Today's Readings 11 Nov.

Lamentations 3 - 5
Hebrews 8

One of the tough things about a regular through-the-Bible reading program like the one I have been doing for some years is that after a while you see the effects of the sin of the nation when judgment and catastrophe come upon them. It's perhaps a bit like watching the re-run of a catastrophe film - you want to warn the people and there's nothing you can do. Except, perhaps, to reflect upon the warning in the text and to realize that one of the reasons that the text is there for us to read.
The book of Lamentations follows in this path. The previous books of the Old Testament, particularly 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, and Jeremiah are often discouraging in the sense that the we see almost a determination to sin. The results of that sin are harsh and sure, though just. The record of death and slaughter, of pain, loss, bloodshed, and incredible violence are shocking. They're almost as severe as what we see in our own world though we dislike to recognize that fact.
And what scares me, what bothers me a lot, is the parallels between the culture in ancient Israel and Judah, and what I see in that part of the world we used to call Christendom. Particularly in the US, if only because I live here.
And I must reflect that virtually every evil, every sin condemned by the prophets in Israel and Judah can be found in nearly every American city and town. And, knowing that God is just, can we escape the retribution of which the prophets warned?

The 11th Hour

Today is Armistice Day, marking the end of WW1, the ''War to End All Wars'' as one of the biggest idiots in American political history called it. You don't see much about it these days, but at one time it was normal for school kids to learn one of the famous poems to come out of that massive bloodletting.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army


I never read that final stanza without an element of shame over the way we have dishonored the efforts and memory of those brave men. I am no longer certain of the rightness of that war, it has been nearly a century now and the world has many new evils, and I know altogether too much about some of the participants in and around that war. But those who fought on behalf of the United States and of Canada, certainly deserve the very highest respect.
And now, if you're lucky, you can buy a red paper flower on a plastic stem from an old veteran in front of the Wal-Mart. If you're lucky. Somehow, I think we should honor them in a better way than that.

Friday thoughts

Random stuff today.
I've been out a couple days. My beloved had a problem with the video on ''my system'' so she unplugged the cable from the video card, only to discover that the cable was all that was holding the monitor onto the monitor shelf of my desk. CRASH! Dead monitor. Also dead video card - the stress probably did the internal connections no particular good. And for a group normally having components underfoot (sometimes literally) we have ZERO video cards to replace mine with. A spare monitor (the trash pickup took away the busted one this morning) but no video card. And a shortage in the cash department, we'll be a week or so before buying a replacement. So I'm borrowing daughter's laptop. I hate laptops - the keyboard stinks.

I see in the news that we have yet another dead citizen courtesy of an illegal alien. Check out the link Immigrant in crash poses dilemma in the Observer out of the Charlotte, NC area. I guess the dilemna arises from the unwillingness of the authorities to actually enforce the law, something that I thought they'd sworn an oath to. Stupid me. From the article:

Carlos Gonzalez Hernandez, 36, remained in Durham County jail Thursday charged with felony death by vehicle in the wreck that killed Sue Williamson, 54, and injured her husband, Tom, on Sunday morning on U.S. 70. Police said Gonzalez Hernandez had a blood-alcohol level of .17 after the crash.

It was the second deadly collision in North Carolina involving an illegal immigrant in two weeks.

This whole mess bothers me. We seem to have a situation here where citizens are dying weekly in encounters with illegal alien invaders, and there seems to be no interest in heeding, obeying, enforcing, or respecting the law. This is not a good thing.

More victims of ''the religion of peace''

I guess that the title, in '' The Australian'' pretty much says it:

Beheaded girls were Ramadan 'trophies'

recounting the murder of three Christian schoolgirls in the Phillipines.
Coming soon to your town, I fear.

Innocent Blood part 2000

One of the real distinctives of a Christian, as distinct from a ''progressive'', worldview has to do with moral differences. The more or less 'official' view is that we are, somehow, better people than our ancestors; that as a rule moral issues are products of conditions external to the individual, such as nutrition, poverty, literacy, inclusiveness, etc., and therefore we can of our own experience and wisdom create an ideal society. As one motivational type of years gone by had his adherents chanting, ''Every day in every way, we are getting better and better and better''. The Christian view is rather different. We believe that human beings are inherently flawed, that the flaws - we call the situation ''sin'' - are present by birth in every human being (the single exception being a rather extraordinary one) and that barring a miracle cure, this will be true throughout all human history. It's an old fight.

Sometimes something catches one's attention, something that leads to something very like despair at the human condition.

I've grown up in a society that regarded the Third Reich, the Nazi regime in Germany headed by Adolf Hitler, as being the worst society ever. We can compare bad ones later. We know, for example, that even before they took power, the society accepted some of their beliefs. Among those were that some lives were more worthy than others, and that some lives were better terminated. (If that sounds uncomfortably like Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, it should. They were friendly.) And that led in turn, inevitably, to evaluation of children (and adults too) and decisions over whether to 'cull the herd'. This sort of thing became part of the list of charges in the Nuremburg Trials that sent several of them to the gallows.

Now I see in the Sunday Times out of London, an article titled ''Doctors: let us kill disabled babies'' which is a serious proposal from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology advocating in favor of ''active euthanesia'' for the ''overall good of families''.

I would have to suspect that Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Mengele - and Sanger - seem to have won that argument. Perhaps we owe an apology for that little gallows incident if we are seriously proposing to admit that their idea was a good one. Particularly if we go beyond consideration into full-blown acceptance, and thence to common practice. It will, I predict, be justified under some sort of ''for the good of All'' boilerplate, and opposing it will be considered some sort of 'hate speech'.

I've never cared much for the Catholic idea of classifying sins. That's a worthy subject for a whole series of posts, if not a book. But they're not totally wrong. The pattern they describe is pretty evident: pride, greed, lust, and envy. We seem to have them all through the history of our race, which brings me back to the worldview issue that began this post. The sins of human beings just seem to repeat. We don't have any fewer today than those that Calvin or Luther or Paul of Tarsus saw. Or Jeremiah for that matter. I'm not sure quite where the shedding of innocent blood falls in there, but it's at least as old as the worship of Baal and Moloch.

This isn't 'progress'' as I define it. It's just the same old thing come around again. The difference is that we have recent experience of where it leads, so we have not even the bad excuse of not knowing better.

I'll go out on not too much of a limb here, and predict that this does not please God. Then again, I doubt seriously that this was one of the objectives of those proposing this policy.

American Manufacturing Again

There is a good letter in the current version of the online edition of Modern Plastics magazine, in the section called ''As I see It''. You can find it online, titled 'Shortage? What Shortage?' . Go and read it, it's a story I've heard many times, in many places, from many people. I've been there myself. Individuals with excellent track records of accomplishment and value-add, part of the 'collateral damage' of the hollowing out of American manufacturing. Unable to get a job. In some cases, unable to get ANY job, at ANY level. Too qualified for some, or in some cases being experienced in the ''wrong'' CAD package, or something relatively trivial. For being unemployed - the folklore that it's easier to get a job when you already have one is true. Stupid, but true. Even, and this is true, for having a bad credit file. Being unemployed, particularly extended unemployment, is not conducive to a good financial picture. Keeping someone unemployed because of that is beyond asinine, it's something only an HR type or a beancounter could invent. But it happens daily, truly it does. And the type of attitude and business culture it reveals is part of the rot that is part of the real damage to the nation's industrial base - more than finances, quality, or regulatory environment, it's a terrible lack of leadership with a defensible moral philosophy. Part of the overtaking of industry by lawyers, accountants, and other leeches.

Anyway, I came across the letter this afternoon as I was trying to make some calls and navigating through the labyrinth of some of these devil-inspired voice mail systems. I was making the calls trying to get a recommendation for a repair facility for a worn/damaged injection mold. Many of the people I once dealt with are out of business, and the craftsmen they employed are gone to the winds. Let me give you one observer's recollection.

Back in the 1990's, I worked for a now-bought-out major maker of consumer goods. Most of our products were made of rubber and plastics. At one time, so I was told, we operated American-made injection presses, processing American-made polymers through molds made at American tool shops, some near-by. Along the line, someone with a cut-price MBA decided that the molds, the more pedestrian ones, could be made more ''competitively'' off-shore. In Portugal, in fact. So there was less business for the US tool shops, and the trade, the craft, the respect and pay due a tool & die maker, suffered a bit. By the way, so did the profession of the tool engineer. Later, some one with a ''world-class quality'' chant on his lips, decided that we needed to try out some alternative presses, from Japan. Less work of course for the makers of injection presses and all their components, and of course for those who design them. Then it was decided that it was ''too expensive'' to operate these presses in the US, so some of the work was shifted to Mexico, and some to China. Then more and more to China. Then it was decided that it was silly to arrange a product in the US, make the tool in Portugal, and then ship it to China. So the tool build was also contracted into China. Of course, that meant Chinese tool & die makers, using Chinese machine tools to work on Chinese-made steel, made molds to go into Japanese (and then Chinese) injection presses to make consumer goods for American customers. Having work done by slave labor is cheap, but I thought we were better people than that.

Does this give a lower-priced toy at the big-box retailer? Probably. And this is not a bad thing, it may even be a good thing. Is that the only thing that matters?

Meanwhile, now I have trouble finding someone who can reliably repair the collapsing core of a low-volume injection mold. The shop in Ohio that repaired another mold for me two weeks ago is now deemed to be ''too expensive''. But while I could once find a dozen such within a few hours' drive most of those I once knew have been boarded up.

Those who periodically sign up for big government programs that want to up the numbers of students going into the so-called STEM majors (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) seem blissfully unaware that the history I just recounted is going on all over the country. Finance majors, beancounters, and lawyers seem to be doing just fine. The engineering types, and the honest craftsmen that work with us, see their livelihood and sometimes their designs, heading to China, Mexico, and the like.

This is good for the retailers. And it lets us have more ''stuff''. Is it good for the country? Does it send a good message to our children as they consider their own futures?

Another ''rape Americans Won't Do''

And yet one more example of the fruits of the criminal non-feasance in office of our high elected officials, and another attack in the de facto state of war that exists between the United States of America and Mexico.
Seems that Leopoldo Sanchez, an illegal alien (I know that's not the term approved by the cultural elites, the MainStream Media, most of the politicians in Washington on either side of the aisle, but heck with them), having once been deported for illegal activities, crossed our porous border again and raped at least one woman in the Houston, Texas area. See the story at the Houston Chronicle under the heading of Rape Suspect Had Been Deported Earlier This Year .
In the meantime, we finally have an agreement to build a fence along a short section of the border, though have no plan in place to finance it.
I have a suggestion, or rather several.

1. A person who has not learned once won't learn twice. He does not intend to change his behavior. Hang him. Do it today. He is an invader, and is not - in my humble opinion - entitled to the legal protections afforded to US citizens or lawful visitors. He is an invader bent on evil designs. Hang him. Publicly.
2. Those who have excused such patterns of behavior have acted the part of enablers. There should be consequences. Suggestions are welcome. I like the idea of public floggings, though the stocks and the pillory have their fans.
3. This is a natural consequence of various public policy decisions on the part of the rulers of Mexico. My view of the matter is that there is now and has for some time been a State of War between the US and Mexico. Therefore:

• repudiate NAFTA, immediately
• declare war
• close the border, totally
• declare such organizations as LULAC, MALDEF, MEChA, La Raza and their ilk to be subversive and treasonous organizations dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States. Act accordingly.

FINALLY
If I EVER again hear the lie about ''jobs Americans won't do'', I won't be responsible for my actions. That is a lie, an insult, and it's uncalled for.

14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group

Go ahead. Read it. Consider it for what it is - a single snapshot picture of the extent of the evil being perpetrated against the world by the devotees of a demon-cult called Islam. It is repeated around the world, daily, and on virtually every continent. [I've not heard, yet, of one in Antarctica]. Wander off to some of the sites that I've linked to here, and see for yourself.

Think it won't happen here, say in London or New York? It already has.

In this particular case, these demon-besotted thugs grabbed a teenager, each grabbing a limb, and then they sawed off his head, while they chanted ''Allahu akbar!'', an incantation to their demon-god. His ''crime''? His identity card revealed him as a Christian. And to them, that was enough. Evil is never comfortable in the presence of the Savior.

There are a lot of things that a conservative can disagree with President Bush about. But surely one of them has to be his repeated reference to Islam as ''a religion of peace''. It is no such thing. It is, and always has been, a violent cult, spread almost exclusively at the point of a spear, and which admits of no other belief system.

How long before a 14-year-old in your town is killed by one of these?

The Belmont Club: Mapping Terrorism

There's a great link over at the Belmont Club blog to a site that provides maps showing locations of terrorist incidents around the world. It's at The Belmont Club: Mapping Terrorism
I highly recommend it. We have an unfortunate habit of ignoring the very real pattern of death and destruction of fellow human beings around the world. And there is, equally, a terrible pattern of ignoring the patterns of behavior and worldview links of those perpetrating these atrocities. I guess it's not totally correct to ascribe them ALL to the Mohammedan heathens, there is still the IRA and various Maoist groups are around. But most are the outgrowth of Islam. Check out the site - then consider your choices on Election Day.

Body count for The Religion of Peace - Oct 28,'06

(More detail available from TheReligionofPeace.com )
Jihad attacks carried out, world wide, week of Oct 15-21, 2006 78
Dead as a result of these 390
Critical injuries as a result of these 462

Recap for the month of September, 2006
Jihadi attacks 242
Dead 1304
Critical injuries 1790

Please take a moment to consider these figures. In just one month, devil-possessed heathens murdered more than one thousand three hundred human beings. In most cases, the main ''offense'' was simply that these individuals were not of the Mohammedan persuasion. In the remaining cases, the issue was the particular flavor of this hideous death cult.

In any event, it should be clear to all but the most blinded that Islam is a blight on the face of the earth, a cult fostered by Satan, and an embodiment of evil wherever found.

I am persuaded that the battle here is a spiritual one. There will be knives and bombs and rifles and all that, probably for quite some time to come. But the real issue is between God and the Devil, between the forces of good and those of evil. I've read the back of the Book, and I know how this struggle comes out, and it's not good for the followers of Muhammad. While there is some reassurance there, there is also an awareness that the followers of this cult are headed towards eternal damnation and that is nothing to wish on anyone nor to celebrate. The early Christians were up against a system at least as evil, and, by the power of God, overcame it.

Prayer and personal witness are, in the end, far more powerful than artillery shells and hand grenades. We have much to do. Time to be about it.

Cats

My wife has a cat. My daughters have cats. I have no cat. I want no cat. I don't particularly LIKE cats, and only go along with them because they are not dogs. I don't really have any understanding of the urge for pets. Animals were put on earth to provide meat, milk, eggs, leather, wool, etc. They're not people, and I can not understand those who act as if they were. Makes no sense to me, a descendant of generations of farmers.

But .... I'm outnumbered in my own home and have found it preferable to exercise the better part of valor. Meaning I shut up.

At least they don't bark or bite the neighbors. They do, however, get into some circumstances that can only be described as truly odd. You see one of them here.

Background here. A couple years ago, one of our neighbors suddenly picked up and left, hauling off their kids and getting onto the Cherokee Nation (reservation) by Sallisaw, Oklahoma. They left behind a remarkabable beer can collection, considerable evidence of drug use, and a pregnant cat. Who, being more than half feral, promptly deposited a litter on our back porch. Two lived, little Siamese-looking things. I came home one day to discover that Mama Cat had departed and the kittens had been adopted. Twins, one female, one putatively male. Names were already being solicited, with each daughter claiming one. Since they were evidently demented, I recalled the bad Japanese that an exchange student (Mikihiko Goto, where are you?) had tossed off once, to the effect that ''sukoshi nikki-nikki'' meant ''a little bit crazy''. Since daughter number 2 was thinking of calling the male (hers) as ''Squishy'', Sukoshi was acceptable and Nikki was adopted as the other's nom de nutso.

Cats seem to like to play. Here, we had three of them arguing over, of all things, a small fish bowl. (The fish once housed there had, ahem, no further use for it.) The photo is of the small female (now neutered, like the others) trying out the fishbowl as an appropriate hat. Please don't try to convince me that cats are intelligent. Intelligent beings don't put fishbowls on their heads. Of course, I'm not convinced that intelligent beings get tattoos and piercings either, but that is a matter for another day.

Illegal aliens, part 1002

I see that one of the ''Beltway Snipers'', Lee Boyd Malvo, has admitted to another murder, this one in 2002 of Jerry Taylor on a Tucson golf course. I'm sure that provides a small amount of closure for the family of the murder victim.

But for others, it should be an item in an indictment. If you go to a 2002 article written by Michelle Malkin in her article ''Who let Lee Malvo loose?'' you will be reminded that Malvo is an illegal alien who was arrested back in 2001 in Belllingham, Washington, but - in violation of the law - was ordered released by the INS district in Seattle. As a result, Malvo was set free. And as a result of that, Jerry Taylor is dead. And so are a number of other people. Michelle has done a real number on them at her blog/column. Check out Another Beltway sniper victim for her take on it. I think that she does one of the better jobs on this issue, though there is some excellent work being done. But excellent commentary and excellent analysis do not, alas, seem to be translating into equally good policy and practice.

Persons taking up governmental duties are indeed doing exactly that: stepping up to perform duties that are greater than those expected of the average citizen. As such, they deserve respect and honor, so long as they ''well and faithfully carry out the duties of the office ...''. Clearly, quite an number of persons, and it reaches to the very top levels of the nation, are now feeling free to ignore their oath, their duty, their honor, and the expectations of the nation that these duties will be well and faithfully performed.

Ideas have consequences. INS, and the elected and appointed leaders, have ideas. And Jerry Taylor is dead. You can't ignore the law and honor and expect good results.

Enforce the law. The law specifies who may enter this country and under what circumstances. I am tired of hearing nonsense and lies to pretend that violations of these laws are unimportant. They're not unimportant. And Jerry Taylor is not the only victim.

The law specified deportation of illegals. The law prohibits knowingly hiring illegals. Enforce the law. Vigorously. Immediately. I want ALL the illegals out of OUR country, and now.

Illegal Immigration and the November elections

As a Christian, and as an American, I frequently wrestle with issues that seem to be in tension between those two states. One is not always certain that these tensions are more contrived than real, but certainly there are issues which force one to think the matter through. Illegal immigration, and cultural and national standards, fall into that area.

There are those who will claim that all cultures are equally worthy. That's nonsense: who would prefer to live in a cannibalistic society, for example? And few would willingly live in a Marxist state - that's why the Berlin wall was erected, to keep the prisoners in.

And there are those who believe that the defense of national boundaries is un-Christian, or un-Progressive, or something else that they don't like. I doubt that these same people don't lock their own front doors. If that is OK, then defending the border should be as well. Among other things, Chistian charity should not be construed as to require giving away your neighbor's goods without consent. Give of your own substance, but don't steal from others to do so. And you aren't required to let the burglars even into your own home.

The self-proclaimed elites in our centers of power have bought into the idea that our US territory is not worth defending, or have determined to make a variety of bad excuses for their refusal to defend the boundary. I believe that the results of that will be expressed at the ballot box in the upcoming elections. While I regard the Democrat position in this - and most other issues as well - as being ridiculous and despicable, the de facto Republican one is no better and little different.
I have reproduced below a section of some exchanges that I had early this year with a Republican county chairman in Tennessee. I don't have his permission to reveal his name or comments, so the posting will be limited to my own statements.
---
original post in late March

This last weekend saw something that I had hoped never to see in this country - mobs in the streets of our cities demanding, DEMANDING that we forego the rule of law, acquiesce in a flagrant pattern of what is at best felonious behavior, and remake our country into an extension of Mexico. It cannot, surely, have escaped anyone's attention that the majority of the flags being displayed were not the Stars and Stripes, but the flag of a foreign power. A nation that has if fact forfeited any right to be considered a friend, neighbor and ally. It is beyond comprehension, beyond belief, that the borders of this nation of ours are not being vigorously defended by high walls and military patrols.
It is beyond my understanding why we have de facto sanctuary areas in our very neighborhoods, why illegal aliens are not being sought out and deported the very same day, why we are continuing to permit mob rule in our streets by criminals openly promoting the reconquista of large parts of US territory.
I can not understand why I suddenly need to punch "1 for English" on a telephone system.
I can not understand why local manufacturing companies hire illegal aliens with impunity.
But, most of all, I can not understand the stance of the Republican Party, in particular at the national level and most particularly in the office of the President.
It is not helpful when those who call for the enforcement of existing laws are demonized as "vigilantes", when lawless behavior is winked at, when our borders and national sovereignty are being subsumed in an "open borders" worldview that the overwhelming majority of all Americans reject.
I find it even more discouraging when messages on this subject sent to my Senators are either met with a general form letter (Sen. Frist) or studiously and totally ignored (Sen. Alexander). I can promise you that ANY primary challenger to Lamar Alexander will get my active support, and I will do my utmost to bring others along. I don't care if the candidate is Donald Duck, he'd be better.

INS agents, augmented if necessary by the military, should have gone through those crowds yesterday and illegals should have been back across the border by nightfall with the clothes on their backs and nothing else. Nothing.
Instead, this mob, something eerily similar to the riots in France, was unchecked. The actions of the government of Mexico amount to acts of war. At the very least, we could stop the charade.
And, while we're at it, stop the President's deliberate gloss of the differences between legal and illegal immigration. Illegal aliens are felons. We do not reward felons, at least not as a matter of general policy. Why are we proposing to do so in this case? Illegals should be apprehended, deported, and never-never-never permitted legal residency.

A few words about these so-called "Guest Worker" plans.

They stink.

I invite any and all to examine the record of guest worker efforts elsewhere. Look at Europe.

• See how the "guest workers" have turned large parts of France into places the police dare not go.
  
• How the guest workers have taken over large parts of Germany.
  
• It was the children of guest workers who set off bombs in London busses.
  
• Or killed film makers in Holland.
  
• Or committed gang rapes in Australia.
  
• Or in Norway.
  
• Or control the types of cartoons that may be published in Denmark.
  

Guest Workers is a term that when parsed means we are deliberately creating a hostile subculture that is unassimilated and inassimilable within our country. Rather like deliberately introducing foreign organisms into one's body. Who would deliberately do such a stupid thing? Then why is such being seriously proposed? If it is the intention of the Republican Party to lose the next several elections, this is the right way to go about it. I can tell you that the resentment that I hear from every part of the nation, including this county, is very real, very deep, and will certainly be reflected at the ballot box. Is this really what was intended?

---------

After a brief exchange, I responded as follows:

The comments I made were far more temperate than some I've heard in the course of my daily activities. There are a lot of people, including some you would not think of, who are just downright livid over this situation. It crosses lines of party, faction, race, age, social status, and others. There is a strong perception, unfortunately true in some cases, that the Republican party, particularly the old Rockefeller wing of it, is in favor of illegals as their presence tends to drive down the wages at the low end of the pay spectrum. If I hear "jobs Americans won't do" one more time, I'll throw a shoe at the TV.
I know how hard it is to get people to come to work on time and really work. But I, like many others, have put in his time, thank you, at mowing lawns, sweeping floors, scrubbing toilets, and working on farms. The so-called ''jobs Americans won't do''. I wouldn't want to do any of them for the $1.80 an hour I once got. But I could do them again if necessary and Americans still do every one of them. I did these things, and so did many others, and we learned a work ethic and frankly resent the 'jobs Americans will not do' - it's a lie, an insult, and it's uncalled-for. Now, between the illegals who will mow your lawn for cash under the table, and the Social Security and child labor laws, kids who could be out learning the value of work are pushed out of consideration and illegals take the work.

More to the point, illegals are here, we know it, and nothing happens. Local police pick them up on a variety of charges up to and include murder and rape, compounded by their very presence in the country, but INS tells them to "catch and release". You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, and NOTHING is being done except to insult those who want the laws enforced. A wall is proposed on the border, one that should have been erected after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and it is opposed on the grounds that it might work. (And is opposed on our own soil by the representatives of a nation with which we are essentially at war.)

Go down off I-640 onto Rutledge Pike early some morning and head over towards Mascot (note: this is an industrial park area northeast of Knoxville, TN, but the Morristown area is no different). Look to your right by the Dollar Store and see the crowd standing by the road. And that's only one example. Or go over into the Industrial Park in Mascot and watch who's working the 2nd and 3rd shifts, and not a one can speak a word of English over at some of them (you can research that one yourself). Been going on a while and it's no secret.

There are examples everywhere, and the party that was once known for law and order, which has been in power in two branches of the federal government for over half a decade, refuses to enforce the laws on the books. And everyone knows it. Go over to the grocery stores. Why do you think the Food Lion has a section with masa flour, a variety of Mexican foods, Mexican laundry products, and candle jars with the Virgin of Guadalupe painted on the sides? You think the people from the Church of Christ, or any local Baptist are buying them? You think it's an accident that you now have to ''punch one for English ......" even to use a credit card at Wal-Mart or Food City? And those are just some of the comments that I've heard in the last few days.

Anyone who thinks that this simmering rage will not be expressed, at the ballot box and in other, less savory ways I fear, is living in a cloud cuckoo land.

There is a term that needs to be remembered. It is "social fabric", and it deals with the ways we live and conduct our lives, ways which often have little or nothing to do with the laws and the government. It includes the niceties of manners, conduct, behavior, and such. It is a delicate but important thing. It means we know, without a law, not to belch or pass gas in public, to allow the aged, infirm, and ladies to sit while we guys stand, to turn the music down, to take time for the small kindnesses. It means we volunteer our time and money for charities, public services, and Boy Scouts. Yet we see in many places that the Emergency Rooms in hospitals - and sometimes the entire hospitals -- that were started and often maintained by donations, fund raisers, and such for the good of the community, are closing because they can't afford the burden place upon them by persons whose very presence in the country is a crime. At best. How do you think those volunteers feel when they are called racists and vigilantes and their concerns are ignored or slandered by the chief magistrate? The social fabric is strained when we throw out the traditions of assimilation, of rule of law, of wanting to be Americans, in favor of multiculturalism, reconquista, of expanding entitlements given to those who not only do not want to be Americans, they want to remain whatever it was that they were before.
The large display of Mexican flags in large numbers this week has emboldened those who, like La Raza, MEChA, LULAC, MALDEF, and others, join with the stated intent of the government of Mexico in intending to retake large sections of the United States. And our government DID NOTHING. Nothing.

And when I write my elected Senators, one passes off pabulum and one ignores the entire thing entirely. Calling Lamar Alexander a RINO is too kind. He needs to find something else to do. Wal-Mart is hiring. Though even Wal-Mart expects you to actually DO the job you were hired for, something he seems to have forgotten.

In the meantime, the State and local Republican organizations are strangely silent on a matter that has the concern of many citizens. I can not believe that ducking issues is the way to proceed.
------- ------------ ---------------------------------- -------------------
Since then, it's gotten worse.

We have seen, not progress, but further retreat. I see that two agents of the US Border Patrol have now been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for the ''crime'' of shooting, in the buttocks, a smuggler with hundreds of pounds of narcotics. A smuggler who escaped back to Mexico and then complained of his ill-treatment. A case brought by a US Attorney under the Department of Justice headed by Attorney-General Alberto Gonzalez and the Presidency of G.W. Bush.

It is difficult to find temperate language to accurately describe my reaction. My belief is that these agents should have been rewarded for faithful service (and then sent for marksmanship retraining), not prosecuted. The US Attorney is someone that I class as rating somewhere approximating whale dung at the bottom of the ocean, and Alberto Gonzalez is one of the President's very worst appointments (marginally better than Powell).

But the President is paid to be the responsible person, and I am disgusted by his attitude and actions on this whole issue. I regret that he won the 2000 nomination. I fear that those of us who were ''broken glass'' Republicans have accomplished little more than to be enablers of terrible public policies.

The Amish School Shootings

I've been reluctant to comment very much on this issue. Better people than I have already done so, and the families of the survivors have and should remain in our prayers. The site, theosebes has done a good job on the subject, and I recommend you check in there.

I confess to more than a passing interest in the matter. My extended family came from the Lancaster area, my grandfather was born there. Virtually my entire extended family is Amish, Old Order Mennonite, or if liberal, have religious convictions approximating those of the General Conference Mennonite Church. Some of the victims had last names that are in my family tree. This is, to me, very close to home.

One of the best takes came from the keyboard of Rod Dreher of the Dallas, TX Morning News. I found it at the http://tinyurl.com/pyjvj site. I hope that it is still available there. Rod has chosen to emphasize, not the violence, nor the innocence of the victims, nor any of the normal themes found in the accounts of these all-too-frequent evidences of a broken world. He has pointed out that the real shocking story is that the families of the victims have taken up a collection for the widow and orphans of the shooter. The story is one of forgiveness, of refusing to return evil for evil. That is amazing, nonsensical, extravagant forgiveness. And that's the point. They are doing as Jesus Christ has done for you, and for me, and for all who believe on His name. No one, NO ONE, can in their own human strength forgive like that. Most of us, even those who are called Christians, would not even try. That is a terrible reproach to us.

Forgiveness is a subject that should be dear to the heart of all Christians and preached frequently from all pulpits. That is not the case, in general. Most of us, and I include myself, have adopted far too much of the world's attitude on this subject. Most of us would have been calling lawyers and filing wrongful death suits against the estate of the shooter, even if it threw his survivors into the snow. The Amish of Lancaster County have shamed me, and perhaps others. They have done unto others what the Lord has done for us, and done it without publicity.

I should do likewise.

On to business

Now if one may change the subject a bit. This is part one of what I expect will be several. This is an issue that is important for reasons that will be addressed.

One of the things that I do for a living is in the area of manufacturing engineering. I've worn a lot of hats and carried a number of titles in the career.

Over the last 20-odd years in this line of endeavor, I've been through just about every sort of buzzword improvement program that has made its appearance in the New section of the business section of the bookstore of your choice. I've served on committees - usually concealed as ''Cross-Functional Task Teams'' or ''Quality Circles'' or even, Heaven help us, ''SPC Groups'' or any of a number of other terms with the word ''team'' to hide the fact that they are committees. I've received and distributed wagonloads of hats, shirts, coffee mugs, pens, notepads, and just about every other 'tchotchke' imaginable. In many of these ''great leaps forward'', the shirts and coffee mugs were the only lasting sign of the whole blasted thing. Oh, and the promotions and honors for the people who were clever enough to push the thing while avoiding the blame for the failure to produce. I still have memories of a certain now-vanished division of General Motors where the person pushing the management fad du jour arranged himself a promotion to 'Director of Excellence', and handed out wallet-sized 'Excellence' cards with slogans one was to memorize and chant like Mao's Red Guards. The division, as I said, no longer exists, and any improvements gained were largely illusory.

I've said all this to provide some background. I am sure that most of these efforts have been well-intentioned. I am sure, since I've been there, that many who get involved really do want to make things better, to gain the improvements, to remedy the issues that most thoughtful people can see, to do the right things.

So why are so many working so hard to such little result, if indeed that is the case? And what thing or things needs to happen to put the train back on the tracks?

First of all, I want to talk about some of the methods and tools that have been employed. Most of them have some good features. Almost all of them have some unintended consequences, some negative. And some of them work in some situations and not in others.

We need to recognize the Japanese influence. Starting in the late 1970's to early 1980's or so, and particularly in the of automotive area, the competition from the Japanese makers was overwhelming. Being adaptive if not particularly creative, some of the Bright Young Men in the automotive arena determined to copy what the Japanese were doing, or at least as much of it as they could fathom, and install it wholesale into the American factory. Things were to the point that if the Japanese did it, it was worthwhile, and if they didn't then it was counterproductive. I really did hear people, some highly placed, say almost exactly those words. Remember when everyone was expected to have a copy of ''A Book of Five Rings'' and to go about spouting the lessons that an author put into the mouth of a long-dead Japanese swordsman? This was supposed to provide insights into business processes, somehow.

This is not to trash the reputation of people like Shigeo Shingo, Genichi Taguchi and others like Deming. Some of it was very good and the approach has been immensely valuable.

But that does not mean that everything that they did or said, or that the practices of the Japanese manufacturers is immune to improvement or even to criticism. Who among us has not seen silliness like the adoption of unisex uniforms for all employees at all levels, and justified because ''the Japanese do it so we should too''?

The fact is that the Japanese approach works well in Japan, in Japanese culture, Japanese financial structures, etc., and doesn't necessarily translate well to American equivalents. Not to mention that some of their financial machinations would result in lengthy prison terms if attempted in the U.S. By the way, by most measures the Japanese economy has been in a deep recession for a decade or so. This is something to emulate?

In any event, the efforts have largely been in vain. Some of the organizations I once saw heavily involved in these exercises either are in bankruptcy (Delphi), no longer exist at all, have been bought out by the slash-and-burn predators, have moved their battered remnants to Mexico, or have simply outsourced everything to China. Net benefits have been very limited.

Now, much of what I have said already would get me banned from certain polite discussions, and saying what I have already said has not been helpful to the career. Yet most people in the business know these things, and will even admit to them privately. Not publicly - the pressure of groupthink is too strong.

It will get worse.

They're here!!!!

Last evening was tense. My beloved, my one true love in this world, called yesterday afternoon to say ''We're on our way right now''. I sat in tension waiting out the minutes ..... OK, so I did spend a couple minutes straightening up the mess in the hotel room. She finally made it off the I-85 around 8:30 last night, we met, dropped the car at my office overnight, took the cats to a place already arranged, and then went to the hotel. They were an incredibly wonderful sight. God has been very good to me and my family is an important part of those blessings.

She spent much of the day on the nuts and bolts of the relocation - meeting the electrician doing some finish work, arranging a new telephone number, arranging for the electricity to go on, etc. She is wonderful and I couldn't go on without her.

Now I feel more complete than I have felt in more than six weeks.

Looking back in amazement

It's a Saturday afternoon. My beloved called me earlier today and told me she probably can't make the trek down to join me until Monday. Possibly tomorrow, but Monday is more likely. Some things need to be done, there is no one to rely upon, and she has to do it personally. So yet another delay. I miss her desperately.

We are acting on faith that all of this is ordained of God, that He is in control, and that we can rely upon Him. He has never let us down, though we have let Him down, and the blame for that rests upon me. He has been faithful, and I haven't always been. My fault, His grace.

This has been a bumpy ride. The comments about the hollowing-out of U.S. manufacturing are based upon experience. The below is longer than I planned. It's not a pity-me, it's more of a detailed testimony.

In the last sixteen years, we have endured downsizings and plant closings associated with some of the big names and major manufacturing operations in the United States. From Packard Electric Div. of General Motors (now Delphi) through a now-defunct wire manufacturer outside of Akron, a division of what was for years the most admired company in the US near Knoxville, a top-tier supplier to the top appliance maker in the world in Arkansas, and a top-level automotive supplier in eastern Tennessee, we have seen up close the hollowing-out of manufacturing in the nation. We have also endured great privations as a result of all of this. The last, the auto parts maker, literally shut down in the middle of our move there.

That was a setback, financially and emotionally. We lost virtually everything we had as, over the next 18 months we lived on unemployment (until it ran out) and a few short-term projects, and what my wife could pick up while I sent resume's everywhere. I heard numerous versions of ''we'd love to have you with us, but you're far beyond our needs and we feel you'd leave when something better came along. Good luck and goodbye''.

Try going from 'respectable'' to destitute. We've been there, and we're still pretty close to the line. Not quite the life the college professors painted for me. And yet ......

God has, somehow, been at work through all of this. He has constantly been opening doors, making a way, providing, blessing, carrying us through some frankly tough situations. Along the way, we've met people and encountered situations that, left to ourselves, we would never have been in. We've found wonderful people in a number of churches who have ministered to us, prayed with and for us, loved us, and generally been the walking presence of Jesus Christ in this world. We are grateful beyond measure, and looking forward to what He has in our future.

Another nght

It's Tuesday night at the roach motel. I took to calling it that after killing the 5th roach bug in the bathroom Sunday evening. Probably an unfair depiction. Then again, this is a motel, and that was a roach bug. It fits. And I'm feeling a bit less than totally charitable right now. Took a real major effort to get into my motel room. It looks like the little key card reading thingy on the door has a dead battery. After three sets of key cards failed, they called out a maintenance guy with a little programmer box, who was able to over-ride the system and let me in. But he couldn't replace the dead battery, that requires the oversight of the daytime manager, so they'll come by some time tomorrow and put one in. If it wasn't so aggravating, it would be amusing. Look, this isn't the Ritz. But they haven't had Housekeeping in for 6 days now, and the sheets are the worse for the experience, and so are the two bath towels I've been alternating since last Wednesday. Too Much Information there, probably.

The good news is that the family will join me in a few days. I expect to see wife and daughter on Thursday afternoon. Bearing in mind I haven't seen them in more than a month, I can't wait. God has been good to me in very many ways, and the family He's given is one more example of that. They will never realize, no matter how I try to convey it, just how much I love them.


There are a lot of things I'd like to be writing about: the Bill Gaither program that's playing on the TV right now, better ways to design and operate production facilities to accomplish the real aims of the organization, how to deal with the death cult of Islam, the relevance of the prophet Isaiah to our world today, the benefits (and limitations) of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing principles to a variety of operations, as well as the damage that can be done through the misuse and brainless adherence to them. A lot of topics, really. Hang around.

Another Week

This is being written from yet another hotel room. I've been in this town for a month now, and this is the third hotel I've stayed in. The first two were paid paid the company, so they were a bit ''upscale''. This one is being paid for, by me, so it definitely is not. One of those 'by-the-week' extended stay joints, populated by four-illegals-to-a-room, single moms on the lam, and a remarkable collection of empty beer cans in the trash. For $30 a day, I guess that's what you expect. Generally, once I get out of work, I head back to the room and stay there until the 04:30 alarm goes off. Sometimes I stop at Wally World and pick up the el-cheapo food stuff to eat, but for most of the time, that's as exciting as it gets.

We recently ''celebrated'' our wedding anniversary with phone calls. This is not what I'd call a romantic way to celebrate the milestones of our life.

With a relocation comes the need to establish oneself. Get the right car plates, driver license, find a bank. Those are easy, if a pain. Find a new church. Now that is hard. Those of you in church leadership need to give the matter some prayerful consideration. As one in the midst of the matter, I can assure you that it is a stressful and difficult matter. Too many churches are more or less family reunion/weekly social club arrangements. Oh, God is involved surely. But it's a rather closed society, limited by family ties, or social condition, or race, or background, or other criteria.

Love endures

This is going to be a tough week. Most people realize that Monday is the 5^th anniversary of the 9/11 attack perpetrated by the devil-worshippers of Islam. It will be all over the TV, the papers, the magazines, the outlets for the claques of the appeasers of our age. But tomorrow, September 10, is also our wedding anniversary and we are 365 miles apart. This will be the first, and I hope only, time we will be apart on this day. It’s hard to have to endure that.

The proximity of the two dates will always be an oddity for us. Five years ago, on Sept. 10^th, 2001, I received one of those rare gifts: my beloved wife sent flowers to me at the office at my employer in Fort Smith, Arkansas. From the looks on the faces there, such had not happened before there, and my stock rose perhaps. It didn’t last. When we got out of our every-morning early meeting the next day, the time when some informality was the rule before we really got down to the events of the day, the phones were already ringing and computers went on-line to Fox News, Drudge Report, and other reliable sources. (not much of the ABC-CBS-NBC-CNN, I note, we’d learned about the folly of trusting propagandists) and saw the events unfolding. Needless to say, the day’s events overshadowed any ribbing about flowers.

What a contrast! One day dedicated to love and devotion and strengthening our life together, the other a reflection of the effects of the evil that is Islam. Ideas have consequences. In a 24-hour period, we saw the truth of that.

Much has happened since those days. Blood and death and destruction, surely. I’ve had two employers teeter on the brink of collapse out from under me, have moved twice now over three states. Yet God is good, and still rules, and the woman who loved me enough to send me flowers just called a few minutes ago, to my little hotel room, to say, once again, ‘’I love you’’. I’d rather have that than riches and fame.

Love one one hand, and hate and evil on the other. Jesus the Christ, Yeshua ha-Moshiach as love, or Allah the demon-god of evil. Easy choice.

Grace and peace.