Is This the Future?

Redmond, Wash., - In direct response to accusations made by the Dept. of Justice, the Microsoft Corporation announced today that it will be acquiring the Federal Government of the United States for an undisclosed sum. "Its actually a logical extension of our planned growth", said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "It really is going to be a positive arrangement for everyone."
Microsoft representatives held a briefing in the Oval Office of the White House with U.S. President _____ and assured members of the press that changes will be "minimal". The United States will be managed as a wholly owned division of Microsoft.
An initial public offering is planned for July of next year, and the Federal Government is expected to be profitable by 2012 according to Microsoft president Steve Ballmer
In a related announcement, Pres. _____ stated that he had "willingly and enthusiastically" accepted a position as a vice-president with Microsoft, and will continue to manage the United States Government, reporting directly to Bill Gates. When asked how it felt to give up the mantle of executive authority to Gates, ______ smiled and referred to it as "a relief". He went on to say that Gates has a proven track record and that U.S. citizens should offer Gates their full support and confidence. ______ will be reportedly earning several times the $200,000 annually he has earned as U.S. President, in his new role at Microsoft.
Gates dismissed a suggestion that the U.S. Capitol be moved to Redmond as "silly" though he did say that he would make executive decisions for the U.S. Government from his existing office at Microsoft headquarters. Gates went on to say that the House and Senate would "of course" be abolished. "Microsoft isn't a democracy", he observed, "and look how well we're doing." When asked if the rumored attendant acquisition of Canada was proceeding, Gates said, "We don't deny that discussions are taking place." Microsoft representatives closed the conference by stating that United States citizens will be able to expect lower taxes, increases in government services and discounts on all Microsoft products.

About Microsoft: Founded in 1978, Microsoft (NASDAQ MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers and democratic government. The company offers a wide range of products and services for public, business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing and free society every day.

About the United States: Founded in 1789, the United States of America is the most successful nation in the history of the world, and has been a beacon of democracy and opportunity for over 200 years. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the United States is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.
- The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman

The Water Metaphor Challenge

Have you noticed how many times in your reading that a metaphor pops up using water in some sort of way? Let's make this a place to collect and share these as we find them. We'll leave them in the comments section. Here are the rules:
1. No fair going to a website on water metaphors. I don't personally know of any but I'm sure they are out there.
2. After you quote the metaphor, give the source.
3. Be sure to tell who you are.

Happy hunting!

In Praise of Old Books

I was just thinking the other day how much I love old books. How at the library, I will choose the old binding over the new one. How I even like to discard the colorful dust jackets of new books so that they look older on my shelf.
But, what I really like is to go to an old book shop and pick up an old book. I love the musty smell and the uneven pages at the edge. Its a bit like an archaeological dig. You open the cover, - ah, the cover; dented, scratched, stained, and worn. On the fly leaves and throughout there often are notes or marks or underlinings like blazes on trees on a hiking trail that say, "Stop here" or "This is really important" or "This really affected me".
Sometimes there is the name of the previous owner who may have been dead for a hundred years. Sometimes I like to imagine who bought this book new and under what circumstances. Was it a gift? Was it on a whim? Was it treasured for years or months before there was finally enough money to purchase it?
Sometime I like to buy an old book that I know nothing about- not a classic - those are reprinted endlessly in new additions. I mean, old books long out of print for some reason. Perhaps it fell out of style or maybe it wasn't considered that good to begin with. When you buy a book like this, you take a chance, like while traveling, eating at a local diner instead of the fast-food chain restaurant. Sure, you might get a bad one, but the atmosphere is unique, the menu varied, and often really good or it wouldn't still be there. An old book can be like that. You might not get very far before you realize why its no longer in print. Or, like a miner, you may have uncovered a whole new vein of literature that leads to more works by that author or related topics that could take years to mine. These can lead to one to new and wonderful tunnels and chambers and passages that may add new facets to your world view.
Old books are hard work. The vocabulary is challenging, the syntax archaic, the metaphors unfamiliar - although I bet you will come across at least one that has to do with water. But I have found that even the effort here rewards me with a smile at an unusual or quaint turn of phrase. The hard work, the having to read a paragraph once again, just adds to the experience and reminds me that much that is worthwhile takes effort.
Another thing: linger over the author's name. Who was he? There may be an entire website of devotees to him that you never realized. Was this the first or the last of a long series of works that represents a lifetime of labor? Or, was this his only child - his only addition to the stock of
Western literature and knowledge, long-forgotten but still added to the aggregate of our civilization. This is the part where "other works by..." comes in. Some time here will reveal the narrowness or breadth of his interests and expertise.
And, don't read the first chapter before looking over the other clues: the dedication (who was D.F.W.?), the acknowledgments (his favorite people), the preface and introduction (what he really wants you to learn from the book) and where he wrote it and when (Providence, 1877). I even think its pretty cool that at the very end they sometimes take the trouble to tell you what kind of font it was printed in. Maybe its still on the little drop-down menu on Word and you can share a font with someone long-gone. Even the table of contents and index can yield some clues though by now most of the nuggets have been found.
Now its time to get at the heart (or mind) of the matter. For now its time to speak his words into your mind; to give the sounds, that have lay dormant for decades, new life. This person from whatever time or place is revived and in a sense you can begin the conversation anew. I'm sure that he never tires of explaining himself one more time. You can even argue or agree in the margins. Imagine how interesting a book becomes as several readers leave their comments for the next - a conversation that stretches over time and makes every volume unique. I guess John Adams filled his books with marginal notes and discussions that have been a gold mine for scholars. I mark up new books because someday they will be old and I want to be the one who starts the conversation - its my priviledge since I bought it first. What my children someday will learn about me - but first they will have to read my books - page by page, as they will never know where a revealing comment might pop up. And, I haven't even mentioned The Greatest Old Book - an old Bible: a personal record of the joys and tests of a pilgrimmage of faith in the smudges, underlinings, dates, and notes on the pages.
Its not hard to love new books. They are colorful and exciting and desired for their content ahead of time. But, an old, musty volume is a chest filled with the minds and hearts and experiences of authors long-gone and ideas long-forgotten just waiting to be revived to interact with new minds in whatever time.

Why We Will Always Have the Poor With Us

Jesus makes this extraordinary statement in Matthew 26:11: "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." But, why is poverty inevitable? Is it because it is just one of those consequences of the Fall? Absolutely. But what consequence? Is it the scarcity of resources? Certainly that is part of it: "Cursed is the ground because of you..It will produce thorns and thistles for you...(Genesis 3:17,18). Therefore, some fail as they till because nature in its fallen state does not abundantly give back in the measure that we till. But, what about those that do not even till or have never tilled? No, that can't be all. The ground may be cursed, but in His mercy, He has allowed men to develop science and apply it to all areas of human endeavor so that there is great and growing abundance not only in the U.S. but in an increasing area of the world. He has given us the ability to apply our intelligence in an orderly universe so that much of the world has been transformed into a garden and at least that part of the Fall, along with medicine and weaponry that allows the intelligent but physically weak to defend life, liberty, and property. Also, part of God's common grace is free-market capitalism where there are great and powerful incentives to work and create and toil with a reasonable assurance of profit above mere subsistence. Ah, but here you can hear the rattling of the long-dead corpse of Marxism gathering up its bones for one last roar, like the frightful revisiting of dead philosophies past: "Greeeeeed, Greeeeeed and the unnnnnnnequal distribution of those resources!" I suppose that's part of it in a shrinking part of the world - shrinking because of the gracious overthrow of Marxist ignorance and greed in the 1990s. Part of God's common grace has been its institutional defeat (though not in academia) and the release of millions to the free-market of which I just spoke. But this does not explain the continued and increasing violence, hopelessness, and brutishness of people surrounded by material abundance especially in the West where the very air of opportunity has been breathed by generations.
No, there must be a deeper cause and I have just finished a book that supplies the answer: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes The Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple. Did you catch the key word in the subtitle: worldview? This is what makes this book not just another book about the poor. The author has been a psychologist and criminologist among the British underclass for over twenty years. He supplies the missing piece. The underclass are under because they have bought into a huge lie created in academia and perpetuated by what he calls the professional redeemer industry. Yes, ideas have consequences (just ask Eve) and as one thinks, he will do. The great consequence of the Fall is not the uneven distribution of resources but the unequal distribution of truth. The great lie is that men are not men but bags of chemicals that like their amoebic cousins, can only react to environmental stimuli. They are poor and oppressed not by the vagaries of capitalism or lack of compassion, but by the paralyzing lies that there is nothing they can do to escape violence and poverty. In short, Dalrymple says that they do not know how to live. Its bad philosophy on parade in the ghettos of a thousand cities and in the tragedies of millions of lives. And the lie that under girds that lie is that all lives are of equal quality. There is no good life; there is no good, healthy culture; there is no poisonous ideas or culture; there is no good.
The mistake among the chattering classes is to assume that since crime appears more among the poor, poverty must be the cause. But, perhaps wrong ideas cause crime and crime causes poverty. Here are a few other offerings from the book:
- It is a mistake to suppose that all men want to be free; freedom entails responsibility.
- 7 (at least) features of the underclass world view:
1. a dishonest fatalism
2. victim psychology
3. contempt for authority because they are the ones who dole out consequences to bad thinking.
4. denial of guilt
5. claim of inability to understand their own motives or actions
6. societal pardon for past crimes and exemption from future crimes
7. boredom because they have no interests beyond momentary excitement
8. addiction (purposeful) to crises and drama. This is their entertainment
9. attraction (purposeful) to violent and abusive relationships
10. tribal mentality: the success of one is a reproach to all
11. desire for triumph without merit
12. low culture is more genuine than refined culture
13. need for constant excitement and instant gratification
- the lessening of restraints increases, not decreases crime
- if there was more justice in the world, there would be more not fewer prisoners
- "they are bored because they have never applied their intelligence... intelligence is a distinct disadvantage if it is not used: it bites back."

Paul says in Colossians 2:8, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." It is wrong thinking that holds captive. The good news is that thinking can be changed in the realm of common grace and through Christ there is a great and powerful alternative.

Tracking your government

What a wonderful age to live in to get information on the workings of government. Check out the link govtrack.us to learn more than you wanted to know about Congress. The best thing is the tracking feature that lets you track individual bills, committees, topics, or legislators.

Why I Don't Like the Civil War...A Continuing Series

Some Introductory Thoughts...
I am very aware of the fact that there are probably a lot of people who disagree with me. And, if you are one of them, I am open to your comments on this topic, but sadly, have nearly made up my mind.
I was troubled recently by an article that I read in American Heritage magazine where a high school history teacher noticed in his travels that at memorials and battlefields and museums associated with the Civil War, there was no mention of anyone doing anything wrong. It was sort of like the deaths of 600,000 men was due to a terrible (and romantic) train accident or natural disaster. So, he went around to various monuments, etc searching for some clue to a moral lesson from such an epic event, but found none. Nothing in the remarks of park rangers or guides; nothing on all that signage at museums; nothing in the pamphlets at the gift shop. Nothing. He reported that there is plenty of condemnation of slavery and the miseries and hardships of life in military camps; gruesome displays of "Civil War medicine", and of course, the terrible treatment of Union soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia (whose commandant was the only Confederate executed for the war). But, no clue as to whether it was ok to try to destroy this country (treason) and certainly no talk of ,"If the South would have won, this continent would have been torn apart by savage warfare by various confederations of states preying on one another, while being manipulated by various foreign powers...something like happened in Europe in the 20th century. Would we really be as prosperous and free today if Johnny Reb or the great Southern men of character such as "Stonewall" (indeed!) Jackson or Robt. E. Lee would have been as successful as U.S. Grant, Wm Sherman, or George Meade?
The second thing that has troubled me about all this is a document that I was given at a history teacher conference entitled the "Cornerstone Speech" by Confederate vice-president, Alexander Stephens. The entire speech can be read online, but here are a few excerpts:
"The prevailing ideas entertained by him (Jefferson) and most of the leading statesmen at the time (The Founders)...were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong...Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the 'storm came and the wind blew.' (That is the attempted destruction of the Union by the secession of several Southern states in 1860). Our new government (that is the Confederacy) is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests (hence, the title) upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery...is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth..." Lincoln and Stephens did agree on one thing: that the Civil War was a test: "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." (Gettysburg Address) But, when the wind and the storm blew (the conflict), the outcomes were different. Stephens states that the 1860 destruction of the Union was proof of the "new government's" soundness. But, what he could not have known yet was that there was a greater storm brewing. Lee's surrender at Appomattox and the virtual destruction of the South along with the restoration of the Union, demonstrated what the true cornerstone is: what Lincoln called the equality principle - that all men are created equal. And, I bet you won't find that on a National Park Service plaque, especially south of the Mason-Dixon Line.