Haiti, Pakistan and the Concept of "Relief"

I'm in a quandary thinking about the two big disasters of 2010 - the Haiti earthquake and the Pakistan flood. In both cases, millions of people were and are in great jeopardy and in need of help. In both cases, the sovereign government was incapable of providing relief or reconstruction. And, in both cases, the affected areas were overpopulated and becoming even more overpopulated despite the fact that the basic services associated with "civilization" are unlikely to be available in the foreseeable future. Should relief be provided by the rest of the world if the affected countries do not take steps to change their ways?

What are the basic services associated with civilization in the 21st century? I suppose the short list would include a reliable internal food supply, commonly available clean water, transportation and communications infrastructure, workable governance and justice systems, and an education system that trains people for useful work. Governments are responsible to provide these things, I believe, as first priorities. Neither Haiti nor Pakistan provides these services, except for the elite. That's just the way it is.

The area of Pakistan affected by the floods has about 20 million residents. It's agricultural, with plots as small as two acres. Girls are often married by age 14 and have many children through age 25. The residents have no capacity to pay, through taxes, for the basic services described above. Moreover, each year the population becomes more likely to fall prey to those who would blame their subsistence conditions on the failure of their government or the outside world to "take care of them". That's why fears of insurrection rise when disasters like these occur and the government is unable to respond.

So, here's the quandary. Should the outside world provide massive relief to bring the disaster-ravaged areas back to roughly the same "uncivilized" condition they enjoyed prior to the disasters, with no preconditions? Or, should the outside world require governmental reforms and population control measures as the price of relief? Is preventing future disasters as important as mitigating current disasters? Should TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch) be applied?

In general, I've concluded that the second and third worlds now require a lot more supervision than in past times. Technology now provides great opportunities for these countries to upgrade their standards of living, but it also provides great opportunities for them to make mischief - North Korea and Somalia are poster children for the latter. Consequently, perhaps it's time to put out the carrot and the stick to Haiti and Pakistan's elite "quasi-governing" classes. Relief must be accompanied by radical changes in their societies, changes that in the long run will make for long term success.

Louisiana Scofflaws Cry the Blues

It's sad. So many of those in the Louisiana fishing industry who have been harmed by the BP oil well debacle will not qualify for BP's reparations because they can't document their 2009 income. Why not? Well, they didn't file tax returns, that's why. Doing business on a cash basis and not paying taxes is traditional, it turns out, just like in the country of Greece and other semi-civilized places. Now it's time to pay up for these sins, folks!

After five minutes of research I found that Louisiana has only a four percent sales tax (it's 8.25% where I live), a 2,4, or 6% state income tax rate after generous deductions, and very low property taxes. I suppose that's because the state has lots of industries and natural resources extractors that put taxes and fees into the state coffers. Louisiana is a very tax-friendly state, made much friendlier when lots of folks don't even file tax returns.

Somehow this news makes me feel much less generous when it comes to government relief for hurricanes or oil blowouts in Louisiana. We pay much higher taxes here in New York, and they're much harder to avoid. Why should we send that money to bail out the scofflaws who don't do their part?

Well, my Christianity tells me I should be generous, so I'll make an offer. BP should pay compensation to these people if they are willing to pay five years back state and federal taxes on the amount they claim as lost income from their fishing business. Amnesty! Sounds good to me. Otherwise, go fish!

Regulation - An Often Meaningless Panacea

Yesterday's supreme court decision regarding the personal applicability of the 2nd amendment has gun control advocates "up in arms", so to speak. They seem to like the status quo in places like Chicago where the city is swimming in handguns but only the criminals have them. I'm no fan of handguns, but I can understand the decision; if one wants to defend him/herself against a criminal, one's got to have a weapon. "Regulation" to the point of banning something has turned out to be a total farce in this instance. That brings me to highlight a few other regulatory fantasies.

Marijuana cultivation and sale is against federal law, but it's the highest grossing agricultural product in our country and some states have even partially ("medically") legalized it.

Coal mines and oil drilling platforms are regularly inspected, but recent events have proved that many operators have figured out the system and how to get around it or ignore it.

The SEC and and the accounting profession have a myriad of regulations covering financial reporting, but some big companies and investment firms have "cooked their books" with impunity for years before being caught (or not).

Many states have laws banning cell phone and texting usage while driving, but one out of four drivers in my town, where it's illegal, seem to be on the devices almost all the time.

And yes, it's illegal to enter the United States without some form of official approval. Somehow, at least 12 million humans ( four in every 100 U.S. residents) are here without approval of any kind.

I'm sure you have plenty of personal examples of regulations that seem to have little or no effect on conduct. That's the problem with regulation - without effective enforcement, they are meaningless or even detrimental. People assumed, for example, that Bernard Madoff's operations had been scrutinized by the SEC, much to their impoverishment.

In my view, government entities that make regulations should be required (by a regulation) to make a convincing case that the regulation will be enforced generally. That is, that adequate resources have been assigned to ensure the regulation will be followed by the great majority of those affected by it. If the regulation does not pass this test, it should be put on hold until such time as the case can be made.

Most of us learned, early in life, that parental instructions are to be followed only if we wish to, or if we are likely to be caught violating them. And, if the punishment for violators is minimal, forget #2. These are laws of nature. Why, then, do we let our governments spend their time making laws that they know are either unenforceable or will not be enforced? It's time to regulate the regulators!

Thanks, Praise, and Payback

This is the sermon that I delivered at Christ Clarion Presbyterian Church this morning. It's based on Psalm 39, 4-7 and Matthew 5, 43-48. It's from both my mind and my heart.

Thanks, Praise, and Payback

One of my favorite songs is one by James Taylor, called “Walking Man”. I like the melody, and I like the idea of the singleminded person portrayed in the lyrics. “Everyone else stops and talks, but the walking man walks.”

Most of you probably know that I’m trying to finish hiking the Appalachian Trail. This year I’ve already walked 145 miles in the New England mountains, and I’ve got to hike another 70 in July to finish Vermont. In total, I’ve already walked 1,700 miles in ten states, so you can imagine why I identify with the “Walking Man” song; except for one thing, that is – I do stop and talk a little with most of the people I meet on the trail.

Walking so many miles in the wilderness allows me to experience something that I value very highly – solitude – life with minimal distractions. I’m alone with my thoughts, and I’m usually surrounded by the world at its most elemental level – nature, filled with beauty but also with challenges if one has to walk through it, day after day. As I subconsciously plan where I’m going to put my next footstep, to avoid a root, a rock or a puddle, my conscious thoughts often turn to the temporality of life, how short it is when compared to the mountains I’m climbing – mountains that have been there for several hundred million years, all of them being slowly worn down by wind, rain, and ice. I think about all the things that had to happen for me to even exist, and about the miracle that I have intelligence and can consider how all this came to be and what it means. I recall that everything I can see is made of elements formed in the hearts of stars, billions of years ago and so far away. And, here I am, the walking man. What does it all mean?

It’s at times like this when the thoughts of men and women from the Bible often come to mind. As I walk through primitive places, I can place myself closer to the Israelites who walked through the desert to the promised land. I can think about the pain of the Hebrew exiles as they walked from their homes to Babylonia and captivity. I can ponder Jesus’s years of walking from town to town to speak about God, or of Paul’s travels across the Roman world. All of these people had points of view on that big question – what does it all mean? And that’s what I had in mind as I thought about the scriptures for today. So, I chose a very thoughtful and contemplative passage from the Psalms, and then a part of Jesus’s sermon on the mount that is particularly special for me.

In the scripture that Sharon read earlier, we hear the Psalmist contemplating the meaning of life. “Let me know my end, and the number of my days”, he asks. He understands that he is a temporary being, here today and gone tomorrow, and that everything he values is fleeting and insignificant. It’s a sad and searching moment. Is there anything of permanence, anything worth waiting for and holding onto? After setting everything in his life aside, he asks “And now, Lord, what do I wait for?” From somewhere deep within him, an answer comes, an answer of faith - “My hope is in thee”. We all, at the core of our being, want to know what this life is all about, and we know that only God will be able to provide the answer. So, we thank God for everything, continually, and we wait for God to fill in the blanks each day of our life, and in the life to come. Our hope is to finally rest in God. This was true three thousand years ago, and it is still true today.

When our hope is in God, it’s natural to be filled with thanks and praise. Thank you, God, for creating everything, including all of us. For the heavens full of stars, for the warmth of the sun, the beauty of the flowers, for the incredible miracle of every sensory experience and emotion, whether pleasant or not. God’s power and majesty is beyond comprehension. Knowing this, every breath I take, every thought I think, every experience of my life is God’s gift. What gift could be more valuable, more deserving of thanks every day? Does it matter that my life will some day come to an end? I don’t think so. Who of us would prefer to never have lived – not me, that’s for sure. I can’t imagine never holding a loved one, never feeling the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, never existing in any way. How can we not join with the Psalmist and, with confidence and heartfelt thanks, repeat the the simple truth of faith – “O God, my hope is in thee.” For me, there is no alternative.

Let’s jump forward eight or nine centuries from the time that poignant Psalm was written, but we’re still in the same country. Jesus has been roaming, walking, visiting small towns and preaching out in the open. People follow him everywhere because he’s been doing amazing things. His words follow a similar pattern wherever he goes. He repeats his summary of the Ten Commandments – “Love God and your neighbor as yourself”. He tells people that God wants far more from people than simply following a rule book of laws – he wants them to live a life of love from the heart, to have gentle spirits, to be peacemakers. Years later, Matthew compiles Jesus’s words in Chapters 5 through 7 of his gospel. This story, of Jesus teaching on a hill as he often did, is known as the Sermon on the Mount.

Verses 43 through 48 of Matthew 5 always get my attention. The passage has two primary thoughts. The first is that God gives everyone an equal chance; God does not play favorites. Jesus says, “Your father makes his sun rise on the good and the bad alike, and sends the rain on the honest and the dishonest.” In this world at least, God does not punish bad behavior or reward good behavior. Wonderful things can happen for anyone, as can tragedies. Regardless of how we live, life will have its perils and disappointments. The same rain that waters one person’s crops washes away another’s home. The same sun that produces the lush foliage outside this window also parches marginal land into desert and drives affected families into despair. Even in our own relationships, no matter how hard we try, how lovingly we behave, sometimes even our best intentions do not bear fruit. We are to accept that this is the way the world works. But this does not in any way alter the fact that our world and our lives are the greatest gifts we can imagine. They are God’s gift to us, and Jesus says, “Your heavenly father’s goodness knows no bounds.”

The second thought in this passage is about payback. God did not give these gifts without having some heavy expectations about our response. Just as God gives the sun and rain to good and bad, equally, God expects us to treat everyone we meet with equal love. “Forget about the old idea of loving your neighbor and hating your enemy”, Jesus says. “If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? Everybody does that. I want you to be special, I want you to act like me.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I find this command to be very challenging.

The way I see it, being like Jesus does not mean just doing good when you get a chance. It means actively looking for opportunities to do good. Jesus often stopped what he was doing, or diverted his attention from another task, so that he could minister to someone who was ill or needed his help. How often do we do that? The thing is, God does not consider that kind of selflessness to be exceptional. It’s expected. It’s the payback for our gift of life and the boundless goodness of God. Can we do it? Maybe we can, much more often than we think. A good way to start would be to echo the Psalmist every morning when we get up. “O God, my hope is in you.”

So that’s it. The scriptures tell us that life is short and often unpredictable, but God’s goodness is boundless. Our every day, our every moment, is a miraculous gift from God. What else can we do but say, “Thank you, wonderful God, for all of this.” Thanks and praise. Then, it’s time to roll up our sleeves. It’s payback time.

SIck of CNN!

I've been a CNN fan from the beginning. As a long time road warrior, I watched CNN for many years in motel bars and breakfast nooks. I liked their straightforward "news" and the generally "normal people" who delivered the news. All that has changed, and CNN, to put it perhaps too bluntly, is now just another blowhard "faux news". Viewers fell away under the old regime, so CNN made a choice to go for the false news. Too bad...now they've lost me, too.

The latest big news at CNN is that the "top kill" pumping was stopped for 16 hours without BP telling the world about it. "Rick", the idiot who does the 4 p.m. show, went on and on about how this was a heinous crime, but then brought on an expert from Tulane who said it was normal to stop for awhile and measure pressures. "Rick" then went on to ask some stupid questions that proved he knew nothing about what he was talking about. That, I don't need.

What I do need is a lot more facts and experts and a lot less "talking head" baloney. That's what news is all about. So, goodbye, CNN. I'll listen to NPR and forget about you.

Hyperbole Reigns in America

What's the best advice to follow in a crisis? "Stay calm". When unexpected things happen, the situation is often confused and unclear. Under these circumstances it's easy to misjudge what has really happened and what should be done. Consequently, we often make rash decisions that actually make things worse or make us look foolish. We'd be much better off letting the dust settle and then acting rationally to resolve whatever the problem really is. Americans need to accept this simple truth and discount the hyperbole that we often attach to every unexpected event.

The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point. There are 3,400 oil platforms in the gulf, hovering over the 35,000 wells that they drain. During the past 20 years no serious accidents have occurred there and major hurricanes have not destroyed a single platform. But, accidents are inevitable when large numbers of complex machines are used to accomplish difficult tasks; we should have expected something of this nature to happen sometime. When it does, the important things are the short term actions taken to resolve the problem and the long term impact of what has happened. Instead of dealing calmly with this accident, our media, politicians, and interest groups turned the event into a circus of rash statements and hasty decisions. With many mitigation activities in progress, it's likely that most of these reactions will be found to be dead wrong. Let's check back on this in a year.

The same sad truth applies to the two other major events of the past week or so, the lone terrorist car bomb in NYC and the stock market's reaction to Greece's debt situation. Both situations should have been expected, and in both cases the real impact is likely to be minimal. The moment by moment coverage and over-reactions probably caused more problems than they solved. As Churchill said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." We actually have excellent security services and effective economic backstops; it's just that we'd rather panic than allow them to work.

Lastly, I can't help but take on the Obama issue. From the screams I hear from the right, Obama is destroying the country. From the real news, I see that the market is back (despite this temporary setback), housing and car sales are up, manufacturing employment is coming back, the Iraq war is winding down on schedule, foreign policy is steady and rather uneventful (that's good), and Obama seems to be pretty comfortable in his job. Bush II left him a real bag of snakes, and he's coped pretty well with the mess. With a couple of years to go before having to run again, I'd give Obama pretty good odds of being a two term president. So much for the screamers; there's plenty of time to judge whether or not they make any sense at all.

We need to calm down and dampen the hyperbole. There's far too much noise from the right, the left, and the media in general. Life does go on, and problems generally get solved without the world coming to an end. I have a lot of trust in the ability of people and governments to do the right thing over time, even though there are always hiccups now and again. Screaming and overstating seldom add any value to the problem solving process, and we should not accept it when we see and hear it. Relax, America. It's going to be OK if we just keep our heads calm and focused.

48% Approval for Obama?

Americans are so fickle! We seem to be satisfied only when everything is going just great. Instant gratification. No memory. That's why Obama's approval rating is just under 50%. Sometimes I think we don't deserve him. McCain would have been far worse.

Other times, I think the republicans got out in 2008 while the going was good. The economy in shambles, the deficit out of control, wars not being concluded...how bad could it get? Time to cut and run, give the problems to Obama and then blame them on him. So far, this cynical strategy seems to have some traction. After all, if people can listen to Glenn Beck they can believe anything.

I'm very happy I voted for Obama. He's quietly pursued progress in many areas and achieved quite a few goals in just over one year. The stock market has rebounded and the economy is slowing rebounding - slow, but much faster than most people would have predicted twelve months ago. Iraq is winding down to a conclusion, and Afghanistan is on a timetable. Obama's won a health care reform war that some opponents wrongly thought would be his "Waterloo", and a financial reform package is also likely to pass. He's beefing up education policy, and he's done pretty well with foreign policy. Not too much to complain about!

Republicans and tea partiers call Obama a socialist or worse. The problems they decry were made worse during many years when their own party was in control, but memories are short and anger, even inane anger, is powerful. It's not what Obama has done, but the idea that he personifies a government that does things and influences our world, that is the reason they hate him. I just disagree with them, for the most part.

Time is on Obama's side, I think. As the country continues to heal economically, and, if there are no big uncontrollables to sidetrack him, Obama's steady pace of accomplishment will win back the independents. This will be true especially if his opponents continue to oppose but have no plan of their own to sell. November's elections will be important, but they will not make or break Obama. He has several more years to make the case for his approach, and the republicans need to worry about 2012 - it's far from in the bag for them.

Entitlements Gone Amuck!

Our country's political process has been broken for a long time, but I'm not talking about the partisanship that seems to be tearing us apart right now. I'm talking about the decades-long loss of political will to to say "no" to unaffordable spending. We are now on the verge of a massive upheaval that will be required to get us out of the giant hole we have put ourselves in.

Governments at all levels are swimming in debt, saddled by huge unfunded pension and medical liabilities, and trapped by gold-plated labor contracts that seem ironclad. There is no easy way for many of these public entities to escape bankruptcy, and that's why I predict a massive upheaval over the next few years. It's going to be interesting.

Under-taxing and over-spending got us into this mess, and correcting the problem will require over-taxing and under-spending for quite a while. In addition, the fix may also require the "managed bankruptcy" of many governments. This unavoidable medicine will certainly cause a massive upheaval in our society as we rebalance our governments.

It's almost funny that addressing the entitlements problem has taken so long, since it's been as obvious as the noses on our faces for a long time. In the private sector, we saw GM slowly die as its untenable labor contracts killed off its competitiveness - and then we paid to fund its bankruptcy and backstop the outrageous deals it had made with its workers. But who can save all these bankrupt governments? Only us, by forcing change that will be hard for all of us to take. Or, will the politicians demogogue this issue until our country collapses under the weight of its incredible debts and unfunded entitlements?

The stock market is currently jumping up and down in reaction to the problems Greece's insolvency is causing the EU. Greece is a tiny player, but its unraveling finances are creating great uncertainty. What would the world's reaction be when its largest economy can no longer pay its bills? Massive upheaval, that's what, and perhaps of the worst kind that one cannot even speculate about without praying hard. That's why we need to engineer our own mini-massive upheaval, starting this year. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say.

The Roman Catholic Problem

Organizations with a strong hierarchical structure have it for one primary reason: they want a lot of control. Sometimes this can be good, but it often goes bad over time. In the case of the Roman Catholic church, having strong central control was probably pretty good for a long time, but now the hierarchy is in trouble for covering up a lot of sexual misconduct by priests.

As a protestant outsider, I have no strong sense of why the Roman Catholic church has been so lax with respect to policing its own. A cynic would say that this church has so long been a haven for so many pedophiles at all levels that it regarded pedophilia as one of its privileges. A more pragmatic person would say that the church regarded guarding its reputation as being more important than holding a few of its priests to account for sins and crimes. A kind person would say that the church's labyrinthine structure and extreme conservatism made it time-consuming to pursue questions of priestly misbehavior. My guess is that all three points of view have some truth in them.

Whatever the truth regarding the "why", there's no question that, for the younger generation, the Roman Catholic church has been greatly tarnished by the ongoing scandals about pedophilia in its ranks. Older Catholic's who were raised in the church and were virtually brainwashed about the status and rights of priests seem to be immune to outrage about the current situation. It's not at all the same for younger Catholics who see the church as managed by a bunch of old men who seem dedicated to running a church as it always was - an inside game characterized by arcane rituals and obeisance to the rulers. These young people see what the inside game has produced, just like us outsiders have seen. Who would want to be part of that?

Where does the Catholic Church go from here? Well, it's hard to say. They are excellent at stonewalling, and that seems to be the plan at the moment despite the fact that it doesn't seem to be working very well. An alternative would be to decentralize priestly discipline and let the bishops or archbishops take quick action to cleanse the ranks - no doubt there are still more than a few known pedophiles out there. Given the shortage of priests, that's a tough call. Can that church restore its honor for the next generation? The jury is out, for sure.

My guess is that the Roman Catholic church needs to change a lot if it is to survive in North America and Europe. The old guard's time is over, and with it a lot of the historical organizational concepts they held. Women need a lot more power, celibacy needs to become optional, and power needs to be decentralized. The Roman Catholic church's strengths have always been concern for the poor and unwavering belief in a loving god who forgives those who repent. It's time to return to those roots and shed its over-riding concern for its own "inside game".

An Alternative History of Health Care Reform

President Obama this week failed to get enough support to pass healthcare reform, one component of which was to require almost all Americans to get health insurance, with those less financially capable getting a subsidy to cover part of the insurance cost. This failure was cheered by those who felt being required to have insurance was an intrustion on their rights.

Many of those who rejoiced in Obama's defeat were healthy young and middle aged people who didn't have much money and saw the insurance requirement as a budget problem. Their view was that they'd rather keep their money and take their chances. Now they were able to do that.

What was the outcome of this health reform failure? Well, even though most of these basically healthy people would stay that way, quite a few did not. Some of these younger people were severely injured in auto accidents or incurred serious sports-related injuries. Even more of the middle aged people had these same issues, but some also had heart problems, became diabetic, were diagnosed with cancer, or required a joint replacement. Every one of these unlucky people was very expensive to treat, but they had not purchased health insurance. What became of them?

Thankfully, none of these people were denied health care for serious conditions due to a lack of insurance. These uninsured folks went to emergency rooms, were admitted to the hospital, and got the care they needed. After their meager financial resources were exhausted, they went on public programs that paid for their ongoing medical procedures and medications. Their huge unpaid hospital bills were uncollectable, and they went bankrupt. However, since their assets were small to begin with, their financial losses were not that significant. The losses incurred by hospitals and doctors were much larger.

What happened to the losses that hospitals and doctors incurred for these uninsured patients? These costs just became part of their overhead, and added to the base of costs that they passed on to insurance companies in the form of higher prices. The insurance companies, needing to cover their higher costs, raised rates for all the people they insured. Some doctors took their practices totally private, refusing to accept insurance for payment.

So, Obama's health care reform failed, and things remained pretty much the same as they were before. Uninsured people got treatment for their immediate problems, and many of the poorest ended up on public assistance health care programs. Those who did have insurance saw their rates increase, and they paid higher taxes to offset the costs the government incurred for public assistance health care. In the end, the young and middle aged uninsured who stayed healthy spent their savings on other things, and the uninsured ones who got sick or injured indirectly passed on the cost of their care to those who had purchased insurance.

Many people, understanding this pattern, began to demand that those who do not want to buy health insurance sign an agreement that they will only get care that they can pay for themselves. This concept was incorporated in a new health care reform bill. After that, hospitals opened new wings filled with cots where those whose funds were exhausted died in peace, content that their death was based on principle and remembering all the good things they had purchased with their savings from not having health insurance.

The Answer is: Massa's Nuts!

I gave my Rep. Massa the benefit of a few days to explain what happened in the three days between his decision not to run for health reasons to his abrupt resignation from the house of representatives.

Now it's clear that the guy I thought was a harbinger of America's new wave of politicians just lost his bearings, to be nice. It's not just about the "groping", which he attempted to explain in a rather bizarre way. Then, he refused to answer directly Larry King's question "Are you gay?", putting off the answer to his Navy brothers, several of which then dumped on him. Or, was his demise simply the work of Rahm Emmanuel? I suppose it doesn't matter, because Massa has already become just a funny footnote in the craziness of this year's political circus.

I feel bad for him. He could have enjoyed his nice Navy retirement with honor. Now, he'll be a laughingstock everywhere his name is known. Politics can do that for you!

Is Eric Massa Nuts, Or?

Two years ago I walked many streets in Pittsford, my home town, volunteering for Eric Massa's congressional campaign on the democrat side. Massa, a retired Navy officer, seemed to have a lot of common sense and drive, and did not appear to be overly wedded to either the dreamy-eyed wing of his party or the unions. He won. Now he has abruptly resigned the seat, and it's likely a conservative republican will win the special election to replace him. My efforts seem to have backfired in a spectacular way!

The reasons for the resignation are unclear. Last week's news was that a Massa staffer had complained to the house ethics committee about alleged "sexual harassment" committed by Massa, but Massa claimed his resignation was due to concerns over possible recurrance of a cancer that had been in remission. However, this past weekend Massa claimed he was run out of Washington by the democratic leadership who were upset about his intention to vote against the health care bill. One thing is clear, though - Massa is out for revenge.

My ex-congressman is scheduled to appear on the Glen Beck and Larry King shows, where he will likely skewer the democrats with sharp criticisms. He's a good communicator, so I expect his comments will be carried in other media as well. His revenge will be sweet!

What is really going on here? My guess is that Massa, a man accustomed to military discipline and the military's way of accomplishing objectives, could not accomodate himself to the rough and tumble of both Washington and local politics. His fact-based approach clashed with the overt special-interest-based approach taken by "professional" politicians. He supported the public option for health care, and he likely found the union-dominated local democrat party to be unreasonable. He likely was worn out by the pressures he felt from all sides. So, another pragmatic idealist has bit the dust.

I'll be interested in hearing what he has to say on the talk shows, and I'll expect a lot of bitterness to color his explanations. The house democrats probably will regret what they've done to him. Whether or not his comments will be helpful is anyone's guess. I'll wait until the dust settles before I decide whether or not my many hours walking the streets for him were a colossal waste of time. Stay tuned...

"My thoughts are not your thoughts"

The title of this blog is a quote from Isaiah 55, a part of which was read in church this morning. It's a concept that I've really come to internalize during the past few years, since it allows me to embrace both religion and science and also come to terms with human tragedy.

Being religious is a choice, of course. Nobody forces me to choose it, and there is precious little hard evidence that would make this choice a logical one. Nevertheless, I choose to acknowledge a God, even a God that would make itself known to sentient creatures like us. But this God's thoughts are not my thoughts, and I don't presume to have any idea about the ultimate purpose of creation. What I do presume is that God would like to see us creatures make as much "progress" as we can, both scientifically and socially. So, I think that when man landed on the moon God said, "That's pretty good", and when women got the vote God said "It's about time!" But these thoughts are nothing like our thoughts, since we cannot comprehend all there is to know about the universe in a moment, as I believe God can.

Perhaps my most significant personal belief is that God can be "good" and still not often intervene to shield individuals, humanity or the earth from natural events that we would regard as tragedies. We know that good people and bad people get cancer; humanity could be wiped out by a rogue asteroid; and, the earth will burn up sooner or later. Could "goodness" only relate to creating the conditions where progress can occur on an individual or societal basis, with the rest pretty much left up to us? This idea seems likely to me, especially since we are able to contemplate the creator and develop theories about how to achieve human progress. But I don't rule out the possibility that God might give humanity a nudge from time to time, which leaves some room for a divine Jesus or perhaps other divine visitations - we sure do need a little help from time to time!

Someday my end will come, and I will follow all my human predecessors back into the dust. I'm not overly concerned about this natural event, since it can hardly be deemed a tragedy if everyone does it. What does intrigue me is whether or not I'll ever get some insight into what God had in mind when God set in motion all of this stuff we now experience. If my "spirit" does survive, I doubt it will ever begin to comprehend the mind of God. "My thoughts are not your thoughts" likely pertains forever. But it would be nice to get a little taste of what this was all about, wouldn't it?

Paying for Government Action?

I keep getting these emails from Obama's non-governmental support group, asking for money to combat those nasty republicans. "Help us get health care passed", they cry, "send us $5 or whatever you can". No, thank you very much.

Don't get me wrong. I want to see health care legislation passed, even though I'd prefer a public option. I just don't want to fund non-governmental groups. I thought the way to get policies that you favor enacted is to elect those who favor those policies. I did that, and they won. Now I just want them to do what they promised. They don't need my money to do that.

The democratic congress has been a major failure, in my opinion. If they don't have the will to pass health care legislation through "reconciliation", then they have blown their final opportunity. This should have passed it last year when they had a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, but they frittered that away as only democrats can do.

The democrats don't need my money to make their point. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid can get all the media attention they could ever want. So, just get on with it, folks, and stop begging!