Good Choosing

My Mitt's VP app on my iPhone waited patiently to relay the news of his vice presidential choice. When I awoke on Saturday morning my wife said that the newspapers had it 9 hours before my app went off. Oh well. The important point, though, was that it was Paul Ryan and not just another gray suit and it signalled that we really were going to have a campaign down the stretch that deals with ideas and not vapid slogans. 

Late this week Charles Krauthammer called for Romney to take the gloves off and run a campaign that clearly exposes Democratic ideology for what it is (Socialist) and compares it with how Republicans see the world. His column ends with this summary:

"Ideas matter. The 2010 election, the most ideological since 1980, saw the voters resoundingly reject a Democratic Party that was relentlessly expanding the power, spending, scope and reach of government.

It’s worse now. Those who have struggled to create a family business, a corner restaurant, a medical practice won’t take kindly to being told that their success is a result of government-built roads and bridges.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis famously said, “This election is not about ideology; it’s about competence.” He lost. If Republicans want to win, Obama’s you-didn’t-build-that needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day. The third consecutive summer-of-recovery-that-never-came is attributable not just to Obama being in over his head but to what’s in his head: a government-centered vision of the economy and society, and the policies that flow from it.

Four years of that and this is what you get. Make the case and you win the White House."
www.tennessean.com/article/20120812/COLUMNIST0150/308120016/Charles-Krauthammer-Romney-should-disprove-Obama-s-ideologies

Krauthammer is right and Paul Ryan is just the guy to make this argument.

It isn't well known, but President Obama will not debate Ryan one-on-one because he has tried twice and lost. Ryan knows the budget inside and out and can explain in simple terms what will happen if we continue our current policies and the ruinous spending that goes with them. 

Those who know him also know that he is more interested in policies and what really is best for America than playing politics. He and Oregon's Ron Wyden, for example, co-sponsored an overhaul of Medicare that really might work to scale down costs and that offered both public and private choices to participants. It is that type of person that this country needs for such a time as this because we are in serious, serious trouble. 

My personal choice for VP was Marco Rubio. I think he would have sent a message that the Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln even today. His time will come, though, and I am sure that he will be out supporting the Romney/Ryan ticket as one of its main surrogates. That Obama is even in this race at all shows the power of demagoguery and confusion. With Paul Ryan on board, this is going to rapidly end. Let the games begin.

Some Thumbs-Downs

• President Obama telling successful business owners that they didn't build their businesses. How could so many of us forget the government's help?
• President Obama saying he wants to do for other industries what he did for GM. GM's stock price is about half of what it was before he "helped" and sales last month were off 11%. It's like a doctor giving flu shots that give the flu. Great. 
• Pedestrian bulbs on Salem city streets. A colossal waste of scarce dollars. 
• Planned Parenthood teaching sex ed in Salem schools. 

Some Attaboys

• Ashton Eaton from Bend for his gold in the Olympic Decathlon.
• Willamette U. grad Nick Symmonds for his fifth place in the 800m finals. Any other year and his time would have won him a gold medal. Not this year when all 5 top finishers broke the previous Olympic record. 
• Weathers Music for being a Salem icon in music for years. Many kids, including our own, bought or rented instruments from Weathers. They will be missed. 
• Summer. It finally made it. Enjoy the great weather while you can.

Marvin Hamlisch R.I.P.

We went to see The Sting in 1973 when it first came out and loved it. It was a clever plot, Paul Newman and Robert Redford did a great job, but what really made the movie was its musical score. I had grown up on ragtime music but somehow had missed Scott Joplin. Marvin Hamlisch, however, had not and he brilliantly wove Joplin throughout the movie setting exactly the right tone. Hamlisch died this week after a distinguished career. He scored movies, plays, and wrote individual songs as well, earning Emmy, Tony, Oscar and Grammy awards along the way - one of only 11 Americans in history to do so. He was only 68 when he died and it would have been nice to have him with us a while longer to share his talent. Thanks for the memories, though, Marvin Hamlisch; may you rest in peace.

He Who Laughs Last...

Among others roasting Mitt Romney for questioning whether London was ready for the Olympics (which the Brits themselves had questioned) was Hizzonor the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Well, here is Hizzonor stuck on a zip line that malfunctioned yesterday. What say ye now your Honor?

www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/08/01/London-Mayor-%20Johnson-caught-on-zip-line

Idol Worship

I do a lot of Christian mediation work and I am always amazed at the number of idols in people's lives, including my own. The understanding that idols are alive and well today was a revelation. By "idols" I don't mean the big boys on Easter Island or the talent (or sometimes not) on American Idol, but things that we think we must have for our security, happiness, or success. The problem with idols is that they require sacrifice. What does this mean? In fact, there is a typical progression.

We all have desires and a lot of them are merely good or neutral. For example, the fact that I want a clean car is not a bad desire at all. When a desire ratchets up to a demand, though, is where the trouble begins. Using the clean car example, if I take my kids to McDonald's after a soccer game and one of them dumps a bag of french fries in the back seat, I have a choice - do I ream them out or do we have a chat and then they clean the back seat up after we get home, maybe with my help? If my choice was #1, you can be pretty sure that an idol is buried in my psyche somewhere. Idols come in a million disguises. Some common ones are power, success, financial security, social standing, professional standing. They can be as mundane as wanting the perfect house or yard and as "holy" as wanting to be a Super Christian. We are, in fact, idol factories and churn them out in endless numbers. If you find yourself getting unreasonably angry or anxious about something, you can be fairly sure that an idol is hanging around somewhere in the background.

When a desire has morphed into a demand, the next stages in the progression of an idol are judgment and then punishment. The judgment part is obvious - You have transgressed my idol! So is the punishment piece - You must be punished! We then proceed to sacrifice our relationship with that person or persons on the altar of our idol. Punishment can be yelling or not talking to someone for several days, the sleep-on-the-couch gambit, a frosty atmosphere and all sorts of other punishments- we are all very creative at punishments. This whole process can take place in a few seconds, often with the other person not knowing exactly what they did.  This latter phenomena is a really insidious progression that frequently happens with married couples and it goes like this: "If you really loved me you would know that this is important to me. You violated my idol, so you deserve double punishment for not knowing and not caring!" Not a two-fer that I recommend! In any event, if a couple (or your kids, friends, etc.) goes though this cycle often enough, the relationship is left in tatters or dies altogether.

An idol is really another name for a "god." There is a reason that the real God lists having no other gods before Him as the First Commandment and part of the rationale for it is set out above. He ended up sacrificing for us and not the other way around. The road to health personally and in relationships is becoming aware that idols exist in our lives and dealing with them before we start sacrificing those closest to us on their cold stone altars.

A Man of Rare Courage

It's always interesting to get outside the bubble of American politics and see how others view things. Lech Walesa won a Nobel prize for his leadership of the Polish union Solidarity in freeing Poland from the orbit of Soviet serf states. In 2011 President Obama was touring Europe and asked for a one-on-one with Walesa. He was denied. Last week, Mitt Romney not only met with Walesa but unexpectedly received his endorsement in the Presidential race. Walesa is a man of rare courage and he knows leadership when he sees it. He also understands how important it is for America to be out in front leading the free world, not leading from behind. I hope a majority of Americans see as clearly two months hence.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391520/Barack-Obama-snubbed-Lech-Walesa-Warsaw-trip.html