Ponderings

A Strange Feeling

2010-04-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a moment of dread when things seemed ominous and you had that creepy feeling that something was wrong or about to be wrong?

I am feeling that way right now and I really have no benchmark to look at and see why I might feel this way but it is there.

The recent devastating earthquakes along with the ongoing one in Iceland along with flooding and other weather systems makes me wonder if the earth is not going through some sort of a change where we are going to be unwilling participants.

One of the leading environmentalist stated that in order for the earth to survive about 20% of its population would have to die…that would be 1.3 (B)illion people. Maybe some sort of a pandemic or natural catastrophe will bring this about in the near future. I do not know but I have a strange feeling…

I Welcome the War

2010-03-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

A lot has been written and said the last couple of days regarding tea partiers and Demos getting spit on and called names and whereas I do not condone these acts I can see where the frustration is coming from but I still support ballots not bullets in this situation.

I welcome the coming war of cultural differences in this country because it is a war that is worth fighting and very winnable in my estimation. Why? Because liberals lack the guts to fight, they cower at the very thought of having to act on their words whereas conservatives have no hesitation of “punching you in the face” if they deem it to be necessary. Now is the time to fight.

Liberals have the “can’t we all just get along” mentality and cower in the path of adversity. They think their words are acts enough and they are so naïve that they fail to function when needed. Case in point…The U.S. has for several months under the current administration been touting “tough” sanctions against Iran for their nuclear program but today lo and behold the headlines are that the administration is backing down on the tough sanctions and going along with a milk toast set that will please China and Russia.

Barak Obama in one year has taken us from world power to also-ran and he is destroying the prestige that we once had in the world. We are still looked to for rebuilding countries, i.e., Haiti and Chile but we are no longer seen or respected by Germany, France, England, China, Russia do I need to name more?

The no borders, all illegals welcome, universal healthcare for all, progressive verbal vomit is getting tough to swallow when you look around and see and hear that Bin Laden will kill Americans if we kill KSM. Hell, he masterminded the killing of almost 3,000 Americans in “one” day and we aren’t supposed to put him to death?

Listen my liberal friends and I do have a few; there is no safety in talk and no comfort in a purchased peace. Unfortunately, and if you look at it, wars sometimes do bring about an era of peace but peaceful coexistence with the Bin Ladens and other who subvert our very existence is an act of war and needs to be seen as such. To bad our current administration doesn’t see it that way as they “Mirandize” potential bombers when caught but what do you expect from a bunch of people that have no experience in running anything.

A war will be fought soon in the ballot box and I go on record as saying that the bloodbath of turned out Democrats in November will be the first battle to what I see will be a short war. I expect the war to be over in November 2012, unfortunately, the damage done by four years of appeasement will be with us for many years to come.

A Reckoning

2010-03-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

I think I know what bothers me about the whole healthcare thing and it is a little alarming and disarming to me because it makes me have to think and feel about a few certain things that I, quite frankly, take for granted in my life.

I grew up learning from a generation that took responsibility for themselves as well as their family. There was no passing the buck when it came to taking care of your family, especially your children. You went without so your kids were taken care of and you didn’t complain because you would have received no compassion from anyone because they were all doing the same thing for their family.

When Paula and I had 3 kids in braces; we didn’t have lavish vacations and some years none at all. We didn’t have expensive electronics because our kids' needs came first. We had priorities that I don’t see much today in the next generation. They want all the bells and whistles in life and they want what is “entitled” to them namely that other people pay for their children’s care because they need the other things in their life.

A lot has been bantered about in the past few weeks regarding this new “entitlement” and I think that I did not pay close enough attention to the word as it was being used to correlate it to the people that most wanted this to pass. It is the current generation of “entitled” persons.

As I thought about this it became perfectly clear that they do not want health care as much as they want everything served on a silver platter for them to take. Next will come dental care, vision and any other need that they feel that they can’t pay for or don’t want to pay. They fail to understand what it takes to put the product on the platter and the work and sacrifice of others to make it happen for them and they don’t need to because they are “entitled”.

They also fail to honor those that do; so that those who can’t will get what is needed. But when you put your own special needs and concerns before the good of the people then it is easy to be thankful for all the new stuff the government has just rolled out on their rather well used and tax payer paid for silver platter.

I learned early in life that nothing is free but I think the next generation does not believe that but I can tell you that when the I.R.S. starts sharing your tax information across department lines under the new law and starts taking money from your bank account without your permission…well I think you kinda get where I am going with this.

So sip the Kool-aid I am sure it taste good now but you will be paying for it sometime down the road because the government has never had a “free” program.

So Who is to Blame?

2010-03-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Time is dwindling down and Obama is doing what presidents do best in making back room deals to get the votes to push the healthcare agenda into law. I, for one, hate what is going on but I know in my heart of hearts that it is not his fault. Then whose fault is it…the voters, mainly the independent voters that bought the lie and now are drinking the Kool-Aid being dispensed by the liberal side. Hey guys…they lied to you about change at least the change you were looking and hoping for in him!

I have hope because I know that certain provisions of the new law, if enacted, will be found unconstitutional and portions or the entire bill will be thrown out. It is not a hope it is a known fact that the bill is poorly drafted off of Hillary’s 1992 healthcare debacle…remember that one? Thank God for the judiciary that will have to finally figure out a bill that has never been fully published. You think the White House will get away with hiding from the bench? I think not.

Once the entire bill sees the light of day it will collapse in the court system. Chicago doesn’t own the Supreme Court yet.

So let’s see if this actually gets done through bribery; I think it will and wait for the courts and then the electorate to speak loud and clear in November. The tea party is ramping up with a recall of a senator in New Jersey and other state activism that will hopefully change the political landscape back to where it once was.

The pendulum is swinging back and I can tell you it will rattle off the right side of the casing when it hits in November and I fully expect that Mr. Obama will reap the reward of his power grabbing agenda. Ram it through Mr. President and wait for the fire that will burn your presidency later this year.

Reciprocity

2010-03-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting blog the other day about how family members do not seems to stay in contact with each other and continue to maintain the bridges that we have in our relationships. The blog was well written and very pointed in the reference of one party’s responsibility to another but it lacked reciprocity. It had the ying but I never read the yang in it.

All relationships require a two way street and if it is only going one way then there is a deficiency in the relationship that needs to be addressed by both sides but it is unfair to expect that one side carry the load while the other side receives the goods only.

There are a lot of issues that can separate a family from one another and distance is one of them. I have been well incorporated in many of my children’s lives because of their close proximity to where I live but distance is a barrier to maintaining “close” relations because unfortunately the human mind and heart is fed by contact. Physical has always been a better means of transference between people than ancillary forms that require the mental processes to enact the contact.

When a kid drops in to say “hi” well that is a lot better than picking up a phone and calling. The Internet had developed ways of communicating but it takes both sides to initiate and not the expectation of one side doing the work.

I am not a proponent that I am the dad therefore I must be served but I do think that if there is a loneliness on the part of one side then they need to look at what they can do to improve it rather than look to the other side for their answer. The other side may not even be aware that there was a question.

Listen, we all have busy lives but I have expectations that if I want to have contact then I have to initiate it. I saw Paula’s dad’s opinion that we all had to come to his house and that didn’t work out to well for him and us either, I guess. When you read comments regarding the busyness of any person’s day then you wonder where you fit in anyway. That does not make non contact right or wrong but it does make it seem less important.

Is it “out of sight out of mind” or is it “absence makes the heart grow fonder”? It could be either but it requires a concerted effort by both sides to make it work. I need to be better at it and I guess the other parties just need to find their level of participation also.

Stop and Smell the Roses

2010-03-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

I think that life is a strange thing sometimes in that it challenges us to see ourselves through other people and sometimes I don’t like what I see in me.

I am a man of few wants and that is a good thing but I surround myself with people that think that life is nothing more than a window shopping spree for all emotional and physical things. I rationalize this as some sort of “big empty hole” that they have to fill but it probably isn’t; it is just them being themselves and trying the best they can to get through life with some modicum of self respect and accomplishment. My harshness sometimes allows me to miss the inner workings of a person and that is a loss to me and to them also.

I am a doer; I do things. It was the way I was raised by my mom that you need to be doing things or “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” type of mentality. I like this part of me but unfortunately I am surrounded by the antithesis of me; people that can sit and still feel fulfilled in what they do. People are raised differently and I supposed that if I was surrounded by doers then we would constantly be trying to out do one another and just spending our time busting our asses to outshine the other ass buster.

I have been subjected to many interesting events because of my wife and that is a good thing. We have been on cruises, vacationed in interesting places, and had Japanese exchange students and many other different trips. I would be the first to say that I personally would not have ever done any of these things on my own because I would have been busting my ass doing something else and would have missed the intersections where these opportunities resided. I am glad for those people that walk instead of run and rest instead of work although too much of any one thing still drives me to distraction.

I will continue to putter because it is in my fabric and I probably sense my mother’s calling from the grave that I am lazy; which is definitely not true in any respect. But I do wish I could enjoy life more and the people that are in it for me to enjoy. I am working on it but it is hard for me to assimilate my surroundings and just enjoy the fruits of this life. I always expect that someone wants something which they don’t and that I need to be the one to get it for them which I don’t.

I am trying to alter my inner being in this area but it is hard but I will continue the fight until I can fight no more.

The Nuclear Option...

2010-02-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

Those silly Democrats are at it again. I think that most of the polling information in America today doesn’t reach their desks or something because they are about to do something that is done on budgetary matters but not on big policy changes…they are about to go “nuclear” on healthcare, 51 votes instead of the 60 that they needed before.

Anyone viewing the polls today can see that the healthcare bill as it is currently proposed is an albatross to the American voter. It hovers at around 65% disapproval rate and slowly climbs a point or two every several weeks. Now understand that 65% of the people polled in many different polls do not like this bill and the Demos are still going to try to pass it.

I love the balance of power in our government because the “fat and sassy” senators that worry little about reelection don’t care about the polls but the house does. Every two years they haul their butts out into the community to try and get reelected again and with the voter discontent in this voting cycle many are afraid that they will actually have to get a job after the November election and they will if they back this bill.

Power is a sinister bitch sometimes in that it smells good and taste good but it can have a lingering after taste that will make you want to puke your guts out if you guess wrong on how to use it. The build up of bile on this issue is already out there for the Demos to see and hear and I am wondering how many Democratic house members will drink the Pelosi tea when it comes right down to it…hopefully not many but if they do then there is no one to blame but themselves when they get defeated in November.

So go ahead Obama, push the button, I dare you and see what the last two years of your presidency is going to look like with a mixed or Republican congress to deal with. Go ahead push it, I dare you.

What the ????

2010-02-19T09:19:00.001-08:00

The above picture says it all for the Obama administration and its handling of the Dalai Lama shown out of the White House by a back door by the garbage. But hey, what do you need more…China’s financial backing or the prestige of a religious leader by showing him the respect that should be accorded to him.

The current administration still does not understand that you cannot play both sides of the street but rather you make a stand in whatever direction and then live by it.

The humility of this man to be degraded by being shown the back door and the garbage only enhances his stature while diminishing the stature of President Obama and our country as a whole.

The Bi-Polarization of Liberal Thinking

2010-01-30T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was reading a blog the other night about the political right and how it “hates” President Obama and his policies and as I read it the reality of one of the thought processes of the liberal minded is that they act in a bi-polar manner when discussing political issues.

What does that mean, you ask, well one of the aspects of a bi-polar nature is that there is no gray area in any discussion but rather there is “on” and “off”, “white and black” you get my drift. Now what I am talking about here is not the person writing the blog but rather the thought process that was put out in the article.

It is so easy to use the word “hate” to aid in a person’s rationalization of their position in any given matter because it shuts the door. Once hate is brought into a discussion regarding the disagreement of one position to another then the discussion stops. What the purveyor of this type of thinking is trying to do is stop discussion not maintain it in any manner of understanding. It is a sad position to take in that it hardens the debate process not allowing it to go forward. Maybe that is what the liberals truly want is no discussion only abject submission to the premise that their thinking is correct and all other thinking is wrong headed.

I do not hate Barak Obama as I hope that I hate no one. Hate is a terrible usurper of emotional goodwill in a person and allows for evil and non productive thought processes that drains me of positive feelings about myself and my fellow man.

I can honestly say that I highly disagree with the President’s positions in most matter (I supported the stimulus although it has been poorly managed and has not brought about the results that most Americans would like to see) but I supported it because I think the timing was right for it and it made sense to me. I believe in small government, Obama does not. I believe in an individual’s right to earn a living and to benefit from that work and not be forced to reallocate income to people that have no desire to work but rather live off the government dole. I believe in helping the down trodden and physically challenged in whatever way is possible that makes sense but I am against wealth redistribution to the masses that could care less where it is coming from or what if anything they have to do to earn it, if necessary.

I do not wish to wrap myself in a personal web of self knowledge and worth to the exclusion of those ideas that I need to hear even if I do not like the content or delivery of the words but I understand the importance in hearing the other side. Do I get riled, yes. Do I get challenged, yes but I always come away from it with something to think about and that is a learning process that I need in my life.

I think the word “hate” is over used and misunderstood in the context of politics. While I am sure that there are red necks in all parts of this country that would take a shot at the president, if they could, the masses that disagree are not bent to any type of violence in the settling of differences. Hate empowers bad acts of violence; just look at the local papers to get a fill of it but hate is NOT the fulcrum on which the political seesaw teeters on but rather agreement, disagreement and discernment weighed against the moral make up of the person judging the discussion.

If you like BIG government then you have to love Obama and if you don’t; you don’t have to hate him to disagree with him…you just have to disagree and I say there is nothing wrong with doing that as long as it is in an orderly and respectful manner. The Tea Parties were an example of citizens informing their government of their concerns. I didn’t see or hear of any violence, stores being looted any types of bad behavior during any of these rallies.

Actually, to the historian these were not much different than the colonist protesting King George’s taxes in colonial days but to paint them as “haters” allows the side that likes the current administration an easy way to forego any discussion regarding the motives of the protests.

I think there is middle ground that is no longer an easy place to get to anymore. I think the polarization of our society has gotten us to a place that few can look at the other side and find much agreement but I think we still must try to find that ground and if we do then hold it for all to speak and be heard whatever the issue. But there must be respect for all sides in a discussion and without it we can only expect what we currently have and it a poor substitute. Do I think it is possible, yes, but not probable with the current mindset of the American people. There is a schism that has been forming for years and if allowed to continue it will eventually destroy us. I hope and pray that we do not meet this end.

I'm Excited!!!!

2010-01-13T10:55:00.000-08:00

What can I say, I am excited!!!

About what you ask? Well, it just makes me all tingly inside when I read the news everyday and the Demos still are trying to pass the healthcare bill. Go guys; go like lemmings to your certain political deaths. Bye bye Dodd and Reid you better get the boxes ready to pack up your office because the polls back home are not good.

I have lost count on the Demo congressman that just seem to think that retirement is looking good now. And how about the “rogue” democrat in New York that might run against Hillary’s replacement. He is running under the slogan (and I paraphrase here) “If I am elected Reid will not tell me how to vote.” What a creative thought process.

And our President looks like a neutered dog standing on the side of the rode hoping that no one runs over him before someone comes along and rescues him. Notice the gray in his hair lately…think he just might have promised more than he can deliver, ah yeah.

So Demos party on because the tea party affiliates and the independents and yes even a few liberals that I have talked to are ready to “change” course.

“Change”, it’s such an interesting and probably overused word these days but I have to admit it is kind of growing on me.

See ya at the polls in November.

The Art of Negotiating

2009-12-21T10:52:00.001-08:00

Thank you dad for teaching me such an important part of the political perspective long before it came into fashion.

The Art of Negotiating

A rather wealthy man and a beautiful woman were sitting on a couch during a party and the man asked the woman, "Would you go to bed with me for $100?"

The woman looked at him with scorn and replied, "No!"

The man asked her, "Would you go to bed with me for a million dollars?"

She looked at him for a moment and nodded her head that she would.

He looked at her again and asked, "Would you go to bed with me for a $100?"

She looked at him and yelled, "I already told you no that I wouldn't go to bed with you for a $100!"

He smiled and said, "Maam, we have already established what you are now all I am doing is negotiating the price."

I think this might be how some of the backroom healthcare issues with Landreau and Nelson might have been settled with Harry Reid.

Demagogues and Democrats-Same thing

2009-12-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

"The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as respects all above him, a man who acts in corners, and avoids open and manly expositions of his course, calls blackguards gentlemen, and gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to reason, and is in all respects, a man of intrigue and deception, of sly cunning and management. "
"James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

Sounds like the present congress and the Health Care bill. Democrats are voting for a bill that they haven't even read and hasn't been given to Republicans also. Harry Reid will go down as the godfather of saddling Americans with a trillion dollars of additional debt. Obama's toady.

Oh by the way, The Chinese will soon stop buying our debt (they already owned $2.3 TRILLION of our debt). The Democrats are just like their logo, stubborn jackasses.

"There You Go Again"

2009-12-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

I loved that phrase when I first heard it issued in a presidential debate by Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter. Reagan crystallized the entire debate and eventually run for the presidency on that one statement, “There you go again”. It is a simple statement but it drew Carter out as a one minded, single issue president (which he was) and showed his thinking to be flawed.

Harry Reid reading from a prepared text yesterday on the floor of the Senate stated that the Republicans that were blocking the healthcare bill were like the supporters of slavery during the civil war. These are heavy word for such a lightweight politician.

First off, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican that put his entire presidency on the continuation of the union. It eventually cost him his life. There is no way that the Democratic Party can ever annex this great man as their own.

Secondly, the supporters of slavery prior to the civil war that were in congress were DEMOCRATS not REPUBLICANS. Southern democrats were staunch supporters of state’s rights and the ability and sovereignty of each state to decide the issue. Republicans on a large basis condemned it and sought legislative ways to unbind the south from such an enterprise, as we know, that failed and war ensued.

Harry Reid is a poor leader and a worse purveyor of the facts as was demonstrated yesterday in his speech. Revisionist history has always bothered me but to besmirch the honor of the Republicans today by lying about the Republicans in that era is a sad epitaph for such a small man.

Oh by the way, Harry Reid is trailing in his bid for reelection to his seat in his own state. This might be his last hurrah but at least he could leave with honor and not the pitiful bleating of a lost sheep which really caricaturizes him at this time.

There’s Something Wrong Here!

2009-12-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

I know I have been silent over the past month(s) about political things but something struck me rather strange yesterday with Obama’s jobs program and the TARP funds.

As many of you know, the President has developed a jobs bill to stimulate the economy and that is a good thing BUT he is funding it with the unused TARP funds. The TARP funds were borrowed to bail out banks and now that they no longer need the funds and, in fact, are beginning a pay back to the government then the funds appear to be no longer necessary.

My problem with this is that the TARP funds are borrowed money that increased the debt level and if they are not going to be used for that particular thing then pay it back and reduce our debt but don’t run a shill game on the American public.

Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is a long hallowed way of doing business in Washington but this one stinks. Fund the jobs bill from its own capital base and don’t borrow from one fund to make your program go. The pea and shell game of this transparent administration shows them to be amateurs and hacks.

Sure we need jobs; there are 15 million people out of work and many are taking part time jobs to make ends meet so create jobs, if you will, but raising the national debt is an irresponsible way to do it. The only way to pay such a bill back is higher taxes for those who are working now and those who will get jobs from this bill.

America needs to wake up and smell the coffee on these rubes that are running the store.

Perspective

2009-11-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

Time is an interesting partner in life. It can go too quick, to slow or stand still, it seems.

They say that time heals all wounds but I think it allows for scars to grow over them but whatever it does; it allows those lucky enough to live in it the opportunity to go on in their life.

Now what I am going to write here might sound disrespectful and I do not intend it to be that way but I have not had a single lonely thought about my mom since she has been gone. She has been dead over a year now and in that time I have been released from all of the hurt and pain that I was in during her last years of life.

Thank you God!

All of the thinking about what happened in our dynamic is all gone and if it is thought about it is summarily cast into a fire called, “No thanks”. I am no longer under the weight of having to call her and listen to her complaints or to just know that she wasn’t happy in her life.

I revel everyday in being an orphan, I do. I revel in knowing that part of my life is over and I never have to relive it again. But not lost in all the euphoria is the life lessons learned during that painful time and I have charged myself with the following:

I will strive to take care of myself physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally on a daily basis.

I will strive to remember that I have raised my children and that they are good capable people, just like I wanted them to be. I will be their peer not their father.

I will remember that my children have my best interests at heart even when I do not want to hear what they have to say.

I will humble myself to all of the possibilities of life and be open as much as I can be to the changes that will be coming in future years.

I will treasure my grandchildren on a daily basis even if I do not see them. I will keep them close to me and will endeavor to impart some good from me to them, if possible.

I will try to look at my feet instead of the sky so that I might see my path more clearly.

I will try to never invoke my will through coercion or emotional blackmail but rather be accepting of all parties to what is best in their life.

I will thank God for all blessings given in the past and in hope for the future.

I do not want to give to my children in my older years what was given to me by my mother. They deserve so much more than that and I will do everything to make sure that I deliver on this promise.

Finally I Feel Hope

2009-11-03T20:44:00.000-08:00

After almost 10 months of no hope tonight I feel a gentle breeze called hope and I am once again feeling that the last 10 months was nothing but a bad dream.

Unfortunately, the dream is still alive and well and living in Washington D.C. but the dream lost a lot of luster today. What am I talking about? Today’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York and a few other places.

The independents that threw their collective hats at Barak Obama last November picked them up today and took them home. Do you know what our President was doing as the returns came in…playing basketball. Yes, not watching and seeing if he might detect a trend among voters in this off year election cycle but rather he spent time perfecting his jump shot.

Pundits have said in the last week that this is a one term president and I think I can believe them a bit now and I can’t wait until November 2010 at the mid term elections when many of his democratic supporters will be shown the door back to their previous lives.

I am even heartened in the 12 point lead that the Republican senatorial candidate has over Barbara Boxer at this time in California. Hell, I am damn near giddy over all the good news coming over the horizon.

We still have a ways to go but if today’s results don’t get Pelosi and Reid’s attention (yeah, he’s 14 points behind the Republican challenger in Nevada) and if they try to ram health care down our throats while expanding the debt to record ceilings then November 2010 I can predict one thing…Christmas will be about a month early next year.

I suspect as of right now many of the first term Democrats in the house are shaking a bit and I want to see where the moderate Democratic senators are going to fall on the health care issue now.

Obama’s coat tails are as short as an Eisenhower coat and nothing could make me happier. The Democrats saw this coming and did nothing to tone down the rhetoric prior to elections. I know they will blame their losses today on Bush, don’t they always, but they own this one.

I suggest that they sit down and quit calling voters that disagree with them Nazis and other unfathomable names and pay attention because the tsunami is coming next November.

I can’t wait.

I Did It

2009-11-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

I had an epiphany this morning in church during pastor’s sermon. It was All Saint Day which is a day commemorating all those that have gone before us to their heavenly reward.

The history of All Saints Day is well reported with All Hallows Eve being right before it and all of the evil spirits have their way the night before and all of the dead in Christ are honored the next day. It is a nice service to be involved in, I think.

Anyway, pastor was preaching about saints and white robes and I started to think about my mother. Now in the true representation of Christian deportment and overall goodwill; my mother fell far short of the benchmark. She was a good person, don’t get me wrong, but she was not a Christian that you could tell in any facet of her life. She swore, cussed, and had other personality traits that did not put a big “Jesus sign on her.

She was a Christian as I was to find out hours before her death when Pastor Willie came and visited with her that one last time. Even in her last hours she listened to him as he read scripture and prayed. So I have no doubt that she is in heaven at this very moment and that I will see her once again.

A lot of my problems with her in her latter days were with decisions that she made that kept me from taking care of her in her last months and years. She did some financial things that made it very difficult for me and I might say I struggled internally since her death with these decisions but today I had an epiphany.

I was focused on the wrong thing. It wasn’t about her care during that time but it was about her care at “that” time, when she died. It wasn’t about her investments or paying her bills but being there holding her hand at that moment of time when all of the other things no longer held any importance in either of our lives. Would I have liked it to be different, sure but that was not what God wanted; He wanted me there in that room holding her hand when she took her last breath and left me for Him. And I did that so I can now know and say with confidence that I took care of her until her death.

With that, I fulfilled a promise I made to my dad and I can rest easier that I did, in fact, do what was required of me and I am better for knowing it now.

Now she can rest in peace not only in Colorado but in my mind as well. Thank you Lord for allowing me to see this finally in my life and knowing that I did do what was asked of me not only for her but to your glory also.

Interesting

2009-10-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that the political rhetoric coming from Washington these days has calmed down? In fact, it has calmed down a lot from the past months that saw so much mud being flung around it was hard to understand the issues.

I am glad that we have made it through this period because we are now entering a period of reflection on what has just passed while still looking at the issues that loom ahead of us, health care, the deficit, Afghanistan and so many more.

I am glad to see that the press is starting to open up a little on the foibles of President Obama and Saturday Night Live ever the beacon of satire has finally decided to take him on once in awhile. It does my heart good to see that he is not above the rest of us although the NEA (National Endowments of the Arts) just proclaimed him to be the greatest writer since Julius Caesar (I guess I would say the same thing if I was getting millions of dollars to promote my agenda too but better than Shakespeare, come on now).

The people of the world, save a few, have always looked for a Messiah and our times are no different. The Christians have theirs but the other groups are still looking and trying to find that one person that “fulfills” them and this man fills the bill right now. Can he sustain it, no for he is just a man. And as they look to him for the things they desire they will become frustrated and then the feeding frenzy will begin. It already has.

While this president has enjoyed the highest popularity of any modern president he is now in a free fall that was brought on by promises he cannot keep. I think he wants to but I don’t think he is going to be able to do it, for he is just a man, not a Messiah. His polling numbers continue to drop as he loses his credibility and fan base. Independents are abandoning him and the next political races in Virginia and New Jersey will be a litmus test for the 2010 mid term elections.

Thank you President Obama for single handedly resurrecting the Republican Party in less than one year. As you see Virginia and New Jersey governorships go to the Republicans know that November 2010 will be the day that you and the missus can start packing your bags and preparing to leave Washington D.C.

The American people can be fooled once but twice…not so much. Bye!

Time Heals?

2009-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

A famous adage is that “time heals all wounds” and for the most part I did believe that until this past week. I now have a different take in that time does not heal wounds as much as it puts a scar over them and hides them deep beneath that protective barrier.

It would seem logical since a scar is a harder surface to pierce than just your skin. A scar has diminished nerve ending available to feel pain so if a memory is buried beneath a scar it is harder to get at and be affected by it than one that is nearer the skin.

I had the occasion this past week to revisit a painful time in my life; a time of great confusion and consternation. It was during this time that I began the process of understanding a little more what life was about and how cruel it and the people in it could be at times.

Over the years since that time I have had a great life and have been blessed in so many ways and I had ‘gunny sacked” those experiences as being a learning curve to my current life and I think to a certain extent that is true. Most of us take our past experiences and apply them to our daily lives when necessary to garner greater knowledge on how something should be handled. It is a good way to look at life, I think.

My conundrum came from the fact that I had thought that I was in a certain place with certain past issues and I guess I really had never concluded them but allowed them to just be gunny sacked. When I took them out and looked at them again with a rather dispassionate eye; I found that I was actually looking at them with greater emotion than I thought I would and that surprised me.

What I came away with was that I still cared very deeply about what happened then; much more deeply than I ever thought I would have at this period of time in my life and that surprised me. Actually, I was emotionally spent after writing about this period in my life and my mind was adrift in thought.

I have recovered, yet there is still a small part of me searching for information and answers to questions long since asked and still not answered after all these years. They never will be and that is the way life handles these issues. It is a good way because total accountability in all facets of our lives could be a painful process for all of us.

Will I go back there and revisit this time again, I think not unless there is a need. I owe it to myself and my family to be in the moment for them and not lost in the history of my life. It is a good plan, I think.

Pensive Moments

2009-10-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

I know a family in my church that suffered the agony of losing a child a while back and although I knew of the people and this young man also; as a non family member there was no way to really feel the sense of impending loss that they were suffering.

I cried several times during the time that Brian fought so valiantly to live and I wept at his death but only for the earthly loss that I and others sustained. He was valiant in his fight and humble in his demeanor and it was known to all that saw him that his faith was a large part of who he was and it grounded him even in his darkest moments.

As a parent I have had pensive moments when I struggled with myself and my God in trying to grasp a certain situation especially the death of a baby, like my niece Jennifer. I saw all of the gifts that God has given to me and when I see others that should have the same gifts and life and do not; then my faith falters a bit if just for awhile.

Currently, I have been communicating with my daughter Carrie and I enjoy our night time chat sessions. She is a bright, intelligent person that has a lot of knowledge and has probably the best vocabulary of any person I know. Her writing is exceptional and she can keep a reader locked into the thoughts she is expressing. I write well; Carrie writes extremely well.

In our discussions we have talked about politics; I am a staunch Republican and she is a liberal Democrat, she loves the liberal bent and I do not, she is into Buddhism and I am a Lutheran so there are not a lot of contact points that we agree on at this time and probably never will. I am accepting of it as best I can be and I feel that communication is a key ingredient even if agreement is not.

One area of disagreement is religion. Carrie was raised Catholic and has “fallen away” as they say in the religious vernacular; her prior religious upbringing is no longer a factor in her life.

We have discussed religion and I am sure that I have been on the pointed barb of many of her comments about the hard hearted Christians and how non Christians are more compassionate than we are and I accept her view even though I disagree.

But her hellish rants against religion give me pause. Many times she seems to be the poster child for all that is human and godless and that scares me. It is one thing to not believe in God, if that is what you choose to believe but a non believer should be aware of their words.

I am reminded of Pascal’s Wager “An argument according to which belief in God is rational whether or not God exists, since falsely believing that God exists leads to no harm whereas falsely believing that God does not exist may lead to eternal damnation.”

There is a lot of bravery in non-believers today because society has emboldened them but let it be known that if believers are right then Pascal’s Wager will be a harbinger of eternal pain and remorse.

Since we are judged by every word uttered from our mouths (and yes, I believe the written word also falls under this context) we should all, including me, be more aware of what we say. Our words need to be sweet because we might just be chewing on them for eternity.

A Divergence of Views

2009-10-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

I saw a post the other day on my Face Book that made me pause for a second as I read it to try and understand it and as I did; one thought came into my mind, non believers have no frame of reference with the future they only live in the here and now.

Now, I can hear the Hindus and reincarnationist saying, “Hey we believe that you go on as something we just aren’t sure what it is yet.” And they haven’t been able to tell us for thousands of years.

The gist of the article had to do with cycles and how history is nothing more than a series of cycles and we are in a constant changing from liberal to conservative to whatever but that it will continue forever, I guess. Here again there is no finality to their though process but rather we are here living now, doing the best we can for our kids and grandkids and wait until the next cycle and shouldn’t that be good enough.

I say, “No” and I say it emphatically.

Christians have a different view in that we know and believe that Christ will come again, all of the earth will be made new again under Christ’s reign and we have an eternity to live in it. Sounds to simple for the complicated mind and I think that God did in fact, make it simple just to confuse those that rely on their mind instead of their hearts.

Now some of the brightest minds we know and read about can’t balance their checkbook, can’t pay their taxes, can’t drive a car across a bridge without killing someone, yeah he probably shouldn’t be lumped into this group; but they all have problems, we all have problems and we can’t solve what the earth is throwing at us right now.

Look, we have over 6 billion people on the earth right now and we have diminishing resources many that are non-regenerating so the earth is getting smaller both in living space and resources. We have the most populated country on earth spewing carcinogens into the atmosphere and waterways on a daily basis; home of the swine flu also. This is not a cycle this is living fact and this cycle, if that is what you want to call it will possibly have devastating consequences on all of us or on our children.

While the unbeliever will see that the Christian has a defeatist attitude towards now and our future; I plead otherwise. The believer’s future is bright, shekinah (the light that illuminated the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle in the Holy of Holies in Old Testament times) glory bright and we look forward to Christ’s return because, to put it in the earthly vernacular, “we will be able to sleep with our doors unlocked once again.” All of the filth of this earth will be gone and the evilness of the people will cease.

The sadness is that many know of the path that I speak but many will go down the wide path to destruction. It is a shame but it will happen and there will be “wailing and gnashing of teeth” when this happens.

So non believer live for today because your own beliefs tell you that this is all that there is unless you believe that you might come back as a cockroach and that is a depressing thought, even for a non believer, I think.

I'm Baaaack!

2009-10-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have been away fulfilling a personal dream of writing a book. It has been on my mind for years and I just never had the time to sit down and write anything so involved. I kicked it to the back of my proverbial list of things to do.

What I really found out in the process was that I cheated myself by not doing it sooner. I may have forgotten things that could have been added to the story line because I waited too long but I am accepting of that fact and will try to do better in the future.

So the status of the book is this…it is with an editor that is reading every line, every jot and tittle (I never really knew what that meant until I got 19 pages of edits the other night) and she is reading for content and believability. So far, she likes the book very much and most of her editing is punctuation (I thought I was in school for those days that we studied that but obviously not). After edits are done and any additional corrections and rewrites are completed then she will submit to publishers, hopefully, for acceptance and publication.

I hope that will eventually culminate in a book that can be purchased but I will have to wait on that at this time.

I also wrote about my Marine Corps experiences and I will be self publishing this book through Lulu.com. It is a novella and is more of a personal memoir of that time then a dynamic war story, which it wasn’t. I am in the process of getting a proof book for final review and then I will get it published and ready for sale. I will let you know when that happens.

So it has been an interesting few weeks and I look forward to the next few weeks and seeing more of my book edited and closer to submission to publishers.

A hiatus of sorts

2009-08-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

I will be taking a little time off to work on a project that I have been thinking about for quite sometime. So all of my writing time will be spent on this project but I will let you know when I start posting again on this site.

2009-08-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
James Madison (1751-1836)

In regards to the 1,000 page healthcare bill currently in Congress that some members have said that they have not and will not read it prior to voting on it (and this goes for both sides of the aisle); James Madison said it much better than I could ever hope to convey my thoughts.

Oh, Mama!

2009-08-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

I am an only child and like many us who bear the title we have no understanding of sibling rivalry and the other dynamics that go into multiple children families.

I remember when Paula and I were raising our children when they would get into arguments and say, “I hate you” and other hateful things; I would think that there was some lasting bond to the words and that our future family would be shattered into little pieces. Paula would just tell me to relax because this was the way that siblings acted and reacted to each other in different situations. I eventually came to see and believe that the utterances of youth did not carry a long shelf life to those uttering the words.

One of the other dynamics that I was unaware of but saw growing up was the way that younger siblings had in bringing their older siblings down in size and it was never more apparent that last week at Disneyland.

My family enjoyed a week at Disneyland last week and on one of the mornings we were in an elevator because we needed to transport my granddaughter, Peyton, to the trams from an upper floor parking area. In the elevator also were a mother and her young teenage daughter and a smaller brother.

The teenage girl had a t-shirt on that said, “I Look Awesome” and just to make idle talk I told her that I thought she looked awesome also. Her brother standing next to her was fidgeting a little bit and as the girl thanked me she kind of shoved him a little bit. I am not sure if he instigated the encounter but there was a little contact being made.

I was finished with the short conversation but I heard the girl utter something about her brother being a pain or something like that and the mother was just watching.

Just then…wait for it, wait for it…The brother says in the calmest voice I have heard in awhile,” At least I wasn’t caught in bed with my boyfriend by mom”.

Oh, Mama!

Mom went off like a roman candle on how that was not the proper thing to say in public and as I watched the boy I saw in him a sense of pride in holding his own. To hell with the tongue lashing he was getting, he carried the day and the punishment was minuscule to the smack down he gave his sister in front of total strangers.

I have to say that as embarrassing as it was for the sister; I admired that little guy for taking the chance and accepting the punishment to get his point across. Don’t mess with the little people; they will take you down.

One Year

2009-08-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

My mom passed away on her 85th birthday on August 22, 2008. Unfortunately, I was on vacation on that day and was only able to post this now.

One Year

This blog is a little bittersweet because I am overwhelmed with many different emotions that conflict with each other in regards to how I felt about my mom.

First off, I should say that I loved my mom but not as much as I should have but I do think as much as she would let me love her. We were like a dysfunctional teenage couple that date and fight and break up and make up and fight and it just goes on and on until it ends.

When its over and the dust settles you take a look at what just happened in your life and make life assessments regarding the plusses and minuses of the relationship and eventually grade the event and move on with your life. That might sound clinical but think about it because most of us do it that way. If we didn’t then we wouldn’t be able to move on to other relationships.

So my mom has been gone a year today and the time went fast. I remember being there holding her hand as she faded from life and the other subsequent activities of her funeral and burial. It really seems dreamlike now when I look back on it.

So what have I learned or felt in the past year? Actually nothing more or less than I felt at the time of the actual event except maybe that the hurts are a little less traumatic as I remember them now. They still sting but in a different way.

While mom was alive I was able to relive past moments of my youth and the anger would still be there but now I no longer visit those places nor do I allow myself to over think the dynamic between us. With her gone she is in a place that anger no longer touches unless I want it to touch me and I don’t.

So, in effect, her dying set me free to be free from those thoughts and memories that made me upset and angry and that is a good thing. You would have to ask my family if I am different; I don’t feel different but I think I am less stressed and hopefully more at peace with myself.

There will be many more anniversaries of mom’s passing and I hope that I will be able to stop and reflect for a moment on her and what she meant to my life, both good and bad. I still do the same for my dad on June 30th of each year.

The most poignant thing that comes out of this is the thought that life is for the living and I think my mom’s passing probably has driven that home to me more than any other thing. She is now with the ages and I am here and what I do here is the important aspect of my life at this time. What I do with this time will be the legacy I leave to my children and grandchildren and that is an important thing to me.

I can only hope that I can take the life lessons of my mom and make positive memories of myself to my family and also share in such a manner that they will know how much they mean to me. To do anything less would be a terrible waste of this time that I have been given and would show that I learned nothing from my experiences with my mom. That would truly be a shame.

Where Do We Go From Here?

2009-08-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

A news tidbit caught my eye or should I say tugged at the wallet I was sitting on at the time.

The federal deficit is now at 1.2 TRILLION dollars and EACH American, man, woman, child, baby, physically challenged, mentally impaired…every one of us would have to pay $4,100 to pay it back. I don’t know about you but I don’t have that kind of cash lying around for the 4 people in my house.

I am an avid L.A. Angels fan and I watch their games as often as I can. The stadium that they play at holds about 40,000 fans. If that stadium was filled to capacity and had to pay their share they would pay $164,000,000 (one hundred and sixty-four million dollars) just that one stadium for that one game and that is nowhere near what it will take to pay this back.

President Ronald Reagan stated one time in a speech that a trillion dollars (that’s with a CAPITAL “T”) in one hundred dollar bills stacked on top of each other would reach from the earth to the moon. The moon is 240,000 miles from the earth and we all know approximately how thick any currency bill is that we have in our wallet.

Please remember that this deficit is PRIOR to National Healthcare which will only add to the deficit as it currently stands.

My mind is absolutely amazed on how we got here. Little to nothing has been done to repair the infrastructure (roads, bridges, airports (unless you are Congressman John Murtha)) and only 10% of the stimulus has been allocated out for projects that will truly put people to work. Most of the allocation to date has been on pork barrel projects for law makers to spend in their districts but the country as a whole is still standing and waiting for Washington to act.

When this all started I actually cheered the stimulus because I knew that it was going to fund projects to fix our bridges (remember Minneapolis a few years ago?) and I thought man, this is a good idea. People will be hired to go to work to make this happen and the economy will heal faster with this type of plan. Well, Washington and President Obama have let us down again and that is a sad fact.

But don’t forget that Congress agreed to fund new airplanes for them at a cost of $500,000,000 (five hundred million dollars) and we all know how much the Speaker Nancy Pelosi has wanted a bigger plane to ferry her family to California.

Congress, both Republicans and Democrats just don’t get it anymore. There is too much money and too much influence and when they spend the money it is our money, not theirs, there is no emotional attachment to what they are doing to their constituents at home. Our system is broke.

So where do we go from here? Simple, we start replacing all congressional elected personnel with fiscally responsible candidates.

Require that ALL lobbyist to move out of Washington D.C. no closer that 300 miles.
Create a lobbyist arm of the government that they will have to register with and account for all contact of any congressional personnel and limit contact both in Washington and outside the district.
Reduce all congressional salaries 10% immediately and all years that have a deficit no salary increases will be given.

That’s a start. Let me think about it and I probably will come back with more ideas.

A Memory of Times Past

2009-08-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy, and that was many years ago, our family had a tradition of going fishing off the Seal Beach pier the Sunday of every Memorial Day weekend, never fail. My dad would pack up all the fishing gear and a radio to listen to the Indianapolis 500 while we fished.

I remember as a small lad being in the back seat of the family sedan as we stopped for bait in the early morning hours on our way to the pier. Remember, there were no 605 or 405 freeways but you took Highway 39 (Azusa Avenue) through all of the cities and stop lights until you reached Pacific Coast Highway. I have no idea how long it took because I was asleep in the back of the car.

I remember the pier so well even today as a long, long, long wooden structure that was very high over the ocean, a little scary and exciting at the same time. But the excitement of the day was being with my parents, my dad mostly, and fishing.

Now, my dad had a long pole with a huge reel and it looked like the thing a fisherman would use to catch some big fish and my mom used a drop line. A drop line is just like it sounds, you drop it over the side of the pier into the water, plop, plop.

I was always amazed that my mom caught more fish with the drop line then my dad did with his large casts into open water. He would cast out and after awhile would reel in the line usually with no bait on it. I often wondered if his huge casts flung the bait off the hook as it went into the water since he got very few bites. Oh well, he had fun regardless.

I usually hung out watching this and messed with the bait to the irritation of my dad. As I got older I fished also but never became an avid member of the club. I did have some very memorable fishing times on half-day boats from the pier though in my high school years.

Yesterday, I returned to that pier for the first time in 40 years; man, that sounds weird being able to say that and have it be actually true. My granddaughter Jordan and I had a day at the beach and I took her to that pier so I could experience it one more time with her.

When your parents are gone then you have to go places that they went in order to be close to them and this is one of those places. Sure there are other places also but this place is special to me.

With my mom alive I guess I saw no reason to have to visit but now that she has been gone almost a year now, I went back again maybe to grasp a little bit of my youth again or maybe just to remember a time when my life was less complicated. Either way, I enjoyed the walk on that pier even if I had to carry Jordan most of the way because now I have a new memory to add to the collection…Jordan and me walking the pier just like I did with my parents.

Hey, getting old isn’t all that bad after all.

Just a Great Day...

2009-08-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a day that just went well from start to finish? Everything was in sync and it just felt really good to be alive.

Started out the day attending church and I have to say that having my entire family in church (except Jordan who was at her dad’s house) was really an great thing. Paula and I ushered today and we communed with our family and that just really makes me feel so at peace when that happens.

Jen wore the new top Paula bought her today at church and it has a fetus drawn on the front and she looked beautiful in it. For those that haven’t heard we are expecting a girl, Lilly Marie, in January 2010 and the girls have already started to buy stuff for the baby shower. One thing I can say about our family is that a baby just knocks our socks off.

Noah was an absolute joy and he is so friendly and talks to everyone and smiles so easily. I took a picture of him by the Vacation Bible School robot and he just smiles. He is so easy to be around.

So Brandon and Jen and Noah had to leave after church for an engagement and Holly, Steven, and Peyton came over to the house for lunch and just hanging out with the family.

Peyton in still combat crawling but can go from her stomach to sitting up on her own. She is also interested in pulling up on things and has also become a great shoelace fan and loves to untie the laces, much to my chagrin. She also just loves cords and plugs and anything electrical.

So we hung out and ate lunch and the girls went to the trailer and cleaned it for our 8 day trip starting next Friday and Steven and I watched TV until he took a nap and Peyton lay on top of him and it was just a great thing to see.

So how was your day?

Free Speech

2009-08-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

So after a good night’s sleep and a little time to contemplate the cosmos; I woke up this morning still thinking about what I perceive as an uneven application by both sides to the free speech matter.

Then I remembered what an old cohort said to me many years ago…”That the rights of my fist end where the tip of your nose begins”. Say what? How does that apply here?

Well, if I can expand on this, basically that the words I express even though they might be offensive have a right to be said even to the dissatisfaction of the other party as long as they cause no physical harm. Now that sounds bad but really when you think about it “reptile and repulsive” and “racist” are only hurtful if they are true. They don’t “really” hurt anyone, do they?

So as a listener I need to be more mindful of the truthfulness of the word or words and whether they truly apply or not, if they do not then so what and if they do then I can be offended.

So regarding Ms. Garafalo’s “racist” comment; “So What”, it’s not true and she is just blowing a lot of hot air. So Julia has a right to call Republicans anything she wants and I have a right to react accordingly, which I did and Barbra can still be Barbra and so what. It doesn’t matter unless I care and I don’t.

I guess the old adage of “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” is still true after all these years. Thanks mom for teaching me that one.

So talk on both sides and let the insults and hurtful divisive words continue to pound the airwaves and continue to build on the history of debate in this great country of ours. Although it has gotten more heated over the past eight years it is still an ingrained part of Americana that most other countries can only dream about.

Oh yeah, and I still think liberals are a bunch of lunk heads…man that felt good.

I'm Confused Again...

2009-08-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s happened again, I am confused over the First Amendment and how it is applied across our society.

Yep, I have been listening and reading and the pundits have me confused because there seems to be a clear delineation of free speech being applied in current news events.

Now, as a Republican I can honestly tell you that there are certain celebrities that I no longer go to their movies or buy their music, Julia Roberts, “Republicans can be found somewhere between reptile and repulsive” and Barbra Steisand just because she’s Barbra. I really did enjoy these two performers but their political speech offended me and I am sure they do not miss my attention or money. There are more, Sean Penn, etc..

But it brings up a point…Democrats, mainly liberal ones are free to speak their minds in whatever fashion generally in the press or some media outlet and Republicans just have to take it but when the tables are turned then name calling is in order. Such is the order of the day with the current brouhaha on town hall meetings.

When did old folks speaking their mind become labels for neo-Nazis and other rude names? Now, I will admit that they left their manners at the door but so has the other side on occasion.

So Obama who was supposed to bring us together (remember that just back in November 2008, although I never believed it) has polarized us even more because of ill advised programs and rampant government spending that will saddled our kids and grandkids.

But I digress… what bothers me is the Ms. Garafalo can get on TV and call anyone who disagrees with Obama’s policies “racists” but an elected official cannot “take the heat” from the people that put him in office.

I love living in a Republican district because there is no town hall meeting because it isn’t necessary because my congressman has his marching orders and he will do his job.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are having a hard time listening as they are being rushed out out of local town hall meetings to their waiting limousines for their ride back to their gated communities.

So can someone fill me in on just how free speech is applied fairly to all citizens again?

As the World Turns

2009-08-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been another interesting week on the political scene and town hall meetings are currently the rage of the media circuit. Seems that they are getting a little unruly as citizens (you fill in what type you think they are, Republican operatives, neo-Nazis, or just plain old folks) speak their minds in not especially respectful manner to their elected officials.

As I watched these reports it became apparent to me that the speakers were older folks and I had to laugh at the Democrats saying that they were operatives or revolutionary types because anyone who knows an old person knows that they hate their medical provider but they probably hate the government more.

I listened for years to my democratic mother bash Bush and the poor medical treatment that she was receiving and all of the other injustices that the world had put on her in her rest home and I tried to smile through the pain. Why, because I knew in any other country she would have been dead 5 years earlier from lack of medical attention.

One thing I can say for America is there is one thing the medical community fears more than old folks and that is their lawyers if you mistreat them in any manner. If the old person doesn’t get you then the family lawyer will lay you out in court after the fact.

And so I watched and what I saw were people…people afraid that they were going to lose something that they might not like but they felt was better than what they were going to get.

Remember the old neighborhood game where two siblings were carping at each other all day but if you said on bad word to either one of them then you had a fight on your hands from both of them. Well, there is a lesson here…leave the old folks medical coverage alone because they think of it as a sibling and they don’t like anyone messing with it.

I am fascinated that the best minds we elect to run this country have such a poor read on the American population that they call them names and insult their integrity and then ask for their votes in the next election. Listen up…2010 could be a referendum not seen in awhile.

There are two elections coming up soon that will be an indicator, one for Virginia governor and the other in New Jersey. Keep an eye on these races because they just might show a major shift in the independent voters as they finally wake up from the Obama stupor and put their thinking caps back on and vote with their heads and not their hearts.

America…you just gotta love it.

Cooler Head Prevails

2009-08-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

I was watching Glenn Beck yesterday and he scared the hell out of me not just in what he was saying but how he was saying it.

He was reporting on the current heavy handed DNC video and the apparent quashing of first amendment rights of the right in town hall meetings. Shown were clips of Nancy Pelosi and other Dems that really put the smack down on the protestors in these meetings.

There were some disturbing comments regarding members wearing swastikas and other signs of terrible behavior. It really disturbed me until I watched Bill O’Reilly.

He seems so calm and detached almost from the fray that I was wondering what little genie in a bottle he had that made the rest of us look stressed and tired. Well, he summed it up in one phrase (and I paraphrase)…”Democracy is an ongoing living breathing thing and this is just a stage of it and it will move back to some central theme in the future.

Man, hearing that was like taking a 15mg Valium on an empty stomach. I instantly relaxed because I know now that “this too shall pass” just like Jimmy Carter and other presidential tenures (and yes, my liberal friends feel free to add your choices also) democracy is growing and it will be changed somewhat but not so dramatically that it will be unrecognizable when this administration is done.

So I watched the news and applauded that the Independents that voted for this president are turning against him in the polls and listened somewhat to the liberal rhetoric and actually had a small smile on my face because I began to understand that this is a process; a painful process for conservatives right now but we will pass through it.

Thank you, Bill O’Reilly for clearing this up for me. I appreciate your effort in this area.

At What Cost Freedom?

2009-08-05T15:47:00.001-07:00

The liberal element of the political cycle is beating the hell out of the conservatives right now and it is frightening to me.

The current Republican minority in the congress is so outflanked that there is no possible way they can move to establish a front on any issue. In clear language…there is no more dialogue on any issue.

The current administration has gone right for the jugular of the conservative voter and has quashed any clear dissent. This was done when the media lost its impartiality to issues and threw their hat clearly in the ring of the current President. So now, when we need debate on costly bills there is none and all dissent is seen as mob behavior.

The Democratic National Committee has released a video saying that the current dissent is from well funded Republicans that are basically a “mob”. Jeanine Garafalo has gone on record as stating that the “tea party” gatherings are all because we hate the black man in the White House. She calls us racist and still no angry protest from the press only the casual shoulder shrug.

I am a Christian conservative Republican that believes in the rule of law, on the founding principals of our founding fathers, in fact even though they were flawed in many ways they were pretty good guys and came up with one hell of a government for their constituents. But with the current strong arm tactics exhibited by the “ruling class” in Washington; little can be seen of any type of public discourse on domestic issues.

I do not hate Barack Obama nor do I care if he is President or not, his skin color is of no consequence to me but his stand on issues is of great importance to me as it has been with ever other President. I am greatly concerned with the thug like tactics that is currently being demonstrated by the administration and its affiliates today.

Let us be cognizant of the power of dissent in all matters and how it works to find a path towards the common good. No power devoid of dissent can of itself be grounded in true fact but rather it is based in uncertain terrain that is subjected to the elements of man’s intemperate behavior.

"Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and that, I am sure, is the ultimate and sincere object of us both. We both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:283

I Have a Question...

2009-08-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to a somewhat beautiful sunrise with a light wisping of clouds in the sky.

I turned on the local news to see the jet landing at Burbank Airport (Bob Hope Airport, really) with the two reporters that were recently jailed in North Korea. On board also was President Bill Clinton who negotiated the release of these two reporters.

The plane is taken into the hangar and the crowd of family and some press are located inside to record the moment with family and friends. Former Vice President Al Gore is also there as a co-owner of the news service that these two reporters worked for when they were captured. It was a real Capraesque moment as the two reporters alighted from the plane into the loving arms of their family and friends. It really was a wonderful moment even for a hardened conservative Republican like me; I misted up a bit especially when the one reporter hugged her child. I wondered how often she wondered if she would ever see her family again and especially that little gift of life that she had waiting at home.

It really was a grand scene and Al Gore was ever present on the camera and hugging the reporters and it really was a good time.

So what is my question? Who are the numbskulls that sent two female reporters to China to report on the North Korean psyche when it is already well know that it is in the dumper under the current regime? Who perpetrated this fiasco not only on these reporters but their families and the American people at large?

Now, being a little older guy; I can honestly say that I remember reporters in Vietnam, and have seen them on TV in Iraq and other war zones, embedded into the fighting units. I understand the importance of that duty and I honor the likes of David Bloom, Bob Woodward, Clete Roberts and the others that have put their lives in harms way to report the battle to the people at home.

But come on now…two women sent to China who eventually end up in North Korea tried for spying and sentenced to 14 years at hard labor seems like a circus stunt for publicity and a dangerous one at that.

Any half-read bumpkin knows that all Americans should stay away from North Korea. All this did was provide them with a publicity forum for the next 6 months and almost got these reporters killed. If you think they would have survived 14 years at hard labor in North Korea then you are a bigger rube than most. Their prison sentence was a death sentence without having to use the term “Capital Punishiment”.

There should be some hard questioning of Al Gore and his cohorts for creating a potentially sad event in these reporter’s lives and for their families as well.

But the current mood of the media today and the love fest of the liberal element in all facets of our lives shows me that only the celebration will be shown and no “hard” questions asked.

In closing, I do thank the administration and especially President Bill Clinton for the work he did in securing the release of these two reporters.

I can only hope that we have learned a lesson here…stay away from the Big Bad Wolf.

No Guarantee of Time

2009-08-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more painful then the death of a young person; a person who has their whole life ahead of them with all of its challenges and rewards and yet they will see none of it.

My niece is currently going through a time with a high school friend that has a rare form of bone cancer that has spread throughout his body and his time is drawing near. There is great sadness over this as well there should be for the family and friends have been vigilant and yet all of the time, prayers and good intentions have fallen on barren soil, or have they?

The immanency of death is a harsh reality to all of us and its sting is well documented yet it is what we learn from death that really is the key to any death that we are involved with. Death leaves a trail…a trail of tears and sadness for sure but also a trail of endurance and longevity for the person who has passed through death’s portal.

What we need to look at is the trail of continuance that stays with us long after the grief is gone and the mourning is over; the trail that leads us back to that person in the future years of our life and makes us pause and remember an earlier time and place when they were still with us.

Death is not finality as much as it is transference from physical to spiritual presence and no person that has ever died is truly dead until no one thinks of them again.

I think that it is interesting and very important to remember that we are all physical beings but also spiritual and that is an important part of our mastering of death in our lives. It is in the spiritual that we are allowed to still fellowship with our family and friends and that part of us transcends time and space.

The Native Americans have a saying, ‘Today would be a good day to die” and when you think about that you might be cynical about its intent. But plainly said it shows a far greater understanding of death for in it is the feeling that “I have lived a full life regardless of the time given to me” and that shows a depth of understanding far past most of us.

Time will grow short in all of our lives; some of us will be blessed with longevity and others will not but regardless of the time given; it is the quality not the quantity of time that blesses our lives and blesses those that remember us.

It’s a Question of Priorities…

2009-08-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’m going to rile a few feathers here and not make many friends but there is something stuck in my craw that needs to be spit out…the feeling of many people in America that America owes them something, anything just because ____________.
(you can fill in the blank here)

Anyone growing up and studying American history in school heard stories of the immigrants that came to America and immersed themselves into the process of being American. They sweated and toiled and yes, most of it was at the behest of an industrial machine that treated them like dirt.

But through it all, the immigrant continued forward for himself and his family looking ahead for a better day and life for all of them. This was their dream and it made America what it is today.

Today, we are immersed in a lifestyle of gadgetry and so much junk that we spend a considerable amount of our hard earned dollars on luxuries and not staples. Our heads turn like Linda Blair (the Exorcist) whenever we go into a store full of electronic gear and other toys. We spend and we obtain our goods and we go home to our own enjoyment. We work hard; we deserve these things, right?

I, personally, do not have any problem with anyone spending their money on whatever they want to as long as they have sufficient funds to pay for the staples in life. It is the staples that sustain us and not the luxuries. If we can have both then we are lucky indeed but we need to be cognizant of the balance of life in our financial matters.

Paula and I early on in the relationship set up an agreement that we had a limit that we could spend without asking for approval from the other half and that has worked well for us for 33 years. It also set a boundary that we were well aware of and needed to pay attention to it. We have had our tough times but we have made it through because we both realize that luxuries come after staples and not the other way around.

Also, we understood that you have to save for a rainy day and you can not live at the edge and expect someone else to pick up your slack when things pop up.

As our children grew, both Paula and I kept our focus on what were the future needs of the family and how were they going to be paid. Because we did this our kids were able to go to the places that they wanted to go and were able to participate in what suited them. It wasn’t always easy but having a plan and setting money aside well before it is needed helped greatly in getting things paid for in a timely manner.

I am not saying this works for everyone but I think the base element here is this…you have to decide what is important or not for you and your family. You have to make a plan on how it will be funded and then do it. And most importantly, if you fail to plan and do not have the funds then you need to look at yourself and not someone else to bail you out. That doesn’t mean that you beat yourself up over it but you need to own it so you can understand how you can successfully accomplish your next goal.

So look around and see all that you have and think about what is needed in the future for you or your family and how are you going to accomplish it. Once you get the plan down you will see that you might just fund your luxuries a little less and that you will have more money for the “staples” of life.

It’s a question of priorities and deciding what is important in your life. If you decide that luxuries are more important than staples then be happy with the decision and adjust your life and attitude accordingly but stop the complaining, it won’t help until you decide to change.

I’m Confused…

2009-08-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

To anyone that knows me this is not a startling statement for me to make since most conversations that become multi-subject tend to warp my brain cells and I generally get a glazed look and my brain just freezes up on me.

It’s no biggee and I usually can ask a few questions and I can get myself back on track and even sound somewhat intelligent given enough time.

So what is the issue now?

National Healthcare and what I am hearing that is a perception of some people that support this type of coverage. What I am hearing and what I have researched confuses me only in that I am not sure that those supporting this type of coverage really have a grasp on what is entailed in working through the system.

Let’s face it, the current healthcare system has flaws and some major areas of inefficiencies that when looked at screams for attention from someone (and if the federal government is that someone, then so be it). I’m a big boy and although I hate “Big Brother” looking over my shoulder on almost any issue I will give the other side the benefit of the doubt that they might be able to assist some in this area.

But let’s get back to the matter. There appears to be a misconception on the part of some supporters of National Healthcare that just about anything that needs to be done for them medically will be done for them. From the research on England and Canada I am not sure that is a realistic outlook. Now, I am not saying that the U.S. version will be the same as their systems but I would have to believe that there will be some similarities.

Ok, so what?

What I have seen with the two models mentioned above is that both models have a national review board, if you will, that analyzes medical procedures, medications, tests, etc., and makes decisions as to their incorporation into the health plan system or not. I reserve judgment on whether this is a good system or not but from what I have read it can make life miserable for patients sometimes.

A case in point, England recently changes its approach to pain medication for chronic back pain patients by suggesting that they go through a holistic health regimen instead of pharmaceutical route. Now, this seems to me to be really a bad idea.

Chronic pain patients need certain medications to function and to take them off for some other type of therapy does not seem fair or compassionate. Having worked with a doctor who treated chronic pain patients and seeing them first hand in great pain; I side with making sure they receive the necessary medication to allow them some quality of life.

But the main thrust of my argument here is that these systems have a board, if you will, that looks at and makes decisions on what is paid for and what is not and what patient gets the procedure or medication and which patient does not. This is a scary proposition for me because if I have a loved one that needs something and cannot get it through the “board” then I either pay for it or my loved one suffers the consequences.

To be honest, I have not researched the appellate part of the two systems mentioned above but if a single payer insurance company makes you jump through hoops what will on national board do to us.

In closing what I have found in the two plans I have referenced is this; that patients many times are denied medical procedures even life threatening ones because of age or physical condition. Some might call this social euthanasia and although not proven there have been many news articles of people chaining themselves to a gurney until they are seen and other desperate acts.

I guess it will be easier to hate one “BIG” healthcare provider than our own individual carriers, if we have one. At least then we won’t have any other companies to compare our medical care against and that is a frightening thought indeed.

Am I confused again or would this not be a good thing for us?

Where are the Media Values?

2009-08-01T23:10:00.001-07:00

Am I the only one that is getting uncomfortable with the media these days? I don’t think so but political reporting has become such a bland diet of no “hard” questioned asked that I am beginning to wonder if the White House hasn’t already nationalized the press and it just hasn’t been reported yet.

Now, I will state here that Bushie was one of the first to cull questions prior to press conferences and I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. Press conferences used to be a high wire act for the President but no longer. Now the questions are seen in advance and a teleprompter is in place with scripted answers…no wonder Hollywood is in love with this guy, he is nothing more than an actor reading his lines. I am sorry but that is an affront to actors since they have to actually memorize their lines before going on to perform.

What would have happened to George W if he had emitted the “stupidly” remark as did our current President? I think it would be safe to say that the press would have laid him wide open and field dressed him right on TV. What did our current President get, basically nothing except more questions on the issue.

So Dan Rather wants Washington to look at the media and actually start a commission to look at media issues and I am asking why. Why should the media want to get in bed with the very people they are charged with reporting on everyday? Why? And where do the American people fit in here with their expectation of “impartial” news reporting?

The press needs to get their heads out of their proverbial you know whats and start addressing the issues in a more “attack” mode or they will continue to see dwindling subscribers as they flow to the Internet to get the news they need to read from the source(s) that give it to them.

Fox News…Fight on!

“Cash for Clunkers” is a Real Clunker

2009-07-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

Most experiments require blind tests and double blind tests to ensure that the hypothesis and theorem is valid and I think this is a good idea from a consumer standpoint.

So the federal government develops a program, “Cash for Clunkers” to spur car sales and to begin fixing an ailing economy. I think, personally, it is a great idea as it will rid the road of old vehicles that emit too many pollutants and use too much gas. Really, it was a well devised program except…

Once again, the people who are in charge of our tax dollars can’t see one inch beyond the end of their nose. Why? They so totally underestimated the consumer’s acceptance of this program that it ran out of money in basically two weeks Now, the program has a moratorium as Washington tries to fund more cash to it so it can continue.

I think a billion dollars (that’s with a “B”) is a lot of money but at $3,500-$4,500 per vehicle and given the number of old cars that are still out there it wasn’t nearly enough to fund the program on an ongoing basis.

Couple with the amount of money spent by the car manufacturers (oh yeah, aren’t they bankrupt and trying to watch their dollars?) advertising this program and now it is “on hold”, I think that Washington has shown one thing in this experiment…they are ill equipped or under funded intellectually to take on nationalize medicine.

If there is a failure in that program people just might die.

The Art of No Offense

2009-07-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

It really is getting harder and harder to do anything and not offend someone in the process.

Take the “Gates” affair…

What a weird set of circumstances that took place there..

What I can surmise from what little I have read is the Mr. Gates came home from a trip from China and his front door to HIS house was stuck so he called his driver to help him open it and then a neighbor, being ever vigilant, calls the police because she thinks there is a break-in in a house down the street and the cops come and by that time Mr. Gates is in the house. Understand that the caller did not identify the men on the porch as being from any race, just that it appeared men were breaking into a house.

The police come onto the porch and maybe into the house and ask Mr. Gates for his identification and he promptly tells them, “No!” and so an argument ensues.

To make a long story short he gets arrested for being disorderly.

Only one problem…Mr. Gates is a well known professor and academic and he is black and the officer was white. Oops, there is a real politically correct incorrect thing to do.
Now at first blush and with little inside information I am asking myself why Mr. Gates knowing full well that it was his house didn’t just show his ID to the police officer and tell him the door was stuck and what happened?

Why the anger and why the play the race card right out of the box. Easy, it was to disarm the white police officer and to try and gain, what Mr. Gates perceived to be a level playing field. I am not saying he was wrong in being upset but a little discipline on his part could have gone a long ways to not having an incident at all.

I wonder how he would have felt coming home from China and seeing his house totally ransacked with all valuables missing. I wonder if he would have settled for an excuse from the police that, “we thought it was just you coming home and your door was stuck and we thought you would eventually get it worked out so we just stayed away”.

Then the plot thickens as the “Chief Law Enforcement Officer” in America weighs in and basically proves his ineptness in the matter by saying the police acted “stupidly”. What a nice word from a man who acknowledged that he didn’t have all the facts.

So how does it all turn out, with Joe Biden, Barak and the guys enjoying a beer at the White House. Hopefully Joe didn’t open the meeting with his comments on Ukrainian women (although I do agree with him on that one).

Now I have read that one of the early Presidents had a wheel of cheese in the entry way to the White House so that when visitors came there they could have something to eat and it is nice to see that our President is making the “Happy Hour” a possible staple of America’s first house. I can hardly wait to go there and have a wine and cheese hour with the first family.

One of the things that seems to be coming back to me over and over with President Obama is that he lacks “class”. He doesn’t have it, never learned it and quite frankly must have laid off the Protocol person that should be assisting him in such manners.

One of the sad things is that I am afraid that he will never get it and from his disappointing responses from other world leaders I am sure that they also see this deficiency.

Well, he is not the first one that was seen as a social buffoon and he probably won’t be the last but with the economy in the dumper, increased death toll in Afghanistan I really think he has more to do then have a beer with a few of the guys in the backyard.

Did you see the guy delivering the beers? Now that was class…

Losing Weight is HARD Work!

2009-07-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have been going to Weight Watchers since the end of January of this year and it has been one long battle but it is worth it, I think.

A lot has been written about diets and I applaud anyone who goes on one and stays on it and reaches their goal but Weight Watchers is really not a diet it is a “way of life” in eating. What does that mean?

Well, we mostly view food for satisfaction in our lives and not for the nutritional value it brings to us; that’s why there is an ice cream store and other pleasure food venues in our local shopping areas. These vendors have found that we are all suckers for the quick sugar fix and less interested on what sticks to our bodies after the fact. I mean, how many vegetables stores and stands can you find in your local town? I am sure there are a few but not like Starbuck’s, 31 Flavors and the other taste teasers.

So what to do…
Eat more in the morning and early afternoon. Minimize calories after 2:00pm.
If you want sweets eat them early in the day but be sensible about it.
Start the day with a big breakfast to kick-start your metabolism. Cereal, small bagels with Weight Watcher’s cream cheese, banana for potassium, fruit, even an omelet with bacon is ok.
Eat a snack at least every 3 hours, one fruit, one veggie, one sweet treat. Don’t let yourself get hungry and you will eat less during the day.
Eat a small dinner, salad, veggies, fruit. Portion size is important.
Nothing to eat after 8:00pm every night.
Exercise each day if only for a few minutes even if it is a stroll around the neighborhood. Exercise raises your metabolism and aids in burning calories.

The one true adage of all weight loss is…you have to burn more calories than you take in on a daily basis to lose weight…it is that simple but the hard part is doing it.
So I will continue to push myself daily and will continue to try and lose weight not so much for myself as for what I am giving myself, more days to spend with my family and friends.

It is HARD work but I am glad that I am able to do it.

Not Surprising

2009-07-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

So I was reading the newspaper this morning (on-line because it is the new green way) and it was being reported was that President Obama has gone back to bashing Bush again.
Not surprising when you see his polls numbers are beginning to show the direction of the voter’s discontent with his policies. It was obvious that the fickleness of the Democratic voter has been well documented as the easiest to sway but the hardest to please.
One report on the stimulus is that it created jobs in Oregon, yes it did, and the jobs only lasted ONE WEEK. Now, that’s what I call stimulating.
Listen, I want America to succeed through the financial mess we are in but we need thinkers that are outside the box and not trying the same old same old way to solve problems.
I do feel sorry for the President because I think anything John McCain would have done would have garnered the same results, the economy is sick with a bad cold and the flu (who knows, it could be swine flu) and it will take time to recover but only if the home market recovers without continuing foreclosures. Another onset of foreclosures is scheduled later this year.
President Obama’s problem is that he raised expectations just like John Kennedy and now he cannot meet them and the people are discouraged.
So what to do…
Simple, treat the disease and wait it out but do not spend us into bankruptcy with extravagant medicines that we cannot afford and will be paying for years to come.
In the old days the flu and colds were treated with home remedies and maybe that is what is needed here. Let’s acknowledge the problem and treat it by pulling back some and stop acting like we can will it away. It is a disease we created and we need to live with it for a sufficient amount of time to really feel it. That is the only way we can learn from it and possibly not recreate it again in the future.
And President Obama, stop bashing Bush; this is your problem and your deficit so live with it because we are and it is an uncomfortable fit, believe me.

A Scary Proposition

2009-07-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

Man, am I scared! I admit it; I am scared to my very core; probably more scared in a controlled manner than I ever have been in my life. I tremble inside even as I write this because I think that I have let the proverbial genie out of the bottle and now what will be the results of such an action on my part?
What I am really feeling is a lack of confidence in my faith, not in God because I know His power but in my power in assisting God in making something of a calling that He gave me a few days ago in a blog that I wrote.
What scares me is that in that time there has been a mobilization of other Christians that have stepped forward and started the “grassroots” projects of making this calling a real breathing thing. I won’t bore you with the details but there has been a minor groundswell of fellow Christians that is amazing to see and we have just begun.
It is hard for me to picture one million Christians marching in our nation’s capital, peacefully demonstrating to our government the peaceful intents of our hearts to be heard and to be understood.
I cannot even fathom this yet but God has shown me in the early hours of this event’s life that there is a hunger for this not only in my neighborhood but as this is reaching out across America. We are getting responses from different areas of the nation but it is still early and there is still yet much to be done.
Pray for this effort to continue as God blesses us as we move forward to proclaim His message.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (New International Version)

14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Reverse Compassion

2009-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other night about a comment that I had read regarding Christians and their lack of compassion for the poor and downtrodden and it made me think.
It made me think about love and the different aspects of it and can love be used in a reverse manner that appears to be love but really isn’t love at all?
When I look at the poor and downtrodden I can see two specific large groups that should be identified. One being the physically disadvantages either through illness or injury and the other is the socially disadvantaged that through actions on their own part, whether conscious or not, have put them in a disadvantaged position. Plainly said, the poorly educated population that decided early on that education was not a goal in their life.
Ok, so what am I getting at?
The comment made painted Christians as people that profess their faith but do not show it through their actions to the poor and downtrodden and I think the statement at first blush might look correct but is flawed when you look at it. I will not take the time here to list the many religious organizations that serve the poor daily.
I think it is safe to say that the mainstream Christian and also mankind in general makes a valiant attempt to assist those in need especially those that cannot take care of themselves because of some unfortunate circumstance in their life.
I also think that there is an attempt to assist even the socially disadvantaged in some manner but I do agree that it is not as pronounced as services to the physically disadvantaged group.
But I see the two groups as being significantly different in manner and temperament and therein lies the rub.
The Bible has several passages about work being a staple in a person’s life and that we are not to be slothful. Now work comes in many different forms and the stay-at-home mom works plenty hard to maintain the family unit but there can be a vast difference to the working poor that refuse to work or refuse to be trained to go to work.
There is a large segment of our population that has lived in the entitlement framework of our society and they like it. They feel, I am sure for whatever reason, that they are to be taken care of and maintained in some manner that suits them. I will fully admit that the entitled poor don’t seem to be demanding a mansion to live in so they seem content in their current living conditions.
So get to the point already…
Love of the poor and downtrodden is not giving them anything they want any more than you would do for your own child. As parents haven’t we taught our children to expect reward from work? If we expect it from them then how can we expect less from the ones that can work but refuse to work because welfare is easier?
Coupled now with a national health plan that will also entitle them at taxpayer expense; aren’t we loving them in the wrong direction. Shouldn’t we be coaxing them to work and earn the benefits that are there for all of us?
I understand the liberal bent on social caring for all poor but isn’t this being painted with a broad brush when a smaller one might make us look at the details a little more closely?
Maybe then even the non-believer might see that Christians, although not perfect by any means, are not heartless because they do not agree to reward laziness.
Could there be a meeting of the minds?

We Need to Stand; We Need to March

2009-07-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

One of the basic tenants to fundamental Christianity is that Christ is coming again to the earth at an unknown time. Another is that God will allow His people to suffer when they fail to demonstrate His will by doing what is required of them. I believe this without a doubt.
The world is in disarray and I believe that one of God’s earthly emissaries, our country, has become paralyzed by the current rush to humanistic beliefs and goals. I believe that this is foolishness and needs to be countered by the “religious” citizens of our land. While I am hopeful, l am also pessimistic about the Christians of this great land doing anything but sitting on their hands and waiting for judgment to fall.
What little I do know of the Bible one thing stands out perfectly clear to me and that is that God does not do the work but rather his people do it for Him so this is what I am proposing…a 1,000,000 Christian march in Washington D.C. as soon as it can possibly be done.
Now that looks like a monumental task and it is but it starts with the first step of saying it and then beginning to implement it. With God all things are possible and so is this plan.
America needs 1,000,000 people of all Christian faiths to march on Washington D.C. and tell our politicians and our courts that we want a “Christ” centered government and if they do not wish to be a part of it then we will all go home and begin the process of electing people that will find a way to do this for us.
While I am not sure how any march of this magnitude has been accomplished I do know that God willing it can be done, it WILL be done.
So I am asking all of the readers of this blog to copy it and send it via email to all of your contacts and ask them to forward it to their contacts and allow God to work in a manner so enormous that when this march is done we will all know the power of His love not only for us but for this country.
I believe that God will make a way for churches to begin the process of making plans to coordinate this great goal of 1,000,000 Christians marching peacefully in our nation’s capitol showing that we are not going to be lost in the current ‘godless” administration.
Amen…yea, yea let it be so.

Nature Can Teach

2009-07-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Nature is like an old school teacher, you remember the ones with the gray hair, half glasses that they peered over when they called on you? The ones that were so old that you wondered how they were still standing much less teaching.
Well, nature is the same.
Nature has so many different subjects that it can teach us if we are willing to learn.
I am most intrigued by snow because it is a natural substance that is manufactured in a manner that no one has really been able to explain. Its shape looks like something that could only be drawn on a draftsman’s table, it is light yet solid and supposedly no two exact flakes have ever been replicated.
I am most attracted to the color…white. Why white? Why not blue or some other color?
I recently drove through the Sierras in California and there is still some snow at the higher elevations and it was interesting to see the contrast of the white snow on the brown earth with green trees. It was beautiful and the snow which appeared to be the most fragile element present was the most dynamic in my memory.
The snow that I saw had never been walked on, that I could see, was brilliantly white in the midday sun and had such a pure elegance about it and there it was fighting off the ravages of the noonday sun in its intensity and it was winning.
There’s a lesson here, I think…that strength is not made in mass but rather cohesion. If the snow flakes decided to separate they would be gone in no time at all but they bonded and in the bonding do not allow the other elements to gain a foothold in their dominion.
Then there were the mountains and the cliffs and crags and the outcroppings and so many different contours and textures. Rocks hanging out into the open air with little holding them from crashing down into the valley and yet they remained. The different color formations and strata and each tells a tale of when they were made and the external pressures that were brought to bear to impact them in such a manner that we can study them years later. But it was the “holding on” that made the biggest impact on me because it was like a band of brothers holding on to the one going over the edge, willing them to remain and expending the energy necessary for it to happen.
There is a lesson here also, I think…that we are nothing without those around us constantly pushing and pulling, holding on, refusing to let go, willing us on, valuing us as a member of the team.
And then there were the trees with little that I can say that will add one scintilla to them that is not already theirs. The beautiful stand of trees for miles and miles were carpeting the earth with their majestic height and even more important the shade and protection that they provided for the creatures below. Out of all of the things I looked at the trees were the most fragile; the most endangered of being destroyed and with them the most important gift that they give to us…clean air.
There is a lesson here, that the strongest are not always that way and that we tend to take them for granted and cater less to their needs. We need to understand how each person strengthens us but at the same time we need to be aware of their needs and be willing to tend to them also.
So the great earth spoke to me that day about my relationships and how I need to respond to those around me but most of all the teacher asked me to ask myself one question…are you here to learn or are you just goofing off again?

Are We Paying Attention Yet?

2009-07-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that the news media is beginning to report in very minor detail the economic indicators and the news is not good.
There used to be a political saying that, “How California goes so goes the rest of the nation” and if that is so then we are in for some dire days.
California is bankrupt from a failed policy of entitlements to unions and other social programs that have so impacted its ability to gain clear air that the 7th largest economy in the world may be forced into bankruptcy. No kidding…bankruptcy is the only hope that I see to allow California to peel itself away from the past indebtedness and forge a path to financial solvency.
California for to long has been held in check by unions and the welfare state and that needs to change. That is a harsh statement because it is devoid of all of the compassion that liberals are looking for but you have to be able to pay for what you have and when you no longer have it then you need to make adjustments.
It is less compassionate to build a welfare state so large and complex that is makes the rest of the state’s economy sag and that is where we are at this moment. It is also wrong to give to the entitled masses the hope that they are taken care of for as long as they wish.
One area of attention is the development, once again, of a clear delineation of state’s rights versus federal rights. We have lost one of the basic anchors of our political process…that a state has a right to mandate its laws to its citizens. By not doing this it creates a void that the federal government is more than happy to fill.
A case in point, I think that all states have the right to choose whether marriage is between a man and a woman or allow gay couples to wed and have those marriages recognized as law. If the states were allowed to decide then the federal government does not need to meddle in this discussion. States would set their boundaries and the citizens of those states would hash it out until it was decided. The same is true of the death penalty.
Those unhappy with the decision have two choices, continue to live in the state or move to a state that supports their position.
I can hear the cries of “but I have a job here and I would have to move” and I say that every decision in our life has a price to be paid, some big, some small. If marriage is that important to a gay couple then I would think that they would jump at the chance to move to a state that fully supports their views.
The same applies to the death penalty, environmental issues and any other societal issue of public import.
I, for one, am looking at moving to a state when I am retired that more closely aligns to my political views and why not? By doing so, I have an opportunity to surround myself with people I agree with on issues I agree on and paying my taxes will support the things I support. That sounds like a win-win to me and hopefully to the community that I join.
So “state shopping” should become the new buzz term for Americans and let’s start researching to find the right area to live because the alternative is a continuation of the insanity that is now called our nation.
While public debate continues to be a good thing it has moved from the “let’s solve our problems arena” to the “you are dead to me arena” because of the polarization on most public issues.
So happy shopping and I hope you find that piece of paradise, I sure hope I do.

A Pardox in Modern Times

2009-07-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

Anyone see the great disparity between the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson?
One died knowing they were going to die…one died suddenly.
One died having the opportunity to say good bye to the ones they loved…the other was taken away so suddenly that their kids thought they were fooling around when it happened.
One died with dignity after death…the other died with allegations of bad behavior, bad medical treatment and bad police investigations.
One died with a simple funeral closed to the public…the other will have an extravaganza in a large public forum with thousands in attendance.
One leaves a fairly non conventional family relationship with a child incarcerated in a public prison…one leave three minor children with legal battles to ensue for custody in a private compound with private security.
One died a Christian…the other died in a state of unknown grace.
One died with few comments regarding their financial situation…one died with numerous reports of financial ruin and estate issues that will last for years.

Through it all, I am amazed at how the press has latched onto Michael Jackson’s death like a pit bull and constantly thrashes the same issues around as if they will be able to expose new flesh for them to feed on. Broadcast networks have spent untold millions of dollars rehashing the same information and trying to spin it a different way to increase viewership.

Yet I look at Farrah and she had the audacity to die on the same day as Michael Jackson and her funeral press release was subjected to the 7th page of my local newspaper; while Michael’s drug history and doctors curriculum vitae were spilled all over the front page.

Americans have become so voyeuristic that they literally hang on every news bit and they mourn so publicly that there is little left to the imagination of the public at large. 1.6 million people emailed for tickets to Michael Jackson’s memorial service when only 12,000 will get tickets. What is our society turning into when we idolize our stars and 12,000 people can attend a funeral?

I understand that is good to applaud talent and enjoy them and the art that they create but we need to stop idolizing and anguishing over the loss of even two people like Farrah and Michael. We need to realize that they were flawed just like we are and that they made bad mistakes in their lives but that they were loved by their families and fans…but that’s it…STOP! GO BACK TO YOUR OWN LIVES!

While the death of these two stars is sad we need to keep it in perspective and more than anything value the loved ones in our lives whom we will mourn someday if they do not mourn us first. Every death is a loss to our humanity and to our culture but we devalue life in general when we elevate certain lives to a place that few people dead or alive can aspire to in any lifetime.

Sadly, we will lose other celebrities and the press will have their normal feeding frenzy until something else catches their short term attention. Unfortunately also, people will still flock and run to the next event like birds in a park when bread crumbs are thrown on the ground.

It is too bad that we are unable to learn from our past actions and unable to contain our joy or grief to an acceptable societal level. We really need to work on this.

Abandonment

2009-07-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time deciding whether to write a poem or use prose to discuss this topic. It seems a little strange for a subject but if you are adopted then it is really at the crux of your inner being.
I define my inner being as my self respect, self esteem, self worth, self confidence, ego, and there are probably a few others but I can’t think of them at this time.
I just finished watching Australia (an above average movie) and most connected with the young lad in the movie and basically how he was treated in that country. The Australians felt basically the same as white southern plantation owners regarding the parent child bond…that it really didn’t exist. What a sad miscalculation in judgment that was for all concerned.
I always tear up when a movie is about someone being left and whether they get back together or if they never do. I remember the first time I felt this way was in the seventh grade while reading Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline.
The main characters were separated and spent their whole life looking for each other and at one point in the story they were SO CLOSE and yet they missed each other. I remember the internal rooting for them to look around the corner and put this travesty in their lives to rest forever but it wasn’t meant to be. So I get a little misty when this happens.
A psychologist told me once that every time I tear up and get a little misty it is the reaction to an unresolved emotional problem in my childhood and I know they are right.
In watching Paula mother her small children especially when they were infants; I saw firsthand how important maternal bonding is to the development of the child. To miss out on that causes a big hole that is never really filled.
I have a big hole that will never really be filled.
Wow, how can I say that especially when I have been blessed with a great family, children, grandchildren and other relatives? It’s easy, it is really about me personally and it has nothing to do with the other relationships in my life. It is a situation so personal that it is akin to baking a cake and forgetting to put an important ingredient in the batter and you bake it. It comes out and no matter how much frosting you put on it; you cannot fix the batter.
That is how adopted children feel, they have something missing and it can never be added back into their life; they will just need to adjust their life accordingly.
Now some adoptees are adopted at birth but if they know they are adopted then they will probably wonder. Adoption makes a child feel different.
I went through my early school years and probably high school feeling different from all the other kids that had a natural mother and father. Maybe to a certain extent I was using it in a manner to make myself feel special but I do know as I got older that I tried harder to conceal it as if I was genetically deformed because any interested woman in my life would be turned off because I had no family medical history. Hey, it was a silly idea but that is what I thought.
As I got older and became aware more of the people around me I discovered that adoption was sometimes a whole lot better than divorced and remarried families or single mom homes with rotating uncles living with the family. So I started to open up about my life and tried to have some order to it.
Having a child in high school didn’t help either since she was given up for adoption so I had, in fact, perpetrated the same disastrous life style on her that I had gone through. I had always hoped that her story would be different but sadly years later when a relationship was formed I was able to hear that she also had an unsettling home life.
So how does this hole in my life present itself in my day-to-day living? I think in a couple of ways, one being that I still have a fear, although a minor one, of being forgotten or left behind. Now, I have no incidents in my current life that I can remember at this time but I am sure there have been ones that have caused me stress. The larger problem is that I am unable to nurture a child when they are injured and I know that this is wrong but there is no internal programming in me to do what is necessary to comfort. I am working on it and I am better but I am still pathetic when compared to Paula or others that I have seen. I will continue to try and do better but there are no guarantees here.
I had an opportunity to be in a group therapy class several years ago and as part of the course I spoke to the psychologist about this nurturing problem that I have and she told me that when a mother holds her baby and talks to them, coos and the other sounds that they make, that, along with the eye contact opens up a information superhighway between the mother and child. That highway transfers to the child the sense of belonging, love and acceptance…that is the nurturing development that a baby learns during that period of their life. The statement that struck me was that if you do not get this during infancy then you can never get it. It will be part of the missing programming in my personality. I thought, “Well that sucks”.
Parents need to make sure that they really concentrate on this aspect in their child’s development because it is a building block that every child needs.
Me, I will continue to tear up at moments of abandonment but at least I know why this emotion surfaces and although I wish it was different I am ok with it as much as I can be.

How I Look at Love

2009-07-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so let’s get real personal here because love is about as personal as it can get.
I had an interesting situation happen in the family unit this past week where some feelings got hurt or bent out of shape.
The reason for the hurt or bent out of shape feelings is really not important, I think, and not nearly as important as understanding how family members should feel about each other, in good times and bad.
Love is all encompassing to me; it is the very reason that I get out of bed everyday. It is the reason that I have a family and try to be involved to whatever degree that I can in their lives and it is also the base line of how I try to live my life.
I find love to be all inclusive in my life and I do not see it as any kind of a bargaining chip on how I do things.
If I am involved in a discussion on any topic I will do my best to make my point(s) but I will never use love as the reward for winning or love as the chip you lose if you prevail. Love is never on the table as far as I am concerned.
Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t be mad or disappointed or any of the other well known emotions but I will never stop loving any member of my family based on what they think or believe, that just doesn’t make sense.
Now, could there be an instance where I might withhold my love from someone? Yes, but that would only be after a long protracted period of time where they have basically shown me that I have no reasonable value in their life. It wouldn’t be any fly-by-night issue of life and I am sure that the other person would know long before how I was feeling.
Love can come in different degrees but the base feeling is the same…that we care about the other person, we want them to be happy and fulfilled and we want them to be a part of our life.
It really is that simple so as we continue to grow and mature as a family; take care of each other and always remember that love is not an option it is always a given.

An Interesting Conversation

2009-07-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a local Super Cuts yesterday, just sitting on the couch and spending some time with Jordan waiting for my name to be called. As I was sitting there I overheard (and no I wasn’t intently listening at first) a conversation by a customer getting his hair cut and the person doing the cutting. I am paraphrasing but it went something like this…
Customer: So I lost my job and I fell 6 months behind on my house payment and they were ready to foreclose.
Stylist: (like the politically correct job term?): Oh that’s too bad.
Customer: So I called my mortgage company and told them that I would like to do something about modifying my existing loan.
Stylist: Did it do any good?
Customer: Well it took some talking on my part but I was able to get them to forgive the 6 months that I had not paid my house payment.
Editor (that’s me) my ears perked up to hear what happened.
Customer: Well I did some real talking to them and I got them to forgive the late payments and all fees and they rewrote me a new loan at interest only. I will only be paying interest and nothing on the principal.
Stylist: Well that sounds like a good deal what do you think? (I love how she ended most comments with a question.
Customer: Well that’s not all either.
Stylist: What else was there?
Customer: They rewrote the loan to a 40 year loan for me. It was 30 years but now it’s 40.
Stylist: Well that seems like a long time doesn’t it? (I love her style of keeping the conversation going)
Customer: Well the house lost $40,000 in value over the past 2 years and with me only paying interest I am sure that the price will go up over the next couple of years and then I can sell it and make some money.
At this point I just shook my head. What I learned in this short conversation about this guy was that he went from being a HOMEOWNER to a renter and he isn’t even aware of it. His contribution to the payment of the house is to do nothing more than to keep it in good order until the interest rate goes up so high he will have to move out and the bank can resell it to a more financially stable customer.
This is the new scam in American homeownership and the banks have seized on it. There are too many vacant houses that are plundered by the locals so it is better to have someone living there (and hey, making an interest payment too) then have it vandalized.
This guy is a total schmuck if he thinks he will get any money ever from this financial venture.
All he got is a roof over his head for the foreseeable future but I guarantee you once the economy changes in a few years he will not see any return on his investment, oh yeah, that’s zero, isn’t it? So I guess he will afterall.

When is Right Wrong?

2009-07-01T22:59:00.001-07:00

The world is spinning at such a high rate of speed that things appear to be peeling off the earth and spinning out into the cosmos.
The politics of our time are becoming more fractured and polarization is spinning at the rate of the earth as if a large centrifuge is pasting us and our issues to a wall.
The fact of right and wrong is now a hazy idea because the reference points of any discussion with any two groups are generally based on different reference points. While this makes for more difficult mediation of issues it also is causing a major distrust in the participants.
What I struggle with is that doing what is right by societal standards might be wrong when looked at in the bigger picture.
I am sure that most people would help a person in need and do it gratefully and many times with no expectation of being reimbursed. But let’s put that thought to a larger problem, national healthcare.
I am sure that no one debates the fact that there are people that need healthcare for themselves or a member of their family. Maybe healthcare has been lost through the loss of a job or the death of a family member and COBRA is too expensive.
What is the current course of action of any uninsured person that need medical attention…the local county hospital who is charged with treating all patients in a triage manner, that being the sickest are seen first. This medical system has been in place for decades and although it is time consuming; it is inexpensive to the person being treated.
I have heard no conversation on why this system is bad or ineffective. It is paid for by the tax dollars of the citizens of the county where the hospital is located.
Now, I understand that a patient using this type of medical coverage will not receive cosmetic procedures unless they are in accordance to an injury or other related illness but they will be seen and treated in some manner.
Is this not good enough to a person that is paying basically nothing for the service? If there were national healthcare and the person using the county facility cannot pay for that service then how can it be determined that they will be able to pay the premium on a national health plan?
I am not sure what benefit there will be in a national health plan when there has been no effective tort reform on medical malpractice in the past decade, that I am aware of. Are doctors under the NHCP (National Health Care Plan) not going to be sued by patients for the bad care that they receive? Are hospitals going to be exempt for malpractice under the NHCP? Without the threat of lawsuits or a cap on damages the doctors will be made to continue to pay for high end malpractice insurance to protect themselves, I would think.
Such a plan has multiple tentacles and all of them have to be addressed so that no party is left out in the cold under the new plan.
So it is right to take care of those that cannot take care of themselves and we should do it for free, if we have to. Isn’t that what we are already doing under the current county hospital system?
If we are doing that then why is there a need for a change? I’ll tell you my idea…the users of the new system want a more robust allowance for all types of medical procedures like cosmetic procedures that are expensive or not covered under most medical plans and they want it paid for by taxpayer dollars. So in order to get a breast enhancement under the current plan where it is not generally covered by medical insurance and has to be paid by the patent; the new plan will do it and it will be paid for by all taxpayers and not just the patient (that is assuming the patient works and pays taxes that subsidizes part of the cost).
Pretty nifty, eh?
Now, how do we build this system and what model do we use? Canada, Great Britain where there are cases of people chaining themselves to a gurney so that they will be seen by a medical professional? What is the model? I heard today Massachusetts and I will admit that I know nothing about it but Massachusetts is a small state and how does it cross over to a state like California? Hey, if it works I am willing to listen.
But back to right and wrong…
What used to be seen as a healthy discussion of the issues is now a more pointed effort in not convincing but also putting a thumb on the issue to quash any further discussion. This in itself is a deadly cocktail of disaster, as I see it.
The geo-political landscape of America is in tatters and it has not come quickly but rather there has been a disassociation of peoples in this country for many years. Watching the last few national elections we have seen more of a 50% in power 50% out of power mentality so half of our country is unhappy at any given time.
I believe that the problem truly stems from a falling away of the Puritan ethic that held grasp of our country for many years. I am not just talking about the religious effects of that time but rather the work ethic of the American people at large.
I point to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) as the main focal point of the then moderate turn to liberalism to where it is today. His grasp of the American id during the time of his presidency was that we needed to be taken care of during the depression but there was a glaring error in his thought process…that we needed continued care by the government after the depression was done. While I do agree that the government needed to be beefed up during the depression I also think it should have been scaled back after it was over.
I do not think that the American government can take care of me better than I can take care of myself but I also believe that I am in the minority in this thinking today.
The tragedy of the FDR era is the welfare state that was created in that time and continued under every president since then. The Republicans do not escape this matter.
What we have now is a large sector of the population in an “entitlement” mentality fully expecting that the government will and, in fact, has to take care of them for as long as they live.
In an economics class that I took several years ago; my professor stated that 3.5% of the unemployment rate is hardcore unemployed. That being persons that because of their educational or skill level cannot get a job. This made me start looking at unemployment in a different manner.
If they are unable to get a job because of these issues then they are part of the other sector which is the entitlement group and they are demanding benefits all the time and will expect these benefits to be forthcoming for as long as they want or need them. Politicians cater to this group and, in fact, gerrymander voting districts to include them on their voter roles.
The true division of America really is the citizens who want to work and those that don’t, it is just that simple.
The citizens who want to work pay the taxes and support the other part of the equation. The non-working, non-tax paying group is the recipient of the goodwill and hard work of the other side. Unfortunately, the other side is beginning to break under the strain of the governmental support that is currently in place with the current tax system and the Cap and Trade bill that is being considered in Congress at this time.
The continued raising of taxes to pay for programs for the “entitled” group is slowly draining the reserve of capital of this nation but even more dangerous is the effect on the psyche of the working American.
We have all heard the saying,” There is no such thing as a free lunch” but we have forgotten what it means and what it means is that the governmental incursion into our daily lives will eventually become so burdensome that America will be gone as we know it and that is a sad thought indeed.
The middle class has been called on far too long to support the “entitled” masses that just keep getting bigger and bigger. There is a carrying load on the American taxpayer in how much they can and will sacrifice and the initial signs of unrest are being seen in various parts of our country.
The next six months will probably determine the course of America for a long time.
The current power group is not looking at the global impact of our growing debt in relationship to the other countries that are no longer buying it. If this continues there will be the possibility that the recent ARM interest rate reduction will be offset by higher fed rates. Those that were helped by the reduction will see an increase in their mortgage rates and will be back where they were or maybe even worse.
I am not sure that this juggernaut can be stopped because there is not enough information coming through the media to spark any type of debate and debate has always been a powerful thing in our country.
I kind of feel like the first day of my senior year in high school when we took over the quad and A.S.B. and ruled the school for a whole year and everyone else lived with the consequences of our actions. The current power base feels to me like those seniors in the quad and it will be a long time until the 2010 mid-term elections to see how America will be affected by the political push that is currently going on in Washington D.C..
Time will tell.

Mom - 2009

2009-06-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

This could be the hardest thing I have ever written and it should be if I am totally truthful which I will try to be.
My mom was the hardest person that I have ever known to get to know and to love on an ongoing basis and it didn’t need to be that way.
I do not want this to sound like a diatribe of negative feelings and comments but I do want it to be a true indicator of the fears that I had in the early part of my life to the abject desertion that I felt in the latter days of her life.
A little history on my mom; she was born on a farm in Colorado and was an only child for 13 years before her sister arrived. This was bad timing since mom had to come home after school to help with her sister as her mom had chores that needed to be done. Needless to say, my mom was VERY unhappy and exhibited it towards her sister and later her brother, per my mom. When she was 18 years old she left home never to return and moved to Denver where she eventually met my dad.
In later years she visited a psychologist to discuss these feelings that she had regarding her sister and tried hard to unbundled all of the hurt feelings and I think she did to a certain extent as she and Sandy had a good relationship during their adult lives.
I have long felt that certain people should not adopt children and I think even after all these years that I still feel that way about my mom. Now, she might have gone into it with a positive attitude and felt that she had a lot to offer a child and she did but unfortunately her anger issues were counteractive to building the trust and love that a young child needs to receive from a parent. Coupled with the fact that I was looking for approval from a woman and I needed a mom; it would have been really easy to have won me over but such was not the case.
The early days of the adoption were difficult as I tried to adjust to another house with different adults but from what I remember; it was a very short honeymoon.
I have a clear recollection of her working with me at night on learning about vowels and different words. Now, I remember that it was night because it was dark outside my bedroom window. I am sure that at 5 years of age I would have been tired and I am sure she was tired also but she screamed at the mistakes I made and, in fact, accused me of deliberately missing the words. I remember thinking, ‘How can a 5 year old do something like that?”.
My dad came in and took her to the living room and there I was sitting in my bedroom wondering what I could have done not to cause the problem. I do not remember anything ever being said to me about it later on; it was just another unresolved issue that never got resolved.
My mom was a screamer, a yeller, a door slammer, a window breaker, a face slapper, a banging the pans so hard on the counters that the handles broke off, and just about any other tirade you can think of. Her screaming was legendary because she screamed so loud the neighbors could hear her with our doors closed and theirs also. It was never a mystery when I was being punished and it was funny that none of the neighborhood kids or their parents came by during or after one of these sessions.
Suffice to say that I did go through a period as I grew older of knowing what buttons to push on mom and I did regularly. As I grew and got a little smarter I even knew how far I could push her to get only a certain response and nothing more. So if I did something I would do just enough for her to slam a door but nothing else. It was very interesting seeing how this all worked with her and I thought it was great fun at the time. Now I think it’s just sad that I acted this way.
One thing that she did that I still bristle from today is the face slapping. To me, that is a violation of a person and should never be done. I cannot think of one circumstance where slapping another person’s face would be justified. And mom was famous for it but every time she did it she pushed me further away from ever being close to her.
What she taught me instead was to protect myself especially from her and I was always on my guard around her. Even after the physical discipline part of our relationship was over; I still was guarded around her.
One thing that I couldn’t understand was that after every hellacious argument that we had then she needed or wanted to make up whether I wanted to or not. This confused me and years later in therapy I asked my counselor why this happened this way. She related that this was the way she was raised so when she had a fight with her parent(s) then they made up this way. So she was just acting out what she knew.
I am not sure whether I was better off knowing that fact or not because I was unable to know what to do with the information.
So much of whom mom was revolves around being the center of attention or the seat of power, as she thought she was in her later years. She felt her ability to persuade was contingent upon her having money and what she could do with it. Paula and I had many conversations that the risk of being closer with her was not worth the reward and so there was always a distance between us.
When she came to visit we enjoyed the time but when she left we went back to our lives. And that was always a better way for me and my family.
She adored Brandon and I think it was because he was the only grandchild that dad ever saw and that was special to her. The other two she really showed no great affinity for although she did have Brianne spend 2 weeks with her in Colorado.
Holly she disliked and I was never able to understand it and all she could say was, “She’s a spoiled brat”. Hell, all of my kids were spoiled; Paula and I made them that way. Now they weren’t rotten but they were privileged to a certain extent and I saw no harm in that at all. But mom just would not back off from Holly and it eventually meant that she went home to Colorado early and she never was extended another invitation nor did she ever return to my house.
To this day, I would argue that Holly’s kind and gentle nature was something that mom couldn’t be around. Those that know Holly know the type of person she is so no further discussion is necessary.
Mom smoked for 65 years or more and developed C.O.P.D. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Her case was emphysema and she was on oxygen for many years before she passed away in 2008. A side issue of COPD is dementia and mom had it and it got worse as she got older.
To make a long story short she gave power of attorney to her next door neighbor and her landlord. When I eventually had to go to Colorado, at the landlord’s request, to move mom out of the home she had lived in for 20 years; I found out that I no longer had her power of attorney.
After obtaining an attorney and going to court I was given guardianship but the landlord had full control of mom’s assets. One of the sad facts that came out of all this was that my mom was telling everyone that I could not be trusted. That one really stung.
I would be in charge of her care and the landlord would control the money. As it worked out all of mom’s money was spent on her care and when she died she had $13.00 in a bank account.
It is ironic that this woman who touted her money died destitute and on government assistance.
My dad prior to his dying asked me to make sure that I took care of her until she died and I said that I would. I was willing to do what it took to do that for her and my dad but I was never given the chance.
I do believe that mom suffered from dementia and that she was taken advantage by two people that saw her money and possibly thought this would be an easy mark. But the real sadness was that I was unable to do what my dad asked me to do but I did my best for both of them.
So mom has been dead for almost a year and my life is back to normal and sadly I do not miss her. The latter years were so painful that they actually wiped out my childhood anger in a lot of respects.
One thing that gave me hope about her and what she might have deeply felt about me happened on the day she died, her 85th birthday, August 22, 2008. I was told by a nurse not to wait too long in getting back there so I arrived at 11:45am on her birthday. As I arrived a nurse told me that she was sleeping and that every so often she woke up and called my name. Once I entered the room I went over to her and she awoke and I took her hand and told her that I was there and wished her happy birthday. She smiled slightly and went back to sleep. She never called my name again and as family gathered she would awaken a bit and then go back to sleep.
Pastor Wille from St. John Lutheran came in and spent 45 minutes talking to her and reading from the Bible. He ministered to her over the years when she lived in La Porte. She was so calm and you could see that she was listening to him. Once he left and the family left to get hotel rooms she got real calm and as I stood there holding her hand she died peacefully. No one but her and I at the end.
Looking at her I could see that all that she had been was gone forever. No more anger, no more ego, no more control, all of it had passed away and at that time I felt a peace that I have never felt in my life. I had fulfilled the promise I made to my dad and to her also and I had fought the good fight. I lost a lot more than I ever won but I withstood the onslaught and survived.
And that is sometimes the very best thing we can hope for…to survive.

Dad - 2009

2009-06-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

It seems fitting to write about my dad on this date since he passed away 31 years ago today.
Raymond Warren Spalding was a simple man from simple roots born in a time of great national distress and family discord. He was a loving son, husband, father, and grandfather during his life and was a man fired in the times of his youth to work hard for his family.
His father abandoned the family when he was 5 years old and he never had a role model that he could look back on to show him how to be a dad.
He loved his mother fiercely and quit high school at age 14 to go to work to support her and the family. We never returned to his studies except for a correspondence course in accounting that he took after World War II. His devotion to his mother was transferred upon her death in 1948 to my mom and there never appeared to be a wavering in that area of his life.
He was 5’7” tall and maybe 125 pounds sopping wet. His height was never a factor in his life and he was even a champion ballroom dancer in his early days. He never wanted for a dance when he and mom went out and he could dance all night, per mom. I only saw him dance a few times but I knew I was adopted after seeing him on the dance floor and knowing my limited dancing capabilities.
My dad was a good dad but not a great one. Now that sounds bad at first blush but he never had the tools to be a dad and I do not fault him for that even today. His main focus was to go to work, make money for his family and live as well as he could while he was here. In that sense he had the great World War II work ethic and he should be honored for that but his input at home would have gone a long ways in changing the family dynamic in our house.
Dad was a soft spoken person who never really said too much but when he did people listened to him, intently. I still remember conversations that we had that showed me the great intelligence that he had and even the softer side of him. He didn’t let many people see it because it made him to vulnerable and that was a place he did not like to be in at all but he was a wise man to me and his input meant a great deal to me. During a particularly trying time in my life he told me,” Don’t ever lie but don’t ever offer too much information either”. I still remember the surprise hearing that type of earthly wisdom coming from him because it was what I needed to know exactly at the time.
What I needed most from him was protection from the emotional outburst of my mother and he was not there to help me. He worked Monday through Friday from 7-6:00pm and a half day on Saturday too. He didn’t have to work on Saturdays but he did all the time I was at home. It was interesting that most of my mother’s outburst were timed to coincide with the time dad was gone from the house.
He was an accounting person for most companies that he worked for and held titles like Controller, Office Manager and such. He was greatly admired by his office staff and he was always included in after hour parties and get togethers.
He was blind to the race factor of the 60s and that was quite a feat since most of his staff were minorities but he treated them all fairly and expected no more or less from any one of them then the rest of the staff. His even disposition made for a quiet workplace.
My dad was the first “Chick magnet” I ever knew. The women loved him. My girlfriends were so enamored with him and I just sat and watched in amazement. His quiet demeanor was just amazing to watch and it wasn’t put on…it was the real thing but he never disrespected my mom, in fact, she thought it was quite hilarious how women found him so attractive.
Dad had a temper though and although it wasn’t displayed often he could light up a room with it when he really got angry. Thank goodness I didn’t cross that threshold too often, only one time when I took his radio apart to see how it worked. He got so mad he slammed the door and forgot to take his pinkie finger out of it first and broke it. It was a tense few weeks in the house after that and I stopped electronic exploration of the household appliances.
Dad was a voracious smoker, one of those that started early in life and tried to quit but just couldn’t so it. I always felt that his attempts to quit were half hearted at best except when cancer crept into his life. He got lung cancer in his mid 50s and received radiation treatment and per his doctor the treatments were successful and he was told to go home and live his life. He hadn’t smoked for some time during this time but that was not to last for too much longer. Sadly, at age 59 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His first radiation treatment was on his grandson, Brandon’s “birth” day.
The latter years of dad’s life were sad ones to me because his physical condition deteriorated because of the radiation treatments and other health factors just became too much to bear.
He lived long enough to see and be with his grandson and I think that gave him a sense of peace. I think knowing that the Spalding name would continue another generation gave him some small sense of satisfaction.
A decision was made by mom and him to move to Fort Collins, Colorado to be closer to family that could assist them during this time. As much as Paula and I tried to be there for them; it just wasn’t possible on the level they needed that it could be done…so they moved. This fulfilled a promise that dad made to mom in 1948 when they moved to California to take care of his mother…”I will take you home to Colorado someday”, and he did.
Dad passed away on June 30, 1978 at 4:00am with mom and me in the room. I was holding his hand.
As we were leaving the hospital and walking to the car my mom said something so profound that I still am amazed today at its utterance, “He died like a true accountant; he died of the last day of the financial year”.
The impact that dad had on me is not so much the material things that I had growing up but rather the quiet support that he gave me during my years at home. He did instill in me certain principals that I still live by today and I am grateful.
My sorrow with dad was his inability to quit smoking and make a life for himself with his grandchildren. He would have so loved them just as he loved Brandon. He was tentative around him because he lacked experience with babies but the few pictures that we have you can see the pride in his face when he was with him. There was so much more for him the see and experience and even today, Brianne and Holly both mention Pop-po and say how much they would have liked to meet him and he would have like that a lot, I know.
My epitaph as a dad is yet to be written but I know when it is some of it will be a reflection on my dad and the impact he had in my life. While I coveted more of his time and attention; I know he gave me the best that he could and I need to be grateful for that and not center on the “what-if” factor of the relationship. But even in the looking back this many years after he left me I can truly say that I am proud to have been his son and I will do what I can to honor his memory in the future.

Parental Times – The Early Years

2009-06-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

I have a rather checkered childhood of foster homes and eventually an adoption to a good solid middle class post World War II family in a small Los Angeles suburban city.
As most of you might think; adopting families really want children and really want to instill in them their value systems and while much of that might be true there is a darker side to the adoption picture.
Many of the families that “pass” the adoption test just weren’t meant to be adopting parents. I do not mean this in an arbitrary manner; it is just that they carry baggage that shouldn’t be put on a child.
While birthing a child changes the dynamic of the relationship; there needs to be better testing of potential adopting parents in order for the children to be placed in solid, well adjusted families.
In the little that I have found out about the adoption process of the 1950s it has become painfully clear to me that it really wasn’t that hard to get a child if you had a marriage, house and a job. While investigation took place on the part of child services it was done with people that the adopting parents referred to the agency. I am not sure how impartial those referrals would be to an agency and maybe there have been adoptions not made because of referrals. But in my case, it followed normal channels.
Adopting me was no bed of roses after four and one half years of foster homes and being moved around so I was fairly disenchanted by the time I was adopted. I believe I would have tried the patience of any well intentioned mother and father but I was a winnable case if the effort was put into it.
Since I knew my name, Robert Richard Bevan, I was aware when my name was changed to the one I have today. In retrospect changing my middle name after so long was not a positive thing in my life. Since I used my entire name when I gave it to anyone it must have been an important part of my identity and this was lost on my parents. Coupled with the fact that my middle name is not a family name or a name of any importance even to close friends of the family; I am still puzzled why it needed to be changed.
During my teen years I mentioned to my father that I was going to change my middle name when I was old enough in which he replied, “If you do I will sue you for all of the money that I have spent on raising you”. I always thought that was an unusual response since I was not thinking about changing my last name.
I have always been proud of the Spalding last name and I have worked hard over the years to do nothing that would bring shame to it, it is a good name and Ray Spalding was a good man and deserves all of us who have the name to treat it with respect.
But I digress…
As a child you want to trust your parents and when a base of trust cannot be built early in the relationship then problems will follow. Such was the problem with my mom. She really never gave me much of an indication that she ever wanted to have children in her life. She was 13 when her sister was born and that led to an alienation from the family and I feel that she always felt cheated out of her adulthood by having to take raise me. Now I believe she loved me; I just don’t think that I fit into her plans.
If one part of the parenting model is not full into the process the child rearing process will break down and the child will feel emotionally abandoned as I did.
Did I think my parents loved me? Yes
Did I know my parents loved me? No
Further postings will discuss different aspects of relationships that I had with my parents but suffice it to say that years later, many years later, I still feel abandoned in the love portion of the relationship that I had with these two people. These were good people but they should not have been parents to me or any other child and while I thank them for what they gave to me I still mourn the fact that they could not love me as I needed to be loved.

A "Magical" Place

2009-06-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

A “Magical” Place

Time is the ultimate judge of anything.
Look at the Sphinx and the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal. Who can argue with the dynamic sense of time and history of these places and the lessons that they teach in history and art; yet they are stationary in time. As beautiful as they are and as much as we can conger the beauty of these places when they were new…they stand, in one place, in time. Now don’t get me wrong regarding the great works of history but one place has transcended life in the modern era…Disneyland.
Disneyland? Yes.
Walt Disney was every bit the visionary of ages past but with a different spin. That spin was motion and motion counteracts time which is the big differential of the great wonders mentioned above. It was his attention to detail and the need for motion that makes Disneyland a place of awe and wonder to children and parents alike.
While I am not sure of any numbers; it would seem incredulous that families from all over the world have traveled to the wonders of Egypt, China, or India yet families from all over the world makes trips to a relatively small area of Orange County, California to visit a modern day “Wonder of the World”.
Now there are those that would say that Florida, Paris and Tokyo should be considered and they are fine places, I am sure, but they are not “Ground Zero” of an idea that was so foreign to the thinking of most people in the 1950s and the fact that it is still one of the preeminent places to visit in America and the world. This alone should make us all take stock in what was on Walt’s mind back then.
Disneyland is not a place as much as it is an idea on a conscious plane that makes us focus in a different manner. When we are there, time stands still yet there is motion and excitement and memories that are made that follow our lives for the rest of our lives.
I remember Grad Night, June 15, 1967 at Disneyland as a time of seeing the park at night, all night, and being a part of something with other graduates that made a familial bond, if only for the night.
I have been there for the first times of my children and now grandchildren and the memories just keep piling up. My 60th birthday was special but made more special because Disneyland was “Ground Zero” for the celebration. I fully expect that there will be more memories made but if there were none more than I have a sufficient number to ruminate on for the rest of my time.
But back to Walt, what was he thinking?
With the sacrifice of World War II and the effect that it had on some many people; Walt wanted to build a place for Disney employees and their children and where peace reigned and the world outside took two steps back from everyone who entered there for just a little while. Where all the adults could be kids again and at the same time enjoy the childhood of their children and grandchildren. What a simple idea in a complicated world.
Disneyland is much larger and different than when Walt passed away in December 1966 but the essential reason for being has not changed…to “look like nothing else in the world” and did he ever succeed in that thought.

Women are the Answer

2009-06-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Women are the Answer

I saw an article the other day in a newspaper that showed an Iranian woman in her traditional clothing but with a look of determination and a quote by the picture, “We are not afraid”…and a cold chill ran down my back.
Oh, the poor mullahs and other power holders of Iran…what have you gotten yourself into and how are you going to deal with this one.
Everyone knows the old quote, “When momma ain’t happy…” well I am not sure that Iran is ready for a whole bunch of unhappy mommas. Change is on the horizon, Iran, and you better get ready for it.
For too long the women of Islam have been held in bondage from a religious viewpoint that treats them not much different than chattel. Now there are those that would say that the Christian-Judeau religions do the same thing and that might be true to a certain extent but I do believe that these two religious orders have allowed themselves to evolve into a more modern approach or at least it seems so.
But Islam, a long male dominated religion, has come to a point of realization that you cannot suppress an entire class forever before they will finally rise up to take their place.
The current unrest in Iran might be controlled at this time but the internal pressure for change will not be diminished but will only simmer until it shows itself again, and it will and it will be sooner than this time.
So western democracies and other forms of governments that have felt the lash of the Islamic jihad against them have spent untold years trying to find a way to co-exist or defeat this mentality and there is really only one…women.
Women of Iran and all Islamic countries unite and be heard for it is your time to throw off the bonds, the fetters of your past and become full citizens of the world at large.
The time for women’s liberation has come to this part of the world and if you want to see a change in the “New World Order” especially in the Middle East then insert a little womanly thought to whether their men should be out fighting or making a living and supporting their families.
And once they are allowed to work, drive cars, be seen in public, hold the hand of the man that they love in public, and hold office and effect their thoughts and principals on their country and the world at large then and only then will the world really be in a place to truly judge this area of the world.
What the west has failed to see over the years is that we did not need to support the mujahedin but rather the ones that bore their children and make their meals.
Now, that might sound sexist but rather it is a first step in getting this part of the world in societal balance with the rest of the world. We cannot achieve any type of peace if one part of the equation is left out and women in the Middle East have definitely been left out but I have a feeling that is going to change and change real soon.
So power to the People of Iran and POWER to the WOMEN of Iran to go and finally seize that which has been yours all along but kept from you.
Women have shown their capabilities to lead and I think maybe it is time for more women world leaders so we can see what direction they will lead us. It can’t be any worse than the direction that we are headed.

There's a Difference

2009-06-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Phil Jackson, the record setting coach of the Los Angeles Lakers was on the Tonight Show last week and made an interesting remark; it went something like this…that the unrest in Iran was made possible by the current approach by the administration that was elected last November.
What a funny and naïve comment, I thought.
First off, I realize that Mr. Jackson is a Buddhist and although I am not fully aware of their thought patterns regarding world issues I am sure that they have peaceful intentions but I had difficulty seeing the current administration’s ineffectiveness in getting the economy under control as being a bell weather ringing endorsement for their obvious lack of foreign diplomacy, especially in Iran today.
Hello, liberals and the rest of you Bush haters, people are dying in Iran today for what…FREEDOM…Freedom like we have in this country. They are not just marching but they are marching with the full knowledge that their pictures are being taken and that there is a good chance that goon squads will be visiting them and their families some night to exact a judgment on them that we would be horrified at knowing about. But what do I hear from the liberal side…that our President’s silence somehow has a Svengali mystic hold over the event and that our mute president and his administration is leading the way in assisting in any manner to the Iranians striving for freedom.
Listen, what is happening by our, “oops did I offend” foreign policy makers in Washington D.C. today is only adding to the problem, not assisting it.
Now I will be the first to say the Mullahs and the other leaders in Iran today don’t give a hoot about what is said but the man in the street trying to affect a change in government needs to hear the world at this time, that we see them and we support them in their efforts.
Now I have marveled for years how Coach Jackson sits on the bench when things are not going well for his team and he seldom seems upset and is the calmest coach I have seen in ages but that approach does not translate to foreign policy and the need for freedom fighter to “hear and feel” the support of our country at this time.
Sitting on our hands just to placate the Iranian government not only harms the protesters that are literally fighting for their lives but also emboldens the despots that have held power for the past 30 years. Remember these guys…the ones that assaulted our embassy, sovereign American territory back in the 70s and took hostages for 444 days. Remember???
American foreign policy needs to have words associated with action and this administration in their politically correct approach now has a problem in North Korea and Iran and is being seen in the world as a “Knock off” French government of appeasement.
Listen up, there are different views on this subject and I for one have no desire for an expanded war in the region but I do want expanded dialogue that let’s the Iranian people know that we know they are out there and we support their efforts in obtaining their freedom in whatever manner it eventually comes to them.
War is not always the answer but neither is the “Three monkey approach” to foreign diplomacy. I will leave it to the reader to fill in who fits the bill of these rather well know caricatures.
By the way, anybody see or hear from Joe Biden lately? What’s up with him?

Children at Play

2009-06-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Children at Play

It’s been years since I played with my trucks and Lincoln logs along the hedge line at the old house on Baylor street but watching my grandchildren play has brought back a lot of old memories and in a good way.

One of the most evident things is that toys were much simpler back then and today’s toys are engineering marvels not even thought about in my day. The other big difference is the reliance on electrics to inspire play but even with all that the kids still play with the cardboard box and the packing materials that come inside.

Now don’t get me wrong, children still play and to a great extent still play the same way that we did in the 50s but they are a smarter more in tune bunch than I think we were back then.

I can watch my grandchildren play and enjoy in their activity as much as if I were doing it myself but they each play in such different ways.

On a recent sleep over in Jordan’s room, Maddie, Abby and Jordan were sequestered behind closed door playing dolls with Jordan’s Barbie collection. The room was strewn with doll clothes and other parts of the Barbie Diamond Castle, horses and carriages and clothes, lots of clothes, and there were all the dolls, stark naked. It was determined through this ritual that Ken, the male Barbie doll, was to go to work sans clothes. Isn’t it interesting that when boys play with Barbie she is generally topless? Man, we didn’t have those options with trucks and Lincoln logs. But this sisterhood of the Naked Ken was a time so well enjoyed by all parties and as an adult I was amazed how kids that really didn’t know each other that well could interact on such a level with no fighting or arguing, sharing equally and all of them having a good time.

Now Noah is a different matter. He is noisy, rambunctious and generally calling out to someone for some type of information about something. Even his parents aren’t particularly good at interpretation on this two-year olds vocabulary but he is passionate about whatever he is speaking about. He is a little more eclectic on his toy choice as he goes from hither to yon and then back again, to the toy box retrieving toys just screaming for attention to be dropped on the floor and summarily dismissed. But there is no denying that he is full into playing with everything while he is at our house and that is ok with me and grandma.

And then there is Peyton who is just learning the freedom of the floor and the art of rolling everywhere to get where she wants. Seeing her struggle to get a toy on the floor where the other children are now lost to such effort makes me stop and see where we have all come from and where these children, God willing, will all someday go.

For as we grow we still play, as teens with that first love and the playful days of courtship and even into marriage the playfulness changes into a more intense set of rules into adulthood and the playfulness with our children that does not seem so playful to them at times to middle age with growing children and learning the art of being young again so that we do not repress their burgeoning spirits and allow them to continue their art of continuing playfulness with the people in their lives to old age and sitting in a chair and watching all of the essence of life being relived again in front of us in the play of our grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to watch my children and grandchildren grow and I look forward to the future of more grandchildren and maybe even great grandkids some day but I do not want to lose this time.

My grandchildren make memories for me that are so vivid to me of their joy and anticipation and that gives me hope for the future and that is a good, very good thing to have in my life.

The ABC Debacle

2009-06-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Like President Obama doesn’t have enough stuff being the president now he has an actual television broadcasting network at his disposal…ABC.

The soon to be program from the White House on the healthcare issue is a direction so foreign to what we have seen in the past that it is frightening.

Why? Because Americans have seen the major news networks as an impartial observer to national and world events and they have needed that so that they can obtain facts and come to acceptable decisions on important manners. The news has always needed to have an arms-length attitude about any newsworthy subject in order to serve who they serve…the viewing public but ABC has crossed a line, in my opinion.

While it was uncomfortable to see Charlie Gibson almost wet his pants on TV the night that Barak Obama was elected president; it is even more uncomfortable to have the obvious cronyism displayed on national TV. Where is the arms-length distance for ABC to honestly assess the president’s healthcare initiative so it can be presented in a fair and “impartial” manner to the American public?

I, for one will not be watching it for several reasons:

No allowance has been made by ABC to allow any dissenting voices or questions to be heard during this time.
No ads espousing a different opinion will be allowed during the broadcast.
Handpicked people will be allowed to attend the broadcast and all questions will be screened beforehand. (The president will have the answers on his teleprompter, I am sure).

I am boycotting ABC national news not only on the night of this broadcast but in the future. I will continue to watch the local ABC affiliate but as for Charlie Gibson and ABC; they have crossed a line with me that I cannot allow myself to step back over in the future. Too bad, because I really liked him and thought he did as good a job as anyone in trying to “report” the news and not make it.

Present Day Jitters

2009-06-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was watching TV last night and President Obama was speaking about some newsworthy item when I noticed a very significant thing…his hair is already turning gray. How many days has he been in office (I, can hear some,” Too long” out there) but he is turning gray at a rate that looks faster than a speeding bullet.
Then I read that he is losing sleep over the deficit, eh yeah, when did that start bothering him?
So I started thinking that this “president” thing might be a whole lot harder than he thought it was going to be. Maybe the words, “We’re going to spend our way out of this recession” is starting to sink in on him now that the deficit is ballooning and the dollar is in the dumper. What he didn’t anticipate was that Russia, China and India and the other emerging economies were going to dump the dollar and go another direction on the world currency market. Oops, probably should have thought that one through before he saddle us with $1,000.000.000 (that’s one trillion) in new debt that will be paid for by our children and grandchildren.
Our nation’s massive debt is not only an international problem but also a great internal problem. As our borrowing power falls we have several choices and none of them are good. Two of them are to print more money that will cause inflation or raise Treasury note interest and further weaken our economy. And quite frankly, China isn’t supporting our debt anymore and there are no other takers on the world scene either that can sustain the capital influx that we will need to just service the debt. The threat of “hyper-inflation” is beginning to rear its ugly head. I will go into that topic in another blog because it is its own topic.
I will admit that past administrations (and not just the previous one) have failed to heed the,”Don’t spend more than you take in” ideology. I can hear the Clintonites saying, “But we had a surplus and Bush spent it all.” Get over it, the economy of the Clinton era is what is tanking at this very moment. He was just lucky that it didn’t happen on his watch.
I am beginning to wonder if President Obama’s 144 days in the Senate and whatever field work he did before that canvassing or whatever he did are going to be sufficient experience to get us through this.
But I am getting a sneaky suspicion that all his answers that were rapid fire on the campaign trail are not as functional now that they need to be implemented.
Our domestic state is at a critical mass and with the social emotional state being at the edge of panic but contained at this time; I see perilous days ahead of us if our government cannot reign in the current economic fluctuations.
Candidate Obama spoke of change and hope and all the good words that we want to hear but now we need to hear the words that make us feel like he can do the job that he was elected for and I am not hearing anything that smacks of confidence but more of a trial and error mentality. All the confidence of the campaign trail has evaporated into a “give me some more time to fix this” mantra. Time is running out Mr. President and the American people need answers now.

A Favorite Relative

2009-06-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

A Favorite Relative

As we age we begin to look back at past benchmarks in our lives and we begin to understand the real effort that people put into us to make us who we are today. When we come from a disconnected childhood of foster homes and so many unremembered memories that wired us in a peculiar way; then we really begin to see the special people of our lives.
Now many of us would pick a grandmother or their mom (this was an easy choice for me…not to pick her) I wonder how many people would pick my most favorite relative.
Before I identify this person let me say first that my exclusion of any other relative in my life should not be seen as a slight but rather that their inclusion into my life added so much to the fabric of who I am today and I can only be thankful for the opportunity to have known so many loving and kind people in my life.
Now back to my candidate that I have chosen and what made this person so special to me. I wasn’t raised by this person but they taught me a lot in the years that I knew them, I was never schooled in any particular subject yet I learned so much about life and to a great extent how it works. So what were the great defining aspects of our relationship that made me choose this person; that they were kind to me, didn’t meddle in my affairs, always met me with open arms fully extended and then fully closed to accept me into them, spoke kindly to me and of me, and most of all made me feel loved, loved every time I was blessed to be able to spend some time with them. They never asked more from me than I was able to give (and I am sure that I could have given more) but they always appreciated my best efforts and made me feel valued in the process.
Now this is an exceptional person not only in my life but in the life of my family and even today years after her passing we speak loving and kind words about this person and we miss her with an intensity that is as profound as the day we lost her, my mother-in-law, Martha Elizabeth Beal Gammon.
What makes this sixth grade educated, farm girl from a rural area of Oklahoma so memorable to me is exactly what was stated above, her kind and easy manner in looking at life and how best to live life in the process.
By worldly standards, Martha was not blessed with many skills that the outside world holds dear but when you really began to know her then you began to understand that life is not that complicated and that life is meant to be lived one day at a time. If she taught me anything it was to take stock of who I am and to live my life one day at a time. Basically, it is to simplify myself not only to myself but also to those around me.
She mastered this because she was a simple person and she never gave cause to be seen as anything else but who she was. Yet, she wasn’t acting in this manner for any other effect but being Martha. I have never heard anyone say that she was anyone but who she projected to the family at large. The mastery of being able to be who we truly are and to be comfortable in our own skin is a true rarity in our society today.
Her love is family lore today. My children’s memories of her are as crisp and precise as to the moment of what was said or done that after so many years there had to be an almost mesmerizing state of being when they were with her. Her play time with them is legendary whether it was working a kid’s puzzle at a table or sitting on the floor playing a game.
That inherent quality of time and how you give it is a remarkable trait and so many people live their entire life and never grasps it true intent. But time and time again I saw it in her as a normal facet of her everyday life.
She also had a great gift of being gracious and being thankful for what she had and people felt at ease around her. When you went to her house in her later years, it was an oasis from the outside world; kids played, the older girls went shopping and the guys stayed home with Martha and watched sports. Now she didn’t care for sports but being in her house with her was enough for her to enjoy our company. We were noisy and hungry and everything a bad guest might normally be but Martha was never frazzled by it all.
In closing, I will probably never have the opportunity to know anyone like Martha again in my life but how blessed I am to have had the opportunity to know even one Martha.
So when times are rough and days go bad; I will endeavor to try to regain some of the Martha factor in my life and slow down, take a deep breath, and live one day at a time and I just have a feeling that she will be there smiling at me and that is enough for me.