Mark Byron

Evening Musings

Interesting news day. Ernesto went out to sea and is nearing hurricane strength. It's packing 70MPH winds (75 makes it a hurricane) and is about to hit the NC/SC boarder area.

The President made a speech to the American Legion and put in a plug to stay the course in Iraq. I haven't read the speech proper, but the excerpts I heard heading north today had him making the analogy of fighting WWII and fighting Islamic extremism. They're different wars but neither had failure as an option.

In a related vein, Iran gave the world community the middle-digit sal-oot. The UN gave them until the end of the month to end their nuke program or they'll taunt them a second time impose sanctions.

The one sanction that would have teeth would be an oil embargo, which the world couldn't easily afford; how does $5/gallon gas sound? Iran's too big a piece of the world oil market to take it off-line without doing a number on the world economy. $5/gallon for a while would be worth it to avoid nuclear-equipped mullahs or a nuke-packing Hezbollah, but not everyone's going to think that way.

I'm still wrapping my mind around the California greenhouse gas initiative. They're at least using some market forces to bring down CO₂ emissions, using a cap-and-trade system similar to what is currently used successfully in sulfur-dioxide controls on a national level; the EU is supposed to be working on a CO₂ trading scheme that might be interlinked with the California plan.

Ahnold clinched reelection with this move, but may have trashed the manufacturing sector in California in the process.

Last of the Yo-Yos

I opted not to take the teaching job I interviewed for this morning. It would have meant being away from Eileen for the better part of four months, since she has a SVSU class to teach; she's having the first class session even as I write. When I had prayed through the mixed emotions, weighing being unemployed in Michigan versus being lonely in Florida, unemployed in Michigan with a loving wife by my side sounds better.

There's always hope that something will break that has been on hold for two years or that we can reassess things in November as her teaching stint starts to come to a close. If my job prospects continue to look bleak, we might opt to have me recheck Florida for teaching jobs, check southern Michigan for accounting/business jobs or think really outside of the box; using my graduate-level work in economics, finance and political science in some governmental position or think tank might be something.

However, for the short term, I'll look around for what I can find in the Midland area, which hasn't been much as of late.

One thing that hit me as I was driving back today (I'm in northern Georgia grabbing a late dinner) was that the last two years of underemployment haven't been a failure. I nurtured Eileen through a very rough patch, and we're much better for it emotionally and spiritually, even if our credit cards have higher balances than I'd like.

This should be the last of the Michigan-Florida-Michigan-Florida yo-yos. There isn't a teacher shortage in Central Florida; they have more than enough math teachers to go around. I asked the principal if she had other prospects; if she hadn't, I'd have thought about taking the job. Given that she did, I asked her to hire one of them.

I have husband duties in Michigan; some Floridian can run herd over a pack of Haines City 7th graders for now.

Looking for a Refund?

"Dangerous John Marches up Mexican Coast."

Seriously, John's a Cat 4, and is doing more damage with its outer bands than Ernesto did making a direct hit on Florida; Ernesto is sliding off into the Atlantic off of the Space Coast. Prayers for the folks in Mexico's Pacific coast are called for.

Blogization Musings

It's interesting to see how blogs and blog-style interaction are changing the media. One area that I find interesting is the Washington Post adding a Technorati listing of who's blogged on the article; I'll occasionally get surprised by a WaPo incoming link if I've linked to a piece of theirs. Since they tend to archive their articles after a week or so, I tend not to use them for links, but sometimes the reportage of the WaPo makes that a must-link.

For instance, as I go to press, three blogs have chimed in on this piece on Israeli PM Olmert refusing to lift their embargo on Lebanon until they get back the two IDFers that Hezbollah snagged. It doesn't look good there, since the discussion seems to have gone back to where we started; Hezbollah's not going to be disarmed by either the Lebanese army or the UN and they want a quid-pro-quo from Israel on prisoners before the two Israeli soldiers are released.

The other interesting thing on my radar is from Toronto's Globe and Mail; they have allowed people to post comments on articles. They also have a part of each page noting the most commented-upon articles; that might be a shrewed way to get eyeballs to see ads, by getting their active Web readers to come back to see the back-and-forth of debate on a piece

I don't think I've ever seen an 18-screen article on the web before, but this long essay on Liberal party leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff has 183 comments. Wading through the piece was interesting; his career has morphed from academic historian to public intellectual to public policy academic to Canadian politician. He's no saint, but he's a sharp cookie; Canada could do far worse.

When you run for party leader, you're essentially running for prime minister, since the party leader becomes the prime minister if his party's in power. Thus, a party leadership race is a loose analog to a presidential nomination race in the US.

It's cheeky for a freshman MP to run for a leadership position, picture a freshman member of Congress with no prior experience in elected office start running for President and be taken seriously. However, Ignatieff's got enough gravitas to create a black hole. He might just pull it off; they'll be having the vote in December.

With a Whimper

L'affair Plame seems to have died with a whimper; Robert Novak's primary source was Richard Armitage, who was then deputy Secretary of State- "Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA almost inadvertently in a casual conversation with Novak, and it is not clear if he knew her identity was classified at the time."

That blows the Rovian conspiracy theories out of the water and demolishes any chance of the Wilson's lawsuit holding legal water. We've still got the Scooter Libby trial to deal with; he was caught fibbing about when he learned about Plame's identity. However, the making public of Plame's CIA status wasn't a crime in itself.

One of the things that can't be repaired is the taint of scandal in the Rove-Cheney axis of the White House, even as no wrongdoing occurred. The anticlimactic ending leaves many people's initial thoughts of political skulduggery intact, since this is a non-front-page item. All the images of Rove and company before the grand jury stays intact and uncountered.

Bush isn't up for reelection and congressional candidates won't be flocking to defend the second-tier folks in the White House. It might be up to the punditry to point out that the Rove-Cheney axis deserves an apology from the media, the Kossaks, and the legal system for being falsely dragged into the mud. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to come.

Midday Musings

Breakfast at Saitama? I woke up a bit late and picked up the US-Germany game late in the first half. The US was only up 1 at the half, but pulled out the defensive stops in the third quarter, pulling away to a 85-65 win. They'll get Greece in the semis.

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Ever wonder what the ladies talk about in the ladies' room? CNN accidentally ran a live audio feed of an anchorlady's trip to the loo yesterday; over a Bush speech, no less. We really didn't want the video, anyway.

It's a nice break from some of the guy bashing; good men are like the truth, "They're hard to find... But they are out there."

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We might not be in Ernesto's eye here in Lakeland after all. The radar seems to look like we've got stuff flowing around us, but the NOAA folks have the eye well to our south. The faux eye might just be a gap between inner and outer bands.

Ernesto has been downgraded to a depression. They closed schools for this? However, after the problems this area has seen with Charlie and Francis two years ago, they don't want to take chances.

Stagflation, Dubya Style

Modest inflation and slower-than-normal economic growth. That's what we're looking at right now.

People are grousing about a 2.9% second-quarter GDP growth rate? That's a good long-term growth rate, but not what we've expected in the Dubya years. When you here professional economics talk, they'll look at 3% as a solid long-term growth rate for mature economies; much more than that tends to be inflationary.

Inflation's starting to rear its head, but only a 2.8% clip on core inflation, given the oil problems, isn't that bad. It's not what we've come to expect in the Greenspan Era, but we're far from the stagflation of the late 70s and early 80s.

Could it be that our retooled economy, with its emphasis on productivity and efficiency and an inflation-fighting Fed, has made normal economic growth be closer to 5 or 6% and normal inflation close to zero? Thus, when we hit a bad supply shock, that 6% growth rate slows to 3% and 0% inflation perks up to 3%.

What would have been stagflation in a more sluggish economy becomes mild inflation and mild growth. We have Reagan, Dubya and Bill Clinton (yes, Slick Willie, hang with me for a moment) to thank.

Reagan overhauled the tax code and regulation, allowing the innovative US economy to flourish. He also ushered in supply-side econ to the stage; the focus shifted from the Keynesian meme of getting government spending to goose aggregate demand to a neoclassical economic focus on allowing low taxes to goose both AD and aggregate supply and allowing innovation, reduced regulation to goose AS.

Dubya followed in the Laffer-Mundell school, pushing through tax cuts that helped get the US past the busting of the tech bubble and high gas prices.

I also should give Clinton credit for accepting the Greenspan school of monetary policy. While he took a more Keynesian view of fiscal policy, he institutionalized the Greenspan inflation-hawk approach by reupping the Maestro to another term as Fed chair. His tax increases merely slowed economic growth rather than causing a recession; the Wintel and Fed-Ex driven innovation economy was too strong for Clinton to screw up, and he had congressional Republicans as economic chaperones (don't go there, you on the right side of the Peanut Gallery; that smirk is unbecoming) for his last six years.

Those changes to fiscal and monetary policy have created a robust economy, so robust that a big spike in oil prices merely slows economic growth rather than causing a recession. 3% economic growth and 3% inflation is what passes for stagflation in this new era.

No wonder the issues Democrats want to stress are Iraq and Jack Abramoff.

Eye of the Storm

Ernesto seems to be all bark and no bite. It looks like we're in the eye at present here in Lakeland. There seems to be storm activity to the north near Ocala and to the south (Ft Myers seems to have a nasty band at present) but we've got some sunshine coming though the clouds at present.

I don't have a good way to preserve the radar loop from the NOAA site, but we're in the eye. Neat. Polk County is the eye as of 10:40AM

We had a good steady rain earlier this morning, but nothing nasty; the only way you knew something was up was that we normally don't get rain in the mornings in the summer in Central Florida; in the summer, it's the late-afternoon/early evening pop-up thunderstorm that's this area's art form.

Edifier du Jour-Nehemiah 10:28-31(ESV)

²⁸The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, ²⁹join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes. ³⁰"We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. ³¹And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.

Our relationship with God is a bit different than the Israelites here, but we're still supposed to be set apart. We don't have Sabbath years of financial Jubilees, but some of the stuff here we can still take to heart.

The one that struck me the most was verse 30; we're not to be wedded to the "peoples of the land." That applies to things more than just marriage; partnering with non-believers is a recipe for trouble as well.

For instance, American evangelicals are struggling to figure out how to work within a broad-based center-right coalition, how to advance the cause of Christ without getting too cozy with the peoples of the land. Critics are quick to point out that secular conservatives have gotten the better of the bargain, as much of their economic and foreign policy agenda has been enacted, but little of the evangelical political agenda has come to pass.

In a largely secular society, it's hard not to be somewhat intertwined with non-believers unless you set up Christian communes. We just need to be careful not to let the interactions compromise our faith and our witness.

The Importance of Being Ernesto

Good news. I had a job interview for a teaching job in Florida, at a middle school in Haines City, scheduled for tomorrow morning at 10AM.

Even better news; I managed to pull an all-nighter and am in the Lakeland Panera as we speak.

Not so good news; Ernesto is coming our way about the time of the interview. The local schools are closed tomorrow.

Given that Ernesto is slated to pass a bit to our east, we've rescheduled the interview for Thursday.

Pray for the interview and that I ride the storm out in one piece; when I left yesterday, it looked like it was going to rake the east coast rather than go up the gut.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 19:11(ESV)

¹¹Good sense makes one slow to anger,
   and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

As I was on the road this morning, the conservative talkers were all over a NOLA waitress who asked a visiting Dubya yesterday "Mr. President, are you going to turn your back on me?" The underlying assumption that peeved the pundits was that the feds were not asleep at the switch last year, but deliberately slow.

Instead of deriding the waitress's IQ, as one talker did, Bush replied "No ma'am, not again."

That's not a bad example. Had he lit into her and questioned the premise of the question, the retort would be the topic of the day. Instead, he milked some humor out of the situation.

Usually, the best way to handle hostility is to turn the other cheek. The human response is to return fire, but the godly response is to not get angry.

I remember the story of Jackie Robinson, the first black in modern major-league baseball. When he was getting ready to play for the Dodgers, he was role-played through interactions a number of hostile bigots by his GM. Robinson asked if he was supposed to afraid to fight back. GM Branch Rickey replied "I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

Translated into the spiritual realm, God wants spiritual players with faith enough not to fight back. There are some times, like with policeman and soldiers, where violence is called for, but the godly response to anger directed at us is to not respond in kind.

 

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 17:21(NASB)

²¹He who sires a fool does so to his sorrow,
         And the father of a fool has no joy.

Back in the day, sons were more than just offspring; they were your Social Security system to look after you in your old age. Having a fool inherit the family farm or craft would be a disaster. Not only would your retirement plan be ruined, your relatives might be called upon to bail your wayward son out of his problems if you were unable to do so.

We don't have as much of a financial stake in the welfare of our adult children in most Anglospherian societies. However, the emotional and spiritual burden of having a child turn their back on God and put themselves into danger is bad enough.

 

Evening Musings

"Ernesto, you've just become the first hurricane of 2006. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to Disney World!"

Well, Busch Gardens in Tampa might be more accurate, since the projected path looks like it's going to hit the mainland just south of Tampa Bay. That's got my old buddies in Lakeland right in the crosshairs. First, however, it pays Club Gitmo and the rest of the Worker's Paradise a call.

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They couldn't have come up with something better than Great Lakes Loons? That's the name of Tampa Bay's Class A farm club that will be moving from Battle Creek to Midland next spring.

Lou E. Loon, the team's red and green mascot, bounded up onto a stage, danced to the song "Louie Louie" with about 20 kids, and exhorted the crowd to make more noise. Event staff rewarded the fans by throwing "Loons" T-shirts into the crowd.

Come on, folks. Leave us some straight lines; I started to sing that when I first heard of the mascot name, not knowing that they already ran with that.

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How do you say "oops" in Arabic? You don't see terrorists apologizing for mistakes often, but Hezbollah's boss Hassan Nasrallah admits to miscalculating in their snagging of two Israeli solders-"Had we known that the kidnapping of the soldiers would have led to this, we would definitely not have done it."

A charm offensive to keep the UN off their back? Ya think? It actually makes them look something resembling humane. Humane, but still devoted to wiping Israel off the map, if that's not an oxymoron.

Holy Hardware Alert

On our excursions this afternoon, we wandered into a Christian bookstore at an outlet mall in West Branch. It's always interesting to look at what some call "Jesus Junk" and what Os Guinness referred to in The Gravedigger Files as "Holy Hardware."

One of the interesting new addition are the Good News Bears. Here's a couple of awwww-inspiring items, Abigail, Faith and Norman. Here's a blurb on the introduction of the line from last summer-

7/11/05 - Russ Berrie and Company, Inc., will create The Good News Bears, Scripture-inspired gifts designed by artist Amy Wulfing and licensed exclusively by OTay! Inc. Wulfing's designs will be distributed through Russ' retail partners, as well as members of Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), which serves the Christian retail channel in more than 50 countries around the world. First products will be in stores in October.

I'm surprised that it took a quarter-century for someone to do a holy hardware word-play on the world's most famous Little Leaguers; they do practically every other thing that can be church-ized. Note that the Russ stuffed animal brand is using this to get their stuff into CBA land.

The problem with the GNBs is that God is supposed to be awe-inspiring, not awwww-inspiring.

I haven't been able to get a link to the other one that caught my eye, the Christian flip-flops (as in sandals, not as in hypocrisy) with kitschy-scriptural messages written on the tops of the soles (I think Sole-wear was the brand, IIRC).

[Update 10PM-I did a more through Google-the brand is Sole Gear. They come in Man on Fire, Soak up the Son, and Son Lover. That just about retires the Jesus Junk trophy.]

The problem is that the wearer is walking all over the message.

That's nothing news, believers walk all over the Gospel all the time.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 16:32(ESV)

³²Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

I recall one of my dorm-mates from CMU had a T-shirt with the caption (IIRC) "Patience, my a$$; right now, I want to kill somebody." Patience is a virtue, but not one that is easily achieved in a 24/7, buy-now-pay-later society where immediate gratification takes too long.

Eileen and I just got back from a Sunday drive up north before going over to my folks' house for dinner; on the way back, we had one of those lovely drivers who are in a hurry to turn in front of you, then drive ten miles under the speed limit. You've got to love them; forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those blankety-blanks who trespass against us.

However, we're richer in spirit if we cut the jerks in our lives some slack. While the more worldly folks are plotting how to get even with the jerk, we're (hopefully) moving on to something else more rewarding.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 16:3-4(ESV)

 
³Commit your work to the LORD,
   and your plans will be established.
⁴The LORD has made everything for its purpose,
   even the wicked for the day of trouble.

This is an interesting analog to "delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Note that David isn't saying that that you'll get all the bling you've been eying; if you're happy with God, God will give you want He wants for you. If you're not happy with God, all bets are off.

That's a big if. How many of us are happy with where God has us, or are we playing Monday Morning QB in our prayers? "Lord, why aren't you doing X or why haven't you allowed me to do Y?" If we're suffering through Him rather than delighting in Him, most likely the desires of our heart are going to be thwarted.

Paul's advice in Philippians 4 comes to mind-

¹¹I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹²I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Being content with where God has you seems to be the trick. If you're content with where you're at, regardless of your physical or financial health, God will be moving through you. If you give those plans to Him in a spirit of contentment, God will git 'r done.

Morning Musings

Ernesto might be the word of next week. He's currently christened Tropical Depression Five, but if forecasters are correct, he'll be at hurricane strength and visiting Louisiana or east Texas late next week, putting any Katrina anniversary "festivities" on hold.

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The UN might be talking itself into extinction with the current Lebanon task force. No one wants to get stuck with the task of disarming Hezbollah. That may fall to the Israelis unless the UN grows a backbone in a hurry, and even they might not be up to the challenge.

There's a lot of grumbling in Israel over the war, but I don't see the current coalition government falling over it. The two major partners, Kadima and Labor, would be in worse shape after an election than before. The Labor leader, Amir Peretz, has been stuck with the defense portfolio, and the IDF didn't acquit themselves well. Labor might not lose seats (they might actually gain some swing voters if Peretz's überdove persona moves to the right a notch), but Kadima surely will, making a center-left coalition harder to do.

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Pluto might have a new lease on life as a planet. The decision to demote Pluto to dwarf planet status has its detractors, and this week's decision may well be revisited; the Plutophiles might have been too busy at the hospitality lounges or other events to bother to vote.

My suggestion to those of you, like Eileen, who cut your solar molars on one of those mnemonics like "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas," just remember that the P is silent, like in water, for the moment. It may well come back.

For those of you that say that there's no P in water, you've not been in many wading pools lately.

Job Hunting Prayers, Again

I thought I had a nice on-line adjuncting gig with Sterling College; the problem is, neither economics class that I was slated to teach had enough students. Somebody at Sterling didn't do enough market research to see if there was a demand for on-line econ, or the reality didn't mesh with the research.

The good news in Casa de Byron is that Eileen will be teaching a Thursday night Developmental Writing class at Saginaw Valley State University, getting her back into teaching at the college level; she taught this ENG 080 pre-Freshman Comp class back in the fall of 2001 while we were courting. That will help the budget a little and rekindle the teaching bug in Eileen that she had lost after trying to run herd over eight graders four years ago.

The side-effect of that is that it keeps us Midland-bound through December. Yes, I could find something elsewhere and have a commuter marriage for four months, but we're too close, best buddies as well as husband and wife, to make that plan A.

Thus, it's looking for entry-level stuff in the Midland area; it's been unfruitful in the last two years to get someone to hire me for accounting/office work with my way-overqualifying PhD (and too many holes in my resume if I leave it and my college teaching off, before you make that suggestion); I've not had even an interview in the Midland area save temp agencies in almost two years.

Pray for humility as I check on jobs that have you talk to the manager rather than send a resume. Those tend to be minimum-wagey positions, but it beats the zero I'm earning now.

Edifier du Jour-Philemon 4-7(ESV)

⁴I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, ⁵because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, ⁶and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. ⁷For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

This passage hits home. I'm not sure how much my morning devotionals refresh the "hearts of the saints" in the Peanut Gallery, but more than one of you have given favorable comments over the years. I think Philemon had his spiritual act together far better than I for Paul to be giving props to him.

I've tried to keep up the faith, even when I've not been the best witness for Him. I've tried to stay positive even when my finances have stunk and I've been lonely during these days of unemployment. Occasionally, I succeed, like when I dragged my butt to church Wednesday night when I really didn't feel like it, and had some good additions to the teaching.

As much as I might feel like a failure as a Christian, I have to remember those times where I am a blessing to other believers. You've probably have more positive moments than you think as well. Not everyone's Billy Graham; most of us will have to "settle" for being a more modest blessing to the Body of Christ.

Nein to Nine

Or, you could headline it Eight is Enough; Pluto got demoted to "Dwarf Planet" status. At present, four objects get that designation, Pluto, it's moon Charon, the asteroid belt's Ceres and Kuiper belt denizen 2003 UB313, nicknamed Xena. Xena's bigger than Pluto, so the science community either had to add a bunch of new planets or dump Pluto; they had floated a plan to promote Pluto's three fellow dwarfs to planet status, but opted to demote Pluto.

One can expect there will be a push to add Sedna, Quaoar and one other Kuiperite to that list to get us up to seven dwarfs.

A Cross Comes Between Immorality and Immortality

Our elder/de-facto assistant pastor Bruce had that line in the sermon last night; he quipped that I'd have this on the web and take away all the money he'd make off of the T-shirts. Your wish is my command. Here's the rough draft of the T-shirt print.

Well, that's not exactly true. We'll be spending eternity somewhere; the question will become whether we spend it in the smoking or non-smoking section. The question becomes whether we want eternal life or eternal torment.

Edifier du Jour-1 Corinthians 15:35-49(ESV)

³⁵But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" ³⁶You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. ³⁸But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. ³⁹For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ⁴⁰There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. ⁴¹There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

⁴²So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

We're getting a new model when we get to Heaven, but it's not just one that isn't overweight or not prone to alergies, but one that is of the spirutal realm. It probably won't look anything like we imagine, and most likely isn't going to include wings and halos.

While cremation isn't historically a Christian custom, it doesn't seem like you're endangering the deceased's imortality by not putting his corpse six feet under.

 

   

Edifier du Jour-Luke 18:1-8(ESV)

¹And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. ²He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. ³And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' ⁴For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'" ⁶And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. ⁷And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? ⁸I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

There's a train of thought that I've heard dismissing repeated prayer on the same topic: "God's not deaf; He heard you the first time." Actually, He heard you even before you said the words.

However, this parable seems to put that meme to rest; God will respond to those who consistently cry out to him. He might respond with the granting of the request or with comfort to ride out the tough times. A Scott Krippayne song has the chorus "Sometimes He calms the storm, and other times He calms His child."

God may well be testing us-how badly do we want something? If it's worth asking for and seemingly in His will, keep asking.

2008 Musings

The 2008 Republican presidential primary is looking squirrelier by the day. This month, we saw George Allen blow his chances at a presidential nomination; this Kathleen Parker piece is as good as any to get you up to speed on l'affair macaca.

Regardless of where the word came from in the senator's mind, it's both stupid and insensitive to make fun of the ethnicity of a Indian-American photographer from his Democratic challenger's camp. A prospective presidential candidate's going to be spending a lot of time in hotels for the next two years; the one group you don't want to tick off is Indians.

Allen doesn't seem ready for national prime time. It shouldn't cost him his senate seat, although it may make the race a notch closer than it should. This is Allen's equivalent of Howard Dean's post-Iowa howl; it isn't fair to have them defined by a particular faux pas, but life isn't fair.

So much for Allen as the Conservative Alternative. Who's on deck?

Conservative Catholic blogger the Anchoress is making a case for Rudy.

Difficult times demand of us difficult choices. From where I sit, it doesn’t appear that endorsing someone who strictly adheres to orthodox Catholicism will necessarily get the job done that needs doing, to defeat the larger and more ominous forces that are threatening our nation, Western Civilization and, yes, our faith. Can you show me the conservative Christian/Catholic candidate who is electable (yes, that matters) and who would take a strong enough stand in favor of America, and in opposition to appeasement? The ideal does not exist.

Not yet, at least. However, McCain is more conservative on balance than Giuliani, despite Rudy's Mayor 9/11 reputation. Neither are perfect on social issues, but McCain is a notch more to the right on those issues. Neither are big economic conservatives. Both are hawkish on the War on Terror Radical Islam.

Both of them would be tolerable alternatives to any likely Democratic nominee, especially Sen. Clinton. However, both aren't well liked by the conservative base. We'll have a year to find an alternative that will reach the base; if an alternative isn't showing up on radar by Labor Day 2007, we'll likely be stuck with a Rudy/Romney/McCain race.

The two guys I like, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, are both on the pro-immigrant side of the immigration debate; that's not likely to sit well with the base. My fear is that Tom Tancredo could become that alternative; he could win a cluttered primary race, but would be problematic for the party for years to come.

Romney could be that alternative. As a governor, he's a bit of a empty suit on foreign policy and has been on both sides of a number of social issues. His support of MA's universal health insurance plan won't sit well.

In addition, Romney's Mormon roots might scare off some swing voters. I think he'll have more problems with that in the general elections with secular voters (who will be scared off of any devout faith) than with evangelicals who see Mormonism as a cult; some of them see Catholicism as all-but a cult, and they'll support conservative Catholics like Alan Keyes.

I don't see Romney being that conservative alternative. He might become the default choice of conservative who aren't ready for Rudy's cosmopolitanism or McCain's maverick centrist streak, but only a default choice if an electable alternative isn't available.

The problem is, I'm not seeing that electable alternative yet. Unlike the Anchoress, I think he does exist (yes, he, since Condi isn't it) but isn't showing up on radar in the polls.

Anyone want to be finance chairman on a Byron '08 campaign? :-)

As crazy as it sounds, I think if enough bloggers got behind a viable conservative candidate (seriously, I ain't it, folks; an overweight and underemployed college professor isn't getting elected), they might generate enough buzz to get him on national radar.

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Nevada as the second stop? The Democrats are looking to move the Nevada caucuses for the Saturday in-between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, and move the South Carolina primary a week after NH. The premise is to bring more people of color into the mix, bringing the blacks in SC and the Hispanics (~20% of the population) in Nevada to bring some early diversity in an otherwise Anglo electorate in Iowa and NH.

NH doesn't like it; some of the candidates and media that would descend upon NH during those eight days after Iowa would wind up heading out to Nevada. Where would most folks, especially media folks, rather be in the middle of winter, Las Vegas or Manchester?

Since the Republicans aren't likely to move up their Nevada caucuses, you'll see a split screen from Wednesday to Saturday of Kickoff Week: Republicans taking about economics and national security in New Hampshire and Democrats playing up amnesty programs and sucking up to the gaming industry in Nevada.
 

Where the Children Aren't

Two seemingly unrelated stories came across my eyes today. The first was out of the dead tree Detroit Free Press on single-versus-married statistics and the single life in Detroit's northern suburbs-Where the Dates Are was the title. There were two head-scratching passages. Here's the first; the "he" in question is United Way researcher Kurt Metzger-

Just because Detroit topped the list doesn't necessarily mean it's a hopping place to find a mate, he added.

"If you look at Detroit ... you have a huge share of single-parent households," he said. "They're not your typical singles."

What goes unsaid is the rash of unwed mothers in the black community; only 30% of all Detroit women are married, as opposed to 55% statewide. Given that Detroit's a mostly black city, those stats aren't surprising.

The second one comes at the very end of the piece-

Same goes for [Ricardo] Moore: "If I'm going for the love thing, if I'm looking for a wife, I'm going to go to one of these 3,500 churches in Detroit, not to a bar."

The sad note is that writer Amber Hunt spent 1201 words before the word "church" appears, and then only as a throw-away line at the end of the piece. It would have been a more complete look at being single in metro Detroit if she included the single church goers. However, it was an interesting anecdotal look at secular singles and their problems creating stable relationships.

That may well be part of the problem that Arthur Brooks looks at in this WSJ piece.

According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold.

I'm not sure what the politics of the Freep's barflies are, but chance are they aren't well to the right, you might find a few economic conservatives and a few neocon-friendly folks, but you're not going to see too many staunch Republicans at a bar.

In a more self-centered and child-hostile era, it's harder to get folks to settle down and have kids outside of a church setting. The first verse of LeAnn Rimes' Something's Gotta Give comes to mind here (I listed to too much country driving back and forth to Florida the last few months)-

Jenny's got a job, a cat named Jake, 31 candles on her birthday cake
Next year

Thought by now she'd have a man, two car seats and a minivan
But it still ain't here.

Here's a NOW poster girl, settled into a career and a household. However, she really wants to be a mom toting a couple of rugrats around. The problem is finding a husband when the market has a surplus of would-be sperm donors.

To answer the song's implied question, what really needs to give is our selfishness, so that we can successfully get into a good relationship and a good marriage. That's hard to find at the corner bar, even if it's an old-school southern honky-tonk. It hard to find at a church, too, since the finite subset of eligible singles of the opposite sex might not be a good match for you; the smaller the church, the smaller the subset. However, you'll have a better shot at finding a future spouse willing to commit to a lifetime together at church than at the bar.

Mr. Moore from the Freep piece understood that, but isn't looking in a church; he's looking for a good time, not a wife and kids. Many would-be Mr. Rights of the 21st Century are in that same boat, avoiding church and commitment like the plague.

The ladies often have to drag their guys to church. One teen I met while taking in a church service in LaBelle, FL earlier this month started going because his then-fiancee was going to that church; he and his folks weren't church goers. He's no longer with the gal who led him to that church, but likes it.

There are Republicans outside of church and Democrats in church, but Republicans are increasingly the party of church-goers and the party of married couples. Since married couples have more kids, it will mean Democrats will have to wean the children of Republicans over to their camp while retaining their dwindling number of kids; either that, or they need to import Democrats.

Big Casino Politics

Earlier, I described a concert Eileen and I went to last Friday on the Chippewa Indian reservation in Mount Pleasant. The post focused on the concert and brushed passed the fact that it was held in their big Soaring Eagle casino complex. OK, if I can borrow The Note's pet phrase for congressional budget fights, let's get into the big casino politics.

Prior to Friday night, I'd never had set foot in a casino. I've been to a race track once about two decades ago, but never to a casino.

Jerry and the Pacemaker

One of the news items of yesterday, if you dug past the Ramsey carpet-bombing coverage, was of former President Gerald Ford getting a pacemaker. He's made it to a fairly robust 93, so it's way too early to start trotting out the eulogy stuff. Lots of people live long and productive lives with a pacemaker, including VP Cheney.

We're in an interesting era, where we have multiple ex-presidents still with us. Just before Nixon resigned, we were without a living ex-president, for Johnson and Eisenhower died within a month of each other in 1972. Prior to Reagan's death in 2004, we had five ex-presidents.

Ford hasn't done all that much as an ex-president; he's golfed, skied and served on corporate boards. His wife Betty's name is associated with substance abuse rehab; she may have contributed more as an ex-First Lady than he has as an ex-president.

However, he did serve well after Watergate; people don't give him enough credit for that. Modern conservatives have a bit of emotional distance from Ford, for he is a bit moderate for their tastes, and liberals can't quite forgive him for pardoning Nixon. With three decades of hindsight, we can now see that having a lengthy trial for an ex-president wouldn't have been overly helpful, given that his misdeeds had been well exposed.

Edifier du Jour-Proverbs 14:12-13(ESV)

¹²There is a way that seems right to a man,
   but its end is the way to death.
¹³Even in laughter the heart may ache,
   and the end of joy may be grief.
 

I've got barflies on my mind this morning. I remember my pre-evangelical college era and occasional trips to the watering holes just off campus. People may have been having some measure of fun, but there was a heaviness to the partying; that first half of verse 13 reminded me of myself at the time.

I remember envying the clean fellowship the Christian groups had on campus, but I didn't want to fake a faith I didn't have at the time and was too honest to put on a facade. Once I found that faith a few years later, I found that there was more joy in a InterVarsity meeting than there was in a happy hour at the Wayside; "happy hours" are a misnomer, for they're full of people with nothing better to do than to get plastered at dinner-time.

That party lifestyle was safer in my era of the early 80s, as it was post-antibiotic (to treat most of the STDs of the era save herpes) and pre-AIDS; thankfully, I never got that far with the ladies. Now, it has once again become a way that leads to death, when you couple the odd drugs on the loose with AIDS.

 

Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, Tax Cut Be Thy Name

I've been busy getting my online classes ready to go; they may not have enough students to go, but they're just about ready. Thus, I've been light on the blogging the last few days.

One of the news items of the day, mentioned in many circles, is this Drudge preview of a new Pitchfork Pat book, State of Emergency. I'm not on board with the gloominess of his premise, but one line from the preview hit me-

The Republican Party, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is in the grip of a cult called “Economism.” It is all about money now. The GOP worships at the “Church of GDP”

That church will accept folks from any denomination; ones, twos, fives, tens, twenties....

That might flow from Buchanan's dislike of free trade and dislike of immigration. However, he is largely correct in that economic growth is the driving force behind much of the GOP, especially its elite wing. Even foreign policy caters to making good little voters and consumers (not always in that order) out of the folks in developing world.

To that point, he's right. However, I'm not on board for his alternative to making improvements in the country that might require slowing down growth. More on that later.

Edifier du Jour-Esther 1:10-12(ESV)

¹⁰On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, ¹¹to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at. ¹²But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him.

The first nine verses in Esther 1 talk about a week-long feast the King was throwing; verse 7 notes that "the royal wine was lavished according to the bounty of the king."

Thus the King, and most of his guest, were, er, well lubricated by this time and probably not behaving all that well. I can imagine the one-liners coming from the queen's chambers "I'm dishonoring the King, eh?  He doesn't need me to dishonor him; he's doing a great job of dishonoring himself the last few days."

After her hold-out from ten-ounce-curl training camp, the king decreed in verse 20 that "all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike." He also proceeds to trade in Queen Vashti for a new model; he was shooting for some pretty young thang who'd follow orders and (as we read on in the book) got Esther, who was a pretty young thang that danced to God's drumbeat.

However, one thing that struck me here runs counter to the male-headship meme that dominates this chapter; wives can honor their husbands by calling BS on them. Just like a soldier has the duty to disobey an illegal order, a wife should also have the duty to disobey an ungodly order if doing so would help the cause of Christ. Helping him do something ungodly would be dishonoring him in the long run.

Think about that when you think about wifely obedience; her first duty is to love God, she might honoring you by lovingly telling you where you can put an ungodly request.