a picture share!

our new sofa! i have never owned a new sofa. so, this is kinda cool for me.

things i will never do again

here's a list that has been formulating in the back of my head (in no particular order):

• eat at taco cabana - don't know why but it always gives me severe indigestion. i keep trying it thinking that it was just coincidence the last dozen times. and i am always proven wrong.
• live in a third floor apartment - it's not just the moving in. see, having a dog is a real pain when you live on the third floor. however, we are training murphy to run down both flights of stairs, do his thing and run back up. he can handle it. i'm just too lazy for all those steps.
• eat ramen noodles - so gross, so unsatisfying and yet so easy to make.
• wait tables - if you've never had to do it, be thankful. it's supposed to be the service industry. but it's more like the servant industry.
• be engaged - the whole planning part is so painful for guys. all the little decisions that are completely agonized over that in the grand scheme of things are so very unimportant. longest 9 months of my life.
• go lingerie shopping for becca with my mom - one word: awkward!

i think this is a list that could be added to for years and years to come. feel free to share your own.

quote of the day(?)

levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.

-charles caleb colton

my blog has been way too political and way too serious as of late. my next post should be much more entertaining and not nearly as thought provoking.

the liberal looting of louisiana

why did the levees break? why are fewer than 25% of new orleans pumps operational?

during the bush administration, the state of louisiana received more money for army corps of engineers civil projects than any other state in the union, $1.9 billion. (california came in second with half a billion less at $1.4 billion.) where did this money go?!?

it obviously didn't go to reinforcing or improving the levees! it obviously didn't go to the maintenance or replacement of the pumps! maybe we should check the pockets of state and local politicians.

a lot of fingers are being pointed at the president. former fema director brown has become a scapegoat. democrats are now calling for a 9/11 commission style independent investigation. liberals are vainly searching for a reason to tarnish the image of the president even further.

the facts are that the federal government's response in the aftermath of katrina was faster than any other hurricane. the average is 5 to 6 days. this time it was 3. after a natural disaster, it is up to the state to begin the evacuation and search & rescue efforts. it is the job of the governor to ask for specific help from the president. the governor of louisiana had thousands of louisiana national guard troops at her command, but what did she do? she held press conferences to complain about what the president was not doing.

everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before a catastrophe like this happened. evacuation plans were in place. mayor ray hagin of new orleans was supposed to take 400 municipal and school buses, load them up with citizens who had no means of evacuating themselves, and get them to higher, drier ground. he failed to do this. he told them all to go to the superdome. once they all got there, he locked them in. he didn't provide them with water, food, security. he had no contingency plan in the event that electricity and water went out. his staggering stupidity and ineptitude and arrogance is why so many people died.

now i want to point out that louisiana is primarily democrat. draw what conclusions you want. but all of the things that many people accuse republicans of being (corrupt, slow to action, reluctant to acknowledge their mistakes, ignorant of their job description, etc.), these democrats are guilty of as well. they should be recalled, impeached, investigated and possibly imprisoned. how many lives could have been saved if someone who knew what they were supposed to do were in their offices? it is a shame.

the senate's prayer

a reader emailed this to me after reading my "church v. state" post.

A Pastor with GUTS

This Pastor has guts!! Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story," and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

this is one of those email forwards circulating the globe on email. so it might not be true. but maybe it's a good prayer for us to think about. for all the good intentions our government has, can it really be the cure all solution for today's problems? or should we look to the church? or maybe ourselves?

god's eye view

if you haven't already or never heard of it, download google earth now. it is a program that loads a digital satellite image of the entire earth. you can zoom in on any part of the globe (the poles are very poor quality).

there are some amzing views of katrina's damage that you can download from the website into the program. you can actually see an entire golf course underwater, only the treetops are now visible.

check it out.

quote of the day(?)

a cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

-sidney j. harris

i have noticed myself being very cynical lately. maybe i should work on that. i'll put it on my to do list.

church v. state

the "seperation of church and state" doctrine as we know it is pure myth. i know what you're thinking: but marcus, it is in the constitution! but you're wrong. it was a principle set forth in a letter by thomas jefferson to the danville baptists while he was president. in this letter, jefferson writes "there should be a wall of seperation between church and state." this is the first time that phrase appears in the american political vocabulary. many liberals (not all, but many) take this to mean that all forms of religion should be excluded from having any kind of contact with the government in all its many forms. what jefferson really meant was that we should not have a state-funded, national church. and i agree with that. what we don't hear is that two days later on that following sunday, jefferson left the white house and went to the u.s. house of representives in order to attend church because the u.s. house was used as a church until after the civil war, as was the u.s. treasury building.

this sheds light on another misconception: that jefferson was some sort of agnostic or deist. that he wasn't a christian. that when he wrote"creator" in the declaration of independence, that this was a very subtle and all-inclusive term that, whether you believed in God, Allah, fate, chance, or whatever, however you came into being, you had contract rights. but just take a look at the jefferson memorial. on the walls of the memorial is a quote by jefferson himself stating:

i have sworn upon the altar of God Almighty eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the minds of men.

-thomas jefferson

What do you think he meant by God Almighty? because if he meant God Almighty, then maybe he did mean Creator. and if he meant Creator and Creator was God Almighty, then this whole secular view of america simply disappears and we are left with a country that is very strongly founded on christian principles. so why should we be timid in advancing our christian beliefs as public policy?

the church and the state should be and will remain seperate entities, but christians and politics should not. i don't understand how liberal christians can support abortion. it absolutely blows my mind. i feel christians should understand their place in government and be more active. are we just so scared of pissing of some atheist that we allow our society to do things that would repulse Christ? i can imagine that on the day of judgement Christ will say to the christians of america what paul wrote to the galatians:

i am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -- which is really no gospel at all.

am i now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? or am i trying to please men? if i were still trying to please men, i would not be a servant of Christ.

-gal 1:6,7 & 10 niv

we should not adopt one set of rules for our christian lives and another for our country, our government. it's ridiculous.

there was a movie that came out not too long ago called "the contender" starring jeff bridges and joan allen. in it joan allen's character is being nominated to serve as the new vice president or supreme court judge or some important position like that. the panel questioning her asks her some probing question about her spiritual beliefs. she is an atheist. she responds by saying that the capital is her church, that she prays at the altar of democracy, that just because she doesn't believe in a supreme being, her sense of morality and ethicality is no different than yours or mine.

are we as christians worshipping at two altars? there is only one God. but we hold our government in such high esteem that it might as well be a religion. our judges are the gods and our congressmen and women our priests. we sometimes view our democracy as so sacred it cannot, nay, must not be marred by christian ideals and beliefs.

but this is just what i think. what do you think?