2012 Books I Listened To

I can now listen to books at work by downloading from the Cobb Library. Looking back, it's been a pretty good audible year.

• My Favorite: Now and Forever tied with Animal Farm, with the tie going to Bradbury, in his honor.
• Unexpectedly Good: learning a bit about President Ford
• Didn't live up to expectations: Guns, Germs & Steel. It may not translate well to listening...

1. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
2. Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fate of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
3. Bloody Jack Adventure Series, Book 1 - L.A. Meyer
4. I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson
5. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
6. Write it When I'm Gone, Conversations with Gerald R. Ford - Thomas Defrank
7. Back to Work - Bill Clinton
8. Dark Wind - Tony Hillerman
9. Down Under - Bill Bryson
10. A Rage for Glory - James Tertius de Kay
11. Rumpole of the Bailey - John Mortimer
12. Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld
13. Drive - Daniel Pink
14. The Great Bridge - David McCullough
15. Now and Forever - Ray Bradbury
16. Next - Michael Crichton
17. The ascent of money: a financial history of the world - Niall Ferguson
18. The Russian Revolution: from Tsarism to Bolshevism - Jon Smele
19. The Land that Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs
20. Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
21. Area 51 - Annie Jacobsen
22. Animal Farm - George Orwell

2012 Books I Read

My 2012 reading list in reverse order...

I must admit that I've not yet finished Wanderings. It's a "cannot fall asleep tonight" special.

• Surprise of the Year: Ender's Game (read before I heard about the upcoming movie)
• Guilty Pleasure: Robert Parker's Jesse Stone series
• Disappointing: Myth of the Rational Market - the writing doesn't live up to the title; the author is more intent on making a point than sharing history, ending up doing neither terribly well.

1. Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
2. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
3. The Alchemyst - Michael Scott
4. Trouble in Paradise - Robert Parker
5. The Myth of the Rational Market - Justin Fox
6. Rutherford B. Hayes - Hans Trefousse
7. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
8. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
9. The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions - Mario Puzo
10. Che Guevara: In Search of Revolution - Calvin Miller
11. Omerta - Mario Puzo
12. Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie
13. Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews
14. The Naked Gospel - Andrew Farley
15. The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie
16. Night Passage - Robert Parker
17. Zachary Taylor - John Eisenhower
18. The Millionaire Next Door - Stanley & Danko

Screwtape Letters 29-31

• Letter 29: How to kick a man while he is down
• What do you do advice for one surrounded by stress filled (dangerous, even) situations?
• Cowardice - it works, but it's a bit of a dead end, doesn't lead to other vices. It does leave the patient with shame, which is a nice touch.
• Courage leading to Pride - this is a nice idea, but is dangerous. Love the pride, but you have to flirt with [the virtuous] courage in order to produce it. 
• Cynical Hatred - use the violent emotions inherit in the times to develop hatred for his enemies. To reinforce, let the patient excuse his hatred as 'acceptable, because it is on others' behalf'. Keep the patient blind to the forgiveness, lest he be tempted to forgive his enemies as he is distinctly taught to do.
• "In peace we can make many of them ignore good and evil entirely; in danger, the issue is forced upon them in a guise to which even we cannot blind them."
• The bad can lead us towards the good.
• COURAGE is the testing point of every virtue. Do I have the courage to do what I ought? A coward may be sweet, nice, gentle, friendly... but he will not be good.
• DESPAIR is the loss of hope, the absence of faith. It is a sin less visible but more deadly than others.
• Letter 30: Do or feel?
• The 'act' is of the highest importance. You may feel weak and full of fear, but doing your duty (whatever that may entail) is the high calling, regardless of how you feel.
• Emotions are valuable, and have their place in God's creation. In the personal interaction between God and man (generally in the form of prayer), emotions play a very real part. However, life is lived through our actions, and the Kingdom of God is effected by those actions.
• How to damage the tired soul?
• S/T distinguishes 'moderate fatigue' verses 'absolute exhaustion', preferring the former. 
• Continual, moderate fatigue doesn't overwhelm us. We continue on, establishing a time frame (I can handle this situation for this period of time), relying upon deliverance rather than endurance, establishing a sense of rights (and how ours are being trampled). 
• Develop Expectations
• Be Disappointed
• Feel Injured
• "Up to a certain point, fatigue makes women talk more and men talk less. Much secret resentment can be raised from this."
• There is confusion in the various realities of the 'real', be that physical, emotional, or spiritual. We struggle to know what is real and what is opinion, perception, physically apparent, etc. 
• Letter 31: The Cleansing
• Regardless of the lingering on this end of life, the delay we seek in the face of death, at the moment of death is instantaneous liberation. 
• This exchange (from this world to the next) is natural and intended. 
• "The gods are strange before mortal eyes, and yet they are not strange," as we were created to behold them.
• The delights, temptations, virtues and vices of this world go strangely dim, in the light of Jesus' glory and grace.

Screwtape Letters 25-28

• Letter 25: Rhythm vs Novelty

• the horror for us of enduring the same old thing
• We love change; we love permanence. These things are contrary, and are balanced through rhythm.
• Novelty, on the other hand, is the continued desire for the 'new', without the balance for the old. The continual desire for the new puts us at odds with the familiar, and distances us from the reality of our lives.
• The demand for novelty "diminishes pleasure while increasing desire", passing from innocent sources of pleasure to those forbidden
• Be careful of what we are chasing (the 'new' for the sake of the 'new'), as well as what we are cautioning ourselves against (the old, familiar, permanent, because it is old, familiar, permanent)
• When trying to determine whether or not to do something, keep it simple: is it kind? is it pure? is it loving? Steer clear from is it couth? is it relevant? is it fashionable?
• "We have trained them to think of the future as a promised land which favoured heros attain - not as something everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is"

• Letter 26: The selfishness of being unselfish
• Opening paragraph: a bit confused. Maybe Lewis is saying that by ignoring today's issues under the codeword of charity, you are just delaying the inevitable (that said issue must be addressed), and that you are giving opportunity across time for unhealthy seeds to grow between you and the other. Or maybe he isn't???
• Unselfishness -vs- Charity, which look similar. The latter is actually for another person's benefit; the former may be solely for your own. 
• The battle of who can be more unselfish, beyond reason... leading to frustrated discourtesy, as each party refused to be out-unselfished, an "elaborate and self-conscious unselfishness"
• From AeB: I'm inclined to think that this issue is much more 'British' in cultural context than 'American', although I may just be fooling myself.
• Letter 27: The Forbidden Question: Is it True?
• When we acknowledge (to God) our distraction away from God, we are in a good position to return before Him. Our movements towards and away from God are of ultimate importance to Him. If a sin in us awakens us to our state, and motivates us to repentance unto life, then in its own way, said sin has been turned on its head for the purpose of good.
• In the battle of daily prayer, keep it simple. Do not over-spiritualize.
• The challenge of the value of praying to an all-knowing God... why bother?
• God "does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously, to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it."
• In reading from those who have come before us, we ought to focus on the eternal question "Is it true?", rather than the intellectually stimulating questions "Is it contextually appropriate, culturally sensitive, applicable to our frame of reference...."
• Screwtape's advice: Cut generations off from each other. Prevent the passing of wisdom, and the learning from mistakes.
• Letter 28: Ultimate Importance
• Our misperception: death is the ultimate evil; survival the greatest good.
• If Wormwood cannot overcome the active faith and reliance upon the Enemy of his patient in his youth, then be patient, and allow "the long dull monotonous years of middle-age prosperity or middle-aged adversity [to be] excellent campaigning weather", to dreary the patient's soul away from the Enemy.
• "Prosperity knits a man to the world". Are you finding your place in this world, or is this world finding its place in you?
• Youth has the godly advantage of a lust for life and a acknowledgement that nothing is permanent in this life. Age can forgo both of those opportunities, trading living for security, and clinging to each day, masked as 'maturity'.

Screwtape Letters 22-24

• Letter 22:

• The Patient's current girl: "one who looks as if she'd faint at the sight of blood and then dies with a smile.... who would find ME funny"
• Q: is there some level of maturity involved with being able to grin and smirk at the wiles of Screwtape and his kind?
• The Enemy has a bourgeois mind, filling the world with pleasures, which must be twisted before S/T can use them
• In the godly household, the mysterious odor of the Enemy permeates residents and guests. What secret lies behind the pretense the disinterested love.
• Noise ("the audible expression of all that is exultant") -verses- Music & Silence (a place of joy and contemplation)
• NOTE how exciting and passionate things change us (in this case, into a caterpillar).

• Letter 23:

• First Strategy: separate the patient from spirituality. Keep the cultural and social identity of the Christian intact, while ensuring that the internalized/personal dealings with a spiritual God always secondary.
• If the Patient insists on interacting with God...
• Second Strategy: corrupt his faith and spiritual walk...
• Theology
• Politics
• The interaction of community, social issues, and government
• (re-) define  Jesus based upon one's contemporary concerns
• Make Christianity a means to some perceived-value end
• "Believe this [faith] not because it is true, but for some other [perceived-value] reason"
• Definition: Characterizations are the product of suppression and exaggeration, with a touch of guessing (I mean, deduction) and wishful thinking.
• "All great moralists are sent by the Enemy not to inform men but to remind them to restate the primeval moral platitudes against our [Screwtape's] continually concealment of them."

• Letter 24:

• Screwtape encourages Wormwood to take advantage of people "who have grown up in an intelligent circle united by a clearly defined belief... that the outsiders who do not share this[their] belief are really too stupid and ridiculous [to understand]".... a combination of ignorance (reasonably forgiven) and pride (what you really want to capitalize upon).
• Spiritual Pride: the most beautiful of all vices, whereby
• we have "no notion of how much in him [any of us] is forgiven" as a basis of our daily relationships, and
• are confident in our own value within a relationship, 
• not cognizant of the necessary importance of forgiveness of our own indiscretions within a successful relationship, 
• rather than our intrinsic merit.
• Recommended method 1:
• Raise up your Christian circles and denigrate your non-Christian ones.
• Then separate the circles.
• Then separate from the non-Christian circles until you cease to have any spiritual effect outside the Church.
• Recommended method 2:
• I rightly belong within these Christian circles, rather than
• These folks have accepted me, warts and all
• Recommended method 3:
• Realize that you have been initiated into a select group,
• A group who has figured things out,
• Engaged by God to have a greater understanding of Him and this world
• Theocrats

Electoral College, part 2

I haven’t written part 1, which would include an explanation of

1. why there is an Electoral College,
2. why it is of value,
3. why it is particularly American in its essence, and
4. why you should get used to it (because it is not going anywhere).

Not sure if I’ll get around to that column, as there’s a lot to it. However, I was playing around with Excel (an Engineer’s good buddy), and curious of the effect of changing all 51 states (including D.C.) to mimic Maine’s Electoral College voting law.
There are 538 electoral votes, matching the 538 congressmen we all love to hate in D.C. The 50 states have 2 votes representing their Senators, with the remaining 438 apportioned out based upon census population, in the same manner as the 438 House of Representatives.

The typical voting method for the Electoral College is for each state to vote all of their votes to the one candidate who won the popular vote in that particular state, winner-take-all style (i.e. Bush won Florida by ~537 votes, and received all 25 of Florida’s electoral votes).

Maine and Nebraska employ a  proportional method of casting their electoral votes: whoever wins the state popular vote gets the 2 electoral votes, while the rest of the state's electoral votes are cast based upon whoever wins each congressional district.
In essence, our nationwide election is currently resolved at the state level. Under a proportional system, the election would be held at the congressional district level, with the candidate who wins the state getting a 2 ‘bonus’ votes. 

In today’s system, we hold 51 state elections simultaneously and combine them to get the result. A Congressional District apportionment of electoral votes would entail 489 separate elections (438 congressional districts + 51 states), combined for a single result. Simple enough;)

The following are the of the last 3 elections, data from here and here, using the Congressional District system:

Notice that the Net Change doesn’t work perfectly. This is the best I can do with the data I have. No politics here, just looking at the results, and how they would have changed the national ‘spin’ on the election. I’ve no dog in this fight (and didn’t vote for any of the candidates above), but you could see from these results how the feel of the results would have clearly changed.

1. No results would change. This is likely true for almost all of our nation’s election history, with rare exception.
2. 2000 – Bush would have won with a more clear mandate. Florida’s permanent place in election history would not have had the extreme histrionics, and would not have mattered near as much.
3. 2004 – A win turns into a route.
4. 2008 – A route turns into a win.

A ‘follow’ in the hand is worth two ‘learns’ in the bush

It is a great challenge: to teach people to follow God rather than merely teaching them about God.
Typically, we acquire God-knowledge and habit ourselves with God-actions (act nice, talk nice, be nice), content with the transformation from a child of Adam to a child of God.
But God intends more than rebirth and adoption. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God on earth, dwells in His children as a guide, a leader for our lives in the big and the little, that we should follow Him.
As a teacher, this is very difficult to convey with words. It is more aptly conveyed through deeds.

"But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us." II Thessalonians 2:7-8

Forest and Trees

Tea Partiers disdain the government as a consistent and continual waste of money, except in areas of government that benefits them… my dad’s a cop, my wife’s a teacher, I sure enjoy driving on this road and flushing my toilet. Progressives (it seems both parties have rebranded) disdain whoever has scored higher than them in life, claiming as rights what are more accurately privilege (and not always that), all the while aiming to advance to the heights of the very people they hold in contempt. Surrounding our eyes and ears with the like-minded, we create bogeyman of people through isolation and distance. We define them as ‘they’, and they as ‘them’. Marginalize. Stereotype.

Blacks. Rednecks. Unions. Wealthy. Homosexuals. Christians. Skinny-Jeans-People (well, maybe that one is pretty accurate). Groups containing people we don’t know, defined by inaccurate notions of our own strengths against their weaknesses.

We would do well to meet these people, separate the individual from the pack, and break down our own walls. Real people are, well, real. Their presence reveals an identity in contrast to our notioning, initiates comprehension, distances her from them, separates him from they. And maybe in such an encounter veils are lifted from both sets of eyes. Lest ye forget, to others, you are in one of these ill-defined groups as well.

My Birthday Wish (part 2)

One year ago, I shared before my church my 35th birthday wish from God. He pulled through, and I am the better man because of it.
Again, I was singled out and prompted for what I desired from God this 36th year. Upon being asked, without hesitation, I shared my hope and request that God heal my jaw and the chronic pain associated with it, chronicled here:
what just happened, part 1?
what just happened, part 2?
and finally seeking advice.
God gave me grace last year, He truly did. He can do the same work this year, and I choose to hope for it.

Let me have the courage to revisit this and share what happens next, regardless.

Screwtape Letters 15-17

• Letter 15 - Tomorrow Never Comes
• The Enemy desires us to focus on the Present (where our actions are within our control) or Eternity (where clearly nothing is in our control, and where it is in the Enemy's control).
• Screwtape desires us to focus on the Past (either in our failures or our successes, as long as it keeps us self-focused and deadens our today) or more importantly, on the Future (the unknown and uncontrollable that overwhelms our today).  Focus on non-realities.
• "Nearly all vices are rooted in the future".
• The Future is the least like eternity - completely temporal - the extraction of our minds, whether in hope or fear.
• Letter 16 - Hopping
• The church congregation: a unity of place not of likings
• The mature are critical of the bad while still willing to accept the good (be that with ourselves, our friends, our family, church, political spectrum...)
• Factions stand in the way of charity (how we treat others) and humility (what we focus on)
• By playing it safe in the portions of Scripture and topics of life we are comfortable in, "We are safe from the danger that any truth not already familiar to him and to his flock should ever reach them through Scripture."
• The Modern Iconoclast Controversy, where we the Church meet anywhere under any condition without regard for any sense except our ears (worship first and foremost) and in a really good church, our minds (with solid preaching). Purposefully negligent of our eyes (the beauty of setting or art) and the other half of our minds (with any form of spiritual discipline). 
• Letter 17 - The Withering Glutton
• The determination to get what we want, couched in the confidence that what we want is relatively simple, so it is OK to want it.
• We hide our self-centeredness under the veil of some other perceived virtue (want of simple things, not wanting to be a bother or put someone out)
• Gluttony of Delicacy
• Every day, every meal, every moment spent thinking about the last or next meal, continually self-focused on our body.
• "The grand lie... that physical exercise in excess, and consequent fatigue, are specially favorable to this virtue"
• We create rules about what makes a person virtuous, and then pride ourselves at achieving, or judge ourselves at failing.

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate

This post is as much about me wanting to keep available a good series of opinion pieces as adding any thoughts of my own, excepting the implicit thought by me posting these pieces that said discussion is worth consideration.

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 1

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 2

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 3

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 4

How to Prevent Economic Recessions

Screwtape Letters 11 - 14

 

1. Letter 11: Funny may not be not Funny
   1. What is the power of joy, music, fun? What in these things is inherently different than jokes, sarcasm, flippancy?
   2. S/T is enticed by jokes. What can they afford (do for) us? 
   3. S/T's highest value is in Flippancy, the best of all forms of humor, whereby a contented superiority in perception disconnects us from the rest of creation. This is the specialty of the:
      1. Hyper-educated,
      2. Cynic
      3. AM radio crowd
      4. Victim-minded
      5. namely, everyone but me;)
   4. Sarcasm is the extended arm of hell.
2. Letter 12: Trajectory
   1. S/T would rather us slip than fall. Why?
   2. The Enemy desires our sin to be a call to repentance and reigniting of relationship. S/T would prefer it hang around for a while, fester, sticky, to apprehend our lives. "He will want his prayers to be unreal, for he will dread nothing so much as effective contact with the Enemy"
   3. We hover in our rut, preferring the dark corner to the heat of the light, exchanging something for nothing: our time, opportunity to life, serve, laugh, give... for reluctance, half-conscious guilt, disengagement.
   4. "The safest road to hell is the gradual one"
3. Letter 13: Real Danger
   1. To S/T, grace is a defeat of the first order. What happens when we come to grips, come to peace, with grace?
   2. His advice: keep us away from positive pleasures. Why? What about positive pleasure connects us with the Enemy and distances us from Screwtape? What scares S/T about a wholehearted enjoyment of something, anything, regardless of its seeming eternal value?
   3. The Enemy seeks for the vermin to give up self will with the full intention of releasing a self that is more fully theirs in return.
   4. Misperception (which S/T capitalizes upon): we are not to change who we are in the pursuit of God. He is not asking us to do so. He seeks to complete us, not redefine us. 
   5. Our feelings and our actions are connected.
4. Letter 14: I have lots of Humility
   1. We cycle from virtue to pride at our virtue
   2. S/T: help them develop a self-contempt (a flesh-based humility that denies the intrinsic value of the Enemy's creation), and extend that self-contempt to others, developing a contempt for others (as dastardly as ourselves), society, the world, creation. I'm crap, and so are you.
   3. The Enemy desires you to love your neighbor as you love yourself, as well as loving yourself as you love your neighbor.
   4. Self-focus is Vanity, regardless of you self-opinion. Is it best to fix your mind or to lose it?

Dasvidaniya

Blogger has a tracking mechanism that allows you to watch how many times your page or a particular post is viewed. It's great for the ego, except when it isn't (crickets, anyone).
Off to the side, Google provides a world map and colors the countries based upon where people viewed one's blog from. All I know is that I have some fans in Russia. That map is like watching the '84 Olympics all over again, knowing that the Uncle Sam has the hometown advantage, but Mother Russia is always on her heels.
Dasvidaniya, whoever you are.

Hayek vs. Keynes, Round One

Beyond well done.

Screwtape Letters 6-10

1. Letter 6: Thy Will be Done
1. Submitting to the Enemy's will, where we seek to submit to some future potential state while toiling in suspense and anxiety in the moment, waiting for the future to fall upon us.
2. Group Question: how do you react to uncertainty?
3. S/T's strategy (which, if flipped on its head, may be the Enemy's as well??): In all things that support our cause, let him be un-self conscious, forgetting himself and concentrating on the object/activity of our cause. In all things which support our Enemy, focus on the self, bringing to mind how this activity affects the self. 
1. My translation, after reading this passage 5 times: from S/T's perspective, he desires us to be mindless when frolicking in sin, while self-absorbed when acting righteous.
2. My thought on flipping this: from God's perspective, be un-self conscious when acting godly, and mindful of sin.
4. Let virtues be a part of our distant fantasy realm, admired, cheered, but not a part of our core.
2. Letter 7: End or Means?
1. What is the practical long-term difference between FAITH as an end or a means to an end?
2. S/T strategy: Have him adopt an ideal, identify that ideal as a part of Christianity, regard it as of the most importance.... then, flip it, whereby Christianity is a part of the ideal, a mechanism to obtain towards that ideal. The world is the end, and faith the means.
3. Letter 8: There and Back Again
1. Undulation: "To be in time means change" - wowsers
2. The Trough, where "He [the Enemy] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives," where the follower is challenged to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.
3. "Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsake, and still obeys"
4. Letter 9: Slippery Slope
1. Trough, where S/T can degrade pleasures into debauchery, increasing the cravings while decreasing the pleasurable results, getting "a man's soul and give him nothing in return."
2. Trough, where S/T encourages the Enemy-follower to recover "old feelings by sheer will-power"
3. Trough, where we start to wonder if the Peak was a phase, a life-experience to learn from, rather than a portion of reality.
5. Letter 10: Vanity of Vanities
1. Where Wormwood makes "good use of all his social, sexual and intellectual vanity"
2. Vanity, where our desire for social acceptance, or to not ruffle feathers, we betray our God and ourselves with our silence and laughter, giving great joy to S/T for both the incident and our decay. Above all, let them fear being puritanical.
3. The sick reality of two parallel lives, where "he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he out to be silent"

What did I do last night?

I have learned from my better half that the best time to weigh yourself is first thing in the morning. Apparently she read that in Cosmo, or maybe it is feminine wisdom passed from generation to generation. In a fit of curiosity, I tested this wife's tale.
Last night, just before bed, I pulled out the scale and stepped on: 179.1 lbs. This morning, immediately upon waking up, I step on again: 175.1.
What exactly was I doing last night to lose 4 pounds? If any of you were there, or have any information that may lead to the discover of said activity, I would appreciate your insight.

Infectious Disease

Last night I was chatting online with a friend, and learned they had just come down with Shingles. I think it is Chicken Pox’s older cousin, a part of the Cooties family. Chatting through Microsoft Communicator, not through a browser, on my work laptop.

Today, I go upstairs to check the scores on my personal PC, open up Chrome, and am blasted with “Now’s the time, before it’s too late, to get your Shingles’ shot” sidebar adds.

Within 12 hours of communicating on a separate computer, separate chat program, about a friend’s cooties, I have been targeted with adds. Apparently, Shingles is more contagious than one may initially assume, given the rate it seems to spread online.

Screwtape Letters 1-5

1. Letter 1: No Tall Poppy Here
1. Screwtape encouraged Wormwood to latch onto "how enslaved they [humans] are to the pressure of the ordinary." What are these pressures? How do they help Screwtape?
2. S/T warns Wormwood against engaging in argument? Why? What could go wrong for S/T and his purposes?
3. The power of distraction (I forgot what my question was)
2. Letter 2: Church Disappointment
1. We encounter the Church in all its crude, boring and hypocritical actuality. This encounter can enchant pride in our self and disenchant our self regarding others. How has the church been a snare?
2. How does the Enemy use our disappointment in the Church for His purpose?
3. What about the Church does S/T not want us to see?
3. Letter 3: Family Annoys Us
1. Prayer, where we separate spiritually minded thoughts from the physical actions and interactions with those in our lives.
2. Family, where we get annoyed, and justifiably annoy others because they first annoyed us. 
3. Challenge: who annoys you? why? what in them and their actions gets to you? Now ask: is there anything in you, in your view of yourself, in your view of them, which is to some degree responsible for the annoyance you are feeling?
4. Challenge: does any of our religious/church behavior annoy our family/close friends? Do we justify our actions because they are religious/church actions, regardless of the fact they annoy others (turn a blind eye, hide our actions behind the veil of God)?
5. What 'spiritual' acts do we partake in that could just as easily serve Screwtape's purposes as the Enemy's purpose?
4. Letter 4: Being Spiritual
1. Why does S/T like 'moods'?
2. S/T encouragement: create a god to help you concentrate, then concentrate on that god. Why is this dangerous?
5. Letter 5: War (hunh), what is it good for? (less than Wormwood thinks)
1. "Do not allow any temporary excitement to distract you from the real business of undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues."
2. Spiritually speaking, why is war a strange mixture of good and bad?

A Bit of a Letdown

10 weeks ago (read this) I experienced some level of a healing, a personal healing of my jaw, which was misplaced 20 weeks ago (read here). Not sure what happened, and scared to share this healing before others in case I was wrong, I kept quiet. Daily, I awoke, and told God that tomorrow I would share the good news. 

After a few weeks, my jaw, not hurting yet still the constant focus of my every thought, began to hurt again. And after a few more weeks, it hurt as much as it ever had.

What does that say about me, God, healing, and the physical dynamic of my jaw line? Am I in pain because I didn't have the faith to announce to the world God's healing? Was I not in pain before because I had faith that God healed me? If God is directly involved with my jaw, then (respectfully) what is His angle?

Today, I asked my Doctor for his advice. Dr. Saltz encouraged patience, that my tendons (or ligaments, I can never remember which is which) are stretched out, and that it will take 6+ months to heal. Bring on the pills, don't chew gum, seek understanding, and hope my jaw heals.

If only…

If I only had a means to quickly and easily access my blog,

A means to jot my thoughts, satire and introspection without all of the hassle of ‘getting on the internet’ and typing ‘blog’ before the auto-fil remembers the correct website address and automatically sends me to my blog’s home page…

If only, then I would more readily blog, would more readily share my collective wisdom with the world at large.

It looks as if I have been saved from this toil by Windows Live Writer, where I only have to open the program to write the blog, rather than take the arduous journey previously outlined.

I welcome this blessing that tackles the challenges of the first world.

Single Father, Day 2

Maggie and I are a mix. A mix of 

Woodis and Godfrey, 

on time and just in time, 

ready to go early and never ready to go.

Well... Maggie is gone, and Godfrey is burgeoning. 

• Wake up at 9am. Three of the kids are already awake, the Godfrey-one is not, of course.
• Dad-time (reading and balancing the budget) until 10am, when the kids inadvertently came upstairs to check on me.
• 10am - 1pm: Daddy Clean Elizabeth and Garrett's room, which involves taking everything that isn't nailed down, piling it in the middle of the floor and putting about half of it back. The other half takes a quick ride to the can. 
• Upon finishing, when all the children asked with longing eyes if we could postpone cleaning Emily and Louise's room. Realizing I hadn't eaten anything yet, and the kids hadn't had lunch yet (I assume they ate breakfast), I gave in.
• Except... there isn't anything to eat here (remember who's in charge here). So the oldest child takes the two youngest to Kroger, where a kid can be a kid.The kids' influence:



• Mac-n-cheese (the really crappy, cheap, eat in college kind)
• Gum (3 packs to share amongst the 4 kids, including 20 minutes discussing implementation strategy)
• Kroger-brand Doritos (they don't know any better)
• NOT-natural peanut butter (don't tell)
• Frozen Pizza Rolls (for lunch)
• Chef-Boy-R-Dee Italian meatball ravioli 
• Hot dogs
• String cheese
• Sunny D
• Bologna
• Fish Sticks (again, for lunch)  

• Return home at 2:30, where we 'cook' lunch of fish sticks, pizza rolls and chicken shaped into donuts (don't know where they came from, but they were in the freezer), and eat in front of the TV while watching. I threw in some fresh Broccoli. 
• Finish lunch around 4:30.
• Pack Emily and Louise for camp, where they get dropped off tomorrow.
• Come downstairs at 6:50. Oh, time to start dinner. Hmmm, what do we eat?

• leftover rice, and fried rainbow trout, caught by Garrett.
• Finish dinner at 7:50, play a few rounds of Blokus, until I realize that it's bedtime (for them, not me).

A day well planned is a day wasted;)

Time to stay up late and sleep in...

Politicize the Truth

I will do my best not to judge here; it is not my intent.

Had I been able to extend this chart from the beginning of Bush's presidency, we would see that US average prices when he began in office was ~$1.65/gallon. Across his 8 years in office it consistently rose until its peak just before the 2008 election to ~$4.10/gallon, when crude oil fell precipitously from $147 to $37/barrel. One might remember this time as the world brinking economic collapse, Detroit at the door of the Fed seeking bailouts, and the oil industry, traded in a speculative market, reacting with a short-term collapse of crude prices.

The world didn't collapse, the 1 billion + cars continue to drive their streets, and prices rebounded. In this election year, this truth and history do not serve the Republican voter (of which I will be one). Rather, we blame the President for the world crude oil market, of which the U.S. accounts for ~22%.

It is rather cute.

President Obama can be blamed for many things (including a now-tested lack of leadership capacity), and he has failed to develop a national energy policy just as his many predecessors did. Each of these justifies his removal from office in a short while. 

However, we would do well to be honest with ourselves and hopeful constituents and acknowledge that crude oil is a profitable industry in locations throughout the world with less regard for environmental conditions than the US Federal government (which is not the same voice as the citizens of said government). Prices have steadily risen across TIME, which happens to include the presidential terms of both Bush and Obama. They will continue to rise (relative to inflation) through our next presidential term, be that Obama or Romney, as the industrial growth rate and increases in worldwide standard of living exceeds the US inflation rate. 

There are national choices that effect this situation (that can be adjudged elsewhere), and it would be a pleasure if some form of leadership took root in Washington. But the days of $1.78/gallon are history, and would only return under dire economic circumstances that would cause more heartache than said gasoline savings would justify. 

Single Father, Day 0

Thursday, July 12, 6:30pm: finish our 3rd and final group hug and let Mommy check in at Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (said name deserves its own blog entry), with the intent of heading to the Varsity with the kids.

Think to put a call into uncle JP to see if he wants to join us, as JP is more popular with my kids than I am. A quick conversation redirects us southwards towards Cracker Barrel in Union City. A bit out of the way, but worth seeing the Halls (adding Pollyanna and Maddie). 

Been to this particular CB many times meeting other southside college friends for a bite after work. Except... it isn't there. I turn around; not there... Turn around again, and confirm that what was a CB is now a cellular-phone store (where have our priorities drifted?). The exit is strewn with every form of fast food, but not a single proper restaurant. After another 10 minutes of indecision takes us another exit southward and 4 miles off the exit to the local Hibachi joint in Tyrone. It is 7:40, and time to eat.

For Louise, Garrett and Eliza, this is their first time. And while Garrett literally jumped out of his chair towards the back wall when the first flames leaped (even given notice), things settled into a great meal. 

Had to borrow $4 from Eliza (who brings her purse everywhere, thank goodness) to leave a decent tip (she negotiated $5 repayment, a 25% usury), and got home at 9:40pm. 

Welcome to life without mom.

Do you believe in Miracles

Well, I sort of do. I generally believe, and am happy to believe. But I'm not one to bother God with my own needs, and wouldn't think to ask for supernatural relief.

10 weeks ago (read here}, my jaw was moved east-west in what would seem some sort of hyper-extension (I don't know the medical definition of this term, but it seems to fit all the same). I spent a week drinking my meals, and have been dropping Advil in ever orifice I can find since then. 

Tonight I watched the independent documentary film Finger of God on Netflix. Not even sure where I heard of this film, but I put it on our queue sometime back and watched it tonight. The film centers on the healing work of the Holy Spirit. It was reasonable, not garish, and didn't ask for money; as someone who is happy to believe in God's miracles for others, I enjoyed the film, and allowed that its presence stretched me. Good job, God. Well done on that miracle; the recipient seems very happy. 

As the film finishes, a 'typical' flashy Reverend Mr. Pastor Jimmy Joe Johnson (not his real name, but you can get a flavor of my hesitancy) stares into the camera, and prays for the viewer, prays for their healing. And I sit there, quiet as a ghost, sweating and clammy, while my inner ear started cracking, a distinct cold feeling developed in my ear canal and traveled down my right neckline, and the chronic pain of the past 10 weeks subsided.

Holy moly. 

I haven't shared this injury with anyone save my wife, and need some time to process this before sharing this with others... (excepting you, my beloved readership). I am talking with God on this and hoping for the best. 

Trusting an Untrustworthy Person

I'm not a hawk, and I even think kimchi is almost edible. But why do we continue to trust North Korea?
A shortened recent history:

• 1992 & 1994: Kim says "we'll be nice". 
• 1995: US gives $6B to pay for them being nice. 
• 2002: Kim says "just kidding, we've got an underground nuclear facility". 
• 2003: Invite Russia and China to help broker peace. Really?
• 2005: Kim says "we'll be nice, if you give us some more $"
• 2006: Kim 1st nuclear weapon test.
• 2007: Kim says "we'll disable our nuclear facilities by year end... got any more $"
• 2008: US agrees to take NKorea off its "Axis of Evil" list, if NKorea gives them access to all of the nuclear facilities for inspection (notice, the 2007 deadline was missed).
• 2008: NKorea agrees to give US access to all nuclear facilities for inspection, if the US gives more $.
• 2009: NKorea walks away from talks, tests another nuclear weapon, and then agrees to resume nuclear disarmament talks (apparently, they didn't want to be in the talks while testing the nuclear weapon, as that would be disingenuous)
• 2010: NKorea sinks a SKorea ship, threatens SKorea and US with nuclear war, then asks to resume nuclear disarmament talks
• 2011: NKorea reveals another secret underground nuclear facility which they had been constructing while they've been negotiating.
• 2012 April 14: NKorea attempts to honor the late Kim's 70th birthday and his eternal father's 100th birthday:

The event was appropriate: to celebrate their dead, dishonest and militaristic cult-leader who used his tax base to fund the military while insisting that foreign aid be used to feed the citizens, the cult-followers attempted to launch a long-range rocket to show the world its power and instead watched the rocket fail.

Maybe we can get NKorea to commit to nuclear disarmament talks if we give them some $.

Glass Jaw

Tonight I had the occasion amidst my weekly soccer match of going after a loose ball in front of the goal, whereby I met the other team's striker, my keeper, and my keeper's elbow. Me the elbow were intimately acquainted, and I awoke inside the penalty box 5-10 seconds later. 

I left the field of my own accord and watched the remainder of the game. Two concerns evolved in my mind, one of greater weight than the other. First, I couldn't close my mouth. Second, I would have to share said reality with my wife (I'll let you decide which of the concerns concerned me the most).

An hour of internet [sic] research has encouraged me to join the Waitansee Tribe in the hopes that things are better tomorrow. And seeing as though Maggie is table dancing in Vegas with her girlfriends for the weekend, I'm going to delay the inevitable. 

Spartan Race 2012

Spartan Race 2012

Bearded Daughters

Episode 4 of Lost in Space, where our faults are no longer hidden. It seems that when our inside is suddenly our outside, we are not so attractive. More than our looks, as we advertise our sins, people cannot help but notice, and take note. Clearly seeing our faults keeps us continually thinking of them, with destructive relational consequences.
Thank God our insides stay where they belong. Forget the aesthetics; we would eventually adapt to our bearded wives and daughters. Rather, it is a great mercy that we can meet and greet without being confronted with our own failures, able to develop relationships that eventually are stronger than the sin within us.

Left, Right, and Wrong

Micah 6:8 

He has told you, O man, what is good. 

And what does the Lord require of you? 

To do justice, 

To love kindness, and 

To walk humbly with your God. 

The religious and political right focus upon justice, making sure we believe what we are supposed to believe and do not do whatever we are not supposed to do. Rules dictate. This justice is used to protect God, keeping Him and His people sacred.

The religious and political left focus upon kindness, allowing us to believe whatever we want to believe and do whatever we want to do, as long as we are nice about it. Freedom dictates. This kindness is used to endlessly extend God, defining Him and His creation such that all is sacred (and therefore, nothing is).

The right are blind to doing right to the over-extenders. The kind are blind to being kind to the over-righteous. Neither seems cognizant of their hypocrisy, sufficiently humbled by out walking with God

Secondary to Primary

Matthew 15

You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, 

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

Isaiah 29

This people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip-service, but they remove their hearts far from me and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.

We generally blank the slate in our rebirth with God. Then we start to grow hedges, organic-like, as we embrace His teachings:
This is right                             This is wrong
This honors God                     This dishonors Him
This is the truth                      This is falsehood
The hedges grow, and we find comfort in their presence, for their perceived protection.
In our wisdom,
we dig up the organic hedges and replace with stone walls,
from farmers to masons,
trading nature for precision,
from working in the dirt to finishing concrete.
As God-followers, we would do well to be in the habit of purging the precepts we take comfort in and expose ourselves to the direct influence of God.