The Saviour will not tolerate abuse, and as His disciples, neither can we. However, tragically, there are some communities determined to abuse others. If a man becomes cold, pitiless, impenetrable, if he sets himself altogether apart from the life and feelings of other men, if he is dead to the claims of music and the beauties of art, be sure he is an intellectualist or a fanatical ascetic—not a philosopher. We need not become less human because we seek to make ourselves better men. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful will refine, and not destroy, out human qualities. When you find it impossible to attain yourself, why demand it in others? When they mock your own strivings and aspirations, why impose ideal standards on them? When virtue is too self-conscious, it becomes Vanity. The path from arrogance to madness is a short one. If we want to keep sane, it is safer to keep humble. When mysticism leads stolid apathy toward World-suffering, when it paralyses all sympathy for fellow creatures, it is time to call a halt. The holier-than-thou attitude which condemns the sins of other men implies its own sinlessness. This is not only to commit the sin of spiritual pride but also to fall into the pit of self-deception. Do not maintain a position which conscience, common sense, or intuition show you later to be wrong. Have the willingness to withdraw from it. He should shun the unphilosophic attitude which sees one side as all pessimistic and the other side as all optimistic, for he should understand that both have a contribution to make. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

 Nothing is to be hated but everything is to be understood. Nobody is his enemy for everybody is his tutor, albeit usually an unconscious one and often only teaching us by his own ugly example what to avoid. It is in the nature of unbalanced and unphilosophic mentalities to see everything in extremes only and to confront others with the unnecessary dilemmas which they pose for themselves. A book that has not taken a laugh at life somewhere in its ramble, becomes a born. A man who has not found the fun in life at some time, has somehow failed. However, at the same time everyone cannot give years and years of intense thought and concentration to trying to solve the most difficult problems of life without becoming stamped with gravity, not only in mind but also in body. If he is well-balanced, however, he will appreciate the lighter side of life and enjoy it without losing his earnestness. No single factor is usually responsible for a particular evil and no single remedy can cure it. Reformers are usually one-eyed and take our attention away from important contributory causes in order that we may fasten it upon the one which they happened to have picked out. They are doubtlessly well-meaning, but are apt to be dangerously fanatical. When fears and wishes wholly control a man’s thinking, instead of reason and truth, we must guard ourselves against his statements, commands, doctrines, and ideas. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

The average American wants economic security because he wants to satisfy a higher standard of material living than exists anywhere else in the World. And the average American is right. Let him not degrade himself materially at the behest of others who wish to impose an ideal on others which was never intended for the World at large. Philosophical mysticism cannot appreciate, much less accept, the kind of nonattachment which runs to fanatic extremes or which makes too great outward fuss of itself. It cannot find any enthusiasm for politicians’ refusal to handle money properly because they regard it with an immature mind as they are not held responsible for their spending. More politicians need to develop the moral purity and sincerity and learn to deplore their mental unbalance. The cynic who despises and distrusts human nature is seeing only a fragment of it, and not the full circle. It is good in a World where there is so much evil, so any wrong-doers, to be cautious. However, carry this quality to excess and you breed timidity or fear, which are evils in themselves. He should beware lest in his recoil against trying to satisfy the demands of an unworthy sensuality, he falls into the opposite extreme of trying to satisfy the demands of an impossible renunciation. It is possible to show a faithful devotion to principles without becoming either fierce or fanatical about them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

These extremists tell us that such a reconciliation of the spiritual with the human is impossible, that the two aims are mutually discordant and utterly irreconcilable, that they contradict each other and if attained would destroy each other, and that either the first or the second will eventually and inevitably have to be abandoned. Sometimes it is better to be suspicious of such an oversimplification. It may lead us more quickly to truth, but it may also mislead us. And this is one of the times when such caution is called for. It is a common phrase in literature, instructions, and rules of totalitarian movements—especially political movements—to say that not the slightest deviation may be made from the line laid down by the authority. The ascetic demand that we renounce art, turn our backs on aesthetic feelings, and reject beauty may seem a necessary one. However, we have to beware here of falling into the danger which Angelique de Arnauld, Abbess de Port Royal, fell into. She said: “Love of poverty makes one whose what is ugliest, coarsest, and dirtiest.” She was the same Mother Superior who refused to allow any form of recreation to her nuns, so that some of them suffered from psychosis and/or neurosis. Those lovers of excessive asceticism who shiver at the sight of beauty, shrink from the thought of refinement, and brush off all suggestions of cleanliness as time-wasting, thereby proclaim the opposites by implication. That is to say, they proclaim dirt, squalor, and ugliness as being spiritual. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

This insistence on interfering with other people’s lives on behalf of some fanatical belief, this minding every business but one’s own is a great troublemaker. It is the cause of the World’s divisions into two fighting camps today. One of the signs of fanaticism is its conceited assurance; another its lunatic extremist attitude which denounces a moderate position as heretical. If he overdoes his remorse and stretches out his repentance too far; if his self-examination and self-criticism become unreasonably prolonged and unbearably overconcentrated, the actuating motive will then be not true humility but neurotic pity for himself. When active in the World, take the spiritual life seriously, but not too seriously to the extent of becoming a fool or a fanatic. The fanatic mutilates himself, deprives his kind of all the great accumulation of wide experience, original thought, and intuitive feeling which exists in the rest of the human race or in its records. He who has caught the spirit of philosophy cannot become a narrowminded fanatic or a conversational bore. He does not shut out the activities of human intelligence and human creativity from his interest, but lets them in. With fanatic hatred as his spirit and verbal violence as his expression, a man can never make a bad state of affairs better. By thinking such false thoughts, he can only make it worse. When views are so wide of the truth and so violent in expression, he cannot become a leader of people but only their misleader. He is an unfortunate sufferer in a psychopathic state and needs remedial treatment to restore his lost mental balance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

The spirit appropriate to certain forms of rebellion which consists in re-establishing reason at the end of an irrational adventure, of rediscovering order by means of disorder and of voluntarily loading oneself down with chains still heavier than those from which release is sought, must constantly make allowances for the possibility that his own attitudes are not the higher self’s. Despair, fed by the prejudice of hallucination, imperturbably leads to the mass abrogation of laws both social and divine, and to theoretical and practical wickedness. However, conformity can be passionate, and thereby a out of the ordinary. To console humanity, to treat it as a brother, to return to Jesus Christ, Socrates, moralists who wandered through villages, dying of hunger, are still the projects of despair. Thus, virtue and an ordered life have a nostalgic appeal in the midst of vice. However, when confronted with life and death, no mind is an impartial one. The taste of the absolute and the frenzy of annihilation can sterilize a man. Conformity is one of the nihilistic temptations of rebellion which dominate a large part of our intellectual history. If he forgets his origins, it demonstrates how the rebel who take to action is tempted to succumb to the most absolute conformity. Ands so it explains the twenty-first century. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

Of course, genius cannot be separated from banality. However, it is not a question of the banality of others—the banality that we vainly try to capture and which itself captures the creative person, where necessary, with the help of the censors. For the creative person it is a question of his own form of banality, which must be completely created. Every genius is at once extraordinary and banal. If he is only one or the other, he is nothing. It has its dandies and its menials, but it does not recognize its legitimate sons. When the caravans of futique gene-pools fleeing West hit the beached of the North Atlantic, an interesting thing happened. The Dark Ages (sic) occurred when this Westward wave of intelligent gene-pools crashed against the North Atlantic wall. Thousands of restless gene-pools had to wait in Western Europe until they got smart enough—technologically skillful enough—to move sperm-egg flotilla up the North Atlantic. The vanguard elite clustered in Ireland—as far West as possible. Darwinians did not understand. It is not survival of the fittest; it is the evolution of the fastest in the Human Race. Cocoon preparation for migration—here was the familiar test of nerve and intelligence. During the Dark Ages, the hive fear merchants said, “Stay put. The World is flat. If you sail across the North Atlantic, you will fall off the edge. You will be eaten by dragons, or busted by narcotic agents.” Or whatever they spooked people with back them. Recall here the etymology of the World locomotor. Fast movers throughout the history of evolution have always been considered “loco” or “crazy” by static hive-establishments. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

The Paleolithic conservatives warned the restless marine creatures away from the shoreline. Unicellular bureaucrats warned protozoic out-cast about hooking up in multiceullar linkages. The explosion did take place. The World is not flat, it is a spinning sphere. Eventually the DNA code reacting to the stimuli of pollution and overpopulation activated the mobility-agents. Celtic Rangers were the first to climb the Atlantic. Prince Henry, the Navigator, sent Vasco da Gama around the Hord; Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to fund the NASA explorations of Christopher Columbus. Queen Elizabeth got an appropriation from Parliament to fund the astronaut voyages of Sir Francis Drake. At this swarming moment of expansion and exploration, the great European powers reached the high points of their culture, drama, poetry, art, science and philosophy. That Dark Age was a pre-mutation period of growth-limitation, fear, bureaucratic hive-restriction, proto-Naderism which said: “Movement is unsafe at any speed.” To say that Old World natives inhabit primitive ecological niches, is not to be chauvinistic. I descend from German stock. Californians are as far removed from the Reformation Wars as Luther was from the Neanderthal. To say that Europeans are feudal-insectoid, that Africans are tribal-primates, that Japanese are techno-insectoid, is not to deny the ecological unity of all life on this planet.  #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

DNA wants the whales to survive, DNA want the crafty Middles-Easterners to continue to quarrel over borders. We can respect the ant-hill commitment of the Chinese to the super-insect Mao, and appreciate the technological skill of the web-spinning spidery-electronic Japanese. We can revere our midbrain and spinal links to the Old World and at the same time we must recognize our genetic ascendance beyond our primate, mammalian, insectoid roots. Arizona and California are states totally populated by migrants squeezed forward by Old World gene-pools. The smart Africans have left African and are in America. Futique Mexicans swarm the river. The superior Jews landed at Ellis Island along with the genetically selected Germans—all of our ancestors moving to the Sunset Strip in response to the genetic imperative. Nor are these remarks demeaning to the Old-World Old Brain residents. Migration still continues. This week, several thousand Africans, Asians, Europeans left the Old Brain Hemisphere and carried their ovaries and testicles Westward. If any Old Brain citizen is insulted by these remarks, we repeat the affectionate invitation—of you are genetically selected to advance neurogenic intelligence on this nursery plant, you will head for the Western Frontier tomorrow. If you are geared to create the future gene-pools, move West to join us. Come on up, you happy Arabs and you mellow Jews and you clever Africans and you alert Mexicans and you restless, freedom-loving Asians. We need your adventurous intelligence to join us in the next great migration. If you are geared to creature the future gene-pools, move West to join us. Westward High. Regardless of race, creed, colour, national origin. We need you up here with us on the frontal lobe of this primitive planet. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

Living the law of chastity helps us to recognize our shared divine potentials be more confident in our relationships. Sometimes married couples have issues that they need to work out, and the time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. Talking is certainly not the only ways of communicating about pleasures of the flesh and it is not necessarily the best way; words can mislead as well as illuminate, and there can be many a slip between implication and inference. Nevertheless for most people, most of the time, talking is an indispensable line of communication, and the fact that the line goes dead when pleasures of the flesh are the subject means that in marriage a considerable amount of important information remains shrouded in silence. Assuming, however, that each partner sees the situation through the other’s eyes, the next step is to improve matters—to negotiate the differences that threaten to deprive the couple of the gratification they both want. Negotiating differences, however, is not a matter of bargaining or setting terms. Negotiate, in these circumstances, reflects its definition as meaning “to move through, around or over in a satisfactory way, as in dancing.” And the purpose of negotiation is conciliation. (Conciliate is derived from the Latin conciliare, meaning “to bring together, unite,” a term that seems singularly appropriate.) Business negotiations end with a conditional contract which states, in effect, “If and when you do X, I will do Y.” Pleasures of the flesh negotiations end with a trusting commitment which states, in effect, “I will do my best to do X because I know you will do you best to do Y.”  If such expressions of willingness to change are to be anything more than the empty promises characteristics of couples who are making up after a quarrel, they must be translated into reciprocal action. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

Generally speaking, it is not enough for just one person to make an effort. Under those circumstances, what may seem to be passive acceptance of chance on the other person’s part is actually disguised passive resistance. A husband and wife, for instance, can agree that she has been much more eager for pleasures of the flesh than he has and that, without intending to, she has made him more resistant than he would otherwise be. If she makes an effort to restrain her expression of desire, he says that he will take the initiative more frequently than he has in the past. Each understands the other’s feelings; both express a determination to change their habitual ways of interacting. Soon enough, however, it becomes evident that while the wife is holding to her promise, the husband’s response is something less than impressive. From the wife’s point of view, pleasures of the flesh occur with frustrating infrequency. Again they talk; again they resolve to do better; and once again the husband’s actions fail to match his intentions. Plainly his avowed wish to improve his relationship with pleasures of the flesh with his wife is not a truthful representation of his deepest feelings. For reasons which he himself may not understand, he is not actively committed to conciliation. He is, in reality, resisting it. The commitment requires each partner to try—and to keep on trying. It is the effort itself that means so much, even when success is not immediately achieved. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

 If, in the previous instance, the husband tries to reach out to his wife, no matter how ineffectually or stumblingly, the effort will tell her, without a word, that he cares about pleasing her and values their bonding with pleasures of the flesh; at the very least he will spare her the feelings or rejection and anger that must otherwise turn her completely against him. In fact, the struggle to do what is obviously difficult is often more impressive evidence of emotional commitment than the actual achievement. The struggle is a measure of devotion; the achievement is not necessarily so. However, simple tenacity of purpose is not the entire answer, either. The process of negotiation of pleasures of the flesh hinges, to a considerable degree, on how failure is handled. What a mane and woman need of each other is the security that comes from knowing that occasional failures will not be used against them—they will not ridiculed, scolded or punished. On the contrary, the failures will not be his or hers but theirs. The couple can wander through their feelings. The language is images. From the perspective of this mood the scientific way of presenting human matters looks like the naked timbers of a house constrained to rise vertically, evenly spaced, rising just so far under command. One’s mood wanders like water over ground, down through dark soil, creeping around rocks deep into unseen places, wandering endlessly to the sea as if possessed. If the inner spirit wanders thus, why imitate it in any stiff, pale, reflected image? #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

One’s feelings come to a pause like water slowly collecting and spreading in a low place in the ground. It grows stiflingly and hot and feverish, but what is one’s concern? Hot blind concern not yet able to name itself—fearing it may end in useless emptiness like water that cannot bring anything to fruition. In the dark fingers of self lies nameless concern, its own creation of pressure. The feeling changes as though right has been done by naming it, permitting fidelity to itself. There open out fragments of images. Respect these too and see where they lead. One may see an incense burner in a church (tears at naming it), old hand-wrought metal, a fragrant woody odor that fills with its presence. There are fragments of Hebrew on parchment. The sense of lovingly carved wood and stolid images looking back at one. The sense of stillness, endlessness; the sense of the sacred and holy. Now the pen stops, for in this peace there are no queries and nothing to be done. It is its own doing. Standing back and evaluating as ego, would has to say that he has entered his feelings, first finding them random wans wandering, then gradually centering in concern, and finally coming to a peaceful states which is familiar and welcome. Are not the layers of self always in the same sequence? First stand forth straight-timbered ego consciousness which obeys the will of Worldly custom smiling to please the customers. Behind this the wayward wandering spirit which is at home in nameless feelings and intimations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

Having entered this dark and uncertain passageway, in a moment there come forth images, memories, groups, of possibilities. If the ego consciousness smiling at customers, and obeying custom is him, then somewhere beyond feelings rises l’autre moi—the other man in a strange land of exotic markets and places where foreign tongues are intuited and nothing is strange. Like an intermediary, feeling lies between him and the other him. It is an intimation of the deeper self. He can hardly say his feelings are not him, yet they are so little of his direct fashioning and follow so little his customs that he cannot claim to be their master but rather their servant. They are the go-between, the mediator between him and the other him. The idea of l’autre moi, the other me, accords the full rights and even personhood to the inner. The other me (him) is what consciousness which named the other region (un-conscious) an un-like itself. Out of this prejudice has come the professional cult of undoing the unconscious that might rise to respectable egohood. Might it not be that consciousness can become less the storekeeper and more comfortable in its own home? Might it not be that the inner is the real master and the better master? A man whose physical motion during pleasures of the flesh are not to his wife satisfaction because he moves too rapidly and forcefully, in a rhythm and with movements that are not in harmony with her own, she finds her responsiveness impaired. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

Finally she tells him what is wrong, and he immediately wants her help in changing the way he uses his body. Although the first few times he blunders and reverts to old rhythms, she corrects him with her hands, and soon he improves. The intimate mood is never shattered. Navigating these tricky emotional currects requires that each partner be constantly aware of the other’s efforts. This can be seen more clearly by contrast with other kinds of responses that might have been made. The wife might have been condescendingly patient (“Well, dear, I will be glad to show you once more”) or annoyed (“Clumsy!”) or discouraged (“Oh, not again!). The husband might have been angry (Do not tell me what to do!”) or critical (“You do not know what you are talking about”) or deflated (I am sorry, but can we try again later?”). Or each might have remained silent, the wife with her hands motionless, and each could have assumed the worst—the husband, that nothing he could do would ever satisfy his wife; the wife, that her husband cared only about his own pleasure. Variations on the script are almost limitless, but the underlying point is that a successful approach is a creative act, and the credit belongs to both partners. Conversely, any failure would be a joint failure. Each would have failed to meet the other’s needs in the most painful of all circumstances: when each feels himself or herself to be alone, uncertain and exposed—and desperately in need of help and reassurance. (This may cast some light on the reason why an effective relationship involving pleasures of the flesh contributes so much strength to a marriage. It is not simply because of the physical pleasure the husband-and-wife experience, important though that is. It is because of the powerful sense of emotional well-being that comes when each partner knows that at times of greatest vulnerability, the other can be relied on to provide warmth, comfort and protection.) #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

What this means, in terms of the husband who was trying to harmonize his rhythms with those of his wife, is that on an occasion when his efforts would prove unsuccessful, she would understand that the failure was in part her own. She might not say so in words, but if she communicated an awareness of sharing the responsibility—of having failed to let him know when his movements started going wrong or of failing to make the effort to encourage him to move differently or of failing to cope with feelings of frustration and annoyance—she would at least have given him the confidence to try again. One cautionary note: Anu individual’s level of tension with pleasures of the flesh—the power of the drive for pleasures of the flesh—is not easily changed by conscious decision, and it is important for both partners to take this into account. To a large extent, the strength of the drive for pleasures of the flesh is influenced both by cultural values and by the individual’s unique experience growing up in that culture. However, apart from these influences, there seems to be an innate level of drive for pleasures of the flesh that varies from person to person. Why one person is born with a stronger drive than another, since has not yet determined. However, we do know that the inner World differs in critical ways from our ordinary consciousness. People apparently vary in their power to even note hypnogogic experiences. Under careful examination it soon becomes apparent that a delicate balance must be struck between ego consciousness and the autonomous appearance of l’autre moi. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

One can wander for months in a region where worries or concerns fill the mind and ego consciousness frets over its problems. Or one can still the mind by fixating on one thought or one sensation until it is relatively quiet. Then around the fringe of the conscious center spontaneous images appear. Whether words or images come first reflect personality difference (intuitive versus sensation types in Dr. Jung’s terms?). These fragile fringe phenomena are an unexpected, delicate penumbra surrounding the conscious center. Note that ego consciousness needs to be stilled, and out of the way, for the hypongogic to appear. Though it may not appear so at first, there is a choice involved in expressing your emotions as they come up. That choice is: (1) taking the risk of doing something that may have repercussions (like expressing irritation to the boss (2) or playing it safe. Playing it safe can take the form of venting your anger on someone who cannot fight back, like young children. It can take the form of stopping at the pub on the way home, having a few stiff ones and telling the bartender about it. Or it can take the form of just stuffing down anger and hoping it will go away—which it does not. One important reason that people play it safe and do not express their anger is that they do not trust the marvelous, miraculous mechanism they were born with. A mechanism which has its own natural restraining function. If allowed to feel what is feel and express what it needs to express, a mechanism which will take perfect care of you all your life. If you lose your temper, you need not fear what you may do—unless you have been holding your temper unnaturally. If you have been expressing your anger, then let go and do not worry about it. You will not kill anyone. You will not slug your boss in the mouth. You will not regret anything you say. Your natural restraining function takes care of you—by automatically balancing the centrifugal and centripetal force of anger and love. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

As a practical matter, however, we are all running around with many kinds of repressed anger, that is, anger which has been subconsciously pushed down, but not out. So as a practical matter, you cannot assume that every expression of anger will be harmless. Instead, when you get angry in a way that is out of proportion to the event at hand, another form of restraint comes into play. It is the set of external restraints imposed upon you since childhood: scolding, isolation, restriction of movement, all the things your parents once did. The things that bosses, policemen and various-other people do today. This system of outside restraints keeps you from acting in inappropriate ways. What’s inappropriate? Only you can answer that—on the basis of your background, experience, where you live, and whom you live with. Basically, you know what kind of behaviour people around you will put up with. You know what you can get arrested for in your town. The thing to develop is the habit if expressing yourself so that you do not have to rely on these outside restraints. The prospect of prison may keep you from shooting someone, but you want to avoid shooting someone even if there were no prisons. You want to reply on your natural, internal restraining function rather than the imposed, external system of restraints. The natural restraining function never fails. The other system is undependable. Expressing your feelings increases your confidence in the natural restraining function and decreases your reliance on outside restraints. It also helps you to live less like a manipulator and more like a master. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

Suppressed emotional excitement interferes with rational activity. Dr. Reich coined the term emotional plague to describe the far-reaching impairments of logical reasoning and accurate perception produced by prolonged suppression of sexual and emotional tension. A paranoid dread of communists or a chronic belief that one is going to be sexually assaulted illustrate forms of emotional plague. In addition to the effects on rational thinking, emotion suppression appears to interfere with the efficiency of skilled behaviour. One cannot play the piano, repair machinery, or knit with efficient speed and dispatch when one is full of unexpressed fear, hostility grief, or laughter. Finally, it may happen that the cumulative effects of suppression may eventuate in such powerful tension that control becomes impossible; the person then explodes with more violent expression than would have been the case had that person reacted much earlier. Many persons have committed acts of destruction when they could no longer suppress conscious hostility. Violently emotional exaggerated statements, reckless hysterical extremist screams should warn us that they come out of some sort of imbalance, that it is time for caution, prudence, reserve. He can be quietly enthusiastic about his cherished beliefs without indulging in propagandist shrieks. The discipline of passion, the checking of emotion, and the ruling of the flesh do not demand that we are to turn into inert wooden creatures. We may still keep the zest for life, the enthusiasm for worthwhile things, and the appreciation of art and beauty, but we shall keep these things in the proper place. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

On the shoulders of the Sacramento Fire Department rest this mission: Save lives, save property, prevent fire, and extinguish fires. The desire to accomplish that mission despite all the challenges makes the job of a firefighter different from all other professions. A firefighter must strive to become the very best leader: the people deserve nothing less. When they took their oath, when they agreed to be leaders, they entered into a pact with their crew and the nation. As a member of the Sacramento Fire Department, crews are capable of great patience and persistence and tremendous loyalty, as they show every day. They show up and do the work, no matter how frightening, no matter how boring, no matter how risky or bloody or exhausting. It is about living up to their ultimate responsibility. They have the capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and draw sound conclusions. When you are a firefighter what you do is every bit as important as the knowledge you possess. “I didn’t get married until just before I made lieutenant. I had been going with a girl for quite a while, from the time I came on the job. We had a talk before we decided to get married, and I told her that if she was against the fire department we might as well break up, because I couldn’t give it up and there was no sense going through life hating me over it. She certainly accepted the department, and we’ve never had a bit of a problem on that score. When I worked nights, she would do things that she wanted to do, like wash her hair or visit friend. It’s worked out fine. She accepted my idiosyncrasies and adjusted to them. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

“We don’t have any children. My brother has a boy and two girls. The son is not a fire buff. My brother wanted him to do his own thing. He was in the Air Force, and he married a girl. He has some interest in the firefighting job, but I wouldn’t call him a buff by any means. So there are no more relatives on the job. I’m the only Supple left on the SFD. My wife and I like to travel very much. We’ve tried to take some kind of trip every year, and every two or three years we make an exotic one. Last May, we went to Germany, which was her ambition. She’s a Germanic buff. I didn’t get to a firehouse in Germany because we were on tour. But I was on a street corner near a hotel when a rig came along. By the time I noticed that it was a fire engine, it was going past me. I said, ‘Aw, nuts.’ My wife said, ‘They’re going to get caught by the traffic light at the corner. ‘So I ran up to the corner, I had my camera out, and I was taking a picture. As I was doing that, I wondered if I was allowed to take pictures? I saw the officer looking at me with a sort of quizzical look, so, in sign language, I pointed to myself, I pointed to the rig, and he got a big smile on his face and gave me a big thumbs-up signal. As they went around the corner, he must has said something, because four heads turned and four hands came out with the thumbs-up signal. I thought that was great. Firemen are firemen, wherever you go.” #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

Understanding the expectations and applying the attributes and competencies prepares the Sacramento Fire Department for situations they are likely to encounter. Fire fighters who gain expertise through operational assignments, institutional learning, and self-development will be versatile enough to adapt to most situations and grow into greater responsibilities. All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country.  Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy.  I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

The Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)

Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.

For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/