THANKFULNESS

There is an abundance of reasons to be grateful this year . . . full time employment, a great family, a talented Mrs. LOST, a home, a beautiful state, despite its troubles, health (mostly, time to get off that couch more, though), sanity (okay, let's not push it, right?), a sense of humor, the lifting of a great burden, and the prospect of a better near and intermediate future, the time to spend recharging batteries in a college town (twice this Fall, once courtesy of each kid), the opportunity to reconnect with an energetic, spirited Faith. All of this, and so much more. Thank You, God, for the good fortune. May all be so blessed.

WHY THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS OH SO WRONG - A CASE STUDY

One of my friends - my "rightie" friends, loves him some e-mail. He loves him some political e-mail, and he loves him some Christian e-mail, too. All too often, he sends both out with deliciously odd timing. Case in point, last night, he proudly forwarded this one:

"Finally, a way to accurately describe our Nation's current status...

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers."

This morning, he sent this one:

HAD
A
FRIEND VISIT THIS MORNING.
HE
ARRIVED
EARLY,

SAT DOWN WITH ME AND CHATTED FOR A WHILE ABOUT
HOW THINGS WERE CURRENTLY GOING FOR ME IN MY
LIFE.
AFTER VERY CAREFULLY AND
COMPASSIONATELY
LISTENING TO ALL THAT I HAD TO SAY,
HE STOOD UP,
WALKED OVER TO ME,
LEANED OVER AND GENTLY HELD ME
FOR AWHILE.
THEN,
AFTER REASSURING ME NOT TO WORRY,
THAT EVERYTHING WOULD WORK OUT FOR ME AND BE
JUST FINE,
HE ASKED ME IF I KNEW OF ANYONE ELSE THAT
COULD USE A VISIT FROM HIM.
I IMMEDIATELY
THOUGHT OF YOU MY FRIEND.
I GAVE HIM YOUR NAME AND HE KNEW WHERE YOU LIVED.
HE GAVE ME ANOTHER REASSURING HUG, THANKED ME AND
I WALKED WITH HIM TO MY FRONT DOOR.
HE TOLD ME THAT
HE WAS ON HIS
WAY TO
YOUR PLACE.

When He gets to your PC, escort Him to the next
stop.
Please don't allow Him to sleep on your PC.
The message He is
carrying is very
important.

I asked
Him to bless you and yours with peace, happiness
and abundance.
Say a prayer and then pass Him on to bless others as I sent him on to bless you. Our assignment is to
spread love,
respect and kindness throughout the world.
Have a blessed day and
touch somebody's
life today as hopefully I have touched your life.

He's walking around
the world via e-mail!!
Please pass it on so He can get there....



As to the first e-mail, I pounded out the following, but decided not to hit the "send" button:

Oh, the ways to tear this one apart.

In the first place, everyone with a pulse rate and 18 years under their belt gets to vote. The well-heeled (those whose "wealth" is being "confiscated") can spend limitless sums of $$ blaring ads which pimp their favorite candidates and causes and tear down the ones they dislike or distrust.

Secondly, the Rewards of "goods and Services" showered upon the impliedly unworthy have been pared down considerably over where they were even 10 years ago, from a point where they did not provide a sustainable wage to begin with to a bare bones point. It is at this point where I paused, debated whether to remind my Christian-rightie friend of his 2-plus year stint on Unemployment benefits - extended mainly because of "liberal socialists" who would rather see people sustained than swept into the gutter - and I decide not to included it (after all, during the drafting, I haven't yet made the decision to "send" or "not to send.")

The "diminishing number" of producers includes GE - which paid no taxes last year at all. It includes the Walton family (heirs of Sam Walton) whose "Producing" consisted of being born into the right family. What happens to the American dream chance of those born into families like yours and mine (meaning people not named "Walton, or "Trump" or "Buffet" or "Perot" or "Gates") if all of this wealth stays firmly in the hands of families for generation after generation, including groups of those who "make" it into the charmed circle in each current generation ("Zuckerbergs" or "Jobs") The end result is oligarchy - wealth and power concentrated into the hands of a relative few. The middle class disappears.

I think the President's greatest ineptitude - maybe his only ineptitude, was to be too trusting in the idea that his adversaries would put aside politics and work collaboratively with him. This includes retaining "insiders" like Bernanke and Geitner to run the financial show. These guys "produced" nothing but sham paper (Deriviatives, Collateralized Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps) that pumped up the bubble until it exploded, and splattered all over the rest of us. This includes Republican "leaders" like McConnell, who repeatedly stated his main goal was to keep this President to one term. People like that are telling you they won't compromise. People like that are daring you to spit in their face and say "elections have consequences - so since you won't lead or follow, get out of the way." And that is what Obama should have done.

We should have gotten the hell out of Iraq in 09. They don't want us there.
We should have left Afghanistan - in a big giant parade - after he got bin Laden.
We should have enacted single payer Health Care Reform.
The stimulus should have been bigger than it was. That's the extent of the ineptitude, my friend . . . giving negative people and forces the benefit of many doubts.

I don't even know where to begin on the first one, other than to say that the messages are contradictory - the Creator I believe in doesn't wring his hands over Randian nonsense of "confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers." Funny how these types of e-mails sanitize all mention of the Scriptures dealing with how to treat neighbors, the poor, the disenfranchised, out of these encounters with the Head of the Christian faith. Matthew 25 comes to mind, for one. Were a response in order to the first one, it would have to include something like this:

When you talk with Jesus,
do you ask him what He thinks about
what we should do to help the poor?
How about what help should be offered to
developing countries?
Ever seek his opinions on the age old debate
between Guns and Butter?
Asked Him how to differentiate between those poor who are "lazy" and those whose lot was randomness writ large, or just being in the wrong place at the right time?
Ever thought about asking the Lord
about Capital Punishment?
Spending more money on Prisons than
on Schoolchildren?
Building more bombs than rebuilding hospitals?
And if you haven't asked Him those questions, Why not?
Would not the answers guide you in your "assignment to spread love, respect and kindness throughout the world" - or is that only a mandate to do among our "friends?" I don't remember being told "Love Thy Friends" over and over again on Sundays and in between.

Who's opinion matters most in such matters?
That of Your favorite candidate, or
that of your Personal Savior?

Perchance the fear in asking comes from not wanting to hear the answers . . .
If I'm wrong about that, at least I'll be in Hell with people who think like me . . . .

NONSTOP NUTTINESS CONTINUES

Every week it happens, cataclysmic recession or not. The come-ons keep a-coming. Maybe we ought to be grateful that somebody is still using the Postal Service, and quietly thankful that our e-mail addresses haven't been tapped - okay, well, they have too, its just that it is still kind of fun deleting the ads for cheap Rx, "wonder bras," and linguistically-challenged Nigerians whom we've never met promising us seven figure rewards for the mere privilege of borrowing our bank account wire transfer numbers for a few moments.

I'm talking about the nuttiness of credit card come-ons. Every week, like clockwork, they roll in. Sometimes they're the product of existing bank relationships. Sometimes they sneak in, cloaked in the guise of an organization we've belonged to in the past (or still do belong to); sometimes they're from the existing accounts we hold - little checks we can use - 'like real money" to pay off our bills!"

All suffer the same fate. Meet the shredder, prep yourself for the long ride to the landfill. That is our approach anyway, but its hard not to wonder about what happens everywhere else, and why are these things stil being sent. It isn't like someone turned the lights out in the junk mail machine room at CHASE (yeah, let's pick on them) without throwing the "OFF" switch. No, this stuff is still being sent because it works. Because, despite the recession, the people who have lost homes, cars, retirements, etc. from the orgy of overconsumption and spending like there is no tomorrow (sad, self-fulfilling prophecy that this is), people are still using more credit than they should be - and that is why the amoral institutions are stil behaving like the proverbial pimp - handing out free samples of his wares until one gets hooked. Yeah, it's not just the banks' fault - like the drug situation, somebody on the other end of the transaction is just saying "Yes" (actually a whole lot of somebodies, hence the volume of the unsolicited invitations), but it is ensuring that the damage will continue, the debts will continue to pile up, until there is nothing left to squeeze out of people. It's sickening, its' wasteful as hell, and it is and remains dangerous for too many people with not enough impulse control. Just like drugs, nicotine, gambling, alcohol, name your vice. Sometimes it seems like this blast of junk mail is the only reward for maintaining a so-called "high" FICO score, or credit rating. Hosanna and Hallelujah for the god of Wall Street, the great invisible hand of Capitalism.

Time to go fire up the shredder for this week's landfill installment . . .