Everything looks the same…..

One of the weirdest, most perceptually jarring things about the economic crisis is that everything looks the same. We are told every day and in every news venue that we are in Great Depression II, that we are in a crisis, a cataclysm, a meltdown, the credit crunch from hell, that we will lose millions of jobs, and that the great abundance is over and may never return. … And yet when you free yourself from media and go outside for a walk, everything looks . . . the same. –Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan

There is a tide in the affairs of men…

I haven’t written in a long time on here.  There are a lot of reasons, for one I have been very busy; two, when it comes to writing and reading I am not very ambitious.  These two mixed together make for a horrible blogger.  None the less, I have decided to come out of semi-blogging retirement to write about something that is becoming more and more dire…our current political situation.

There are few people that realize where we are in history and the decision before us the in these next weeks.  Robert Frost wrote a poem published in 1916 called, “The Road Not Taken;” a relatively famous poem to the literary types.  I only found out about it earlier this year when I was forced to read it for a college literature class; I even ended up having to write a paper on it.  At the time I found it rather troublesome and frankly boring to have to “waste” my time writing about a poem that was written almost a hundred years by some dead guy.  I was convinced that there were plenty of other things that I could be learning about.  However, as time has progressed I have thought a lot about those “stupid” poems and stories that I read in that class.

This brings us to today where there is not a more fitting analogy, to me, for our current political crisis, if I may, that this poem.  Mr. Frost’s poem speaks of a traveler that stood at a point with two roads before him; knowing that only one road could be traveled he stands looking down each.  They looked similar, each “grassy and wanting wear;” each “in leaves no step had trodden black.”  Finally he starts down the second road, saying “I kept the first for another day.”  Yet in his heart he knows that he will never be at the point in his life where he can come back to this decision again.  The poem ends with the following

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We (as a country) are at this point where “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”  We will look back at this point and say that this election, which ever direction it goes, “made all the difference.”  If Barack Obama wins the presidency and the Democratic Party win sweeping victories in the House and Senate it will be a dark day for our country.  I don’t personally like John McCain and I don’t know that much about Sarah Palin.**(See below when you are done reading)  But Barack Obama, his vice presidential nominee and the people supporting him stand for everything I stand against.  He wants to bring amnesty to illegal immigrants, abruptly end the war in Iraq, he is pro abortion, pro LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender), against traditional marriage, against free speech and print, against firearms, and he sat under a preacher for years that was anti white and anti America.  He is liked and supported by people like Louis Farrakhan, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad, and Communist Party USA; that in and of it self should worry people.  At first his rhetoric sounds promising, but once you keep reading you will realize that things aren’t what they seem.  If, as I said before, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party take over full control of this country things will change.  He has said all along that he will bring change, and I believe him, but I fear that change.

In closing, I don’t really know what we can do.  Honestly, I believe our time; the time of the conservative, logically thinking mild mannered people has or is coming to an end.  I am reminded of a few lines from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Unfortunately, I believe that we omitted our tide, and we lost our ventures.  Now, there is a new tide rising in the affairs of men, and I fear that they will not be as foolish.  All we can do is pray that God will be merciful on us as we begin to pay for our political apathy.

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More information on what the Obama/Biden Campaign stands for:
http://obama.3cdn.net/36ddd2f5daac41cb21_rym6bxaax.pdf
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaonFaith.pdf

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**A side note, despite what the masses of evangelicals think she is pretty irrelevant; when was the last time anyone saw Dick Cheney?  Case in point, who was George Washington’s vice president?  How about Abraham Lincoln’s?  John F. Kennedy?  Exactly.  No one remembers vice presidents.  The country doesn’t look to the vice president, especially a woman to make decisions.  Men like women, proven fact, but when crisis comes men look to other men for decisions; they look to the president, not the vice president.

life

life would be so much easier if people were more like the second squirrel.  don’t bury stuff, just let it out.

proof of the recession hoax

I knew it all along. All you hear on the news is how this country is in a recession and things are so bad and blah, blah, frick’n blah. I am so sick of hearing it I could vomit, or as a colleague of mine would say womit. (He is Indian, the dot not the feather)

I have been saying that it was all a bunch of bull and part of the plan to drive the American economy into the ground so that we have to merge with Canada and Mexico. (Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, it is a long story that I will go into in a later post.)  Out of no where the puppets, some refer to them as anchor men and women, started telling us we were in a recession and the newest thing is we should start hoarding food.  Are you kidding me?  Where did this come from? People have been irresponsible with their money for years and people have been foreclosing on their houses for almost as long. Then one day they start telling us we are in a recession.  So, is it true?  Well I sure don’t think so, and finally someone besides me said it. She wasn’t very brave, but she at least made an attempt. I will copy and paste a part of the article.

“Economy grows by only 0.6 percent in 1st quarter of 2008
Wednesday April 30, 9:14 am ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer

Economy limps ahead at a 0.6 percent pace in first quarter, better pace than expected

WASHINGTON (AP) — The bruised economy limped through the first quarter of this year at only 0.6 percent as housing and credit problems forced people and businesses alike to hunker down.

The country’s economic growth during January through March was the same as in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The statistic did not meet what economists consider the classic definition of a recession, which is a retraction of the economy. This means that although the economy is stuck in a rut, it is still managing to grow, even if modestly.”

Did you catch it the economy grew over the last three months and wasn’t any worse than it was the last quarter of last year.  So that means that we haven’t gotten any worse in 6-7 months.  Gas prices are up exponentially, along with food prices, and they are on the tv telling us every day that the economy is so bad and they still couldn’t stave off growth.  It may have been smaller that past years, but I think half of that is from the pounding of the media telling us we are in a recession and to hoard our food and money.

Don’t always believe what people say, especially when they work for CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, FoxNews, etc.

economic stimulus package

First let me start by saying that I will be glad to get a $1200 check in the mail.  But does anyone see the irony of the government giving us money to help us out?  Everyone is excited and is acting like the government is doing us some big favor.  They are giving you back a little bit of the lot of money that you gave them.  HELLO?!  Where do you think all that money came from?  It is like welfare, food stamps or government subsidized housing.  The government doesn’t have some magic ATM they get money from; they get the money from us.  Then they give it to us when we have a hard time and act like they are being charitable.  Ok picture this, you are having a hard time, money is tight and the bills are big.  I tell you you have to give me a thousand dollars, if you don’t I will start to sell off what you have till I get my thousand.  Mind you in these hard times, you have had to cut back, but I am still spending more than ever…new house, new clothes, new secretary.  Then once I get the thousand, I turn around and give you a twenty because you are having a hard time, and tell you that I know you are going through a hard time and I want to help out.  You would probably tell me to take my twenty and shove it up my…

Point being, the government is giving us our money back and we are acting like they are doing us this great favor.  I’ll be grateful when they start cutting back as much as the rest of America.  They haven’t down-sized those suburbans that they (and their security people) drive in.  They don’t car pool or cut back.  They haven’t taken pay cuts or gotten rid of the unnecessary employees they have.  What do they care?  Gas may be heading for $4 a gallon, but they aren’t paying for it.  And everyone wonders why the government hasn’t done anything about gas prices.

Hey, there are plenty of oil wells in the President’s home state, I wonder if that is just a coincidence

a good listener?

i guess blogging doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with listening, unless you are writing about it.  I guess if you read more than your write you may be a better listener, but i am not sure.

At any rate…The other day i was listening to someone who was talking about being a good listener.  What they said wasn’t complex, but it was profound.

Have you ever been listening to someone talk and then you start to think about what you are going to say in reply to what they are saying.  We all do it, instead of listening to what they are saying we are already talking back in our head.  Whether they are talking with us for advice or just as a friend.  So often we focus on what we are going to say rather than what the person talking is saying.  Next time you are in a conversation listen, without thinking about what you are going to say.  You never know, the person may actually say something important.

simple wisdom

I saw the following on a bumper sticker.  Life would be so much simpler if we could remember this one phrase.

“The greatest things in life, are not things.”

Quiet

(Written 9-April, just found it)

It is amazing how hard it is for people to keep quiet.  I have always viewed quiet people as strong people.  I guess for some people it is just their personality and those people are ok.  The people that I admire are the ones who are quiet on purpose.  Quiet is not silent, but quiet to me is controlled.  The people speak, but only once they have thought through what to say and who to say it too.  I guess this line is different for everyone.  I take that back, the past week or two has taken a lot of the guessing out.  I have found out that some of the people I know are not as quiet as once thought.  Its ok I guess, I have learned that you don’t say anything to anyone that you don’t want repeated.  Every now and then though, you hope that people will go above your expectations and surprise you.  They usually do surprise you, but rarely by exceeding your expectations.

I guess part of this goes back to the reason that we need to have secrets any way.  Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society or even just a small community where you didn’t have to keep things from other people?  Where people didn’t judge you or think differently of you.  I am not talking about hiding sin or immorality.  I am just talking about common, every day things.  Things that shouldn’t matter, but people are overly insecure and I think in some way feel in control when they tell a secret.

Well here’s to a future of no secrets and quiet; in heaven of course.  People talk about “the lion lying down with the lamb” and “no more pain and “no more tears;” that all sounds wonderful, but after the initial shock of heaven, the little things will start to affect every day life there; like no secrets, no judging, true words spoken at exactly the right time; other than God, it is the little things of heaven that will make it heavenly, at least to me.

people get ready…Jesus is coming

I am listening to an old song, from 1996, by Crystal Lewis.  It is called, you guessed it, People Get Ready…Jesus is Coming.  We hear this all the time from sarcastic bumper stickers like “look busy, Jesus is coming” to church signs like “get right, or be left.”  But do we really believe this saying?  I mean really?  If I really believed that Jesus was coming would I get to busy to do my quiet times.  If I really believed He was coming, even if it’s not soon, would I not live every minute for Him and tell everyone I come into contact.  How is it that we can hear songs like this, sing along, say we believe it and then not live it.  God, help us live, more concerned about whether or not everyone will be ready to meet Jesus, than concerned about anything else.

prepare ye the way

One of the bands that I have liked continuously over the years is Caedmon’s Call.  They covered an old song a while back called Prepare Ye the Way.  It is a beautiful song, very melodic and up-beat, piano, percussion, strings.  It is a great reminder of what we are supposed to be doing as christians.  We are to prepare the way for the Lord and for the Kingdom.  If you get a chance you should check it out, it would be worth your time.