Can't Wait for Tomorrow to End, part II OR, It's OK, There's Enough Whipped Cream Left.

Well, we have survived.  Minor damage to the premesis, all repairable with a vacuum cleaner. 

The End began yesterday.  Just like a Hollywood disaster movie, the cataclysm started on the other end of the neighborhood and rolled this direction.  Wind was displaced.  Clanging sounds were heard.  Dogs barked.  Fence posts rattled.  Trees bent and debris stirred along the streets.

Then they arrived, each one carrying packs of mischief draped from their 11-year-old frames.  You've heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, these were the Seven Packmules of Judgment.  The single most prevalent item in these bags of terror were Airsoft pellets.  A Homeland Security warning was put out against such items; still, they found their way through security.  Preppers, every last one of 'em.  One even conveyed his private stash of Wavy Lays - now that's survivalism.

I thought we had dodged the worst of it for most of the evening.  Our stockpile held out.  The toilet didn't clog, although it appeared that one or two of the survivors made an unauthorized discharge of their poop chute in the executive washroom.  But then, the unexpected.  The Birthday Boy came screaming into headquarters that toilet paper was being flung at our walls.  Upon inspection, a small gang of 6th grade females were seen fleeing in terror, their efforts completely busted.  Some still carried the rolls in their hands; caught brown-handed, I guess you could say.  Others stared, frozen.  One was so bewildered that her shoes flew off.

Our only female, a 9-year-old, who was part of our group was seized with panic and excitement.  She grabbed a broom and held it high against the assault team of other girls.  "Let's get this party started!" she declared, shaking her hips.

Eventually, the zombies were chased off.  Shoes were returned.  The 911 call was rescinded.  The National Guard stood down.  Quiet was rediscovered.  The leadership of the band of survivors prepared for rest.

Then the giant 14-year-old arrived, having temporarily joined another camp.  He trudged into headquarters and collapsed on to the carpet.  "Dad, you're carpet's so comfortable..." and trailed off to sleep.  Not wanting to awake the monster, I left him as I was when I retired.  Lights out, however, I could not fall asleep in spite of my exhaustion.  His zombie force wheezed in and out of his greasy mouth and nose, making a maddening guttural sound.  I decided I had to risk it.  I gently roused the beast and directed him to the light, down the hall where other creatures of the night had gathered.  There were no repercussions, fortunately.

The next thing I remember was looking at the clock and seeing 6 am.  The sounds across the premesis were identical to those I heard the last time I saw the clock, when it read 11:42.  I gave them an hour, and just as I predicted, Birthday Boy came in and asked when the pancakes would be ready.  There was no, "I can't believe we survived the End of the World, Dad, I love you.  Thanks for giving me NCAA 2013; we're gonna make it through this 'cause we're men."  There was only, "Don't worry we have enough whip cream left for breakfast, so get up and start cooking."

Normalcy had returned.  I have lived to tell this.

Can't Wait for Tomorrow to End, part I

It's finally here!  The end of the world!  Tomorrow, the foundation of my house will be shaken by 6th graders observing the birthday of one of their number.  Added to the doom will be a giant, trudging 14-year-old capable of spewing attitude from his nostrils, and (more to the others) a pestilential little sister.  I intend to survive this cataclysm by first hurling my stockpile of Newman's Own marinara at this horde.  Then I will retreat to my bunker where everything I need to survive is in abundance:  LOTR and Star Wars on Spotify, Sir Walter Raleigh in a pouch, and images of the patron saint of all good Calvinists who find themselves surrounded by struggle and conflict, Stonewall Jackson.

But in all seriousness, the question we should be asking as the world ends is not, Why God? but, Why can't I stop watching it?  If the world is ending, why aren't I running my middle-aged buns off in the opposite direction?  Why have I chosen to embrace it?  Why am I rubbernecking at it as if Elvis just had a car wreck?

Why can't I turn off Fox News as they blather on about the fiscal cliff, which we were never going to avoid?  Why do I keep wanting to strain apart the bewildering debate over the awful situation of a week ago, when there is no law that could have stopped it, nor will there ever be one to prevent a worse one from occuring?  Why do I keep wanting to pour out my own bowls of judgment on every one who practices Islam and hates America?  Why am I anxiously awaiting news that yet another celebrity or acquaintance or friend has crossed that last river this year?  Why this gallows humor?

I think the answer has something to do with a secret desire that the world really would end.  There, I admitted it!  I am honest, while everyone else is just whistling in the Walmart aisle.

Bring it on!  Apocalypse, you've messed with the wrong Yankee-educated Redneck.

That's all I've got for now.  Tune in tomorrow, and I'll let you know what I saw when the world ended.

All I Want for Christmas is a Creative Republican

Republicans have once again been steamrolled on messaging.  The Obama Administration and the Democrats have sold the American public on returning to the Clinton-modified fiscal policies of the 1960s.  For a party that ridiculed President Regan for his nostalgic rhetoric about America's past, the Democrats' crowing on about the good ol'days of LBJ-Clinton tax-and-spend policies is nauseatingly hypocritical.  But to give the devil and his demons their due, the White House has successfully undermined the concern of the fiscal cliff and is now preparing the country for the good things that will happen once the rich start paying their fair share.

The President's finesse on the debate has been aided by an inability of the taxpaying public to understand what will happen.  We will arrive at the fiscal cliff on January 1, we will feel the bump underneath our tires and we will keep going.  It won't be until April 15, 2014 when we will all have to file at higher marginal rates along with reduced child tax credits, among other things, that we will wonder why there's no road beneath us.  Until then, our vehicles will look like those wide shots of a stunt vehicle flying off a California ledge in slow motion.  Obama is betting that to most Americans, paying a little more in marginal rates will be no different than paying a little more at the gas pump.

But what America and even many Republicans are failing to understand is that when federal revenues go full tilt starting next year, the expected contraction of the already anemic U.S. economy will be by design.  Liberal economists want there to be a shrink to what they in their Bolshevik mentality see as a bourgeois "market culture run amok" (to borrow a phrase Newsweek once used to describe the 80s).  It's the perfect storm - the Hurricane Sandy -- of central planning:  prevent retailers from expanding so that consumers will quit being victimized, Chinese manufacturers will quit stealing our jobs, food processors will quit selling high fructose corn syrup, developers will quit getting rich, land will quit getting paved, cars won't have to drive as far to the mall and the environment will be protected.  In the minds of liberal economists, they will kill multiple birds with one stone.  They will one day congratulate themselves on getting the 47% to pay more (even though health care subsidies will go to them through the back door).

Any idea of growing the economy is irrelevant to these apparatchniks.  It was during the election and during O's first term.  And, so-called sustainable growth is viewed cyncially.  Socialists believe that spending is always a given, that there will always be a baseline for private sector sales and the funds they transfer up the line to CEOs.  They believe that corporations should retain most of the capital in an economy in an effort to control and minimize risk and waste -- venture capital they think should be coming to them and their efforts to control the unemployed through the welfare state.  The horror of this situation is that innovation is choked.  Warren Buffett, George Lucas, Craig Jelinek and everyone else who writes big checks to the DNC would be nowhere without the radical tax and spending changes of the 80s and 90s executed by Republicans.  Paul Krugman recently hummed about how we now have better food than the Twinkie to get us through a 50s and 60s-style "fair" economy; where does he think our better food today came from?!?!

Which brings us back to where we conservatives have failed, why our message is weak and simply not being heard.  We can't blame the news media - Fox News has made it their mission to hype up the fiscal cliff, but the number one news broadcaster is not breaking through.  The failure came in September 2008 when John McCain waffled on his opposition to the bank bailouts.  He had a chance, right after the GOP convention, to make himself look different than the status quo.  Republicans in the House were backing him up.  He buckled, along with a host of GOP Senators.  Yes, there would have been serious economic consequences to allowing those banks to fail, but probably no worse than what has happened anyway.  But more importantly, it would have defined the GOP as NOT the puppet of the rich, even if McCain would have lost.  This label is what has wiped out our mainstream appeal.  Attempting to fill the vacuum is the TEA Party, but their acerbic amateurism has only made Republicans more off-putting.

As a result, no one is listening to us anymore.  Even when Senator McConnell put revenue increases on the table, the Obama Administration yawned and polished up their golf balls.  The President believes that the rejection of Romney last month signaled a clear rejection of the economics which turned our nation around three decades ago.  I think he believes correctly.  I want a creative Republican for Christmas.

The Greatest Presbyterian Who Ever Lived

The following is a tribute to my former pastor, Tom Barnes. Tom was the Teaching Elder of our little P.C.A. congregation in Greenville, Westminster Presbyterian Church, from 1989-2005. He has completed his sojourn here on earth now in Robertsdale, Alabama, surrounded by his family.  This blog is being distrubed privately to those of us closest to the Barnes.

Why are we Christians? Why does God choose us, and why do we reciprocate the choice? Every now and then in life you meet someone who fully answers the question. This individual doesn't actually give a verbal answer, but instead reveals it through his life and actions, of which any words to the effect are a subset. This individual is an expression of the Master Artist. He or she is a sculpture fitted for God's garden, even if we are currently banished from the garden.

Tom Barnes was one of these individuals. He had been in private business and received the call to ministry late in life. He left behind a successful insurance agency to work as a church janitor so that he could attend seminary during the day. Simultaneously, he and his wife Mary had their third child, Claire. He joked that his fellow seminary students claimed that Tom and Mary's conception of Claire proved the scientific likelihood of Abraham and Sarah's conception of Isaac.

This is but one example of the joy that coursed through his veins. But it is his actions I will never forget. When one smarts off his mouth, God gives one a Tom Barnes to gently correct the attitude. When one abuses the gifts one has been given, God gives one a Tom Barnes. When one makes commitments one can't or won't honor, God gives one a Tom Barnes. When one is so full of himself so as to manipulate others into the same delusion, God gives one a Tom Barnes. When one’s family is in pieces, God gives a Tom Barnes. When one's sinfulness and weakness succeed in alienating one from everyone else who cares about you, God gives one a Tom Barnes. God gave me a Tom Barnes.

Presbyterians are notorious for being inward, or the "frozen chosen." Whether you are involved in a vibrant fellowship or a dying mainline congregation, the tendency of those of us whose worship is intricately woven with Calvinism tend to think we’re special. Tragically, and in disobedience to God, our openness and evangelism suffers. Not so if you ever met Tom Barnes. He understood compassion and didn’t think twice about expressing it. Presbyterians get their name from the Greek presbuteros, which means “elder.” The ancient Hebrews used it to describe the men of faithful devotion in their synagogues and institutions well before Paul used it in explaining how a church was to be organized and governed. 1 Timothy 3:2-4 lists the qualities a “presbyter” is to have. The verses read like the Apostle just met Tom Barnes. He was the greatest Presbyterian who ever lived.

When we wonder why we are Christians, God reveals to us a Tom Barnes so that we can not only see and understand the model, but we can get a glimpse of what that mysterious thing called God's glory looks like. Servants like Tom Barnes are the happy subtext to the Bible's statement that Christians become "the righteouness of Christ." When we doubt the journey we are on, we can look at the twilight faithfulness of a Tom Barnes and remember why we are Christians.

God bless you, Claire and Mary as you hold this great man by his hands as he nears the river. God bless you, Tom. Save me a place in the court of our King next to General Lee and Stonewall.

NOTE:  This blog has been revised from its original post date.

REVIEW of "Lincoln": Spoiled by Spielberg

The only redeeming quality about watching Steven Spielberg's candidate win reelection earlier this month was eagerly waiting to watch his movie about Abraham Lincoln, which was released yesterday.  Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President, my two sons and I were counting the minutes when we could see the big-budget Hollywood treatment of the man responsible for the War Between the States.

Of course, the craftsmanship of the film is exceptional.  And my biggest fear was not realized:  that we'd be stuck with another drawn out visual snoozer a'la War Horse.  This was remedied by Tony Kushner's strong script which went the route all period dramas should, which is do the best you can with historic language.  This script in turn forced Speilberg to rely on his skill with the camera to deliver the diaglogue-reliant story without falling into the boredom which can come from, say, a poorly-stage Shakespeare play.  And, I earnestly believe Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest actor of our time.  I don't fawn after his movies, but Lewis is unbelievable - or fully believeable - in this role.  I actually thought it was Lincoln from the very start.

Here, however, I have to stop the good words.  Blame the history nerd within.  Spielberg and Kushner do accomplish one lone service to the record:  that Mary Todd Lincoln (played by Sally Field) was not completely deranged as First Lady.  In fact, she was every bit the political animal Lincoln was, and that comes across masterfully by Field at sweet moments in the couple's scenes.  The tragedies of her life were hard on her, undoubtedly, and it is true that she had trouble holding herself together as the years went on, but the real Mary Todd was quite lucid and sharp in the interval.  Lincoln probably would not have made it to be the President to push through the 13th Amendment had it not been for her.

Otherwise Lincoln tells one big liberal lie that is hard to stomach, and it does it with a uniquely Leninist technique:  by embellishing history.  The film's plot is built around passage of the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives.  Passage of an amending resolution (an H.J.Res) requires a 2/3rds majority in each chamber before it is sent out to the states for ratification, as set forth by the Constitution.  In early 1865, Lincoln needed 20 votes beyond the Republican bloc in order to get this.  In the movie, an affable crew of political fixers, including an especially greasy James Spader, set out to bribe congressmen they suspect are ripe for the corrupting.

Yes, the record reveals that considerable horse-trading was done by the administration with congressmen to get passage.  The record does not, however, suggest anything to the degree of corruption portrayed in the film.  I guess having a unit of "plumbers" supported by the White House is ok as long as they are pursuing a liberal agenda.  But dirty politics aside, the deeper, uniquely liberal lie of the film is encapsualted by Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones, who was Al Gore's college roommate) at the film's end:  "The greatest measure of the 19th Century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."  In other words, the means are irrelevant as long as your motives are righteous.  Knowing of the filmmakers' mega-support of President Obama, this line is nauseating, frankly.  I was being pleasantly entertained by Spielberg, et.al, until I was forced to hear the jarring note of an Obamacare commercial.

Anyway, these are my thoughts.  Go to see it just to witness Day-Lewis' grand performance.  To keep your inner history nerd from spoiling all the fun, check out this handy article from The Kansas City Star which does the fact-checking for you.  WARNING:  spoilers.

Signature #25,674,681

We've been having some cyber adventures this week with Micah H.'s petition to the White House to allow Texas to secede.  I do not know Micah H.  I did, however, sometime when were back in the 19,000s, notice a "Trey B.," but he was from Cedar Hill, which is roughly 60 miles to the southwest of me.  Micah H. holds the either certifiable or heroic -- depending on your point of view -- Signature #1 on the petition.  He's either the first patient in the asylum to scream or the Samuel Adams of the state.  I wonder if he and his 103,736 (as of this writing) fellow cantakeriots realize that via their email, they have eagerly done the Obama Administration's work for them of creating a database of subversives.  Don't let the four simple fields fool you; by signing in to the We the People website to sign on, your email and the IP address that got you there now mean there is absolutely no escape for you, your family, or that dog of yours with the heavy carbon footprint.

The secession petition is legitimate protest, however.  Millions of freedom-loving Americans are still stunned over what happened last week - but not over Obama's status quo reelection.  We are reeling from the contest's symbolic shift of America's descent into irresponsibility.  Columnist S.E. Cupp attempted to downplay this great conspiracy by the 47% by going on about how conservatives need to explain themselves better.  Not possible given the current educational system, I'm sorry.  To quote Ann Coulter, It's over.

But that's OK.  If you're a Christian, see my last post so that you don't despair.  There is also reason not to despair if you just a good ol' red-blooded American, too.  But secession is not the answer.  It should only seriously be considered if you have the chance to be Signature #25,674,681 (this figure is the 2011 population of Texas).  If you are this signature, we have already formed the Army of the Republic of Texas.  Please report to your nearest recruiting station.  Every man, woman and child will need a gun.

Seriously though, there is a Ghandiesque flavor to the secession petition.  It kinda fits in the "first they ignore/then they ridicule/then they fight" mixture.  We'll see how long the White House takes to respond.  With the exceptions of Georgia and Florida, which were sill close to the 25,000 signature threshold at press time, only the Texas petition cries out to be answered.  I'm not expecting much, though, outside of a boilerplate response that the petition was received with subtle instructions to replace one's sheets back on to one's bed.

I don't need to expect much, either.  Nor do I need to.  My goal is to take care of myself and my family and focus on my neighbor.  I believe steadfastly in the power of conservative principles to help my neighbor care for himself, but the onus is ultimately on me as a follower of God to convey those principles.  Any document that comes my way better not require a signature that commits me to anything less.

Out With the Newt, in With the O

A old friend of mine from the Hill -- a Democrat -- giddily reported to me last night that the President was going to do something new in his second term to promote fitness and competition among the country's youth, starting next year.  The program, which he can implement via Executive Order, had been on hold pending his re-election.  Apparently, starting in the summer of 2013, regions of the country will be organized into twelve districts, then each district will send a boy and girl to compete in a kind of national Olympics.  My friend said the EO will provide that the rules of these games will be such that they can be altered from year to year in case they start to get boring.

Jusk kidding.

To be honest, I'm quite puzzled as to why this tired, jaded hack feels the way he does about last night.  As a Republican, I have more heartbreak than consummation for my trouble; as a consultant I definitely have more Ls than Ws.  So why do I have a sense of foreboding about the totals from yesterday?  Why am I not resting on the comfort that the House of Representatives has been bolstered in its role as stopper to the Obama agenda?

I think because last night we saw America say, "Yes, I want what's mine and some of what you have, too."  It was raw.  It represented a paradigm shift, permitted by the financial bailout starting four years ago.  We are becoming a statist nation.  It's real, and it's here.  We no longer have to warn and whine about it.  We are, in fact, there.

But I don't want to scrawl out some kind of lament, either, because I'm not sad.  Politics has never given cause to depress me.  I actually think this is a good thing, chiefly because Christians who have taken on the duty to get engaged in the process can finally begin to separate their American-ness from their faith, their house from their true Home.  We can jettison this hackneyed, specious attitude of exceptionalism that's been around in various forms for the past 175 years and finally celebrate our country's true virtues for what they are.  We can accept the gross defects along with those virtues and truly understand God's right purpose in our lives, communities and nation.  And if persecution develops as a result of observing and celebrating these virtues, well, then, we as American Christians can officially say we have joined the human race.

Many of my fellow activists are verbalizing their preparation for the next fight.  Certainly, this is a duty that should not be avoided.  But the old style of conservatism found in the old Grand Old Party is dead, and it will not return.  The nation is not listening to us.  Governor Romney was an as articulate rock star of business and fiscal policy as we've ever put on the ballot at ANY LEVEL, and he could not close the deal.  This is because the people don't even want the deal; they are not even in the room.  Empathy and concern within public policy positions is part of the solution, but this has been tried overtly before in Compassionate Conservatism with ridiculous results.  Neither is the solution in picking "tougher conservatives" to lead us.  For every Ted Cruz there's a Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock - two nincompoops who failed us miserably.  And as capable as Mr. Cruz is, the nature of his service will be one of vocality and confrontation, not stewardship.  Pontificating will become the nature of Senate service as never before for both sides.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich got a burst last winter because he is a man of ideas who can get your attention with them.  He more than anyone got Romney the nomination because he forced the Governor to take on the language of problem-solver and creative thinker during the GOP debates.  This is indeed Newt's great legacy to the Republicans.  But America has chosen to reject ideas.  They only want benefits.  To borrow a phrase from the President during the second debate, "There's nothing wrong with that; that's just what they do."

Sorry to be a downer, but I think it helps for us all to understand exactly what we're dealing with as we move...well...Forward.