JackTrade's Blog

     One definition in the Random House New College Dictionary of the word monster is "one who excites horror, as by wickedness or cruelty."

     Poor Joseph Fritzl.  He does not like being characterized as a monster by the world press.  Why would they say such a thing about him?

     Is it possibly because this man, who lives in Vienna, Austria, raped and brutalized his daughter Elizabeth repeatedly over a period of 24 years, while keeping her as a sex slave and prisoner in his dank, airless cellar?

     Maybe it it is because he fathered  7 children with that daughter and imprisoned three of them with their mother.

     Perhaps it is because when one of the babies he fathered with Elizabeth died, he cremated his body by throwing him in his heating furnace in order to, as he said, "Get rid of it," dehumanizing a baby he forced his daughter to help create?

     Poor Elizabeth Fritzl.  She has a monster for a father.  Now the chickens have come to roost for him.  It seems to me that being called a monster is one of the least of his problems.  He is so ridiculously self-centered, he is silly.  He should be less worried about being told the truth about himself, and more about his future in prison, and then in hell.

      Maybe some day, in a newer edition of the Random House College Dictionary, next to the definition of the word "monster," a picture of Joseph Fritzl will be placed next to it.

     I have a suggestion for Barack Obama, in particular, and the Dermocratic Party in general, as well as the news media.   Ignore Jeremiah Wright. 

     Just leave him alone.  He is an egotistical publicity hound who thrives on creating racist controversy. 

    Let him spew out his hateful venom as he has the Constitutional right to do so.  But use your Constitutional liberty to say absolutely nothing about it.

     Treat him as the self-righteous demogogue he is.  The best thing the Obama  Democrats could do for themselves is to not retaliate at all.  Surely they can find better things to talk about than a cheap phony who is messaging his ego with his racist message.  Hillary would be very foolish if she keeps stoking the fires he starts.  Sensible people would be turned off of her in nothing flat.  John McCain would have one less weapon in his arsenal against the already-divided Democrats.

      Do it for the good of the country.  Do not give him the time of day.  He is not worth it.   Hate mongers like him are best ignored.  He is not worth the tape used to produce his sound bites.  His speech not even worth the air it takes to expand his lungs.  So, ignore the old windbag. Neither you nor the American people need the distraction.    

      The sooner he and others like him are ignored and forgotten, the better.  Should he ask, "What do you think of me,?" a good reply would be the same Howard Roark gave to Ellswoth Toohey in Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead: "I don't think of you at all."

     The video of the girl in Lakeland being beaten by 8 others made my blood boil!  I don't think "trash talk" had very much to do with the motivation.  Those young punks were just looking for an excuse to make a big splash on You Tube.

     When you get right down to it, I don't care what the reasons were that the girl was beaten up by those cowards.  But I do have a definite idea about what should be done about it.

     All of the people who participated in this beating need to be taken out to the proverbial (or a literal) woodshed and given a good, hard spanking, and I suggest a wooden paddle be used. 

      Yes, I know the psychobabble against it, but I believe a little rough justice would do those girls more good than anything else.  They caused tremendous pain to that girl and her family, and even to the society forced to view their handiwork on the news.  Some organized delivery of pain would demonstrate society's aknowledgment of the need for severe punishment.  Better a spanking now than a long prison sentence later.

     Psychobabblers would have us believe spanking does not work. Or it hurts the poor child's "self-esteem."  First of  all, I have seen it work.  I was spanked a number of times growing up, and believe me, there was a significant improvement in my behavior after that!  I didn't want any more my father's belt, so I stayed out of trouble!  Also, I was beat up by a punk in the P. E. lockers at school once.  When I told his coach about it, he got a good paddling.  The next day, when I tried to talk to him, he ran away from me!

     As for the argument it hurts kids' self-esteem along with hurting their rear ends, -well- that is the idea!  Those punks have demonstrated nothing but arrogance, and no remorse whatsoever for what they did, being more concerned about their not going to the beach for Spring Break than the seriousness of their crime.  They need  to be tanned on a part of their bodies the sun is not supposed to have direct contact with!

     I have one more suggestion.  Since they like to be in front of the camera so much, put their paddlings on YouTube.  They could be placed right next to the one they made - as a Results Show.

     I will be brief and to the point.  I ordinarily do not give autobiography in my blogs, but this time, I feel compelled to do so.

     I was born with cerebral palsy, and as a result my early life was made miserable by others who ridiculed and mocked me.  I was too weak to defend myself, and  was beat up and bullied many times in my early life, and there were days when I did not think life was worth living.  When I was in school, teachers refused to help me with bullies, except for one instance.  My father tried to get a neighhbor to get his son to stop bullying me, but the neighbor just walked away.  For six years, I endured his son's bullying, at home and at school.

     A huge mistake was made in my education when i was in Junior High (now called Middle) School.  The administraton put me in a special English class which was too easy.  It was a class for people with mental retardation and other handicaps.  I am not mentally retarded at all.  As English was my bast subject, to this day I have no idea as to what they were thinking.  I was deprived of a good foundation in grammar .  It was years before I was able to undo the damage they did.

     I have had some success in my life.  I hold a Master's degree from Temple Baptist Theological Seminary  in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I have written songs and essays which I trust have inpacted lives.  People tell me I have done good in ways I don't even know about.  I have had a modest influence for Jesus Christ and His Church.  That is the ultimate in success. 

     I did not get there by whining and demanding apologies from everyone who hurt me.  Nor did I demand an apology from families of people who were mean to my great-grandparents!  I hope this helps people see how ridiculous it is for blacks to demand an apology for what went on 150 years ago.  After all, there is no one left alive who were involved in enslaving anyone.  I certainly did not. 

    The Legislature apologised.  I hope it helps people move on.  What is done, is done.  Please people, get a life!

Pastor Jeremiah Wright.cancelled a visit to a Bay-area mega-church because of lack of security.  Now the people in the church won't hear him preach a sermon full of racism and hate, delivered in the name of Christ.  Thank God the Sheriff had the good sense not to waste taxayers' money to protect him.  Barack Obama's 20-year connection with him should give any voter with good sense who loves this country pause before voting for him.

I don't know what book he preaches out of, but from what I  have heard of him, his message is the polar opposite of the Bible's message of love.  Christ loves all the people of this world.  This is why He came -  to be the sacrifice for our sins on the cross.  This means white people as well as black.  The Gospel of John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  "Whosoever" means everyone, including us white folks, too.  The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:27 and 28, " For as many aof you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek (or gentile), there is nether bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye all are one in Christ Jesus."  If Paul were writing that verse for today in America, I'm sure he would add, "There is neither white nor black."  In other words, it does not matter what race you are.  Christ died for all.

Wright's message of hate towards America may be politicly correct, but in no way is it Biblicly correct.  His first name may be Jeremiah, but he he does not manifest the spirit of the Old Testament prophet.  The prophet loved his nation (Judah), but he had the strongest message of judgment in the whole Old Testament to deliver.  He is sometimes called the Weeping Prophet because God's message through him gave him personally so much pain.  In 9:1 he says, "O that my head were a fountain of tears, that  I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"  He cared about the people of Judah.

More to the point is Wright's hatred of America. The way he talks, it appears he would be happy if this nation was destroyed.  This is not the spirit of the Prophet.  He had a very deep love for Judah, even though he was called to preach severe judgment against their sin.  In chapter 28 of his book, we see a confrontation between him and a false prophet named Hananiah.  Jeremiah had predicted that Judah would be conquered by the Babylonians.  Hananiah opposed him and said that within two years  the Lord would break the yoke of Babylon.In verse  6, Jeremiah replied, "Amen. The Lord perform the words that thou has prophesied."  In other words, Jeremiah wished that what Hananiah was saying was true. He did not want the judgment to fall, even though he knew it would.  He had no desire to see his countrymen carried into captivity, and Jerusalem destroyed. 

Jeremiah Wright seems to be praying for America's destruction with every breath he takes.  The Tampa Bay area does not need his hate-mongering, especially from a "Bible" (?) church.  If I were a member of that church, I would have left it at the first sign of this kind of man coming in to preach, if I couldn't stop that foolishness.  He does not represent the Spirit of Christ, but the exact opposite. 

I pity him.  He needs the love of Christ as much as anyone.  He must be terribly empty inside, in spite of his eloquence.  One can only pray that the Lord will get a hold of him and he will repent of his hatred.  He could then, and only then, manifest the spirit of the Prophet Jeremiah, and accomplish good things for the black community, and gain the respect of people of all races.  After all, The Lord Jesus included him when He laid down his life for "whosoever believeth." As the old hymn says, "Whoever will may come" to Christ for the love and forgiveness he needs.  When Jeremiah Wright comes to Christ believing in Him, then peace, not hatred will rule his heart.

       In his reply to my post, "Everybody's doing it!,"  Mmustangg made a very astute observation: "What needs to be done is to introduce shame back into society.  There is no shame anymore.  People do things openly now that years ago they woul have been laughed at or shunned for.  The shame starts at home.  We need to teach our kids to stay away from what's shameful and wrong."

      He is absolutely right.  Shame is the way to get people to stop paper predation.  (For the definition, read my post "Everybody's Doing it!")  I merely said it must be done.  He  told us the way to get it done.

      Judeo-Christian morality has served America well.  Because of it we are the greatest nation in the world.  But as a nation we have forsaken our roots, and removed the ancient landmarks.  If we don't repent and go back to the Christian morality that made us great, we will soon be just another nation that forsook our God, and we have already begun to pay the price. 

     We have become a prideful nation, like ancient Israel was in the time of the Prophet Jeremiah.  The worst part of it is that like them, our pride is not in our great achievements but in our great sins.  We wish to think of ourselves as above the old fogey morality of the Bible, and have embraced the new-fangled, modern morality.  As a culture, we have gone from being a decent and moral people to being totally immersed in sexual immorality.  People think this is good, and take pride in it.  They ought to be ashamed of it.

     In Jeremiah 13:23-27, we read, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?  Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.  This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the Lord; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.  Therefore I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame might appear.  I have seen thy adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields.  Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem!  wilt thou not be made clean?  when shall it once be?"

     Illicit sex sells.  But in the long run, what has the culture bought, but a shameless society?  The new morality has bought us an arrogance which makes us believe anything goes, including abortion on demand, which says, in effect, "Go ahead and have sex: You can always murder the kid later.  Just make sure you do it before the baby is born."  It has also bought us no-fault divorce, for people too lazy to work through problems in their marriages, or be faithful to their partners in the hard times.  One more thing it has bought us is a great increase in sexually transmitted diseases,  such as AIDS, gonorrea, syphilis, and other no one ever heard of before now.  All of this is a great argument for the necessity of shame.

     As a nation, we must stop feeding on sex.  The meaning of exposure must be changed back so that it becomes once again a shameful thing to be seen photographed naked.  People need to stop looking at Playboy and all other pornographic magazines, and the way to do it is create an atmosphere of shame and exposure.  As the Bible, in Ephesians 5: 11 and 12 says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darknesss, but rather reprove them, For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."

     In other words, Expose the sin for what it is--immoral and wrong!  Then, instead of embracing it, expose it to the public shame and shunning it deserves.  Punish the predator with prison.  Punish the paper predator by not buying his magazines and not watching his television shows.  Make it once again so smut is harder to get, and must be hidden from view, because it is viewed as shameful.  We must go back to the days when porn had to be hidden in brown paper bags so others would not see it, and put the buyer to shame if he is seen with it.

     We must publicly punish lotharios like Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton, by putting them to public humiliation in the kind of exposure of exposure no politician should want.  Never elect them to office again!  Teachers who have sex with underage students should never be allowed in the classroom again.  Religious leaders who are sexual predators should never be allowed in the church pulpit again.  Parents who molest their children should automaticly lose custody, and never hope to get it back.  The exposure of these people should be so public and so glaring, that the shame they are exposed to would be a warning to other not to go there.  A public whipping along with a long prison sentence would be shaming enough to stop most of these shinanigans.

      Much of the blame for this situation lies with the religious entertainment centers called churches.  Instead of calling sin for what it is, the preachers today try to mitigate it with modern psychobabble.  Instead of preaching redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ, for sin, they give out mantras of self-esteem, which is nothing but a shoddy  defense of the pride that prevents repentance.  Instead of the great hymns of the faith, many churches incorporate rock music and idiotic "praise songs" whose repititiousness act like drugs on the brain and leave the "worshipper" unable to think straight. 

     The church must not function like an entertainment center.  Instead of the nonsense and babble people need to hear preachers preach the Bible.  Instead of self-esteem, people need to hear of the penalty for sin and Christ's salvation.  Instead of rock music, they need to hear and sing hymns like "Rock of Ages." 

     The church does not need any more entertainers calling themselves "preachers" standing in the pulpit.  She needs men of God who will call sin "sin" and not back down when they are persecuted by the babblers.  This means being willing to stand up to those like the people in the homosexual movement who are trying to foist their false interpretation of Scripture on the church.  The very fact that they have made such inroads into the church is a matter of shame to the church. The Bible calls homosexuality "abomination" (Leviticus 18:22), and in Genesis 18, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for the wickedness that was going on in them. 

      Our society is full of pride and selfishness, the very opposite of the ethics that made Americe great.  As it says in Mcah 6:8, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 

     For those who choose to disdain Christian morality, this is the only thing I can say to  you: Some day, you will be judged by God for your sins.  Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, and if you come by faith to Him and repent of your sins and accept the salvation He has provided, you will be eternally saved.  It is better to do that than to face Him at the Great White Throne and be shamed forever in Hell.  

      There is no entertainment there.

     Politicians.

     Parents. 

     Priests.

     Teachers.

      These are some of the people who have been caught having inappropriate sexual relations, and in many instances, they have been doing it with children. 

      To site the obvious example of a politician, Eliot Spitzer, the now ex-Governor of New York, was caught soliciting the services of a BLEEP in Washington, D.C.  He had built a career on fighting corruption, only to himself be shown prone to moral corruption.  I could have put the $80,000 he spent on whores to much saner use than he did.  The sheer blatant hypocrisy of a "fighter of corruption" corrupting himself has destroyed the faith of some voters in the electoral system. 

     Parents are charged with the responsibility of protecting their children from sexual predation.   In today's world, that is not easy.  But when the parents themselves are the sexual predators,the results are tragic.  Even if it is not the child, but some adult other than the spouse the parent is having sexual relations with, the adultery will have a profound effect on the family.  God put the Seventh Commandment in the list of Ten for very good reasons one of which was to protect the sanctity of family life.  Yet this is constantly violated in our society.

     Catholic priests scandalised the world with their molestation of women and  children.  It was the best-kept secret that unmarried "men of God" were having homosexual relations with boys in their parishes, and heterosexual intercourse with women.  If this is the result of "celibacy," Rome needs to change its ways.  But it is not just Catholic priests that are involved in this scandalous behavior, but rabbis, and preachers in every denomination of the church.  These are not isolated incidents.  Do the names Jim Bakker and Jessica Hahn ring a bell?  The worst part about this is that most preachers are decent men who are doing their best to serve their churches, and the stinking breath of scandal hurts their ministries, too.

     Now children are not even safe in school.  Teachers are having sex with their students, some as early as elementary school!  Legally, I think this is called statutory rape.  The penalty should be the same regardless of the sex of the teacher and student.  Any teacher that sexually molests a child should not only never teach in a public school again, but should be severely punished in the penal system, or better yet, publicly flogged.  That goes for any sexual predator, not just teachers.

      Here is the kicker: All of the blame does not rest on the predators themselves.  Everybody's doing it.  Our society feeds on sex.  All you have to do is look at the front page of a supermarket tabloid.  And some of the highest-rated television programs are the most loaded with sex and innuendo.  Decency has completely gone out the window.  And then we wonder why our society has gone to pot.  In the name of free speech, we have abdicated our responsibility to protect our children and ourselves from what I call "paper predation."  Paper predators are those who put out hard- and soft-core pornography, be it Huster and Playboy, the trash in a tabloid, a sexually-laden television program, or the filth to be gotten with a computer.

      A good start in solving this problem would be for everybody to stop doing it.  Stop looking at Internet porn.  Stop reading Playboy and Hustler.  Stop going to pornographic movies and watching the sex-filled garbage on television.  Stop reaching for that gossip-filled tabloid.  Women, stop buying and wearing "clothes" that leave you looking half-naked!  

    Decency must be demanded if we want to stop the insanity. 

     USF students Nisreen Swedburg and Sarah Wiliams claim that they were discriminated against by Sowthwest Airlines because they are "too pretty."  They were escorted from the plane by uniformed police officers and banned from flying on any Southwest planes, including their return fights (oops, I mean flights!). 

    They were not discriminated against at all.  The airline has every right to protect their passengers and crew from young women (no matter how pretty they think they are) who disrupt their flights with bad behavior. 

     What is so "pretty" about being combative because you had to wait for a bottle of water, Ms. Swedburg?  Many people around the world would be glad to wait twice as long as you did for just an ounce of it.

     And you, Ms. Williams, your yelling a profanity back at the passenger in the plane's rest room was a real thing of beauty.  You must have looked lovely during that temper tantrum!

     I have lived long enough to know shallowness when I see it.  If these two young "ladies" (and I use the term very loosely) think they were discriminated against because they were "too pretty," they are a couple of the shallowest and most childish young adults I've ever heard of.  Not to mention egotistical and vain.  For their own good, I hope life knocks their egos down a few pegs.  As Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

       According to Ms. Williams, "[The flight attendants] were like older ladies.  We were younger.  Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger."  Baloney!  Flight attendants see a lot of life on planes you don't see, and have gotten along fine with women a whole lot prettier (and older) that you are, Ms Williams. 

     How beautiful someone is depends a lot more than on just physical makeup.  These two may be somewhat attractive on the outside, but from what the world has seen of them from the inside, they have a long way to go before they are truly beautiful.  They are far from being too pretty to fly.  They are too raucous to fly.

     At the Orient Road Jail, Charlette Marshall-Jones, or Deputy Devil (as appropriately nicknamed by blogger K1662), in an incident as ridiculous as it was brutal, dumped a prisoner, Brian Sterner, out of his wheelchair.  What made the incident worse was the lack of compassion shown by everyone else there. No one made any effort to help him. They just left him there. 

      To compound the evil even more, one fat supervisor laughed into the camera that recorded the incident.  I will never forget the sadistic look on his face as long as I live.  I reminds me of the cruel laughter of evil scientists in some of those old monster movies in which the monster is torturing his victim and laughing uproariously at her plight.  He is Supervisor Sadist as far as I am concerned. 

      I got very angry as I watched the incident.  I was born with a disability, although I am not in a wheelchair.  Growing up, I was constantly bullied, especially by one neighbor.  I know how that feels, so I have nothing but sympathy for Brian Sterner.  It does not matter why he was in the jail: None of those deputies did right by him.  First, he was bullied by Deputy Devil, and then laughed at by Supervisor Sadist.  No one helped him back into the chair that I saw.  Everyone around also used to have a good time at my expense when I was bullied. Outside of help from my family, only one time do I recall ever being helped with a bully.  That is not something I can forget.

     I don't care how high Supervisor Sadist's rank is in the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department.  His callous behavior has disgraced his uniform.  If not fired, he should at least be demoted to several ranks lower than his present one.

     I must say that I am thankful that the Sheriff is not tolerating what was done.  He just needs to find decent corrections officers. 

     The quality of the officers employed of Orient Road Jail, as shown by their inhumane and cruel treatment of Brian Sterner, reminds me of another prison: Abu Garib.

      I don't know about the rest of you bloggers, but I have never in the whole time I have been following politics and voting, seen a more inadequate bunch of of candidates running for President.  It is scary how bad they are. 

     The Democrats, Clinton and Obama, are Liberal Socialists who will follow their agenda no matter how opposed it is to the Constitution.  I expected their candidates to be exactly that, and am not the least bit surprised by them.

     The Republicans are almost as bad.  I am not only disappointed in the actions of the party (see my post "Democrats in Disguise"), but I have never seen a sorrier crop of men running as Republicans.

      Mike Huckabee claims to be a Christian, and was a preacher.  Maybe he is.  I hope so.  I have no wish to disparage his testimony.  My problem with him as a Presidential candidate is that when he was Governor of Arkansas he was a tax and spend Liberal no different than Bill Clinton.  Also, I think he is a wishy-washy character.  He asked former candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, "Don't the Mormons believe that Satan is the brother of Jesus?"  This was a perfectly legeitimate question about his faith.  Then after a furor erupted over the question, he apologised for asking it.  So he is not only a Liberal, but a weak character, also not White House material.

     That leaves us with John McCain, the most likely candidate to get the Republican nomination.  To be honest,  I wish I could vote for him, but in all good conscience I cannot.  Any man who lends his name to an unconstituitional law like the McCain-Feingold voting reform, which takes from me my freedom of speech to say what I think on the issues at any time,but especially right before an election, does not deserve to even be a candidate for the  office, let alone become President.  After all, the President, upon taking the oath of the office, swears to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."  How can I believe he will do that when has already put up a law which compromises my First Amendment right to free speech?  A true Conservative would not have dared to put a bill like that through a City Commission, let alone Congress!!!  You can't trust him.

     I despise being put in a position where I am forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.  I have been told many times that by not voting for thr Republican candidate I will be biting off my nose to spite my face.  In other words, if I don't vote for whoever the Republican candidate happens to be, I will be responsible for getting the Democrat elected.  Baloney!  The people responsible for electing the Democrat will be those who vote for the Democrat. 

     Here is something for my fellow American Christians to think about:  Some day, we will stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ to give account for our lives.  We handed the Republican Party electoral victories in 2000 and 2004.  Since then, Christians  have pretty much been treated with disdain by the Party.  Why should we help them get their candidates elected based on their past performance?  The lesser of two evils is still an evil choice.  When I stand before God, I want  to stand having chosen the good and right, and not having been blackmailed by the world.  If Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama is elected, it will be the responsibility of those who voted for the one or the other.  I would rather stand before God after choosing the good, than than trying to prevent evil  by voting for evil.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  Fellow Christians, I will accept the temporary consequences of my choice to vote "outside the box" for a good candidate. Will you be willing to stand before God and accept the cosequences before God of voting for status quo forever?  Maybe in doing so, you will be biting off your nose to spite your face!

     I love animals.  I saw last night that some lout shot a woman's horse dead.for no apparent reason.  This makes my  blood boil, and my heart goes out to the lady.

      I hope they catch whoever did it.  This kind of cruelty should be dealt with very severely.  I suggest the appropriate punishment would be a good horsewhipping.

     Merry Christmas.

      I am sad this Christmas Eve.  I have read and seen reports of thefts of Christmas presents from cars and homes, and even thefts of decorations from the front yards of people's homes.  It seems like the grinches are out in force this year.

     Worse than that, it seems the meaning of Christmas has been hijacked.  I went out with a group the other night to see the lights.  Yes,  they were beautiful.  But I came away depressed.  I remember not too long ago when the true meaning of Christmas was expressed in yard decorations.  There were many beautiful manger scenes depicting the birth of Jesus.  There was  Mary, Joseph, and the Babe, lying in a manger, surrounded by shepherds and various animals.  Some had the wise men coming from the east to give their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  There were small ones, and there were large, ornate ones.  Both types were beautiful displays of the ultimate Christmas gift to the world, Christ Himself.  This year, I counted ony eleven.

     The true meaning of Christmas has been hijacked,  first, by a certain organization that pretends to fight for people's Constitutional rights, but is actually trying to destroy the rights of Christians to religious worship.  Their hypocritical pretense is masked  by the idea of giving more freedom to other religions.  What they so conveniently overlook is the fact that this country was  founded by Christians and those who lived under the Christian value system, not by any other, be they Buddhists, Shamans, or Muslims.  I'm sure this organization would be dismissed out of hand by any other religion that would gain control of the U. S.  If any do, then you can bet freedom of religion would be a thing of the past.  I don't even want to think about being under Sheria law. 

      The true meaning of Christmas is also being  hijacked by commercialism.  Greed has taken over the spirit of the holidays.  Even children want elaborate and expensive toys and electronics, causing less than wealthy parents to go into ridiculous debt to purchase them.  Then sometimes the kid spends more time playing with the box than the item inside it! 

     Also, everyone appears to be trying to "keep up with the Joneses," or even surpass them. One-upman ship is not in the true spirit of Christmas.  It is opposed to the spirit of love and humility.  Christ humbled Himself in order be His Father's gift to the world.  Read Philippians 2:5-11 in the Bible.  This is the true spirit of Christmas.

     As a sign  I saw the other night said, "Wise men still seek Him." 

     Merry Christmas, everyone!

      I am so sorry if that salutation offends some readers.  I really feel sorry for the people  who take offense over a simple seasonal greeting.   They clearly do not understand the reason for the season.  (The glittering generality "Happy Holidays" is  O. K., but it tells me more about what those who use it think about the meaning of Christmas than anything else.)  It is strange: The root meaning of the word holiday is "holy day," and Christmas is a holy day.

      Call me ignorant, stupid or any of the other childish names I've been called because of my beliefs if you wish.  I promise you, I won't be impressed.  It is the people who demean others with this terminology who don't understand.  They think they are smarter than the God they deny.  Some also think their right not to be offended supersedes that of people of faith to enjoy their holidays.   I could not disagree more.  In fact, I am offended by the tiny minority who take away public exhibitions of faith, like Nativity scenes, away from the public.  No one is forcing them to go look if they don't want to.  They may turn off the TV if they don't like Christmas shows, just like I am not forced to go to movie theaters to see pornography. 

     I believe the Christmas story.  I believe the Christmas story is the reason for the season.   I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down to  earth to die for the sins of mankind.  The story of His birth is the story of Christmas.  It is the story of  a miracle which fulfilled a number of Old Testament prophecies.  

     By the way, the name Jesus means "salvation" in the original Hebrew.  Matthew 1:21 says Joseph and Mary were instructed to "call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."

     Isaiah 7:14 says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name  shall be called Emmanuel.  The name means "God with us (Matthew 1:23)."    Yes, I believe that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus in her womb.  She conceived by the Holy Ghost just exactly as the angel Gabriel said she would (Luke 1:34, 35).

      Another prophecy that was fulfilled when Jesus was born was Micah 5:2: "But  thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose going forths have been of old, from everlasting."  This told the exact town in which the Saviour would be born.  Luke 2:4 and 15 tell us that Christ was born in Bethlehem.  The prophecy says more than that:  Since "his going forths have been of old, from everlasting," Jesus is God.

     Those who wish to rationalize that the prophecies were written after the fact are free to do so.  But they are taking a hugeand unnecessary risk, one that could haunt them for eternity.   Jesus was born to die for  their sins as well as mine.  This is the purpose for his coming.  He was the first, and ultimate Christmas gift.

     God gave His Son "to save His people fron their sins,"  and that, my friends, is the reason for the season. 

     In 1961 , Roger Maris hit 61 home runs, bypassing Babe Ruth's single season record set in 1927 by one.  Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick, to protect the "sanctity" of Ruth's record, ruled that due to the new 161-game schedule (up from154), Maris' record would be recorded in the books with an asterisk, supposedly holding Maris' record in question.  This gave Frick notoriety among fans that has lasted until this day.  This action is the one he is best remembered for, although he would probably wish differently.

       Now it is 80 years past the Babe's record season, and a new controversy has struck baseball.  Barry Bonds bypassed Hank Aaron's lifetime home run record, hitting a total of 762 to his 755.  There is no question that he hit them, any more than there is any controversy that Maris hit 61 in 1961. 

      But maybe an asterisk should go by this record as well, or maybe it should not be in the books at all. Bonds was indicted for use illegal performance-enhancing steroids.  If he is guilty, he cheated.  There is no two ways about it.  If he did it, he deserves to be given the same treatment by baseball Pete Rose got - he should be banned from the game for good.   He should not be spending time on the field, but doing time in prison. 

     We know all about Bonds's arrogance and bad attitude, but these are not criminal actions.  Using illegal steroids is.  I don't know whether he is guilty or not.  That is for the courts to decide.   But I hope that there will be no miscarriage of justice in this case.  Let him be found innocent if he is.  But if he is guilty, let his "record" be given the notorious asterisk.

     Not too long ago, the Democratic National Committee decided to "punish" the people of state of Florida for voting to change the date of the Presidential primaries.  I was not happy about the attempted erosion of the rights of Floridians, but I figured maybe this is  a good thing - the backlash might bring more Floridians to the Republican ranks.

     I have changed my mind.  Instead of taking advantage of what might have produced a nice windfall for the party, the Republican National Committee has copied the idiocy of their Democratic counterparts.  This shows that that the RNC is little more than a bunch of Democrats in disguise.  I conclude for this and a number of other reasons that the only diferences between the two parties are cosmetic.  The Democrats are stubborn Liberal jackasses and the Republican are "Conservative" elephants, both stuffed with ego and the desire to limit the rights of the average voter and citizen.

     How dare the party politicians presume to punish any state for voting tto change the date of their Primary!  States have the right to hold elections any time they choose.  I and most Floridians don't want New Hampshire and Iowa telling us how to vote.  I wouldn't give two cents for the stupid tradition that says they are entitled to influence Presidential elections by holding the first primaries.  To quote Ebenezer Scrooge, "Bah, Humbug!"

     I have been a Republican from the time I registered to vote 35 years ago, but I will probably renounce my allegiance to the party because of this and a number of other issues.  I am ashamed of what the party is doing now.  I will be looking at third parties that truly uphold Conservative Christian political values.  I will not be looking for people willing to commit political suicide by sleeping with the enemy.

     The politiicians say the change will create scheduling problems for the candidates and their campaigns.  "Well," as comedian and sometime Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen used to say, "Picky, picky, picky!"  The politicians are to serve the voters and not the other way around.  That is something a lot of people in the government have forgotten.  Maybe they will get a reminder at the polls that our government is not made for the self-serving to grab money and power. 

     To the RNC, I have a message:  You may "punish" the voters now, but on Election Day, you will get the worst spanking a political party ever got unless you cease and desist from this power grab.  The people of Florida have every right to change election dates if they choose to do so, and you have no right to force us to do otherwise, not even at the behest of your Democrat bedfellows.