The Barack who cried "wolf"

One of the most important aspects of leadership is to maintain your head while all about you are losing theirs.  When chaos rules the day, people depend upon their leader to maintain his cool and lead them through troubled waters.

The steady hand calms the troubled hearts.

If everything faced by a people gets elevated to crisis level, they rally to their leader's side during the first, second, and perhaps third sudden catastrophe.  Soon, they become wearied and ache for a return to normalcy.

That's assuming a real catastrophe even existed.  In the event that the people rally only to find phantoms and cardboard cut-outs, they'll weary far sooner.  Disillusionment will set in and it won't take long until the people ignore their leader when he impassions that wolves have entered the fold.

These thoughts ran through my mind as I noted this headline in the Sunday paper (why do I keep finding such stomach turning fare in the Sunday paper of all places?):

Obama declares H1N1 crisis

We're at war with the runs?!?

President Bush started this habit of calling us to arms against windmills in the bank fiasco of a year ago.  President Obama didn't miss a beat when he started the new year bygoing to war again to save our failing auto industry.  And then he took our angst on the road in a world-apology tour.  Then came health care.  Billions and billions dying on the streets of Des Moines!  In recent days, a more demonic percolated to the surface.  The White House sought to neutralize the threat to our nation caused by Fox News.

"This is not time for talk.  We must act now."  Against what?  Most the folks on Main Street look at one another and shrug their shoulders.  Ma and Pa Kettle will take up pitchforks against the hooligans behind the razing of buildings in New York City.  They don't take kindly to being asked to fork over their hard earned cash to give to fat-cats who couldn't keep their books balanced.  Nor do they get giddy over a national battle against network they watch if they want something in the ballpark of objectivity.

And now it's body ache and fever.  Might I recommend a low-cost hand-washing and cup of chicken soup?  Perhaps a few days rest and a close-at-hand supply of toilet paper.

Armchair quarterbacking, how about we resolve Afghanistan?  All in or all out.  What about the cancer which manifested itself on 9-11?  Let's take care of those bananas.  They are nowhere near close to unleashing their anti-American, anti-Semitic malignancy.  How might we defend against that?  A constitutional perspective would lead one to believe that the chief tasking of our government  is to protect the people.  The military oath includes protecting against all enemies foreign and domestic.

At the very least, it would be refreshing to see an issue come to the fore in the next week or two that doesn't immediately go to the head of the national crisis class.  Maybe he would consider waiting until after the World Series is over.  I'm not going to bet my Cracker Jacks on that.

QotD: A brave "new" world?

This from Aldous Huxley's forward to his combined Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited, written a score and half-dozen years after the former.

As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

Time warped

Thursday morning I had the honor to wake my son. His football team was having a team breakfast (game day, you know) and he wanted to go. Dutiful dad rises at 6:30, not too bad, chomps a little breakfast and waits. And waits. Planning to head out the door at 7:10, I expected to see my son by 7:00. Nope. When I peaked in his room, he was deep in a REM sprawl.

After a loving kiss on the forehead and a gentle nudge to the shoulder, we still made it out the door by 7:11 (remember the Slurpy Rock Cups? You don't? Oh, well). The conversation enroute to the jackal feed went something like this:

"Did you forget to set your alarm?"

"No. It went off, but it didn't go off the second time."

The second time? Ah, he's a Snoozer. I could feel my eyes roll back into my head as my molars pressed together with a force that would have turned a charcoal brickette into a five karat diamond.

Other mornings I'll be eating breakfast and hear the heart-stopping "EENH-EENH-EENH-EENH!" of another's son's alarm clock, but then nothing else. Then as sure as my tax load will increase every year for the next seven years, "EENH-EENH-EENH-EENH!" his clock resounds seven minutes later. Every now and then, this cycle will repeat itself to the third and fourth iteration. That son, too, is a Snoozer.

I - do - not - understand - the Snoozer! In my literalist brain, the purpose of an alarm clock is to wake you to start your day. Explain to me why anyone would want someone to enter their bedroom, rudely clang a wooden spoon around the soup kettle only to whisper in their ear, "You have seven more minutes of sleep after which time I'll come clanging again." Most would deny that they want someone to do that, but then they'll set their alarm to do that very thing!

I don't get it. Maybe there's some psychology that I'm missing, but -- me?-- give me as much sleep as I can squeeze out of the night. If it takes me 32.97 minutes to get from pillow to the door, I'll set my alarm 33 minutes before my departure time only because I can't figure out how to program hundreths of seconds into the stupid thing.

That made me think of the Snoozer's daffier cousin, the Time Padder. This is the guy who sets all of his clocks fifteen minutes ahead of time to give themselves an extra fifteen minutes so that they'll not be late...and yet they are ALWAYS late! Usually by well over fifteen minutes. They look at their watch, see 9:15 and gasp! "No, wait. Wait a minute. I've set my watch fifteen minutes ahead of time. It's only 9:00. I'm not nearly as late as I thought I was."

The part of Time Padder's brain that easily tells time seems completely dissociated from the part of their brain that works logic. "Ssshhh...be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm going to set all my clocks fifteen minutes ahead of the time that it is right now to trick myself into believing that it's really that time. Then--voila!--I'll suddenly become a responsible, on-time individual."

Methinks not.

Pad away. Snooze away. But please be ready to walk out the door at 7:10.

Signed,

The Type-A, sets his every time piece by the US Naval Observatory Master Clock, blog venter

Global warming: Indicting God

Not a week goes by that I don't see on Drudge some world leader or Al Gore clone suggesting that if we don't do something about global warming by tomorrow lunch, we can expect the earth will look like burnt toast by dinner.

What I find particularly disconcerting is when our own government officials go batty and legislate some ridiculous restrictions upon manufacturing or big screen TVs (yes, in--you guessed it--California). Now more boa constricting daffiness from Sens. Barbie Boxer and John Kerry in the form of greenhouse legislation (read about it here).

Here's something to consider, though, especially among those of us who call ourselves Christian (which, believe it or not, comprises most of the Senate):

“While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”

That's God's promise (Genesis 8:22). Did you catch what He said? As long as the earth is, there will be planting and reaping. It's going to be cold and it's going to be hot. We will have winter (snowing lots in October this year...October!) and we will have summer. These will not end. This cycle will not stop. His promise.

So if the emissions of my two suburbans would thwart that, if everyone in California having a wall-sized big screen TV would counter that, or if felling the entirety of the rain forest would terminate winter anywhere on the planet, then God knows not of which He speaks.

So there's the dilemma: Do we put our lives in the hands Al Gore's science and Kerry's and Boxer's legislation, or do take the God, the God we say we believe and trust, at His word?

Revising revisionism

Have you heard the one about those horrid Puritans, the ones who initiated the witch trials The Crucible made famous? Yes, I know you have. Thank you, Arthur Miller. But did you know that the government sentenced the women and that the preachers of the day, led prominently by Cotton Mather, ended the lunacy? No, I didn't think so. We prefer a playwright's history.

And the Crusades. You have heard how those horrid Christians (a theme?) attempted to drive the peace-loving Arabs from their homeland, haven't you? Let's put a bit of focus on this most recently blurred of historic events.

Many thanks to my good friend, Jeff, for passing this on to me. Dr. Peter Hammond, the article's authoer, has spent 26 years as a Christian missionary among the Arab peoples of Africa and especially the Sudan. He has also researched, far more than I have, the Crusades.

Anyway, here's the article (here, really) titled "Jihad and Crusades." It's a lengthy read, but it's stuff that was common knowledge a few centuries ago. Thanks to the post-modern slop taught in 97% institutes of any learning, most of us don't get such information.

Let it ricochet around in your mind for a few days, then turn on the tube and see what Iran's up to in the eradication-of-Israel department.

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For further review on this topic, I've linked another article, "What were the Crusades all about?" here.

Citizenship 101

A friend of mine picked up my son and two other boys from football practice today. On their way home, my friend was accelerating along the frontage road (three lanes wide and one way) to enter the highway when in the far right lane a pickup truck zorched past them at a guesstimated 20 mph faster than my friend. Problem is, a woman had pulled out of a side street well before said pickup truck and was just getting herself to the speed limit.

The yahoo in the pickup continued accelerating toward her and then quick-stopped in an intimidating fashion, but he didn't quick stop soon enough and struck her bumper.

My friend, my son, and the two other boys witnessed this as they accelerated onto the highway.

As they merged with the traffic, my friend continued to look over his shoulder at the mishap. The woman's car had stopped and the pickup turned onto a side street. Dilemma. The boys were all eager to get home, my son wanting to attend the junior high school football game tonight. My friend wrestled with what he should do. They'll probably take care of it themselves. Right? You know, maybe he didn't hit her. Right?

"Boys, I'm going to turn around and see what happened," he declared, and the boys all seemed cool with the decision. Three minutes later, they were back on the scene.

The scrawny gent from the pickup was pretty much in the woman's face, threatening her because it was her fault that he hit her from behind. She was sure to be ticketed, he intimidated. "Um, that's not what happened or will happen," said my friend. "Have you called the police yet?"

"That won't be necessary," suggested the scrawny man.

"Yes, it will," countered my friend as he punched 9-1-1 into his cell phone. "You always need to contact the police when there is an accident."

"Well, she stopped right in front of me!" scrawny blustered.

"No, sir," my friend once again countered, "You flew past me doing well beyond the speed limit and rear ended that lady."

The scrawny man went to an adjacent house where his friend who had been in the truck lived.

"Thank you for stopping," said the woman trembling. "I've never been hit before and I didn't know what to do. He started threatening me and telling me it was all my fault. He said I'd have to pay and would likely have to go to jail."

What a smudge, thought my friend about Mr. Scrawny.

Soon the police arrived and took my friend's information and statement and sent them on their way. The whole thing took ten to fifteen minutes.

If you ask me, my son and those boys could not have gotten a better civics lesson.

1. When you see an accident, stop to a) render assistance, and b) offer yourself as a witness.
2. When you see an accident, notify the police. You never know when the innocent will be turned on by the guilty.
   

That poor woman could have been intimidated into paying for her own fender, and another smudge would have won the day. Let's hear it for a little exercised citizenship!

Why have I not heard this???

Yesterday, I nearly up-chucked when I read that headline about "unsafe abortions" (blogged here). Let's start your week with a glorious dose of sunshine.

This little piece buried in the current issue of World Magazine, caused me to bruise my jaw on the coffee table over the exceptional character of Carolyn Savage.

A woman implanted with the wrong frozen embryo gave birth to a baby boy on Sept. 24 and returned the boy to his biological parents, Paul and Shannon Morell. They called Carolyn Savage a "guardian angel," saying they were at first afraid that Savage would abort the baby or sue for custody when the fertility clinic discovered the mistake. Savage said she never considered it: "This was someone else's child. . . . We didn't know if they didn't have children or if this was their last chance for a child."

QotD: Revolting misdirection

This from my local Sunday newspaper (yes, I still get one of those):

Report: Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 every year

Yeah, but how many do safe abortions kill every year? I have an idea. What if we stop trying to terminate the life of the unborn, then we'll save those millions of lives plus the 70,000 women who die from complications.

It reminds me of the Vaudevillian joke, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this..."

The intolerance of God

Tom Krattenmaker of USA Today has a cross-shaped burr under his saddle about Christians in prominent athletics. Oh, like most folks, he doesn't mind thanking God here or a little prayer there. No, what has chafed his posterior is that their convictions have gone public. These men and women have the audacity to encourage their teammates, their fans, their coaches to have a relationship with--is anyone looking?--shhh--Jesus Christ.

Krattenmaker sees a conspiracy (ital - mine):

"Far less visible, but worth knowing about, are the infrastructure and strategy of the sports-world evangelicalism that powers these pious displays. Athletes' expressions of Christian faith reflect decades of hard work by evangelical ministries to convert players and "coach" them to use their stature to promote a particular version of conservative Christianity."

Ptooey on that particular version. I guess he prefers a Burger King, have-it-your-way, Christianity. But then, so do many Americans. Not a week goes by when I don't hear someone suggest that the Christian walk depends upon your interpretation as though the Bible were some kind of tabula rasa that you color to your liking.

So distasteful does Mr. Krattenmaker find this, note the language he uses:

"They are also leveraging sports' popularity to promote a message and doctrine that are out of sync with the diverse communities that support franchises, and with the unifying civic role that we expect of our teams."

He's obviously not writing about Nobel Prize winners. So what's he driving at?

"...should we be pleased that the civic resource known as "our team" — a resource supported by the diverse whole through our ticket-buying, game-watching and tax-paying — is being leveraged by a one-truth evangelical campaign that has little appreciation for the beliefs of the rest of us?"

Mr. Krattenmaker's underlying assertion: Christianity that declares damnation for those who reject God's provision has no place within the public sphere. He takes aim at a prominent Heisman Trophy winner and national championship quarterback.

"Certainly, Tim Tebow must be applauded for the good he does working on his father's missions, but he should be seen, too, as one who promotes a form of belief that makes unwelcome judgments about everyone else's religion."

The weighty theological research done by Mr Krattenmaker? Public opinion polls. Seems most folks don't favor the flavor of Jesus-only salvation. When last I looked, God wasn't running for election. He doesn't genuflect to Gallup Polls, Pew Research, or Nobel Selection Committees.

Krattenmaker's problem, and the problem of thousands of liberal theologues who declare many avenues to God, is not with Tebow. They have a fundamental issue with God Himself. You see, it's not Tebow pushing a "Jesus-or-else" message. Jesus is pushing the Jesus-or-else message because that's the way it is. Here's a sampling Christ's "intolerance:"

• I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
• Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. (Matthew 7:13)
• The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. (Luke 10:16)
• Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the oen who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. (Luke 12:8-9)

You get the idea.

Now here's the deal. This is not something Tim Tebow or Colt McCoy or Sam Bradford concocted. Man rebelled against God. Only the Creator could fix the broken creation, and He did so by becoming the recipient Himself of the deserved condemnation. Paul tells the Roman church that God did this that He might be both just and the justifier to bring about the reconciliation of man to God (Romans 3:26). He offers us the free gift of restored life with Him...if we are willing to receive it.

This is not some whacked out sect of Christianity. This isn't the NCAA's crazed, Kool-Aid drinking quarterback club. This is just what the Bible says. As God's primary communication to us, His letter tells of the disaster that looms ahead for all mankind, but it also tells of the Life Preserver that God has provided in the bloody sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The travesty is not that athletes are trying to get folks to wake up to that reality, but that so many like Mr. Krattenmaker and milquetoast ministers have diluted the plain message of redemption and so deluded the masses into believing that God's merely the voice in the drive-thru at Burger King.

We can't have it our way.
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You can read the entire USA TODAY article here.

Just another day: Dumpsters

• THE BIG CHILL. With the tidal wave of evidence that the earth's climate is a cyclical and inconsistent beast, can we finally relegate Al Gore and his barometric paranoia to the trash can of single-issue screes inhabited by Al Sharpton (I have nothing against the name "Al") and Jesse (see?) Jackson? I'm putting on a sweater!


• AMBASSADORS. Two thumbs down to the moron missionary who, mid-flight, wouldn't let a lady take a leak because he was sharing the Gospel with her (here). So foul was this gentleman that they had to divert the plane from its cross-country flight. Sad when Balaam's donkey shows a greater command of the language and the moment than one created in the image of God. Tough to show the love of Christ and the redemptive power of His sacrifice when you're holding someone at gunpoint. Don't think that's what Jesus meant in the Great Commission.


• LOVERS. Vladdy Putin continues to show his affection for his scruffy puppy to the south, blustering that none shall stand against the bark of his yapping mutt. Yes, Russia's defending Iran's nuke acquisition process (here). His tone and tenor are not showing any of those aww-just-kidding signs either. Believing that sanctions against his rabid ally are "a bit premature," the Russian neo-tsar suggested, "We need to look for a compromise. If a compromise is not found, and the discussions end in a fiasco, then we will see." Could he define fiasco, please? Is that Russian for "eradicating Israel?"


• HOW LOW CAN WE GO? This might be it. A memoir from a woman who aborted 15 children in 17 years. Chronicled in a book?!? I'll not even link it. My heart grieves for this lass and it grieves for her lost children. Makes my head swim.


• ON A HIGH NOTE. Let's go out on a much better note. Granted, at this point, clanging a trash can lid would be a better note. A friend shared with me today about a friend of his who came to realize that God could in fact handle the depth of her sin. She trusted the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross and has been adopted by God into His family (Galatians 4:5, Ephesians 1:5). The cool thing about adoption? Parents don't unadopt their kids and kids can't unadopt themselves. She is now the daughter of the King! That makes her a princess. Sweet!