Dear Millennial Rebels

Today, while you march the streets "protesting" the results of the election, my nine-year-old daughter endured nine hours in the operating room. Tonight, while you destroyed American symbols and burned effigies of the President Elect, my daughter laid in an ICU bed, intubated and left on a breathing machine. While you gather angrily in masses online to hashtag for violence and death, the numbers of the arterial line in my daughter's arm fluctuate outside the exceptionable medical standards. You are heated over the democratic process that has served our country for nearly two-and-a-half centuries. Well, let me tell you, I'm indignant as well -- at you, at your lack of empathy and at your hypocrisy!
 

And Justice For All

Well, Tulsa has been a hotbed of racial tension and national news for the last week. People all over this country have very strong opinions concerning the fatal shooting of Terrence Crutcher by police officer Betty Shelby. Not only was it a white officer on a black civilian shooting, but the video released makes it very clear there were problems on both sides of the encounter. This, of course, makes the opinion of whichever side one is one very adamant.
 

A Remembrance of the Important

This weekend we became suspicious that our daughter Kara had aspirated and might have developed pneumonia from it. Before dawn, Kara cried out screaming from her bedroom. When we arrived, she had vomited significantly. We tended to her, cleaned her up, laid her back down on her side and let her rest. She slept soundly for the next several hours. In fact so soundly that she had to be awakened two hours after her normal rising time.

We Oft Mock Wisdom

I have thought a lot recently about the story of Solomon and the two mothers. It’s well known. Two women had come before the king, each had given birth to a child, but one baby had died. The claim from each woman was that the living son was hers. One mother claimed, “This woman’s son died in the night, because she smothered him while she slept with him, then switched the children in the night.” The other woman retorted, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son. She is making up this story to steal my son.”
 

Solomon examined the situation as each woman made her case, then announced he had a great way to resolve the problem: he would take out his sword, cut the baby in two halves to give to each of the women. Suddenly, one of the women shrieked, fell to her knees and begged him not to do that. She gave up her claim if only the king would spare the child’s life. Solomon then looked upon the weeping woman and told his royal guard, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.”
 

The Billboard

Today I received inspiration at a most unexpected place – a funeral.
 

It's Only Friday...

I should have posted this yesterday (for Good Friday), but I just didn't get around to it until today. Forgive me.
 

Every Easter I post something about the season and my faith. I don't feel that I have the words to properly express the significance of the meaning of Easter. Usually, I select something inspiration from someone more gifted with "preaching" than I am.
 

This year I have chosen a repeat, a sermon by the late Rev. S.M. Lockridge. I felt justified since many of my previous posts were lost in a switch-over of my blog location last summer. This is one of my most favorites; so, I wanted to be sure a copy was available on the current incarnation of my blog.
 

I hope you enjoy, but more importantly - I hope you get the significance.
 

Video: It's Friday...But Sunday's Coming (This Link opens in a New Window)
 

It’s Friday. Jesus is praying. Peter’s a sleeping. Judas is betraying.
But Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. Jesus is praying. Peter’s a sleeping. Judas is betraying.
But Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. Pilate’s struggling. The council is conspiring. The crowd is vilifying. They don’t even know that Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The disciples are running like sheep without a shepherd.
Mary’s crying. Peter is denying. But they don’t know that Sunday’s a comin’.

It’s Friday. The Romans beat my Jesus. They robe Him in scarlet. They crown Him with thorns. But they don’t know that Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. See Jesus walking to Calvary. His blood dripping. His body stumbling. And his spirit’s burdened. But you see, it’s only Friday.
Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The world’s winning. People are sinning. And evil’s grinning.

It’s Friday. The soldiers nail my Savior’s hands to the cross. They nail my Savior’s feet to the cross. And then they raise him up next to criminals.

It’s Friday. But let me tell you something: Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The disciples are questioning. What has happened to their King. And the Pharisees are celebrating that their scheming has been achieved. But they don’t know: It’s only Friday. Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. He’s hanging on the cross feeling forsaken by His Father.
Left alone and dying. Can nobody save Him? Oooh, it’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The earth trembles. The sky grows dark. My King yields his spirit.

It’s Friday. Hope is lost. Death has won. Sin has conquered. And Satan’s just a laughing.

It’s Friday. Jesus is buried. A soldier stands guard. And a rock is rolled into place.

But it’s Friday. It is only Friday.

Sunday is a comin’.
 

Bloody-Good Talent

So, I have previously shared the creative scripting of my talented daughter. The last item I shared was a highly-optimistic and considerate poem in my Young Brilliance post.
 

However, this selection I felt compelled to share is a far darker tale, one more akin to the works of Anne Rice. I will not offer this thirteen-year-old girl writes at quite her caliber, but Rachel’s description of her character’s “dark turning” gripped me.
 

Allow me to let you sample the menacing depiction yourselves:

Your Local Nigerian Scam

Ok, well - it's actually Uganda, not Nigeria, but one of the latest viral "truth" campaigns may eventually gain the same level of infamy as those Nigeria Bank Inheritance Scams.

Let me back up, earlier tonight my daughter asked me if I knew anything about Joseph Kony. I thought for a moment, trying to place which one of her Jr High classmates he was.  She continued with her explanation that several people at school had been talking about this murderous cult leader.

The name sounded familiar but wasn't really ringing a bell. So, to Google I went. I quickly realized this was the name of the "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA) leader. Then many of the stories of the atrocities in Central Africa flooded back in my mind. The church I attend has several missions in Africa, specifically Uganda - so these horrors had been conveyed to me in the past.

As I explained what I knew, she told me about the StopKony campaign. While I listened and tried to recall my memory of the African events, something stirred, knowing something was amiss - but I couldn't quite figure out what.

Well, today I did a little digging - and now I know what bugged me during our conversation. Kony's reign of terror has already been stopped. Let me repeat that: KONY IS NO LONGER A THREAT!

What makes it worse is akin to the backlash of making Hitler Time Magazine's Person of the Century - it's a painful memory that many would like to forget. Many people in Uganda would like to move on and forget the horrors and feel this latest viral campaign brings notoriety and improper attention to an evil better off forgotten. Dr Beatrice Mpora, director of Kairos, a community health organization in Gulu, explained it this way, "What that video says is totally wrong, and it can cause us more problems than help us." - according to an article in the UK Telegraph.

Now, the exact fate of Kony gets a little fuzzy, depending on what source you believe. Of course, I personally think he should be captured and justice should be sought, but I also realize there is a difference between idealistic theory and pragmatic reality. Even if Kony were never captured, the fact his reign of terror has ended is the more important fact.

All of this has left many, myself included, wondering why the sudden push to capture Kony - or more importantly produce and promote a video to solve a problem that no longer exists. Although the LRA's demise is more recent than the Nazis, but imagine the absurdity of promoting the idea to stop Hitler. There is little difference, other than most of us are ignorant (and potentially able to be manipulated thereby) of Kony's acts of terror and genocide.

Perhaps the sadder part of the story is so many of us are unaware of the horrible things that happened in Uganda. Or perhaps it is someone might be taking advantage of that ignorance for profit. There are several groups now calling for an investigation into the Invisible Children charity, which may or may not have been started for the right reason.

I can't know for sure, as I have not had the time to investigate, but please allow me to remind everyone to due the proper diligence before donating or getting behind any charitable, humanitarian or political cause. Don't get caught up, being duped and looking foolish. I hope this debacle doesn't mar the image of Rihanna (and others) for supporting this bogus campaign. This, of course, is why I often question the legitimacy of many celebrities' real beliefs versus their own PR team's image that they care...but that's a different topic.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my findings and remind everyone: Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you read.

Young Brilliance

My daughter, Rachel (Age 13), has been rather creative lately and has been writing several prose and poems. She recently penned a poem that not only I found quite discerning, but also has a nice meter and rhyme. She has given me permission to publish it here, and I'm very proud to share it.

    Some people lie, some people steal
    Some people give, some people heal
    Some people hate, and some people love
    But most of us do all the above

    All people hurt, all people feel
    All people wish some things weren't real
    All people hope, all people dream
    But not all people are quite what they seem

    We all have a life to make or to waste
    We all have something we have to face
    We all have little time before we are ghosts
    So with that time we must make the most

    So find a person that you hold dear
    And keep them close, oh so very near
    So try to live with more love than hate
    Before you meet an untimely fate

    You will be missed, this is true
    But we will remember the life you knew
    A life filled with faith, hope and love
    And wait until we meet again, way up above

    Some people lie, some people steal
    Some people give, some people heal
    Some people hate, and some people love
    But we are all equal way up above

Tri-Bonds: Concerts, Comics and Karma

I know; I guessed things that start with the letter ‘K’ at first as well. However, surprise; that’s not the answer. There is a common bond between these things, nonetheless, but to find out we have to take a hot-tub time-machine ride back to the 80’s.

Marvel Comics produced a super-hero role-playing game around 1985. This would be around the time of Bruce Springsteen, Madonna…way before Nirvana; there was U2 and Blondie and music still on mTV. So, the setting is understood – good.

For those not familiar with role-playing games (outside your own kinky thoughts), they are a story-based form of entertainment where players act out or write their own actions as the script is generally plotted by a game-master or arbiter. It is much like impromptu acting, playing pretend with rules or being in “Who’s Line Is It Anyway” where the points actually matter.

Marvel’s theme in the game was to play out comic book hero stories similar to those sold on the comic book rack at the grocery store. In addition to the marketing ploy to capitalize on the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons at the time, it did have its aspect of imaginative fun. However, one of the rules in the game was called a “karma pool.” Each character would gain points of karma for heroic acts; these points could be spent to receive a bonus to the dice roll (increase the chance of success) if ever the mutant hero character needed to perform a feat of unimaginable proportion…as often done in comic book tales.

However, the “karma pool” was an advanced rule, used only by serious and organized gamers. To apply it, one had to be a member of a superhero team and be in the good graces of all team members. If everyone consented in advance of the die roll and a single member needed a positive boost to accomplish the uncanny act, then he could pool the points from all the other members of his team into a “karma pool” to be used as a one-time bonus for his action. Okay, let’s stop here before I start designing and explaining a character sheet.

Another event from 1985 was the car accident involving Rick Allen, drummer of Def Leppard, who lost his arm in the street-race-turned-bad. Technically the accident happened on New Year’s Eve, but none of us heard about it until 1985. Even so, the lead singer of the group, Joe Elliott, authorized the use of a “karma pool” to allow Rick to retrain himself to play the drums with only one-arm, using his left foot and a specialized drum kit to compensate for the missing one. And the “die roll” was a successful with his post-accident drumming debut at the Monsters of Rock festival in 1986 and the release of the Hysteria album the following year. (This is a rather amazing and inspirational story and truly an heroic feat of unimaginable proportion.)

Now, let’s fast-forward to 2009, when I attended the Def Leppard concert in Tulsa. It was not my first rock concert, but it was my first one dressed-up as an 80s rocker. It was unbelievably fun...and yes, more pictures are on my Facebook for those who must see. Anyway, what I didn’t realize is that by doing this, I became a member of the “karma pool” from which my points had been taken.

Of course, I don’t really believe this, but sometimes happenstance takes on funny patterns. Mine manifested around the 2011 Def Leppard concert, which my former fiancé and I jokingly referred to as the “Def Leppard curse.” I purchased the tickets in bulk for the same group I went with in 2009 and fronted the roughly one-grand personally with the promise to be reimbursed later.

Although we had only started dating for a few weeks, my girlfriend and I decided to go to the concert together. However, a few weeks after, the “leader” of the costumed-cavalcade told me she would be leaving the country for a business opportunity, which pretty much made the proud owner of several unclaimed concern tickets. Almost immediately after that, my girlfriend decided to stop going out with me, meaning I gained one more unclaimed prize.

Most everyone knows that I bought a new house about a month later. The tickets became lost in the shuffle, and I even convinced myself that I had inadvertently thrown them out while separately trash from important documents. Of course, within a week or two after this, the girlfriend and I started dating again in secret. Magically, I found the tickets and was able to sell the extras on eBay.

By July, we announce our engagement to be married, but more Def-Leppard tragedy occurred when Joe Elliot’s father unexpectedly passed away and the concert was delayed for two months. This nearly cost me my hotel reservation, but I was able to salvage that; however, it was a very stressful transaction.

A few weeks later, during a couple of days of confusion, where we had a disagreement about the direction of our future together, my then-fiancé and I both joked how we might never make it to see Def Leppard together and farcically blamed them our troubles. We did work it through and re-engaged our path towards marriage. This disagreement was not really a break-up, but we often referred to it as a “speed bump.”

So, with this whole dissertation behind me, I come to the point. When she and I finally did go to the concert and spend the night in Tulsa, it was on this day that noticed the handwriting on the wall which foretold the doom of our relationship. Without revealing details, let me say her behavior, her indifference, her stoic obligation signaled the obvious to me; ironically it was during the Def Leppard trip.

I’m glad I pressed the point and we could determine that she wasn’t really ready for the commitment. Had I not, we might have continued lying to ourselves and each other – and where would we be then?

Yes, I jovially blame Def Leppard for my break-up and claim they stole my good karma. However, the truth is the concert was a very important revelation. So, it was not a curse, but rather a painful blessing.

A Righteous Kill

I woke my daughter this morning with the words, “I have the most wonderful sad news.” Of course, I was referring to the military strike which killed Osama bin Laden. However, I phrased it this way on purpose – to promote a discussion about the positives and negatives of this event, to think realistically and philosophically about what had transpired.

There has not been a more despised enemy of America since Hitler. So, it is no surprise at the jubilant reaction of so many when President Obama announced the death of the mastermind of the 9/11 attack and many other terrorist plots around the world, including the attack on the USS Cole and the embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya. Osama’s crimes against America (and the world) were heinous, malevolent and cold. That said; I needed my daughter to understand what the celebration should be about – and it is not because a human being had been killed.

Don’t misunderstand me on either side of this topic. I believe that bin Laden’s death serves justice, that he deserved a death sentence and that capturing him was an improbable option which would have further promoted the terrorists’ cause. But it is not right to celebrate and revel in another person’s death, no matter who they were or what they did. There is important distinction between justice and vengeance – even when the resulting consequence is the same for both aspirations.

Moreover, as a Christian, I trust the scripture passage of John 14:6 where Jesus states that no one enters Heaven without going through Him. I doubt few Christians would argue that bin Laden will enter Heaven, even those who follow Christian dualism or those who believe in an all-saving God. But because of my specific view of how this life and the afterlife reconcile, bin Laden’s death without knowledge and belief in Christ is personally very sad.

Perhaps even more importantly, I believe that Christ’s sacrifice, a Holiday celebrated just one week prior to this event, paid for all sins, including those of this mass murderer and enemy of our nation. God had already forgiven (or offered forgiveness for) his crimes – even as heinous, malevolent and cold as they were. Neither I nor any other citizen of America has higher authority than God; thus, for me not to offer forgiveness for bin Laden’s hate is a direct violation of God’s will – at least as I interpret Christian philosophy. For me, to celebrate this radical Muslim’s death is wrong. For me, this type of harboring of hatred is actually a self-afflicted poisoning of my spiritual relationship with God. (You may disagree, but I will concede the debate and let you take it up with God directly.)

However, applauding the soldiers and trusting this action suggests our martial presence in Arabic countries may soon be unnecessary is not wrong. Celebrating the justice bin Laden’s death brings about and delighting in the trust of a more secure nation is not wrong. Reveling in a military victory that means my loved ones, my neighbors and this country’s service men and women are less likely to suffer and may live without terrorism is not wrong. This is what we celebrate with the news of bin Laden’s death, and it is important that my daughter be able to distinguish the difference.

It is also important that my daughter not be sheepishly naïve. In a culture of zero-tolerance everything, it seems to be harder and harder to understand motive from behavior and premise from policy. I must teach my child that war is not a desired thing, but unfortunately it is sometimes necessary. I need her to understand that violence is not the answer, but sadly there are some for whom nothing else is. To permit these types of people to terrorize and reign through slavery of invisible chains is a greater harm than fighting back, to continue the right of life and liberty sometimes comes at the cost of life and liberty, and to make choices between the lesser of the evil options is occasionally what this world forces us to do – these are the sad realities it is my duty to convey with the proper discernment to my daughter.

These are not simple ideas, and they are often accompanied with a flood of confusing emotions. My hope is for her to develop the intellectual and spiritual maturity to know today’s event was indeed a righteous killing but it is not for our enemy’s death that we celebrate; instead we celebrate justice and the security of our future. I also pray this insight finds its way into the hearts of all of Americans.

May God bless you and those you love.

…And Don’t Call Me Shirley

I read the sad news tonight that Leslie Nielsen has passed away. This really plucked at my heart strings a bit more than expected – perhaps because I have no unhappy memory of him. Even now when I see him in a serious role, such as the captain in The Poseidon Adventure, it still makes me laugh just because it’s so difficult not to think of his slapstick while he’s playing a dramatic part.

So, in the spur of the moment, I decided I must have a “watch memorial” for Mr. Nielsen. However, with IMDB listing him in 239 titles, I will have to limit what to watch. Thus, I’ve decided it will be a 5-movie viewing, not necessarily consecutively…but you never know.

So, I must pick my personal Top 5 Best Funnyman Films. Also, I’m limiting this to movies. Nielsen appeared in an impressive number of TV series, such as The Fugitive, Peyton’s Place, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., M*A*S*H and was the narrator for Walt Disney’s Wonderful World for ten year. However, I accept the challenge to honor this somehow with my five movie titles.

Below are what I’ve chosen and the explanation why:

#5	Creepshow
	This is a seemingly odd pick for several reasons. The movie is several short stories of which he only appears in one. However, this is a tribute his transition from serious actor who loved to play “the heavy” to his light-hearted slapstick roles. His appearance in Creepshow torturing Ted Danson is a throwback to his evil character days, while oddly carrying a presence of humor in this short act.
#4	Wrongfully Accused
	A wonderful spoof of The Fugitive, which ties links him back into the TV series in which he made an appearance two times.
#3	Dracula: Dead and Loving It
	A Mel Brooks film where Nielsen is alongside not only Brooks but also Harvey Korman. This film has a few odd tie-ins to reciprocate Nielsen’s career. Co-star Chuck McCann, the innkeeper, is the voice of DuckTale’s Duckworth which gives a link to Disney. And in a weird duck segue, Steven Weber was in Duckman; however, that doesn’t really tie back except perhaps as an A.D.D. reference. But Weber appeared in a Kojak movie and Nielsen starred in one episode of the original Kojak series.
#2	The Naked Gun
	You knew Frank Drebin would have to appear. The TV show Police Squad, although lasting only 6 episodes, changed everything for Nielsen and gave us his most recognizable character. It also allows me to detail many cop-references for the funnyman. He appeared in S.W.A.T., Columbo, Cannon, Hawaii Five-O (original), Streets of San Francisco, Barnaby Jones, The F.B.I. and The Bold Ones.
…..and finally….
#1	Airplane!
	How can this not be top pick? “It’s a big building with patients in it, but that’s not important right now.” Or “Yes, I had lasagna.” This is the film the introduced us to his delivery – and we all loved it. Leaving us with his most famous: “I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.”