"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again...." (NASB)
Another NT example of a first class conditional sentence in the Greek text, formed by using ei ("if"), followed with a verb in the indicative mood. It assumes the protasis to be true. Accordingly, it is accurately translated into English as "Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again...." (cf. NIV)

In automotive news...
I learned that the "C" in Jaguar C-class stands for "competition." Those were cars designed only for racing.

F.A. Porsche, designer of the classic 911 just died. He left the company in the early 70's to start a design firm that turned out eyeglasses, pens, and watches.

On the right side of the garage sits a '62 VW chassis and on the left a freshly painted body perched on a dolly. In the driveway sits a '66 Rambler American. The parade of old guys in Buicks and golf carts slowing to take a look goes on all day. Fun.

Thinking...
It started with milk, and we should have seen where it would lead. Alas, we weren't paying attention.

As a kid growing up on the NW side of Seattle, in the Scandinavian enclave known as Ballard, our milk was delivered. The guy driving the milk truck drove down our alley, stopping at each house on his route. He'd jump out of the truck with a metal rack of six one-quart bottles, bring them up to our back porch and place them in a little insulated metal box. Shortly thereafter one of us would fetch the bottles and they'd be put in the fridge. On cold winter mornings, if the bottles sat on the back porch for very long, the cream would separate and rise, pushing the cardboard cap off the bottle. A short column of cream, with a milk bottle cap perched on top. (Two generations now don't know the origins of the adage, "The cream always rises to the top.")

Then somebody got the idea milk should be homogenized so the cream wouldn't separate. I don't know how that works, I just know the cream and milk are mixed together; they're the same now. I guess people didn't like cream being different.

Here we are a whole bunch of years later and they've managed to homogenize almost everything. Unless you're close enough to read the badging you can't tell the difference between a Honda and a Hyundai, and the minivans all come out of the same cookie cutter. New neighborhoods epitomize, "And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same." (remember that one?) Restaurants, too. And music; especially music, reduced to chord and rhythm formulas market-tested to appeal to the broadest segment of the pop market, and singers stripped of personality with auto-tune.

I'm not a fan of homogenization. I want an old house with character, a car that's easy to find in a parking lot, and a one-off joint on a back road with a typed up menu slipped into a plastic cover.

But the biggest problem is homogenized people, or our preference for them. I like characters. Not crazies, but eccentrics. They're a lot more interesting than the go-along, get-along masses. They say what's on their mind even if it's not politically correct. You never know what's going to come out of their mouth but you know it will be genuine. Really short or really tall. People from far away places, people with stories, people who have been somewhere off the path.

If you're a little weird don't apologize or wish you were like everybody else. And if you're only a little odd in one area, good for you. Let 'er rip! Homogenization may be great for milk but it makes for a boring world.