Less Rigidity

I've been haunted by one word in a comment on my blog: rigidity. Lest I be accused of taking out of context, here is the whole segment: "What I see is a world that is not Black and White, Christian and non-Christian, Conservative and Liberal. I want less ridgity and more tolerance, I want less hate and more love. I want more humility and less arrogance."

I see some reason in this. I hate labels because along with a label comes a whole constellation of attributions, that change according to the "eye of the beholder." But that's a topic for another blog.

I believe that one MAJOR problem with our government, if not our whole culture, is a lack of rigidity. A lack of absolute structure. It's like our life is being built on shifting sands.

Rigidity is necessary in many parts of our life.

I constructed a compost barrel, using a recycled 50-gallon plastic drum, some scrap pvc pipe, a metal pole, and some scrap lumber. Since I was trying things out, I just put it together enough to see if it worked. I used the lumber to make two stands to raise the barrel above the ground so that I could spin it. Two 2x4s put together weren't stable enough, so I added two "leaning" type supports to the upright posts, nailing them in. However, even that construct wasn't stable enough . . . I found when I tried to spin the half-full barrel. It all started to collapse; I tried to keep it up, but the weight of it all knocked me down in a pile of poles. The point is it wasn't rigid enough. Some things don't work without rigidity.

This lack of rigidity is very much like growing up with an alcoholic father. We had to guess at the rules, which could change from day to day. It all depended on his mood. When my little brother accidentally broke a mirror that had been placed leaning against a wall, we had no idea of whether it was punishable or not and how extreme the punishment would be. As it turned out, our father made me decide whether to punish my brother or not. I had to figure out what the father wanted, and if I guessed wrong, I would also be in trouble. I didn't want to, but I said Teddy should be punished. Our father accepted that and beat my little brother with the buckle end of a belt until his bare thighs bled.

I spent many of my years growing up in a somewhat functional family trying to guess what my parents (mom and step-dad) wanted, holding my breath, tip-toeing. Many, many times, I chose not to ask if I could go to a party because they might say no. I just didn't go.

For the people of a society to deal best with each other, there must be some rigid rules. Used to be, a promise was a promise. It was rigid. You shook hands; you could rely on its being accomplished, short of death or God's intervention. Then it was a signature on a contract. That's why you had to read the whole contract carefully (even the fine print) before signing it. Signing a contract meant you were obligated to accomplish that promise.

President Obama has changed that, just trashing contract law in bailouts of banks and automotive companies. The most egregious example is Obama's dictating to the secure bond holders of Chrysler what they had to take in the supposed bankruptcy (with new rules written by Obama, et al.) There are many more examples of Obama's lack of rigidity, from his immediate and almost complete reversal of all campaign promises, to his apparent disregard of the rule of law ("no one is above the law"), to his circumventing legal provisions for checks and balances by appointing czars. . . Kevin McCullough writes an insightful column on the issue: "Why Liberals Never Lie." Basically,, he says, they don't lie because they don't have a rigid standard. The truth morphs for them.

The children of this alcoholism -- entrepreneurs and investors -- are reacting just like I did. Not being sure how any potential contracts will be taken, they just don't even take a risk. OR, they are spending all their energy trying to get on Obama's good side so they won't be punished or so they can receive special perqs.

The law should be rigid and not malleable by individuals, who are ruled by emotions. That way, everyone knows what to expect. We don't have to spend our lives trying to guess what might work or whether a promise will be kept.

In addition, I think most individuals need to make rigid rules for themselves. Goals need to be rigid. If your goals continually move or you drop your "goal" for another, they aren't doing the job of goals. If you want to be an honest person, your rigid rule should be to tell the truth, and you should not allow yourself to wimp out on that rule by fudging -- like telling yourself that white lies are okay. This doesn't mean you absolutely can't break your rigid rules; but it does mean that you don't justify the breaking of them.

Present attitudes toward marriage is a part of this lack of rigidity. People take an oath, "til death do we part," and yet, when they get bored or run into some conflicts, that oath melts like butter on a Phoenix summer day. Commitment, I think, requires rigidity.

So what did my commenter mean by "rigidity"? In context, I think she's talking about the concept she has about Christians -- that they tend to apply their own rules to everyone else, and they are rigid about those rules. That they are not tolerant toward others. However, I'd have to pursue that discussion to know if that's what she really meant.

The bottom line is we need rigidity to some extent. I see no problem with knowing what the rules are and being rigid about them. I personally do not expect non-Christians to follow God's rules, though if they did, they might be healthier and happier! (I DO expect Christians to at least try to follow God's rules.) In other words, I do not see rigidity and tolerance as being mutually exclusive.

Wake up, people!

Remember last year when gasoline went up to $4.00 a gallon? How mad you were at the oil companies?

If the Cap & Trade bill gets through the Senate, we can expect much more than that.* Who you gonna be mad at then?

*In the House, Republican amendments to the Waxman-Markey (Cap & Trade) Bill asking for a suspension of the bill IF gasoline goes above $5 a gallon, or if electricity cost doubles, or if unemployment goes higher than 15% were kicked out. That's a clear sign that at least one of these things will happen.

Not all revolutions are equal

The Iranian people -- being butchered by their own government -- are pleading for our help with their English posters of protest, and cries for US support from amateur reporters. And those of us who love our freedom want to help.

On the last day of my Beginning English as a Second Language class, I sat down with Kourosh Varanyi, a Kurd from Iran and asked him, "What can we do to help?" His English is quite rough, but he manages to get his meaning across.

He said, "Nothing." He explained that Mousavi, the opposition candidate, is just like Ahmadinajad.

"But maybe he's changed."

"No," Kourosh said. The Kurds* tried to revolt several years back when Mousavi was in charge. He signed for 24,000 people to be killed in one day. Kourosh swiped his hands, showing fait accompli. Then he pointed to a circular scar on the inside of his left elbow and another in his forearm. "Two more," he pointed to his left leg. "They shoot me."

"But Mousavi's wife . . .maybe it would be better for women." I was desperate for some kind of hope for the revolution.

"No. She's the same. No freedom for women. Islam law." Several times, Kourosh said, "We want government no religion. Like here."

"Secular," I said. "Freedom of religion." (Death to the dictator.)

"Yeah."

So now, my fellow believers, we know what to pray for. Not that Iran's revolution lead to a quick switch from Ahmadinajad to Ahmadinajad-lite, nor for a switch from the "Supreme Leader" to anyone else in the Islamic rulership. Instead, this revolution needs a carefully constructed new government, one created with as much wisdom and aforethought as our founding fathers had. This sort of revolution will not be quick. If it happens, it may take years.

*The Kurdish people are an ethnic minority of an area they call Kurdestan, that encompasses the north of Iraq and Iran, and the south of Turkey. They share more similarities with each other across the country boundaries than they do with the people of their nations. It was many villages of Iraqi Kurds that Saddam Hussein wiped out with chemical weaponry, after they got the idea that the US would support them in a revolt. No wonder the Iranian Kurds are hanging back and waiting on the Iranian revolt.

Daniel

I've been reading the book of Daniel. It occurred to me that, though it didn't happen through conquest, we conservative constitutionalists are in a similar situation as Daniel. Stuck in exile in a land we don't recognize, a land with alien values. . . our liberties curtailed.

In the last month or so, I've been discouraged enough to just not write in my blog. I wouldn't even look at it or at anyone else's blog. I felt originally that God wanted me to start this blog. I already had a "home" blog that I could write about little things, my dogs, my cats and cooking. . . But I felt led to create a blog about the big things: God and America, and how we relate. I felt some great purpose to this little blog.

But I saw no evidence that anyone -- other than a friend or two, in which case, I was preaching to the choir -- was reading my blog. So what's the use? Thus began my discouragement. And yes, I reminded myself that we can't always know the results of God's commands; we must only do them. But that didn't help me come back.

This discouragement is tied together with the feeling that I get when I call and write our senators' and representative's offices and get a polite acknowledgment, or worse, a response that explains to me why they choose to vote contrarily. The anxiety, the urgency within me, the need to do something, anything! is hardening to a husk of what it was. What's the use?

In the prospect of long-term exile, Daniel and his friends behaved in a way to glorify God. Their home, homeland, capital city was shattered. They had been, in essence, kidnapped, and taken to Babylon to serve the king. I wonder how much time and effort they spent in trying to get away. Or did they from the start give it all up to God?

When my Christian friends shrug and say, "These are the last days," and their attitude is to basically roll with it, accept it, I get really irritated. We can't just bend over and take it! This is not the time to withdraw and wait on the Lord! That's abdicating our responsibility.

First, Daniel and company made sure that they were able to continue to glorify God through maintaining dietary standards -- not with a protest fast, but with a suggestion of a scientific experiment. In order to get this far, they had to treat their jailers, the chief of eunuchs and the steward over him, as people, not as evil enemies. I'm sure that if God had not brought Daniel into the favor of the chief of eunuchs, whatever he suggested would have been dismissed out of hand. But the chief explained to Daniel the reason for the food they were having to eat. And Daniel could come back with this suggestion that they compare the results of the two diets after ten days. And in case you don't know the story, Daniel's diet of vegetables and water kept him and friends much healthier than those who'd been eating the king's delicacies and drinking the wine.

Their training was to last for three years, but even before that time was up, Daniel had his first big break in being able to tell the king his dream and interpret it. It was into their second year there.

Hmm, we've been in exile only a few months. We have to see ourselves as being in it for the long run. Even if we are able to put politicians with integrity (boy, is that an oxymoron!) into office in 2010, we will still be fighting an overall attitude of relativism and a lack of understanding of the Constitution.

And Daniel lasted as wise man, counselor for the king, through King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the short reign of his son, Belshazzar, the reign of Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Persian. (This is where I am in the book of Daniel.)

What struck me is that through Daniel's behavior, all these kings knew God to be the "living God, steadfast forever." They didn't necessarily give up their own gods, but they recognized God and His power.

Let this be a wake up call. We've been called bitter clingers; let us now cling even more tightly to God. The anxiety is counter-productive. At the same time, let us not relax and give up our responsibility as citizens. That's part of the problem and why we are in this mess.

When I told a liberal (progressive) friend that I was planning to go to Washington, DC, to protest on the 4th of July, she said, "It's good that you're finally getting involved."

I said, "Thank you," but I was miffed. What do you mean finally getting involved? I've been involved all along. I've been doing the things we're supposed to do -- informing myself and voting. But . . . that wasn't everything we needed to be doing, I realize now. I think we have abdicated our responsibility as citizens, assuming if we voted correctly, then these politicians will keep the country running. It's like those parents who send their children to school with the idea that now they don't have to do much in the training of their kids. While protesting should not have to be a normal part of an involved citizen's life, when the citizen has allowed things to get out of hand, protesting is perhaps the last option.

We should have been training our children about the steadfastness of the Constitution, about our founding fathers and their vision, and making sure that our educational system doesn't allow the insidious changes, revisionist history, etc. to make inroads into our children's minds. In my defense, I didn't know about these things. But responsible citizenry requires much more thorough education than we got in K-12 and even through college.

We should have been keeping an eye on our representatives, both state and federal, following what they were voting on and how they voted, and expressing our educated opinion at every turn. If we had, they would not have been able to vote themselves an automatic pay increase every year, for example.

The US that Obama envisions and the results, which we envision, cannot be more alien to us than Babylon to Daniel. We must find a way to work within the framework we are given, so that when it's all said and done, God will be glorified.

What can you say?

What can you say to those "bleeding heart liberals" who throw the number of 47 million people in the US being uninsured at you? Especially when they add that 9 million of them are children and most of them are working families?

Well, first you can point out that the numbers are misleading. Of that 47 million, about 10 million aren't even citizens! Almost 18 million make more than $50,000/year; they can afford to have the insurance but they choose not to (more than half of 18 million make more than $75,000/yr.) It's not a money issue here. And 19 million are young people (between the ages of 18 and 34) who feel they don't need it right now. And finally almost half of 47 million are only temporarily uninsured, like for four months, because they're between jobs. Yes, those numbers and groups can overlap, but there is an exaggeration of lack of health insurance in the US. (I'm taking these numbers from "Next on the Statists' List: Health Care" by David Limbaugh, but I'd heard them before.)

Second, point out that lack of health insurance doesn't mean lack of coverage. The law requires emergency room care even when someone can't afford it.

Third, and most importantly, you can tell them government health care will do the opposite of what's intended. Government mandated health coverage will make people less likely to get health care. I know it sounds crazy, but it's a simple matter of economics.

Government control of medicine is price control. When the price is required by government fiat to be lower than the market dictates, you get more demand (more people taking advantage of the lower price) and less production. Fewer people will be encouraged to become doctors and nurses. So you end up with a shortage.

That's why the long waiting periods for care in Great Britain and Canada. Many people die while waiting for their treatment! That's why they need "advisory boards" to decide what medical treatments are not financially feasible. So they'll be weeding out the people who won't benefit enough from treatment (i.e., they're old anyway and will be dying soon) and weeding out the treatments that are too costly.

So the old man above will not receive much care in Obama-care. Too bad, huh?

With My Boots On

Latest reports are that Medicare has only eight more years. To be honest, I don't expect to be able to use any Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security.

For one thing, I can't imagine not working. Yes, I'm getting older, and a few times, my mind has wandered over the path of thought the word "retirement" leads it. Thoughts like how many more years? How will we be able to live? But I'm pretty sure that even once I retire, I'm not going to stop working. How boring would that be? How useless I would feel.

My dad worked up until he died. I guess you'd say he died with his boots on.

In the movie Secondhand Lions, Hub, one of Walter's great-uncles, is fighting the idea of growing old. He's used to a life of war and battle, having fought in two world wars and numerous other smaller wars. Now Hub keeps doing crazy, dangerous stuff and Walter's afraid he's going to die. At one point, Hub and Garth, his brother, use their money to buy a lion so they can have a lion hunt. But the lion is an aging lioness that won't even run. Walter keeps her as a pet. Then when the boyfriend of Walter's mother is beating up the boy, the lion attacks the boyfriend and dies in the fight.

"She died with her boots on," the uncles told Walter, "protecting her cub."

Later, Walter convinces Hub that he needs both his great-uncles to take care of him. Hub promises to lay off the crazy behavior until Walter has graduated from college. The movie ends (and begins) with the uncles flying a homemade WWI bi-plane into a barn. The sheriff telling Walter says, "They died with their boots on."

That's what I want. Let me die with my boots on.

My Prayer

Dear God,
On this National Day of Prayer, I pray for our leaders, for the people whom we put into power over us, starting with Barack Obama. I don't pray for him enough. Lord, be with him. Be that niggling little voice of conscience that never leaves him. Surround him with people who will tell him the truth, and help him to accept the truth. Even, Lord, if it's Your will, provide him a "road to Damascus" experience and a change of heart. I pray that Your will be done.

I ask the same for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Let the believers in Congress listen to Your voice and act on Your directions in interactions with these leaders and other congressmen. Further, let the believers wake up to their true duty. And Lord, if they do not, help us to vote them out of office. Guide us in knowing the truth about our representatives.

Please help me love those certain people in our government that I have trouble loving. Show me again how to love with Your love those that I have, in my fleshly reasoning, written off as not deserving of respect or love. And forgive me for my arrogance of judging, better left up to You.

There are many more to pray for, but I wanted to start with these people. Thank you for reminding me that You, Father God, have the ultimate victory.

Connie

Don't Tell Obama about Quadrillion

I'm terrible with numbers. All my life, I've been strong with words, weak with numbers. For this reason, when my husband and I played darts, I'd be figuring out how much was left on my score, while others would be yelling out the number. I'd just shake my head and keep figuring. If I didn't do it for myself, how would I know it was right? And how would I learn?

Numbers tend to just have symbolic meaning to me. It's like the number 202 on an apartment. The number is a designation, but it doesn't mean amount of (as in two hundred and two apartments). So I find 300,000 to be quite similar to 3,000. To really know the difference, I have to think about it.

The budget that just passed Congress is $3 trillion. Just how much is one trillion?

According to one source, if you spent one million dollars EVERY DAY from year 1 (after Christ's time) to now, you would still not have spent one trillion dollars. It comes to about $734 billion.

Here's another way to look at it. One trillion seconds makes 31,546 years! But I can't really fathom that. A year of seconds becomes more than I can fathom.

This was the best way for me. If you stack up $1,000 bills, one million dollars makes about a four-inch stack. (I confirmed this with my husband who used to deal with stacks of bills.) Now to make one trillion dollars from a stack of $1,000 bills, you need to stack them up to (and over) 63 miles!

The Sandias are approximately one mile high from the valley floor. Sixty-three Sandias stacked up would be level with our stack of $1,000 bills that makes ONE trillion dollars. Triple that, and you've got three trillion.

WHY, WHY, WHY???

On Laws and Morality

Walter Williams, one of my favorite economists and columnists, finished his recent column, "Law vs. Moral Values" with these words: "Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we've become." Right on, Williams!

The other day, while eating Sunday dinner with my church's Home Bible Study group (several families), in giving examples of the "hidden" taxes already enacted of Obama's administration, I mentioned the cigarette tax.

"Oh, that's okay," said one friend. "That'll make people smoke less."

I was aghast at her comment. I hope that she didn't feel like I jumped on her with my response, but I feel very strongly about this subject. The government has no business in my (or anyone else's) morality. And killing oneself slowly is a moral issue.

When he announced he was switching parties, yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter said the Republican party has no more room for moderates. And callers on the talk shows explained that conservative Republicans (as opposed to moderate Republicans) means the "social conservatives," that is, those who want to make abortion illegal and keep gays from marital bliss. It's these people, they contend, that will kill the Republican party.

Now I don't care about the Republican party, except as a possible vehicle for getting into office truly good people. (The Republicans in office now do not fit that description.) And one way to know if people are truly good is if they have good morals, which, for the most part, means they have conservative values (and I'm speaking of "conservative" with a small "c;" the antithesis of "progressive," not Conservative with a large "c.") However, just because a person has conservative values and good morals does not mean he wants to force everyone else to have the same values and morals. In fact, I would say one of his values is respect of the individual's personal responsibility.

Truly good people for political office means those who thoughtfully support the Constitution as it was created originally, who believe the government must be limited to only its enumerated powers, such as to protect our country from attack, to print money, to be sure contracts are honored. Our founding fathers believed that, in order to have government thus limited and maintain personal liberty, the individual must be self-controlling based on his own morality. They actually expected a belief in God is what would guide the free people to do the right thing, NOT law.

I can find several good reasons the government should not be allowed to control our bad behavior.

1. The more government intrudes on our bad behavior, the more we tend to abdicate our own responsibility. It's much easier to say, "I didn't know it was against the law," than it is to say, "I didn't think about whether it was right or wrong." I have many students who believe that a behavior is not wrong if it's legal.

2. Who decides what is bad behavior? The Greens would have me believe that my cutting down trees is bad behavior. But I don't think so. Joe Biden says it's patriotic to pay taxes, and of course, he means those who are already paying 30% of their income in taxes shouldn't complain when their taxes are raised to 50% of their income. Obama's administration says that as a country we are immoral because of our "torture" of terrorists. But is it moral to allow further attacks to kill thousands of our people when we can avoid the attacks through waterboarding a few evil people?

3. As government gains more control of our lives, it becomes more corrupt. The more power it has, the more money it wants, and it finds ways to get both. This leads to two classes of people: those who obey the law and those in power who don't have to. Need I remind you of Tim Geithner's slide into office as Treasury Secretary although he hadn't paid his taxes until it became evident that his taxes would be noticed in the process of his confirmation hearings?

4. Government has a poor track record of managing anything. Anyone who has had to deal with Medicare or Medicaid knows what I mean. Heck, on the state level, just look at the department of motor vehicles. This is why peanuts tainted with salmonella managed to enter our food consumption. This is why my friend, Eva, cannot buy stuffed animals for the bags she makes to give homeless children. You see, Congress passed a law outlawing lead in children's toys, and requiring all stores reselling children's toys to test those toys to make sure they don't contain lead (that's the good behavior). Thrift stores are unable to afford the costs of testing just to resell a toy at a dollar, so they refuse to take children's toys anymore.

The only proper place the government has in regulating our behavior is when our behavior interferes with anyone else's rights, that is, those God-given rights that cannot be separated from us: our rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and press, our rights to redress and to bear arms, our right to life and property.

We have, folded into all those rights, the right to fail. We have the right to do stupid and immoral stuff, as long as our actions do not interfere with others' rights.

The Mirror Demonstration!

I had never seen anything like it.

I wasn't a complete demonstration neophyte. I had "marched" with about five friends in the CNM teacher's union in front of the building where the CNM board was meeting to decide on salaries for CNM security. We had signs ready made. We marched in a circle and sang, "We shall overcome." (Don't get on to me for being in the union and doing this. I had my reasons, which I thought were very good at the time.)

Then there were anti-war demonstrations that I happened to drive through on my way to Wal-Mart. Those made me very nervous. The vitriol of the (small) crowd was palpable, even with me protected in my car. I'd just focus my gaze straight ahead and try to get through without running over someone mad enough to jump out in front of me. It never happened but that was my fear.

So at the Albuquerque Tea Party, I could very well relate to the few drivers who focused straight ahead and white-knuckled their way to the center lane. But there were so few of them.

A counter demonstration marched somewhere around Smiths, I heard, but I never saw any of them. Only one or two "nuts" wandered through doing their own thing that might have been contrary to us. I really couldn't tell. One guy dressed in a red t-shirt with a yellow hammer & sickle on it paused every few feet and waved a kind of anti-American flag. That is, its blue and white bars were vertical and the blue field with white stars on the American flag was on this thing a white field with blue stars. We ignored him and he wandered on.

Of the drivers, a few people shot us a finger as they passed. We just laughed. Actually, I had to keep asking the guy next to me which it was, a finger or a thumbs up. The clouds had dimmed the sunlight enough that without my glasses, my vision wasn't good enough to determine which was which. But during the entire three hours, Dale counted only three or four middle fingers, and maybe five thumbs down.

That left everyone else in the thousands of cars, SUVs, and trucks passing by, approving of what we were doing. It was a 5:00 rush-hour traffic jam until after 7:00! People reported that to get onto Montgomery from Carlisle and San Mateo, it took 15 minutes!

Did I say thousands of vehicles? Or were they the same ones on a loop, going round and round and round? Quite a few began to look familiar. We finally figured out that people had driven by, perhaps as a result of their daily tasks, gone home, collected their kids, flags, dogs, and quickly-scrawled signs. Then driving up and down the four miles of Montgomery, honking their horn, waving flags, thumbs up, and showing signs to the people they passed, they served as a kind of mirror demonstration for us.

One little girl had scrawled on her lined notebook paper, "Obama sucks!" She flattened it against the window as her mother drove slowly by us so we could read it.

Another lady held up a sign that said, "This is all the change Obama gave me!" Huge coins were plastered on it, one fitting within the O of Obama.

People perched in the opening of a Hummer-type search and rescue vehicle waving a full-sized "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the Army Rangers flag, and Old Glory, while the airhorn of an 18-wheeler sounded.

Children waved flags and sticks with teabags on them out the windows of their cars.

One driver jumped up and down in his seat, waving both arms, and grinning.

One old guy had four flags, one for each of his windows, sticking up around his car.

There were elderly people in Cadillacs, young parents with babies locked into carseats, Hispanics, blacks, and whites, men dressed in grungy t-shirts, men dressed in business suits, ladies in classic power suits, ladies in scrubs, trucks pulling trailers with motorcycles and trucks pulling trailers with landscaping tools. My daughter noticed that the driver of nearly EVERY truck or van that had a business logo on it went crazy honking, grinning, and giving the thumbs up. "It's because they're working," she deduced.

The numbers were hard to determine. People came and went on the sidewalks on both sides of Montgomery. Since the numbers seemed to come out as between 5,000 and 10,000, I'd just go with the more conservative 7,000. But that's just counting the people who stood on the sidewalks, not the mirror demonstration. What a boost we got out of the support we received.

Young Man on a Bicycle

My sign at the Albuquerque Tea Party read "BASTA!" because I wanted to make a unique one for New Mexico, so I figured the simple Spanish word for "enough!" would be good. It was funny when I was drawing it out at the sign-making party. I drew B-A-S-T, and my daughter started asking, "What are you writing? Don't you know this is a family friendly thing?"

Well, it looks like not as many people knew Spanish as I expected. Several people asked what it meant. My daughter enjoyed waving the sign for awhile. With her body-modification -- tattoos, piercings, and brandings -- she figured people would take her as an "infiltrator." And if they didn't know what the word "basta" meant, then they might really take her as an infiltrator.

But there came a time when I had the sign.

A young man on a bicycle was passing behind us (we stood right on the edge of the curb to get the drivers' attention) and he stopped suddenly and asked me, "What does your sign say?"

"Basta. It means 'enough.'"

He nodded and started on his way, but turned back. "Enough . . . what?" He was taller than I and had to lean his head down to hear me with all the yelling and cheering going on.

"Enough spending. You know, the budget, stimulus, all that." I was yelling over the noise.

"So the spending from the previous eight years wasn't enough to justify protesting?"

"Oh, we didn't like it. We were pissed about that, starting with the prescription drug thing. My husband even changed parties over that."

"But you didn't protest."

"No," I agreed. "But Obama's spending was just SO much and SO fast, we had to do something more."

"If it hadn't been Obama, would you have protested?"

I tried to answer him honestly. I mean this young man was listening to my answers and asking good questions -- something I crave to get from liberals around me. So I said, "I think whoever it was, if he went more slowly, we might not have protested. We would still think we could do something about it. But this happened so fast."

"So if Obama had spent more slowly, you might not have protested?"

"Possibly. If he'd spent more slowly and not so much at once."

He nodded and thanked me, mounted his bike and rode on.

But now I have more to say. You know how it is. Only hours, if not days, after the event, you think of what you should have said.

I would have said, had I had my wits about me at that point, that we conservatives don't protest. That's the domain of liberals. They'll protest and demonstrate at the drop of a hat. I bet they all have a protest kit made up and sitting next to the door just in case they decide to protest and get the call. We conservatives, on the other hand, call our representatives, write letters to them and to the editor of local papers, send emails, voice our opinions on talk radio, and try to make changes through the voting process. We don't even think of protesting. That's almost as foreign to us as suing someone for offending us, as foreign as using the courts to make social and legal change.

When Heather Wilson supported the SCHIPS bill and was on Jim Villanucci's show, people blasted her. I blasted her in an email.

I can't tell you how pissed I was that Bush went ahead and signed the TARP bill, in spite of the "no" vote of Congress. This was stomping on the constitution, as far as I was concerned. But he was on his way out. No use "firing" him! I had to focus my energy on what was happening after that.

The fact that there were . . . it seemed like 5,000 conservatives (pretty much all fiscal conservatives -- some Republicans, some Libertarians, some Independents, even some Democrats) there doing something they don't usually do should say we're really, really mad. And we're serious. And when our usual methods seemed to have no effect on the conduct of Congress and the White House, we were driven to protesting.

Not that I regret it. It was a blast. But I wonder if our politicians heard us, or if they're covering their ears with their hands and going, "La, la, la, la, la!"

The Cop at the Tea Party

Whew! I'm still pumped! Exhausted and sore, but brewing! I have so much to say about the Albuquerque Tax Day Tea Party, but I'm going to dole it out so you, my dear reader, don't get overwhelmed!

As a volunteer, I helped set up (trying to keep a huge paper banner from being ripped up by the wind as we taped it across the front of the sign in area), collected my badge, t-shirt, and little plastic megaphone (cone). My job as "block captain" meant I was to help monitor our legality -- for example, keeping people from trespassing on private property or keeping driveways open. I had about a block of territory to watch over.

Albuquerque Police were there, of course, keeping an eye on the crowd. Now I have a little soft spot in my heart for APD. I have a good friend whose husband is APD. So when after arriving at my territory and getting people spread out, I spotted the nearest cop, standing back from the crowd, his arms crossed, I went up to him and said, "Hey, I just wanna thank you for being here and helping us out."

The corners of his mouth lifted in a very slight smile and he said, "Thank YOU for being here," a bit stiffly. Then he continued, "Some of us had to work or WE'd be here."

I grinned at what I thought was his meaning. As I walked away, he called out, "Unofficially, of course!"

"Oh, of course!" I replied.

Tomorrow's the day

Well, tomorrow's the day. Our weapons (signs) have been readied. The saber rattling was when we called our representatives and senators and told them we disagree with their spending. Lot of good that did! The two sides have positioned themselves. Just today, the media spread the word from the Department of Homeland Security that people who have a strong issue, such as anti-abortion or immigration, are right wing radicals. People who are against the federal government in support of the state or local government are right wing radicals. Disgruntled veterans can be right wing radicals. People who strongly support the second amendment are right wing radicals. Well, . . . I guess that's what we are. That's who we are.

We are armed for the battle by our education and preparation. We have our instructions and plan. Here is what we will do:
Protest the spending.
Yell how we feel.
Stand and wave our signs.
Show our numbers and solidarity.
Wave at drivers who honk.
Chant catchy slogans.
Have fun.
Show off for any cameras.

We will not break the law. We will not engage anyone who tries to push any buttons.

Thus will we prove just how "radical" we are.

I've actually gotten quite comfortable with my new role. I put up fliers last week advertising the Albuquerque Tea Party, but within three days, they all disappeared. All but the one next to my office door. I feel a little bad to have that one there because my office mate doesn't agree with me politically, but at least I won't leave it up forever like she wanted me to allow with some Obama fliers before the election. I don't consider this tea party to be partisan, anyway.

I've told my classes what I'm doing tomorrow. Told them I was protesting government spending. After each of two classes, a student hung around to ask me more details. So maybe they'll join us.

When I say I'm more comfortable, I mean the fear and anger don't wrap my gut into knots, any more. I don't feel the same anxiety that tells me to DO SOMETHING! NOW! Tomorrow is just one battle in what promises to be a war of years. We have to remember that we're in this for the long run and we need to pace ourselves, maintaining our level of energy and enthusiasm for what previously was the sole property of the left: activism.

Part of it, too, is realizing that nothing I do alone and right now will make much difference. It's only going to be through a series of protests, demonstrations, collaborations, and educations that we'll be able to make a difference.

All's quiet . . .

More from the Lunch Bunch

So we were discussing movies we like, and someone said, "I don't like horror."

Pretty much no one there enjoyed horror. Science fiction, yes, but not horror. But that got us to talking about stuff we didn't want to see, but we watched -- like a documentary of actual video of people who committed suicide.

"Oh," said my friend. "There was video on the computer of a woman being beaten -- by, oh, it was supposedly the Taliban -- and we can believe about 10% of that," (she cut her eyes over to me) "anyway, she supposedly refused to marry a Taliban chief, and her father and brother were beating her to death. . . ."

I'm always a slow reactor. I have to take something and chew it over before I decide how I feel about it. My friends say I have a long fuse. So you can say something that makes me angry, and I'm not angry until a couple of days later! Maybe that's good. I don't know. The problem with being this way is I can't call people on snide comments like my friend made -- we can believe about 10% of that -- right when they say it. Calling them on it much later seems excessive and they are not likely to remember they even said it. The good aspect is I just let little things roll off my back.

But isn't this kind of attitude just what got us, the US, where we are? They revised our history, and we said nothing. They developed politically correct speech, and we said nothing. They rewarded the lazy, and we said nothing. We worked to not offend the easily offended, and we ourselves shrugged off the offensive.

One reason I am still eating (or eating again) with the Lunch Bunch is so I can speak up and bring up an opposing side. My question is will I ever speak up in a timely fashion? Or will I let it build up until I explode (heaven forbid!)

The Dollar Bill

I gave each of my four Citizenship students a dollar bill and instructed them to look at it carefully. We discussed whose portrait was on it. Then I began to explain the symbolism of the Great Seal, shown in two circles on the reverse side of the dollar bill, the pyramid, the eye, the eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch, etc.

They looked closely. Haoying and Liyuan are an elderly Chinese couple (in their 70s, I believe, but very healthy and active). Then there's Fitsum, a young man from Ethiopia, and Victoria, from El Salvador. I felt a special closeness with Fitsum and Victoria ever since the day they were my only students to attend, and somehow, we got into a discussion about God. Fitsum asked if I believed in God, and I told him honestly. Anyway, I'd assumed he was Muslim, but come to find out, he's Orthodox Christian. And rather than being Catholic, Victoria is evangelical. It was a wonderful discussion in which we three discovered the similarities of our beliefs.

But now Haoying and Liyuan, who came from Shanghai, were in class, so I didn't linger on the symbolism about God. I just mentioned that the eye above the pyramid meant God, or God's guidance.

It was Haoying who noticed the "In God We Trust." So they wanted to know what "trust" meant. I didn't do a very good job explaining it. Haoying asked, "Does everyone American believe God?" I said, "No, but many people do." And our laws come from that belief, I wanted to add, but didn't. She fingered the phrase on the dollar bill, then said, very quietly, "There are people in China don't believe God. Believe nothing. From children, they think no god. But here, people believe. In God we trust."

I was taken aback. They came from Communist China. And Communism has a heritage of denying God and religion. I'd assumed Haoying and Liyuan were like the people she spoke of. But maybe not! There wasn't time or opportunity to ask Haoying about it, but I will be more ready for the chance to have a great discussion with her about God.

And then today, Newsweek has come out with an article about the death of Christianity in the US! It may be true that the numbers are falling to the wayside from true belief, but perhaps the people those numbers represent did not truly believe even before. Perhaps they just attended church as a cultural thing. Now, it seems to me that the people who remain or have returned to the church are stronger than ever in their belief. We're clinging even more tightly!

Belief

I prayed for God to heal our water well. It seemed like a reasonable request, one that I could have faith about. I felt a little guilty asking for it because it was just to make life a little easier for us. (I don't "deserve" an easier life, I felt.) And yet, Christ said God, being a loving father, will give us what we ask, no matter how big or little our request.

I prayed for the healing often, every day for over a week. A story Jesus told of a widow who pestered a judge enough that he finally dealt with her case implies that we can pester God, and it may help. But still, no water.

I'm not sure I had the faith. So I prayed for the faith to believe God would heal it. Still no water.

I've finally decided that it is God's will for us to be without water at this time, that God's response to my prayer is "no." So now I am praying for us to learn what we are meant to learn from this situation. Or at least, that's what I assumed God's purpose for our situation would be. But now that I'm typing this, I realize God's purpose can be myriad. It could be that my blog on this helps someone. Possibly I'm meant to call the well people and have them come up and check out our pump. Who knows? Maybe that would put them out of a bad situation that they would have been otherwise.

The thing is, we can't know. It's like that 912 Project mosaic that Glenn Beck had done. It's made with thousands of photographs of individuals. I'm on it (about third row from the top and fifth photo from the right edge). Where we live, we can see only one tiny part of the huge mosaic that God sees. We cannot see the full picture. All we can see is those around us.

I just have to believe that there's some good reason we haven't had water from our well for a little over three weeks. Thank you, God!

Machosauce

It was a couple of weeks before the presidential election. I was anxious, so desperate and fearing of what I could see happening to my country with the overwhelming support of Obama, seemingly because he was black, by both black and white people. And then . . . then I found AlfonZo Rachel. He's a black conservative Christian Republican from California and he spouted his wisdom on YouTube in a bouncy rapid-fire stacatto. The particular video I watched that night was "1 More B4 11 04."

I cried, and my anxiety drained away. I knew then that I wasn't alone! That God's children aren't separated into skin colors (and there are black people who know that). Then I started looking at all of Zo's videos. I went to his website: Machosauce Productions. I now have a t-shirt that has Machosauce Productions on it (it also says, "One Mighty Nation Under All Mighty God.") When people ask what's "machosauce," I can answer, "It's the blood of the manliest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ." And then I grin. "Even El Diablo won't touch it!" (Zo wisdom, y'all.)

What's strange is how much Zo and I have in common. I mean, other than being Christian conservative Republicans. We're both martial artists and science fiction nerds. He's been working on learning computer animation, so he put together a little video of "old-skool" Battlestar Galactica. Well, the procession music for my husband's and my wedding was from Battlestar Galactica!

Zo's been tapped for PJTV. I'm not sure what all he does there, other than the making of similar short videos that he's been making for YouTube, because I haven't subscribed to PJTV (yet). The quality of the videos and the sound is much better there, but his commentary is just as pithy. When you go to Machosauce Productions on YouTube, there's a link that sends you to PJTV, so you can see those, too.

So Tired. . .

On Monday, I hit a wall. I am finding myself unable to even work up a righteous anger at everything that our government is doing. Every day, I read the news, and it's terrible, horrible, and I'm just numb. Friends send me informative emails and I read them and just shrug. I'm not surprised.

Like the last thing I read about. The Obama White House is looking for more Muslim people to work with the White House. When one of the aides says they're doing it quietly, so it won't look like Obama's all that interested in Islam, and when high-up Imams express their interest in taking apart the US from the inside, it's got to be alarming. But I'm not alarmed! I'm just not surprised.

All I can do now is focus on the little I can do: help with the Albuquerque Tea Party on April 15 (it will be on Montgomery in front of Independence Grill, one block west of Louisiana, from 4 to 7); help with the Big Stick Tea Party, which will follow through with our representatives and senators, keep in contact with my friends, and try to teach my students history, the Constitution, and critical thinking.

Other than that, I need to take care of myself and my family. We still don't have water. (Our well's pretty much dried up.) So washing dishes and cleaning clothes has become more burdensome. And I'm concerned about when I start our garden. Will I be able to raise our food if we don't have enough water for the plants? I have been constructing a compost barrel, am about half done with that, so we can have better soil.

Anyway, Monday, I took off work and slept all day. Tuesday, I stayed home, too, and caught up with my homework, baked for my church's bake sale, and made clay "Don't Tread on Me" snakes for the tea party.

I feel better, but I don't seem to feel the anger I have been overdosing on for the last 12 weeks. This may be good. There's only so much of that poison that a body can stand.

A Conservative Teen

We had another meeting between the 912 groups from Rio Rancho, Albuquerque, and the East Mountains last night. About 30 of us met at the fittingly-named Independence Grill on Montgomery to discuss the Declaration of Independence and the 9 principles. And we named ourselves Liberty New Mexico.

Many people spoke up in the discussion, bringing up their concerns, speaking passionately. We even broke into approving applause after a couple of people spoke. Claudia, an immigrant from Guatemala, made everyone tear up when she said, "I wish I had been born here. People don't understand what freedoms you're losing." Her passion was infectious.

The other was Beck, one of the teenagers who attended. He struggled with what he wanted to say. He didn't speak with the eloquence of Claudia. After he stumbled over several phrases that expressed what he was feeling, he ended with how mad he was at what was happening, and he sat down. And we burst into applause.

Two weeks earlier, Beck spoke to our East Mountain 912ers, once in the course of the meeting. And we applauded him then, too.

I think I understand the response. When all these adults tell each other how concerned they are, that's to be expected, at least from informed people. But to hear about it from a young person is to hear our future. That's who we are fighting for -- our children. But if THEY don't care, what does it matter? I know my own children (young adults) are concerned, as well. But not enough to make time for the meetings. Maybe they'll join me in the Albuquerque tea party protests. Maybe not.

There were several teenagers at the meeting, but Beck was the only one who spoke. He represents our hope.

Beck, keep speaking up. Keep working on how to express yourself. I know how it is. I used to have so much trouble identifying my feelings that when I spoke out on any topic I cared about, I'd stammer and stutter and start over several times. It took lots of work and years of time to be more clear about my feelings. Teenagers, just because of their age and hormones, have confused feelings and therefore have more trouble expressing themselves. But when you speak, Beck, we see our own children in you. You give us hope.

King Obama

When Obama appeared on the Leno Show, reasonable people (at least those I know) asked, "WHAT is he doing?"

I think I've figured it out. He really wants to be the king, to take on a role similar to that of the Queen of England, beloved of her subjects. Great Britain's form of government is a "constitutional monarchy" with the head of the monarchy (in this case, the queen) representing the country in name only, at lavish events of state, appearing at various functions, and in general, leaving the true governing to the prime minister.

How do I know Obama wants this role? Witness the weekly parties at the White House. Witness Obama's batting about in many, many fun trips across the US, doing this or that for the news media to report and the people to ooh and aah over. His bowling, playing basketball, going to a parent-teacher conference for his girls. Witness his indifferent treatment of England's Prime Minister Gorden Brown, and his subsequent panting over a possible meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. Witness his apparent lack of embarrassment over being deified by the media and his subjects.

And ALL this while our economy is at a "crisis." What is he doing? He's playing around. His behavior would be appropriate had we been in a booming economy with no enemies threatening to wipe us off the map. He doesn't seem to be working at all on the economy. It's been weeks of nothing. Whenever he comes up with something that's supposedly a solution (The American Economic Rescue and Recovery Act) it contains very little focused on solving the economy.

The problem with Obama being the king is that there's no prime minister to take up the governing. So it just doesn't get done. We're in bad trouble.

The Lunch Bunch

The other day, I told my colleagues at lunch that I was going to participate in the Albuquerque Tea Party.

And when I later told my husband about our conversation, he said, "Knowing your situation there at work, I would not have brought it up."

But I'm so tired of being in the closet. I decided two weeks ago that I can't keep hiding out in my office during lunch, that I had to face my liberal colleagues and stand up for my values. And since the O's inauguration, politics as a topic seem to have died down. The only thing that came close was when one colleague complained that her young son was wanting to get into the Boy Scouts. She said, "'Hon,' I told him, 'we're atheists. And then I had to explain to him what homophobia is.'" When a more moderate colleague laughed at that and said, "That's nuts!" (I was choking on my food), she asked, "You mean the Boy Scouts won't make my son a Bible-thumping homophobe?" That had been one of my forays out of my office, and it had sent me fleeing back.

But now that I've determined I NEED to eat lunch with the old lunch bunch, I've found their discussion to be ordinary, dealing with lazy or clueless students, questionable administrator decisions, and family issues. The one friend did tell me her son was getting his first badge in the Boy Scouts. "So you decided to let him join?" She nodded. "That's big of you."

"Well, his best friend is in it."

"Friends are important." And we left it at that.

So anyway, on another day, when asked what I was up to, I told the lunch bunch that I was going to go to the Albuquerque Tea Party. They looked at me blankly. "You know, like the Boston Tea Party. Protesting."

"What are you protesting?"

"Taxes."

"How are you being taxed?"

I blinked. I thought I was ready for whatever they might say or ask, but this blew me away. I began to think, okay, what would they be thinking to ask such a question? That we are NOT being taxed? Oh, yes, we are still under the tax brackets and the same percentages as there were under Bush. Obama didn't immediately repeal the most recent tax cuts that were set to sundown in 2010. (That's a pleasant surprise.) But he has promised to let them sundown.

Or were they thinking that being middle class, we are NOT going to be taxed, according to Obama's promise?

I merely responded, "With all the irresponsible spending, we WILL be taxed."

And with that the conversational ball bounced another direction. And I was left feeling my position was semi-weak. (I often correct my students who use a future result to support a present action in their essay writing.) I have no doubt that we WILL be taxed because taxes included in the stimulus bill and the omnibus government budget bill already enacted, taxes geared toward punishing "the rich" (which includes individuals and all businesses making over $250,000 a year -- that is, MANY small businesses, some of which I know personally) will be recouped by the businesses raising the price of products, which we the consumers pay. This area of economics is called "tax incidence" and says that the entity on which tax is imposed is not necessarily who bears the burden of the tax.

In addition, cap and trade tax will raise the cost of energy, so ANYTHING in our life that uses energy -- electricity, gas, petroleum -- will be much more expensive. WE WILL pay the taxes.

And that's not even counting one way the government will attempt to pay for its deficit: by raising taxes and applying them to more people and more activities. (The other way is by printing more money, which means inflation, for which -- you guessed it -- we pay.)

Well, okay, so at least the topic was brought up to the lunch bunch. Maybe they changed the topic because they were concerned themselves about their taxes. Only time will tell.

Going Galt

I'm seeing lots and lots of references to the book Atlas Shrugged on the columns I visit daily and on radio stations I listen to. I probably wouldn't recognize all the references if I hadn't just finished reading it. It's one of those over 1000-page paperback novels, from the 50s, which means it's a little slower moving than most modern novels. But the beauty of this book isn't its pacing, its language, or its characterization. The greatness of this book is the plot -- how author Ayn Rand describes a government in process of socializing the economy.

And now that we have a government beginning the process (or rather, furthering the process) of socializing our economy, the parallels are uncanny. That's why anyone who has read Atlas Shrugged picks up on it. In her book, Rand divides the American people into three groups: the looters, the moochers, and the producers. The looters are the members of the government and big businesses that get all cozy with government so they can receive special treatment. In our day, that's Obama's White House, the Democrat majority Senate and House, GE, ACORN, labor unions, etc.

The moochers are the little people who voted for Obama hoping to receive something for nothing (kicks for free.) They are the ones who say, "I don't have to worry about paying my mortgage or putting gas in my car, 'cause he's gonna help me." They are the ones that hate the "rich." They want all the goodies Obama has promised. And they don't care where that money comes from.

The producers do decent work and reap the benefits of their work. In the book, they are the responsible owners of steel factories, railroads, and gold mines. As they find, though, that they are being punished for being rich and that their money is taken (looted) to give to the moochers, they begin to drop out of the system. They stop producing and allow the whole thing to fall apart. (After all, the looters and moochers are riding the backs of the producers. Without the producers, nothing gets done or made or earned. People end up starving; products become very scarce.)

Jimmy Quinn, a radio talk show host from Pittsburgh (the Quinn and Rose show), often refers to "the cast of Atlas Shrugged" when talking about Barney Frank, Tim Geithner, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid. And he's right. They are collectively lazy, greedy, and stupid, just like in the book.

One column today was titled, "When will Atlas Shrug?" "Atlas Raged," was another from a day or so ago. Then there's "John Galt Calls on Atlas to Strike!" Michelle Malkin titled one of her columns, "Going Galt." She described the "tea parties" that sprang up in response to Rick Santelli's rant. (If you haven't seen that, you're missing a treat. Google "Santelli rant" and watch it on Youtube.) I like the title. I think I'm going to use it as a title on my newsletter for the Albuquerque area 9.12 group. John Galt was the protagonist, the producer who persuaded the others to drop out.

And then I got chills down my back when I heard on the news about Obama signing the crap sandwich stimulus in Colorado. My reaction wasn't about his signing (that made me sick to my stomach) but about the company he was there to highlight. It's a solar-panel installation company. Apparently, a part of the stimulus requires that THIS company be used whenever any of the projects in the area requires installation of solar panels. So the government is subsidizing it. This company is one of the looters, currying and receiving special treatment. But why? What's special about this company? It isn't a huge company. In fact, it is modestly sized.

Here's the deal. This company is being run like a communist business system. Everyone receives the exact same salary, no matter what job they have in the company. They make decisions as a group. They get a six-week vacation every year, no matter how they are doing financially. It's no surprise that they are going under. They NEED the government to bail them out. And the government chose them because they are trying to carry out a socialist agenda. Oh, and because they are "green." (I can tell them now their system won't work. Do you think they're listening?)

What's chilling is that John Galt came from just such a company. In the book, it was an automaker. The owner died and left the company to his children. They decided to run it like the communists in Russia ran their factories. Everyone received the exact same pay. This led to no incentive for doing a good job. They had long, divisive meetings in which everyone had to vote on what they were going to do. John Galt walked out in disgust and went underground.

Everyone I know is going Galt. They are tightening their belts, lowering their productivity and, therefore, their income so that they don't need to pay so many taxes. I have many friends who are beginning vegetable gardens and raising chickens, buying canned goods, and stocking up for the hard times, when the richer producers leave the country.

The Co-opting of a Symbol

What do you think when you see the Zia sun symbol? You may not even know what it's called, but I'm willing to bet you think Native American and the sun. If you see it in red on a yellow background, you might think of the New Mexico flag. But even the New Mexico flag speaks of our Native Americans and of the bright sun we are blessed with.

Several of us ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers at CNM got together to recreate a state group for TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) , our professional conference. New Mexico TESOL had been created before, but interest died out, so we were going to restart it. I was playing with banners to help with the website Jennifer had created. I found a red Zia symbol, placed it on a yellow background, and added the words in red NM TESOL on the horizontal rays. It wasn't wonderful, but it was a start and I figured we'd tweak it.

But at our first meeting, I was informed that we couldn't use the Zia sun symbol. "It's co-opting their symbol," I was told. I was aghast. "But I was using the New Mexico flag," I argued. "I didn't take it from a piece of pottery."

"Doesn't matter. It's offensive to them."

Now, while personally it wasn't so important to me that they used MY design, I couldn't get over the personal correctness of the group, to such an extent that they would eliminate from their options a perfectly clear symbol that speaks of three things we were proud of, that is, New Mexico, our sunshine, and the Native Americans that live here.

Let's take the issue of co-opting. Co-opting would be taking the symbol and turning it into something else from what it originally meant. Co-opting is what the Nazis did with a perfectly fine Native American symbol. You can't see the swastika now without thinking of a horrible regime.

Who was it offensive to that we (or businesses like Zia.net) use the symbol? Not all Native Americans, not the majority of New Mexican natives, not all the members of Zia Pueblo. I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm willing to bet it's a small group of Native Americans who have been persuaded by ACLU that they are victims of evil non-Native peoples. Being victims is good business.

But I also think that we can't just change our language and eliminate symbols that mean something just because people find themselves offended by the fact that we use them. For that reason, I rejoiced when I saw the blog website for the Albuquerque tea party being planned. It has a dynamite use of the Zia sun symbol.

And when I made my lemon jello cookies for our East Mountain conservative group meetup, I proudly piped red Zia's onto them.

Reset

The story of Hillary Clinton giving the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, a red button with what was intended to be the word "reset" on it in Russian, but actually was "overcharge" (or "overload," according to one article) would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Once while on a computer shared by teachers at UNM, I mistakenly typed "whitehouse.com" into the address bar, and I got a porn site. (It should have been whitehouse.gov) Blood rushing to my face, I hurriedly clicked the "back" button. But it was set so that the "back" button just returned me to the same site. I clicked the red exit box to close my browser down altogether. But as soon as the browser closed, it opened itself again, and again on that very same site. I thought I'd messed up, maybe missed the little red X, so I tried it again. Same results. I was beginning to panic.

I couldn't ask for help. Drawing anyone's attention to my problem would just display what I didn't want to be seen. I finally did control-alt-delete for a soft boot, just to turn the whole thing off without shutting down the "proper" way. And if that hadn't worked, I would have unplugged the whole thing.

If only we could control-alt-delete Obama's election. No matter what we do, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Contacting the senators and representatives had no results when we strongly opposed the confirmation of Tim Geitner to the Secretary of Finance position. Forget saying anything against the stimulus package. We didn't have time to even look at it. And every day, the Obama signs something else I'm against. It's like the nightmare of porn popping up every second. Now we're facing a omnibus and future bailouts of continually irresponsible banks.

Reset! Or is it "overcharge!"

The future's looking up

"Hey, you guys can tell me where a teacher's office is?" The questioner was a big guy, rough around the edges, tatooed, longish black curls only semi-tamed by a bandana.

We looked up from our lunch discussion. We were all teachers.

"Who's your teacher?" someone asked.

"Ah, he's not my teacher. Michael Geinger. He's my counselor. He's gonna get me some education. I just got out of prison," the man answered, grinning, "and he's gonna help me out."

"Okay," Robin said, "he's in KC 16. Do you know where that is?" As a shake of his head, she continued, waving with her arms like a stewardess with each part of her directions. "You go down this hallway, then take the elevator to the third floor and go straight out of the elevator --"

"Is it that complicated?" he interrupted.

"Yes. It is."

When she finished her directions, the man repeated, "Elevator, straight. Okay, I got it."

Then just before leaving, he said to another of my colleagues, "Hey, I like your hair."

"Thank you," she replied.

As he lumbered down the hallway, his long trench coat flowing, we chuckled.

This is the kind of student we often get. They're gonna get them some education. They're glad to be out and hopeful for the future. Socially, they may not always behave appropriately, but because of their positive attitude, they're fun to be around. I hope I see this guy in my class sometime.

The Right to Fail

In my English (composition) classes, we are discussing "the right to fail." I tried to show my students how bailing banks out and not allowing them to suffer the pain of failing (and yes, that includes all the people that work for those banks and all the people that have money in those banks who would be suffering that pain, as well) is just postponing the inevitable. Because they know they'll be bailed out (in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) there was no need to be extra careful with the money. Because they were Government Supported Entities, they were guaranteed government support! And because they knew they would be bailed out, they didn't care. Therefore, they "failed." Or should have.

Or maybe they just made poor decisions. Like kowtow to government pressure to make really BAD loans. Yeah, I understand why the banks did so. ACORN can make life miserable for the bankers, sending activists to bankers' houses, scaring their children. But then, going under from defaulted loans can make life pretty miserable, too. I kinda, sorta was okay with the first bailout because government action precipitated the meltdown (but not the amount.) Then I discovered the book-cooking at Fannie Mae, and I thought, no way.

My students get it when we talk about students that were just passed along even though they did nothing to deserve passing. Some of them wished they had been required to learn rather than moved to the next level. They found themselves getting farther and farther behind and finally overwhelmed by their ignorance enough to give up. And where was the motivation to try harder, to identify and solve the problem? If it didn't really matter what they did, why should they try?

Banks and companies learn in the same way. The motivator of the free market is two-sided: the hope of making great profits pulls the businesses forward, and simultaneously, the fear of failing pushes it from behind. If they are not allowed to fail, then they don't learn what they are doing wrong. And if they don't learn what they're doing wrong, how can they change their behavior and learn to do right?

AIG has been bailed out twice. It's still in trouble. GMC is asking for more money. Why? Because they haven't figured out what they did wrong before to get them in trouble in the first place. (Well, maybe they know, but they're not acting on it. Shrug. Who cares? Why try? The government will keep us running.) And of course, the government -- that can't run its own financial house -- will dictate the running of the bailed out companies. How absurd!

I'll tell you something else. The sooner those "failure" lessons are learned, the less painful they are. If a child is allowed to do whatever he wants, he grows up unaware of what is right or wrong, what works and what doesn't. If a child always gets rewarded for participation and not excellence, then he will strive only to participate, and that not very well (because everyone else is getting the same award, so what does it matter?) Then once he gets out into the real world, he will make such huge mistakes that he may not recover from the failure setbacks. If, however, he is reprimanded and/or allowed to suffer the natural consequences of his bad choices as he grows up, he will learn how to learn from his mistakes.

We need to let the banks, auto makers, and big businesses fail, so that in the long run, we will have better businesses. Unfortunately, our economy has been being "bailed out" by the Fed for so long, that this failure will be a very hard one for all of us to suffer. But prolonging that just will make things worse when the failure does happen.

The Socialist Way

I was complaining online about the blatant hypocrisy of Obama's government: "this is a new era of responsibility" And then he recommends to his cabinet a long line of tax cheats who suddenly saw the light and paid up (well, what they owed minus the fines) and even Geitner gets confirmed to oversee the IRS. "No lobbyists" And then one lobbyist after another gets an exception so they can work on the government in the area they lobbied for. "I will allow every bill I sign to be available to the public for five days before I sign" And then he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act and overturned the Mexico City Policy without the public's foreknowledge. And of course, he pushed the infamous "stimulus" bill (aka crap sandwich) to be passed by legislation BEFORE they had any chance to read it, and left it sitting there on his desk for three days before he actually signed it -- but we didn't have time to see it beforehand.

One of my friends, an immigrant from socialist Poland, simply wrote, "That's the socialist way: do as I say, not as I do."

In a column on Townhall.com today, Thomas Sowell dealt with the socialist tendency to twist word, saying the exact opposite of what they mean to make something SEEM better than it really is. Thus, the "Employee's Freedom of Choice Act" actually takes away a person's right to a secret ballot when voting on getting a union or not. The stimulus bill was named the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." A careful look at what's in it shows very little intends to recover the economy, very little is reinvestment. They call it that, but . . .

Steve Chapman tells about a legendary riddle Abraham Lincoln posed: If you count its tail as a leg, how many legs does a dog have? The answer is four. Counting the tail as a leg doesn't make it a leg.

So the socialists know how to lie, and that convincingly. The conservatives assume people already know and feel what they do. But according to Sowell, "The expression, 'It goes without saying. . .' is a fatal trap. Few things go without saying. Some of the most valuable things in life may go away without saying-- whether loved ones in one's personal life or the freedom or survival of a nation."

We have to learn how to express what "goes without saying."

Here's the Good

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. . ." Romans 8:28

The election of Barak Obama has been a good thing for me. It was when I realized my own need to get to know other like-minded people. It drove me to find a church to become a member of. Further developments, the appointment of Tim Geitner, the stimulus "crap sandwich," the misrepresentations, over and over, of Obama, and the most recent budget, have made me further realize my need to learn, to research about our country. These things have driven me back to God's sheltering wing.

It has been a good thing for many people. I see people around me awakening to our part in the world, as the body of Christ.

Thank you, God.

What Depression?

My husband and I already had two houses with two mortgages on each, but we bought as much land around us as we could. When the banks wouldn't lend us more money, we used credit cards. We woke up when we had $82,000 in unsecured debt, and said, "This is nuts!"

Since then we have been living in our own self-imposed recession. Everything we made and didn't need for the basic necessities went toward paying off our debt. No more Starbucks, no more eating out, no buying from vending machines nor convenience stores. We take our lunch. If we forget it, we go hungry. Our clothes we buy at thrift stores.

It didn't take long for our kids to decide that we were "poor," in spite of our nice income. We didn't have Christmas. Well, this wasn't a direct effect of our debt. My husband worked at the time delivering magazines to various outlets. Most of the magazines would publish only one issue for the months of December and January together. So we got one month's income for two month's expenses. We just couldn't have Christmas.

Still it took a few years of my husband's pleading for me to get it. The first year after I got it, I couldn't bear not to give the kids SOMETHING. So I went into their closets and found toys I didn't see them playing with, and wrapped those up and put them under the tree (which was free, from our land).

When they opened their presents, my son just gave me a look. "We didn't play with them because we didn't LIKE them," my daughter explained.

Okay, so after that, I used my grocery budget and bought them junk food that NEVER got bought on a regular basis, like chips and soda, and wrapped those up.

We don't have cable or satellite and I really resented having to buy a new TV (though our old one was about 15 years old) for the digital switch (and though I asked for the stupid converter box coupons, they never arrived. I think they were stolen in the mail.)

In the last several years of drought, our well went dry twice. The first time, we had the pump lowered, closer to the floor of the well. The second time, we couldn't lower it more, and we couldn't afford to drill a new well (everyone around us was drilling deeper.)

We survived by bringing water in from our workplaces in Albuquerque in one-gallon jugs. We recycled all the water we used. Water to wash our clothes and our dishes went into big 5-gallon buckets and we used that to flush the toilets. Now our well is coming back, but still low flow, so we continue to recycle the water.

My car is a Chevy Metro, the last year they were made in the US. I have managed to keep it going past 200,000 miles, and it's still getting me 45 mpg. Every other vehicle we have, we bought used. My husband's a courier so he has to have a reliable truck, but other than the loan for that, we won't buy a car unless we can pay for it all at once, now.

Last week, we paid our last payment on that $82,000 debt. Now we're working on our mortgages and my husband's truck.

We know what it will be like for the rest of you folks. And it just won't be that bad, if you can just get over the idea that you can't live without your goodies.