"The weight of this sad time we must obey; say what we mean, not what we ought to say."
-Shakespeare, King Lear

I wish I had time to be a more measured, prepared person. There never seems to be enough time to do things properly, to find the right words, to treat life -- its failures and successes -- with the feeling they deserve. I begin to doubt my ability to connect with newspaper readers despair of maintaining friendships, and begin toying with the ideas of calling in sick to work, canceling social engagements and establishing a barricaded position in front of my roommate's large television.

In order to launch into one's work every day, it's necessary to remind one's self of a few salient truths: Friends and family most always understand. Acquaintances and colleagues comprehend human error and can overlook mediocrity.

You can't let the eventuality of failure prevent you from interacting with people.

Here's a bigger problem, similar to the first:
Lately, my Bible reading has fallen off. I don't pray like I ought to. I don't feel the fervor I used to at church, or the intensity of remorse I used to feel for sin. In short, I've felt a growing fear over the last few months that I have "lost my first love" as a Christian. In my strained relationship with Jesus it's started to seem easier to hide from Him than to have all my sins brought out in the open again.

In order to launch into one's Christian life each day, it's necessary to remind one's self of another truth: Jesus forgives.

You can't let the eventuality of failure prevent you from communion with God.

No confidence in princes

George F. Will had a heck of a column today about how the Obama administration is using these enormous piles of money (appropriated for economic stimulous) almost as puppet strings to direct state policy and in other cases to get bankers to walk into unprofitable deals.
In California, for instance:

In February, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state's fastest-growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly and cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that "loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester."

But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.

Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration's dependency agenda — maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.

This concentrated power is the result of this heady, headless, ecstatic dillerium my Democratic friends have been riding on for the last few months. You'd better hope Barrack Obama is exactly the most perfect Messiah you could have dreampt he was on election night -- because now he's got enough power to act like a god, whether his heart is made out of gold or coal. And, for most of us mere mortals, power corrupts.

Will concludes:

This is not gross, unambiguous lawlessness of the Nixonian sort — burglaries, abuse of the IRS and FBI, etc. — but it is uncomfortably close to an abuse of power that perhaps gave Nixon ideas: When in 1962 the steel industry raised prices, President Kennedy had a tantrum and his administration leaked rumors that the IRS would conduct audits of steel executives, and sent FBI agents on predawn visits to the homes of journalists who covered the steel industry, ostensibly to further a legitimate investigation.

The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.

Blog mania

OK, so it seems like I haven't written on this blog for a while, and that's true -- I haven't. But I have been breaking through all kinds of personal technology barriers on two other two blogs I work with,

I've been seting up a blog/podcast for church sermons at our church. It's part of my new job as a church deacon. This was new for me because it involved purchasing server space, configuring the church audio software to export MP3's, and also figuring out how to create these cute little flash/javascript audioplayers. I never knew things could be so difficult.

But I finally figured it out. And then I was really pumped and wanted to create the same sort of audio player on my work blog, only to discover that Wordpress is a whole different ball game than Blogger. My super-cool html code actually screwed up the way my whole blog displayed, So the Sentinel Web master fella had to download a plugin.

In the end, a lot learned.

A demonstration of sorts

I got sort of a "pass the word" email today from a fellow conservative blogger in Michigan about a "Chicago Tea Party" demonstration in Lansing on Friday.
For those of you needing a little context, a CNBC correspondent went on a rant about the stimulus bill and called for a "Chicago Tea Party" last week:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOWVnpYWWqg

Anyway, here's the details of the event.

As the bailouts spiral out of control, we are forced to fund failed banks. With foreclosures on the rise, we are made the collateral of out-of-control spending . And, when the bills come due, the IRS knocks on the door of self-responsibility.

ENOUGH!
Join With Thousands of Patriots Across the Country!
As We Declare Our Independence from Big Government Bailouts!

Friday, February 27th
High Noon
Michigan State Capitol
100 N. Capitol Ave, Lansing, MI

Enough with the Pork!
We bring home the bacon and we want to keep it!
Bring Your Tea Bags, Protest Signs and American Flags

Metro and Local papers

A lot of people have been asking me how my job's been going lately, because they've seen the stories about the Detroit News going to fewer issues and the Denver paper shutting. I'm a little slow to respond when these conversations start, because the comparison doesn't quite hold water. Newspapers like the one I work at are in smaller markets than the large metro dailies.

On the other hand, it's also true these are desperate days for newspapers everywhere. This article explains some of the challenges that local newspapers face.

I dream of a knuckle sandwitch

Here's something I don't like about myself: I've never been in a brawl.

I'm six foot six and weigh about 265 pounds. My glasses make me seem a little more refined than your average thug, but I'm intimidating enough to make a most folks uncomfortable with getting in my face, and big enough to stop most other guys from slapping me with a glove or spitting on my shoes or whatever one does to start a fight these days.

The thing is, I spend a lot of time at work dealing with all sorts of nasty emails, snide comments on my stories, etc, all sorts of passive aggression. Perhaps I'm crazy, but it seems to me it would be nice if some of the conflict actually "got real."

Maybe one good punch would change my mind. I've always wondered what it would be like to be in a fight, and have always hoped for a situation where I could be in a fight without breaking any laws or doing anything dishonorable: A bout in the ring with padded gloves on; the capture of a fleeing thief; the rescue of a damsel in distress.

But since I had a brain hemmorage this summer (not caused by anything violent), I'll probably have to avoid conflict at all costs in the future.

I've watched some of these ultimate fighting things (mixed martial arts, the octogon, cage matches) on TV and I have some mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, there's no way you can call this a gentleman's sport. On the other hand, it's the real thing -- it's probably the best style of fighting you could adopt if someone really decided to go after you with their bare hands. I read a first-person account in a magazine by a writer who trained for such a match for months and then lost. Bloodied up, sitting on the exam table, he told the Doctor he'd never felt better in his life.

A waiter at a restaurant I visited sometime ago was training to be a mixed-martial arts fighter... He was a picture of health and energy.

It's something about the honesty of a fight that appeals to me - going up against somebody with everything you have and seeing what you've got. Some sports, like chess boxing, combine intense mental combat with physical fight.

Some of these feelings above kind of came to a head at a local IHL hockey game I attended. You know what, I was having a good time, even though there were some folks in the crowd I would probably not prefer to know on a personal basis, and the game wasn't NHL-quality. In the IHL I guess they let the players fight quite freely (I suppose they aren't paid much and can be easily replaced). Even so, I was taken aback at one point in the game when referees stood back and let two players have it out at center ice.

As I watched the guy calmly roll up his sleeves and skate up to his opponent, I was jealous. Possibly the two players were both jerks. But I couldn't help thinking that there's nothing wrong with a man standing up for himself if somebody's trying to push him around and the authorities won't do anything about it.

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

hahaha !---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY

Christmas

This is an old essay I wrote about the meaning of Christmas for a class my sophomore year of college, which, yikes, is now about six years ago.
Its funny how much your writing style can change in that much time. There's some pretty obvious flaws in the essay, for example, the hackneyed quotations from Christmas carols. I don't think I really drew it all together at the end like I meant to, either. At this point in my writing career, I also am hanging on to some useless clauses, for example (in the very first sentence), "why we do things this way or that."
In the essay, too, I also talk about "we" a lot. I assume I know my audience really well, and that they have the same Reformed-Protestant-Christian knowledge base as I do.
I still have this problem today whenever I write about religion. It's hard work to say anything worth saying when you don't have anything in common with the person to whom you're talking.
Anyway, enjoy.
Merry Christmas.
---
In college I’m being taught week after week to question all things “traditional,” to ask deeper questions about why we do things this way or that. I’m tempted to say, “Not so with Christmas. The buck stops here.” I really want to enjoy celebrating Christmas without any intellectual qualms, but it’s interesting to see some parallels between the original Christmas story and what Christmas can and should be today.
Oh, let’s shove fat, red-nosed Santa into the corner for a minute and take a second look at what’s going on in Bethlehem on that one special night. You have angels calling Shepherds to leave the sheep; you have sages (wise men) being called to, as the carol has it, leave their contemplations. “Brighter visions beam afar.” Drop everything and run.... to the cradle of Jesus.

Christmas is the only Holiday I forget. I don’t mean that I forget Christmas; I mean it’s the only holiday in which I am able to stop for a moment and let the day-to-day tedium drain from my consciousness. I believe that like a shepherd, like a wise man, it’s appropriate to leave all our worries and problems behind as we enjoy Christmas. Forget your everyday tasks--forget the problems and worries of classes, of kids, of deadlines and workplace politics. Celebrate Christ’s birth!
Notice that in the Bible, in sending His son to earth, God “forgets” the fact that we killed the prophets He sent us previously. He makes a gift of His son’s life so that He might fully forget anything that keeps us separated from him.
Oughtn’t we to behave similarly? When your co-workers talk about you behind your back, when that new neighbor of yours purposefully snubs you, when your teen-age son accidentally spills hot coffee on your new outfit, forget about it. Love them all. Give each one a present to heal your relationship with them.

Christmas is the only Holiday I actually experience. I’ve not felt patriotic when I light off a string of Black Cats, only very excited; Trick-or-Treating has never produced in me anything creepier than a dangerously intense sugar high; turkey only leaves me feeling stuffed and sleepy.
Christmas is different from the other holidays in that you spend the better part of a month getting in the mood: waking up to a world of white, seeing the decorations go up in the stores and malls, Mom asking you what you want for Christmas this year, and finally getting off from school. Expectation is what sends your spirits soaring towards Christmas, builds up your emotions for the big day.
The Israelites had been waiting for Jesus for several thousand years and needless to say, the shepherds and Mary and Joseph must have been pretty excited. This was what their people had talked about and venerated in their worship for generations. For them to have this experience after so many generations must have been almost unreal for them. Emmanuel was here.
You might think Christ’s visit to earth would be, after all, something that might wear off after a while. To use Christmas as an analogy, the funny thing about December twenty-fifth to me is that after all the presents are unwrapped, and the wrapping paper is already in the baskets, that’s when I feel the least in the holiday spirit. There’s something about having already consumed the substance of the holiday that seems to deaden the excitement.

But for the Bethlehem gang, Jesus’ mere debut wasn’t the end of it; the story had hardly started, much less ended. Mary and Joseph--the shepherds, too--must have wondered how this naked, tiny being of less than ten pounds lying in the hay before them would somehow come to save the Jewish race, to be “a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel”(Luke 2:32). The first Christmas didn’t end in Mary and Joseph saying to each other, “Wow, that was exciting. Anyway, back to work tomorrow. At least it was fun while it lasted.”
I heard a sermon once in which the minister said, “the problem with the contemporary Christmas experience is that we like the idea of little Jesus in the cradle too much. “What a cute little guy,” we almost say, and we buy manger scenes of Him in his cute little manger, with a lot of cute barnyard animals looking on.... We don’t want to look ahead to the cross!” We ought to look ahead to the cross, as well as to the ascension, to Pentecost, to the one day in which Christ will come again, and to life in heaven without end. The Christmas narrative is not a stand-alone story in itself, but a very important chapter in a never-ending story in which we all are participants.

So celebrate Christmas. Celebrate Christmas like a shepherd: with abandon, forgetting everything else. Use Christmas as God used it: to make friends of your enemies and rivals! Think of Christmas as if it were still going on--because the story hasn’t ended, and how a few of Bethlehem's richest and poorest celebrated over two millennia ago might guide you towards what Christmas is really is all about.

Journalism as art

Probably less than twenty percent of the stories I do for the Sentinel actually meet the general public's standards for leisure reading (I don't know that much non-fiction does). But I like to think that this one did. It's a sort of bittersweet story about how a football player who died too young inspired his teammates to go ahead eventually win a state championship.

I got some positive feedback from sources and my bosses. Even the company big-wigs noticed it, saying it "tugged at the heart strings" when they awarded us "page of the day" (an award the Sentinel has been winning several times a month).

But it still can be kind of frustrating thinking about how little people get excited about real-life stories.

My brother, an English major, and I were talking about poetry over Thanksgiving and he recited Williams Carlos William's Red Wheelbarrow "poem":

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

It blows my mind that some of these arrteeests like Williams Carlos Williams can ply such an apparently random handful of words into fame and fortune. I have a cynical hunch the skill has got much to do with developing an over-sized ego, inventing an absurd celebrity name for yourself, and getting invited to the right sort of cocktail parties in LA or New York. Pretty soon the academics and critics are eating out of your hand, spending hours trying to make sense of your latest whimsy.

I would have been an English major if I would have followed my heart in college, but now I write three to six thousand words a week, hammering out hard, terse articles in tense, short bolts of time, worrying constantly about errors (and still making errors). Don't let anything else I say convice you otherwise, though: I wouldn't trade my job for anything. I get frustrated about the hours and pay sometimes, but I really love my job. It's real, fact-based work - crafted with real art when I can spare the extra effort.

And every once in a while a good story comes around - a real story, one that doesn't need a silly celebrity name in the byline to make a reader turn the page.

My favorite Jimmy John's ad

Hilarious. Check it out.