Person of the Day: Eric Holder

Attorney General Holder limits civil seizure process that splits billions of dollars with local and state police. 

Today we are a better country, a less hypocritical country, a less dangerous country.
Today we reaffirm the foundational American tenet of innocent until proven guilty.

No one can be trusted with unchecked power, the power to coerce, the temptation of easy money. Not me, not you. Without checks, we walk the streets as thugs, using power and fear and the system to dehumanize citizens, to affirm that while all are created equal, not all will be treated as equals.

Today's move reaffirms our corp principles, corrects corrupt practices of the power-state against the individual, and helps ameliorate damaging perceptions (by those individuals against the power-state).

If police departments cannot fulfill their duties without stealing from citizens, then we either need to realign their duties or raise the necessary taxes to support them.

I am sure this will be twisted, will be spun; claiming that we are a weaker and a more dangerous country when police lose the legal right to steal. But protecting citizen rights is a form of courage, not a weakness. Danger is the inherent reality of a people who accept security over freedom, who give up their rights to those paternalistically wishing to keep us from harm. In contrast, we are collectively more secure when we embrace freedom over safety, when we remove the cynicism birthed in unjust search and seizures. We are secure when we no longer provide the motivation of revenge, bitterness, and fear to those who may do us harm. In destroying those our enforcement agencies believe may do us harm, we validate a dozen other's reasons to do so.

For my entire adult life, our governments (federal, state, local) have marched steadfast towards a controlled state, and we have traded perceived security for our personal freedoms. We live in a world our forefathers would barely recognize, not because of the gains of technology or other shiny objects, but by the loss of our personal freedoms and the individual responsibilities born by them.

This small but real step encourages me like very little I've seen in the public sphere of late.

tGbtg

He is, Regardless

At times, life crashes.
               faith crashes.
We go through tough times and rough patches, and crash.

And we respond. Burn through, back out, seek help, go alone.
We experiences times of destruction: internal or external, self-inflicted or happenstance.
And we respond.

Rationally, if God is not in this, not in this world, not in our world, then seek a path through. Seek diligently, desperately. Find a means to get to the other side of the crash, to a point of future peace.

Rationally, if God is in this, in this world, in our world, He, being of a nature above and beyond our own, is in some form of control, a form we don't likely understand. We are to realize, to acknowledge, that we are not in control. And it is rational to embrace (rather than struggle) against this reality.
He is [in control], regardless [of how we act].
He is, regardless. 

Battling against His grain does not bring about our intended outcomes. If God is in it, He will bring:

• the Talent,
• the Brains,
• the Connections to make it happen, whatever it may be. 

The villain of the young professional years is the lack of margin. The go, go, go... 

crashing through life, getting things done.

from Gary Bottoms, Bottoms Group, speaker at Marietta Work Matters

But in these years, older than our youth yet young enough to be molded, we are still developing who we will be in:

• Leadership
• Career
• Family
• Community

Choosing God or not-god effects our reactions to the crashes, our actions in the moments, and in the days, weeks, months that follow.
How we act affects who we are to become. We are to some very real degree the product of our prior experiences and prior actions. We are being molded by our self, whether through our self-driven efforts or through our release to God, trusting in His efforts.

He is, regardless.
And we are not.

A Man Comes into a Canyon

A man comes into a canyon and makes it his own. With the cunning of his mind and the courage of his heart he makes it his own. With one leg of bone and one leg of wood he kills the mighty buffalo and he has what he needs for food and clothing and shelter. He keeps the canyon his own when he kills the evil one that would despoil it, the blood-drinking one of the mountains. It is his and he has made it so. But he has not done this alone.

… In his hand is a knife that was made far away by another man, a knife that was given to him by an old one, a great one. In his mind is the knowledge to make fire and weapons and clothing and to find food and to provide shelter, knowledge given to him by those who taught him when he was a boy and those who showed him by their own doing when he lived among them.

By himself he is nothing. Only the courage is his alone. All of those others are with him, even in his canyon, and he cannot ever be free of them, for what they have given is with him and is part of him, and without them he could not have made the canyon his own.

Jack Schaefer
The Canyon © 1953

I am self-driven, motivated by personnel excellence. I seek to learn, and do so. I work harder, longer, and sometimes smarter. And in its own way, my life is the American dream.

But in this dream,

(while I bring an essential ingredient to its progression)

a string of people and circumstances,

personal and abstract,

trivial and divine,

have allowed, helped, and lead me to where I am.

Focusing on my immediate vicinity, I see my elevated accomplishments. But in moments of rare consciousness (as when reading the above), I am reminded that the knife in my hand was made far away by others, that the knowledge I have was given to me, that I am surrounded by those who showed me how to live through their own lives.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

President Barak Obama
Roanoke, Virginia
July 13, 2012

Our President is a bit obtuse in making these declarations, reinforced through multiple speeches throughout his recent campaign. In one very real context, his statements were dangerous and forbidding, reminiscent of the most powerful speeches of a century past, speeches that led over half of the world’s land masses down a dark path of humanistic socialized self-annihilation. I doubt, however, he intended to portray said images. Likely, he recognizes, like me, that even the best of us are surrounded by a great cloud of encouragers, supporters, enablers. There are very few islands among us.

My knife is sharp, solid, and ready to work. As I go about my life, succeeding when I can, I will rely on those before and aside me, and commit to prove reliable to those aside and behind me.  

Time and Money

In 1999, I spent 10 weeks in northern Thailand as a orphanage volunteer. On my second day there, I joined the director on a 7 hour 'tour' of the city, a thinly disguised shopping marathon from one landscape nursery to another pricing a half-dozen small trees to spruce up the home. AN ENTIRE DAY was used to save a very small amount of money (think of what you would spend to save you four hours shopping, half it, then half it again). Even as an unemployed college student, the amount of money we saved seemed silly. Just spend the money and let's get home.
This was my first of many lessons on the different values of time and money. In a world with limited physical resources, an agricultural community where the times between planting and harvesting are moments of patience, the people are rich in time and poor in money.

This world is turned upside down as I crossed the Pacific. In my daily life, it is of no consequence to spend money to spare me time, as time is money. For my U.S. readers, we work with tremendous vigor to obtain the income that will allow us to rest. For the other 85% of the world population, this path through life seems a bit silly.

Here in the Philippines, I wallow in the middle of these lifestyles, recognizing the limitations of what can be realistically accomplished in any given day, while still wanting to do so much more. It is healthy for me to take the long-view. As a wise mentor once told me,

Do not overestimate what you can accomplish in one year.

Do not underestimate what you can accomplish in ten. 

Not all Flakes are flakey

As a rookie, I had no idea the size of this venture, and it has taken me 10 days to get my mind around it. The Samaritan's Purse DART team I am with is composed of 30+ people working in various areas of need:

Shelter

Medical

Food

WASH (that'd be me)

NFI (non-food items)

To make the above work happen, you have very essential support staff:

Program Lead

Logistics

Security

Transportation

Human Resources

Inventory

Every time a new person arrives here, they seem to already know a handful of other folks, essentially from previous assignments. SP has a large group of people working in Haiti and South Sudan, among other places. While only a few people here are full-time SP employees, the majority have dropped their jobs and left home, be that:

Canada,

the States,

UK,

Australia,

Cambodia,

Niger,

Uganda,

Ethiopia,

Myanmar

Many of these young’uns here have spent the past 4+ years bouncing from assignment to assignment, spending a few months back home with the parents or bumming a couch at a friend’s place waiting for the next call. If they were in just about any other profession, I would likely label them as ‘flakes’ who need to find their place, whatever that means.

Here, after working alongside people who have traded their roaring 20s to live in tents and take bucket showers, I have learned that not all Flakes are flakey.  

Vehicular Vulnerability

Roads in the developing world are much more lively and interesting than back home:

• buildings are two feet off the edge of pavement; 
• if you want a drink, you stop, jump out, hold up traffic and make your purchase;
• it is acceptable to text and drive... your moped
• its the dogs' responsibility to move out of the way
• honking is a friendly form of communication, usually translated "scoot over, or this game of chicken is going to end badly for us both."

Our form of transportation mimics our economic status and subsequent vulnerability. In the States, we fret over side air bags and have evidence-less laws preventing our children from sitting in the front seat. We discuss safety mechanisms with an air of 'ethics', questioning the dangers we expose our family to in our car purchases.

For the vast majority of the world, the dangers are much more evident. Within this society, the roads are filled with Land Cruisers (for the UN, of course), Toyota trucks, Suzuki mini-vans (not to be confused with minivans), motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles and walking. Citizens of the same community, but of clearly different levels of susceptibility to the inherit dangers of the roadway. For the first world vehicles, a crash damages the exterior and causes a delay. For the father on the moped, flip flops, no helmet, and the family hugging on behind you, a minor accident can have a major physical and economic toll.
There's no pithy statement to wrap this up; it is just an observation made from a few days riding through this land. 

What does He expect of us?

Are we intended to continually want more of our Creator, His Redemptive Son Jesus, the Counselor Holy Spirit? Intended to essentially insist on being spiritually dissatisfied, knowing that each moment we look down we are not looking up? Chasing after an infinite God is in its essence a never-ending pursuit, and likely as not, an exhausting one.

We experience the powerful presence of God in points of time and try to extrapolate a continuum from them. Yet in each day, each moment that we forgetfully find ourselves centered in our natural world, the moments between the moments of God’s presence, we feel a spiritual failure.

We must pursue God, desiring Him and His activities. It is a high calling, one clearly given to us. However, may we temper our full-time God-centeredness, knowing that the God who created us knows our days and our minds, our capacity to witness Him as well as our tendency not to? While our pursuit of God honors Him and changes us, He is complete in Himself, regardless of our efforts. On one hand, we will never finish glorifying God, as He has no end. On the other, we just might bring Him glory by a life well-lived.

We cannot fully seek Him (or at least I cannot). We must find contentment in something less than full absorption in the presence of God. When we appraise each distraction as a failure, we judged ourselves harsher than our Father Himself does. 

Seek God in appreciation and respect for who He is, rather than to 'achieve' faith. God is fully complete and healthy without our efforts, and He is likely content with our God-honoring lives, knowing even before we do that we will turn our eyes away from Him.

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

II Timothy 2:13

God Made a Farmer

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.

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.

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.

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

Bowling 2011 Roadtrip – Day 11: The Line

At 11:00pm tonight, as I headed to the bathhouse of our campground to brush my teeth, I happened upon a couple (the wife holding a flashlight and the husband a wet-nap), as they were wiping the derriere of their Shitzu.
I’m not sure what to say.
I realize that pets have increased their individual value in modern days, and I don’t want to open an avenue of discussion on the appropriateness of $X000s surgeries to extend the life of a pet who is more at peace with their death than we are, but at some point, if you are on vacation in your motor home, and are forced to get out of bed to manually wipe you dog’s ass…
There must be a line somewhere, somewhere very near here.

Ask me whether what I have done is my life.

Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made,
Ask me whether what I have done is my life.
Others have come in their slow way into my thought,
and some have tried to help or to hurt:
Ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait.
We know the current is there, hidden;
and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say

William Stafford, (c) 1977