No acceptable use for nuclear weapons

During the recent Vice-Presidential debate, Governor Palin was asked, ‘What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?’ Governor Palin gave a somewhat typical political answer along the lines that the United States uses nuclear weapons as a deterrent to other authorities.

When is someone going to have the guts to say what is really in our hearts? I guess I hope it is what is in everyone’s heart. There is no acceptable use for nuclear weapons! No other nation, except Japan, has the authority to say that today. The two of us, know the results of being placed into that position. It is nothing that we would ever want repeated.

The following Sunday, I went into a tirade about this topic. And one of the gentle ladies in my class asked, ‘what would you do about another power that builds systems to use?’ I had to think about it for a while. I have to ask what part of not of NO ACCEPATABLE USE did you not understand? The rest of the world must understand that we will not tolerate the use of this technology in a threatening way.

I remember reading a political intrigue novel where the US vice-president who had control of the magic keys decide that first strike would bring the least amount of causalities and ordered the missiles fired. I was so angry; I threw the book against the wall.

Fortunately, authors like Tom Clancy, have made fortunes writing about men who put their hands over the button, and said, “There must be another way, we always have another option.”

I read in a Christian newsletter recently that Bono of U2 asked Christian performer, Michael W. Smith what was the one thing we could do to disarm nuclear weapons? Smith wasn’t sure, so Bono replied, .Love.’

My version of the America Dream

This election had another strange effect on me and it related to my version of the American Dream. It has taken a little while to figure out how to talk about it. But I thought of it after writing about the election. I have been fighting major depression for several years. Late this summer many things came to gather that broke through my depression. Some of the things were medical, some were based on the work I have been doing in my therapy, some were spiritual and all of those things have lead to a lot of personal growth. But one thing major thing happened that brought all the other things to a head, the nomination of a little known governor from Alaska to the office of Vice-President. In my life it was a powerful as an electric shot. It broke through all that fog of depression and brought me back to life. Where had I been? How did this happen?

That was my dream in 6th grade, not to be Vice-President, but President of the United States, My doctor told me that age 12, is a time of life when we know what we can do. I like the way it sounds.
I couldn't believe it, here was Sarah Palin living my dream. I certainly had not given her permission to steal my dream.
This was an interesting phenomena, see Hilary Clinton had never struck this chord. I believe this was true because there was Bill. No matter how talented and capable she is, no one knows where she would have ended up on her own. Sarah Palin was there on her own. It made me mad. That's all I can say. Obviousily, John McCain just didn't now about me.

Maybe the truth is that any of us could be President.

So as strange as it may seem, this election awoke in me my own version of the American Dream.
It brought me back to life in a quick and strong way. And I owe it to Sarah Palin. We will see what I do with it.

2008 Elections & the American Dream

Last night was one of my proudest moments as an American. I would like to hope that I would have felt that way regardless of my political leanings. First, aren't we all grateful that we knew the results by 9:30 (central time) instead of the end of December. I am not sure we could have stood another prolonged election. And this is going to make the transition so much better.

One of my favorite things I heard last night, and there were several similar comments from different correspondents, that people overseas could hardly believe that the same country that could elect George Bush 8 years ago, could elect Barack Obama this year. (Oh. no, I am going to have to learn to spell his name.) Don't you just love America? I think that whether you supported him or not, we all were in a place where we needed to be reminded that the American dream was still alive. Isn't it powerful, that while it maybe not be exactly our unique version of the dream, we saw it in action last night? And we saw it on the faces in the crowd that for the first time, many people could finally believe in their own version of the dream. And the world said, maybe there is something to this democracy stuff.

As I listened to President-elect Obama speak, and I have to admit that I enjoy hearing him speak, I started thinking about how this election validated so many lives and deaths. Have you been to Arlington National Cemetery? Of every thing you learn during the tour, the facts that stayed with me the most is that we lost more men during the civil war than all the other wars we have taken part in. It broke my heart. What we lost in that war. And now we have told the world what we learned, and now we can all say that those lives were not given in vain. Nor was the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King or the men and women of all colors who stood or sat for what was right in the 60's.

If Obama wasn't your choice, I hope you will give him a chance. If you didn't have a chance to listen to his speech, it is available on the web in both print or video.

Hope is better than fear

Randall's tree dedication - Nov 4

Nov 4 was a big day for me, so I am going to have 2 posts. In 2006, Randall Hollis, a co-worker, passed away suddenly. We were all shocked and upset by his loss. Randall was his own indvidiual, unique in many ways. Not long after his death, George and Jill, 2 of his co-workers, came to me with the idea of planting a tree in Randall's memory. I took the idea to management and got it

approved. I collected money from co-workers, retirees and others who had worked with Randall. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be for me emotionally to finish the task. I had to make myself do each step. It probably didn't mix well with my own depression. I guess I should mention the really bizarre way we, I, found out that Randall had died. One Monday afternoon, I stopped by the animal shelter to see of there might be a friend for my dog, Blue. As I walked by the counter, an animal control officer and worker were talking about AAFES. I stopped and said I work there, could I help. They told me they were so upset, they had to pick up an animal at a house where a man had passed away. They needed to find the man's next of kin. I asked what his name was and it was my friend Randall. Monday had been Randall's regular day off, so no one had missed him yet. Randall was buried at the DFW National Ceremony; I kept a weekly vigil until his marker was placed to make sure it was completed. I had a hard time making myself buy the tree and marker. Then the tree was planted and I had another hard time pulling together the event.

But the building staff picked a great location for the tree. It is on the path to the entrance to the building that most of the IT staff uses. They have recently installed no smoking picnic tables in the area. Randall loved to eat, and cake was his favorite. I should say FREE cake was his favorite. He would attend every reception and retirement in the building, whether he knew the people or not. So it was an absolutely necessity to have cake. We had a great turnout from the IT staff. Someone grabbed one of the first pieces of cut cake and placed it under Randall's marker. Everyone agreed it was the right thing to do. I am sure that all the other AAFES staff that passed a piece of cake under the tree yesterday, thought it was pretty weird. I put some captions identifying people I knew. If you donated money, thanks. I'm glad it is finished. Some of the photos were taken by Mike Santy, Toni Martin and Lyndie Blevins

For more photos check out my album

http://picasaweb.google.com/lyndieb3/RandallSTree#

Oh, the pains and joys of being a Longhorn

Last week's game (Texas vs Okla State) just about did me in. It is one thing to play hard, but it is something else to play up to the last 6 seconds. My poor dogs were so freaked out. The hate it when I am upset. As hard as I try, I can not get them to do something funny like set up straight and peak their ears when they hear hook 'em horns. After the game, I was done. I pretty much just went to bed. So I was dreading this week's game against another undefeated powerhouse, Texas Tech. At least the game was in the evening so it would not be so awful to go straight to bed afterwards. I even asked for prayer for myself in facing this week's game, which my Sunday School department, and anyone else that I told, thought was hilarious. But you know prayer is a powerful thing. This week, I was finishing the research and compilation of my Sunday School lesson just as the big game was starting. I was pulling in some supporting character attribute passages that were not directly related to the lesson. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this verse in of all places, Ephesians , from THE MESSAGE.
'This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.' Eph. 6:12

That pretty much brought things into perspective for me on what is important in life. And gave me a different outlook on the game. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't really an omen, since our game was in the evening, not in the afternoon. Okay, I know that is stretching it, but we are talking about remaining number 1 in the nation. But I couldn't help but think is is a sign.

The pressure on me for us to keep up our number one status week after week has been tremendous, I can;t imagine what it has felt like for Colt McCoy or Mac Brown. I am grateful that we have a quarterback that places so much of his faith in God.

So I had a different view of the game. It was still trying to watch. There was one point where my dog, Blue, came to me and lifted his paw out to me. I always think he saying, I am here, what can I do to make you feel better, when he does that. And even though last week, I didn't believe it could be worse than playing down to the last 6 seconds, who knew that we would play to the last second this week.

When all is said and done, who could feel bad about the game? We played tough with some major talent injured. We didn't give up and came back against all odds. And we had some real freshmen defending against the winning touchdown, who were there. Great freshmen can only give you hope for the future. And we lost to a great team from Texas, who needs the recognition.

God answers prayer, just sometime not quite the way you expect.