Area Writer Takes on Universe

We are on the very precipice of the greatest technological revolution in the history of our species.  To understate this would be to do disservice.  Within most of our lifetimes, the paradigms by which we understand the world will evaporate, the mechanisms that drive our economy, our culture, our governments with be fundamentally and permanently altered.  Our understanding of what it means to be human itself will be challenged, and with it our understanding of faith, religion, and how we behave towards each other.  There are three massive upheavals coming, each related, and each interdependent. Fossil fuels will  run out, and they will run out within our lifetime.  Each of them are finite resources, and not only is the amount of our consumption of them increasing, but the rate  of our consumption is increasing.  The effects of the end of oil, coal, natural gas, etc, are far reaching.  It effects not only whether or not we can drive, but it...

It has been twelve years, eight months, and sixteen days since I swore my first oath to defend the Constitution.  It has been eleven years, eight months, and one day, since my first firefight.  It has been nine years and nine days since the last time someone I knew died in combat.  It has been eight years, eleven months, and five days since my last firefight.  I have grown old in the midst of violence.  I have come to know the crack and snap of bullets flying, the thud and gut punch of bombs exploding, the sting of spent gunpowder in the air.  And because of this, I knew fear before I knew courage. I doubt anyone who was in Pulse that night will read this, but just in case, I want you to know that I cannot fathom the horror of that night.  That nightmare space of death and gunpowder was supposed to be between combatants.  Between willing participants.  Combat should never be thrust on the unwilling.  I know that night will haunt the v...