Reality TV

Now, how I could write a weekly newspaper column without at least commenting on the war. Journalism, after all is the first draft of history. One problem is that we’re just not CNN. I write these things almost a week before you read them.

Last week’s column was in some mailboxes just a few hour before President Bush’s deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq. As I’m writing this (last Friday, March 21^st) I’m listening to National Public Radio report that the air campaign of "Shock and Awe" is just getting under way. By the time this edition officially is on sale, Thursday, March 27^th, the whole thing may well be over!

I am by no means vehemently opposed to this military solution, in fact I’ll stipulate that Hussein is dangerous and should be removed. I certainly and whole-heartedly support our servicemen and women, but you have to admit that, considering wars throughout history, this one is a little weird. I’ll go further than that and call it down right surreal.

First of all, whoever heard of a "preemptive war?" This is a new invention. One of the reasons so many people, including the French and Germans had (have) such a problem with the war is that in the history of the world, the people who" threw the first punch" were generally considered aggressors. Napoleon, for example.

Generally the "good guys" wait until their hit first before they hit back. John Wayne in "the Quiet Man," for example. I appreciate that 9-11 was a first punch, but it was a sucker punch from somebody other than Iraq. It’s just a little hard for some people to get past.

Then what made it more weird is how long we knew it was coming. In 1991 the first Gulf War was precipitated by several weeks of coalition-building and mobilization as we gave Hussein time to pull out of Kuait, but let’s face it, we’ve all known that this one was coming since last October. The news channels have scheduled their "Showdown with Iraq" shows since the holidays. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd? Think about every war from the Spanish American War through Vietnam, sure, in hindsight we can say that there were warning signs that trouble was brewing, but wars generally sneak up on us and surprise ya.

Remember the Maine, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin?

I’m not accusing the administration of propaganda or the media of profiteering, but you have to admit, we’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea of going to war..

I think that the weirdest thing of all has to be our being able to watch this as it happens. It’s the ultimate in "reality TV." Frankly, I feel like a voyeur. We’re all given the chance to be "armchair generals."

Think about it, thanks to satellites, we’ve been able to listen to the Iraqi Minister of Information make live statements to the press. The Wednesday night that the war started, we were watching live images of dawn in Baghdad via these traffic or weather cameras. Reporters talk to us from Baghdad itself and from ships in the Gulf and the battlefield itself via their video phones! The ultimate has to be the Tank-cams. It’s better than the dashboard cameras in NASCAR races.

It’s all been too strange. It can’t be natural. During the first Gulf War cynics commented that watching live coverage was like watching a video game. Today video games have cleaner, clearer graphics! Videotape and film of Vietnam had to fly through Hawaii and on to network offices in New York before the gruesome footage made it the "Living Room War."

I appreciate that the Pentagon and White House intend to minimize civilian casualties and that on the one hand war gets TV ratings yet National Security and the safety of our troops necessitates sterilizing the coverage we get to see, but I still think it’s been a bizarre show. I for one feel guilty for watching. Still, like so much reality television, it’s like a hangnail that you can’t leave alone.

I pray that it’s over soon, that we accomplish our objectives, perhaps more importantly, that we succeed in the nation building that will follow, and that this doesn’t come back to bite us like so many of our foreign policy decisions of the last fifty years have. Most of all, I pray that our comfort at home and prowess in battle don’t make it easier for us to wage virtual wars more frequently just because we can.

I am sure that when our new veterans come home they will earnestly tell us that on the ground and in person, war is still Hell, even if it makes good television.

Ah, Spring

Today is the very first day of Spring. Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of Baseball-

Opening day is just eleven days away, after all.

I was disappointed that my Diamondbacks traded our first baseman Erubiel Durazo to the Oakland A’s, but they gave us Pitcher Elmer Dessens. In spring training he hasn’t given up an earned run in 14 Cactus League games. We’ve needed a number-three starter, anyway.

I understand that our new starting first baseman, Lyle Overbay was hitting .343 in Triple A ball last year. I still like to see Mark Grace on first base, especially after he tried pitching that one game last year!

Of course, there’s still the 1-2 punch of the ‘Back’s big guns Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Scouts say that as old as he is, they’ve never seen Johnson as good as he’s been this spring.

I’ve heard that my fellow Shadow Mountain High School Alum, Curt Schilling has been dieting and trying things like aerobics and yoga or tai chi in order to loose some weight. Not that anyone with as many strike outs as him needs to improve that much, but I hear he’s looking at the long haul. He’s been watching Randy and wants to emulate his longevity.

I’ve been trying to get up earlier to spend time on the treadmill and have been cutting back on second-helpings too, since Lent started. Don’t look for too much results-wise until at least the All-Star break!

Of course, there’s also slugger Luis Gonzalez. He’s over his shoulder injury and I think that Barry Bonds had better be ready to defend his record.

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of War-

This may be apocryphal, but if you hadn’t heard this one, we’ve won the war even though it hasn’t started yet. Remember last week’s column when I mentioned that Andrew Jackson fought the battle of New Orleans two weeks after the War of 1812 was already over? Well, apparently a while the British were on maneuvers in Kuwait when a group of Iraqi soldiers came rushing across the border waving a white flag and offering to surrender. The Englishmen had to tell them that they’d need to wait a few weeks until the war starts first!

But you know, we may not realize what we’re up against. The Russian newspaper Pravda published a report that Saddam is reverse-engineering an UFO that crashed outside of Baghdad back in 90’s. Pravda reports that aliens are guests at one of Huusein’s palaces. They’ve bio-engineered scorpions the size of cows to serve as guard dogs! I for one would hate to be a U.N. inspector near that palace!

No wonder the Russians didn’t want to vote with the U.S. for a Security Council resolution giving Iraq a deadline that would result in military action. Listen, if it’s in Pravda, it must be true, right. At least we know they’re not a propaganda machine of the USSR anymore, since there is no USSR.

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of Summer, of course-

The nicest thing about cold weather, is that kids don’t calmer so much to get outside. Junior high school students are, of course the worst, but the warmer the weather and the more high school students seem to want to be anywhere but in class. It’s not even that I’m ready for school to be out, so much as it seems to get tougher and tougher to focus on getting the young ones to focus now that the windows are open again.

In like a lion, out like a lamb

Is March supposed to come in like a lion, and go out like a lamb? Is the opposite also true- in like a lamb etc.? So, does this idiom apply just to the first day of March, which was pretty pleasant this year, or to the first week or so? Shrove Tuesday brought a blizzard with at least six inches of snow!

Does it apply to things other than the weather? Since we didn’t invade Iraq under the new moon of early March, like some analysts predicted, will we be fighting before the month is out, or will diplomacy continue to dominate the headlines?

Either way, the old adage got me to thinking about almanacs. You know, almanacs, those nifty periodicals full of trivia and fluff that editors of other publications sometimes use as "filler." Some of you may be finally finding one for seasonal advice on your spring selection of buds and bulbs.

I’m always interested in what they say about what’s happened or what’s happening.

For instance, did you know that the Girl Scouts of America was organized 91 years ago yesterday (Wed. 3/12)? Or that this Saturday (3/14) back in 1767 was the birthday of our seventh president, Andrew Jackson? He was the general who won the Battle of New Orleans during the war of 1812, of course that was a couple of weeks AFTER a peach treaty had been signed

Like our current president he faced a close election. In 1824, Congress broke a tie in the Electoral College, giving the presidency to John Quincy Adams, the last son of a president to become president. Jackson came back to wollup Adams in 1828. That ended the "era of good feelings" and the only dominant party of the time, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrat’s and some other "Whig" thing or something that eventually would evolve into Lincoln’s Republicans.

Beware of Saturday, it's the "Ides of March," the day Julius Caesar was murdered in the Roman Senate, in 44 B.C. He had been ordered to surrender his power; instead, he crossed the Rubicon river and started a civil war. His arrogance turned Senators against him. According to Shakespeare, Ceasar was warned by a soothsayer that he would die on that day.

There wasn’t really anything special about that day. It turns out that the word "ides" is just a Latin term for the half-way point in the month. The Ides are on the 15th in March, May, July, and October and the 13th in other months. But nobody aver says "beware the ides of April." Probably because April’s ides are on the 13th and most of us fear April 15th more than a trip to the dentist! "Beware the ides od May!" See? It’s just not as scary.

Years ago, before the IRS moved their deadline for filing to April, Americans did fear the ides of March. Jack Benny used to tell a joke about St. Patrick’s Day, "how can you celebrate the wearing of the green, when two days before, the government took it all away from ya." My guess is that it was a dumb joke even back in the 50’s.

My favorite quote attributed to St. Patrick is this, "I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy, raised me." It’s pretty much a paraphrase of Psalm 40:2 "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

A pastor once told me that the original Hebrew doesn’t say mire, it says something closer to manure, or malarkey, which are still polite euphemisms for what the Bible really says.

Malarkey is what most Irishmen are full of. There’s another old adage that says "on St. Patrick’s Day, there are two kinds of people in this world, those who are Irish, and those who wish they were." Having survived many an Irish temper at various family gatherings my whole life, I think it ought to be changed to, "there are two kinds of people in this world, those who with they were Irish- and those who know better."

The Old Farmer’s Almanac warned us that our heaviest snowfalls this year would be in early March. Hopefully March will go out like a lamb after all, they say warm with thunderstorms. But you may as well know, they predict that April will be cooler than normal, followed by a warm May.

"A cold April, The Barn will fill." said Ben Franklin ("Poor" Richard Saunders) in his almanac. Not being a farmer, I have no idea what he meant by that. Does it just mean that the animals don’t want to be outside in the cold? Duh. Or does it mean, they’ll all be snuggling and getting romantic because it’s cold, so your livestock will have a lot of offspring?

This week was supposed to be cold with rain and snow showers, next week may bring more rain.

In case you were wondering.

A great place to grow

6 He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?
18 He sends his word and melts them;
he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.

~Psalm 147: 16-18 (NIV)

Just wanted to give you a little hope that as mean as March may be, this too shall pass and eventually we’ll be mowing the grass!

This is "National Lutheran Schools Week (March 2-8)." The theme this year for Missouri Synod schools is "A Great Place to Grow."

Some of you are wondering why I’m bothering to write about this since some of you are Catholic, Methodist, something else or don’t attend any Church and we don’t really have a Lutheran K-8 in Ute or Charter Oak. The reason I’m bothering is because it’s something very close to my heart, so please give me a chance and read on.

Many of our readers once attended St. John’s Lutheran School in Charter Oak and it left an indelible mark on them. The reason is because it was a great place to grow.

I attended Christ Lutheran School in Phoenix from Kindergarten through eighth grade. I believe that receiving a Christ-centered education gave me solid ethical, intellectual, creative, and social foundation.

Valley Lutheran High was brand new when I was ready for High School, so I didn’t want to take a chance on it,. That may have been a mistake because with 2,600 students Shadow Mountain High School may have been able to offer more programs and resources, but it was unable to offer the individual attention, genuine care and sense of community that Christ Lutheran did.

Because of my work on the school newspaper, in Commercial Art class, and Art Club at S.M., Professor Bill Wolfram of Concordia College in Seward Nebraska recruited me for their Art Department. Seward not only has the best Art program of the ten Concordias nationwide, we have one of the most prestigious departments in the Midwest- even compared to big universities and vocational schools.

Charter Oak seems to have sent a disproportionate number of students to Seward over the years, so the odds favored me finding a spouse from here. Bethany and I got married amidst Charter Oak’s Centennial. After graduation we were called to serve as "Commissioned Ministers of the Gospel: Teachers" at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr high School.

I admit, at first we felt like God had sent us to Nineveh. Not only did we suffer culture shock, but our apartment was destroyed in the Northridge Earthquake. We were ready to leave before the first year was up, but our pastor there counseled us to tough it out. I’m glad we did.

We didn’t see it as a job, we saw it as a calling, a vocation, a mission and ministry. We didn’t just teach and coach kids, we listened to, cared for, cried with, held, counseled, prayed for and prayed with students from all walks of life. What’s more, our own faiths were nurtured and fed through our fellowship with our fellow faculty members and diverse and dynamic worship opportunities on and off campus. We even saw several students brought to Christ and baptized during our weekly Chapel services.

This year we’re facing some milestones. Because we have been teaching in public schools now for three years, the Church has taken our names of it’s official roster of commissioned teachers. L.A. Lutheran is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary, and the last group of student we taught there will be graduating this May.

I don’t know much about Zion Lutheran Elementary in Denison. I do know that it means a lot to me that my daughter Grace is not just learning about letters and colors at Noah’s Ark Pre-School, she is also learning about Jesus’ love for her and how He wants us to love each other.

If the proponents of "bigger is better" ever get their way and we eliminate all the 1A and 2A high schools in Iowa, I hope and pray that the Churches of our communities will consider cooperating in the establishment of a Christian Charter School in Charter Oak.

Martin Luther supported the concept of universal education because he believed that everyone should be taught to read. He believed everyone should read be taught to read so that they can read the Bible for themselves, so that each person can know a personal relationship with the Lord. Whether it’s in a Lutheran, Catholic, or Public School or home schooling, I can think of nothing more important than education.

Please consider contributing to a Lutheran school. It’s tax deductible. Go to www.dcs.lcms.org/school/info.html to find out more. Even if you never take the opportunity to support a Lutheran school financially, PLEASE, encourage your children to value their education no matter what kind of school they go to. And please support their teachers and administrators, support them with prayer, with respect, with time, with your vote, and with appreciation, no matter what kind of school they teach in.