WhiteEyebrows

How stupid do you think we are?

Last night I watched 60 minutes’ strangest interview to date. Ok… Mr. Ahmedinejad how stupid do you think we are? This is the United States of Freaking America! We invented politico-speak. We invented beating around the bush. We invented the washington two step. We invented side skirting the question and going ‘into your song and dance.’

So how dare you come over our airwaves, and with the silly little smirk on your face, go into a song and dance when you were asked directly and specifically about developing nuclear weapons and funneling arms into Iraq.

I was proud of the interviewer for saying, ‘hey… why are you smiling… the american people consider this a very serious issue.’ This leader has a very narrow window now in the public perception before he is forever painted as an extremist and terrorist sympathizer. Our government has already painted as such, so the clock of public opinion is ticking.

The interviewer finally browbeat a denial of your nuclear ambitions out of you, but it doesn’t hold water. Your silly excuse that nuclear arms are not of political use is obviously counter-intuitive.

We have no reason to believe anything that comes out of your mouth, so don’t pretend (even with the anti-war leftist commies of this country) that you will get any sympathy. I gave you a shot. I listened to what you had to say, and you’re not fooling me.

And for a little twist of irony: Do you think that President Bush would have a chance in the streets of any of your biggest cities? And yet you contently skulk around the streets of New York City today, preaching your anti-american dogma.

As much as we may not like what some people have to say, free speech is perhaps the single largest contributor to making our society great.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

Today in Sunday School we read from Paul’s epistle to the Romans:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This phrase hit me with great force.

Who shall separate [you] from the love of Christ?

Who can come in between you and the love you have felt and can feel from deity? Sadly, the answer is: only you.

God loves His children. However, we do not always love our Father. We alone hold the power to separate ourselves from the love of God.

Paul later reaffirms, “God is faithful.” As if he knew that “men’s hearts [would] fail them” and that “the love of men [would] wax cold.”

Jesus said:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

And he does. Do we open to door, or have we chosen to separate ourselves?

The power of the “love of Christ” is no more readily evident, than in a baptismal service. Today, I had the privilege of participating my first baptismal service performed totally in spanish. After the baptism was performed and the church members had given their welcome, something very untraditional happened. The woman who had received the baptism was invited take the floor and share anything she wanted. My eyes became moist as I listened to this new “Hermana” express in her beautiful Latin tongue the events and feelings she had experienced which led her to this moment of her life. You could see the love of Christ in her eyes and in her actions.

I have witnessed baptisms of many friends in my life, and with shocking consistency the effect is immediately the same. Heads which have hung low for so long are lifted up. Hope and faith are restored in their life. A new light shines in their eyes: their newfound hope in Christ. They now more fully experience the love of Christ. They finally have been able to build the bridge over the great divide between them and their God.

Who can seperate them from this love? From this life? Only they can. God is faithful, will you be?

Neighborhood Drama

Thank you W.E. for letting me be your guest poster… YEAH ME! Today I had to give the visiting teaching lesson. It was on being “of one heart and one mind” with all people. Ironically, we have had more problems living next to someone in the last 2 years than we have ever had before.

Scott and I are both peace loving people. We don’t really want to rifle any feathers. We just want people to get along. Unfortunately in our married life, we have had bad luck with neighbors. I won’t go into very many details, but we just haven’t had really nice, normal neighbors. Two years ago the people the owned the empty lot next to us, finally decided to build a house and move here. We were glad to be rid of the weeds. So we were excited. Boy was that a mistake.

Our neighbors are the kind that love to be in your business. They love to ask you about ever little thing that you do. They love to ask every day for a month. They love to borrow things, things that you may or may not ever see again. We have had to stop them from taking part of our yard and landscaping it into their yard, had to keep track of what we loaned them and had to stop them from putting plain gas into gas/oil mix yard machines. Overall it’s been a normal neighbor relationship. A little nosy, but fairly normal.

Until we decided to build a shed in our yard. They have whined and complained about every single thing we have done with it. The location, the height, everything. Then later I found out that they were telling everyone in the neighborhood how they hated the fence we had installed and the color and everything. I just told everyone that approached me about it, that if they had paid one dime for the fence then I might actually care what they think. We have worked with the city on the construction. We have worked with the utility companies on the construction and it’s all this mess that shouldn’t even exist. It was been very frustrating to try to work with them. It has been hard when we have really tried to be neighborly. We made sure that we talked to them before, during and after the construction and have tried to compromise and help. We paid our contractor $300 to move the shed to see if we would be okay with having the shed in another place on our lot (It was horrible so we moved it back yesterday– which of course started the arguement all over again) I have worried and stewed. I have tried to think of ways to make them happy. We have bent over backwards trying to please them and they are just mad at us because we won’t just yield and do it their way.

Other neighbors around don’t mind our shed at all . They thought it was very wierd when we asked them if it was okay with them that we have it there.

As we have worked with these neighbors more and more we have realized that they are very different in many ways. Very extreme political views. Very extreme social views. Even though they are very active members, have extreme religious views. I have always believed to each his own. I don’t mind if they have some very different views. But I am starting to wonder, how do I be “of one heart and one mind” with people like this?

I want to get along with everyone but how do you get along with those that aren’t cooperating?

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day

ARRG!! Happy National Talk Like A Pirate Day to ye land lubbers! Make sure ye be participatin’ by goin’ to these websites:

Unofficial home page: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Learn to talk like a pirate: http://www.yarr.org.uk/talk/

Oh yes.. and also, happy 32nd wedding anniversary to my awesome parents! September 19th is like the coolest day ever!

Sally… Why’d you have to muck it up again!

So, Brothers and Sisters was one of my favorite new shows last year, and Sunday Sally Field was honored with an Emmy for her great portrayal of the imperfect, yet sincere matriarch of the fictional Walker family.

So… toward the end of her speech she got a little flustered (a great human moment in the whole formality of these stupid events), and then recalled her place in the memorized text like all good actors: by repeating to herself the last line she could remember, until she remembered the next one.

So she was in the middle of making this beautiful point about how the work of mothers should be more valued in the world, and then she said “If mothers ran the world there would be no [g-d] wars at all.” A great point, a beautiful sentiment, and none of the 39 viewers at home got to hear it. She was censored at the “G-“.

I just loved the way she shrugged it off though when she learned she was censored. “Oh well. I’ve been there before,” she says.

You’d think, though, that she would have shown up a little more prepared. It’s not like she is any stranger to Emmy speech embarrassment. This is the same woman who famously makes the stupidest acceptance speeches known to man by saying “I can’t deny that right now, you like me, you really like me.”

And yet I can’t bring myself to slam Sally too hard. She’s a great little actor who has played a myriad of heartfelt and memorable roles. And the way she allows herself to age naturally and gracefully, not trying too hard to cover the grey whisps, makes her almost refreshing in the Hollywood crowd.

I think one day I would like to meet Sally Field.

iPhone launches in UK

I was very disappointed this morning when I found out that Apple had not changed the iPhone hardware AT ALL when it launched in the UK. I was sure the recent price drop was to pave the way for a 16GB model with 3G (europe has mostly 3G networks). Instead, O2, the exclusive provider in the UK, is having to roll out the 2.5G EDGE network. Stupid, dumb, stupid.

Whatever…

The longer you make me wait for iPhone 2.0, the more I’ll be tempted to buy this ugly, unusable, cheap, windoze phone:

FRED Thompson: Over before it began

Anyone else noticed that since Senator Thompson finally declared his candidacy, he and his campaign have suddenly gone into silent stealth mode?

Thompson certainly is not the candidate many people hoped he would be. He is appearing inarticulate and uneducated on many basic issues coming up in his campaign. He has certainly not emerged as the conservative no-nonsense savior the Republican right-wingers have hoped he would be.

The only positive headline I could find on him was that he was the highest internet drawing candidate. Well, I think that is because everyone in the world (including me) is still trying to figure this guy out.

Who is this washed up, ex-lobbyist, cradle robbing, former senator anyway? I hoped by now he might have told us…

Fall TV Preview: Audience Participation Edition

OK. I was short on inspiration today for a blog, so I’m going to go with a topic I’ve been actually avoiding lately, but knew I would have to face sooner or later…

The Fall Lineup.

I’m not thrilled about TV. The formula goes something like this, find a hit, then beat the life out of it for a few years while searching for another hit. TV is like Fast Food. Whip it up really quick, consume, defaecate, and repeat; with varying quality and relatively ZERO shelf life.

Every once in a while this tired recipe does actually creates some GREAT television, though. Something that just hits on all cylinders, makes perfect sense, and fits the time perfectly. The West Wing, Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, and others.

Here’s my take on this year’s lineup.

FOX’s House is nearing a critical point. The writers and producers will have to pull a hat trick this year to keep it alive. Last season was less than memorable, and we are all passed the moment of shock and awe that Hugh Laurie is actually faking the American accent.

NBC is hanging on by a thread, and betting the farm on season two of Heroes. It was a big surprise from last year, and the most anticipated show of the year. Hopefully the writers have had an active summer dreaming up an exciting follow on.

Brothers and Sisters was one of my favorites from last year, which I hope gets some good press this year. Yes, I know it’s like a little self-indulgent domestic drama, but the point is, it has some real seriousness to it, and a bravery to tackle social issues, and even disagree with itself in points.

CBS has been promoting the life out of it’s newest reality show Kid Nation, and for good reason. The concept certainly draws out your childhood fantasy and works in a 30 second pitch, but can they make an actual show out of it?

Also a surprise for me last year was Shark, a lawyer drama that got past the Law and Order formula, and concerned itself a little more with the life of a defense attorney turned prosecutor who is trying to be a single parent too. It has good writing and some heart.

I purposefully ignore Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty, mostly because I know pretty much nothing about them.

I’m looking forward to FOX’s new Kitchen Nightmares after I surprisingly fell in love with Chef Gordon Ramsey in this summer’s Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t have high hopes for the show itself, but will certainly look forward to being entertained more by the Chef.

Now… here’s the audience participation part. Everyone reply with your take on the Fall Lineup. Having trouble starting? Try responding to these questions:

Favorite show from last year?
Show you are sick of seeing the promos for?
Show you wish woud be taken off the air?
New show you are looking forward to?

That should get you started! I look forward to reading the responses.

Observations of a Texan Autumn

Autumn Yesterday was so incredibly beautiful here in North Texas. There was a gentle breeze, the temperatures were around 75 degrees, the sun was bright and gently warming , and the sky was blue!

I drove home with my window down and my elbow hanging out of the window. It reminded me of a study I once read that proved that the further people drive with their elbow out the window, the more happy they are. I looked around me for anyone else who was driving with their elbows hanging out of the window. No one.

In fact, the only other car with their window down was some ‘ghetto blaster’ mobile, who was bumping down the road listening to some cruelly loud, almost noise pollution, hip hop. Both his passenger and drivers windows were down, with the likely dual purpose of broadcasting his music and also relieving the outrageous sound pressure that must have been generated the sound equipment which occupied the space generally reserved for back seat passengers.

On this day, though, it didn’t irk me so badly. At least he was smelling the fresh air and enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

I like heading out into the neighborhood at dusk during the fall. It seems to be the time where the neighborhood is most active. Kids are out basking in the last moments of sunshine, and even the adults enjoying a leisurely stroll around the block. Many pull out lawn chairs and sit in the shadow of their garages, signaling to passing cars and pedestrians alike. They enjoy Texas’ signature iced tea as well as the company of their com padres, and just sit there as if the world was just put on hold for this special evening. Topics certainly drift from sports to current affairs to family and friends, and the old southern courtesy trumps opinion in every case.

As darkness and even cooler air sets in, the lawn chairs slowly disappear and hush falls over the street.

It is autumn in Texas, and all is right with the world.