Monday, February 25, 2008

The Music of the Night

Life Is So Cool...

1) On Saturday, for the first time in my life, I browsed online aviation classifieds. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Some of the more interesting items...

Me-162 (Believed to be the only one in private hands!)
Several Su-25 relics
Several MiG-15, 17, and 21 relics
Several PBY Catalinas
One MiG-29 with avionics in the Russian Federation for $10,000,000 ("Contact Igor")

And my favorite helicopter of all time...

One Mi-24 Hind (!)

It was more fun than looking up cars on Ebay!


2) Also on Saturday I attended a Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. As the Tiger Cubs entered the room first, someone in the back started whistling "Hail to the Chief". That was funny.

3) At church yesterday we had our monthly men's breakfast. One of the guys there had a turtleneck sweater on. Is it just me, or do turtleneck-wearers look like morning people? It's almost obscene...


4) Sunday's sermon was on God's holiness. When we think about God's perfect will for our lives, we usually let our minds drift towards where we will be in the future and what God has in store for us. We think about marriage, college choices, occupations, etc. Do we ever think about God's will for all Christians? That is, do we ever think about God's will for all of us to be sanctified (1 Thes. 4:3)? It really doesn't matter if God wants me to be a snakeater, congressman, father, or paper napkin designer. What matters is the part of His will under which all of these things fall: sanctification.

Friday, February 15, 2008

...

I



Hate



Valentine's



Day



!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Look in my eyes. What do you see?

The Cult of Personality...


Obama's first coming

Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott February 09, 2008
IT was early 1994 when Nelson Mandela gave a speech in a slum outside Cape Town and spoke in grand terms of a new beginning and how when he was elected president every household would have a washing machine.People took him literally. A few months later he became South Africa's first black president. That's when clerks in department stores in Cape Town had to turn people away demanding their free washer and dryer.
Having spent some time as a reporter in South Africa watching the Mandela presidency I was reminded of that story this week when I travelled with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail.
How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?
Looking into the faces of a more than 16,000-strong crowd in a basketball stadium in Hartford, Connecticut this week, the Mandela magic I'd seen before was there too. Black and white, and the youth; they appeared in a state close to rapture watching Obama speak. Here and there one could see women crying and the some men wiping away tears too.
It was not the promise of a washing machine, of course. Mandela was heading a Rainbow Revolution - a new governing coalition. The sense of renewal in those heady days in South Africa in the mid-'90s was palpable. A political and cultural boil was being lanced. There was relief and joy. Cape Town in those days was humming.
In the US today there are echoes of that Rainbow Revolution. Through the media and on the streets people are getting a bit giddy over Obama. In this man they are projecting a new course - one that he says he will lead - where the US buries the culture wars, charts a new course in bipartisan politics and heralds a new dawn for America.
After more than seven years of the Bush administration and when 70 per cent of the populace think America is on the wrong course, there's little wonder that the hunger for something new is real and fertile ground to till for a politician.
But Obama is part politician, part cult. Supporters wearing T-shirts with an Andy Warhol like pop-art image of his face testify to that. But then they - him - were once easy to dismiss until people realised Obama's charisma was being matched by one of the most sophisticated ground operations ever seen. It is one that is outsmarting the Clinton machine. He's marrying inspiration and cult with old-fashioned political grunt.
One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by Obama on the stump. It's not so much by what he says but it's the way the crowds respond to his words. When 16,000 people, without prompting, start shouting some of his keynote phrases as he delivers them, you know something special is going on.
The atmosphere at his events is such that one wonders if Obama is about to walk out with a basket with some loaves and fishes to feed the thousands.
And therein lays the danger for Obama. The Obama shuttle has made it into orbit but at some point he's going to have to land this thing back on Earth.
From unlikely presidential candidate to this week starting to edge out Hillary Clinton as frontrunner, Obama commands grass roots support that is enormous and still gaining strength. Across the US this week Obama laid to rest any lingering doubts about his appeal. He won states in the east, the south, the west and in the middle. All demographics from gender and race voted for him. He tied, if not came out ahead of, Clinton on Super Tuesday when 22 states voted.
He's easily outgunning Clinton on fund-raising with a sophisticated online network. Last month he raised a record busting $US32 million, $US27million of which came from online donations. In 48 hours after Super Tuesday he raised $US7 million, forcing Clinton to lend her campaign $US5 million.
The Clinton camp is now on the defensive and in an extraordinary turnaround started calling him the "establishment" candidate.
But the danger remains for Obama in managing the cult-like fervour. Obviously, he's no messiah and lofty expectations of his supporters is something that Obama is also acutely aware of. In stockmarket parlance, Obama's share price is soaring on expected future earnings. Clinton, 20 years in the public eye, is like the industrial conglomerate: steady share price and reliable dividends. Think of Obama as Google and Clinton as General Electric.
The problem for high-flying stocks is that any bad news can cause the share price to drop sharply. So far Obama has played the bad news extraordinarily well. What turned out to be a shock loss in New Hampshire to Clinton last month might have taken the wind out of his sails but in fact it only galvanised his supporters more: they bought more Obama "stock".
The campaign revealed this week that the biggest fund raising day in that whopping $US32 million month was the day after Obama lost New Hampshire. To be fair, the cult-like status of Obama is a function of a personality that simply resonates with anyone who meets him: buckets of charisma and charm. And aware of managing expectations, not only for his campaign but what might be beyond, he constantly refers to the challenges ahead.
"We can do this," he told ecstatic supporters on Tuesday night. "It will not be easy. It will require struggle and sacrifice. There will setbacks and we will make mistakes."
But then Obama, in the next sentence, in attempt to appeal to more voters out there, didn't even mention the Democratic Party but instead his "movement" saying: "I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement but still hunger for change: we need you. We need you to stand with us, and work with us, and help us prove that together, ordinary people can still do extraordinary things".
Well known political journalist Joe Klein of Time magazine, who was travelling on the campaign plane this week with Obama, too, wrote of a nagging concern about this kind of rhetoric of inspiration over substance, noting "there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messiahnism".
In his Super Tuesday speech Obama said "we are the ones we've been waiting for", attempting to make the case the time was now to get some "change" in Washington: a post-partisan world where politicians reach across the aisle for the common good. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different," he said. "It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."
As Klein notes, this is "not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire.
"Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause - other than an amorphous desire for change - the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."
I hear that too in the voices of Obama's staff constantly, themselves referring to this "cult of Obama".
"Even if he doesn't go all the way, and I'm not being defeatist, I'm so thrilled to be a part of this and see the size of the crowds turning out," one staffer tells me.
Some of the craving Obama has inspired is because of a level of authenticity. Where once Bill Clinton said he smoked dope but didn't inhale, Obama admitted in his first book Dreams From My Father that in his younger days he did drugs. Once this was the kind of admission meaning political death in US but not anymore, it seems.
"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man ... I got high (to) push questions of who I was out of my mind," Obama writes.
In the book, Obama acknowledges that he also used cocaine as a high school student but rejected heroin. "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though," he writes. Even with these admissions, perhaps because of them, the Senator has become something of a Teflon-coated performer in the media: it has infuriated the Clintons. Bill Clinton has tried to peg him back with some attacks, but to no avail. They complain, with some justification, that Obama is getting easier treatment in the press than Hillary Clinton.
But that's the nature of the insurgent candidate and a somewhat vested interest in seeing a contest where the frontrunner is under siege.
Now Obama is not an insurgent. I'd venture to call him a favourite in this race now. The next nine statewide contests through February are, given the demographics, likely to go Obama's way. He may well build an unstoppable momentum. And then the giddiness might evaporate and be replaced with something else. In marketing they call it post-purchase disappointment. If he gets the Democratic Party's nomination another test begins anew: how to turn the narrative which is all about striving for what is possible, to one where people are suddenly asking how are you actually going to do it?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23182456-28737,00.html

Thursday, February 7, 2008

A Boy Named Sue....

It is impossible for us to fully understand the number of God's attributes. However, not only do we not know the number of them, but we also cannot fully comprehend them. We cannot fully comprehend His love, His power, His mercy, etc. Because we cannot comprehend neither the number nor qualities of His attributes, it only follows that His ways and plans are impossible to fully understand.

Of course, you already knew this but I thought it was certainly another way to look at things.

It would be so easy right now to launch into some diatribe about how our country might go to hell in a handbasket with the current presidential candidates, but where would that get us? Besides, God's ways cannot be fully comprehended, so suck it up and deal with it. That's part of having a thing called faith...

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

I Love Rock and Roll...

I swear, life is so cool.



1) As if the discussions in Macroeconomics concerning the best way to allocate resources and the causes of gasoline prices weren't heated enough (Commies!), this week's topic is....



Should There Be A Market In Organs?



Whoa, I love this class!



2) I was at piano practice today...

Teach: So what is this (points to music)?

Me: A slur.

Teach: And how do we play them?

Me: We slur them.



3) Friday night, our team won the homecoming game in overtime. Saturday, we beat both of our rivals and a third team to claim the Quiz Bowl title for the second year in a row.





And, of course, the Giants won the Superbowl. 'Twas a banner weekend. More to come.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

We're so glad you could attend. Come inside, come inside.


I'm watching the Democratic candidate debate on CNN.com right now (because cable is pointless), annnnnnd....it makes me appreciate the truly conservative people in this nation. You know, the people who stand for limited government, our military, free markets, and, most importantly, individual responsibility.

I swear, too many people believe that the government should spoon-feed us. It's a scary thought...

The Idiot's Guide to Common Sense:

1) The Bush tax cuts were not for the wealthy citizens of this nation. "In fact, as we reported only that morning, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the top 20% now pay 63.5% of the total federal tax burden, which includes income taxes, payroll taxes and other federal levies. It's true that the top 20% pays nearly 81% of all federal income taxes, but the president spoke more expansively of 'taxes in America,' not just income taxes." http://www.factcheck.org/new_and_recycled_distortions_at_final_presidential.html

2) If you're going to complain about social security and other government aid programs, you might want to consider thinking before you support a universal healthcare plan.

3) Since when did "illegal" mean something other than against the law? Any idiot knows that illegal means exactly that and nothing more. Enforcing the "illegal" part does not mean criminalizing the Good Samaritan and even Jesus Christ Himself, Senator Clinton (Whatever the heck that means...).

4) "We want to respect the dignity of every human being here..." That is, except for the unborn ones.

5) The day that a woman becomes Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces...

6) How do all of these liberals, whom I going to assume have good intentions, come to all of these conclusions that are not the most effective way to carry out their plans? It seems like all of their ideas have increased government size as a guaranteed result...

7) May God be with the people of Iraq if one of these candidates get in office.