(pardon the lateness of this post - I'm just now getting around to putting it up)
This word alone could be an oxymoron.
I’ve not read the full reports but I have heard about the two differing intelligence reports on Iran’s development (or not) of nuclear weapons.
My point is – how do you know whom to believe?
We are in a protracted war with no clear exit strategy or end in sight based on possible faulty intelligence and we seem pretty darn close to doing the same thing with Iran.
I was not in favor of the invasion of Iraq back in ‘03 or whenever it happened. But now we’ve made a mess – or at least made a worse mess and we are obligated to try and clean it up. I say this to say I don’t think it is hypocritical to say “we support the troops” but not support the war. Plus we owe the Iraqi people a shot at getting their country rebuilt and help in getting a government in place that works.
But with regard to intelligence; how do we know whom to trust? Reasonable people can disagree on lots of things but with the possibility of bombing Iran back to the dark ages looming, I’d like for everyone to take a deep breath and re-think this whole thing.
And I know I’m far from the first or last person to comment on this but given the import of this report on Iran and what we may or may not do as a result, couldn’t Pres. Bush work really hard to pronounce “nuclear’ correctly? In the one sound bite I heard on NPR, he said (of course) ‘new-cue-lar.’
Thursday, December 20, 2007
When God Grew Tired of Us
I’ve heard about this documentary for a while now but only last week got the DVD from our library and began to watch it (and still watching it in short bursts.)
I took it home and my daughter asked me about the title. I had a hard time explaining it to her since I hadn’t watched the movie. I guess I was partly afraid that these boys – who had been through so much – thought God got tired of them personally and that is why they went through all their hardships. That they thought He just gave up on them.
I’m not finished watching it but I think I understand the title better. One of the young men is describing how bad things were, how hard they were and in general how messed up the world must be. He uses the phrase “God must have gotten tired of us.” In that context now I have a new meaning. In his mind he might have said the same thing when God told Noah to build the ark. “I’m tired of all these people and what they are doing.” The “Us” is all of us, not just a few people and certainly not them.
If you haven’t seen this – get it. Not many movies make me laugh out loud. But some scenes are priceless. Most of these are as these young Africans – who have lived in a refugee camp for most of the lives – encounter American culture. Not in a slapstick Crocodile Dundee kind of way but more innocent.
One scene has a young man taking shaving crème and spreading it on his hands and then he proceeds to spread it on his arms, his face, his head – but he doesn’t shave. He simply walks out of the room.
The boys are in Pittsburgh (but it seems at other times they were in NYC or Syracuse) and it must be around Christmas. One of them asks about Santa. “Is it in the Bible?” He proceeds to tell about celebrating Christmas in Kakuma – the refugee camp in Kenya – how they simply celebrate the birth of Jesus. And it is accompanied by a scene of hundreds of people in the camp, dancing and singing.
Somehow in the midst of their suffering, they can still understand a more simple idea of Christmas without needing all the material trappings we think are necessary.
But this movie will also make you cry. I can’t imagine living in a country where the government decides that all the young males should be killed so they have to escape – leave families – everything just to survive. It took the U.S. a long time to just decide that we could call what is happening in Darfur, genocide. I don’t care what semantics you have to play – this is simply tragic.
And I guess to keep things straight, what happened in southern Sudan is not exactly the same as in Darfur although I’d be hard-pressed to explain the difference politically or geographically. Simply put the Lost Boys were displaced, fled, escaped southern Sudan etc. during the 2nd Sudanese Civil War which was mostly a religious conflict (Muslim v. Christian) over a period from the mid 90s until 2005 or so. The “genocide” in Darfur is more tribal in nature with the Sudanese Govt. or their militias, the “janjaweed”, ravaging villages in western Sudan.
In a separate blog entry I mention my initial lack of support for the war in Iraq. With what little I know, if anyone needs to be bombed back into the Stone Age, it is the Sudanese government. Imagine how far the billions of dollars we have and are still spending in Iraq would go to improve things in Sudan. But we don’t have any long-term oil or other economic interests in Sudan that I know of so …
I am so impressed with the attitudes and wisdom the young men being interviewed – possess. If I’d been through 1/10th of their troubles I’d be complaining, and would probably be a basket case emotionally. But some of these boys work 2 or 3 jobs just so they can send money back to their families in Sudan, or Uganda or wherever the might be. I was also amazed that they can even communicate with them or even find out where their families are. Must be some network.
At any rate – enough rambling. Go watch the movie. My library has it on DVD – your probably does too.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Made in China
For more on this see previous post on my Olympic boycott – which by the way is going well. I’ve not watched anything of the Olympics from Beijing yet!
A week or so ago we did the most of our Christmas decorating – actually my wife did about 99% of it. My job is usually confined to the outside lights (none up this year by the way) and the Christmas tree.
I bought one – our first real tree in years. A Douglas fir.
After my work is done, the kids and adults alike get to hang all the ornaments. Sort of a family tradition. I have to hang the lights first – don’t try it the other way around.
Once we were finished our two littlest ones decided they wanted a tree of their own. My oldest daughter has a small tree in her room that she decorates each year. The little girls felt left out.
A day or two later I went to Walgreens and bought them what must be the ugliest or tackiest artificial tree I’ve ever seen. It is shiny green – almost fluorescent and pre-lit. But the pre-lit thing was not working. My girls noticed right away that it was lit on only one side.
Seeing they were right I decided to take all the lights off and start over – hanging lights being sort of my special household skill.
It took about ½ hour to remove and re-hang a small strand of lights. I’ve never seen a strand like this one before. The wiring was all goofy and they had the funny little clips to hold the strands on each branch.
When I was finished the girls hung their ornaments and were proud of their little green shiny tree.
In cleaning up after myself, I found a small piece of cardboard on the floor that simply said “Christmas (with a small Holly leaf underneath) and beneath that the words: “Made in China.”
Which explained a lot. I doubt most people in China have any idea what a Christmas tree is supposed to look like. From what I read and hear, we are busy exporting our western culture to them so they can buy all our stuff. But wait a minute. We buy all THEIR STUFF!
Think of all the money we could save in shipping if we just made our stuff and kept it here and they made all their stuff and kept it there.
Somehow in this all-important cultural exchange I think Christmas trees got left off the list.
Will this never end? My fault for buying a fake tree. But don’t we make anything in the U.S. anymore?
I heard a piece on NPR this morning about the steel mills in Pittsburgh – there aren’t any, any more, hardly. One of them has become some sort of specialty vendor that simply stamps – actually cuts in with a laser – words etc. on steel. Steel that is probably made somewhere else.
Who is making our steel? Can’t be China since the price of steel (so I’m told) is high because all of it goes to China to help with their building boom.
How do we stop this?
Union clothing workers and sweat-shop cotton mills forced all our clothing making out of the country years ago.
The best cars are made in the U.S. by U.S. workers, working for foreign companies.
Locally, Zenith, formerly a TV maker, moved their plant to Mexico a decade or so ago.
What’s next? With the writers strike I won’t be surprised if we don’t outsource our TV programs to Bollywood. Animation is already largely outsourced (except I hope not for Pixar. Steve Jobs please tell me all your computer animation is done in the good ole US of A)
I wrote several months ago about my chagrin at finding that my cowboy boots were made in China. Now my kids’ Christmas tree. And now guess what?
My staff bought me an i-Pod Nano for Christmas and Birthday (and maybe because I’m just such a generally nice boss!) and I was looking at it. Some of the labeling says “Designed by Apple Computer, Cupertino CA.” The instructions inside say “printed in China.” I thought maybe I was OK but my curiosity got the better of me and guess what? If you dig deep enough it says my i-Pod was “Assembled in China.” I had no idea. I’m shocked. I thought at least I could have at least one genuinely American-made product.
And my question about Pixar? I don’t want to know.
A week or so ago we did the most of our Christmas decorating – actually my wife did about 99% of it. My job is usually confined to the outside lights (none up this year by the way) and the Christmas tree.
I bought one – our first real tree in years. A Douglas fir.
After my work is done, the kids and adults alike get to hang all the ornaments. Sort of a family tradition. I have to hang the lights first – don’t try it the other way around.
Once we were finished our two littlest ones decided they wanted a tree of their own. My oldest daughter has a small tree in her room that she decorates each year. The little girls felt left out.
A day or two later I went to Walgreens and bought them what must be the ugliest or tackiest artificial tree I’ve ever seen. It is shiny green – almost fluorescent and pre-lit. But the pre-lit thing was not working. My girls noticed right away that it was lit on only one side.
Seeing they were right I decided to take all the lights off and start over – hanging lights being sort of my special household skill.
It took about ½ hour to remove and re-hang a small strand of lights. I’ve never seen a strand like this one before. The wiring was all goofy and they had the funny little clips to hold the strands on each branch.
When I was finished the girls hung their ornaments and were proud of their little green shiny tree.
In cleaning up after myself, I found a small piece of cardboard on the floor that simply said “Christmas (with a small Holly leaf underneath) and beneath that the words: “Made in China.”
Which explained a lot. I doubt most people in China have any idea what a Christmas tree is supposed to look like. From what I read and hear, we are busy exporting our western culture to them so they can buy all our stuff. But wait a minute. We buy all THEIR STUFF!
Think of all the money we could save in shipping if we just made our stuff and kept it here and they made all their stuff and kept it there.
Somehow in this all-important cultural exchange I think Christmas trees got left off the list.
Will this never end? My fault for buying a fake tree. But don’t we make anything in the U.S. anymore?
I heard a piece on NPR this morning about the steel mills in Pittsburgh – there aren’t any, any more, hardly. One of them has become some sort of specialty vendor that simply stamps – actually cuts in with a laser – words etc. on steel. Steel that is probably made somewhere else.
Who is making our steel? Can’t be China since the price of steel (so I’m told) is high because all of it goes to China to help with their building boom.
How do we stop this?
Union clothing workers and sweat-shop cotton mills forced all our clothing making out of the country years ago.
The best cars are made in the U.S. by U.S. workers, working for foreign companies.
Locally, Zenith, formerly a TV maker, moved their plant to Mexico a decade or so ago.
What’s next? With the writers strike I won’t be surprised if we don’t outsource our TV programs to Bollywood. Animation is already largely outsourced (except I hope not for Pixar. Steve Jobs please tell me all your computer animation is done in the good ole US of A)
I wrote several months ago about my chagrin at finding that my cowboy boots were made in China. Now my kids’ Christmas tree. And now guess what?
My staff bought me an i-Pod Nano for Christmas and Birthday (and maybe because I’m just such a generally nice boss!) and I was looking at it. Some of the labeling says “Designed by Apple Computer, Cupertino CA.” The instructions inside say “printed in China.” I thought maybe I was OK but my curiosity got the better of me and guess what? If you dig deep enough it says my i-Pod was “Assembled in China.” I had no idea. I’m shocked. I thought at least I could have at least one genuinely American-made product.
And my question about Pixar? I don’t want to know.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Last Saturday we went to a neighbors’ house for what I hope will become a Holiday tradition. Mostly it is just a gathering of their friends – many of whom we don’t know very well. We eat way too much food – there is something about a table full of all sorts of things. I never seem to keep track of how much I eat or how many trips I make back.
But what makes this evening special would to most people seem naïve or simple.
Our hosts have somehow accumulated a variety of costumes over the years. Near the end of the evening everyone trundles out to their barn where all the young children wait – in various sorts of attire. Some look shepherd-like, other look like animals.
These kids put on a very simple pageant. David, our host, reads from the Christmas story out of Luke and a few other passages. His wife, Joey, provides basic direction for the kids.
Somehow, without any practice, the kids manage to portray wise men (this year they were three girls – two of them mine!), Mary and Joseph, the angel Gabriel and the aforementioned shepherds and with David’s voice as a guide, they act out portions of the familiar Christmas story.
This production won’t win any Tony awards and will probably never be seen on cable but it beats anything. I can’t put it into words but in the midst of all our hurrying around, spending too much money on stuff, eating too much and in general getting stressed out – this little show, gets us to stop for a few minutes to remember what Christmas – what LIFE – is really all about.
God granted us the gift of his Son and through that the gift of life.
Sitting on a bale of straw, watching a bunch of kids play out roles we’ve seen dozens of times, is probably the most fun anyone can have. Nobody has to sing on key. Nobody (except for Gabriel) has to remember any lines. It just happens and then we go back to the house for some excellent chocolate cheesecake.
It doesn’t get much better.
But what makes this evening special would to most people seem naïve or simple.
Our hosts have somehow accumulated a variety of costumes over the years. Near the end of the evening everyone trundles out to their barn where all the young children wait – in various sorts of attire. Some look shepherd-like, other look like animals.
These kids put on a very simple pageant. David, our host, reads from the Christmas story out of Luke and a few other passages. His wife, Joey, provides basic direction for the kids.
Somehow, without any practice, the kids manage to portray wise men (this year they were three girls – two of them mine!), Mary and Joseph, the angel Gabriel and the aforementioned shepherds and with David’s voice as a guide, they act out portions of the familiar Christmas story.
This production won’t win any Tony awards and will probably never be seen on cable but it beats anything. I can’t put it into words but in the midst of all our hurrying around, spending too much money on stuff, eating too much and in general getting stressed out – this little show, gets us to stop for a few minutes to remember what Christmas – what LIFE – is really all about.
God granted us the gift of his Son and through that the gift of life.
Sitting on a bale of straw, watching a bunch of kids play out roles we’ve seen dozens of times, is probably the most fun anyone can have. Nobody has to sing on key. Nobody (except for Gabriel) has to remember any lines. It just happens and then we go back to the house for some excellent chocolate cheesecake.
It doesn’t get much better.
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