Today all across the country people came out to protest the taxes and spending our government started months ago and has continued into present day. After flipping through the mainstream media outlets, even CNN, I have determined that they just don’t get it. They portray this to be a GOP or Republican thing and they are so far from understanding that people are fed up with our government overspending, growing larger and larger, and more importantly today, ever-increasing the taxation (in various forms) its citizens.
The media downplayed the Tax Day Tea Parties as insignificant and just noise that only a few loons from the far right would attend but in city after city thousands of people have gathered to say enough is enough. Even the Texas governor this morning said he was personally going to three different Tea Parties in the state of Texas, and as governors go, Texas holds a mighty powerful position in the Union.
It started out with large cities like Boston and Atlanta but soon enough there were small rural towns, and yes, even Auburn University, who played host to a local Tea Party. Below are just a few of the images from the Tea Party in Auburn today out in front of the University library. Sadly, even the signs were censored as you will see below. One of the guys holds up the sign that says “Stop Over Spending” was told he could not hold up his sign, which originally said “Stop Obama Spending”. He was made to cross out the Obama reference and told he couldn’t say that?
I guess Bush did do a bit of spending before he left office but come on, this guy should be able to hold up a sign that has the word Obama on it? Like no one ever made a sign that had BUSH on it with far more hateful things than that. Oh well, such is life in 2009.
Here are some of the photos from today’s protest (thanks Deb).
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Last week CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) 2009 took place in Washington DC. News this week has been coming out of that conference from the Keynote speaker Rush Limbaugh all the way down to a speech given by Jonathan Krohn on the meaning of conservatism. Haven’t heard of Jonathan Krohn before now? He wrote a book called Define Conservatism that was published last year at a time in the country when people didn’t quite understand conservatism. He set forth to try and explain that conservatism does not equal republican, it does not equal a mean and uncaring mindset, but does stand for a set of principles like life, love for this country, believes each individual can succeed if they choose to, takes personal responsibility for their own lives, thinks people are over taxed and wants less government involvement in their lives.
Did I mention that when he wrote this book he was 13 years old! At 13 years old he did more than many will ever do in their life and published a book, and Krohn gave a two minute address on “Conservative Victories Across the Nation” on the second day of CPAC in Washington DC last week. He gave the speech in the video below in front of a huge crowd, that was broadcast live on CSPAN, all at the age of 14.
Even if you don’t agree with his politics, he is an amazing kid that is bound to do something amazing with his life. Even if you just watch the first part of the video below, you will see someone who is far more advanced in his ability to speak and conceptualize a concept and principle than many of us “well educated” adults.
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Noticed I filed this post under “political” so if you don’t like political stuff, just move on to my next post (and coming up I will post a photo shoot I did yesterday). Until then, I came across this site, If I Were President from 247 Town Hall, a while back during the election and forgot about it until now when I saw something similar on another blog. This site was a “get out the vote” type video site, filled with tons of well made videos from high profile, almost all left wing liberal celebrities. Always great that no matter what the message now, you know you can package something to look so good and tasty that it just has to be a good thing.
Everything now is hope, hope, hope, we have hope for change, we can change change to a new change and hope change can bring about a new kind of hope and change. I love it. Now that we actually do have change on Pennsylvania Avenue I think this video is a pretty good monologue of what kind of change we are in for.
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1640183418
Some of it is pretty funny, and I don’t totally disagree with all of it, there was one person who said they wanted to legalize marijuana (think that has basically already been done), Deb would go for the ban on Asparagus, and another to ban all hummers and buy everyone a bike. I already have a bike and can’t afford a hummer. I will say this has probably been one of the most difficult first few weeks in a new office but the job is for 4 years so there is a long way to go. Tonight when Mr Obama speaks to Congress we should get a better glimpse into what is coming up. More doom and gloom or pumping up an economy in the tanks right now.
Either way, I bet not a whole lot of people watch the address to congress as much as I am guessing that many reading this didn’t even know he was going to speak tonight, and wouldn’t until they see that he has interrupted American Idol. Perhaps Mr O should play this video below to make people feel better?
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Some of you may not know that I was once (and still in a different way) an aviation nut, buff, fanatic, whatever you want to call it. I did get my private pilot’s license, and I did work for and was hired by several airlines earlier in my life/career. One of my most favorite types of photography that I ever attempted was aviation photography (made almost impossible after 9-11). I started while I was still shooting film and moved into digital SLR’s to enhance my aviation photography.
Air Force One is probably one of the most recognized aircraft in the entire world. I love the plane and have been to Boeing field north of Seattle to see the older Boeing 707 that Nixon and Kennedy flew on as President. That plane is no longer in Washington state (I think it is now in the Smithsonian), but even at 30-40 years old it still evoked feelings of pride in a country that is still one of the only countries in the world that has a fleet of aircraft for its leader.
I use to watch Tony Blair get on a commercial British Airways 747 and think what a disgrace to put the Prime Minister on a commercial aircraft but I guess it did save quite a bit of money for the British people, but didn’t do a thing to create an iconic air force fleet like we did with the Presidential aircraft.
One of my favorite shots I ever took was a shot of this British Airways Boeing 747 about to take off for London in the middle of a storm with a Boeing 777 landing right in front of it (if you look at the close up, you can see the Continental B-777 at the end of the runway in front of the BA 747). It was no different than any commercial BA flight that Tony Blair would have flown on if he was in Houston at the time.
I can’t really recall a time in history when the press or anyone else questioned when, why, or how, we used the military fleet like they are now. For good reason, it costs a heck of a lot more to fly the military fleet than a commercial flight, but even so, I would never want to see Mr Obama get on a commercial flight while he is still in office. Now that Air Force One is officially part of the Obama administration, it has been taken for a ride, and because of the economy, more and more people are starting to question why we are spending money in ways that just isn’t necessary any more.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
This week, Mr Obama flew Air Force One to Colorado and Arizona just for the sake of signing a bill. As far as everyone can tell, the estimated cost for Obama to fly to Arizona (don’t know about the Colorado trip) on Air Force One to sign the so-called stimulus bill was about $700,000. $700,000 for a flight that didn’t have to take place to sign a bill to spend $787 billion. So I guess just a drop in the bucket compared to $787 billion, so who cares.
Well, the very next thing Obama said was that American’s needed to start living within their means and at the same time he told us to turn down our thermostats. We have officially entered the “do as I say, not as I do” time.
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I will say right off the bat that this post will be totally uninteresting to some and all of my 10 readers may dislike it, but I feel like change is coming to my blog and I am writing this post to map it out for myself. There are a lot of random thoughts here and I jump back and forth, but I will try to tie them all together over the next few months through different blog posts, so for now, just roll with me if you can.
The two taboo topics of discussion in the workplace (politics and religion) are now taboo everywhere, which slowly makes us indifferent to either which in turns makes us unwilling to discuss, learn, and grow in the history that makes up topics like politics, religion, and government. Have we forgotten in this country (the U.S.) that there are countries in this world like North Korea, China, Cuba, and parts of Africa where they can not openly discuss opposition to their government or religious ideas?
I just love websites I go to that say no talking about politics or religion. In some cases that may be appropriate, but that has bled over into everything in everyday life. I am tired of hearing and seeing fellow Brothers and Sisters that avoid talking about politics (and matters of “other” faiths) because it is divisive. Newsflash, if you call yourself a Believer in Christ, you have chosen a side. Although Christ is open to ALL who believe in Him, we know not everyone will. It is hard to think of God as a God of love, and who leaves people out of his Heavenly kingdom but we also can’t even start to think we understand God from God’s point of view. On the flip side, there is “the world” (that would be those who don’t choose Him) that also refuse to talk about religion because it is divisive in nature.
We are quickly becoming a socialist society that no longer wants to listen to an opposing side and are guided to lean towards a muddy middle ground on everything. In the “can’t we all just get along” world, we move to the center of the undecided’s (those who can’t seem to make a decision until someone tells them how they should feel about the topic at hand) where we can all come together and get nothing done. Problem is, that is the most boring and uninformed place to sit, and is not only a cop out, but dangerous.
We have to be careful to not speak badly about another “religion” like extremist Muslims who’s plan is to do harm, and ignore comments by people like Helen Thomas of the White House press corp when she says things at Mr Obama’s “press conference” like “so-called” terrorists when speaking about people who terrorize other people. Don’t know what I am talking about… you could be guilty of political indifference yourself.
Why does this matter? It matters because we are now so far removed from our government, those who make the laws, and how it effects our lives, that we have become indifferent. Indifferent to a government that doesn’t blink an eye to spend $800 billion (about the size of our current national debt, in other wards, doubling the size of the national debt) for things like Frisbee golf courses and digital TV converter boxes, that we don’t even take notice. We just go merrily about our business and hope it doesn’t eventually intrude on our own life.
What did Jesus come to this earth to do? Reach over the isle and make friends, being careful not to be divisive? No, he came to fulfill the Torah, the law. Many times as Believers we ignore or are indifferent to politics because it is divisive. We want to make sure we don’t exclude anyone we could proselytize to by saying the word Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative like either of those determine who we are as a person. As one conversation went today, Jesus was not a Methodist, I promise. He was a person who spoke about principles, ideas, and how to change the status quo of thinking.
When we choose to ignore (by ignore I mean not discuss openly for means of not offending someone) divisive people, comments, or conversations, I don’t think we can grow. I am more than happy to listen to an opposing side to my own beliefs if it can be presented in an intelligent manner. I can talk to or converse with right wing religious fanatics and atheistic agnostics until if they can speak intelligently about their own point of view, but it is hard to do that if you don’t know why you stand where you do.
All that to say I am going to be doing some minor changes to the categories on my blog to speak my mind about topics of religion and politics. I am moving my photography category into Media since it is a media form, Faith will be Religion, etc etc. Like I said, if you don’t like politics or religion, stick to my Journal or Media categories.
Anyone who really knows me, knows that I have a great desire to please everyone all the time, so this is a pretty big change for me, but I hope this brings more transparency to my blog and my way of thinking. I am tired of being politically correct in my speech and writing and tip toeing around on my blog. I don’t plan on doing so from this point forward. If you don’t like divisiveness (meaning standing, and knowing where you stand), then read my “journal” section and ignore the politics and religion posts, I will keep those posts to the activities in my life.
If you would like to know where I come from, I do have some starting points, and as stupid as I thought Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” goes, I think that is a starting point to getting to know someone. I mention these things so you know the very basis of where my future opinion may stem and how I come to certain conclusions. I will list these on Facebook shortly (I think), but to get rolling…
- I am not for a political party, but I am for certain principles and ideas like smaller government and lower taxes.
- I do not consider myself to be part of a denomination but part of the body of Believers of Christ. I work at a Methodist church but I am currently a member of a Baptist church in Dallas. I don’t care much for non-doms because often they don’t know what they Believe
- I watch and read news and politics from all over the place, not just one single source or location
- I believe the solutions to the problems of this country are going to be solved by people, not government
- I think people forget all about what history teaches. I am slowly trying to relearn what I did not learn in school when I found it useless but now find it priceless
I picked up this book the other day called “I am a Christian” by Jesse R Wilson, written back in 1935 and as I flipped through the book and read a passage to a friend of mine who said “good call” sarcastically. Point is, we don’t always have to just scratch the surface. Everything is up for discussion and debate except the death and resurrection of Jesus, that I hold to be an uncompromising Truth.
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Change is coming, all we have to do is look up and observe. You may be asking yourself what does Andrew Jackson, the Blue Angels, and Altocumulus Clouds have in common. Not much, but today, call it an observation. Today being President’s Day, we are observing a day to celebrate the office of U.S. President if not the actual presidential person. Since President’s day has been on the marketing horizon for a week or so the stations like National Geographic Channel and others have been doing biographies of each president.
I was only able to watch two, Lincoln and Jackson, but I still learned a bit from each and haven’t really had time to discern the historical quality of each show, but they were both informational non-the-less.
Andrew Jackson had a pretty incredible stay as President. Outside of the Native Indians Trail of Tears when they were forcibly removed from the eastern part of the United States, he tried to do some great things as President, bold ideas that never took hold, but gave us a gimps of who he was and how he thought. Jackson was the only President to ever pay off the national debt. This should be a shock to us today when there is little hope of ever paying off the national debt when we move to pass an almost $900 billion spending stimulus package, but he was the only President to do so, ever.
What I liked about the story of Andrew Jackson was how the narration ended. He spent a good part of his life in politics out of love for this country, but also for people’s freedom to be able to vote and live in a free country, and that the government should be run by it’s people. It stated that Jackson would be dumbfounded and appalled that less than 50% of people vote today, and most are not even interesting in the politics of today.
An amazing statement since government control of it’s people has been passed down through history from the beginning of time. We don’t all have to be political junkies, but everything the government does today has an effect on how we live our lives today. We fought the British over a 4% tax on its people and today we don’t even notice when our taxes are raised by that small an amount. Observation.
The Blue Angels comes from a message given by Rusty yesterday about a man who came to know his Savior and later found himself face to face with the beauty of his Creator through the cockpit of a fighter jet. After weeks of coming to a Bible study with his wife, the words of John chapter 3 in the story of Nicodemus came to life and he became a new creation.
He tells a story of this Marine fighter pilot who sees the sun rise from his cockpit and cried after recognizing that he now knows who created the sun itself. It made me think about how many days we see the sun come up and don’t think twice about its beauty and how much more beautiful is our creator. This pilot must have seen the sun rise from a cockpit of a plane 1,000 times before this, but this day it was different. Observation.
Altocumulus Clouds are these clouds that roll in like waves or ripples in the sky, Alto (middle) Cumulus (heap or pile), and can be seen in advance of a storm system (like the one that is supposed to be here on Wednesday). For those who don’t know, I am a little bit of a weather buff and have always liked to observe the weather that goes on around us every day. Today a large band of Altocumulus clouds rolled in about 8am and were quickly starting to dissipate when I went out and took this shot.
How many times have you looked up at the clouds and recognized a specific type of clouds like we had here in Auburn this morning? Are we all to busy to do that any more? I have to admit, I recognized the system but for the life of me could not remember the name of the clouds, so a special thanks goes out to James Spann (Meteorologist for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) for the quick answer to my question.
Altocumulus clouds signify change is coming. All we have to do is look up and oberve.
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I don’t do many political type posts, but that is all that is going on in the news today. I can never remember when an inauguration got so much coverage. It is well deserved, but nothing has stacked up to this $150 million party that Obama is throwing that finalizes tomorrow. Obama has managed to create this show of shows by outspending Bush ($40 million) and even Clinton ($33 million) by bringing out all the biggest names in Hollywood and making such a spectacle of the whole thing and I will be glad when it is finally over and we can collectively get back to the work of the country.
This particular inauguration is turning out to be the ultimate part of appeasement for Obama. He and has been playing both sides and there is no better example than what John Piper gave on a recent blog post How Barack Obama Will Make Christ a Minister of Condemnation. From Gene Robinson, an openly non-celibate homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church who will deliver the invocation to Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California scheduled for Tuesday, back to Bruce Springsteen standing on the same stage with Garth Brooks (although Rick Warren and Garth Brooks do seem to be the exceptions).
Does anyone remember from back in highschool when you tried to date two girls at the same time? It never worked and more times than not you would lose both girls in the process. That may be a bad analogy, but I hope that doesn’t happen to Obama and he ends up loosing both sides. All he will be left with are the ultra moderates who can’t ever make a decision about anything. Nothing worse in my book than indecision and luke warm. Even scriptures talk about being against Christ is better than not having an opinion at all.
The discussion in our house lately has been if we want to see Obama succeed as president or not (a question Mr Bill has posed on his show lately). I do in fact want to see America become stronger, more prosperous, better educated, and succeed in general (of course that has different meaning to everyone). If it takes Obama to do that, great. No matter if we voted for him or not, he is our President now, we should get behind him, even if we disagree with him.
Some Totally Random Thoughts About Politics on January 19th
- The word “Obama” is NOT in the wordpress spell check database
- I am sick of hearing the news ask someone if they thought they would ever see a woman or African-American as President, I DON’T CARE. I want to see the most qualified person for the job, ANY job, and I don’t care what race, nationality, or genger the person is. If Bill Lester is the best person to put in a race car GREAT, if he can’t win races, get someone else in there.
- What is the reason we have to spend $150 million on a party and not think about how this translates into his Presidency?
- Thoughts on #2 :: Bail-out? Auto industry, economy, people out of work, consumer confidence?
- Bush put everything he had into his job over the last 8 years, we should be glad someone kept us safe
- Pelosi and Reed should be totally ashamed at everything they have tried to do in prosecuting Bush administration officials
- I am waiting for my check in the mail from the Obama administration (never got one from Bush)
- Keith Olbermann is possibly the worst excuse for a journalist that MSNBC has ever hired (and they have a lot who fit in that category)
- OBAMA IS NOT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, he is Obama.
- I personally don’t deserve said check from #8, I didn’t pay any taxes over the last few years because I didn’t make enough money
I wish the Obama administration well, and I hope they can keep American safe while turing around the economy, but most of all, I will be glad when this $150 million party you paid for is over and people can get back to work.
