Irony in Racial Memorials

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day (or, as our India employees said it, "King Martin Luther Day). It is also Robert E. Lee's birthday (observed and in fact). So, we honor a civil rights activist and good man, and celebrate the birthday of a man who would see him still in chains.

Lee is observed as a hero on Stone Mountain, a college is named for him (Washington and Lee University), and he received a full pardon and eventually a return of citizenship after he died (should have been granted before, but an administrative error prevented it). He has a memorial in Washington D.C., or maybe it's Virginia...

Lee is a struggle for me. He was, quote, a "good man." Lincoln asked him to lead the Union Army and he refused. When Virginia seceded, in loyalty to Virginia he led the Confederate Army. A Christian man, he owned slaves. Some say he was against slavery, but that wasn't true. After his relative died, he was executor instructed to free the 150 slaves within 5 years, as soon as it was "safe" to free them. Financial issues raised their heads, and he worked and hired out those slaves -- who knew they were supposed to be freed -- to shore up his finances. He hunted down escapees and dealt with them in "military fashion." True, after 5 years he release those left alive, but the law commanded it.

Most of all, though, he led armies that killed Americans. Thousands upon thousands of Americans, both as enemy and as soldier, died bloody deaths and more were maimed. He called the orders and as much as pulled the trigger.

Robert E. Lee was a terrorist. His vision of the US was different the rising tide. In his mind he was not a traitor, but anyone who kills Americans, no matter what their personal belief, is a terrorist. He was responsible for more deaths than 9-11, the Gulf and Desert Storm wars and he did it on our soil.

There may have been political expediency that prevented him from being executed, but in no way should his memory be honored today.

How's that for a strong opinion?

Marley and Me... NOT

Boring, poorly written, poorly directed... good actors with nothing to do. Snoozefest 2009. Plus, no one told me it was a horror movie. Kathleen Turner, former beauty, now runner up to the Roseanne award, oh the pain!

Cruisin' Down the Highway

Or the seaway...

It was a wonderful trip made better by wonderful companions. I've had several people ask me what the highlight of the trip was, and truthfully, it was all a highlight. From amazing food (far too much of it, I gained 8 pounds in 4 days -- already lost three of it, but still) to fun excursions. We spent a day in the waterpark of Atlantis, another snorkeling and Hobey-catting on Castaway Cay (my thanks to Dan Gracey's patience with land-lubber me).

Some things I found bizarre:
1. A cruise ship celebrating pirates. Seems counter-intuitive.
2. A showing of Wall-E, in which humanity has devolved into fattened cruise freaks. Seems too close to home.
3. Phenomenal chefs who are polite and approachable. Seems like an oxymoron.

Okay, I guess the highlight for me was the 3-D viewing of Bolt, which is a fantastic movie--best I've seen in years--set off beautifully by playing with the minds of children sitting in the row in front of us. One child thought I was crazy, her cousin (the quiet one) understood me completely. While we waited for the movie to start, I'd lob a comment over the head of the first child eliciting a predictable outraged response while the cousin grinned knowingly, getting the fact that I was pushing her cousin's buttons. That put me in just the right bizarre mood to make me laugh hysterically throughout the movie. Rhino is now my favorite Disney character. :)

Is this OUTRAGEOUS?

The government is insisting TV goes digital to free up bandwidth. No problems, here, and not just because I don't watch television. It's a wise move and we have to move forward, after all.

What's outrageous is that the government is GIVING OUT $80 VOUCHERS to anyone who doesn't want to buy a digital TV so they can purchase a converter.

When did TV become a right instead of a privilege? Why should our tax dollars go to buy an upgrade for consumers? It's not like we didn't know the day was coming. If you can't afford a converter, maybe, just maybe, you should spend some time at a second job instead of watching Survivor 35.

And much to the government's surprise, everyone's applying for these free vouchers, so they're running out of them. So Obama is trying to hold off the conversion.

Clearly, the voucher program is Bush's, not Obama's, so no blame to the O-Man; government excess is bad whether elephant or donkey.

Can these vouchers be used to buy express card tuners for laptops? Hmmmm....

Is this Puppy Torture?

Who would guess a reading light with a laser pointer would be the high point of Christmas presents? Thunder, the dimwitted dog, is convinced the laser point is something to be chased. Beam it on the rug and he pounces and scrambles after it all over the place. Cast it on the wall and he climbs it searching for a photon snack.

He has yet to lose interest before the person with the laser does and when the light goes off, he's sniffing around to find it for a long time after.

Grizzly sees it but has no interest. Thunder, meanwhile, believes he has a new friend.

Is this puppy torture, and if so, do you want to come watch?

Tiny Tim Said it All

God Bless us, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

I suppose it's better odds than the lottery...

Spoke with a client the other day who explained a company he's working with is developing a "paint on display system."

Rather than pigment in the paint, there are bazillions of quantum dots. The paint is whitish-grey in the can, and goes on the same... until you beam or plug an I/O lead into it and command a color or a high-resolution pattern. Paint a wall and make it anything you want - wood, sponge paint, metal, or a TV or computer screen of any size any resolution you desire. Your TV show could be displayed in better definition than you have now, and it could follow you through your house so you don't miss anything. Plug a computer into wirelessly or otherwise, and size your data and have as many windows open as you want. Best of all, the Q-dots are cheaper than pigment.

My dad wants to hear about such things for investment purposes. Such a cool product will make people billionaires. The only drawback is that there are dozens of companies racing to the finish line. The first one there wins the bananas; everyone else is hosed. Invest in the wrong one and you're in trouble. Maybe it's a good thing I have nothing to invest...

The Brakes of God

One of the cool things about my job is I get to talk to people developing the next wave of world changing tech. That is not what this post is about. Rather, it is a look at a subject I have opined before. Throughout history, God has remade the world. The great flood, the burning of the library of Alexandria, the rise and fall of various world powers (Rome, Ancient China, etc.).

I have it on reliable report that we have suffered two waves that have slammed the brakes on the next quantum leaps in progress. I can think of several "promises" of tech described by the bigbox manufactures; in other words, huge capital-intensive plans to leap forward. These modern leaps begin when giant corporations start collaborating. We were on the verge of sweeping change that slammed to a halt when 9/11 struck. Joint partnerships simply fell apart. The world stage was suddenly too unstable to take the jump, so they pulled back. Those partnerships began to form again (with some amazing stuff!) and they have fallen apart again because of the economic downturn (Kennedy's fear of fear itself... the "downturn" is being fed by the perception of economic trouble, not the fact of it, itself. Again, the press is revealing itself to be a power of suppression instead of enlightenment it should be). The executives I speak with agree that the recovery will take ten years and if nothing major happens, 2015 to 2020 will remake the world even further.

God is doing this deliberately. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

(Maybe I'll talk about the irony of Muslim extremists trying to halt progress in the next post).

WhooHooo!

Letters from the Waiting Room is now available in paperback on Amazon... (Click: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Waiting-Room-Lewis-Seifert/dp/0979325153/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228438033&sr=8-1 )

Hard covers are coming next week! Whoohoo!

Place your large quantities of orders TODAY! :)

Clueless or Shrewd?

I was aghast when Obama picked Hillary for Sec of State. Could he really be that... unintelligent? She has eyes on the nomination in four years, I'm sure. As SoS, anything that goes right is to her credit, anything that goes wrong is his fault. Obama is assuring himself of four years of strife... unless...

...he fires her for incompetence a year or two in. That kind of black mark on her record could shatter her hopes for the presidency. Is he that shrewd?

Presuming her India ties don't disqualify her (or her gender, considering the Arabs didn't much care for Rice, why should they like a blondish woman any more?), we'll find out in the next year or so...

Day of Awe

T-Day (or in this case the night before) is easy to transform into "Awe Day" (for adults more so than kids, probably).

I put the kids to bed last night and was walking through the house, saw moonlight bouncing off the pool, and the wood floor gleaming through the house I had renovated with the help of some good friends and my first thought is "how did I end up here?" "Is this really my life?"

In less than a second my brain, practically on it's own, flashed through time picking out my various dreams and goals for life while growing up. None of them foresaw what I now have. I suppose for some that would be a sad thing, but in that heartbeat I saw all those things I'd wanted were shallow, vague, and of very little value. Oh, sure, I hang on to a few of them still that I think are important, but mostly I'm bewildered by what I thought would bring meaning to my life. None of the things I prize now were predicted.

I never dreamed of living in Florida, or having friends so ingrained in my heart. I never pictured marrying someone like Lynette, or fathering three amazing children. The jobs I've held and things I've done that give me such satisfaction aren't those I picked out in college. No one would have ever guessed I'd be involved in a church of any kind, let alone a doctrinally correct, disciplined house of faith.

Honestly, I dreamed of bigger things, more money, wider renown... largely because I didn't know the quiet, often busy, and fully rich life I've been given could so fill me.

I desire accomplishment and impact on society, but when I make my daughter laugh or see my son banging away at his novel (almost 40,000 words and growing), I realize my desire has come true in far more meaningful ways than I could ever conceive on my own.

Thank you, God, for saying, "not that... THIS." You know better and You prove it every day.

Hey, It's Not All Bad...

Pres-Elect Obama did a smackdown on the homeboys, telling them to pull up their pants and cover their drawers. Grandma doesn't want to see that and neither does he.

No idea how the homeboys are taking it, but I'm sure its a lot better than if McCain said it....

Like Father Like Dog

Brian came over for a visit Friday when the kids and Lynette were out. The dogs barked, Grizzly finally went to another room, but Thunder, a coward to the bone, couldn't leave, couldn't get comfortable, and then climbed into my lap and started chewing his claws.

I've never known a dog to chew his nails...

Such a Time as This

When we were in Montana a couple months ago, we met an incredible family with two kids who have become good e-mail pals with Ben and Charli.

We just spoke with them yesterday. The son, Collin, has been diagnosed with cancer. Was it a fluke that we met these people, or was God mobilizing a praying force across the nation for just this time? I choose the latter. Please pray for Collin and his family. He's going to Portland Oregon for treatment. He has a wonderful attitude but the family is realing, of course.

Pray
Pray
Pray

Thank you.

Oh, the Political Dillema

Just by the way they run their campaigns proves neither McCain nor Obama should be president. Every adult, non-felonious American (and even the felons if ACORN has its way) has a bright, shiny vote like a new penny to cast in the American gumball machine, but between the penny and the available gumballs, it's tempting to hold onto the penny.

McCain, who has had his eyes set on the presidency longer than Obama has been an adult should be acing this campaign. Instead, he runs it like he just got the idea yesterday. He makes poor decisions, squanders his resources, and the political manipulation of picking Sarah Palin was not followed by the strong information campaign necessary to make her a viable choice.

He should be letting the media (even if it's only FOX) run with the Ayers and ACORN connection, and never should have allowed the media to carry the info campaign for Palin.

She's been painted as a laughing stock because her credentials for defense and international policy are focused on her proximity to Russia, but who's pointing out that she's got a higher security clearance than either Obama or Biden? Or that she's briefed on all terrorist and military ops because she's commander in chief of the 39th missile battery, the only full-time reserve company in America because it's the first line of missile defense for America? She's the only one running with any executive experience and has full knowledge of homeland security (she has the same access as Ted Kennedy, who has the highest beneath Bush and Cheney).

Obama, meanwhile, who has less experience than ANY of the 4 candidates, is running a campaign solely on the ignorance of the American people.

He talks about McCain as being the standard-bearer for the Bush economy when all the problems of our economy have been the Democrats policies, starting with Clinton's push for sub-prime loans and the Democrat's refusal to confront Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae when the Republicans sounded the warning bell. As for the greedy executives of FMs who pushed it until they broke it, Obama is using the chief greed-head as his economic advisor.

We haven't seen Bush's economic plan yet because 9/11 prevented it in his first term and the Democrat majority in the legislative branch (including Obama) blocked it at every turn in the last four years. McCain won't carry on the legacy, Obama will, but he finds lies work just fine with the ignorant voters.

So, who do we vote for?

The guy who should have a slam dunk but is blowing it, strongly suggesting he'd be just as ineffectual as the president (funny thing is, all the things I don't like about McCain's plans would be blocked by the Congress anyway, so it's not like he'd be dangerous in office)?

The guy who is dishonest, has no experience, thinks little of the average American (when will Democrats realize that we don't have a Monarchy in the US and that the serfs don't need a king to make it through)?

At one time I thought Obama would be the ineffectual one in office. I no longer do. He's dangerous on so many levels its frightening. We think Bush destabilized Europe? Wait until this guy's arrogance and naivete gets into the mix. No to Obama.

I promised myself I wouldn't devolve into the lesser of two really-bad-choices this year. I said I'd vote only for a good candidate even if I had to write him in. This is me devolving. McCain is a bad choice but he's safer than Obama. I'll drop my penny on McCain and feel cheated at the polls.

When will we select a good choice for a leader? Or is it even possible? God can raise even the worse man to the occasion, so I'll rest in that. My penny is looking very tarnished....

A Missed Opportunity... Or Was It?

Driving home from work a one-legged man was limping in the meridian. No sign, but his hat was in his hand. He was wearing shorts so his prosthetic limb was in evidence. I didn't feel like getting my wallet out of my back pocket (an ordeal when you've got your seatbelt on).

By the time I changed my mind, the light turned green and it was too late. I mentally kicked myself, which made me feel more guilty because he only had one leg and couldn't... nevermind, that's a dumb rabbit trail...

So, he's got a drinker's nose and bloodshot eyes. That and his indigent ways suggest he could possibly be an alcoholic. Do you give alms to someone likely to drink it away? Or do you give money to organizations that will look after people in need?

Your thoughts?

The Problem of Pain

Bad things happen. People we love suffer, we experience difficulty and trial, wars rage on...

Why? If God loves us, why does awful stuff happen? In the light of our little time frame it seems horrible. But that doesn't make it so, Skipper. Follow me for a moment...

God gives each of us what we want - Either eternal life with Him or eternal life without Him. (You'll often hear - "I don't want anything to do with a God who would send people to Hell" but really, that's what they're asking for, isn't it? Nothing to do with God, and so he grants it).

The stakes are pretty high. Heaven or Hell? The entry ticket to Heaven is simply acknowledging our need for Him and accepting His provision in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is being ultimately fair to let us know of our need. He's told us in the Bible, but being a merciful God of great blessing, there is a problem.

In our plenty, with all our resources, it's difficult to really KNOW we need God. We need Him physically, emotionally, and spiritually, yet in our society all of that seems taken care of.

The solution is reduction. God reveals our need for Him throughout our life by stripping away our earthly provision and leaving us only our exposed need for Him. In that moment, we can turn to Him in humility or rage against him in pride. Pain and suffering point us to Heaven.

A further thought and a corollary of sorts: Those people who point at others in tragedy and disaster do so from a lack of perspective. God's provision is individual as well as corporate. The Indonesian with so much life and possession swept away by typhoons and waves receives personal provision in little ways that we can't see from our viewpoint. The Indonesian can if he looks with humility. A thousand kindnesses individualized for each of us. We'll point at the tragedy-stricken and say "Hey!" but do we ask them where they see God?

The Prodigal Country?

The prodigal son is a parable about a boy who wanted his inheritance NOW rather than waiting until Dad passed away. He lived high on the hog and then low on the hogs, wallowing with the porcine creatures doing worse than Dad's hired hands. Realizing the error of his ways, the boy returns to his father who receives him joyfully.

Easy to apply this to an individual, but does it also describe America? Amassing our wealth NOW and not waiting until the riches of heaven, are we dining with pigs? Our national morals have dragged into the mud, we appear to be on the edge of a bleak tomorrow... are we the prodigal nation? Can we, as a country, bring ourselves to see the truth and turn back to God? We know from His Word that He would accept us. What effect would this have? Would God's celebration be one of a return to physical prosperity or would it be of spiritual riches, which could be enjoyed in poverty or wealth (maybe not as easily in wealth...)

Your thoughts?

I'm Not a Republican, but...

A coworker had a political cartoon on her cube wall that pointed out that Fiscal Conservatives Reagan, Bush, and Bush all presided over budget overruns while Clinton was underbudget (it of course left out Carter who was also over budget).

The secret to Clinton's budget win was the fact that he gutted the military and intelligence agencies, and then when multiple terrorist attacks (the Cole, that New York flight that was shot down by SAMs and was then covered up) came, he did nothing except hand wave and run cover ups.

Bush 2's overruns began when he had to rebuild the military, and the anemic CIA couldn't keep up with their job, making 9/11 possible, which really broke the bank.

In each case, world events dictated presidential action that exceeded budget plans. Except Clinton, who ignored them.

Fireproof - The Sum is Greater than the Parts

(With thanks to Mrs. S.)

SPOILER WARNING - Don't read further if you don't want to know much about the movie before seeing it.

Sherwood Productions is doing a very good job of re-defining Christian movies to full blown evangelical, didactic films. Strong messages, clear and compelling presentation of the Gospel, with flashes of brilliance.

I very much enjoyed the movie, with the understanding that the elements would be weaker than an A or even a B movie. I'll forgive a lot just because the effort is undertaken by talented beginners with magnificent hearts.

That being said...

I don't like Kurt Cameron as an actor. I never believe him because he doesn't have continuity of emotion, jumping like a jackrabbit from one emotional state to another without sufficient motivation. I expected his performance to be as bad as it was in the Left Behind *ahem* films. And at first I thought I was right, but as the film progressed it was clear the problems of the first act were the director's more than Cameron's. He gave probably the best performance of his life, which isn't saying much. The old Cameron peeked out several times, but overall he did okay.

The Kendrick brothers are improving, but they have a long way to go. The direction was often brilliant in moments, but between on-the-nose direction and a straight-line script, the comprehensive showing was great for a C (for Christian) movie, but not for an A movie (which they are not, so it's perhaps an unfair comment). A multi-layered plot would have been helpful, I think the script has structural flaws (underdeveloped B plot, absent C plot, and a pathological need to tie every bow with a double-knot).

Erin Bethea did a great job, overcoming the direction, as did the Lieutenant for the most part. The script has some wonderful moments, great messages, and deep insights. These guys are talented at the scene level, not so hot on the sequence or beat level. Steadily improving, though.

The ending was a low-stake affair with no ticking clock. The rom-com station moment was really nice, but it hadn't been foreshadowed so it came off a little cheesy. The final reveal was over the top and over expressed.

Nonetheless, there is a lot more to love than dislike. Great concept, great story, great moments, great message. Definitely worth seeing. We had people sobbing at the showing we saw, not just tears but wracking sobs, which speaks to the need this movie fulfills. Further, where most movies have to earn your loyalty, this one gets it going in... you're so on their side you'll forgive anything; a magnificent achievement. :)