Global Warming stopped in 1998

Facts keep getting in the way of Global Warming!

Selected Excerpt:

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

How AIDS in Africa Was Overstated

The Washingtom Post has a piece on How AIDS in Africa Was [exagerated] Overstated.

Selected excerpts:

But AIDS deaths on the predicted scale never arrived here, government health officials say. A new national study illustrates why: The rate of HIV infection among Rwandans ages 15 to 49 is 3 percent, according to the study, enough to qualify as a major health problem but not nearly the national catastrophe once predicted. The new data suggest the rate never reached the 30 percent estimated by some early researchers, nor the nearly 13 percent given by the United Nations in 1998.

Taken together, they raise questions about monitoring by the U.N. AIDS agency, which for years overestimated the extent of HIV/AIDS in East and West Africa and, by a smaller margin, in southern Africa, according to independent researchers and U.N. officials. "What we had before, we cannot trust it," said Agnes Binagwaho, a senior Rwandan health official.

Such disparities, independent researchers say, skewed years of policy judgments and decisions on where to spend precious health-care dollars. "From a research point of view, they've done a pathetic job," said Paul Bennell, a British economist whose studies of the impact of AIDS on African school systems have shown mortality far below what UNAIDS had predicted. "They were not predisposed, let's put it that way, to weigh the counterevidence. They were looking to generate big bucks."

On its Web site, UNAIDS describes itself as "the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS." And many researchers say the United Nations' reliance on rigorous science waned after it created the separate AIDS agency in 1995 -- the first time the world body had taken this approach to tackle a single disease.

"It's pure advocacy, really," said Jim Chin, a former U.N. official who made some of the first global HIV prevalence estimates while working for WHO in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "Once you get a high number, it's really hard once the data comes in to say, 'Whoops! It's not 100,000. It's 60,000.' " Chin, speaking from Stockton, Calif., added, "They keep cranking out numbers that, when I look at them, you can't defend them."

The Media and Reporting on the Environment

Here is a good piece by David Mastio about The Media and Reporting on the Environment.

Selected excerpts:

"Next time you read a magazine cover story like the one Time just published ("Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. Polar Ice Caps Are Melting ... More And More Land Is Being Devastated ... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame") you should remember one little fact: U.S. media companies, including Time Warner, donate more to the environmental movement than any other industry. Companies like The New York Times, Gannett, Tribune, ABC, CBS and NBC have donated more than a half-billion worth of ad space since the 1990s to raise money for some of the nation's most extreme environmental groups. And yes, that was billion with a B."

"Well, for some reason, no. The Ad Council has given us exactly the opposite: Their messenger is Environmental Defense (formerly known as the Environmental Defense Fund), a group with a reputation for crying wolf. Right now on their web page, ED asks parents to click to find out whether their children are in "danger" from dirty air. Nowhere can parents find the more comforting fact that, no matter where they live, kids today are breathing cleaner air than they did 50 years ago."

"It may be true that every single one of the environmental concerns raised to block hydro-power, wind energy, nuclear plants and natural gas development are all valid. But if global warming is really, really the "most serious environmental issue of our time," shouldn't environmentalists be willing to put their other concerns aside until we deal with the dangers of runaway climate change?

Maybe if our largest television networks, newspapers and magazines weren't the largest fundraisers for these same environmental groups, they'd be in a position to ask."

Steve Forbes on Africa

Steve Fobes starts his opinion piece about the changes that need to be made in Africa in This Money Won't Buy Happiness stating a fact that should be obvious to anyone wanting more African aid:

Alas, this emphasis on giving more money to benighted countries is mis-begotten. Most of it will be wasted, and despite "safeguards" all too much of it will be siphoned off by corrupt politicos and bureaucrats. Africa has received more than $400 billion in aid since 1960, yet per capita income has declined. No other area of the world has suffered such a regression. Blair, Bono et al. should be focusing on measures that would allow sub-Saharan Africa's existing entrepreneurial energies to put their countries on the path of rapid, India-China-Pacific-Rim-like economic growth. There are huge barriers blocking those who could catapult Africa's poor nations onto an economic fast track.

He then lists high taxes, unsound monetary policy, regulatory obstacles, and aids and malaria as factors in African poverty that need to be addressed in order to actually help Africans.

Becoming American

Real Estate is not a significant defining attribute of America. People may be awed by the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Coast, Pikes Peak, and the Great Plains, but none of these geographical locations have played a part in making America great. However, the freedom, liberty, and justice as defined in the United States Constitution, codified into American law, and practiced by generations of Americans are the most significant defining attributes of America and are the reasons for American greatness.

When Americans view their heritage as pieces of property, and when Americans consider land to be the defining attribute of their country, the concepts of freedom, liberty, and justice, become restricted and sometimes even unattainable for non-Americans who desire to live the American life because fewer immigrants are legally allowed to migrate to America.

There is more than enough land in America for everyone in Canada and everyone in Mexico to migrate to America if migrating to America is their choice. Let’s be clear, when Americans vote to limit immigration, Americans are voting to limit freedom, liberty, and justice for others. Is that the kind of country America wants to become? It’s not the kind of country I want America to become.

I Don't Get It

How can employers hire employees who have forged Social Security cards? Don’t employers have to send Social Security taxes to the Social Security Administration for each employee? Why is the Social Security administration accepting taxes for workers who are not listed in the Social Security system as having a valid Social Security number?

Is the hiring of illegal immigrants happening with the full approval of our Federal government and the Social Security administration?

In Favor of Immigration and Amnesty

In a just society, nobody should be unfairly advantaged or unfairly disadvantaged by the luck of their birth. Birthrights and caste systems are unjust because the recipient of a birthright becomes entitled to an unfair advantage throughout life while those stuck in a caste system have very little opportunity to succeed and very little control over their own individual destiny.

Immigration in America has suffered through years and years of bad immigrations policy that has created a birthright for some and a caste system for others. Most of the problems ascribed to illegal immigration are not caused by illegal immigrants. Almost all of the problems ascribed to illegal immigration are problems associated with the lack of enforcement and the manipulation of American laws and public policies.

There are many business and political leaders in America and Mexico who benefit from the current immigration system. The government of Mexico benefits from a system where some of its citizens can move illegally to America, find a job, receive a tax payer funded education, receive subsidized health care, and send parts of a paycheck back to Mexico in order to support remaining family members. This system of illegal immigration keeps American dollars flowing into Mexico, helping to support the economy of Mexico, and reducing the pressure on the government of Mexico to reform.

Construction, farming, hotels, landscaping, and many other businesses in America benefit from a system which supplies a never ending source of inexpensive unskilled labor. These unskilled laborers themselves are rarely able to afford the services of the businesses that utilize illegal immigrants. This system of illegal immigration keeps the prices lower, the profits higher, and maintains the growth potential of the businesses who utilize undocumented laborers. It is a system that also punishes all of the honest businesses that obey the law because it is more expensive for a business to follow the law.

Most Americans want to punish illegal immigrants and business that hire illegal immigrants either through existing laws or new legislation with even stiffer penalties. Some Americans, including President Bush, want to create a two tier system of caste for guest workers. At the same time, almost nobody is in favor of granting amnesty to any illegal immigrant regardless of how long they have been in America. The conventional wisdom is that a grant of amnesty will encourage more Mexicans to break the law and come to America illegally with the hope of eventually obtaining their own amnesty.

As American citizens, we have a right to vote for leaders and laws, but we should be very careful about supporting leaders and laws that change the basic nature of American freedom and American justice. Stricter enforcement of existing laws, new laws with stiffer penalties, a thirty foot wall separating Mexico from America, and a guest worker program do not represent a move toward more freedom and justice. All of these solutions would represent a significant turn away from freedom and justice.

It is time for the government of the United States, the government of Mexico, the businesses in America who hire illegal immigrants, and the citizens of America, to find the rectitude to begin making and enforcing an immigration policy that allows Mexicans who believe in America to live in America, work in America, contribute to America, and become American citizens without having the stigma of second class status. It is time for Americans to quit claiming a birthright that is fundamentally unjust and fundamentally un-American.

Real Simple

This is real simple. There is no need to complicate morality when a simple principle is all that is needed.

The obligation of a Christian is to always offer peace. This offer of peace must always be on the table for an enemy to accept when the enemy is ready to lay down their arms. If the enemy of the Christian refuses to accept the peace offer, it then becomes the obligation of the Christian to protect the innocent. Protecting the innocent sometimes involves killing the enemy.

The war in Iraq was not only a just war, it was one of the few real moral accomplishments by my country in my lifetime. The after-war in Iraq has had problems because some of the enemy still does not want peace. The enemy has chosen death over peace. We should oblige.

Curing the Conservative Crack-Up

Here is a good description of what Republicans in Washington need to do in order to return to Conservatism.

On Vampires, Zombies and Snake Oil Salesmen

Michael Fay has a way with words, too!

Fair Comparisons

The only fair way to evaluate the results of any action is to compare the results of the action to the results of other actions in similar circumstances. It is easy to compare the results of two runners running against each other in a 100 meter dash at the same time on the same day on the same track. One runner will finish in front of the other. We can know with certainty who was the winner.

We can also compare the accomplishments of other athletes who do not compete on the same track at the same time on the same day, but the certainty of our comparison will be a little less accurate. No two golfers have the exact same conditions or get the exact same breaks on each hole in a 72 hole tournament. However, the conditions are close enough for us to declare a winner once all of the golfers have completed four rounds because the scores of each golfer can be compared based on playing the same holes and the same amount of holes, on the same course.

Tiger Woods never played against Jack Nicklaus in his prime. Hank Aaron never played against Babe Ruth at all. However, the accomplishments of Tiger Woods can be compared to Jack Nicklaus and the Home Runs of Hank Aaron can be compared to Babe Ruth because all of these men competed against the best competitors in their sport in their time and each sport is mostly unchanged.

Presidential administrations throughout history can be compared to each other but with much less certainty than is possible in sports because no two administrations have faced the same challenges; some haven’t even faced similar challenges. It is possible to evaluate the results of an administration based on the stated goals of the administration, but it is not possible to do so with any accuracy or precision because different administrations also faced different levels of opposition.

When comparing the competency of the Bush administration to the competency of the Clinton administration, there isn’t a big difference. Objectively, if we consider one of the two to be competent, then we must also consider the other to be competent and if we consider one of the two to be incompetent, then we must consider the other to be incompetent. I happen to like the objectives of the Bush administration more than I liked the objectives of the Clinton administration and I happen to like the person George Bush more than I like the person Bill Clinton, but I don’t think either man was particularly good at running a government. However, I find it hard to completely blame either man for the faults of government because some of the attributes of government seem to be unmanageable no matter who is in charge.

When evaluating the results of a war, it is almost impossible to be fair, accurate, and precise in coming to any meaningful conclusions. The war in Iraq was the fastest and most complete victory in the history of the world. In several weeks the army of a country of 30 million was completely defeated by the army of a country of 270 million on the soil of the country with 30 million people. It really was unprecedented, but it was also expected because of the superior technology of the country of 270 million. Were the expectations realistic? Probably, but there is really no way to know for sure because there is no point of reference for comparison.

When evaluating the after-war in Iraq, it IS impossible to come to any meaningful conclusions at this point in time because the situation in Iraq has never existed before in the history of the world. In hindsight, most reasonable people will conclude that some of the decisions regarding Iraq were poor decisions and some actions were counterproductive. I can’t make it through a day without making a bad decision, and I don’t know of any leader in government, business, church, or any other organization who doesn’t make mistakes and then make adjustments based on the lessons learned. Bad decisions alone are not a measure of failure or success. Uncorrected bad decisions or corrected bad decisions will be the determinate in the final analysis.

Pundits who claim the Bush administration is incompetent in managing the rebuilding of Iraq, or who claim the invasion of Iraq was a big mistake, or who only see the deaths and not the hope and freedom, are basing their judgments on vapid analysis because there is no point of reference for a fair comparison. These pundits are only critics who are willing to exercise freedom in their own speech, but unwilling to pay the price for freedom and unwilling to let others determine their own destiny.

Natural Bias

When a consumer of News considers a News piece written or broadcast by a producer of News to be biased, either the producer of the News IS biased or the consumer of the News IS biased, or most likely, the consumer of the News and the producer of the News ARE both biased.

I’m not really sure why so many mainstream media organizations deny their bias or why so many otherwise intelligent people deny the bias in the mainstream media and defend the objectivity of the mainstream media. To me, the defense of the mainstream media seems to be based more on emotion than an honest appraisal of the reporting.

It is impossible for any writer, any editor, or any producer to completely remove bias from the stories that are chosen to get reported and the way the stories are reported. Some of the bias in the media seems very calculated, but most of the bias in the media is quite innocent and quite natural. For example, I can’t help but tell better stories and use better words when I am reporting on my delightful, accomplished, and well behaved daughters. Have I ever mentioned how beautiful both of them are? However, the stories I tell and the words I use when reporting on the devious little monsters being raised by other parents will be quite different.

Reporters, editors, and producers, who were educated in elite Universities, who are lifelong Democrats, who think President Bush stole the 2000 election, who are opposed to the war in Iraq, who don’t have any moral problems with the right to choose abortion, who believe it is the responsibility of government to help the poor, are surely going to choose different stories and report the chosen stories using different words than someone who has a different background and different beliefs.

An honest appraisal of the stories and the words used in reporting will confirm the bias of the mainstream media and and the bias of every other writer, reporter, journalist, columnist alive. The sooner consumers of News learn to accept, understand, and then filter the bias in reporting, the better the chance the consumer of News will learn and know the truth.

Crunchy Cons?

A Crunchy Con Manifesto

Better Than Dear Abby

Dear Joe

Cheap Talk

Talk is cheap!

In the corporate world, leaders are admired, leadership is honored, but followers get promoted. It’s almost comical how corporate executives can use the terms “leadership” and “standard practices” in the same sentence without feeling any sense of irony.

In the corporate world, customer service is proclaimed, the customer is the king, but the lowest paid employees are the ones who interact with the customers. If the customer really is king, why are the lowest paid entry level employees most responsible for handling customer matters? If the customer really is king, why does the corporate executive move further and further from the customer as he or she gets promoted?

In the corporate world, planning is essential for growth, executing plans the mantra, but cutting costs, especially employee costs, the most common practice. Why do the employees who are least responsible for poorly laid plans the most responsible for paying the cost of the poor plans?

Corporate talk really is cheap!

Expensive Math

Last week I mentioned how I had a little bagel fixing issue with my oldest daughter. At the time, I felt she needed to be taught the importance of doing for herself what she is capable of doing for herself in order to avoid being an unnecessary burden on others.

This week, she needed a different lesson. On Monday, as my wife was picking the girls up from school, some of the classmates of my oldest daughter ran up to my wife and told her how my oldest daughter had tied with another classmate for the highest score in their class on a math test that day. All of the students at her school were given a math test as a first step in determining who would represent their school in a city-wide math competition. On Tuesday, the two students with the highest score from each class competed against each other to determine the two students who would represent each grade of her school in the city-wide competition.

Would I be writing this if she didn’t get selected? Not only did she get selected, she had the highest score of all of the students in the third grade at her school. Nothing in life is free though, so on Tuesday night I ended up paying for my daughter’s success.

After I arrived home from work, she asked me to take her shopping for a pair of Heelys. Never heard of Heelys? Heelys are $10 shoes with $2 wheels that sell for $60 -$85. I don’t know how the third grade ever got by without them. Needless to say, demand for these shoes is high, and supply in my daughter’s size is low. By the second time a salesperson told us to check back next week, I was ready to go home and wait until next week, but my daughter with the persistence to master third grade math was not about to give up after only checking two stores.

On this night, my oldest daughter needed to see her dad being sacrificial in a way that modeled sacrificial behavior and in a way that demonstrated how much I knew and admired how hard she has worked at math in order to achieve the highest score in her grade at her school. At 9:30 PM, after sitting in Sports Chalet for 20 minutes waiting for a sales clerk to help, we got our shoes, and headed home ready to call it the day. I don’t remember the last time I spent $75 for a pair of my own shoes.

BTW, does anyone know what the sum of the smallest prime number and the largest two digit prime number is without looking it up?

06 elections test political physics

Here is an interesting article on the 2006 election by a John Kerry operative.

Myths of Iraq

Ralph Peters claims that during a recent visit to Iraq, he saw an enormous failure, on the part of Western Media. Read about what he discovered here.

Dependence or Independence

On Saturday morning my oldest daughter asked me to fix her a bagel for breakfast. I responded by giving her the same answer most good fathers would give to a 9-year-old daughter. I told her to fix it herself. You would have thought I told her to invade Iran all by herself.

After enduring the crying, and whining, and begging for about ten minutes, I was finally able to convince her to a least open the bag of bagels, get a knife, and start to cut the bagel in half. I helped her cut the bagel in half, but then after the bagel was toasted, I had to endure another five minutes of crying when I told her she needed to spread her own cream cheese. She ended up running to her room screaming that she didn’t want the bagel anyway.

So I turned to my 6-year-old daughter and asked her if she wanted the bagel. My youngest daughter walked over to the counter, took a knife, spread some cream cheese on the bagel and started eating it without saying a single word.

I don’t pretend for a second to understand all of the complexities of human nature. Most of my theories about human nature have been challenged and some of my theories have been changed as I raise two daughters. However, I am quite certain that people change and adapt based on situations and circumstances. I am also certain that the basic instinct of almost all people is to survive and to do whatever it takes in order to survive.

Throughout the drought stricken parts of Africa right now there are many people who would refuse help regardless of how dire their current situation was. There are also some people who are mentally and physically incapable of caring for themselves and who need assistance in order to survive. Additionally, there are many people similar to my daughters. Some of these people are like my youngest daughter who only need a little encouragement and possibly a little role modeling. Some of these people are like my oldest daughter on Saturday who need to be told they will no longer be helped because they are fully capable of doing for themselves everything they need to do in order to survive. These are the people who will be helped the most in the long run by learning self sufficiency.

The aid organizations and the aid programs to Africa are creating serious problems by not differentiating between the types of people who need aid and the types of people who want and expect aid. Until these organizations are able to discern and differentiate, it is time to stop all of the aid. It is time to stop creating problems where none existed before aid started.

My oldest daughter got up Sunday morning and fixed her own bagel. Amazing? No, common sense.

To Pay or Not To Pay; That is the Question

I have a question for both of my readers and perhaps anyone else who is passing through.

It seems to me that it is quite easy for someone without integrity to influence someone with integrity to behave in ways that are less than honest since there is much to be gained from not being honest.

However, it is much more difficult for someone with integrity to influence someone without integrity to start behaving in a more honest way because there is often a cost associated with being completely honest.

Perhaps my hypothesis is wrong. But if I am right, does anyone have any thoughts on how someone can be influenced to pay the cost of integrity?

Second Memo to the Rich

To: Anyone who is serious about helping the poor

From: Contrarian Views on behalf of the financially poor

Re: Helping the poor and making yourself a better person

If you occasionally eat at Burger King or any other fast food restaurant, treat the counter help where you are eating with the same dignity and respect as you treat your Senior Pastor. Those of us who are poor need to see evidence that you don’t think you are superior to us. Remember what you learned when you were four years old; “please” and “thank you” are always appropriate. In the process, you may become a kinder person.

If you are a member of a fancy Church, start treating your Senior Pastor the same way you usually treat the counter help at Burger King. Your Senior Pastor may not know how you actually act when you are not at Church. Your Senior Pastor may learn the truth about you, and you will be reminded to be more kind to others.

If you don’t normally eat fast food, go eat at Burger King or any other fast food restaurant. Practice being kind and respectful to those who are not your peers and have nothing to offer you other than fries and a burger.

If you own a Burger King or any other fast food restaurant, start paying your employees more than the competition and more than minimum wage. There is no Biblical requirment for you to make the same profit margin as all of your competion. A funny thing might happen though. Happier and more confident employees may just have a positive effect on increasing business.

If you have never taken an economics class or read an economics book, make an effort to do both as soon as possible. After you finish the first class or the first book, take or read a second. Economics is more than micro and macro supply and demand. If you are a Pastor, take a third class; you probably believe more myths about economics than the average person. Continue to take additional classes until you finally realize that Fair Trade Coffee is not the answer to third world poverty.

If you don’t shop at Wal-mart, Kmart, or Target, start shopping at at least one of these. All of these stores are lowering the cost of living for those of us who are poor as well as providing us with jobs and income. Don’t forget to say “please” and “thank you” while you shop. Wal-mart may be a blight on your pristine neighborhood, but it is one entity that is actully doing us some good.

If you are an employer, stop lieing to your customers and employees. If you are an employee, stop lieing to your boss. If you are a boss, stop lieing to your employees. Integrety is more valuable than money. Who knows, integrety might even be contagious if it weren’t so rare.

If you are working more than fifty hours or six days a week, start cutting back. You are probably kidding yourself with the extra work you think you are accomplishing and your family might even start to recongnize you again.

Sit down with a friend or two and drink a Budweiser or two. You don’t need to be rich to enjoy the good life.

Memo to the Rich

To: Anyone who is thinking about donating to a charity

From: Contrarian Views on behalf of the financially poor

Re: Charity

If you are thinking about donating to a charity out of pity for the poor, please reconsider. We don’t need your pity. In fact, many of us pity you for all of the misconceptions and lies you believe about the value of money and the nature of poverty.

If you think you are better, better off, or superior to the poor because of the size of your bank account, don’t bother donating. We may not be superior to you, but in many ways we are much better off than you.

If you have ever used the term “burger flipper”, you think you are superior to us even if you won’t admit it. We don’t need your condescending money.

If you have ever lied to a customer, lied to an employee, or lied to a boss in order to make more money, stick those dollars back in your wallet. We could have lied in order to achieve financial success just like you, but we chose our integrity over financial wealth.

If you worked late at night or on weekends when you should have been spending time with your children, put your bucks away. We could have also sacrificed our children for a little extra green, but we chose to be with our family instead of our checkbook.

If you think anyone is impressed with the type of car you drive or the house you own, you are truly pitiful. Keep your guilt money. We do not wish you to be relieved of your guilt.

If you think you are too good to shop at Wal-mart, we don’t want your money. You don’t have a clue about poverty since you are unwilling to support the one entity that is truly helping us.

If you made your wealth as a Pastor pleasing people when you should have been pleasing God, your money is very tainted. Keep it for yourself. We could have behaved the same way, but we chose to please God.

If you made a fortune selling music and concert tickets to drug induced kids, your money is worthless to us. The gangs associated with illegal drug trade have ravaged some of our neighborhoods.

If your wealth comes from Hollywood where the primary values are sex before the first date and gay sex without a date, keep your money. We already waste enough time protecting our children from you and your misguided values.

If you made of ton of money through insider trading, stock manipulation, or stock options not available to common folks, we don’t want any of this money either, it smells of cigar smoke.

If Budweiser is beneath you, go buy a more expensive beer with your money instead of giving it to us. Good taste is not a requirement for charity, but common sense is.

Purchase on a List

There is something inside of some people that makes them desire money and the things that can be purchased with money. Most people, the financially rich and the financially poor, the Christian and the non-Christian, believe that more money in their bank account will mean more happiness in their life. Despite what Jesus and Scripture have to say about money being a deterrent to Kingdom of Heaven matters, most people still place a high value on financial wealth. Despite what some people know to be true about money, they still have a desire in their heart for more money.

From 1992 until 1994, I had the opportunity to work as a Real Estate Appraiser in Southern California. It was a period when interest rates were dropping, home sales were increasing, and many other home owners wanted to refinance their mortgage and lower their payments. During this period, I appraised homes in all areas of Southern California from the poorest parts of Central Los Angeles and Riverside to the wealthiest parts of Palos Verdes, Malibu, and South Orange County. This experience allowed me to observe people in the complete range of financial situations who owned or wanted to own houses.

I think many of my observations would surprise a whole lot of people. From my observations, the people who owned the big houses weren’t any happier than the people who owned the small houses. Often times though, the people who lived in the multi-million dollar properties were downright miserable. Not all, but a good percentage of these wealthy home owners did nothing but complain from the time I met them and started appraising their house until the time I completed my appraisal and left. Some of the complaints were about money matters and some of the complaints were about other life matters from ungrateful children to poor lawn and pool service. If money buys happiness, why would these people in the big houses be so miserable?

From my observations, people with the small houses took just as much pride, and sometimes even more pride in home ownership than the people with the big houses. I can’t count the number of times a girl or boy in Riverside or Central Los Angeles would make sure I saw their immaculately cleaned closet-sized bedroom or how many times I walked into a house in Palos Verdes where an eight hundred square foot bedrooms was filled with junk and trash. If money buys dignity, why were these people in mansions so undignified?

I can tell you however, from my experience as a Real Estate Appraiser, there was a difference between the financially wealthy and the financially poor that was almost universally true. The people with the small houses in bad neighborhoods almost always treated me with more respect and more kindness than the people in the big houses in the good neighborhoods. The people in the small houses appreciated how I was able to help them lower their payments while the people in the big houses considered me as just another entity that could be bought with the money in their bank account.

My experience as an appraiser makes me wonder if the financially poor need the help of the financially rich, or perhaps in reality, it is the other way around. In many cases, it is the financially rich who are truly the “least of these brothers of mine.” My experience as an Appraiser makes me wonder if those who contribute and support some charities consider charitable donations just another purchase on their list.

My next post will be an open letter to the financially rich on behalf of the financially poor.

Charitable Results?

Back in the late 1980's, Cabrini-Green, one of Chicago's largest high-rise public housing projects, was in a state of complete disrepair. The buildings constantly smelled like urine, gangs took over and occupied all of the units on an entire floor, and some of the buildings were not even being managed or maintained at all. The Chicago Housing Authority needed the units to house the poor, but didn't have enough funds to pay for the renovation to make all of the units in the buildings livable. Several Chicago area Churches along with Moody Seminary got together and offered to provide volunteer labor to renovate the unlivable units if the Chicago Housing Authority would pay for the supplies. A deal was struck and the upgrades began.

I jumped at the chance to be part of this volunteer project. I loved spending my Saturdays wearing old jeans as I scraped and painted and laid tile. Most volunteers showed up once a month. I showed up every week. I would have showed up every day if I could. It felt great to be part of a team that was turning old dilapidated buildings into livable space for the needy. The difference in the buildings from the time we started the first unit until the time we finished the last unit was remarkable. I felt a sense of accomplishment along with a sense of joy that I was helping to make this part of the world a better place. I especially loved the children that would come running up to me with big smiles on their faces when they saw me walking toward a building carrying a paint brush and a paint bucket. These kids, in the middle of complete poverty, were some of the happiest kids I had ever seen. Why wouldn't they be happy since they had what every kid wants; lots of friends, lots of space, and little supervision. In many ways, they had a better life than what I had growing up. They would follow us up in the elevators to the units and we let them help paint until they got tired and wanted to go find something else to do.

For the first several months I was pretty oblivious to anything except the work I was doing and good feelings it gave me. But as the months went by, I started to make observations about what was happening around me, and I started to think about the affect my charity was having. I noticed that none of the residents of the units we upgraded ever volunteered to help upgrade other units and I especially started to notice that after the boys and girls passed a certain age, they quit coming out to greet us, and they weren't smiling anymore when I saw them. Then I had another one of those light-bulb-turning-on moments. The Chicago Housing Authority, Moody Institute, the Churches, and my charity was having the exact opposite of the intended affect. It was a Gremlin affect. We were turning good kids into monsters.

At six years old, everything in the life of Cabrini Children was good, but as they got older, they started to believe that their lack of money made them inferior to those of us who had enough money to show up and volunteer. The children who lived in Cabrini-Green didn't have a father to walk five dollars back across the street in order to demonstrate the unimportance of money. At six, they wanted to help. At six, they knew how to operate a paint brush, but by the time they turned ten, they no longer wanted to help and they were no longer willing to do something as simple as painting a wall in order to make their home environment better. Not only did the adults who lived at Cabrini not appreciate us, they hated us because they believed that they were inferior to us. We conditioned a whole segment of adults to need charity and those who received the charity hated those who were providing the charity. When we treat adults like house pets, is it any wonder we get the results of more disease, more crime, and more poverty?

Throughout the Middle East today, this same phenomena is taking place. An entire generation of Muslim Adults are growing up feeling inferior to people in the West and feeling inferior to the rulers of their own country who are financially wealthy. It is a complete misconception, even a lie in some cases, that money has anything at all to do with individual worth. Even most Christians and their Pastors believe that money makes a person better, better off, and superior to those without money. They may not say it with their mouths, but they demonstrate it by their actions. Pastors and Christians propagate this myth every day with some what they teach and some of what they do regarding charity. It is quite a shame that those who should know better, don't make more of an effort to understand the poor as well as teach and demonstrate the unimportance of money.

I can't tell you how happy I was to learn that Cabrini-Green has finally been demolished. I just wish that some of the ideas about helping the poor could be demolished along with it.

In my next post I will discuss some of the similarities and some of the differences between the financially rich and the financially poor.

The Least of These Brothers

Almost nothing could be further from the truth than the misconception that people who are poor are also suffering and unhappy.

Growing up, I shared a bedroom with four brothers. My four sisters shared another bedroom. We all slept in beds that were built by my dad. Those of us who weren’t assigned hand-me-down clothes to wear, wore cheap mail order clothes, two new shirts and two new pants a year. When we outgrew the clothes we were wearing, the clothes were passed down to a younger brother or sister or turned into rags when the holes become more prominent than the material. Clothes that become rags were still valuable for cleaning around the house. Most of what we owned could be used for more than one purpose.

We ate potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My mom had more recipes for potatoes than Forrest Gumps’ friend Bubba had for shrimp. Our Sunday treat was a roasted hen with dumplings made from white flour and chicken fat. Often while eating a meal, my parents told us the very same stories as every other parent in our neighborhood told their children about walking three miles to school and eating everything on our plate so the children in China wouldn’t starve to death.

Very few of my childhood memories include memories of unhappiness and almost none of my memories include suffering. I probably suffered more in my first week of Marine Corps boot camp than I suffered in my first eighteen years of life. Like everyone else, with or without money, I sometimes wanted things that were not affordable to my family. I learned to accept the fact that the gratification that I desired usually needed to be delayed longer than some of my friends had to wait and sometimes even delayed indefinitely, but I never walked around unhappy because waiting seemed normal. This experience as a child has served me well as an adult.

However, once I started school, I began to get the feeling that those people with money thought they were better and better off than those of us without money. As a child, I wondered if the people with money were right, and for a while I even started to believe that they were superior to me and my family because of their monetary wealth. Then I had one of those light-bulb-turning-on moments.

Around the time I was ten years old, we had a neighbor who couldn’t get his television to work. None of our neighbors could be considered wealthy, but this was a neighbor with one of the better jobs and bigger houses in our neighborhood. The neighbor came and asked my dad if he would take a look at the television and figure out why it didn’t work. My dad took the television apart and discovered that a couple of the vacuum tubes needed to be replaced. After my dad replaced the tubes and put the television back together, my neighbor opened his wallet, pulled out a five dollar bill, which is probably equivalent to eighty dollars today, and started to hand it to my dad.

I almost yelled “alright” out loud. I knew what an extra five dollars would mean to my family. But my dad wouldn’t take the money from my neighbor. He told our neighbor to put the money back in his pocket. My dad said he would not even consider taking money for something he did for a neighbor. Later in the evening, the oldest daughter of the neighbor knocked on our door with the five dollars in her hand. She told my dad that her dad wanted him to take the money. My dad took the five dollars, walked back across the street, and returned the money to our neighbor.

At first, my brothers and sisters and I couldn’t believe what our dad had just done. But the more I thought about what had happened, the more I understood. Better, better off, superior, and inferior didn’t have anything to do with size of a bank account, the number of possessions, or the value of possessions. Better, better off, superior, and inferior however did have everything to do with the size of the character of a person. I went to sleep that night knowing I was one of the wealthiest kids in the whole neighborhood.

When Jesus says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”, he isn’t usually talking about people with money sharing their money with people who don’t have money. The “least” Jesus is talking about is the person who has a need that we, as neighbors, can help alleviate. The need is rarely a monetary need. The need is much more often a need to see someone else living a life of Christian values through sacrificial actions. Many of the needy (the least), have very large bank accounts, but are still in severe sprirtual need. I will get to this point in a future post.

My dad wasn’t a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. He had a temper that sometimes went over the top, but he also had a reputation as a truly good man; a reputation that had nothing to do with the lack of money he made, the simple house he owned, or the causes he failed to advocate. When he died of cancer in 1972, he didn’t leave his family with any money because he never earned much money, but he did leave us wealthy.

In my next post, I will adress what happens to the financially poor when they are incorectly treeated as “the least of these brothers of mine”.

(Mis)Understanding the Poor

I suspect that many of the advocates for the poor, including the organizers and promoters of the ONE Campaign, have never been poor and don’t really understand what it is like to be poor. There are at least two main reasons why people with money don’t understand the lives of people without money.

The first main reason why the wealthy are misinformed about poverty is the same as why people are misinformed on most issues. The news media, particularly the major networks and newspapers, present an unbalanced view of poverty. In mainstream media reports, the poor are always depicted as needy, helpless, and abused by the uncaring wealthy, which is true in some situations, but completely false and misrepresented by the media in most situations.

The second main reason has to do with feelings about money. People born into wealth, people who have spent a lifetime working to acquire wealth, and people with big ambitions, place a disproportionate amount of importance on wealth, including possessions, activities, and everything else that can be purchased with money. Similar feelings about money are true for some of the poor, but the vast majority of the people who are poor have other priorities besides wealth and the trappings of wealth. People who are wealthy may not understand how money can be unimportant to others, or even believe that money is unimportant to others, but for most of the poor, poverty is a choice; a logical, moral, and good choice.

Misconceptions wealthy people have about poor people can cause all sorts of unintended problems for the poor people when the wealthy people, either out of guilt or misplaced compassion, decide to use their wealth, power, and influence to try to help the poor people. Guilt and compassion can lead to the right behavior when the behavior is based on the truth and not the misconception. Therefore, it is vitally important for the wealthy people to know the truth and start to change how they view and treat the poor.

In my next post, I will address and correct some of these misconceptions.

You Did For Me

“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

As a follower of Jesus Christ and as someone who believes that Jesus Christ is God, I don’t have an option or even a decision to make about how I treat anyone who is less fortunate than me. What I do for those less fortunate than myself, and what I fail to do for those less fortunate than myself, I do or fail to do to God himself. My obligation to the poor and my behavioral standard, as prescribed by Jesus Christ himself, is to treat others the way I would want to be treated.

I’m sure God wants all of us to do the right things for the right reasons. One of my daily prayers is to ask God to give me a heart after his heart. I want to care about what he cares about. However, I am just as certain that God has a higher standard for our actions than he does for our hearts. In the passages I quoted, Jesus emphasizes what we do to others, not how we feel about ourselves or how we feel about others. He is prescribing the right behavior, not the right feelings.

Most believers are in agreement with me about the poor. Practically every Christian Church is involved in charity. We all believe in helping the poor. However, the ONE Campaign and the supporters of this campaign have really opened my eyes to the damage that is being done to the poor by Christians in the name of Christ. A large number of Christians, including prominent Christian leaders, have elevated their feelings about helping the poor way above the correct actions to really help the poor.

In my next few posts, I will elaborate on the causes and solutions to poverty and address what I consider to be misconceptions about poverty.

ONE Questions

After methodically working his way through most of the issues regarding the ONE Campaign, Pastor Mark Roberts made some questionable statements in this entry as he continues to reflect on the goals of the ONE Campaign.

Throughout his series, Pastor Roberts has been asking his readers to consider various Bible passages as well as the practical implications of the methods and goals of the ONE Campaign. He has thrown his support behind the goals of the ONE Campaign, while remaining neutral on the methods. He has asked many good questions, but let his readers draw their own conclusions regarding the ONE Campaign methods. Today, I have a few questions for Pastor Roberts that came to my mind after reading his piece that I summarized yesterday.

Pastor Roberts, since you claim that it is terribly easy for Americans, most of whom live far removed from the horrors of poverty, to minimize what is surely the most horrible problem in our world today; isn’t it just as easy for Americans who live far removed from the people who are labeled as poor to over emphasize the horrors of poverty? Why can’t a moral person choose to be poor? Why can’t a poor person choose to be left alone?

Pastor Roberts, since you claim that widespread poverty in our world is unacceptable and that it is simply wrong that there are so many poor people on this earth; what is the right number of people who should be poor? Also, exactly what does it mean to be poor?

Pastor Roberts, why do you take the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Bread for the World at their word when both organizations have a vested interest in separating tax payers from their money? Is six million children dying each year and two billion people who are chronically malnourished the truth? One out of every three people on earth are chronically malnourished? Where do they get the energy to reproduce?

Pastor Roberts, why do you assume that people who live in relative luxury have little concern for the poor since most of the ONE Campaign organizers, promoters, and spokespeople are some of the wealthiest people on our planet? Is it possible the wealthy are too far removed from the problem to understand the real solution to the problem? Is it possible that people like Bono are using their fame and influence to force us to make poverty throughout the world worse? Is it possible that the poor need to be protected from the wealth and influence of people like Bono? Is it possible God wants the poor protected from the powerful people like Bono?

Pastor Roberts, do you really believe that poverty which is often a result of choices, but not always, is a bigger problem for the world than terrorists who blow up themselves along with innocent people who have no choice? Aren’t there certain degrees of culpability for those who are poor? Is a child dying of malnutrition the same as a hungry terrorist? Is a child suffering from malnutrition the same as an adult suffering from malnutrition? Is there a difference between suffering and extreme suffering? Is a hungry person who can work the same as a hungry person who is disabled? Does discernment matter in regards to Global poverty or is everyone who claims to be hungry a victim?

Pastor Roberts, why do you assume that most of us are self centered and would rather not think about poverty? Would you believe that many of us think about poverty all of the time? Would you believe that some of us have thought about poverty for over 40 years and some even longer? Did you know that the picture you showed on your site is similar to pictures that have been used for over 50 years for nothing more than eliciting a guilt response?

Pastor Roberts, did you not know that paying less for imported goods is helping to solve the problem of poverty throughout the world? Why would you want to stop doing something that is actually solving the problem in favor of something that would only make the problem worse?

Bad ONE

In his series addressing the purpose and methods of Bono and the ONE Campaign, Pastor Mark Roberts has been very supportive of the goals of this organization while questioning some of the methods. I have been a little surprised by his reluctance or unwillingness to make definitive statements regarding the methods of ONE, but I have been very impressed by the way he has thought through most of the major issues regarding this cause and by the questions he has asked his readers to consider.

Today however, I was disappointed to see him making definitive statements about matters I consider to be very debatable since he has shown reluctance in the past to make definitive statements regarding matters that are far less debatable. In his latest entry titled Why the ONE Campaign is So Important, Pastor Roberts makes some assertions that need to be scrutinized, and not just digested as truth.

Pastor Roberts starts his piece by making the claim that poverty is the most horrible problem in our world today and that the suffering caused by poverty is greater than the suffering caused by all other global problems. Terrorism and the differences between Muslims and the rest of the world are the two other problems he lists. He bases this belief on a claim by a United Nations organization that hunger and malnutrition are killing almost six million children each hear and a claim by a Christian lobbying organization that two billion people throughout the world are chronically malnourished.

For three straight pieces Pastor Roberts has questioned the wisdom of using tax money to combat world hunger, but today he didn’t see a problem in using a figure supplied by an organization that has a sole purpose of extracting tax money from tax payers to support the cause of global hunger.

He then goes on to make the following statement:

Of course we can and should debate the root causes of poverty, and work on eradicating these. But I would add my small voice to chorus of people who are saying that, no matter what causes poverty, the fact of widespread poverty in our world is unacceptable. It's simply wrong that there are so many poor people on this earth. The wrong is made even more obvious by the fact that many of us live in relatively luxury, often with very little awareness of or concern for the poor.

Following this statement, Pastor Roberts credits the ONE Campaign with reversing the lack of awareness of poverty and he also praises Bono for using his fame and influence to force us to think about that which we’d rather avoid. Pastor Roberts then states his belief that global poverty needs to be a much more prominent feature of American concern and conversation and he finishes with this paragraph:

I realize this might sound overly idealistic. Okay, fine. I admit that most of us are self-centered, and that we'd rather not bother about poverty on the other side of the globe, especially if taking it seriously might require us to make certain sacrifices, like paying more for imported goods, or buying fewer designer shoes (not my weakness) or electronic gizmos (my weakness). Nevertheless, I believe that it would be possible for millions upon millions of Americans to become committed to the cause of eliminating global poverty. I say this, in part, because I believe many Americans have, underneath a shell of selfishness, generous hearts. The more they realize the human cost of poverty, the more they will want to help. Moreover, around 150 million American claim to acknowledge biblical authority. This means, in principle, that there are a whole lot of folks in our country who could be persuaded to join the war on poverty with their prayers, their activism, and their giving.

In my next few pieces, I will have some questions for Pastor Roberts regarding some of his statements and claims as well as a few definitive statements of my own.

More ONE

Pastor Roberts continues his fair and balanced evaluation of the goals and methods of the ONE Campaign here, here, and here .

His analysis asks many good questions and raises just as many valid concerns. I was hoping for more definitive answers from him, but I am grateful for the way he has systematically thought through the major issues regarding ONE.

2 Good Questions

Mark Steyn asks a couple of very good questions:

* Is abortion in society's interest?

* Can a society become more Muslim in its demographic character without also becoming more Muslim in its political and civil character?

Solution to Poverty

As a systems analyst and computer programmer, it is my job to solve software problems. I get paid to design and code system enhancements and solutions to software problems. In order to learn my trade, I had to take a few college level computer programming classes, ask lots of questions, and make more than a few mistakes. Before long and with a little experience, I was able to learn the difference between a temporary solution that appears to fix a problem, but in reality only prolongs a problem, and solution that actually fixes a problem permanently. Sometimes, the permanent solution takes a little more effort and a little more time up front, but in the long run, it saves time and effort.

I now have enough experience that I don’t have to start from scratch to analyze and solve a problem. I know what will work because a solution that has worked in the past will always work to solve a similar problem. Experience has reduced my rate of trial and error and increased my rate of immediate success in designing software solutions. However, I would not be able to design the right solution if I was not able to make the right analysis. More lines of computer code will not solve a software problem without the proper analysis and the right solution.

Poverty throughout some parts of the world including Africa is a real problem. Just as in software development, in order to solve the problem of poverty, we need to make the right analysis of what has caused African poverty, and then implement the right solution to the problem.

The poverty in Africa is not caused, has never been caused, and never will be caused by too little money or resources for the poor. It takes very little money to grow crops and raise livestock. The poor in Africa do not need more money from western governments. More money will not solve the problem of poverty in Africa because the problem of poverty in Africa is not caused by a lack of resources in Africa. Poverty in Africa is caused by the control and abuse of citizens by corrupt governments. Money from western governments will only make the problems worse.

The solution to poverty in Africa and other parts of the world does not require any more trial and error. Enough mistakes have already been made to know what will not solve the problem of African poverty. The redistribution of wealth will not all of a sudden start working in the future because it has never worked in the past no matter how many times it has been tried.

However, we do know from experience exactly what will work to solve the problem of African poverty. The problem of poverty is always solved by freedom. Free people making free choices about what to own, what to sell, where to work, how hard to work; and just as importantly, when, where, and how to give. With the exception of the mentally disabled and some physically disabled, people really can care for most of their own needs. Freedom works every time, past, present, and future to solve the problem of poverty.

God and the Poor

Pastor Roberts is stretching out his series on Bono and ONE and keeping me nervous. Although I'm not sure why. So far, everything he has written has been excellent. Here is his latest entry.

Pastor Left Turn

I am often chastised by my lovely wife for having a style of communication that is inappropriately caustic. On occasion, she does have a point. However, this post by Steve Camp about Rick Warren and Global Warming takes sarcasm to an entirely new level. It makes me feel downright amiable. It is also astute and well worth reading.

Know ONE

Mark Roberts, Senior Pastor at Irvine Presbyterian Church and blogger extraordinaire is one of the most balanced thinkers and writers on the Internet. I admire how he is able to incorporate multiple perspectives into everything he writes. He is a recognized authority on Scripture and a model of temperance and fairness. I don't necessarily completely change an opinion based on his explanations, but I do always rethink, and usually modify, an opinion when he presents an explanation that conflicts with my own beliefs. I am extremely grateful for him, his dedication to truth, and his blog.

For the last three days, Pastor Roberts has been writing about the sermon Bono gave to the invited guests at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. on February 3rd. So far, his remarks have been very complimentary towards Bono. His pieces can be found here, here, and here. I’m sure there will be several more to follow. I can hardly wait!

I have been reading this series with some nervousness and trepidation though since it is also an analysis of the ONE Campaign that I have previously criticized here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I want to know exactly what Pastor Roberts believes, but I also want him to articulate a position that is similar to my own and I don’t want to have to rethink this matter [Pride - Of course I will give this matter more thought based on Pastor Roberts remarks.] I have been convinced from the start of the ONE campaign that it is just a repackaging of the same failed policies that have created and perpetuated the poverty and problems that currently exist in Africa.

The goals of the ONE Campaign sure seem to be Biblical, but the methods are the antithesis of an application based on Biblical principles. Taking from some and giving to others is wrong. The circumstances of the person doing the taking (government), the circumstances of the person being robbed (tax-payers), and the purpose of the theft (African Poverty) are all irrelevant.

The West Can't Save Africa

The West Can't Save Africa:

"The West's focus on sensational tragedies obscures the achievements of people such as Patrick Awuah and Robert Keter, who are succeeding even against tremendous odds. Economic development in Africa will depend -- as it has elsewhere and throughout the history of the modern world -- on the success of private-sector entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and African political reformers. It will not depend on the activities of patronizing, bureaucratic, unaccountable and poorly informed outsiders.

Development everywhere is homegrown. As G-8 ministers and rock stars fussed about a few billion dollars here or there for African governments, the citizens of India and China (where foreign aid is a microscopic share of income) were busy increasing their own incomes by $715 billion in 2005."

The Olympics Need...

"How she avoided marrying John Daly, we will never know."

Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative

I had a smile on my face all the way to work this morning. Today felt like it was going to be a great day. Then I do a little early morning surfing and find out that 86 evangelical Leaders are encouraging congress to take legislative action to reduce global warming.

You can read more about the busy body's here.

Is it time for Christians to start boycotting Evangelical Churches? Just where are we supposed to go to Church when our leaders become part of the politically correct class in America?

My Blessing

My six-year-old daughter and I have been playing golf on weekends at a nine hole executive course in Long Beach for several months, but we still go to the driving range on an 18 hole course that has a waterfall on the first hole. She has been begging me to play the course with the waterfall, but I haven't thought she was anywhere near ready, so I told her that once she pars one of the holes on the executive course, I would take her to the waterfall course to play. Her best score ever on a single hole at the executive course was a five, so I didn't expect her to make a three for quite some time.

Last Sunday we were playing a round at the executive course. I had to fuss at her a few times on a couple of the beginning holes because she wasn't focusing on her shots enough. My fussing made her mad and she started crying which made me wonder if we should be playing together on a course at all.

When we arrived at the sixth tee, she looked at me and reminded me that I had to take her to the waterfall course if she made a three. I acknowledged to her I would, so she turned around and stuck her tee in the ground and hit one of the most beautiful shots I have ever seen. The flag was about 80 yards from the tee. Her shot was slightly down hill and down wind. I knew from the moment she struck the ball and I heard a distinctive ding that it was a great shot and would probably be on the green.

Her ball hit right in front of the green, bounced up, and then started rolling right toward the hole. It looked like her ball actually had a chance to go in the hole and it would have if my yelling could have influenced the roll at all, but in the end it trickled inches by the hole and came to rest about four feet from the flag. She proceeded to miss her birdie by another few inches and then tapped in for a par.

There are moments in life that defy logic. I don’t know how my daughter managed to hit the best shot of her life at exactly the right moment when she knew she had the best opportunity to get what she wanted. Coincidence? Perhaps! I wouldn’t believe it happened if I didn’t see it myself.

Last night she turned into a Gremlin before bedtime as she sometimes does and we both returned to earth. Today, I made a tee time for the course with the waterfall. I still wish the moment could have lasted forever.

Update: The round at SkyLinks (Waterfall Course) was fun. We managed to play 16 holes before dark. There wasn’t very many golfers on the course after the Super Bowl started. The little one had a 5, 7, 7, and 18 on the par threes. Her other holes ranged from 9 to 17 with a 13 on a tough par five. I think I’ll keep her.

Revolution?

Tod Bolsinger has been commenting at his blog about the book Revolution by George Barna. Revolution describes the large number of Christians who don’t consider the local Church essential to Christianity. Like Tod, I consider this a very bad trend in Christianity. Unlike Tod, I am one of the Christians who have been dropping out of the local Church. I hate not being a member of a local Church almost as much as I hate being a member of a Local Church.

I think Biblical Christianity consists of “fitting in” and “standing out”. The two go together and are inseparable. When either the “fitting in” or the “standing out” are overemphasized at the expense of the other, the body of Christ is weakened. However, I can completely understand why strong Christians are leaving the local Church and going it alone out of discouragement and frustration.

From my perspective, part of the problem is the over controlling nature and the under performing example of many Pastors. Tod seems to be the exception, not the rule. He has the mentality and spirit of a true shepherd. When Pastors don’t have what it takes to lead by example, the local Church becomes just another social organization. Most of us have unlimited resources for proper exegesis. We can’t benefit as much from a Pastor who can explain a passage as we can benefit from a Pastor who lives a passage. Most Churches choose a Pastor based on the former and not the latter.

Update: Steve also makes some excellent points regarding this trend. He is right; other believers and I do need to be members of a local Church.

Cowards

As I browse through various news pieces recently, I keep reading this exact phrase:

“… official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak publicly."

Apparently the Associated Press has developed a “cut and paste” way of telling a story that may or may not have legitimate sources or our government officials want to disseminate information without having to take responsibility for the poor information that is disseminated.

I suspect the Associated Press is using this same verbiage to describe both scenarios. This type of reporting is not acceptable to me. It is no different than spreading rumors. News consumers need to know the names of sources and government officials need to take responsibility for their comments.

It is no wonder our government is mostly inept. Our press and our public officials are complete cowards.

Good Looks and the Right Message

It sure is encouraging to know that good looks can overcome wrong politics/religion when it comes to getting face time on TV.

Don't believe me; how else did this guy make it?

onepeat.com

TDACSATASWI

Team Donars and Corporate Sponsors Against Talking About Skiing While Intoxicated

Either Americans are suffering from way too much prosperity or the evil spirit busy-body has gained control.

Memo

Inter blogsphere Memo

Date: 1/10/2006

To: GodBloggers

From: Contrarian Views

RE: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, et al.

There is no need to disassociate yourself from comments made by televangelists, church leaders, and Para-church ministry leaders every time their comments are reported in the Mainstream Media. Everyone knows these folks don’t speak for you anymore than Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or Jimmy Carter speaks for you. You are giving the Mainstream Media, the comments, and the reports of the comments, much more attention than they deserve.

Is American Girl a pro-abortion company?

My daughters love the American Girl dolls and the American Girl website. Our purchases have been limited, but by buying American Girl dolls, we have inadvertently supported abortion rights.

John J. Miller on National Review Online has the story.

Raw Deal

There was a time when I thought Pete Wilson and Bill Clinton were the poster boys for stick-a-wet-finger-in-the-air politician.

Arnold almost makes those two look like Alan Keyes.

Artist In Residence

Warrant Officer Mike Fay at Fire and Ice is the Artist in Residence for the United States Marine Corp. Unlike me, and most other soldiers, he has a brain where both sides fire on all cylinders.

Free to Drink and Drive

Every time I listened to the radio for the last two weeks I heard at least one warning about the danger and associated punishment for drinking and driving. The message I heard over and over again was that if a person chooses to drink and drive, the full coercive power of government will be used to punish the offender in ways that will make the offenders’ life miserable for many years. One News story even mentioned a new law in Tennessee that requires first time offenders’ convicted of drunk driving to do 24 hours of roadside cleanup wearing an orange vest emblazoned with the phrase, “I am a Drunk Driver”.

I can think of many crimes where reasonable people can disagree over the social harm of an offense or the appropriate punishment for a person convicted of a particular crime, but I can’t think of any other civil offense other than DUI where someone can be severely punished for a crime that hasn’t harmed anyone. Even hate crimes based on political correctness have offenders and victims. I may be in a very small minority this time, but DUI laws don’t seem appropriate in a country founded on freedom.

Military chaplains told to shy from Jesus

It's too bad the military needs to be part of the culture war in the middle of the war on terror.

This story is discouraging.

"I am a Navy chaplain being fired because I pray in Jesus' name," said Navy Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt, who will be holding 6 p.m. prayer vigils daily in Lafayette Park.

The hunger strike is intended to persuade President Bush to issue an executive order allowing military chaplains to pray according to their individual faith traditions. The American Center for Law and Justice has gathered 173,000 signatures on a petition seeking an executive order.

Seventy-three members of Congress have joined the request, saying in an Oct. 25 letter to the president, "In all branches of the military, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian chaplains to use the name of Jesus when praying."

Gallup Poll Finds Americans' Belief in God Remains Strong

According to a new Gallup Poll, Americans' Belief in God Remains Strong. 94% think God exists. (HT:Drudge Report)

Thinking Right or Acting Left

Suppose those on the political right started thinking and legislating like those on the political left. Activities and beliefs that are considered harmful by those on the right would be taxed and regulated and activities that are considered virtuous by those on the right would be subsidized.

Research Grants would be funded by the government for every college and university that developed and promoted research programs into methods, tools, and nutritional supplements for creating more effective soldiers and more effective battlefield techniques. Institutions of higher learning would be shown preference based on the political beliefs of their professors. Additional awards would be based on the success of a developed technique that resulted in the actual assassination of a high ranking terrorist leader.

Abortion would technically remain legal, like cigarettes and guns, but would only be performed by a licensed abortion practitioner who was required to pay a majority of the fee for service in taxes and only after a considerable waiting period. The taxes would be increased every year to pay for public service announcements that condemned the abortionists and their victims. Children in public schools would be taught the evils of abortion and required to sign a pledge promising to never partake in such an evil act.

Couples who get married before living together would be given funds from the Federal government for a down payment on their first house. Those couples who are members of a licensed Church would be given an additional 25% to furnish the house. Child Care, transportation, education, and ancillary expenses would be paid by the government for each child until the child becomes an adult as long as the couple stays married and are members of a Church. Sunday morning employees of Fox News would get an exception to the Church rule.

Unmarried adults who impregnate or become pregnant would be required to pay a significant tax penalty as well as enter a sensitivity class that stresses the societal importance of marriage. The children of unmarried couples would be taught about the harmful effects of single parenthood in our public schools. The unmarried adult parents would retain no rights to object to the educational curriculum of their children.

Every adult would be required to own a gun. No exceptions, except for felons, who would be in jail and have no use for a gun for protection anyway. Those adults who could not afford to buy their own gun, would be supplied a gun and a sufficient amount of ammunition from the government.

PBS would be required to document the sacrifices being made by medium income Americans in order to pay the taxes that fund welfare and other transfer of wealth government programs. In addition, PBS would also have to report on an itemized account of how many funds go to the recipients of welfare and how many funds are absorbed into the government bureaucracy.

Every adult with the last name of Kennedy, and every adult related to a Kennedy, would be required to pay an additional 15% Income Tax for disgracing the name of a great President. Robert Kennedy Jr. would be required to pay double.

As a person who values freedom and truth above all else, I would not support any of these measures to attain a social benefit because the cost of coercion would be too morally expensive and out way the benefits of the outcome. However, I do wish those on the left cared more about truth and freedom even if they disagree with me on everything else.

Belief in Evolution

Tom Bethell has just written a great piece on the debate over Intelligent Design and the scientific problem with Darwinian evolution. Read Don't Fear the Designer

Old Problem Example

In RealClearPolitics - Commentary - How GM Failed to Meet the Challenge Robert Samuelson gives a perfect example of the old problem.

"In 1921, Ford had 60 percent of U.S. car sales. GM overtook Ford because ``the old master (Henry Ford) had failed to master change,'' Sloan wrote. Ford stuck too long with the Model T, conceived as cheap transportation for everyman. But the advent of used car sales satisfied consumers wanting ``basic transportation,'' while new-car buyers demanded more comfort and performance. GM offered a full line of cars (Chevrolets, Buicks and Cadillacs) at different prices."

The Old Problem

Young organizations with younger people tend to be more innovative, quicker to change and adapt, and more prone to quick failure. Old organizations with older people tend to be more stable, slower to change and adapt, and more prone to slow failure. This is true of political organizations, business organizations, and church organizations. Young organizations have problems assessing the risk associated with specific actions or policies. Risk ignorance sometimes results in great success and sometimes results in great failure. Old organizations have problems taking an action involving any risk. Risk knowledge sometimes results in avoiding mistakes, but often results in missing opportunities.

The United States has always enjoyed an advantage over Europe because we have been a younger country with a higher percentage of younger people and a greater willingness to take calculated risks. However, as more and more baby boomers in America reach retirement and start to prefer stability to innovation, the American advantage over Europe will start to erode. Also, as more and more of India’s, Brazil’s, and China’s younger population start to realize opportunity and achieve success without migrating to America, the United States will cease to be the country of innovation and leadership.

The best hope for the United States would be for our government to allow more legal immigration. America has vast amounts of unused land, resources, infrastructure, and laws, that would allow the process to be transparent to the daily lives of most Americans, but beneficial to the long term prospects of both the immigrants and current Americans. Imagine all of the opportunities if we were to build new schools, hospitals, businesses, churches, parks, sport and activity centers, and communities all with wireless internet access.

There is a big problem though. Our government, our political parties, many of our people, and a lot of our ideas have become old and risk averse. At a time when we need new people, new ideas, and new organizations, the old people in old organizations with old ideas want to slow down and stop immigration.

Wouldn’t it be better for America if new jobs were done by new Americans in America than by Chinese in China? Wouldn’t it be better for democracy and freedom if new businesses were created in America by new Americans than by Socialists in China? Wouldn’t it be better for the Gospel if new Churches were formed in America by new Americans than by Chinese who face imprisonment for conducting a Church service? Wouldn’t it be better for America if a new political party with new ideas gained a little traction?

As much as I like President Bush, and as much as I think the only realistic hope for positive progress in America is with the Republican Party, I sure wish there was another alternative that wasn’t so old.

Quitting Too Soon

I once heard a statement declaring that many people deny themselves a chance for success because they give up too soon. In contrast, there is a contemporary belief that to continue to do what you have always done and expect different results is a sign of idiocy. Both concepts seem to be true on first thought. However, both concepts can’t be completely true because of the conflict between the two. One of these concepts could be mostly true and the other concept mostly false or both concepts could be partially true and partially false.

There seems to be many people who give up before achieving a goal, but there are also many people who die before accomplishing their plans. There are also many people who work and sacrifice most of their life in order to realize a small success while others seem to luck into wealth, success, and achievement early in life without much effort at all.

The conflict in Iraq has attracted the attention of the proponents of the “don’t give up too soon” and the “it’s lunacy to continue” ideas. While the conflict in Iraq is of supreme national and historic importance, it still becomes a decision based on the price America is willing to pay to achieve the results we desire. As long as the results are adequate for the price we are paying, the national consensus will be to continue. When there does not appear to be any results or the results are minimal, the national consensus will be to end the lunacy.

As someone who rarely quits once I establish a goal, I am thankful for the recent good news concerning Abu Musab al Zarqawi. We could use more good news like this because I would hate for the American military to leave Iraq too soon.

Mixed Messages

My little girls aren’t so little anymore. They don’t just hear the things my wife and I tell them anymore, they also interpret what we tell them. One of my themes for them is the importance of being appropriately kind to everyone, not just their friends. On the drive to school a few weeks ago, I was reminding my oldest daughter to remember to consider the feelings of everyone who will be affected by one of her decisions before making a the final decision. Her reply to me was that her mommy told her to quit worrying so much about others. Oh boy, talk about mixed messages.

My wife was trying to teach her to be independent, which is also of extreme importance to me, but the message came across to her as an encouragement to be selfish. My girls can jabber until my ears hurt. Yet, this was a good lesson and a reminder for me to always listen to what they are saying when they are talking. It’s not enough for us to teach our children morals. We need feedback to understand all that we are teaching them, so we can correct our mistakes before a wrong lesson becomes permanent.

Why The Morning-After Pill Is Pro-Life

In RealClearPolitics - Commentary - Why The Morning-After Pill Is Pro-Life Steve Chapman makes a Pro-Life case for why Plan B should be approved by the FDA.

Is Wal-Mart a Problem?

John Stossel is one of the few clear thinkers in Big Media.

In "RealClearPolitics - Commentary - Is Wal-Mart a Problem? by John Stossel" he makes the case for Wal-Mart and simple economics.

Individuals

It seems to me that there are many Christian writers and leaders who use the words “community” and “relationships” interchangeably. I don’t think the meanings of the words are the same. The more I hear and read the word “relationship”, the more I am convinced it is a word that doesn’t have a meaning, or at least a clear meaning. I have a relationship with God, a relationship with my wife, and a relationship with the chair I am sitting on, but the three have very little in common and how I relate to each of the three is very different. If I had my way, the word “relationship” would be stricken from the Christian vocabulary along with the word “just”.

Communities are groups of individuals and organizations who voluntarily cooperate in a way that is mutually beneficial. When an individual chooses to purchase bread from a baker instead of baking his or her own bread, the baker and the buyer are both rewarded; the buyer saves time and usually money, and the baker earns additional income. The baker and the buyers form a community of dependence, where both are giving and both are getting. Healthy Churches are very similar. In a healthy Church community, there is a balance between giving and getting.

Unfortunately, many Churches struggle to achieve a balance between giving and getting. These Churches usually have a small percentage of givers trying to serve a larger percentage of getters. Eventually, some form of temporary balance is achieved, but the constant struggle to maintain the balance always remains. Churches with the highest percentage of independent individuals will have less trouble achieving the balance because of the lower percentage of needy individuals who are a burden to others. One of the goals of ministry should be to minister in a way that moves individuals from a position of dependence on others to a position of independence so they will no longer be a burden, but become a servant and a contributing member of a community.

Each of us have a different quotient for how much individuality we can sustain, just as we each have a different quotient for how much compromise and cooperation we can sustain. Within a healthy Church community there is room for those with high individuality quotient, a low individuality quotient, a high cooperation quotient, and a low cooperation quotient. Those with no individuality quotient or no cooperation quotient are the burdens to a healthy Church community. I know there are many today who look at Church and society and see too much individualism. I’m not one of them. I look at Church and society today and see way too much dependence on others in ways that are unnecessarily burdensome. In my view, this is an unhealthy trend.

Culture

Most Christians consider fundamentalism to be a slightly warped or extreme form of Christian belief. However, fifty years ago the fundamentalists were mainstream American Christians. Nowadays, they seem odd because they have diligently preserved the cultural Christianity of 1950 and refused to adapt to an evolving culture. By holding on to a fading culture, fundamentalists have almost completely lost the ability to influence our present culture.

Every Church in America has it’s own culture. Churches that experience growth in early years are usually able to appeal to a cultural segment of seekers and believers who are not being served by traditional Churches. However, as Churches age, they tend to preserve their original culture, sometimes becoming mainstream and then eventually passé. The fundamentalists are an obvious example of this process, but the process is not limited to the fundamentalists; all Churches go through these stages. Churches that invest in timeless architecture might be a slight exception, but it is still rare to find a thriving older Church even when the Church buildings are able to attract new members.

Christian principles and beliefs are timeless truths that are not dependent upon a cultural setting. Sacrifice, charity, forgiveness, prayer, worship, discipleship, discipline, faithfulness, honesty, love, study, thought, and maybe a few others will be important to a Christian in any culture. Music, clothes, expressions, activities, and accessories are always changing and have nothing to do with Christianity. Hate, murder, thievery, lust, selfishness, cruelty, deceit, bitterness, prejudice, sloth, and maybe a few others are the eternal enemies of the Christian regardless of the culture.

There have always been and there will always be believers and non-believers including myself who mistake culture for principle. I try to get it right, but I also realize I am a product of my genes, my upbringing, my experiences, and my God. There are also some beliefs that aren’t quite culture and aren’t quite Biblical principle. I have written before about how over done and over emphasized relationships have become in our Churches. Relationships with God and others is important, but the over-emphasis on relationships is more cultural than Biblical.

Another aspect of relationships that may be more cultural than Biblical is the claim that God created us to be dependent upon each other and that individualism is sinful. Paul White at reluctant but faithful claims, “Independence leads to unaccountability, and unaccountability leads to all manner of sin, and sin, as C.S. Lewis wrote, causes us to curve inward upon ourselves, eventually, independently, dying.” Hammer left a comment stating, “The American cultural image of rugged individualism is not supposed to fit into the church.”

While there is some truth to both of these statements, neither is completely true. Dependence and conformity can also lead to sin and often do lead to sin. It is selfish to be dependent to a point of being an unnecessary burden on someone else and it is lazy for Church members to conform to an arbitrary or even negotiated standard. I have no doubt, God created us to have a dependent relationship with him. I also believe we serve best as part of a Church community. However, the best community is not a group of dependent conformists; the best community is a Church comprised of individual and independent believers.