Snow and bees

The kids are trying to hold back - this night there is 1-3 inches of snow predicted over the next 24 hours. To them that is a sure thing. Of course, we've heard that before.

Meanwhile I went to check the bees today - there are signs of life in all 7 hives. It is amazing...though it "ain't over yet". They haven't frozen to death yet, now we see if they continue and then survive - the queen should start laying in the next week or so, the spring brood will be hatching in mid to late February.

There are dead bees outside each colony. That only happens when they get dragged out by live bees. It is a bit of a gruesome task, each hive has some bees whose job is undertaking, getting rid of the bodies. Chances are those bodies are ones who froze to death.

I guess they should stink less...

Change has come to America (change back to the way it was)

So in the first few days the new President has the opportunity to let it be known how he will implement the keynotes he campaigned on and presumably was expected to enact because of his victory.

President Obama made an issue of "Change" and that he was going to change the way business is done in Washington, that he was going to rid of us of the divisiveness that impairs our government's problems solving ability.

Great.

So he made sure to take the most emotional issue of his opposition's repertoire, abortion, and stick it to them. In the first three days he lifted the ban on fetal stem cell experiments and the ban on American funding of foreign abortions. He did it "quietly".

Wow. A lot of change. Change back to the Clinton ways. No bipartisan discussion, just a memo and executive order. So, if the issue of infant life can be overlooked, I guess we'll all get along....

Pathetic winter

We had an inch of snow today. My poor, desperate children (it has been a long time since we've had a good snow...global warming and all that) donned their snow gear and prepared to go sledding. They went to their favorite sledding hill (a neighbor's yard) and debated whether or not you could still sled despite the grass showing through.

Sad.

You can't.

Lets remember the truth

As our new President takes the trail to Washington this weekend, he is doing so in a way to reminisce on the first entry to Washington by Abraham Lincoln. He (Mr Obama) is taking a train, the long way, to remember the entry of our great 16th President. It is impressive and exciting.

As Mr Obama travels the road Lincoln did, it makes a great PR event. It invokes thoughts of the past, but, unfortunately, also overlooks some of the differences of today versus the past.

When Lincoln made this trip, he didn’t do it to wave to adoring crowds, he made the trip necessarily “sneaking” into town to avoid what were certain threats to his safety. The train was a secure way to arrive.

Today thousands of people have had to put themselves on the line to make sure Mr Obama can make this journey safely, from the Coast Guard to every law enforcement institution in the path. The train is not so secure...

When Lincoln made this trip, he did so facing a nation that was tearing its fabric apart. He faced the reality that the union was attached by a thread, and he was holding the thread. Mr Lincoln said “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.

Mr Obama, in an attempt to invoke some memory of this first inaugural speech of Mr Lincoln, said “What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”

A new declaration of independence? Independence from ideology? Whose ideology? Our Declaration of Independence itself speaks of an ideology, concluding “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Is Mr Obama suggesting we should withdraw from that ideology as well?

The reference to our “better angels” alludes to Mr. Lincoln’s speech, but fails in its context. Mr. Lincoln’s speech was virtually dedicated in its entirety to the issues of the nation’s impending civil war and his duty to preserve the union. He explained his view on slavery “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” He explained his view of the job ahead of him after that inauguration day “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

It was only after saying this that he said “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

We are most privileged to live in this land of freedom, blessed by the rights given us by the documents which are our foundation. We cannot trample on them, belittle them, or relegate them to the past without condemning our future. We cannot abrogate the ideals that undergird our land and its historic intent by rewriting history to reflect our wrongs as though they outweigh our good. We are still the land of the free, the home of the brave. To say we must dismiss this ideal so that those who reject the freedoms of some idealists for their own, that courage to stand firm is stubborn and unreasonable, that to have an ideology is something needing “our better angels”, or a new declaration of independence is to wish for us as a people to get washed up on the shores with the unfree and unbrave failed states of history.

Faith is unreasonable…for to be faith it must ignore “reason” . Jesus said “I tell you but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…”

Where are we headed? Should we reconsider the past which has gotten us here for a more “reasonable” present? Why are we looking to the government, the government which is only an agent of “We the People”, who allow the government a place “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”. It is "We the People" who must fix the mess we are in, to change our behavior, change our direction, to take on the risks to have the benefits of freedom...risks by which millions have died for in the past.

Should we reconsider? I say no.

We the people must remain firm in love with what Lincoln said on his day “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.”

God Bless America. Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

I believe...

Yesterday the cartoon "Doonesbury" took a shot at our outgoing President I need to comment on.

The cartoon commented on the President's "Legacy Tour". A character asked him if he was going to set up a "Think Tank" in retirement. His replay was "Belief-Tank", and then the cartoon commented snidely that "the thinking must be already done".

Sad to be here in a country where we would think you can only do one or the other. I wonder if George Washington at Valley Forge had any beliefs he placed higher than "thinking". I wonder if his logically arrived at the conclusion that being there made sense, or that he believed in what he was doing and chose to be there based on that belief. Certainly everything pointed to the logical, thinking man's conclusion that he should pack it in and go home...but he BELIEVED that he must go on and struggle.

Thinking should lead us to believing, and believing is what drives us. We are not "Mr Spock", where only logic prevails. And, just to make sure we don't flatter ourselves, neither you or I are nearly smart enough for our thinking to supersede believing.

The great movements and the great decisions of our history have been more from those strong enough, bold enough, and, yes, smart enough to put their BELIEVING above their THINKING. It is a smaller, weaker person who has no beliefs, not the other way around. They are those who do what everyone else says, what everyone else does. Those are the ones who, like our 2 or 3 year old child, make no decision based on higher-order thinking, they base their decisions on what tastes the best (candy), what smells the best (baked bread), what feels the best (playing), what looks the best (brightly colored fantasies), what sounds the best (being told "you're OK, do what you want"). These people "(are) lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power..." (written 1930 years ago describing people of a future time to come....hmmmm.....)

No beliefs? How stupid. Even those that claim to believe in nothing believe THAT...

The argument the devil presented Eve in the Garden of Eden was just this. He said "God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Her choice was, BELIEVE what God said, or THINK as the devil says...thinking that rejects what God said.

A dangerous tactic.

Should we think? Of course. Should we believe? Even more - yes. Which is harder to do?

It is a non-thinking person who would ridicule a man for believing.

The good news is the bad news.

It's been FIVE years for the Mars rovers. Those amazing little machines have been up there doing their thing for 4 years and 9 months longer than expected, beaming back the bad news - there is nothing to indicate there was - is - or ever will be spontaneous life on Mars. There might be life, it'll be life we bring up there.

No workee no playee

My boys were looking for some work. Actually, they were looking for some money. They are new here and didn't thoroughly understand the connection between work and money. At first they balked at the idea that I wold make them work. Then they saw a benefit. At the end of the week they got MONEY. And, they could SPEND it. Ah, a seed for the American Dream.

They asked me if there was a way for them to make some more money. They wanted to buy games for the new game systems they got for Christmas. I said "oooo - my lucky day!". The other kids had smart alek looks on their faces - knowing what was coming.

"How much do you want?

"20 bucks"

"OK, I'll look for a $20 job".

I knew what I wanted. As luck would have it, the trenching that was done for the new geothermal heating system left a lot of rocks around the place. I don't mean a few - I mean a LOT. There are good rocks, like really big ones, and thousands of round-ish river rocks from the size of golf balls to basket balls. I staked off 2 areas, outlined them with string, and called the boys out. I told them "When each of these 2 areas are completely cleaned of rocks, you get $20 dollars."

"How long do we get?"

"All the time you want"

"Really?"

"Yep."

"When do we get the money?"

"When you are done."

"oh"

It took them 2 days. They did a magnificant job. I gave them a 10% bonus for good work. They asked Kate to get on Amazon and find the games they wanted.

Hurray for the 2 young Americans.

Oh. That's 2. I have 3 boys.

The youngest came up to me and told me he wanted some money.

I said "Well, here's what I want you to do", and showed him some rocks to move.

"I don't want to do that."

"OK, then you don't get any money".

"OK"

Two out of three isn't bad, and he's got a little more time to get the connection.