which is easily believed by those doing the persecuting. It's always been wrong, people have always known it to be wrong, yet humans have always persecuted others because that's what they've been trained to believe. Examples from history too numerous to list, again.
     Even when a belief is proved false or faulty, the believers resort to post-mortem justication of their beliefs. The desire to never be wrong causes them to never be right.

     9. Judgment Day is comming, not. It has been and is imminent upon all for all times. It is punishment and reward which is deferred till death or as most believe till some special time when all of humanity is judged.
     Neither the least of bad deeds nor the lack of good reaction to bad deeds has escaped notice of the Judge.
     Nor should have any people allow the repulsive actions of others cause them to hide behind "national sovereignity" and "isolationism." If discipline and reward immediately trailed action and reaction history would have unfolded for the better.
     Think of any vicious leader and their evil exploits. Then imagine swift and decisive opposition at the first signs of the disturbance of peace.
     Think of any unscrupulous politician, usually a reduntant term, and their ill use of public trust. Then imagine banishment from all of society.
     If the Judge sentenced as soon as the deed was done, the news media would not exploit the deaths of children least they suffer a similar fate. Camera operators would be less quick to invade a person's private grief. Prosecutors would be more sure of an accused's guilt least they be wrongly accused themselves.
     Me thinks the Judge has taken notice of one currently popular cliche', "get tough on crime." The most exemplary of doing good deeds for humanity is now greeted at the gates to eternity with, "Why didn't you do more?" The average nobody who didn't accomplish much more than survive without causing anyone else serious harm hear from the Judge, "You're in a heap of trouble boy."

     10. "Zero tolerance!" say you to drugs; zero tolerance to much more says nobody.
     That short lived catch phrase was as ill-used as the drugs against which it was intended. Contrived as tool to to fight the "war on crime" {uuuuck, another catch phrase}, it was reduced to a trick of the law to confiscate property of innocent people. If so-much-as a seed of evidence was left behind by a friend of a friend ten times removed, said property was forfeit. "Guilty by association" {double uck} carried to the extreme.
     But catch this if you can, zero tolerance of wasted resources by the government, zero tolerance of politicians who sell their influence, zero tolerance of the lobbists who buy that influence, zero tolerance of political enities with microscopic interests, zero tolerance of outrageous libality suits which steals a little from all the nobodys.
     Zero tolerance of child abuse and spouse abuse, zero tolerance of racial and ethnic hatred, zero tolerance of apathy toward the homeless and helpless.
     Zero tolerance of powerful, greedy crime lords; zero tolerance of exploitive news media; zero tolerance of murders, killings, beatings, stabbings, rapes, robberys, burglerys; zero tolerance of bad cops, bad prosecutors and bad judges. Zero tolerance of ....

     11. Fare thee well ye blue-white-green-brown pebble as ye drift through endless black velvet. Tis doubtful that our paths will cross again.
     Nobody's thoughts are heard or heeded. Nobodys are nobody by being ignored into non-existence. Reasoned truth suffers the same.
     Your fate is what nobody forsees. This human condition, such as it is, will fade into dust as its numberless predecessors have in your past. Conscience thought will rise again in some new form. For better or worse even a nobody can not foretell.
     Lone Hawk's fate is elsewhere, in the most remote parts of nowhere and nowhen, like all the other nobodys. It was a nobody who pick up a burning stick and carried it back to the cave. It was a nobody who chipped flint rock into a spearhead.
     It was a nobody who first planted a seed, who ground grain into flour with mortor and pedistal. It was a nobody who ploughed the first furl, who chiseled the first grind stone.
     It was a nobody who sailed the South Pacific to the nowhere islands, who build Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Spinix, and landscape drawings.
     It was a nobody who scribed the first symbol for a thought in stone, who scribed copies of books through out the centuries, who maintained the tablets and scrolls of forgotten libraries.
     It was a nobody who put wheel to axial, made blowpipe furnaces and smelted metals. It was a nobody who ....

[3] Confucius, CONFUCIAN ANALECTS, chapter 28, book 15. Translation by James Legge, The Chinese Classics series, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1893.