A Texas Hold’em Christmas

Posted on December 30, 2005 by me

It is my sincere hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to another 3-day weekend. At my house, we’ve had more than our share of colds and related viruses over the past several weeks, with a seemingly endless cycle of fevers and symptoms. It made for a rather slow Christmas, which was ok.

It was, however, a milestone Christmas for me – believe it or not, I’m 50 years old and until this Christmas had never played poker! My mom taught my kids a couple of years ago, and since then my oldest has taken to watching poker on TV, and playing with his siblings on occasion. With my mom and sister out for Christmas, they had a series of games going, and finally I decided to join in.

I have played various card games, mainly varieties of Rummy, but hadn’t played much other than Rook or Flinch once or twice in the last several years. It had never occurred to me that Poker was so much fun, and so addicting. It probably also contributed to the spread of everyone’s viruses, as poler chips are infamous carriers of germs.

My oldest son, Elliot, got the Xbox version of World Championship Poker 2 for Christmas. Again, I had no idea that poker for the Xbox could be so much fun! You can create your own characters, and play against a rather odd assortment of players. I think it’s more fun than Enter the Matrix or Halo 2. The great thing is, you can have just as much fun losing as you can winning.

So, I’m hooked. I’ve even started watching poker on TV and reading tips online. I’m even considering scheduling a father-son poker night – just for chips, of course. One thing I am not into is gambling with my own money. I’ve spent years negotiating with other people’s money (a quasi-gambling activity) and I’m quite good at it- however, I’ve never been tempted to risk my own.

This past year, in which I turned 50, has found me doing many new things: fencing, ballroom dancing, my first international speaking gig, blogging, a change in jobs, and now poker. It’s had its challenges as well, but overall, it’s been a pretty good year.

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National (Liberal) Public Radio – Time to pull the plug?

Posted on December 28, 2005 by me

For a couple of years I listened regularly to NPR as I drove back and forth to work, putting up with their slightly liberal slant on the world. I’d always heard that NPR lived on the left, but had never listened to them enough to know. For a while, I wasn’t bothered too much by their take on things – I can deal with and even appreciate a certain amount of liberalism. I have a few liberal genes myself, that pop up here and there.

However, after the invasion of Iraq, it seemed that their reporting became more dramatically liberal, to the point of almost sounding anti-American. The NPR reporter that reported from Iraq always took an approach that clearly showed her anti-involvement feelings, and it became obvious when comparing NPR’s reports to others, that we were not getting even close to “fair and balanced” reporting. Of course, NPR has never promised us “fair and balanced.”

But, shouldn’t it? After all, they are supported in part by the same taxpaying public that twice elected George Bush. If we had a box to check on our tax returns indicating whether we wanted to support NPR or not, I wouldn’t mind so much. But, this is National Public Radio, not Liberal Public Radio or Anti-Bush Public Radio. It should, then, represent the nation, not just the ultra-left.

Yesterday, I happened to turn to NPR just as “Fresh Air” was starting, and they opened with something like, “2005 – a year that George Bush would like to forget.” I listened for a minute or two, and switched over to classic rock. What kind of “public” radio is this?

Any year with challenges is going to be a year with ups and downs. NPR apparently decided to focus only on the downs, and try to characterize the whole year as one of “downs.” But consider these ups (not that I have to defend Bush, I just want to put some proper perspective on things):

  • A successfully appointed conservative – and young – Chief Justice.
  • A very successful year in Iraq, with a new constitution and parliamentary elections, upheld by the U.N.
  • Bush’s approval ratings on the upswing.
  • One of today’s headlines reads “Consumer confidence rises strongly.”

Get it? This was not a lousy year, in spite of Katrina and in spite of everything else. Liberals hate to admit this, but many of Bush’s policies are working. Now, I don’t support everything that Bush and the Republicans are doing – for example, I am concerned with the size of government and the level of spending, as I’ve said before. However, if I were Bush, this is not a year that I would necessarily want to forget.

NPR has proven themselves out of touch with the mainstream, and in my opinion, have complete abused their unrestrained free speech. We – that is, “we, the people” – don’t have to support them. Perhaps it’s time we set them loose on the open market, and let them fend for themselves. I’d rather hear radio ads then several weeks of begging for money, anyway.

Posted in Politics/Current Events | Leave a comment

Intelligent Design?

Posted on December 23, 2005 by me

Did anyone read Doonesbury last Sunday? You know, Doonsebury used to be one of my favorite cartoons, back when it was actually funny. (Yeah, I know, that was about 2 decades ago.) I especially loved the Vietnam-era Doonesbury, with Phred the peace-loving North Vietnamese guy. But, those days are long gone. Gary Trudeau lost his sense of humor, and his sense of reality, a long, long time ago.

Anyway, Sunday’s comic was very timely, dealing with Intelligent Design. The cartoon demonstrated one very important fact: most people don’t have a flippin’ clue about the issues, including Gary Trudeau.

This week, District Judge John Jones III added his voice to the issue, issuing a 139-page (double-spaced) opinion ruling that ID is Creationism under a false label. I’ve started reading the opinion (I’m on page 40), and have several thoughts; however, I am reserving final judgment on the decision until I read the whole stinkin’ ruling. I’ve probably read hundreds of court opinions over the last 19 years, and so far, this is not one of the easiest to read, and definitely one of the longest.

My first thought was that the good judge was just as ignorant as Gary Trudeau, and he might be; however, if (and this is a very big “if”) the opinion states the testimony correctly, he probably ruled correctly on the evidence. This could be one of the worst defended cases I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a few bad ones). I think I would have had to have ruled against the School Board, just based on the defense witnesses.

But here are some of the glaring issues that makes this case, and others like it, completely inane:

  • Who decides what is Science? As far as I know, there is no constitutional amendment defining what is, or what is not, science. “Junk science” is all over the place, including courtrooms all over the country, and I wouldn’t doubt that it’s also in our schools. These self-proclaimed “scientists” and teachers of “science” who are so concerned about keeping God out of the laboratories have conned the country into believing that there is a bright line that distinguishes science from anything else. It’s a farce.
  • We’ve lost the original intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If the founding fathers had truly intended for a “separation of church and state” as interpreted today, why does our money say “In God We Trust?” Obviously, the intent was not to ban any mention of a higher power.
  • Divorcing science from philosophy is bad. Many classic sci-fi and horror stories make this point, and it’s a good one. Just as a legal system is inexorably tied to someone’s morality, science – the study of why things are and how things work – is undoubtedly tied to philosophy, which is also the study of why things are and how things work. There are different methodologies, but to pretend to study “science” without consideration of the other questions is downright stupid.
  • No court can decide the issue. All the court can do is (supposedly) rule on evidence it is presented, based on existing laws. If, for example, the Creationists (or ID-ers) are poor litigators or are just plain stupid, they will lose. Losing proves only that they lost.
  • The Court’s ruling should only apply to these set of facts. The court was ruling on specific language mandated by the School Board. If that language is the official language of everyong who believes in Intelligent Design, that is one thing; however, in this case it seems the language was pretty poor.
  • Some of the Judge’s conclusions seem to be based on flawed information, not presented in the case itself. He discusses the history of Creationism and Intelligent Design, claiming it is based on “fundamentalism” and lumping all creationists as fundamentalists. I take offense at that … I don’t even know if this analysis would apply to all of the creationist school board members involved in the case. It seems absurd for the judge to be discussing church history and theology, wheh it is obvious he really hasn’t a clue about these issues.

There are many more issues to consider, based on sound logic and common sense. I’ll finish reading the case sometime over the Christmas holiday, and continue this rant …

Posted in Politics/Current Events, Random Thoughts | 2 Comments

The Christmas Gospel

Posted on December 19, 2005 by me

Yesterday, being the Sunday before Christmas (if Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter, is the Sunday before Christmas “Noble Fir Sunday?”), we discussed The Christmas Gospel in our Sunday School class. We were actually discussing the True Gospel, studying John chapter 3, and, being it’s Christmas, my lovely and talented wife thought of playing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (the Springsteen version), then comparing the 2.

If you’ve forgotten the song, here are some of the lyrics:

He’s making a list and checking it twice
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice,
Santa Claus is coming to town.

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness’ sake.

Most of the class (7th through 12th grade) could spot the obvious similarities as well as knew that John 3:16 leaves out any mention of lists or being good. However, there was a hesitancy – as there is in most of us – to completely accept the concept that our being “naughty or nice” has no bearing on the gift of eternal life. We are all so conditioned by the world (and by bad church teachings) to believe that what we receive is somehow tied to our performance – whether we “measure up” to God’s standards – that the Gospel seems too good to be true.

I told the class that the fact that none of us are good enough is the Good News; I already know that I’d be a regular on the naughty list, and only by the grace of God would I ever make the nice list. We know, however, that God doesn’t keep such lists. That’s good news, too. The only list I know of is the one in the Book of Life – which is based on grace, not by works (lest any of us should boast).

What was sad was that toward the end of the class my 10 year old daughter came into class, and after class broke into tears. You see, in her class, the teacher apparently didn’t know the gospel herself, and was teaching that they had to ask forgiveness for each and every sin they had committed in order to be forgiven. One child, from a non-Christian home, had prayed something like, “forgive me for all of my sins” and the teacher had told him, “that’s not good enough.” Can you believe this?

Thankfully my daughter heard the end of our lesson on God’s grace, and that Jesus is not like Santa Claus. However, she was truly traumatized by this heretical Sunday School lesson, and it took some more processing later on to really clear up the issues.

But what about the other children? What about the children from non-Christian families? What kind of a gospel do they now believe? This is one of the reasons that I have been very wary of letting my kids go to Sunday School – I can “fix” the problems I know about, but I can’t rehash every week’s lesson. But, that’s another issue for another time.

The Good News this Christmas is that for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him (so simple, isn’t it?) will not perish, but will have eternal life. No lists, no lumps of coal, no condemnation.

Merry Christmas!

Posted in Church, Spiritual stuff | 1 Comment