iPandora

…is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money

~Margaret Thatcher

I’m having a difficult time bringing myself into the discipline to write. So here’s something else I do.

I play piano. Have for 20 years. Thanks to my mom and various teachers, I enjoy it.

This is an original improvisation I developed while killing time in the early hours before a wedding in October.

I call it “Muse upon a wedding”

So, first we have a large number of nominees that have not paid their taxes. Second, we have a state run media service. Third, we are now being threatened to watch our words when discussing a political appointment.

Can anyone spell Anarchy. Sure we still have a governmental structure but does any respect of that structure really exist. Actually it does. That is why Obama is still the President. However, the problem is that there is no respect of the governmental structure from inside the government.

Point in fact, the government now owns GM (why isn’t GM just giving out free cars now? they have received enough money). This is not the government owning a government industry but rather the government owning a part of the private industry and crossing a sacred barrier that will probably never be able to be built again.

The government is filled with people who lie to the populace by not filing their taxes right, lying under oath (hm . . . does that mean they don’t take their oaths as lawmakers seriously?), and then run a state media service to protect their god from any negativity.

On top of our government not following the laws they make, they also support the reforming of the laws in our court system and the abuse of that system from the bench.

And now they want a 10% VAT tax . . . what are we, their next paycheck?

I am not called to politics (yet). They wear me down and wear me out. However, I pray hard that a leader would step up and change the tide. We have reached the point where we need some type of revolution. We cannot bring a leader to build on this system, we need to bring in a leader to destroy what has been built and give us a new start.

Crisis is the best thing that can happen to California. However, California is not going to do any better or learn a thing from this crisis due to the paradigm of the government.

As Governor Schwarzenegger correctly stated, the state government is in trouble and cannot just print more money like the federal government (though the federal government really can’t do that either without destroying themselves).

So, instead California must take steps to fix this problem. Their steps could turn them into the leading state again and make them a model for the other states. California is in debt do to overspending but cutting any part of the government would hurt someone. However, California still has to cut 25% of its budget no matter what.

The solution is simple. The California government needs to increase the value of the dollar to the government. Instead of trying to figure which part of government should inherit more money, there needs to be a search to find out how to get more for the dollar. Money for schools needs to be cut and then returned based on performance. Or, even better, schools need to be privatized (and districts abolished) and made to compete for the money. The DMV needs to be privatized or forced to run on only its receipts. Government employee contracts need to be privatized (the unions would just love this). The operations of state parks and museums needs to be turned over to private hands, or the parks needs to be required to operate on the money they generate.

In short, the government needs to require that its services operate on the money they generate and the services that do not generate money need to be contractually privatized or given funding based on performance.

However, California will not do this. Instead, they will prepare themselves for even greater failure.The reason is because the paradigm of a politician (at least in our society) is to throw money at the problem. The examples of this expound on every level of government. Right now we are about to throw $4 Billion more dollars at GM before they have even submitted a new restructuring plan (hm . . . why don’t they just stop selling cars and give them away now?). And where did all that stimulus money go? It just got thrown at the problem, but did it fix the problem? The examples just keep going on . . . Money does not fix the problem. Thought , precision, and execution brought on by competition solves the problem.

However, all that California will do this year is cut budgets and hurt people. There will be no inspiration to improve value or production. Instead, ineffective people will lose the money they needed to be ineffective and they will just stop. That is the future, that is what will happen in California . . . and your state and my state are going to be next.

So, the British government is under intense criticism right now. However, it has nothing to do with their foreign policy or their international interactions. It has to do with a miss use and abuse of the public money.

A member of the British government just publicly denounced the “claims” that are leaking out and said that the papers should stop leaking the information. However, all I can ask is why?

Accountability has always been regarded as the most painful, but most effective, method of keeping track of progress. Many of us have been through times where we learned the value of accountability. Often these situations hurt, but they always helped. So, why is the British government so afraid.

Because they are about to hurt. After years of fighting for transparency (hmm . . . that word sound familiar), the British populace have now learned that the public funds that are to be used to support a second house for members of the government, have been used for vacations, relatives houses, pornography, and many other trivial expenses not related to the running of the government. The populace is not happy. It has been remarked that they look at the members of government with disdain and every government member that has been caught in the scandal (about 1/5 of Parliament, and more information is still leaking out) is expected to not be reelected or is offering not to run again.

Some members of the government are lamenting this public outrage. But why shouldn’t the public be outraged. After all, public funds were misused, public confidence was abused, and now the government is berating the populace for wanting honesty. Yeah, I would be enraged.

I honestly don’t care about the British government though. However, the government closer to home isn’t too different. Sure, they are probably not abusing public money for private uses too much . . . but they are fighting for earmarks, they are involved in petty politics, and many of them disdain the populace that elects them.

In fact, the general attitude of many politicians (and the basis of any form of socialism) is that the populace is incapable of self government and that the established government must become their god. This god they have made though ignores our pleas for reasoning and bipartisan efforts.

Instead, many politicians have lost touch with reality and live in a petty world. After all, many of them do not work in reality (immunity, not paying taxes, dictating their own income, passing unconstitutional laws without hesitation) and yet they feel like they are the answer to our problems.

They should be scared, transparency is a scary thing and eventually it will come. It was seen recently in California where the government proposed a myriad of proposition that would increase taxes and employ funny economics in order to balance a budget. The only issue is that the government created the problem when they (unconstitutionally) refused to balance recent budgets. However, the electorate voted every proposition down (most by 60/40 margins) except the propositions that suspended politicians wages in times of a budget deficit. The people aren’t stupid.

If politicians are smart, they would become very careful right now. Sure, they have nothing to fear if all they need to do is apologize about not paying the taxes, but a lifestyle of cheating the public is a dangerous one, and payday may be right around the corner.

As of a few days ago, Grace and I’ve been married 9 months. And our son is due to emerge into the world in 3 more months.

Marriage has settled down a little, perhaps. I feel safe and comfortable around my wife and maybe take her a little for granted, too. I’m less and less capable of imagining myself in a single state and marriage, such as my wife and I enjoy, is my default position, as it were.

As the seasons change and weather brightens, the days lengthen and warm, and the sun climbs higher in the sky, there is less of a ’stuck’ feeling in being cooped up in the apartment together and more of an “I prefer being with her” choice.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy cuddling with my wife and enjoying her closeness and proximity during the winter, but there is something about no longer being compelled by the elements that makes marriage even better to me.

And she’s growing. Our son and his accompanying entrails and apparatus are definitely showing in Grace and we both enjoy feeling him move about. Or, I enjoy it all the time, and sometimes she doesn’t. Like when he pushes on the inside of her ribs, or when she’s trying to sit still in church. Our son really becomes active in church, it seems.

In 3 months he’s scheduled to make his grand debut, and I’m facing fatherhood.

The pregnancy website told me today I’m experiencing hormonal swings right now: testosterone levels are falling and estrogen levels are rising. So the lipstick and nail polish I’m wearing are completely understandable. It’s the high heels I can’t seem to explain away.

In a darwinian perspective, this is my body working against my darwinian male desires for independence to create a nurturing ability in me.

In a Christian perspective, I’m amazed that God made these natural systems that work just so changing the very attitudes through the chemical balance of the male to bring about a more nurturing attitude.

But all that to say: Summer is coming, life is good and getting better, I can’t wait to meet my son (I finished painting his room and we’ve nearly got all the furniture we need for him), and I (still) love my wife.

I’m truly blessed beyond all measure and thank God for His amazing work in my life heretofore.

Now for the future.

So, the swine flu is going to kill you, right?

Let me put this into perspective. Right now there are about 160 reported deaths from the swine flu world wide. This is not the number infected, but the number killed. But what does this number really mean.

First, compare this 160 deaths world wide to the 36,000 people who die each year in the U.S. to the common flu. In other words we are more worried about a disease that is at least 225 time less likely to kill us then the common flu.

So how has this flu affected the world population of over 6 billion people? Well, run the math and you realize that only .000002% of the world population has died from this disease, as opposed to the .01% of the world population that has been killed by genocide in Sudan since 2003 (675,000).

So why is there the worry? By last numbers there is between 2600 and 2700 reported cases of this flu for which there is supposedly no natural immunity. The fear is that a single sneeze could effect hundreds of people which could lead to a pandemic.

It is time for brief lesson on disease. Most  diseases inhabit our body for at least a day before they exhibit symptoms. This is because the symptoms are usually the result of the disease attacking our body and our body using its resources to attack the disease. In fact, for many cases of the common cold, by the time you exhibit symptoms, the cold is already destroyed in your body and your body is just tired from the fight.

So, I get the swine flu and a day later I exhibit symptoms and am quarantined, etc. How many people did I interact with the day before? How many hands did I shake? How many times did I lick my finger and rub it against something?

How many people did those 2700 confirmed cases interact with before (and even after) the disease surfaced? I would estimate about 54,000 people (20 interactions per person). So why aren’t there 54,000 people infected. Why aren’t we all wiped out as our body has “no natural defenses”?

The reason is because this is a created or imagined disease. It is sort of like the monster you feared when you were younger because you believed he was in your closet. There was some minimal evidence of a monster (boards creaking, darkness), but the reality was that your mind created the monster and cause you to be afraid of him.

So we have this monster before us. There is some evidence before us as we look at the deaths and infections, but the reality is that we have allowed ourselves to be scared into a fear. The media has become our brain as they show pictures of people wiping the legs of a school desk (honestly, who will be licking the legs of a school desk?) and have traveled to Mexico to show the place this all started and have told us that buildings have been shut down for this virus.

This is the monster that we have allowed our brain to create a monster for us where, in reality, there is nothing (or almost nothing). Sure, we should be concerned about this, but worried? No way.

In fact, what this really reminds me of is the movie “Wag the Dog”. Anyone seen it? The premise is that a “war” is made up by the political administration so that people will be distracted from the real issues surrounding the administration. Our media, finding nothing to report on the administration (since the administration is doing nothing good, but the media can’t report that) needed something else to scare us with. Something to distract us from the real news. Their answer . . . Thank God for Swine Flu!

The reality is that AIDS and HIV continue to kill millions, genocide continues to be acceptable in Africa, abortions of black babies continues to exceed the number of live births of black babies, and we recently rewarded large companies dieing in a capitalist society by changing the rules for them. But no, the real news that we should all “obviously” be worried about is that a disease that pales in comparison to any other disaster we have been facing for years may be sitting at our door ready to pounce on us when we are not looking.

I, [print your name here] (heretofore referred to as “The Lady”), being of sound mind, have entered into a relationship with [print guy’s name here] (heretofore referred to as “The Man”). By signing below, I hereby agree to abide by all the rules as set out within this contract in perpetuity.

Clause 1: Dates
A. The Lady will eat more than a side salad.

B. The Man will not be expected to plan every date. He will be chivalrous, but he will not be the cruise director of the relationship.

C. If The Lady would like to attend an event that she knows The Man will despise, she is advised to do so with other people (See Clause 4: Extra-Curricular Activities). However, should she deem a night at the ballet, opera, or foreign movie house to be a necessity within the scope of the relationship, she should make plans (transportation, tickets, etc.) for this evening herself.

Rule C-1 By accepting this Lady-partisan date, The Man will be guaranteed one (1) date on which both parties participate in an activity of his choice—including, but not limited to: Attending an athletic event, watching a martial-arts movie, or going out for a large BBQ dinner.

Clause 2: Dialogue

A. The Lady will never discuss an ex-boyfriend.

Rule A-1 The above may be broken if The Lady mentions a deep and abiding flaw in the ex-boyfriend, while also discussing ways in which The Man betters said ex.

B. If The Lady wants something or wants to know something, she will ask. There will be no hints or guessing games.

C. Any cute nicknames that The Lady has devised for The Man will never be spoken in public. See Clause 5, Section a, Subsection 3 for explanation.

Rule C-1 Furthermore, The Lady may not devise any nickname that includes a diminutive or that is spoken in baby-voice (e.g., “Little John” or “Snuggle Bear”).

Clause 3: Family

A. The Lady will not ask The Man to meet her family until at least one month of dating has been completed.

B. Upon meeting The Man’s mother, The Lady will try to learn as many of Mother Man’s recipes as possible. And yes, learning my mother’s mashed potatoes recipe IS very important for the future of this relationship.

Clause 4: Extracurricular Activities

A. The Man will be guaranteed at least one Guys’ Night per week, chosen at his discretion. He will also retain at least two extra “floating” Guys’ Nights per month in case of an important sporting event or should an impromptu post-work visit to a LAN Party.

B. The Lady can never be angry with a man for attending Guys’ Night.

C. The Lady will not call The Man more than once per Guys’ Night.

D. The Lady is encouraged to go out with her own friends as a means for keeping her independence and sense of self. However, there are ground rules for these engagements:

Rule D-1 She will not ask The Man to attend any event on the day of a televised athletic match, any event that involves the phrase “pot luck,” or any event that celebrates the birth of a child, impending or otherwise.

Rule D-2 She will not expect The Man to attend a gathering solely because the boyfriend/husband of The Lady’s Friend will also be in attendance. Misery does not make good company.

Rule D-3 No. Ex-Boyfriends. Ever.

Clause 5: Love

A. Should the two parties remain together long enough to reach Relationship Level: Serious, The Man understands that he will, at some point, be called upon to vocally express his appreciation of The Lady in the strongest method possible. When the time comes, the following rules shall govern the use of Those Three Words Which Shall Not Yet Be Spoken.

Rule A-1 The Lady will be the first party to speak the phrase. She will do so clearly and while making eye contact so that The Man knows it is he who is being spoken to. The Lady will allow the man at least five (5) minutes to respond in kind. This reprieve does not mean he doesn’t feel the same way, only that he is apt to be flustered, frightened, and suddenly stricken with cotton-mouth.

Rule A-2 After the first time the Man arranges the words “I,” “you,” and “love” into a sentence, he will not be required to do so in response every time The Lady speaks the phrase. The Lady will also accept “Me, too,” “Ditto,” or a high-five in return.

Rule A-3 The Lady will never speak the three-worded phrase when The Man is in the presence of either friends or co-workers. This is done out of respect for the mockery that is sure to result should he be forced to reciprocate while with said company.

By signing below, you agree to all rules as laid out in this contract, effectively guaranteeing that you will make The Man a truly happy person for the rest of his life, or until you realize that he is a loser who requires his girlfriends to sign legally binding documents.

______________________________
Print your name

______________________________
Signature

______________________________
Date

I want to ask you a very serious question . . . think about it.

Why are you here? To marry, get a job, enjoy life, make money?

I am sorry, but too often in my conversations, it seems like these are priorities of life, but guys . . . what is the value of these? NOTHING! unless . . . well, I will get back to that

Here is another question.

Do you care about your neighbors (Jesus’ definition) soul?

Think a moment about where they will go if they die. Guess what, while you are worshiping God, they will be in Hell . . . no other place. unless .  . . well, I will get back to that

What are you really doing to reach them?

Are you giving money? Is that really the answer (no). Are you spending time teaching Sunday School (a part of the answer . . . but there are more needy people out there)? Are you “showing others through your actions”? Does that really tell them who you are(no). but there is one was to reach them . . . well, I will get back to that

What are their souls worth to you?

Have you read “In His Steps” recently and are you willing to take the same challenge? Are you willing to quit your job and move to tell them about Jesus? Are they worth that much? Are you willing to pay for a hotel room for one? Are they worth that to you? Because they were worth a sovereign soul to God.

You see, until you invest in them so much that you bleed, you do not know them. You do not cars for them. Well, actually you do love them and care for them . . . but there is no way you can identify with them or make a true impact on or in them. In working with the worst of the worst, the ministry I work with has just recently begun to reach this point. After thousands of dollars worth of sacrifice, hundreds of hours worth or care, concern, and love, we are finally getting a glimpse.

What is the glimpse we got? Well, one of the girls we are working with has been doing great in church, but her mother is pressuring her to get pregnant. “She will never be good for marriage, but she can get pregnant and I need help paying the bills (she has 23 siblings).” Sure, we can condemn them and blame them for abusing the system, but does that meet their needs, get them closer to Christ, or solve their problem? Let Rush blast them for being money drains (which they should be blasted for), but our call, as called ones, it to reach beyond that and find the really issue. The issue of Christ.

So, Whose life are you touching . . . and how are you willing to touch it?

“All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”

Oh we poor unfortunate “goodlings.” We who obey the laws. We who don’t make (too many) ripples. Where is the joy over us? Where is the excitement over where we have not been?

What am I talking about? Let me start at the beginning.

Have you even known a rebel who repented? Have you ever had a sibling who was going off the deep end and changed? We have all known people who were headed for ruin and made the change and righted their ways. We have all seen the joy that surrounds the returning of the lost one. However, why isn’t there that same joy for those who remained, for those who never ran?

For many of the recovered people that we know, recovery was the hardest thing for them. They were required to deny what had defined them and turn to what they knew to be right. They had to make what was really the “ultimate” sacrifice for them. Now they need acceptance and love. Is this why we react so favorably to them? We have seen, and been inspired by their struggle and now want them to know that they are home. We want them to know that no matter what happens again, we will be there.

However, what about those who have always remained? What do we give them? What do we do for them? Common responses might include, “They know we love them,” “They have always been here and don’t care if they are a big deal or not.” However, is that the truth. I see the result of the “They know we love them” on a daily basis when I see children who have never heard their parents say “I love you”. A simple “I Love You” from me brings them to tears. Somehow, I think that they want to be special too.

Taking this to the Bible seems to show that the prodigals got the same treatment. In fact, in the parable of the prodigal son, the older son asks his father, “why can’t you make a big deal about me?” The father responds by saying, “everything I have is yours, but your brother is back.” Sure dad, everything you have is mine, but I want you to make a big deal about me too.

So what am I saying? If we look at our lives, who are we neglecting because they are always “good kids”. As we celebrate with the angels in heaven over the return of a lost brother, are we also celebrating with the angels over the continued perseverance of the Christian brother to our side who has never done anything (that we know of) to tip the boat?