Midwest Ramblings 

Katrina thoughts

There is only really one thing to write about and that is Katrina. I guess the worse case scenario pretty much did happen. I have never been to New Orleans or that part of the country so as difficult as it is to comprehend the destruction it is probably even more than I can imagine. I try putting it in terms of cities I know but even that probably falls short. The scenes of people walking around having lost everything, clearly traumatized by the disaster, are just gut wrenching. It reminds me of the scenes we have witnessed in Iraq, the Balkans and Somalia. It is hard to imagine how the city can be rebuilt but it surely will be. San Francisco was rebuilt after their great earthquake. Chicago was rebuilt after the fire. Other cities have been rebuilt after seemingly insurmountable destruction.

Of course there is the predictable finger pointing. The feds didn’t get there fast enough. Communication wasn’t good. The war in Iraq took resources away that could have helped. The Bush administration cut funding for levee improvements and so on. The bottom line is that this storm was so destructive that other than a complete evacuation very little more could have been done. Disaster relief always goes badly, not just here but around the world. People are left out. Things get forgotten. Lessons are learned.

It is easy to think we are so civilized here. We see mob scenes in 3rd world countries and think that would never happen here, after all we are civilized people. The looting and mayhem seen in New Orleans though just goes to show that people are people everywhere and what keeps us from being like those we see elsewhere on TV are not our superior morality but rather are the blessings and the good fortune we here in this country have been given. The utter lawlessness seen in the aftermath was surprising to many but yet it shouldn’t be. We have seen it on a smaller scale before at other disasters, sporting events and court verdicts. Still though it is appalling to see people who have all been through the same tragedy commit murders, rapes and looting. By looting I mean carrying away big screen televisions and the like. I can understand the taking of food and water from stores for survival but the assaults, rapes, murders and destruction are just inexcusable. It just goes to show how precarious our society is and makes me wonder what would happen in other situations such as a massive terrorist attack, a catastrophic earthquake or some economic collapse. However there are some harsh realities that have to be looked at in New Orleans. There were civic failures there. One thing that made the lawlessness worse was that there was the local authorities obviously had little credibility. The police department there has long had the reputation, and apparently deservedly, as being among the most corrupt and least respected in the country. That certainly didn’t help. The mayor was certainly no Rudy Giuliani and the governor was no George Pataki Things seemed to go better in Mississippi where Haley Barbour showed strong leadership from the start. New Orleans also has long had a crime problem and the lack of leadership only emboldened the criminals. However we have to remember that those were only a minority. The vast majority of people only want to be safe.

There are heartwarming stories though. Without doubt we will eventually learn of the heroism of many in New Orleans during the hurricane over the next months. We do know though that the people of Houston and other cities by accepting the victims have been fantastic and certainly the rest of the country will come through as always. It appears that once the military and the national guard got there they got the job done.
Lessons learned though have to include the importance of getting a military presence on the ground ASAP. There is no reason why people who have already endured a catastrophe have to also endure fear for their lives from others. The bureaucracy of disaster relief has to stop. Get people in position and empower them to make immediate decisions.

Unfortunately there it appears some in the Churches of God have to learn compassion for their fellow man. There was a couple of what I thought were entirely inappropriate statements from the leadership of the Living Church of God. As Ecclesiastes states, there is a time and place for everything but this is not the time to assume God’s wrath struck New Orleans and lecture about their sins. This is the time to talk about God’s mercy, His love for mankind, what our love for our fellow man should be and how we should help both in word and deed. How someone can watch what has gone on and not feel the immediate need to pray for them and to help but rather to preach is beyond me.

Katrina

Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans. Looks like by this time tomorrow the city could be under water. The last 24 hours we have been inundated with all the worse case scenarios where the city is flooded and remains flooded for the next 4 months as the water is trapped and the pumps are unable to work. Of course the loss of life could be tremendous if people are stupid and don’t heed the evacuation orders. Its tough to know whether to believe the worse case scenario or not. So often things are over hyped however if the expected happens this could be the worse natural disaster in this country in decades. Hopefully people evacuate as told and hopefully the hurricane does not hit full force.

Religious Discrimination Update: Resolved

An update on the case in Indiana I wrote of earlier. The lawsuit has been dropped. The school has agreed to make an accommodation for the religious observances.

The blame is being placed on the No Child Left Behind Act and state laws. In my opinion it is more the state than the federal act. This is the only case I am aware of. It seems to me if this was a result of the No Child Left Behind Act we would have seen more of these. More likely it was some bureaucrat’s interpretation of the law. At any rate the right thing is being done and I am glad to see it was resolved before it actually had to go to court.

Where have all the people gone

It seems there is a new TV fad. For a while game shows made a comeback. Then it was reality TV. Now it is missing person TV. It seems you can’t turn on the TV without seeing a story on yet another missing person. Next will probably be the missing person cable channel. All missing people all the time.

Strange Gas Prices

Gas at $2.69 a gallon today after being $2.42 yesterday. Remember when gas prices would go up pennies at a time? Now it jumps 20-30 cents at a time. Doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense

Tiger Wins Again

Watched Tiger win another tournament today. The amount of determination he has to win is amazing. His putting was horrible. He didn’t drive particularly well, yet he found a way to win. Kind of reminds me of how Michael Jordan was on the basketball court. No one was more determined on the court than him and it seems the same way with Tiger on the course

Religious Discrimination

There are a couple of stories of personal interest to me one involving a school district in Indiana attempting to deny the rights of a student to practice his religion. A sixth grader in Lowell Indiana has been threatened with expulsion if his family takes him out of school for about a week to attend a religious festival in October. There are several stories on it. A recent synopsis can be found at http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

I find it amazing that in 2005 a school would attempt this blatant religious discrimination. This story has been going on for a while and at first I figured eventually saner heads would prevail at the school district but apparently not and now the US Justice Department is having to get involved. I have no doubt the district will end up having to change its policy. This is of personal interest because I also am a member of the church involved, The United Church of God. http://www.ucg.org/ I grew up keeping the days in question and still do. I took the same time off school and never once had a real problem with administrators or teachers. I would get assignments and do them while away. In fact I usually came back further ahead than the rest of the class and they had to catch up to me instead of the other way around. This is an obvious case where the school needs to make a religious accommodation. It does not put an undue burden on the district, does not disrupt school and is not a danger to other students. The school district needs to do the right thing, save the district money in legal fees that could certainly be put to better use and accommodate the student.

On a related note the reason The United Church of God was formed was because of radical doctrinal changes in the Worldwide Church of God. Without going into a long history, at one time The Worldwide Church of God had over 140,000 members. Beginning in the early 90’s subtle doctrinal changes were introduced culminating in massive changes in 1995-96. At that time thousands left. The United Church of God formed at that time primarily from those who disagreed with the doctrinal changes. Smaller amounts either formed their own churches or went elsewhere. Others either gave up religion altogether or continue to practice by themselves. Presently The Worldwide Church of God has anywhere probably from 30,000 to 60,000 members depending on who is doing the counting and who they are counting. It is an interesting study of a church dynamic. The United Church of God is the largest of the groups with around 16,000 members. The Living Church of God has around 8,000 members and various other groups probably total several thousand more. So at best probably around 30,000 from the original 140,000 had enough conviction to hold on to their beliefs. I bring this up because now The Worldwide Church of God is studying name changes. I have no doubt that in the near future it will happen thus in their eyes completing their transformation to traditional Christianity of course in many of our eyes it simply puts an exclamation point on their plunge into heresy.

The lesson here is that so many people were willing to toss away religious convictions when challenged. I’m sure there are many different reasons why. Some perhaps were just there for the socialization and the religion was secondary, others maybe never really examined their beliefs. We see similar things in other churches. Take Catholicism for example. In the US especially people who consider themselves good Catholics will disagree with the doctrines on that church on birth control, abortion, priesthood celibacy, etc. All of which are major doctrines of that church. I am not trying to pick on Catholics. The same could be found probably in any denomination. The question I have to ask then is if someone disagrees with so many fundamental doctrines, why are they there?

I would encourage all who attend a church to examine their beliefs. Are they in line with what is being taught and if not who is wrong, you or the church you attend? Use the Bible to find the answers to those questions.

Just Go Away

Now our governor, Robert Taft, is a convict. The thumbnail sketch is that he was found to have accepted gifts, mostly golf outings, from people or companies and failed to disclose them on annual reports, not once but rather four consecutive years. This wasn’t an oversight but instead an intentional fudging of the reports. He pleaded no contest to a few misdemeanors and insists he won’t resign. His term is up in a year and half anyway and his political career in Ohio was done even before this. He was term limited out as governor so his only other alternative would be to run for the US Senate and since he was extremely unpopular because of tax increases as well as a bloated state government and probably wouldn’t win a statewide race for dogcatcher he was in all likelihood through. In a way it is kind of sad. He held a number of offices prior to this and has been thought of as an honest if somewhat dull and unremarkable man. The Taft family has had quite a political legacy in Ohio and he has certainly smeared it. When he came into office he proclaimed a 0 tolerance policy for ethics violations. Over the years he has fired or forced to resign a few that have violated the state ethics laws. He should stop being a hypocrite and follow the standards he expected others to live up to. He should say that he failed to live up to those standards and he is going to hold himself to the same standard of accountability that he held others to. He should apologize on statewide TV and resign effective immediately. The state will not fall apart if he steps down. He would be doing his party a favor as well especially considering that 8 years ago the state republican party pretty much cleared the field for him to run by making promises and putting pressure on other potential republican candidates not to run. The biggest reason he should step down is that it is simply the right thing to do.

Time to streamline

I think it would be a good thing if once a year or so companies, especially large ones, reevaluated whether certain management positions are needed and if they are needed what their core tasks should be. With my employer it seems to be a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. There many managers whose function I couldn’t tell you and many of the managers seem to be busy doing things that have no relationship to what their core responsibilities are while their department is circling the bowl. I know this happens a lot of places but it is especially frustrating when I see it happening in front of me. I have to wonder how much more competitive and how much more money the company would make if things were just streamlined and the extraneous garbage would taken away.

The Sheehan Lesson

The Cindy Sheehan situation has made me think about how it is possible to become so bitter and angry over something that it just warps someone’s outlook. She has already lost her son. She is losing her husband through a divorce. Most of her relatives have said that they do not support her. She is in the process of self-destructing and losing what should be the most important things to her at this time and her support network, her family. None of us know what she was like prior to this but undoubtedly this has overcome her. Tragic things, unfair things happen to all of us. Most of them not to this extent but nevertheless we can let them control us, change who we are and take us places we would rather not go if we are not careful. Perhaps it is something that happens on the job, or in the family. Maybe it is being the victim of a crime. I know I have allowed this to happen to me in the past. I have dwelt on some real or perceived wrong and end up doing or saying things that looking back I wish I hadn’t and ended up paying a price for it. Grief is necessary. It is good, but left unchecked it morphs into something else. The Bible has good advice on this. Ephesians 4:26-27 states “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” Vs. 31 says “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:”

It is good advice. As we let it fester inside of us it continues spread and infect us, eventually destroying us. Sometime down the road Mrs. Sheehan is going to look back and wonder how she got to where she is at. Hopefully it happens before it is too late.


<< Previous 10 Articles  21 - 30 of 67 articles Next 10 Articles >> 

On This Site

  • About this site
  • Main Page
  • Most Recent Comments
  • Complete Article List
  • Sponsors

Search This Site


Syndicate this blog site

Powered by BlogEasy


Free Blog Hosting