A Little Shoutout

I have been reading about the repair job that our astronauts have done to the Hubble telescope.

All I can say is wow – just a major achievement and reflects the training, tenacity and ingenuity of these guys.

American Cars

It seems that it will go the way of the dodo.

I do not mean American car companies, but cars that one would think of as American: big, muscular and running on gas. Instead, with the announcement that the Obama administration made about increasing and accelerating the gas mileage requirements to 39 mpg by 2016 (not to mention that government pretty much owns GM and Chrysler), it would mean that we would be more European in our car choices: For the masses, if they can afford a car, it will be  smaller, lighter, more expensive and running on diesel or hybrid. For the elites, well they will have more choices as they will have the money to pay for the fees that the luxury car companies charge to pay the federal government in penalties for not meeting the mileage requirements.

Can’t say that I am happy about this….

Swine Flu 2

Couple of other things that I am concerned about this are some of the more extreme reactions that I am reading about. On one hand we have people calling for the closure of the border with Mexico and on the other we have the usual PETA types along with their white wine crowd allies that are using this as political tool to attack the farm and animal husbandry industry.

Guess it does not help when our vice president is contributing to the hysteria by his statements on not taking public transportation. I also feel sorry for the airline and tourism industries.

Anyway, I feel that this is something to keep an eye on – not to go into full bore panic mode. I would be especially concerned if the strain mutates into something stronger as the weather gets colder next fall.

Swine Flu

Well there has been confirmation of human to human transmission.

Living in a state bordering Mexico and knowing that past flu pandemics caused millions of deaths, this is something to keep an eye on. Am a little disappointed in the fact that our president has not made staffing HHS and CDC (as well as Treasury – the department that should be handling the financial stuff that our economy faces) a priority.

Anyway, please keep this and the people of Mexico in your thoughts and prayers.

Another One?

Seems that there has been another shooting. This time at a Korean Catholic retreat center in California.

Is it me, or does it seem that there has been a rash of these type of things recently – I think there has been three or four in the past month? Is it the economy? Is it something else? What is going on?

Sleeping Beauty

As you may or may not know, I have a daughter. She, like many little girls, is into Disney princesses. She likes Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle, etc etc etc. Not too long ago, we got her the Disney Sleeping Beauty movie.

One thing I just wanted to say about it. There is a gag in there dealing with drunkeness. In the movie, two kings – one Sleeping Beauty’s father and the other, the prince’s father – were talking about marriage of their children to one another. As they are talking and celebrating the arrangement of the marriage, wine was flowing freely. It so happens that a minstrel of one of the kings gets drunk by drinking a lot of wine. It’s kind of an amusing scene. However, I can not imagine something like that happening now in any children’s movie.

Just another interesting twist. As things get more explicit and raunchy in our pop culture compared to thirty or forty years ago, there are things that move in opposite directions as well.

North Korea

Ok, not sure if anyone has been paying attention to the news, but North Korea launched a rocket. Though from another report, I heard that it was not successful. Nevertheless, what I really want to detail is the why – or more specifically respond to a clip of some US government official. That official stated that North Korea should abandon its missile and nuclear program and join the family of nations. Implicit in the statement was that the US would be willing to take steps to normalize relation with that country and of course provide it with material assistance if North Korea would stop and dismantle those programs. Not sure if that statement was purely for domestic US consumption. If it was, then I can understand the statement – every administration would like to be seen by the US citizens as pursuing peace (whether it is the best course of action is another matter). If it was targeted for North Koreans, then I think that US official should quit and find another line of work. The Kim regime in NK knows that once they ‘join the family of nations’, their days of rule will be numbered. This is a country that let one to two million of its citizens die in the late 90’s instead of opening itself up – that is 5-10 percent of its population.

Ok a little history here: back before the 90’s North Korea survived with massive assistance from their communist brethren in the USSR and China – whom NK played off of one another. With the fall of communism, that well dried up. So what does a poor country do to get hard currency without opening itself up? One thing that it does is get involved in criminal activities. North Korea is a center for counterfeitting and I believe drugs as well (plus of course weapons). The second thing that it does is ratchet up the tension to extort other countries to pay it to be quiet. In other words, it acts like some mafia crime family.

Why does it do this? I think it is because, ironically, the institutions of central government control are breaking down – black markets are all over the place and if one has enough money, you can literally get away with murder. Corruption is rampant. So the only real thing that it has is keeping their population on some sort of heightened war footing. North Korean population are constantly being told to sacrifice to keep the imperialists at bay and every time some country (US, South Korea, Japan usually) pays up, it is propagandized as some great victory – trying to further the government’s legitimacy. Now, what do you think will happen if NK agrees to make peace, open up and have US or Japan diplomatic presence in the country? That’s right, the Kim regime would lose its major claim to legitimacy.

North Korea, like many of the problems of this world, is where there exists no good options, just a bunch of bad or worse ones.

A Passing

Someone that I knew, a father of a friend, passed away this week. I think this is, from my recollection, the first time that someone of my father’s generation, who I grew up with and interacted with, dieing from what I would call ravages of age. Not by terrible accident or by cruel murder or some terrible acts – but simply through sickness and weakness that is almost a certainty as we grow older. I can still remember him and how he sounded as I grew up. The jokes that the guys would make about him. His son and I have not talked or communicated for quite a while, but I still would call him a friend. Prayers for him and his family.

Nevertheless, it reminds me of the limited time that I will have with others that are closer to me – especially my own father and mother. We are all Christians, so I know that the seperation of death will only be temporary, but even in that small time that we will be apart, I know I will miss them. I hope that I can make the most of the time that we have here and that I have been and/or continue to be a good son and honor them.

Couple of other thoughts: the church that I go to now are mostly made up of 20-something year old young adults. In fact, I am one of the older ones. However, the church that lends us the space to worship as well as my parent’s church are made up of much older folks. The host church and my church had a joint service – it was interesting comparing their announcements versus what I hear from our church. Announcements and prayer request from our church are items such as outreach to this place, missions to that place, this program and that program and when people do ask for prayers for dramatic healing or things of that nature (ie, not the kiddie sickness or upset stomach or headache type of stuff), it is mostly for others that are not of the church. The host church’s announcements and prayer requests, though they do have programs here and there, have a lot more with healings, care and comfort for members. I can see why the host church would have some excitement for the youth of our church, but I think we miss something by not having mortality facing us as we would if we were part of a church that have older generations. Guess since I am one of the older guys, I may be one blazing that path…

AIG Thing

Just wanted to say some stuff related to the AIG bonuses. I know, I am one of the late ones into the commentary party concerning this subject.

To me, the biggest disappointment concerning this entire affair has been our federal government. Especially so since they knew about these bonuses months ago. Instead of acting like responsible people and addressing it at that time and managing it, they let it develop into this populist brouhaha. As Jack Welch said, federal government owns 80 percent of AIG and thus they should have acted like the board, worked with the CEO and the executives to find a resolution months ago. Instead we get this (as many commentators put it) kabuki theater of outrage from the very same people that knew about it. The real outrage should be the hundreds of billions that our government will spend on various pet projects that have nothing to do with our current economic situation – I mean, there are various causes for the current downturn in our economy but universal health care, alternative energy or universal higher education are not among them. Compared to the amount government has wasted our tax dollars (and our children’s and grandchildren’s for that matter as we go trillions in debt), this AIG thing is not even big enough to be a rounding error. It makes as much difference as breaking wind in a cat 5 hurricane.

Now we have this stupid punitive bill passed by the house that puts 90 percent tax on executive compensation on income over 250K for those entities that get 5 billion in government bailout money. Stupid since, one, it is barely constitutional (I am iffy on it passes the bill of attainder clause), two it punishes many people that had nothing to do with causing the financial mess and in fact may have been talent, brought in to help resolve it and three, it brings in instability and may undo the purpose of the bailouts. TARP and other actions by the government was done so that it will stabilize the finances of the banks somewhat so that they continue to lend as well as give them some time so that they can untangle the mix of assets to separate the good and bad and restore trust. Now due to the actions by the government (as well as some populist goons), banks are trying to repay the bailout money never-mind if they need it still to do its stated purpose. It’s like I am living in some 3rd world banana republic. I did not know that Zimbabwe was a country we should be emulating.

If this bill ever reaches the president, I hope he vetoes it – that would really be an unexpected move. However, he comes from a political viewpoint that demonizes corporations and people that run them and so I will not be holding my breath. It would be a really cool thing for me if these politicians would start saying how we are all Americans and that the vast majority of executives in our corporations, though flawed as we are all flawed, are in general, good folks who work hard and have a difficult task of balancing the needs and desires of the shareholders, employees and customers. I am not rich money-wise (though I am rich in many other ways) but I am just so tired of politicians dividing us and promising us that they will use the coercive power of government to get back at ‘them’ that have more materially than ‘us’.

Creeds Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the history and theology behind the creeds that guide the Church. Couple of things that I want to say in conclusion to that series of posts.

One of the things that struck me the most was the organic nature of it all. These creeds were result of councils that were called usually in response to some heresy or controversy that had been raging within the church for years and years if not decades. Usually the controversies persisted for a time even after a creed was adopted. Sometimes, it was the simple fact that there were imperfect translations as some used Latin and others Greek that caused issues. In some cases, at least with Nicene, the people who adopted a particular creed had their fortunes reversed as the political winds changed. It is laughable to think that there was (or still is) some group of men high up in some tower, as part of some shadowy organization, that directs and orders the events and movements of the world or the Church. Nevertheless, the church has come through two millenia of history with a vast majority of Christians holding pretty much the same core beliefs as stated in these creeds. I would attribute this to the hand of Providence.

Second thing of note is that these creeds are statements of faith and are not proofs: They are things that the Scripture states but the workings are mysteries. The trinity or the incarnation is something that we cannot fully explain; what we can only really do is systematize in these statements what has been revealed to us. The creeds are also not something that totally encapsulates the Christian faith. In fact, these creeds are also called symbols – as in something smaller and simpler that represents something greater and more complex. Basically they serve as some boundries - however soft or hard – in which if someone takes a doctrinal position outside of them, that someone would be in danger of heresy or even something that is anti-Christian.

So what are these boundries? It boils down to three: One that there is a God and He is the creator of all. Two that God is in three Persons – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Three that the person of the Son has two natures – a fully divine and a fully human. Pretty much every confessional statement that I have read for this denomination or that denomination, or this church or that church has these three elements.

So why is all of this important? It is important because it gives power and meaning to being a Christian. We are Christians because our sins are forgiven and we are born again, and being Christian means that we have a relationship with God. Our sins are forgiven because Christ died for us and we are born again due to that vicarious sacrifice. Christ’s death and resurrection has power not only because of his humanity but also because of his divinity. And because of Christ being a person of the God-head, this transcedent God can love us and we, the limited, can have a personal God that is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni this and that. It is the reason why we can say such things as: God shows His love for us through His Son, Jesus – something that would confound people of other faiths such as Muslims since to them Allah is not a trinity and hence cannot be personal. These creeds are important because whether we know it or not, it is part of the bedrock that our faith-life as well as the faith-life of others that have come before us, has layered itself on top of.

Hope you enjoyed it.