My Grandmother Anna Kongslie imigrated to the United States from Norway.  Her youngest son served in the army during WWII.  After Alfred died, I found this letter among his papers.

Our Dear Boy

               And so you are across the waters.  I was getting somewhat suspicious.  We thought that maybe you were just on a maneuver and were unable to get mail thro.  Am glad you are safe.  We still don't know where you are of course, but it is a consolation to me to think of what you said once when you were small, maybe about 8 years old.  You did not exactly like to go up alone in the dark.  Still you did not just think you should be afraid.  But you were getting sleepy and I said, “I will go with you if you want me to.  Not that there is anything to be afraid of.  But I will go along anyway because it would be fun.”

 “Yes,” you said, “if you will.  But there is nothing to be afraid of because God is here when it is dark, too.  Isn't it kind of funny to think, Mamma, that God is so big and so great He is all over the world at one time and sees everything at once. Still He is so small that He can get into this house even when all the doors are closed.  Now He sees them that are downstairs, He sees them that went to choir practice, and He is here and sees you and me, even now when there is only our heads sticking out.”

 We sometimes come to places where we find as there is only our heads sticking out, but still He sees us.  Yes, Al, we shall put our trust in God and everything will come out just fine.  We have an anchor that keeps the soul, steadfast and sure while the billows roar. Fastened to the Rock that can not move.  Grounded firm and safe in our Saviors love.  It's been such a consolation to me to remember this, and I wanted to remind you, as I knew you would feel the same.  

The Blessings of no Cable

      The best thing about giving up my cable is that I found four Seventh Day Adventist channels on my antennae.  I watch one of them first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and sometimes in between.  They have programs dealing with every aspect of life.  One of the items this morning was a report about research that demonstrates that nothing helps a child’s development more than teaching them to sing.  It was not a new idea to me.  I have always known that it is not reading or math that is fundamental; it’s music.

               But another item this morning really struck a chord, a sermon about the importance of finding rest in Christ.  In that I found the answer to a question that I have long pondered: how my parents managed to create such serenity in the lives of me and my seven brothers and sisters. 

My oldest brother Tillman used to say, “We were poor, but we didn’t know it.”  Well that was not exactly true for me.  I knew.  Other people had running water and electric lights.  They had lovely china and crystal.  My friends had their own bedrooms, carpeted and filled with many dolls and lots of toys.  My father farmed big in the years that were plagued by drought and infestations.  We lived on wild meat because we saved what cattle we raised for market.  After he gave up on farming and began following construction, we lived in a series of one or two bedroom houses, all piled together in a loving puddle like great big puppies, and yet we never felt as though life had dealt us a bad hand.  We never felt as though we deserved better.

This morning I understood why.  My parents were always able to find “Rest in Christ.”  No matter what happened, there was joy.  My parents moved 28 times during my father’s working years, and my mother never complained.  Before one of those moves, my father came home from work and said, “Well we have to pack up.  We’re moving to the Miller place.”  My mother, smiled and said, “Do I have time to finish my coffee first?”

They never focused on the negatives.  There was always a blessing behind every shadow.  When my father cut off all the fingers of his right hand in an accident with a saw, he didn’t despair.  The first thing he said was, “I can be so lucky.  I could have lost my whole hand.” Always a blessing.  Always “Rest in Christ.”  Oh, and by the way, our house was always filled with music.   We sang.  Oh my yes.  We sang.  

The longest sentence I found on the net.

We are going to be gifted with a healthcare plan which we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't; which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents to monitor the program; written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it; passed by a Congress that didn't read it; but exempted themselves from it; and signed by a president who smokes; with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes; for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect; by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare; all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese; and financed by a country that's broke.

Lloyd Marcus is right

            Lloyd Marcus has it right.  Who gives the left its power?  We do!  We cannot control the main stream media, but we can control our response to it. “ When people on our side (conservatives) misspeak, misquote a stat, or make a clumsy innocent comment, I will not sing in harmony with the left’s choir, calling the conservative an idiot.  Nor will I submit to the left’s demands that the targeted conservative be denounced.  To do so is, in essence, providing aid and comfort to our enemies.”

               Marcus shows how Democrats make cruel, evil, outrageous claims, no one pays any attention.  (Obama: “I’ve visited 57 states so far.” Or Rep. Andre Carson: The “Tea Party would like to see blacks “hanging on a tree.”)  But when a conservative makes a blunder, “we eagerly rush to blogs and media microphones to beat up on our courageous conservative freedom-fighters whenever they make a mistake.”

Roark and Lia's marriage homily

       I want to thank you all so very much for making this trip to San Diego today to help us bless this union, to watch and pray and celebrate with us as these two lovely people dedicate their lives to one another.

And thank you, Roark and Lia, for extending to me this honor, the privilege of conveying my personal blessing on your marriage in this special way.

       Roark and Lia, this day, enter into a mystery, a profound fellowship before which poet and songwriter falter in their feeble attempts to describe.  I am sure each of you treasures the memory of one great marriage, a marriage that survived and flourished on the rich loamy soils of love and disappointment, hope and despair, a marriage wherein the trials and tribulations of life only served to enrich the union, deepen the respect, and deliver the couple more deeply into that profound mystery, that holy place that great marriages enter into.

And that is my prayer for you today, that when hunger and longing break your hearts, your commitment to one another will serve to heal them again and make two hearts one. 

               It is love that sustains us.  In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and have all knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing.”  To those of you who gathered here, by your very presence have committed yourself to sustaining the love that brought these two together. 

          Roark and Lia do not need Waterford Crystal and Irish linen.  They need all of us, just knowing that we will be there for them, share their joys, support them in sunshine and in rain.  The rings they are about to exchange are an ancient symbol, round like arms that embrace, like the circle of love that given comes back around again and again.  

       So as Roark and Lia now join hands to dedicate their lives to one another, I would ask all of you that all of you come forward and create that circle of love around them, link your hears and hands and recommit yourselves to the love that bind s us all., that great love that passes all understanding.   

Too much money, Too much power

         When we stick to the issues, we find that we agree most of the time, but our emotional attachment to labels confuse the issue.  The movers and the shakers use their millions to make government bend to their wills.  Democrats are very good at demonizing Koch brothers hoping we will not notice the one- per centers who grease their palms.  

         Elon Testler spends millions of dollars on Democrat candidates.  He has already been given over half a billion in subsidies and those who can afford to buy one of his cars get $7,500 in tax rebates.  Those of us who could never dream of owning a Tesla help the rich buy them.  George Soros spends millions of dollars on Democrat candidates to insure that the Keystone pipeline project is squelched.  After all he makes millions of dollars every day shipping the oil on his railroad.   

            They saved the big banks and passed new regulations that put the small independent banks out of business. Tom Steyer, Mike Bloomberg, Amber Mostyn, Eric Schmidt, and Haim  Saban are just a few of the other excessively rich who donate millions to Democrat candidates in order to insure that their corner of the world gets a nod, gets permission to pick our pockets and line theirs.

            We have to recognize that it’s a problem on both sides of the aisle and direct our attention to solving the problem at its genesis:  There is too much money, too much power in Washington.  

The Popular Vote.

The Popular Vote.   

         State legislatures all across the country are being bombarded by proponents of the Popular Vote.  Supporters, backed by huge amounts of money, want to get rid of the electoral college.  Their strongest appeal is to the notion that the popular vote would mean that “every vote counts.” That’s their biggest lie. 

        The framers of the Constitution established the Electoral College to give smaller states a voice against larger states when selecting the nation’s leader.  Each state gets the number of electors based on population, plus 2 which means smaller states have a bit of an edge.  If the Popular Vote bill passes, candidates would have to campaign in as few as 11 states in order to win an election.  Flyover country would matter not an iota. 

        Robert Hathorne is absolutely correct when he says that the National Popular Vote initiative would fundamentally change America by shifting the national political system from a representative democracy to a pure democracy.

        Our Founding Fathers spoke eloquently at every opportunity about their fears of an unfettered democracy. They were students of history and they knew that it always led to tyranny.  They established a republic, not a democracy.  They created a system that respected the sovereignty of the states.  The popular vote would undermine that important principle.

The Bra Saga

The Bra Saga.

          I stayed at my brother’s house in Flagstaff when I attended my grandson’s graduation.  He is retired now and makes his funny money selling junk on line.  As I was packing, he warned me:   "This time, don't leave any of your junk behind.   Whatever is left I am selling on Ebay"

When I returned home, I realized I had left my bra.  I sent him an email saying that I knew that anything left at his house was fair game for Ebay, but I wanted him to know that I had spent a considerable amount of money on that bra and that he should not sell it too cheaply.

        He answered the email saying that he had already sold it for $60.   He had advertised it as an extra-large, double barreled water balloon launcher.  Pretty funny, but then he confessed that he hadn’t found it. 

        A couple of weeks later at my granddaughter’s wedding, he told me that he had indeed found the bra and had listed it on EBay. 

“I am selling my sister’s bra.  She left it here the last time she was visiting.  I eventually found it hanging off the balcony.  She said it was a $40 bra which I believe because it appears to be reinforced with titanium.  As she puts it, ‘It’s not cheap keeping my girls under control.’ I am not sure of the size, but the cannonball in the picture gives you some perspective.  By the way, I tried it out and it really does support this 10 pound cannonball.  Bidding starts at $10. ” 

        Today, I get it in a package in the mail.  My son took pity on me and successfully bid on the bra and had it sent home.  It also included the sales slip:  

      "One overtheshoulderboulderholder.

       keepsemupandkeepemfromfloppin"

         

          I love my guys.

A Marijuana Bureaucracy? No!

       I used to think the initiative process was a good thing.  We were all led to believe that democracy was the ideal form of government.  I have since come to agree with the founders, that pure democracy leads to tyranny.   How often have we been duped into voting for something because it sounded good, only to discover after the fact that the proposition was written in such a way as to mislead.  

       I remember an initiative years ago that purported to protect the rights of hunters.  It actually tried to eliminate trapping.  Granted, we are often duped by legislators, too.  However, we can point the finger of blame and oust them in the next election.    

     The marijuana initiative is a case in point. According to the ARDP, the Colorado experiment tells us that teen usage is up 40 per cent there as compared to 2 per cent country wide, that its use alters the how brain works causing memory loss, lack of focus, and interfering with problem solving skills.  Furthermore, if the drug is used regularly before the brain is fully developed at about age 21, the damage is irreversible.

   Those of us who lean libertarian might say, “Yes!  Freedom to choose!"  But what the initiative puts in place is another huge bureaucracy, a monopolistic enterprise. The act limits the number of dispensaries to 10 per cent of the number of Series 6 liquor licenses offered in any area, and those medical marijuana dispensaries already established will be grandfathered in. 

     One of the direst aspects of the initiative is that it takes away the right of the employer to fire an employee who comes to work stoned.  He can act only after the employee engages in an act resulting in negligence, often too late to protect other employees or the business itself. 

     We simply should oppose any move to create another bureaucracy.  If we’ve learned anything over the past couple of generations is that bureaucracies are as tyrannical as kings, more so.  They get so entrenched they're impossible to disrupt.  A king can be deposed.  Bureaucracies are ravenous, ineffective blobs that seep into every corner of a once free society sapping it of its strength and ingenuity.  

Marco Rubio Makes me a proud supporter.

Marco Rubio has gained my undying respect by is gutsy handling of Mike Wallace’s grilling on Fox News Sunday, May 17^.  Wallace insisted that Rubio “admit” that “based on what we know now” it was a mistake to invade Iraq.  Rubio refused to play the game.  Presidents have to make decisions based on what they know at the time, and based on what he knew then, Rubio insisted, Bush made the right decision. 

What people seem to forget is that Resolution that Congress made regarding the invasion of Iraq cited many factors that justified the use of military force.  The issue of Weapons of Mass destruction was only one.  (If memory serves me, there were 23.)   First off, Saddam refused to comply with UN Resolution 1441, the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire, and for 12 years refused to allow U.N. weapons inspectors access to crucial armament facilities. Other reasons listed were the attempted assassination of President Gorge H, W. Bush, the firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone following the Gulf War, Saddam’s paying bounties to the families of suicide bombers, his using the proceeds from the “oil for food” program to purchase long range missiles.

Many people will say now that they disagreed from the get go with Bush’s decision, but that is simply not true. His approval rating hit almost 90 per during and shortly after the invasion.  Bush’s success was a political disaster for Democrats in this country. 

The real disaster for world peace was President Obama’s refusal to negotiate a post war alliance.  His political base was intent on one thing: destroying George Bush’s legacy, so they intentionally abandoned Iraq and the Middle East to chaos.

Creating a Dependent Citizenry

         Is anyone out there really duped by the claims asserted in “Ballot law idea raises concerns,” February 20?  Democrats say that they harvest votes because people can’t get to the poles.  How did that ballot get to that house in the first place?  

        Is it possible that the resident is capable of getting the mail out of the mailbox, but incapable of returning the ballot to the mailbox?  I really think that the goal of the Democrat party is to create a citizenry so dependent on the federal that they are incapable of fending for themselves in any positive way.  They want the power, and we’re marching like lemmings into the sea of oblivion.  

Climate Change, Depend on it.

       Mr. Francisco Villa must know that no one is disputing the fact of climate change.  Elementary knowledge of geology shows us that the earth has been subject to extreme variations in climate since its birth so many eons ago. The issue that Mr. Esch was addressing was the extent to which human activity influenced the phenomenon. You belittled the substance of his letter by suggesting that the ratio between those support anthropomorphic causes and the deniers is 97 to 3.  Some research suggests that there are 20 times as many scientists who question the science of man-made global warming as those who signed off on it.

               There were 52 scientist who authored the media hyped United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I have identified more than a thousand scientists from all over the globe who take issue with that report including many current and former UN IPCC scientists.

               Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin: “I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple,”

               Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University: “The corruption within the IPCC… the doctoring of data and the refusal to admit mistakes have so severely tainted the IPCC that it is no longer a credible agency.”

               NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein “Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” —

               Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin: “Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself — Climate is beyond our power to control…Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.”

               Brazilian Geologist Geraldo Luís Lino:  “Hundreds of billion dollars have been wasted with the attempt of imposing a Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory that is not supported by physical world evidences…AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks.”

               Atmospheric Physicist Dr. John Reid “My skepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.”

               Dr. David Deming, University of Oklahoma: “I write to expose the ignorance exhibited by WWU geology faculty, the most egregious example of pedantic buffoonery since the Pigeon League conspired against Galileo in the seventeenth century. Skepticism is essential to science.”

               I have a list of more than a thousand scientists who question the anthropomorphic theory.    Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv mapped the path that our solar system travels through the spiral arms of the galaxy, and Canadian geologist Jan Veizer plotted 500 years of climate change. The pair of scientists discovered an exact correlation.  Apparently the inflow of cosmic rays affects variations in earth’s temperatures. 

               This little speck of cosmic dust called earth travels with its paltry star through an insignificant galaxy into a vast and glorious, endless universe of space and time.  What do we know, we who are the  “quintessence of dust" - William Shakespeare.

FDR Deepens and Prolongs the Depression

         Ok, James (“FDR quickly reversed course, helped the economy,” Yuma Sun January 7, 2016) let’s look at the facts.  Check out “Macro Trends.”  It shows, definitively the response of the stock market to government intervention.  By March of 1930 it recouped half of what it lost in 29.  Hoover signed Smoot Hawley in June and boom!  The bottom dropped out again.  It struggled back and looked much better by April of 32, but   Hoover signed the Revenue Act in June which more than doubled the income tax, and boom! Again.

               FDR recognized the havoc Hoover had created and won the election on a landslide in 32 running on a reform package.  He promised to cut federal spending by 25 per cent, he promised a balanced budget and he promised sound gold currency.  Within the first 100 days he had seized the country’s gold, devalued the dollar by 40 per cent and government spending skyrocketed.  He passed a minimum wage law.  Boom! The National Industrial recovery act in 1933.  Boom! Tax rates at 90 per cent in 1934.  Boom!  The Civil Works Administration and when that didn’t work, boom! Boom!

         Battered at every turn, the economy would not recover to 1929 heights until 1959. 

             Left alone, the economy creates its own rhythm.  Our country has suffered an economic down-turn every 20 years since 1779.  Notice on the graph that only three times did it last more than two years, always in periods of intensive government intervention, under Hoover and FDR in the thirties, under Jimmy Carter in the 70’s, and most recently under George Bush and Barak Obama.  And don’t let the media trick you into thinking the depression is over.  The real unemployment rate is 25 per cent, a little higher than it was during the “great depression.”  

Sacrificing the good of the country on the altar of elections.

       My contempt for the leadership of the Democrat party is that they are willing to sacrifice the good of the country, even peace in the world, in order to obtain political power.  The war in Vietnam is a case in point.

       I am not going to argue about whether the United States should have gotten involved in Vietnam.  That’s another issue. However, when President Nixon resigned in August of 1974, the war had been won.  Negotiations begun in 1968 had been brought to fruition. The bombing of military and industrial targets in North Vietnam succeeded in bringing the North Vietnamese to the table at the Paris Peace Talks. In order to prevent further aggression on the part of the North, it was agreed that America would continue to provide military hardware if and when the North attempted further aggression.

       It was over.  But the Democrat leadership refused to let the win stand. The landslide Democrat victory three months following Nixon’s resignation gave them the opening they needed, and they sold South Vietnam down the river. Democrat leaders who had demonstrated in opposition to Nixon’s tactics couldn’t afford having been proved wrong. They intentionally violated the Peace Accords, and millions of our South Vietnamese friends were slaughtered.

     The same thing happened in Iraq.  Democrats could not abide the fact that the war had been decisively won, so they abandon the entire Arabian Peninsula to the radical influences of ISIS and Al-Qaeda and begin indicting America for unrest in the Middle East.  Truth be known, members of radical Islam have participated in 548 jihads since Mohammed’s death in 632.    

     Take race relations.  America is the most diverse and charitable country the world has ever known, but in order to secure the votes of the minorities, Democratic leaders find it necessary to trap them into a state of dependency and stir up race hatred at every opportunity.  Yes, the United States does have the stain of slavery and Jim Crow on its historical canvas, but it’s the only country in the history of the world that was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives in order to bring the institution to an end. 

Christians less than kind.

      At an Easter prayer breakfast our president said, “And I have to say that, sometimes when I listen to other less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned." He is bothered by less than kind comments by Christians, bothered when Christians are less than loving.

Did he express concern that members of Islam were less than loving when members of ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Christians in February?   Did he express concern about Islam when al-Shabaab terrorist slaughtered nearly 150 students at a Kenyan university on Holy Thursday?  Does it bother him the al-Qaeda-affiliated group warned that they were not through, that cities in Kenya will "run red with blood”?

          On March 15, Fulani terrorists massacred nearly one hundred Christian villagers in Egba, Nigeria, mostly women and children.  On that same day Jamaat-ul-Ahrar suicide bombers attached two churches leaving 15 worshipers dead.  Did you hear our president express disappointment in Muslims who were less than kind?

          By my count, in 2015 alone, there have been 30 acts of terrorism on innocent Christian targeted solely because of their faith by Muslim groups who cite their own religion as motive.  But President Obama is bothered by less than loving comments by Christians? 

The 17th Amendment: The Amendment that destroyed the fabric of America

Early American settlers had a unique opportunity, the opportunity to start over, to create a different form of government. The kings of Europe were busy fighting one another, so the American settlers were pretty much left to govern themselves for the first 200 years.   They developed an appreciation for living independently which led them to devise a government that protected those rights.  They recognized that the most dangerous force in the world was government.  They compared it to fire, necessary but a treacherous hazard.  They had no confidence in man’s ability to resist the lure of power so they designed a constitution that would, as Thomas Jefferson said, “bind him down from mischief.” 

Each branch of government was designed to check the power of the other, and the theory was that the sovereign states would jealously guard their powers as expressed in the 10^th Amendment.  Integral to the design were the differences in the two houses of congress.  The House of Representatives was to reflect the passions of the people, members being elected by popular vote.  The Senate, like the Senate in the Roman Republic, was to be the more deliberative body, cooling the passions and providing stability to the government.  Members were appointed by legislative bodies of the various states and were to represent the interests of the state keeping the power of the federal government in check. 

Electing senators by popular vote as a result of the 17^th Amendment created two problems.  First, the senate loses its deliberative quality, the members now having to spend their energies responding to the passions of the masses, buying votes with our tax dollars.  It also changed the allegiance of senators.  They are no longer the voice of the state.  They are the voice of the federal government.  The power and significance of the Sovereign States is lost.  

We didn’t notice the danger at first.  Montesquieu was right: “A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.”  It’s been a century.  It’s time for us all to join the bucket brigade.  Or better yet, fight fire with fire.  Lovers of freedom must be vigilant, read, study, research, and debate analyzing history and current events according to the principles of liberty.  We need to rekindle the fires that fueled the founding.

Benghazi not a Hoax

         As usual, James Sefcak attempts to mislead his readers, (“GOP used deaths for political gain,” Yuma Sun April 2).  First, the title.   No, Mr. Sefcak.  It was Clinton and Obama who “dishonored those Americans who died in Benghazi in an attempt to turn a national tragedy into twisted political gain.”   The mantra of his campaign was, “Have no fear.  I killed Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is on the run.”  Had they admitted at the outset that the slaughter was a carefully planned and executed terrorist attack, they would have deep sixed the election. 

     Obviously the Clinton Obama strategy had some deep, disturbing flaws.  So they tell the grieving family members a blatant lie, that the attack was a spontaneous reaction by a few justifiably angry young men. 

       According to Sefcak, the GOP engineered the “alleged scandals.”   No, Mr. Sefcak.  The scandal was not “alleged.”   It was real.  Brave men really died.  Really. 

As evidence Sefcak says, “GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy didn’t just admit to the Benghazi hoax, he bragged about it.” What McCarthy admitted to was that the point of the Benghazi investigation wasn’t to find, “the truth.” The seven previous Benghazi investigations already accomplished that goal. The evidence of Hillary Clinton scams is undeniable.  The purpose of the investigations was to make sure that the American public recognized the depth of Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty.

  The depth of her dishonesty is well known as well.  She was not, in fact, named in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary’s magnificent feat.  He had not yet accomplished it at the time of her birth.  She did not land under sniper fire in Bosnia.  All of her grandparents were not immigrants.  Her applications to the Marine Corps had not been turned down.  It didn’t exist.

   It is a fact that Hillary lies.  Check out at   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI, 13 minutes, one lie after the next.

  It is also a fact that her supporters cannot handle the truth, perhaps because they are so demoralized.  Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB operative, said that’s the first objective of socialism, to demoralize the masses. "People who are demoralized are unable to process information. When exposed to information, they cannot change their perceptions.  Their behaviors defy logic."