Random Thoughts

Happy New Year!

And this is why I love living in Southern California…

January 1, 2009:

Such a fantastically beautiful day to begin a new year.

And watching USC whomp the daylights out of Penn State didn’t hurt either.

Seeking a scapegoat

The church I began attending recently has a new pastor. It’s a big church that fell on hard times a year ago, when its pastor up and quit very abruptly. His explanation was “burnout;” only after he resigned did the fact that he’d indulged in several extramarital affairs come to light.

In the wake of their pastor’s abrupt departure, about 1000 people left this church, and it was by all accounts a rather ugly time.

Fast forward a year. I and my family, looking for a local church to attend, decided to give the recovering church a try. I figure it’s been predisastered.

After the fiasco with their former pastor, and the fact that it took the church leadership a full year to hire a new senior pastor, the odds that another pastor is going to screw them over (metaphorically if not literally) are astronomical.

The new pastor is 180 degrees different from his predecessor. He’s a midwesterner who spent the last ten years leading a church in West Virginia; strong on biblical knowledge, engaging and dynamic but just a glance at his blue polo shirt carefully tucked into conservative tan Dockers tells you this is no aging metrosexual surfer dude. He’s not showy, he’s substantial.

How did he come to take the helm of this struggling church, leaving behind a thriving congregation in the midst of a growth program he himself implemented? According to him and the people who know him best, he simply felt like God was calling him to “step out of the boat,” to step out of his comfort zone and into a new ministry God had for him.

Wow. That’s either crazy, or intense faith in action.

As soon as he and his family made the decision to leave West Virginia and accept the pulpit in Southern California, something interesting happened. A whole lot of anger and venom was spat in his general direction, particularly via the pages of the local newspaper. He wasn’t oblivious to the comments being shared; he addressed them in his final sermon.

In a way, I can understand the anger directed toward him; people hate to feel rejected even if it’s unintentional and unwarranted. The loss was obviously taken not as an opportunity for their pastor and for themselves, but as some kind of failure, and rather than it be their own failure, it had to be the pastor’s.

In a way, I can now also understand why McCain staffers attempted to throw Sarah Palin under the bus after the election. She, like my new pastor, was stepping out of the boat in a big way. That had to annoy people around McCain who surely thought he’d pick someone more moderate/older/male. The fact that Sarah Palin stepped out boldly, fearlessly, with genuine warmth and willingness to take on the job put before her no doubt irritated some staffers. Sure bet it irritated the heck out of the MSM.

Like the bitter people spreading rumors about my new pastor, once the election was over and the loss staring them in the face, Palin’s detractors in the McCain camp coped by attempting to paint her as a foolish diva. They took out their frustration and anger over the loss of the election by blaming her. Just so, some in my new pastor’s former congregation seem poised to blame any future problems on him.

I suppose it’s human nature to look for someone to serve as a scapegoat. It’s also ugly and hurtful, not just to the person who bears the brunt of others’ bitterness, but to an entire church…or to a political party. With the huge hurdle facing conservatives–an extreme left president, congress, and soon judicial branch– more than ever we need to rethink the urge to cast blame.

The Anchoress reminds us of the danger of holding on to resentments; as we approach advent, a timely message indeed.

In this world we will have trouble…

I miss President Bush already. I miss civility, and humility, and the sense that the leader of our country operated within a moral framework, answering to a Higher Authority.

Having spent from 6 am to 9 pm working as a poll inspector today, I’m burnt out on the process. I had nearly 70 people (that’s about 10% of the total vote at my polling place) come in and vote provisionally, with the explanation that “I don’t remember where I’m supposed to vote,” or “I never got my voting information,” or “I vote absentee but forgot to send it in.” Invariably they were Democrats. Not saying anything duplicitous was going on, but it was…odd.

Now I’m watching the celebrations on the news, and seeing people waving signs that say things like “Why wait, throw Bush out now!” and feeling ill. Even when Clinton was president, I felt some degree of equanimity, I had a sense that there still was a system of checks and balances in place. Not so anymore. The Presidency, the Congress, soon the Supreme Court will all be controlled by the left, and of course the extreme liberal media is backing it all. So this is what it feels like to be disenfranchised.

I don’t want to think about my son going into the military under Obama’s leadership. I don’t want to think about the reaction terrorists are going to have. I do not want to think about what this shift of power means for unborn babies and people with disabilities, the most vulnerable in our society. These things sadden me, but at the same time I wonder if perhaps God is teaching us something. Perhaps, like Israel, we’re getting the leadership we deserve.

My pastor on Sunday pointed out that the most important thing is not who wins the election, but that the gospel be preached. And when things get bad, when a government becomes oppressive, that’s when the gospel of Christ flourishes.

The Anchoress writes with more grace than I can summon towards Obama. I will respect the office, regardless of who holds it, but I’m not sanguine about the ability of Obama himself to treat his subjects citizens with any respect.

Brutally Honest reminds us of the purpose of lamenting and gives us healthy food for thought. They’ve also got a clever sidebar ad that reads in part,

We lived through the Carter years. High interest rates, high taxes, bad judge appointments, gas shortages, high utilities, ‘coming ice age’ scare, hostage situation in Iran, defunded military. Worst economy in a century.

Then came Reagan. And we recovered.

Palin for President in 2012!

Please God, send us another Reagan, and help America to recognize her when she runs for office.

Michelle Malkin tells us it is time to gird our loins,

What do we do now? We do what we’ve always done.

We stand up for our principles, as we always have — through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime.

We stay positive and focused.

We keep the faith.

We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.

We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.

And despite my mournfulness and general sense of foreboding, The Onion manages to make me chuckle.

Trick or treat…

The Anchoress reminds us that, politics aside, Halloween can be a lot of fun.

If you are looking for a suitable Halloween costume accessory, Fausta has unearthed a perfect Obama button at GAP stores–particularly suitable for those in the Chicago area; dress as a dead person and you’ll have the perfect Chicago Democrat voter costume!

Two nights from now our children will be trick or treating, but tonight we get treated to All Obama TV. Really, couldn’t he have scheduled it on October 31; that at least would have been amusing. They’ve spared no expense to bring us this messianic infomercial, full of pomp and pretense, but when you’ve got $600,000,000 to spend, what’s $3 million to lock up a half hour of prime time TV air on four major networks?

In honor of their being the only network to exhibit any sense whatsoever, I will be watching Pushing Daisies on ABC.

As if this election cycle isn’t creepy enough, some people are determined to make it even creepier. They hang an effigy of an Obama ghost from a tree, and properly get condemned for it by their community leaders.

Note how the media photographer made sure the McCain/Palin sign would be prominent in the foreground.

Not to be outdone, a North Hollywood couple (reminding me once again why I’d rather move to North Dakota than North Hollywood) hung an effigy of Sarah Palin from the chimney of their house.

And they become a stop on the Hollywood bus tours; It’s “art.”

According to the “artist,” because of the history of lynching in the US, we’re not supposed to feel the same way about seeing a white woman being hung as we do about a black man being hung. Its much worse to hang an effigy of a black man.

Great logic there: Some hatred is funny, some is not.

Apparently hating Jews is funny, or at least acceptable. Then again, why is the MSM determined to hide the video of such a fun event? Perhaps it might genuinely scare the voters. It ought to terrify them. Can’t have this right before the election, can we?

Offering a reward might shake that video loose. Then again, that video might be what it takes to pry the mask off Obama, and the MSM can’t have that. Little Green Footballs reminds us that they’re awfully good at making things disappear.

Each day closer to November 4, I am reminded more and more of the fictitious character Nicolae Carpathia.

Trick or treat indeed.

It is not all about the economy.

Some things really do matter more than economics in this election. And some differences between the US Presidential & Vice Presidential candidates could not be clearer.

I am not Catholic (though both my daughters graduated from a private Catholic girls high school, so I know a thing or two about Catholicism). Whether one is Catholic or not, truth is truth.

H/T The Anchoress, and the “eleventybillion people” who emailed it to her.

Doing whatever it takes to steal, er, win the election.

I keep wondering what it’s like to be an Obama supporter. I mean, what’s it really like to be so enamoured of a politician, that you do not care what it takes to put him in office. You’ll do it, or you’ll turn a blind eye to it, figuring that the end justifies any and all means.

Were I an Obama supporter, I personally would have a very difficult time with this sort of crap going on. It’s no surprise that Obama’s camp will take money from anyone in anyway they can get it, and it’s also no surprise that they’ve found a way to avoid dealing with those pesky donation limits. But to be so in-your-face about it, to have your online credit card system set up to take blatantly fraudulent information, that takes brass ones.

As Mark Steyn points out,

In order to accept financial donations from “John Galt” and “Saddam Hussein”, whoever runs the Obama website would have to modify the default security checks required by their merchant processor…the Obama site appear to have intentionally disabled not only all the address checks (thereby facilitating overseas contributions) but the most basic criterion of all: the card name match (thereby enabling entirely fake contributions).

Of course, the media is too busy figuring out how much Sarah Palin spent at Saks to care about from where Obama gets his campaign funds.

I’m trying really hard not to envision what life in the US will be like under this sort of “leadership.” Honestly, it scares me. I’d feel much better if there were a modicum of humility in Obama, if his campaign reflected something other than an arrogant desire to control the United States, and all the citizens within it. But then, that is socialism, it’s about controlling the masses, and goodness knows the writing has been on the wall about what sort of government Obama intends to run. The “spreading the wealth around” kind.

Obama’s political philosophy is clearly socialist. His tax plan makes that clear.

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly…

Distributed, of course, by Obama’s government. Karl Marx would be so happy. It’s only taken 160 years for his dream to be realized in the United States.

I’m being inordinately pessimistic, but unchecked and unchallenged corruption does that to me. I grew up in Chicago, where dead people vote two or three times. I know how hard it is to win against the Machine.

It’s all about the clothing…

We’ve got thirteen painful days left until Election Day, and what is the MSM focusing upon?

The cost of Sarah Palin’s campaign wardrobe.

It’s hard to match this sort of “journalism” (using the word loosely) for sheer bitchy jealousy:

Can a candidate who portrays herself as a woman of the people spend this much on clothes and remain credible?

“She presents herself as Josephine Six-Pack, and I’ll tell you this, Josephine Six-Pack wouldn’t spend $150,000 on her wardrobe,” said Lesley Jane Seymour, editor-in-chief of More magazine. “I’m all for ‘shop ’til you drop.’ But to be spending profligately when you’re saying you’re just one of the people — well, that’s just bad marketing.”

“Listen, you can walk into H&M and get three wardrobes for $500 to $1,000, and you’re done,” Seymour added.

That rings true to another hockey mom, Adina Ellick of Chappaqua, N.Y. “If I spend $1,000 on clothes in a year, it’s a lot,” said Ellick, 43. “Usually I’m sitting at a freezing hockey game in fleece pants and a pullover sweat shirt and a blanket over my head!” She said she was “offended” by news of the expenditures.

Right. We want a woman running for Vice President of the United States to be wearing clothing from an upscale version of JC Penney. And nothing says “Leader who can command the respect of foreign powers” like a pair of sweatpants.

Comparisons are being drawn between Palin’s campaign wardrobe and John Edwards’ infamous $400 haircut. Conveniently, the media are forgetting that John Edwards’ presidential campaign focused on eliminating  poverty, while the man himself had quite the reputation for spare-no-expense personal vanity.

There’s something really self absorbed about a man making so much fuss over his own hair.

About a woman being dressed well for a long series of public appearances? Not so much.

With the serious economic and foriegn policy issues facing the candidates, a wardrobing expenditure that even the bitter media grudgingly admits is legal becomes the issue to discuss?

Of course, Mrs. Palin’s not the first prominent Republican to draw the liberal ire for an expense.

The new china, White House renovations, expensive clothing, and [Nancy Reagan's] attendance at the wedding of Charles and Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales,  gave her an aura of being “out of touch” with the American people during an economic recession. This and her taste for splendor inspired the derogatory nickname “Queen Nancy”.

Hopefully, Sarah will find her own way to deflect the hate, just as Nancy eventually did.

In an attempt to deflect the criticism, she self-deprecatingly donned a baglady costume at the 1982 Gridiron Dinner and sang “Second-Hand Clothes”, mimicking the song “Second-Hand Rose”. Nancy Reagan reflected on the criticisms in her 1989 autobiography, My Turn. Reagan describes lunching with former Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Strauss, wherein Strauss said to her, “When you first came to town, Nancy, I didn’t like you at all. But after I got to know you, I changed my mind and said, ‘She’s some broad!’” Nancy responded, “Bob, based on the press reports I read then, I wouldn’t have liked me either!

Funny how being dissed on for legal, legitimate expenditures has a way of backfiring on the haters. Jealousy ain’t a pretty thing.

Next up: Joe Biden claims “Mark my words, this election is all about a three letter word, “Me.”

Okay, I made that last bit up.