Goal for 2013: surprise wife with new mistake

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 OUT TO PASTOR  By Dr. James L. Snyder
Gazette Contributor

The fact we actually survived another year is a tribute to somebody's tenacity; I am not sure whose. I know the only thing that got me through the year was the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and boy is she graciously tenacious. I was sure everything would collapse and, of course, several times I collapsed in my easy chair.

It is a New Year, or so they tell us, but I have my suspicions. After this latest episode with the Mayan calendar, I am not too sure what date it is, or what year it is, for that matter. They certainly got everything wrong and I have my suspicions about the rest of it.

How do we really know that January 1 is actually January 1? Moreover, how do we know what year it is exactly?

I think somewhere along the line somebody has pulled a scam on civilization and has messed up our calendars. If the Mayans got it wrong, maybe we have it wrong also.

Whatever day and whatever year it is I am going to celebrate the New Year. If I am wrong, I have a lot of company.

When we celebrate the New Year, there is nothing new about it. Everything we did last year we are going to be doing this year, only we will be one year older. Perhaps as we get older we forget about what we have done and think we are doing something new. Hooray for senility!

I really do not care about that; my philosophy is, let's do it all over again. If it is worth doing the first time, it is worth doing again.

This brings me to a great point, which is, some things are worth repeating while other things are not. It is trying to find out the difference between these two that makes life challenging. I do not mind repeating things if I am in charge of what I am repeating.

I think we all should choose what we are going to repeat. For example, I wish I could choose a year to repeat.

If I could repeat any year, it would be 1971. That year represents the greatest con in the history of mankind. I am not sure anything like it has ever happened before or since. That was the year I married a young lady who turned out to be the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage.

What bothers me about this is why did she really marry me? Was it my charm and good looks or did she think I was rich? There have been times I have wanted to query her on this very subject, but then I am always afraid she will tell me the truth. I'll just will settle for the fact that it was the year I conned her into marrying me.

We have been a great team ever since. She has kept me straight and I have given her opportunities to exercise that profession, at which she has become quite proficient.

One of the great things resulting from this marriage is how faithful she has been faithful to point out my mistakes. Through her help, I discovered I have made quite a few mistakes.

I begin every year with a clean slate. I am able to celebrate Jan. 1 with no mistakes whatsoever but then the next day my wife begins the ominous task of pointing out my mistakes. This is a joint effort, which leaves me out of joint often.

I have a little theory along this line. I think that if it is a mistake you have made before it should not count anymore. I think the only thing that should be legitimate to point out are new mistakes. I find myself so busy practicing my old mistakes that I rarely get around to making new mistakes.

All these years I have reveled in my old mistakes. Trying to find something new is a great strain on my little grey cells. At this point in my life, they are exhausted and are encouraging me to rely upon those old mistakes and give them a well-deserved rest.

At my stage in life I think new is overrated and, if experience is anything, something new is always taxing and in more ways than one. Do not let the government find out that you have something new or Uncle Sam will come knocking at your door with a gentle request for tax money.

There is an old saying that insanity is doing the same things over and over expecting different results. Well, that does not describe me. I do not want different results. I like the results I have. I like doing the same thing over again because I know what to expect. And if ignorance in this area is bliss, I am the most blissful person on the planet.

But my challenge this year is to surprise my wife with some unexpected new mistakes. At least one! 

To get on the right track for the New Year, I start with the Bible. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV).

Instead of just celebrating the New Year, I plan also to celebrate that "new creature" in Christ. No mistake about it.
 
Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, FL 34483. He lives with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 1-866-552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. His web site is www.jamessnyderministries.com

Outracing the Grim Reaper

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  LIFE'S OUTTAKES   By Daris HowardGazette Contributor
            Uncle Hickory made a New Year’s resolution. He swore he would quit drinking. He had been driving while he was drunk and had one of the biggest scares of his life. He claimed the angel of death had come for him. He was trembling as he told us about it.
            He had been to a New Year’s eve party, and the celebration was quite lively. There were many kinds of alcohol, and Uncle Hickory was hard pressed to find one he didn’t like. He sampled all of them, from the lightest beer to the hardest vodka. Of course, he claimed he only had a little of each.
            Once the old year had rolled away, and everyone had toasted the new one, it was time to head for home. Uncle Hickory wobbled his way to his car, feeling happy and light, hardly noticing the cold at all.
            It had snowed heavily the previous two days, and, while they had been celebrating, the wind had kicked up, causing huge drifts. Uncle Hickory’s old car plowed through the drifts, sliding back and forth as he went.
            “Suddenly the road smoothed out,” Uncle Hickory said, “and the car quit bucking and sliding. That was when it happened. I was traveling carefully along at about 30 miles per hour when I saw him approaching in my rear view mirror. He was floating toward me, all draped in black, closing the distance between us quickly.”
            Uncle Hickory shook visibly as he continued. “I knew who he was, and I knew he was coming for me. Even though it was slick and dangerous, I gunned the engine. I reached 50 miles per hour, then looked in my rear view mirror. The gap between us was still getting smaller.”
            Uncle Hickory took some deep breaths, trying to calm himself. “As he was almost on my bumper I put the pedal to the floor, rather to die from a wreck than to have that ghostly demon take me away. The speedometer climbed to 80 then to 90. I looked straight ahead, afraid to take my eyes off of the road. Finally, I glanced in my rear view mirror and no longer saw him. I felt a surge of relief flood over me when...”
            Uncle Hickory paused, the blood draining from his face as the memory came back. We all leaned forward anxious for the rest of the story.
            “Just at the moment I thought I’d lost him,” he continued, “there was a knock on my window. I turned, and there he was right by my door. I looked at my speedometer, and it said I was going over 100 miles per hour, and still he stayed right there. I knew at that point I only had one chance.”
            “What?” we asked.
            “What?” he responded. “I’ll tell you what. I slammed on the brakes and then tore my way across the car and out the passenger side. I plowed through the snow and across the field, running for the light of a house I could see in the distance. I never looked back until I made it safely there. Once inside I looked over my shoulder, and he was gone.”
            A few days later, Bart, a friend of mine, stopped to visit with me. “By the way, how is your Uncle Hickory?”
            “He’s okay,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”
            “Well, I was driving home New Year’s day after working the night shift, and I saw his car off the road, stuck deep in a field. I got out to check on him, and the closer I got the harder he gunned his engine. When I got right up beside his car, I knocked on his window. When I did, he screamed and tore out the other side of his car and took off running across the field.”
            Bart paused, the concern showing in his face. “I tried to catch up to him, but I’ve never seen anyone run that fast, and I finally gave up. I just wanted to make sure he made it home safely.”
            “He did,” I replied. “But if we keep this just between you and me, he just might remain sober.”

 (Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)

Eagle with broken wing soars free at Roosevelt

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After months of rehabilitation and preparation, Arizona’s only satellite-tracked bald eagle soared free on Dec. 20 when it was released at Roosevelt Lake by Arizona Game and Fish Department biologists and rehabilitation specialists from Liberty Wildlife Rehabilitation of Scottsdale.

 
The 4-year-old male was found at Canyon Lake with a broken wing that required medical treatment. Once the wing healed, rehabilitators at Liberty Wildlife worked with the bird to rebuild muscle strength for flying. 
 
Hatched in 2008 from a nest site near the lower Verde River, the bald eagle was fitted with a solar-powered GPS transmitter prior to release. Biologists are excited at the rare opportunity to now track an adult bald eagle and learn more about its habits, migrations and possible breeding activities. The transmitter is lightweight and does not interfere with the bird’s flight or activities.
 
"It is very rewarding to take a bald eagle that may not have otherwise survived and rehabilitate it to the point where it can be released back into the population, especially a bird that was hatched in the state and will hopefully contribute to the population in the future,” says Kenneth Jacobson, head of the Arizona Game and Fish Department Bald Eagle Management Program.
 
The state had 54 breeding pairs of bald eagles this year. The bald eagle population in Arizona has grown nearly 600 percent since it was originally listed on the federal Endangered Species list in 1978, thanks in part to management efforts supported by the Heritage Fund. The Heritage Fund is a voter-passed initiative that was started in 1990 to further wildlife conservation efforts in the state, including protecting endangered species, through Arizona Lottery ticket sales.
 
Courtship and nest building begin in October and November, and the bald eagles lay eggs from December to March. During the spring, many areas are closed to protect breeding bald eagles around the state. 
 
The Arizona Game and Fish Department manages the bald eagle as part of the Southwestern Bald Eagle Management Committee (SWBEMC), a broad coalition of 23 government agencies, private organizations and Native American tribes.
 
Additional information on bald eagles and the breeding season closures can be found at www.azgfd.gov/baldeagle or www.swbemc.org.

McConnell outraged at having to work weekend

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By Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Howls of protest filled the halls of the U.S. Senate today as dozens of Senators expressed their outrage at having to work through the weekend to save the United States from financial Armageddon.

“We’re hearing a lot about the country plunging back into recession and millions of people being thrown out of work,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). “What we’re not hearing much about is how our Sunday is being completely and irrevocably ruined.”

Senator McConnell said that when President Obama called the Senate back to work on a budget deal this weekend, “At first I thought he was kidding. Not only have I never worked on a weekend, I’ve never met anyone who’s done such a damn fool thing.”

The Senate Minority Leader added that “if saving this country means working Saturday and Sunday, then I’m not sure this is a country worth saving.”

“Yes, I know that the fiscal cliff is a ticking time bomb that could destroy the U.S. economy for years to come and take the rest of the world with it,” he said. “I also know that Sunday is Week seventeen of the N.F.L. season and now I’m missing all my games.”

Mr. McConnell said that while “saving the nation may be important to be some people,” he worries that forcing the Senate to work on a weekend is setting a dangerous precedent.

“For years, people have run for Congress because they knew that serving here was synonymous with not working,” he said. “If that’s going to change all of a sudden, a lot of us are going to feel very betrayed.”

Photograph by Brendan Hoffman/Getty.

Not much positive about 2012

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Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)
By Will Durst, Humor Timesreadersupportednews.org 30 December 12
nd so we bid a not-so-fond farewell to the bow of 2012, another large unwieldy year, as it sinks slowly over the horizon, wobbling unsteadily towards the graveyard of memory. And cheers erupt from we folks on shore waving the double-handed "L for loser" sign above our heads. "So long. See ya. Don't let the door slam you in the butt on the way out. And if you got any brothers or sisters, don't give them this address."

Normally there's some small sense of nostalgia for a departing annum. An iota of regret for the calendar discarded. Not this one. Getting through the past 12 months was like navigating a Black Diamond ski run in roller skates with the wheels rusted shut. While wearing a crib. It was an oil-soaked pelican of years. The Year of Living Stupidly. Had the same connection to constructive change that Vladimir Putin has to the editorial board of Crochet Monthly. The Chinese need a new Zodiac sign: Year of the Flatulent Weasel.
But in the interest of keeping this particular piece of puffery positive, it might be best if we confine our remarks to reflecting on the good that emerged from 2012.
Okay. Well, that was quick. Wait -- got one: at least the presidential election is over. Of course people are already running for 2016, so we got that to look forward to. Which is real similar to looking forward to having five-year twins playing in the back seat of a cross-country drive with a new set of drums and an unlimited supply of metallic sticks. And tambourines. Tons of tambourines. For four years.
You'd think even your average run-of-the-mill politician would possess the simple common human decency to wait till the current President was re-inaugurated, but nooo. These early birds are intent on stockpiling worms. You know what they say: Early money is like yeast. And very early money is like baking soda. And extremely early money is an egg wash brushed delicately across a pan full of hot cross buns.
When you think about it, the only thing that really went right with 2012 was we misread the Mayan Calendar. Everything else is either worse than we found it or the same. 
Middle East a mess? Check. Crazy people with guns? Check. Weather getting weird? Check. Congress unable to accomplish any sort of worthwhile task, including differentiating between their gluteus maximus and yellow paint? Double check.
Face it. These days, simple survival has become the goal. Continuing existence is the new victory dance. And then, for a half a second you ruminate on how good we got it here. What kind of state the rest of the world is in. And most of our problems just kind of fade away, don't they?
Sure, with great potential comes great responsibility. But it's an exciting time. 15 years ago, the only people with GPS units were NASA. Now we got them in our cars and phones. We're also in the middle of a cheeseburger renaissance and pretty good coffee is available almost everywhere. Not half bad perks. So, what do you say? Shall we give another a year a shot? But just 365 this time around. Don't know about you, but that extra day this year kicked my butt.

SS cuts would be a death spiral for elderly

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By Richard (RJ) Eskow
nationofchange.org

Liberals and progressives who want to cut Social Security? Democrats who want to cut one of their party’s signature achievements? 

“It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge. 

As Christmas Eve approaches, supporters of the “chained CPI” are engaging in increasingly tortured – and positively Scrooge-like – arguments for the President’s callous and economically unsound proposal.

And they’re doing it in the name of the “progressive movement.”

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin …”

The Randian Liberals
We’ll need a name for this new political genre: “Randian Liberalism” might work.
 
A classic in the field is a blog post entitled Dear Liberals, Chained CPI is NOT a “Cut” to Social Security. Get Over It, written by someone calling him- or herself “Deaniac83″ on a website called “The People’s View.”

Serving as a perfect representative of his ilk, this self-described but anonymous “progressive” sneers that the chained-CPI benefit cut has “set off more alarm bells on the Left’s media than Pearl Harbor.” Progressive?

“Charge their doings on themselves,” said the Spirit, “not us.”
Same Old Playbook

The piece’s blend of arrogance and misinformation typifies the new style of the corporate-Democratic loyalist, with rhetorical ploys straight out of the Pete Peterson playbook: Benefit-cut opponents are “zealous liberals” and “ideologues” who speak with “hair-on-fire” hysteria. And this is not a cut in benefits.

When is a cut not a cut? Well … actually, never.

The chained CPI would reduce a 75 year old’s benefits by 6.5 percent and a 95 year old’s by 9.2 percent. The average woman on Social Security received $997 per month in 2010.  Had the chained CPI been put into effect then, when the President first planned to propose it, her monthly income would have fallen to  $933 (in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars) by age 85 and $915 by age 95.

But that’s not a cut, scoff the Scrooge Liberals. It’s a technical adjustment.  
 
Death Spiral
The cost-of-living calculation for Social Security is already too low. Something like the proposed “CPI-E” (which adjusts for the costlier goods and services used by the elderly and disabled) would be fairer and more accurate.  Many (though not all) extremely good economists agree with me.

The “chained CPI,” by contrast, lowers the rate at which benefits are increased by factoring in the reduced consumption of certain items – reductions that would be driven by cuts in benefits!

Whatever you think of this approach to economic modeling, it’s a pretty brutal in real-world terms to calculate benefit increases this way. You’re reducing people’s benefits based on the things you’ve helped ensure they can no longer afford.
 
This would quickly become a death spiral to the financial security of the elderly and disabled financial:  They can’t afford beef so they buy  chicken. They can’t afford chicken so they buy cereal. Then they go from cereal to Fancy Feast. From Fancy Feast to Purina. And so on and so on, ad infinitum, Ad nauseum.
 
Say what you will about taking $64 out of a 95 year old woman’s check, but it’s absurd to say it isn’t a “cut.”
 
You know me. I’m just too generous …
 
That brings us to the second, and even more absurd, “liberal” argument for the cut: Current benefits are too generous.  


That will certainly come as a surprise to 8.7 million disabled workers, who currently receive an average of $1,111 per month in benefits – a figure that will be cut even more drastically under the President’s proposal, since they’re expected to live longer on average than elderly recipients.

It will also come as a surprise to knowledgeable economists like Kathy Ruffing and Paul Van de Water, who compared our nation’s Social Security benefits with those of similar programs in other countries.  They note that, in their words:

1. Social Security benefits in the United States are low compared with other advanced countries.
2. Future retirees already face lower benefits (relative to their past earnings) than current retirees as a result of a rising Social Security retirement age and escalating Medicare premiums.

Ruffing and Van de Water found that Social Security benefits in this country provide 41.3 percent a retiring worker’s income on average, while those in other developed countries provide 60.8 percent.


That’s roughly one-third less than other nations’ program — and yet this “liberal” argument claims that our  cost-of-living calculations are so lavish that they must be slowed down.


Know Your Subject Before Lecturing
Of course, these liberals don’t say that benefits are too generous. That’s too nakedly cynical. Instead they deploy rhetoric like “minor adjustment.”
 
But what they’re really saying is “we’re too generous to these elderly, underaged, and disabled recipients.”


That’s partly the result of their callousness, and partly due to their inability to grasp  some of the fundamental concepts of social insurance, as when “Deanian 83″ says that “each additional year lived is an increase in one’s lifetime benefits.”


No.


Social Security is social insurance. Social insurance provides for certain needs when they arise. Social Security is supposed to support our living costs when we’re no longer working. Our cost of living rises with – this should be self-evident – overall increases in the cost of living.


That’s nothing like increases the defense budget, a comparison which “Deaniac” introduces with an embarassingly ill-place “gotcha” flourish. The purchase of weapons systems and the maintenance of a worldwide network of military bases (with thousands of physical facilities) is a matter of choice, not driven by external factors like an individual’s cost of living. Moreover, a military budget is not an insurance program.


Higher Taxes, Too … But Not For the Richest Income
The chained CPI would also raises taxes on all but the highest levels income, by forcing all other earnings into higher tax brackets more quickly.


Deaniac83 celebrated the chained CPI’s tax hike, too. But it’s funny: Randian “liberals” don’t ever get around to explaining why this tax increase on the middle class is not a “tax increase” on the middle class.


I’m sure they will eventually.


Party Line
A piece in this genre isn’t complete unless it marginalizes anti-cut advocates as rigid and hysterical ideologues of the far left, thereby condemning both the arguments and the people making them the Beltway exile of a “shunning.” Deaniac83 doesn’t disappoint.


But prior polls have shown that 75 percent of Republicans – and 76 percent of self-described Tea Party members – oppose cuts of this kind.  That means we have both the facts and the real political center, on our side.

We shouldn’t have to explain these things over and over again. But we do. Why?
 
Often the answer is that they want to argue in favor of a party and a President, not for policies that benefit most Americans. Deaniac83 lays his or her cards on the table: "Let’s get the president’s back. Tell him and Leader Pelosi you support them.”


But some of us support the public interest, not just a political party.  We also support a better understanding of public policy, not the cloud of confusion generated by arguments like these.


Ayn Rands of Christmas Future
Even die-hard Democratic loyalists should oppose a plan that will gravely wound their party’s credibility and popularity for generations to come. Left to their own devices, the party’s leaders have agreed to these unwise and unpopular cuts.


“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”.


We don’t have to defend the elderly, the disabled, and the children on Social Security, of course.  Instead we can embrace the thinking Scrooge expressed so well, in Dickens’ striking foreshadowing of Ayn Rand’s language and creed:


“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”


If that’s not your philosophy, you can sign this petition calling on our leaders to oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
 
“Answer me one question,” said Scrooge. “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

 Take action against this benefit cut. It’s the only way to find out.

The Intersection of Guns, Guns and Guns

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Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)
By Will Durst, Humor Timesreadersupportednews.org 24 December 12
t’s only human nature to want to take action after such a harrowing traumatic event involving guns. To do something. Anything, to protect our kids. And make sure that Newtown never ever happens again. Here. There. Anywhere.

But while the rest of the nation grieves, familiar opponents on The Gun Issue are focused more on making sure their groups’ messages don’t get trampled in the anticipated tsunami of sorrow. So they preemptively are trying to drown out each other with battalions of bellicose bullhorns, and it doesn’t matter they can’t hear each other because neither side is listening anyway.
That’s the crossroads at which we find ourselves. Again. The intersection of Guns, Guns and Guns. Too many. Too few. Too big. Too small. Too scary looking. Waiting periods. Background checks. Magazine sizes. Access. Transportation. Construction. Registration. Who decides and who abides.
All the old buzz phrases are dusted off. “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” “Increased gun control means aiming better.” “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” Actually, it’s those darn bullets that puncture the skin and bones, creating holes for the blood to leak out of way too fast.
The NRA is busy pumping out press releases arguing that if the teachers had been armed, this tragedy could have been averted. Yeah, there you go. That’s what we need. MORE guns in schools. The major problem with school shootings, are schools. There’s your answer, boys. Want to cut down on school shootings, get rid of the schools. A solution many states are busy implementing as we speak.
Besides, why just arm the teachers? Aren’t we forgetting about our kids? Surely they have the right to defend themselves. The only question is where do you draw the line? Middle school? Fourth grade? Does the Second Amendment guarantee the rights of Toting Toddlers? Should kid-proof trigger guards be illegal? Maybe get Fisher Price to equip classrooms with plastic Day-Glo under-desk holsters.
The left is also once again questioning whether military-type assault weapons have a place in today’s society. To which the right vehemently argues semantics. “Semi- automatic rifles aren’t assault weapons and the left obviously has no experience with guns or they wouldn’t mislabel them and their ignorance on the subject disqualifies them to comment or have any opinion whatsoever.” Known in gun control circles as the “neener neener” argument.
An argument that totally misses the point. Doesn’t matter what you call them. Semi-automatic rifles. Military-type horizontal handheld ordnance. Futuristic flintlocks. Agitation resolvers. Magic wands. Disputatious caramelized pump-action fruit rolls. Stick a feather in their muzzle and call them macaroni if you want.
The basic problem is, the only reason to own a macaroni that can fire hundreds of pieces of lead faster than the speed of sound in mere seconds is to kill PEOPLE. Yes, of course they can be used as legitimate hunting rifles. You can also use a flame thrower to light a cigarette. If you think about it, a hand grenade will signal the end of recess. Need to cut some butter, just pull out the trusty old chainsaw. Of course, be prepared for it to get a little messy around Muffin Time. And right now, we’re smack in the middle of an especially messy Muffin Time.