Human Nature intensifies during Hard Times - for Good or Bad

'The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people', said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.



...reminds me of the philosopher Viktor Frankl who discovered this truth (?) after living through the Nazi concentration camps. Frankl ultimately believed that man is free to choose his own behavior and that extreme environments is what pushes him to make these choices.



...ultimately the history and habits of a man's choices reveals his character development - whether concentration camps or natural disasters.



...in times like these we get to see individuals for who they are. It is not necessarily a reflection of human nature itself or society in general, but only the freedoms and nature of the individuals themselves...



....so stop saying, "Wow, can you believe people would do that stuff ? [e.g. shoot at helicopters during rescuers]

Review of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount

...An interesting review on a book that describes how fundamentalism itself (Israeli, Muslim, and Christian) is a driving force (self-fulfilling?) that plays into the political decisions we make. Its good to note that religious zealousness is a necessary ingredient to consider better than we have, when making our political decisions.. (can you spell I-R-A-Q ?)

So you wanna own an American Bulldog?

I guess the problem with general descriptions of breeds is that the writers are always fans of the breed. Maybe descriptions of breeds should be written up by the people who actually work to get specific breeds adopted out.

American Bulldog Rescue has the fairest description of the breed that I've found yet. This is the kind of thought provoking simple essay that everyone should read before they buy a dog. Honest and clear and it made me feel guilty for not having worked with my bulldog more. Ouch... it touches home. A sign of good writing - from a person who cares about the actual dogs and has an incentive to tell you the truth.

The only thing they left out, was that my American Bulldog smells. I have to bathe her more than once a week, but I really don't know if that goes with the breed or not (but have a feeling it does.)

Left Behind?

I'm in a Sunday school class and we've decided to study the book of Revelations. Actually, we don't study the Bible, we just read it out look in class, taking panoramic views, and comment to each other applying our minor insights. It's a style that is refreshing compared to the pontificating all-knowing all-boring typical evangelical church classes I grew up with.



I've tried my best over the last 30 years (since I went to Bible College and studied the Bible with fervor) to avoid dealing with the popular notions of what is commonly called the "End Times" stuff. You know, the "Rapture", the "Second Coming", the "Anti-Christ", "666" and all that other queer apocalyptic rambling. This study is called Eschatology. I quit studying Eschatology in my early 20s when I decided that the popular interpretations were all wrong and in fact from any objective sense couldn't be found in the Bible as it was being taught to me.



Well obviously Tim LaHaye just can't die and go away. He's always been a menance to any evangelical trying to maintain dignity. I hate to dis him much - [actually, I like to dis him a lot - its just not very Christian], but his views have had way too much sway in popular Christian culture.



Saying all that to say this: Thanks to joshmag.com I've found that this debate is alive and well and everybody who considers themselves Christians hasn't swallowed it whole. Thank God! Consider this critique of LaHaye's pop eschatology:

This unrecognizable, heterodox puree includes chunks of John's apocalypse, mixed together willy-nilly with the stranger bits of Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets and slices of St. Paul's meditations on death and Christ's warnings of judgment.

Sweet, huh?



Check this guy out if you have the vaguest idea what I'm talking about.

Driving Dead People in Iraq

My son, Brandon is okay. I was worried about him last week. He's driving an ambulance in Iraq now. Here's his last email he sent me which I thought was pretty interesting.

"geez i wish i had something GOOD to tell you but in all honesty if i started telling you the kind of news that goes on here with my daily work i'd be pretty depressing. i have been doing something different lately though, been driving the one and only ambulance here for the KBR medics, it's been crazy because i have to go on these medical runs like 5 times a day, usually it's a broken leg or injury or heat stroke/dehydration but we've had a few interesting ones. i had one military (AirForce girl) die on the way to the hospital from an overdose. it was weird seeing someone freshly dead but not with massive mutilation from burnings/explosions, it's like totally different. i don't want to be morbid but the first thing i thought of was night of the living dead. just like she could just sit right up and start walking. well that's all, hope that's not too weird but i'm sure mom has dealt with a lot of dead patients while working in a hopital. cheers"

Does Your Dog Howl at Night if you Die?

...my wife calls me at work and sounds all desparate. she says with this tear in her voice that she opened up her phone this morning and for some reason the date said it was January 1981. this freaked her out. I knew instantly why.



...my son was born Jan 1, 1981 - New Year's day... he is over in Iraq now working as a combat firefighter for Halliburton. I don't have good contact with him because of the obvious distance... I get emails from him every once in a while.... I've been emailing him all day and asking, "Are you all right?" .... hopefully he'll respond soon with his usual "Yes, I'm ok"... I haven't heard from him yet though.



I hope the universe isn't tied together with some kind of mystical cause and effect where weird things happen like a mother's electronic contraptions display weird dates because something somewhere else bad happens on the other side of the world... something as distant but as close as your own belly button.



It used to be an old belief that when a person died in their home at night, their dog knows it and will howl all night. My grandmother told me once.... says she's heard it herself a few times.... she also told me February was the worst month for her family and always feared it. She died in a February.



I keep checking my own clock on my phone and emailing Brandon.... he should be alright....

American Masters . Hank Williams | PBS

Watched the story of Hank Williams on American Masters the other night with my good friend and father-in-law Ike Lovvorn. (This Emmy award-winning series always has great stuff.) The particularly poignant moment for me on this night came from Ike, when at the end of the show he says, "It always makes me really sad when I hear the story of Hank Williams."

My mom used to play a lot of Hank Williams on our 6-foot long "Hi-Fi" record-player when she did her weekly house cleanings. She'd crank it up real loud so she could hear it over the vacuum cleaner roar.... And then she'd sing all-silly-like at the top of her lungs along with the songs. I think the cheatin' songs had a special meaning to her. I guess the story of Hank tugged at the heart of my father-in-law also. He kind of sniffled when he mentioned to me how Hank's story made him sad.