A brief but final look at some of the day's news that rattles much like a ping pong ball within our heads until reason is brought to bear:

Cease fire between Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah:

A cease fire assumes that there is something salvageable and worthwhile that the two parties possess. Terrorists such as Hezbollah whose only hope is to maim and murder is not a party to be recognized and should be eradicated to prevent further and greater harm. Israel should continue their military efforts to this end, without cease.

JonBenet murderer suspect and child porn hoarder John Mark Karr says, "I was with her when she died.":

Pass and enforce laws prohibiting pornography depicting violence, pregnant women, bondage and slavery, bestiality, and other extreme acts. Place bans on the sale of the typical pornographic communications at bookstores and other points of sale where the general public assembles, and on media broadcasting such as cable and satellite, especially Internet. As these laws are violated and loopholes exploited, pass further laws with language that is more general to be broadly enforced. Hold publishers and companies specifically accountable through heavy fines if fault of sexual depravity is found with their communications.

A little town called Vienna, MD has sought the assistance of responsible and qualified planners for their future to ensure their sense of place and community values.

On their little web site they say of the town: "A historic cross roads village dating from early colonial times, the town has managed to preserve much of its charm and quiet lifestyle for over three centuries…"

They are doing just that:

Vienna Mayor Outlines Annexation Plan to Preserve Quality of Life, Sense of Place in Eastern Shore Town

As development surges all across the Chesapeake Bay Eastern Shore, Vienna Mayor Russell Brinsfield wants to spare the 280 residents of this tiny 300-year-old town the risk of ''cookie-cutter McMansions on 20-acre lots'' by annexing 376 acres of adjacent farmland for 300 future homes in clusters near public trails and parks, which would leave two-thirds of the tract as open space.

''I see what's happening in other parts of the Shore, and I think we can do better — do something that protects that special sense of place and our quality of life, instead of just reacting to developers,'' says Mayor Brinsfield. ''I think this gives us the chance to control our own destiny.''

A preliminary comprehensive plan, drafted with extensive community input and approved by town officials in January, envisions new houses matching the old ''in a seamless extension of streets'' centered on a proposed town square with a new Town Hall, writes Baltimore Sun reporter Chris Guy, noting that experts call it classic smart growth. ''We see Vienna as a model of how conservation and growth could actually go hand-in-hand,'' says Washington-based Conservation Fund Vice President Erik Meyers. (Smart Growth Network)

A look at Vienna's plans and visions for the future shows a basic and great start to not only the planning of their own town but good principles to follow for all towns. Preserving community values and sense of place is what all town leaders should be interested in.

If you don't like the town where you are, tell your leaders they should be doing better. Doing better starts with planning.

Bad argument of the day: "Government is bad [and therefore we should not have government]."

As always, a statement like that means you yourself are in the process of governing, insofar as you are handing down rules for others to follow. If you were to argue that this rule were to be applied only to yourself and not others then you would remain silent and not relate to others of its more universal importance.

Government comes to power through a statement like that, but only through other's discernment and improvement on those kinds of ruling statements that we are held accountable to.

We sometimes forget that government mainly consists of leaders that people have elevated to guide them and represent their best interests. Even in communist China, the deference by the people to their government shows a kind of approval for it.

There are a multitude of ideas concerning how to govern, but few kinds of government put into practice. This is because government tends towards being a body that enforces rules for the people's common good, as this good is perceived, even mistakenly, and few governing bodies stand the test of discernment and improvement.

The requirement in a society, even as small as a family, for governing rules to abide by goes without much convincing, government has already been established. We do not exist alone.

In Salisbury, MD, a town much like your town — bleak, of little community value, and of government leaders conjuring dark designs — a solution has been proposed to elevate the rabble with great amusement at the expense of their elected incompetents:

Begin a prolonged encampment of local militia in and around Salisbury's downtown center and government areas.

Clap offending politicians in irons on sight. Arrange parties of 20 to 30 men of valor and strength to march throughout the expansive city limits to arrest the remaining violators of political leadership.

The current government buildings will be secured, evacuated, and taken apart piece by piece, to be recycled for future use in solid waste processing facility construction.

In their place will be erected buildings mainly of glass so that at every angle from an outside observer the deliberations of the day can be seen clearly and conspicuously.

Walkways and stairs will be incorporated throughout so that any person of healthy disposition may walk forthwith to observe the proceedings of whichever department he desires.

The grand entryway of the main political building will be a museum of sorts with the most illicit politicians shackled and aligned in recesses along the wall and a placard testifying to their most egregious deeds mounted above their heads.

Though the unfortunates along the so named Political Row will have evacuation tubes affixed to their lower extremities, their mouth-parts will remain free of any encumbrance and made available to a fine selection of fried pork rinds provided free of charge at the door for passersby to shove and cram into them as best they see fit.

This humorously foul display will continue on as a reminder to what once was and should not have been, while the newly minted government of glass will gleam on forever in honesty of intent and clarity of work.

Behind every gun barrel firing is a perceived ideal worth fighting for and the ideals Americans fight for in Iraq seem increasingly suspect. Lets look at a few:

"Democracy." If a majority of the people believe something does that make it right? The concept of democracy was shattered when terrorist group Hamas became the ruling democratically elected party of Palestine.

"Freedom." When Thomas Jefferson spoke of freedom did he mean the freedom to do anything you want? Or did he mean that true freedom is the ability to choose among the many right choices? Abortion, pornography, and majority rule show the American concept of freedom as tipping towards nihilism.

"Support the Troops." This should not have to be corrected because of its obvious ignorance, but it is the troops that are fighting for good reasons that should be "supported". The troops should not be supported for any reason or no reason at all. Woe be to the armchair politicians who would send a man or woman into battle for an unworthy cause.

Bad argument of the day: "If we do not agitate terrorists or we try to appease terrorists then they will leave us alone."

The basic argument here is that if another person's bad behavior behavior continues or worsens as a direct result of our behavior, then therefore we should stop our behavior.

This argument presumes that the rightness of "what I am to do" depends necessarily on the outcome, so that if a man raises his arm to block another from striking his wife and either does not succeed in the block or the attacker becomes angry and strikes again, then the man raising his arm to protect his wife was wrong to do so in the first place.

However, if future circumstances alone dictated the rightness of our present actions, then we would ceaselessly be waiting for the future that never comes.

The rightness of "what I am to do" has a present tense of acting now with a view to the future, so that a man defends his family by staying the hand of the attacker (in the present) so that it does not harm his wife and children (in the future).

The man could watch on as his homestead and family is pillaged, raped, and murdered in an effort to pacify the lusts of barbaric impulses and in vain hope to be left alone the next time, but lust never leads to love just as wrongness never leads to rightness.

Better to defend a diamond than to let it be smashed into a million pieces

All else falls away that is of little importance and for once in one's life the clarity of what it means to exist comes to pass…

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road running through the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his hand behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another on and upward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth–that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way–an honorable way–in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul found its way back from the prisoners existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered…

My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, and the thoughts of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I still would have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of that image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."

Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning