I had an interesting assignment in my New Testament survey class at Liberty University. We were studying the genealogy of Jesus and had to post a reply to the following question:
"What do you observe about the genealogy of Jesus in as recorded in Matthew 1? Who are the surprising individuals that are included? What do you make of them being in the line of the Messiah?"
Here's my reply:
One of the first things that stands out is the poetic license Matthew uses in the numbering of the generations. He notes fourteen generations between each significant event. We know from other lineage lists given in the Old Testament that this is a "telescoping" of the years and generations to highlight the importance of the events. Not uncommon in Jewish literature. I think we have to be careful not to apply anachronistic and ethnocentric values when evaluating the accuracy of ancient texts. Matthew is making a point about Jesus' being of royal heritage, and is drawing attention to "waypoints" familiar to Jewish readers.
The most surprising individuals listed in the genealogy are of course the women. Jewish genealogies simply did not list women. Even more striking is the "questionable" reputation of some of these women. The first to appear is Tamar. Tamar is widowed by Er, whom God killed for his wickedness. Then she is humiliated by Onan who refuses to provide her a child. In her desperation, she plays prostitute in a ruse against her father-in-law. She ends up pregnant out of wedlock and is about to be burned to death until she reveals it is his child.
Tamar is followed by Rahab, a prostitute and a Canaanite. Not much else needs to be said! Next we have Ruth, the Moabite. Interestingly, Ruth married into a family from Bethlehem (daughter-in-law of Elimelech). Ruth risked scandal sneaking onto the threshing room floor and covering herself with the corner of Boaz' cloak. Third, we have Bathsheba, listed as Uriah's wife. We are reminded of the woman taken in by an adulterous King through the cruel murder of her honorable husband. Finally, we have Mary, a scandalized virgin who was nearly divorced before she was married.
I think when these women are added to the women with whom Jesus interacted in the New Testament, a picture begins to come together. He spared the woman caught in adultery. He drove seven demons out of another. He allowed his feet to be washed with perfume and the tears of another. He took time out for a half-breed homewrecker at a well in Samaria. He lent his power to stop the bleeding of a woman in the crowd. And who was the first to discover the empty tomb? To whom did he first appear after His resurrection?
Jesus is the second Adam through whom the sons of the first are redeemed. But He also came to redeem the daughters of Eve. The heart of God is broken by the abuses the enemy sends upon them. From the first shame Eve felt in her nakedness, to the pain of childbirth, from a spineless husband who blamed "this woman you put here with me" to the loss of her son Abel, the curse of sin pains the One who desperately wills us the best.
In the genealogy, birth, life and resurrection of Christ, those most scorned are elevated beyond the second-class citizenry to which the sons of a spineless father continue to try and banish them. "In Christ there is neither...male nor female..." The godly man is to love her as Christ loved the Church, by giving his life to protect, defend and redeem her from the lies of an enemy who has only sought to shame and deceive her since the beginning.
The Son of Adam and David, reverses the trends of his human lineage, and lives up to his name as "Yeshua": God Saves!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The High Velocity Handbasket: "Hey, Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone!"
Is it just me, or are we really dumbing down America?
And what ever happened to Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic?
My father is a college professor and I've helped him grade a few papers. What I've seen is appalling. High school graduates who have gained entrance to a college seem incapable of formulating a complete sentence. They demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the concepts of subject, verb and object. They can't spell. This was once referred to as illiteracy. Their arguments demonstrate even less comprehension of the rules of logic, cause and effect. It's no wonder our voting block is making the choices it is. The United States lags behind nearly every other western industrialized nation in math and science scores. What happened? Public education.
And it happened on purpose. Take a lot at this excerpt from an article published on World Net Daily by Devvy Kiddd:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Most Americans believe "communism is dead," but nothing could be further from the truth and one of the major goals of the propagators of global communist tyranny has always been to get control of America's education system. What better way to reach "the unwashed masses" than through a federal department of education? The tenth plank of the "Communist Manifesto" reads: "Free education for all children in public schools," and this is one of the highest goals of communitarians. Jeri Lynn Ball, author of "Masters of Seduction" explains:
The communitarian efforts to take over the American education system began in 1918 after World War I. Early in the 20th century, John Dewey, "the father of Progressive Education," worked with internationalists to transform America into a communitarian society.
Dewey held that the basic goal of education is the eradication of the child's individualistic traits and "the development of a spirit of social cooperation and community life." Dewey did not want the child to think at all, but to learn to live and work within the narrow, primitive bounds of communitarian vocabulary and thought patterns.
According to the testimony of Norman Dodd, the staff director of the 1953 Congressional Special Committee to Investigate the Tax-Exempt Foundations, the minutes of the Carnegie Foundation revealed that the trustees of the Foundation decided right after World War I that they "must control education in the United States."
They joined together with the Rockefeller Foundation and created a plan to take control of domestic and international education. Dodd interviewed and Rowan Gaither, president of the Ford Foundation and discovered how he operated the foundation under strict instructions and orders "to the effect that we should make every effort to so alter life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."
--------------------------------------------------------
An ignorant populace is easier to control. Karl Marx wrote that religion was the opiate of the masses. In America, however, it seems that "entertainment" is a more powerful narcotic. We've allowed ourselves to become anesthetized with R-rated sit-coms, reality TV full of the worst kinds of obscenity and personal destruction, high-tech video gaming systems, professional sports prima donnas and internet pornography.
I read a study somewhere that a 1940's high school diploma has the educational equivalence of a 21st-Century American Master's Degree. I can't really argue with that assessment. In highschool, my grandfather read Homer in the classical language. Most folks I've met with Master's degrees today can barely spell. A college education has become an entitlement. B.A.s are handed out like candy. I've talked to a lot of guys who can't remember a thing from college because they spent most of their days drinking and fornicating. They crammed for tests and downloaded their term papers from the internet.
The obvious solution (to me, at least) is to cut off federal funding and involvement in education. Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Department of Education is forbidden. If any power for this sort of involvement exists, it is limited to the sovereign states. Additionally, as a nation, we should exercise our right that has been repeatedly affirmed in at least 8 separate rulings by the Supreme Court to educate our own children.
The National Education Association (the nation's largest teacher's union) is, of course, against this. In addition to their wholesale subscription to the Humanist Manifesto, they have become an action arm of the most extreme left-wing political machine. Take a look at the reasons they give for wanting to outlaw homeschooling:
1. Inadequate standards of academic quality and comprehensiveness.
Translation: Even though homeschoolers outperformed their public school counterparts by 30-37% on standardized tests, the government wasn't in control of what was taught.
2. Reduced support by their parents of funding for public schools.
Translation: We want your money. Unbelievable!
3. Lack of socialization with peers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds; the potential for development of religious or social extremism.
Translation: If students don't attend public schools we can no longer force them to dress up in traditional Arab garb and recite Muslim prayers. We can no longer force them to attend GLBT rallies. We can no longer teach them they were derived from a cosmic accident and are merely clever monkeys, obliged to masticate, defecate and copulate as they please. And of course all those Christians out there learning about our founding fathers' Judeo-Christian values runs counter to our Marxist indoctrination.
4. Curricula that often exclude or inadequately cover critical subjects.
Translation: We don't care if they score higher on reading, writing, math, science and history. We really want to be able to teach them our political views with humanities, social studies, and entertainment survey courses.
5. Children sheltered from mainstream society, or denied opportunities that are their right, such as social development.
Translation: "Mainstream" society is such a bastion of flowing culture that we want to cram it down your kids throats. You don't have enough of a battle to fight with television, movies and the internet. We want to steep them in this great society for another six to eight hours a day. It's unthinkable that they stay at home in stable, caring, educational family environments that are 21% more likely to be non-divorced, married parents. It would be horrible if 70% of them were involved in community service (as opposed to 30% of public school students). It's especially troubling that almost 80% of these students should become active voters (as opposed to the public school graduates' 29%). And the worst part is, 60% of those homeschooled report that they are "very happy" (the highest category offered) with their life as opposed to 27.6% of the general public. And obviously they are socially undeveloped, as 73.2% of them find life to be "exciting", compared to 47.3%.
6. Potential for development of parallel societies that do not fit into standards of citizenship and the community.
Translation: Over 90% of homeschoolers identify themselves as Christians, and are twice as likely as others to identify themselves as "Evangelical" (15% vs. 8%). They were 500% more likely to identify themselves as "conservative". And they tend to hold a high view of the Bible and hold orthodox Christian beliefs. This, of course, does not fit into their standards of citizenship and the community. Because our citizenry is devolving into a mass of socialized, intellectually stunted hedonists.
At this point, I feel like I should make some astounding conclusion, but really, after an afternoon's research, I just want to throw up. And then put on some Pink Floyd.
And what ever happened to Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic?
My father is a college professor and I've helped him grade a few papers. What I've seen is appalling. High school graduates who have gained entrance to a college seem incapable of formulating a complete sentence. They demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the concepts of subject, verb and object. They can't spell. This was once referred to as illiteracy. Their arguments demonstrate even less comprehension of the rules of logic, cause and effect. It's no wonder our voting block is making the choices it is. The United States lags behind nearly every other western industrialized nation in math and science scores. What happened? Public education.
And it happened on purpose. Take a lot at this excerpt from an article published on World Net Daily by Devvy Kiddd:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Most Americans believe "communism is dead," but nothing could be further from the truth and one of the major goals of the propagators of global communist tyranny has always been to get control of America's education system. What better way to reach "the unwashed masses" than through a federal department of education? The tenth plank of the "Communist Manifesto" reads: "Free education for all children in public schools," and this is one of the highest goals of communitarians. Jeri Lynn Ball, author of "Masters of Seduction" explains:
The communitarian efforts to take over the American education system began in 1918 after World War I. Early in the 20th century, John Dewey, "the father of Progressive Education," worked with internationalists to transform America into a communitarian society.
Dewey held that the basic goal of education is the eradication of the child's individualistic traits and "the development of a spirit of social cooperation and community life." Dewey did not want the child to think at all, but to learn to live and work within the narrow, primitive bounds of communitarian vocabulary and thought patterns.
According to the testimony of Norman Dodd, the staff director of the 1953 Congressional Special Committee to Investigate the Tax-Exempt Foundations, the minutes of the Carnegie Foundation revealed that the trustees of the Foundation decided right after World War I that they "must control education in the United States."
They joined together with the Rockefeller Foundation and created a plan to take control of domestic and international education. Dodd interviewed and Rowan Gaither, president of the Ford Foundation and discovered how he operated the foundation under strict instructions and orders "to the effect that we should make every effort to so alter life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."
--------------------------------------------------------
An ignorant populace is easier to control. Karl Marx wrote that religion was the opiate of the masses. In America, however, it seems that "entertainment" is a more powerful narcotic. We've allowed ourselves to become anesthetized with R-rated sit-coms, reality TV full of the worst kinds of obscenity and personal destruction, high-tech video gaming systems, professional sports prima donnas and internet pornography.
I read a study somewhere that a 1940's high school diploma has the educational equivalence of a 21st-Century American Master's Degree. I can't really argue with that assessment. In highschool, my grandfather read Homer in the classical language. Most folks I've met with Master's degrees today can barely spell. A college education has become an entitlement. B.A.s are handed out like candy. I've talked to a lot of guys who can't remember a thing from college because they spent most of their days drinking and fornicating. They crammed for tests and downloaded their term papers from the internet.
The obvious solution (to me, at least) is to cut off federal funding and involvement in education. Under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Department of Education is forbidden. If any power for this sort of involvement exists, it is limited to the sovereign states. Additionally, as a nation, we should exercise our right that has been repeatedly affirmed in at least 8 separate rulings by the Supreme Court to educate our own children.
The National Education Association (the nation's largest teacher's union) is, of course, against this. In addition to their wholesale subscription to the Humanist Manifesto, they have become an action arm of the most extreme left-wing political machine. Take a look at the reasons they give for wanting to outlaw homeschooling:
1. Inadequate standards of academic quality and comprehensiveness.
Translation: Even though homeschoolers outperformed their public school counterparts by 30-37% on standardized tests, the government wasn't in control of what was taught.
2. Reduced support by their parents of funding for public schools.
Translation: We want your money. Unbelievable!
3. Lack of socialization with peers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds; the potential for development of religious or social extremism.
Translation: If students don't attend public schools we can no longer force them to dress up in traditional Arab garb and recite Muslim prayers. We can no longer force them to attend GLBT rallies. We can no longer teach them they were derived from a cosmic accident and are merely clever monkeys, obliged to masticate, defecate and copulate as they please. And of course all those Christians out there learning about our founding fathers' Judeo-Christian values runs counter to our Marxist indoctrination.
4. Curricula that often exclude or inadequately cover critical subjects.
Translation: We don't care if they score higher on reading, writing, math, science and history. We really want to be able to teach them our political views with humanities, social studies, and entertainment survey courses.
5. Children sheltered from mainstream society, or denied opportunities that are their right, such as social development.
Translation: "Mainstream" society is such a bastion of flowing culture that we want to cram it down your kids throats. You don't have enough of a battle to fight with television, movies and the internet. We want to steep them in this great society for another six to eight hours a day. It's unthinkable that they stay at home in stable, caring, educational family environments that are 21% more likely to be non-divorced, married parents. It would be horrible if 70% of them were involved in community service (as opposed to 30% of public school students). It's especially troubling that almost 80% of these students should become active voters (as opposed to the public school graduates' 29%). And the worst part is, 60% of those homeschooled report that they are "very happy" (the highest category offered) with their life as opposed to 27.6% of the general public. And obviously they are socially undeveloped, as 73.2% of them find life to be "exciting", compared to 47.3%.
6. Potential for development of parallel societies that do not fit into standards of citizenship and the community.
Translation: Over 90% of homeschoolers identify themselves as Christians, and are twice as likely as others to identify themselves as "Evangelical" (15% vs. 8%). They were 500% more likely to identify themselves as "conservative". And they tend to hold a high view of the Bible and hold orthodox Christian beliefs. This, of course, does not fit into their standards of citizenship and the community. Because our citizenry is devolving into a mass of socialized, intellectually stunted hedonists.
At this point, I feel like I should make some astounding conclusion, but really, after an afternoon's research, I just want to throw up. And then put on some Pink Floyd.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The High-Velocity Handbasket: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us!
How did this happen??!?!?! I grew up during the Reagan Revolution. The Communists were the bad guys. The liberals were a bunch of wacko hippy leftovers. We still said the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of school. Now, I don't even recognize my country.
Hell, I think about the country my parents told me the United States of America was, and then I read the history books from 1950 onward, and wonder WTF? I was brought up being told that America was a "free country", that if you work hard and are clever you can achieve the "American Dream". I was taught that you can say whatever you think and so can anyone else, so don't get your feelings hurt. I was taught that even though we had no guns, someday when I grew up I could buy as whatever and however many guns I might want. It was weird to be gay, wrong to shack-up outside of marriage, and ungentlemanly to get a girl knocked-up. We just said "NO!" to drugs. Christopher Columbus was a hero, Thomas Jefferson was the father of freedom, and the Pilgrims were brave and righteous.
Now I have to use my Social Security number to hook-up the electricity to my house. You can be arrested for failure to show ID to a law-enforcement officer. "Paper's please..." When was the last time we had a presidential candidate who wasn't a millionaire? How are you supposed to achieve the American dream when you start off with $50,000 in student loans, $10,000 in credit card debt, a car payment and a house payment? Reading aloud from the Bible is hate speech, but a band of homosexual activists in face masks storming into a church service to shout blasphemies and throwing condoms is protected speech. A Navy chaplain is court-martialed for praying in Jesus name, but Howard Stern can show porn stars masturbating on his show. The Passion of the Christ is anti-semitic (even though Jesus and all the apostles were Jews?), but William Ayers, the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan get a free pass as buddies of the President-elect. If someone in my workplace mocks Christianity with a string of expletives, that is protected. But if I explain to them why I believe, I'm violating their civil rights and creating a hostile work environment.
Kindergarteners in California are made to sign a statement of affirmation, support and protection for GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, & Transgender) peoples. Elementary students are forbidden from writing "Merry Christmas" on their artwork, but are required to dress in traditional Islamic garb and recite Muslim prayers during Ramadan--as a multi-cultural learning experience, of course. Nativities are banned from town squares, and crosses removed from city seals. But the Muslim call to worship echoes over a loud speaker in Michigan.
Less than .5% of firearms used in criminal activity were legally purchased (so what is accomplished by banning them, if they're being acquired illegally anyway?) What that means is that 99.5% of firearms owners never use them illegally. There is no difference in the criminal use among those firearms covered by the Clinton gun-ban, now that they are legal. In otherwords, the effectiveness of the ban was nill. In fact, firearms are used less in violent crime than fists, hands, feet, brooms, dishes and shoes. But a .22LR squirrel rifle is about to be outlawed because it doesn't have to be cocked between shots. And when AKs, ARs, and SKS's are banned from those who buy them legally, to use them legally, only the criminals and thugs will have them. And the thugs will have tactical superiority over the law-abiding citizen trying to protect his family and property.
The entertainment industry made it seem glamorous to be promiscuous, so promiscuity rates went up. There's no such thing as a gentleman or chivalry anymore. We're all just a bunch of animals, trying to scratch our itch with the first available object that will accomodate us. Young men abandoned any attempt at restraint. Girls-Gone-Wild has gone mainstream and young woman are as sexually predatory as young men. Porn used to be seedy and embarassing. Now it's cool.
Over half of all entrants into the U.S. military now require a waiver for drug use.
Columbus was a butcher, Thomas Jefferson a racist pervert and the Pilgrims were a bunch of imperialist, religious fanatics.
Somewhere along the way, we were infiltrated by the enemy, indoctrinated and converted. Next thing you know we'll be electing communists, marrying gays, and turning our national security over to the influence of Islamic fundamentalists. Oh wait... We already are.
Hell, I think about the country my parents told me the United States of America was, and then I read the history books from 1950 onward, and wonder WTF? I was brought up being told that America was a "free country", that if you work hard and are clever you can achieve the "American Dream". I was taught that you can say whatever you think and so can anyone else, so don't get your feelings hurt. I was taught that even though we had no guns, someday when I grew up I could buy as whatever and however many guns I might want. It was weird to be gay, wrong to shack-up outside of marriage, and ungentlemanly to get a girl knocked-up. We just said "NO!" to drugs. Christopher Columbus was a hero, Thomas Jefferson was the father of freedom, and the Pilgrims were brave and righteous.
Now I have to use my Social Security number to hook-up the electricity to my house. You can be arrested for failure to show ID to a law-enforcement officer. "Paper's please..." When was the last time we had a presidential candidate who wasn't a millionaire? How are you supposed to achieve the American dream when you start off with $50,000 in student loans, $10,000 in credit card debt, a car payment and a house payment? Reading aloud from the Bible is hate speech, but a band of homosexual activists in face masks storming into a church service to shout blasphemies and throwing condoms is protected speech. A Navy chaplain is court-martialed for praying in Jesus name, but Howard Stern can show porn stars masturbating on his show. The Passion of the Christ is anti-semitic (even though Jesus and all the apostles were Jews?), but William Ayers, the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan get a free pass as buddies of the President-elect. If someone in my workplace mocks Christianity with a string of expletives, that is protected. But if I explain to them why I believe, I'm violating their civil rights and creating a hostile work environment.
Kindergarteners in California are made to sign a statement of affirmation, support and protection for GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, & Transgender) peoples. Elementary students are forbidden from writing "Merry Christmas" on their artwork, but are required to dress in traditional Islamic garb and recite Muslim prayers during Ramadan--as a multi-cultural learning experience, of course. Nativities are banned from town squares, and crosses removed from city seals. But the Muslim call to worship echoes over a loud speaker in Michigan.
Less than .5% of firearms used in criminal activity were legally purchased (so what is accomplished by banning them, if they're being acquired illegally anyway?) What that means is that 99.5% of firearms owners never use them illegally. There is no difference in the criminal use among those firearms covered by the Clinton gun-ban, now that they are legal. In otherwords, the effectiveness of the ban was nill. In fact, firearms are used less in violent crime than fists, hands, feet, brooms, dishes and shoes. But a .22LR squirrel rifle is about to be outlawed because it doesn't have to be cocked between shots. And when AKs, ARs, and SKS's are banned from those who buy them legally, to use them legally, only the criminals and thugs will have them. And the thugs will have tactical superiority over the law-abiding citizen trying to protect his family and property.
The entertainment industry made it seem glamorous to be promiscuous, so promiscuity rates went up. There's no such thing as a gentleman or chivalry anymore. We're all just a bunch of animals, trying to scratch our itch with the first available object that will accomodate us. Young men abandoned any attempt at restraint. Girls-Gone-Wild has gone mainstream and young woman are as sexually predatory as young men. Porn used to be seedy and embarassing. Now it's cool.
Over half of all entrants into the U.S. military now require a waiver for drug use.
Columbus was a butcher, Thomas Jefferson a racist pervert and the Pilgrims were a bunch of imperialist, religious fanatics.
Somewhere along the way, we were infiltrated by the enemy, indoctrinated and converted. Next thing you know we'll be electing communists, marrying gays, and turning our national security over to the influence of Islamic fundamentalists. Oh wait... We already are.
The High-Velocity Handbasket: It's the Economy, Stupid
Our nation is fast heading down the road to hell. Or so it may seem. I agree that much is wrong. Okay. Almost everything seems to be going wrong, but I believe that we can change the direction of our nation. It will be a long battle and a brutal fight, but we must decide whether we want it to include civic action or actual bloodshed. Because, folks, we are in trouble.
1. We are in trouble economically. Brilliant observation, I know. But why are we in trouble? The pundits want to make it seem complicated, but really it's not. There are only a handful of reasons that could be remedied in a hurry.
A. Our trouble started with the divestment of the dollar from a gold standard. Anytime a nation removes from its currency the backing of a tangible asset, it sets itself up for collapse. If a dollar is only backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States", what happens when nobody has any faith in us anymore, and we've blown all of our credit? Right now, the value of the dollar is imaginary. It's an alchemy of smoke and mirrors that tries to create something out of nothing. Most folks money is imaginary. They buy and sell on credit, their money is accessed electronically, and they get paid in printed magic paper. How much is a dollar really worth? The paper and ink and high-tech anti-forgery designs do not impart any real value. If the feds wanted to, they could simply make more. So how is it worth anything? Fact is, it's not. The value of the dollar should not be susceptible to the fluctuation of foreign markets or our own national debt ratios. But it is. We've staked our entire economy on a bunch of hoodoo voodoo, and should some nut job or conglomeration of rogue nations (like George Soros killing the British Pound) decide to tank our economy, they could. Simple solution: restore the dollar to a tangible asset. Get rid of the funny money, and go back to precious metal coins: gold, silver, nickel and copper. (Did you know that older dimes, nickels and pennies are worth significantly more than their face value due to their various metal contents?!)
B. Our economy is on the brink of collapse because we have ignored the simplest of ancient advice- neither a borrower nor a lender be. If you can't afford something, don't buy it. If I don't have $1,500 cash, I'm not buying a big LCD HD TV. Plain and simple. I had a car loan once upon a time. Then I had a kid in the hospital and sales commissions were in a slump. I'd missed a few payments so the bank called to tell me that even though I owed less than $1,000 and had paid in over $5,000, they were going to come and repossess my car. I bit the bullet, made some arrangements and came up with the money, but that will never happen again. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy the item. I now own two vehicles. Paid off the baggage, and paid cash for the next one. I'm putting away a truck payment right now, so I can buy my next truck with cash in a few months.
Credit exists for one reason- to enrich financial corporations at your expense. Having a $5,000 limit on your card is not the same as having $5,000 cash. Maybe you should just stave off the spending for a year, live a bit more frugally, and put $5,000 in savings. Now you have the cash for real, but no interest. Too easy. But we all want something for nothing, and we want it right now. We've become a nation of spoiled brats. Did we think the bubble would really last forever? Wake up!
The Declaration of Independence lauds "the pursuit of happiness", but there's no consitutional right to a quarter-million dollar home, big-screen TV and two late model cars. Creditors have preyed on our greed, and now the whole economy is in the flusher. If you lend to someone who can't repay, you're going to lose money. And when the markets are built on your guarantee of those debts being paid, but the payments don't post, guess what? Economic meltdown.
Here's a perfect example of what has caused the mess. Based on industry standard "budget" calculators, I can afford the payment on about a $150,000 house. But every "mortgage" calculator I've looked at says I should qualify for a loan of about $250,000. *dur* How can I "qualify" for a loan payment I can't afford? Maybe I should swallow my pride, live in a rental that's kind of crappy for a few years, and put the money I save toward buying a house. It may take a while to get there, but when I do buy a house, it will be mine, not the bank's. Honestly, I'd rather have a trailer on an acre that's mine, than a half-million dollar McMansion owed by the yahoos driving our economy into the ground.
I'm gonna make a deal with my kids. When they graduate from highschool, instead of going of to some bacchanal educational fraud of a college, they can live in my house, rent free and go get a job. They agree to put all of their money in savings for four years- that means no new computers, cars or designer shoes. At the end of four years, they have a work ethic, a resume and the maturity to make the most of their education. More importantly, they'll have the money to buy a modest home. Now they have real estate and equity. No debt. No house payment. If they want to go to college, now they have a place to live away from the debauched mobs. When they do get their degree, they'll also be more employable because of their prior work history.
The really frightening thing going on right now is this bail-out. First of all, what ever happened to personal responsibility? If GM can't handle it's own money, why do we think it should get a few billion of the taxpayers'? If the banks bet their futures on unqualified borrowers, why should they get to gamble with the fruits of my labor? The worst part, is that now the Federal Reserve is buying up serious stakes in most of our financial institutions and mortgages. I don't care who you are, it's never a good thing for the government to have a majority stake in our money and homes. Listen! The government is trying to hold the title to your car and the mortgage on your house!!! We never should have let the bail-out happen in the first place. But guess what, when we continue to cast our votes for big-business stooges in tailored suits, these things are going to happen.
3 part solution for our economic crisis:
1. Re-vest the dollar with material assets. This will protect the value and give us a shield against inflation and foreign undercutting.
2. Put severe restrictions on the credit industry. The Bible and the Koran both prohibited lending with interest. There should be an outright ban on lending to high-risk borrowers, and interest rates must be capped. It's unbelievable that a "normal" mortgage requires the homebuyer to pay for their house twice over the course of a thirty-year term.
3. We need a public trial, complete with collar stocks and rotten fruit to expose and humiliate those who have abused the public trust. A full-scale revolution of the populace to bring these hucksters to justice may be the only way to put an end to their scams. The voters need to refuse to vote down party lines. Your party's endorsement means nothing other than that someone's making money at your expense. Think about it- when was the last time someone with your income level was on the ballot? Where do you think their money came from? I'm a die-hard militant capitalist, not a proponent of theft by usury and grift. The aristocracy is getting out of control on both sides of the aisle. Drive the bums out, I say! Vote now, or revolt later.
1. We are in trouble economically. Brilliant observation, I know. But why are we in trouble? The pundits want to make it seem complicated, but really it's not. There are only a handful of reasons that could be remedied in a hurry.
A. Our trouble started with the divestment of the dollar from a gold standard. Anytime a nation removes from its currency the backing of a tangible asset, it sets itself up for collapse. If a dollar is only backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States", what happens when nobody has any faith in us anymore, and we've blown all of our credit? Right now, the value of the dollar is imaginary. It's an alchemy of smoke and mirrors that tries to create something out of nothing. Most folks money is imaginary. They buy and sell on credit, their money is accessed electronically, and they get paid in printed magic paper. How much is a dollar really worth? The paper and ink and high-tech anti-forgery designs do not impart any real value. If the feds wanted to, they could simply make more. So how is it worth anything? Fact is, it's not. The value of the dollar should not be susceptible to the fluctuation of foreign markets or our own national debt ratios. But it is. We've staked our entire economy on a bunch of hoodoo voodoo, and should some nut job or conglomeration of rogue nations (like George Soros killing the British Pound) decide to tank our economy, they could. Simple solution: restore the dollar to a tangible asset. Get rid of the funny money, and go back to precious metal coins: gold, silver, nickel and copper. (Did you know that older dimes, nickels and pennies are worth significantly more than their face value due to their various metal contents?!)
B. Our economy is on the brink of collapse because we have ignored the simplest of ancient advice- neither a borrower nor a lender be. If you can't afford something, don't buy it. If I don't have $1,500 cash, I'm not buying a big LCD HD TV. Plain and simple. I had a car loan once upon a time. Then I had a kid in the hospital and sales commissions were in a slump. I'd missed a few payments so the bank called to tell me that even though I owed less than $1,000 and had paid in over $5,000, they were going to come and repossess my car. I bit the bullet, made some arrangements and came up with the money, but that will never happen again. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy the item. I now own two vehicles. Paid off the baggage, and paid cash for the next one. I'm putting away a truck payment right now, so I can buy my next truck with cash in a few months.
Credit exists for one reason- to enrich financial corporations at your expense. Having a $5,000 limit on your card is not the same as having $5,000 cash. Maybe you should just stave off the spending for a year, live a bit more frugally, and put $5,000 in savings. Now you have the cash for real, but no interest. Too easy. But we all want something for nothing, and we want it right now. We've become a nation of spoiled brats. Did we think the bubble would really last forever? Wake up!
The Declaration of Independence lauds "the pursuit of happiness", but there's no consitutional right to a quarter-million dollar home, big-screen TV and two late model cars. Creditors have preyed on our greed, and now the whole economy is in the flusher. If you lend to someone who can't repay, you're going to lose money. And when the markets are built on your guarantee of those debts being paid, but the payments don't post, guess what? Economic meltdown.
Here's a perfect example of what has caused the mess. Based on industry standard "budget" calculators, I can afford the payment on about a $150,000 house. But every "mortgage" calculator I've looked at says I should qualify for a loan of about $250,000. *dur* How can I "qualify" for a loan payment I can't afford? Maybe I should swallow my pride, live in a rental that's kind of crappy for a few years, and put the money I save toward buying a house. It may take a while to get there, but when I do buy a house, it will be mine, not the bank's. Honestly, I'd rather have a trailer on an acre that's mine, than a half-million dollar McMansion owed by the yahoos driving our economy into the ground.
I'm gonna make a deal with my kids. When they graduate from highschool, instead of going of to some bacchanal educational fraud of a college, they can live in my house, rent free and go get a job. They agree to put all of their money in savings for four years- that means no new computers, cars or designer shoes. At the end of four years, they have a work ethic, a resume and the maturity to make the most of their education. More importantly, they'll have the money to buy a modest home. Now they have real estate and equity. No debt. No house payment. If they want to go to college, now they have a place to live away from the debauched mobs. When they do get their degree, they'll also be more employable because of their prior work history.
The really frightening thing going on right now is this bail-out. First of all, what ever happened to personal responsibility? If GM can't handle it's own money, why do we think it should get a few billion of the taxpayers'? If the banks bet their futures on unqualified borrowers, why should they get to gamble with the fruits of my labor? The worst part, is that now the Federal Reserve is buying up serious stakes in most of our financial institutions and mortgages. I don't care who you are, it's never a good thing for the government to have a majority stake in our money and homes. Listen! The government is trying to hold the title to your car and the mortgage on your house!!! We never should have let the bail-out happen in the first place. But guess what, when we continue to cast our votes for big-business stooges in tailored suits, these things are going to happen.
3 part solution for our economic crisis:
1. Re-vest the dollar with material assets. This will protect the value and give us a shield against inflation and foreign undercutting.
2. Put severe restrictions on the credit industry. The Bible and the Koran both prohibited lending with interest. There should be an outright ban on lending to high-risk borrowers, and interest rates must be capped. It's unbelievable that a "normal" mortgage requires the homebuyer to pay for their house twice over the course of a thirty-year term.
3. We need a public trial, complete with collar stocks and rotten fruit to expose and humiliate those who have abused the public trust. A full-scale revolution of the populace to bring these hucksters to justice may be the only way to put an end to their scams. The voters need to refuse to vote down party lines. Your party's endorsement means nothing other than that someone's making money at your expense. Think about it- when was the last time someone with your income level was on the ballot? Where do you think their money came from? I'm a die-hard militant capitalist, not a proponent of theft by usury and grift. The aristocracy is getting out of control on both sides of the aisle. Drive the bums out, I say! Vote now, or revolt later.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
My Unbelievable Life- Part 2: From Dances With Wolves to Ernie Pyle and a Wild Irish Rose
Kevin Costner got it all wrong. He filmed the movie in South Dakota. But Fort Sedgwick was in Colorado. And there were no caves outside the fort. Sedgwick County has famous hand-dug caves, but they were made by an eccentric Italian immigrant at least 40 years after the events in the movie. I know all of this because we were there. My family, I mean. Again, this is the story as best as I can remember it.
After the civil war, the United States Army set up various outposts as they expanded across the frontier. One of these was Fort Sedgwick (named for the Union General, John Sedgwick). The Fort was either abandoned and/or destroyed by Indians, and later re-established with westward expansion. I'm not too clear on the history. Apparently neither was Kevin Costner.
A few miles up the road, within what would later become Sedgwick County was a Pony Express station, trading post and community called Lodgepole Creek. It was a target for Indians and robbers. A black-hat gunslinger named Jules Beni came to town in 1859 and was appointed as general protector. The town came to be known as Julesberg. A short time later, it was noted by white-hat gunman Jack Slade that robberies in the area were increasing. Jules was implicated in the matter and a gunfight ensued. Slade was bullet riddled and left for dead. He survived, however, and later captured Jules. He reportedly tied him to a fencepost and tortured him by shooting him repeatedly, cutting off his ears, and eventually killing him. Slade kept one ear and wore it as a watch fob. The other, he sold for drinking money.
In 1865, Indians burned Julesburg to the ground in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. By 1867, when the Union Pacific railroad came through, the town was rebuilt, but not necessarily improved. Julesburg became home to horse thieves, gamblers and con artists attracted by an abundance of saloons, dance halls and a steady supply of naive travelers heading west along the Overland Trail. One saloon in town claimed to sell the vilest of liquor at two bits a glass. One historian called it "The Wickedest Town in the West."
Over 100 years ago, my maternal great-grandfather travelled west to seek his fortune. Grandpa "Tin" (as my mother called him) was a roving tinker and tinsmith. He rolled out with a wagonload of tools and made his living day to day, job to job. When he got to Julesburg, he set up shop along the raucous mainstreet, and hung out his shingle for "Dye's Hardware". Somewhere along the way he married Ruby Cunningham, the daughter of Welsh and English immigrants.
Great-Grandpa Dye bought a lot four blocks off of mainstreet and built a house with his own hands. Using rough-cut hardwood timbers, he framed the house with true 2x4s: 2" by 4" studs, nailed with 60-penny nails. (When grandma tried to have a bay-window installed in the 1980's, the contractors had to raise their bid due to broken drill bits, snapped saws and difficulty driving cheap modern wire nails!)
In 1926, my grandfather William Lawrence Dye was born. He grew up in the one-square mile town (literally 12 blocks by 12 blocks), and learned the hardware trade. He had planned to take over his dad's store, but by the time he graduated from highschool, the country was in the middle of the second world war.
My grandfather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the summer of 1944. By the spring of 1945, he would be slogging it out in the mud of the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign. He went through bootcamp at MCRD San Diego, and was trained as an aviation ordnance man at El Toro and Miramar Air Stations. They boarded the ship on Christmas day. In the morning they set sail for war. After a port call in Hawaii, they continued on to the Gilbert Islands.
Once ashore he was attached to the infamous VMF-422 "Flying Buccaneers", who became known as "The Missing Squadron". Just months before Private Dye joined them, 23 out of their 24 F4F Wildcat planes were lost when they flew into a massive tropical storm. 6 pilots were killed and the rest spent 3 days floating on rafts before they could be rescued.
Private Dye spent several months on the atoll, loading the bombs and bullets for the aircraft. The Japanese made random attacks, but nothing "serious". In April, however, things would change. The United States had made enough progress to finally attack the mainland of Japan. The airfield at Iwo Jima had been secured and could now support an invasion of Okinawa. The newly promoted Corporal "Whitey" Dye, so nicknamed for his blinding complexion, was really going to get his feet wet.
Part of the invasion of Okinawa included capturing a tiny island just to the northeast. Ie Shima was a small but significant stronghold and the task was given to the 77th Infantry Division of the Army. The Army would bear the brunt of the assault, but the amphibious landing would be led by a company of Marines.
On a humid April night, Corporal Dye and a few friends faced their own coming D-Day. Documenting the landing was the beloved journalist Ernie Pyle. Pyle's book "Brave Men" documenting the war in Europe became a national sensation and a testament to the heroic actions of everyday Americans. He couldn't have come ashore anymore than a few hundred meters from Corporal Dye. The fighting was fierce as the Japanese withdrew from their coastal defenses and holed up in caves on "Sugar Loaf Hill". On the second day of the assault Japanese poured down machine gun fire, killing some of my grandfather's buddies. That afternoon, the same machine gun fire killed Ernie Pyle.
Five days later, Ie Shima was secured, and reinforcing Army units arrived to secure the island. The invading units were then sent to help on the southern end of Okinawa where the fighting had bogged down.
Corporal Dye again faced withering machine gun fire from more Japanese holed up in caves on another more famous "Sugar Loaf Hill". Damned sugar loaves. During one phase of the assault he had climbed into a shell-hole with four other Marines from his unit. An enemy mortar exploded in their midst, killing everyone but him. He caught a good piece of shrapnel in the thigh that would leave a 13-inch purple scar.
U.S. losses from the battle at Okinawa were over 48,000 casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing— over twice the number of casualties as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. U.S. forces also suffered their highest ever casualty rate for combat stress reaction during the entire battle, at 48%, with some 14,000 soldiers retired due to nervous breakdown.
When Corporal Dye was discharged from the field hospital and allowed to return to his unit, he was given papers to take to the clerk to document his earning a Purple Heart. But when he saw his comrades missing limbs, eyes... he tore up his papers, turned around and returned to his unit.
He stayed on Okinawa a while longer and then moved to the mainland as part of the occupying force. His unit passed by Nagasaki just days after the atomic bomb was dropped there, and he spent the next several months just miles away from the city. From an airfield along the way, he snatched up a Japanese Arisaka 99 rifle, which now hangs on my office wall.
By February of the next year, he was discharged at Miramar Air Station in California. He boarded a train, and when they stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming he found a phone to call his dad. "I'm coming home tomorrow! Meet me at the train station at 1300." The next day, Julesburg welcomed him home.
On my desk sits a picture of Private Dye on the day he graduated boot camp. His eyes are bright and proud; full of piss and vinegar. In a box nearby is a picture of him the day he came home from the war. Some family member have said he looks so much older, or hardened, or tired. It's all of those things, but it's more. It's a sorrow that is only known by those who have seen death outside nature's cycle. It's knowing a part of you is missing, but not knowing what it is. It's the price of shedding blood, both the enemy's and your own. It's the face of fear swallowed down so deep it can only rise in ambush while you sleep. It's the face of sacrifice- knowing that those for whom you paid a price will never understand how much it cost.
Sergeant Dye was a different man, but he was still a man. A local Irish firebrand had set her sites on the handsome man in uniform, and he would learn to smile again. But, my it had to have been scandalous.
Just think: a small Midwestern town, the war-hero son of a prominent local businessman, the 16-year old red-haired sass from the church choir...(an evangelist's daughter no less!) Rumor has it they met at a dance hall. Oh, maybe they just saw each other around town, you know...
It didn't matter, though, because as Phyllis Hanley put it, herself, "I let him chase me until I caught him." He didn't stand a chance. They soon married and moved into the sturdy house built by Grandpa Tin. They would populate it with 5 all-American kids.
Sergeant "Whitey" went back to just being called Bill. He went back to work at the hardware store. But he couldn't go back to church. Not after the war. But almost 30 years later, his youngest daughter would convince him to see things otherwise. You see, my mother was as stubborn and charming as his own Irish wife.
(to be continued...)
After the civil war, the United States Army set up various outposts as they expanded across the frontier. One of these was Fort Sedgwick (named for the Union General, John Sedgwick). The Fort was either abandoned and/or destroyed by Indians, and later re-established with westward expansion. I'm not too clear on the history. Apparently neither was Kevin Costner.
A few miles up the road, within what would later become Sedgwick County was a Pony Express station, trading post and community called Lodgepole Creek. It was a target for Indians and robbers. A black-hat gunslinger named Jules Beni came to town in 1859 and was appointed as general protector. The town came to be known as Julesberg. A short time later, it was noted by white-hat gunman Jack Slade that robberies in the area were increasing. Jules was implicated in the matter and a gunfight ensued. Slade was bullet riddled and left for dead. He survived, however, and later captured Jules. He reportedly tied him to a fencepost and tortured him by shooting him repeatedly, cutting off his ears, and eventually killing him. Slade kept one ear and wore it as a watch fob. The other, he sold for drinking money.
In 1865, Indians burned Julesburg to the ground in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. By 1867, when the Union Pacific railroad came through, the town was rebuilt, but not necessarily improved. Julesburg became home to horse thieves, gamblers and con artists attracted by an abundance of saloons, dance halls and a steady supply of naive travelers heading west along the Overland Trail. One saloon in town claimed to sell the vilest of liquor at two bits a glass. One historian called it "The Wickedest Town in the West."
Over 100 years ago, my maternal great-grandfather travelled west to seek his fortune. Grandpa "Tin" (as my mother called him) was a roving tinker and tinsmith. He rolled out with a wagonload of tools and made his living day to day, job to job. When he got to Julesburg, he set up shop along the raucous mainstreet, and hung out his shingle for "Dye's Hardware". Somewhere along the way he married Ruby Cunningham, the daughter of Welsh and English immigrants.
Great-Grandpa Dye bought a lot four blocks off of mainstreet and built a house with his own hands. Using rough-cut hardwood timbers, he framed the house with true 2x4s: 2" by 4" studs, nailed with 60-penny nails. (When grandma tried to have a bay-window installed in the 1980's, the contractors had to raise their bid due to broken drill bits, snapped saws and difficulty driving cheap modern wire nails!)
In 1926, my grandfather William Lawrence Dye was born. He grew up in the one-square mile town (literally 12 blocks by 12 blocks), and learned the hardware trade. He had planned to take over his dad's store, but by the time he graduated from highschool, the country was in the middle of the second world war.
My grandfather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the summer of 1944. By the spring of 1945, he would be slogging it out in the mud of the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign. He went through bootcamp at MCRD San Diego, and was trained as an aviation ordnance man at El Toro and Miramar Air Stations. They boarded the ship on Christmas day. In the morning they set sail for war. After a port call in Hawaii, they continued on to the Gilbert Islands.
Once ashore he was attached to the infamous VMF-422 "Flying Buccaneers", who became known as "The Missing Squadron". Just months before Private Dye joined them, 23 out of their 24 F4F Wildcat planes were lost when they flew into a massive tropical storm. 6 pilots were killed and the rest spent 3 days floating on rafts before they could be rescued.
Private Dye spent several months on the atoll, loading the bombs and bullets for the aircraft. The Japanese made random attacks, but nothing "serious". In April, however, things would change. The United States had made enough progress to finally attack the mainland of Japan. The airfield at Iwo Jima had been secured and could now support an invasion of Okinawa. The newly promoted Corporal "Whitey" Dye, so nicknamed for his blinding complexion, was really going to get his feet wet.
Part of the invasion of Okinawa included capturing a tiny island just to the northeast. Ie Shima was a small but significant stronghold and the task was given to the 77th Infantry Division of the Army. The Army would bear the brunt of the assault, but the amphibious landing would be led by a company of Marines.
On a humid April night, Corporal Dye and a few friends faced their own coming D-Day. Documenting the landing was the beloved journalist Ernie Pyle. Pyle's book "Brave Men" documenting the war in Europe became a national sensation and a testament to the heroic actions of everyday Americans. He couldn't have come ashore anymore than a few hundred meters from Corporal Dye. The fighting was fierce as the Japanese withdrew from their coastal defenses and holed up in caves on "Sugar Loaf Hill". On the second day of the assault Japanese poured down machine gun fire, killing some of my grandfather's buddies. That afternoon, the same machine gun fire killed Ernie Pyle.
Five days later, Ie Shima was secured, and reinforcing Army units arrived to secure the island. The invading units were then sent to help on the southern end of Okinawa where the fighting had bogged down.
Corporal Dye again faced withering machine gun fire from more Japanese holed up in caves on another more famous "Sugar Loaf Hill". Damned sugar loaves. During one phase of the assault he had climbed into a shell-hole with four other Marines from his unit. An enemy mortar exploded in their midst, killing everyone but him. He caught a good piece of shrapnel in the thigh that would leave a 13-inch purple scar.
U.S. losses from the battle at Okinawa were over 48,000 casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing— over twice the number of casualties as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. U.S. forces also suffered their highest ever casualty rate for combat stress reaction during the entire battle, at 48%, with some 14,000 soldiers retired due to nervous breakdown.
When Corporal Dye was discharged from the field hospital and allowed to return to his unit, he was given papers to take to the clerk to document his earning a Purple Heart. But when he saw his comrades missing limbs, eyes... he tore up his papers, turned around and returned to his unit.
He stayed on Okinawa a while longer and then moved to the mainland as part of the occupying force. His unit passed by Nagasaki just days after the atomic bomb was dropped there, and he spent the next several months just miles away from the city. From an airfield along the way, he snatched up a Japanese Arisaka 99 rifle, which now hangs on my office wall.
By February of the next year, he was discharged at Miramar Air Station in California. He boarded a train, and when they stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming he found a phone to call his dad. "I'm coming home tomorrow! Meet me at the train station at 1300." The next day, Julesburg welcomed him home.
On my desk sits a picture of Private Dye on the day he graduated boot camp. His eyes are bright and proud; full of piss and vinegar. In a box nearby is a picture of him the day he came home from the war. Some family member have said he looks so much older, or hardened, or tired. It's all of those things, but it's more. It's a sorrow that is only known by those who have seen death outside nature's cycle. It's knowing a part of you is missing, but not knowing what it is. It's the price of shedding blood, both the enemy's and your own. It's the face of fear swallowed down so deep it can only rise in ambush while you sleep. It's the face of sacrifice- knowing that those for whom you paid a price will never understand how much it cost.
Sergeant Dye was a different man, but he was still a man. A local Irish firebrand had set her sites on the handsome man in uniform, and he would learn to smile again. But, my it had to have been scandalous.
Just think: a small Midwestern town, the war-hero son of a prominent local businessman, the 16-year old red-haired sass from the church choir...(an evangelist's daughter no less!) Rumor has it they met at a dance hall. Oh, maybe they just saw each other around town, you know...
It didn't matter, though, because as Phyllis Hanley put it, herself, "I let him chase me until I caught him." He didn't stand a chance. They soon married and moved into the sturdy house built by Grandpa Tin. They would populate it with 5 all-American kids.
Sergeant "Whitey" went back to just being called Bill. He went back to work at the hardware store. But he couldn't go back to church. Not after the war. But almost 30 years later, his youngest daughter would convince him to see things otherwise. You see, my mother was as stubborn and charming as his own Irish wife.
(to be continued...)
My Unbelievable Life- Part 1: From Switzerland to Tibet
So at work tonight, I was having a heart to heart with a fellow warrior. This is what Marines do. When they stand duty, whether in a guard tower, a fighting hole, an embassy gate or a duty desk, they tell their life story to each other. It's part of our bond of brotherhood. We're a family, and we hold back no secrets. We tell our war stories- the time we almost got blown up, the people we killed or didn't kill, the nightmares we relive every night, the stupidity in the ranks, the heroics of our comrades. It all comes out: the highschool girlfriends and fights, our wives and children, our hopes and dreams. If you stand duty with a guy, he becomes your brother in some way, forever.
I realized, though, as I talked to this fellow what a bizarre and extraordinary life I've lived. By the end of the night, I'm sure the guy must have thought I was a compulsive exaggerater. I'm not, of course. I've just had a lot of adventures (or misadventures, as the case may be). I decided that maybe truth is stranger than fiction. I think the only reason he believed my stories was that you could never make this stuff up. You wouldn't want to; there would be no point. Nothing was overly impressive (about me, anyway). I didn't brag or gloat. I just told the truth. And now I think I should write the truth. If anything, it will serve as a measuring stick, a history, and a good laugh for somebody, somewhere, someday. This is the account as best as I can remember it.
I'll start at the beginning. Way back. With my ancestors. A few of my ancestors are a bit famous. I'm a direct descendant of William Brewster, co-author (with William Bradford) of the Mayflower Compact. They landed famously on Plymouth Rock in 1620. I don't know the names of ascent/descent, but my grandparents once had it mapped out on a chart at their home somewhere... And some 4th great-aunt of mine had a sister or cousin who married Edgar Allen Poe, or something... (Actually it was Virginia Klem, I think, who was 13 years old, and his own cousin.) And somebody once figured out that we were related to both Abraham Lincoln and George Bush, Sr. Okay, but seriously...
My family really has kept an extraordinary record of our genealogy. There were a few holes here and there, so I used modern technology and did some genealogical research to put the pieces together.
The real history of my father's family is actually pretty well defined. Without listing 16 generations, here's the summary. The bearers of my surname came to America 120 years after William Brewster's pilgrim party. In 1740 Hans Jacob Jagely Bar listed his home in Zurich, Switzerland as he manifested on a ship bound for the New World. He and his sons settled in the Shenandoah River Valley in Rockingham County, Virginia. They anglicized their name (the "a" had an umlaut) in variations of Bear, Baer, Bare and Bar. They spread their families amongst the Pennsylvania "Dutch" (or Deutsch, rather, meaning German-speakers) of Pennsylvania (of course), Ohio, Virginia and off into the Appalachians, and down the mountains into the Ozarks. A few later migrated to central Illinois where for at least a few generations, they demonstrated a propensity for marrying celtic women.
At the end of the 19th Century, a few of them moved West in a covered wagon and settled in Antelope County, Nebraska. They homesteaded around the Snake and Niobrara Rivers. My Great-Grandfather was born December 16, 1892 in Grecian Bend, , Nebraska. Norton Henry Bare became a Doctor and at some point was filled with the missionary fervor of a big tent revival. He married a no-bull bronco-busting cowgirl. This 4 foot, 11-inch gal was an all-state track sprinter and acclaimed thespian. She could alternately break a horse, set records in the 100-yard dash, and quote lengthy passages of Hamlet and MacBeth from memory.
In the late 1920's, they boarded a ship to Shanghai, with an ultimate destination of Tibet. Dr. Norton Henry Bare wanted to study the psychiatric implications of the animistic and occult aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Lois (Catherine) Nichols Bare likewise went to spread God's love to a people more attuned with ancestral and malevolent spirit-appeasement than the philosophical teachings of Siddhartha Guatama. Their religion was a brand of early American fundamentalism, and fell somewhere between New Testament Originalism and the Campbellite Restoration Movement. They weren't Pentecostal by any means, nor were they Orthodox.
On their way to Tibet, they were literally "Shanghai"ed. In the infamous city, a common thief snatched Lois' purse and took off down the street. In the purse were the entire family's passports, visas, cash and other important documents. The 90-pound lady immediately sprinted after the rogue, tackled him down to the dirt and reclaimed her purse. She shook her finger, scolding him, telling him he should be ashamed of himself. The crowds had all quieted and craned their necks to see this little white women embarassing a local hoodlum. The brigand skulked away into the mass of people, and the Bare's continued on their way. The irony of the whole thing is that Norton was over six feet tall and nearly two-hundred pounds. He was a virtual giant in Asia, and yet it was his wisp of a wife who had saved the day.
She would need strength of her own to bear 5 children in this barren land. She would need strength to bury one before his second birthday.
My grandfather was born in the Himalayas, somewhere near the ancient city of Lhasa, on a plateau overlooking the rest of the world. Orlando Garland Bare was raised on yak-butter tea and barley paste, among the chicken droppings and swarming flies. He develop the legendary lungs and legs of mountain dwellers, but has been plagued for 86 years from the nutritional deficiencies of a third-world existence.
Lois Nichols passed her days writing poetry, and had three volumes published from her time in Tibet. While Norton was away on one of his many research expeditions, some bandits came by to rob the house. They demanded food, clothing and money. She rebuked them, "My God won't allow you to rob me. But because He loves you, He has told me to give you what you need, and nothing more." She fed them, clothed them and sent them on their way. They apologized ashamedly for their threats, and left with their heads down, profusely thanking her for her generosity.
Norton travelled frequently conducting research. But he made it a point to keep some of the family traditions. In lieu of a church organ, they took a beautifully hand-carved wooden German accordian. The family would sing traditional hymns and folk songs. But Norton also made it a point to connect with the locals. He would go out late at night and find where the local men sat in smoky rooms drinking fermented spirits. He'd listen to their songs, and then learn to play along on the accordian. Word spread quickly of this white doctor who played Tibetan songs on a squeeze-box. He won their hearts, and gained access to their minds.
After nearly 10 years of sharing a primitive life among the Tibetans, Dr. Norton Bare published the findings of his studies. They were ultimately summed up in the following:
-Not all mental illness is caused by demonic influence.
-Not all demonic influence results in mental illness.
-However, demonic influence can cause some mental illnesses (and thus could be cured by casting out the demon).
-And mental illness can make a person susceptible to demonic influence through weakened mental acuity (thus, psychiatry was a genuine form of Christian ministry).
-Finally, the subservience to malevolent spirits (demons) can be debilitating to a culture and is easily manipulated by those in positions of authority, whether political or religious. For example- the Tibetan lamas (who were not all like the popular image of the bearded wise man on the mountain top) often extorted inordinate fees and taxes from the local populace by offering claims of protection from evil spirits. The villages lived in squalor and fear, while the lamaseries were places of relative opulance and comfort.
Take it for what it's worth. They were there. I wasn't.
By the time my Grandfather was 8 years old, China was in upheaval, and the shockwaves reached even the vast peaks of the Himalayan Plateau. The Communists were stirring up trouble, Imperial China had it's sights set on Tibet, and there were plenty of local bandits looking for a piece of the pie. British and American nationals had set up outposts in the outer frontiers of China and Tibet for their various diplomatic reasons, and there were a handful of Christian missionaries scattered about. Marxist rebels destroyed Tibetan monasteries and Christian schools alike. The Chinese Army was expelling foreigners and the bandits blocked the mountain passes, extorting from everyone.
Norton had gone over the mountains for some reason or another, and Lois and the children were nearly stranded alone in a strange and hostile land. At 9 years of age, little Garland was an old soul. The oldest child and the man of the house, he led an expedition of refugees over frozen mountain passes, dodging bandits, rebels and soldiers. Along the narrow mountain ledges, some pack animals in the caravan fell thousands of feet to their deaths, taking food and supplies with them. At one point, young Garland saw a white human-sized ape, climbing through the rocks. The creature initially froze, then turned and looked at him and finally wandered away into the snow. My grandfather had seen the rare and mysterious Yeti, or "abominable snowman". He didn't think the thing was really all that abominable. Curious maybe.
At one point in the journey, the pass was blocked by bandits. Lois saw the roadblock from quite a way back and had the children dismount and hide behind a rock. She told them, "Pray to our God that I would be full of courage and that the bandits' hearts would be full of fear." She returned a few minutes later and retrieved the children. Without further explanation or delay, the caravan moved on. The bandits were seen trudging off away from the road. They finally arrived in Lhasa and later met up with Norton in China. They returned to the United States. Norton set up practice in various midwestern cattle towns and Lois continued to raise the family. And my grandfather, Garland, grew up a good Midwestern boy, fluent in Tibetan, Chinese and a few tribal languages. (to be continued...)
I realized, though, as I talked to this fellow what a bizarre and extraordinary life I've lived. By the end of the night, I'm sure the guy must have thought I was a compulsive exaggerater. I'm not, of course. I've just had a lot of adventures (or misadventures, as the case may be). I decided that maybe truth is stranger than fiction. I think the only reason he believed my stories was that you could never make this stuff up. You wouldn't want to; there would be no point. Nothing was overly impressive (about me, anyway). I didn't brag or gloat. I just told the truth. And now I think I should write the truth. If anything, it will serve as a measuring stick, a history, and a good laugh for somebody, somewhere, someday. This is the account as best as I can remember it.
I'll start at the beginning. Way back. With my ancestors. A few of my ancestors are a bit famous. I'm a direct descendant of William Brewster, co-author (with William Bradford) of the Mayflower Compact. They landed famously on Plymouth Rock in 1620. I don't know the names of ascent/descent, but my grandparents once had it mapped out on a chart at their home somewhere... And some 4th great-aunt of mine had a sister or cousin who married Edgar Allen Poe, or something... (Actually it was Virginia Klem, I think, who was 13 years old, and his own cousin.) And somebody once figured out that we were related to both Abraham Lincoln and George Bush, Sr. Okay, but seriously...
My family really has kept an extraordinary record of our genealogy. There were a few holes here and there, so I used modern technology and did some genealogical research to put the pieces together.
The real history of my father's family is actually pretty well defined. Without listing 16 generations, here's the summary. The bearers of my surname came to America 120 years after William Brewster's pilgrim party. In 1740 Hans Jacob Jagely Bar listed his home in Zurich, Switzerland as he manifested on a ship bound for the New World. He and his sons settled in the Shenandoah River Valley in Rockingham County, Virginia. They anglicized their name (the "a" had an umlaut) in variations of Bear, Baer, Bare and Bar. They spread their families amongst the Pennsylvania "Dutch" (or Deutsch, rather, meaning German-speakers) of Pennsylvania (of course), Ohio, Virginia and off into the Appalachians, and down the mountains into the Ozarks. A few later migrated to central Illinois where for at least a few generations, they demonstrated a propensity for marrying celtic women.
At the end of the 19th Century, a few of them moved West in a covered wagon and settled in Antelope County, Nebraska. They homesteaded around the Snake and Niobrara Rivers. My Great-Grandfather was born December 16, 1892 in Grecian Bend, , Nebraska. Norton Henry Bare became a Doctor and at some point was filled with the missionary fervor of a big tent revival. He married a no-bull bronco-busting cowgirl. This 4 foot, 11-inch gal was an all-state track sprinter and acclaimed thespian. She could alternately break a horse, set records in the 100-yard dash, and quote lengthy passages of Hamlet and MacBeth from memory.
In the late 1920's, they boarded a ship to Shanghai, with an ultimate destination of Tibet. Dr. Norton Henry Bare wanted to study the psychiatric implications of the animistic and occult aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Lois (Catherine) Nichols Bare likewise went to spread God's love to a people more attuned with ancestral and malevolent spirit-appeasement than the philosophical teachings of Siddhartha Guatama. Their religion was a brand of early American fundamentalism, and fell somewhere between New Testament Originalism and the Campbellite Restoration Movement. They weren't Pentecostal by any means, nor were they Orthodox.
On their way to Tibet, they were literally "Shanghai"ed. In the infamous city, a common thief snatched Lois' purse and took off down the street. In the purse were the entire family's passports, visas, cash and other important documents. The 90-pound lady immediately sprinted after the rogue, tackled him down to the dirt and reclaimed her purse. She shook her finger, scolding him, telling him he should be ashamed of himself. The crowds had all quieted and craned their necks to see this little white women embarassing a local hoodlum. The brigand skulked away into the mass of people, and the Bare's continued on their way. The irony of the whole thing is that Norton was over six feet tall and nearly two-hundred pounds. He was a virtual giant in Asia, and yet it was his wisp of a wife who had saved the day.
She would need strength of her own to bear 5 children in this barren land. She would need strength to bury one before his second birthday.
My grandfather was born in the Himalayas, somewhere near the ancient city of Lhasa, on a plateau overlooking the rest of the world. Orlando Garland Bare was raised on yak-butter tea and barley paste, among the chicken droppings and swarming flies. He develop the legendary lungs and legs of mountain dwellers, but has been plagued for 86 years from the nutritional deficiencies of a third-world existence.
Lois Nichols passed her days writing poetry, and had three volumes published from her time in Tibet. While Norton was away on one of his many research expeditions, some bandits came by to rob the house. They demanded food, clothing and money. She rebuked them, "My God won't allow you to rob me. But because He loves you, He has told me to give you what you need, and nothing more." She fed them, clothed them and sent them on their way. They apologized ashamedly for their threats, and left with their heads down, profusely thanking her for her generosity.
Norton travelled frequently conducting research. But he made it a point to keep some of the family traditions. In lieu of a church organ, they took a beautifully hand-carved wooden German accordian. The family would sing traditional hymns and folk songs. But Norton also made it a point to connect with the locals. He would go out late at night and find where the local men sat in smoky rooms drinking fermented spirits. He'd listen to their songs, and then learn to play along on the accordian. Word spread quickly of this white doctor who played Tibetan songs on a squeeze-box. He won their hearts, and gained access to their minds.
After nearly 10 years of sharing a primitive life among the Tibetans, Dr. Norton Bare published the findings of his studies. They were ultimately summed up in the following:
-Not all mental illness is caused by demonic influence.
-Not all demonic influence results in mental illness.
-However, demonic influence can cause some mental illnesses (and thus could be cured by casting out the demon).
-And mental illness can make a person susceptible to demonic influence through weakened mental acuity (thus, psychiatry was a genuine form of Christian ministry).
-Finally, the subservience to malevolent spirits (demons) can be debilitating to a culture and is easily manipulated by those in positions of authority, whether political or religious. For example- the Tibetan lamas (who were not all like the popular image of the bearded wise man on the mountain top) often extorted inordinate fees and taxes from the local populace by offering claims of protection from evil spirits. The villages lived in squalor and fear, while the lamaseries were places of relative opulance and comfort.
Take it for what it's worth. They were there. I wasn't.
By the time my Grandfather was 8 years old, China was in upheaval, and the shockwaves reached even the vast peaks of the Himalayan Plateau. The Communists were stirring up trouble, Imperial China had it's sights set on Tibet, and there were plenty of local bandits looking for a piece of the pie. British and American nationals had set up outposts in the outer frontiers of China and Tibet for their various diplomatic reasons, and there were a handful of Christian missionaries scattered about. Marxist rebels destroyed Tibetan monasteries and Christian schools alike. The Chinese Army was expelling foreigners and the bandits blocked the mountain passes, extorting from everyone.
Norton had gone over the mountains for some reason or another, and Lois and the children were nearly stranded alone in a strange and hostile land. At 9 years of age, little Garland was an old soul. The oldest child and the man of the house, he led an expedition of refugees over frozen mountain passes, dodging bandits, rebels and soldiers. Along the narrow mountain ledges, some pack animals in the caravan fell thousands of feet to their deaths, taking food and supplies with them. At one point, young Garland saw a white human-sized ape, climbing through the rocks. The creature initially froze, then turned and looked at him and finally wandered away into the snow. My grandfather had seen the rare and mysterious Yeti, or "abominable snowman". He didn't think the thing was really all that abominable. Curious maybe.
At one point in the journey, the pass was blocked by bandits. Lois saw the roadblock from quite a way back and had the children dismount and hide behind a rock. She told them, "Pray to our God that I would be full of courage and that the bandits' hearts would be full of fear." She returned a few minutes later and retrieved the children. Without further explanation or delay, the caravan moved on. The bandits were seen trudging off away from the road. They finally arrived in Lhasa and later met up with Norton in China. They returned to the United States. Norton set up practice in various midwestern cattle towns and Lois continued to raise the family. And my grandfather, Garland, grew up a good Midwestern boy, fluent in Tibetan, Chinese and a few tribal languages. (to be continued...)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Suffering and Love
Although not a Buddhist, I understand the appeal of Siddharta Gautama's teachings. Life is full of suffering. And suffering is caused by desire and expectation. So if you want to eliminate suffering, just don't want anything, and lower your expectations. You'll stop being disappointed, and life will be a bowl of nirvanic cherries. Or something like that. I'm a self-professed cynic, realizing, of course, that all cynics are really just disillusioned idealists. The main difference between Christianity and Buddhism is in their respective views of suffering. Buddhism teaches that we should try to eliminate suffering by rejecting our ideals. The only ideal that remains is a life without pain.
Christianity teaches that suffering is to be embraced. Christ himself suffered and was lifted up as an example. Love is measured in pain and sacrifice. Perfection is attained through suffering. And we are promised trouble in this world.
I was born compassionate, I guess. In pre-school the teacher sent a note home to my mother commenting that I sought out the alienated and oppressed, befriended them, and embraced them as they were, while rejecting their negative behavior and helping them transition to better behavioral standards. Or something like that. Not bad for a 4-year old.
The trend continued through elementary school. I was called on by school counselors when a friend of mine was about to be kicked out of school. As they delved into his troubled family situation, they asked if there was anyone he felt could help him, he offered up my name. Not bad for a 4th grader.
In junior high, I befriended a socially inept kid. He was targeted by the kids with more athletic prowess and fashion sense. They made him feel worthless. I thought he was alright. As his friend, I became a target, too. But he said I'd helped him believe that God could love even him. Not bad for a 14-year old.
But somewhere in all of this loving, there was an intense amount of pain. Some of it was physical as I fought behind the bleachers and at the flag pole for my friends and my own dignity. I shed the blood of bullies, and bled for the oppressed. And I learned to hate.
I grew frustrated with those on whose behalf I stood. Why wouldn't they stand up on their own? Couldn't see that they were valuable? I despised those who looked down on us because their parents made more money than ours, or developed muscles sooner, or didn't wear glasses or braces.
By the time my senior year rolled around I was a brooding Martin Luther, angry and righteous. I walked away from the recruiters at Princeton and West Point and went to seminary. I took my anger to the pulpit and fought for recognition of the poor, minorities and the high ideals of a Galilean philosopher. Nobody wanted to hear it. Especially not Christians.
I seethed with rage. There was evil all around us and all I wanted was to make it go away. I gave up fighting for people's minds. There was poverty and crime and somebody had to stop it. I put on a badge and a pistol and went into the city to stop it. But most of my fellow law-enforcers were either bullies or politicians. Nobody cared about those whose rights were violated. It was a horrible charade.
I decided maybe we should just find those people who were undeniably evil and kill them. Anyone who kills women and children fit that category. So I put on a uniform and picked up a rifle and went to war against the terrorists. And in the middle of a city in Iraq while insurgents were trying to blow us up with vehicle borne IEDs, I almost killed a women and her daughter who came too close to the action. So who's undeniably evil now?
The irony of love is that the one receiving it usually has no idea what it costs the one giving it. Children don't understand the ache in the hearts of their parents until they have children of their own. The one receiving the blessing has a small sense of a debt being owed, but the one making the gift expects no repayment. There may be a longing for the love to be returned, but there's no bottom line, no balloon payment, and no lien on the property.
A father doesn't expect his kids to pay him back for the food they eat. A mother doesn't expect a cash incentive for diapers changed and scrapes bandaged. In my youth, I had no expectation for Jimmy or Matt to give me anything for the blood I shed on their behalf. They were my friends, and they were worth fighting for.
The hardest part of loving is to be able to do it and keep hoping. An ancient author wrote that "hope deferred makes a sick heart." Maybe Buddha didn't want a sick heart. But rather than suffering destroying hope, the Christian message is to the contrary. A saint wrote: "Rejoice in our suffering; suffering produces perseverence, perseverance character, and character hope..."
Somehow the Prince of Peace didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. And somehow in a world of lust, anger, chaos and immediacy, we would be full of love, joy, peace and patience. And we're supposed to sell our extra cloak to buy a sword, but not raise it against those who wrongfully arrest our best friend. Love will wound us when we give it and heal us when we receive it. Suffering produces hope? Surely, we see things dimly. And the world is under His authority, though we do not see it. And He's not long in coming, the way we think is a long time. But one day we'll see face to face. מרנא תא
Christianity teaches that suffering is to be embraced. Christ himself suffered and was lifted up as an example. Love is measured in pain and sacrifice. Perfection is attained through suffering. And we are promised trouble in this world.
I was born compassionate, I guess. In pre-school the teacher sent a note home to my mother commenting that I sought out the alienated and oppressed, befriended them, and embraced them as they were, while rejecting their negative behavior and helping them transition to better behavioral standards. Or something like that. Not bad for a 4-year old.
The trend continued through elementary school. I was called on by school counselors when a friend of mine was about to be kicked out of school. As they delved into his troubled family situation, they asked if there was anyone he felt could help him, he offered up my name. Not bad for a 4th grader.
In junior high, I befriended a socially inept kid. He was targeted by the kids with more athletic prowess and fashion sense. They made him feel worthless. I thought he was alright. As his friend, I became a target, too. But he said I'd helped him believe that God could love even him. Not bad for a 14-year old.
But somewhere in all of this loving, there was an intense amount of pain. Some of it was physical as I fought behind the bleachers and at the flag pole for my friends and my own dignity. I shed the blood of bullies, and bled for the oppressed. And I learned to hate.
I grew frustrated with those on whose behalf I stood. Why wouldn't they stand up on their own? Couldn't see that they were valuable? I despised those who looked down on us because their parents made more money than ours, or developed muscles sooner, or didn't wear glasses or braces.
By the time my senior year rolled around I was a brooding Martin Luther, angry and righteous. I walked away from the recruiters at Princeton and West Point and went to seminary. I took my anger to the pulpit and fought for recognition of the poor, minorities and the high ideals of a Galilean philosopher. Nobody wanted to hear it. Especially not Christians.
I seethed with rage. There was evil all around us and all I wanted was to make it go away. I gave up fighting for people's minds. There was poverty and crime and somebody had to stop it. I put on a badge and a pistol and went into the city to stop it. But most of my fellow law-enforcers were either bullies or politicians. Nobody cared about those whose rights were violated. It was a horrible charade.
I decided maybe we should just find those people who were undeniably evil and kill them. Anyone who kills women and children fit that category. So I put on a uniform and picked up a rifle and went to war against the terrorists. And in the middle of a city in Iraq while insurgents were trying to blow us up with vehicle borne IEDs, I almost killed a women and her daughter who came too close to the action. So who's undeniably evil now?
The irony of love is that the one receiving it usually has no idea what it costs the one giving it. Children don't understand the ache in the hearts of their parents until they have children of their own. The one receiving the blessing has a small sense of a debt being owed, but the one making the gift expects no repayment. There may be a longing for the love to be returned, but there's no bottom line, no balloon payment, and no lien on the property.
A father doesn't expect his kids to pay him back for the food they eat. A mother doesn't expect a cash incentive for diapers changed and scrapes bandaged. In my youth, I had no expectation for Jimmy or Matt to give me anything for the blood I shed on their behalf. They were my friends, and they were worth fighting for.
The hardest part of loving is to be able to do it and keep hoping. An ancient author wrote that "hope deferred makes a sick heart." Maybe Buddha didn't want a sick heart. But rather than suffering destroying hope, the Christian message is to the contrary. A saint wrote: "Rejoice in our suffering; suffering produces perseverence, perseverance character, and character hope..."
Somehow the Prince of Peace didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. And somehow in a world of lust, anger, chaos and immediacy, we would be full of love, joy, peace and patience. And we're supposed to sell our extra cloak to buy a sword, but not raise it against those who wrongfully arrest our best friend. Love will wound us when we give it and heal us when we receive it. Suffering produces hope? Surely, we see things dimly. And the world is under His authority, though we do not see it. And He's not long in coming, the way we think is a long time. But one day we'll see face to face. מרנא תא
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