The Right State

Barak Obama is a pure politician.  If you don’t think so, just look at how he responded to the Supreme Court’s decision on the D.C. gun ban versus John McCain’s view.   The two candidates could not be more different as McCain hails the decision while Obama waffles…again.  Conservative does not mind telling everyone they support an individual’s right to keep and bare arms, while a liberal tries to have it both way by both supported a gun owners right to keep his weapon and the state’s right to take it.

In a way I sympathize with Barak Obama.  If he supports the High Court’s decision, he risks the antipathy of the left.  If he comes out against the Court’s decision, he risks alienating the gun owners of the country.  Therefore he rides the fence trying to act like a liberal while not being a liberal. 

In the past Barak Obama has advocated the government’s right not just to regulated gun ownership, but to confiscated them if the action is somehow justified.  Now that Obama has won the Democrat nomination for President, he feels the need to obfuscate his views.  Just look at how Obama words the following statement.

“I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through commonsense, effective safety measures,” Obama said.

Huh!?  Maybe Obama needs a little more straight-talk and a little less political talk. 

When pressed on the issue, neither Obama nor his campaign seek clarify the Senator’s position.  As a politician, I guess that is the way he wants it.  That way any statement can be refuted by simply stating: ‘that is not what the Senator said.’  Obviously Barak Obama does not want his position posited.  Either way he loses votes.  But in this case, someone who equivocates on the issue is against private gun ownership.  From previous statements, Barak Obama is against the private ownership of firearms. 

John McCain, while not a staunch conservative, has reacted jubilantly to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, heralded the justices’ action as “a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom.”

Obama has run a campaign on change, but in the end he has shown himself to be a pure politician by being able to talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.  So much for the Senator’s passion for change.

Tags: National Elections, Culture by Chuck
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Wow! The Supreme Court struck down the D.C. gun ban. This is a significant development. For years there has been a debate between gun rights supporters and anti-gun activists on the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution. Anti-gun activists have long viewed gun rights as belonging not to individuals but to the militia or another words to individuals empowered by the government to provide defense during times of national or state emergencies. The Supreme Court has struck down this argument saying gun ownership is an individual right. This is great news!

According to Justice Scalia, the 2^nd amendment gives an individual a right to own a gun.

Anti-gun activists have been targeting gun ownership for years. They have attacked the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment, they have attacked gun manufacturers, and they have a whole host of lawyers who are willing to work for free to deny gun owners their rights. These lawyers have gun so far as to blame guns for violence instead of the gun wielder. They have sued gun manufacturers for making defective guns because a criminal will sometimes use a gun to commit a crime. What a crock!

Thank Goodness the US Supreme Court finally took a stand on the Constitution.

More updates later.

Tags: Culture, Supreme Court by Chuck
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O.J. Simpson has been arrested for burglary in Las Vegas.  Nothing new there.  O.J. is a sociopath bent on self destruction.  He should have been convicted in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994.  The police had all kinds of forensic evidence linking the former football star to the murders, but alas, the incompetent twelve strike again.  The jury bought the ‘race card’ put forward by Simpson’s attorneys and so they let a killer walk free. 

This time O.J. may not be so lucky, because his own words will convict him.  By his own admission, Simpson broke into a hotel room with the intent to retrieve items he believes were stolen from him.  According to reports O.J. went to the hotel room with some ‘golfing buddies’ who brought guns to the confrontation. The DA says he intends to throw the book at Simpson.

The district attorney said he expected Simpson to ultimately be charged with seven felonies and one gross misdemeanor.

If convicted of the booking charges, Simpson would face up to 30 years in state prison on each robbery count alone.

The question is, will the court be able to find twelve impartial jurors?  Who has not heard of O.J. Simpson?  People my age or older will remember his football day with USC and the Buffalo Bills.  And everyone will remember that a killer walked free after murdering his ex-wife and her friend.  Many people may have read his book where he details how he ‘may’ have killed Nicole and Ron.  Prospective jurors will be hard pressed not to consider Simpson’s past legal shenanigans when deliberations begin.  These jurors may try to redress past wrongs and put this guy away for a long time and who could blame them.  The guy is a cold blooded killer who bragged about it in a book.  What a sicko. 

Okay, maybe using O.J.’s past to put him away may not be such a bad thing.  Sociopaths like this former football star think they are above the law.  He could do just about anything he wanted when he played football because he was so good.  Then he acquitted of these murders.  It was just a matter of time before O.J. Simpson exploded again.  Frankly, I am surprised he has kept his cool this long.

My only concern is the incompetence factor of the jurors.  Thirteen years ago an incompetent twelve considered extraneous evidence not related to the guilt or innocence of the defendant—like whether or not the investigating detective, Mark Furman, used the ‘N’ word twelve years previously.  Who cares what the detective said twelve years previously?  The evidence was so overwhelming and that is what the jury should have considered.  So O.J. Simpson walked.  I just hope that this time jurors do not go out of their way to considered every little detail and let this sociopath walk again. 

Tags: Culture by Chuck
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When Congress returns to Washington in a couple of weeks, one order of business is to fund the FAA. The current funding for the FAA runs out September 30 of this year. Congress is still debating the issue in committee with three radically different bills. The FAA currently uses an antiquated system to keep track of all the flights within the US and those coming into the US. A new system is a must if the US is ever going to relieve the problem of congested airports and flight delays. And of course a new system costs money.

To relieve these concerns, the FAA has proposed an alternative funding bill for their funding. Unfortunately, the bill places a tremendous burden of the backs of general aviation pilots while giving the major airlines what amounts to a huge tax break. As of now, the funding for the FAA is paid mostly through taxes on fuel and taxes on passengers. Flying is divided into three groups: the smaller general aviation airplanes (GA), larger GA airplanes and the airlines. Most GA pilots, like me, only hold a private pilot’s license. And when we fly, we fly for fun.

The fuel taxes collected by the government are as follows: GA aircraft using avgas (high octane gasoline) pay 19.3 cents a gallon tax, larger aircraft using Jet A fuel (diesel) pay 21.8 cents a gallon, while the airlines also using Jet A only pay 4.3 cents a gallon. On top of this passengers pay a tax when they buy their ticket.

The bill the FAA desires would increase the tax on small and large GA to 70 cents a gallon while the large airlines would pay nothing. The taxes paid by passengers would increase but it would also be divided up thus obfuscating what the passenger actually pays. At the same time control of the FAA would shift from the federal government to the airlines. This 263% increase in fuel taxes on the average pilot would make flying much more expensive. At the same time the airlines would receive a huge tax break. Also being considered besides the increase in fuel taxes is the institution of user fees. So every time a pilot calls for instructions while in the air, he will be charged a fee. Also included would be other charges like a tie down fee when the airplane is tied down. All of which would remove funding control from Congress and pass it on to the FAA which is dominated by the airline industry.

Explaining the FAA funding bill is difficult and may be even more difficult to understand. So an analogy might be in order. Lets for the sake of the argument compare the FAA to the national highway system. We have large towns and small towns, large vehicles and small vehicles. Also for the sake of the argument let’s say that most of the traffic congestion in the larger towns was due to the larger vehicles from SUVs to large trucks and constitute more than 95% of the traffic. To fund the national highway system, the government collects taxes from the sale of fuel with small cars and small trucks paying 38 cents a gallon (it is the gasoline tax I pay in Texas for my car) while SUVs and large trucks pay only 8 cents a gallon. The government wants to improve the highway system and proposes an increase the taxes on cars to almost a dollar a gallon, while the tax on large trucks and SUVs is to be eliminated. Then the riders traveling in the SUVs and large trucks would be taxed for being allowed to ride in these vehicles. At the same time, cars and small trucks are charged a fee every time they stop to ask directions, they are charged for using stops signs and stop lights (as if the driver had a choice in using them) At the same time, the people who own the SUVs and trucks would be able to raise the fuel taxes on cars anytime they want since they are to be in charge.

All of this sounds a little unfair, right? Well, it is. Most GA pilots I know do not like to fly into these large airports. The airlines will tell you that it is the GA pilots who are clogging up the system, which is an outright lie. In fact, GA aircraft only account for 4% of flights out of these large airports. It is way too crowded with large planes and there are way too many restrictions. So if I must fly to Houston, I fly to one of the smaller airports just outside of Houston Intercontinental. Look out the window the next time you take a flight somewhere, you will be hard pressed to find any small plane.

The next time you fly, be sure to notice if the airline shows you a video depicting how GA is causing the flight delays. Now you will be able to tell those closest to you the truth; flight delays are caused by the incompetence of the airlines. And now they want to shoulder the load of the maintaining the FAA and the aviation upgrade upon the little guys

Tags: Culture by Chuck
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News stories fill both the airwaves and print on how the people of New Orleans are still suffering.  Shown are pictures of the poor and displaced who are living in mobile homes set up by the government.  Candidates of all stripes take their turn at the microphones to announce their plans for the beleaguered city as the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches.  The politicians all have different plans but the fault of the slow recovery is still being placed on George Bush’s shoulders.  But there is another aspect to the plans put forward by all the candidates seeking their TV-face time, the government should help.

 This can be shown by looking no farther than the recent call by both politicians and the MSM for the government to help.  As for the displaced, they are still waiting—looking to the government for help.

Private citizens, not the government, deserved the credit, they said - a source of grim humor among those laboring to mend the neighborhood.

“Of course, we should also thank George Bush, Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin,” resident Robert Counce said sarcastically as a recent meeting of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association wrapped up.

Some writers when writing about the refugees of New Orleans simply can not leave Iraq out of the equation.  Get a grip.

It is one thing to bungle the complex geopolitics of a war in a far-off place we clearly didn’t comprehend. It was quite another thing to fail to bring relief to fellow Americans who stood in the sweltering heat of a New Orleans summer pleading for water, for food, for shelter and for relief from the fear that they had been abandoned.

I really feel for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  But the bottom line is that they were living off of the government before the hurricane, they looked to the government to evacuate them, they looked to the government to shelter them in the interim, and they are still looking to the government for help.  Isn’t it time for the victims of Katrina to help themselves?

On top of all of this, we hear the trailer houses the government bought for the Katrina victims are dangerous.

About a year after she moved into a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer, Teresa Coggins, a diabetic, lapsed into a coma.

When she woke up in an Ocean Springs hospital eight days later, she blamed the trailer she’d been living in.

Coggins, 48, is one of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims who moved into FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005. FEMA spent nearly $1.8 billion buying more than 120,000 trailers and millions more maintaining them. Once storm victims began moving out of the trailers, FEMA had no use for them. But now the agency can’t reuse, sell or even give the trailers away because of complaints they emit hazardous levels of formaldehyde.

Coggins, who began living in her trailer in February 2006, is not only bitter about her $100,000 hospital bill but also about what she described as FEMA’s lack of response when she asked that her trailer be tested.

“I could have died, and nobody would know it was formaldehyde,” Coggins said.

Oh, my God.  We are killing those we sought to help.  Ok, maybe not.  Newsflash!!  Formaldehyde is used in the construction of trailer houses.  You can smell it in almost all new trailer houses.  Millions of people have bought and lived in them with no problems.  If it was alright for them, so why are the trailers not alright for those displaced by Katrina.  Most states require manufactures to inform their customers how to relieve any buildup of formaldehyde.  After talking to a field representative, I have come to the conclusion that these people in Louisiana just wanted another excuse for the government to step in an help them out again.  To rid the trailer house of the offending fumes, all the home owner has to do is to open a window or turn on the air conditioner.  This field rep had never had a single case of a mobile home owner being overcome by fumes in his 16 years.  Were the Katrina evacuees too stupid to turn on the air conditioner or open a window.  By the way, I have not heard of a single case of a trailer house inducing a diabetic coma.  Nope, not ever. 

Another interesting tidbit is the lack of news concerning about the people of Mississippi who lost so much.  Most are helping themselves along with the neighborly of the American people.  Galveston and Beaumont were devastated by Hurricane Rita and yet they are not depending on the government to bail them out.

It is a matter of attitude.  Many of the victims of Katrina were dependent on the government before the hurricane and they still are.  These people will never amount to anything because they can do nothing on their own.  At least not unless the government tells or shows them how. 

Tags: Culture by Chuck
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I am a firm believer in the law of supply and demand.  If a product does not sell, a company will either change their product or go out of business.  By the same token, if a company does not continually upgrade their products, consumers will buy some other company’s products.  Most people understand this simple concept, so why does the government insist on involving itself in the marketplace once again?

A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to “hand over” the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said.

Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman and the head of the company’s global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers.

Government fuel standards have remained unchanged for the past decade, but some government bureaucracies are concerned because in 2005 the fuel economy of vehicles built in the United States slipped.  One of the main reasons for this change is the country’s love of SUVs and large trucks.  As a truck owner I do not mind having to visit the gas station a little more often than others.  It is the price I pay to own a truck.  As long as consumers are willing to buy these gas hogs why should the government care?

Lutz, a long-time critic of government fuel economy regulations, compared the attempt to force carmakers to sell smaller vehicles to “fighting the nation’s obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments only in small sizes.”

Absolutely!  The Volkswagen Bug entered the US market in the early 1950s and the Japanese imports soon afterwards, but the cars had minimal impact on the US markets.  That is until the Arab oil embargo in 1973.  During the embargo gas prices skyrocketed.  All of a sudden the imports looked better and better since they had much better gas mileage.  With consumers turning to imports for their automobiles, the big three automakers were forced to make changes to make their cars more appealing.  Once again market forces forced changes on US companies.

Another problem with cars in the US during the 1970s was how long the vehicle lasted.  Consumers of American cars could expect their cars to only last three years.  Initially imports were poorly made.  Then came an American whom the big three rejected, quality control guru W. Edward Deming who revolutionized the way Japanese cars were made.  With imports lasting several years the big three automakers once again threatened with the prospect of straightening out their act and started building cars which would last longer, or go out of business.  They decided to change.  American cars were marketed with promises of long warranties.  This is how the law of supply and demand works, change with the market or go out of business.

The government is not the solution to every problem including regulating the gas mileage of vehicles.  Government control of market forces does not work very well, but this does not seem to stop the bureaucrats from trying.

A group called the Energy Security Leadership Council, which includes more than a dozen prominent U.S. executives and retired military officers, issued a report earlier this month calling on Congress to take steps reduce the reliance on imported oil.

If these bureaucrats and Congress werereally interested in reducing this country’s reliance on foreign oil, then maybe they should allow market forces to work in the oil industry as well.  There is an abundance of oil in both ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico, neither of which is being exploited (largely due to the Democratic filibusters).  The United States is the world leader in oil exploration and yet Congress continually hamstrings the oil companies’ ability to find and pump oil.  This interference by bureaucrats and Congress will guarantee the United States remains addicted to foreign oil.  Supply and demand works, government interference does not.

Tags: Culture by Chuck
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The news media is liberal.  Today that statement is pretty much accepted as a fact, but why are they so negative?  According to Thomas Patterson from George Mason University’s History News Network, the relationship between politicians and reporters shifted in the 1960s due largely to the Vietnam War and Watergate.  This shift resulted in a new type of reporting from a descriptive style of reporting to an interpretive style of reporting.

In the 1960s, this style began to supplant the older descriptive style where the journalist’s main goal was the straightforward reporting of the facts of events. Since the facts were often based on what newsmakers had said or done, they had considerable control over the coverage they received. Much of the “good press” that Kennedy and Nixon received in 1960 came from what they themselves said about their candidacies. On the other hand, interpretive journalism thrusts the reporter into the role of analyst and judge. The journalist gives meaning to a news event by supplying the analytical context. The journalist is thus positioned to give shape to the news in a way that the descriptive style did not allow. The power of the journalists to construct the news is apparent from the extent to which their voices now dominate the coverage. Whereas reporters were once the passive voice behind the news, they now get more time than the newsmakers they cover. On the nightly newscasts, the journalists covering Bush and Gore in 2000 spoke six minutes for every minute the candidates spoke. The shift in the style of reporting from a descriptive to an interpretive form began in the 1960s when the television networks launched their 30-minute evening newscasts and expanded their reporting staffs in order to deliver picture-based news. The networks quickly discovered that descriptive reporting was too flat for the television medium and that viewers did not have to be told things they could see with their own eyes. Gradually, the networks developed a narrative style of reporting built around interpretive themes that gave their news stories a clear beginning, middle, and an end. Several years later, the daily newspapers followed suit. To add value to stories that their readers had already heard on the newscasts, newspapers developed an analytical style of coverage that focused on the “why” as well as the “what” of news events. Interpretive reporting has unleashed the skepticism traditional in American journalism. This style requires reporters to give shape to the news, and they tend naturally to shape it around their perspective on politics. (emphasis added by TRS)

The media is performing a tremendous disservice to the American people by portraying themselves as neutral and unbiased.  How can reporters be unbiased when they shaped the news around their perspectives?  They can’t.  While the major news anchors claim they are unbiased, the evidence points to the opposite.

But study after study shows that Rather, Jennings and Brokaw are wrong: the newsrooms of major media outlets are not filled with non-ideological “common sense moderates,” nor do they reflect a diverse range of ideological viewpoints. Surveys over the past 25 years have consistently found journalists are much more liberal than rest of America. Their voting habits are disproportionately Democratic, their views on issues such as abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans and they are less likely to attend church or synagogue. When it comes to the free market, journalists have become increasingly pro-regulation over the past 20 years, with majorities endorsing activist government efforts to guarantee everyone a job and to reduce the income gap between rich and poor Americans.

The disparity between average Americans and the media is most evident in how they vote for President.  In election after election a majority of reporters from the major networks and newspapers voted overwhelmingly Democratic, they hold liberal values and support liberal agendas.  The way reporters tell the news is a good example of the negative type of reporting.

When Howard Kurtz of CNN was reporting on Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to unseat Governor Gray Davis in a recall election, he had this to say:

KURTZ: By Friday, he was making the morning talk show rounds. Six programs in all. But when the anchors pressed for specifics, Schwarzenegger stuck to his vague stalking points about leadership and cleaning house in Sacramento. (emphasis added by TRS)

Again, this is a reporter engaging in interpretative style of news coverage rather than descriptive.  Think about it.  The only time we hear about the police is when one of them dies, or they are beating someone senseless, a la Rodney King.  Victims can not be questioned.  Gun toting hunters are bad, while gun toting thugs are victims.  Global warming is pure science while anything to the contrary is science fiction.  Politicians are always corrupt or their motives are suspect.  The rich are always stealing from the poor and are not paying their fair share in taxes.  Dictators who kill and oppress their people are good, while newly formed struggling Democracies are bad.  Republicans are bad, Democrats are better, and an indicted Clinton is better than a Bush anytime.  How did this country survive if we are this bad?

The Media Research Center has much more of this interpretive style of reporting.

The headline in U.S. News & World Report on state ballot initiatives on the minimum wage: “Vote Democratic, Earn More.”

MSNBC screamer Keith Olbermann feeling so angry that Fox’s Chris Wallace supposedly put Bill Clinton through the wringer that he insulted him as “a monkey posing as a newscaster.”

Dan Rather once again saying he believes in the phony Bush National Guard memo story “absolutely.” (Here insert pained Al Gore sigh – or Dean scream.)

Bryant Gumbel trashing the Winter Olympics for being too white, so devoid of blacks that “the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”

ABC’s Terry Moran getting so enraptured by his man-crush on Barack Obama that he actually reported from Iowa, “they’re even naming babies after him!”

Katie Couric (at CBS) spreading the conspiracy theory that lower gas prices might be “an election-year present from President Bush to fellow Republicans.”

CNN’s Jack Cafferty proclaiming that liberal Sen. Arlen Specter was “all that’s standing between us and a full-blown [Bush] dictatorship in this country.”

It is almost as if the news media think the American people are too stupid to understand the news if it is only descriptive.  I truly wish the media could appreciate this one simple fact: we do not want to hear their opinions.  It is that simple.  We want the news.

Others have seen this trend in the American media to portray everything American is bad.

Over the last few years the media has become irresponsible. It wasn’t so long ago that the press created success stories, not only in sports, but in politics, business, science, and other areas. Now it gives the impression that anything or anyone that’s the least bit prosperous must somehow be corrupt, antisocial, or a violator of the environment, human rights, animal rights, women’s rights or whatever.

It also seems that the media is trying to convince people that anything American is bad while anything foreign is good. Writers have become like gunslingers of the Old West. If they can knock off someone who’s successful, they get to put another notch on their typewriters.

It is time for the major news outlets to let the people decide on what they want to hear: opinion or fact.  I may be wrong, but I think most Americans would want to hear the unedited, unvarnished truth.  Thank God for other media outlets like blogs, talk radio and Fox News.  Without them, we would not hear any good news.

Tags: Bias, Culture by Chuck
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There is only one way in which I am on the left and that is in which hand is more dominant. Yep, I am left-handed. I like to recognize other left-handers when I am out and about at a restaurant or shopping. Like me, they like to be recognized as being left-handed. And just today, I found out that one of my favorite bloggers, Michelle Malkin, is also left-handed. She has a great tribute to left-handed people. She is a lefty which just adds to the many things I like about Michelle. She also includes these lefty comebacks:

“It’s the only thing left about me.”

“Only left-handed people are in their right minds.”

“Everyone is born right-handed. Only the greatest overcome it.”

There is one I have to add:

Before man sinned, everyone was left-handed. (think about it)

Like many others, I have had to deal with a right-handed world. My mother tried to make me use my right hand by taking toys from my left hand and placing them in my right until the doctor asked her, why? Lefties can remember that all the desks in school and college were for right-handers. Every day we had to use a number of other things like scissors and notebooks which were made for right-handed people. Most power tools are for right-handers. As a result, more than 1200 lefties a year die from misusing tools make for right-handed people. So its little wonder lefties tend to be a little smarter, quicker, and creative than right-handed people.

Left-handed people once suffered prejudice - the word “sinister” from the Latin for left came to mean “evil” or “unlucky”.

But a study has found that sinistrality - which affects up to 15 per cent of the population and is more common in men than women - is linked with quicker thinking when doing tasks such as playing computer games or sport.

Australian researchers have shown that connections in the left and right-hand side of the brains, or hemispheres, are faster in left-handed people.

The study published in the journal Neuropsychology says the faster transformation of information in the brain makes left-handers more efficient when dealing with multiple stimuli. (snip)

Left-handed people can feel they have been given a raw deal by society. The first reason for this is the nomenclature of handedness. In many European languages, “right” stands for authority and justice - German and Dutch recht and French droit. On the other hand, the English word “sinister” originally meant “left” but came to mean evil or unlucky. Secondly, left-handed people are placed at a constant disadvantage because nearly all tools and devices are designed to be used with the right hand - an example being scissors, which are arranged so the line being cut can be seen by a right-handed user but is invisible to a left-handed user.

Indeed such was the stigmatisation of left-handers that until the latter part of last century, some Catholic primary schools in the United States punished children writing with their left hand. Baseball players and left handers Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth wrote with their right after enduring such suppression as children.

It has also been claimed left-handers are more intelligent and creative than right-handers. In his book, Right-Hand, Left-Hand, Chris McManus, of University College London, says the proportion of left-handers is rising and they are higher achievers.

Left-handers make up 15% of the population. A great many famous people are left-handed like all three main contenders for the 1992 Presidential election: H. Ross Perot, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush.

Left-handers have had to endure a lot in the past and they have to tolerate a world run by right-handed people. But God in his infinite wisdom made up for all that lefties have had to endure by making them a little brighter, quicker and creative than their right-handed brethren. In the end, the lefties get the last laugh.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Tags: Culture, Politics by Chuck
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We are coming on to the time when Christians celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christians like myself know that Jesus is God in human flesh, born and sent to die for the sins of mankind as the perfect sacrifice. He preached turning away from sin and towards God. He also preached how God’s people should not just follow the letter of the Ten Commandments, but that we should follow the spirit of the commandments. Like for example, the commandments say that we should not kill. Jesus taught us that to hate our neighbor was the same as killing him, because we have broken the spirit of the commandments. This is the Jesus we love and teach.

For Christians there is no apostle more important than the Apostle Paul, particularly since he was appointed to the position by Christ himself. History gives Paul more credit than anyone else for the spread of Christianity around the world, though I think he receives far too much recognition for its increase. Paul spread the message of Jesus Christ, but it was the Roman emperors like Nero who caused the flight of persecuted Christians. I would even go as far as to say God used the evil Roman emperors to disperse Christians around the world. As they fled, they took their knowledge of the Savior with them.

Paul was one of those rare individuals who was a Jewish leader, a Roman, and a persecutor of Christians. His name was feared by Christians throughout the Roman world and even held the coats of those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr in the New Testament. Then Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus who renamed him Paul. This one time tormentor of Christians became a Christian and persecuted as well. What follows is a very short and condensed account by Paul on how he came to know Jesus found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-10.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

I mention Paul because his remains are believed to have been unearthed in Rome.

Vatican archaeologists have unearthed a sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of the Apostle Paul that had been buried beneath Rome’s second largest basilica.

The sarcophagus, which dates back to at least A.D. 390, has been the subject of an extended excavation that began in 2002 and was completed last month, the project’s head said this week.

The finding of Paul is neat. Not that his remains has any significance for his soul has already gone on to heaven. The find allows many of us the opportunity to talk about Jesus Christ, our Lord. I will share the good news of Jesus even if the only ones who listen are those who are Christians. With that said, Merry Christmas and remember He IS the reason for the season.

Update: Oops, forgot to give LaShawn Barber credit for the story.  Sorry.

Hat tip: LaShawn Barber

Tags: Culture, Politics by Chuck
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The Supreme Court is finally set of look at whether certain portions of the landmark case of Brown vs. The Board of Education-Topeka, Kansas should be overturned or at least its meaning modified.  The 1954 Brown decision came at a pivotal time in US race relations.  Everywhere across the US in the first half of the twentieth century, evidence of the previous 1896 landmark case of Plessy vs. Ferguson could be seen: separate water fountains, separate eateries, separate restrooms, and separate schools.  Signs clearly marked the areas as colored only.  Plessy laid out the idea that blacks and whites could have separate facilities as long as they were equal.  This test of equality was never applied since having separate services turned out to be only separate and not equal.

Fifty-eight years later black students in various states challenged the inequality found in the Plessy case.  These students wanted to attend their neighborhood white schools, but could not due to laws which made such attendance illegal.  The Supreme Court rightfully overturned the wrongly decided Plessy with the Brown decision.  In fact Chief Justice Earl Warren writing for the majority of the court had to say about the separate but equal provision in the case.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. (snip)

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As I stated earlier, the Brown case was correct since separate but equal facilities were inherently unequal.  What followed after Brown v. Board of Education was an attempt to re-do the injustices of the past.  The justices held that segregation was wrong, but what followed was the whole sale busing of students from black schools to white schools and white students to white schools as states and cities across the nation attempted to correct past injustices.  Parents who once moved into neighborhoods based on the quality of the schools no longer had the luxury of sending their children to the school down the street.  States and lower courts turned the Brown ruling into an abomination as school kids were sometimes bused several miles from their homes to attend schools in the name of diversity.

From this one case other atrocities came into existence, all stemmed from Brown and all were inaugurated with the intended purpose of righting past wrongs.  Among the most notable of this redresses was the practice of institutional racism, otherwise known as Affirmative Action.

Finally the high court can once again right wrongs by undoing the worst part of Brown—busing.  If this case is overturned or at least redefined, the justices will show that the wrong implementation of a good decision can make the entire decision wrong as well.

Interestingly enough, it is the Los Angeles Times who boils this controversial issue down to once single question.

State-enforced segregation laws are long gone, but for school officials today, a key question remains: Did the historic decision commit them to a policy of seeking integrated schools, or did it tell them not to assign students to a school based on their race?

Even a cursory reading of the majority opinion should answer that question.  The justices did not like separate schools based on race.  In their arguments, lawyers on both sides of the issue will be using the landmark Brown case in trying to score points with the Supreme Court Justices.  Unlike the earlier court decision, this time it is Brown in reverse.  White parents of school children are asking the court to rule that their children are being discriminated against based solely on the color of their skin.  Chief Justice Earl Warren in his decision reasoned that very same point in Brown—“To separate them [school children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”

Justice Warren was right in every way.  To give an advantage or disadvantage to one race based on the color of one’s skin is wrong, whether the subject is busing or affirmative action. With the additions of Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the High Court, the Brown decision may very well be redefined allowing parents of whatever color to send their children to the neighborhood schools.  And rightfully so.  Racism is wrong, even institutional racism.

Martin Luther King’s dream has been achieved in many respects.  Kids of every color attend school together, eat together, and play together.  People of every color work together and play together.  But King’s dream of a color blind society has been replaced with one focused on race more than ever before. Racial preferences are used to give an unfair advantage to one group over another all in the name of diversity.  This is just another term for racism.  Racial preferences make the color of one’s skin the dominate issue.  Instead of binding us together, preferences are making all of us more sensitive to race and are a source of animosity and tension instead of healing.  The Supreme Court with this one ruling could send a message once and for all saying: racism is wrong, even if it is done for the right reasons.

Tags: History, Culture, Supreme Court by Chuck
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