Mark Byron

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 50:22-23 (NASB)

22: "Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.

23: "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God."

I'm not quite sure how to interpet this, but I'm reasonably sure that what God is after is for us to do things above and beyond what we're required to do. To the best of my knowledge, sacrifices of thanksgiving weren't required. In the NASB, they're only mentioned in Leviticus 7.

My parallel Bible that hasn't been use as much as it should (it was a requested Christmas gift) seems to be helpful here. Here are some alternative starts to verse 23

King James-"Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me"
NIV-"He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me"
New Living-"But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me"

Looking at the passage in Leviticus 7 seems to help some; the NIV seemed a bit clearer

11 " 'These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the LORD :
12 " 'If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. 13 Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast. 14 He is to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the LORD ; it belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the fellowship offerings. 15 The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning.

A sacrifice of thanksgiving is one where the believer does what is required and then adds some more. God doesn't take much joy when we give just what we're expected to give. Even today, we can write out a tithe check without much joy; what's our gross pay, slide the decimal place over one, write check for amount.

No, putting in a few extra bucks in the offering plate isn't the answer. Giving him praise when you're surprise that you're giving it is what he's after; I almost said that you should surprise God with extra praise from time to time, but that would sound like Open Theism. You can't surprise God, but you can please him by praising him when you're not "supposed" to.

The Gmail Kicker

This Orlando Sentinel piece has more lowdown on Google's new Gmail; it isn't an April Fool's prank, but it will go through your e-mail and post ads with that in mind. For instance, if Gmail notes that I'm planning a trip to the Columbus area, it'll post ads playing up Columbus stuff. If you don't want Google's computers snooping through your E-mail, this won't be for you.

The maximum E-mail size is 10 Meg; that can still let you send some good pictures through.

Afternoon Musings

Here's one Tigger than needs to be debounced. There's some off-color humor available here, but I'll steer clear.

The Third World folks who were ticked that folks from developed countries got in without prints got some equal treatment; now everyone is getting printed.

NBA Musings

The current NBA standings are interesting reading. The East is about as lame as a half-a-league can get, with only three teams with winning records. Right now, Miami, New Orleans and Milwaukee are in a three-way-tie for fourth with a 38-39 record; unless one of those three goes 4-1 down the stretch, someone will have home-court in the first round without a winning record. The top two will get to play each other and the dog of the three will get Detroit, unless the Bricks zip past and snag the sixth slop. Cleveland's only a game and a half back of Boston for the last spot.

Meanwhile, two teams with winning records will be lottery picks out West, as Portland, Utah and Denver, all at least two games over .500, fight for the eighth spot out west. Houston's the seventh seed; no gimmie for the #2 and sixth seed Dallas will be scary for the #3; pity the Pacific runner-up. They'll be some fun first-rounders and some killer second-rounders.

Out East, Detroit-New Jersey will be an interesting second rounder. Indiana won't have as easy a trip to the finals as it looks, for I'd suspect either the Bricks or the Celtics would be a tougher out than the records appear.

The 527 Blues-Part II-Vice as a Fundraising Device

Here's a fun read; the donor list for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. You have some usual suspects, like various labor groups, and a few of the corporations that the New Democrats hit up, like GE and BellSouth (again), but their is a distinct pattern in that tobacco and gambling interests are very visable

Tobacco-

Brown & Williamson Tobacco
UST
Lorillard Tobacco
Smokeless Tobacco Council

All it takes is a pinch (of money) between my thumb and index finger for pure political satisfaction.

Gambling

International Game Technology
Harrah's Entertainment
Maryland Virginia Racing Circuit
Trump Hotels Casino

Most of the big pharma players have seem to have delivered their tribute to the Democrats, like GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer.

How does this compare to the Republicans? There doesn't seem to be a parallel group on radar. The Club for Growth has few, if any, big corporate donors, but the RINO Republican Leadership Council has Pfizer, BellSouth (one mo' time!) and Dow Chemical giving.

Most liberals aren't fans of gambling or tobacco, except as a source of revenue. There seems to be an unholy alliance of liberals and gaming advocates backing the extention of gaming as long as the state gets a share of the cut, ignoring the societal and economic damage that gambling does; you often get an odd coalition of conservative moralists and community activists who see the collateral damage from casinos fighting the siren song of economic development and extra tax revenue.

Liberals (and at least one conservative college professor) would be happy, all else being equal, if smoking were banned outright. However, that would mean having to find some other way to raise the revenues gain by tobacco taxes. To make sure that congress doesn't try to make life even tougher on the tobacco companies, this tribute (in the original sense of protection money) to congressional Democrats is being paid.

It looks like Democrats are more in the pockets of corporate interest that Republicans are. You can run some effective ads rattling off the list of corporate tributaries and get a lot of your Nader/Dean crowd negatively juiced, as well as possibly drive a few goo-goos into the Republican camp.

The 527 Blues

The list of who is donating to the various liberal 527 groups is very interesting. I'm reminded of a piece I did two years ago (italics added)-

Hayes’ piece seems to make the political left look like a Japanese keiretsu, with the big foundations as the banks, giving money to affiliates like PBS, NPR and the liberal action groups. The public broadcasters then use their money to give airtime and news-time to their liberal sister-groups and using their sister-group experts to put the proper spin on the news. Also, when multiple groups donate to put on a show, it makes things look broad-based when it may wind up being the same money coming from different angles. There’s an interesting piece there for the taking looking at who’s on the boards of these various PBS/NPR donor foundations and whom they’re giving to. I’m tempted to do it myself.

That keiretsu is in full bloom here, and that part I highlighted really hits home when you look at the groups. I'll begin my once-over with the biggest of the 527s to date, America Coming Together.

Madison and Jessica Lynch

"Theology Guy" over at The Gutless Pacifist was dissing the star treatment Jessica Lynch has been getting.

I asked the question what happens to the rest of the soldiers who survive Iraq, though wounded. You know, the ones that aren't young, attractive, blond females.

TG's coming at it from a perspective of not wanting to glorify war at all, but I agree that Lynch doesn't deserve the attention she's getting. I think she should be getting her props for courage, but so should tens of thousands of other GIs who aren't cute and blonde and were captured.

What I think drove the Lynch story was a military application of the Cute Missing Female media meme; the media loves to cover stories of teenage girls/young women who are missing; the most recent entry was this incident in Wisconsin. Who took her? Was she sexually abused? Is she alive ("relatives fear the worst tonight as young [fill in name] remains missing")?

Were Lynch male or less pretty, she's not have gotten the treatment she's been getting. Quick, name me another enlisted person from the war that isn't someone you know personally. Stumped? Me, too.

Morning Musings

What part of Kerry's anatomy can we tell him to apply his "jobless recovery" shtick to? Now, now, that's not nice. No, the 300,000 new jobs are nice, but what you wanted to do to that poor senator. Really.

A few people will be looking for other work; Gateway's shutting down it's brick-and-mortar retail operations, wiping out 0.8% of the good news above. I have a Gateway laptop and the Lakeland store might have helped me lean in their direction (I wound up buying online) but it didn't turn out to work as well as they hoped. What is more interesting in that piece is the overhaul led by former eMachines boss Wayne Inouye; can he get Gateway leaner and meaner?

So much for the appeasment theory; the Spanish caught a bomb on the Madrid-Seville rail line. No word on who was the likely planter, but the initials AQ is more likely.

Edifier du Jour:Deuteronomy 31:1-8(NASB)

1: So Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.

2: And he said to them, "I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and the LORD has said to me, 'You shall not cross this Jordan.'

3: "It is the LORD your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken.

4: "The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them.

5: "The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.

6: "Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."

7: Then Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall give it to them as an inheritance.

8: "The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

God's got it covered. He'll give you the strength to finish whatever task you've been given to do.

Where are the Republican 527s?

That's what I'm wondering, but I think that there is a reason for that. The Bush people are griping about MoveOn and other liberal 527 groups, but that's the nature of the political beast this year. There may be some low-level coordination going on between Kerry's people and MoveOn, but you don't need too much coordination to lay down attack ads on one's common foe.

McCain-Feingold took away the ability of the political parties to run ads in support of their candidates; the money has shifted to non-party "special-interest" groups like MoveOn. Or the Club for Growth. However, in the early going, it seems to be the liberal groups that are running all the attack ads. The closest thing to a conservative independent expenditure that I've seen was a US Chamber of Commerce plugging the changes in Medicare; it wasn't directly a political ad backing Bush or bashing Kerry, but likely designed to make people feel warm and fuzzy about the changes and partly defusing any scare-the-seniors gambits of the left.

I think the reason is that Bush can handle things on his own right now. With a nine-figure warchest at the ready, he doesn't need to call upon any outside help for the moment. Kerry, on the other hand, has a much more modest bank account and not as much free media now that the primaries are over. A month ago, the press was covering the primaries, covering Dean, Edwards and Kerry all blasting Bush with the president out of the fray; now, it's mano-a-mano con El Presidente.

Kerry needs the liberal 527s to pile on in order to even things up. Right now, Bush versus Kerry and the liberal 527s are a fair fight. I think the up-front "I'm George W. Bush, and I approve of this ad" statements work well, adding a bit of gravitas to an attack ad, something that the 527 ads can't do.

That will change once the the conventions hit, and all the cap-free primary spending is done. Then, the candidates get their grants from the government and the hard-money advantage Bush has is gone, unless he opts out and finances the general on his own.

Barring that, Labor Day will be the time that the conservatives 527s will open fire, being the only available conduit of conservative campaign funds. Since the conventions are real late this year, that will mean two months of a serious air war.

Bait and Switch

I thought I saw the ultimate April Fools blog two years ago when Norwegian warblogger Bjørn Stærk went Marxist on us. No, this is the topper-welcome the newest addition to the Virginia section of the Peanut Gallery, the Wahoo Pundit.

Robert Bauer is a Fourth Year living off-grounds. He reveres Mr. Jefferson, and is bitter that this hallowed hero graces a coin as petty as the nickel.

The ultimate Charlottesville Web hoax, my folks.

Sorry, Josh, your trip to the Donkey Kongs doesn't quite match Bauer's move; that actually makes sense, considering how you're ticked at Bush.

It's Your Day, Senator Kerry

At least that what Hugh Hewitt thinks-

Dukakis in the tank had a better grasp of campaigning than Kerry, and Kerry's assertion that Bush Administration actions are responsible for the recruitment of terrorists is the most compelling reason yet offered as to why Kerry is unfit for the presidency. If Bush caused the terrorists, Mr. Kerry, who were those people training in Afghanistan throughout the nineties. Did they anticipate the rise of Bush and get their work-outs in early?

One of the strongest words I use is "fool," reserved for people who are genuinely lost in some absurd vision of the way the world works that is disconnected from reality. If you take John Kerry at his word, he's a fool. America cannot afford a fool as president.

A fool and his wife's money are soon parted, yes sir.

Midday Musings

I have to point to my #2 all-time April Fools prank; George Plimpton's Sidd Finch piece.

My #1 favorite was one NPR did in the early 90s, where they were doing an in-depth report on Arizona's sale to Canada, becoming the 11th province. Daniel Schorr pontificated on the national debt problems that prompted the sale and new Governor-General Bruce Babbitt was interviewed.

Alas, Canada didn't get its tropical province back then. However, this isn't a April Fool's item; there is legit talk of the Turks and Caicos islands, currently a British colony, becoming the 11th province. I've seen other pieces on this topic in the last month or so.

________

Or at least OPEC is winning. We're having record gas prices (at least in nominal terms; the buck-a-gallon we were paying circa 1980 was worse when you adjust for inflation) and what do they do? Cut production to adjust for the summer drop in oil demand. We love you too.

________

Earlier in the week, I had heard an NPR piece on a anti-US DVD making the rounds in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq, showing footage of the Somalis dragging around US bodies from Black Hawk Down with voiceovers saying something akin to "That's the proper way to treat Americans." Life imitates art.

The Virtual Hard Drive?

Josh thinks that this is an April Fools hoax, but there are wide spread reports that Google is about to launch a free e-mail service called Gmail to rival Yahoo and Hotmail's free services; here's the BBC piece I first saw.

The too-good-to-be-true part is that they're giving almost a gigabyte (1000MB) of storage space in the rumored package. If that were true, I'd dump my Yahoo account in a New Yawk minute. That would allow people to e-mail pictures with a lot more ease. When coupled with broadband connections, it would limit the usefullness of compressing files into .zip format. It also would allow you to e-mail yourself files you wanted to access wherever you are, creating a virtual hard drive, especially if you couple the mondo storage space with a search capability.

We'll see if someone's yanking our chain.

Edifier du Jour:Proverbs 10:8-14(NASB)

8
The wise of heart will receive commands,
But a babbling fool will be ruined.
9
He who walks in integrity walks securely,
But he who perverts his ways will be found out.
10
He who winks the eye causes trouble,
And a babbling fool will be ruined.
11
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
12
Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all transgressions.
13
On the lips of the discerning, wisdom is found,
But a rod is for the back of him who lacks understanding.
14
Wise men store up knowledge,
But with the mouth of the foolish, ruin is at hand.

As a certain mowhawked philosopher once said, pity the fool. He may have fun in the short term, but he'll suffer in the long term.

For some, the long term is longer than others. People sometimes can thumb their nose at God and be a material sucess. However, those of us who are believers have an even longer-term horizon, one that looks at an eternal time frame.

The only fool that we should play is the fool for Christ. What we believe is foolishness to the world. However, it was the role of the fool in the king's court to tell the king things straight; only he could tell the unvarnished truth to the king and live to tell the tale. As modern fools, we need to tell the truth of God to people, even if it isn't PC. Since our spirit lives on forever, we can't be killed for what we say in the way that truly matters.

Good Clean Fun

Both Get Religion and Rob Stewart comment on this ESPN piece on outgoingly born-again basketball phenom Dwight Howard; the 6'10" high schooler is expected to be a high lottery pick, possibly #1 overall, when the NBA draft goes down this summer.

The question the ESPN piece ponders is how a outspokenly Christian player will fare as an pitchman when sneaker folks seem to be looking for hip-hop-style street cred.

It may take divine intervention for this year's preps-to-pros phenom to make anywhere near the kind of off-the-court money that LeBron makes as a rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers. That may have as much to do with the fact that James continues to command the media spotlight and among sports' richest endorsement deals, totaling an estimated $135 million. But perhaps more to the point, sports marketing experts are divided over whether Howard's message of faith will be a hard sell for companies looking for a player to pitch their products, no matter the wholesomeness of his religious convictions.

Normally, naughy sells better than clean, but you could see Dwight Howard bringing in good money, assuming he becomes a major NBA star. Here are some strategies that could work.

(1) Pitchman for conservative brands- The ESPN piece posits Chick-fil-A as a possible client. The Never on Sunday folks would make a natural client. In the south, there are competing Christian media stores; Lifeway and Family Christian are two that come to mind. Lifeway could add to their market share with a charismatic athelete plugging them.

(2) Pitchman with niche brands that have no significant persona at present. While Nike and Reebok are stuck in the gritty street cred marketing mode, a second-tier brand might decide to go after a family-friendly persona. I could see such a off-brand (New Ballance comes to mind) come up with a Good Clean Fun campaign. Here are a few ads in my GCF campaign

A:Howard plays pick-up with his church homeys, talking Christ-flavored trash.

"May God show you mercy, for I'm sure not."
Howard goes crossover and scores game winner; flips ball to member of losing team.
"New game. Y'all take it out. The last shall be first."

B: Game footage with Howard talking about God wanting us to have fun and not being a killjoy.
C: footage of Howard doing his on-court thing to some good CCM (Mary Mary's Shackles or Point of Grace's Got to Be Time come to mind).
D: Shots of Howard practicing and hitting the weight room with voice-over of him reciting 1 Corinthians 9

24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;
27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

That will sell to the two-thirds of the population that don't aspire to be gangstas. Crazy enough to work. Good Clean Fun.

Plan B

Things are looking up. If the MVNU job falls through, I've got an offer to come up and interview up at Nyack College after Easter. The department chair at Nyack seems to be a very nice lady (after finally making contact after a few rounds of telephone tag) and the Christian and Missionary Alliance base of Nyack is a tad more up my alley than the Nazarenes, but I'm a small town (albeit a rather sophisticated small town in Dow Chemical's HQ of Midland) Michigan kid; metro New York seems to be almost a foreign country, whereas small-town Ohio seems closer to what I grew up with.

The Virginia chapter of the Peanut Gallery was ragging on MVNU's standards earlier today, but the people there seem nice and the primarily-graduate-level teaching load plays into my strengths as a encourager rather than as a motivator. I seem to work better with older students who know what they want; given that they want to learn, I can help them get through a lack of math background or difficulty understanding a concept. The Nyack post would be a blend of traditional and non-traditional classes, while the MVNU one will focus on graduate and non-traditional undergraduate classes.

Younger students have a greater tendency to be apathetic. In my traditional-program Financial Management class, I've got a lot of D and F students who aren't getting the material but aren't beating down the office door to get a better handle on things; I don't know how to encourage them to give a darn. In my non-traditional classes, students who are struggling are launching off E-mails and phone calls looking for help on stuff they aren't getting.

Thus, the MVNU job seems to be a better fit geographically and academically. The Nyack call gives me the confidence to be myself next week, knowing that there's another opportunity around the corner. Intellectually, I understood that there was a Plan B if MVNU fell through, but now, I have a concrete Plan B.

Midday Musings

I know it won't be something I'll be watching, but Dr. Zapalski wanted me to alert you to tonight's South Park episode; they're going to see The Passion. Given their propensity to be a slaugherhouse for sacred cows both left and right, it would promise to be a target-rich environment. If you like that crew, it would likely be a good one.

_____________

On a more serious note, I was thumbing through MVNU's lifestyle guidelines; one that gave me a little bit of pause was

We don't expect you to be perfect at MVNU, but we do expect you to do your best to abstain from and be truthful with us regarding:

•consuming, trafficking in, or being in the presence of alcoholic beverages,

I haven't consumed any in over a decade (maybe one or two glasses of wine just after coming to the Lord 19 years ago) but will go to restaurants that serve alcohol; Olive Garden comes to mind. It might be good for my budget to avoid them, since the places that do serve tend to be ones that are a bit more expensive. However, there are some classes of restaurants that seem to always serve; I don't know of an authentic Tex-Mex place (no, Taco Bell doesn't count) that doesn't have some south-of-the-border beer available.

The other thing that comes to mind is that both my folks and my in-laws have been known to have some adult beverages in the house. My parents will occasionaly have a six-pack in the fridge which will typically last for a couple months; not exactly lushes. I'll do my best, but that doesn't include disowning my folks. Skipping the boozy restaurants I'll accept, albeit a bit grudgingly.

_________

Soft money's always going to be a problem; it's hard to prove coordination and even harder to disprove it. I haven't seen a lot of Republican soft money yet, but MoveOn has been all over the Florida airwaves the last six months or so.

The funny thing that I've noted is that the hard money's flowing bigger than ever. Watching Jeopardy last night, we say two Kerry ads and a Bush ad. In late March. This is Florida, mind you, but it's still March. Seven more months of this slog.

A while back, Britney in a church service was news. Doesn't seems to have made a difference. Yet.

_________

Shucks, there goes the D-Rays hopes at an undefeated season. They had a one-run lead early today.

________

I should have more sympathy, but that's a real small violin playing at the news of AI being out for the year (at least the regular season, and without him, the post-season's all-but-gone),

Who Took My Can of Whuppin'? I'll Count to Three. One....

That is one tough-looking dame in that BBC picture; they had to scrounge to find just about the least-flattering shot. I'll open up the Peanut Gallery for alternative captions to that picture.

The news from yesterday is that she's going to be allowed to testify to Congress. Normally, folks on the White House payroll that aren't confirmed by the Senate aren't required to give testimony before congress; the Bush team decided to make a one-time exception while pointing out that it is only an exception. The current White House has played hardball on this concept, fighting to keep a lot of Cheney's meetings on energy policy off the record and away from congressional snooping and leaking.

I think that this will be a net plus for the administration. Rice versus congressional Democrats seems like a battle of wits with very lightly-armed men.

Edifier du Jour-James 1:2-5(NASB)

2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

No pain, no gain. When we go through tough times, we turn more to God, for we need help getting through them. We tend to be more self-centered if all we get are good times, for we think we're the master of all we survey then.

I'm reminded of a Kathy Traccoli song, How Would I Know, that has this chorus

How would I know You could deliver
How would I know You could set free
If there had never been a battle
How would I know the victory
How would I know You could be faithful
To meet all of my needs
Lord I appreciate the hard times
Otherwise how would I know

By going through the occasional (hopefully only occasional) rough patch, we know that God's got our back and will see us through. That allows us to be bolder and less cautious as we advance His kingdom.

Job Hunting Update

Here's what passes for news.

Delta College in my hometown has acknowledged that I sent a resume.

Nyack College's department chair e-mailed me two weeks ago that she'd be calling and has (as far as I can tell) not yet done so.

I've crossed off Indiana Wesleyan (super high workload all at night/Saturday; "What social life?") and Malone (I talked with them late last week, and, well, I'm not a good fit with where the dean's at).

I have an itinerary for the Mount Vernon Nazarene trip.

Thursday 4/8

Morning-Meet with provost, meet with president, meet with HR benefits lady, meet with faculty, give sample lesson in Intermediate Financial Management II.

Afternoon-Lunch with search committee, campus tour from Admissions lady, meet with seach committee again.

I've got some tentative plans to hook up with Kevin on Friday, getting a tour of the state capital and grabbing lunch.

I've never met any of my blog buddies before. Amy Welborn sent me some Betty Crocker coupons when she posted a notice that she was giving them up to a good home (my mother-in-law does them) and I got a snail-mail letter from reader Richard Shuford plugging an Eastern Nazarene opening. However, I've yet to meet a fellow blogger in the flesh.

Edifier du Jour-Hebrews 13:10-14 (NASB)

10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.
12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

If The Passion was close to being a realistic portrail; there was a truckload of blood shed inside the city courtesy of the scorging, and less blood shed on the cross proper.

It was good that I didn't tackle this until now, for we had a Jews for Jesus guy come to chapel and walk through the Passover seder. This part that reminds me a bit of the Easter egg hunt was striking-I'll just quote this site, which comes close to what I heard this morning-

During the Seder (Passover Meal) a very interesting ceremony takes place.
Three matzot crackers (bread) are placed in a bag of fine cloth.

These 3 pieces of bread represent the Trinity....
the Father, His Son Yeshua, and Yeshua's Holy Spirit.
The matzah-bread in the center---the one representing Yeshua-Jesus ---is then broken in two.

The larger of the two pieces is called the "afikomen".
Afikomen generally means "after supper", connoting dessert --- saving the best for last.
This dessert-bread---- this which is to be rewarded last--- is now wrapped in excellent cloth and hidden away in the house to be found later, after the Passover Meal....after REDEMPTION.

It is without leaven, is broken, wrapped in a cloth, burried (or at least hidden) and brought back in time for redemption. Not a bad metaphor.

Works

I'm coming in a bit late to l'affair James 2:14 , but I think a few conservatives are heading off on some less-useful tangents. Willian Sulik points out Dubya's charitable side, giving a example for the rubric that conservatives tend to be generous with their time and money, while liberals tend to be generous with other people's money.

La Shawn Barber goes further with that meme-

James gives guidance on how individuals, not governments, can evaluate their faith to determine whether it's living or dead. It is the personal works of believers that James has in mind in this passage. It wasn't addressed to Caesar.

If Kerry were a Christian, he'd know that the biblical standard of the test of faith doesn't rest on whether poor people exist or teenagers are killed in the streets. Using taxpayers' money isn't a work of faith.

What you do as a professing Christian, i.e., using your own money or time to feed the poor, would be considered "works." Does Kerry see the distinction?

Yes, but our political actions are works as well. We can have a direct impact on people's lives by giving money and our time to charities and/or directly to the needy; that can be simple things like giving a car-less person a ride to church or to an appointment.

We can also have an indirect impact on people's live by voting for people who will expand the commonweal and advocating policies that do likewise. If we're generous in the personal but selfish in the political, that's not living a godly life. We need to vote on economic issues in ways that helps the community at large rather than our own pocketbooks.

OK, I hear the liberal side of the Peanut Gallery saying "Amen, preach it, Brother Mark!" However, I've got a cold shower coming your way.

Larger, more intrusive government isn't always the answer. We don't measure godliness on how much money we're spending on K-12 education or on how much money we're spending on health care. We need to look at whether that extra spending/regulation is doing more harm than good. That will be an extension of our walk with the Lord, voting on how this society is organized. For most people who aren't pundits, that will be a much smaller part of our lives, but a part nonetheless.

One of the problems with economics is that godly people will reach different conclusions. Eileen and I split on raising the county sales tax to fund indigent health care earlier this month. She was looking more at the benefits (working at a school with a lot of poor kids helps lean her that direction) and I was looking more at the cost, both direct to the taxpayer and indirect (encouraging the country commission to play heart-tugging games with the budget).

Was Eileen sinning when she voted for the package? Was I sinning when I voted against the package? I think neither. Both of us were looking out after the best interest of the county, but had differences of opinion on what the best interests are.

Kerry was out of bounds by implying that being an economic conservative is a sinful application of one's faith. He seems to be assuming that Bush is for smaller government and lower taxes (than Kerry would like) because he's either personally selfish or that to get power, he has to sell out to tax-haters. There is a third option that Kerry (and many others on the left) doesn't seem to leave room for; that Bush might think that low taxes and smaller government actually helps the little guy while it helps the big guys a lot.

I'm not an economic conservative because I want to maximize my take-home pay. I do so because I think that is the best general policy for maximizing the commonweal. Most expansions of government are counterproductive and that the taxes need to finance them do more harm than the spending does good.

For instance, I'm not opposed to the Medicare drug benefit in general; we can debate the best way of delivering that and how to share the cost between seniors of difference income brackets and with the rest of us, but I think taking care of our elder's health care fully is a worth endeavor that would make the country a better place.

Just like we are to test the spirits and accept the ones that praise Jesus, we're to test economic policy and to accept the ones that expand God's kingdom by giving us a richer life. Sometimes that may mean plugging for smaller government and sometimes that may mean plugging for larger government. We can't assume that smaller government is always better or always worse; there are some good programs and a lot of lousy programs.

Yes, our politics is part of our walk with the Lord. He's calling us to use our head as well as our heart.

All Geopolitics is Local

At least this weekend. There were local elections in France and Turkey; the big play was how Chirac's party got it in the teeth, getting 37% of the vote to a unified left's 50%; PM Raffarin might be scapegoated as a result.

That may not be a bad thing, for things may have to get worse before they get better in France. From the vantage point of American "neocons" who like free markets, democracy, human rights and the spread of same, there isn't a dixième's de Euro's worth of difference between Chirac and the socialists. If the left takes over in the next national election and drives the country further into stagnation, France may be ready for a free-market party of the right once Sabine Herold gets old enough to stand for the legislature.

However, the Turkish elections may be more important, as the ruling Justice and Development Party managed to do well. The JDP might be a model for a civilized Islamic party in other countries, more like American theocons than the hard-core sharia/jihad parties that pop up elsewhere where Islamic countries have democracies. Combine the JDP and the strong possibility of a functioning democracy in Iraq, and one can see where the thugs in the Arab League are sending for an extra order of Depends.

The Dreaded MOTO

I remember one Monday Night Football game back when Howard Cosell and OJ were both on board. After a certain Cosell pontification, OJ cracked back-"Howard, you have a firm grasp of the obvious." Another football pundit on a pregame show of old would refer to "the dreaded MOTO" or Master of the Obvious.

This Bob Herbert column is a classic MOTO on the subject of taxpayer-financed stadiums. Hand a liberal this issue, and the stock response is along the line of "Why are we spending [fill in cost] to help fat-cat sports businessmen build luxury boxes for other fat-cats to sit in when we don't have enough money to fund [fill in project(s) of choice]?" The variables to fill in here are (1) $300 million for a new NYC stadium for the Jets and (2) schools. Not that it's not a valid question (non-jock-sniffing conservatives would be prone to agree that it's a waste of taxpayer money), but if I had a dollar for every column of that ilk I've seen, I could pay my rent this month with it. The latest edition didn't exactly advance the genre.

Contrast that with the Safire column on the corruption in the Oil-for-Food program. It has a more novel analysis than the Herbert piece, although it does have a parallel in that both have favorite punching bags (big business and the Axis of Weevil respectively) on display. I'm not quite up to making a grand statement that liberal columnists recycle the same boilerplate, filling in the proper variables, while conservative columnists tend to use a bit less boilerplate and more novel thought, but this is one example that would back that up.

Edifier du Jour:Deuteronomy 23:3-6 (NASB)

2: "No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the LORD.

3: "No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD,

4: because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

5: "Nevertheless, the LORD your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you.

6: "You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

I remember the morning that I was given my pink slip last month; the first person I talked to as I was getting out of the car was another faculty member who'd also been given the right foot of disfellowship that week. His encouragment spiel (cheer up; you'll find something better than your job here-he appeared to be prophetic there, the spots I'm getting are better) finished with his reciting the saying on a secular friend's coffee cup-"Don't let the bastards get you down."

If you'll excuse the venture into somewhat course language, that's exactly what this verse is about on two different levels, first literally and than figuratively. I'm not sure why the harshness of a multi-generational ban on out-of-wedlock people, but people raised by people who didn't have the best moral values might not be the best influence on folks.

The final verses are a reminder that God makes things meant for bad and can turn them around. In Baalam's case, he couldn't help but deliver a praise rather than a curse. In my job case, the thing the Devil tried to use to get me depressed and out of acadame may well give me a better job with higher pay than had I been allowed to stay at Warner.

60 Minute Rice

I had to borrow that Fox News crawler for the headline. It looks like 60 Minutes, after airing the Clarke piece last week, is giving the administration equal time, letting Condi Rice on tonight. The current stink is whether she can be compelled to testify before a congressional 9/11 committee; the White House is claiming executive privilege. I’ll be interested in seeing how that comes out; we’ll be en-route back to Florida at that time.

Mo' Morning Musings

Interesting Orlando Sentinel piece on the Tragic's T-Mac and whether he'll be around long enough to become the league's all-time leading scorer.

My parents call this a "Darko sighting"-

Detroit played a little more defense in the third, outscoring New York 23-18 to increase their lead to 90-67. They led by as many as 27 in the fourth.

The fans began chanting for Darko Milicic with nine minutes to play, and he almost immediately entered the game. The No. 2 pick in last summer's draft finished the game, but did not score and was called for a defensive three-second technical foul.

It reminds me a lot of the Bad Boy era, where Chuck Nevitt, a gangly 7'5" center, was their twelth man. When garbage time (when the game is in hand and teams empty the bench) arrived, the chant at the Silverdome was "Chuck-eee, Chuck-eee." Now, the arrival of garbage time is marked in Motown by "Dark-ooh, Dark-ooh."

Here's the Untener obit.

Morning Musings

This is the "I've been on vacation and missed some stories" edition.

We're winning some battles; while everyone was focused on the Clarke stuff, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act got passed the Senate, 61-38. I've yet to see a roll-call on who voted for the bill-the Senate web site seems not to have the list. I'd be interested to see who the thirteen Democrats were who voted for the bill, and which of the 36 Democrats are up for reelection.

Things look good for the Pledge of Allegience case; even Souter was going after Newdow; even without Scalia, they'll have five votes to overturn, although they might opt to go a squirmy route of saying that a non-custodial dad doesn't have standing to micro-manage his daughter's life when the custodial mom is cool with the Pledge.

This is interesting; a Mach 7 unmanned plane. 5000MPH. I think the bigger application might be in a missle thing that can hit a target from a distance real quick. Let's say we know where [insert bad al Qaeda guy] is located; he's at Building X for an hour for a meeting. We don't have a fighter in position to get their that quick, but we do have a plane flying a thousand miles away with our Speedy Gonzales Tomahawk. Fifteen minutes later, that meeting has a unwelcome visitor.

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 47:1-6 (NASB)

O clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy.

2: For the LORD Most High is to be feared, A great King over all the earth.

3: He subdues peoples under us And nations under our feet.

4: He chooses our inheritance for us, The glory of Jacob whom He loves. Selah.

5: God has ascended with a shout, The LORD, with the sound of a trumpet.

6: Sing praises to God, sing praises; Sing praises to our King, sing praises.

No great words from me today, just thanks that God has lifted a depressed, overwhelmed feeling from me.