Memorial Day 2011

This memorial day marked a new turn in my life.  For the first time, I had someone to visit.  My Dad, who passed away just a few months ago - though it seems forever - was a veteran from the Korean War era.  He served on the home front, and was in the 3rd Armored out of Fort Knox, and later Fort Hood, Texas.  He left when his discharge came up, and returned to spend the rest of his life working for the Railroad.  First the Erie Railroad, then later the Erie Lackawanna, and finally, the Consolidated Rail Corporation, or Conrail.  In those two institutions were much of what informed my Dad, and defined him as I knew him.

This Memorial Day then, was a chance for me to go for the first time and visit his grave.  It was a strange moment.  I had moved on in many ways, with only the occasional fleeting memory coming over me, or waking me at night as I realize he is gone.  But there, looking down at that plot of freshly seeded grass growing, I understood what death meant.  Possibly for the first time.  There he was, down there, under the ground.  The man who had taken me sledding, held me on his shoulders, taught me to hunt, to drive, to be responsible.  That same man was now separated from me for the rest of this life by all of that dirt and sod. 

My family was there, of course.  My wife and boys.  The boys took it at varying levels.  While there was a moment they all came to me and comforted me, they also went about their own ways, looking around and trying to find the best way to see this moment.  My 12 year old, noticing that his grave faced the old railroad yard in which he worked so many of his best years, commented that it was fitting.  The setting, near a small picturesque pond, was also mentioned. 

Then one of them noticed a flower vase on a nearby grave had fallen over.  First one, then all four, went over to fix it and set it up again.  They worked hard, but alas, it was broken and would not stay on that blustery day.  Still, I thought it was kind.  Nice that they would see the need of someone they didn't know, or would never know.  And out there, somewhere, was someone who would not know four young boys taking time away from their own family and its needs, to help a perfect stranger.  Somehow that made it all seem OK, like this is what we are made for. Not the fleeting and often superficial things we worry about, but for one another.  And if that's the case, then I am fully confident in my Dad's own well being, for he spent a lifetime helping and being there for those around him.  Even if he didn't know who they were.   And that seems to be the essence of what we remember about Memorial Day, if anything is.

The older two continue working to fix the broken vase, while our youngest prompts an impromptu run by our 10 year old

Obama will win in 2012

We are informed in this piece by the Associated Press.  It's a strange concoction, the type all too common in our age of advocacy journalism.  While conservative media bends over backwards to emphasize as many negatives as possible, the liberal media (AKA, the MSM), bends over backwards to either ignore the negatives or, when impossible to ignore, spin them in such a way to explain that no matter how bad things are, Obama is still great.  Hence a piece that concedes things aren't good, that Americans are worried about the future, that the economy is still 'sluggish', that Obama's handling of the presidency is not seen favorably, yet still finds a Republican pollster, Wes Anderson, who says 'yep, he'll probably be reelected.'  Huh?  Verily does the emperor wear new clothes after all, and anyone who thinks he is naked just isn't getting the vibes.  The media is truly Obama's best friend now, and a friend willing to do anything to see him reelected, even if the fate of the nation must suffer for it to happen.

The passing of the Jim Tressel era

As an Ohio State Buckeye football fan, and a fan of Jim Tressel, it saddened me to hear news of his resignation yesterday.  What does this mean?  I dunno.  Everyone has an opinion.  I don't know what they've found, what they will find, or what is happening.  We'll have to wait and see.  When it comes to digging up dirt, the NCAA is about as efficient as one can get.  So I'm sure we'll know what happened down the road.  If the Sports Illustrated story I've heard about comes close to being true, it was not just a single event but an unfolding "culture of corruption" (blah, I hate that term) that had gripped OSU.  I'm sure there will be things and characteristics we'll never see focused on, but there will be enough to tell if it was really that bad, or just overblown.

In any event, no matter how widespread or not, Mr. Tressel appears to have handled it the way you never should.  He covered up, and then when it hit the fan, he attempted to twist the truth (dare I say, lie?) about his role in the events.  And that appears to be the big sin for which the NCAA is focusing on Tressel.  Did others know?  Did the athletic department?  Did those whose jobs it is to follow the ethics of the players know?  Did Mr. Gee?   Who knows.  We'll just have to wait and see.

But I do know this.  Why would a man who, by all accounts, is a grounded man with high ethical standards and strong moral convictions bale when something like this was going down?  My guess is two reasons.  First, the money.  There's lots of money in college football, especially at a school like Ohio State.  And money is the focus.  I'm sure Tressel didn't mind the hefty paycheck he got.  But he was also aware of the burden placed on him to deliver winning seasons.  Over and over and over again. 

And this was important, because it was clear that this was increasingly the focus of the school.  As an Ohio State alumnus, I was given the chance to get two tickets a year to a home game (and it used to be, multiple tickets to away games).  Basically, the seats were never great, but they often weren't bad.  Some seasons they were better than others.  But as the years went on, the seats tended to get better.  Well that was then.  A few years ago, everything changed.  Gone were your guarantee of tickets after being out of school for so long.  Now it was a lottery.  Gone were chances for away games at all. And gone were seats that weren't looking down on the flagpoles along the top of the stadium.  You would have to go down a hundred feet to get to the nosebleeds where these seats are.  Why?  Need you ask.  To make room for the big money, that's why. Hence, it's not hard to see that the emphasis on money expressed before the fan base must have reflected and equal, if not more passionate, focus on money behind the scenes.

Second, you have the Buckeye fan base.  I once knew a fellow from Indiana who said he would like to be a Buckeye fan, but he's not angry enough.  Buckeye fans want, well, beyond winning.  Tressel already wasn't liked by those who liked Cooper before him, by many who didn't like his puritanical/religious ways, and  by those who just don't like any coach no matter how many games he wins. 

Last year, after one of the games we won (I think it was the game against Penn State, though I could be wrong), a caller called into the after game show on 610 radio to suggest that: Tressel be fired.  Earl Bruce, former Buckeye football coach who followed Woody Hayes, came down on him like white on rice.  What do you want!, Bruce asked.  Tressel has had how many Big 10 titles?  He's won a National Championship, been to a BCS bowl every year, had how many winning seasons in a row, has beat Michigan how many times?  And he just won another game today!!  And you want him to go?  That attitude has to play a part. 

Also, the tendency of the national sports media to criticize and downplay OSU's accomplishments might also be a factor.  From saying the National Championship game we won was stolen because of one call (ignoring other calls that game), to insisting that OSU's problems in the BCS were proof that the BCS is working, while criticizing the BCS whenever OSU won, had to diminish that feeling of security in the team, as well as the coach.

In all, that's too much pressure for any man.  You must win, win, win.  You must more than win. You must bring in tons and tons of money.  And on the other side, no matter how much you win or how well you do, there will be a sizable part of the sports media and even the fan base calling for your head on any given Saturday.  Yeah, I can see why he did it.  That doesn't excuse him.  Wrong is wrong and you have to pay the piper.  Though I hope anyone found to be to blame will be equally dealt with.  I also hope we don't let the players off the hook, as some have suggested in the last 24 hours.  They were old enough to know what they were doing, and it's worth looking long and hard at them and the character of these players we offer the world to in order to bring in the big bucks. 

But I will hate to see him go.  I hope the next coach brings the same pride in OSU and its traditions.  And the same character we saw so often in Tressel, from charities to helping the troops to focusing on the students' well being. I hope the new coach doesn't make the mistake of Michigan's ex-coach Rodriguez who came in proud to dismiss its storied history.  But it won't be the same.  By all accounts, Tressel was a good man.  Maybe too good.  Good enough to let his players get out of control, and then not strong enough to stand up to the rabid fan base and naysayers of the media and say 'we'll take the losing seasons to do what is right, and if that costs me my job, so be it.'  Who knows.  In any event, farewell Jim Tressel, wherever you fair.

Because religion is evil

I suppose CBS missed a little detail about those folks who are coming out of the woodwork to help Joplin in the wake of the tornado disaster.  The folks at GetReligion break it down.  I'm sure not everyone there to help is doing so because of religious faith, or due to affiliation with an organized religion.  But there are plenty there helping because they are religious and affiliated with a religious tradition with organized characteristics.  Personally, I would like to know how many people who associate organized religion with evil and proudly don their personal spirituality are in the rubble in the name of their own personal spirituality.  I'm sure there are some.  I'd be curious to know the numbers.  Plus those there in the name of no religion whatsoever.  Stats like that always help to see if the 'religion leads to evil' meme has a basis in fact.

Obama's propaganda ministry gets to work

And makes a fool of itself in the process.  By now, most folks are starting to notice that Obama is not that inspiring. He's rather bland really.  Dull.  Dare I say, boring?  And he can't speak well.  He stammers, bumbles, fumbles.   When he gives a speech now, it's at best reserved and monotone.  At worst, he puts his foot in his mouth and creates an international stir, as with Israel in the recent days.

When he is off his speech, however, it can be almost painful to hear.  Nearly as bad as George W. Bush.  Not that bad, but nearly.  His pauses, his stops, his 'ums', and 'uhs' and verbal trips make for excruciating listening.  Not that presidents have to be academy award winning actors at speech delivery or anything.  But come on, the guy's just not that good.  But in preparing for 2012, with the press insisting that all of this economy isn't really that bad, that overseas the world loves us even if they don't give us what we ask for, and everything is really OK and nobody cares that Obama was overseas while his own people were dying from one natural disaster after another, the Propaganda Ministry took note of another thing that could be a chink in the armor. 

And so Meghan Daum takes keyboard in hand and informs us that it isn't that Obama is a bad speaker.  No.  It's just that he's so darn smart.  You see, he's an intellectual.  He's intelligent.  He's ivy league.  When he stumbles, it's because his keen and piercing intellect is so far beyond the normal human experience that the mere muscles of his vocal chords can't keep up.  Us not-Obama types just don't realize the power of his intellectual superiority.  That's why it looks like he can't speak worth a darn, but in reality is demonstrating his cognitive superiority. 

Sometimes you don't need the comedy channel.

Why are we still burning witches at the stake?

Over at the Huffington Post, Jayanti Tamm asks the hard question:  Why is raising religion-free still taboo?  Well, that's news to me.  I didn't know it was taboo.  I suppose that some people might find it different.  A few might not approve.  But I'll bet just as many might not approve of raising your child Muslim, or Catholic, or Jewish, or anything else.  There certainly isn't a societal taboo about it.  If anything, the scale is tipped away from open displays of religion in the public forum. 

This is one of those cases where the revolution must feed itself.  I was told some years ago by an historian from S. America all about the revolutionary mindset.  Because the American Revolution was an anomaly, most Americans forget what revolutions are usually all about.  He reminded me that most of the time, the revolution must continue.  Either you find new baddies, or you have to insist the war needs fought, that the regime still needs defeated - even if you are sitting in the presidential palace while saying so.

So this is the typical thing you get.  We are a racist nation, even though Barack Obama is president.  We are a sexist nation because women still have less earning power and aren't as numerous in CEO positions, even though women are trashing men in most other areas.  We are a homophobic nation where gays can't survive, even though gays are among the highest earners in our country, and there is increasing intolerance against those who don't accept homosexual normality.  In short, when pushing a revolution, you can never, ever admit victory.  You want the revolution to go on, continue insisting that blacks use different drinking fountains, women are kept in the kitchen, gays are huddling in the back corners with no hope of survival, and atheists non non-traditional believers are the ones who are having difficulty justifying raising their kids their own way.

Of course, as a side note, it's funny when you read the entire article.  Essentially she is saying that you shouldn't impose your religious values on your kids.  You should impose her values on your kids.  One of the typical 'can't see the forest for the trees' arguments you get from some circles.

Pro-Abortion feminist advocates in a quandary

Turns out that in India, there is a rise in girls being aborted more often than boys.  That has many in the liberal community up in arms.  Of course opponents of abortion are a bit taken, wondering why we would care if abortion is this sacred right.  Not so fast, those concerned respond.  These women are being forced by their husbands to abort the girls.  That is what makes it horrible. 

So once again, we find that liberalism teaches that everyone in the world has the inalienable right to be...liberal.  That is, you have the right to abortions, but that right better be exercised within the absolute parameters set by your moral superiors in the liberal West.  Strange old world, isn't it?

Parents use child as lab rat

In a story all too typical for our post modern world, we have parents refusing to tell anyone what the gender of their child happens to be.  It's all good fun, and The Lookout, as usual, yucks it up with them as we are informed how wrong it is to have gender distinction at all.  Just like seeing a resurgence in leisure suits, this is a throwback to the 70s, when the whole experiment was tried on my age - give dolls to the boys and fully armed combat assault rifles to the girls.  All to disastrous results.  Then none other than John Stossel broke down barriers with a special report in the early 90s that men and women were, in fact, different.

Some radical feminists and men-girl slaves were offended, but the rest of humanity chuckled and said, "Yeah?  And?"  But now, since that was so long ago, we have a new group in the age of 'manufacture and discard the unwanted human thing' trying it again.  Sure that all of this gender difference is the result of some bigoted conspiracy throughout the age, using their 'child' as the guinea pig, these brave new souls endeavor to set humanity right.  Again.  Sigh.

I'm not changing any plans

Turns out Mark Burnett, the man who invented fake reality television, is going to produce a 10 part series about the Bible on ... The History Channel.  Well, that's two strikes in one sentence.  The History Channel is, of course, the National Enquirer of historical studies, opting to go for sensationalism and lusty, superficial simplifications for the hope of a few ratings.  That's when it is airing any shows about history at all.  Not that it was always like that. But in the Internet age, one must appeal to the basest drives, and scholarship is no different.  Especially scholarship that occurs in front of a camera.

The second strike is Burnett.  The man who made an entire self-contradicting genre?  No.  It makes my skin crawl to think of what it will look like.  The HC itself subscribes to a secular, post-moder spin on history anyway.  The Bible, when covered before, is a patch collection of myths and fairy tales, with Jesus chasing Mary Magdalene around and siring an army of killers in the form of the Catholic Church who will lord it over the hapless masses until really smart people stop believing in God and give us the Enlightenment.  And all that rubbish provided without Burnett.  BTW, the presence of Roma Downy, whose TV series Touched By An Angel had more sentimentalist and Hallmark level slop than theology, doesn't increase my confidence any.

Perhaps I'm wrong.  Maybe it will be face value story telling in the best Sunday School literature tradition.  Maybe it will avoid spin and digs.  Maybe it will be methodical, careful, fair, open, honest, and attempt to get to the real question of the Scriptures, how they are used differently by different traditions, and bring out the most representative scholarship (and not just those eager to get their faces on TV) to speak to the lessons from Scriptures that we all agree on, and those which different traditions have informed differently through the years.  But I'm not holding my breath.

Funniest email I've seen in months

A reader sent that along, and I just couldn't resist.  How true! 

So what did Patricia Heaton mean

When she said she doesn't want to be lumped in with the lunatics?  Over at PopEaters (yeah, I know), there is an interview with Patricia Heaton of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' fame.  Now we all know she is conservative, and Christian.  She's made that clear.  But in this article, she appears to go out of her way to explain that she's all for gay rights and gay marriage.  OK.  I guess not being for gay rights in Hollywood would be a little like serving in a Baptist Church and not believing in God.  You just wouldn't last long, period. 

But then the article quotes her the following way:

Telling me that she has many gay friends and doesn't oppose gay marriage, Patricia gets frustrated being automatically lumped together with other conservatives, a characterization she says has cost her possible work. "We know for a fact there are some people who have said they wouldn't want to work with us because of our politics," she said, with her husband David Hunt adding, "We get lumped in with lunatics."

First, note she says because of her politics.  Now, are these positions she holds because of her faith, or her politics?  I would have thought she would have said 'because of her faith'.  Or is 'because of my politics' just a blanket term for anything nowadays.

But noticed the last.  "We get lumped in with the lunatics."  Who does she mean?  Anyone opposed to gay marriage?  Anyone who doesn't fully support the entire gay rights movement?  Anyone who thinks there might be something wrong with the homosexual orientation lived out?  Who did she mean?  They have it in quotes, and in journalism, that is supposed to mean she was taken word for word.  Was it the right context?  Did she really mean that?

My first thought was 'Thanks Patricia for throwing all of those [non-you] believers under the bus!"  But then I considered the source.  I'm willing to think the source, just chock-a-block full with agendas and axes to grind, twisted her around to say what they wanted her to say.  But if not, I would say it is typical for the demand that a life in Hollywood today must place on anyone of faith.  The desire to throw other believers under the bus, if only because you know some gay friends, and aren't going to let a little thing like the same faith you so proudly display in other areas, get in the way of that one.  We'll have to see I guess.

More light blogging

I know, I know.  I've not been around for a while, and my declining readership stats show it.  Sorry about that.  These last few months have been whirlwind at best.  Right now I'm in the midst of preparing for some examinations that might help propel me into a new career path, something we could seriously use.  I passed the first round just yesterday.  Another is coming up this week.  Add to that the stacking end-of-the-school-year obligations, and it's enough to make my head spin.  So suffice to say, I won't be around. 

There has been much worth reflecting on, not the least of which was the much talked about release of the report on the Catholic Church Abuse Scandal.  Also our illustrious president once more putting foot in mouth by saying about Israel publicly what probably should have been discussed in private.  Don't worry, his propaganda ministry will no doubt rush to his aid as we will all learn new truths about the issue that nobody ever knew.

In the meantime, Newt Gingrich's campaign continues to explode just outside of the starting gate, while several other contenders bow out, leaving the very wealthy Mitt Romney to garner support from the No Morals, Just Money wing of the GOP.  Ron Paul is wacky as always, insisting that people would rather die than blaspheme the sacred untouchable holiness of the Federal Government.  And of course, Conehead the Barbarian implodes at 25000 feet as it turns out he did more than talk the talk when it came to jettisoning those pesky old traditional Christan values, as his 10 year old love child attests.  Pray for that family, and all of the children involved.

And naturally, the fact that I'm still here past May 21 suggests some manner of spiritual deformity.  No doubt I have failed to see it the way any other blogger who feels heaven is no place for a [non-me] Christian.  Ironically, Harold Camping is nowhere to be found today.  Who knows?  Maybe he was right. 

Anyway, assuming there is still hope, and he's just in hiding, I'll continue to plow forward as best I can.  Hopefully things will work out, resolve themselves, and slow down in the coming weeks.  Until then, I may go back and pull up and re-post a few of my more popular or highly praised articles.  When I get time, I'll look into the missing comments boxes.  Probably something simple.  Just can't worry about it now.  So see everyone soon, have a fun and enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend.  I would like to go visit my Dad's grave this weekend.  It will be the first I've traveled there since the funeral.  Take care, God Bless, let me know if there are any prayers in the meantime, please keep my family in prayers through all these upcoming weeks and months, and Peace be with you all.

TTFN

Pray

For those hit in Missouri and Minnesota and Iowa whose lives have been changed forever by yet another outbreak of violent storms and tornadoes.  Also be mindful of those whose lives will never be the same from earlier, similar disasters.  And of course, lift up those whose lives stand in the balance as they watch helplessly the rising waters of the Mississippi and its connecting tributaries. 


Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend.

From the prayer composed by Msgr. James H. O'Neill,

then Chaplain to General George S. Patton.

Heh

Stephen Hawking continues to amuse

So an interview with the physicist has surfaced in which he illustrates why I never had the faith to be an atheist.  It demonstrates why people who are experts in one field are not always well versed in others. Of course he knows of no such thing.  Just like we no of no origins of religion.  Oh there are theories.  There are theories based on theories based on theories based on beliefs.  But no actual evidence.  What evidence we have is long after religious thought is in play.  What we make of it is, again, theory based on belief.  We do have his famous 'we don't need God, we have gravity' statement, which had philosophers and theologians blowing beer out of their noses in laughter.  It reminds me of Richard Dawkins.  Somewhere he said something about how if God exists, He would be bigger than any theologian ever knew.  A silly and meaningless statement, especially when just about every major religion and its thinkers admit there is more to God than we will ever know!  The irony is just too much fun.

As for science works, sure it does.  In medicine, in mechanics, in industry, in carbon emissions, in nuclear weapons, in gas chambers.  That's the problem with science.  It only asks what is.  It has no capacity for asking what we should do about it.  As the wise man once said, a society that lives in the shadow of the mushroom cloud, yet continues to put unchecked faith in science, is a culture that deserves to be laughed at by your average Medieval peasant.

Of course all of this is irrelevant.  Hawking is one of them science types, that must mean he's super smart about everything.  At least in the eyes of the media.

Blogger Issues

Looks like Blogger was having some problems for the last day.  From what I can tell, everything is fixed.  But since part of the problems involved watching a day's worth of posts vanish and then reappear, I think I'll hold off until next week to see if things are back to normal.  There were plenty of fun things to blog about.  But for now, I'll just wait until next week when I'm sure there will be even more.  Until then, just in case things are working, enjoy this heartrending yet inspiring story about the father of murdered son, John McCabe, who has finally, over four decades since his son's death, come close to finding justice.  Thanks, largely, in part to his own perseverance.  As Mollie at Get Religion points out, the NYT actually does a good job unpacking the importance of religion in the life of the parents, the family, and the son.  So while you shed a tear for John, who never had the chance to be in his sixties with grandchildren of his own and a family to look back upon, you can smile to know his faith and the faith of his family got them through, helped the father to push forward and eventually aid in the very case that changed his life forever, and applaud the NYT for, at least this time, getting the religion angle right.

God bless Billy Graham

Most know now that the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham is in the hospital.  Apparently he is being kept because of pneumonia.  There have been few leaders as respected by his own generation as Dr. Graham.  Today, in our 'I hate all religious people since I'm so tolerant' age, there are those who simply hate him for hate's sake.  I noticed on the Huffpost, multiple entries were deleted for violating Huffpost policy.  Given the contempt and snide comments and outright bad taste flip offs of those they left on, it makes the blood run cold to think of what the ones that were censored said.  But that's the post-modern Left for you. 

For the rest of decent humanity, this is a time to pray and reflect on the life of a truly magnificent individual.  He was the closest thing to a pope that Protestants had, a rallying point that they could look to.  Not without controversy, and never calling himself perfect, Dr. Graham. was nevertheless able to plot a course in our rather brutal and unforgiving media world that allowed him to receive the much deserved respect of people around the world; not just Protestants, but Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, and just about everyone possessing a heart and soul.  They may not have liked him, or agreed with him.  But just as I admitted in college, self-proclaimed agnostic liberal that I was, he believed in what he did, and in our post-modern world, that alone was worthy of respect.

God bless Dr. Graham, may those ministering to him do so with wisdom and care, and may God bless him for his years of service, and help all of us prepare for the inevitable moment that all mortals must face.  In Christ's name, Amen.

Meanwhile, the hip bigotry for the enlightened American

Continues to gain steam.  In a retraction, Illinois congressman Shane Cultra assures us he really doesn't want to impose a special tax on parents of grotesquely and disgustingly fat obese kids.  Yet he can't just say he was taken out of context without adding:

I am sensitive to the need to reduce childhood obesity. But I don't believe a new tax one everyone who buys juice, soda and energy drinks will accomplish the goal. Parents have to take some responsibility."

Yep, because no matter what the reason for obesity, no matter how genetic the basis, it must be stopped!  Those who are obese and raise fat kids must be punished.  Of course the fact that some may be genetically predisposed toward being overweight is irrelevant.  It's not like being physiologically predisposed to a sexual preference that is medically shown to be leading to death and misery or anything.  It's fat, sloppy fat, obnoxious fat, grotesque fat people. 

When you stop focusing on one group to feel contempt for, I can't help but believe a society needs to pick up another.  Bigotry is, after all, the life blood of any civilization.

Another inconvenient truth for the Gay Rights Movement

Turns out Homosexual men are twice as likely to get cancer.  I know, I know.  But this is a study.  Exactly. And homosexual rights groups, many of whom being Democrats will embrace the latest Obama polls, will simply dismiss this with a flick of the wrist.  This isn't surprising.  As the sad thing is, the more and more research is done, the more and more evidence turns up that homosexuality isn't really that healthy after all. 

And yet, why can I believe these studies, when I dismiss others?  Well, I don't.  Yet.  I take them all with a grain of salt.  But we live in an age where anyone and everyone in almost any major industry in our country is compelled to support Gay Rights, and elevate homosexuality.  And that includes our scientific communities.  So when I see a study from an arena typically in the bed with something, that produces evidence against that same thing, I sit up and take notice.

Of course despite the fact that anal sex may now lead to higher rates of cancer, along with higher rates of HIV, and higher rates of other infections like Hepatitis, we're still promoting it!  A little thing like dead people just won't stand in the way of better orgasms damn it!  The mantra of the post-modern Left.

The AP and Obama's surging poll numbers

So all the news outlets across the nation are abuzz about the sudden surge of Obama's poll numbers since the killing of Bin Laden.  Looks like now folks think he can do it all, hunt down terrorists, protect our country, fix our economy.  Why, the list is endless.  No doubt 60% surveyed will expect the walking on water any moment!

But wait.  Not so fast.  Turns out the AP (that stands for Associated Propaganda Press), has fudged the numbers a bit.  You see, under my firm belief that one of the biggest wastes of human history is the professional study, survey, or poll, the AP has decided to give Democrats a disproportionate amount of say, 17 points higher that is.  That means they asked a larger number of democrats than they should, a number that far exceeds the national percentage of Democrats.

Why?  Because, as I've said before, Journalism is dead, long live Propaganda.  We've always prided ourselves on looking down our noses at those journalists of old who cooked up wars, elevated preachers, and told Rosie the Riveter to go home when the war was over.  But turns out, things haven't changed.  If they never were that bad then, they are that bad now. The AP is all about promoting a socialist, secular, culturally and politically liberal agenda.  Obama is their best hope. So realizing that a floundering economy, several missteps over the last year or so, an apathetic base, an outraged opposition, and diving poll numbers all meant the possibility of a one term president, the AP got to work.

They lied.  They fixed the race, hedged the bet, stacked the numbers to make the poll say what they wanted.  Then they went to work, along with the rest of the media, to 'interpret' this for the masses.  Clearly, we are being told, this shows that the American public is falling in love again, Obama's great, gives us chocolate cake, 2012 is in the bag, it's time we all promise to serve the One.  Sickening.  Again, we are reminded that after 5000 years, humans have learned very little.  It's not that we fall for propaganda, for certainly the Internet Age makes such information readily available.  But we love it.  Just like humans always have.

So what is homognosticism?

The other day I posted a post flippantly entitled Homognosticism Strikes Again!   Well, it dawned on me that this term really wouldn't mean anything to most of the human race.  So let me explain.  The homosexual rights movement has been one of the greatest examples of evolution in history.  Surely, nothing demonstrates the evolution from one species to another more than the Gay Rights Movement. 

In the beginning, Gay Rights rode the crest wave of our post-war liberal society, where such things as absolute truths and normative values were going the way of the butter churn.  We were to accept homosexuals because who was to say what is normal and what isn't?  A free, enlightened society understands that nobody has a right to legislate morality, or demand conformity to a particular value system.  You could disagree with the actual behavior, but it was their choice to live as they wanted, and a truly liberal culture would embrace that, just as we would embrace the right to not live that way or not to agree with it.  Just watch old shows and sitcoms from the mid-70s to early 80s.  You'll notice the main message being 'who's to say what's normal' as the reason for not rejecting an actively homosexual individual.

Well AIDS crapped all over that.  Just when folks were starting to adopt the media's call for live and let live, when homosexuals were actually being interviewed and we actually saw real life homosexuals asking to be respected for who they chose to be, that it wasn't a disease or disability, and therefore they shouldn't be treated different than anyone else, they just wanted to be left to live life their own way and they would never, ever impose their values on anyone else - BAM!  AIDS hit.  Almost immediately, folks started to ask if it was a good idea to tolerate something that, at least to most novice eyes, appeared to be bringing a rather frightful pandemic into the living rooms of the world.

Well, to avoid the possibility of saying they were wrong, they did what progressives are always able to do, they simply changed that absolute eternal truth of the universe of yesterday.  Suddenly, and without much warning, homosexuality was like being man or woman, or black or white.  It was genetic.  Some gene made it happen.  Something.  It was no more a choice than having blue eyes or being Asian. 

That changed things.  Especially as our society, still smarting over America's Official Sin (Racism), was willing to give carte blanche to any group that could claim discrimination due to genetics.  Our post-WWII sensitivities made such a claim a winner.  Likewise, at the same time, we were increasingly sure that harboring hatred and loathing and even desiring censorship of those ideals we didn't like was just A-Okay.  After all, it isn't as if the majority of the human slaughter in the 20th century was based on ideologies and not on race or anything.

So by the 90s, things were clearly moving in the direction of treating homosexuality like a species unto itself.  Despite the evidence of homosexuals marrying those of other genders and having children and doing the whole heterosexual thing, the emphasis was on comparing the need to be homosexual if you so much as had the slightest inkling, to the need to have oxygen and water.

Now the problem became, of course, what to do with those who don't, you know, by into the agitprop of the post-AIDS Gay Rights dogmas?  What about free speech?  What about freedom of religion?  Well, no problem there, as the post-modern progressive movement gradually weans a generation of Americans into believing that the Bill of Rights is based on goodthink - if you don't embrace leftist goodthink, you don't get rights - a growing number of individuals across our national spectrum have no problem thinking that the rights enjoyed by religious organizations, secular organizations, or even individuals is entirely dependent upon how one reacts to the question: Should gays be able to be married?

Now, despite the fact that in the early days, folks were assured it would never come to such things as gay marriage or polyamorous relations, it has.  Increasingly, we are following certain European countries and simply throwing marriage itself out the window.  Ignoring the generational suicide that Europe has imposed upon itself through catastrophically low birthrates, we are increasingly fine with the notion that all humans should do is have sex with whomever or whoever they want, that should pretty much define them, and it should define the limits of those who refuse to go along.

Still, every now and then, a believer begins to ask questions.  Aren't homosexuals just plagued with all sorts of 'troubles' that seem to be unique to homosexuality?  Don't most homosexuals have problems in disproportion to other folks, even in countries in Europe?  Isn't homosexuality still the numero uno group of AIDS victims in the world?  That's when the inquisitors of gay goodthink come in to rewrite the rules once again.

For now, it's not just that homosexuals are born that way and must live that way.  It's that homosexuality is more than any other behavior.  Procreation?  Why, the whole notion that sex is mainly for perpetuating the species is just the result of eons of homophobic bigotry, most likely the result of the evil Christian faith.  The idea that homosexuals suffer from emotional and psychological problems out of proportion of other demographic groups?  Again, it's the result of vast, global heterosexual conspiracy.  The notion that homosexuals, lesbians, and other non-heterosexuals have issues with drugs, past accounts of abuse, and physiological difficulties out of proportion to the rest of society?  Well, that's when we are reminded that verily hath God made homosexuals slightly better than the angels.  We are told that homosexuals are in every way superior.  Better, smarter, more refined, wittier, kinder, gentler, better lovers, you name it.  There's just no real reason NOT to be a homosexual.  Even if you aren't born that way buster brown, you should want to be that way!

And those heterosexuals who don't enjoy the superior life of a homosexual (who happen to enjoy one of the highest standards of living of most demographic groups in America)?  Well, they are there to give birth, I guess, to more homosexuals.  Sort of like the old gnostics.  Back in the day, some of them concluded that since all matter was bad, and nothing meant matter more than child birth, therefore all women were bad.  They had no souls.  Their only purpose was to give birth to men who did have souls.  And the more our society continues to shape and mold and reform its reasons for everyone accepting homosexuality as normative [superior], I can't help but think it's eventually going to come to that. Hence the term.

Certainly as Dan Savage explains, despite all assurances from the gay rights activists of old, it doesn't stop at homosexuality.  Manufacturing kids in labs so two dads can give birth, gangbangs and orgies and group sex, polyamorous relations and polygamy - why the possibilities are endless!  And by embracing the glorious censorship for the advancement of the post-modern secular Left, we should have no problem convincing the masses to sell themselves into slavery for the promise of a good lay.  Hence the warnings.

Because the Huffington Post loves censorship

They didn't post my response to Joshua Kors' droolfest over Dan Savage of 'It Gets Better' fame.  That's not surprising of course.  Nothing loves censorship nowadays more than the postmodern Left.  It's the dream they have that someday the Bill Of Rights will only apply tho those who have embraced Righthink, with the corresponding derision, mockery, ostracizing, censorship, and oppression of those who fail to conform to the Left's dogmatic definitions of diversity.

Anyhoo, the post, as I explained yesterday, was a celebration of Savage's push to keep homosexual teens from committing suicide by promising them that it will get better once they've gotten away from all those hateful bigots like teachers, preachers, and parents who don't affirm their focus on wanting whatever they want despite the ramifications.  Rather than take on that - since what can you say about someone who is trying to keep teenagers from committing suicide, especially since homosexuals still rank high in suicide rates, making it a legit problem - I chose to focus on the undertone of Kors' introduction to Savage. This paragraph in particular was my focal point for my post on Huffpost:

Dan Savage first made his mark with his nationally syndicated sex advice column, Savage Love, an X-rated guide for a generation of kink-savvy readers, from youths interested in trying anal sex to married adults considering a three-way tryst. A gay activist—for years he asked readers to address him as "Hey, Faggot!"—Savage appears regularly on Bill Maher and The Colbert Report, confronting conservatives who condemn gay marriage and denounce gay sex as half a step from bestiality.

I know I can't think of anything  better for our country than nationally endorsed media celebrities going around helping our youth try anal sex.  Of course they have to focus on Conservatives who compare homosexuality as a step away from bestiality.  After all, conservatives used to warn that accepting gay sex would lead to three-way trysts and teaching youth how to have anal sex.  In the days of Phil Donahue, such gibberish was smacked down as the obvious result of homophobic bigotry and intolerance that it was.

Well, since that's pretty much what happened, the only thing left for them to do is deny the only thing not officially endorsed by the growing percentage of the gay rights community.  We've opened the doors wide for polygamy, polyamorous relationships, group sex, three-way trysts, and teaching our youth the glories of anal sex.  So the only thing left is denying that there is a desire to allow for sex with animals or sex with children.  Even if some are pushing for those, along with incest, with the excuse that morality no longer applies to sex since we've accepted homosexuality, they still aren't officially endorsed by the likes of Savage.  So they get on and trash the only accusation by nonconformers that they can trash.

But what my post really focused on was the idea of continuing to push sexual promiscuity in an age of AIDS.  Call me stupid, but I'm one who is convinced that the ascension of AIDS within a decade of the generation that said 'Drugs and Sex!  What could possibly go wrong?' is no coincidence.  Despite the tens of millions who have died of AIDS, despite the millions infected every year, despite evidence that HIV rates are once again on the rise in the industrialized West, despite the tens of millions of lives emotionally, psychologically, and physically devastated by all of the deplorable side-effects of a sexually permissive lifestyle, never mind the disastrous impact on society, the crux of the gay rights movement and those who support it continues to be 'Sex?  It's natural.  What could possibly go wrong?'

And therefore I pointed out on the Huffpost that to promote sexual promiscuity in an age of AIDS is every bit as grotesquely irresponsible as tobacco companies promoting cigarettes to youngsters when we know smoking can cause cancer.  But since the Huffpost, like most post-modern morality, exists largely on lies, half-truths, and propaganda, and doesn't want a little thing like some kid pointing out that the emperor is naked, they resort to the Left's pet tactic of censorship.

Expect more of the same.  A movement whose basic premise is 'In all things sex, drugs and bathroom humor freedom, in everything else totalitarian oppression and slavery', pretty much has to play hardball lest the word get out and common sense people start asking common sense questions.

Stocks continue to climb!

As unemployment and inflation continue to devour the American consumer.  How is this possible?  Well, I'm no economist.  By my guess has been for some time that, for all those decades companies begged us to 'Buy American', Americans forgot to ask those companies to 'Stay American.'  With shipping jobs overseas for slave wages, in addition to the exploding markets in places like India and China who, combined, have a potential market in excess of 6 times that of the United States, most companies no longer need the American worker to work in order to rake in the big bucks.  In fact, sometimes if wages are low or benefits are being cut, it might be just the thing to help the average Wall Street investor line his or her pockets with the misfortune of the Main Street American.  This article on The Lookout, not the best source I admit, seems to quote some folks who at least somewhat agree.  We'll see.  But it's nice to know that, while most Americans are struggling with gas prices, grocery prices, unemployment, and diminishing benefits, our Wall Street execs are bringing in unprecedented profits for themselves.  

The motto of the Post-Modern Left

I'm convinced, should be something akin to 'We would abort six million babies for better orgasms!".  Here is a fluff piece of all fluff pieces to demonstrate the from-under-the-rock nature of the PML in all its glory, shielding itself with a cause that is, in itself, a good cause - keeping teenagers from committing suicide from bullying (something that speaks more about our modern culture, but that's for a different post).  Radical leftist journalist (and boy do I use the term 'journalist' lightly) Joshua Kors, praises and worships at the alter of Dan Savage, the fellow who equates anything short of venerating Gay Sex to be bullying which, of course, must be stopped. 

The piece begins by reminding us that Savage is one of those who, despite the deaths of almost 30 million AIDS victims*, still promises unbridled sexual pleasures with the assurance that it won't be you who becomes a statistic.  The piece goes on to give us a list of the Colberts, the Obamas, the Mahers, and all others who are willing to stand by while tens of millions die of AIDS, and tens of millions of other lives are lost and ruined due to the sex and drugs culture or our age.  Can there be anything more grotesquely irresponsible than promoting a culture of sexual promiscuity in the wake of a pandemic caused primarily by sexual promiscuity?

Yet the promise, especially to young people, is tantalizing:  Focus on yourself.  Everyone who doesn't affirm your focusing on yourself is, of course, the bad guy.  That you could be the bad guy isn't even in the equation.  It's them, it's always them.  So be what you want to be, get what you want to get, and do what you want to do with whoever you want to do it, as long as you end up being a person who focuses on yourself and sees sex as the ultimate defining characteristic of reality.  Anything that doesn't affirm you in that?  That's the bad guy.  It's the natural human tendency that makes propaganda so readily believed, even when all common sense screams the opposite.

And how do they continue to promote such an attitude when any kid able to see the emperor is naked can also see that AIDS and that very attitude are inextricably linked?  Well, that's where our basic contempt for all human life comes into play.  That's where the teaching that all humanity, not just non-Europeans, is a festering malignant blight upon the world anyway.  What is human life but pointless unless you are having sex with as many individuals as you want?  And for the gangbangs?  No problem there, that's why the gods of progressivism have given us abortion on demand.  For who wants a bunch of snot-nosed brats running around interfering with your orgies? 

No, the attitudes behind the post-modern Left take the absolute worst of the attitudes floating around Europe at the dawn of the 20th century, and multiply them a thousandfold.  The human suffering and waste of life that has occurred as a result?  Either ignore it, or justify it.  That's why we have our entertainment industry, our media, and our educational institutions to help in just such a case. And don't worry about those pesky kids who think the emperor is naked.  As story after story after story after story demonstrates, including the frequent tirades of our dear Mr. Savage, no censorship is too small, no oppression is too small, no intimidation is too small, no eradication of ungoodthink is too small, when the carrot at the end of the stick is the promise of a life focused on self to the exclusion of any other consideration, and especially fulfilled through the sacrament of sexual hedonism and debauchery.

*The total number of AIDS deaths is quickly approaching the total number of humans butchered by Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler combined.  Yet we insist it's due to ignorance, lack of education, and the need for more condoms, despite the fact that we have spent billions on education, treatment, and condom distribution to the near exclusion of just about every other conceivable concern for the last 30 years.

Homognosticism strikes again!

Homognosticism, which is the post-modern manifestation of the homosexual rights movement, has struck another blow against free thought.  Turns out, Olympic gold medalist Peter Vidmar has been pushed out of his role as chief of mission for the 2012 Olympics.  Why?  Need you ask?  Is there any other movement, with the full support of news outlets and entertainment institutions, able to call for oppression, thought control, and censorship and receive a high five from those very institutions who once opposed the same? 

Homosexual rights and those inquisitors who enforce its dictates is so confident in its power and control, it no longer tries to hide the desire to squash freedoms, liberties, and rights.  It does so boldly and with pride.  It isn't for no reason that I have said homosexuality is the opportunity through which the post-modern secular Left will drive a wedge between those who have rights, liberties, and freedoms, and those who don't.

On blogs and comments and the state of things

It's come to my attention that my comments sections are not showing up.  I might look into that when the time is right.  Right now, it's obvious that blogging has dropped to an almost crawl.  Life issues and all. As has, as a result, my readership.  Whereas a few months ago my readership meter was off the scale, it's closer to my bank's CD interest rates.  I've also been told that errors are popping up on my blog, and things are disappearing like certain faves or fans links or whatever.  I had been told some months ago that my Fans link had issues, and someone who had tried to be a fan couldn't. I never did figure that one out.  So obviously there is a certain level of maintenance involved in a blog, as well as the need for some tech knowledge, which I don't have. 

All of this is to say I don't have time to look into things right now.  I'll keep posting.  I hope folks will come by and enjoy, and keep coming back.  Tell a friend or two.  Link to my blog if you're really feeling crazy.  I may let comments stay off for a while.  To be honest, the number and variety of comments was diminishing once I had to slow down the blogging.  There's something to be said for quality, of course.  But after I had to chase away a commenter or two who were just more or less coming by and insulting people, I noticed the numbers of comments dropped.  Maybe that is the nature of the blogging beast.  It seems sometimes blogs are where we go to behave in ways we would never allow our children to behave.  It certainly is a place where folks can sometimes hatch some rather strange, if not downright stupid, ideas and theories.  And sadly enough, most numerous comments in most blogs happen when party one says thus and such, a second party responds by calling the individual stupid/evil/sinful, and then it's Katie-bar-the-door.  So for my rather non-combative nature, I prefer no conflict, but with no conflict came, well, fewer comments. We'll keep things as they are for now.

So come on by, see what I've been kicking around, and who knows?  Maybe things will all be up and running down the road when I have more time to post more thoughts.  I know you're all quivering with anticipation!

A blast from the past

I found these the other day on another blog.  They were John Berkey's artwork depicting that space movie of all space movies.  I remember these two well.  I think the first one was in some bubblegum card collection, and I remember looking at that one over, and over, and over again.  I memorized every detail.  The bottom one was a poster I believe, and a friend had it in whatever form at his house, and I remember looking at that and using it to relive the dogfight at the end of the movie.  It was, after all, before the age of VCRs made it possible to rewatch a movie over and over again, depriving our memories of the need to recall the information.  Anyway, just a little dose of memories here, from a time that seemed oh, so simple.

A nice news story showing that people wear shoes in America

Actually, just Reuters pointing out what anyone not living under rocks has always known, that church groups are among the first to mobilize in any disaster situation.  Here they are doing their church thing, as everyone knew they would, for those victims of the tornado ravaged South.  I'm not sure if this is classic 'everyone is in a zoo to the press' stuff, where the reporter is genuinely shocked to see a stereotype broken by reality.   Or if the reporter is well aware of the inherent goodness that exists in religion and is using this lull in a week of super-stories to point out the obvious flaws in history's latest, hippest bigotry.  After all, the modern secular notion of religion, especially of the institutional kind, is just the latest manifestation of the ages old propaganda telling willing hearers that such and such people group is mostly stupid, mostly evil, and the reason there is suffering in the world, and needs eradicated for peace to reign.  Perhaps the good reporter Verna Gates just took this time to derail that little commonly presented spin before something really bad happens as a result.  Who knows?  But it is nice to see what everyone knows. 

Notre Dame drops charges against defenders of Catholic Faith

Hurray!  Another bout of justice in that strange, weird world that is the Catholic Faith.  For 2000 years, the Catholic Church has been a beacon and a shadow at the same time.  It is no different today.  The problems within a Church with over a billion members and a 2000 year accumulation of skeletons has to be legion.  The fact that a 'Catholic' university would ruthlessly pursue individuals who stood up for Catholic teaching regarding the unborn against that university's dismissal of the same, just shows the problems.  But then, as I say, the troubles aren't new.  When someone confronts me about my conversion and asks if I realize how long the scandal has been going on, I reply yeah, I know.  It's been going on for about 2000 years.  Just read the New Testament if you want to see such problems in the Church.  It's what happens when you have the Body of Christ in a fallen world filled with sinners who happen to have been made in the image of God.  Anything can happen, and it always does.  Which is why I try to be gracious toward those other things like America, democracy, and capitalism when it comes to pointing out their flaws.

America is becoming a nation

In which medieval peasants would not want to live.  Turns out Corporate CEOs are raking in the big bucks, even while hordes of American serfs citizens are struggling to make ends meet with little to no hope for change any time soon.  It makes me laugh at how we still consider ourselves superior to the pre-modern man.  By this time, even in the face of possible agonizing death, the average peasant of yore would have raise their pitchforks and done something about it.  Americans today, infected with a malignant apathy, just suck on it.

You may want to sit down for this

But it looks like gay rights activists and supporters of gay marriage are applauding a Minnesota lawmaker's speech defending gay marriage.  Yeah, hard to believe isn't it.  These stories are pure propaganda.  There's no news in them.  But then I don't think The Lookout is really news.  But then again, I'm not sure actual news exists anymore. Anyhoo, take a smart phone and tape anyone defending gay marriage and post in on Youtube and you will have any number of folks viewing it and cheering if they already support gay marriage.  Just like you will with anything on Youtube. Duh. 

Thumbs up for Bush?

In an unusual piece, TIME.com runs a story interviewing the children who were in the classroom, listening to stories read with President George W. Bush on that fateful September 11th day.  Of course, Bush has been blasted for his reactions that day.  Bill Maher, Michael Moore, and others on the radical Left have amassed many hours lampooning him and attacking him for not immediately jumping up and doing something they are always at a loss to explain.  Yet the kids who were there have another view.  Those interviewed and asked were apparently glad he handled it the way he did.  Which is how most thinking Americans who don't worship at the altar of party affiliation tend to see it.  Do you think Bush was a bad president?  Do you think he botched things in the ensuing years?  Fine.  But as many are saying about the raid on Bin Laden today regarding President Obama, give credit where it is due.  Don't be a Moore/Maher/Limbaugh who must take any moment of joy and celebration and crush it to score political victory points.  Just be a real human who can tell when to speak, when to cry, and when to celebrate.

A nation of crybabies

Strikes again.  When I first heard that the code name for Bin Laden was Geronimo, my very first thought was 'Oh boy, someone's going to be pissed.'  Then I shook it off and thought perhaps we might be growing out of all of this professional offendedness of the last few decades.  When it comes to folks like Christians, over weight people, and Conservatives, there is no real concern for raw feelings, so perhaps that's a start. 

But it was not to be.  As sure as I knew it would, a group has come out protesting our use of the name Geronimo.  Yep.  All upset because his name was used for Bin Laden.  Now, as stupid as this is, it shows the fact that we seldom learn from past mistakes.  The fact that American Indians still enjoy a sort of blank check when it comes to writing their own history is why this is the case.  After all, if the code name had been Pope Pius XII, would the same ones protesting now protest at all?  Probably not.  Oh sure, some others might  protest.  But that's the problem.  It's not a case of 'there is a higher principle here that was violated.'  It's a case of 'that bothers me, ME, and I don't care what you do to anyone else, just don't do it to me!' standard of post-modern attitudes.

The world of political punditry emerges from beneath its rock

A story on how the media has handled the death of Bin Laden.  The talk media, that is.  For the most part, the MSM has shown a level of restraint.  Sure, there has been talk about how this might help President Obama.  But on the whole, no swipes at Bush, no overt praise of Obama.  Just trying to help America relish in a singular victory amidst so many failures. 

Then, of course, there is the dreaded 24 hour cable news shows, the radio talk shows, and the various partisan blogs.  Their job is not to report the news.  Their job is to attack the other side and build up their own.  If Obama (or Bush) were to cure cancer, the opposition's first task is to turn it into a defeat.  Therefore, even while many Americans are sighing in relief, many on the Right have emerged to spin it in any way possible.  Either using this as an excuse to promote torture enhanced interrogation.  Or in the case of Limbaugh, mocking the star worship and god worship that the President enjoys among some liberal pundits, instead of rejoicing with his fellow Americans.

The worst thing about it all, is how those on the Left actually lived up to the snide mockery of Limbaugh on the Right.  Clue folks.  It isn't an Obama thing, no matter how the hard-left pundits try to make it seem.  But Obama deserves his share of the credit, no matter how badly those on the hard-right attempt to make it seem otherwise.  Perhaps the biggest revelation in this all is just how much the same the hard-left and the hard-right are becoming. 

Happy Birthday King James Bible

Today is the official 400th birthday of the single most published English language text in history.  It's what has helped make the Bible the biggest selling book of all time.  Few other singular texts can boast the influence over history, culture, civilization, attitude, language, and education that this translation can claim.  As a Protestant, I never scoffed at the translation.  As a Catholic I still admire its poetry, its beauty and power.  Certainly when set in juxtaposition to recent translations that appear to follow our tech age's flushing of the spoken language down the tubes, the King James translation stands among the greatest translations of the Sacred Scriptures.  I won't even go into comparing it to the New American Bible used exclusively by America's Roman Catholic Church as the official translation.

Is it perfect?  Is it without problems?  Was it a product of its times?  Sure.  Why not.  As a Catholic, I have no fear in seeing God at work in the history of His Word, not merely in the jots and tittles of a singular written expression of it.  If it is all these things, then it probably only puts it in line with every other attempt to wrap the written word around the inscrutable mysteries of God.  And if it reflected its time as we often accuse it of doing, all I can say is that there was a beauty and grace in that time that has long since been lost from our self-congratulatory generation.

So happy birthday KJV.  And thanks for all of those who have come closer to the grace of God through your lovely and stirring pages. 

Frontispiece to the King James' Bible, 1611

Muslim scholars warn us that we goofed

Apparently, by giving Bin Laden a burial at sea, we may have provoked a religious culture that would appear never to need an excuse to be provoked.  How long will we continue to say, "You can't insult the religion of peace!  If you do, they'll burn churches, blow up embassies, and shoot more nuns!"  How long can we and keep any level of dignity that may be left? 

One of our biggest problems in solving the issues of our time is our insistence on lying to ourselves about our reality.  For example:

• Telling humans they are nothing but evolved animals has been a boon to humanity!
• The 20th Century proves that by getting rid of religion, we can have peace and civility!
• Right Wingers are why there is hate and vitriol in our modern debate!
• Despite the life span of your average homosexual rivaling a Medieval peasant's, there's nothing unnatural about it!
• An era based on unlimited sex and drugs has nothing to do with AIDS!
• There is nothing wrong with Islam in the world, it is too the religion of peace!
• Secular liberalism has done just fine in Europe and America for the last 60 years!
• By rejecting government and putting everything in the hands of people who want money more than life itself, we will achieve salvation for our civilization!

When you force yourself to avoid the bleeding obvious about reality, chastise those who dare suggest the emperor actually is naked, and continue to insist the lies will form the basis for solutions, don't hold any breath waiting for things to work out. 

The act is done of course.  Bin Laden is in Davey Jones' Locker.  They should be glad we didn't cut his body up and shove a pound of bacon in his mouth before we did it.  It's a tribute to America's patience, tolerance, and maturity that since 9/11 we actually haven't gone on mass rampages, butchering Arabs and Muslims from sea to shining sea.  And it's a credit to us that when we found the man singularly responsible for the destruction and death we all witnessed, we did out best to treat him within the boundaries of Islamic sensitivities.  Those who overlook those facts to focus on this or that trivial issue as an excuse for violence?  I'm afraid they probably didn't really need an excuse. 

Some Easter Eggs and a little color

Here's the gang dressing up our annual store of eggs for the eating. 

My lovely wife and our equally cute youngest watching the unfolding chaos

Chico, Groucho, and Harpo do their part to get as many eggs as possible

Your humble blogger gets what's left

Bin Laden is dead

You could tell by all the cheering.  Naturally there are some who sympathize that Bin Laden is gone.  But then, there are people who mourn Hitler.  Ironic that we found out about Bin Laden's death on the same day - May 1 - that the death of Hitler was announced.  While there is no real desire to cheer the death of any human being made in the image of God for whom Christ died, there is a feeling of justice I can't deny.  Bin Laden didn't have to die this way, bloody and violent.  He sealed his own fate by the course in life he chose - a path filled with the blood of thousands of innocents. 

Sure, there is a stale, empty feeling in it all.  I didn't lose a loved one to Bin Laden.  I can't imagine what this news will be for those who did.  Each will have his or her own way of dealing with it I guess. As a Christian, I think it falls into the notion of justice.  There is a justice in creation, a real, objective justice.  While we can pray for the Bin Ladens, the Stalins, the Hitlers, the other human nightmares of the world, there seems to be some mechanism whereby God will not be mocked.  Somehow, some way, those who do such things get theirs. 

And while loving my enemy is something we are called to do, I don't begrudge or judge those who have more difficulty than I, since I have nothing I have lost due to Bin Laden directly.  Most of my country's problems predate 9/11, and have had little to do with 9/11 since.  It's easy for me to say I forgive, or pray. I didn't lose anyone because of him.  But while it is a difficult thing to cheer at a death, I suppose if anyone deserved such  a violent, bloody death today, it was him.  And that because of the life he chose. 

So here's kudos to the military units that made this happen.  Here's to our nation and our government, enduring each other and the usual difficulties of history to see this through.   And here's to those who will grieve this man as a relative or loved one.  I suppose that would be tough to know one's loved one caused such horror and death to so many.  May God receive Bin Laden into His arms, and let His justice, mercy, and will be given in accord with God's wisdom and righteousness. 

Duh

Turns out that telling kids they are obese and grotesquely fat because they are lazy gluttons who are a pox upon our society, might actually be causing some of them to feel, you know, bad about themselves.  The fact that overweight is still one of the main causes of bullying seems to escaped our hip, enlightened moral and intellectual superiors.  But then, how can you care about overweight kids being bullied when the bullying is coming from the top down.  That's not to say I don't think there is a problem with being overweight.  It's an issue I struggle with daily.  But let's face it, when you have airlines and transportation services beginning to tell overweight people that they can sit in the back of the bus or plane (or at least pay twice as much for the trouble), you know we've gone too far.  It just cracks me up, in a sad way, how things have changed from our kinder, gentler society of yore.  Which is why I don't take seriously all the latest sensitivities and dictates for a polite, caring culture.  In the late 70s and 80s, the word 'fat' had become the latest F-word never to be uttered.  Now look at it.  Post-modernism: where eternal truths of good behavior are here today, gone later today.