Early Morning Epiphanies

I awoke bolt upright in the bed at 4:45 am. I was not in a cold sweat, but rather clear-eyed and unwavering. I had been the beneficiary of a series of life-changing epiphanies. The scales have fallen from my eyes.

1. It has become clear to me now that my government is awesome, the bigger the better. In fact, since they have done so much good over these last 50 years, I now believe that we all should be taxed at 100% of our income. We should give it all freely and cheerfully to Washington where, free from financial restraints, our government would be able to take care of all of our collective needs.
2. Baseball is in fact a boring, dying sport. However, if I’m going to be a fan at all, I might as well root for the greatest team in history, the New York Yankees.
3. Rap music is awesome. It’s the modern equivalent of Bach, and the lyrics are the Shakespearian sonnets of the 21^st century.
4. The best movies in the world are made by the French.
5. When I see an NBA player covered from head to toe in tattoos I will from now on think, “Wow, what amazing self-expression!”
6. The only morally and ethically defensible way to eat is Veganism.
7. Reality television may very well go down in history as the most creative, uplifting form of communication ever conceived by the mind of man.
8. Soccer is actually the most riveting sport on television, and I can certainly understand its world-wide popularity. I am embarrassed for my country when I see the Nielson ratings for the Premier League games on ESPN. When will we EVER follow the world in our adoration for this most exciting game ever created?
9. I now see that the Big Ten is the finest football conference.
10.  Al Gore will one day be worshiped as our country’s new George Washington for his tireless efforts as a modern day prophet on Global Warming, which is the biggest threat to our existence that mankind has ever faced. Clearly, we are the sole cause of climate change and the only way to save ourselves is to turn over control of the entire world to the United Nations.
11.  If Barack Obama isn’t one day carved into the granite of Mount Rushmore, it will be because of racism.
12.  The Washington Redskins are perhaps the most well run franchise in the NFL and Dan Snyder the most enlightened owner.
13.  The Kardashian sisters are not only beautiful, but smart too.
14.  There is no such thing as liberal bias in the media. The fact that 95% of them vote for Democrats just proves that they are better informed than the rest of us.
15.  All of the Twilight movies are better than Citizen Kane and Casablanca.

It’s been quite a morning!

Stuff I'm Sick Of

I’m tired of rain and the low, dark clouds and sodden earth that come with it. I’m tired of those swiveled brown leaves that cling to the bottom branches of oak trees even while the higher branches are sprouting new ones. I’m tired of watching green mildew paint itself over every wooden surface in my back yard. I’m tired of that breathless smell of compost that rushes into the garage every time I raise the door after another soggy night.

I feel like taking every piece of furniture in my house to Key West and spreading them out on the lawn of the Casa Marina Hotel in the bright sunshine for a week to burn off the dross of winter. If it were only warm enough I would go outside and scrub that milky-white film of salt and snow melting chemicals off of my cars with my bare hands.

If I have been reduced to this by the unrelenting gloominess of this interminable season, I can only imagine how my Dad must feel. Day after day he sits in his chair, covered with blankets in his hot house watching the news. His exposure to the weather is limited to a glance out of the window and our complaints. I’m taking him to one of his doctors tomorrow. I hope it’s sunny and warm. I want him to feel the sun on his face. I want to feel the sun on my face.

There has to be a reason for winter, if nothing else than to make us appreciate spring, to create in us an expectation of something better. April is nearly here. It will be better, warmer and it will bring life.

We need it.

The Stephen Colbert Kerfuffle

I have a nit to pick. It concerns the misuse of language, and comedian Stephen Colbert.

So, Mr. Colbert finds himself in hot water, hoisted on his own petard, as it were. The faithfully liberal star of the Colbert Report, a late night show in which he plays a blowhard conservative, is famous for parodying political conservatives as racist, homophobic, cave men. Everyone yuks it up when the victims of the jokes are the Koch brothers, but when the punch line hits the wrong target, all hell breaks loose on the plantation. While targeting Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins (the right target) for his insensitivity to Native Americans for refusing to change the team name, the show’s Twitter account posted this:

“I am willing to show the Asian community that I care by introducing the Ching Chong, Ding Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever,”(the wrong target).

Soon the twitter-sphere was hot with talk of boycotts. Someone named Suey Park, described in news accounts as a “writer and activist” fired back:

“#CancelColbert because white liberals are just as complicit in making Asian-Americans into punchlines and we aren’t amused.”

Here’s where my nitpick comes in. Of course Mr. Colbert, like any good liberal was horrified to find himself accused of racism, I mean, it’s literally impossible, the very definition of an oxymoron. So, he quickly fired up his own Twitter response:

“I just saw this comment and I share your rage.”

I call barnyard manure.

Words have meaning. Some words are inappropriate modifiers in certain situations. For example, you wouldn’t describe a skinned knee as a “bloodbath.” To reply to negative twitter criticism of his unfunny joke with “I share your rage” is chicken feces of the highest order. First of all, nobody upset about the joke is enraged, and secondly, he no more shares this nonexistent rage than I share Brad Pitt’s good looks. No, this was false outrage designed to shore up his liberal white guilt credentials, and remind everyone that he is faithfully down with the struggle. Rage, my ass!

It is entertaining to see establishment liberals get a little bit of their own medicine, I must admit. A little schadenfreude is good for the soul. Let a conservative Republican call Barack Obama the “first clean African American candidate” and guys like Stephen Colbert would have material for a month of shows. But, a liberal Democrat who says it gets to become Vice-President.

So, have fun Stephen. Have fun stewing in your own juice.

Lunch With a Wise Man

I had lunch the other day with a friend. He’s also a client. He’s in his 80’s but maintains the appearance of someone not a day over 65. We chit-chatted about family and the weather for a while but then the conversation veered off into more serious topics about which he has much more expertise and experience. I had sent him an e-mail several weeks ago asking for his guidance, and now I was getting it.

The guidance I was seeking was in the arena of theology, a topic rife with trip wires and land mines. Who better to ask than an octogenarian pastor with 60 years of ministry experience? If I would have recorded our hour and a half conversation, I could have made a million bucks!

He started out this way, “Doug, the first thing I should say is that I’m not going to be able to provide answers to all of your questions, because they have also been my questions throughout most of my life.” From a man who scaled the heights of his profession, who is widely respected for his intelligence and accomplishments, the first thing I get from him is…humility.

My questions for him concerned theological doubts that I have been struggling with, largely centered on the unanswerable questions of eternity and the complexity inherent in competing truth claims, etc.. I won’t go into the details here because they aren’t important. As I listened to him, I realized that my doubts have plagued much greater minds than mine. That, in and of itself, was comforting. Then he hit me with a series of amazing insights. I will paraphrase them:

“You know Doug, for years I used to get up every morning and repeat that great verse from Psalms, this is the day that the Lord hath made, let us be glad and rejoice in it. But I don’t do that as often as I used to. Now I find myself repeating another verse, this one from 2 Corinthians 10 that says: “..casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” You see Doug; there are some things that I’m never going to fully comprehend this side of eternity. It’s not anti-intellectualism to admit the limits of human understanding. So, every morning, along with all of my other problems, I hand over my doubts to God too.”

This from a man who has suffered great, crushing loss of those nearest and dearest to him, a man who along with great accomplishment, has also known great disappointment. Despite it all, he sits across the table from me confident, triumphant, and full of love for God and zest for life.

No, he didn’t answer all of my questions, partly because he doesn’t have the requisite ego and arrogance to assume that he could. But he did provide powerful insights that I hadn’t considered, insights forged through years of diligent study and observation. I came away thinking that there is room in Christianity for a quirky, over-thinking skeptic like me.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Vander Warner Jr.

A Great Day to be an American!!

Yesterday brought the shocking news that the firm March 31^st deadline for enrolling in Obamacare was being extended for anyone who could qualify for a hardship exemption. What qualifies as a hardship, enquiring minds might reasonably ask? Once again, breaking new ground in the brave new world of evolving legislation, administration officials say that simply checking a box will do. No confirming evidence of actual hardship is required. Everyone will be on the “honor system.” Is this a great country, or what?

I, for one, am ecstatic at this news. Not only has Obamacare forever transformed the meaning of the word “deadline”, this latest extension being the ninth of its kind, but we have now entered a new era that will go a long way in changing the relationship between citizen and government for the better. Thanks to President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, Americans have now been relieved of the onerous burden of proof!

I can hardly wait to fire my accountant. I’ve already called and left a message, but unsurprisingly, he hasn’t returned my call. This is the best I have felt about my government since they did away with the draft. Imagine how different April 15^th will feel this year. All I’ll need to do is check a box attesting to the hardship I have endured trying to organize all of those receipts. Hell, now I won’t even need receipts. Now I can just fill out the EZ1040 form and estimate stuff. Seriously, this is the greatest day for taxpayers since the Boston Tea Party.

 Hold on a minute, my accountant is on line 2! Wait, er, what? You say that this deadline extension and honor system business doesn’t apply to the IRS??

Imagine that.

Baseball. A Defense.

Despite the ridiculous weather that finds my local forecast for this Wednesday March the 26^th calling for wind chills in the 20’s all day, baseball’s opening day is right around the corner. Yes, I am aware that the Dodgers and Diamondbacks have already played two games in Australia, and no, I refuse to count that as opening day. Bud Selig is an octogenarian idiot.

This time of year always produces within me a desire to defend baseball from all of its distracters, since it has so many. Honestly, this blog isn’t written to persuade any of you, just to get a few things off my chest. What follows are the most popular complaints about my favorite sport and my pithy retorts:

1. Baseball is too slow. Compared to what? The length of a baseball game is like a snowflake, no two are exactly the same. A 1-0 pitcher’s duel might be over in 2 hours, while a 9-8 slugfest might take 4, and don’t get me started on extra innings! The point is that baseball is a game played outside of time. There is no clock. Outside of the distances between the bases and the distance between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, there aren’t even any uniform dimensions in baseball, making baseball the most individualized sport in history. Do some games take too long? Yes. Are some players annoyingly deliberate? Yes. But that just means that they are more fun to boo! Baseball is a game where you can actually relax while watching, have a casual beer and talk about life with a friend. Why is everybody in such a hurry to get back to the stresses of their lives? Chill out.
2. Baseball has lost its popularity. True, so have marital fidelity, manners and the Protestant work ethic, so baseball is in good company. I freely admit that baseball is no longer the National pastime, having long ago lost that honor to reality television. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and I still hate it. Besides, popularity is fleeting. In 50 years, after the NFL has been sued into oblivion by all of its former players for turning them all into drooling paraplegics, baseball will still be here to pick up the pieces.
3. Baseball doesn’t attract the best athletes. True. Dustin Pedroia looks like some guy who should be bagging groceries at Walmart. What is he, 5’7” 160 soaking wet? He would have to put on 30 pounds just to get a job as a water boy in football. But, so what? He’s a terrific second baseman and hits .300 every year. It bothers me not at all that Usain Bolt would lap him in the 100 meter dash. It’s baseball, not the freaking decathlon.
4. Baseball doesn’t have enough black players. Yeah, well…we have a ton of Latin players. When was the last time you saw an All-Dominican backfield in the NFL? How come nobody complains about the relative lack of Hispanic players in the NFL? Yes, I’m aware that any list of the finest baseball players in history would have many, many African American players on it. And honestly, I think it is a shame that for whatever reason blacks seem to have abandoned baseball for basketball and football. But, there is no such thing as affirmative action in sports, no requirement that a roster reflect the racial diversity of the community. If there were such a thing, we would have to insist on more white guys in basketball, and who wants that??
5. The baseball season is too long. Compared to what? A Presidential election campaign? 162 games is a long season, but baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a game that rewards long term consistency. The grind of the season exposes teams that are only good in spurts. The best teams in baseball lose 40% of their games. It takes awhile to separate the wheat from the chaff.

So, there you have it. Both America and baseball have gotten slow, lost popularity and have a problem with minorities.

Play ball!!!

Incinerated

The story appeared in London’s Telegraph newspaper. It has been discovered that over 15,500 “fetal remains” have been incinerated as clinical waste, some even used to heat hospitals in the Department of Health’s waste to energy plan. A Department spokesman, Dan Poulter, called the discovery, “totally unacceptable.”

Why?

For years now abortion advocates have struggled mightily to change the terms of the debate away from the child and onto the mother. We have been told that the debate is all about the mother’s rights. Any discussion of the child has been cleaned of all humanity references. The baby has been reduced first to fetus, and then to fetal tissue, even in debates on the floor of the United States Senate. We have been asked to view the miracle of the womb as no more than a medical condition over which only one person has any jurisdiction. So, once again I ask, why is the incineration of 15,000 aborted or miscarried babies in England, “totally unacceptable?”

Every week in every hospital around the world, clinical waste is produced. Everything from removed tumors, to amputated arms and legs, has to be disposed of somehow. I have always assumed that hospitals use some sort of incinerating device for this purpose. What makes fetal tissue so special?

I was born in 1958, the last of the four children of Emmett and Betty Dunnevant. When my mother announced to her friends that she was pregnant with me, many of them were incredulous. Mom and Dad were in a rough spot financially back then, having a difficult enough time feeding three kids. One particular lady told Mom that I made no “economic sense.” Sometimes when I discuss monetary policy, some of you think I still make no economic sense!

Lucky for me, in 1958 people didn’t view a gestating child with such clinically neutral ambivalence. There was less moral ambiguity about my value. While I might have been an unplanned accident, my parents thought of me as a divine gift. Fifty-five years later, when confronted with a story like this one in the Telegraph, pro-choice advocates are forced to explain why the incineration of 15,500 aborted and miscarried babies is such a bad thing.

Why, Mr. Poulter is this so “totally unacceptable?” I’ll tell you why. Because despite the sanitized, dehumanized arguments, despite all the talk of rights and reproductive justice, we all know in our hearts that every life is a gift, and that unborn child contains a spark of the divine. When we discover that they have been thrown in a “waste to energy” incinerator along with cancerous colons and gangrenous legs…it shames us. Still, it shames us.