It's become recently popular, especially among businessmen wanting to sell more products, to say "Thank You for your service" to veterans or Americans in uniform. I've seen people say it as a Pavlovian response when they see soldiers. I sometimes get the impression it's more for them to portray themselves as noble American patriots than it is to express heart-felt gratitude.
Consider this: The US Army is experiencing its highest rate of suicide in its 234 year history. Soldiers are seeing things others will never experience, and many veterans live with the plaguing guilt that they should not have survived when others did not.
The latest U.S. Census lists Veterans as 11% of the U.S. population, but are 25% of homeless Americans.
There are veterans who still resent having been drafted and forced into combat.
Society dictates that "gratitude expressed" cannot be criticized. Saying "Thank You for your service" to someone who has suffered, seen suffering, perhaps even caused suffering, may very well isolate them further, creating the precise opposite effect of the well-intentioned patriot.
This Veterans Day be more respectful and less reactive towards Veterans. "Think before you thank" and accept that gratitude is sometimes felt even when it's not spoken.
]]>1938
To call world attention to the deprivation of Jews in Germany, the 17 year old Polish-Jew Herschel Grynzspan from Germany, walked into his nation’s embassy in Paris and shot the deputy ambassador.
Fifteen years earlier November 9th 1923.
Hitler fomented the famous “Bierhall Putsch” in Munich, the official start of the Nazi movement, its birthday, celebrated by Nazis every year.
November 9th 1938
The deputy ambassador died and Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, returned to the Bierhall in Munich to give a rallying speech that Germany should not go after Jews, but if Jews were to be terrorized as a result, the government would not intervene to stop the vigilantism.
Taking their cue, the Sturm Abteilung (SA Nazis) destroyed Jewish synagogues, Jewish businesses and homes across all of Germany. Known today as Kristallnacht.
This wasn’t just the work of the Sturm Abteilung Nazis.
Did you know that in March 1938, before these events, Poland passed a law that robbed Polish citizens of their nationality if they lived abroad for 5 years or more, intended to prevent 70,000 Polish Jews in Germany from returning home?
Germany cancelled all foreign resident permits months later, in August.
Poland said no Jews of Polish ancestry will be allowed back in to Poland after the end of October that year. Five days before that deadline the Gestapo was ordered to arrest and deport 12,000 Polish Jews, which included Herschel’s family.
Thank God for the life of the American woman, journalist Dorothy Parker, who told a national radio audience:
“They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage. Therefore, we who are not Jews must speak, speak our sorrow and indignation and disgust in so many voices that they will be heard. This boy has become a symbol, and the responsibility for his deed must be shared by those who caused it.”
There are lessons here. We can play the role of each nation, Germany, Poland, and the U.S. As Germany, who in America do you want to deport? As Poland who in America do you want to block entry? As America for which oppressed group do you speak?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Grynszpan
]]>The Apostle Paul tells us to pray incessantly. “Don’t Stop!”
I bought new pedals and shoes for my bicycle. Straps keep my feet in the shoes, while cleats clip my shoes to the pedals. I am attached to the bike, and it to me; man and machine become one vehicle.
Not one to generally pray as Paul advises, this time I did so. “Lord, grant that my body be strong and this ride be safe.”
As I pedaled away I realized I forgot to lock my car. I turned around and unclipped my right shoe. The bottom of the shoes is shiny, slick, coated plastic. As I slowed, my right shoe slipped off the pedal and I couldn’t unclip my left shoe. Over I fell, with the bicycle on top of me. I got up, retrieved my keys, locked the car and reconnected shoes to pedals.
With bruised hip, and bleeding elbow I started over, chuckling at the power of prayer. God can indeed be funny at times! Whether it was prayer, or God, or just my slick shoes that slapped me to the ground, is unknown. However, my prayer preceded my fall!
I wondered several things as I rode. Did I pray for something I shouldn’t have bothered God about? Adam fell without praying, was this a symbolic lesson linking my prayer and my fall? Did my fall prevent something worse from happening further down the road, or was it just a funny coincidence? Was my successful and longer than usual ride God’s response to my prayer?
The answer to these questions is the same: I don’t know. And that’s my problem with prayer. I just don’t know.
One thing is certain. I now lock my car before I clip on!
Pax vobiscum
]]>His girlfriend protested that Christianity was a religion that approved slavery. My insight that it was Old Testament and not New Testament missed the mark. They both remained unsatisifed and she changed the subject to our common interest in biking.
Her point was valid. What changed from the Old to the New?
The New Testament does not replace the Old Testament. One cannot, rationally, be a "New Testament Christian" and ignore the Old Testament, anymore than a patriot can claim to be a "Bill of Rights American", while minimizing the original Constitution.
Several days later, I listened to Fr. Corapi preach on TV about servitude.
He clarified that servant, "doulos" in New Testament Greek actually means "slave". My curiosity stoked, I pursued further discovery.
In Romans 1:1 (NIV) "Paul, a servant of Christ,..." Using Bible Gateway dot com, I then pulled up the Greek version and saw the word doulos. In Romans 6:20 doulos is accurately translated to give us: "When you were slaves to sin..."
The KJV consistently translates doulos as servant in both verses and never renders doulos as slave in the Pauline letters, however, scholars agree: doulos means slave. Doulos in some contexts might mean "bonded-servant." , but I am unsure how commonly employers used bonded-servants during that era.
There are other words in Greek that mean servant, one willing to serve, but retaining the right to leave. Why didn't Paul use those words? Certainly "slave" to an American has its own connotations that may not have existed in Roman society. We are loathe to be slaves, preferring the kinder status of "servant" and all that is noble with serving. However, servant implies one can quit, leave the employ of his master. Contrary to the Arminian heresy, one cannot quit God.
One can work without being appreciated and that defines slavery more than service.
So the next time I am asked how I can adopt a religion that embraces slavery I can correctly tell them. Christ freed us from the slavery of sin and called us to be his slaves.
]]>
“Gone were the days... when aristocratic statesmen and diplomats, victor and vanquished alike, met in polite courtly disputation, and, free from the clatter and babel of democracy could reshape systems upon the fundamentals of which they were all agreed.”
The Greek philosopher Aristotle, like Churchill, carried little respect for democracy, calling it mob rule, where passions supplant laws as codes of conduct.
Indeed Churchill declares democracy guilty as the underlying cause of the 2nd World War. The Allies, inspired by their victory, their people hurting, sought compensation for their suffering and enacted repayment plans from Germany which Churchill called ignorant and silly. The victory of democracy over common-sense, of politics over right, is captured eloquently in his sentence: “The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest economic facts, and their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them.”
Mob rule.
We’ve seen Japanese segregated to camps. We’ve seen Americans agree to secret prisons, the expansion of “investigative techniques”, all fueled by passion let loose, willingly unchecked by established law. Today, fearful passions spark the fury of “mob rule” to support partial government control of manufacturers and banks. We see otherwise reasonable Americans upset that Exxon made a 5% profit, while the government, voting itself raises, takes 15% at the gas pump. Now Congress insists on using “Reconciliation”, the process to limit Senate debate to 20 hours, and quickly force wide programs on narrow majorities.
One of the lessons from the end of WWI is that when ignorance combines with passion, as it has with the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, and the ill-advised stimulus bills, you can be sure a backlash is coming.
On this Memorial Day every American owes an answer of humility to the soldiers beneath the graves who might well ask the question posed by W.H. Auden:
“To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?”
The backlash has the answer.
]]>Been there, done that!
As an eager, gung-ho 2nd Lt. assigned to the role of a Platoon Leader in Cold War Germany, I was energetic in my quest to become competent and “all that I could be.” Raised in a Midwestern environment of family who were hard-working, self-reliant, church-going Illinoisans, there was always the thought that we weren’t better than anyone, and neither were others better than us.
Accordingly, I took my first job after high-school as the night shift janitor at Edwards hospital in neighboring Naperville. During the Summer I poured concrete and worked at Cerro Copper in Sauget as a United Steel Worker. I did my own tune-ups, changed my own water pump, rebuilt carburetors, and kept my ’69 Mustang running (with no heat) within the constraints of a young man’s budget. (Car heat was a luxury, the water pump a necessity).
Initially I approached being an Officer of our damn fine Army with the same values. I considered myself a working stiff who merely happened to be a 2nd Lt. In some sense I was embarrassed by my new class distinction. During my first months, I noticed one day the office floor needed to be swept. Wanting to show soldiers that I wasn’t afraid of work, that there was no work beneath me and that I was willing to do what I expected them to do, I grabbed the broom and began to sweep.
Not a few minutes later my Platoon Sergeant, a Green Beret Viet Nam veteran, came into the office, took me out into the hallway and said: “Sir, what are YOU doing?” I answered: “Sergeant Lutz, I’m doing what needs to be done, and setting the example. No one can say I am ‘too good to sweep.’” He nodded, knew my intent, but said: “Sir, you’re an officer. Soldiers expect you to do officer work, and to tell them to do soldier work. Sweeping is not officer work.” Trusting his experience, I relinquished the broom and he made sure the floor was swept. I never touched a broom in uniform again.
The story made me think of our President. He’s not from a wealthy family, didn’t grow up in a life of privilege, but is already in a world class leadership position as a young man. I see traces that indicate he isn’t quite yet comfortable being the world’s most powerful man. From “regular Joe” to leader is not an easy transition. Imagine how much more difficult the adjustment to President is!
It takes time.
I hope he has people like SFC Lutz, who have the nation’s best interest at heart, to help him.
We'll see.
]]>AIG couldn't have doled out tax dollars to bonus babies had the administration been more reasonable than rushed in getting the "Stimulus Package" passed.
Accepting Treasury Secretary Geithner's explanation of his personal tax payments makes it easy for Americans to suspect we have another group in power who are "above the law." Credibility is now questionable in everything this Secretary does.
The President invited the Iranians to politely join us at the table, only to be snubbed and then admonished that Iranians won't join in talks until we confess we were wrong about them and the Middle East.
Russia, probably leveraging the kinder and gentler Obama administration, is now closer to putting long range bombers in the Gulf of Mexico without nary a public complaint from us. Did JFK just roll over in his grave?
President Obama sent a SECRET letter to the Russian president to say we would back away from our missile defense system in Europe if he would kindly talk to the Iranians for us and urge them to be nice. I wonder if he has forgotten that our support of that defense system was a prime factor in the collapse of the former Eastern Bloc?
In his rush to have a glorious "First 100 Days" you have to ask which of these outcomes are the unintended consequence of youthful inexperience and its corresponding lack of wisdom, or which are intentional?
Either way, we're off to a bad start.
]]>
To me that’s not useful information. I want to know the FIRST time it crossed 7365, since it’s upward, not downward or backwards I want to go.
The first time the market hit 7365? June of 1997. We have lost almost 12 years of value. This historical fact equates your investments today with the same value of June 1997. Eleven long years later it closed at its all time high.
At the 1929 peak, the market never returned to that valuation until 1954. 25 years later. This kills the buy and hold theory doesn’t it?
Not that the past is perfect prologue, but 25 years from now is 2034. If we are lucky it will only take 11 years to get back to the top, but who knows?
Maybe I can put retirement off until then.
]]>
This cartoon, published in the NY Post, has its roots in studies of chance; letting a monkey pick stocks, or putting a monkey at a typewriter and eventually watching it pound out A Farewell to Arms. "Birdbrain" "Monkeybrain." The schemes designed and passed by Congress are accurately referenced in this cartoon.
In other words, we've got monkeys running Washington.
The sooner we accept that, the better we'll feel.
]]>
Here’s how it works: When discussing any issue that you support, speak as if there were only one other possible alternative than your solution and make sure it’s a bad one.
“You’re either with us or against us, in this fight against terror.”
Sound familiar?
The message implies you cannot be against the Bush admiinistration unless you support terror. The technique is effective, persuasive, particularly for those less prone to skepticism and, it’s absurd. We couldn’t have gone to war in Iraq without it.
The fallacy, sometimes considered black-and-white thinking, is manipulative, especially when aimed against those who oppose an agenda. When encountering critics, defenders of President Bush’s policies would often respond: “You just hate George Bush!” Can I not think there is a better way than the President’s unless I hate him? Is there really no other motive for the criticism, such as love of country and American values?
This fallacy is not the monopoly of Republicans. In a meeting before the press, President Obama said: “We're moving quickly [to pass this stimulus package] because if we don't, the economy's going to keep getting worse."
Do you see the false-alternative? If we don’t pass this quickly, then the only other choice is the economy’s going to continue to decline.
Is there really no other option, no better plan possible? Will the economy actually stop declining the minute we pass this, or are we just hoping so?
The false-alternative is alive and well, and fast becoming an American tradition. Voters beware of promise givers; you just might regret it.
]]>