McDonald’s, McChrystal, And Miscellaneous Mish-Mash
I haven’t ranted in awhile…
What exactly constitutes news? The local Fox channel lead their nine o’clock news last night with some inane story about a guy who looks like a character from Deliverance complaining that a McDonald’s talking toy taught his kid a cuss word.
His little boy said some four-letter word and the man was aghast. He asked the kid where he learned the word, so the little cusser handed him the toy. The man listened to it and then promptly contacted McDonald’s. (Apparently, he contacted Fox 4, as well.)
The toy in question is a talking plastic replica of The Three Pigs from the movie Shrek. They played the toy’s voice thingamajig during the news story and the news anchors had the same giant question mark over their head I had over mine. You couldn’t understand a single word the thing said. If that kid is repeating those pigs, he doesn’t need to be scolded for saying dirty words; he needs a speech therapist.
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No love lost...
I am no Obama supporter…not on any level at any time for anything. I suspect that if I find out he likes Dr. Pepper, I will even give that up. Still, General Stanley McChrystal, a lifetime soldier holding the highest rank and filling one of the nation’s most vital roles, knew better than to trash his Commander in Chief in, of all things, Rolling Stone magazine.
Men like McChrystal are trained not to make rash decisions. They are trained to weigh their words and their options. I cannot help but think he had a very specific reason for throwing King Obama under the bus. I am not sure what it was, but here are a few possibilities:
- He is simply that fed up with the Keystone Cops routine of the current administration when it comes to foreign affairs, especially the kind that cost American soldiers their lives;
- Or, he dislikes arrogance and he doesn’t like ignorance, but when he sees them combined in a single face and that face hanging on every Post Office wall in the country, he sees red;
- Or, he was willing to fall on his sword in order to call attention to the state of incompetence in the White House and the desperate need for some wisdom on handling a very difficult war;
- Or, he was drunk;
- Or, he plans to write a book;
- Or, he plans a run at the White House himself;
- Or…all of the above.
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You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, But you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.**********************************
Can someone please explain the discrepancy between the state of highways in the northern Dallas/Fort Worth suburbs and the ones in, say, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Duncanville, DeSoto, etc? Frisco gets George Bush Turnpike and I am stuck with Highway 360 and the butt end of 161?
We are people, too, you know. Bastards.
(I learned that word from one of the Three Pigs, but I can’t remember if it was Pelosi, Reid, or Captain O.)
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I don’t know exactly when U.S. General Phillip Henry Sheridan said, “If I owned Hell and Texas, I would live in Hell and rent out Texas,” but I am guessing it was sometime around the end of June, first of July.
Merle Haggard, Barack Obama, Rainbow Stew, Utopia, and Easter
Eatin’ rainbow stew in a silver spoon,
Underneath that sky of blue.
We’ll all be drinkin’ free bubble-ubb,
An’ eatin’ that rainbow stew.
Not quite, Merle
Reading the news —and the divergent opinions— regarding health care reform and the general direction of the country, that old Merle Haggard tune came to mind. It reminded me to beware the governmental promise of Utopia.
For millennia, across oceans, on every continent, mankind has sought the best way to build a peaceful and prosperous life for himself. Every form of government imaginable has been tried, from despotism to theocratic monarchies to communism to democracy. Some have gone better than others; but none has been perfect. Each has been marred by failure. Most have trudged down a rough road to ultimate collapse and oblivion— a road paved with good intentions, high hopes, and empty promises.
America now stands at a crossroads. Two very different groups— each pointing in the opposite direction— say they know the way. If we will just believe, behave, and follow, we will find joy, peace, and prosperity. While I decidedly favor one group’s ideals over the other, I do not believe that either will lead us to a place free of conflict and crisis.
As much as I revere the men who founded and shaped America— men of vision, insight, and utter greatness; men with names like Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Washington— I do not place my ultimate hope for peace and meaning to my life even in the document they forged or the legacy they left.
As great as I believe the United States Constitution to be, there is a collection of writings as superior to it as the heavens are high above the earth. It is the Book that influenced the lives of most of those men so profoundly as to impact the kind of nation they envisioned, the kind of government they desired, the kind of freedom for which they yearned.
As we approach the event that separates the Founder of Christianity from every other religious leader the world has known, I am reminded that real peace only comes through and from the Prince of peace and true prosperity is measured by eternal measures and not temporal.
Nations rise and crumble. Governments come and go. Mouths that declare their own wisdom today are silenced tomorrow.
But Jesus lives…and because He does, hope and love will never die. And that reminds me of another tune…
Happy Easter.
Stuck Like Congress, or Stuck in Philly With a Wandering Mind
Larry, Moe, and Curly
Here I am, stuck in Philadelphia…literally. Another Nor’Easter has blown in with a vengeance, and I am a shut-in at the Homestead Suites.
Stuck. One might see the way recent weather has brought much of the Northeast, including Washington DC, to a grinding halt as a metaphor for our government. So many decry the gridlock, the inability to get anything done, the lack of a consensus as such a terrible, awful thing.
I don’t. I rather appreciate the fact that there is more than one side of the aisle in the American government. I am glad there are divergent opinions, incessant argumentation, varying philosophies on how things ought to be—and how they ought to be done. Why should our government be in harmony on issues about which Americans are not in harmony? Do they not represent us? Is that not what we sent them to Capitol Hill to do?
If you want government that is in lock-step, in one accord, in unison, like a well-oiled machine with a singular focus, you might move to Iran or North Korea. There seems to be little argument inside the hallowed halls of those regimes…and woe be to the ones who would argue outside them.
Stuck. A seven-and-one-half hour summit on health care only served to show how far apart the Republicans and Democrats are on health care reform. The conservatives won’t jump on the let’s-make-Uncle-Sam bigger than ever bandwagon and sign off on Obama Care, and the Democrats won’t be told no, public opinion be damned.
Nancy Pelosi says, “Some Americans don’t have time for us to start over.”
Pelosi, the House leader and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader both advocate ramming the health care bill through by using the nifty reconciliation maneuver they used to whine about when they were in the minority.
Time is of the essence. We must act now. No time to waste.
When you get a sales call and the person on the other end of the line is telling you there is no time to think about it, this is a limited time offer, you must act right this very minute or be forever lost, what do you do? I hang up the phone…unless they tick me off, then I use a few choice words, tell them never to call me again, and then hang up the phone. (And my choice of choice words is none of your business.)
This is how the multi-billion dollar bailout was added to the taxpayer’s tab. And this is how Reid and Pelosi, snake oil salesmen that they are, want to add a few thousand people to your insurance premium. (Not to mention making you an outlaw if you don’t have insurance coverage.)
Stuck. That is what we are. Stuck with Barrack Obama for a couple more years. Stuck with a likely one-term president who, when he sees the writing on the wall, will have an even more pronounced scorched-earth approach than he currently does. Then, we will be stuck with big-government laws and policies that will take an act of congress to undo, which means we may just be…
Stuck…
I am. Somewhere between Philly and the cheese steak I am craving.
Goodbye and Good Riddance
The Year That Was
One of the annoyances on FaceBook and Twitter and other places where people put their best foot forward (like church) is the penchant some have to insist that every day is a great day. Everyone knows that it just isn’t true.
It isn’t true for anyone.
If every day was a great day, if every sandwich or every football game or every date or every Christmas gift was “great,” the word great would cease to exist. It has no meaning. If everything is great, then nothing is great. Don’t you see that? “Great” is a comparative, qualitative condition. Its overuse weakens its meaning until it has no meaning.
Every day is NOT a great day. Some days are full of trouble and trials and heartache. You can smile your way through them if that is your personality or way of dealing with adversity. Fine. Smile. But don’t try to shove that lie about how great it is down the world’s gullet.
We aren’t buying it.
Let me go a step further. Not every year is particularly great, either. Take 2009, for instance. Please…take it, stick it in the history books, and let it go the way of the world. It was, in so many ways, a simply terrible year. Consider…
- The worst election result in the history of the United States—a result so devastating that it may be the election to which we one day point and say, “There began the slow death of American democracy as we knew it.”
- The collapse of massive financial institutions, causing a near-depression like economic downturn.
- The government bailout and takeover of banking institutions and the nation’s largest auto maker.
- Rampant unemployment.
- The ever-deepening divide between conservatives and liberals, to the point that the most sweeping legislation in generations will become law with the support of just one party, and not a single member of the other.
- The erosion of Christian influence in a nation founded on our very principles, spurred by the beliefs and practices of the closet Muslim in the Oval office, whose claim to “Christianity” is that he attended Jeremiah Wright’s church.
- Tiger Woods
- David Letterman
I know some will read this and be aghast. How can a former pastor write such things? Anathema! He has gone to the Devil.
Oh, shut up.
Did you ever read the Psalms? Was David always upbeat and cheerful? Did he meet every day with that fake smile and pretend he was rejoicing? Nope. Some of his writings were intensely painful, fraught with doubt, cries for help, expressions of hopelessness. And why? It is what he felt. So why lie about it? Why put on the mask and play the game? God knows the truth anyway.
Wasn’t Jeremiah the “weeping prophet?” Did that make him a weak believer? Didn’t Solomon write a little book called Lamentations?
I am no David (well, actually that is my first name) or Jeremiah or Solomon, to be sure. Nor am I always honest and forthright. Sometimes, I speak up when I ought to shut up and others, I shut up when I ought to speak up. Sometimes, I am right. Others, I am wrong. Sometimes, I am neither right nor wrong, because not everything is as black and white as we want to believe.
So, take this with a grain of salt. If 2009 was a great year for you personally, then hallelujah and eat your black-eyed peas. For me, personally, I say…
Goodbye. And good riddance.
Happy New Year!
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The JourneyMan by D. Gene Strother is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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