What's for Dinner?

I like a good hot dog now and then for dinner like a lot of people, but Fido? It has been an amusing dust-up over the last 10 days of "Dog Wars" between the Presidential candidates. First Romney is accused of being an insensitive brute for putting the family pooch on top of the station wagon on the way to the beach house. Then we learn that Obama didn't transport them - he ate them! As Bill Whittle says, Obama may not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but apparently a Golden Lab is a different story.

Actually, the most interesting thing about these stories is not the stories themselves but the fact that Romney clearly has a nimble campaign organization that reacts quickly, hard, and with humor to the bilge that the Democrats routinely spoon out in Presidential campaigns. If this had been the McCain campaign of four years ago the only response to such a charge would have been crickets chirping and McCain would have been a punching bag for several nights for Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.  Instead, Obama gets to experience equal opportunity in being a punching bag. This promises to be a very interesting - and entertaining - campaign.

I Want to be Like Alfred

Just like the fellow on the left, why should I be worried that the government committee charged with such things now says that Medicare is going to run out even sooner than previously thought (in 2024) and Social Security isn't far behind in 2033? My elected representatives in Congress aren't worried, which may have something to do with the fact that they have a separate retirement system. Ditto for President Obama - he's not worried. I'm sure it will all work out. Ask Greece.

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jknihmklzkG-LeSR6VN1gKEzMwgw?docId=5b6e8181dc374865bb012d1ec2983017

Back to the Wild

Michael Barone has an insightful column today about why the old-style "lifetime" jobs like working for the Detroit auto companies at a hugely high hourly rate and then retiring with beaucoup benefits simply do not exist any longer. The challenge faced by our kids is at once more difficult and more exciting:

"The bad news for the Millennial generation that is entering its work years is that the economy of the future won't look like the economy we've grown accustomed to. The "hope and change" that Barack Obama promised hasn't produced much more than college loans that will be hard to pay off and a health care law that lets them stay on Mommy and Daddy's health insurance till they're 26.

The good news is that information technology provides the iPod/Facebook generation with the means to find work and create careers that build on their own personal talents and interests.

As Walter Russell Mead writes in his brilliant the-american-interest.com blog, "The career paths that (young people) have been trained for are narrowing, and they are going to have to launch out in directions they and their teachers didn't expect. They were bred and groomed to live as house pets; they are going to have to learn to thrive in the wild."

But, as Mead continues, "The future is filled with enterprises not yet born, jobs that don't yet exist, wealth that hasn't been created, wonderful products and life-altering service not yet given form."

Interesting, if disconcerting, but something that Americans have always excelled doing. The challenge is now passed to the next generation.

townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2012/04/23/liberal_nostalgiacs_dont_understand_jobs_of_the_future

Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

For anybody who has ever led a small group in Christian circles, especially a youth group, this question is a perennial favorite. The article below is the most in-depth discussion that I have ever seen on the subject and they all end up at the same place: there is no specific Scripture in point to say "yes." Several interesting points are made, however, that are worth reading.

C.S. Lewis speculated in The Problem of Pain that pets might gain entry to heaven via their relationship with their humans, in the same way as humans through their relationship with Christ. Acts 16:31. Another one of the writers notes that God has periodically made covenants with animals (Gen. 6:18-19; Hosea 2:18) and more importantly, when the New Earth comes it will have animals - the wolf will lie down with the lamb. Isaiah 11:6.  If wolves lie down with lambs, might not our dog Sadie lie down with kitties? Color me skeptical, at least as regards Sadie, but I cannot rule it out and that in itself is a miracle.

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/april/do-pets-go-to-heaven.html

Where are the Grownups?

I commend Peggy Noonan's column to you in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about our eroding national character. Noonan, the writer of some of Bush 41's best speeches, thinks we have a problem. She is right. Cool is cool; not performance or judgment or being resolute. The dry rot is reaching into the very heart of our nation and unfortunately for us, it invites trouble from those in the world who believe that we are the chief purveyors of such decadence to nations that do not want to be contaminated by it. The world is a serious and dangerous place. It's time for the grownups again.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303513404577354221282508372.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Youth Bows

I love it when the old guys win! Jamie Moyer at age 49 just became the oldest pitcher to ever win a major league game. In doing so, he joins other pitchers like Whitey Ford, Warren Spahn, Satchel Paige, Hoyt Wilhelm and Greg Maddux, who were true pitchers. If you have a 98 mph fastball you can just rear back and throw and blow away hitters. Eventually, though, the hitters catch up with you and/or you lose a couple of mph off your fastball and your career dissipation light begins to blink. You then either adjust or go home. Guys like Moyer and the others above never had a fastball that came close to 90 so they had to out think the batters and maintain pinpoint control from the get go. Hats off to you Jamie Moyer and all the other pitchers who have made baseball such an interesting game all these years!

www.kgw.com/sports/Moyer-49-becomes-oldest-pitcher-to-win-MLB-game-147939985.html

This is Wrong

Having been the father of the bride twice now, I know it can get a little crazy during wedding prep. A new fad in the wedding industry isn't just crazy, though, it's wrong.

On the final countdown to the walk down the aisle brides are now stopping in to their favorite clinic and having an NG tube run down their nose and throat to quickly drop a bunch of pounds. The picture to the left is a real bride. No longer will we have radiant brides - we will have young ladies on the edge of cardiac arrest. Caterer - check; florist - check; cardiologist - check. Great foundation for a marriage!

www.kgw.com/lifestyle/Feeding-tubes-take-wedding-diets-to-a-new-level-147676195.html

Vanilla Doesn't Cut It

The Presidency is now Mitt's to win or lose. A vanilla campaign - even a well-funded vanilla campaign - isn't going to cut it against President Obama. Matt Towery in his column below says this about Obama and his campaign organization:

"I have no doubt that Team Romney feels it has the secret formula to electoral success down to a science. Spend the money, shred the opponent on air and remain cool, and given current circumstances in our economy, they will win.

There is only one small part of the equation they are lacking: Barack Obama. This continued underestimation of the talents, guile and tenacity of Obama and his team simply amazes me. Barack Obama is a machine -- wired, funded, programmed and ready to destroy. My guess is that by early November, Mitt Romney will feel as if he has been hit by a Facebook, Twitter, television ad, robo-call, community-organized laden freight train. The national media will have torn him to shreds and tossed his good name to the garbage can.

To defeat Barack Obama, Romney will need all the friends he can get. He better start warming up, making deals and kissing tails now. If he does so, he would only join the club of every other person elected president. If he waits too long, or selectively chooses his conservative friends, November will be a very unpleasant month."

 townhall.com/columnists/matttowery/2012/04/12/romney_and_gop_conservatives_struggle_to_find_a_comfort_zone/page/2

Towery is right, this is how the game is played in Chicago and it is for keeps - the Marquess of Queensberry's rules do not apply. Mitt is about to go through something that he has never been through in his life. Team Obama has gone to the mattresses. It started last night with shots at his wife by an Obama adviser on national television. Is Mitt tough enough? That remains to be seen. I hope so because an Obama win will result in Obama Unbound by any law, tradition or constraints and we may never recover. This is not just another election.

Reagan a Wild-Eyed Socialist?

President Obama today said that Ronald Reagan would be seen by today's GOP as a "wild-eyed socialist" and probably would not have gotten the Republican nomination this year. Well, I guess if you are going to tell a whopper, you might as well tell a big one. In fact, this one earns him today's "Golden Cowpie" award.

 news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/reagan-wild-eyed-socialist-tax-hiking-class-warrior-162033697.html

In fact, any one who was an adult during President Reagan's tenure knows that he fought for substantial income tax cuts, just like President Kennedy. Democrats trotted out the same arguments - that tax revenues would fall. Funny thing, they increased. But then tax revenues aren't really the issue for the Donks any more. When the President says he wants the rich (loosely defined as "anyone making more than you are") to pay their "fair share" what he means is that he wants to punish success; that's what isn't fair. And who is the wild-eyed socialist here? Hint: it's not Ronald Reagan!

  
crab.rutgers.edu/~mchugh/taxes/The%20Reagan%20Tax%20Cuts%20Lessons%20for%20Tax%20Reform.htm

We're in Trouble

...when some guy named "Bubba" wins the Masters. Serious trouble.

He is Risen!

Good Friday: The Storm Before the Calm

Remember Me

President Urkel

Am I the only one who thinks that President Obama is starting to come across like this? I was especially impressed with him lecturing the Supreme Court.

An Old Soldier

Chuck Colson is in the hospital in intensive care after a brain bleed and emergency surgery last Saturday. Many remember, and some can't forget, his role as Nixon's hatchetman in the Watergate scandal, but his conversion to Christ was genuine and he has been a huge gift to the Church since then. Please remember a prayer or two for this old warrior.

religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/04/chuck-colson-in-critical-condition-after-brain-surgery/

Observation Point

Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God,  and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.   A.W. Tozer


This is an area in which I all too often fall down. Unfortunately, I am much more likely to be distressed for what I don't have rather than for the many blessings that I do have. I have a great family and friends and it is these relationships started here that will carry on into the next world. We came into this world with nothing and so will we leave it, but the ties of love and friendship will follow. That is something to be very grateful for - a gratitude that I will try to be better at expressing to God regardless of where material circumstances may find me. 

Divine Anomaly

No April Fool's blog today.  I have been thinking about the anomaly of God's Kingdom arriving in Jerusalem on the back of a mule on Palm Sunday. As strange as the sight must have been to the gathered multitude, they cheered Jesus nevertheless because they had been hearing big things about Him out in the country and now here He was in the center Jerusalem itself.  They were looking forward to seeing how the apparent Messiah would deliver them from the hated Romans and set the Jewish nation in its rightful position astride history, so they were willing to wait - a little. Unfortunately, as the week starting on Palm Sunday wore on, He did not usher in the Millenium in any way that they understood and the hosannas quickly turned to boos and then much more culminating in the Cross.

Why does God mask His power? Imagine the good that He could do. Why does He do things in ways that are so different than what we expect. Why does the Kingdom of God arrive on a mule? I suspect that the answer lies in the fact that He is serious about giving us free will.

Imagine you are an Afghan villager when an American armored division rolls into your village. Huge M1 tanks thunder by in an endless parade. Then the Bradley fighting vehicles whine by with their turrets and deadly chain guns swinging slowly side-to-side looking for targets of opportunity. Inside are heavily-armed soldiers and overhead are swarms of deadly Apache helicopters loaded with killer missiles and heavy machine guns. High overhead criss-crossing contrails mark the flight of sleek fighter aircraft on call to immediately obliterate anyone on the ground foolish enough to challenge the might of the American force.  Even if you consider Americans as infidels, you are not going to go up against all this assembled might. No, you understand power and will feign your appreciation and bow when necessary so longs as the infidels are present in such force. But when they leave...

Now consider the level of power that God could demonstrate if He really took off the wraps. What would it look like if He who called the universe into being with the blink of an eye demonstrated His presence in any semblance of His full majesty? The foundations of the earth would indeed shake, puny speck that it is in the galaxy, much less the entire universe. Man, who fancies himself as the measure of all things, would crawl into a hole and quake in the knowledge of real fear. But whatever a man's outward reaction, I doubt that for a large number of people their hearts would be any different than that of the Afghan villager in the face of the shock and awe of an American division. And that's not what God is about.

In Christ, grace has triumphed over justice. God is interested in people who truly turn to Him with an intentional and loving heart after seeking His presence, not people who are stunned into blind submission for the moment because they are overwhelmed by His power. Some day, justice will indeed be served and the wraps will be removed from His true power. But until then, He is content to wait and foreshadow His presence for those who are looking for Him. We will only see the occasional flashes of startlingly bright light behind the humdrum of our everyday existence. We will have to be content recognizing His fingerprints on things that don't quite fit the normal pattern and to experience His grace in the kindness of others. It is difficult to conceive of someone so powerful yet so patient - such a love is quite impossible in a human framework. But it arrived in the form of a man from Nazareth on a donkey in the way that we least expected Him.