Christmas begins December 25th

Shocking no? Yes it is true, however it seems that 'Christmas' starts earlier and earlier each year and for most it seems to End on Dec. 25th. Lots of stores get decked out starting on All Souls Day (no doubt they consider it the day after Halloween). I walked into a Starbucks a couple weeks ago (well before Thanksgiving) and it was Christmas in there already and I was looking for some beans to brew at home. The Owner (I know he's the owner because I am a regular there) asked me if I wanted to get the 'Christmas blend'. Huh! I was already shocked by the decorations up so I said, "It's WAY to early for that!", and proceed to purchase the 'Gold Coast blend' (which, by-the-way, is my personal favorite -- yes I am a coffee addict)

Fortunately there is this thing called Advent. It's between three and four weeks long and it's job is to prepare us for Christmas. I know Christmas is not Easter, and therefore does not need quite the prep time or penance associated with Easter, However some preparation of our hearts and souls should be done so that the idea that the Creator of the Universe has become a creature for our sakes can seep into our consciences. We also need to understand that Christ first coming is a precursor to his final coming and prepare ourselves to be able to welcome him on that occasion as well.

So for our family Advent is purple (another shocking revelation, I know). The traditional Advent wreath sits on the table with 3 purple and 1 pink candle. The Cresh is set up, but only animals are placed in side while we wait for Mary and Joseph to arrive and later Jesus on Christmas morning. The Christmas Tree is not cut down (we always get a real tree) until Gaudete Sunday, and then left completely bear until a few days before Christmas. (If it were a perfect world I would decorate the tree on Christmas, but with all the preparations needed for Christmas, it is simply to much to get everything done on one day). I don't have any outside lights, but if I did, I wouldn't turn them on until Christmas Day and leave them on until the entire Christmas season is over. (which is much longer than anyone I've seen keeps their lights on, their generally off by Jan 2nd)

I encourage every one to remember that Christmas STARTS on Dec 25th! Don't skip advent.

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Light blogging

Between vacations and business trips my blogging has taken a toll, I hope to be able to post a little between now and the end of Christmas, and return to regular blogging at that time.

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Letter from Qatar

Here is another installment from our officer in the field. It's a great letter and it is always interesting to see how things work inside our military. It's quite amusing actually. no snippets this time as the whole letter is great. Read the whole thing below...

Hello all!
Well I have finally been afforded the perfect opportunity to get my next e-mail out to everyone. I am currently on staff duty tonight, which means that I sit in an office and monitor several phones, walkie talkies and radios and if anyone decides to launch a missile at us I activate the siren. So yeah, pretty much I do nothing. I will get the privilege of doing this about once every other month, so you are all at least guaranteed an e-mail then!

Things have started to settle down after a few hectic weeks. I had 11 Soldiers that left my section and I received 9 new Soldiers. So we have been busy in-processing them and training them on their new jobs. Actually just getting the 9 Soldiers was quite the task in itself. I got a call on my cell phone at about 0400 in the morning and the Soldiers that we were expecting had actually just landed in Qatar instead of Kuwait where they normally would have gone first in order to in-process into the middle east Area of Operations. So when they called me I told them to stay put and I would be ready and pick them up within an hour. They called me back about 30 min later and said that they needed to get on a plane to go to Kuwait first. I said NO, NO, NO don’t do that because they will get stuck in Kuwait, but they were getting their orders from someone higher up, so I told them to give me 5 min. and I would have authorization for them to stay here and 2 min. later I had the necessary authorization for them to stay here. I called them back but they had already boarded the plane and the doors were closing. So I was bummed that I knew I was going to lose at least a day or two with them going to Kuwait. Then the next morning they called me and said that they were waiting for a flight to come back to Qatar and that they would be there sometime that evening. About an hour later I got frantic call from them because some Lieutenant Colonel walked into where they were waiting and split them into two teams and told the first team “You now work for me” and he ordered the other team to get on a bus and head to another camp located in Kuwait and they were now going to work for some other unit. Now as soon as I heard that I knew it was because Kuwait isn’t exactly happy with us. Technically we fall under the control of Kuwait, but really for our day-to-day operations we fall under Qatar. So when our Kuwait higher headquarters supervisors came to visit us a week or so prior our supervisors here in Qatar got into a yelling match with them (and won) and we are getting official orders cut to show that we now completely fall under Qatar instead of Kuwait. So I knew that Kuwait was trying to return the favor for us and show us that they were still in control too. So it took three days of lots of phone calls and e-mails and it ended up going to a Three-star generals level before it was finally settled (as if there was any doubt) that they would come down to Qatar.

The new Soldiers that we finally received are all Active Duty Soldiers and for years I had heard that Active Duty Soldiers are so much more different then Guard Soldiers, as of right not I can’t say it is for the better, but it is still a little early to know what all their strengths and weaknesses are. But the way I see it right now is that Guard Soldiers are used to getting a months worth of work done in a weekend. Where as Active Duty Soldiers managed to stretch a weekends worth of work over 30 days. Of course I think it is that same Guard mentality that drives me to stay late almost every night and get as much work done as possible in a day. But slowly I am coming to the realization that I will never ever get fully caught up on things to do around my building. The Command Sergeant Major here makes sure of that. Every morning I have to walk through the building with him and he manages to find some of the most insane jobs that I have to complete. Sometimes it is very simple and takes hardly no time at all (i.e. that chair is missing an arm, make sure you throw it away) and sometimes it is a little more involved (i.e. the pool tables look like junk, write up all the deficiencies on the seven pool tables , find a contractor to fix them and then the money to pay for it). So he definitely keeps me on my toes in that department.

The other thing that has been keeping me busy is that about every other day or so I get a phone call that some of the items from my big spending spree are sporadically arriving. So I have to go pick them up and sign a bunch of paperwork and then I have to set it up in our building and make sure it works. Not that I mind doing all that, in fact I find it very fun, but it is time consuming.

All of that and I still have my daily reports to deal with, Soldier issues, daily physical fitness exercise. We have 100+ new Soldiers arriving everyday always asking the same questions, weekly I go through the several hundred comment cards and read every one of them. 95% of them write stuff that will not change like the 4 day pass should be a week long. The one thing I always get a kick out of is that everyone thinks that their rank should be the cutoff for which Soldiers get their own room. Right now only Colonels and Command Sergeant Majors get their own room. Lieutenant Colonels and Majors both say that Field grade officers and above should get their own room. Captains say Captains and above should get their own room. Lieutenants say that all officers should get their own rooms. Master Sergeants and Sergeant First Classes say that senior NCOs should get their own room. Sergeants and Staff Sergeants think that all NCOs should get their own rooms and Specialists and Privates think that everyone should get their own room. It is really pretty funny.

Last Friday night I had probably the most fun I have had since I have been here. One of our vendors treated me and LT Mangen along with two of our Soldiers out to a special party on the beach. However, to get to the beach we got to take a 20 min. ride in a SUV over the sand dunes. Our host treated us by giving us his very best driver “Smokey” and he treated us to a CRAZY ride. It is hard to explain exactly what it was like, but we offer the same venue for Soldiers all the time and for safety reasons we only allow them to go up to 60 Km/hour however when they took us out I saw the speedometer reach at least 120 km/hour! He would go screaming down a straightaway and then he would fish tail left and right and I don’t know how he kept the SUV from tipping but he did an excellent job of pushing the vehicle to the limits. The other fun thing he would do is we would go sideways on a hill and you feel like you are looking straight done the side of the hill but somehow he managed to keep the vehicle upright.

In the next two weeks we have a BIG tournament coming up. Every year the Qatari military challenge us to a volleyball tournament. For some reason we accept every year even though we KNOW that they hire professional volleyball players to come “join” their military for a couple of weeks to train up, play against us and then go back to wherever they came from. I made the second team. And we have about 3 hour practices almost every other night and it is safe to say that I am very sore from every practice. Some of the guys on the A team are REALLY good and it is generally not a good feeling to be on the receiving end of one of their spikes. But I have definitely learned a lot about volleyball in the last few weeks and improved my own game. But it is VERY serious stuff so I am anxious to see how it all goes when we do actually play the Qataris.

Well I am sure there is more to write about, but that is all I can think of at this time. Overall things are going well and time is going fairly quickly

Jeremy

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Fixing Education

As a final wrap-up to the recent Anoka-Henepin School District Levy Vote, I wanted to throw out some ideas regarding how we fix education in this country.

Earlier I wrote that the solution was to "Give all children the choice to pick the school they want, then give them the money to go do it." This would be infinitely better than the current system of forcing everyone to pay exorbitant (and ever increasing) prices for a sub-par education, and then forcing them to pay again if they want something better.

(If anyone believes that we are not receiving a sub-par education despite many good and well intentioned teachers I encourage you to read Dumbing Us Down)

Allowing school choice would bring accountability to the schools system, remove the bureaucracy inherent in government run programs and necessarily improve education through healthy school competition. Monopolies cannot do these things, its why we generally believe monopolies are bad and our dislike of them are the reason for the many anti-trust laws (which are bad too, but that is another topic). However, somehow when it comes to education, suddenly we believe that monopolies are great and we go to the polls to support them. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either.

Let me state unequivocally that I do believe in taxpayer support for some education. Education is a public good, the past 100 years has demonstrated that as an undeniable fact, even if it benefits the individual who receives the education more than it benefits the society as a whole. However, tax based support for education should not be provided by the Federal Government, because doing so would violate (as it already does) the entire idea of having a federal vs. national Government. (but that is another topic too!). The question then becomes how does the State (or local) government support education without instigating a monopoly?

Currently education in the US is funded in the way no other system of it's kind is. Firstly not everyone needs funding from the state, yet everyone does, or at least can take advantage of our 'free' education despite the need. This would be like the Government setting up food stamps for everyone, just come in and pick them up, no need to check your income. We don't do that for those who are in need of food, why do it for education? Secondly, there is no reason why the schools need to actually be run by the government. Using the food stamps example; Government does not own the grocery stores to give the food away to the people who cannot afford it. Of course not, instead they give stamps to people that can be used at privately run grocery stores. If the government did propose to take over grocery stores (one may argue food is more necessary than education) in order to provide food to those in need there would be a public outcry if not revolt. Why is it different for education? Why are we not revolting?!!

Now we come to the question of exactly how the government should pay for education, and still allow for school choice. I am not going to propose that I have the perfect answer as there are several good ideas (and having several states workout what is best for them and using each state as a little democratic experiment which other states can look to in order to flush out what works -- is one of the best reasons to keep the Federal Government out of education). There are generally two flavors of how to do this: Tax credits or Vouchers.

Interestingly enough Utah just voted down (62%-38%) what would have been the nations first School Voucher program. I cannot speak to the reasons to the failure, but there are some who believe it was due to an overconfidence of voucher supporters. Likely three other factors were involved as well: 1) It was an off-year election and unions can drive people to the polls better in off years 2) Teachers unions have a built in propaganda machine having the children of voters in their classroom every day. People who are forced into public education will always be propagandized in this way and it needs to be fought against. 3) Some of those in favor of school choice may not like vouchers because, unlike tax credits or deductions, vouchers may come with additional strings attached.

I can sympathise with problem #3. The government does have a right to regulate that which it funds, and there is a need to be vigilant against even further encroachment of the government into our lives. The argument for Tax Credits (or deductions) is that it does not come with as much baggage.

I would argue that either would be better than the current system and any program instituted need to work actively to eliminate all publicly run schools. But despite their disadvantages, a voucher system is probably the best way to provide education to everyone who needs financial help with K-12 education. Vouchers can be used in a way that does not bring down the heavy hand of government upon us. We need to be vigilant, yes, but that is true even now, vouchers would not change that.

I am saddened to see the voucher system fail in Utah, however I believe that it will simply be the first attempt among many in the US and I would hope that we could all agree that we need to work towards the separation of School and State.

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Christian Charity: Part 1

Part 1 - The Theory

In recent times the idea of charity in Christian circles has been moving from a purely personal responsibility to larger societal responsibility. That is to say that our need for charity has been 'taken over' (at least in part) by the state.

I do not believe that I truly need to demonstrate this fact, but if you are still in doubt I point you to The Catholic Spirit, (which is my local catholic newspaper) feel free to read anything by Kathy Tomlin, the director of the Mpls/St.Paul Office for Social Justice. She opines almost every week on the state needs to tax us more so that we can be more charitable to those most in need. Although I have read this paper every week for nearly 10 years, I do not recall any article by Tomlin calling for personal charity.

I can understand the desire for this, many have a genuine desire to help others and those like Tomlin who advocate for taxpayer based 'charity' should be commended on that point. There is a broad base by which many could be helped and it seems such a simple task to just take the money from those that have it in order to help out those in need. However (you knew that was coming, right?) the problem is that charity is not just the desire to help others, you cannot satisfy Christ's call to 'feed the hungry' without both free will and sacrifice.

Without sacrifice, an essential aspect of charity is lost. For example; while I am at mass, I will often give my children a few coins to put into the collection basket when it comes around. They enjoy putting the money in the basket and I find it is good practice to get them in the habit 'going through the motions' of giving, However what they are doing is not charity. I would not allow them to refuse to put the coins into the collection basket in order to pocket the money, so they are not sacrificing anything, hence it is not charity. If you are not willing to sacrifice, you do not love. As James states in Chapter 2:

If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Charity necessitates sacrifice, While James speaks of personal sacrifice Vs. doing nothing in this verse, surely you can't take someone else's coat and food and give it to them, I'm sure James would be appalled at the idea.

Now on the other side of the coin, just because there is sacrifice doesn't necessarily mean that there is charity. If instead of giving my children coins for the collection basket, I forced them to use their own money from their piggy bank despite their wailing and pleading to let them keep their precious coinage, they would be sacrificing, but there would be no love. Love is Charity, and you cannot be forced into love. Without free will there is no Charity.

Christ was the perfect example of what true Charity is and demonstrates these two essential aspects of Charity as no other being can. First, we see that he makes his decisions with complete freedom. Christ could have at any moment of his passion (or at any time in his life for that matter) called out to have a league of angels deliver him from his agony and take him to his heavenly throne (which is where he deserved to be), yet he did not. There is no possible greater demonstration of free will. Secondly, we see how sacrifice was also a crucial part of what Christ did for humanity. Simply becoming human was a sacrifice beyond our comprehension, but to suffer and die the way he did takes the shows how critical God believes sacrifice is to Charity. God could have saved humanity with out any sacrifice whatsoever on his part, but in His actions He shows us how inseparable love and sacrifice are.

The problem with turning over charity to the state is it removes both of these two essential ingredients to charity, and sterilizes our desire to help the poor.

Out free will is gone. As the state has us under duress with the threat of jail time hanging over our heads, our ability to act charitable is essentially eliminated. There can be no love if there is no free will. This is why God gave us free will in the first place: to love Him. If He had instead made us as robots who did everything according to His own plans, we would not be able to sin, but we also would not be able to love. There is no love without free will and no charity without love.

Although some sacrifice is made even by those who may actually love the needy (and those who advocate for state sponsored 'charity') it cannot be said that they are acting charitably because they are sacrificing other peoples money, which is no sacrifice at all. One can only make the argument that those advocates for state sponsored 'charity' are only being charitable with the money that they are personally paying in taxes that go toward state 'charities', but in that case they would be 1000 times better off using that charity in a personal way. (this will be expanded upon in Part 2)

However, even this 'willingly paying of taxes' (if that statement is not an oxymoron) cannot be considered charitable under such circumstances. Take this famous quote from Matthew 25 in regards to how we will be judged:

'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' "Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'

What he does not mention is 'I was hungry, thirsty and naked and you paid your taxes so the State could care for me'. If it seems a bit ridiculous, it's because it is.

In the end if you are not giving out of love, of your own free will and making a sacrifice of yourself, it may we all well and good, but it is not charity and does not satisfy Christ's call to 'Feed the hungry'

coming soon
Part 2: Charity Vs. State Aid - In Practice

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The Votes Are In - We Lost

The first two levy questions passed. Question 2 which was the bulk of the levy expenses passed 56% to 44%. The 3rd question has only 361 more No votes more than Yes votes with almost 50,000 total. Only question 4 failed 49%-51%.

In other words it was not really close, The no votes would have had a much better chance had this not been in an off-year election, but I suspect that was the plan all along. Congrats to the winners, I do not bear any animosity to those who supported the Levy's, I just believe that despite their desire to do what is best for our children, they are actually part of the problem.

Coming soon... Thoughts on christian charity and what part government should play in helping the poor. Also some final thoughts on the failure that is public education.

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Vote!

Today is the day to vote on the levy. If you don't know where your polling place is, you can find out on the Secretary of States Web site.

I'll update you with the results here as soon as I can get them.

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Public Education Reactions

I apologize for my lack of posts, I have been insanely busy with life, I know - I'll try not to let it get in the way...

I wanted to respond to a few things said here especially by ND in my Public Education posts
ND wrote:

I am confused by your logic that you seem to believe to have put forward so clearly. Are we to believe that we should be refunded from the government for every service that we do not use that taxes go toward? For example, I do not eat beans. Then I believe that all government tax revenue allocated to farmers to subsidize their crops should be refunded to me. I don't use the Anoka County parks, so then I"m to believe that my tax dollars paying for that or for the 35W bridge reconstruction should be refunded to me if I choose to not use those services?

These analogies do not hold. Here is why:
Take you bean farmer analogy, (I'll put the whole argument against farm subsidies aside for the moment) Let me improve on it so it does fit the situation. For Example; If the Government in their wisdom decided to give 100% subsidy to bean farmers, one would presume that they must be doing so because they believe that it is to the benefit of everyone to have beans (at least that is the only real rational for a government to spend money). Therefore you could walk down to your local grocery store and pick up a pound of beans a week for free! 'Great', you say 'Beans benefits everyone.' However in Joe's case (whoever Joe may be), he need beans just as much as anyone else, but Joe can not get to the store or maybe he cannot use the free beans because of personal reasons (allergic reaction to the mass produced beans, religious objection to the cow manure that is being used for fertilizer --maybe Joe is Hindu!-- take your pick). So Joe, despite the fact that Joe is paying for the beans through his taxes, needs to go to an outside farmer who is not being subsidized and pay for the beans that he can eat. Joe is saving the government money by not eating the subsidized beans and he is paying for beans that he can eat. Joe is paying twice. If that was the case then 'Yes' Joe should get a voucher for the beans that he is not using in order to pay for the beans that he IS using. Beans are still a good thing and Joe is not asking for anything more than the money that the Government already declared that people Should have for beans. Now ND doesn't eat beans at all, He doesn't even like them despite the fact that the government thinks beans are such a great thing. Even though beans are such a great thing, we probably don't want to shove the beans down his throat (all though our public education comes dangerously close to this in some areas) In this case ND is paying once and not taking advantage of the beans he bought, but he is not paying twice.

Private schools are a great option for those that can afford them, but what about the family that can't? Are they just on their own? Because you choose to home-school your children does not mean that you get your tax dollars back.

That is why I advocated vouchers or tax credits! I did not say that they were on there own. Why shouldn't I get my tax dollars back, at least the portion I would be using if my children were in the school system! This is the money the school district is saving because my children are not in their school. Isn't that worth something at all?

Don't you realize that would increase the taxes even more on those who can't afford to send their children to private school or teach their kids at home? You are making a conscious choice to not use public education

Actually the exact opposite would happen as I tried to point out in More on Public School Funding. Because the most expensive education is the public schools giving vouchers to people on order to by a better quality education with less tax dollars would benefit everyone.

I'm also disappointed to see that you are a Christian. What does Jesus say about feeding the hungry, helping the weak and giving clothes to the poor? Or being "in the world" not "of it"? Why would you choose to remove funds from the teachers that are doing a good job, and more importantly with a greater purpose of bringing life to the poor, hungry and weak students? I believe that I am called to be a teacher to the "least of these" and you just want your money back. It seems your ranting is based more on selfish ambition than concern for others

I believe Jesus said, "Give to Cesar what is Caesar's". I believe that the the State should help with education, but for the most part it is us Christians who should be feeding the hungry, not the government. But that deserves another post entirely, as the idea that the State should usurp those mandates from Christ is one that needs to be purged from Christian thought.

I'm sorry you have it out for public education. Obviously you've had some bad experiences and believe that all educators and school systems are evil

as I said in a recent post on More on Public School Funding "My mother, sister, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and two sister-in-laws are all in education. Four of those actually work for the Anoka-Hennepin School District". And I personally went to school in Anoka-Hennepin for all K-12. I know of where I speak and I know that the vast majority of teachers are doing a good job, I never implied otherwise. (or my mother-in-law would not watch my kids any more I am sure!)

...Maybe all of the Anoka-Hennepin voters can also come to your workplace and vote on how well you're doing your job? Even though they may have no idea what you do or how well you may do it, let's just come and stereotype what we think you do and how poorly you do it based on some experiences we've had 50 years ago. Yes, there may be bad teachers, but there are also bad video rental guys, check out clerks, and accountants. That doesn't mean that boycotting Blockbuster, Cub and taxes will solve the problem. If you want to help change the educational system run for school board or join a committee--don't vote to take away the money that is needed to survive!

I would venture to say that most private jobs are quite closely scrutinized, at least that has been my experience. It is much easier to remove a bad employee from a company than it is to remove a bad teacher from the Public Education system. There is no such thing a tenure in the private sector.

However, having said that, I must point out that the vote next week is NOT about how well the teachers are doing their jobs and I NEVER said or implied it. It is about the waste in the public school system. It is about the insatiable need for ever increasing amounts of money for an increasingly decadent education. It is about starving the beast and attempting to return some semblance of fairness to those of us who have removed ourselves at a great personal cost from the Public School System.

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