Divine Algebra Eventually Demands Balance

Rosh Hashanah is upon us, to be followed immediately by eight days of introspection, which are themselves followed by Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

Funny, how our future as a nation is being determined at this time.

Aaron directed me to a video you might find interesting. It features a bit of Jewish Rosh Hashanah liturgy. The idea is this: God reviews mankind at this time. And He decides what kind of year each of us should have.

Is this a good time for America to receive an evaluation? We abort hundreds of thousands of babies each year. We are selling Israel, piece by piece, to a mob of murdering liars who couldn’t keep their promises even if they wanted to. We are trying to force young girls to be vaccinated for VD, on the assumption that they will have sex in high school. We have decided that self-adoration is a virtue, which is the precise opposite of the Bible’s take. We actually teach it in schools! We teach it to prison inmates, whose brainless, unconditional, doting self-love is what landed them in the klink to begin with!

There are a lot of good things to point to. Privately, American Christians (and some Jews) provide a great deal of support for Israel and Jewry, with no concessions required. Many millions of Americans have humble, faithful relationships with God, in a time when such relationships are social and financial liabilities. A lot of Americans are horrified by our popular culture and our political sins. Many Americans help the poor and support good ministries. Rosh Hashanah is a period of repentance–a week of tshuvah, or returning to God–and many Americans are fortunate enough to enter that period while actively engaged in repentance.

As for the world in general, I am not hopeful. Leftist sentiment the world over is increasingly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian, and we are seeing things which, if they are not warnings, certainly seem like warnings. Burma has a policy of eradicating Christianity, and about twenty Jews live there, and look what happened. Haiti mingles Catholicism and demon worship, and it was hit by three major storms this year, in a period of a few weeks. Kim Jong-Il the atheist Nuclear Nork is dying, and we have no idea what kind of nut will replace him. An anti-Semitic communist maniac controls Venezuela and is helping the Russians start a new Cold War. Financial markets all over the world are parked on the edge of a cliff. And no one seems to see it as a religious issue.

I feel like we’re being offered a choice, here in the US. On the one hand, maturity, experience, time-tested ideas, and faith in God. On the other, an MTV messiah with no experience, discredited 1960s ideas, a tendency to self-worship, a thin skin, proven hostility to Caucasians, and a crush on Karl Marx. I don’t say we have a perfect candidate, but it’s a clear choice: the wisdom and morality of the old, versus the empty flash and arrogant stupidity of the young.

In an instant message, I told Aaron, “Humanity is being weighed, I think. Obama is the blue pill.” If we can elect this dilettante after the socialist ideas of his economic advisers destroyed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we deserve whatever we get, because we are too stupid to know what to do with prosperity.

God is up there. He’s as real as you are. I know. He proves Himself to people all the time. And what we do matters. Some punishments and rewards are for the afterlife, but others are for the here and now. And when God is on your case, there is nobody who can help you.

Most Americans don’t save significant amounts of money. Thank you for the myth of Social Security, politicians. It freed us from the desire to prepare for hard times. If we are judged economically and people lose their jobs, look for bread lines to start forming in one month. Then look for hoboes, begging for food and sleeping in your yard. Expect to have to keep a loaded gun by your side.

Here’s what I think. If you believe, as I do, that our nation is in danger of judgment, try to avoid that judgment, in your own right. God doesn’t always paint with a broad brush. Some people are always spared.

We need a second bailout, and not the kind that comes from Man. That’s my opinion. Even if I’m wrong, correcting your own life is still the right choice, and you will be rewarded.

But Keep Your Cargo Shorts

I got an email from a reader today. She pointed me to Sermonaudio.com. I already knew about this resource; I’ve listened to preachers I like. She directed me to a Georgia preacher named John Weaver. The link above goes to the sermon I listened to today. It’s a two-part series; I’ve only heard the first part.

I picked it because the subject was something of special interest to me. The right to self-defense. The Jews believe they have an obligation to defend others, even if they have to use deadly force; I’m not sure if they believe a Jew has an obligation to defend himself. It’s a slightly different question. Jesus told his disciples to buy swords, and he meant actual swords; there were two in the room when He said it. Still, it’s a question worth researching. There is a colorable argument to be made for refusing to kill someone who, like most violent criminals, does not know God.

The sermon was good. There were a few remarks about Indians which people might consider insensitive, but they were made in reference to times when Indians were the biggest danger Americans faced. Pastor Weaver says he keeps loaded guns in his home, and that he considers himself obligated to defend himself and others. I feel a lot more comfortable about the issue after listening to him.

It may be odd to say it in this age of disposable babies, but I think we sometimes value life too much. We often behave as though every life has infinite value, but that’s not true. We put a surprisingly low value on our own lives every day. I can give examples. We are supposed to put our lives on the line for our country. Every time a huge construction project is undertaken, the people behind it know it is nearly certain at least one worker will die. We ride motorcycles. We dive. Our diets aren’t perfect. Many of us risk death by treating people who have infectious diseases. The truth is, we are willing to risk death for many reasons, and a good number of them are trivial. And that’s okay; it’s healthy. Death is part of every life. It’s like puberty or menopause. It’s difficult, but it’s wrong to treat it as though it were a catastrophe. You can’t live in a bubble.

God drowned the Egyptian army as it pursued Moses. He killed a hundred soldiers of Israel’s army with fire from heaven. He killed every person and animal in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the flood, all but eight people died. Samson killed a thousand people in one day, and it was actually God within him, doing the killing. And God directed us to kill home invaders on sight. He directed us to kill witches and perverts. Life is important, but it’s not really priceless.

Pastor Weaver also talked about the way the self-defense obligation, as it applies to animals. He says that the Old Testament requires Jews to rescue animals belonging to strangers. This is a subject that has always bothered me. Every so often, I see a dog wandering around on the street, and I know it’s in trouble, but I’m usually in a roadster with nice leather seats. So I keep driving, and I’m sure people have lost beloved pets because of my selfishness. I thought about it while I listened to the sermon, and I realized there was an answer. I can keep a rope in my trunk. I can tie a dog by the side of the road and call the county. Simple, right?

What if I can’t tie him? Well, if I can’t tie him, how was I supposed to put him in the car?

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. Maybe it will be of use to some of you.

Incidentally, on a related note, I have been reading about the K31 rifle. People on the web claim they’re pretty consistent, so I’m wondering if my accuracy problems are my own fault. I’m shooting about a 5″ group at 100 yards. I can’t figure it out. I don’t like the trigger; it seems like you have to pull very hard to make it go off. But surely I should be doing better than this, if the gun is okay. I’m using Swiss GP11 ammunition, which is supposed to be excellent. Maybe I should take off the stock and see if there’s any crud between it and the barrel. My .17 HMR shoots groups half as big, and it’s not nearly as easy to aim and hold as the K31.

If I could get real accuracy out of the K31, I’d buy a second one and put an aftermarket stock and maybe a 16x scope on it.

My spring set for the Smith & Wesson 27-2 arrived, so I’ll be installing it. I couldn’t get a thinner trigger from Brownell’s. Maybe someone else makes one, or maybe when the springs are fixed, the trigger won’t matter. I only shoot single-action, so the springs are important. I figure anyone can shoot a cocked revolver, so the smart thing is to shoot single-action, which is harder.

Considering buying Old Navy cargo shorts, but worried that the pockets aren’t deep enough for concealed carry? Relax. I have had no problems putting a small Glock in my pocket, with a Sidekick holster. If you have something like a Kel-Tec or a Kahr, it should be even easier. It’s actually better than a deep pocket, because you can get to the gun easier. I really like these shorts. Super comfortable, cheap, and practical.

Those Poor Cows

Mish Weiss continues violating her vegan code by drinking dairy-based protein shakes. Somewhere, an oppressed cow is suffering the torment of sore nipples.

If any of you have tips to help cancer patients beat nausea and put on weight, please let me know, or put them in the comments at Mish’s blog.

Her white-cell count is up, which may indicate a cold or something. Say a prayer that it will pass. And don’t forget Leah. She’s still recovering from paralysis and brain damage.

Stolen from Leah’s site, a video. While you watch it, remember Joshua. Remember Gideon. Remember that before a nation can have a Solomon, it may have to have a David. Somebody willing to pick up a sling and use it.

That principle applies to people, too, as they face their own battles. Call that a heavy-handed hint.

Blogger Bane has passed away. His family has some financial problems; you might say a prayer for them. Keep an eye out for an upcoming fundraising effort.

Do me a favor and don’t post any negative stuff here.

Sick Palin Humor Highlights National Disease

I don’t watch Saturday Night Live. It’s on too late. I’m not a big TV-watcher. And bad episodes have conditioned me to avoid the show. Some people have managed to live through the really bad SNL years without quitting. I haven’t been a regular watcher since the Eddie Murphy days. Probably not even then, now that I think about it.

I used to wonder how SNL could have bad seasons. They have a whole lot of money to buy writers and actors, and it’s hard to think of a job a TV writer would find more alluring. That’s me, guessing. For all I know, it’s a miserable job. I don’t know what the atmosphere on the set or among the writers is like; maybe good writers jump ship as soon as they can. Still, to an outsider, it’s difficult to understand how the SNL crew ever managed to do their job badly. But they pulled it off, many, many times.

At my advanced age, with my burgeoning Christian sentiments, I can’t imagine sitting up past eleven p.m. to watch anything, let alone a disappointing, often tedious show that reinforces all of my worst traits. So I am not a fan. Sometimes they do something really funny, and I catch it on Youtube, but that’s about it.

I wasn’t watching this weekend, when they did a sketch about Sarah Palin. I can’t find it on Youtube, either. I guess their attorneys are pulling material so fast, it doesn’t survive the weekend. I can’t give an informed critique of the sketch. But I feel like I’m on firm ground when I say they had no business joking about her husband committing incest. The Palins have kids. Those kids have friends. I’m sure many of those friends watch SNL. This is not something they needed inside their young minds. Imagine your kids’ friends, joking about your family and incest. Not wholesome. Then imagine actors joking about it on national television.

SNL is like flavored malt liquor, or clove cigarettes. It’s supposed to be for adults, but the nature of the product makes it appealing to children and to adults barely over the age of majority. It’s a little sad, if you think about it. An ensemble of not-so-young people, dedicating their lives to producing material which many grown people find too sophomoric and crude to enjoy. There is a certain dignity in doing kids’ programming, like Captain Kangaroo or Misterogers Neighborhood, because everyone knows you’re acting, and that when the cameras are off, you’re a regular grown-up. But when you’re in your thirties and forties and you’re doing SNL humor for high school and college kids, it’s a different story. You stoop to the level of the audience, in a way that infects your life. You may end up clinging to the adolescent mindset, at least in the public eye, long after you should have moved on. It’s one more example of the perversity of modern culture, in which adults take their moral cues from the benighted young. I think that explains the astoundingly broad and clumsy toilet jokes in the Austin Powers movies. Shakespeare gave us a subtle pun about a petard. Mike Myers gave us an overflowing bowl, on camera.

I’m not sure who is insulted more, by that kind of humor. Is it the audience, because it suggests they’re too stupid to understand anything smarter, or is it the writer, because it demonstrates that he believes he lacks the talent to write intelligent material?

I read about the incest sketch. It appears that the intent was to mock provincial East Coast journalists, who assume the worst about the backward folks in Jesusland. Still, wouldn’t it have been better to avoid the subject? Even if they were trying to defend Sarah Palin, in their own way, they probably ended up adding to the layer of slime which had already accumulated on her and her family, thanks to leftist slanders.

We ought to declare the Animal House/Porky’s era dead, once and for all. We should make an effort, as a nation, to get past adolescence. You can be funny without cruelty or obscenity. You can do it without driving a wedge between the generations. Writers shouldn’t be looking for ways to inject shock into their work. They should be looking for ways to remove it. I think about this a lot, with regard to my own work. When I see people like Sandra Bernhard and the SNL bunch blowing it, I think about things I’ve written, and I cringe. I’ve been trying to improve, but when you’ve become jaded by repeated exposure to obscenity and cruelty, it takes time to wear off. It affects your ability to perceive your own crassness. There are things I wrote last year that I would not publish today.

I let myself be duped by a corrupt popular culture that convinced me that in order to do well, I had to pull out the stops. That was stupid. Artists thrive on restrictions. They make you work harder, and you end up producing things that make your audience work harder, and they are rewarded for it.

The other night, I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for a while. There are two romances in the film. One is between two career martial artists, and the other is between a governor’s daughter and a thief. The first involves only glances, touches, and loaded remarks. The other involves a lot of groping and simulated sex. And which is more powerful? The first. The thwarted lovers who can only express their feelings obliquely burn up the screen. That’s what happens when an artist makes his audience do some of the work. An artist who deals in the obvious and the sensational is a sort of slut. He hits the audience with everything he has, right away, because he doubts he has the ability to hold their interest if he restrains himself.

God bless Sarah Palin and her family. They should not have to endure this, simply because a comedy writer in Manhattan hasn’t gotten it together yet.

Drinking Disgusting Canned Shakes

More good news about Mish Weiss, the young IDF soldier who is fighting leukemia in Jerusalem. Even though she’s a vegan, Leah Friedman has convinced her to drink Ensure, which is a liquid meal substitute that helps people gain weight. I don’t know what the objection to Ensure is; maybe it has animal-derived B12 in it. When Mish gets better, I think we should all chip in and ship her and her family some prime steaks for a barbecue. I know we can convert her! Hmm…might be tough to locate prime kosher beef.

Unless things have changed since I lived there, the beef situation in Israel is not rosy. When I left Israel and flew to Athens, my top priority was locating beef. Athens was full of New York-style diners, and food was very cheap. I sat myself down at the first place I could find and had a cheeseburger platter, with a second cheeseburger on the side. I probably paid a dollar-fifty (Reagan dollars) for that meal.

Mish is having problems with nausea. I wonder if they have fresh ginger over there. Japanese longliners chew it instead of taking seasickness pills.

Says Leah, on Mish’s blog: “Thank you so very much for the prayers, they work!”

They most certainly do. Thanks, everybody. As Aaron is fond of saying, God is near to all who call on Him. The rest of the verse: “to all who call upon him in truth.”

Things continue to go well here. I still feel as though an invisible but oppressive layer of clouds had lifted. I attribute sensations of oppression to supernatural opposition, and I’m not the only one. I hope the change lasts, and that I can help my family find what I’ve found.

My psalm-memorizing campaign goes well, although to be honest, I’ve only been re-memorizing psalms I committed to memory long ago. I have 1, 23, and 63 under control. I may get ambitious and shoot for 37 next.

Things are Getting DONE

It’s amazing, what I got done today. I will bore you with a list.

Hung my grandfather’s gun rack on the wall. Lots of drilling and patching. Glued the felt on the gun supports back in place.

Round-Upped every plant on the property that even looked at me funny.

Put a latch on the patio TV cabinet doors.

Mulched.

Removed a worthless oak tree.

Prepared a concrete slug for its date with the tow chain. I decided to let it cure overnight instead of trusting the epoxy packaging. I don’t want to have to glue that rebar in there a second time.

It may not sound like a lot, but it was more work than you would imagine. I also had to clean up a lot, put tools away, and so on. And I made a heavy-duty Home Depot run to prepare for all this.

Tools used:

1. Impact Driver
2. Hammer drill
3. Vise
4. Vise Grips
5. Level
6. Screwdriver
7. Shop-Vac
8. Tow chain
9. Proxxon
10. Shovel
12. Angle grinder
13. Claw hammer
14. Punch

I love having tools. Every time a problem came up, I had the right item to fix it. If you don’t have an impact driver and a hammer drill, you should qualify for handicapped parking, because you are helpless.

I want go fondle my shiny new tow chain.

I’m thrilled with the stuff I got done. These were nagging jobs I thought I’d never get around to. Sometimes I think one sign that you have problems you need to take up with God is that you can’t finish things you need to get done. You make plans, but somehow, things don’t work out. Today I got some things off my back, which had been bothering me for eons.

I feel as if some kind of blockage in my life has broken loose.

I think I’m also going to get a new cage for Marv. His cage is very nice, but he has been getting territorial about it, and I think the answer is to make the birds switch cages every day. The problem with that is that Marv’s cage is smaller than Maynard’s, so Maynard gets the shaft. His wingspan is bigger. Marv’s cage isn’t really adequate for him.

I can’t even guess what I’ll do with Marv’s cage. Ebay or Craig’s List, I suppose. I wish I knew a bird that needed a better cage. Actually, I do, but his owner would never go for it.

Some people think height is more important than square footage in a bird cage. I disagree completely. Narrow cages get dirty faster; there is less room for the poop. And wide cages let birds move around more, and you can put more toys in them.

I’m going to put together some kind of hinged perch for the patio, so these little goofs will have a proper place to hang out, instead of sitting on the back of a chair.

It was a beautiful day, and tomorrow is Sunday, so I get to relax, attend to my religious obligations, and pay a visit to Man Camp.

Not bad.

I am Not a Portion for Foxes

The craziest thing happened today. Last week I found myself thinking about the way wildlife was disappearing around here. I hadn’t seen a coon or a fox in a long time. They used to be all over the place. As I was watering the peppers this morning, I noticed a reddish cat walking away from me on the patio, about ten feet away. Something about it didn’t look right; it was very skinny and had a funny gait. Then I realized it was a fox. I guess it had been lying in the shade. I must have disturbed it. It wasn’t scared at all. It walked across the patio, turned and stared at me for a while, and then went under the deck. I guess it’s still there.

It wasn’t much to look at. Its tail was about as big around as a thick broom handle.

I don’t know why it wasn’t afraid. Usually it’s hard to get close to a fox. Our suburban neighbors may be handfeeding it out of ignorance. Or it may have rabies.

I have good news about Mish Weiss; I asked people to pray for her last night. She has leukemia, and yesterday she started to despair. Her friend Leah Friedman emailed me this morning. Mish has a more positive attitude this morning. They have found a bone marrow donor for her. That’s very good. Prayer works; God listens. The bad: she’s a vegan, and she refuses to eat or drink animal-based products that will help her get strong enough for a transplant.

Leah says she’s trying to get her to drink Ensure, a high-calorie drink for people who need a lot of nutrition without much effort. I guess it has animal products in it; Mish won’t touch it. If I had a cold, I’d gladly eat Bambi to get rid of it.

I remember begging my mother to drink Ensure when she was dying from lung cancer. My mother’s death was hastened by starvation. When she received radiation therapy, they burned her esophagus, and she was never able to eat properly after that. And the cancer made food disgusting to her; it does that to some people. I don’t know if Mish understands how lucky she is that she could make herself drink that stuff if she wanted to. There are many cancer patients out there who wish they could eat, but can’t.

I talked to Aaron about her situation last night. He said that Jewish law would require him to eat pork ribs, if he had to do it to save his life. Require.

Please keep Mish in your prayers. Leah, too. She still has lingering effects from her respiratory arrest.

I’m having an unusually good day. Might as well write about it.

Like most Christians, I have persistent sins I have to fight. Last night, I felt like I was having a big setback. And I prayed for God to turn it into a triumph. A few minutes later, as I prayed about other things, I realized my attitude had completely changed. I had forgotten my frustration and discouragement. I felt full of faith, and I was taking advantage of it by praying for other people. My prayer for a triumph had been answered almost instantly. Sometimes you have to be really alert, or else you won’t notice when God gives you exactly what you asked for.

I had a peculiar but uplifting thought. God gives different people different things to share with others. One example is wealth. You can use it to feed people and educate them and buy medical care and so on. You can finance ministries. You can use your money to help poor Jews fly to Israel. Last night I realized faith is like wealth. God distributes it unevenly. Presumably, people who have a lot of it are obligated to use it to help people who have less. Faith, then, is a kind of wealth. Because I know that, I have a better understanding of Acts 3:6.

I’m generally pretty pleased with the amount of faith I have. But until last night, I never thought of it as a gift I was supposed to share with other people.

Ever since I became aware of that, I have felt different. I feel as though the sun had risen inside me. Very odd, but I’ll take it. It’s a little bit like mania, which I am familiar with, because of the nature of my personality. But somehow it seems cleaner and healthier and more sustainable. I hope it lasts.

I feel energized. I feel like I can get things done. I’m usually pretty upbeat in real life, regardless of how I come across here, but today I have a powerful sensation of looking forward to whatever comes. I want to get up, get out there, and DO things.

Many times, I’ve read about Christians who claim to live in joy. I’ve always hoped I could reach that state. I feel good most of the time, and my faith has made things better, but I have never really reached a state which seemed to match the happiness so many Christians proclaim. Maybe I’m starting to see a piece of it. If it’s real, it would be a wonderful thing to help others achieve. One of the big drawbacks of Christianity is that potential adherents see it as a bunch of sacrifices with no reward until you die. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. A good life is supposed to be a better life.

I have stuff to do. Thanks for listening.

Ask Others to Pray

I have very sad news, via Jeffro. Leah Friedman’s friend Mish Weiss is not doing well, and she claims she wants to be allowed to die. She has acute myeloid leukemia, she has gone from 125 pounds to 90, and she is very depressed.

I you don’t remember Leah, she’s the girl in Jerusalem who went into respiratory arrest a while back. She had a heart condition, and somehow that is the cause of what happened. I asked my readers to pray for her, and so did other bloggers, and she has recovered well, although she still has some paralysis and some lingering mental symptoms.

Mish is in the IDF. She likes to shoot. She’s a vegan, which is probably unfortunate at this moment, when her body needs so much help. But she refuses to sacrifice her principles.

The situation is a little confusing. I don’t know much about this disease. Wikipedia paints a discouraging picture, but a post on Mish’s blog says the treatment she took works about 60% of the time, so cures do occur.

I have gone over her blog. If I understand the situation correctly, chemo didn’t work, so they are treating her with arsenic. That causes a lot of problems; it’s a poison, after all. From what I’ve read, it’s not clear that the treatment isn’t working. It may be that it’s so unpleasant, she no longer cares whether it works, and she simply wants to quit.

It’s not clear who wrote the last post on her blog, but here is how it ends: “All of you who have faithfully followed please pray for strength we certainly need it. And for us to make the right decisions.”

Here is what I ask. Pray that the treatment will work. Pray that she will find the strength to bear it. Pray that her loved ones will find ways to help. And pray that her relationship with her creator is right, at this pivotal time. And if you have a blog, pass the word.

And go to Mish’s blog and leave an encouraging comment! Let her know people are thinking of her, far away in America.

It’s late on Friday; it will be hard to get observant Jews in on this. Christians, pitch in!

Also: Rabbi Speaks Well of Moose Hunting Alaskan

The stock market is crazy. Half of America still hasn’t seen through Obama yet. And gas still costs almost four dollars a gallon. Sometimes it seems like life is hopeless, and that our country is headed straight down the toilet of godless socialism.

But some things are getting better. Important things. Here’s one: the relationship between American Christians and Jews who actually care about Israel is firming up nicely.

I was all excited when Moxie pointed this out to me: recovering liberal David Zucker recently said:

I know that liberal Jews regard evangelical Christians as persecutors, but they’re actually the best friends Jews have. They are loyal supporters of Israel, along with wanting lower taxes, smaller government and a strong defense. To me, they are my best allies.

Zucker is Jewish. And he’s a well-known film producer, known for Airplane! and Leslie Nielsen’s Naked Gun films. At some point, he realized liberalism was not going to preserve Jewry or Israel, and he came over to the dark side. You probably know about his next movie, An American Carol. It’s a satirical look at post-911 America, where liberals believe terrorists get a bad rap, but a working mother who shoots an occasional moose is Satan incarnate. I would kill to write screenplays for this guy. And I’d like to marry Tyra Banks, right after she becomes a Republican. Enough about my unlikely dreams.

He has figured it out. Some Christians support Israel, and it’s counterproductive for Jews to fear them. We don’t do pogroms. We’re increasingly considerate about proselytizing. The biggest threat from us is that we may annoy you. So the smart thing is to partner up with us and take our cash and vote for the candidates we like.

Oh, man. Zucker’s film site links to another site you may like: MooveAlong.org, a fine site where you can learn about all the nuances of liberalism.

Here’s another nice news item. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, just published a piece in which he points out that Sarah Palin may just possibly be a friend of the Jews.

Here’s a piece of his glowing quasi-endorsement:

During last week’s highly-publicized interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, Palin also voiced in no uncertain terms her support for Israel. Responding to a question about the proper U.S. reaction to a potential Israeli military strike to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Palin said, “First, we are friends of Israel, and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.”

Are we finally making headway here? Sure seems like it.

By the way, she said that without a teleprompter.

Life is full of problems at the moment, but thankfully, there are little bits of hope embedded in the muck. I hope Zucker manages to spread his open-mindedness.

We Need More War Toys

Over the last week or two, I’ve been having a lot of fun, reading some books I rescued from my grandparents’ house. My grandfather passed in ’94, and my grandmother died in ’03, and when it was over, the daughters and grandchildren were invited to go to the house and take any personal items we wanted, to keep them from being auctioned. Among my finds: several old books by a man named Al Avery. The titles all start with “A Yankee Flier.” I have “A Yankee Flier in North Africa,” “A Yankee Flier in the Far East,” “A Yankee Flier Over Berlin,” and “A Yankee Flier Over Normandy.” They were published between 1942 and 1945, and they were aimed at boys.

Do we still publish books for kids, in which we celebrate our military heroes? I sure hope so. I’m sure the extremists who dominate our educational system would be appalled by a child’s book that contains favorable mention of military service, combat, and weapons. But kids raised on this stuff are bound to be healthier than those brought up on vegetarian propaganda aimed at obliterating traditional sex roles and convincing girls they love math and want to be firemen.

I took the books because I remembered reading them in years past. I enjoyed them tremendously at the time. They’re not great literature. Just fun stories about three pilots trying to save the world from Hitler and the imperialist Japanese. The main character is Stan Wilson, an American who got into the war by joining the RAF. His pals are March Allison, a British pilot, and and Irishman named Bill O’Malley. Wilson and Allison are typical pulp heroes. O’Malley has a wild temper, eats about three pies a day, and calls people he doesn’t like “spalpeens.” I don’t know what a spalpeen is.

You can imagine the kind of adventures they get into. They do all sorts of risky things, violating orders and trying new tactics. Sometimes they get captured, but they always seem to come home okay. Every time they fly, they shoot down several planes. They do things no one else seems to be able to do.

What are kids reading these days? Crap, I’ll bet. I used to read about dinosaurs and the Pony Express. I watched Superman every day. I watched Jungle Jim. I didn’t worry too much about sex roles. I didn’t know what sex was. I thought fighter planes were cool. I was positive (still am) that America was the best country in the universe.

I admit, the Yankee Flier books are not without their problems. They are not overly flattering in their description of the Japanese (although they treat our Chinese allies respectfully). And it’s disturbing that O’Malley began the war as a volunteer for the Luftwaffe. I suppose our horror of Nazism wasn’t very well developed when the books were written. Still, I would not hesitate to recommend them to a kid in need of something to read.

The author seems to know a few things about planes and combat. His descriptions of the technical aspects of the machines is interesting.

I can’t figure out why the books were in that house. My grandfather had four daughters and no sons.

These days, I’m sure the academic disciples of Saul Alinsky are doing what leftists historically do: severing the link between enlightened kids and their stupid, backward parents. I’m sure they’re filling kids with poisonous messages. It’s okay if Daddy has a shotgun; he’s too dumb to know any better. You can take it to the recycling center as soon as you can put him in a home. It’s okay if Mommy goes to church, and you can go too, if you promise not to believe.

The left’s policy of dividing the generations is not only evil; it’s stupid. It may seem smart when you’re a twenty-year-old “community organizer,” and hippie girls are falling in bed with you, but it looks different when you’re an old liberal whose kids have no respect for him, because they have absorbed the notion that old equals useless. We all get old, if we live, and eventually, we have to face the mercy of the kids we raised. That’s a scary thought, if your kids saw you treat your parents badly and dismiss their advice.

The chasm between young and old is one of the great sicknesses of our culture. The generations were not pitted against each other in this way in the past. They associated with each other freely. In modern times, it’s very common to see a concert where almost all of the attendees are under twenty. That’s not how things worked a hundred and fifty years ago. And what do people do at those concerts? Stupid things they would not do, if their parents were watching. They take drugs. They perform sexual acts in public. They drink until they vomit. The way we act when our elders aren’t around should tell us how much we need their presence.

I’m sure there have always been young people who thought they knew more than they actually did. But now the idea that the young are superior is pervasive and unassailable. We even see it in advertisements. Mac, in his mid-twenties, is a genius. PC, at forty, is a moron.

The generations should not be segregated. People learn and improve with age, and that process is painful and involves a lot of bruises. We’re supposed to associate with our elders and learn from them, so we don’t repeat their mistakes. Instead, young people avoid their elders and snigger at them. Barack Obama wants us to believe that John McCain is incapable of doing a good job as President, because he’s not sitting around all day with his thumbs on a Blackberry (an impossibility, due to his war injuries). Obama makes fun of him with a commercial featuring a disco ball. Whatever McCain’s flaws may be, his age is an asset, not a liability. Surely a man who has suffered as he has, and who has worked so long as a legislator, has a few things to teach us. It’s disgusting that there are Americans who even entertained the possibility that the age-based attack was above contempt.

A culture that venerates youth is doomed. Even the Bible says so. Youth-worship is not normal, and it’s not universal. There are segments of society in which age is respected more, and those segments have more strength than society at large.

“Honor thy father and thy mother,” the Bible says. Where does it say, “Children are our teachers?” Nowhere. Only a fool would say that. When you cut yourself off from previous generations, you are like a tree that amputates its own roots. I’ve made my share of errors in this area, and I deplore them.

We are really in trouble, when we start taking guidance from the people who know the least about life.

I’m glad I preserved those books. They remind me of the way we were supposed to be, and the way we may be again, if God is remarkably patient and kind to us.

You Can Help

As many of you know, Jim from Smoke on the Water lives in the Galveston, area. I mentioned this a while back. He closed on a home recently, and now he has had to deal with hurricane Ike. He and his first mate Iris had to evacuate.

This morning I gave Val Prieto Jim’s cell number, and Val called to check up on him. He says his garage got a nice bath, but that the damage to the house is limited to some minor carpet stuff. Hooray for that. He and Iris will not be able to return to the house full-time for days or weeks. That’s bad. After Andrew, life was rough, but at least they let me sweat and moan in my own home.

Jim has an idea about renting an RV or camper or something. That will probably be hard, in the Houston area right now. If any of you have suggestions, fire away.

As always, prayer is indicated.

Speaking of prayer, here’s a good opportunity for you. Reader Ed knows some missionaries in southern India, in the state of Karnataka. They say persecution is on the rise:

Dear Friends,

We are writing in special request of prayer. Our State of Karnataka has been seeing an alarming rise in persecution in the last several months .Our current State government has declared that they will allow no churches to be built and have requested that police refrain from interfering in any church attacks. In the past two weeks 10 churches have been attacked, burned or vandalized. Three weeks ago one of our staff pastors was forced over on the road and roughed up by a group of radicals. This Sunday in our city, many churches, including ours, were scoped out by groups of men who are strategizing the attacks they hope to carry out in the next month. On Monday, Tim will be going with a group of pastors from our city to Bangalore. They will be meeting with the Minister of Human Rights for India. Please pray for Gods favor and power to be on them. Also pray for supernatural peace and strength for all of our pastors and congregations. Christ is the Rock on which we stand and in Him we put our trust!

I said I’d put the request on my blog. I know a lot of you will be happy to see it, and to lend your efforts in prayer.

I Kid

I’m reading about today’s Wall Street mess. I can’t believe it. Can someone help me understand how top investment professionals were stupid enough, en masse, to believe a housing bubble could go on forever, and how they could compound their stupidity by lending money to people who could not repay them?

I can’t figure it out. One thing no one seems to mention is the minority angle. The government pressured lenders to give money to minority borrowers, and lenders agreed, turning a blind eye to credit reports, and look what happened. Another victory for socialism. What a wonderful equal outcome. Minority members with low-paying jobs finally got houses just as nice as everyone else’s. And now they’re being thrown out of them, just in time to see Barack Obama lose the election. What a crappy year for them.

People say adjustable rates are the problem. That’s the PC thing to say. The reality is, a lot of borrowers never had a prayer in hell of paying, regardless of the interest rate.

Regarding the bubble thing, when are human beings going to learn that Ponzi schemes don’t work? That’s what this was. You buy a house. In six months, you sell it for 120% of what you paid. Six months later, the buyer sells it for 120% of what he paid. And so on. And so on. Eventually, somebody can’t pay! That’s just how math is. At the end of the day, houses are things people have to be able to afford. You can’t charge infinity for a house, no matter how long the mortgage runs.

A few years back, nice houses in this area sold for $250,000. At the peak of the bubble, they sold for maybe 900. What kind of fool could think that was going to last? A long time ago, my mother–a realtor–sold a house in this area to a firefighter. Can firefighters afford $900,000 houses? I don’t think so. The supply of expensive houses has expanded dramatically, and the supply of affordable houses has shriveled. And the supply of people who can buy expensive houses has declined. That is not a system at equilibrium.

Now even responsible people have to scramble. Got money in investment or savings accounts? Better make sure it’s insured. If not, you could lose a bunch of it. Got $200,000 in one bank? Only half of it is safe. Make sure you don’t lose it, because if Wall Street continues to falter, in a year, you might be able to buy four nice homes with it.

When I was in law school, I traded stocks. I knew there was a tech bubble. When the collapse started in earnest, I sold. I didn’t quite catch the peak. Other people laughed at me and said I should hold on. But I knew my stocks were overvalued, and I needed to pay my tuition. I got involved in the bubble, but I was too scared to be greedy. I think I took the right approach. I know people who came out of the tech crash with no retirement money. How could they let that happen? I’ll bet some of those same people just got caught flipping houses.

Actually, now that I think about it, I know two people who got caught with four expensive properties. I should have asked you all to do me a favor and say a prayer for them. They really need a solution. They’re wonderful people, but they can’t seem to get a handle on common sense. They should be enjoying retirement, but their lives are full of stress.

The Book of Proverbs says get rich quick schemes don’t work. It really says that. I’m paraphrasing, but it says that.

I have to tell you, when something this improbable happens, I tend to assume something supernatural is going on. This mistake was so obvious, and so many bright people made it, it can’t all be natural. Surely we are not that dumb. I recall a Biblical passage about God putting a hook in someone’s nose, to lure him into a difficult situation. I think that’s right; maybe some of you know what I’m talking about. I believe that still happens.

Sometimes I think we are headed for tough times, and God sent us John McCain so we would have someone mean enough and tough enough to watch over us. I think that’s how we ended up with George Bush. Imagine Gore, kowtowing and apologizing to the terrorists. We would have been vaporized.

I hope the worst of this mess is behind us. It would be fantastic to see all those new homeowners manage to stay where they are.

Some Fates are too Horrible to Contemplate

I had the funniest thought a few minutes ago.

I was watching a brokerage commercial, and it featured a middle-aged guy and his wife. He was wearing a baby-blue velour windbreaker type thing, which right away gives you a clue what his life is like (“It’s on SALE. You’ll WEAR IT”). His wife was talking about investing, and he kept saying he wanted to invest in a spiffy car. And she kept putting the lid on that suggestion, in a way that suggested she was used to shutting him down (Sex? Forget it! We did it in 1989!”).

It occurred to me that it would be funny if a third character walked into the frame, handed him a revolver with one round in the chamber, and said, “You know what to do.”

Black humor. Maybe some day I’ll get it out of my system. But it got me thinking. When is it okay to kill yourself? I am not the world’s leading authority on Catholicism, but I believe they consider it an unpardonable sin. I’m not sure if other churches have taken clear positions on it.

So often, in movies, you see people kill themselves, or plan to kill themselves, to avoid suffering. Could you do that? I’d be more scared of God than of whatever I had to face here. Earthly suffering is only temporary. Here, only your body can be destroyed. The Bible says God can permanently destroy your soul.

I also wonder: if killing yourself is a sin, how far can you go in military service, without dooming yourself? If you jump on a grenade to save your friends, surely that’s okay. But what if you fly a plane into the side of a ship? How much slack do you get? Where is the dividing line?

Today I was reading about assisted suicide and euthanasia. It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with refusing treatment. You shouldn’t be forced to exert yourself to save your own life. But acting affirmatively to kill yourself…no matter how you slice it, that’s suicide. Isn’t it wrong to do that, or to take any part in it?

The Pope (the Catholic one, not the other one) just gave a speech in which he said people should learn to accept their destiny and leave the earth when God chooses to take them. I think he’s right. Right now there’s a somewhat bogus debate going on, about using cells from aborted babies to keep people alive or make their lives better (it’s bogus, because so far, fetal cells have not proven useful). The practice of taking from the young to save the old is unnatural. The natural order dictates that the old sacrifice to preserve the young. It’s sick to carve up a baby to extend the life of an adult. For that matter, it’s sick to carve up a baby to prevent an adult who conceived it from being inconvenienced for a few months. Imagine what life might be like, if we ever reached the point where unborn life had no value at all, and we were able to use fetal tissue to keep adults alive. The world could become crowded with people who refuse to die. People who refuse to participate in a transition which is a natural part of our existence. It’s disgusting, if you think about it.

Being born is probably very unpleasant. Kids often hate their first days of school. Getting married is scary; so is having kids. So is retiring. Life is full of scary transitions, but healthy people don’t run from them. Death is one of these transitions.

A lot of my relatives are dead. I wish that were not the case, but when a loved one goes, I can tell you, no matter how bad you think it will be, the world doesn’t end. And death itself appears to be painless. I don’t think it’s healthy to fear it. We should avoid stupid risks like smoking and base-jumping. We should try to take care of ourselves so we’ll be around to spend plenty of time with our loved ones. But when it’s time, it’s time. It would be disgraceful to harm an innocent person, just to postpone something which is fundamentally healthy and right.

Sometimes a little part of me looks forward to death, simply because this world is so screwed up. Presumably, things make more sense in the supernatural realm. I certainly hope that’s true. I hate to think we’ll have to put up with corruption and injury and disease and taxes in the hereafter. The world is a mess. It’s easy to forget that, if you live in America. But look at the rest of the globe. Sudan. Somalia. Bangladesh. Any Muslim country you can name. For most human beings, life is very bad.

As a Christian, I know we live in a weird plane, where we are influenced and surrounded by beings we can’t see. If you’re a Christian, too, you should find that annoying. I do. Wouldn’t you love to get your hands around the neck of a demon just once? And just rip its rotten eyes out? Maybe it made someone deaf. Maybe it gave your grandmother, or a whole bunch of grandmothers, cancer. Wouldn’t you love an opportunity to strap it to a pole and roast it over the fire of hell and hear it scream? I know I would. At the very least, I would like to be able to see my enemies. Nothing is as frustrating as being tormented by someone you can’t identify or strike back at.

I know some people will think I sound crazy when I talk about demons. But Jesus believed in them, and he even had conversations with them. If you’re a Christian, that should mean something to you.

Truthfully, I think corporeal life is less natural than the state in which spirits exist. There are supposedly a number of types of intelligent beings with spirits, and we’re the only ones that live in the material universe, and we’re the only ones that die. Our state is unstable. It ends. The state of spirits is at equilibrium. It’s eternal. Maybe it’s more natural to be dead than alive.

If I get sick, I plan to stick it out to the end. I’ll take painkillers by the bucket, if necessary. I’m no John Wayne. But I can’t see arriving at the Pearly Gates with my own blood on my hands.

Fill it With Treasure

I decided to take down my post about PJTV. I think it was a good Sabbath move, and besides, people like me, who pointed out PJM’s flaws, received a lot of abuse when it failed to succeed. As if criticism somehow prevented PJM from working. I don’t want to get involved in any more pointless squabbles.

I try not to stir up trouble these days. I try to avoid gossip and instigation.

It’s Sunday. Might as well write about religion.

My new thing is memorizing scripture. I used to do this a long time ago, but I quit. I started again. I think every Christian has a duty to do it. If you have to refer to the Bible every time you need guidance, you’re not very well prepared to face life. Much better to know the answers by heart. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will remind you of applicable passages when you need them.

I’m memorizing some Psalms. What a strange work. I think they got me in trouble a few times in the past. Looking at them, I concluded it was okay to pray for your enemies to be mashed from above. They do seem to condone that kind of prayer. On the other hand, somewhere in there, one of the psalmists says something about saying prayers for his enemies that he could just as easily have said for himself. And we all know what Jesus said about how we should treat our enemies. I now think it’s okay to pray for my enemies to face problems while they continue to do stupid, evil things to harm me. I couldn’t fault someone for praying prayers like that about me, if I were doing something reprehensible.

Another odd thing about the Psalms is their prophetic nature. A lot of the passages in the Psalms seem sort of pointless unless you look at them from your perspective as a believer. If I were an atheist–maybe even if I were Jewish–I would have a hard time making sense of some of the verses. But because I’m a Christian, they seem to confirm that what I believe is true.

For example, the 63rd Psalm. It begins, “Oh God, thou art my god.” Isn’t that an admission that there is idolatry in the world, and that you choose to reject it? Seems like it to me. You could always pick another “god.”

Then it says, “Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.”

Here’s how I see this. The world was given to man to run, and we chose to give up authority. So now it’s a place where the presence of God, which should be with us much of the time, is tough to enter into. The world is a dry and thirsty place, especially when you don’t live right. But from time to time, God manifests Himself. Once you’ve experienced it, you long for it to happen again.

I’m not completely sure what the sanctuary is, but my guess is that it refers to the area in the temple or tabernacle where the ark of the covenant stood. It was a place where the high priest encountered God very directly, perceiving Him with his senses and not just by faith. Let’s see…Google seems to confirm this.

A while back, I wrote about a couple of experiences I had, in which I felt a warm, loving presence in physical contact with me. At the time, I felt certain what I felt was the presence of Jesus. Now that these experiences are behind me, I feel the way the psalmist did. “Thirst” is a good way to describe it. I miss the sensation. I wish it would return. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that what I miss is the same thing a person who had been in the sanctuary would miss. I don’t think I got the same experience the high priests received; I think I just got a piece of it. Nonetheless, it was enough to make me want more. You would have to be crazy not to want to be near a being that radiated peace and love and assurance the way a wood stove radiates heat. The psalm says “thy lovingkindness is better than life.” I have to wonder if that’s a reference to the sensation of being in God’s presence.

The rest of the psalm is also consistent with the experiences of modern Christians. “Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” This act is so common, it appears to be instinctive. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” That kind of satisfaction is what you feel when God is near. And it’s funny how often these things happen when you’re lying awake in bed, as the psalm implies.

The experience of memorization–the repetition–helps you see new meaning in passages like these. It lifts them off the page and brings them to life. The most important property of great literature is resonance: we read books written by strangers, and from time to time, we realize we have felt things these strangers have felt. This is why people read great works of fiction; we see ourselves in them. We realize we are not unique in our experiences. The Bible has this same property, in a much deeper and more useful way. And memorization amplifies the sensation, making it more vivid and lasting.

I wish I had worked harder at this before my memory got so bad. But it still pays off.

I think having this stuff in my memory will improve me as a person. When you memorize scripture, no matter where you are, it’s always inside you, shaping your thoughts and acts.

I think the King James Version is best for this. It may not be the best translation, but as a piece of writing, it far exceeds anything else on the market. If there are problems with a few of the words, it won’t matter, because surely you’ll remember those problems, just as you remember the verses.