Imperfection

We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world trying to get along
with other imperfect people living in this imperfect world.

But imperfect as we are, as imperfect as our world is, there are a lot of things that we all know to be true.

We all know that our Country is in one "Mell of a Hess" as my dear departed Dad was fond of saying.
Blaming each other for it isn't solving anything, and in most cases just makes it worse.
If our Country's "Mell of a Hess" is going to be fixed, it is up to each one of us, in our imperfect condition to take on invidual responsibility to fix it. We cannot depend on others to do it for us. We have to do it for ourselves. The fixing of this "Mell of a Hess"we are in has to start with changed hearts and changed minds....each of our own imperfect individual hearts and minds...

It is true that as individuals, we can't change anyone's heart and mind but our own....but we can and must lean on Almighty God and implore Him to change each one of us from the inside out.
Just think what would happen if everyone as individuals accepted these premises and acted upon them..... From the least of us to the most important of us. .....From the general populace to the President. If everyone took it upon themselves to commit to changing themselves with God's help, our imperfect world would soon be a little less imperfect and our "Mell of a Hess"would turn out to be not so much of a "Hess".

We know it is wrong to lie to or about each other... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to hate each other... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to murder each other ...so stop it!
We know it is wrong to steal from each other... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to impune anothers reputation... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to practice envy... so stop it!
We know it is wrong to be immoral... so stop it!

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. His reply was truth then, and it is truth now. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, and Love your neighbor as yourself". We can't do that perfectly, only He could, but we can surely start trying.

We may not know much, but we do know something. So let's put what we do know into action as imperfect individuals, and maybe... just maybe...it might catch on and we would be closer to fixing this "Mell of a Hess" that we are in.

Parting thought... regardless of how you lean politically, economically, and spiritually....
Our Country needs your prayers... our leaders need your prayers...
May God Bless us each and every one.

With only four weeks to go

The Richmond Times-Dispatch Monday, July 7, 2008
Excerpt from 'Letters to the Editor'

Beware Charismatic Men Who Preach 'Change'
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day. On July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40th anniversary of my independence.
On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba and a few months later I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.
I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.
When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor, and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said 'Praise the Lord.' And when the young leader said, 'I will be for change and I'll bring you change,' everyone yelled, 'Viva Fidel!'
But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent, the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.
Luckily, we would never fall--in America--for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?
Would we?
Manuel Alvarez Jr.
Sandy Hook.

Let me pose a question: By the time Sen. Obama's much-promised, soon-coming (but never discussed) change takes place, and the American people are forced to take to their boats, rafts and inner tubes ... where do we go? Cuba? Haiti? Think about that when you go out to vote on November 4 because this is the most critical election of your life. And, by the way, remember this, too. Not one single person has thought to ask Sen. Obama to be very specific in telling us precisely what changes he plans to make in our United States of America.
Jon Christian Ryter

Disgruntled?

Don't you just feel like this sometimes????

Me Too, Have a great day anyhow!

Cocky Ignorance by Thomas Sowell

Cocky Ignorance
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates.
The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response."
With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate.
Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Senator Obama says he wants the Secretary of Defense to tell him, swiftly:
"What changes will you make to provide our soldiers in theater with real access to mental health care?"
"What training has the Pentagon provided our medical professionals in theater to recognize who might be at risk of committing suicide?"
"What assistance are you providing families here at home to recognize the risk factors for suicide, so that they may help our service members get the assistance they need?"
"What programs has the Pentagon implemented to help reduce the stigma attached to mental health concerns so that service members are more likely to seek appropriate care?"
All this sounds very plausible, as so many other things that Senator Obama says sound plausible. But, like so many of those other things, it will not stand up under scrutiny.
What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.
No one needs to be reminded that suicide is a serious matter, whether among soldiers or civilians. But the media have managed to create the impression that it is military service overseas which is the cause of suicides among American troops, when civilians of the same ages and other demographic characteristics are committing suicide at an even higher rate at home.
Moreover, this is not the first time that military service overseas has been portrayed in the media as the cause of problems that are worse in the civilian population at home.
The New York Times led the way in making homicides committed by returning military veterans a front page story, blaming this on "combat trauma and the stress of deployment." Yet the New York Post showed that the homicide rate among returning veterans is a fraction of the homicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.
In other words, if military veterans are not completely immune to the problems found among civilians at home, then the veterans' problems are to be blamed on military service-- at least by the mainstream media.
Does Senator Obama know how the rate of suicides or homicides among military veterans compares to the rate of suicides or homicides among their civilian counterparts? Do the facts matter to him, as compared to an opportunity to score political points?
Perhaps even more important, do the media even care whether Senator Obama knows what he is talking about? Or is the symbolism of "the first black President" paramount, even if that means a President with cocky ignorance at a time of national danger?
The media have been crucial to Barack Obama's whole candidacy. His only achievements of national significance in his entire career have been media achievements and rhetorical achievements.
Perhaps his greatest achievement has been running as a candidate with an image wholly incompatible with what he has actually been doing for decades. This man who is now supposedly going to "unite" us has for years worked hand in glove, and contributed both his own money and the taxpayers' money, to people who have sought to divide us in the most crude demagogic ways.
With all his expressed concern about the war in Iraq, he has not set foot in Iraq for more than two years-- including the very years when progress has been made against the terrorists there.
You don't need to know the facts when you have cocky ignorance and the media behind you.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Osama and McCain by Thomas Sowell

Obama and McCain

Thomas Sowell
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober-- if not grim-- assessment of where we are.
Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand-- however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our "leaders" and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the "leaders" and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.
What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.
One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear-- or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.
There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.
But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.
Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.
At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.
Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.
On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.
Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

How Will You Decide?

HOW WILL YOU DECIDE ! A respected author and educator, Sowell is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard with a Masters in Economics from Columbia and a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago.Here is his personal perspective. Thomas Sowell is black and a highly regarded essayist.

An Old Newness By Thomas Sowell Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach. Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top. The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States. No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached. Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans. Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen. The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about. One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries. Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come.

There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them. Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults. Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of 'change' endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s. We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day. The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police. Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s.

That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

[Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.]