Third Party Anyone?

So I took a facebook quiz the other day, and of course most of those things are dumb, but this one really set me to thinking. It was a long quiz with many questions intended to find out where I stood politically. In the end it told me what I already knew, that I am quite down the middle politically with a slight lean to the left.

The thing is though most of my friends on the left think I am far to the right and most of my friends on the right think I am far to the left. For example:

I think lower taxes are good. I think that the forced redistribution of wealth is theft. I think that devaluing the currency through deficit spending is not only a bad idea, but a sin. I think a strong military in a dangerous world is a good idea. I think that police profiling is common sense. I think anyone who is actively hiring people and contributing to the economy needs as little over sight as can be dictated by common sense. I think abortion is murder. I think public schooling is broken and needs to be radically revamped. I think marriage is a Church institute which should only be given to one man and one woman. I think most of these things because I am a Christian and I try to color my world view with my faith. Because of this most of my left leaning friends think I am a raving loon on the far right of the spectrum.

Also;

I think that a society that does not care for its poor is doomed. I think schooling our children is among our paramount responsibilities and not doing so is a capital crime we commit against ourselves. I think recognizing our place in the world is important. I think AZ immigration law is fascist. I think businesses which employ illegal labor are slavers. I think permitting abortion in rare cases such as tubal pregnancies is a right and moral thing to do. I think government over sight of businesses is good because child labor is bad and weekends are good. I think paying taxes is a command from God. I think to deny same sex couples the rights of contract which have been attached to marriage is discriminatory. I think these things because I am a Christian and I try to color my world view with my faith. Because of this most of my right leaning friends think I am a raving loon far to left of the political spectrum.

I have wondered for a long time why that is. I think I have the solution. Money.

The polarization of American politics is not the result of one side of the aisle steering a course far afield of anything ever seen before, but money. The free range of money in politics has dragged both parties away from the center because of well funded groups who want nothing to do with compromise and view every political question as a sporting event to be won and not a problem to be solved. A great example is the health care debate.

America is among the wealthiest nations on earth and while none are refused medical care outright because of county hospitals and the like, the over burdening of such institutions is a direct result of the outrageous cost of healthcare squeezing out those who desire private care but cannot afford it. Therefore those who in the past would have gone to a family doctor now head to the ER when a child is sick because their middle income can no longer afford them a family doctor's visit. Because of this over burdening the equity of medical care and access to quality care, especially specialized medicine, has been lost to a great portion of our population.

At the same time, when Congress attempted to tackle this problem, the solution was a trillions of dollars expensive bill which plans to curtail cost by cutting payments to doctors and scaling back access to the very medical science it was intended to avail to the people it claimed to serve. So in other words the only solutions (apparently) on the table were; do nothing and do worse.

Why?

Money.

Those who stood to be most hurt by the over haul of the medical system were doctors and insurance companies, and insurance companies have more money and therefore they wrote the bill. No really. The powerful lobby interests on Capitol Hill which the insurance companies support assured that their lapdogs on the left and right gave them the provisions which they wanted couched in language which the constituencies of said lapdogs would not find to offensive. So you are not cutting back payment to doctors you are controlling costs. So you are not increasing taxes massively in spite of the fact that there is enough money in the healthcare system already if the bureaucracy is controlled, you are increasing access.

The point is that massive money pours into the Nation's Capitol every day to serve the will of the causes which gave the money in the first place. And of course people do not part with their treasure unless they care deeply about the cause, and therefore any compromise on the part of the one who has taken the money for the cause is not seen as cool headed governing, but betrayal. New Jersey's governor comes to office and says that the state simply cannot afford to pay the level of benefits it has in the past, which is true, to state workers, and rather than being seen as a man who has a grasp on the problem he is vilified by the left. Obama dares to say that America needs to rethink its energy policy (as in ya know America needs to actually have an energy policy because "use it until its gone" is not a policy) and he is seen as tree loving hack who hates jobs and America and children and puppies who wipes his butt with the flag and is secretly a Muslim.

The selling of interest and the rabid support of the cause heads to that interest has dragged the parties away from the center because to be in the middle is now seen as being a flip flopper and weak instead of cool and considerate. And do not think one side has a monopoly on this sort of behavior. No matter how vitriolic and censorious the TEA Party folks might be, the hate spewed on them by the far left which can be easily seen if looked for is just as venomous and disgusting. Of course both sides of the aisle complain about this and cite their preferred news agency (Fox and talk radio on the right CNN, MSNBC on the left) as proof of what the other side is doing. In fact the very fact that left and right leaning news agencies exist at all is because of the money which has been poured into politics. After all if people are willing to give their money to advertisers on Fox news in sufficient numbers, then Fox News will continue to air because it will always have enough money to do so because it is giving its viewers what they want.

This phenomenon has not helped America, just in case you haven't noticed, but rather has shown us what we are and no one wants to admit it. Think about it. Each year some new bright star rises up and says, "I will not play the political game in Washington. I am from outside the beltway and will serve the interests of the people." Really the last three presidents have all run more or less on this platform when they initially got elected. The problem is that while people complain about the partisanship in DC what they want is not and end to politics, which would mean a drift toward the middle, but rather the elimination of the opposition. For this reason the divide grows more each year more and more people are disaffected by the system and left to vote, not for the candidate they think best, but for the one they find least repugnant. The marginalized middle grows less interested all the time leaving the hacks to run the show and each year more people ask themselves, "Where did it all go wrong?"

So what is the solution?

A third party.

A party which thinks business is good, but not to trusted carte blanche. A party which recognizes that illegal immigration needs to be stopped at its source which of course is unscrupulous employers and those willing to patronize them. A party which knows that people need affordable goods and that Wal Mart is the great satan. A party which actually believes in religious freedom. A party that knows that gun ownership is a right to be protected and that there is no harm in knowing who has guns. A party which knows that personal liberty is sacrosanct and that at will abortion is probably not one of those liberties. A party which is willing to take care of poor families and provide day care and lunch and breakfast at schools which do not consist of saw dust and gristle. A party which recognizes that ADM being able to say who serves on the USDA and EPA is bad bad bad freaking idea.

In short a party which could raise no money and therefore will never exist.

I guess we're screwed.

But it was fun while it lasted.

Just thinking.

Enough with feeling bad for the little guy

So for the longest time there has been this myth in sports, and as you all well know entertainment mirrors life and the values of entertainment reflect those of the entertained, that it is "unfair" that rich teams like the Yankees can spend more money than poor teams like the Pirates. There has been much hand wringing over the inequity of payroll in baseball as talking head after talking head has spoken with tear filled eyes about the poor abused little guy who just can't hope to compete with the big bad rich teams. To try and amend this inequity the owners agreed that a high income teams whose salary structure exceeds a certain limit should have to pay a penalty out of which the money would be evenly distributed to the poor teams so that they, the little guy, could compete with the big guy.

Now we find out the truth.

Recently as part of ongoing labor talks in baseball it has been revealed that these small market teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates (whose fans just built them a new ballpark to help them compete) and the Florida Marlins (who have won two world series in the last fifteen years then immediately sold off the entire team complaining of lack of money) have not only been making money year in year out, despite what they claimed was happening, but have been taking the money paid to them by the rich teams and pocketing it as a windfall instead of reinvesting it into their teams. This goes along with what I have been saying, that small teams could compete if they wanted to and all the bitching about losing money was overblown because there was no shortage of billionaires looking to get into the business of owning baseball teams.

Just in case you don't know, billionaires do not buy businesses so that they can lose fifty million dollars a year every year so they can win. That is why when owners cry about losing money because of how over paid the players are I always call "BS" with a bullhorn from the highest place I can find. And this proves it. As the Pirates have lost 90-100 games a year each of the last ten years (hot on the heels of falling a game short of the world series several years in a row), the ownership has said that salary structures had gotten so wildly out of control that they could no longer field a winning teams. In fact they complained that even an average teams would prevent them from making money. So the good people of Pittsburgh ponied up the money for a new ballpark which led to the old owners promptly selling for a huge profit because of increased value with the new stadium, and now we find out that all of those years, the Pirates were not losing money, were not breaking even, but pulling in massive profits and screwing the fans of the Pirates in the process. How much money did they make, 43,000,000 in the last three years while the teams finished dead last each year. Also during that time the team traded away many promising players claiming they could not pay them because they were losing money year in and year out. And unless I am much mistaken this is probably the first you have heard about this.

Why?

Because this sort of thing does not fit the narrative. The narrative says that rich teams win because they have all the money, not that winners become rich because they persistently try to win and therefore have more fans. So the guy who wrings his hands about the big bad Yankees on ESPN's morning show is a freaking Mets fan so of course he hates the Yankees and wants to paint them in a bad light. Why should he care if the Pirates took the Yankees' money and pocketed it? It costs him nothing.

There is the belief that the Yankees have more money because they have a huge TV deal, but the Braves, Cubs, Red Sox, Mets, Angels and Dodgers all have similar TV deals and yet those teams are not vilified. Why not? Because years of penis envy has not been formed against those teams by crybaby sports writers who watched through gritted teeth as the Yankees beat their favorite team when they were children.

The Yankees are on TV all the time because they have the most fans and so they get the best ratings and therefore the networks, who want the most number of people to see the commercials, put the Yankees on.

The Yankees have more fans because they have been consistent winners for years.

The Yankees have been consistent winners for years because they have ownership which is committed to winning.

Therefore it is winning which breeds large fan bases and and big TV deals and lots of fans.

But...

"Because they have this advantage the other teams can't compete," says the narrative. Far apart from the truly un-American idea that the only way to bring the bottom up is to tear the top down (I know we call that public school but that is broken too) this is also crap. Example #1, the Texas Rangers.

Tom Hicks bought the Texas Rangers after they had won their division two times in three years and they won it again the first year he owned the team. Unfortunately for the Rangers they happened to run into the Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettite Yankees in their young and up in coming years and lost the three playoff series by a combined 9 games to 1 (3-1, 3-0, 3-0). Far from realizing that the Yankees were just better, Hicks fired his general manager, traded the core of the team, bought a bunch of ill fitting high priced over the hill free agents, and gave Alex Rodriguez 252,000,000 when the next highest bidder was about sixty per cent of that. Predictably the team went into the tank, the fans stopped coming to watch them lose, and Hicks complained that he could not compete, not because he is an incompetent ass, but because the Yankees are rich. And since this complaint fit into the narrative, the media and Rangers fans licked that !@#$ right off the bottom of his boot and blamed A-Rod for the miserable failings of an incompetent management team.

A quick word about A-Rod.

A-Rod is the whipping boy of embittered sport's fan everywhere. He is supposed to represent everything wrong with the greedy over paid athlete. The problem is that A-Rod is nether greedy nor is he over paid. First off the reason why Alex Rodriguez makes as much money as he does is that for a long time he hit the baseball better than anyone else on planet earth. He was not only scarce, he was unique. And anytime a commodity is scarce it goes up in value. The reason why Kobe makes millions to play basketball and you do not is Kobe can hit a fifteen footer over Ray Allen and dunk on Kevin Garnett and you can't do either one of those things. If Kevin Garnett was in wheel chair you could not dunk him, and neither could I, so stop complaining about what these guys make. Also when A-Rod was given that contract, no one put a gun to Tom Hicks head to make him offer it. Hicks not only out bid everyone else, he bid against himself and paid a price which no one else was willing to pay or even get near. A-Rod averaged hitting .300 with 50HR's and 140RBI's while he was with Texas and was booed every time he struck out by bitter Ranger fans pissed off that he made more money than they did.

And how did he get rewarded? Tom Hicks told the media that A-Rod was greedy and a bad team guy and the media and Rangers' fans licked that !@#$ off his boots too. But was A-Rod greedy?A-Rod agreed to take less money, to cut his own contract, so he could be traded to Boston and the union and MLB said no. Then A-Rod agreed to go to New York after a contentious winter and the Rangers made a terrible trade for him just to get him out of town. Then the media complained that A-Rod just wanted to go play for the Yankees, never mind that he wanted to take a pay cut to go to the Red Sox and the Red Sox were too cheap to pay full price, but somehow this became A-Rod's fault. Then we find out that the reason why A-Rod wanted out of Texas was that Tom Hicks had stiffed him 24.9 million dollars, and what do crybaby sports' fans say? "Well he's got enough money what does an extra 20 million matter?" Well... twenty million. I don't work for free and I dare say you don't either.

Oh but what abut the steroids?

Can we please stop crying about steroids? Did anybody not know Canseco, MacGwire and Bonds were juicing? These guys each put on like fifty pounds of muscle in one off season, and no one cared because they started hitting moonshot home runs. The more they hit the more people came. Other players saw that they could make more money if they took steroids, so they juiced up and more people came to the park. In fact baseball had a renaissance after the strike year as record after record fell on the field and at the turn stile as people poured in to watch guys who had never hit better than .260 with 23HR's hit .320 with 54HR's. Baseball gave you what you wanted. You wanted home runs and you got them. Don't stand there now with your local freaking congressman crying for the children..... OH THE CHILDREN... when you tuned in each night to see if Sosa or Big Mac would be the first to break Maris' record. Screw you and your indignation. You asked for steroids. You demanded steroids. You got steroids! Now lie in your bed and shut up.

So after the bonanza of insanity that baseball became came crashing down and the economy went in the toilet and the gates fell and so did the numbers, now we find out that the whole time the poor innocent small market teams were stealing from their fans the whole time and blaming the Yankees.

But it was always crap.

Exhibit #1 The Texas Rangers.

After Tom Hicks had bankrupted himself and the Rangers and guaranteed that any new owner would have to take on 200,000,000 in debt which he borrowed against the Rangers (not to run the team but to keep his other failing businesses afloat) as well as having to pay out 75,000,000 in unpaid salary to players past and present, not one, not two, not three or even four millionaire/billionaires stepped up to try to buy the biggest joke in Baseball, but not less than six very wealthy men tried to buy the Rangers. Even with all of the debt. Nolan Ryan, Chuck Greenburg and two nameless billionaire partners bought the Rangers for 590,000,000 dollars out bidding billionaires Mark Cuban and Jim Crane for the team. But the Rangers are supposed to be a team that can't compete and will lose money why would these very successful men try to buy them? Because it is all a big freaking lie. They will no more lose money on the Rangers than the man in the moon, and they know it. And now thanks to Pittsburgh everyone else does too.

But no one is talking about it. Because it doesn't fit the narrative.

And speaking of the narrative.

When Cliff Lee was traded to Rangers, who were bankrupt and couldn't take on any more salary, he told the whole world that he had earned the right to decide where he wanted to play and, being friends with C C Sabbathia he wanted to play in New York. Meanwhile Nolan Ryan, Chuck Greenburg and Co have decided that next year they will be capped on their salary at about 90,000,000 dollars which does not leave enough money to sign Cliff Lee.

Understand.... they have already determined how much they will spend to guarantee profit. Not to win but to make profit while they cry about the debt they took on voluntarily.

And also, true to to the narrative, the Ranger fan is getting out his salt and pepper to eat yet one more !@#$ sandwich off the owners' boots the whole while saying, "Yeah screw the Yankees its all their fault!"

Why do I bother to be surprised?

Just Thinking

Courage is Being a Yankees Fan

There is this sort of "Ho hum of course you like the Yankees.... they always win," attitude about me from folks down here Texas way when I tell them I do not in fact like the local team but the Yankees. I have always liked the Yankees. When I was small my dad made no bones about his love for the Dodgers and while he rooted for the home team I was always left feeling a little cold about them when he would complain about how they would never re-sign their star players because of lack of money. Growing up in the 70's there were national games of the week on the TV and usually the team that was on was the Yankees. As I came into sports rooting age the Yankees made the world series three of four years and won two including my first vivid baseball memory of Dave Winfield jumping over the fence in Dodger's Stadium to try and catch a fly ball. I was so impressed by this act of what seemed to me heroism that I attached to the Yankees and have been so ever since.

This annoyed my dad so much that he stopped taking my sister and I to Yankees games one night as we sat in the bleachers and cheered long and loud for the visitors as they drummed the hometown heros.

I find it strange however that being a Yankees' fan in Ranger's land is seen as obnoxious. Far aside from the abuse heaped on me for sitting quietly and minding my own business with my sons as we watch our beloved Yankees play from the oh too classy drunks who populate the Ballpark in Arlington, I also strongly object to the notion that it is somehow easier to be a fan of a great team, ie the Yankees, than an absolute joke of a team, ie the Rangers. OK that was a little obnoxious but given the recent spectacle of the Ranger's sale you have to admit they are a joke.

The point is that it takes no courage whatsoever to be a Ranger's fan. I realize that most people see this 180 degrees out of phase because it is somehow considered heroic to lose year after year after year ie the Cubs and Red Sox fans who are looked upon as sympathetic figures because their teams are or were lovable losers; not because they had actually done any grand thing to be admired or loved, but simply because they have lost for so long that their losing has ceased to be contemptible, laughable or even pitiable and has instead morphed into a cooly accepted fact looked upon with benign indifference by those too smart to root for such losing enterprises. Only in sport could a business fail to meet its known, stated objective for 100 years and be thought lovable. In any other enterprise the business would be dispatched forthwith for the common good and the losing forgotten in the grave of history as yet one more failed idea devoured by the successful and the strong.

"But no" says the losing enthusiast, "to try valiantly and fail is admirable." I suppose this is so provided that the effort is valiant. But which is more valiant; to lose 60% of your contests for twenty years in a row or to win 60% of your contests and be denied by the better team in the end? Surely the team which has failed far more than it has succeeded does not deserve to be placed on the plateau with the runner up in a tournament because that team has failed to accomplish even the level of greatness which the second place team achieved, even though they failed.

In fact the team which consistently climbs the mountain to the edge of greatness will from time to time achieve that greatness and be rewarded the winner's crown. And this is where the courage to cheer greatly is found.

If your favorite team is the Texas Rangers or the Minnesota Vikings or A&M Aggies, then you have never known the elation that comes with victory in final game. Yet you insist that your fandom of these teams is grandiose because you cheer bravely for the team which never wins and yet come back again and again loyally hoping that this year may be different. And of course on the off chance that you may actually climb the mountain and succeed, the world waits to congratulate you because your long suffering has ended at last. And why not? Who doesn't love a winner? All those who claimed to be Red Sox fans when they finally won the World Series were rewarded with glad handing all around as the feel good vibes passed from friend to friend. But where were those feel good vibes in the prior 86 years of frustration and failure? Of course they were nowhere to be found because those who root for such long shots are loathe to admit it because in their heart of hearts they love to lose. And the reason why is that it takes no courage whatsoever to root for a losing team.

If you are a fan of the Rangers or Mavericks, then you expect each year to have your team's ascent to the mountain top frustrated, and therefore when they fail you have suffered no loss since your expectations have been met. And if your team miraculously wins the whole thingthen you are granted a good feeling you have not earned because you did not anticipate your team's success and therefore have not had your expectations met either, but rather have borrowed the capital of other champions and the basked in the glow of fulfillment which cannot rightfully be called yours... Saints fans.

But let us assume you root for the Yankees or the Cowboys or the Lakers. If your team wins the championship, which is of course your expectation if you root for such teams, then you have earned the satisfaction of having your expectations met, but no one throws a parade for Yankees fans when their team wins, but instead scoffs and says, "Well of course they won... they have more money."

By the way, nothing makes Yankees/Cowboys/ Lakers fans happier than the bitter scoffing of other fans who dare not root greatly for great teams so by all means scoff away.

In fact the basic assumption is that you have only rooted for the Yankees because you thought they would win. Well.... yes, and? I suppose your bitchin' new Saints jersey was bought because you thought, "Well even if they don't win they have done great getting this far." No of course not, the spike in Brees Jerseys is because the Saints won, and everyone loves a winner.

Unless of course that winner is from the upper echelons of previous achievement.

But if you root for the great teams and they don't win, as even the greatest of teams are destined to do far more often than not, then your expectation of greatness is destined to be frustrated much more frequently than fulfilled, and when your team doesn't win, those lovable losers' fans do not pat your head as the condescending world does to them, but instead try to rub your face in your team's lack of victory; bitterly assuming that you now are dragged down to their level having not accomplished that for which you so greatly hoped.

But Ranger's fans don't expect to win and therefore cannot understand the mindset of the fans who do, and therefore the Yankees fan will never be on the level with the Ranger's fan because the Rangers fan will never be frustrated whether his team wins or loses.

And for that reason the true sports' fan is the one who dares to root for great things. And that is why teams like the Lakers and the Yankees and the Cowboys will always have more fans who are more dedicated who put more of their treasure into their teams' coffers knowing their teams will turn that treasure into winning season after winning season to try greatly to meet the great expectations of their great fans.

And I see no reason as a fan to apologize for that to anyone.

I'm not kidding.

Just thinking.

Sniff Your Own Hypocrisy

So I am at Target today buying some groceries and hot wheels for the kids. As we are walking around I notice a woman wearing a t-shirt with picture of a baby duck, a seal, a fish, a shark and a sea gull all covered in oil underneath the caption which read, "Thanks BP for killing us!"

Really?

Let me get this straight. This is the tax free weekend in Texas. Every year before the school start Texas has a weekend wherein you can go to the store and buy things like paper pencils, hand-tools and TV's without paying the tax. People are supposed to be duped into thinking this is a sale and usually the store will knock off some ten percent to encourage people to buy. So this woman, trailing a kid behind her and a seriously beaten looking man is say !@#$ BP because they are a big evil corporation who (GASP) killed (SIGH) BABY DUCKS WITH OIL!!!!

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

BOOOOOOOOO

HISSSSSSSSSS

Understand I think BP is an evil corporation, but to bitch about BP when your at Target to buy paper processed in China packaged in Kazakhstan and shipped form Norway via train plane and truck to your local Target where you get into your brand new SUV to drive to the store to save five cents and sales tax on paper is the epitome of hypocrisy. And I am supposed to think you love the baby ducks?

The first time I had this conversation it was at McDonald's and a woman was wringing her hands about the sea gulls. I told her she was nuts. She told me I was a republican. I told her if she really cared then she shouldn't be at McDonald's eating beef flown in from Venezuela.

Maybe I am the ass here (well OK I am an ass anywhere I am) but when I see the news reporter who flew in company lear jet to the five star hotel and rode a stretch Benz to the beach bitching about the baby ducks I just want to reach into my TV and slap him for being stupid. Screw you and your cause you !@#$ hypocrite. And screw the baby ducks too.

My biggest problem with this whole thing is the underlying assumption and there are two.

One, most of the worlds pollution is produces by people too poor to make the news and no one gives a rip roaring snot because odds are they re part of the group. I understand why a person wants cheap note book paper, but don't complain about child labor and oil companies when you buy it. The fact is BP is not on the news because they killed some ducks. They are on the news because they are an oil company and they are rich. And nothing makes consummerist crazed Americans madder than a person with more money than they have; so any chance to stick it to the wealthy and famous is a party for most of the embittered house fraus and disgruntled box haulers of the world who come home to a crap house in a crap neighborhood each night to laugh at Lindsey Lohan so they don't have to feel quite so badly about themselves. And the furor over BP is this same mentality run amok because everyone hates the oil companies even though they could not live without them for a week.

Two is the belief that this disaster underscores the need to find alternate energy. Not that alternate energy is a bad thing, but it seems a lot of people think it is a free lunch. A lot of people when they talk about renewable energy act as though solar power will solve our energy problems, it won't. Apart from the massive amount of energy which would be consumed to build the infrastructure to make such an undertaking possible, current technology as well as any foreseeable technology suggests that solar power not only will not replace fossil fuels, but won't even pay for itself. Wind power seems nice unless you live close enough to a turbine farm in which case you will likely suffer from nausea, headaches, insomnia and worse and more lasting health problems because of the constant high intensity frequency of the turbines spinning. Renewable fuels seem like a great idea but they still have to be produced which takes fuel and the lower energy of fuels like ethanol basically negate any money saved by using them. Batteries have to be charged and the lead disposed of and battery powered cars still need fossil fuels to make up for their limited range.

In fact the only alternate fuel source that really seems viable is nuclear energy but man if you ever want to see a tree humper so apoplectic with rage he burns his own flannel suggest that you replace oil with nuclear power.

The fact is a lot of people want something for nothing and it will never never never happen no matter how super hard you close your eyes cross all your fingers and make a super duper birthday triple swear wish. In fact the only way to save the baby ducks from BP is to consume less but man if you ever want to see a soccer mom so mad she burns her own SUV suggest she consume less. The reason why is that if there was no oil industry the trucks trains and planes would no longer be able to deliver consumable goods to our unsustainable cities and any population center anywhere in America would devolve into cannibalism inside a week if there were no Big Macs to eat.

So kindly take your social conscience and job up your shiny new tail pipe until you are ready to get by with less and be satisfied. Until then don't insult the world by pretending you care about it if your sole contribution to the cause is BUYING A !@#$%^& T-SHIRT MADE IN CHINA!

Just thinking.

....

Had hand surgery hard to type with one hand be back soon

Desiderant Angeli: The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney

Desiderant Angeli: The Disturbing Legacy of Charles Finney

Great post on Finney and why he was not a Christian

Eat the Media Too

So tonight I am watching the news and they are talking about a recall for Johnson and Johnson products including some of the ones my kids take. So I listened up. As the story unfolded they showed footage of people from J&J before a bunch of really important looking Congress folks and laid out this scenario as though any second now J&J might be going under because of the flood of injured and dead children having taken their products.

Then the story said that no one had been killed.

No one had been injured.

No one had been sick.

There was a mention about a possible bacteria contamination in some products but no evidence that anyone had been sick from that either.

So I had to ask, "Why is this news?" While it is true that Tylenol and Motrin, like all NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) if taken for too long will contribute to kidney, liver problems and the like. I learned this when my mom died of kidney failure after a life time of chronic pain, but she took a very high dose of these drugs each and every day to manage her pain and have something resembling a normal life. So I am hard pressed to see the tragedy here.

Of course no one should give their child these medications like candy and certainly not above the recommended dosage, but I learned that by reading the label on the drugs before giving them to my children. Of course expecting people to actually read warning labels is a bit of an imposition on their rights, but hey since they haven't invented talking pill bottles yet I don';t really know what to do for that.

So why the big stink?

Well two reasons.

One, we live in a media culture and scandal sells really well to the viewing masses. Of course the hand wringing reporter on TV does not give a rip roaring snot about the children but they understand that if they wring their hands and make you care about the children then they will get better ratings, sell more advertising, and get to keep their jobs. Its a business in the news and therefore, although there may be nothing to report, corporate scandal is a big deal and the media will fabricate one out of thin air if they have to to keep us watching watching watching.

Two, we live in a litigious culture. We have all bought into the myth that if we can just get a sympathetic jury we can hit the lawsuit lottery and live happily ever after. We don't really trouble ourselves with whether or not this is right because after all, hey they got a lot of money and in the American Spirit of egalitarianism and free money for all, they should give some to me because they have more than me.

Don''t believe it?

Toyota anyone?

By this time Toyota has removed millions of acceleration modules from their vehicles to be inspected by their scientists as well as NHTSA's scientists and to date exactly not one part has been found defective. Not even in those vehicles which had acceleration accidents. In fact the evidence suggests that what actually happened was that these folks had their floor mats caught on the accelerator and panicked. It seems cold to say so, but human error is the much more likely explanation and the reason why is simple.

The general idea is that there is a software problem on these modules which causes the accidents. The problem with that is that if there were a software problem there would not have been about twenty incidents out of some four million vehicles, but rather four million incidents. The reason why is that the fly by wire system that Toyota uses controls the acceleration, not by how hard you push the pedal, but by how hard they computer thinks you pushed the pedal. If the software were defective, then the computer would misinterpret the data in each car in which said software was extant. However that has not been the case. In fact the extreme lack of commonness of these incidents indicates not that the trouble is hard to find in the software, but that a software problem does not exist.

But what about those poor suffering people who are left behind after the accidents?

Well what about them?

The simple fact that someone is hurting is not reason why that someone should receive a king's ransom from a company simply because that company had money. But to here the commercials soliciting people to come and sue Toyota on the radio you would never know it.

The point is that if you take too many nsaids and die it your fault. If you fail to put your floor mats back in correctly and die, its your fault. And if it is your fault, your existing folks left behind do not deserve money for your failure.

But the problem is that since we like corporate scandal and are conditioned to believe that corporations are evil we think it is OK to punish them whether they deserve it or not. And the problem with that is that when corporations do something which is grievous, we have a hard time determining that based on the many spectacular but frivolous stories being circulated by the media hoping for a sale.

Just thinking.

We Must Eat the Right to Save Civilization

For several years now there have been long loud complaints that our educational system is educating our children into imbecility. That left leaning professors offering an atheistic, post-modern, humanist, existential, deconstructionist historical perspective were turning out children who held degrees but failed to believe in, not God, but truth. Or at least the knowability of truth. Such graduates then went into the real world where they were compelled to make honest left-right. up-down, this-that decisions and being totally unprepared to do so they made a hash of it to say the least. It even went so far that a certain chief executive challenged what a questioner could mean by the word, "is".

This of course really is post-modernism run amok. The idea that truth is unknowable in any final sense and language is useless to help us discern it has never been more on display. And, happily, people had a visceral reaction to this shining example of intelligent inanity that sent them screaming over the edge as they asked, "Is this guy serious?"

The problem is that this reaction was short lived because while most people understood that the CEO had just uttered an absurdity, they could not say why. After all even the most ardent of nay-sayers to this statement would still comfortably say things like, "Well that's true for you..." when it was their opinion in dispute.

This is true even today, and if you don't believe it then I have a science experiment for you. The next time someone argues with you about something you say ask this simple question, "Well, do you think I am wrong?" and watch as they fumble all over themselves with the fact that yes they do think you are wrong but do not want to say so because they do not wish to offend you and they don't really know for sure if they have a leg to stand on if they do say so. Rather what they believe, at least intellectually if not actually, is that the truth which they propound has more truthiness than your truth and therefore should be believed. And if you doubt me on this, then wait and see if they something like, "Well... I did't say that..." or some gibberish of that sort, and then see what happens when you say, "The reason I ask is that I think you are wrong." By the way, I would recommend you be pretty thick skinned before trying this because your average post-modern soaked academician will at this point have a melt down which would make the 'China Syndrome' look like warmed over coffee.

The point is that we live today in an America which actually has been overthrown by post-modern thinkers who don't believe anything and expect us to believe that is right, but are not prepared to give us one single reason why. While at the same time peacefully at night they rest in the sleep of the strong certain that they have enough sycophantic jabber-jaws around them so that they may feel secure in the ocean of absurdity that the halls of higher thought have become.

Really.

That is why news media is now no longer concerned with telling both side of a story, or even the truth, but rather in shaping the news so that those who consume it will feel safe in their presumptions never once daring to hear someone who may disagree with them. Of course they may think they have because the person they listen to talks about people who disagree, but does so in a way as to shape what has been said and to lampoon dissenting opinion to protect the thoughtless sleeper from ever being roused from his lethargy of group think.

It is the same reason that news shows have become either celebrity scandal mongers or tsk tsk human interest shows which are aimed at pulling your heart strings while never telling you one damn thing.

The same reason that bookstores now divide the political aisles into left and right leaning authors so as not to have to put up with complaints from those disconcerted loud talkers who accidentally read a book jacket which broke a cobweb somewhere deep down inside.

Oddly enough the same is not true of the Christian section but the Christian Right knows nothing about Christianity and therefore this, while funny, is not terribly surprising.

And in the latest and greatest example of this herd sheltering phenomenon the Texas Board of Education has bowed out to public outrage and written Thomas Jefferson (ya know as in the) back into the history books even though he was not a Christian and believed in church state separation.

Really. I could not make this up.

Here's the thing. Down here in the land of illiterate rednecks we likes our edumication to teach that Reagan was the greatest pres-o-dint ever and ALL ABSOLUTELY ALL ALL ALL ALL ALL of our fore fathers were Christians. That this country was founded on Christian principles by Christian men who never sinned or told lies and those men gave us (wipe the tear from your eye here) the greatest country on God's Green Earth. And we hates us some ni... uh... je... uh... liberals, yeah that's it, liberals teaching our yung unns anything what says differ'nt. Thems all commies, fags, muzlums and democrats and we ain't tolleratiin their ilk round bout here.

See! If someone wrote it as fiction no one would believe it, but thanks to the thinkers in the world Thomas Jefferson is no longer fit for consumption by Texas school children.

Why?

Simple. You see since the founding fathers all have to be Christian, and since Christianity is a theist religion (theism is the belief that God not only creates but sovereignly rule over his creation nano-second by nano-second a belief most Christians no longer hold to btw) a document like umm.... I dunno.... The Declaration of Independence which says "When in the course of human events... and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the LAWS OF NATURE AND NATURE'S GOD ENTITLE THEM..." cannot possibly be a Christian document because it ascribes the source of Law as being nature and not God. This is Deism which is the belief that God is a cosmic watchmaker who wound it all up and let it run its course. Of course many so-called Christians believe this is just what happened, but to persist in this belief is to be outside the realm of orthodoxy, and in so doing be no more a Christian than Jefferson was. That coupled with the whole messy separation of church and state thing that Jefferson wrote about along with his belief that Religion would die as men's rationality progressed just pee all over the idea that he was a Christian.

So if you're Texas and you are more interested in the Myth of America than history and are more interested in thinking rightly than in right thinking (seig heil) then you need to do away with messy and inconvenient fact.

So old Tom had to go, but thanks to the outrageous level of stupidity that this decision clearly outlines dogma has given way to protest and Tom gets to stay.

But the simple fact that Texas could even think of doing this scares me something awful. As well as (insert interlocutor here) those who will say, "Well the Liberals do it!" Yes of course the only way to deal with people who you think are wrong is to sink to their level. The difference is no liberal would say that the Declaration is not a paramount achievement of human effort no matter if they disagree with John Witherspoon having signed it or not, and they would never think of disallowing Jefferson's inclusion in the history books because he.... say, owned slaves for example. The personal foibles of great men do not disallow their inclusion in the historical narrative for historical feats.

Here are some other conservative values the Right does not embrace.

1. The government does not have the right to legalize religion any more than it can make it illegal.

2. The government does not have the right to say that consenting adults cannot get married.

3. If your state wants to tax you, it is not the federal government's problem.

4. If your federal taxes are too high it is not your states problem.

5. A respect of law demands you not secede from the union but rather participate in it.

6. It is up to you and your local community to outlaw abortion and not for a judge to overturn Roe.

7. The army is not the solution to your problems.

8. Southern Asian people blowing each other up and spilling over wars which endanger the oil supply is tough luck for the consumers and not the problem of the government.

9. You must pay your taxes even if you don't want to.

10. Jesus wants you to pay your taxes.

11. Gun toting beauty queens do not make good presidents even if they are babes.

12. God is everybody's God and who goes to Heaven is up to Him.

13. It might not be you or your preacher.

14. Jesus really does want you to pay your taxes.

15. So does Paul.

16. So does Peter.

17. A theocracy is not a conservative form of government it is fascism.

18. If you want to live in a theocracy move to Iran.

19. Not everybody believes in Jesus.

20. The government cannot legislate that everyone believe in Jesus.

21. Stop losing your mind over a cross in California you have never even seen.

22. Since you don't bother to obey the Ten Commandments stop shrieking every time someone wants them removed from a court house.

23. If you want religion taught in school send your kids to a Catholic academy.

24. Or a Muslim school.

25. If you are going to defend the Bible, read it.

AND FINALLY

Thomas Jefferson is one of the greatest Americans who ever lived and he was not a Christian...

Neither was Franklin...

So get over it.

Just thinking.

Too Funny

So I'm messing with my blog this morning and I realized that it listed my age as 1936. So I thought, "That's weird?" So I checked out my birthday 5/16/73. Then I checked the formating and realized that by putting in /73 the blog site thought I meant... 73 as in AD73. Ya know three years after Titus sacked Jerusalem. So just in case you were wondering I am not in fact immortal and neither am I really almost 2000 years old.

But I thought it was funny nonetheless.

The Myth of Illegal Immigration

Cheery Theme Music

Come one come all to your favorite place in the whole wide world. That's right kiddies its Uncle Bogey Subversive Tree House.

So kiddies come on in to Uncle Bogey's House and lets talk about the favorite myth of the scared middle class white man. What's that Timmy? No this is not the one about the darkies not knowing their place... well OK it sort of is, but these are a different type of darkies and even though no one admits it this particular stripe of bigotry is still considered a virtue by most Americans. What? No Suzy I'm not talking about the G-A-Y's either, but good point.

OK.

Sit down and Uncle Bogey will tell you a story.

Once upon a time... in a magical land called America there were lots of places to live and lots of good jobs to be had and everyone was so so friendly that everyone the whole world over was welcome. In fact there was so much opportunity that African people, the Negroes, volunteered to cram themselves into ships and make a really dangerous ocean crossing just to come here. And do you know what? When they got here. they liked it so much that they volunteered to work for free. So America grew and grew because of an endless supply of cheap labor which allowed us to sell finished textiles the world over for much cheaper than they could be had anywhere else.

Our fore fathers, being the wise and benevolent men they were, recognized that this was so important that when they had won their freedom against bad bad bad england who wanted them to pay taxes (gasp) that they wrote it into our Constitution that the our Negro friends would be allowed to work here for free... forever. And for one hundred years no one complained, except the Indians but they didn't want to share their land with ranchers so the wise and benevolent fore fathers had them shot (applause). The problem was, that after four hundred years some people began to think that it was wrong to allow our Negro friends to continue to work for free so the Northern Americans and the Southern Americans, after a small disagreement, decided that we shouldn't do that anymore.

What Mikey?

Now that the Negroes were free how did we welcome them into regular society?

Well to make them feel special we gave them separate schools and a separate part of town and drinking fountains to use for another one hundred years. How do we welcome them now? Well now we have what is called government assistance which guarantee they will all live together and not bother upper middle class people with their needs.

But Uncle Bogey is getting sidetracked.

After the "Big Talk" between the North and South now corporations who wanted to build to things like railroads and wanted to run their businesses like meat packing plants and textiles, had to find a way to protect their profit margin... I mean if they wanted to keep the cheap prices that they provided these things to their customers with, they needed another group of volunteers to help them.

So they turned to Eastern Europeans and Irishmen (Timmy that is a bad word and will not be repeated again) and Chinese People and Italian People who all wanted to come here to work side by side with their children in the factories and coal mines of America as our economy grew and grew. And these new people instantly and totally assimilated into American culture and we know this because today the places they lived like Chinatown and Hell's Kitchen and Little Italy are famous paces that tourists like to go. In these places the first generation of people off the boats totally accepted American Culture and learned to speak English without an accent and they forgot all about their old culture which can still be experienced even today in New York and San Francisco.

Eventually though some people got together with the communists and outlawed child labor, canyou believe that? And made it illegal for the meat packing, coal mining, ranching, textile industries to work this new cheap labor to death because they had assimilated and spoke English and we didn't think of them as different anymore.

And now corporations had to find new cheap labor, but this time they didn't look across the ocean they looked to our good friend Mexico and invited a whole new generation of volunteers to help come build the American Dream of cheap houses and cheap clothes and cheap services. And do you know what, they didn't even try to become legal so that they could have fair and equal protection under the law. No sir! In fact our good friends the corporations have continued to underpay our Mexican friends and worked them in unsafe conditions so that our finished products won't cost us as much. Isn't that wonderful? (Applause)

But there is a problem.

It seems that now just like before there are few trouble makers who have decided this kind of thing is wrong. That it is wrong to pay someone less that minimum wage for a dangerous job. That it is wrong to make our friends work harder for longer hours with no access to legal channels of complaint concerning employment abuses. That it is wrong to allow corporations to lay off American workers and hire contractors to bid out jobs at wages so low they must hire our Mexican friends. And these bad people are trying to break the American Dream of unbridled success with fat bellies and profits for all.

So what are we going to do about? No Alice we can't kill them... yet.

No instead we're going to empower law enforcement to stop anyone who looks like a Mexican friend and if he can't prove he's an American then we will arrest him and send him back to Mexico. Once we start doing that those few American Dream haters will become so afraid that they will no longer speak up for human rights and human dignity and then our economy will turn around and God will be happy. And isn't that what you want? (Applause)

Roll Credits.

Just in case you missed the point, there has never in history been a single solitary group of immigrants who have come to this country and immediately assimilated. This is a myth. It is a myth propounded by bigots who want cheap products but not the inconvenience of broken English. This myth is told by corporate media which is owned by powerful corporate interests who assure that laws remain as they are so the disfranchisement of a huge under payed under represented group of our population will continue in perpetuity. These corporations know perfectly well that they could legal wages but they also know that Americans would rather have cheap goods than human rights so the next time the poor girl and Fat Ass incorporated gets the triple cheeseburger order wrong, its your fault that she is there so stop yelling at her. And they next time you bitch that someone doesn't speak the language, remember you don't speak Cherokee.

This myth exists to ensure that people will continue to be abused and denied access to the systems of law and justice which should protect all people in our nation. That is what it means to be America.

And to allow this is an offense against man and God.

Make readily available green cards to all who want to work here and take away the tax licenses of any employer or corporation who employs a contractors who employs illegal immigrants and the problem will be solved overnight. Slavery is never ended by punishing the slaves, it is ended by outlawing the practice and punishing the slave owners.

Just thinking.

The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

Before I begin, there is a lot of animosity built up between Roman Catholics and Protestants of all stripes and I think this is supremely unhelpful in nearly every way. In example I no more believe that every Catholic is going to hell anymore than I believe that every pick-your-denominational-flavor believer is going to Heaven. It is God's Heaven and He will save whom He wills to save and none other. As such this is not a diatribe against the Catholics but is rather the outflowing of a meditation on the presence of Christ in the Lord's Table which I have been considering for some time. So please any desirous to play kick the Catholic please go somewhere else, and those who think I am playing kick the Catholic please know this about a disagreement that I personally hold with the Mother Church concerning one doctrine and has nothing whatever to do with my feeling about the Catholic Believers themselves.

In the Catholic Mass the priest says the Prayer of Consecration by which he dedicates the host (the Eucharist or the bread of the Lord's Supper) in so doing he changes the substance of the bread to the body of Christ. As in the actual flesh of Christ. The means of which is that all material things (so says Thomas Aquinas) have two different sets of attributes. 1) their accidents which are the physical visible properties and 2) their substance which is the underlying nature of the thing. For example if I say "ball" you will probably think of something spherical with various other properties which comprise the idea you have of "ball". You don't know exactly what I mean by "ball" but you more or less have an idea. The idea, so says some philosophers, stems from a universal ideal of "ball-ness". Therefore any and all balls would have a general participation in this "ball-ness" that is they possess the substance of "ball". It is the individual accidents which differentiate basketball, football, baseball, and soccer ball.

So?

Well the notion in Catholic Theology is that the host, which the Church prescribes is made of water, flour and salt, has the accidents of bread and the substance of bread, but when the priest, who has received Holy Orders and thus been empowered to do so by Mother Church, says the Prayer of Consecration the Holy Spirit effects what is called the Transubstantiation. That is to say God in response to the prayer of the priest changes the substance of the bread from bread to the Body of Christ while the accidents remain unchanged. So the Host would therefore still look like bread, feel like bread and taste like bread, but would now possess the substance of the Body of Christ.

And....

This doctrine comes from the Gospels when at the Last Supper the Lord breaks the bread and tells the Apostles, "This is my body which is broken for you...." Therefore, Rome maintains, that in order to have received the true Eucharist you must actually eat the Body of Christ, since that is what the Lord said, and the only way to do this is too receive it from the hand of a rightfully ordained Priest.

So what is the problem?

Well there are a lot of them. Among them are questions concerning Church Authority, the Authority of the Pope and by extension the Priesthood, the necessity of repeating the sacrifice etc, but here I want to focus on the one question of, "Can we have the presence of Christ without the Transubstantiation?", and, "Is the Transubstantiation a true and valid religious rite?"

The second question first.

I think the single most forceful argument against the Transubstantiation was offered by John Calvin. He argued that the Transubstantiation was invalid not because of its reliance on Aristotelian Philosophy but because the Doctrine does violence to the Church's own teaching. Namely as it concerns the Council of Chalcedon. For those of you have attended a confessional church in your life you have probably at some point stood with the congregation and said something which included the statement about Jesus that He was "fully man and fully God". The Council of Chalcedon affirmed this belief. The bishops at the council repudiated the idea that Christ had only one nature, that is to say His nature was only that of God. Earlier the Church had repudiated the idea that Christ had somehow become God after having ascended to it (the Arian Heresy which Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses teach to this day) at the Council of Nicea and at Chalcedon they repudiated the monophysite heresy which held that Christ's human nature was less than human in some way.

In so doing the Church affirmed that the two natures of Christ existed fully, without confusion or mixture. That they were distinct and existed in one person. In other words, Christ pertaining to His humanity was a man. He was born in a very normal fashion, grew up, learned things, became a man of wisdom and stature, learned and obeyed the Law, ate slept and even pooped. He bled real blood, suffered real pain and died a real death at Calvary and rose in a real body in which He will come again. Concerning His humanity He has all of the properties of the Deity. He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and did not divest Himself of these in any fashion in order to become man. After all to do so would make Him less than God which would mean that He was God and not God in the same way and at the same time.

And here was Calvin's argument. Since Christ had a human and divine nature and holds them both without mixture or confusion, then that means that the properties of one cannot belong to the other. That is the Omnipresent Son when He was walking the streets of Jerusalem in His flesh could not also be walking the streets of Bethlehem; that His divine presence did not and does not negate His human body's physical properties. And here is where Rome tripped on herself concerning this doctrine. Each day 365 days a year the Roman Catholic Church performs the Mass. At the Mass the Transubstantiation takes place. In other words each and every day Rome's doctrine holds that the Body of Christ, that is His flesh, takes the omnipresent nature of God because any Mass held at the same time in two different places would demand that Christ bodily be present in two places at the same time. In other words Rome blends the natures of Christ by this doctrine and in so doing sets aside her own doctrine in favor of her practice. For this and no other reason, though there are many (how can man offer to God the person of Christ, and do so repeatedly which just so happens to offend the text of Scripture... Hebrews) this one argument I think throws the practice out as any legitimate Religious rite.

So where is the rub? Surely the practice being invalid means that the Supper is itself a symbol and naught else.

The problem is the words of Christ. Jesus plainly declares to the Apostles, "Take and eat this is my body do this in remembrance of me." There are those who would like to argue that since the Apostles understood that they were not actually eating the flesh of Christ that we can imply the symbolism of the Supper, but the issue is that if Jesus had wanted to say, "This is like my body" He could have, but He did not. The Gospels and Paul all record that Jesus said the bread is His Body and the wine is His blood, and this is no invention of later years as we know because the Church from her earliest days offended Roman culture because they were accused of being cannibals because they ate someone's flesh and drank their blood.

So if the Supper is no mere symbol and neither do we call down the flesh Christ to be daily broken on the altar then what do we do with this simple declaration, "This is my body."

I think the answer is found in two things. One the Passover and two the other sacraments.

Again we'll start with the latter. St Augustine when he was writing concerning the Donatist Controversy (certain Christians, the followers of Donatus oddly enough, argued that any sacrament administered by a priest who then back slid and renounced the Faith in the face of persecution would be invalid because the Priest or Bishop had invalidated himself) argued that the faithfulness of the priest was not the determinate factor in the efficacy of the Sacrament, but rather the Holy Spirit's attendant mercy is that which validated the sacrament, after all if the validity of baptism or marriage or the Lord's Table depended on the sinlessness of any man priest or not we would all be firmly up the creek.

So Augustine argued that the Sacraments were made real by the Spirit. For example in Baptism we are symbolically buried with Christ. But Christ was in the ground three days, and certainly the Church does not require us to hold our breath for three days so the Sacrament represents the participation in the death and burial of Christ. But if Baptism is merely a symbol then would an atheist also receive the benefits of Baptism? Certainly not. Because baptism is a symbol but not merely one. That is the Baptism is only real if it is administered to a believer in Christ. But any Joe can say he is a Christian and we have very limited means to know whether or not it is so, but God knows. And so in a mysterious way the Holy Spirit attends the Baptism of the saved and effects the reality of the participation in the death and burial of Christ. So in a sense the Baptism is a sign and yet it is a reality. Plainly spoken, a person can attend Church daily, go through all the religious rigmarole and still go to Hell because he does not have the Grace of Salvation. It is only the Grace of the Holy Spirit which makes a man's religion real and it is therefore the work of God which validates the faith and practice of the faithful.

A quick aside. R. C. Sproul very astutely pointed out that orthodox believers have a tendency to think of the Grace of God as though it were something which came in a box with a bow on top. Not so, the Grace of God is the presence of God, therefore those to whom Grace has been given have received from God, God Himself. As such when Grace of God attends a sacrament God is there.

Now onto the Lord's Table and the tricky phrase.

I think the first thing we must do when considering the Lord Table is remember that this is a distinctly Jewish observation. Namely the observation of the Passover. When Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper He was eating the Passover with the Apostles. So what is the Passover? It was a yearly celebration commemorating the Exodus from Egypt when the Israelites sacrificed a lamb and put its blood on the door posts and ate the lamb and bitter herbs within so that the Angel of Death would not strike their houses as He passed through Egypt. A pretty simple command really, "Do this or I will kill you." So for the first participants in Egypt the Passover was not symbol at all, but a very present reality which promised immediate and total disaster for those who did not obey.

But what about those who kept the Passover, say, in the time of King David? If they did not keep the Feast would the Death Angel strike their households and slay their firstborn? No. It was a symbol kept in remembrance that God had delivered them from Egypt. So those who ate the Lamb were not actually eating the Passover Lamb as their Fathers had in Egypt, but they were participating in the deliverance of their fathers by eating a lamb. So there was a sense of really eating the Lamb at Passover as they remembered what God had done. But were all of those who participated year in year out true adherents to the Faith of God. No. We know because God tells the Prophets (Isaiah and Amos immediately come to mind) that He hates the festivals and new moons in which the people participated because they did so without faith. The clear message is that while perhaps a great many people took part in the Passover those who did so without faith received no benefit from it. That is only the faithful experienced the reality of eating the Passover Lamb when they ate a lamb at the Passover.

So what happened at the Lord's Table? Jesus ate the Passover with the Apostles (although we know for certain that at least Judas received no benefit from it) and as He did so He changed the Liturgy of the ceremony. Instead of eating the Lamb He told the Apostles to take and eat the Bread which was His Body and drink the Cup which was His Blood, and they were to do this in perpetuity until they drank the Cup with Him in Paradise. So did they literally eat the Body of Christ? I think the answer depends on what is meant by "literally". I think the first question to be asked is, "Did all the Apostles receive the same meal?" Again considering Judas I think the answer is clearly no. There were those who received the symbol in faith and received the full grace of the presence of Christ as they ate and others who did not, as such can it really be said that they all literally ate the same meal? Again I think the answer is no.

So from the very beginning of the Table there is a sense in which there is a reality beyond the physical which takes place at the meal. But then we must consider what followed. After Jesus had eaten the meal and changed the liturgy He then went to the Cross and died and became the all sufficient Lamb for the faithful thus paying in full the price of their debt. And now instead of the Death Angel coming and slaying the first born of the faithless Egyptians He instead laid hold of the Firstborn of God Almighty and drove stakes into Him on a Roman gibbet thus fulfilling the future to which the Passover of old had pointed.

But now a new Liturgy of the Passover had been given and now those who would take of it would participate not in the temporal salvation out of slavery from the Egyptians, but from the permanent and once for all salvation out of sin and death which those who are Christ's find in Him. Now instead of eating a Lamb in faith, we eat the Lamb in faith. Not because of a priest, but because we offer ourselves as living sacrifice wholly acceptable to Him and in so doing we partake of His suffering because He attends our taking of the sacrament. It is as though we are receiving the bread from His hand as surely as the Apostles did. When Christ gives us grace to come to His Table He is giving us His presence as we eat the bread remembering, as the Israelites did, the escape from slavery, and looking forward, as the Israelites did, not to the Lamb who is to come but to the Lamb who will return and eat this meal with us in Paradise.

In the same way we now take the Cup. We no longer take the bitter herbs to remind us of the bitterness of Slavery and the price paid for our freedom, but rather we take the cup to remember the Blood of the Lamb poured out at the Altar of the Cross remembering that Jesus drank the bitterness of the Cup of God's wrath to its dregs that we may drink the sweet wine of the River of Life in Paradise with Him. And those who do so in faith take that Cup from the Hand of God who gives it to them in Grace and says "Take and drink and remember what I did for you." Looking back to the bitterness of our slavery and the bitterness of the Cross and looking forward to the sweetness of hearing Him say, "Well done good and faithful servant."

So we have no need to invoke a priestly prayer to change the substance of bread and wine, as if that were possible, to have the presence of Christ at His Table. This is the crudest of understandings of what it means to be with God. It is to say that the only way God can commune with us is by actually placing Himself into our hands as though His presence is not real if I cannot personally physically touch Him.

No. And again no.

Rather the faithful enters into the presence of Christ at the Table not because a Priest has called God down but because Christ has called us up, and at His table we look forward to the Table where we will have the pleasure of His person forever more. And we need no earthly sign to know that having accepted the bread from His hand we have accepted Him. And we need no religious rites to know that having drunk of His cup of suffering we have drunk of Him. So let us find pleasure not in the things we can see touch and taste, but rather in the One who gives them to us and says,"All who are weary come unto me, for my burden is easy and my yoke is light." Let us worship His Name forever and evermore.

Its a Wal Mart World After All

I was born in 1973.

That year the top employers in America by head count were General Electric and IBM.

The top employers in America now are Wal Mart and McDonalds.

In Texas the Gubner and the Feds are trying to ramrod though a new international toll road which would make Kansas City Missouri the point of entry for goods coming into America from Mexico.

Wal Mart is very much in support of this measure.

Not that there is anything wrong with getting our goods from Mexico. After all Americans don't make anything anymore so we have to get consumables from somewhere. But why should Wal Mart be in favor of this?

Simple.

When overseas goods are brought into the United States by plane or ship there are certain restrictions about labor practices (child labor being one) which prohibit some goods from being imported even though they are much cheaper having been manufactured by children in sweatshops in some country high school kids can't find on a map. (Ha ha I typed mao the first time that's kind of ironic) But these restrictions do not apply to goods which come into our country from Mexico because Nafta that great beacon of freedom and enterprise wiped such laws away meaning that textiles can be sewn in Mexico by children and that's fine, but from China... well that's a whole different kettle of fish. But it seems that child labor is cheaper in China than Mexico so retailers here have been trying to find a way to get around these laws and bump the profit margin in turn.

Well hooray for the good guys! The new trans Texas corridor would make any goods brought into our country from Mexico via that highway exempt from such laws since technically Mexico would be the country of origin. And since Mexico has no qualms with taking goods into their ports assembled by cheaper children overseas everybody wins. Child labor laws get circumvented, Wal Mart gets cheaper shirts, and we don't care at all.

And you see that is the rub.

I hear a lot of people bashing Wal Mart because of low pay and bad employment practices such as keeping people scheduled below the thirty-two hour per week threshold where the law would require them to offer some sort of medical insurance. I mean, don't get me wrong, bash away. Wal Mart is a multi national corporation which deliberately drives local economy out of business with satellite stores and then further hurts it by closing the smaller stores once the mom-and-pops are out of business and then opening 'Super Centers' in more centralized locations thus eliminating competition and at the same time shrinking the job base and compelling their customers to drive further knowing they will because what choice do they have.

Folks also complain that Wal Mart under staffs those super centers and those few who do work there are uniformly disgruntled. Thus the service sucks and the help you do get is put off and rude.

And would you like to know who knows this and doesn't care at all?

Wal Mart.

Wal Mart knows we hate their business practices. They also know we hate their service. They know we hate crowded aisles and long checkout lines and they will never never never do one single solitary stinking little thing about it. Ever!

And do you know why?

Because Wal Mart knows that no matter how much we hate those things, we really really really like cheap milk and shoes.

That's right folks its capitalism run amok where the consumer pays his hard cash to get screwed by the proprietor and is hunky ok fine with it because he just really doesn't see the sense in paying more than two hundred dollars for a new television. Hot damn who cares about child labor this shirt is fifteen dollars. Screw the unions the meat is cheap. Oh sure we care about local economy but man my Twinkies were on sale two-for- three dollars.

Yes folks you too can sign up for crappy service and cheap prices without regret because the retailers know that you will come back again and again just so long as the price threshold is low enough. Oh sure quality products and service would be nice but who wants to pay for it? And in a Wal Mart world you the consumer don't and therefore business will never change.

And do you know who else knows this?

Utility companies, car companies, home construction companies, fast food companies, wholesale food producers, oil companies, clothing companies, the mall, the government, your barber and the kid who cuts your grass. Sure the product is crap and the service is terrible but its cheap cheap cheap, and that is all we care about.

We may complain about illegal immigrants but we sure do like cheap produce and houses. We complain about big corporations raping the land but we sure do like cheaper gas and electricity. Texas operates more coal fired power plant than any state in the country and we could not care less because the power is sold at a price we don't choke on.

In fact the only time we ever complain about a corporation and actually do something about it is if that company sells tobacco, and then suddenly this all goes out the window. But not really. After all we are pissed at cigarette companies because Auntie Dear chose to commit slow suicide with their product and now she is going to cost us a lot A LOT of money before she dies because cancer ain't cheap.

Besides the tobacco situation evoked the flip side of the Wal Mart world.

The lottery world.

That's right folks give yourself cancer and then sue for millions and millions of dollars so your kids won't have to shop at Wal Mart when you're dead.

Everybody wins!!!!

Because we're Americans and we consume the whole world and build nothing but debt and waistlines while complaining complaining complaining that it is all Wal Mart's fault.

But it isn't.

Because every time we put a penny into Wal Mart's till and say nothing we vote for this world we live in. And if our actions are speaking that loudly no one will ever hear a damn word we're saying.

Just thinking.

Time to Rethink Some Myths

So I live in Texas which means that high political offices will always be held by the most popular republican. I am not against this on principle I am conservative and don't think that the dems have done an admirable job a running anything since.... Anyway. My issue is that the most popular republican in Texas is Rick Perry. This is a man who a cheerleader in college and is currently running on a small government/secession is good platform. Of course given that he is also trying to build a super highway between Mexico and Kansas City so Wal Mart won't have as much trouble getting goods manufactured by five years olds in dark sweatshops to market I have to wonder how anti-establishment he really is, but I digress.

Anyway the point is the republican I want to win is Kay Hutchinson. She won't but I wish she would. But the thing that gets me is the other day I heard some right to life group saying that Kay was pro-abortion because she will not support an out and out overturning of Roe V Wade, and I want to talk about that.

First off let me say that abortion is murder.

So there now that I have identified myself as a dangerous wacko let me get to the point.

In not saying that she would support an out and out overturning of Roe the senator was actually showing a keen understanding of the law. The thing is, abortion was legal before the Roe decision. It was not legal in every state and neither was it available carte blanch but there was no overriding federal which outlawed abortion in this country. It did not exist. The laws instead were handled at the state level and the one in question which led to Roe was a law which said that a married woman must have the permission of her husband before getting an abortion. Notice, it was not a law which outlawed abortion but restricted it. The court ruled that such a law amounted to a violation of privacy and struck down such laws.

Two things have happened since.

One, there has been a mountain of case law written on top of the presupposition of a right to privacy (which yours truly does not believe exists) and included in that law is a volume of criminal law a great deal of which has been used to help convict people and put them in prison for a long long time. If Roe were struck down all such law would go with it and years of civil and criminal lawsuits would have to be reopened to see if they passed constitutional muster apart from Roe.

Two, there has been a mountain of law written concerning restrictions on abortion such as parental notification laws, mandatory sonogram laws, partial birth abortion bans, and born alive laws just to name a few which have all been found to pass constitutional muster in light of Roe. All such laws would be again subjected to legal challenge if Roe were overturned and even perhaps thrown out all together because the High Court decision upon which such law was written would have been nullified.

So far from supporting abortion, what Kay said is that any such over turning would need to be carefully considered.

But the hair model who's currently governor in my home state does not understand such fine distinctions, and clearly neither did the group which made the commercial. Instead they re counting on the voter being too stupid and lazy to dig past the sound bite and try to grasp what the real issue is, and considering that as of today Governor Dick is ahead by 10+ in the polls I would say they have Texans just about pegged.

Just thinking.

Ding Dong the Wicked Witch...

I realize of course that song has nothing whatever to do with football, but you gentle reader must understand that never has song captured the willful glee I feel in cold black heart when the Minnesota Vikings lose. There is just something about the sweet sweet scent of failure and hopelessness wafting across America's Heartland as Viking fans slowly turn off their TV, remove their horns and braids and shed a tear into their Lutefisk and sigh sadly knowing that once again the Super Bowl will not be coming to Minneapolis.

And the sweetest thing of all?

BRETT FAVRE LOST AGAIN BECAUSE HE THREW THE CRUCIAL PICK!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I am literally smiling as I write this.

Understand something, Brett Favre is world class selfish jerk who rips apart locker rooms and destroys teams for his own self aggrandizement wile all the while playing up on his white skin, southern accent and good old boy persona to dupe his willing accomplices in the media (who lick up every word he says) to trick you into thinking he is a decent guy. He's not and he never was. Favre jerked Green Bay around nine ways to Sunday because he didn't want to come to camp. Did anyone ever notice that his decisions to come out of retirement only came after the team had finished two-a-days. Or that once Green Bay decided they were tired of being strung along he wanted to go to Minnesota to (in his own words mind you), "Beat Green Bay." And not because the Packers had wronged him in some way, but because he's a petty jerk who got his panties in a twist because his ego got hurt. Or that in Mew York things were going swimmingly until Brett decided he wanted to throw the ball more because his numbers weren't where he thought they should be and he ruined a good season and tore the locker room up. Or that he pulled his retirement crap with Childress until he flew to whatever backwater burg Favre is from and personally licked his boots and begged him to play, but of course only after two-a-days were over. Or that when Childress suggested that he should come out of a game because it was out of hand Brett was taking a beating, Brett immediately went to the media and spilled the dirty laundry out to ESPN who took up the cause and asked Childress what he thought he was doing benching Jesu.... uh, Brett.

I am sure that last pick will be because some receiver ran the wrong route.

So why do I care?

Simple.

Media Racism.

If Brett Farve was black and did not have a southern drawl he would never get away with this crap. If Terrell Owens (and I am a Cowboy fan and I am glad that guy is gone but he is the most glaring example) were to tell the media that he thought the coach was wrong for taking him out he would nailed to the cross before the ten o'clock news. And I know some folks will say that TO has a history, and he does, but all of Brett's ridiculous self centered crap is also a history. The only difference is that no calls him on it because he's Brett. His history never gets built up because no one calls him on his crap to begin with.

But I have a question.

Let us assume, now that Minnesota has established the rule that star players do not have to come to camp, that Adrian Petersen decides next year that he will not take part in any off season workouts with the team and will instead hang out in Palestine, Texas until two-a-days are over; what do you suppose will be said about him?

I would be willing to bet that his heart will questioned as well as his commitment to team, which is sports slang for calling someone lazy. But white guys don't get called lazy because there is no racial slur attached to being lazy for white guys.

No Brett is not selfish and lazy, he's a coach on the field who plays for the love of the game who's a gym rat and a hard worker which are sports slangs used only for white players never for black ones.

Just something to consider the next time you are listening to an old white guy comment on sports.

So please remember, I am not happy that Favre lost because he plays for the Vikings and is a jerk ( although I am to be sure) but it is also that Favre is the Great White Hope of all the curmudgeonly old white guys who broadcast and report on sports and use these socially acceptable racist epithets. Because when Favre loses, they lose too, and that is something all Americans can believe in.

RE: Hal's Reply to RE: Hal's Reply

Hal's in red I'm in blue. Well, I am not finished, but I will make a couple of observations. First, it is, to me, obvious, that the singularity and heaven are NOT synonymous, but that the incomplete description that we are presented by mankind's limited understanding of true science, of the singularity postulated as the beginning of the chaotic universe, indicates that the bohuw and tohuw mentioned in Gen.1, are the Hebrew words describing the effect of the fall, while entropy is the so-called, (no offense meant to science), scientific terminology. Genisis speaks of an entropic state AFTER CREATION, not before. The idea that I am claiming the word which is translated creation, is one that indicates building from previously existing material, is not what I said, nor is indicated by my arguement. It is stated before the statement about the chaos and ruin, not after. A large parft of what I am doing, in my arguement, is an attempt to show that the evidence we see in observation of the natural universe, actually coincides with scripture. If you would re-assess the statements I make, in that context, it might be helpful to both of us. I will get back to this, later, in a more complete address, INCLUDING the part I have not yet attempted to address. (Oh, your comment about my lack of understanding was not meant to insult, just poorly phrased humor & a comment that the explanation was not as lucid as I am used to getting from you. Phrasing is sometimes the key to comprehension. Sorry I am not equipped to draw perfect correlaries from you. Sometimes, I think I am more suited for rock-&-roll. I don't think you can argue this way. First off the "and the" at the start of Gen 1:2 is an addition for the English it does not appear in the Hebrew. The Hebrew reads beginning God created the Heaven the Earth. The Earth to be(was) tohuw bohuw. I think what you see here is not a this then that structure, but a general statement, "God created the universe" followed by specificity of how such creation took place. Moses uses this sort of structure many times and you need look no further than to the end of Ch 1 to find and example Gen 1:27 God creates man male and female, Gen 2:7 God creates man, Gen 2:22 God creates woman. So how many times did God create man and woman? Once. This is repetition. I realize that you will say that I am forcing an exegetical style which you do not intend, but you are demandng that the text read this then this when the language does not demand it, and disallowing that it is repetition with a greater degree of specificity. Therefore if we are to take your understanding seriously then we must apply it to all examples as such. For example the Gospels say that Judas hanged himself and Acts says he fell headlong and his guts spilled out, but he didn't die twice. How many times does God promise the Messiah, but there is only one. How many times does God promise an heir to Abraham, but there is only one. Moses many times in the Torah gives the people instruction, "You shall be holy," and then gives long explanations of it is to be done. Moses tells the people that they will build the tabernacle, and then goes into long detailed explanations of how it is to be done. I think what is seen here is the same thing. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. <--- Blanket statement. The Earth was without form and void and the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the face of the waters... <---Beginning of explanation of how the creation took place. Moses proclaims that God created from nothing the universe and then shaped it. You could argue that the shaping is a result of the ruination of Creation, but you do not answer how Satan could have fallen to an Earth which did not exist. I think that Satan's fall took place in the time of Jesus Earthly ministry. Jesus tells the disciples that he saw Satan fall (Luke 10:13-23) and that he is now bound (Luke 11:16-26). The reason I say this is that Job tells us plainly that Satan has access to Throne of God, but the New Testament speaks of him as a defeated foe who can no longer make accusations against the Saints (Romans 8:28-38, Rev 12:10). Revelation 12 tells us that Satan swept down the stars after he had stood against the woman and her child, and that the taking of the third is what began the war in heaven after which no place was found for him. Well, since Satan (Job) has a place in Heaven before the cross, and no place after I think the war might well have taken place as Christ hung on the cross. When Satan tempted Eve he lost his position before the Throne, but he still had access predicated on his being the rightful owner of the Earth as God had given it to Adam and Adam ceded his authority to Satan, an authority which Jesus took for His own when He defeated Satan. The Bible is replete with references to Satan being the possessor of the world (not the least of which is his uncontradicted claim before Christ during the temptations in the wilderness), but after the cross he is referred to as the god of this world and the master of the spirits of the air, but never again the rightful title holder of the earth. I don't offer this as I know for certain this is true, I am really bad at prophecy you know that, but I am offering it with textual backing because I think the full sense of the Scripture does not support a fall for Satan before Genesis 1:2.