When did we get Stupid?

I was driving on the Las Vegas Strip this week, heading home and out of the crazy traffic. While waiting at a stop light I noticed the crosswalk-bridge above the street and it struck me how stupid we Americans are getting.

First, the fact that we had to take the crosswalk off the street and put it up on a million dollar bridge because of the stupid things we do. We try to beat the traffic on the crosswalk or simply ignore the two-ton vehicle bearing down on us and walk in the middle of the traffic. OR we try to use our two-ton vehicle as a weapon and run through yellowish lights because we don’t want to have to wait for the pedestrians. In Las Vegas there are over 100 pedestrian/traffic deaths every year. How stupid is that?

Second, the fact that the crosswalk-bridge has to have a plexi-glass guardrail that is over 8 foot tall is also because of stupid things we do. This guardrail allows us to see the Las Vegas Strip but prevents us from jumping off and killing ourselves. OR it prevents us from throwing things at oncoming traffic besides our bodies like cans of beer or those crazy two-foot tall Margaritas.

When did we get stupid in America?

When did judges quit throwing people out of their court when they brought stupid lawsuits?

When did attorneys quit getting fined for taking stupid cases or have the sense to say “That’s stupid, the judge is going to throw it out and fine you AND me for bringing it up.”

When did people stop taking responsibility for their own actions and start blaming others for spilling hot coffee?

When did our labels on products have to include warnings like the heads of matches are now “non-toxic” for those who eat them. My wife’s curling iron came with the warning “for external use only” and “Warning: this product can burn eyes.” On her hair dryer it says “Do not use in shower!” and “Do not use while sleeping!” On the sunshield I have for my car it says “Do not drive with sunshield in place” and on the toner cartridge I just bought for my printer is says “Warning: do not eat toner!” Isn’t it hilarious to listen to the auctioneer voice reciting all the possible problems with the latest pill to ask your doctor for?

When did we get so stupid?

We all know what happened; we all know that one stupid person did one stupid thing and instead of saying “Boy! That was stupid!” they said “Who can I blame so I don’t look so stupid!” and viola! We have stupid lawyers and stupid laws. We all do stupid things all the time. I, in anger, swung a large hammer at a tractor tire not expecting it to bounce back and hit me in the head. Should I have sued the tire maker? Maybe the hammer maker for not putting a “Warning: Hitting rubber with hammer will cause a bounce back into your stupid head.”

Maybe the problem isn’t that we got stupid. The problem is us not taking responsibility for our stupidity. We should all practice saying: “It’s my fault! I was stupid! I was wrong!” AND we should all start saying: “That’s okay! No harm, no foul. Don’t worry about it, we all do stupid things.” Being a forgiver is much better for you than being a sewer. (Sorry, I mean suer).

And I Cry

My wife is embarrassed but I cry. I cry easy and frequently. I often feel like my son when he was small and he would come up to me and just say, “I have to fry”. Even though he had a problem pronouncing the “k” sound I knew what he wanted to do. He would hold it in until he got on his rocking horse in our basement and rock back and forth just frying away until he had it out of his system. Yea, I know how he feels. Sometimes you just need to fry.

I cried at a movie with my wife this week. I cried at a TV show’s sad ending. I cried at Extreme Home Makeover even though I saw it before. And I cried.

The thing that makes me cry the most though is the relationship between my country and the military that fights for it, for me. I attempted to get into the Air Force when I was 18 and just graduated. I don’t remember if I told my parents about it or not. Unfortunately I had had three major knee surgeries by then and he pretty much rejected me outright. “You’ll never pass basic.” I can still hear him saying to me. I have had a love for our military since my dad explained the whole Memorial Day Parade and 4th of July celebration to me in a way it should be explained. He told me that good men died just so that I could sit here, eat hotdogs, and watch a fireworks display.

I am just old enough to remember my mom shielding me from some news reports from Viet Nam that were too graphic for my young mind. I remember a discussion about my oldest brothers and whether they would be drafted or not. Gulf I still is a proud memory filled with flags flying and Whitney Houston bringing the nation to tears with her singing of the National Anthem at Super Bowl XXV. (Catch it on Youtube and see if it doesn’t bring you to tears too). Korean War is usually only remembered in MASH reruns and World War II has been dissected so many times on the History Channel it has become paper thin. Although after the movie “Saving Private Ryan” I wanted to hug the first WWII vet I say.

Even with my little experience I watch troops come home into the waiting arms of family and I cry. I watch flag-draped caskets come home to the tear-stained salutes of fellow soldiers and I cry. At sporting events I still cross my heart and sing the National Anthem facing the flag and if it is well done and not canned music, I still cry. Then I look over at the masses of people, young and old, looking inconvenienced because they have to stand and put their beer or hotdog down for the crazy song. They wait until they hear “land of the free” and start cheering, NOT because they live in the land of the free but because that signifies the song is almost over and they can go back to their beer and hotdogs. And I cry.

Peaches in my Cereal

There was only 5 seconds left in the game and I was driving down the court at top speed. A quick dribble of the ball through my legs left one defender in the dust and only two more to go. A pause and a fake at the foul line left another slack-jawed in amazement. All I had left was the number one player on the opposing team. Somehow I got to full speed again and went straight at him. Only a second left now as we both went up together and I knew my superior jumping ability would make dunking on him a thing of beauty; if only I could beat the buzzer. I went up, he went up, my arm came down and...

“Reveille! Reveille! Reveille!” my dad yelled at the foot of the stairs, banging his hand on the side of stairway. Dragged out of my great dream at the worst possible moment, worst possible second; I rubbed my eyes, pulled my pillow over my head and tried to tune into the dream to see if I could get it back again. One of my brothers rushed to be the first into the small bathroom while the rest of us waited until the sound of the flush to leave their warm blankets. It was cold upstairs in our old farmhouse as my feet hit the uncarpeted floor and took my turn standing in front of the toilet. A long bus ride and even longer school day awaited me as I pulled on my uncooperative clothes and made my way downstairs to cold cereal and annoying siblings.

Around the table were brothers and sisters pouring cereal and milk and the only conversation was dad and the oldest brother talking about which fields to work on and the upcoming nitrogen tank delivery; they had already been up for hours and were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and just plain annoying. I poured my cereal with a grumpy attitude and then crunched it all down with the palm of my hand so I could fit even more in the bowl and so it would soak up the milk better. I splashed the milk on the heaping bowl and almost as much bounced off the cereal onto the table as it found its way between the smashed layers of cereal. I waited with my head in my hands for it to soak in because cereal is a dish best served cold and soggy.

Mom touched my head which caused me to back off my waiting prayer over my bowl and she leaned over and put some fresh picked, fresh cut and diced peaches into my bowl. She lovingly flattened a few wayward hairs on my head as she went on to do the same for my brothers and sisters. I looked down in disbelief as my regular bowl was turned into a child’s gourmet meal and suddenly the day was brighter: my siblings didn’t bother me, my dad and oldest brother’s loud talking didn’t annoy, the bus ride seemed like a limo and school was a challenge worth tackling. All this from a few fresh peaches!

It is the littlest things that can make someone’s day. A kind word, a remembered kiss, a cheap but meaningful gift, an email or letter, a joke, and, yes, peaches in cereal. Make someone’s day today.

Together

A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him. Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after another, to pick up the bundle and break it. They all tried, but in vain. Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease. Then said the father, “Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone.” (Aesop)

Scripture’s tale of the Tower of Babel holds an amazing statement by God, “If as ONE PEOPLE speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Since Ancient Hebrew has no punctuation, bold lettering, underlining or other techniques to emphasize a word or phrase, Hebrew will double up words for emphasis. The word for ONE is doubled and it sticks out: ONE people and ONE language!

People as ONE, unified, and together are VERY powerful and that is why God doesn’t let it happen very often.

It is like so many GREAT things in human nature where we humans were given amazing gifts from God that can be used for good or evil. The gift of sex turns into the evil of abuse. The gift of creation turns into the evil of the Ubermensch, Eugenics and other genetic engineering. The gift of ONE, a people united can be the curse of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union or it can be a United States that built an aircraft every 15 minutes in 1944 while having over 3 million men fighting to defeat evil.

We believe, falsely, that in the United States we have a democracy. We don’t have a democracy, we have a republic. As far back as Plato’s “Republic” and again in Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” and even in the “Federalist Papers” on which the US Constitution was based; democracy was feared and called the “Tyranny of the Majority.” Our Republic or “representative democracy”, guaranteed in Article IV of the Constitution, means that our elected representatives can vote AGAINST the majority of their constituents.

A people as ONE can rescue or defeat. A people as ONE can squash the minority or assure rights of all, whether you agree or disagree. We can do so much good together. We can do so much harm together. Tocqueville both feared and admired this balance of power. He said that the United States will be great as long as its people are good. But what happens when we cease to be good? What happens when the majority of people and their representatives are no longer good? When bad people are united and in a majority we must prepare ourselves for a tower of nonsensical babbling. Oh, wait ...

Somebody’s gotta be WRONG!

The shot went up and a majority of the basketball players coalesced around the hoop to see if it went in or not. It was towards the end of the game and the shot or rebound was VERY important. Under the basket the seven-foot center seemed to crawl over the back of the six-foot guard as they fought for position to get the rebound. The center literally fell over the top of the guard to get it. The whistle blew and the home crowd was cheering for the foul had to be on the center as he crushed the home-town guard. When all was sorted out the referee referred to the guard as being the culprit and his number was displayed on the fingers of the unbiased judge. The crowd went nuts in anger as the scoreboard replay clearly showed the foul on the huge center crawling over the back of the guard. Somebody’s gotta be wrong here. It was either what the crowd saw or the replay seemed to show over and over again OR the referee was wrong in what he saw. One of the advantages of TV versus being at a live game is the TV’s attempt to get every angle of the play. Four different versions of the same play from four cameras showed an obvious foul on the seven-foot center, but the fifth camera told a different story. The fifth camera from underneath the basket by one of those crazy guys who sit on the sidelines risking imminent harm; showed that the smaller guard had locked his arm with the center and pulled him over: an obvious foul by the guard but hidden to 4 out of 5 cameras and 20,000 screaming home team fans. Somebody was right and the ref made the right call.

There is no middle ground, no compromise, no “letting” someone else be right once. Somebody was right and somebody was wrong.

I’ve been doing some Ping Pong playing recently and usually it is just the two of us playing. If the ball hits the net on a serve you must do the serve over, but sometimes one sees it hit the net and the other doesn’t. Who is right and who is wrong. They can’t both be right. If there was a line judge she could have told us which, but normally it is a “do over” and no point for either. That doesn’t change the fact that one was right and one was wrong, it doesn’t matter about the person’s “perspective” or “feelings.” Somebody’s gotta be wrong.

We have lost the right and wrong in life today. In the last 30 years we have come to believe that BOTH are right and no one is wrong. We call it tolerance, perspective, opinion or just feeling but nobody is wrong anymore.

Here’s the thing. If nobody’s wrong then nobody’s right either and we have no need for referees. What it WILL degenerate to is the seven-foot center beating on the six-foot guard because whoever wins that fight will get the call his way. Might will make right and then only the weak will be wrong. What we need is some standard or referee outside the game to make the calls for us so that the weak will not be pounded on by the strong. We need some kind of rule for life and living that will help us determine which is right and wrong like lines on the basketball court. What we need is an unbiased judge that can make the hard calls of who is right and wrong and even offer mercy to those who are wrong sometimes to help them get it right the next time. Because somebody’s gotta be wrong.

But where, oh where can we find such a rule for living? Where can we find such a standard that we can put up in our courts and schools and assembly halls? Where can we find that sense of right and wrong and that unbiased and merciful judge?

Who’s Image?

Our local Las Vegas paper today talked about a laughing chimp’s link to our laughter. Researchers in England tickled the babies of humans, orangutans, gorillas, chimps and bonobos and measured the sound “traits” that were made while tickling. Then mapped the sounds on a genetic tree and found three matches all the way up the tree to an ape ancestor that made those sounds and passed them on to all of its children: human and ape. Experts praised the work. “It gives very strong evidence that ape and human laughter are related through evolution” said Frans de Waal.

Last year the Spanish Parliament passed a resolution granting apes “human rights”. Pedro Pozas, the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project told The Times (a UK magazine) “It will doubtless be remembered as a key moment in the defense of our evolutionary comrades.” Pozas also said, “We are seeking to break the species barrier, this is just the point of the spear!” While keeping apes in zoos will remain legal, the animal rights group claims 70% of the apes in Spanish zoos live in “sub-human” conditions. The article goes on to tell us that in addition to humans there are three OTHER genera of apes: gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. And that humans and chimps share 99 percent for their active genetic material.

Okay, where do I start?

This is a perfect example of a world without salt and light. When humans take God out of their thinking there is nothing to separate them from an ape. So it would be natural for a pagan thinker to want to grant apes “human rights” since we are nothing more than shaved chimps. It is a simple accident in the evolutionary chain that we got a bigger brain pan and so can sharpen sticks better and don’t need to wear diapers.

Seriously, it is hard to take these people seriously but they seriously are having an impact on our society. The Spanish movement is a back door way to ban the “evil” of bullfighting which the animal rights people have been trying to destroy for decades. Especially since the only apes in Spain are in zoos. In the USA all of our meat choices have been usurped by animal rights activists claiming cruelty in how they are butchered, milked, or made into leather. The price of meat has doubled since butchers now have to be sensitive to the “feelings” of the animals. Christians HAVE TO enter the public debate to be what we are commanded to be: salt and light. This kind of crazy activity can only move forward when Christians sit back and do nothing. When someone says, “Apes are humans too” there is no one with the guts to give them a V8 bonk on the head and say, “What are you? Stupid?”

Animals are precious? YES! They are a beautiful part of God’s creation and God has a purpose and a plan for them AND as part of God’s creation they will be made new and be a part of the new heaven and new earth coming at the end of time. BUT animals are NOT created in God’s image and we have been given the responsibility to care for them and also God gave us every plant and beast for food. That was BEFORE the fall of man (Gen. 1:28-30). But Pagans and Christians alike have distorted our relationship to animals and have demoted humans to equal status with animals and in some times lesser status. It is to the point in Spain and many parts of California that we are made in the animal’s image and not in that of our creator. Look in your mirror, look in your heart, look at the fact that you are even THINKING about this topic; in who’s image were you made?

The Ticking Time Bomb

Next time you prepare for a party here’s what you need to do. Buy a pack of mint Mentos candy and drop them into each chamber of an ice tray, fill with water and freeze. At the party make sure you have plenty of WARM Coke around in need of ice. Serve the Coke or Diet Coke with ice and a smile. It should take only about five minutes for the glass of soda to erupt like a fifth grade science project. Sit back and enjoy. The reason I know this is because I just got “punked” with this trick; to the great amusement of all those at the meeting around me. Last time I accept a Diet Coke from THAT friend.

My brothers and I used to play a lot of practical jokes on each other. I can remember a lot of them on me when I was a young kid and as I got older then I would be able to participate in them. One of the fun pranks I played in High School was taking a hot water bottle and filling it with chunky, milky oatmeal and then adding a little red food coloring. We would get a plastic tube from the hardware store that would fit into the top of the hot water bottle and head off to the local Denny’s restaurant. After eating a bit one of us guys would make the correct noises and press on the hot water bottle in his jacket forcing the oatmeal mixture up and through the tube and throw up all over the table. This was done, hopefully, with the waitress and a young family around. After the mess is spread all over the table you had a choice: run out or stay in. In the run out scenario we would simply leave to the great relief of the waitress and people around us. In the run out scenario you must have most of your food gone so you get the fun AND a free meal. In the stay in scenario when the waitress comes and offers to clean up and move you to another table (along with all those sitting close by) you simply say, “No thank you, we’ll take care of it.” And then you proceed to eat the oatmeal. It always helps to say something like: “I LOVE the big chunks!” THEN you laugh pay for the meal since the looks on the people’s faces is priceless.

I also remember a High School prank gone wrong. No one got seriously hurt but five of us were suspended and facing my parents with it was the ticking time bomb. I can still remember the gut wrenching feeling of the principal calling my dad. As usual I feared what my parents would do more than what the school would do as punishment.

What’s the point of practical jokes? Joy for you and embarrassment for others? Taking people down a peg? Initiation? There is nothing wrong with a practical joke. If people cannot laugh at themselves and their foibles and fears then they are simply taking life too seriously. But sometimes the joke gets carried too far and people get hurt either physically or emotionally. In the middle of the joke be prepared to stop at any time. If you really think about it, you will find you know the exact time that joke went bad. All it takes is for someone to stop, explain, and start the laughing at themselves. Stop it before it goes bad. I had to clean the Diet Coke off my clothes and try to dry out, but I was looking for the next person to help with their drink. Can I get you a Coke?

Es Es Percipe

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it: did it make a sound? Better yet, if no one ever saw that tree from its life to death: was it really there? This is the realm of the existential philosopher. “Es es percipe” means “to be is to be perceived.” Perception is reality so when something is not perceived it doesn’t exist. I told my wife I was going to a movie and when I came home I was accosted with questions of where I was because she never “HEARD” me tell her. Since she didn’t hear it, it wasn’t real.

We now base our existence, our reality, and our laws on what we can perceive. We make judgments about people and things based on what we see, feel, and hear. We base our reality on what our senses tell us but are they the best way?

The problem is that we all have filters or sunglasses that taint our perceptions. We can both look at the exact same thing and come up with a totally opposite perspective of that reality. If you don’t believe me find a mixed group to join when a president is speaking: one group will hear only negative and the other only positive. Whether you listen to Bush or Obama you will only hear and see what your filters and sunglasses will allow you to. Every now and again something happens to knock those perceptions out of our heads. But it takes an event like 9/11 to do that and it only lasts for a short period of time. Witness people now saying 9/11 was a conspiracy.

So if we both perceive the world in totally different ways how can we get at the truth? In our court system we have a judge and jury who are supposed to look, listen, smell, touch, and taste the evidence to come up with a consensus on the truth. That’s the best we got now. We all know of people who bought their way out of the truth, people who lawyered their way out of even being judged, and people who lied so convincingly that our perceptions changed. Our laws our now based on our PERCEPTIONS and no longer on something outside ourselves. We say it just “feels” wrong or right.

We fight. We argue. We cajole and cry. We try to come up with some consensus and seem to spin our wheels on the grease of compromise. What can save us from the wretched state of our own perceptions? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some kind of standard of rule and measure that we could compare our actions to; where we would know for sure if it is right or wrong, true or false, good or bad? Something like our Standards for Weights and Measures where we know and can check if a pound is a pound and a yard is a yard. Maybe it would be some kind of standard that we could hold up to our politicians to see if their actions are right or not. Or maybe some kind of standard that we could impose on Wall Street and our corporate moguls that would keep them honest and treat their employees fairly. Or even some kind of standard of behavior that we could teach our children in school so that when they get to running this world they will have a rule to guide their actions.

Where would be get such a standard, such a rule of behavior. If we could find one I think it would be EXTREMELY important to make sure we post it wherever people gather and in our courts and in our schools. It would be great to find a standard like that because until we do we have reality based only on our perceptions and we are now finding out how flawed they are.

Natural Laws

I am going to cheat this week by simply regurgitating something that someone sent me some time ago. The Laws aren’t original to me though I have edited some of the comments to more ME. There are laws in this universe, similar to the Law of Gravity, that are immutable and unavoidable:

Law of Mechanical Repair: Whenever you get your hands REALLY dirty, your nose will itch.

Refined Law of Gravity: Anything, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act

Law of Random Numbers: If you tap in a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Law of the Alibi: If you tell your boss you were late for work because of a flat tire, the very next day you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law: If you change lines (or traffic lanes) the one you just left will always move faster than the one you are in now.

Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

Law of Results: When you try to prove to someone that something doesn’t work, it does.

Law of Biomechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theater: At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

The Starbucks Law: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, you boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Law of Logical Arguments: Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about.

Law of Appearance: If the shoe fits, it’s ugly.

Law of Commercial Marketing: As soon as you find a product you really like, they will stop making it.

There you are: hard, fast and immutable laws of our natural life.