How?

Maybe, it should be why?  I have my own opinions and I suppose everyone does.  But, Monday Night Football tonight, is dominated by that question that comes to my mind whenever I see this story.

Spoiled rich kid, overly indulged, with some legitimate physical skills, gets to play at a big school, where the bright light coach continues the enabling and indulging attitude.  He violates NCAA rules over signatures, not because he needs money, he is rich, but because he is either dumb and/or foolish.

He gets drafted in the first round of the draft, by a miserable franchise, full of hope.  It is a horrible fit.  He is way too leaky a vessel to hold hope, and way too poor a character to build unity or a team around.  Anyone with a lick of football sense can see it, and understands it.

This is the path that many have followed, Jim McMahon, Ryan Leaf, just not capable of holding the bowl full of anything but disappointment and foolishness.  Cleveland has plenty of understanding as to what this means.  They have now officially wasted 2 years on a commodity that may have another season, at most, left in him, before he kills someone driving drunk, gets into the whole rape allegations drunk monkeying with every one of the hangers-on at the bar, or popped with dope in the car, high rolling his "friends".

Allen Iverson, Michael Vick, those are other examples from the other side of the tracks.  I was in Hampton Roads when both Iverson and Vick came out of high school as hugely talented athletes.  They went on to college, and lots of home town issues that got covered up and glossed over by their powerful college coaches.  Iverson started a riot that ended up getting someone killed, and somehow John Thompson convinced Doug Wilder to pardon him and declare him a hero.

Want to know why Iverson is not the greatest of all time, or in the conversation?  It is not because he did not have the talent, he had every bit of talent that Jordan had.  He had an enabler as a coach and absolutely no one in his life to make him leave the bad elements of his life behind, and focus on being an adult and a man.  I can't tell you how many times one of his houses or one of his cars were busted full of felons and drugs.  Maybe Iverson was there too and the cops let him go, in Virginia he could literally cause deaths and get away with it.  But, the gang thugs were always there in trouble in Iverson's property.

Michael Vick did not find dog fighting buddies on the Atlanta Falcons.  They came from the projects he grew up in.  They were constantly around him and his family, they never got shed of them.  It took down his brother Marcus as well.

It is sad when folks with those kinds of skills and abilities do not find the missing link in their lives, which is structure and discipline.  That is where Johnny Football is, all his drunk frat boy buddies and the hangers-on, out partying.  I don't have anything against partying, in moderation, and without endangering your livelihood and the livelihood of others.  When you have responsibilities, you have to take them seriously.

I read all the comments on line, about how it was just a beer, Greg Hardy gets to beat women, blah, blah, blah.  That is exactly what has created Johnny Football.  Mike Pettine is the absolute best thing that could ever happen to the young man, though most don't see it.  Someone finally looked him in the eye and told him to stop being a selfish, foolish, punk.  And, since you didn't listen to us, lied to us and generally told us to go screw ourselves, for you own pleasure, you get to sit your one prime time shot.  You get to be third string, but you should be cut.

If you want to be a man, you have to act like a man.  If you want respect, you have to earn it.  The NFL, the world, will not give you anything of worth, regardless of your background, that you do not earn.  You can get money by inheriting it.  You can get fame by having the right name.  But, respect, honor, understanding, those things are earned.  They are earned with integrity and personal values.  Meaning what you say, saying what you mean, being a person of reliability.

You don't get things of worth because your Dad's rich.  You don't get things of worth because you can throw a footall 70 yards in the air.  You don't get things of worth because you can hit a baseball 410 feet.  You get things of worth because you work hard with those attributes.  You take on responsibility for the team and for the outcome.

Everyone that has ever played team sports has known that athlete that was gifted but not committed.  If you were like me, and had to work for all the physical things, those folks were frustrating.  They could show up, do things that I spent days practicing and still could not do, and did not care.  It was not important.

And, they were just games.  It was not important, in terms of world priorities, but it was important from a life lesson standpoint.  I have known Johnny Football guys.  Great fun to watch play.  Unbelievable what they could do.  But the other athletes around them are always disappointed because they know that it is nothing compared to what could be possible if they showed up and practiced and dedicated themselves to the craft.

Coaches put up with them, only when they are not much in the way of a coach.  Especially at the public school and college level, and it rarely works out for them.  The coaches that discipline them and instruct them have one of two outcomes...they get fired, because you know you benched Johnny Football, and we already suck, OR, the star gets gone, because their agents don't make much money with a bench warmer.  It is a bad place.

What I want to pass on to all those people so upset at benching Manziel for his behavior, and I lost track of how many comments I heard and read with the same message, is simple.  The organization is paying this 22 year old to be a professional.  Do other athletes behave badly, yes.  Do other athletes promise you, as their coach, to not do it again, and end up in the news less than 7 days later?  Maybe, maybe not.  I doubt many do with Mike Pettine.  You would not know it, because it is the Browns.

But, the millions this young man is  getting paid, is to learn to lead, learn to operate at an elite level, and learn to be the face of the franchise.  That is the job description.  Whether you like it or not, if you are able to make it to the starting quarterback of an NFL franchise, you are the face of that franchise.  If I am the Cleveland Browns, I don't like Johnny Football's face as the respresentative of my franchise.

In a year, I don't make anywhere near what these guys make in one game.  But, I have a huge responsibility to earn what I make, within the role I have.  I am paid to be a leader.  Whatever else I know about mechanicals, electricity, maintenance, reliability, planning, I am paid to be a leader.  If I cannot do that, and am not willing to work at doing that, and am not driven to do it better every day, I am not going to last in any position.

It frustrates me to see people of talent and skill waste it.  It is not my lot to fix.  But, as for me, I stand behind Mike Pettine, and what he has stood up for on the Browns.  I hope that Manziel understands it, and takes the lesson and the learning.  Because look, the Browns are a professional franchise.  As bad as the football product looks on the field on Sundays, it is professional level football.  They are a couple of key players and key coaches away from being competitive.  They are only a couple of leaders away from being special.

It goes the other way too, for the same reasons.  Look at San Fran.  Harbaugh goes away, and look at the beautiful performance of Kaperniek.  Wait, it is not beautiful?  It is not and it is not leadership and it is not working.  Before too many people get worked up to firing Pettine, think about who you will rather have long term.  A prima donna that can't go 48 hours without being a clown, or a coach with the balls to look the prima donna up and down and bench him?  Leaders are needed on the sideline too.

It is that way in all of life.  Without leadership, things don't work.  Without dedicaton, care, concern, things do not imporve.  Without the selfless dedication to make those around you better, great things are not possible.  You don't have to be kissie/huggie to get there, but you better perform at the level you expect of others.  And don't get upset if you level is subpar, and that leads to finding new opportunities.  That is the way it works.

Football is a game, but in the NFL it is a profession.  If you cannot be professional in pursuit of it, bad things are going to happen to you in the NFL.  It makes me frustrated.  Why do people with so much talent not utilize it to the maximum extent possible?  What makes you work hard enough to get half way there, and be unwilling to go all the rest of the way?  How internally lazy can you be?

Even I, probably the least tolerant RGIII complainer on the planet will say this much.  That man has done all that he can to approach things as a professional.  Imagine, just imagine if he was physically equal to his effort?  If hunks of him did not snap and pop off every time someone bigger than a safety hit him, he would be truly special.

Manziel will never be special, without some serious change.  And he has not shown any willingness or capacity to change in 6 years on the big stage.

Tim Tebow

There are worst things in this world to be, than Tim Tebow.  Win a National Championship in college, Heisman, and guide a Denver team to 8 straight and a playoff win.  That resume is impressive, solely on football merits.  There are not very many alive that have achieved those things.

I am a Tebow fan, though I could not root for him as a Gator.  Hey, it just isn't allowed if you are a Seminole fan, and I am.  However, I had a lot of respect for him as a player and a young man.  I was active duty at the time he was at Florida, and I have to tell you, we did not have many like that floating around the ship.

I think he gets a significant lack of respect.  Mike Pettine in Cleveland might prefer the Tebow over Johnny Football.  Is there anyone in America at this point, that would not prefer Tebow over Johnny Screwitup?  Look, I am not suggesting that Tebow was ever going to be Peyton or Tom Brady or even Big Ben.  But, Trent Dilfer has a Super Bowl ring, just saying, Trent Dilfer.  For that matter, so does Mark Rypien, yes, I am old school.  But, if Dilfer and Rypien can do it, absolutely Tebow could.  I can tell you truthfully in DC, we don't need Peyton, we would rather have Eli and two rings.  Tebow would have been a huge upgrade at any point for us.

Doug Flutie...okay, you get the football point.  I think it is kind of criminal and mean spirited how little respect the man gets for what he has done on the field.  Part of that comes because they do not understand how to deal with a man like Tebow.  It is easier to live with Johnny Football and his frat boy schtick, than a person of integrity and character, for most organizations.  Greg Hardy in Dallas, Adrian Peterson anywhere, (he beat his kid bloody with a stick), Ray Rice.

Look it is the NFL, Near-on Felony League.  The days when there was significant expectation that your paycheck in the league was entwined with not EMBARRASSING the league, they are long gone.  Substance abuse, beat your wife, beat your kid, whatever foolishness it is that you are doing, now, it is just another thing.  The thug life.  Aaron Hernandez.  That is the NFL narrative now.  It is so close to the NBA  that it is starting to make the NHL seem like a real sports league.

But, that is not all that has me throwing the Tebow name around tonight.  Report in the news, I was hoping that it would be his signing with the Skins, turned about to be personal news, if you call it news.  Tebow got dumped by his girlfriend because he is staying abstinent until he is married.  She is a beauty pageant something or another that I had never heard of, so I did not stick the name.

The NFL is not the only screwed up cauldron of dumbassery going on, apparently.  And, look, I have absolutely no idea how accurate or inaccurate any of the information is.  But, it literally made me want to know what is the code that people are looking for, to sort out their relationship goals.  This kind of made me sad for us as a people.

I guess there is nothing wrong with that situation.  You know if it is not working, it should be good that the thing stopped before it went too far.  But, how do you win if you are Tebow?  Rich, and he is, athletic, women tell me he is good looking, man of character and faith, I mean what does a brother have to do?

I know a lot of people dismiss Tebow's religion and faith.  Look, think of it this way, every one of those websites that the teens troll for the gotcha journalism, every one of them would find the Michael Phelps pictures of Tebow to be the Willie Wonka Golden Ticket.  It has not appeared, so it is not there.  Unfortunately for the NFL, and apparently beauty queens, Tebow seems to be the convicted and mature man of faith he proclaims.  Johnny Football can't go 72 hours unsupervised without getting outed.

What does a brother have to do?  Literally, this is a serious question.  How is it unattractive to have a man of faith, integrity, conviction, dedication and high morals?  What about honoring you, and intimacy vows, above temporary pleasure, is unattractive?  How do you do more to prove your committment to the relationship and treasuring it?  What is wrong with the picture?

Kind of makes me feel bad for the guy, in a way, and really relieved for the guy.  Clearly, his pants were not ever going to be big enough for this girl, and that is not a bad thing to find out up front.  I hope that it works out for her somewhere else, I do.

As for Tebow, I am positive he knows that all good things come to those who wait on the Lord with patience and faith.  And, I would just pass on to my friends that support the Cowboys, two healthy collarbones and more playoff wins and championships than all your current healthy quarterbacks combined.  Just saying.  But, it might not work so well, having him in that locker room.  People might start thinking about their lives, their actions.  Wouldn't want that going on, apparently no team in the NFL does.

GLYASDI

Chicago Backwards

There is a narrative involved in Chicago, and the unrest there.  There is a story there, one that is unfit for America.  It is not the one you are hearing in the press.  The press is covering a story about protest for the killing of a young black man, high on drugs, non-compliant with police that was shot and killed.  The facts of the case indicate that the police officers, mulitple police officers, report the same activity and non-compliance.

Then, one of the cops shoots the young black man, alot.  Not what you would expect, nor is it permissible.  Sounds like a bad cop, and he has been charged with murder, first degree.  We will see what the legal system does.  But, that is the story the press is covering, but it is not the narrative.

The narrative is about a 9 year old kid, lured into an alley and assassinated.  Assassinated by black gang members, in retaliation to his father's dealings, who is also a black gang member.  Let me settle that around you one more time.  9 year old kid, carrying a basketball, if I remember the story right, lured into an alley and then assassinated, shot multiple times.

There is no indication of drugs in the kid's system.  There is no indication of issue with the kid being compliant.  Kid did not have a weapon.  He was just hunted and bagged for some ridiculous gang related foolishness.  Immature and ill conceived men, playing little boy games, with real weapons and real outcomes.  Thugs, criminals, terrorists.

When does that little black kid's life matter?  When do the protests and rallies start for that little black kid?  Not the high young man, carrying a weapon, that got shot, but the 9 year old sober kid carrying a basketball, when are his protests?  When does the loudmouthed priest with the Vitalis in his hair get incensed about the killing of that little kid?  When does the Sharpton and Jackson Sideshow Review show up and act like grown men and race mentors and demand justice for that little kid?

When pigs fly.  There is no advantage or profit in covering how bad the gangs are.  No publicity and anger to generate among the masses, no riling them up and getting them crusading against the Gangster Disciples and Crips and Bloods and all the rest of the retard crowd.  There is not a handful of people that you are going to motivate to march through the hood and tear up the crack houses and corner drug dens, over killing a 9 year old.  Not going to happen.

But, half the useless city will go picket in front of the Disney Store to show how upset they are with the police.  Half the city will not wonder what the young man high on drugs, carrying a weapon, was doing and why he didn't comply with the police.  Half the city will not wonder what else is supposed to happen when someone is carrying a deadly weapon and will not drop it, even if the cop accused of murder had not shot him 16 times.  Half the city will not ascribe any responsibility to the young man high on drugs that got himself killed, even if it was murder.

But, they won't even take to task the part of the city that is mowing down 9 year olds, shooting up street corners, killing indiscriminately and without regard to guilt or innocence of their victims.  It makes me sick.  They won't even work up a good pissed off at the 9 year old's father, who refused to cooperate with authorities, to find the killer of his son.  I am sorry, I won't refer to him as a father again.  He was a sperm donor, and I have very little respect for the woman that took that donation.

9 year olds should go to football games, not their own funerals.  Cities should turn themselves inside out to find the murderer that would kill an innocent in that way.  It is all fine and good to go picket at Macy's, after you have made the 'hood uninhabitable for the gangs that are murdering every day.  Want a connection and correlary, do you think the high young man got the dope, that ended up getting him killed, from somewhere other than the same gangs that killed the 9 year old?

That cop shot the young man, and it looks wrong and will likely result in a justified conviction.  But, that cop was not out hunting that young man.  Had the young man not been high, running the streets, that cop would not have killed him.  The dope did it.  The dope war, and entrenched gang presence is what killed the 9 year old.  The same culprits, with the same motivators.  Scum, simple and pure scum, with nothing redeeming or concilliating about them.

Instead of addressing the root of the cause, the agitators and instigators are working to fire up everyone about the cops, the "discount" on black life, the injustice of it all.  I watch the news here, not in Chicago.  Want to know the real injustice?  No one is teaching these generations of young black citizens to value their own lives, and the lives of their community.  They are being told that it is going to get better if we can just make white people understand black lives matter, as if they don't already.  It is the most inexcusable lapse of public and civic leadership I have ever seen perpetrated on a whole community of people that seem incapable of understanding the delusion.  You can cry wolf only so many times, and then the wolf just gets to eat you.  Watch the news in any city in America, and you will see that the wolves are not hungry at this point.

Black lives matter, few white people would even wonder why we are discussing that, except that it is clearly apparent that those with the least value on black lives, are black people.  But, it is not just black, those impoverished and disadvantaged are all in the same boat.  The gang violence in the Hispanic communities of poverty, in the Asian communities of poverty, and though it is not allowed to be spoken of in the media, the white communities of poverty, is as entrenched.  We have seen this previously, in the gang violence of the Irish and Italian and Jewish poor, in the ghettos of early 20th century America.  We made the Godfather movies over it, because it is romanticized now, but it is the exact same behavior and pattern.  This is not new, and none of that got better because we got less anti-Semitic or anti-Irish.  It is not going to be fixed by trying to make the world less anti-black.

Save me your lectures on the white entitlement nation.  I don't deny it.  But, white entitlement is not putting bullets in 9 year old's heads, shooting grandmothers, spraying automatic gunfire around parks.  That is not white entitlement, and not the subject of a single protest march, or media campaign to do anything to address it.  It is ridiculous.  When you wonder what I don't see about this situation, why I don't get the whole black lives matter campaign, it is simple.

You can not stand funtionally silent, while those in your neighborhood, in your knowledge, in your sight commit crime after crime, without doing anything material about it, and then have the gall to be pissed off at how the rest of the world treats you.  How do you treat yourselves?  Drag the scummy little booger that popped that 9 year old kid to the cops for handling.  Line up to stand there and record and watch the dope dealing, to turn it in for prosecution.  Refuse to allow them to live with you while dealing.  Quit having their children.  Quit pretending it is just how it is, and refuse to be the human debris they scavenge.

Then you get some traction with me about black lives matter, or brown lives matter, or yellow lives matter, or whatever lives matter.  They always have, but you wouldn't know it watching the news and the decay of the poor black, poor brown, poor yellow, and poor white neighborhoods.  That is the crime, and it is perpetrated on themselves.  Until that gets the same attention every rag bag killing involving a white cop gets, we are not going to have anything change, that makes lives better for those suffering most.  And that crowd of worthless warts on the anus of civilization leading and inciting and enabling this Chicago mess deserves what eventually happens to every wart on your butt.

Just does not ever square with me, how you can be so incensed about what happens in the vast minority of events, and be satisfied living in terror all of your days.  It is just sad, really, really sad.  And, it seems impossible to get through the haze and address the real culprits.  The gangsters are only the symptom.  The culprits are in the network that enables, protects and hides them.  They call it fear, love, make it how you make it, but it is just criminal complicity.  It all comes down to the same thing, the real culprits.  Get that greasy haired priest to pray on that, instead of the door of the Disney Store.  Worthless, and shameful.

Until self accountability and internal responsibility are found, this does not change, regardless of how many "bad" cops get put in jail.  That was the secret of Dr. King, that we gloss over.  He understood that the internal change, the refusal to accept that which is entrenched and to demonstrate that refusal with personal action of courage and conviction, that was the power within the people.  No leader today seems to understand that.  Today, it is all about changing the window dressing, and the external factors that are beyond control, and there is no attention to the internal factors that drive the most change.

It just makes me angry when babies get killed.  Even 17 year old babies, high on PCP, carrying knives, running in the streets, that just makes me angry.  But, what makes me sad, is the complete failure of anyone in leadership to push to address the underpinnings of what is wrong.  Until that happens, to those that are perpetrating the vast majority of the violent crime, the value of a black life (brown life, yellow life, white life and certainly blue life) will be less than the cost of a magazine full of ammo.  And it will not stop until those they live among stand up and refuse to be victims any longer.

The terrible truth is, this is exactly the same situation in the Middle East, with the rise of radical Islamic extremism.  Until those they live among stand up and refuse to be victims and patsies any longer, it will not stop.  Regardless of how many drone strikes we send out, it won't change what is breeding them.  And that is the true injustice, and the true measure of what value they put on their own lives, and the lives of others.

Mad as I am, sad as I am, God loves you (and them) and so do I.  Just wish we could figure out a way to show love, not fear.  Love means accountability, not complicity.  It is all over the Bible, the entire book of Proverbs can be summed up in the conclusion that love is accountable, not complicit.  If you need that description to motivate you, it is the Christian thing to do.  Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's, give the punks to the justice system, and don't take them back until they are accountable.

And, I pray we figure out how to help each other, instead of segregate each other.  That is what the black life protests do, after all.  They continue to segregate the issue, enforcing racial division that becomes the focus.  Whether I understand it, or anyone else understands it, it is truth.  And, it will be why it continues to not work.  You have only to listen to Dr. King to understand why.  He had a dream, little black children and little white children playing together.  All their lives mattered, equally and without reserve to Dr. King.

Wish we had leaders today, instead of baiters and agitators.  Hope we wake up and grow some soon.

Overdrama

Overdrama:  A condition whereby the sufferer develops theories and conspiracies of the world far beyond any reasonable outcome from the situation.  There are lots of examples of overdrama.  This one from California:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/show/live-video-2/video-3324112-ucla-geology-students-visit-buckled-road-in-santa-clarita/

Link above is to a story about a road buckling in California.  If you have never been to California, there are lots of roads, lots of mountains, lots of sand, dust, dirt, but very little in the way of solid ground.

I am not a California hater.  I was there a very short time.  I enjoyed what time I had there.  I experienced several small earthquakes in my time in California and Idaho.  The largest earthquake I have experienced was on August 23, 2011.  I was sitting at my desk in Clayton, NC.  It was 5.8 and it damaged a great big chunk of DC and Virginia.  We felt it distinctly.

The narrative, on the fringes of society around that time was that this was a sure sign of the end times coming.  The posts around the story in California linked above, are about the end times coming, or the prediction of the greatest geological disaster EVER.

It is spookier if you give it the Grinch voice when you read it in your head.  I have my own ideas about the end times coming.  But, let's talk about the greatest geological disaster EVER, first.  It will happen.  No one knows when.  I don't think that it will necessarily be the earthquake event that those along the California faults worry about.  I think it will be Yellowstone waking up and doing its thing.

You can worry about it.  I suppose it is unreasonable to ignore it completely.  It is a physical reality that we have clear evidence supporting.  Yet, with all of our vaunted science and capability, our ingenuity and cleverness, we are powerless to materially impact the mechanisms of the earth.  It is going to do what it is going to do, completely regardless of our desires.   That is how it is.

I prefer to take more of an advised ignorance approach.  We have the things that we need immediately, in the event of a natural disaster.  I have lived in Hurricane Alley all my life.  I have had over $100,000 worth of damage to my home from a hurricane.  I have been there and done that, from the aspect of living through the natural disaster.  But, nothing I could have done, short of moving to Illinois, would have protected us from the hurricane.  And I don't want to live in Illinois again, that was not worth the trade for me.

So, in terms of the natural disaster risk, you have to plan to protect your family immediately, be prepared to survive the short time frame.  Then, you have to be willing to rebuild, rework, reinvigorate.  If not, you have to move.  Hurrican Katrina was not a blessing in any way, but it did remove some entrenched elements disillusioned with their surroundings.  Those that remained, are bought in, motivated and clearly positioned to bring life back in a meaningful way.  It is deeply damaging, and deeply healing all at the same time.

I don't fear natural disasters, though I respect their power and capacity.  I won't stay at the beach again, in the face of a hurricane.  I won't wait and see what happens with a wildfire in my neighborhood.  I won't wait out a flood to see if it actually gets high enough to kill me.  I think that the good folks with the Fire Department and Coast Guard wished more folks had my attitude.  I have little tolerance for the folks that crawl out onto their roof, then complain that it took someone hours to come pluck them to safety.  The flood had been coming for days.

Natural disasters are going to happen.  They are part and parcel of the broken world that we live within.  If you do not buy into the creation narrative in the Bible, then consider it the simple laws of entropy (chaos).  The universe is disposed to chaos, and eventually, the structures of the planet and physical being will reduce to the simplest forms of matter.  Joe's Big Bang Simplified Explanation.  (Yes, besides being a convicted Christian and well versed in the Scriptural description of the world's creation and demise, I am fluent in the language and theorems of the SCIENCE)

As to the end times, the Scriptures tell us that none of us can predict when they will come.  There is no definable sign or vision that will accurately foretell the beginning of the end.  It has been beginning since the Garden and the Fall.  Every day we get closer.  Those are both true statements, and all that we really need to know.  The end is either going to happen before I die, or after I die.  The relative impact is just in the timeframe, not in the requirements for preparation or understanding.

I don't fear the inevitable.  Again, I am Christian, I believe that God will remake the world back to His original perfection of creation, and create a new Kingdom for us to share with Him for eternity.  I have a responsibility to understand Scripture, and remake my life in the image of Christ.  Not so that I can earn a spot there, I can't.  I have to remake my life in the image of Christ because that is what is commanded of me by Christ.  It has nothing to do with receiving the mercy and grace that allows me into the Kingdom of Heaven.  That was bought and paid for by the sacrifice of Christ, through His love.

We get it confused alot.  We see stories like I linked above, and it becomes one of two narratives.  Either it is the End Times, which it is, as it is clearly closer to the end each day, so that is a nonsensical conclusion; OR, it is the prelude to the Big One, which it is, as it is clearly closer to the next Big One each day so that is a nonsensical conclusion.  It does not mean they are not obvious statements of fact, they are just not instructive as anything other than obvious statements of fact.

The response to either being true is identical.  There is only the prudent preparation for you and your family to survive the immediate aftermath of anything short of the EVENT.  If it is the EVENT, none of that preparation will matter.  Your whole life is supposed to be preparation for the EVENT.  You cannot keep it in a kit under the bed, ready to break it out in the event of spiritual emergency, or, when the signs are ominous.  You either live a life that demonstrates the love of Christ to the world, or you do not.

None of us do it perfectly, and thankfully, perfection is not the requirement.  We just have to do it with our whole intention and heart.  It is not okay to get it wrong, but it is only irrecoverable, if we intentionally get it wrong.  There is only one unpardonable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  That is not a free pass to go be every kind of bonehead there is, except a Holy Spirit blaspheming one.  That is just the boundary that Christ set.  The Pharisees exceeded it, claiming Christ's power came from Satan.  It is a clear and pronounced denunciation that cannot be made without knowledge and awareness.  You can't do it accidentally, or because you don't understand what you are saying.

It is pretty hard to get in deep trouble with God.  That is the thing that we have done poorly, as Christians, in this modern age.  We have let the narrative of God's love and mercy be consistent with attitudes and approaches that were formed in the same places that created the Crusades, the Inquisition and the conquest of the New World.  There is this compelling narrative that God is sitting in judgement of us continually.  Instead of being comforting, the idea that God is everywhere makes us paranoid.  We focus on what God sees, instead of what we feel.  God being with us should be comforting, and the thing that makes the approach of the EVENT something we do not dread.

I do not fear that God wants to condemn me.  That is not Christ's message, nor the message of the New Testament.  God wants to save and redeem me.  Of course He knows what I do wrong, what I think wrong, what I believe wrong.  It pains Him and saddens Him.  But, it does not harden His heart against me.  It makes Him reach for me, even more urgently.  God will judge us all, but that should not be our fear, that should be our excitement.  Because though perfect, and incapable of blemish, God has covered over our blemishes with His grace.  It is that simple.  It is not now, has not been before, and will not ever be about me.  It is about HIM.

That makes the EVENT not terrifying to me.  That makes the next great calamity not terrifying to me.  That makes the inevitable processes of the earth not terrifying to me.  I respect them.  I prepare as is prudent and reasonable for them.  And, then I focus on communicating that God loves us all, and focus on living that promise myself.  It is what I am most thankful for, because it does not allow fear and confusion to overtake and overcome my life.

There is plenty of science we don't understand.  Because of that, some of us assume that there is no God.  The evidence, they claim, does not support God.  There is no God particle, there is no quantifiable, qualifiable, verifiable, inutterable equation that proves the theorem of God.  Science forgets that it is predicated on faith.  Science assumes that there is an explanation just ahead for what we do not understand now, it is what drives us to experiment, qualify, quantify.  That is faith.  Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will happen, that is from Hebrews.

That is the scientific method.  We have confidence that what we have isolated and are experimenting to describe will happen.  Where science fails as a life medium is that piece where it says every wrong data point is immaterial overall.  It makes the scientific method great in laboratories and industry.  It works for science, but not for life.  Making mistake after mistake after mistake is hurtful and damaging in life.  It is okay in isolating the non-reducable salts of a reaction within defined parameters.  Parameters do not have feelings, egos, self-image.  Parameters don't care.

People care.  We have to inform our lives beyond the inexhaustible allowable wrongs in "science", and live so that we bring up, and enrich others with love.  We don't have to remain ignorant.  Faith does not disprove science.  But, it gets close to blaspheming the Holy Spirit, to take the other view, that science disproves faith.  If you are making that case, you need to really consider what your actions and outcomes will be.  Because there is no God particle, there is God.  It is the foundation that is indescribable.  Much as that drives us crazy, with our knowledge of good and evil, it is truth.

So, roads buckling are not anything new in terms of the End Times.  There are not more earthquakes today than there were millions of years ago.  Science will not ever pinpoint where God is, because He is everywhere.  Worrying about it is not instructive.  Preparing prudently, living lovingly, that is instructive.

Just makes me cringe when I see people pointing to signs and wonders, and ascribing prophesy to observation.  We should respect and understand prophesy to a much higher level.  Science is a cheap parlor trick compared to inspired prophesy.  It is what makes us all distrustful of prophesy, it is verifiable, but not with bunsen burners and computers.  It requires Scripture and prayer and consideration.  Earthquakes and floods are so much easier, they get measured on scales and with metrics.  Prophesy is unquantifiable.  That scares us, because we have decided we know the value of the universe.  That is the real EVENT, when the completely unfathomable depths of our ignorance are laid bare.

Don't know what prompted this rant, but every "Black Friday" includes these doom and gloom reports.  I don't see it that way.  Personally, it looks to me like the soil engineers got their calculations wrong and the dirt is sliding under the road.  I have seen it happen on the driveway I grew up on in Maryland, not noted as a geological hot spot.  The dirt slides under the road, all over the world, literally and figuratively.  That the degreed geologist is befuddled makes me feel bad for those kids that are paying so much money for the experience.  I know how much money that is, and it is a cruel trade in this case.  But, it does not make me think God is any more ready to smite the world today than any other day.  God knows how good science is, after all, He gaves us the Bible to have something to rely on.

GLYASDI

Thanks

Just a simple list, because I have no way to catalog it all.

My wife, who has brought me happiness, joy, comfort, peace and healing.  Beyond my best friend, she is the half of my soul that I like best.

My children, those that are ours, those that are adopted, those that are in relationships with ours, all of you.  You are why we do all that we do, so that we can continue to watch you grow and know that our lives have had meaning.  Emma, Tara, Kasey, Caleb, Josh, Hannah, and all the rest that have been deeply involved in our lives, you bring us the greatest joy and the greatest hope.

My father, whose strength and love have sustained me through everything I have faced.  I hope that I somehow become the loving and caring man that he is, and always has been.

My mother, though gone these last years.  I miss her every day, but feel her love every moment.  She is the root of the things that stick in our lives, the connections that never go away in our family.

My brother, who I love and admire.  I hope to have the strength and compassion he embodies.  I am not sure how he does all that he does, but it amazes me and humbles me.

My brothers and sisters from other mothers, Eric, Lizy, Scott, Paul, Kelly, Robert, Alcia, Duane, Michael, Wayne.  You all carry me along, even when you don't realize it.  It is the moments we don't suspect that are the moments we come to treasure.  You own so many of those moments, and I am embarassed at the riches you have given me.

My church because I know how and where and why to worship, and have a church family full of it to partake of it.  

My work because it gives me fulfillment and provides an amazing life for my family.  I pray that I bless the efforts as much as the efforts bless me.

My home, because it is filled with love and joy.  It is our refuge and our safe harbor together.

My Lord and Savior, because it is about Him, and whatever thanks I have, He deserves and more besides.  I have no words to express how much He has blessed me and mine.  But, I am the richest man you know, even if you know Bill Gates.  He could not afford the things of worth in my life, were they for sale.

That is the quick, simple list.  It is not complete, and I have no way to complete a list of all of it.  But, I am so thankful for the ability to see and know that I am blessed.  I am so thankful for the joy in my life.  I am so thankful for the world of wonder and beauty that is given to us all.

And, I am thankful for you.  Even if I have never met you, and you read this, thank you for that connection.  And, I pray today that we all continue to be blessed and know how we are blessed.

Most importantly, God loves you and so do I.

Rejoice. Pray.

I have always thought that Thanksgiving was summed up in 3 verses in 1 Thessalonians.  Chapter 5, verses 16 through 18.

From the King James Bible, because I like the way it sounds, "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

Two of the shortest verses in the Bible, packed with meaning, prior to one of the most powerful of commands in the Bible.  It makes me think often about my life.  I come back to these verses often.

And, I can be honest that I struggle with the order of these three verses.  I don't know if the order is important to God, but since He put it down that way, I am going with the published priority.

I am not a rejoicer.  I mean, I have been trained my whole life to isolate the error, find the problem, focus on the deficit.  In the day, it was called deficit analysis, and it was how generations of us, that do maintenance and upkeep and optimization, were trained and prioritized around failure and fault.

If you let the world, it will focus you on what is wrong.  It will require all your attention for the bumps, the troubles.  It is not how we were supposed to work.  "We were meant to run through fields of forever, singing songs to our Savior and King."  Love that line from SCC (Glorious Unfolding).  Wish I had written it.

It is very difficult to keep focus on rejoicing, especially for me.  No one wants to hear me recite all the things that are going great, when they are standing in front of me trying to figure out all the details around what has failed.  I understand that, in my position, as Dad, as a leader, as a servant, it comes with the territory.

Difficult, while hard, is not impossible.  I keep telling myself that.  Sometimes, I fail.  I mean, look, I have the same issues as everyone else, a thousand things biting at my ankles at any one time.  My issues aren't worse or bigger than any other person's, but they are mine and they are very real.  It is one of the most powerful motivators in our lives.

We allow it to overcome us at times.  It is a nifty trick in the Devil's bag.  Get us focused on things that don't work, don't happen like they should, drag us down.  Our own focus and obsession becomes focused on the broken.

When you are looking at the cracks in the sidewalk, you can't see the pattern in the mosaic.  It is that simple.  Those two short verses, Paul did not need to add any words.  Rejoice evermore.  Pray without ceasing.

We only have one Thanksgiving in the calendar, and I think that we try to find a way to pile up enough sentiment and importance, so that we don't waste it.  I won't be happier tomorrow than today.  I won't pray any deeper tomorrow than today.

It is the fourth Thursday of November, tomorrow.  That means we observe a ritual on that day in this country.  It is a beautiful sentiment, and I appreciate that we set it aside to do so.  But, we need to use all of our days for it.

And, we need to remember the prelude.  Rejoice, pray.  I pray that you rejoice with family, friends and thanks.  Find the reasons that matter, remember, it is really a good life.  That is the secret we don't talk often enough about.  Especially me.  It is really a good life.

What lives matter, terrorists, refugees, crime, taxes, all that stuff, it is a burden.  It is not that we should ignore it, or not address it.  But, we should not let it take away our joy in being us.  We were made to run in fields of forever.  I would rather run smiling, laughing and singing, than run screaming with terror because the T-Rex is chasing me.  We get to make that choice.  Really, there is no T-Rex to run away from, and there is a whole lot of joy to run toward.  Honest.

That is what I am focused on today.  Praying, rejoicing.  I have so much to be happy about.  We all do. And nothing bad that happens to us really has any power over the good in our lives. The only person or thing that has power over the good in our lives is us.  We can choose how we respond to the good and the bad.  I am going to try to do the praying and rejoicing.  That leads to the thanking, and that is for tomorrow.

GLYASDI.

What changed?

What changed?  Inside, I wondered about that.  Yesterday, I was baptized.  Something had to change right?  Biggest stuff there is.

You know, as a "grown-up", we unfortunately try to put limits on what God can do in our lives.  Because we set our expectations based on our capabilities and our understanding, we completely refuse to just let God go and let God do.  At least, I do.  I should not speak for all.

But, I was in the midst of great expectation management, as I stumbled through the coffee routine.  I have a routine, we all do, about what happens in what order in the morning.  It is unreasonable to expect to feel entirely differently, I told myself as the usual places ached and popped and cracked.  It is unreasonable to feel emotional different, I told myself as the same old things annoyed me.

I mean, what really changed?

Well, forgive me for the mysticism for a moment, but the world changed.  I don't let God have enough credit in my life.  And, I gloss over the spiritual warfare in my life.  But, absolutely the world changed, for me, and let me relate to you why I say that.

When I got up Sunday morning, feeling quite excited about going to be baptized, I had a great few moments.  But, I almost immediately got into expectation management.  "Look Joe, you had this done when you were a baby.  You are doing something for show here," which I don't believe any longer.  "There won't be any voice from heaven congratulating you, best get that straight up front."  "What if folks come and it is not special for them?"  All that stuff goes into your brain and makes you crazy.  Nerves, anticipation, idle hands and idle thoughts are the Devil's playground.

And, quite honestly, the Devil has been making a menace of himself in my family the last few weeks.  I have to be careful here, as I have no room for blaming anyone else or anything else for what I do.  But, we have had challenges and issues in front of us that we certainly did not need to get through as a group.  It has caused hard feelings for many of us, and made cracks in relationships.  I had already convinced myself that what I feared would happen.  And it did.  And that sucked.

It threatened to ruin the joy of the day, because of what I did with it.  On top of that, there were other influences and stresses that we probably just would have been better off without that morning.  At least, that is what I was thinking as I drove to church.  I go there early, because early is what I do, and sat there a few moments, staring at grey and colorless skies, and felt quite different than I thought I would feel.  It really got me angry.  We all have the fight or flight thing, and, well, mostly I am fight.

I was sitting there, and it dawned on me that I could not go promise to serve the Lord all my days, and gain forgiveness and blessing, harboring anger on my heart.  I had to let anger go out of me.  I had to let that morning's situation go.  I had to let the unresolved angers in my relationships go.  I had to let anger in my family go.  I had to let anger at those who had hurt my loved ones go.  I had to let anger at me and my failings go.

It took me about 5 minutes to get my head straight, my eyes dry and my hands steady.  I had to let a burden go that I had been carrying around for years.  I had to fess up and let my anger at God go.  I didn't realize what I had been carrying around with me, but there was a lot of stuff there.  God did not have to let Mom die so young.  God did not have to let my Pop die without being able to say goodbye.  God did not have to let what happened in our family happen.  I know all those things, in situational understanding, but man did I still have a lot of it sitting on me.

I cannot tell you what the next 2 hours did for me.  I watched a young lady I was baptized with weeping, not in fear, but in expectation.  She was nervous, but in the best way, at least from my perspective.  I watched young men, three brothers, quietly get ready for the moment.  They would become very special for me later, but sitting there with them waiting, I could see that they were all in, not just going along.  Then, the words I did not expect.

"Satan did just about everything he could this morning to keep us from coming, but I was not putting up with it."  An older gentleman, whose name I won't use because I didn't ask, was explaining to the pastor with us, what his morning had been like.  He and his family have challenges, physical and real.  There were arguments, emotions, aches, pains, issues with transport, time, all the things that could legitimately ruin any plans.  He had just refused to let it.  He was 67 and not waiting anymore, because you are not guaranteed tomorrow.  His health had suffered recently and he was serious about it.

Younger folks than me were sitting there, quietly contemplating what was to occur.  It dawned on me that this was why I had come.  I needed this desperately.  This was not a show, it was not a commitment demonstration.  This was me, my need.  And, I understood what that older man was saying.  I could see the lines in the sand where Satan had been working in my family, trying everything he could to keep us from each other, from closeness and from understanding.  Including me, and things I did and did not do, that had consequences.

I had no answers for how to fix things.  I had no answers as to how to make them different.  I just knew that the next step was to get through the baptism.  The world was not going to be the same.

The event itself was over quickly.  While all this leading up to it sounds high level spiritual ninja stuff, the reality is that I am 48 and recently completed knee surgery.  Just don't fall getting into the tank, that was what my focus turned into, when I saw the layout.  I almost let myself get distracted from what was happening, worried about that.  But, I snapped out of it when I got into the water.

I got out of the tank, dried off, and went and found Katrina.  Sitting with her were Caleb, Alicia, Tara and Kevin, wonderful kids that I love, and I could feel the love from Kasey and Tony and Emma and Andrew, who could not be there.  In front of us were friends whose worth to me I cannot describe.  These people are truly brothers and sisters in spirit in ways I don't know how to explain.  I love them all.  I don't have words.

When service was over, and Pastor Matt touched me with the sermon, that is another story, we were hugging and talking, and I got told a story about those 3 brothers.  My friend, Scott, who had come to the baptism, had mentioned that he was going to be at the service for the 11:15 baptism, to one of C3's members at the men's group they both attend.  When he explained that he was coming to see me be baptized, the other fellow said that his boys had been asking about being baptized.  By the end of the day, that seed had translated into Scott's friend letting him know that the boys would be baptized at that service as well.

It doesn't take much for me to see a miracle.  I don't have a high bar to get over about what a miracle is.  If it brings you a blessing, if it gains you in Christ, if it leaves you closer in an indelible way to God, through nothing that you did or could do, that is a miracle.  Planting a seed that got 3 boys baptized, without waiting longer, that was a miracle for me that day.

Whatever turmoil I have in my life, and that stuff did not go away because I got baptized, I got multiple miracles out of that day.  I got to see that it was a triumph for me, not to put too high a mark on it.  I got to see a man of conviction achieve his baptism, and ease his soul, and I can't tell you how special it was to know what that meant to him and be part of it.  I got to cleanse a lot of things that I carried that are not my burden.

And, I got the miracle of feeling the love of those close to me, and their support, and their blessing for being there.  Those are big, big things.  The world changed.  It got better for me.  It got fuller for me.  It made me more, and nothing I could do could cause that.

I still have issues with folks.  I still have not done all the right things, or made all the right amends, or understood all the right issues.  I still have struggles, and I am not suddenly filled with the grace of the Apostles.  I am still me, and that is flawed.  But, it is going to be okay, and it is going to be less angry, it is going to be less stressed and it is going to be more about Christ.

That much is new.  And, you know what, I am not done with Satan.  I know that he is not done with any of us.  But, I am not afraid.  I don't see him around every corner, he can't be, he is not God.  He can only have the power we give him over our lives and souls.  And his minions are even weaker.  It is not that they are not dangerous, or that I don't have to take care.  But, he lost a big, big battle.  And, he will never get that ground back.  Whenever any of us have those victories, there is a huge celebration in heaven.  Bible says so, that all the heavens rejoice, including God.

I got to be part of making God rejoice.  That is a big, big old day for a short little man from St. Mary's County.  Better believe I am blessed beyond expression.  You could not purchase the good in my life with the riches of Solomon.

GLYASDI

Still in the Refuge

Upon further review, I figured out that for some reason, I have let myself get distracted from what I originally intended to be blogging and writing about.  Sure, it is the stuff the voice inside my head whispers, but more importantly, it is supposed to be about the connections I make to the world around the voice.

And, lately, too much of the connection has been about side show and pretense.  It is not that these things are not important, or don't deserve comment.  But, the bottom line is that I keep forgetting something that came back to me this morning.  It is a broken passage from Psalm 46.

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea...He says 'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress."

When I let myself get too caught up in my opinions of the world, I forget a couple of key things here, that I have committed to keeping at a more consistent level.  Nothing earth shattering, or changing the path of reality, but worthy of revealing, especially as I have been remiss in following it.

First, and foremost, the Lord is with us, our fortress, our refuge, our strength.  It does not matter what comes here, where we go, what we see, or what we can imagine.  We have a refuge and fortress that cannot be overcome.

When it feels like the world pays no attention at all to my very sensible points and concerns, it becomes easy to digest fear and turmoil as our wages in the world.  Because no one else sees the plain common sense I am speaking, it becomes much easier to isolate myself within those thoughts.  The world is a scary place, and if we let ourselves add all of our internal fear, it becomes a place of terror and dismay.

But, we are meant to live in a fortress that protects us from terror and dismay.  Within the walls of our fortress, there is no harm that can come to us.  Our strength is limitless and magnified by the power surrounding us.  It is a refuge, a place that we can be us, be vulnerable, be less than is required, and still survive, understand and triumph, through the power of our Lord.

Nothing and no one can seperate us from that fortress, except ourselves and our own choices.  So, all the externalized fear, it is a distraction to the true point.  I don't mean to imply that we should be foolhardy and court danger, as that is akin to putting God to the test, and it is not our place.  We are supposed to be wary and aware of the world, considered and wise about interacting with it.  But, we are forbidden to fear it, and forbidden to turn away from it.

We are to be more than conquerors in Christ.  We are to share the Good News, not focus on the bad news.  Again, we are not to ignore the world, talking about it, understanding what is going on, these are important things.  But, we are MORE than conquerors.  We are SHARERS.  No one wants to share with a terrified and weak, feeble viewpoint that sees destruction around the corner.  Who wants any part of that, or could decide that God is going to deliver us into that?

We are supposed to trust in the Lord, live in the fortress, share the path and the news of the safe place we have found.  It is supposed to make us smile as we consider the world, not for its perfection, but because we know the antidote to the imperfection.  We are to act, to share, to come to the refuge and show as many as we can the path to that place of resort.

And, then, we are to do something that is probably the most difficult for me.  We are to be still and know that He is God.  I am one of those people, that sees things in logical sequences, rational steps.  I am a fixer, a problem solver, a trouble shooter.  I am an organized mind constantly engaged with a chaotic world, determined that I will win, that this world will submit to me and I will destroy its chaos.

But, that is the opposite of what my approach should be.  I should be STILL.  It is hard for a person like me to be still.  I don't like slow, I don't like it when things are not humming along.  Humming, clicking, wheels turning, cycles of something occuring that can be measured, timed, catalogued and followed to ensure order and efficiency.  Those are the attributes by which I judge the world.  What is the pace of the cycle, what is the predictability of the cycle and what is the waste in the cycle?

God wants us to be still.  Forget the cycle, and KNOW that He is God.  That terrifies me in some ways.  When I am still and quiet, not only can I know that God is God, I also start to know that Joe is Joe.  In those times, I don't much like Joe.  He is at equal odds, mean spirited and kind, thankful and greedy, generous and stingy, mindful and heedless.  He is a big ole mess of a mess.  When I am still and quiet, that mess is overwhelmingly present.

And, that is when I am supposed to know that God is God.  It does not matter about my mess.  It does not matter about my pace, my errors.  It does not matter what I did, what I forgot I did, what I never got around to being sorry for doing.  God is God.  Grace is constant, flowing with mercy to us.  If we just trust in the grace, that it overcomes that stuff in us, and provides the bridge to God, it is possible to know God.

I get it in fleeting moments.  I mean, I am a guy.  I don't have the attention span I should.  I don't have the consistency I should.  I see shiny objects, and all other thoughts are lost.  It happens.  But, I know that in the fortress, where my strength is stored, I am safe and saved.  I can be still, let what it means to be Joe, be evident and plain, and still know that God is God.  In those moments, the world is a place it is meant to be.  The presence of God filling you is enough of a teaser as to what heaven is like, that I am hooked.

So, while I don't like bringing terrorists into our country, while I don't like the fact that we continue to ignore the empoverished, while I don't like the fact that we don't honor things about God that we should, while I don't like the fact that the church is a place full of people and all the icky stuff that people bring, it should not be the focus of my days and my ways.

I have a fortress, a resort, a refuge.  Within it, I am indestructable, and eternal.  There, I can be still and know me, and know that God is God.  I can exist in the same place as God, it is possible He is there with me.  That means He can live in me every minute, every day.  That means if I choose, I can stay in the fortress forever, no matter where I go.

Nothing in the world can overcome that.  And, I should be much more in tune with that, and less stressed about what God has already told me is not in my control.  So, while I don't think any of the stuff I have posted recently is wrong, or not worthwhile, sorry that I have been preoccupied with what I cannot overcome.

I am going to try to be consumed with what I can control, my choices.  Hope you have a wonderful day, I will.  GLYASDI.

Little to no chance

So, there is little to no chance of contracting Ebola within the continental United States.  The virus does not live naturally within the confines of the North American continent.  It lives, naturally, in Africa.  To have the risk of contracting Ebola, someone that contracted the disease in Africa, must travel to America and infect you.  It is not even easy to infect someone with Ebola.  It actually requires fairly intimate contact of blood bearing fluids, if I remember my military GMT correctly.

There is little to no chance of contracting Ebola, even riding on the plane with the individual that is destined to be patient zero in the US.  That is just how it works.  Yet, we collectively lost our minds about people, Americans, who contracted the virus, being brought back to the US.  Travel outside the borders, all that mess that went on.  Remember the incredibly annoying Maine chick that knew she was correct in that she was not able to infect anyone with Ebola, even if a carrier, because she was a nurse, and just went biking around freaking everyone out like crazy?

Remember how the world came to an end, and all the LL Bean wearing crowd holding their soon to be red Starbucks cups, were just horrified.  Almost to the point that they were not willing to ride the subway, or airplanes, I mean, people were genuinely mystified and apalled that this could happen here.  We had military folks there, trained for it, that we had to quarantine for 30 days on return, not because it made any sense, but because our collective minds required it to maintain our cohesion.

There was no liberal crusade to let the infected and pitiful people from the most hellish part of Africa, in to wander freely, when it was a deadly infectuous disease on their minds.  We were not urged to just be brave.  No, the conversation was to be smart.  What does it gain to bring them in?  Why would we do that, take that risk?  When we did it, there was a protocol, a huge and expensive collection of actions and controls.  For Ebola, not a highly infectious and easily communicable disease in a nation with Western sanitation.  We did this.

Now, we want to let in people that we know are infected with a deadly communicable disease.  Not just exposed, infected.  We know that they will not be able to assimilate quickly.  Even with generous and unwarranted government largesse, they will struggle and be frustrated and concerned and stressed.  Everywhere else we have taken that incubation group, provided it stress due to change it cannot absorb, it triggered VIES.  Violent Islamic Extremist Syndrome.  My own term.

Look at the Fort Hood shooter.  People knew that he was off.  They knew he had stress.  Others around him knew he was radicalizing.  He, alone is responsible for his actions, not Islam.  However, the community that he lurked within, did not out him, did not consider his potential as dangerous or worthy of comment, did not provide their end of the American contract, which is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.  They failed us, but performed as expected.

How did the Tsarnaev brothers manage to do what they did?  Today I had someone point out that the Columbine creeps were almost identical, except for setting.  Yep.  With that I also say, I have stated every day since Columbine that those two sets of parents are criminally negligent and bear responsibility for their children's actions and their inattention.  They did not stop the danger, and they should have seen it, and they should have acted.  But, back to the Boston terrorists, how did they manage what they did?

They had support.  They travelled and communicated.  They changed and radicalized, yet never got the attention or oversight of the community that they should have.  It is considered politically incorrect to point out that people knew what was happening, and let it go.  I won't even claim to suspect that is because they agreed with the two terrorists.  They just did not support the Contstitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, as much as they supported the right of two disaffected punks to become terrorists.

Wait Joe, what about the guy that shot up the church in Charleston, after attending Bible study.  Evil does not know differentiation to religion.  I would submit that there were plenty that knew what was happening there.  They are at fault as well.  His actions are his responsibility, but those that knew and could have intervened owe some responsibility as well.

I heard the rabid dog analogy.  I heard the database comment.  First, I am no fan of Ben Carson's campaign.  However, what he described is appropriate.  We don't want to call anyone a dog, I understand, but the behavior and risk profile and understanding of impact are accurately described in the analogy.  Probably will regret it at some point, because even though you are right doesn't mean you need to say it into a microphone.

The database mess.  Look, I quit analyzing what crap comes out of Trump's mouth. But, I watched the whole clip.  It went from what tools do you think we should utilize to deal with refugee issues, to can you explain why you advocate activities the Nazi's practiced.  Typical crap television that passes for journalism today.  This post, editorialism, not journalism.  Bias, all that.  I know you never do anything the Nazi's did, but they bathed and washed their clothes and such.  As I have said in a previous post about our illegal immigration issues, you have to have THE LIST.  You do.  Why would we not use a database to manage that data?

But, none of that matters, it is not the Donald, or Gentle Ben that are the concern.  And sorry to disappoint the clamoring thousands, it is not Obama either.  There is little to no chance that the community these refugees will be depositied into, will be any more observant, vigilant or forthcoming than we have already seen.

There is little to no chance that the expectations will change.  There is little to no chance that the inputs and outputs will change.  There is little to no chance that this outcome will not mirror the others we see, in all the varied nations we see them.  There is little to no chance that we will change as people, any more than they will change as people.  There is little to no chance that THEY will see themselves as us, at any point.  They will always be serperate, apart.

Good as the hearts and ambitions are, for all those claiming disbelief at the troglodytes like me, their heart does not change the reality in the world.  Good as 80% of the hearts of the immigrants may be, their hearts do not change the 20%.  Look at Mali.  Look at Lebanon.  Look at Baghdad.  Look at Turkey.  Look at Russian airlines over the Sinai.  Look at Egypt.  Look at Lybia.  These are predominately Muslim nations.  We are considered the Great Satan.  Look at how they treat brothers in the faith.

What is the chance they will amend how they act, because they are here in America?  Little to no chance.  Best we know that, and do what we can around the foolishness that we will not stop.  What is the chance this is going to end well for us?  Little to no chance.

GLYASDI

Eagles and rattlesnakes

My last post, I described our issue with illegal immigration in comparison with the refugee issue in France.  In that there are similarities, I stand by that post.  And, I was not addressing the particulars of the refugee crisis in Europe, more the situation associated with our similar crisis.

Why sound like a politician?  Well...as much as I like to think I don't misstate things, it is possible that what I wrote could be considered contradictory to what I am about to write.  I don't want to give people the impression that I don't remember what I have written, or contradict it willy nilly.

However, there is a difference in how we should treat and respond to the Hispanic population in our shadows, and the methods we should take with potential Middle Eastern refugees.  The difference is quite simple to explain, and while it may not end up with a lot of people agreeing with me, it is from years of study and observation that I make these statements.

We are a nation made of immigrants.  More specifically, we are generally a nation made up of urban immigrants from similarly developed and culturally related countries.  Our major tie comes from Europe and then from Africa.  That is simply based on numbers, not in some imagined primacy of race.  When one considers why Russian, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Armenian, Serbian, Persian/Iranian, French and Portugese immigrant groups have been so readily assimilated and successful here, the commonality is background of culture and origin.

While less successful, mostly for enforced reasons, the African influence comes to be entrenched, as it adapted to the European influence it observed.  I do not suggest that there should be no pride or observance of African culture, but as the African population, mostly brought here wholly involuntarily, accepted and adapted to the European culture, it has become more successful.

We are a nation of Christian morals and values.  You can try to argue with me all that you want, how those white powder wig wearing dudes, descending directly from the highest society in England, were not influenced, informed and educated through the prism of JudeoChristian ethic, and I will simply shake my head at your obstinance.  Jefferson was not an atheist, he was just a flake.  Franklin was a philanderer, a nudist, a reprobate, and quoted Scripture often.  In many ways, he was the epitome of the modern American.  There is a struggle with humanity, but a bedrock of Christianity within Franklin that beckons us, which is why he is so popular, but almost no one today can explain what his role or position in the government was.  Most think he was a President.  Whether they achieved the moral standards they set for themselves, all our Founding Fathers gathered them from the King James Bible, or the Torah also contained therein.

In that sense, the poor Jews and Christians that arrived here, they had an advantage.  They understood the simple underpinnings and bedrock morals of the society.  They did not need education in what "we" believed, they had the 10 Commandments down.  Even when they were being successful at breaking the 10 Commandments (the mob) they did not need anyone to explain to them why it was or was not considered legal.  Those that suffered most were the aboriginal people, the natives.  Their stubborn clinging to their ways and beliefs sealed their fate much more prominently than their lack of written language and cultural understanding.  Had they been more maleable to the JudeoChristian ethos, there is little doubt that they would have fared much more successfully.

How do I make this assumption?  I look to the south, and while there was little choice to avoid conversion, and many, many people died to be converted, (a performance that rivals the activities of the current Islamic States, which is in itself a product of cultural influence, we will get to), there was much more volume in the numbers that took up the cross.  And, while they quietly and stubbornly held to their own cultural history, they did learn to operate within and understand the JudeoChristian ethos around them.

I am not blaming the native populations for not being forcefully converted, nor am I justifying the atrocities that were committed.  On the contrary, it is the example that I hold up as my reasoning as to why we must be very mindful of what we are doing when we admit the waves of Muslim refugees we are looking at.  This is a different cultural subset.

I don't want to have a discussion about which one is right, even.  Again, the reality informs us, without need for valuation judgements.  Being right or wrong, immaterial for this conversation.  Being different and incompatible, very much the topic of this conversation.  Neither side of the discussion will find any margin to budge to move to compatibility.

While informed and influenced by the Muslim culture, particularly in Spain, Portugal and the Caucuses, European culture clung to a Roman core of culture.  There was a powerful societal construct that drove the development of the Western World, in the manner in which it developed.  This occurred due to environmental factors, societal changes, and shared cultural communion that built Europe.  Russia is the oddest of the old powers, because it was most influenced and shaped by the Muslim influence, but it is still a European power and a Western culture, it chose to be, and has fought the Muslim culture for centuries and centuries.

Spain, Portugal and most of the Caucuses were  Muslim regimes for centuries longer than other powers in the Western part of Europe.  And while wrapped up in the Roman construct, and a member of the Western culture, they most effectively integrated pieces of the Muslim culture.  That is why, when it came to armed conquest, forced conversion, rigid dogmatic purity, violence coated in religion and inability to recognize a secular view of any topic, they were the most capable and feared, and this is just the Inquisition I am talking about.  We have not even gotten to colonization of the Americas.

There is plenty of dirt to go around in history.  Nobody's hands are clean when it comes to conquest, war and agrandizement.  I don't claim superiority to one side or the other.  I think that logic and plain recognition of fact does that all on its own.  However, the evolution of both sides of this cultural divide, occurred apace and apart.  Western culture has become so entrenched in our radical ideas of individual worth, tolerance, and acceptance (however imperfectly we practice them) that we are an enigma to Islam.  Islamic purity, isolation and dogma are so centralized that they pass beyond our understanding.

It is truly like attempting to teach rattlesnakes and eagles to live together.  Eagles prey upon rattlesnakes, if they survive killing them.  Rattlesnakes only require one strike to protect themselves from the eagle, if they do it early enough to survive the fall.  There is nothing that we can do that takes that out of the eagle, or out of the rattlesnake.  It does not even matter which side you assign to which animal.

You can not vet which rattlesnakes will strike early enough to survive, nor can you vet which eagles are limber enough to avoid the strike.  You can't tell the contents of a person's heart.  However, when persons from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, come into our country, they bring a shared cultural attainment.  They get what it is that we do, they know what it is that we are.  They understand the substruct, instinctively, as it is the basis of the common cultural landscape.  We can argue all day about the legality of it, and all of that.  But, we do not have to worry about whether they are here to convert us on the point of a sword or dirty bomb, or just want to earn enough to support their kids.  They are here to earn enough to support their kids.

When we bring in "refugees" from the Middle East, there is not vetting possible that protects the nation.  That is just plain fact.  The good Christian in me says to love them, they are my neighbor.  But they can be my neighbor in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq.  They don't need to be my neighbor in Clayton.

I have been to the Middle East.  It is not like our world here in the West.  I don't know how to say it more plainly than that.  In our core we are, both sides, people, but we don't believe the same things are universally true in our core.  I do with the French, with the British, with the Brazilians.  They do with me.

I do not with the Kuwaitis, Yemeni, Iranians.  They don't, and they don't have to.  Whatever and whyever it is what it is, it doesn't need to be here.  It is unsafe for it to be here.  We cannot get rid of all of it, nor should we live in isolation.  But we do not have to take hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised, impoverished, bitter people that do not and have not ever considered our social construct to be okay.  And, I am sorry, but if you are coming here, you have to buy into the social construct of America.  We do not have to change it to fit you.

That is not elitism, or bigotry, or disrespectful.  That is just what it is.  And the sooner we all get to understand that, we will realize that there are significant risks associated with being inundated with Muslims that do not exist with the wave we are having wash over us from the south.  It is apples to hand grenades, and it is just too risky.  There are socialization issues that must be addressed in that insular, isolated culture, before it can exist in the world without what is happening.  It is warring on all its borders, on each other and with any and all.  Why?  That is what it has taught from birth for so many generations that there is no other option available to them.  There are not a lot of American suicide bombers, because we have not spent centuries developing martyrs because we cannot imagine a world without ultimate war.  We have lived generations trying to build the world without war.  It is fundamentally and absolutely different.

It is that simple.  The eagle and the rattlesnake.  They can't live together.  Ask Belgium, ask France, ask Spain, ask Turkey, ask the US.  It will not change, not in our lifetime, perhaps not before God ends it Himself.  Whenever that cold day in hell occurs, then will the eagle and rattlesnake live together.  Until then, best to keep them far apart.  Fights to the death are brutal, ugly and end badly.

Look at the world, can you not see what I am saying?

GLYASDI

Bad recipe

For our brothers and sisters in arms in France, and Britain, and Spain, and Germany, I pray today that you are safe.  You are situated on a front line of your own making, brought on by compassionate hearts. It is a bad recipe in which you have not been responsible for all the ingredients.

I know what has driven the situation that you find yourselves in.  It is occurring in our country as well.  We have a huge refugee issue already living in our country.  The vast majority of which are decent, law-abiding and hard working people just wanting the best for their family.

However, as is true in any population segment, there are convicted criminals, sociopaths, psychopaths and other dangerous people mixed into the otherwise peaceful mass of people.  It does not make coming here illegally okay, because they are, in the great majority, decent folk.  But, they do not makes us any more unsafe, by and large.

Hidden within this hidden population, are the seeds of great danger and concern.  There are radicalized individuals, and not just all radicalized Islamic jihadist.  We forget that narco-terrorists, who serve the drug lords are responsible for hundreds of more deaths than all of the Islamic jihadists combined in America.  Eco-terrorists have conducted more successful bombings and “attacks” in America, than all the major Islamic terrorist groups combined.  They have not been as deadly, but that is largely a matter of luck and scope.

We use them as a scapegoat, lumped in with the Islamo-terrorists, to ignore looking at our ingrown terrorism issues.  We have crazy people, with huge stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and really dangerous and discouraging dogma, sprinkled throughout our country.  They almost slipped up and got famous at one point, but have since maintained their operational discipline, and started to filter back into the night and darkness.

They call themselves “militia” groups, as if the patriots that founded our nation would approve of them and their designs.  They are dangerously ethnophobic, though they do not recognize it.  They are dangerously sociopathic.  They are dangerously psychopathic.  Because of that, they are communally paranoid, communally insular and commonly reactive.

These are not folks that just believe in the Second Amendment.  These are folks that congregate on compounds, that are continuously patrolled and kept as secret as possible.  They communicate in code and secrecy.  They are disassociative of our core values, while claiming to represent them and preserve them.  They are given to publishing manifesto, have been violent to maintain the secrecy and “purity” of their order, and disregard lawful intervention and oversight as tyranny.  They believe in what they believe, and will enforce those beliefs at the point of arms on those who do not share them.

Who does that sound most like?  The Ruritans or Al Qaeda?  We have them, reportedly, in a majority of our states, on the fringes of society and gaining in popularity.  They are an ever present danger and an increasing security threat of much greater urgency than exterior forces.

What does this have to do with Paris Joe?  Glad you asked.  Before we condemn Europe for taking a known risk and responding to a significant human rights catastrophe, before we refuse to continue to honor our core American beliefs and assist in responding to that catastrophe, before we ignore our overwhelming responsibility in creating much of this crisis, consider our own backyard.  In this world, there is no shortage of crazy, no shortage of disturbed.  Some of it is charismatic and attractive, and the weak willed and damaged get drawn in.  There is nothing more dangerous than a damaged human being that is convinced they are trapped and have no choice but to lash out.  In the Middle East, they turn them into suicide bombers and mass shooters.  We have not settled on what they will be turned into here in America.

But, we should know that they are coming.  Living free in a communal society requires accepting some risk.  I do not condone criminal activity, and it should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.  But, if you buy into the premise of personal freedom, individual rights and a people-empowered government instead of a government-empowered people, there are risks.  It means that those with criminal tendencies, with secretive and paranoid natures, with anti-social diseases are difficult to monitor, control and deal with.

The price of freedom is danger.  Why were so many people willing to risk starvation, attacks by natives, privation and isolation, all over the world?  Because it meant freedom from whatever constraint motivated them.  I mean all over the world.  A hundred thousand years ago, it drove crossing of the Siberian land bridge.  Even the Yeti did it, if you believe in that sort of thing.  If you don’t, it drove the Exodus from Egypt, and the conquering of the Promised Land.

We should not be surprised that it motivates millions south of us, living in squalor, and I have been there, it is inhuman in large part.  If you lived in those conditions, you would do whatever it took to be free of those economic and social constraints.  We celebrate our heritage of brave forefathers, forsaking their homeland to be free of socio-economic tyranny.  Yet, we look down on people all over the world, today, that are motivated in the same way.

It is not okay to do it illegally.  It is not okay to do it with sociopathic goals.  But, it is going to happen and happen and happen, because there is no better place to be for our neighbors south of our border, than in the US.  There is no better place to be for Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans, than Europe.  Whatever criminality, abuse and discrimination are wrapped up in that, it is still an order of magnitude better.

And, we should not condemn that.  We should not allow the criminal element imbedded in a peaceful population to drive us to treat that peaceful population shamefully as a whole.  It is not just unAmerican, it is unChristian, unJewish, unMormon, unScientologist, unMuslim.  If you do not know your personal dogma well enough, contact me and I will help you find the proof of my statement within your belief system.

We are required to address the illegality of the situation.  We have to do that to protect our citizens, and those who are here illegally and just as endangered as we are.  That means that freedom does not necessarily look the same for our citizens and our uninvited immigrants.  But, there is still some amount of rights that these illegals are entitled to receive.  They are entitled to be physically safe, if in our custody.  They are entitled to make their case for sanction and asylum due to political and religious persecution.  They are entitled to be treated as a human being, not an inconvenient truth.  These protections do not make us weaker and more endangered.  These protections make us far stronger and more secure, and are the only sure path to find, detain and remove the criminal element that is so dangerous to us.

This is not going away tomorrow, no matter how many drone strikes we launch.  No matter how many boots we put back on the ground in some craphole, and make that craphole even crappier, it will not solve this issue.  We don’t need to hand things out, but we need to understand that some of the most potent war making we can accomplish, is to ensure and enlarge the economic reality in places our enemies congregate.  If we continue to make their lives better at home, we do not look as attractive as a destination.  Even for the crazies and criminally motivated.

We absorbed a huge, unbelievable, number of people after and between the World Wars.  We destroyed Europe, in the making of those wars, and as a result, we became the attractive place.  During and at the end of the Hundred Years War, we saw a similar phenomenon.  These are not new social behaviors or events.  Our complete inability to manage to grow and understand them is what truly sucks.  We forget our past, and try to focus internally, in isolation, to solve something that requires mighty action on the world stage.

It scares me, because we do not look at our own internal engine of issues, and recognize what is driving the external phenomenon that scares us more intensely.  We do not understand motivations that drive actions, nor do we care to dig very deeply to understand it.  That results in activity that amplifies the issues and drives further crisis.  It is a cycle that has been perpetuated since the end of Bush the First’s Presidency.  Midgets on the world stage, from both parties, have managed to convince us they are giants.  Their insular and ineffective actions have just continued to amplify the issue.

Translation, there was a reason Bush the First did not take over Iraq.  Creating that economic nightmare in the center of that hotbed of infant Facism, would only create a nightmare that the world was not equipped to handle.  Bush the Second, and Clinton before and Obama after, were not able to divorce themselves from the idiots whispering in their ears.  And, they managed to do the only thing worse than having Saddam and Kadafi in place, and remove them from power. Yay us!!!

We are reaping what we have sown.  The whole world is reaping what we (the whole world) have sown. We should consider that as we move forward.  This is important.  It is happening to our east, west and south.  We had better get the recipe right soon.  It tastes bad enough now.