Life Choices

"There is a choice in everything you do.  So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you."

John Wooden (legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins Basketball team)

Thomas Sowell. An Enlightened Perspective

Thomas Sowell (/soʊl/; born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. He is currently the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. According to Larry D. Nachman in Commentary magazine, he is considered a leading representative of the Chicago school of economics.^[1] Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago. Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980 he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of more than 30 books. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective.

 

 

Hillary Clinton fired by Committee

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillarys history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther ... and goes much deeper ... than anyone realizes.

 

 

Jerry Zeeman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedys chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeeman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation ... one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifmans 17-year career. Why? Because she was a liar, Zeifman said in an interview last week. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldnt do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals ... including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum ... who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach... including Kennedys purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

 

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip ONeill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer, Zeifman said.

The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committees public files.   So what did Hillary do?

Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding ... as if the Douglas case had never occurred.   The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Guns prohibition

My childhood and neighborhood grocery store.

I'm in Fort Worth tonight to go to a Ranger's ballgame with Emily and family and Katy and family tomorrow for father's day.   I had a few minutes before the sun was going down, and so before going to my motel I drove to my old childhood neighborhood and saw the home I lived in from the middle of the 4th grade all the way through highschool.   And then my kids mom and I lived in this house when she got pregnant with our first daughter Jami.

3108 Meadowbrook Drive.  It wasn't airconditioned and at the time had three huge trees in the front yard.

 

 

Then about six blocks away was the shopping center where we we grocery shopping at the "super" market.  Piggly Wiggly.  I thought it was soooooooooo big.

 

This is it today.  It's a Scrubs Store and probably not more than 100 feet wide.  I thought it was huge as a kid.  But it was probably only about 3,000 square feet.   More or less, the size of the produce department now in a major supermarket.  I don't remember much except all grocery stores . . .all . . .you came in the front door and went right.  And the produce was always along the first wall and the bread was opposite the produce.   And the meat counter was at the back.   And then through the store were 3 or 4 isles that had everything a grocery store was supposed to have.  Food and cleaning stuff.  Period.   And then when you got the front there would be "maybe" three or four checkout lanes.  With paper bags only and a "sacker" who would bag the groceries and actually carry them out to the car for you.   Mother might give him a dime tip.  Might.   And everything was paid for with cash or a personal check.  No credit cards.   Up until I was in the 6th grade, most grocery stores had blank checks at the front from the neighborhood bank and maybe one or two downtown banks.  And you could just write you account number down and make your own check.   And then, at the end, they gave you your S&H Green Stamps for one stamp per 10 cents.  And we'd go home and paste the stamps in a book and when we had a dozen or more books we'd go to the Green Stamp store and buy something like a new toaster! Or a set of knives! Or?   Candy bars were all a nickel.   Sodas a nickel.    And a whole grocery buggy full of food and meat and stuff might be a whopping $40.00 or $50.00.  It was enough that'd we'd come home and my dad would start moaning about going to the poor house someday to live.   Banquet TV dinners were always the big sale item.  And we bought a lot of them.   5 for $1.00.    A feast and we could all eat what we wanted for dinner.   A Saturday night treat was making a pan of Jiffy Pop on the stove and shaking it while it popped and blew up into a big foil bubble and then cut it open and pour into a bowl and all of us watch Lawrence Welk, and then Sing Along with Mitch.    I'd stay up late on Saturdays and watch Wrestling that came on after the news and then a scary B movie like "The Tree Zombies" or "The Invaders from Mars".

 

 

 

 

I took this shot to show that it wasn't much deeper than it was wide.  And I remember when you came in you brought all your empty soda bottles with you, and it was an honor system.  If you were getting a dozen more colas or 7-ups or whatevers, you just brought that many bottles in and set them on the floor inside the front door and then got what you wanted to take home and told the checker that you'd put the bottles down when you came in.  They trust you to tell the truth.   If you didn't bring your own bottles you had to pay 3 cents extra per drink.   That meant the 6 ounce cokes would be 8 cents instead of 5 cents.   There weren't bottles bigger than 6 ounce until I was in the 7th grade and then they came out with "King Size" which was a taller bottle and had 10 ounces in it.  When I was in the 9th grade they started having some cans but you had to open them with a beer can opener.

 

 

It wasn't until I was 25 years old that I ever even saw what would equate to what we now call a supermarket.  And that was the year that Skaggs Alberston's came to town and had everything in the world you'd want to buy and 20 double isles of stuff.  Wow!

 



Vincent van Gogh. A fired missionary. A painter to express God

a disgraced and fired missionary . . . .

the world lost so much. 

 

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as
beautiful as you

Van Gogh's religious zeal grew until he felt he had found his true vocation. To support his effort to become a pastor, his family sent him to Amsterdam to study theology in May 1877, where he stayed with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a naval vice admiral.    Vincent prepared for the entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian who published the first "Life of Jesus" in the Netherlands. Van Gogh failed the exam, and left his uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then undertook, but failed, a three-month course at the Vlaamsche Opleidingsschool, a Protestant missionary school in Laeken, near Brussels.

In January 1879, he took a temporary post as a missionary in the village of Petit Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium at Charbonnage de Marcasse. Taking Christianity to what he saw as its logical conclusion, Van Gogh lived like those he preached to, sleeping on straw in a small hut at the back of the baker's house where he was staying. The baker's wife reported hearing Van Gogh sobbing at night in the hut. His choice of squalid living conditions did not endear him to the appalled church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood." He then walked to Brussels,  returned briefly to the village of Cuesmes in the Borinage, but gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten.  He stayed there until around March the following year, a cause of increasing concern and frustration for his parents. There was particular conflict between Vincent and his father; Theodorus made inquiries about having his son committed to the lunatic asylum at Geel.

He returned to Cuesmes where he lodged until October with a miner named Charles Decrucq.  Increasingly interested in the people and scenes around him, Van Gogh recorded his time there in his drawings and followed Theo's suggestion that he should take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels that autumn intending to follow Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him, in spite of his aversion to formal schools of art, to attend the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he registered on 15 November 1880. At the Académie, he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelings and perspective about which he said, "...you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing."    Van Gogh aspired to become an artist in God's service, stating: "...to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another in a picture."

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They did not listen, They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as
beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They did not listen they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

The Decline of the Baby Boomers and the rise of Deflation

I recently listened to an interested book by Harry Dent on why he believes the next ten years and possibly twenty, have in store for America a rapid increase in deflation, rather than the hyper-inflation that most would assume would come from the Federal Reserve rapid expansion of the money base.

Demographics and the decline of the largest purchasing block the world has ever seen are about to lead us down a long term decline that has been seen in Japan for the past twenty years.

My friend asked me for information from the book to explain the decline and I found an execellent summary of the theory on the internet in a speech by the author.    It's easier to read here than listening to 8 hours of CD's.

The Decline of the Boomers and Deflation of the United States Economy

The Puppeteer

The Puppeteer

 I used to be afraid that if I was authentic I might take a hit, but now I know that being real means I will take a hit.

When the kids were growing up, I used to pass by this fancy art gallery pretty often. I’d always glance in and admire the handiwork of some talented people. One day, as I walked past, I saw the most magnificent painting I’d ever seen before hanging on the wall. It was called The Puppeteer. I’m no art collector, that’s for sure, but it looked like a pretty cool painting to me. I squished my nose against the window each time passed by the gallery and mouthed the words against the glass: “Yes, you will be mine.”

The Puppeteer is an oil painting of an old guy with his family gathered around, and he’s dangling a marionette from strings, making everybody laugh. He looks like he is telling everybody a great story. I liked the painting because I’ve always imagined myself kind of like the puppeteer with my kids and their children gathered around someday. The painting also reminds me of how Jesus invites us to gather around Him and He tells captivating stories about a better life, a bigger life, and a greater love.

I asked the guy at the gallery how much the painting was. He started giving me his sales pitch in a muddled accent, and it was hard to follow what he was saying. He told me that it’s not called a painting but a “piece.” I guess they change the name when something is that expensive. Whatever.

 According to him, the guy who created the painting was an eighty-year-old master painter from Europe. I had looked him up and knew that much was true. The sales guy also said the artist was going blind (yeah, sure). He was laying it on pretty thick and said something about the artist painting this piece with a special paint brush. I was waiting for him to say the paintbrush was made of a single hair from the tail of a unicorn. I get it. It’s a really nice painting, which at least explains why it cost more than my first four cars. Still, I wanted that painting more than I wanted food. So I started saving.

It took about a year to save the money. For the final bit, I was ready to put our family dog on eBay, but after a family meeting, the idea was shut down. No matter. I finally called the guy at the gallery and told him I would be coming by to pick up the painting that afternoon. When I walked into the gallery there were two paintings waiting for me, two exact paintings of The Puppeteer. I didn’t understand. “Why are there two paintings?” I asked the guy with the muddled accent.

 “Well,” he said, managing with absolute ease to sound condescending and slick, “ze one on the left is ze real one. It’s museum qualeetay. It’s very expensive, almost priceless. You don’t want to hang ze original it might get damaged, so you put ze original in a vault. Zis other one, however, “he said as he slapped the identical painting irreverently, “iz ze fake one and iz ze one you put up on the wall for everyone to see.”

“I get a fake one along with the original?” I asked. I had never even heard of such a thing.
 “Yez,” he shot back.

Well, let me ask you, dear reader: which of the two paintings would you put on the wall? Me too. I hung the real one and threw the fake one in a closet somewhere.

I get why the guy at the art gallery wanted me to hang the fake one and hide the real one to keep it safe. If the original was put out or damaged, it would be a huge loss. This was original art from a master artist who was not long for this earth. It was rare, one of a kind, and irreplaceable.

If you come over to the Goff house, come armed. We have incredible rubber-band wars. Not the paper route, elementary school kind of rubber- band wars. We go nuclear and no one is safe. When the kids stretch a rubber band a foot or so, it can raise a welt the size of a strawberry where ever you get hit.
           
I start every morning sitting in a certain chair at my house. It’s opposite from where I hung the original Puppeteer painting. I love starting each day with a cup of coffee, a small fire and seeing my friend, the Puppeteer, delighting his family. Through the divided light windows, I watch the sun come up over the water with colors sometimes too beautiful to be real. Two windows perfectly frame the Puppeteer painting that invites onlookers to see what appears to be his next show, which has just started.
           
When I look at the Puppeteer, it reminds me of what the future looks like for me. It reminds me of stories like the kind Jesus told. And I think about how much I love that it’s the original hanging on the wall, not the fake one.
           
I woke up one morning a while ago, poured my coffee, lit a small fire, and took in the beauty of the predawn colors draping over the bay as I took to my usual morning spot. As I lifted my eyes towards the puppeteer, ready to wish a good morning to my friend, my jaw dropped.

The night before, as best I could tell, the puppeteer had taken a rubber band right in the face. I’m not kidding. There was a mark right in the middle of his almost priceless forehead.

 I gasped and spilled coffee on myself as I sprung from my chair to get a closer look. Indeed, The Puppeteer had taken a head shot. To his credit, the Puppeteer didn’t drop the puppet even though mortally wounded. Now, my kids say they didn’t do it and think it was my rubber band that took him out. But I’ve sent the painting off the FBI crime lab- it was the kids. At least that’s my story.

It’s been awhile since the Puppeteer took a hit, but I still enjoy my morning routine. I still sit in my favorite chair every morning, have a coffee, light my fire, watch the sun rise, and look at my favorite piece of art, the original Puppeteer painting. I’m still taken by its beauty. But do you think I see the damage when I look at the Puppeteer each morning? Not at all. I’m not mad or disappointed in the least. The reason is simple: the rubber-band mark reminds me exactly and fondly of my kids.

 I see my kids and the engaged life we’ve spent together so far. I see all the mischief, the whimsy, and the spontaneous combustion that is their hallmark. I see the kids lying in wait for me, rubber bands pulled tight at the top of the stairs and around the corners when I come home after work at night. Truth be known, I like the original Puppeteer painting now more with the rubber band mark on it.
           

There have been times in my life when I’ve tried to do good and it hasn’t worked out the way I thought it would. I’ve gotten into a lot of mischief and taken chances and have even taken some big risks. In the process, sometimes I’ve let people down or things I’ve done didn’t go well and I’ve taken a rubber band or two to the head. We all have. But after the Puppeteer painting got shot, I realized that God doesn’t think any less of us when things don’t go right. Actually, I think He plans on it. What he doesn’t plan on is us putting a fake version of ourselves out there to take the hit. God is the master artist and made an original version of us, a priceless one that cost everything to create. A version that can’t and won’t be created again.

 He asks us to hang that version of ourselves for everyone to see. Despite our inherent beauty, each of us is tempted to hide the original so we won’t get damaged. I understand why, I really do. And the fake version of us, it’s not worthless. It’s just worth less because it’s only a copy of the real us. A version out there, it’s not the version God created. In that sense, it’s like an imposter, a poser, a stunt double is standing in for us and telling the world that this is the best we’ve got, or the best we’ll risk. And when we put the cheap, fake version of ourselves out there, most of the time it probably comes off to God like a bad Elvis impersonation.
           

The bible says people who are friends of God are new creations. The way I heard it’s supposed to work is that old version of us goes away and a new original is painted. I can understand that picture better now, because I’ve purchased an expensive painting, and I’ve also had a cheap copy thrown in so I could hide the real one. What I know now is that our infinite value, the original masterwork that we are, is placed in us because God is the master artist, not us. The best we could muster ourselves would be a fake.

 God invites us to be new creations, original art, and to live life of engagement. He says to leave the cheap imitation in a closet somewhere. He doesn’t say when you hang the real you out there- the priceless one-that things will go great either. It’s pretty clear from watching Jesus’ followers past and present that when you risk the real you, you’ll probably take a hit. God did when He hung Jesus out there. But one thing I do know is this: when we do take hits, and we will, God isn’t going to think less of us. Instead, He gets up early, lights a fire, sits in his favorite chair, and gazes at the original masterpiece He made in us. And you know what? He loves us even more, rubber-band marks and all.

Peanuts Logic

Happiness versus Joy

I was singing to myself this morning "Joy to the World".
It's interesting to me that most people think of sadness as being the opposite of joy.

I see this morning that it's not.   Sadness is the opposite of happiness.

Something has to "happ-en" for us to be "happy".

Joy is a "presence" because it was a "present" from God as a gift of the Holy Spirit.  It dwells in us just as Wisdom does fully.   I realize that I don't have to ask God for Wisdom.  His Wisdom already fully and completely dwells in me.   I need to just yield myself to having that Wisdom flow out of me.

It is/mustbe the flesh and the cares of the world that shrouds the gifts like wrapping paper covers a gift.     I have joy in me.  I need to remove the wrappings of my life and that Joy will be present more and more and more.

World View determinators!

As I do many nights, I wake up in the early morning hours "pondering" ideas, and questions, and philosophies.   Sometimes they just run, like a herd of cattle, through my mind and I have to just sit down and try to write one or two or three things down so I can bring some focus and precision to my thinking.

Here are three thoughts for the day:
1.  Do any animals feel a sense of Love?   What is the sense they feel when we are loving them?   Doves and Wolves mate forever?   Is that because of love?

2.  On a higher and more important plain . . . Would God have preferred Judas to be a righteous man?   Or . . . Was Judas created/ordained/predestined/designed for the express purpose/intention of being a betrayer?

3.  What would have happened if Adam had just fallen on his knees and confessed what he'd done and said he was sorry?

The thought/question about animals and love has no real spiritual or eternal significance for our earthly lives.   Thoughts 2 and 3, and what we "believe", are not . . . of course . . . answerable.   They are only ponderable.   And I've seen in my life that most people say to questions like those that they don't "need" to be considered exactly because they "aren't" answerable (at least in this lifetime).   But I've also seen that people do have a mind set/belief/doctrine about even the unanswerable questions whether they admit so or not.   Though Thoughts 2 and 3 can't be answered, we all would have to say that there is something about God's Nature that we believe that would tell us what the answer would be.   If we can't say absolutely/unequivacably what we believe the answer would be then we don't have a set of beliefs ourselves.  We would not have a foundation of the Nature of God.   And those foundations that we have are what determine our world view. 

And the world view I have is the filter through which I process and receive ALL information about ALL subjects.    My world view is the lens that I see life through.    So somethings I see in life as true, or absolute or right or wrong . . . .may in fact be the complete opposite to someone else who has a different world view.

I've recently finished reading a very thought provoking book, The Black Swan, which was not written as a spiritual book in any sense.   But as a Spiritual Man, I can see that so much of what the writer said about "improbable" events does have a spiritual application for me.   And one of the most interesting ideas he presented was to imagine a certain news story being told about a bombing or shelling of Gaza by the Israeli Army.    The story could be told with no editorial opinion whatsoever, and yet . . .  when read by a Palestinian and a Jew, the story would be interpreted in two completely different veins of thought.    It would be interpreted in 2 completely different ways, because each of the readers brings to the reading a certain World View.   

These thoughts and questions above are relevant to my life today and for the future.    The older I get the more questions I have come to see should have been considered as a young man.  But instead of forming my foundations in life based on my own beliefs, I (and most others) have gone through life forming my World View based on the opinion/teaching/credentials of others.    Jesus told his followers to go and "make disciples of all men".   He DID NOT tell them all the same direction to take or the same means to the end.

The Dead Cow Lecture

First year students at Purdue Vet School were attending their first anatomy class with a real dead cow.   They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet.

The professor started the class by telling them, "In Veterinary medicine it is necessary to have two important qualities as a doctor.  The first is that you not be disgusted by anything involving the animal's body."   For an example, the professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the butt of the cow, withdrew it, and stuck his finger in his mouth.

"Go ahead and do the same thing," he told his students.

The students freaked out, hesitated for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in the butt of the dead cow and sucking on it.

When everyone finished, the Professor looked at them and said "The second most important quality is observation.   I stuck in my middle finger and sucked on my index finger.   Now learn to pay attention.  Life's tough but it's even tougher if you're stupid.

The Greatest Speech of the 20th century

Spoken in a movie The Dictator, starring Charlie Chaplin, this speech must qualify for the best, or at least one of the best speeches of the century.  Spoken almost 80 years ago, it is still applicable.  Perhaps as much so today, as then.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

WHO WAS ROBERT TODD LINCOLN?

He was the only child of Abe and Mary Lincoln to survive into adulthood - with his three brothers having died from illness at young ages. Believe it or not, Robert lived until 1926, dying at age 83. But along the way, he sure lived a remarkable life.
For starters, he begged his father for a commission to serve in the Civil War, with President Lincoln refusing, saying the loss of two sons (to that point) made risking the loss of a third out of the question.   But Robert insisted, saying that if his father didn't help him, he would join on his own and fight with the front line troops; a threat that drove Abe to give in.   But you know how clever Abe was. He gave Robert what he wanted, but wired General Grant to assign "Captain Lincoln" to his staff, and to keep him well away from danger.   The assignment did, however, result in Robert's being present at Appomattox Court House, during the historic moment of Lee's surrender.
Then - the following week, while Robert was at the White House, he was awakened at midnight to be told of his father's shooting, and was present at The Peterson House when his father died.
Little Eddie died at age 4 in 1850 - probably from thyroid cancer. Willie  was the most beloved of all the boys. He died in the White House at age 11 in 1862, from what was most likely Typhoid Fever.  Abe grieved the hardest over Willie's death. It took him four days to pull himself together enough to function as President again. Lincoln had a temporary tomb built for Willie, until they could return home with his body to Springfield , and he often spent long periods of time at the tomb.

I guess Tad was a real hellion. None of his tutors could control him, which is why he grew up unable to competently read or write. He was a momma's boy, he had a lisp and was probably mildly retarded.   He died at age 18 in 1871, most likely from the same thyroid cancer Eddie had died from, suggesting a genetic flaw.
But - back to Robert. Following his father's assassination, he moved to Chicago with his insane mother, and brother Tad, who was 12 at the time. Robert finished law school and practiced the craft for a time, while constantly struggling to keep crazy Mary in check. As she had done as First Lady, Mary went on shopping binges that far exceeded common sense, driving what was left of the family fortune into bankruptcy, and leading to violent disputes between Robert and she.
Robert also had torrid battles with Mary to keep her from destroying Lincoln's private papers, not just for their financial worth, but for their historic value also, with Mary forever trying to tear them apart and burn them in fireplaces.   In fact, her irrational behavior (she was probably schizophrenic) grew so destructive that Robert had to have her put away, with his signature signing her into a psychiatric hospital, where she stayed locked up for three months. Mary never forgave him for it - and they remained estranged from then on - until Mary died at age 63 in 1882.
Worth noting, as a deceased President's wife, Mary had petitioned Congress for a pension, and she got one! She received $3,000 a year, a sizable sum back then.
Of profound interest, as an adult Robert wrote there was a lot of distance between his father and he - caused mainly by Abe's being absent so much of the time during Robert's formative years. Abe was forever gone on state wide judicial circuits, or campaigning for office - or serving in the state legislature.  Robert writes that his most vivid memories of his father were seeing him pack his saddle bags to be off again. Nonetheless, Robert respected his father - and he wept obsessively the night he was killed.
In 1868, Robert married a senator's daughter and they had three kids - two girls and a boy, Abraham Lincoln's only grandchildren. Their son, whom they named Abraham Lincoln II (but whom they called "Jack") would die in 1890 from an infection arising from having a boil pierced under his arm. He was 15 at the time.
The two daughters, however, lived fairly long lives, one living until 1938 to die at age 69, and the other until 1948, dying at age 72.

The last direct descendent of Abraham Lincoln would be the child of one of Robert's daughters - Abe Lincoln's great grandson - a guy named Bud Beckwith, who died married but childless, in 1985.
In his own right, Robert made quite a life for himself.  He got into politics and was highly regarded in those circles.   In fact, he served as Secretary of War under President Garfield, and incredibly, was with him when Garfield was shot at the Washington train station.   Then some years later, Robert would also be present when President McKinley was gunned down in Buffalo.
 

In later years, Robert would grow a beard.  He would serve in other political appointments and ambassadorships, and later became president of the Pullman train car company, a booming enterprise back then, and a position he would hold for the rest of his life.   Robert was an avid amateur astronomer, and even had an observatory built into his Vermont home, which is better described as a mansion, really; but anyhow - the telescope was so well built and powerful that's it's still used today by a local astronomy club!    And below is his house.

 

 

Abe Lincoln once said he doubted Robert would do as well in life as he had done. You sure wouldn't know it from the pad Robert lived in, huh? Beyond that, Robert was several times offered the chance to run as President or Vice-President, with his every time refusing the offer, so - Old Abe's assessment of his son was way off the mark, wasn't it? Of course, who knows how much 'being Abe's son' influenced Robert's success in life?

But anyhow - now for the most incredible thing there is to know about Robert Lincoln.
In his 20's, Robert was standing on a train platform in Jersey City - buried among a crowd of passengers attempting to buy sleeping births from a haggard conductor - when the train moved. Robert was standing so close to the train that it spun him around and sent him dropping into the space between the train and the platform - a perilously tight place to be - against a moving train threatening to crush him! Suddenly a hand grabbed Robert by the neck of his coat and pulled him onto the platform.  It was a quick action by a solidly strong man that may well have saved Robert's life.  That man was Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth . . .who had murdered Robert's father.


Below is Robert's sarcophagus at Arlington National Cemetery , where he's buried with his wife and son Jack.

The National Debt Limit explained easy

Here's an easy to understand comparison of the US Budget deficit compared to an average American family.    Solution to the problem?    Kick the can on down the road and let the next generation deal with it.

CLICK HERE FOR SHORT VIDEO EXPLANATION

A Cheap faith

How the Apostles died

Matthew
Suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.

Mark
Died in Alexandria, Egypt , after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.

Luke
Was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.

John
Faced martyrdom when he was boiled in huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution In Rome . However, he was miraculously delivered From death.
John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison Island of Patmos.  He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos . The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve As Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey.  He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.

Peter
He was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.   According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

James
The leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.

James the Great
Son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus Called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

Bartholomew
Also known as Nathaniel was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed for our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death by a whip.

Andrew
Was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: 'I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.' He continued to preach to his tormentors For two days until he expired.

Thomas
Was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent.

Jude
Was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.

Matthias
The apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded.

Paul
Was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67.  Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational Doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.

Perhaps this is a reminder to us that our sufferings here are indeed minor compared to the intense persecution and cold cruelty faced by the apostles and disciples during their times for the sake of the Faith. And ye shall be hated Of all men for my name's sake: But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matthew

JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR YOU!

He died for you.   He said (Matthew 10:32 & 33): "Everyone therefore Who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before My Father in heaven; but whosoever denies Me before others, I also will deny before My Father in heaven".

A Prophecy to me to save

The World Economy Explained with 2 Cows

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour. 

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and gives you some milk. 

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk. 

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away. 

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income. 

VENTURE CAPITALISM

You have two cows.  You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.  The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.  The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. 

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has died. 

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows. 

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you do not know where they are.
You decide to have lunch. 

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them. 

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation. 

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them. 

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad. 

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy. 

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate. 

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive. 

A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks.
You eat both of them.
The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF.
The IMF loans you two cows.
You eat both of them.
The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk.
You are out getting a haircut.

AN IRISH CORPORATION
You have two cows
One of them's a horse! 

Irena Sendler. A lady to be remembered more than Al Gore?

Died: May 12, 2008 (aged 98) Warsaw, Poland

Her birth name was actually Irena Sendlerowa
During WWII, Irena, got permission to travel into and out of the Warsaw ghetto,  to work. She had an ulterior motive. Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.
Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi's broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Instead Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.


In MEMORIAM - 65 YEARS LATER

For a much broader and interesting biography of this woman's devotion and dedication and selfless pursuit of saving Jews please (CLICK HERE AND) read the Snopes commentary on the authenticity of this brave womans story.

and lastly, to my children and grandchildren. Watch the movie Schindler's list a few times during your lives. I believe that in your lifetimes, history will be rewritten to say the entire holocost was a myth.

Ruled by Idiots

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
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You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched.
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You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
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You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools of a home. 
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You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while some slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iPhones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).
====================================
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".

Not ruled by our peers?

The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet.  You know what the private business sector is;  a real-life business,  not a government job.   Here are the percentages.


T. Roosevelt             38%
Taft                          40%
Wilson                      52%
Harding                   49%
Coolidge                  48%
Hoover                    42%
F. Roosevelt            50%
Truman                   50%
Eisenhower             57%
Kennedy                 30%
Johnson                  47%
Nixon                      53%
Ford                        42%
Carter                     32%
Reagan                    56%
GH Bush                 51%
Clinton                    39%
GW Bush                 55%
Obama                      8%