My friends, I am lying to you.

I will tell you whatever it is that you want to hear that will get me elected to office.

I will lie about my opponents, I will lie about Iraq, I will lie about taxes, I will lie about the budget and the economy. In short, I will lie about anything that you let me lie about. And I will do it with your blessing, for my opponents are evil, stupid, unqualified, no different than what we have, and otherwise unfit for the position.

I’m sorry; I don’t mean to do this. You must understand that I’m walking a tightrope here. One misstep and I’m sunk. I don’t have time to really explain my positions, so I have to resort to canned phrases and responses to get my message across. It’s hard enough by itself, but it’s even worse when someone picks up on how these things don’t add up. And then there’s the distraction of trying to reconcile the constant yammering of my party and my advisors. Please forgive my foibles. I’m only human. I can only promise that I can and that I will do better.

… or something like that.

Who are you tell tell me
That it just isn’t fair?
Who are you to tell me
What is right? … what is wrong?
Does saying that you’d help if you could
Somehow excuse your failure?
Does your “world peace” make sense
If you hate those who disagree?
Who are you to tell me
That it just isn’t fair?

Who are you to tell me
That it’s all my fault?
Who are you to tell me
It’s not your philosophy to blame?
Does crying “the sky is falling”
Really mean it’s coming down?
Does crying “it’s a vast conspiracy”
Mean you’ve washed your hands of guilt?
Who are you to tell me
That it’s all my fault?

I am here to tell you
The world isn’t always so beautiful.
I am trying to tell you
The world sometimes is cruel and unkind
I am saying that we’re not always like that
But sometimes, we are
I am saying that I will help, when I can
But please, forgive me when I’m weak
I am here to tell you
That it just isn’t fair.

I’m sorry.

Let me start by saying that I am not fanatically devoted to the idea that people, in general, ought to be good (much less perfect) spellers. Nor do I believe that correct grammar is required to lead a wildly successful life.

Am I wrong in expecting that the news media should set the bar a little higher for themselves?

This is something that has long been a source of annoyance for me. It calls into question the very trustworthiness of the news media, especially when it not only quotes, but repeats without question that which they’ve been told. As it relates to the present, the thing that’s attracted my ire is the blind repetition of the term “carabineer” by media outlets in connection with the tragic incident at Lifest 2007. This is not so different than the phrase “bungee ride” that I had previously complained about.

I’m not a climber, and I’m certainly not a reporter, but let’s face it: “carabineer” is an unusual word. Even if it does pass an automated spelling check, one would think that it should at least trigger a quick peek into a favorite dictionary. Online versions are readily available if one is ever caught without a printed copy.

This isn’t the only inaccuracy I’ve seen in reports on the subject. You can lay a fair amount of blame on the Department of Commerce report, which is of course the source of the spelling error above. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s incumbent on reporters to check spelling and grammar just as well as they check the facts.

PS - Google is not a dictionary. I simply adore many things that Google has done, but beware of using standard screwdrivers to turn Torx™ heads.

Then, yesterday at about 4:40 p.m. the fun was interrupted by sirens. The first vehicle to arrive was a fire truck. My wife and I compared notes later and we both thought, “hey, carnival food, maybe a deep fryer caught fire”… and then we realized the truck was heading up toward the artist merchandise barn. Shortly after that, an ambulance arrived, and we knew something was terribly wrong. The obvious conclusion was that something had happened with the Air Glory ride near the barn.

I’m very, very upset by this tragedy. My heart grieves for the loss of this young woman; if the rumors are true, she wasn’t much older than my eldest. I can only imagine the pain that her family is suffering now, and I’m sure it’s worse than I can dream.

Here’s what UPI has to say:

A teenage girl was killed in a bungee-jumping accident Saturday at a Christian rock festival in Wisconsin.

United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Bungee jumper dies at Christian festival

The press coverage of this is very disturbing in a different way. This article is an example of how the press is propagating what appears to be one writer’s speculation. Air Glory is not a bungee jumping, or bungee-like, ride.

If you read the article, you’ll also be presented with some similarly uninformed “facts.” To clarify: The festival did not shut down for two hours. The festival did not simply resume scheduled events, either immediately or after some period of time.

I was there.

One problem with this reporting is that nobody bothered to understand what Air Glory was before putting pen to paper (or hands to keyboard). This amusement ride is a giant swing operated from a crane. Riders are suspended from the crane with cables, and when released, swing back and forth. They do not bounce, the cables do not stretch perceptibly, and there’s no jumping involved.

Another issue is with the reporting of what happened next. There simply wasn’t much scheduled around that time, so to say that the events shut down for two hours is misleading. Perhaps the reporters are trying to paint the image of event organizers “doing the right thing,” but all this does is give me the impression that they were more concerned about image than about what was going on. Artists were up on stage talking about what had happened, and on at least one stage they were soon singing songs of life and of hope; lest you think there were only “mellow worship songs” as reported you might consider checking out Red. Indeed, every artist and speaker I heard, including some while walking between events and eating dinner, took time during and between each event to express love and support for this girl and her family.

If I know the people who run Lifest – and I am acquainted with a number of them – they are directly and personally involved as much as they can be. They are not impersonal corporate suits. They are not there to make money (they’ve lost money on this festival every year). They love our youth, and it will be an even bigger tragedy if sloppy reporting like this makes anybody think otherwise.

UPDATE: At least one report in a local paper has correctly identified Air Glory as a “freefall swing ride.”

I’ve had the same thoughts for years. Please don’t understand this to be a claim to have thought of this first; as I read more, it seems to me that this is an obvious thought that I’d been taught to repress as heretical. At some point the sheer enormity of the problems with so-called “macro evolution” convinced me that it is at least a big of a leap of faith to believe in evolution as it is to believe in a creator God.

This leads me to another point that’s been on my mind lately. A friend quoted a bit from James Randi’s site - the guy with the $1 million paranormal challenge - and so I hopped on over there and read for a while. I must admit that I’ve always appreciated the guy’s brutally direct, honest approach to the supernatural. I must also admit that I don’t have nearly the same amount of faith in science as he clearly does. Simply put, my objection is thus: only perfect facts can be rendered by logic to produce perfect conclusions. Incomplete facts can lead to inaccurate assumptions; logic applied to this of course tends to result in plausible yet, to some degree or another, incorrect deductions.

Science is still discovering the nature of reality, an endeavor that requires as much objectivity as is possible. I applaud scientists who hold to this ideal; but while my faith in logic does not waver, my faith in the completeness of facts produced by scientific observation is on considerably less stable ground.

Does it bother you, dear reader, that the age of the universe is currently estimated to be only about 4.3 x 10^17 seconds? What does this mean when we consider the probability of the genetic mutations necessary and required in the evolutionary path from single-celled organisms to Homo sapiens, as it pertains to the amount of time required? [Note that I'm explicitly granting the (scientifically laughable) proposition that some form of life arrived from space. The Earth has reportedly only existed for about a quarter of that time.]

Call me a heretic if you like, or irrational, or a nutcase. I have to conclude that the answer laid out in Genesis 1 is a lot easier to accept than the alternative.

The only way I can resolve this apparent paradox is to conclude that I am choosing to do God’s will, even if I cannot understand how the things that I do are part of his plans.

I have to back up a step or two from here. While I maintain that this is a reasonable conclusion, I just cannot accept it as true. This is ultimately an extreme position; who am I, that I should think to limit the designs of the Almighty? My point is this: the paradox illustrates merely that I am finite, and that I don’t understand.

Some additional thoughts that seem relevant:

What is the immutability of God?

Does God change His mind?

Update (oops, forgot one):

What It Means When God Changes His Mind

… but what did the Soviets, and later the Russians, get in return for those favors? All I can see is thousands of jihadists roaming through what remained of the Soviet Union spreading death and fear and murdering Russian civilians even inside Moscow itself in the hope they can impose a Salafi regime in that part of the world… all the time Moscow spent sucking up for Arab dictators couldn’t spare the Russian blood.

IRAQ THE MODEL

Perhaps someone can remind Moscow, Berlin, and Madrid that they have been reaping the fruits of diplomacy with extremists. It’s not going to work this time, either, whether we’re talking about Islamofascist terrorists or Iran.

Less talk. More action.

What really intrigues me is the thought that some significant portion of our government actually operates in some of the same objectionable manners described in the very document that sets forth the reasons we declared independence from England in the first place…

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

US President George W Bush says the threat of terrorism in America and across the world is not just because of hostility to the Iraq war.

War not to blame for terrorist threat: Bush – ABC

al Qaeda-affliated terrorists have been attacking civilian targets since at least August 7, 1998, when U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed. Our President should not need to remind Democrats of this incident, or of the attack on the USS Cole. Of course, there were the 1993 World Trade Center and 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, which while they were not apparently related to al Qaeda, they were certainly not related to the war in Iraq.
It seems to me that we’ve done an awful lot in the United States to curb the terrorist threat. Are we less safe than our friends in the United Kingdom, who deal with terrorism on multiple fronts? I fear that we’ve already given up too many fundamental freedoms as it is, regardless.

The President is right: the terrorists are using Iraq as a primary battlefield, and we must not shirk our responsibility to meet them there.

Is it civil war in Iraq or is it not? And if it is, is there a way to stop it and if it’s not, is there a way to avert it?

IRAQ THE MODEL

I wonder: would I be willing to organize and stand up to these criminals if they were in my community? I hope so, but given the same circumstances, I’m sure I would be tempted to “play it safe.”

It must be seen to be believed.

Sadly, it mostly seems to be propaganda.

First, a question: Can divine predestination and human free will coexist?

This is really one of the “can God make a rock so big that he couldn’t lift it?” questions; if he is omnipotent, then he can create a rock of infinite size and mass. This in turn leads to the conclusion that because it has infinite size and mass, it cannot – by definition – be “lifted” or otherwise “moved”. And then, of course, one concludes that God must not be omnipotent! The flaw in this reasoning is that it assumes that God is bounded by three dimensions and the laws of physics as we understand them. For that matter, it assumes that God is bounded by time. This, precisely, is the problem with this question. You see, the very term predestination is an attempt to map God onto our own understanding in the same way that an architect might use drawings to map a three-dimensional building onto paper in two dimensions.

Keeping this idea in mind, many things take on a quite different meaning. Citing a previous example, our linear minds think this way: Child falls in water. Rescuer pulls child from water. Attempts to revive succeed. From our perspective, this might be a miraculous outcome of a series of events. However, from the standpoint of God, this orderly sequence collapses into a single, cohesive entity, visible and in focus in its entirety. It simply is.

So then, if God exists outside of time in the eternal now, there is no “before” or “after.” He has determined our being, he has seen our existence, and he has pronounced judgment in a way that defies linear reasoning. I struggle as I write this paragraph because my mind wants desperately to order things and use words like “before” and “at the same time,” all the while realizing that this desire in itself defies reason. I cannot accept that the Creator can be bounded by his own creation.

From here we examine the topic of free will. Can I do anything apart from God’s will? By way of example, allow me to propose a case for you: I have to choose between walking past a homeless person on the street, or stopping to help them. I’m in a hurry. I want to stop, but I feel like I have no time. With a pang of guilt I keep walking. Now, what I’m saying is that there is no conflict between God causing me to make that choice and my desire to do the same thing. I could fool myself into thinking that I really wanted to help, but the fact is, I even more wanted to be on my way to get to whatever “important” thing lay ahead. What I desire to do is exactly what I do. Nevertheless, my desire is the product of who I was created to be and my environment, both of which are subject to God’s will in themselves. The only way I can resolve this apparent paradox is to conclude that I am choosing to do God’s will, even if I cannot understand how the things that I do are part of his plans.

Let me be quick to point out that I don’t believe that walking past this homeless person is always and necessarily wrong. Yes, it is probably true that I should have stopped to lend a hand. On the other hand, though, the act of me walking past may trigger a note of despair that causes them to seek God.

I realize that what I’m saying here can be used to rationalize practically any behavior. Dear reader, if you do this, you do so at your own peril. It is one thing to try to find the bigger picture, and another thing entirely to try to manipulate it to your own advantage. This understanding is not an excuse to dismiss your words, actions, and thoughts with a curt “well, that’s just the way I am.” Rather, I exhort you to seek God’s will.

But what is God’s will? Whether you believe the story of Moses being given the ten commandments to be a literal account, as I do, or an allegory, these words are powerful and fundamental. You can summarize them all with two thoughts: love God, and love others.

By love, and particularly in reference to loving other people, we’re talking about the kind of love that is committed to the welfare of others, that respects them and cherishes them regardless of personal cost. Loving people might make them happy, but sometimes it won’t. Loving people might cause them to like you, but sometimes they’ll hate you. This kind of love isn’t “G-love,” as Heather Mac Donald suggests. While this is at odds with popular culture’s idea that love is a feeling, it doesn’t invalidate the idea of love as commitment and action.

“What,” you may ask, “gives one person the right to decide what’s best for another?” Sometimes the answer is pretty clear cut; say, a parent choosing what’s best for a young child, or a friend taking the keys from someone who’s had too much to drink. Other times it’s not so clear. All you can do in many situations is make suggestions, and only then at an appropriate time and place. Above all you must be acting out of genuine care for another: not their feelings for you, not their pocketbook, not even their soul. All of these things are only single dimensions of a person! Getting people to like you doesn’t pay their bills. Giving them money doesn’t speak to their soul. Saving their soul doesn’t stave off hunger and thirst. Look at the whole person.

And so we come back, again, to the eternal now. In the same way that love sees a whole person and not just one aspect, God sees the whole of time and not just moments strung together in a sequence. Indeed, the very name of God alludes to this, which is variously rendered as “I am who am,” “I am who is,” and other similar constructs. From this perspective, at least to dim understanding of it, some seemingly unanswerable questions suddenly come into focus.

Some things just are, whether we understand them or not.