Aspirin Is The Best Painkiller

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I have a pretty high pain tolerance, and I don't usually take something to dull pain. Two weeks ago, while running electrical wire to the workshop in my back yard, I smashed by left index finger, and I didn't even ice it. It's still tender, and it reminds me that I smashed it, but I didn't take anything for it, whiskey or oxycodone, and I'm fine. Sometimes however I do take painkillers, not because I can't do without them but because I can't do something I must do while the pain persists. I need to work sometimes when the pain interferes, and so I find that, in a pinch, since I don't rely on painkillers that aspirin serves me best. In many ways, although it is one of the original and simplest of painkillers, it is superior to all others contrived by people. It is natural, and it is simple, and simplicity is often the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo da Vinci). Unlike some of the other medications, aspirin technically never expires in its ability to kill pain even when it changes form. Finally, it's so easy to find and cheap to make, that if you can get away with using it, it's really the best bet and the surest, even if it's not quick and even if you must take multiple doses.

From a cost-benefit perspective, aspirin is the cheapest way to kill pain. I mean, they even put aspirin in some of the other pill cocktails, and you can get generic aspirin anywhere any time; we even have it in some of our first aid kits. When I do the aspirin lab in chemistry, we always compare a new bottle to an expired one to show them that drugs don't technically "expire"; they change into something else. Aspirin is easy and cheap to make, and it's not bottled with a special brand. It is useful everywhere, and it's even sold by Bayer for heart disease. Sure, like all drugs, it comes with possible health risks, and dulling pain isn't as good as eliminating the reason why you hurt in the first place, but if you can kill pain with the cheapest and most ubiquitous pill available, that's a huge win. We need other drugs because most people overuse pain killers, and some people abuse prescriptions. Even when I was seriously injured years back, they only put me on ibuprofin, but you can also take aspirin WITH some other painkillers and it won't interfere with them, making aspirin the best, the least likely to cause dependence, and something that always CAN work, even if it doesn't clear up everything or at least everything completely. Multiple doses are much cheaper than other drugs, but we like to pay for the convenience of taking one pill all day, and you pay for it in more ways than money. We like to kill pain quickly, and aspirin isn't that quick, but it's also the least toxic way to kill pain in cells.

Aspirin is derived from an all-natural source. Long ago, old wives knew that if you chewed on willow bark it would dull pain, and eventually scientists recovered salicylic acid, the active ingredient, from willow as the causative agent. This means that the main precursor to aspirin is not only all-natural, but it's also 100% organic. Aspirin itself is then artisanal, because it's manufactured by people from the salicylic acid through an acetylation reaction. This is done because salicylic acid is irritating to the stomach. So, the manmade derivative is "gentler" on the stomach by pre-reacting it with something to keep it from reacting with you in a way that you don't desire. Of course other pain killers are even more gentle, and willows don't make salicylic acid to make our lives easier, but aspirin is made from concentrated vinegar and willow bark extract, which sounds like something you'd find at Whole Foods next to the wheatgrass. Both of its ingredients are perfectly safe for people, but it gets vilified anyway. In our culture now that potted plants and macrobiotic food, vegan diets, bikram yoga, and the plethora of esoteric solutions, aspirin is really the only natural and pure and vegan source to kill pain among the pills produced for pain. I know there are other things that work too that are not pills, and you can always suck willow bark if that floats your boat, but it really deserves a resurgence in this community under those auspices.

When aspirin "expires" it's still useful. Acetyl-salicylic acid breaks down by the release of the acetyl group as aforementioned, leaving its predecessor- salyicylic acid, which is also a painkiller. You can tell if you're aspirin is going bad because when you open the cap you'll be able to smell vinegar, which is evidence of the reverse reaction. It's why they sell the bottle with a cotton plug, so that the cotton reacts with the air rather than the pills and keeps the pills in useful condition longer. Even then, it just changes the painkiller from one to another. Sometimes when I take other painkillers, I don't feel like they're working, and they don't seem to have any effect at all. However, aspirin, when it expires, turns into a different painkiller, and even though it's weaker it's still going to dull pain. Friday morning I awoke with a headache left over from Thursday night, and when I got to work, I took some acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) and within a few hours I felt fine. Now, the bottle says the pills expired in 2014, but I know that it's still a painkiller even if it's not the one I think it is on the bottle. For this reason, I think stockpiling aspirin is your best bet. Ok, maybe you need aleve or excedrin normally, but those medications really do stop killing pain when they expire, so they just make your urine more toxic if you take them after they expire. At least aspirin will still help dull your pain even if it's years after the bottle says it's bad. When other drugs change form, they cease to be painkillers, and maybe they become more dangerous derivatives than the pain you desired originally to dispel.

Despite its advantages, aspirin continues to take a back seat. It's inconvenient, weak, passe, and just not what people desire, not when you can take something powerful or if you're addicted either to the substance itself or the money you can make selling pills illegally. Nobody deals in aspirin after market, and I'm the only person I know who stockpiles aspirin, but that's one of my favorite labs to teach. We extract willow bark, make aspirin, and test the pills and show that the natural product is present in the pills and even moreso as they degrade. It's an easy test, it's a quick lab, and it is important because some students will find themselves giving "expired" medication in a clinical setting and need to know that the expiration date is really the date on which they can no longer guarantee that the medication contains 100% of the dose of the product we purchase. It may still be useful, and as far as I know aspirin is always useful. It worked for me Friday, despite being expired almost FOUR YEARS AGO. Next time I'll experiment with an older bottle, and I'll continue to show to classes for years to come that aspirin pills still contain aspirin long after you would normally toss them aside. Maybe I like aspirin so much because it reminds me of me- that somehow something useful can be resurrected from me, even if I don't feel useful or even if other people decide they'd rather try elsewhere.

I Hope You're Happy

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Thursday morning on the radio, the DJs were talking about the three people you will love in your life, about heartbreak, and about learning from loss. Before they finished, I turned off the radio, because all I could think about was the woman who broke my heart in 2013 and how much I miss us. It's funny because my friend had to persuade me to even date her, and if he had not, I wonder what I would feel, what I would write, and what I would do in the evenings. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and wherever you go, I hope you're happy. Of course, I hoped that we'd be happy together, but interestingly enough I discovered with this one that I really did love her. I mean, I could have burned her, burned us, given her the ultimatum I gave another woman when I first moved to Vegas, and as much as i don't think she'll do better, I didn't want to do that. I hope that her life is amazing, even if she's not mine anymore. Imagine my surprise then to arrive at work and find that youtube suggested based on my history that I watch the following:

I think it's funny that I even watched this video. I only did because my late friend Tracie loved Blue October. Now, Tracie and I were never going to be together. She was married when we met, and she walked a path that didn't even approximate where I wanted to go. Maybe she wanted to go where I wanted to go, but she didn't want it enough to make the major and essential changes for that. Nevertheless, I wanted her to be happy. In May of 2011, when I went to South Park CO to visit her, she was very surprised by my reactions. First off, I didn't approve of her gentleman friend even though she thought he was dreamy, but she eventually came to understand and even agree that her cowboy boyfriend cared more about his cattle and was only interested in riding her. Secondly, at the bar which was the only place to eat in town after 7PM, some rich yokel made a disparaging comment about her, and my friend Jay had to physically restrain me from beating the crap out of him. See, he owned like almost everything you could see, and if I'd taken him behind the Louvre, it would have made her life difficult there. I wasn't going to date or marry Tracie. I found her physically attractive, because she wasn't a good potential partner, but I did care about her and want her to be happy. Not necessarily at my expense, but none of these things cost me overmuch, and I was willing to take those steps if possible if it made her life better or gave her better opportunities even though my "love" for her wasn't romantic.

I wrote about this before in March of 2017 in "The Pain of Love". You hope they're happy. I mean, I even pray sometimes that, if the woman for whom I ache isn't coming back, she will forget about me completely because that will make it easier for her to be happy and be happier in the life she's chosen. Unlike some other writers and singers and poets, I don't want her to think back and wish she'd stayed; I hope she's happy, and that if she truly desires what she's pursuing that it will bring her the happiness she hopes it will bring her. For that to blossom as it ought, it's better if she does forget about me, completely, and dedicate herself to the life and people that she chose to love instead, not because she hates me or because I want her to but because she can give them all of the love that she possesses. I know this isn't the conventional thing, but it is the quixotic thing- to love pure and chaste from afar. You see, Don Quixote wasn't doing what he did for the servant girl because he wanted her to fall in love with him. He did it because that's what he believed chivalry demanded of a man- to do what is right especially for women.

Love is a misunderstood and misdirected phenomenon with most people, but true love always looks the same. IN a letter John Steinbeck wrote to his son John wrote about two kinds of romantic love. The first is a selfish one that serves the ego of the person who professes love, one that reaches out and says that no matter what you'll be together. It does not usually lead to respect, honour, or happiness. The second is what everyone thinks people mean when they talk about love. It calls upon us to be the very best versions of ourselves that we can manage. It looks toward the other person, often bringing forth goodness and wisdom that the giver did not know they possessed. That kind of love sees the other person with an eye single to the glory of God and desires the best for that person whatever that means. It's the kind of love that God has for us- that He is willing to let us wander and make mistakes and deny and reject Him and then still offers to rescue and redeem us. Now I don't think God expects us to act as Savior to those who hurt us; that's Christ's purpose. However, He does expect us to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us, to welcome back the prodigal even if we choose to give what we have to those we love who remain faithful. Real love, charitable love, the kind of eros that elevates men and really cements people together into families and an entity of eternity in His eyes loves the person even if they hurt us and hopes that wherever they wander their route leads them to happiness and peace. I know from reading CS Lewis that there are four loves, and eros is the lowest, but if it really is love, then it uplifts and lifts up those we claim to love to a better place.

Most people don't really love other people as much as they claim, and most people desperately hope to discover that they're the exception to the rule and that people who claim to love them really mean it. Even then, they don't know what it means to love those who hurt us, but it's what this song by Blue October named "I Hope You're Happy" and Journey's "Worlds Apart" really mean. You still love them, not the way you did, not to get together with them, but you still care for and about them. You hope that things work out, you won't desert them, not that they have claim to the same kind of things that they did before, but you really did care, you really did love them, not in the sappy, selfish, storybook way, but in the way that God wants us to love others- to wish for their best even if you derive no benefit from it. We remember them because they mean something to us, and we care about them because caring about them is caring about us, about our story, about our common heart, about our common aspirations back from when we were together. We hope they're happy, even if they're not with us. Not a day goes by that I don't think about this woman, but I don't hate her or wish her ill. Like the Beast, I have finally learned to love, and although I may not have earned her love in return, maybe the enchantment on me that makes me undesirable, untenable, and unaffable will fade in time and people will understand as months turn into years that I love them even if I don't see them anymore or talk to them ever again. I learned things about myself because she came. I will always be grateful to her that she helped me see who I really am, what I really believe. I hope you're happy, at peace, and prosperous wherever you are.

Spokesmen for Science

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I tracked down a screen shot I found on the internet this week to verify its veracity and was pleasantly surprised.  Apparently, a viewer wrote to demand that Mike Rowe be fired from his job narrating “How the Universe Works” because of personal views that the viewer found inconsistent. You can read Rowe’s post on his blog here.  I found it surprisingly scholarly and enlighteningly introspective both of science itself as well as those interested therein.  However, Rowe is not considered by many to be a subject matter expert in science, and most of my students will eagerly confess when I ask them next week that they know about Bill Nye the Mechanical Engineering guy.  Perhaps the most annoying observation from Rowe’s response is that his detractor objected based entirely on emotion but claimed to be a science aficionado.  More importantly, I think that Nye’s followers are likely to detest Rowe’s show, because Nye’s show is childish and emotive, with very little in the way of substance.

I watched Bill Nye for the first time this past weekend, and I was mortified.  I found the episodes to be cartoonish, pedantic, and condescending.  They also seemed obsessed with fire and explosions, as if that’s all we do in chemistry.  The only redeeming factor was Candace Cameron as a counterbalance to Nye’s off the wall antics.  The episodes were odd, in the way that most things from that period are like hammer pants and tie dye, and I felt less intelligent watching them.  I can hardly believe that so many students considered that to be a good science show, as it dealt so little with scholarship and so much with pageantry.  Contrarily, Mike Rowe’s program is far more scholarly (and hence more dry and less appealing to young viewers), but his discussions are more intellectual and less incendiary than those of Bill Nye.  Nye’s show is showmanship over substance.  They gave very little in the way of scholarly discussion of mechanisms and methods, but they gave recipes to perform wiz-bang experiments at home.  While careful to encourage safety, the things they did were NOT things you’d do at home with the very clever disclaimer “Don’t try this at home” which of course always works…  I think the attachment to Nye is nostalgic and emotional, since there’s no math, no background, no homework, and no scholarship.  People who like his show probably fit into the category of people who thought that Adam Sandler and American Pie were great but who might cringe to rewatch those movies today.  It was a pleasant part of childhood, before science meant WORK and only meant entropy.  They like Nye because of an emotional attachment to fond memories of yesteryear.

Both of these presenters are narrators and just that.  Whereas Bill Nye, who has a BS in Mechanical Engineering, professes and allows you to think that he’s a “science guy”, Mike Rowe makes no pretense at being anything more than a narrator.  These men both know far less about science than I do, but the people who produce the show have scientific consultants who help them prepare programs.  Once written, the episodes are read from a teleprompter like most television programs and scripted like every movie.  It’s not like these men extemporaneously address the audience based on years of experience and the expertise accompanying credentialed degrees.  I mean, it’s like having Leonard Nemoy narrate who, although I’m sure very knowledgeable, only PRETENDED to be a science officer in Star Trek, which apparently keeps very few from assuming that Nemoy actually is a scientific expert.  I have never heard Nye discuss his actual credentials; in contrast, he is proud of his self-anointed status as the “science guy” and portends and pretends to scientific expertise that his resume and transcripts fail to substantiate.   He bandies about the internet, interpolating himself into scientific discussions, allowing himself to be interviewed as if he’s some sort of scientific expert.  Mike Rowe? Not so much.  In fact, I think Rowe would rather be out cleaning a sewer than pretending to be an expert on topics he knows little about.  Unlike Nye, who is nothing more than a rawgabbit, Rowe comes to the table and reads his prompts and then goes back to his real area of subject matter expertise without trying to hoodwink his audience.  Nye is a pseudoscientific quack, an ultracrepidarian, who shouts down anyone who disagrees with him and argues by words without knowledge (Job 38:2). 

The attitude of both men tells me a great deal about the value of their programming.  Whereas Bill Nye continues to insist that everything he personally advocates but on which he has no more credentials than you is scientific law, Mike Rowe will address and admit to errors in scientific studies and conclusions.  Nye’s word is gospel; Rowe’s word is inquisitive.  Nye declares himself correct; Rowe is open to the notion that he might be wrong.  Usually people who are absolutely certain of a thing are wrong.  The fool is an expert in all things except for his own folly.   The scientific quack is the one who insists that he is correct; the real scientist is one who finds out what truth really means.  See, there are those foolish and naïve scientists who believed in graduate school that scientists were as interested in the truth as they want us to think they are, many of whom watch their grant funding vanish and get kicked out of programs for publishing something that the granting agency doesn’t want people to know.  Science, like everything else, is driven by money. Someone must pay for the studies, and the studies don’t pay if scientists make the funders look like cotton-headed ninnymuggins.  So, scientists lie too, pretend and portend to answers that get them more grants, more papers, more accolades, ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.  The more validation they get, the more they believe whatever tripe they preach, and they siphon more strength from the throngs of people who don’t understand science but believe it anyway while decrying everyone else as a denier, a moron, and a Puritan.  However, in order for science to move forward, you must keep an open mind.  It’s possible that you’re wrong, and in science it’s EXTREMELY COMMON.  Then there’s Rowe, who, in his post, actually cites examples.  There are others, of course, but you won’t hear Nye second guess himself or those whose research he recites from rehearsed lines.  Has Nye done any original research? At least Rowe doesn’t even leave room for you to think that he might have.  Nye’s show MADE MONEY, and that’s why it’s scientific Gospel to so many.

I don’t know how these men got appointed spokesmen for science, and I don’t know why some people insist on declaring Nye to be a subject matter expert.  I don’t know that I agree with either one of them 100%, but Rowe’s address and programming is much more intellectually stimulating and consistent with the principles of scientific investigation I learned as an actual diploma certified scientist.  I also found it somewhat offensive and uncomfortable to watch Bill Nye, who was more like the dorkiest nerdiest of us scientific aficionados, a stereotype incarnate, who appealed to the lowest of interests- explosions.  Nye continues to tout himself as a “science guy” while Rowe admits he’s nothing but a hired narrator, however good at it he might be (at least in terms of this program).  Why is it never in the discussion what their credentials are, what their agendas are, and what relationship their programs hold to true science?  I mean, when we do the Science gala on campus each April, the lead chemistry faculty refers to it as the “science magic show” and that irks me, because it leaves impressionable minds with the notion that science is magical and easy.  It’s math intensive, and it’s actually pretty boring, redundant, and formulaic (pardon the pun).  Science isn’t just the study of work, it’s a study that takes a lot of work, a lot more than simply reading lines written by someone else and then pretending those are your original thoughts.  That’s not scholarship; that’s plagiarism.

God and Intercession

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I spend a lot of time talking and writing about logical fallacies because they are so prevalent in our society. Today, I wish to speak to the "heads I win, tails you lose" arguments put for by agnostics as proof that there is no God. After spending their entire lives defying God's commandments, they conclude there must not be a God when He decides to ignore theirs. On the rare instances where something miraculous occurs, they attribute it elsewhere, claiming it wasn't miraculous because it was going to happen anyway. The patient recovers from illness because of the doctor; God had nothing to do with it. The strange lights in the sky are the Aurora Borealis...in Oklahoma...not God. The rain that fell in St George UT wasn't because the people paid their tithe but because of a low pressure system in Asia created by a mass swarm of butterflies. If all else fails, they credit brownian motion which is scientific jargon for "random chance". Nothing is divine except for what they will. How convenient. It's a no-win scenario for the faithful, but it's not new. God does not take commands from men. We did not create Him, and we do not boss Him around the universe like the gods created by those who mock our faith and Faith. God intercedes in His way, on His timeline, and to His glory, not ours. There is a center of the universe, but it is not I; there is a Lord of the Harvest, but it is not I. Rather God's inaction is explained in other avenues of logic these logicians of smart fail to consider in their dogmatic desire to destroy our deity and declare Him defunct. God intercedes when it's right and in the best way, and sometimes that best way is to send someone with skin on. Sometimes you are His hands, voice, and answer.

God intercedes where we cannot. He sent His son to save all men who actually desired salvation from death and hell. All men are fallen, and as imperfect beings, eternally indebted to God for what we have and are as well as the consequences of our rebellions and mistakes, a Savior was necessary to vicariously pay the price for those who had nothing to pay. Many men try to save themselves or delude themselves into thinking all they have to do is recite a trite and short prayer in order for this to be so, but it is Christ who saves men from death and the devil. The other times God intercedes is where men cannot do anything in the way necessary or with the tools available. When Moses led Israel from Egypt God interceded first with a pillar of fire to hold back Pharaoh's army and then opened the sea only long enough for Israel to pass through on dry ground. When the lepers came to Christ, since they did not have antibiotics or aseptic technique, Christ healed them. When Midea invaded Israel, Gideon and his 300 defeated their entire army by tricking them into thinking they were completely surrounded by Israeli soldiers. If men are incapable, at least in the moment, God will act to help them. When the people in the Book of Mormon were about to be executed because the sign of the Savior had not appeared, it happened that very moment, and still men found a way to explain it away as coincidence, but in that moment, every believer was actually spared from death. Mordecai convinced Ester that if she did not act that God would raise up a replacement, but he also promised her that if she went that God would protect her from the king's decree that anyone would die who was not summoned, and God not only protected her but saved all of her people. When Daniel was thrown in the lion's den, even though the king wanted to spare him, God shut the mouths of the lions and spared His prophet. If man cannot or will not help, that's when God steps in Himself.

Sometimes God doesn't act because to do what we demand prevents something else from happening that is better. Many old and sick people are surrounded by doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as devils have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, giving the impression that a single deathbed confession ablates a lifetime of wickedness and debauchery. Sometimes it is better for the sick to die, not because God doesn't hear our prayers or care about our heartache, but because those prayers are about US. I remember as a youth a comedian mocking the religious for praying over everything with this bit: "Bless us to travel home safely and that nobody will be hurt while we rob this bank." Ok, if you're doing something wicked, don't expect God's help. Contrarily, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Shadrack Meshach and Abednego were allowed to be thrown in the fiery furnace because the miracle that they did not die converted the king. Naaman suffered from Leprosy, not because God hated him but because God wanted him to ask to be cured. Jonah was swallowed by a whale to protect him after he was thrown overboard until he came to his senses and decided to obey God. Sometimes blessings appear as trials. Sure, that's not fun or preferable, but it often catalyzes something better. I imagine the disciples were totally distraught when Christ actually died, but it was absolutely necessary for Him to die so that He could rise from and overcome death. Just because God doesn't intercede where and when we demand doesn't mean that He doesn't care. I mean, I asked Him to save my marriage, but I'm glad now that He ignored that request, because my freedom from her is preferable to that other request. If God always gave us what we demand, we might miss other opportunities. How many of you really want to still be in the first job you ever held for which you prayed? In the first relationship for which you asked His blessing? Sometimes, He's leading you to a land of promise by not trading what is best for you for what you think is best for you in the moment. God did this with Mordecai. He was some sort of palace official who sat in the gate, who, because of his position, discovered a plot to assassinate the king, told it to his neice Esther, who was able to save the king. If Mordecai had not been in that place, would anyone have passed on the news? If Esther had not been chosen as queen, would the messenger have been believed? God saved the king's life by putting Mordecai and Esther where they were.

Often, He expects us to do something about it instead. Far too many people opine a bleak situation and then ask why God doesn't do anything. Many of God's detractors illegitimately conclude that because He doesn't intercede that God is neither omnipotent nor loving, but how many of those people believe themselves to be uncaring? They can act. Do they, or do they just complain about God's inaction? God did do something. He sent YOU. The story is told of a man trapped atop his house in a flood who prays to God for help only to send away a motorboat, a rowboat, and a canoe, insisting that God will save him. When he dies, he complains to God about not being saved, whereupon God says, "I sent you three boats!" Many agnostics and atheists presume that because God does not appear in shower of fire and light that He does not because He is not. They believe in mother nature or "the force" or dragons or "the great green arklesiezure", none of which can be seen, but they discount our God because they do not see Him. They believe in science they don't understand but declare our faith sophistry when they do not try to understand it.  It's very duplicitous.  See, they do not know what CS Lewis said about it: "I believe in God as I believe in the noonday sun- not that I can see it but that by it I can see everything." You may not know, but we don't know if black holes actually exist.  Much of what we understand about the universe only makes sense if they do exist.  We can't prove God exists either, and much of what we understand depends on Him, but their pseudoscience is acceptable but our faith is the tool of their figurative butchery.  Sometimes, God lights the path, enlightens the man, and makes us aware, not because He's impotent, but because He's expectant. He expects us to so something about the light and truth given to us. He expects us to act to help other people. Sometimes we do. At other times, conveniently we opine the lack of someone to act while we sit in our hammocks eating food and drinking wine that we didn't produce. I keep two photos above my desk at home- one of Washington's Crossing of the Delaware and one of Juno Beach in Normandy to remind myself of this principle: if you don't really care, you find an excuse, but if it truly matters to you, you will find a way. Forgive me a personal anecdote that's related but slightly off topic. About eight years ago, a friend of mine we'll call Sarah once marveled at my great qualities and wondered aloud why I was still single. I asked her, "Would you date me?" to which she replied that she would not. See, that's the problem. You expect people to act on information that you possess. Why should someone who lacks the information you possess make a better choice than you? Why should someone who does not know me date me if you, knowing me, choose not to date me? Pretzel logic dictates that I must not be desirable, even though Sarah knows and openly declared me to be. Pretzel logic dictates God must not care about my happiness because He didn't send me someone to marry. He did. He sent you, and you decided to date and marry someone else. You show by those choices what you truly desire, that despite whatever virtues I possess that something else, usually ephemeral, mercurial, or superficial, matters to you more. By virtue of our actions we show what really matters to us, and by virtue of so many people's inaction, we see that they don't care enough to do anything other than criticize God and those of His children placed in our way to show us what we truly desire. Again, we can turn to Esther. Hamaan wanted to kill all the Jews, and God could have swung down from heaven and laid waste to Hamaan. Instead, in the words of Mordecai: "For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" In other words, maybe God made you the queen so that you could save our people.

The prophet Isaiah sums it succinctly for our critics: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)" God loves us. God watches over us. God has a different way of responding because He has access to different information and means than we do. If there is nobody to act or nobody who can act, God will intervene. Sometimes what we think is best is actually bad, and God saves us from ourselves. I think of all the unanswered prayers for which I am grateful, and I bet you can too! People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes it's for them to bless us. Sometimes it's for us to bless them. Sometimes God places people in our path because there are things for each of us to do that nobody else can do as well as we. Neal A Maxwell wrote: "God gives the picks and shovels to the 'chosen' because they are willing to go to work and get callouses on their hands. They may not be the best or most capable, but they are the most available” ( Deposition of a Disciple [1976], 54). Who knowest whether thou art come to the kingdom for a time as this? God cares and acts in our best interest, just sometimes in ways we don't expect or predict or prefer. God doesn't do things our way because God isn't like us. God doesn't follow our commandments, especially when we don't follow His. It's exceptionally arrogant of these people to claim there is no God because He does not do what they demand when they demand and after the fashion they demand. A being more powerful never bows to an inferior one. God will intercede. I don't know how or when or why or if you will notice, but I know that His intercession will probably take the form of someone you meet, someone seemingly insignificant. I know that sometimes He inspires students and strangers to speak words I cannot hear or refuse to recognize. God will send anyone to help you from whom you are willing to accept help, and then He will send others too, those chosen because they were available to help His children His way. God's work will be done, it will be done well, and it will be done on time. Act when He asks it of you. Do not force Him to raise up replacements for you.

Legitimately Ebenezer

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I find that I turn a little Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmas time. As much as it also reminds me to reach out, do good, and be kinder, it also seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator and the kinds of people who leverage Christian charity for selfish reasons. I can never tell who needs help and who is hoping to convince me to give them my money despite their opulence because they can abuse my religious beliefs to their own gain. If they do, that's on them; if I don't give, well, that is on me, so I try to find ways and causes to support all year so that I can acquit myself rightly before God that I made an effort all year in big ways and small to lift where I stand. It's not like the burden falls entirely on me, but some of it does. In fact, I believe that often God doesn't intervene not because He cannot or does not care but because WE know, and He intends for us to discover whether or not we actually have the desire to practice what we preach. See a need? Fill a need. You don't have to give someone $15,000 for facial reconstructive surgery if you don't have it, but you can babysit their kids, take them meals, feed their fish, buy them a new couch, or a million other things that add up to fill their need. God loves us and watches over us, and it is often through other people that He meets our needs. Sometimes, however, the people who appear to be needy and demand my help make me feel like it's legitimate for me to channel Ebenezer and find a different way to help than the petitioner at my door demands.

Far too many people at Christmas are actually selfish. Of course, we all think of those who demand more and more gifts, for whom the holiday is about nothing more than being able to brag after Christmas to their mates that they have more presents or better presents. However, a lot of the recipients or organizations that compete for our Christian charity are just as selfish. You will hear John Denver's "So This is Christmas" which has nothing to do with Christmas besides mentioning it in the lyrics, and you will see the ASPCA talk about the poor freezing animals as if saving animals excuses you from not acting to save humans, to the St Jude Cancer Hospital and its sick kids, who are sick all year, as if Cancer only happens for Christmas. These are essentially nothing more than the logical fallacy "appeal to pity", and they leverage Christmas to fill their coffers. It seems like, although there are quite a few panhandlers on my regular commute all year, they multiply at Christmas. This Christmas, they turned the easement behind my house into a highway, and they routinely cut the fences and chains locking it shut because it interfered with their access to the shanties they build beneath the bridges. This costs us money, and it's also very disconcerting to know that homeless people are traversing the alley behind your house all night long. Unlike their compatriots the rest of the year, these panhandlers look even more dissheveled and pathetic. The one that really irked me was the kid trying to sell me a snickers bar for $2.00 (which is twice what the grocery store in front of which she stood was asking), who went and climbed in a Cadillac Escalade after I told her I didn't have any cash. Sell the damn car if you're hard up for money. It seems like people demand assistance who don't need it but because they think they can get money just for asking and that other people demand my assistance when they made no provisions of their own, much like the grasshopper and the ant. You know Christmas is coming, and you don't set aside money for it or put things on layaway so your kids can have Christmas? I mean sometimes tragedies strike, like in Christmas for Carole, but seriously, save for a rainy day and don't expect I owe you a living because I didn't spend all my money in riotous living.

I can never tell at Christmas who actually needs help, so I give on two conditions only. First off, I will give directly to people I know who are properly vetted (like in the aforementioned case of a Christmas for Carole). Secondly, I donate to organizations that give money predominantly to the causes they espouse. I also spend time weekly feeding the homeless myself, so I actually know some of them by sight or name, and I know which ones are legitimate, because they will actually call out pretenders among their ranks if they know it's a ruse. Elsewhere, the charlatans come out in droves. Since this is a time when want is keenly felt and people feel more charitable, it's also the most likely time to get someone to help you even if you don't need it or deserve it. They sell you sad stories, stand with signs forlornly at street corners, and the like. However, since I walk many of my errands, I also know where the legitimately homeless are likely to sleep, and from time to time I give them water or victuals or in very rare cases cash, because I know if you're sleeping behind the Centurylink box, you're probably not pretending. People don't do that for fun. It's not just individuals, but groups practice in the same piratical effort to illegitimately separate you from your money and labor. Just before Christmas, I saw an infographic detailing all the "charitable" organizations that only pass on paltry portions of donated funds to actually help others. Many of the common charities either pass on paltry portions to the causes they espouse, others pay king's ransoms in salaries to their executives, and some of them sell what you give them entirely FOR PROFIT. I even read that the Democrat party is trying to pass legislation declaring state and local taxes to be "charitable giving". If it's compelled by law, how exactly is that charitable? God knows we all wonder if the people who get money from welfare really need it, and my family members who work in law enforcement tell me there's a lion's share of welfare fraud out there. Who knew? Find a cause to support that helps in ways you value, and give them generously of your excess, and then settle your soul about it.

When I refuse to help, many people jump to the conclusion that because I do not help them I must not care about anyone else anywhere for any reason. This reducto ad absurdium concludes that if I don't help you then I must not be interested in helping anyone and that I never have and never will. Well, isn't that just selfish? It's also ignorant. Even if I walked down the street with twenty $1 notes in my billfold and gave everyone who asked $1, the 21st person would be disappointed, not because I didn't intend to help people, but because they were too late. Why is that my fault? If you're hungry, there are other people doing things in other places, and if you have a legitimate need, I'm not above going in and charging it to my Visa, but if you demand cash and then are upset because I won't ATM $20 for you, then you're just being unreasonable. The virtue of gratitude is charity's close cousin. If you don't show gratitude, then maybe you don't deserve charity. Some people actually spout profanity at me when I tell them I don't have any cash. Well, I got mugged in May 2016, and so I stopped carrying things in my pocket that I don't need so that if it happens again I'm not out $400 or whatever. Sometimes people get that and are ok with a ride or taking my extra burrito that I was going to have for lunch tomorrow. I think the legitimately needy actually mean it when they say "Anything helps", because I've seen people accept what I do have to give. It's sort of Peter of me: "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee." I do care. I do not plan on giving away hundreds every day to abject strangers who happen to ask me. I actually start the season with a budget of money I can afford to give away to other people in need, and like every budget I make, I stick to it, and when it's out, I don't have any more to give. These ingrates however maintain that if you are not giving all that you have, you might as well not get credited as having given anything at all. Even if the richest person gave away all of his wealth today equally distributed across the globe, we'd all end up with $14 each which is actually pathetic and would leave him bankrupt and poor too (Jeff Bezos net worth is $98.6Billion), and people would complain. Hell, we stand to do better from the Trump Tax Cuts, and people are pissed about that. Some people act like I never help anyone. Even though I have helped people out, some to a great degree financially, the current pleader acts as if I'm completely uncharitable because I won't give something to them.

At Christmas, there is legitimate need, and there are legitimate organizations to whom you can give and still help. The truly homeless know where to go if they need necessities like food and shelter, they just sometimes want money to buy booze and drugs which they can't get at those places. Las Vegas has a shelter for the homeless and the Catholic Diocese serves meals. Other churches and the Harley group to which I belong feed them too. On an individual case, you need to trust your feelings, and if you have any doubts, donate to one of those groups where the needy are vetted and benefit directly which will slake your guilt. You do not have to give to the beggar in front of your necessarily, but you can give to an organization that will help him instead. Even as a child I remember seeing signs at Temple Square in Salt Lake City abjuring visitors from giving money to the petitioners on the plaza because Welfare Square was within walking distance, and these people are not legitimate. You don't know if you're getting scammed by a kindergartener. Find a cause that does a good job, and support them. Ebenezer comes from the Hebrew name Eben ha-Ezer meaning "Stone of Help". It is ok to be firm as a stone about how and whom you help, but if you want to channel Ebenezer, you must also help. I watch Scrooge every year with my family because it reminds me to be a little more like that Rock of Ages and do a little more to show that I appreciate the Atoning sacrifice of Christ at Gethsemane. Be a stone. Cause an avalanche of good change. Stand firm against the wrong and roll steadfastly towards the right. There are ways to legitimately be Ebenezer at Christmas. May you find yours and may you also learn by finding ways to lose your life in the service of the Stone how ultimately to find your own life again. Godspeed, and may 2018 be a great year for you and yours.

Word(s) Matter

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The week before Christmas, when I taught Sunday School for the last time this year, I broke the rules. Although the guitar is not permitted in our services I took mine and played it for class. I discovered something about my own talents that I didn't previously know. I acquired more evidence that I'm unique and laudable. Sometimes in life, we don't feel like things make sense, and sometimes the words we use or hear don't mean to us what they actually mean. As we live and learn and acquire talents/experience, our understanding of things changes, and our ability to convey meaning changes. There is a great deal of difference between a guitarist and a troubadour, but most guitarists probably think of themselves as the troubadour. The words we use matter. Our understanding of words others use matters. Ultimately it will matter to us if the word is in us.

During the classical music era, the guitar was forbidden because it wasn't actually a string instrument. Although it has strings, it's technically a percussion instrument, because you pluck it, and you do not play it with a bow. According to that tradition, we do not use the guitar in musical presentations, particularly during any part of the worship services. However, I felt it appropriate because "Silent Night" was originally written for the guitar. On a Christmas centuries ago, when the Oberndorf bei Salzburg organ broke, the local priest asked a parishoner to compose music to go with the poem, and Silent Night was performed on the guitar as part of the Christmas sermon in that parish that day, and since I spent two Christmases in Austria, I felt it appropriate to recreate that first Silent Night. None of them seemed to complain, but that's probably because they might like if we followed the admonition of other churches and used a band to liven up the sermon. Personally, I don't mind the ban, because when I attend services by other faiths, I find the band distracts from the word and drives away the Spirit under most circumstances, but this song doesn't seem to fall victim to that same phenomenon.

Apparently most people who play guitar don't also concurrently sing. After I finished, one of the guys told me how impressed he was that I sang while I played. Now, I make no pretense at being a professional entertainer, but after he said that, I realized that most groups, the lead just sings. Some notable exceptions exist like Ray Charles who played piano and sang or Taylor Swift who plays guitar and sings or Lindsay Sterling who plays violin and dances. However, most of the guys I know who play better than I do only do that- they play. As much as the young girls swoon at their feet while they play, and some of them are spectacular musicians, they only play the instrument, and they do not sing. It's funny, because I think of the women who are serenaded in stories, but apparently that doesn't happen. More likely, John Cusack shows up on their lawn with a boom box and plays them a song. I can actually do both.

We take a lot of things for granted based on our own bias. We know what we know, what we do, why we do it, and without other information, we don't know that other people do things differently. I thought a lot of what I do and think and feel was normal, but apparently it's less normal. Maybe it isn't normal at all. We have unique terms in English to differentiate between different circumstances, but so many people seem uneducated or inarticulate and use the same term on multiple different circumstances. Sure, I can sing and play, but I am not a musical artist, and I am not a performer. I suppose I am a musician, because I know how to play and can play and do play. Not everyone I know is a friend, and not everything I enjoy is something I "love", and not everyone who claims to love me means the same thing as I do when they say that. Maybe we're all correct, but the words are different, and they convey different denotations based on our bias and experience. I am sad to discover that the words of so many people don't matter.

This has been a very strange year. I expected something bad to happen any moment, and as I went to bed last night without knowing about anything bad that happened to me, I felt abnormal in a new way. Much of the world lies in turmoil. Most people are not as comfortable. My own neighbor got foreclosed on just before Christmas. My best friend got divorced. Based on my own life experience, I sometimes feel oppressed or in dire straights, and even though others endure trials doesn't make mine irrelevant. They are mine. They are allowed in my life because they mean something to it. They are mine because I can endure them. They apply to my life because each of us has a different tutorial before we shuffle off this mortal coil. There are many ways to live, many choices to make, many talents to acquire, many experiences to have, and many things that happen that happen unexpectedly. However, there is only one way to have a complete life. Live life well. Turn to Christ. Let Him lift you up as He was. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. As we learn what the words mean and what the Word means, as the Word means more to us, our lives get richer, and we look forward with surety for a better world.

I am personally very thankful to the Word that 2017 was quiet. I expected my dog to die this year. I expected bad news. It was quiet. May your 2018 bring you that promotion you seek, that vacation opportunity you truly enjoy, a wiser heart, a clearer eye, someone wonderful with whom to share your life, and a better appreciation for the meaning of the Word in your life. Happy New Year.

My Peace I Give Unto You,

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Ever since I started working in Academia, Christmas seems to sneak up on me like a mugger. Finals finished on the 13th, grades were due on the 20th, and here we are, less than a week later, and Christmas is here. It seems I hardly get to enjoy it much anymore with the paperwork, the meetings, and the things I have to close up before I leave. Of course, some of that I chose to do, and I try to get ahead when I can on gifts as early as possible, but it never seems to be as pleasant as I remember as a child. It seems rushed, and it seems forced, and it seems to be over all too soon. At the end of the day, I mostly collapse after catching up on work and then I fall asleep early before I can really do much. It wasn't until Wednesday night that I even thought about decorating and hung up lights and wrapped the gifts that have sat in my bedroom for weeks. It's finally Christmas, and I finally get a little peace. Some of the peace comes all year long in little pieces, but I start to think on it a little more in the evenings as winter dawns an Christmas approaches. Particularly this year, I started thinking about older Christmases, when I liked it a lot more, and I spent more time pondering than I usually do about things I had, things I thought I had, and things I wanted to find. I think about the reason for the season and how He said, "My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you", and I find that it's true, and it's not the ways I expected.

This season, as with most, Christ blesses us with peace of mind. For my own part, there is only one decision I ever made that festers in my brain, but that's the point of Christ's atoning sacrifice. He came to take upon Himself the sins of all those who repent and refrain from repeating the offense. SO even for everyone who makes mistakes or repeatedly rebels, there is hope for a peace of mind, a peace of soul, and peace in your heart through Christ. During class I try to impress upon my students the importance of honest, accurate information because of the implications on decisions tht we make. Some of the chapters of our lives close despite our best efforts. Captain Picard reminded us in Star Trek that it is possible to make the best decisions and still lose without it being a character flaw. Other people get to choose too. Sometimes we are not as choice to them as we'd like to be. Sometimes they make other choices. Christ's atoning sacrifice swallows up that pain too, because if we do our part, it will be with us in the final accounting as if everything had worked out as we hoped. And, when we don't do our best or sometimes when we do our worst, because Christ was born, there was a sacrificial lamb on whom our sins can be scapegoated, leaving us unblemished if we truly mean our penitence. That can give us peace of mind, that mistakes are always attended with mercy.

I spend a lot of time each Christmas in quiet contemplation and prayer because I live alone. After I tire of the unrealistic and sappy Hallmark Holiday movies, as I sit in the evening, I pray. This year, I even hung up lights on my house for the first time since I was divorced, and I sat on the porch briefly basking in the glow of His light and thought. In previous years, I have driven neighborhoods or more often walked around looking at lights and talking with God. When I pray, I don't feel chastisement. I feel more like He understands. I know Christ knows what it's like to be alone. Like Him, I spend most of my Christmases with my parents. Like Him, I've been betrayed by false friends. I think about old Christmases, like a Christmas for Carole, and about my years in Europe. I think about how I felt outside the Oberndorf chapel where "Silent Night" was first performed for guitar and what it was like walking the back alleys of old Salzburg looking for souveniers from Austria and for that first Christmas abroad making straw stars to hang from the tree. I never really felt nostalgic for Austria before, but I find at Christmas that, without anyone else in my life, my heart belongs there. At that time, I was a missionary and spent my days and weeks preaching about Christ, and it was a good time, a peaceful time, despite the heartaches, disappointments, and struggles I faced. I remember hearing the bells on Christmas Day. I remember winter nights in the snow, and I find I miss that. I also find that I feel Christ's approbation for most of my life, and that gives me peace.

Despite my bellyaching, I consider at Christmas on the peaceable and blessed state of my life. I had the chance to reach out and help some people I know who are not so fortunate this year. My best friend got divorced, and he's unemployed, so he's barely squeaking by. My local friend closed up his parents' estate and moved away, but he's essentially homeless, so we still talk when we can, and I have two rooms in my house full of his belongings. I have all my limbs and faculties, money left over after the bills are paid every month for emergencies or fun, and I live in America. Even one of the facilities people I met who originally hails from England told me he came here because of greater opportunities. My next door neighbor is getting his house foreclosed and must move sometime in the spring, so I looked him up, and I found that he earns less than I do and may have obligations to TWO former wives and their kids Oida! Maybe I'm not receiving the blessings I like. Maybe I haven't been on a date for over two years and maybe I'm not tenured yet and maybe I don't have close friends who live here, but that doesn't mean I am not blessed. In fact for years, I've told people there are only two things about my life that I would change, and I don't think I know many if any who can say their lives are that well off. I'm not swimming in money or friendships or rewards from work or opportunities for love, but I have already lived beyond the wildest dreams of almost all of my progenitors, and I know it. That gives me peace. It's also very comforting to have enough for myself as well as enough to share with others who are in need.

Sometimes when people talk about peace at Christmas, they aim for the stars instead of looking into their own backyards. They assume it means that we'll all sit around perfectly equal, perfectly happy, singing kumbiyah and blissfully ignorant of other opportunities. Instead of looking for the entire package, sometimes it helps at Christmas to consider the small things. The kids who benefit from Toys For Tots are happy to just get a present. The homeless people at Carey and Las Vegas Blvd are happy for a bowl of soup and a fresh pair of socks. People who are alone are happy that people talk to and visit them. The sick are grateful for every gesture that hospital staff can make. It's not enough, and it's not the same, but it's something, and it's more than most people do any other time of the year. Perhaps sthe most important thing is WHY we do it. As part of our belief as Christians, we think about and emulate the Savior, and at Christmas we try a little harder than at other times of the year to act like it and spread the joy and peace of the season to people other than ourselves and to consider all the gifts we receive before the 25th. Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings which shall be unto all people. Good tidings of peace, from that silent night, that holy night. It was a time when Mary and Joseph were grateful for all the things they did have, that they'd finally found a place for her to give birth. It was a time when they communed with the heavens and felt of God's love and approbation as they brought His son into the world. It was a time when the Messiah long foretold finally came to free men, to throw off the shackles of oppression, to give hope to all whatever their burden and ease their lives and minds. His peace I give unto you, this Christmas, and always. Merry Christmas.

Equal Voice is CONSERVATIVISM

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People seem confused at what liberalism actually means and why anyone would oppose it.  Liberalism, at its core, is anti-liberty and authoritarian.  It relies on logical fallacies, ad populum and ad hoc ergo proctor hoc and quid pro quo to survive and thrive.  Liberalism, like its predecessor Feudalism, attracts the arrogant, vain, and selfish while managing to justify its existence by claiming its opponents are thus.  While claiming a meritocracy, liberalism only believes in merit when its people are advanced.  While defending democracy, liberals only believe in it when the people vote for what liberals believe.  Liberalism crosses party lines because liberals share one facet in common: they prefer their own and detest any others.  Most liberals are united by one great ethic- the pursuit of power.  Indeed, some liberal characters in fiction proudly declare “There is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to seek it.”  It’s a very condescending point of view, but it is also pervasive.   It’s the easy way.  A liberal demands to be judged on his intentions while judging you on your actions.  A liberal believes that the ends always justify the means as a pretense to do whatever the liberal desires even if the liberal takes different sides of an issue for expediency.    Liberalism persists because they “clothe their naked villainy with odd old ends stol’n forth from holy writ and seem saints when most they play the devil” (Richard III).   Essentially, when you get down to brass tacks, liberalism is the philosophy of hell, the doctrine preached by the father of all lies, and just as it captured the devils that follow Lucifer and millions of humans in the years before us, it appeals to the minds of many in our day because it’s easy. 

Almost every demagogue is a liberal.  They essentially oppose any other ideas besides their own, even when they, like Barack Obama, declare falsely that they are open to any ideas and new ideas.  No, they feel like this and speak like this: ““Women [liberals] don't want to hear what you think. Women [liberals] want to hear what they think - in a deeper voice” (Bill Cosby).  Essentially this amounts to the logical fallacy of ad populum: they tell you what they think you want to hear, just like apparently liberals imply ever man should do to his wife.  You hear that advice all the time- to learn to say “yes dear” if you want a happy marriage.  How is it happy to subjugate your will to someone else?  Liberals are good as word smiths.  They say “We’re going to fix education.”  You mean fix as in to make permanent or fix as in to repair?  The latter definition does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1912 edition that sits in my library at home.    Liberals promise the moon and give you tripe.  For them, the ends always justify the means and style beats substance.  Rupert Murdoch declared in 2006 that Barack Obama was “a rockstar”.  What had Obama actually achieved?  Black people poured out in AL to elect Doug Jones who was not black and has not done anything to help blacks because he has a “D” after his name.  What did the Democrats actually do to qualify them?  They weren’t republicans.

Liberals are adroit at pretense and pretending.  Rather than spend money on education, let’s just arrange to have everyone elected to public office, which obviously makes every liberal an expert on every subject.  Once in office, liberals act like mini tyrants and demand that you live your principles and if they can they demand that you live theirs as well.  They like to pretend to hate the rich and want to redistribute for the poor, but if you look at the Forbes list, eight of the ten richest people in America are liberals, and the companies they run reach into almost every American home, preaching liberalism.  Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc., are all liberal companies, and so our calamity is heightened by reflection that we furnish the means by which we suffer.  We support liberal companies with our purchases and then wonder why liberalism spreads.  Liberals claim to be for blacks and for women and lash out when their blacks and their women are roasted, but when Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin come under vicious slander and libel, the silence of liberals is deafening.  In recent weeks with sexual misconduct on the radar, black people in Conyers’ district demanded due process after accusations arose, but none of those people demanded due process for Roy Moore.

In order to be a successful liberal politician, you must in essence endorse and be a fraud.  At some point in the last 40 years, the democrats managed to convince a large fraction of the electorate that they were for freedom, the little guy, the minority, and the oppressed.    Electing a republican will bring back segregation.  Race baiting to defeat Roy Moore was way over the top, especially when you consider that the Congressional records show that Democrats were actually in favor and defenders of slavery and its associated aftershocks.  Indeed, Leonard Bacon warned that “If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong - if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong - nothing is wrong.”  Most liberalism came from the south, and now that they’ve moved into the north and west with the collapse of their racist utopia in the confederacy, they permeate the nation with the notion that “you only live once so live it up”, that “do what you like” (unless it’s be a conservative Christian), and “whatsoever a man doeth is no crime”.   They continue to perpetuate the lie that they are somehow oppressed.  Most of the media outlets are liberal despite what their commentators claim as political affiliation, and when liberals own the information, they can bend it all they like.  In fact, more than 90% of news coverage of Trump is negative, but the media will claim that any conservative commentary constitutes a disproportionate “bias”.  It’s not about bias.  It’s about hegemony.  It’s piratical in a sense, that they do not care about how much swag they have as long as you have any swag below your deck.  Liberals claim to be FOR the oppressed, always bashing the “rich” but they cleverly never include themselves, and they redefine what rich means.  Obama talked about a family of four earning $250,000/year.  How is that “millionaire”?  Nobody thinks they are rich.  Even one of the police officers on campus said you can never earn too much money and he earns $83000 year as a police officer.  That’s more than an Army Major earns.  That’s probably more than you earn.  Yet, he will talk with anger about how the “rich always get tax cuts from the republicans”, because liberals are never rich.  There’s always someone with more money, someone with money they don’t have.

Once in office, the liberal perpetuates fraud.  Here, the logical fallacy ad hoc ergo proctor hoc takes place.  They elected us, so we have a mandate, but when you elect their opponents, the election is fraudulent (Bush v Gore 2000).    When it comes to science, they pick and choose. With global warming, they say “it’s hotter than we’d like” and so it must be YOUR fault.  Coincidence is not causality, but if you don’t believe in it, they call you a climate change denier.   IN order to keep their base drummed up, they claim that you must elect democrats or the evil republicans will cut funding for fire, police, and ambulance services.  Only a liberal demagogue thinks that when I say I'm for lower taxes and less government I think that police, firemen and the like ought to be cut from the budget. Only a complete moron jumps to that conclusion over other programs.  Everything they do dehumanizes those they oppose.  Any gun crime evokes accusations against all gun owners.  Any hypocrite Christian justifies the vilification of all Christians.  This fearmongering  comes after the art of Gaston: “The beast will make off with your children.  He’ll come after them in the night.  We’re not safe until his head is mounted on my wall!”  Liberals are only responsible if the outcome is positive.  Obama wasn’t responsible for rising gas prices but was responsible for stock market gains, but Trump is not responsible for stock market gains and is responsible for inflation.  Liberalism is easy.  It is the political party of “Oops!” whereafter then they say seven Hail Marys and then they move on because it’s resolved in their minds.  It’s not just democrats; the GOP has liberals too.  When conservatives delivered the GOP all three branches of government in 2016, the GOP RINOs disparaged them and flipped them the bird.  Too many politicians are immoral: they promise us one thing during the election and then flip us the bird afterwards. They promise to defend the Constitution and then eviscerate it. Yes, that includes the GOP too and RINO Speaker Ryan who may be a pathological liar.  Liberals will say anything to get elected and then do something else afterwards; liberal democrats will promise liberalism in the campaign and then make sure it happens, no matter what it costs.  The liberal will spoon-feed you their own patented form of bullshit. Ignore the verbiage and look at what they're doing. What they're asking you to do. What sort of world they'd have you build and how they're going to pay for it, because trust me, you’ll pay.

In order to be a liberal, you must think hypocrisy is normal and justifiable behavior (unless your opponents are hypocrites, which is just more hypocrisy).  The liberal will complain that, if Russian Olympiads are banned for doping, nobody from America should be allowed to go either.  It’s that grammar school mentality where we all must put our heads down because of some nincompoop we don’t even know.  Here, the diabolical and criminal fallacy of Quid pro quo dominates.  If you want to move up in a liberal organization or political movement or business run by liberals, you will either have to dig dirt or lick boots.  A liberal has his friends in iniquity and the departments of government as guards, and he tears up the laws of those who rule in righteousness so that he can destroy those who rebel against his will.  If you do not validate them, they will not promote you over any other candidate regardless of disparate qualifications.  The nursery rhyme “Little Jack Horner. Sat in the corner,. Eating a Christmas pie;. He put in his thumb,. And pulled out a plum,. And said, "What a good boy am I!"” references the feudalistic practice of bribing the Lord with a “plum”.  Don’t believe it?  Look at what Harvey Weinstein’s accusers say was the reason why they acquiesced to his demands- career advancement.  Sexual misconduct matters only with conservatives.  In that case, allegations is all it takes, but when evidence and accusers pile up about known liberal politicians like Conyers, Clinton, et al., it is immediately defended.  A liberal demands to be integrated only in the moment but feel free to integrate your entire life and dig up dirt from your past at any time as if you did it today and as if you had no remorse, made no restitution, and paid no penalty.  They demand to be judged by intentions but judge you by any error ever.   Being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry unless the godfather of liberalism demands you kiss his ring, like the kings of yesteryear.  For them, there is only one commandment.  “In fact the whole of two-faced society paid only lip service to the ten commandments and committed adultery, stole, and cheated at cards, because, after all, it was only the eleventh commandment that mattered—Thou Shalt Not Get Found Out” (Marion Chesney, The Miser of Mayfair).  If you do get caught, if you’re useful, they hold onto you, and if you’re not, like Al Franken and Conyers, then they throw you out post haste.

The hypocrite is fake from his core.  Liberals always go after fake issues.  They demand sexual harassment training but not the reporting of sexual harassment to law enforcement or the resignation of their own while they demand any conservative accused be shamed into hell.  Our biggest issues are not transgender bathrooms and the availability of free contraceptives.  Yet, obsessed with race and sex, they talk about abortion and discrimination as if no strides were ever taken to combat these inequities and as if they were proponents from the beginning, which they were not, but that’s already been addressed.  Liberals prop up fake heroes: how much carbon do these psuedointelletuals emit enroute to their “climate conferences” anyway?    Liberals abound with fake outrage.  Who is Senator Gillibrand to tell us who should resign? Where was she when Mrs. Huckabee was mocked? Sarah Palin? When did she ever condemn Bill Clinton who sexually abused interns in the oval office? Your outrage is just the parliament jester's foist on a somnambulent public.  In order to be a liberal, you must support fake bipartisanship: when was the last time that Democrats caucused with Conservatives on an issue?  Liberals only want bipartisanship when conservatives join them.  When Obama was president, which Democrats broke ranks to oppose him?  Liberals are fake when it comes to being accepting, inclusive, and tolerant.   Liberals demand that you accept them as they are and then demand that you become what they find acceptable.  Since everything is fake, it’s difficult to deal with these people who are fake friends, fake allies, and fake confidants.  How do you trust anyone?  You live in perpetual fear, and you end up paying the blackmail to keep it secret, usually in the form of continued support for liberalism and its programs.  Fear becomes the ultimate tool of liberal government.  Now, they will fearmonger about what the conservatives “might” do and ignore the maladies and aftershocks caused by what they already did.  You see, socialism just needs enough time and enough money and then panacea!  They never give a timetable or an actual itemized list of costs. 

Our founding fathers knew the risks of trusting people to govern themselves, knowing that even those who mean to rule well may mean to rule.  They warned us that if you give small men big power and sometimes you'll pay for it and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, yet the liberal is exactly for that- absolute power.  They demand phenomenal cosmic powers and then restrict you to itty bitty living space.  The conservative wants you to decide, to be free to fall, to flail, and to fail.  Jefferson once wrote to an adversary that we believe in the people differently- liberals believe the people are babies who need to be kept from hurting themselves, and conservatives believe that in order to be adults, babies must be allowed to walk on their own.  It’s the difference between hell and heaven- hell wants to devour you, and heaven wants you to walk on your own.  That’s why God doesn’t intervene.  It would weaken you if He kept anything ill from ever befalling you!  However, it is a standard behavior of most people to lionize their own and paint their opponents in caricature, but you only really believe in and stand for a thing when you fight for it when it stands to benefit people you don’t know and don’t like.  Liberals consider the Trump administration to be immoral and unethical but if you bring up Bill Clinton’s sexual dalliances or Barack Obama forcing religious organizations to pay for contraceptives, they will villainize YOU.  The problem with liberalism is that liberalism promotes and glorifies in the seven deadly sins: gluttony, lust, avarice, pride, despair, wrath, and sloth.  You are encouraged to these particularly through the sin of envy, which leads you to demand things and rights for nothing and at the expense of others, which does not lead to happiness but to more problems.  In fact, the liberal doesn’t want to help society.  He does not want us to have an equal chance, an equal voice. The liberal must justify his place as our ruler.

Words Without Knowledge

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One day while looking for a different scripture because I had the citation incorrect, I found what has become one of my favorite retorts and my second favorite verse of scripture. After Job's friends finish suggesting that Job's trials stem from sins and errors on Job's part, they leave, and then God appears in the whirlwind and says this: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man...and answer thou me. (Job 38:2-3)" In other words, your friends are full of crap, Job, and they're speculating without having facts, hoping to be relevant, when what they have to say lacks substance or utility. Many people make this mistake. In our desperation to be relevant, our desires to be helpful, and our ignorance and vanity, we often spout off what we think and publish editorials masquerading as truth. Special care is warranted in the things we tell other people, because the things we say may directly lead to action on their part. People act sometimes on the information given or when other information remains withheld. In class, I tell my students that everything I would change about my life comes from either incomplete or inaccurate information, and so I crusade to get the best information possible so that other people can lead better lives and be wiser than I. It is useless to theorize without facts, otherwise we start bending facts to fit theories (Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet), leading to words without knowledge in many forms, all of which create negative aftershocks in our lives.

Everyone knows about a false product or outcome in one form or another. Although most participants in pyramid schemes deny that their scheme is one, they all acknowledge the existence of such. Most of these products either don't do what they claim or don't do it the way they claim. Either their claims are not validated by the FDA or they are only validated by internal "scientists". In point of fact, science abounds in quackery. James F Watson, Nobel laureate for the DNA Double Helix wrote in his autobiography that "a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull but also just stupid". Hence, peer-reviewed journals are considered the only reliable source of trustworthy research, but the journals are only as good as the peers who review papers. One paper we reviewed while I was in graduate school touted the inclusion of trienols as a vitamin E supplement when trienols are not absorbed by humans. You have to be a critical thinker when you review and make a concerted effort to make sure that it does what it says it does the way it says it does it. In fact, it's hard enough, that there's an entire website dedicated to helping people identify pseudoscience- quackwatch.org which you should read. It will probably show you that some of what you believe isn't really science. Of course, there's also biased science where they ignore exculpatory data and corporate science where they publish only the parts paid for by the parent philanthropist. We trust scientists to tell us the truth, but they don't. Even my own principle investigator told me once to "smudge out" part of an image that I couldn't explain. Imagine how often that might be done to hide things from you that might adversely affect your life! People forget that scientists are also people, and that scientists make the same mistakes as everyone else. Plus we're also the stupidest smart people you may ever meet. Just watch the Big Bang Theory to see some "smart" people act incredibly foolishly.

In interpersonal interactions, false accusations abound. Despite the abjurement against bearing false witness, people speculate or cast aspersions to detract from their own mistakes. We can't count on eyewitnesses, and in too many cases even the victims don't tell the full truth, leading to false accusations against the incident but innocent. Remember the Duke Lacross team, members of which were falsely accused by a stripper of having raped her because she didn't want to blame the real person, who happened to be her boyfriend. Their lives are ruined. In the current news, we have accusations against Roy Moore, but we don't actually have statements from the victims, only speculation from the media. Accusations are not the same as convictions, yet the innocent go down with the guilty all too often in the court of public opinion, and everyone knew OJ Simpson was a killer before they heard the facts. Before the advent of DNA fingerprinting, a significant number of people went to jail for crimes they didn't commit. Gentlemanly behavior once served as a bulwark against coarse behavior, but the bullish and brute now sit in leadership and consider coarse kosher and rationalize whatever means necessary if the ends even approximate something valuable. It's pretty early to know which accusers are honest and accurate, and it's difficult for juries and law enforcement to gather enough facts to know what really happen. At the end of the day, we rarely have all the facts, and some of the facts aren't really true, and so people are trashed and lives are made miserable in witch hunts like they always have been. Since becoming a professor, I have also been victim of false claims of impropriety with students and coworkers. Fortunately for me, I have come through them unsullied and undaunted, but for many, it terminates careers, hopes, and lives. Unfortunately, our society exists in such a way that we assume the accuser is legitimate so as to not dissuade victims from coming forward. No matter what we do, some innocent victims never see justice and some innocent people face punishments for crimes committed by others.

Everywhere we turn, we encounter false doctrines. A member of the department discussed with me Frederick Bastiat's deconstruction of the Broken Window Theorem. Many economists illogically conclude that, if a vandal breaks a shop owner's window, that it creates industry and wealth. Well, that's not true. The people who make and repair windows are enriched, but the shop owner must spend money to repair a breach that he would have spend elsewhere. He doesn't win, but they like to ignore those kinds of people. Far too many among us think that the ends always justify the means, that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that if they consider it a win that everyone agrees with them. In his landmark treatise Human Action Ludwig von Mises discusses that people value different things or value similar things for different reasons. Of course, we don't know them, so we erroneously conclude that other people agree with us or of a right ought to, and so we project our values on them. Well, criminals only like laws because they know victims will obey them and the indigent like welfare because they know that charitable people can be manipulated into benefitting them, but we are different people period. Rising tides don't lift leaking boats, virtuous ends only come from virtuous means, and it's only a win if what you offer is something that I value. We must be careful in the use of absolutes, because "always" and "never" are very difficult standards to maintain. Elsewhere, the unbeliever manipulates the man of faith by employing the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. They dress up their naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth from holy writ and seem saints when most they play the devil (Richard III). In other words, beware when politicians and preachers gesture in sweeping stereotypes about faith, because all too often they do so not because they mean what they say but because they know that you do. Far too many people think it's totally fine to take advantage of their neighbor, filling their "water" cup with soda and thinking that it's ok because the company charges a confiscatory sum. You don't like it, don't buy it. Thou shalt not steal is really one of the only commandments we need, because covetousness, adultery, false witness, et al, all deal with taking something from other people to which we have no right. No man taketh this honor unto himself, yet far too many of us rationalize our miscreantism as a way to cloak our covetousness, and social justice is built on envy, demanding what other people have by force. There is no virtue in using the adversary's methods to achieve the Father's plan. Furthermore, far too many people presume to speak for God and pat themselves on the back. Despite the modus opporendi of God: Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7), people post prognostications about the end times, and leaders of churches rewrite centuries of religious tradition on public opinion rather than on divine dissemination. Despite the notion that "no man knoweth the hour" of the coming of the Messiah, people start websites, blogs, and entire churches claiming they know when the Great Green Arklesiezure will arrive. We do not reveal things to heaven. Revelation, like rain, precipitates from above.

Some people are wise, and some people are otherwise. "The wise man doubts often, and his views are changeable. The fool is constant in his opinions, and doubts nothing, because he knows everything, except his own ignorance" (Pharaoh Akhenato). How many people do you know who spout off all sorts of things that they know without providing evidence or citations or sources to corroborate their claims? Who is this that darkeneth counsels by words without knowledge? Back it up or back it off. There is a method to maturity, and it is not what fools know. We argue with them, but to no avail, because the foolish man already thinks he knows everything and cannot be taught. All too often, the news reports quote anonymous sources or other reporters or quotes on Twitter without any real source material. Nobody really ever seems to ask the right people, but they do ask self-appointed experts or people that they consider to be experts. Far too many people are not interested in the truth as much as they are interested in finding out that the truth corroborates what they already happen to believe. People are often wrong. Like Job, you may discover that you didn't do anything wrong at all. Sometimes crap happens. Sometimes your friends or counselors are wrong. It is possible to do everything right and still lose. That is not a character flaw. it is life, and life is about finding knowledge and using it wisely. Learn to listen to what people say, observe what they actually do, and what the consequences of actions really are. Just because things aren't working out doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. Sometimes, like Job, you're just surrounded by jerks.

Faithful to our Calling

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We all want to do something worthwhile with our lives, to make a difference, to do something worth remembering. From where we stand, sometimes it's hard to measure if we're doing anything, what it might mean, because we're forced to play the short game with most people, since they come into our lives only for a season. Even if we're not destined to be average, sometimes we forget how few people truly get to rise to those lofty areas. Only a few hundred people play in each professional sport. Only a few dozen artists make the top 40 chart. Fewer than fifty men have been president. It doesn't diminish our contribution; it changes it. We need to be faithful to our calling.

Whatever our circumstances, Dieter Uchtdorf reminds us to lift where YOU stand. We are placed in different circumstances with different people and equipped with different talents and skills. No two people recreate the circumstances of another. Try as we like, like as we might, to think we know what we would or could do, we could never be sure of what we would do in another place. All we can really decide is what to do where we are, how to play our cards, and how to act according to our personal propensities. God knows that we differ, that we won't be perfect, and what we might do, and so He places us together with certain circumstances and certain people where what we are will be the best option. He knows that we don't always have all the cards, that other people may fold, and that other people's cards may be better. That's not the point. The point is to play the best we can, to do what we can do, to do things the best way we can think. I think that if He wanted it done better, He would do it Himself.

Having been chosen to participate in the calling and circumstances where you find yourself, the onus always rests on you to do YOUR best. When God doesn't call the "best", He calls the most available (Neal A Maxwell, Deposition of a Disciple). Your willingness to go and do will trump other people who decide to sit and stew. We may not think that we have much to offer, that our feeble efforts amount to us. With the great tide of evil, considering the great preponderance of selfishness and villainy, it makes sense that so many of us despair at our meager abilities. Remember that out of small and simple things proceedeth that which is great. David slew Goliath with a handful of small stones. Gideon defeated the Mideonites with only 300 soldiers. Samuel was only a small boy when God spoke to him and told him that he'd replace Eli in the tabernacle as chief priest. Far too often, we compare the strengths of others to our weaknesses, their advantages to our disadvantages. It's not fair to them or to us to refuse to recognize the influential and significant albeit small advantages our availability affords the Almighty. You may not be the best, but if you are competent, active, and care about them, then they may rise to the occasion and benefit more from your contribution than you realize. It may not come when you think.

Be faithful in YOUR calling. Our callings vary in our lives. Our circumstances vary in our lives. Our ability to act varies in our lives. On a stone archway in Scotland stands the following admonition: "What'e'er thou art, act well thy part." If you are in charge, be a leader. If you are on a team, carry your load. If you are a teacher, come prepared. If you are a student, facilitate learning. If you are rich, enrich others. If you are humble, celebrate God's goodness in your life. Wherever you are, do the best you can to approximate what Christ would have you do. Not everyone will be exceptional; not everyone wants to be. Everyone has the opportunity to be the best they can be whatever their circumstances. Viktor Frankl wrote about the last of human freedoms- the ability to choose your response no matter where you find yourself. They cannot take away your ability to choose. They can influence it with either benefits or privations, but you must surrender it in the end. Ample opportunity exists no matter your place to prove which master you truly serve. That's the purpose of this life- to prove each of us herewith if we are willing to do whatsoever the Lord asks of us.

If you would like to do better and be better, know that you are not alone. That is commendable. F. Anzio Busche however taught that the most important thing to which we can aspire is to be entirely under the influence of the Holy Ghost who will tell us what is truly good and right to do. Everything has a place. Every effort God asks matters. We don't see it, we don't get to benefit from it, but if nothing else it proves our faith, our disposition to act in concert with what God asks. Each act of obedience evinces how truly we serve that Master. You are responsible for what you do with your life. Whatever your circumstances, you can make a positive difference. Sometimes the following poem helps keep things in perspective:

“Father, where shall I work today?” And my love flowed warm and free. Then He pointed me out a tiny spot, And said, “Tend that for me.” 

I answered quickly, “Oh, no, not that. Why, no one would ever see, No matter how well my work was done. Not that little place for me!” 

And the word He spoke, it was not stern, HE answered me tenderly, “Ah, little one, search that heart of thine; Art thou working for them or me' 

Nazareth was a little place, And so was Galilee.”

The Disciplines of Life by V. Raymond Edman

Being faithful to our calling isn't about the outcome. We cannot actually dictate the decisions made by other people. We cannot decide the outcomes of the world or guarantee the things we hope or promise, especially since other people are involved. That does not diminish the value of our efforts. The victory isn't in radically changing the world. Christ already did that. The victory is in acting, in doing well our part, wherever we are, to lift others and give our best honest effort every time with every person. Do not disparage the scope of your efforts. Christ went to a small nation, taught mostly impoverished people, kept relatively few followers, and yet 2000 years later, His life, mission and teachings irrevocably transformed the world.