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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Mike Huckabee introduces his Foreign Policy advisor: Rodney King

I'm a good driver (one chargeable accident in forty years of driving). That being said, it was God's grace that I was parked in my Mom's driveway when I heard Mike Huckabee's suggestion as to how to deal with Iran: Just talk to them. Like we talk to Mom. Like we talk to Dad:"We haven’t had diplomatic relationships with Iran in almost thirty years, most of my entire adult life. And a lot of good it’s done. Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent, or a sibling, or even a friend, it’s impossible to resolve the differences to move that relationship forward. Well, the same is true for countries. " (Complete transcript here).
The more I thought of this completely inane statement, I thought "How would Huckabee's soon to be good buddy President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad respond if his advisors might suggest that Mike Huckabee be given a chance to dialogue ?" And the following scene kept coming to mind (I apologize in advance for the language) :



Yup. That's how I envision it playing out for Mike Huckabee with the object of his foreign policy attempts.
For another view, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Rubin dissect Huckabee's comments here.
This comment by Huckabee shows me once again why the MSM loves the guy. He would be a total pushover in any presidential race. Now, instead of a single line through his name as a presidential nominee, I'm putting two.

posted by Amendment X at 9:47 AM permalink 0 comments

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Priorities rethought, innocence found again.

My Mom has had a rough four months. Hip replacement surgery followed by major back surgery. And we had to put her dog Skipper down before the surgery marathon. With Mom not being able to drive, I've been doing double duty for a bit. But, there have been wonderful, and poignant times.
While waiting during Mom's back surgery, I noticed a little girl looking at the aquarium in the reception/waiting area at Southdale Fairview Hospital. She never said a word. She was so intently watching the fish silently pass by her eyes. And I had to catch this pure innocence with my cheap phone camera:
















And I decided to always carry a digital camera to be able to get much better photos than are obtainable with a phone camera.
I never saw her face. She left on her grandfather's lap as he was pushed to the door in his wheelchair. But, she was the picture of what, besides a relationship with Christ, is important.
A few weeks later my Mom was at a transitional care facility. She asked me if I'd wash one of her favorite outfits as it had taken on the aroma of her former hospital room. Well, I had washed one of her outfits after she had hip replacement surgery and put her lip balm through a thorough cleaning cycle (thankfully rescuing it before I put it through the dryer). Vowing not to do that again, this time I went through her pockets. As I was pulling out her ever present lip balm (this one being new, not reconditioned) and tissues, it occurred to me, that fifty years ago, she would have been going through my jeans pockets before washing them. And here I was doing the very same thing for her a half century later. And it gave me cause for pause as I looked at the tissue and the lip balm that I'd just put aside. It reminded me of a poem Mom gave me a few years back after Dad had died. The author was an older woman getting out of a car. As she opened the door, her adult son reached out to take her hand to help her. And she thought of the time when her son, as a little boy would reach up for her hand as he stepped up on a curb. And now the roles had become reversed. And she was relying on him.
And a tube of lip balm and a few tissues brought that idea home to me for good.

posted by Amendment X at 1:18 PM permalink 1 comments

Lessons taught but never learned

I've been sober for over 22 years. Before my tenth anniversary sobriety date I took the time to reflect on what my sobriety has allowed me to learn. A few considerations:
  1. Never confuse activity with progress. A dog chasing his tail can cover miles and stay in exactly the same place.
  2. Never confuse the truth with honesty. People can tell part of the truth and lead people to believe that which is not true. It's called deception. And the deceiver walks away with a clear conscience.
  3. Never confuse education, knowledge and wisdom. What you've been taught, what you know and how you apply it can all be neatly separate. I've seen people with double PhD's not be able to some seemingly simple tasks.
  4. Never, ever confuse being taught the lesson with learning the lesson. "Well, I certainly learned my lesson!" is not accurate. It may very well be that the lesson was indeed taught. However, whether or not it was learned, and how well, will only become evident over time.
And as I read the new energy bill, it becomes all to apparent that those with their hands on the levers of power that force you and I to do their bidding have never , ever learned any lessons at all. The best that can be said is that it is an anti-energy bill. The anti-energy bill authors would be the ones who believe they have the power, wisdom and insight that if they can create and pass just the right bill, and that noisy barking dog next door will finally purr like a kitten and the whole neighborhood can finally get some sleep. Omniscient and omnipotent are terms and beliefs they all hold close to their intellectual breasts...and have, to our great and long term detriment, believed them to be true of them.
The Heritage Institute has a great analysis of the anti-energy bill. And instead of pushing failed ethanol , a real push should be oil shale. And Heritage also has a large number of research papers dealing with the huge oil reserves we have here in America that the anti-energy bill prevents us from using (go to the Heritage Foundation, go to the "search" function in the upper right hand corner and type in "oil" and click on any one of the drop down menu items. Incredible!). This anti-energy bill makes about as much sense as a law preventing a home owner from using his own fire extinguisher to put out a fire in his house.

posted by Amendment X at 12:53 PM permalink 1 comments