tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61596824351579991882024-03-08T13:29:13.122-08:00Professor Jim TodayThe purpose for me embarking on this journey into the blogosphere is to bring a daily dose of our global reality but then siphon from it the human and spiritual meaning and lessons for the reader going forward. It is my hope that you will feel my heart in my words.prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.comBlogger335125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-7940105271428407682016-10-17T09:34:00.001-07:002016-10-17T09:34:10.613-07:00The Challenge for the New Generation<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Retrospection is powerful. Yesterday as I sat through two basketball games my grand daughter was playing, I had this very interesting in-depth conversation with her brother, my oldest grandson. Logan is a highly intelligent, handsome eighth grader and is in double accelerated courses in all subjects. As he sat next to me, I began to ask him about his subjects at school with math being his favorite. I knew at that moment my DNA had run aground so I began a gentle probing of the depth of his understanding of math. Over the next ten minutes I felt the breath being sucked out of my lungs at the depth, the breadth and the enthusiasm I witnessed from Logan as he answered my probes; each a bit deeper than the previous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That conversation found its way to my retrospection gene. Through that gene and pondering last night and this morning about the aggregate implication going forward, I began to think about the challenges of Logan's generation. One cannot begin to grapple with the potentials without factoring in the fabric of the world today in which the Logans of this world are being exposed. Social media is a normal for them. Many of the Logans spent time with their parents and grandparents showing them how to do simple things on their new-fangled smart phones and probably respectfully laugh about it after. I would! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Drugs both use and trafficking are a new normal. Suicide at younger and younger ages are far less shocking thus part of the new normal. The endless wars in the Middle East and now the heavy cloud of homegrown terror, school lock downs, etc, are part of that normal. Then there is this huge elephant called National debt and student loan debt that has tentacles for many painful years. Today I watch a speech by Obama enticing college age kids to sign up for more Federal funding for education and my mind is processing who will pay for it. Free college has to equate to, for me at least, one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard and I can say that in working heavily in college education for a decade. Who will pay? That, for me, is the question nobody wants to talk about but it will be talked about but too late.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am sixty-eight years old and from my life and career I have been given tremendous challenges and opportunities to internalize many things from and at a global perspective. Given that insight, it is perhaps my greatest concern as to what the generation of my five grandchildren will be facing in what seems like a world, a political system gone mad for those are the infrastructural institutions and greenhouse careers, families and values.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My view today is far past the Trump / Clinton debacle, the ineptitude of our Congress, President and Supreme Court. My view is about the values and principles my five precious grand children will evolve into and from as their mid life of adulthood looms ever nearer. Abortions, drug use, same-sex marriages, LBGTQ now a powerful political faction, campaigns driven by incalculable billions of dollars, America is no longer viewed as the strategic global power it has been since World War II due in great part to this last eight years of weak presidential leadership. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My hope is that my grandchildren will have the same opportunities I did which is founded on the principle of working hard, staying focused, seeking to be the best and to beat the competition thus Winners Win and Losers Lose. I fear that that is not the mantra of this next generation for their are too many safety nets, bad examples, too many distractions and not enough strong, forward thinking teachers and parents and role models to exert influence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The great news for me is that my five are being parented by parents that love them, lift them in prayer, invest themselves in their precious live and live God's Word in their parenting. What a blessing! I believe we all are mandated to ponder and to prayer for this next generation which will be much, much different than mine, the Baby Boomers. This new generation will make less money and generate less wealth and all previous generations in our nation's history. There is far too much laziness augmented by funded safety nets that somebody will have to pay for. Too many nations own far too much of our debt thus too much of our future. That is a major anchor to opportunities for this next generation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I love my Logan, Noah, Isabella, Gracie and Hopie more than they will ever know but through that lvoe my concern is heavy for the world into which they will bring children, careers, etc. It is not our place as Christians to worry for we believe what our God has told us but some times it is hard not to be concerned; I am very concerned.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-67811597532158184332016-10-02T15:40:00.001-07:002016-10-02T15:40:03.952-07:00Mr Trump Letter<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dear Mr. Trump ..... I would simply ask that if you are truly serious about leading our nation, and I believe you are, that you must, MUST, stop saying and doing things that are handing the White House the Clinton Machine. Your comments and public behaviors and persona are making it harder and harder for me to make a sound, solid case of defense of you as the right person of the two to be the POTUS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is not the first time you have read or heard this I know but even during a family birthday party last evening I found myself searching for right words to address logically why you are the better candidate. But Sir, almost daily you say or do something that cause those of us the have faith in you to take pause and ponder what on earth are you thinking and / or doing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The race is your's to lose as I view it for your opponent has so much baggage to drag knowing even more will pock mark her Administration if allowed access to the POTUS. But it is strictly up to you to show the nation and the world that yes, we can believe in you, trust in your judgement and will be a beacon of honesty and forthrightness as our POTUS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I think I do not ask for much and I believe I speak for millions of Americans that wish for the person to emerge and steady-state as I describe above. I would gladly discuss this with you if you wish. I am a seasoned veteran of internal politics and you being your own worst enemy. That Sir, is called stupid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My disappointment with the RNC is unparalleled but you have shown you can go it without them, sadly. But you must build effectively coalitions, stop shooting the messengers and cease with the thin-skinned antics. My college basketball coach would look me in the eyes and strongly tell me to 'grow up and fight the winds before me." Mr Trump, those words are sage and most applicable to your situation for your situation is the situation of this nation's worth and value ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Show us the leader I believe you are; and I and we are looking. You cannot let Clinton beat you; YOU CANNOT! You have media stacked against you which you could mitigate. You have alienated women which you must mitigate. You have to ignite We the People to you purpose and your cause. I believe you can do that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">No temper tantrums, prepare for the next debates, be strong, gentlemanly and statesmanlike; it will pay rich dividends, please.</span></div>
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prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-19949277794822490512016-09-28T08:21:00.000-07:002016-09-28T08:21:05.670-07:00POTUS Gut Check<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last night my wife and I watched the FRONTLINE program in the attachment about the CHOICES IN 2016. It was, as always, excellently produced and researched. It is a parallel of the Trump / Clinton history that shows clearly the founding and inclinations and drives we so blatantly see today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For me the most resounding reality of watching the FRONTLINE was that truly we have come to a sad state of politics in America is these two are the best this nation can produce to lead it<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">, We the People. If you watch this and leave your political boots and spurs at the front door, you can begin to see that both these people have invested a lifetime in themselves under the pretense of wanting to serve our nation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Arrogance, narcissism, opulence, above the law, immoral, ungodly are only a few of the traits both these candidates have devoted their lives to investing in. You may or may not like my comments but I have invested much time in prayer for our nation, this election and these candidates which, please know, has not been easy. The Debate was certainly not a surprise to me and especially the apparent wire HRC wore meaning she was being coached from off stage somewhere. True or not true, for me, it perfectly matched the biographies of the Clintons. Trump's fumbling showed clearly he had not prepared for he probably have never prepared for anything in his life. So, at the aggregate, neither of these people surprised me nor can I imagine they will for history is always a great predictor of future behavior!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So as I sit here I find no sorrow, no pity, no remorse, no great, grand hopes for either of the marginal candidates and I find that sad for I should be really excited about the leader of my nation but I find myself with that same bland feeling I felt in 2008 in that race. So maybe I am the problem and everybody is is right or better or smarter!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is my fundamental belief! I believe what we are given as choice to lead our nation is precisely what we deserve as a People for as a People, we have for over a generation has pulled farther and farther from God's principles in His Word, the Bible. Societal decay is now rationalized as a "right" and we see how well that is working out. I believe God has had enough of this godless nation and is allowing all of this to happen to remind us of the bad choices we are making as a nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our world is perhaps the most toxic and dangerous in our history thus we need leadership at the national level that is clear-eyed, future thinking and strategic. It is that prism through which I look for a POTUS and it is the prism that greatly concerns me with these two. Clinton is experienced no doubt and having traveled in 122 countries doeth not a successful leader make. Look at John Kerry for proof.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In other words, America is facing a choice and that choice simply is if we want to "Make America Great Again, it is not Trump nor Clinton that can rightly lead that journey, but God and His People can and must. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We need a national revival pleading with God to embrace our nation once more!</span></div>
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Please take the time to watch this FRONTLINE:<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/</a></div>
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prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-32950071692835465082016-09-21T03:20:00.001-07:002016-09-21T03:20:03.465-07:00The Election<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Good morning. It has been two months since I wrote my last blog and I have chosen to step back from the blogosphere to season, assess and evaluate and thus project this crucial election coming in November. Never have I felt the stakes greater in selecting the next POTUS as I view the whole demographic, societal and global landscape shifting in a very dangerous vector. My words are not about a specific candidate but most reading this know now who you will cast your vote for and next to nothing will change your mind. As I understand it now roughly forty percent will vote for the Republican and forty percent will vote Democrat. That, for me, takes us to my age old prism of Pareto and his 80/20 view of life on this planet; a view I full embrace and believe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of all the partisan mind games, media poison spreading and misquotes and twisting that have been thrust upon us, We the People, perhaps that most concerning for is is a statistical assessment that the Millennials will be the most apathetic generation on voting in the history of your nation. The Vote is a right earned through blood too many of us take for granted. I will admit there were times in my earlier years that I fell into that same void and for that I am regretful. That is made more acute to me when I realize I have been more involve, more invested and more concerned about this election than any other in my life. I realize the reason for this is my escalating concern for my young teenage grand children and the world we are creating for them as our legacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are three fundamental sea changes that have brought us to this place in world history and America is front and center in that massive village is choosing via our leadership to step back from leading this village. The infamous adage, either lead, follow or get out of the way, sums up my view on our position in the international stage for, through this current resident of the White House plus the tepid, do nothing Congress and a very dangerous Supreme Court, America has stepped away from our post WWII leadership. role. These fundamentals are: 1. social media. 2. weakened military presence and use. 3. a generation of politicians vested in themselves and not for public service.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The advent of Social Media has taken on a life of its own. I continue to be baffled by the term "radicalize" when referring to ISIL ability to cause a young person to leave family and friends and future to travel to war zones to take up arms, enjoy beheading and mass killing. I keep hearing it is via social media but I believe that medium is an enabler but not a cause. I believe the cause is a much deeper caustic cauldron we have yet to fathom. But Social Media certainly is part of it allure of some insane pull to go do what we are seeing now daily in our own nation. Isn't it interesting that something so good on the front end can so rapidly be turned into a vicious weapon!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our military is stretched my immeasurable deployment with the over use of equipment wearing out and not being replaced and upgraded. I place this wreath squarely at the feet of Obama and this "strange" Secretary of Defense which I sense is simply a pawn to this boss. There is purpose for civilian leadership of the military but it is my belief that the civilian leadership has failed the leadership in uniform and chooses to not see nor hear their concerns and needs. As a Commander-in-Chief, that is unacceptable on a grand scale. The recent coup d'etat in Turkey is recent evidence of how nations deal with populace fears and concerns and I realized as I watched that unfold that the fervor, venom and populational unrest in our own nation is perhaps heading this that same corrective direction. This POTUS, in my humble opinion, has been a disaster as Commander-in-Chief for his reign will be tagged by historians as an Appeaser instead of a leader. Appeasers are always dangerous!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If the sixteen candidates in the GOP were the best America had to go after one not their on, Trump as a non-politicians, then we are in serious generational trouble. Watching the weaknesses and fear of these Gang wither to him was surprising yes but worrisome even more. But specifically to Mr. Trump. I have watched him, listened to him, prayed for him, pondered him. I have watched cable news media show their true Liberal bias on a scale I would never have imagined. It has sickened me so much I rarely watch CNN for it is overwhelmingly sickening to me to watch these famous "panel of experts" pander to minorities, against police and attack, not debate, but attack any semblance of a sane, rational comment by a Conservative. For me CNN should be remove from the airwaves and I have always loved CNN's global reach and professionalism; no longer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I will close by stating that the very thought of another Clinton in the White House is anathema to me and I simply cannot understand how a sane, normal, intelligent human being could be swayed to that cesspool of criminal behavior and corruption via the view they are above the law. But apparently forty percent of Americans are still soaked in the kool aid. I want only the best for my grand children and this election will be a step forward or backward on a scale I could never have imagined. Trump has been duly selected as the GOP candidate and then to watch the GOP plays its evil games to undercut him thus assuring a Clinton ascendancy is worthy of criminal indictment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So yes, this Election has two generations riding on it and please do not forget the now $20 trillion debt by our government, the largest employer on earth, that my grandchildren will be burdened with. Never forget this morsel; When it comes to free stuff, never forget that nothing is free! </span> </div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-28140492291596880442016-07-24T19:17:00.001-07:002016-07-24T19:17:51.831-07:00Across the Horizon<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It has been just over two months since I published my last blog. I decided to step back and just drink the water of our world to assess direction, pitfalls and concerns. We have just gone through a GOP Convention and Trump, I feel, presented his case well. I think the greatest and overshadowing reality is seeing so boldfaced the bias in the media. It is not wonder We the People are misrepresented, confused and angry. The racial reporting by the talking heads and the police hating in print and on cable news leaves no doubt when our nation is residing in a cesspool sadly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In seeing this bias via observant assessing, my stomach turns on CNN which is really sad yet eyeopening after so many years. We are now facing a Democratic Convention so I will have more of a sense of the Liberal bias by the media. In my whole life I have never felt more strongly that the Clintons back in the White House after this last eight Obama years would be a global disaster with corruption in the mainstream. Perhaps I am wrong and frankly hope I am but my gut and my heart says Trump and the GOP, as divided as it is, must be the new resident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">With all this choppy water with sharks swimming everywhere, my greatest concern is for my grandchildren and their world. Too much national debt and rising, drugs galore, societal values eroding; yes my concern is great for Logan, Isabella, Noah, Gracie and Hopie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am absolutely convinced that America has turned so far from God that we are witnessing life without God after so many years of ridding schools, churches and lives of God's principles. There are those that will read this that will scoff or rationalize I am just an old man ranting but in my heart, I believe my sentence of this paragraph is exactly what is happening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we will see what Philadelphia provides but my greater concern is the deterioration for the rest of the Obama presidency as the Middle East melts via ISIL. This is inexcusable and will be a black mark on the Obama legacy as will the Iran Nuke debacle so prepare for nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist soon if not already.</span></div>
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prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-88997869031518827492016-05-13T10:29:00.003-07:002016-05-13T10:29:51.467-07:00The Values from the Post WWII Era<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A little earlier I was watching through tears a Charlie Rose interview with Michael Kinsley who now has latter stage Parkisons Disease. I have watched him many times in interviews and contributions and always appreciated his insight and energy. To see the devastation of this terrible disease was cutting to my heart in realizing we are both basically the same age. In one of his responses to Rose, he spoke of the four stages of life which always interests me. Sadly, he never spoke of Heaven nor anything spiritually but that is a choice he has made. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Interestingly and thus what caught my attention was about the "value" he had been given and experienced from his parents for he was a typical, whatever that means, Baby Boomer with two parents at home, calmness in the home and time investment by both parents into his young life. He is a brilliant man thus I found myself probing and prodding the canals of my own childhood looking into the mirror he described to see if I could see mine in there any where. Mr. Kinsley's childhood and mine are sort of but not very similar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Please keep in mind the predicate of my mindset is on the horrific nature of that dread disease for but for the grace of God I would be there as well as would be each of you reading this. His closing comments fundamentally were about with only minutes of life remaining, what becomes most important?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">All the cars, the wealth, the desires that tend to fallow our lives on the journey turn to mist and what you are left with are memories in snapshots. Wow, think about that! I have no doubt that when my time is no more on this earth that that next moment I will be transformed to my heavenly home in my heavenly body so it only gets better from here and I believe that in my Faith in God. For those that do not share that faith, I realized per Mr. Kinsley that one moment after end of life, there is no hope and that really purged me into the reservoir of what the essence of life is and why. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The values I derived from my childhood are certainly unique to me and quite ununique to Kinsley. He was reared in wealth, two parents doting on him, assured of college at Harvard where his father attended. He was apparently smothered in love and adoration by both his parents and that yielded a scholar with amazing writing skills that loves his family and even more is that love as the reallity of the Parkinsons looms ever near his time remaining on earth. Watching him through this lens took me to tears and near sobs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My life, destiny and journey based on experiences is quite different and in fact completely different. Yes I had two parents but being doted on, loved on, energized, pushed, etc, were not the verbs I can recall. Alcohol was a major force in my upbringing due to my father. My mother was a hard charging, tough love, saving, work for every nickel lady that I admired for her drive. A value she bestowed on me which lasted me to this moment was "always work hard for your boss and he will always take good care of you." Well, that did not always hold water through the trajectory of my life but still the value equation was sound and I still adhere to its merit. Another value was always be on time and never quit. Amen to both as those that know me will attest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There was never discussion nor expectation of a college education as to my parents being financial partners in the journey. Basketball provided me the means to get my college thus I poured my heart and soul into that venture. The force that fueled I realized in retrospect was the overwhelming desire to leave the place where I was, to be part of something big and good to experience the nations of the world. I knew that by age twelve or so. Happily I can say that I got to experience all of those in that last sentence but it came with a cost and it came with much good so while Kinsley's value source was quite different than mine, I would not change one thing, now, about what I was given to work with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Values of the post WWI, the Baby Boomers some call us are a vast list to accomplishments based on pushing and driving to accomplish and then to thoroughly enjoy the pleasures of the accomplishments. Some chose to use their bodies versus their brains and that never turns out well. But what I see lacking so vividly today is a lack of driving, pushing to accomplish and a desire to succeed. I do believe social media, electronics and the economy are part and parcel to the why but the value to accomplish through hard work is direly missing. My wife and I are so blessed to see that push and drive in both our children and in their chosen spouses so we know our grandchildren are being filled with the Post WWII values still.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the question, what are your Values you are instilling into your children and grand children for this is a generational matter?</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-21875639346426763522016-04-27T02:38:00.001-07:002016-04-27T02:38:11.019-07:00B R E A K I N G N E W S<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Good morning with now cup one under my belt, I am emboldened to venture to the cave of words that I have remained distant from for too long some say. Let me first say that it is still amazing to me to realize in so many ways and places that people actually read what I write and even more strangely to seek my thoughts and advice; kind of creates a glow in my belly when those times fly by. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our world is a vineyard of dichotomies and misadventures that is fraught with the minefield of a bitter and embittering election cycle for President of the United States. People may wish or choose to ignore the unignorable but the POTUS election 2016 is epic and will be studied by historians long after I am gone and the ignition cap is spelled T R U M P.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even inside my family there is angst with any hint of a comment that might have an odor of supporting Trump. It is actually quite funny to me to watch people on tv that will posture their comment with a smirk or insinuation of negative about Trump, worthwhile I wish to add, but then as the words flow you realize that at the root of what I think is a majority of the electorate is that they are less for Trump the man and more for the disgust with the others still in the race. I know that is the category where I reside. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For me, I cannot envision another Obama-type in the White House but then I could not imagine that Obama that is in the House now being there so the old adage about politics creates strange bedfellows is so very true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last night as Trump cleaned out by landslides five states, it is my belief we will see the caustic rhetoric subside, perhaps, as I believe there is a clear view that Trump might actually have a clear path to the convention with going above the 1237. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The shenanigan pulled by Cruz and Kasich showed the degree of desperation and the results of last night I am quite sure have both of them reeling rightly this morning. For me the real concern I have for my nation is with the Clinton Machine and that is, by any other term, what it is in getting a two-for-one package with huge dollops of corruption, criminal activities, heavy baggage and then then age old Bill issues and societal values that will be rolled out yet again for the camera lights of the world to drink from the overflowing well of salaciousness the Clintons provide. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Please know I am certainly not over sighting Trump's history of wives and no doubt other dealings we will learn about but it all shapes up to be a Trump / Clinton Duel at El Diablo that the Americans will be sickened by and the world will scoff about and in the end, it will be We as a Nation that will be pushed further toward the scrapyard of greatest we once were.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If there is an absolute reality of this POTUS slug-fest it is this; AMERICANS ARE SICK OF THE ESTABLISHMENT and I am one of those. I sincerely believe the entire Congress should be given a sixty day moratorium under threat of impeachment for nonperformance on any piece of legislation that is not heavily bipartisan with a metric on how much legislation time is spent each day working on crafting. To learn of across the street from the Capitol huge, fancy call centers where Congressmen are directed to spend several hours each day calling for donors since law prevents them from calling from the House, I find that deplorable and rancid of a grand scale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I have written many times, there is simply too much money and too many lobbyists in an ever bloating Federal government and I think the conglomeration has surpassed manageability. Look at the VA for just one example. The VA is a metaphor for what I believe is the impossible task of bringing true accountability to the table thus making it a political pawn in a sickening, embarrassing game. There are so many VA-types that is just inspires this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought and impact on millions of veterans and their families.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I began this write with BREAKING NEWS for that is a new tv event to get your attention. Our nation is sick and the populace sees Trump, because he is bold and blunt and not part of the infamous Establishment as a hoped for fix for this ever growing cancer of a government made more cancerous over these two terms with Obama and a truly inept Congress. Americans want change out of sheer desperation and Trump appears the tallest of the pygmies; that is truly sad but very true I believe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the root of all of this, I believe, is the result of a nation that has grown more European meaning more godless. Heroin, abortion, suicides, aberrant behavior and lifestyles have and are becoming the sick norm in our nation. Never forget Sodom for reference. America has walked away from God; THAT IS THE BREAKING NEWS.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-2832448303304879492016-04-15T09:37:00.001-07:002016-04-15T09:37:22.257-07:00The Rhetoric of our Today<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Scorched earth, bodies in shallow graves, Cleveland in flames ... This is representative of the discourse in our America I hear more and more by the pundits, talking heads and the world is listening. As I listen to this poisonous use of the language, I am disheartened and frankly, quite disappointed for when you factor in rhetoric like that against the context of a world that needs the traditional American leadership and assistance and oversight, the real gravity of the legacy of this environment strikes at the heart of who we are or were is probably a better grammatical expression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I have sought to distance myself from the never ending BREAKING NEWS and other bright light approach to saying the same thing in different hues every fifteen minutes designed to stoke the fires of worry and concern, cable news, I have found this sense of calm, better sleep and enjoying the other things of my life via my detachment from the news. But the reality still remains that our essence as Americans is under threat from outside as well as from inside. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We as a nation are growingly, apparently, liking each other much less. The scourge of drug addiction, suicide, premature deaths, bursting jails and prisons, the infamous "Movements" that breed and feed on themselves; all are cancerous polyps eating away at the internal structures of who we are or once were. Social media has been an enabler and a catalyst for people to bash each other, attack other's thoughts and opinions mercilessly. The politics of our time is truly startling and down right distasteful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In today's WSJ, Mr. Trump has an op-ed that I have read three times. Whether you like Trump or not, forget the man for a moment but reading his words or somebody's words with his name on them, he captures the realities of where we have come. Ducking and weaving, shuffling, cheating, berating, attacking for the sake and the joy of attacking has become a new norm in America politics it was seem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I still believe there is more than enough blame to go around but at the head of the line, for me at least, resides this most ineffective and disruptive presidency under which we now struggle plus this absolutely worthless Congress. It is simply amazing to just try and figure out what Congress is doing. I would highly suggest taking a few days and just watch the live feeds on CSPAN channels asking yourself what is really happening and and why is this not about the major issues chewing our future as a nation to shreds. I honestly believe the system and the institution has been so corrupted over time and the precedents and procedures of Congress preempts even the feasibility to working as an effective lawmaking body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In other words, I have decided our Constitutionally-based three branch system is in need to a major overhaul for when I see smart, good, well intentioned people go to Washington and become part of the money-fueled swamp of ineffectiveness, then it is, for me, a systemic cancer that triggers and sucks in the newbies lead by the veterans. The blind leading the blind seems appropriate to describe what is a Biblical statement of this current reality. When I have smart friends that work in the political realm tell me "not to worry for this is all quite normal and it will all work out .." I find myself getting really angry for what is not said is "hey idiot, we got it so not to worry." Well, an idiot I am not and I want answers to my questions and I demand solutions to the problems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Please know, I am not angry but just concerned and fed up with the whole mess. I think Trump has done one thing and that is to cast a bright light on the political class and creates the explosives that implodes all great empires through the ages. For that I give him full credit. In this lighting of the torches for Americans to see for the first time the depth of the graft and manipulations of the legislative system and body, the too long silent majority are speaking and thus the political class are circling the wagons to protect the class; not to enhance the nation. THAT IS CRIMINAL!</span></div>
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prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-70945550757733459562016-03-30T02:50:00.000-07:002016-03-30T05:07:55.338-07:00The Facets of this Thing Called Life<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yesterday I was deeply moved by watching a television interview by Charlie Rose with the writer for the New York Times, David Brooks. I have always found Brooks to be a clear minded, precise, incisive wordsmith. I have watched him in interviews many times before with each time causing me to drill more deeply into my own heart, life, being. Yesterday was an especially much deeper drilling to the point I recorded the hour interview so my wife and I could watch it together as we did last night. I will say right up front that I do not embrace the whole of Brook's responses and ramblings but the essence of this comments and the amazing questions tossed to him by Rose put me on a much deeper and, I believe, richer plain spiritually and emotionally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I lay in bed after having awoke somewhere around 2 am, I lay there in the quiet darkness pondering what I had experienced viewing the Brooks interview. I even made some copious notes on my planning calendar during the interview hardly none of which I can read this early morning. I decided to start my day about 3:30 am even though I was basking in the black quiet of the laying down time serenaded by the breathing and small movements of my sleeping wife. Yes, I even found myself in the darkness listening to her breathing patterns with this smile of thanks for the years she has invested in me and the many, many things, places, events we have shared together. I recommend this therapy and it will only cost you some sleep but worth every breath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many years ago I heard of Viktor Frankl that wrote many books about his horrific experiences at Auschwitz; a place I have trod on four different, unique occasions. Frankl was a brilliant Jewish doctor and reduced, in essence, via his writings after the experience of the daily hell hole of the death camp, to looking at the experience through the eyes of a sociologist meaning its impact on people and how they individually dealt with the unimaginable daily doses of torture, pain and suffering. As I listened to Brooks' comments, my mind kept retracing the steps to Frankl's learning and teaching. I will paste in a link that will give you a broader and deeper insight into Dr Frankl's view from the inside which, turned out, was quite learned and unique. The essence being that even in the midst of an existence a normal person could not imagine, focusing on the value of the work and the contribution from the work was a means to stand above the pain and suffering of the Holocaust. His work was groundbreaking and relevant to this day I believe. http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps, for me at least, the most predominate take-away from the Brooks interview was framed in the question; What would you do if you were not afraid? That question literally changed my breathing pattern as I began the personal drilling of my heart and soul with a dull drill bit. My wife has always described me to others as "fearless" which can be a two edged sword as you can imagine. But we all, as humans, have fears that serve to create boundaries, flashing lights and stop signs. True, we can choose to ignore the eminent danger but still, the warning signs are there. So the question, if all the warnings, lights and signs were psychologically removed, what would each of us do differently?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For me, in reflection, I believe what spoke most loudly to me through the hour was about what are the priorities we set for our lives. Those that know me realize very quickly I am driven, ever hungry to understand, love to encourage those on my journey, love to see people encouraged even in the tough days and times and want the best for every person I know and will do what I can do to be part of getting them to meet their capability and potential. Brooks spoke of men and their masculine and feminine components with both being vital to the man as his life meanders through the cycles and channels of life. Four major priorities Brooks spoke of for a man; choosing a spouse, selecting a vocation, determining one's faith and integrating into a very personal community. I have found myself, now sixty-eight years old retracing in my own life and journey how very telling and true those four phases truly are for me personally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There was much spoken of on the topic of emotional connectivity and sensitivity to others which is where the vital reality of the blending of the masculine and feminine traits meet the grinding wheel of life. I think it was the first time in my life where I fully processed the whole concept of a man having and needing feminine reservoirs from which to drink at pertinent times. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have known people, many people, in my life, that have developed such a hard edge to people, issues and events that I came to realize that edge was constructed from the hurts and scarring of past hurts. Brooks also rightly spoke of and with example the amazing implication's success in life and vocation being directly linked to the degree of love that person was imbued with from one's mother. The special type of love is amazingly vital to the channels demanded of effectively working with others as life goes forward. I fully believe that and see that love abounding in my grand kids by their mothers and their grandmother, Alicia, that loves in so many and so deeply ways. I realized in what I get to see within my own family, easily taken for granted, is the arming mechanism for these five grand children's lives and interfaces with thousands of other humans on their journey. It is truly an awesome thought process to seek to fully grasp but I believe absolutely correct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I will conclude with what Brooks and Rose spoke much about which was C.S. Lewis's works especially in his book, Four Loves. I have researched that this morning and have ordered a paperback copy to read. I look forward to what will be revealed in me and about me when that reading is done. It is my belief that my faith has been deepened in other's, about life and my relationship with Jesus Christ. Given that alone the time to put some words from my heart together and the deep pondering these last twelve hours have been invaluable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We are blessed to walk this journey together though we may not always see it or realize it. I see so many people in my life, now, some imprisoned behind bars, some imprisoned in the jail cell of aging and disease and some by just choosing to imprison themselves via drugs, hate, dissension. I feel completely free of cells of constraint due in full measure to my belief that there is a life after this one that will far exceed anything I can imagine. I believe, as well, God is not done with me yet as more and more doors of opportunity and challenge continue to be opened and I never met a door I would would not walk through if I believe others would be made better as a result.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We live in a world more transparent that any of us can remember and this both a good thing and ac curse I am realizing. The current presidential campaign is proof positive of that assertion. But just yesterday via FB an interesting dialog ensued with a former very special, most unique student that I have utmost respect for. I pushed back on a post the put up on FB for it, the post, was not reflective of the person and the woman I know her to be. Add to that as I preached semester after semester, is that employers now immediately go to social media when assessing the potential hiring of a person so what is on FB becomes a mirror of what the employer sees and assesses. I addressed that directly with this student and she pushed back on my comments defending her "right" to be who she is and it is "unfair" to be assessed by an employer from a social media post. Others were chiming in supporting her position. I chose to address this more personally in a private FB message which turned into an amazng, uplifting dialog between two people that respect and admire each other. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I use that to say that we all need each other even though we may need see it, realize it or even choose to ignore it but the fact still remains, People need People more than ever before. Thank you for taking the time to read this rendering from my heart. I feel closer to my family, my wife, my friends, my Lord than I have in quite a period of time. I wish you the best and hope something in this rendering has touched your heart as well.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-10030210915505905072016-03-24T06:42:00.000-07:002016-03-24T06:42:09.041-07:00Attacking the Problem<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Daily we are bombarded by this cancer called ISIL. Daily I am still dumbfounded by the apparent lack of will or capability to vaporize what we are told is a relatively small group, say 30,000 people in a global grouping of recruits that are radicalized; whatever that means. I see world leaders after a major blast say all the right things, pine about the need to annihilate this threat but here we are several years and many thousands of deaths later reading the same script. I find it unacceptable and down right ludicrous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Every problem appears insurmountable until you bring the right people together, identify the real threat decide an end state vision develop a small set of strategies, staff out the strategies and attack the problem. Why am I not seeing this simple, non-complex approach? There has to be some much greater forces at work for this to be allowed to go on as long as it has. I fight the populist view that all Islam is corrupt and thus supportive of the ISIL movement but all evidence to the contrary I will state that if Islam is truly concerned about the view of their religion, then that religion is culpable to be part of the solution. I am looking for that but not seeing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I learned a long time ago that if you want to get to the heart of an issue, follow the money trail. Somebody is funding this ISIL movement so I find it hard to believe it hard to identify the funders / donors to this bloody cause. It takes a great deal of money to fund a war machine so I cannot escape the belief that there are Islamic nations, families, royal families, global donors sending money to keep this movement alive and growing. Let me underscore GROWING for from the apparent reach of ISIL as evidenced by Paris and now Brussels, the ISIL reach as grown to global proportions. And STILL there is minimal military involvement by the nations of the European Union in the fight against ISIL. I find that sad and very interesting!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Often I wonder in retrospect what FDR did in the early days after December 7, 1941 and visiting Cuba to attend baseball games I doubt was on an agenda item along with half of Congress to enjoy the weather. My belief is FDR immediately brought his generals and intelligence leadership together and gave them a timeline for a plan with options back to him for review and selection of core strategies. Why are we not seeing this approach?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let me be frank, from all outward appearance, the tail is wagging the dog meaning ISIL is rattling the capitols and their leaders to the bone and we seem to be cowering and hoping they will not do their dastardly deeds again. Hey, it is not going away and it will escalate! How do you handle a bully? By out bullying him. He hits you, you hit him back with a 2X4. He his you with a 2X4, you stick him with a knife. Hit harder and more lethally until the message is clear. The message obvious is not clear and that is ridiculous to have the greatest war machine ever known to Man be jerked around like a school kid on a playground. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I wan to see somebody in leadership get really angry. Wonder why Trump is popular? Trump shows that anger Americans are starving for from our government leadership but we are getting dosages of pablum, nice politically correct sound bites to the point it makes me sick. So if you do what you have always done you will always get what you have always gotten as we are seeing over these last two agonizing POTUS terms. I say again; the great blame of this global mess resides at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So you can know, America and the civilized world, whatever that means anymore, is losing yet another war to a bunch of thugs!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-52093266593127705262016-03-15T04:40:00.000-07:002016-03-15T04:40:07.225-07:00The Gettysburg Address 2016<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Abraham Lincoln</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">November 19, 1863</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Gettysburg is a very sacred place for me for I have blood on that field of battle. Having walked the fields and read many books and the movie GETTYSBURG many times, my heart rate elevates each time I have the honor of the trek to the field. Walking its unique terrain, imagining moving hundreds of thousands of troops into Napoleonic formation assuring mass death and yet these men did as they were taught with great result. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Each time I trod the fields, the elevations and my mind is a whirl to synthesizing what I had read to the actual locations on the ground, walking the paths of large troop movements on a hot July time in the heavy wool uniforms as massive road marches add color to my mental walking through the battlefield in hopes to grasp the reality my forefathers did for me. I always leave the lastest Gettysburg adventure feeling renewed, refreshed and more proud of my relatives that made that horrific journey into the cauldron of lead and hell for a cause and a purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Today will likely decide the actual people that will vie for leading our nation. As you read through the text of the infamous Lincoln speech that touched so many so deeply at its enduring application since the Autumn of 1983; in that brief 130 year span, I cannot escape the sense that our nation has transgressed to a nation much like the one that was unfolded in the lead up, during and after the Gettysburg Campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Lack of trust in generals and political leadership was the norm and not the exception. The balance of a nation's future hung in the balance of the outcome of the Union after the 1863 bloodbath Lincoln so aptly put to words. There were widely divergent views of the President that swung from love and respect to date and disdain. There were institutions that hung in the balance Lincoln knew had to be abolished from the face of the earth. Lincoln clearly saw the mandate for close international diplomatic relationships and for me most of all Lincoln knew the nation has to bee joined as never before the forces of our nation to be able to achieve its true greatness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I believe it very ease to see that the world Lincoln faced with the agenda of hard work to get accomplished via his leadership and fortitude is as viable and distrait today on steroids. I believe our nation has chosen the path of all defeated empires by turning insides, erecting real or imagined walls to protect with the fence. In every case we as a nation have attempted this, we end up in a global war I see that as inevitable unless the walls are opened via trade, diplomacy and must pure leadership</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Recently I watched the UN Ambassador from the US indicate that America does not need to lead everything global initiative but for every global initiative, the world want and needs America nearby for we have been the stabilizing forces since before WWII. We have elective via this current President to abandon that sacred high group. That, for me, is criminal and the great indictment of the Obama Doctrine whatever that turns out to be for I still certainly see nothing but more Keynesian economic and monetary policy, broader entitlement safety nets and every increasing Big Government that somebody must pay for which, of course, will be additional borrowing and increased taxes regardless of what they say in the campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If the next generation of POTUS leadership is determined today by Ohio and Florida then so be it. The campaigning has turned mean, sour and unproductive and America is quite tire of the spectacle; this American is. One this for absolute sure shown vividly in this election is that Americans are fed up with the Obama tenure and the gridlock in our nation's Capitol thus the likes of Mr. Trump ride high in that saddle. He may be an irrelevant POTUS in office but he does offer a cool drink of water of chainsawing decades of dead wood embedded in Congress, the White House that has our nation stymied. The rest of those still standing, for me, clearly represent continuation of the way it has been down this primrose path was have stumble down via the last eight years of ineffective leadership. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Racism is worse than in the 1960s due in large part to the cadre media outlets such as CNN has collected of African Americans bent on creating negative rhetoric that is creating this atmosphere of race baiting and cop hating. I must believe our nation is better than this but you know, perhaps we really are not better than this and that is very, very sad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We need to very new beginning; not more of the same old same old!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span></span>prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-79081549092888201112016-03-05T08:25:00.000-08:002016-03-05T08:25:23.033-08:00Bizarre Unparalleled<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Have you noticed, I have, that regardless of where you go, what you watch, what you read that the bizarre nature of our political system someway finds its ugly way to the center of the conversation? Since I used the term "bizarre" I thought it would be good to get a credible definition so: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>bizarre</i> </span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="intro-colon">:</span> strikingly out of the ordinary: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em class="sub sense alp">a</em> <span class="intro-colon">:</span> odd, extravagant, or eccentric in style or mode</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="intro-colon">b.:</span> involving sensational contrasts or incongruities </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Strikingly out of the ordinary would certainly find place in the American electorate of late. Everyone has an opinion and almost everyone now has a means to reduce that opinion to words via social media what creates the means to launch tirades, disdain, threats, bullying, angst. Such an amazing medium Zuckerberg created and never forget that he was thinking of high schoolers and young with adolescent stuff but We the Baby Boomer pirated it so we could use it for Big Boy and Big Girl stuff. What a story!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My wife reminds me often of the many years of our marriage when I was apolitical meaning I could care less about State of the Union address, though CSPAN a waste of time and money and she had to force me to even go vote. That, of course, has changed by roughly 180 degrees. Why? Not sure but I have a drive deep within me to understand the what and the why things happen especially when the future of my grandchildren are in the balance and the cross-hairs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The sheer mention of Trump or Clinton raises hackles on people. Some of that is probably good and some probably really bad. But for me, I step outside the cocoon of life and look around and ahead of the groundswell to ascertain what and why. I am absolutely convinced that the turmoil that escalates daily it seems is the result of three major rivers driving to confluence around this POTUS election.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">River 1: the disastrous, failed presidency of one Barack Obama and all the racism, cop hating that has become part and parcel off this president in word and deed and action. I do not find warmth in summarizing that as I do but that is sincerely what I feel and believe. This river is gushing and people like Charles Blow, black writer for the NY Time is example of those that foment hate and distrust. I have stated this to him several times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">River 2: the Media! CNN, which has long been my channel of choice, has seemingly embraced the power of foment racism with it biased reporting, over abundance of African-American talking heads such as Don Lemons, Suny Hosten, etc, etc with an overabundance of contributors all seemingly bent on deepening and widening the racial divide. I could not be more disappointed in what Ted Turner's vision how it has been subverted and robbed of objectivity. The very reason I do not care for FOX is what I now see in CNN.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">River 3: a frustrated, scared, angry long silent electorate that has been unappreciated and unable to be heard. What has Trump brought? Voice! Giving voice is a powerful force history records. I must add that what I and the world witnessed two nights ago with Trump, Rubio, and Cruz was disappointing at best and downright sickening at the worst. That circus could well have sealed Clinton into the White House I fear. But what Romney did was beyond bizarre for it was tainted as sick, perverted, mean and distasteful. I always had respect for Romney but that is now in the past tense but I think it a precursor for what lies ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">These three Rivers are meandering forcefully into the hearts and minds of the American electorate and those that would do harm to our nation such as Putin, ISIL, Persia, etc. etc. I was always spellbound when studying the Civil War and the term "brothers against brothers" was so often used to describe. Realizing that term is in reality what is happening today via this POTUS election is disappointing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Never have I been more disgusted and exhausted by this circus. At this moment I do not want either of these men or woman to lead MY country for they do not deserve the honor of that. Worse, ready for worse, the core issue is a failed Congress, the voice of We the People. What a joke Congress has been during the Obama presidency and yes, I use that intentionally for the Constitution commands cooperation between the three branches. Arrogance, disparate agendas and a strategy of socialization of our way of life are co-conspirators to this mess in which we find ourselves. Frankly, I am ashamed and embarrassed with my nation and its leadership. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The sad part is you find yourself wondering just how much worse can this get? Just watch! Here is what I and my wife believe! We believe God has stepped back from a growingly godless nation, America, and allowing us to see what it really can look like. We have turned from Him and His principles on a grand scale. Murders, drugs, abortions, transgender, same sex, dysfunctional families, etc, etc. What else could you expect if you think about it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps, bizarrely, something good may in fact result from this circus with far too many clowns in the ring. I am watching far less news media, seeking to read more objective materials on our global reality. Did I mention North Korea, China and Russia? No, I do not think I did for each is another epistle in and of itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Obama's performance, for me, has result unsurprisingly is something much worse than I could have imagined and the legacy will be many years in evaporation. I fear for the world my Logan, Noah, Bella, Gracie and Hopie will find themselves because We the People, their Poppy, did not do all we could to ensure they had some of the success our fathers and grandfathers made for us. </span></div>
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prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-21001978673808446902016-02-27T02:53:00.001-08:002016-02-27T02:53:14.689-08:00A Very Sad State of Affairs Indeed<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yesterday the realities of the POTUS elections found themselves into my home as my wife and I voted absentee ballot here in Ohio and we were faced with the decision about electoral votes in the lead up to the November elections. There in black and white were the selections to choose from which were the same band seen far too much on TV in these last months. So realizing I am taking much more seriously these elections I found myself deeply pondering and praying for God's person for each of the ballot markings. The sad reality not only for the electoral selections but for all the choices for the many positions caused me to realize a person's true personage, faith and beliefs are never clearly known if at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Very much I would prefer to blanket vote for people of faith but the only way to know that is if you know the person personally which, of course, the great majority of the voting public do not so re rely on a bill board, a word of mouth or a gut feeling not ever really knowing the worth of those we are voting for. The POTUS electorate has divided our already divided nation to a degree I never recall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Social media has provided and enabled people to vent, criticize, challenge, abuse, slam the candidates as well as those having the guts to express a thought or an opinion knowing regardless of who you are or what you stand for or believe, once you reduce your thoughts to social media, just wait for the criticism will begin momentarily. I am not saying that is all bad but what it does do, I realize, is deepen and widen the fissures of an exasperated public toward the process, the candidate and toward each other with what I am sure will be long lasting results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We all have opinions, ideas and hopes. That is a great thing. But what social media has done either intentionally or by surprise, is grant written voice on issues, concerns, people which ultimately and sadly creates the embers of anger to be expressed and many times in name calling and downright assaults on integrity, faith, etc. In other words, if we could put the genie of social media back int he bottle, I would vote for that. The sad, really sad dimension for those of us that call ourselves Christian is seeing the poisonous and venomous rants posted when someone states a choice or an opinion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hey, at least we can now have a means to step out of the shadows of silence and disgust and express our thoughts and I think that is a great thing. But as the far too many debates are televised generating billions of dollars for the networks and advertisers, the net results if an every widening span of angry and frustrated voters breaking into deeply divided factions along party, racial, ethnic, lifestyle, etc, lines then the shooting war unfolds in FB posts at each other and less about the core issues we are processing as correct when all too often after the fact we learn the weapons were wrong, inaccurate or downright biased and intentionally wrong and misleading. But by then the hurts are deeply driven into the heart and friends are divided.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My concern, my core concern about all of this is that all of this now IS our nation. We are an angry, frustrated, divided people for we are now able to see and with an enabled means to express. I frankly feel the Party system is archaic and needs revolutionized and feel that will be one of the positives that will fall out of this very public debacle. I do not feel good about a single one of the candidates regardless of ticket; there, I said it. I will not create a list of whys but the snarling, lack of decorum, bullying, attacking, misinformation, knit picking simply has soured me on the whole process. A great part of that souring is the reality of the amount of money these people must raise just to begin the race opening the door then to the candidates being beholder to the givers and that is, for me, criminal but so very true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My heart is deeply troubled about where we are as a nation. I see America as becoming very godless in beliefs, standards, expectations and drives. Trump examples an interesting chemistry which fundamentally is a metaphor for the long silent majority of Americans and I am one, that is sick and tired of poor POTUS leadership, weakening and overworked military, no regard for the Constitutional system, scandals galore, arrogance on a grand scale. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Americans want America back and Trump sadly looks like the tallest of the pygmies to create wide scale change in Washington, See, at the aggregate of this whole blog is the degree of absolute sickness of Americans with anything in Washington. Bloated payrolls, ineffective servicing the population. Social Security being robbed, IRS attack dogs, VA, Snowden, ISIL, Iran and the list grows daily. THAT is what Americans want cleared and cleaned up. Do I think Trump can make a difference in turning the propellers into a new direction as POTUS or Cruz or Mickey Mouse, probably not. Why? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For I believe God has stepped back from America and is allowing us to wonder in the desert and we are seeking a Moses but there is not one to be found. Why? Because God created Moses and his work and it is my thoughts at this juncture not a single one of these men or woman has the skills, courage and vision to lead this nation for we have turned our backs as a nation on the principles, boundary markers the Bible talks about, and have turned to an array of satanic ways and means never before imagined.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Transgender, same sex anything, abortion, movements aimed solely at racial divide thus using race as an agent of change which become incendiary and dangerous; people like Sharpton and worse is the counsel sought by our POTUS and POTUS candidates is, well, deplorable but certainly not surprising is it? We the People have allowed and fomented this which we see for we are all culpable to varying degrees so, in other words, we are pretty much getting what we have created via lethargy, playing around the edges spiritually instead of boldly taking a stand on these aberrant societal values eradication. So why should any of us stand surprised? I certainly am not for I have been culprit to exactly what I just outlined under the mantra of, well, I am just one so I cannot make a difference thus we have become a nation of wimps and accepting the worst of or fellow humans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All this has been freshened for me in having conducted two chapel services last night at county jail to about fifty men and as you spend a few minutes with them personally, research crime reports as to what put them into the judicial system you are reminded of the breadth of the death of societal norms. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Once great athletes and sports heroes locally not tarnished for life due to a needle or crack pipe and a band of friends all lined up to help them down the pathwath of destructive behaviors thus destroying those that admired and looked up to them. Crack cocaine, heroin, meth, prescription drugs, alcohol far outweigh the minority of really mean, cunning, dangerous men and women in our jails and prisons. Drug addiction is the spear of destruction of the America we once knew and the general population is oblivious to the magnitude of the evil that abounds all around us as accepted behavior. We as a nation are destroying ourselves from the inside thus we do not need Iran, Russia nor any one else for the fatal injection for we are doing it to ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I am a most angry American and I refuse to be silent, I think each of us should self examine who we really are, what do we really stand for and what are we willing to do to return our nation to a long gone time. Two parent homes are now a relic and I am convinced that that is the root of what I have just described. Today multiple partners, missing parents in a familial environment creates a class of confused kids that fall prey to the drug pushers, social media bullying that are part and parcel of the cancer now wholesale consuming our nation's essence of what once was. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So you see, this is all much, much greater than who you vote for or who you can attack on social media for stating an opinion or a hope. This is about us and it is US that is losing this war. No individual will ever magically lead us out of what we ourselves have walked ourselves into. I learned that from the Japanese many years ago and it is so very true.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-22955339234385061152016-02-11T03:52:00.000-08:002016-02-11T03:52:14.465-08:00"Good morning, Vietnam"<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Most of you will know exactly where that came from which is the Robin Williams line in what otherwise was a sad, tragic movie but through his comic genius made the watchers, like me, forget the gore that was abounding lifted us for a few precious moments. For some strange reason when the world saw the video of Bernie Sanders going to Al Sharpton, I refuse to use the title Sharpton likes which is Reverend, that movie line came back to me. A Liberal voter I am not but then I am not necessarily an assigned voter and never have been. My voting life I have sought to vote my heart for the office seeker, referendum, etc and not align solely to a party. Sanders, at best, I guess, is less bad than his competitor Hillary and believe me, that is a really sad state of affairs in a nation and a world blowing up around us daily.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I believe my greatest worry or concern about this nation resides in the angst and ever-fueled issue of race. Never in my lifetime do I recall that divide being wider and the deeper I search to understand why it is so bad, the trail of crumbs seems to always lead back to Washington DC and the period of worsening seems to be almost to the date of the swearing in of our POTUS. There are those that will criticize my comment as me hating Obama or being a racist but those that know me know that is not a proper description of my heart and beliefs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The sheer use of the term "race" changes the coloration of processing what is trying to be expressed. Having been a child of the 1960s in Alabama, I saw first hand racism in its raw and ugly form. Having spent considerable time in South Africa post apartheid, I had another dose of racism unfolded before me so I am certainly no virgin on the matter. But what has been allowed, encouraged, celebrated and fueled in our nation by an array of politicians, celebrities, entertainers, events causes me to really fear a race-driven insurrection feasibility in our nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last night as I was driving to church, I saw a billboard that stated ..." real love is having a CCW" which, of course, means encouraging citizens to seek a concealed weapons certification. What hit me was using the term "love" in such a way was a total turn off to me in that moment. But then I read the statistics of gun sales gun ownership, CCW applications all linked to more and more violent killings robberies, etc perpetrated usually by African Americans, the calculus incites me deeply. My thought is that in working with well over three hundred thousands prison inmates in the last several years of my life conducting worship services and seeking to get to know each of these men and women at a spiritual level, my sensitivities are biased in favor of these poor souls. You never, however can forget, that it is they that put themselves behind those bars by bad choice and most times drug and alcohol fueled and gang driven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have said all of that to get to my point. America has lost our smile, our desire to belly laugh for fear to offending, being on the wrong side of a reality or being accused of racism. Terminologies change from some source and thus today what you say is accepted and the next you are a racist if you use the same term. Hearing the deafening sounds of my childhood such a Black Panthers, watching on global television such as the Super Bowl, an array of black entertainers we know now with songs and subliminal messages on these caustic, unproductive movements all serve to cause me to want to just turn up my music on my laptop and ignore the whole mess for a mess is preciously what it is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ferguson, for me, is a class example of what I am so frustrated about. Endless protests burning, always looting, police hating and killing all, ALL fueled from an over sized videoed thug robbing and assaulting the store owner and then blatantly not acting as a responsible citizen by not following a policeman's order to get out of the middle of the street and then attacking the policeman in being the well known bully Mike Brown was known to be and voila, it is all the policeman's fault, is it society's fault; it is everybody's except where the real culprit resides, Mike Brown. Again, this incident is a microcosm and a sad metaphor as to where our nation as arrived and I strongly believe its root of the insurrection resides in the White House.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is where my heart is this early morning ... I want America, my nation, to be comfortable and to be able to smile about life, about hope, about investing a person's life into something good. Where we are, however, is the enveloping Entitlement mentality and Big, Overreaching Government. It is that term that causes me more and more concern now with Sanders, a proclaimed Socialist, the front runner to replace Obama on the Democratic side. Then there is Clinton that is, well, not worth my time to write words to describe my dislike for the very name Clinton, the Machine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then I look at the continuing GOP posturing and jockeying with seemingly every pundit and talking head tearing away at Trump, the overwhelming GOP ticket front runner and you wonder why as we see the flocking, finally, away of the lower level candidates to the exit door. Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe a word he says or not; one thing is for sure, his numbers do not lie. He has tapped into the long silent majority of Americans are fed up with the American this POTUS has led us to be which filled with anger, distrust and shadows of darkness about the future. That is sinister, sinful and scary; and it is all in a master Liberal plan I am convinced. And please know that I am not nor have I ever been a conspiracy theory nut job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our nation is sick, broken, broke! Those can will lead the nation to the sunlight are challenged to look beyond the rhetoric of hate and discord so abundantly being cast on We the People. It is not about the number of CCW applications, guns owned and desired, it is not about beating up on people that even smile or question the Second Amendment; it is about somebody having the courage to step up and lead, make tough decisions, implement the decisions through a convoluted legislative system fueled by special interests and money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I want to laugh again as to Americans!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-67600126967414935942016-02-07T02:45:00.001-08:002016-02-07T02:45:55.703-08:00Competencies<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many years ago at an off ramp in my life, a great and very wise man made a comment that has returned to me many, many times in watching issues unfold, ball games, relationships. The comment simply stated: <i><b>If the only tool you have is a hammer, then ever problem looks like a nail.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In putting on my reflection hat this early morning, my mind goes back to some of those very real leaders I watched closely and how they seemed to have an endless tool sack of questions, thoughts, statements, emotions that would be rolled out based on the situation at that moment in time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I see the adage often watching basketball games with young age boys and girls when you may have one shooter and four watchers and the whole team is slaved to that one shooter. If that shooter is hitting the shots, that is good but for me in observing team play, the game is never just about the score at the end of the game. In every trip up and down the floor, the fundamentals some amazing coaches grilled into me come screaming from someplace deep inside me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Comments in my hard drive that are indelible:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">the baseline is your best friend or your worst enemy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">effective rebounders are ruthless and attack the ball all the time</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">why do you have to dribble when you can pass</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">blocking out is the secret to winning basketball</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">watch the ball always</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">when guarding watch the eyes of the opponents; they never lie</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That is a very short list that, for me, forms a body of knowledge that becomes active the moment I walk into a gym, sit in a meeting, watch a situation unfold for those comments have emotional application regardless of where or what you are doing. Another great one for me that is innately part of my life is called "looking away from the ball."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> As a spectator I will quickly transition from watching the boy with the ball to taking a broader, deeper view of the floor game to watch that players without the ball are doing, are plays being set up, are the players cognizant of ball location and movement and when the ball is shot, what does that trigger in both teams at that crucial moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I never just watch casually a basketball game nor do I casually listen to dialogue or conflicts emerge or direction given for I look past that for the deeper motivation, intention and desire. I played for an interesting, unique, at times frustrating, fundamentals coach in high school. His philosophy was a highly controlled offense and an attack defense. That was uncommon during those mid 1960s and made even more alien with the inception of the three point shot that changed everything. Then came the era of the Michael Jordans and all the crazy dribbling, amazing passing and shooting. While more entertaining at the time, I began to watch the game and the game of life shift from fundamentals and team play to run and gun, single player dominance and the rest of the team fed that player. For me the game took a giant step backward for the fundamentals of team player quickly evaporated in the mist of fancy play making, living and dying by the three pointer, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Leaders are just as good as their tool sack of competencies. Effective leaders constantly are seeking ways to enhance and to increase the objects in the tool sack so that when that moment of need comes the right tool, comment, question, approach is ushered for but all the time focused on maintaining the teamsmanship. So many times I have been on the giving and the receiving end of such effective leadership and likewise, have been in the situation where the need for effective competencies or the situation was muffed with much collateral damage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This blog, for me, is about Life. As I get older, I find myself thinking about situations, actions, leaders, non-leaders effectiveness, damage, anger long term impact, etc. Having coached many young leaders on my journey as well taught several thousand college students, I never forgot the purpose of a coach which is to find the key to each player at a very individual view to move that player out of the shade of complacency into the warmth of effective leadership of others. Oh it is so sweet to watch that transformation plus I know it will last a lifetime and affect thousands of others; the beneficiaries of the transformation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So here is my challenge: what really is your tool sack holding as tools to be used when needed? Think about that and be objective in your inventory. Are you hammer for, if so, there will be an endless supply of nails around you on life's journey. </span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-86829027357920231462016-01-30T07:55:00.002-08:002016-01-30T17:26:13.447-08:00Our New Year Unfolding Strangely<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here we sit at the eve of the second month of our new year and as I reflect on our January, I find myself really dumbfounded with events, direction, leadership and yes, politics. I think the first bunt should be to speak to the Trump-ness of our political landscape since he is defying every convention known to Americans since the Party system was inaugurated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Brash, bold, bully, braggart, pioneering, fighter, can take a punch and will respond with a more potent punch; sound familiar? He is one of those characters that you truly love or truly hate and apparently many Americans are loving his unconventional, non-apologetic approach to running for POTUS. As I have watched him and looking past the bravado but really listening to how he is atop the real concerning events of our day and answers the mountain of questions frankly, abruptly and factually is, well refreshing. What he has brought whether you like him or not, is a fresh view of the institutional instrument of career politicians and how the jargon, language and approach to the issues of today Americans face and fear are scrubbed into a language none of us can really understand. So Americans like a fighter and Trump fills that billing well. My term for it; Refreshing! It is my hope if he does not ascend to the thrown that whoever does will adopt the approach to problem-solving Trump has been trumpeting as the core weakness in our political system.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Cheap oil is really scary for it carries such a globalized implication for all of us. Link this to the escalating tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Shia versus Sunni, all of which are dependent on oil, and you have an elixir of explosiveness fueled by the conundrum of Syria. I never take my eyes too far from Israel for I still believe Israeli military action will be the spark that explodes the kingdoms and dictatorships existing in the Middle East. I am absolutely convince the US cooked up nuclear deal with Iran will be the worst disaster to unfold in the remaining days God gives me life and into the next generation. Persia longs to be the dynasty she once was Biblically and we have empowered that greatly but now with nuclear capability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My personal greatest concern is with the craziness we see as our societal values continue to crumble. People living with each other thus shirking the Biblical mandates for what marriage is, same sex relationship and being celebrated from the White House is frankly sickening to me. The millions, MILLIONS, of children being murdered via abortion is accepted and as well celebrated is classic example of where our nation has stooped to and that is a fundamental shame. God will punish this most harshly I believe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My heart is, even through this above, blessed to be where I am, getting to do what I get to do and loving it. Seeing my children mature as professionals and as parents is such a joy. Watching my grand kids grow and mature is much greater than I ever imagined it could be. Seeing my grandsons play basketball with passion is such a personal joy for me!! Just this week I was amazed by a FB conversation with a man I did not know that caused me to take pause as he unpacked some very complimentary comments he made in have seen me play basketball in high school, clear details of a jump shot that was rather unique, and other points which all gave me this warm sense of perhaps having contributed something to a great basketball team and tradition at Emma Sansom High School. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Remaining in contact with vast numbers of college students I was honored to teach over a decade still thrills me. When my advice is sought, requests for letters of recommendation, conversation; it thrills me!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As our new year unfolds as part of troubling century, I am ever reminded that God is in control, He knows, He will adjudge the guilty of the wrongs from His Holy Word. I have never understood that more clearly than I have in the last few years. Seeing so many hundreds of people trapped in a jail or in a physical or mental restraint from aging has touched me and changed me and given me a renewed sense of the blessing of this thing call Life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My challenge for you today reading this is to do an inventory of specific things in your life that bring you joy and the warmth of a blessing!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-25252482771159989952016-01-08T04:07:00.001-08:002016-01-08T04:07:35.890-08:00Vietnam<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last evening I watched two back-to-back programs on TV called Vietnam in HD. One featured the Battle of the A Shau Valley and the other on the Tet Offensive. The programs were unique in that they used rich amounts of home camera footage as well as combat footage and the carnage was more real than most military programs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I sat glued to the TV screen and my wife a few feet away, I realized she was staring as me as I was laser-locked on the scenes. She asked, "why is watching that so important to you?" By the way, certainly not the first time I have been asked that for there is still this intrinsic hunger to want to understand, to feel, to get inside, to know what happened in Vietnam and why now so many years behind us but still tainting to our adult culture. There is no easy answer to that still pertinent question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many that know me know I served my country honorably even though, with the draft lottery, I did not have to serve but I wanted to. To this very day, there is this gaping, hollow hole in my soul that feels like I should have experienced that combat, in retrospect. I lost so many friends there and later had the honor of working with and commanding so many returning Vietnam veterans in armor and cavalry units. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I would drill deeply into these men blatantly touched and scarred by the experience for I was insatiable in wanting to feel, to know, to understand what it all meant. That hunger is powerful to this very moment I realize as I watched last night the Huey medivac in-bounds, the door gunners, the long barrel artillery pounding, the stacked corpses of both sides; an endless array of whys for me. As I watched the home protests, the testimonials of returning veterans finding themselves disdained by people at home thus ditching their uniforms touched me deeply. I actually emailed a great friend that went and returned as a completely different man that I knew so well to ask if he was the target of ill will by people upon his return. Why? It was and is still important to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Teaching a few years on the Kent State Main Campus and very close to the location of the May 4, 1970 shootings that always resonates in my brain in wanting to know locations of students and troops, angles of fire, the pagoda. Recently my wife and I returned there one Saturday afternoon for me just so I could walk the pathways of the shootings, the memorials where the students died; I just have this need deep in my soul as strange as that may sound or even be this number of years hence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a man of passion, my wife has stated many times that had I gone to Vietnam I no doubt would have been killed in taking the point or the leadership of the unit or the mission; perhaps true but fact remains, there is something missing in my journey for not having experienced that. I have studied the battles, researched the strategies, endless hunger to want to see footage, hear and see the stories both there and in parallel here at home as the confluence of home and her came crashing into a cataclysmic tarnishing of an entire generation of men and women still dealing with the deep internal hurts, anger, frustration of the experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our current loss of national prestige, I am convinced, as the great policeman on the beat is driven in large part by POTUS and Congress scared to death to not repeat the Vietnam experience. The reality and results is, of course, the world no longer trusts nor believes in the effective use of the military asset American possesses thus our intentions are questioned and our long term commitments doubted and rightly so!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes, at almost sixty-eight and as much as I was invested in the military of my country, the gap in my soul concerning Vietnam is real and doubtful will ever be fully filled. I am sure there are many others that feel the same and likewise, many reading this will assuredly believe I have lost my mind. Oh well!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">To the men and women that served there and to the families still marked by the names on the Wall, the nearly 60,000 that died there and the countless millions still fighting the ravages of Vietnam via drugs, alcohol, treatment centers, prisons, hospitals; please know my heart and my prayers are with you. It is still so very painful and yet uplifting to stand at The Wall seeing names and touching the names on The Wall of close friends that were part of my young life. Yes, I should have been there!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For those that served, you did not serve in vain for you served this nation honorably in a transformative time in American history. For each Vietnam veteran I know, see and hope to see, I salute you for what all you and your families did for all of us! Thank you.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-76298686587640243932016-01-04T09:31:00.000-08:002016-01-04T09:31:12.974-08:00Clash of the Titans<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is snowing and so very pretty; I love the snow and especially the first of the winter. I love seeing the fat cardinals perched in our trees staring into our home with tears flowing waiting for t-bone food pellets that, well, never get there so they fly off in disgust. Speaking of disgust ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The rapidly unraveling powers in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran, is what I call a clash of titans for those nations are centuries old with long standing cultures and wealth and thus networks. This entire ISIL and the other thug groups are at the core Muslim and claim either to be Shia or Sunni. This is a millennial conflict so it will not simply stop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The division is very real with centuries of drastic killings and bloodshed. Things are terrible with the ripping apart of Syria and all that goes with that. But now with the Saudis and the Iranians breaking of relations one must factor Turkey into this equation as well as, yes, Israel. Turkey, as I have said many, many times, is the strategic balance of the Middle East culturally, geographically and economically. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Having worked and traveled extensively in Western Turkey, I grew to love the Turkish people and their amazing journey began by Ataturk's reform after WWI. With the diplomatic meltdown between Iran, the spiritual temple of Shia and Saudi Arabia, the spiritual temple of Sunni, Bahrain has now, this morning, joined with her huge neighbor Saudi Arabia, in breaking relations with Iran. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Never forget there is a bloody civil war with another SA neighbor, Yemen, that poses as the military triggering mechanism for the entire Middle East to go up in a nuclear cloud; literally. Therefore, that small, uniquely quiet, nuclear nation of Israel as well must be factored to this cataclysmic cauldron of dissent and death. I have long contended that Israel will hit Iran and her nuclear plants and arsenals when the world least expects it for that is what Israel does and does very well. Add to the fact that Israel has more to lose than anyone and you can imagine the strategic planners and diplomats sweating bullets. I further contend that the United States is doing something or a lot to keep Israel away from the military option that one day we will know. The chilly relations spearheaded by Obama is of great concern to me as the backdrop to this paragraph.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is so very hard for me to not waltz down the trail of the political aspect of all of this but I choose not to make that journey. We are walking on shells of embers long glowing and hot but made hotter with the oxygen generated from the diplomatic falling apart the world must be studying closely. Interestingly, I still wonder where China is in all of this. Too large, too potent and too quiet the Chinese are and that troubles me greatly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I will close with the fact that I realize I have only stated the blatant obvious but in that stating, my level of concern about America's stepping back from the table of leadership that has historically quelled issues in the volatile Middle Eastern region has gone missing and the US leadership is solely to blame. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The world is facing a morbid and growing fundamentalist reality with the Muslim world and I say that in knowing so many Muslim people I admire deeply. But the fact is, it seems, is that the Islamic world is standing on the sidelines watching the death, destruction and migration patterns of what is a slice of Islam, ISIL and the other radical militants. I very much want to see the religion of Islam get radicalized to stamp out this cancer that is sweeping the world with fear and discontent and lack of trust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Seeing Europe fundamentally shutdown in fear, places I have been many times with many friends in those nations, has been disheartening to me thus the threat of ISIL has carried the day for fear has caused the EU to shut up and shut down their civilization. That is very, very sad!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We must all watch in the days ahead the Sunni / Shia divide with the break in diplomatic relations but as importantly, never let your view shift too far from Israel and China. I think we now clearly know what the US leadership reaction and response is which is fundamentally nothing. To have allowed this to fester and explode as it has is simply criminal but we have what we have and we are what we are and again, I find that all very sad from the greatest nation the earth has ever known; well at least we once were.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-11660768915533765332016-01-02T07:01:00.000-08:002016-01-04T08:59:48.370-08:00The Days Ahead<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here we reside now facing into the mist of a new year. For some it is with trepidation, for some joy and excitement, for some fear and discouragement. The year we are just finishing has shown We the People that our world is more sinister, more violent, more corrupt than any of us could have ever imagined. Many are pained by the leadership of our nation and I am one. So many are changing their very way of living because of the terrorist attack fear. We see the societal values evaporating at a pace thought unimaginable. Terms like "same-sex marriage" have become as typical in use of the term "sunshine." Drug addiction led by alcohol has become rampant at a pace the general population cannot fathom and most not know want to think about its horrific consequences. I could expand this litany into chapters but you see where I am going; our world is in a morass with no sense of recovery from the plummet. Please never forget that I personally am the perpetual optimist!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over the holiday period we have had much family around us in various configurations to include the whole "herd" gathered. I have had time with my growing grand children from six to now thirteen. Each are an amazing creation and amalgamation of genetics and culture. I find myself staring at each of them playing back their time on this earth with us as they mature, invest themselves in their various activities, friendships; the cycle of youth is amazing and made more amazing I think because of my age. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When you realize that tipping point when you know there are more days behind you than there are days in front of you, the essence of life begins a rapid transition. Some will try to ignore, some will embrace it and some will crawl in a time warp of worry and whining about getting old. I, for one, have embraced for, frankly, there is very little about my life looking through the rear view mirror that I would change for the place of the journey today is so very filled with blessings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Obviously, none of us can view into the mists of tomorrow but that puts us squarely on the footing of choosing to be ready for what resides ahead. I am not a worrier and am certainly not concerned about life after this life is done for I believe through my faith in God that the best is yet to come. Many will read this and simply nod their head or blow it off but I believe those words more powerfully than ever before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Seeing so many pass each year with many of those younger than myself always causes me to take pause and ponder. Being in the presence of vast numbers of elderly people through my singing ministry each week, I realize each of those dear people have and are touching my life in very unique ways. I sincerely feel I have gained so many new "brothers, sisters, parents and grand parents" into my life in these last three years that my "family" grows closer to me each day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Getting to sing and speak about Heaven, the Holy Spirit and Christ in encouraging the array of people to be sure they are ready for eternity has become one of the high spots of my lifetime for I know the motivation is founded on their betterment more than mine. That, for me, qualifies as the definition of a blessing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our world ahead as viewed from the earthly dimension is bleak at best. I am choosing to not pontificate on the elements of that bleakness in my writings for I find my writs do not bring much light to the darkness but rather creates via social media a forum for expression that often times becomes poisonous and thus adds no value. But it is truly amazing to me at how Facebook as evolved as the currency of communication so rapidly. Simply amazing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I do not predict! I do watch things, events, people closely and assume a direction of the connected dots that form a portrait. The portrait I see is not filled with light and grand hopes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is far too much government in our lives. There is this cancer of entitlement eating away our future. This cop hating has grown to something more fearful to me than ISIL and Americans are allowing bullying as are our political leaders by these "movements" that will grow worse as they are allowed to escalate violence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is my fallback position: God is in control! The rest is academic noise. So my advice on new year is to stay focused on God's Word and its principles that are so very clear. I promise to write more often as many have asked of late; thank you for caring enough to encourage that. I only want to always be a light in a dark world via the gift of encouragement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Be blessed!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-5794919626995913832015-12-10T14:47:00.002-08:002015-12-11T08:37:04.318-08:00Self Radicalization<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This term, new to our lexicon, has continued to cause me to ponder what it really means. Here is an academic definition: </span></div>
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<span class="_Tgc"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Radicalization</b> is a process by which an individual or group comes to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that (1) reject or undermine the status quo or (2) reject and/or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of freedom of choice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As one watches the news, read the stories of credible news media such as Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, etc, which I do daily and watch the never ending news cycle with each competing for "Breaking News" with powerful graphics and compelling music, it is very easy to throw up your hands in angst and grow numb. My wife loves to make the comment, "why do you do that for there is nothing you can do about it .." which to a great extent is correct. But I believe those that have a hunger to want to understand the major dots and how they connect, and I plead guilty to be addicted to that avocation, your context of what is happening in this world becomes mind boggling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are so many forces screaming toward confluence in our world that one cannot but go back to Scripture and its clear depiction of the End Times I believe. Racism, regardless of color, creed, sexual preference, location, etc is raging in this nation. Flags, songs, monuments, names history, institutions, etc, etc; all being driven by a bullying set of forces. I learned today, assuming it is accurate, since 2007, the number of mass shootings in America is the greatest in American history for the same time frame. Drug addiction, trafficking, killing has accelerated at pace that is is mind-dazzling and what I know of thirteen years of working in prison ministry, the general population has not clue of the degree of this scourge on our society.e </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But my thesis is about Self Radicalization as I watch a diver in a lake in CA searching for a hard drive tossed by the killers of just a few days ago. I am a man of strong passion if you know me you know how true that is. But I realize, I think, that have a passion for something is a lower rung apparently than radicalization. Go back and read the definition. As I read it over and over through the prism of is a crazed world that worsens by the day it seems, "adopted increasingly extreme .." is the verb of the definition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I ask the question in the position hue; why are we not self radicalizing for Jesus and His Kingdom? How long has it been since you heard the terms such as driven, zealous, etc when referencing our Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Kingdom prepared for the believers? When you look at organized religion today and seeing so many churches closing, major reduction of membership thus becoming relics, you must ask why. Prayer has been removed from schools. Allegiance to our Nation has become a point of caustic ethos so where do our children, our future, learn about God, learn about our Nation they will run in a few years? The very history of our nation and our states is now being rewritten via bullying pressure from racial and LGBT organizations. See my point for that point is the void of absolutes in our culture; you know what is clearly right and clearly wrong. Those lines are blurred or nonexistent. Given that, chaos reigns and that is exactly what we are transitioning to I believe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I yearn for Americans to turn from the craziness trajectory we are on and I believe if you look at the times of the terrible launch of these indicators, I must go to the President of our Nation and his tenure which is on or about 2007. The "Great Hope" has turned out to be the "Great Flop" but the implication going forward, my grand childrens' world, is shaded and jaded for their entire lifetime. Our national debt will break the back of this nation due to the mountainous entitlement spending during this same period of time ... I believe you see my point!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what is missing; radicalization for God so my prayer for this nation is to turn back to Him for if not, this gets much, much worse. Our new normal is, well, destroying this nation and that lethal injection, I believe, has root structure back to the first ten years of our new, frightening century. An inept, gridlocked Congress, a cunning, shadowy President with a very unclear strategy for our Nation; caustic equation. Thus why would anyone be surprised by the Trump Phenomenon? This rise is due to the fact that he has given voice with passion to a scared, weary nation!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is all I know: I love Jesus Christ and His amazing touch on my life. I love my church home, The Canton Baptist Temple and the abundant love that church shows in so many ways. I love my family and want the best for them every day. My grand daughter's best friend's mother was brutally killed by her father this week and now my grand daughter is having to try and understand it all. This is the new normal and Satan is having a field day with the craziness that is unfolding daily. Fear, worry, discouragement; all elements of a world that has turned from God; that same God our Founders leaned heavily on as history rightly records. </span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-27175903451728785702015-11-27T05:26:00.001-08:002015-11-27T05:26:24.802-08:00Our 2016 World<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On this day after the 2015 Thanksgiving Day, ones mind cannot not think about the world as it rolls into a new year only weeks away. The world is still reeling from the Paris massacre, the latest killings in the Murder Capital of the World, Chicago, Europe has rolled up its walls and shut out the rest of the world quaking in fear of ISIL thus ISIL has won without firing a shot. We see the bawdy, blatant aggression of Mother Russia led by King Putin surging forward unchecked for the great checker, America, has pretty much checked out if you get the play on words. Global warming seems to be the Obama landscape to escape his Commander-in-Chief role when it would seem to me that every meeting and gathering should be focused solely on the elimination of this scourge to mankind called Daesh or ISIL or whatever you choose to called this menace to mankind running apparently unabated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Earlier this week I watched an interview on <i>Charlie Rose</i> with General David Petraeus in which is articulated as clearly as I have experienced the multifaceted spider web of killers most of which are affiliates of none other than Persian now known as Iran. Yes, that same Persia our President and his minion John Kerry, have negotiated an immense nuclear pact for it is "the best we can do and we must ratify it" for some strange reason I still do not understand. And, oh by the way, this agreement frees up somewhere around $150 billion to Iran and we know now where some of that will go which is to fund the terrorist groups linked and aligned with Persia's intention well stated to remove Israel from the face of the earth. This is the same Persia that is thumbing its nose at the Great American Satan; that would be We the People. It simply is beyond my level of understand to grasp what this President's real agenda is for with seemingly each day, he says and does things that seems shadowy and almost sickening supportive of our sworn enemies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a man of passion and patriotism, this POTUS behavior and agenda is not only frightening but downright angering knowing so many have given so much for this wonderful gift of Freedom. Now with the Paris attacks and others no doubt being planned for execution soon, the Government will be seeking more and more access to our personal information thus infringing on certainly inalienable rights granted us by our Bill of Rights. We see all too clearly the failed of institutions in our nation such as the VA, the IRS, the Post Office, Amtrak, and the list goes on. We see and hear so much about "shovel ready" infrastructure work needed in America which I agree with but have you driven by a work site lately to actually see actual work being done? Earlier this week I did see several road projects underway and what I saw was invariably one person working, one person standing and chatting, one person on break, one person checking the person working and two persons getting read to go to break. It really is actually sort of funny to witness the lack of energy, push to get the work done but then I realize it is a metaphor for where America has evolved to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I think about things strangely for I take the long view of what I see. For example, it has now become commonplace to see panhandlers at major intersections with signs asking for financial handouts and in all configurations of sad faces, torn, dirty clothes, animals, old Army camouflage passing as an old veteran, etc, etc. Each time I witness this act playing out I find myself wishing I had ten job cards in my pocket I could hand to the poor begging soul and then see if there would be any effort to actually go earn a wage. I am convinced the great, great majority would throw the card away and just occupy the corner begging perch. When I see the same beggar on another corner I know then there is organization, planning, transportation, logistics invested in this begging venture. Sound cold? I implore you to check me out on this non-work institution. When people do not have to work, they will not work for when We the People are paying them not to work; well, you get my drift but sadly that is where we have evolved to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my naive belief that police are fundamentally good and seek to keep the peace, with each highly publicized shooting with police involved, I sincerely get sick of the same rhetoric and poison stirrers that work people into a frenzy that leads to blatant harassment of police all on national television. CNN has become, sadly, the chief culprit in the stirring with the likes if Suny Hosten, Charles Blow, Don Lemon; all black, all with an agenda and all creating more angst and accusative narrative about "all" police that is getting more and more of them killed as they sit upon their perch pontificating angst and hate aimed at the very people that get up each day to protect us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is beyond me, frankly, why a sane, normal young person would choose police work as a career in this cauldron of hate spun by media in the midst of blatant abuse and criminal activity by those, some of which end up shot or killed in the line of duty. But the police, regardless of circumstance, is guilty and drawn and quartered by the CNN butchers I have grown to loathe. I know so many police and deputies and see how hard they work, how dedicated to their mission and I love and admire each. Yes, there are bad ones as with any profession but this is a very, very small percentage but it is they ghat get all the television time thus broad-brushing the great majority of great police.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If I have a deep concern for our nation, and I do, it is with the overworked and overwhelmed all-volunteer military construct. Ten deployments is simply wrong for the service person and their tortured families. It is illogical to me for less than one percent of the US population to protect the 99% of Americans. I understand fully the logic for going to the AVA but that was before the days of multi deployments in never ending conflicts in a world gone mad with weaponry never thought feasible. I think it criminal in a nation as great as America to know have a system where every single America male and female must serve our nation for two years at an early age. We are one of the very few if not the only nation in the G20 that does not have a conscription system to bring fresh minds and bodies into the role of protecting our nation. We see all too clearly the downside of multiple deployments and this will only worsen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">During my ten years teaching university level students I found a way to trigger the conversation about the above paragraph meaning their thoughts on taking on the responsibility of protecting our way of life from foreign and domestic enemies. Easily over 99% saw no reason nor any desire to step up to that noble task which saddened me but allowed me to project that that is our America today. We are an aging empire that, like all other empires will collapse from the inside due to the weight of government cost, entitlements and no internal armed force to fight back the enemies that would wish to destroy our way of life. Does that not depict America today?</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-90738376114104632432015-11-18T06:43:00.002-08:002015-11-18T06:43:38.652-08:00The Poison of Hate<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Lady Liberty given to us by the French, lest we forget, that has met countless millions of immigrants coming to our Land seeking refuge, a new chance and life and freedom of worship. Emma Lazarus is inscribed on this Statue of Liberty: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty" </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Give me your tired, your poor, </span></span></div>
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Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, </div>
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The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, </div>
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Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,</div>
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I lift my lamp beside the golden door.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In these terrible, deadly, ever-shocking days unfolding on global networks and social media, the litmus test of and for each of us reading this resides in the 2015 application of those infamous welcoming words. Within a 99.9% percentile of those reading this came here from another location for an array of reasons but freedom was the overarching thrust of the voyage and the worth of the challenge to leave loved ones, homes, work, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I began to see a few weeks ago posts to FB decrying acceptance of the poor and pitiful migration of people scared to death and many dying trying to escape the horrors of their hell in their homeland, I began to feel conflicted deeply. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then with the Paris attacks, the xenophobic nature of Man began to rear its ugly head around the world but not stronger than right here in America. We have all read or heard of the internment camps for the Japanese after December 7, 1941. We can all, as well, understand the fear our grandparents felt in trying to grasp the what and why Japan did such a dastardly deed. History has always shown us the Japanese felt they were driven to take such drastic actions due to America shutting off its raw material supplies. I am not justifying the whys or wherefores of what happened but history has recorded that as a dark time in American history with the treatment of the Japanese which were American citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This with the Japanese is but one of many such xenophobic reactions to calamities. The Syrian refugee crisis looms in the sunlight and TV light of our social media world so it more real and in HD for we in 2015 than it was in the black-and-white media world of 1941. Seeing photos on FB of these poor wretches of people selling their lives to Turkish and Greeks to get away from the morass of their lives next to pits of rattlesnakes crawling on each other are, for me, reprehensible. While reprehensible that one of the Paris bombers allegedly came into Europe as one of the refugees angers, sickens and causes many of us to want to lash out in some caustic way. But let me say again:</span></div>
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Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, </div>
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The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, </div>
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Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,</div>
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I lift my lamp beside the golden door.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am deeply, deeply conflicted on the actions of now roughly thirty American states denying entry of these "huddled masses yearning to breathe free .." for none of us can know the statistics of the level of potential threat. To give it another slant, the Mafia has been granted almost elite star status with movies when realizing these were Italian and Irish street gangsters and thugs making their way to America to Americanize their ill gotten gains and means to those gains via murder and mayhem, right? So do you see my point and parallel?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In our local Canton, OH newspaper today, a great writer, Charita Goshay, has posted a challenging piece on this very issue in American life in 2015. That which we have held valid and valued is now challenged on every hand in America and in Europe. Legitimizing and celebrating the many things the Bible clearly states to be wrong in God's Eyes is example of the transformation of America as it becomes more god-less as has Europe since World War II. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I worked for an executive at Goodyear that loved to state when some were celebrating attainment of a target and wanting praise, he would quietly and succinctly state .."one robin doeth not a Spring make!" I believe one terrorist is that robin in this ocean of people that direly need to be absorbed into the less barbaric global village. If not I believe the level of brutality and killing will be enhanced via technology of explosives and weaponry obviously readily available on world black markets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many will disagree with my sentiment in my writing this morning and please know, that is perfectly within your right for I understand fully the innate longing to protect and build a wall. But our global village is burning around us. I am convinced the Obama Administration has heavily prompted and fueled much of this disdain and hatred both foreign and domestic we are seeing come to fruition as the sunlight of hatred grows hotter around the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I go back to Lady Liberty's telling words for my guidance as I navigate this deep sense of confliction I myself am feeling on this mass of people seeking life ... is that really too much to ask?</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-59970692265911943382015-11-13T09:16:00.000-08:002015-11-13T09:16:07.649-08:00Skin in the Game <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/11/12/cavuto-interviews-college-protest-organizer-one-percent-can-afford-cover-free-tuition</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am beginning my comments with this link of a student interview about the million student march. Like so many of us we have watched the bullying at the University of Missouri and saw clearly the utilization of the leverage from athletic program revenues and then see the top two university officials simply tuck their tales and run and hide. I do not know about you but all of this is, well, typical of America today defined as bullies gaining the high ground.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Listening to this young lady talk about the March is designed to get free tuition for college, all student loan debt paid off and all paid for by the "1% of people hoarding" the money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How immature misinformed and incredible such rhetoric is. I had a great friend many years ago tell me bluntly that until you have skin the the game, you nor anyone else will full embrace nor engage the issue. But her rhetoric aligns perfectly with the Democratic 'give me because you owe me' mentality that now abounds. In doing organizational effectiveness consulting for nearly ten years after my retirement from Goodyear, I saw that adage so clearly. <b><i><u>Free anything means free some taking responsibility</u></i></b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Had I not personally witnessed by thousands of university students how badly student loans were abused, not an intent to repay, total disregard for credit viability into the future, purchase of nicer cars, nicer computer, iPhone, clothes etc, etc, I lost great respect for many students in their intentional misuse of borrowed funds. That was exacerbated by the fact by the fact of knowing so many parents were sacrificing their retirements accounts, etc, to pay for their child and to see the abuse of the sacrificial support from parents and grand parents was and is sickening to me. Mind you, this does not describe the majority of students but a sizable portion certainly feed it that trough in various tributaries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But at the aggregate of my thesis is that unless a person be they a spouse, a child, a student, an employ invests some of their on skin / responsibility into the work involved, they will never fully invest themselves thus fall along the roadway of bystanders. I apply my Pareto analogy of the 80/20 for I believe it is roughly 20% of students that choose not to invest themselves and tend to take advantage of the 80% that invest themselves fully into their education and thus life and thus future and it is that 80% that will lead the future while dragging the 20% along the way as their, the 80%'s taxes they pay from earnings are siphoned into entitlements and safety nets for the 20%ers. Trust me, this is a viable theory that is very real and measurable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are millions of amazing, gifted, hard driving students in our classrooms. My greatest concern for those students is the very poor quality of teaching they will receive as too many professors are over-focused on research, dissertations (a racket in and of itself), and too many faculty, like the communications professor at Missouri inflaming the terrible unrest now apparently proven to be fueled by lies and troublemakers. But alas, the Pandora box is now fully opened so we will now witness more and more of this and it will be the 20%ers of tomorrow that will be filling the campus quads and student centers shouting and demanding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Missouri reality should have been handled day one by the President firing the football coach, revoking all participant football scholarships and forfeiting the rest of the football season. What we are witnessing is a new form of bullying and the stick of TV revenues flowing into universities and being spent less on student enhancement to learn but on more computers, buying parts of cities to expand country club type facilities, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">America has turned soft and flabby with this new exhaustive layering of movements, entitlements, softening the rules enforcement, police hating, loss of global power leadership and more than anything, turning solidly away from God. A recent poll I saw this week indicates that 42% of Americans consider themselves spiritually "nones" meaning they have nor feel no sense of connection nor value in organization religion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Satan is winning!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-25548951832644071722015-10-30T09:20:00.002-07:002015-10-30T09:20:34.772-07:00Facing the Bullies<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Good morning. I have just watched a Charlie Rose interview with Admiral McKernan, retired Navy Special Operations Commander. Rarely am I moved as I watched with swelling pride renewing my pride in our nation's military as I watched this highly decorated Navy Seal answer Rose's questions with fervor, frankness and absolute clarity. I realized how much I miss briefings and straight forwardness that is the military for it cuts through the politics and smoke and the misdirection or pitfalls of poor communication. This man was the key military head of the Bin Laden raid so his credibility is beyond reproach. He had thirty-seven years in the Navy and is now a Chancellor at the University of Texas. Enough on his stripes but there were two areas of the hour that resonated with me deeply both of which I absolutely concur and always have.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How do you stop a bully? "To stop a bully you have to stand up and push back and push back hard."</span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Is Leadership hard? "There is no endeavor more difficult and challenging than that of leadership."</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let me expand on both these boulevards of success for a few minutes: <b style="font-style: italic;">How do you stop a bully? "To stop a bully you have to stand up and push back and push back hard." </b>There are very few reading this that have made it to this stage of the journey and not have faced the sting and stench of being bullied. My first real experience that is still vivid was in the ninth grade and a senior guy began to say terrible things to me, threaten me and demand my lunch money. I yielded and gave up my lunch money thus going without lunch for nearly a year which nobody ever knew. This began against when I hit the tenth grade the this same guy was still there. He was large, scary, rude and frankly, I was afraid of him. About the third week of my tenth grade year, he confronted me yet again but something had happened that summer within me. He poked me hard in the chest, demanded my lunch money and as I fell backwards almost falling down a set of bleachers in the gym, I took a hard swing with my fist as he was sitting and hit him in the left side of his head. He was as shocked as I as I remember. But something immediately happened inside me which was that I had a gut full of this sense of being a wimp and with that, as he stood to kill me, I am sure, I hit him again in the same place harder. He fell backward, he jumped up and walked away and that never happened again. LESSON LEARNED; I hated being bullied and detest a bully to this day!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bullies exist and feed off of the weak. As I watched this Admiral expound on America today as viewed by the world, he iterated Russia, ISIL, Syria are bullies and they are bullying America. As along as America, like my bully, is allowed to keep pushing and scaring, they, the bully, will only feel more empowered; so very true. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I believe the Obama Doctrine when assessed and viewed through the lens of historians, will clearly carry the taint of a weak, isolationist, dovish President as our standing as The Global Power Broker imploded around him. I sincerely believe that is what we are all witnessing day-to-day but with no Title affixed. History will affix that title! So in the mean time, Putin will have his way in reconstructing Mother Russia, he will augment that with his Middle Eastern influence he now musters via massive arms sales to these ME States. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Iran Nuclear Deal is another example, at this stage at least, of the US being bullied by assuming the position of weakness and pleading instead of a position of strength, fear of retaliation and force structure and projection. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">America is being bullied at home by the race-baiters and the fissures of that will likely lead to domestic warfare as the police are now the enemy. That, personally, concerns me more than ISIL, Russia, etc. And for me, this President and his policies and rhetoric has fueled this widening gap within our nation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My freshman year of college at a tough basketball practice one evening, a senior player was guarding me and with each rebound he was intentionally pushing me around, elbowing and being profane. This went on for several minutes until I popped him with my elbow in the ribs, legally I wish to add, and he went down no doubt feeling embarrassed in front of the rest of the team. A minute later I received a pass about twelve feet from the goal and was about to drive to my right for the basket and as I did he hit me in the fast hard with a fist that sent me to the floor. I was dazed for a minute or so, felt really terrible and looked up and he was smiling at his accomplishment. The other guys, I realized were waiting to see what this freshman was going to do about this as was the coach I realized as well. Knowing I would be killed, I felt this sense of "who cares" wash over me and as I came up I returned the favor I had received sending him reeling. I heard this applause and then realizing I had passed some unwritten test. I have never forgotten that night for many reasons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I hate bullies!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Is Leadership hard? "There is no endeavor more difficult and challenging than that of leadership." </i>I love watching, studying, assessing, coaching leadership perhaps more than any other field of endeavor. For some leading comes seemingly ease and for some it seems unlearnable. I have been privileged to work with some amazing leaders and as well to try and work for some simply horrific leaders for they themselves were never comfortable in their own skin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Respect, Calm, Directness, Clarity and Can-Do assemble the traits of effective leaders. There is no leadership until the leader fails and decides to get up and learn from the knock down or choose to reside in the prone position. I have experienced both with so many others and within myself. If the leader does not feel the work or the job can get done, it will not and so many lessons for those being led will have been lost forever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">People want to be led. People want to cool in the shade of leadership. People crave effective leadership. After all is said and done, that is my summation comments on the topic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Admiral was the best example I have seen in a long time of exhibiting leadership as a science and an art. But understand, when it comes to leadership, you must learn the science before crafting into the art. Those being led will see the lack of depth if the art is sought too quickly meaning a leader must earn the right of those being led to lead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I highly recommend watching the Rose interview at his website. www.charlierose.com.</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6159682435157999188.post-84433018462636810272015-10-24T08:50:00.003-07:002015-10-24T18:42:14.521-07:00Like Sands Through the Hourglass, So are the Days of Our Lives<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I made that title up, not sure where it came from, ahhhhhhhh, I hope there is no TV show that uses the metaphor so it is MINE to use this rainy Saturday morning. It has been two weeks since my last blog and there is so much unfolding in our world that it is not a matter of what to expound upon but the challenge is selecting which from the mass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we see the GOP continue with its circular firing squad approach to the POTUS elections. I still smile when I read or watch Trump's name come up, as it so often does, and there is this cynical, sarcastic smirk that accompanies any comment about Trump so the pundits want so badly to see him crash and burn; but he keeps on chugging. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we saw Mrs. Clinton probably ascend the throne to the POTUS but the tactical partisan Benghazi hearings, frankly for me, were blatantly partisan to the point that the killings in Libya were a sideshow. Clinton, short of a disaster or an unexploded IED, will surely be her entry cadence. Why? option 2 is what in either party? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So sad but at this stage so blatantly correct. So another eight years of Obama legacy is something I cannot fathom but I will be seventy-six by the end of her reign so it probably won't matter much, will it? Enough on POTUS politics for it truly sickens me for my children and grandchildren but the ball is rolling and it is apparently unstoppable from this vantage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I choose this day to remain hopeful and believing that God is absolutely in control of all this noise for that is what it becomes is white noise. Legalization of drugs is the new norm. Ms Jenner is the <i>Woman of the Year</i>; how sick is that but hey, this is our new norm it would appear. Putin is doing what he wishes while our POTUS strategy stated is that he will mire himself down and he will just pack up and go back to Moscow. Yes, and pigs fly is my thought on that gutless doctrine! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Did I mention the Middle East is at a state of absolute collapse which I am thinking is inevitable and perhaps good in long term for the boundaries the British drew in 1917 are being erased in blood and will be redrawn by ethnic boundary markers I would envision. But there will be much blood yet to be spilled as the erasing goes forward and as Iran and Russia and I believe China will dictate the pace and terms of this monumental transformation. The U.S. will be fundamentally a zero-based force in the redrawing. So enjoy the cheap gasoline while you can!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is what I know! I am happy. I love what I get to do. I hear often I do too much of it but that is me if you know me. My family is healthy and happy. My amazing ministries in both prison ministry and singing in assisted and nursing homes continue to bless and amaze so it is worth the abundant effort and time and energy invested. I love getting to do that and never could I have imagined my life would have evolved to that. I could not be more proud of my five grandchildren as they are excelling in their strengths be it athletics, music, academics; such a blessing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This lyric keeps circling through my mind; </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today. I know that He is living whatever men may say. I see His Hand of mercy, I heard His Voice of cheer. And just the time I need Him, HE's ALWAYS NEAR. So I will just lean on that fact in my life!</span></div>
prof jim todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11405688073035330712noreply@blogger.com0