Sunday sermon-ettes, the sequel

Good Sunday morning all and enjoy the day. A few tidbits have been bouncing around in my head, so I will commit them to writing for your review and critique. The tidbits are light on religious tone.

Guns and butter: For some reason, in the US we spend more time discussing protecting the right to own a 34th assault weapon than feeding 34 people. We have far too many food deserts in our country where the closest food is a convenience store. Far too many in our country are undernourished. Yet, pick up any local paper on any day of the week, and you will find multiple gun killing stories. Better gun governance is essential, but it is a nonstarter with the NRA who is more interested in gun sales. I think our priorities are off.

Kicking poor people in the teeth: Along those same lines, our President is pushing the Republicans in the Senate to vote on whether to kick 22 million Americans in the teeth or 34 million, many of whom are in poverty or near poverty. It should be noted the President said he would not touch Medicaid. I guess that detail escapes him in his desire to have a photo op of him signing something.

Brexit is a hard pill to swallow: The word Brexit sounds like one of those new fangled drugs to cure something you did not know you should worry about. I think voters were not told the whole story and many are wishing they had a do over. As foretold, the financial companies who based their EU regional business in London, are making definitive plans to move. Bank of America just announced a move to Dublin, Citigroup is moving folks to Frankfurt and other places, and Japanese banks are doing likewise. While I  understand the desire to fully govern your future, the UK is harming its future growth. That is not just my opinion, but that of financial experts.

Shrinking to greatness is not a good strategy: Speaking of financial growth, limiting relationships with other countries is not conducive to growth. And, a venture capitalist noted that what creates jobs is customers. Plus, when we discuss global trade, we need to reflect the whole picture and that is the foreign owned companies who make things here with American workers. Why? Selling big durable products is more cost effective and less risky if they are not shipped from abroad. Just ask BMW, Toyota, Husqvarna, Michelin, Mercedes, Volvo, Mitsibishi, etc. about their plants here in the US.

The bible says many things: There is a minister who upsets a few applecarts by preaching that the bible should not be cherry-picked to support points of view. His obvious example is in Genesis where God tells Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply and then gets mad at them when they like being naked with each other. The question is how did they know how to go forth and multiply? The minister’s premise is we should take away the overarching messages that are taught therein and remember the context of when the bible was written.

So, on that note, go enjoy your day, whether you choose to practice your multiplication tables or not.

 

Around the world in one hundred eighty days

The US President has just completed his first six months in office and his 180 days have been a lengthy and chaotic affair. Each week has seen bizarre story after another and, just when it looks like we can go no lower, the President can slip under an even lower limbo bar.

The sad part is he not only affects the US, he has created an untrustworthy relationship with pretty much every leader around the globe. Even leaders who are on his side likely do not trust the man as far as they could throw him. Conservative writer Ross Douthat wrote recently, “as soon as you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he will disappoint you.”

A recent Pew Research Poll of 37 countries said trust in the President has fallen from 64% with Obama to 22% with Trump, a fall of 42 points. Think about that. Pulling out of agreements like the Paris Climate Change Accord and having to be shamed into fully supporting NATO reveal a man whose words do not mean that much. As a result, neither does our word as a country.

This is a key reason we try to honor earlier commitments. But, with Trump saying everything done before is a “disaster,” he feels he has to prove it by destroying it. As a result, other leaders may choose to work with more dependable countries.

Finally, when he layers in his destructive tweets, he seems to forget or not care that his tweets maybe contradictory to earlier statements made in person with another leader. The sophomoric tweeting is not enabling good governance.

So, until he is removed from office, we will have to suffer with the world. God only knows what the next 180 days will bring.

Tuesday’s Gone with the Wind

With a shout out to one of my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd’s songs “Tuesday’s Gone with the Wind,” here are a few tidbits for this Tuesday.

It should not be lost on anyone that two of the biggest players in wind energy are two of the largest manufacturing companies in the world – Siemens and GE. With Iowa at almost 1/3 of its electricity provided by wind and oil rich Texas at 13% and the largest US wind energy state, this is much more than a breeze and just shy of a gale.

What the ranchers and farmers in the Midwest and in other areas have learned, is leasing their land to wind mills earns annual income and let’s them continue to use the land. In North Carolina, for example, one farmer leased his farm for eleven wind mills for annual income of $55,000. With the variability of profit margin associated with working the land, this adds some stability.

Thinking of a different kind of wind, the Senate leader is a particularly blowhard. Now, that the third effort to revise the Senate ACA repeal and replace has fallen apart, he is still reluctant to take the more appropriate path. Rather than working with all members of the Senate following normal procedure for legislation, he now is talking about a full repeal vote, without replacement. Not only is that malfeasance in my view, it runs contrary to the wishes of most Americans. The fact the President suggested it does not improve the veracity of the idea.

Folks, please pay attention to the good and bad things happening. We can no longer assume our elected leaders will act with the necessary diligence and stewardship.

 

 

 

A few obvious statements

There are lot of important things we should be talking about, but let me make a few obvious statements about what is.

– While it remains to be proven whether the President of the United States colluded with Russia to get elected it is painfully clear he has lied about no involvement from any of his campaign team with Russians.
– While Junior says nothing was gleaned from the meeting with the Russian attorney, there are two truths using his own words in emails. He expected and relished in getting Russian government dirt on Hillary Clinton. And, he lied about the meeting, the purpose of the meeting, that Kushner and Manafort did not know and then released emails after being advised the NY Times was going to. Now, he says his father did not know, but frankly, why should we believe him now?
– if the GOP led Senate passes a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare using only GOP votes and the bill gets reconciled with the House bill and signed into law, it will harm two groups – a great many Americans and the Republican Party.
– The US has begun its official demise as the global leader. With the pulling out of the Paris Climate Change Accord and poor performance on the world stage at the G20 meeting, coupled with the retrenchment on trade and proclivity for untrustworthy behavior, this President has done huge damage to our reputation. If you have not seen it, check out the scathing review of Trump by an Australian political reporter who is saddened by this.

These stories are critical. We need Americans to pay attention to legitimate news sources. You could start with everyone being condemned by the President as fake news. Based on his lying and denials that are eventually disproven, people should not take this man at his word. He has not earned that right.

The Teacher Asked

The teacher asked little Johnny if he took Susie’s lunch money. Johnny said he did not. The teacher had seen this before.

She asked him again if he took Susie’s money. He replied more angrily and said how dare someone accuse him of such? Someone is making this story up.

Still unsatisfied, she told Johnny that she has strong evidence that he may be the culprit. Johnny stood firm saying “my enemies are out to get me. And, she gave me the money.”

The teacher said “so, you are admitting to having the money?” Johnny said “Susie gave it to me and if she says she did not then she is lying, believe me.”

The teacher asked if he was sticking with that story. When he said yes, she said “well let’s go down to Principal Mueller’s office and look at the videotape of you going into Susie’s backpack.”

At some point, most children learn that when caught in a lie, it is better to come clean. If you keep lying, more trouble will ensue.

Picture two men with the same name, one a father and one a son. The elder man never learned this lesson, so how could he teach his son not to lie. Principal Mueller may have a say in this, as well.

A little class would help

We cannot condone violence. We cannot promote violence. And, we cannot make excuses for violence.

I cannot say it more simply than this. We cannot say it is OK to slug someone because they said something you disagree with. We cannot lie and then be upset when someone calls us on the lie.

We need to follow Jesus’ mantra and treat others like we want to be treated. But, people in a position of leadership must do more than that to actual be real leaders. They need to have a little class. They must be exemplars.

We are witnessing what happens when a person in leadership does not act like the role requires. It is not a requirement that we agree with everything our leaders do or say, but we should require them to act with the dignity the office requires. I can assure you, leaders in other countries notice when our incumbents do not.

Monday, Monday

With this famous Mamas and the Papas’ song in my head, have the best of weeks. Here are a few random musings to start off the week.

The new sleight of hand approach being used by the US President on Russiagate is “It is his fault I cheated.” In essence, his predecessor chose not to make public the verified Russian meddling in the Presidential election due to the polarized political climate. While I understand his logic, I disagree with his silence. Yet, his choice does not alter the fact the newly elected President is at the very minimum an unwitting participant in the meddling and, as yet to be proven, a known colluder. Either way, he cheated, but that is consistent with his history.

Speaking of cheating, having clandestine discussions about health care reform does not give off the impression what you are doing is on the up and up. David Brooks, the conservative pundit, said on Friday that a key reason for the secrecy is there is no overriding mission to what is being done. Also, it could be construed as cheating to sabatoging the Affordable Care Act by not giving money promised to insurance companies to reimburse them for the initial adverse risk they took on. These actions harmed people as premiums went up even more and some companies left the market because they were stiffed.

The reason the “Black lives matter” movement started has been in evidence even more of late. Apparently, in terms of police shootings, they don’t. I would not want a police officer’s job as it is very dangerous. And, there are many, many fine officers. Yet, there have been too many actions taken that seem to fly in the face of reasonable use of force. Why must shots be taken? Why must so many shots be taken? Why must the shooter shoot to kill? When I see seven, twelve, sixteen shots are fired, I find that excessive. We must have honest review by all parties and better training. Too many Black men are dying and yes, their lives do matter.

These reflections turned quite sobering. I hope everyone stays safe and travels safely this week. And, don’t forget to hug your loved ones and tell them how you feel.