Committee of One

Everyday, as we listen to the news, we wonder how the world can get any crazier. Reverend Al Sharpton gave a news conference in which he expressed despair that Tiger Woods did not show enough diversity in his mistresses. He said, “It is a reflection on beautiful black girls and makes them feel very bad that he did not have a black girl as a mistress.” We learned yesterday that in one year President Obama has spent more tax funds than all 43 previous presidents combined (George Washington through George W. Bush). This morning the featured headline in the local paper, just off the busiest thoroughfare in this city, an 86 year old woman dead in her home and probably had been dead since spring. Even though paid caregivers were in and out of the house each day. A New York City fireman told me that any time a fire was in a government housing project in Manhattan it was routine for them to find closets full of dead people covered in lime. Any time an older person dies in one of these housing projects, the body is put in a closet and covered with lime so whoever can keep cashing the social security and welfare checks that come in.

As a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected, medical officer veteran of the Korean era, most of my time is spent inside staying abreast of everything with radios. I refuse to listen to the sewer known as television. Participating on many national talk shows, I stay in contact with disabled veterans and handicapped citizens from around the country. I have appointed myself a committee of one to write letters and bring the plight of the disabled to the attention of the power brokers, locally, state-wide and nationally. I will assure you that none of the people paid handsome salaries to act as agents for the country's largest minority are doing anything. Evidently, the ADA, elected senators, and congressmen and the agencies which they are supposed to regulate and give oversight, are just “paid to sleep”.

Recently, an aide from Senator Burr's office (each Senator and Congressman has 50 assistants) called me about a matter I had brought to the Senator's attention. She said, “We have never heard from you before.” I said, “That is strange because I write you almost everyday about some matter of interest to me.” In a few minutes she called back, they had discovered a filing cabinet full of my correspondence which evidently, had never been read. Senator Burr, being the ranking minority member of the Veterans Committee, had been contacted by me about many problems concerning many veterans.

One of my early telephone contacts in this city was a lady named Catherine Vasalou. Catherine had been born blind. She did have one young brother, Billy, who fell into a pot of hot wash water when her mother was doing the family wash. Young, blind Catherine said she would never forget his begging her to do something for him as her mother went out to the highway trying to flag down some help. She told about the small casket and her weeping parents. Catherine went to the School for the Blind in Raleigh. She told me about her mistreatment there but, more than her personal mistreatment, the mistreatment of the blind students from the segregated Black School for the Blind in Garner. They would bring the black, blind children to the white, blind school to rake leaves and do the yard work. She said, “As bad as the white blind students were treated, the black blind students were treated worse.” I can testify to this because, as a young child, I saw the treatment of the black mental patients at the NC Asylum for the Negro Insane in Goldsboro (now Cherry Hospital).

Catherine graduated from ECU and did graduate work at UNC-CH. She came home to care for her parents until their deaths while working full time at a local hospital as a typist. After her mother's death, Catherine lived alone until her death at age 85 three years ago. I asked Catherine once, “During all your years as a blind citizen in Wilmington, NC, how many times did any church, civic group, state agency, ever do anything for you?” She said, “When my mother died one church brought by some food to the house.” During hurricanes or holidays she was left to live alone and died alone. She told me she had left instructions with the funeral home just to take her body to the cemetery and bury her next to her parents without any services, any obituary...anything. She said, “The world left me alone while alive, I want to be alone in death.”

As chief of a clinic at one US Army hospital, a sergeant under me who had survived WWII and the Korean Conflict, was the EKG technician (he did all the EKG tests and readings). He and his wife had one child, a son which I saw once, who was both deaf and blind. There were no military facilities for this child and the public schools in Alabama did not make arrangements. The child lived very much as an animal. Can we even imagine what it would have been like for Helen Keller, also from Alabama, if her parents had not had the money to furnish specialized care for her deafness and blindness. She describes all this in her 1903 book, an inspiration for any life. When Hitler was burning books in Germany in 1933, her biography was the first book on his list because he so despised disabled people. He put 275,000 disabled German citizens to death. This seems like a small number compared to the 6 million Jews who went to the death chambers, but where were the sane, responsible citizens who saw this inhumanity to man going on? Are we really doing any better in this country?

Veterans know what it is like to be second class citizens, those who have returned disabled...blind, deaf, crippled, mentally disparaged. There will be more from these wars taking place at the present time. Think of young men seeing these spattered remains of their comrades from the brutality of suicide bombers taking place at present. I can tell you without fear of contradiction, that this blind veteran never had one minute of rehabilitation. It took 30 years for me to get the disabled housing allowance wherein I could put a security system in my house. For 30 years, I put cement blocks by my exit doors so in a break in I could try to get some help by phone. Since my windows are all nailed shut I fully realize the disaster of fire since I cannot see fire.

On radio, and at other times, I have offered to give anyone $1,000 who can show that any veteran's group, civic club, church, and I could almost say family member, has done anything for this disabled veteran. I would not even attempt to describe the insults, such as the nurse spitting on me in a University hospital because of her disdain for veterans and military activities. Veterans did not serve for recognition, but this veteran has tried to bring the disparity of the disabled and the handicapped, the largest minority in the population (est. 33%), to the attention of the media and the public.

Christ never appointed a committee, he always called upon a man to do His work, Abraham, Elijah, Paul. Perhaps, as was the case with civil rights and voting rights, attention to the disabled will occur. It was said, in Germany, that when the Nazi's came for the gypsies no one cared. When the Nazi's came for the disabled, no one cared. When they came for the intellectuals, no one cared. When they came for the Jews, no one cared. When they came for the rest, THERE WAS NO ONE TO CARE.

Devil's Brew and Barbarian

“Devil's Brew “by Keith Spencer is a book about a CIA agent who became conflicted with avarice and abuse in the liquor business. He was the enforcer for Mafia-connected investors who had trouble collecting from liquor store operators. The tremendous profit in the alcohol business, the system of discounts, the profiteering of locations (there are 3 rules for success of a liquor store: 1. geography 2. geography 3.geography) the offering of sexual vices of pimps and whores to make the collections easier. Next to gambling, the most profitable vice in the world is that of the beverage alcohol.

In America, $573.6 billion is spent each year on liquor. Almost every prisoner in the largest prison system in the civilized world (US) is in there because of alcohol (alcohol is a drug). 50% of all marriages end in divorce, most are alcohol-related. Millions of children are in foster homes, paid for by tax dollars, usually the result of alcohol. A lady came to my house just recently about renting space. She was caring for two foster children because both parents were in prison for alcohol-related crimes. The wife of one of my college classmates called me, her husband, a wealthy doctor with a good practice, was found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room from alcohol poisoning.

I am probably the only male student who matriculated through eight years of college, who did not drink. I know I was the only non-drinker on staff of any hospital where I served. I am still a non-drinker, not that I believe that anyone is in danger of hell fire for drinking, I just have better things to spend my money on. I was reared on a tobacco farm and I believe my parents would have died a natural death if they had seen one of their children smoke a cigarette. My father said he made his living on a farm, farming tobacco, because of the habit of foolish people.

In the real estate which I have owned, three buildings were used as night clubs, two very large clubs (one a capacity of 700 people). So, in one way or another, I became associated with the alcohol business. Harry Payne, prominent lawyer, member of the Council of State, legislator from this area, who was for many years, my lawyer, said, “ The alcohol business and your property may come back to haunt you.” I am not a drinker or a smoker, I do not sit in judgment on those who do, but I believe I know as much about both as the average person; the logistics of alcohol sales and taxation, regulation and hypocrisy.

One of my friends, Lawrence Rose, a member of the state ABC board, told me one time while walking with me on Wrightsville Beach that state-controlled liquor was the crookedest business he could imagine. He did not know about state DOT or other divisions of state government but said that pawns and lackeys pay large political contributions for the privilege of appointments to any state board. It has always been that way, you pay to play. In my lifetime, those “pay-to-play” members of the Democrat party hierarchy were appointed to the boards of predominate black colleges. In my lifetime, you supported the Democrat party in order to teach in public schools and, to this day, you must get approval by the Democrat party to drive a public school bus.

This American citizen (this writer), whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents go back with a paper trail to 1766, and who is a totally blind, 100% disabled service-connected, medical officer veteran, applied to serve on the Public Health Board and the County Library Board. The County Manager, Mr. Powell, came to my house to tell me I would not be appointed to any board because of my blindness. So let the Democrat legislature, the Democrat Council State, talk about discrimination.

Recently, it was uncovered, much to the miracle in this age of political correctness and NC newspaper support of the Democrat Party hierarchy, that the administrative head of this county's ABC board is paid a salary of $342,000 a year. To keep the nepotism of the Democrat Party in line, his son, his assistant, is paid $115,000 a year. On top of this, not reported anywhere until recently, the father gets a yearly bonus of $30,000 and the son gets a yearly bonus of $20,000. This is the type of hypocrisy witnessed by every school student in the county.

The county commissioners, who appoint the ABC board members and employees (39), seem to know about the closeted problems of everyone in the county except their own appointees. They made like they had never heard of these salaries or bonuses. As I have told many parents, many times, don't encourage your child/student to be a doctor, pharmacist, nurse or engineer, but rather encourage them to work for government. All they have to do is “kiss enough tail”, make enough political contributions and be bereft of morals, and they can draw down large salaries, such as every government worker. The average pay, now, for a federal employee...mind you I said average...is $71,000 a year. Most get upwards of $250,000. In North Carolina, going to work for the state, right out of college, you can retire in 30 years and draw 90% of your top pay in retirement. At 55, retired with a state pension, you still have time for a second career and, if you get affiliated with a military unit as so many do, you can “double dip”. If you are smart, you will get your wife and children one of these plush jobs with all the retirement benefits, holidays, vacations, sick days, which make we peasants look like paupers.

As a youngster, NC was a “dry” state. The last two states to get liquor by the drink were NC and Oklahoma. Each county controlled wine, beer and liquor. So, there was that weekend processional by drinkers to the liquor stores in “wet” counties. When the state decided to make the state very wet, all the political hacks, who for years had supported the Democrat party on the precinct level, were given jobs working in the liquor stores. I was a member of the committee to keep alcohol out of the state, just as I was a member to keep gambling out of the state. I have yet to recover from the lack of support the very “dry”, prohibition, Baptist, Methodist and even Pentecostals gave me in support of keeping these vices out of the state. Baptists, in this state (Free Will Baptists, Southern Baptists) have about lost all my support except for $30,000 I give to one Baptist college each year because Baptists, more than any other group, have kept corrupt Democrats in power, this state, poor and indifferent toward immoral principles supported by the Democrat party (abortion, homosexuality, gambling, liquor) I will give anyone a nice cash bonus, not as large as the bonuses given in this county to ABC liquor sellers, who can show me that alcohol or gambling has improved life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness to any citizen in this state. One Episcopal preacher told me, with bitterness towards me, that there was no more harm in his members drinking a bottle of liquor than eating ice cream. Of course this is the same denomination who supports abortion, same sex marriage and even has gay preachers and bishops in the pulpit.

Before Dr. John Messick (fifth president of ECU) died here, he said to me, “Our country is about one generation away from barbarism.” Those of you, even those of you who go to church (only 5% of people who attend church are real Christians), and who vote to put alcohol, gambling, the sewer of pornography in your neighbor's pathway, those of you who continue to vote for a political party and politicians who try to support schools and other services with the grief of others, you have much for which God will hold you accountable. The motto of the great state of NC is “esse quam videri” (to be, rather than to pretend). It is time for politicians, pastors, parents, to stop pretending, start loving their children and their fellow man enough, to keep the vices of drugs and gambling where they belong, in the dark, dark pit of hell. The great writer CS Lewis said, “the greatest evidence for and against Christianity, are Christians.” As I said to a Southern Baptist pastor in this town, he and his wife members of the Cape Fear country club; he, known for his excessive drinking, “you are not responsible to me, but to the God you supposedly represent when you stand in the pulpit.” And, so it is with those who sit in the pews, and vote at their precinct.

Pivotal Points

Almost 100 years ago (April 1912), the great ship Titanic left the Southampton harbor on her maiden voyage to America. The great steamship liner was filled with wealthy Americans making the ship's fist trans Atlantic voyage, as well as poor people in the lower parts of the ship. The ship builder said before it left Southampton, “This ship is unsinkable, even God could not sink this ship.” We know today that the ship lies at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean; it hit an iceberg and did sink. The last survivor, just a baby at the time of the sinking, died recently. Books have been written and movies have been made about this great ship.

My entire life (80 years), I have been reminded about the fact that America is too great to sink. I lived through the Great Depression, I know the horrors of what people in this country experienced, and then I have lived through other recessions. Always these things just happen like the stock market. Old people have always talked about hard times. Two things my parents and grandparents talked about until their death were the Great Depression in 1930 (the year I was born), and Hurricane Hazel in 1954 (while I was away with the Korean mess).

Every decade has a time of recession, it happened in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. In 1987, President Reagan put billions in the Treasury as a “plunge protector” against the fall of the stock market. At that time, you never heard the word “trillion”. Now we are dealing with trillions in plunge, trillions in deficits. When you consider the deficits in securities, Medicare, Medicaid, entitlements and all other debit to which the government is responsible, and the condition of the world's economy, we know that we are in a financial dilemma from which there is no recovery.

We are at this point because half of the country's population depends on a government check, social security, civil service, military retirements, disability and welfare. Those who receive these checks, largess of liberal socialism in control, will not bite the hand that feeds them. They will always vote for those who have their nose in the trough. Politicians who swear on the Bible to protect and defend the constitution are willing to give away the very goose that laid the golden egg in order to keep and protect their seat of power.

It has not occurred to them that the politician, who is paid very little for this public service, is willing to spend that, multiplied a thousand times in order to be elected, because he knows he will be paid many times over (under the table and over the table) for knowing the good ol' boys who control the purse strings of industry and government and who, in the event of defeat, will make sure they are sitting on plush paying boards of directors. The politician and bureaucrat knows that he and his family will always be cared for through the craft and corruption which has grown like a virus in the American system of free enterprise.

In WWII, 70% of industrial production was from America, today it is only 20%. Through NAFTA, CAFTA, etc., industry has fled the US. OSHA, EPA, excessive taxation, regulation and, as Dr Russell Adcox of the Wharton School of Business has said, “No one wants to be a clog in the machine. Again, everyone wants to be a foreman and boss, where in foreign countries ordinary people are glad to get a paycheck for honest work.“ You will notice in your community with any type business or professional office most employees, and even professionals, are just going through the motions.

Spending by the Congress, state legislators, and even local governments is like an alcoholic on a binge. Those who have read my commentaries know I have traveled the the world (every continent, passport stamped in 157 countries). The difference in owning a home in America, democratic republic, compared to living in a communist country is like worthless fiat paper money. You have a paper deed showing you have ownership to your house but you never really own your house. Try not paying the ever increasing taxes on your house, your utilities, your insurance, even your homeowner association fees, and you will find that the government owns your house.

In America the slave takes all the responsibility of his house. In communist countries, as in housing projects where many Americans now live, the government owns the building and assumes all the responsibility. It is a better deal for you to “think” you own your house so you will assume the responsibility and take better care of it. 95% of all loans are FHA mortgages. As an example, with the new Obama inspired “cap and tax” provisions, you must have specific windows and doors so your house will meet certain government specifications insofar as environmental concerns, if you expect to get a permission label from the inspector in order to sell your house.

The best example I could ever show revealing the greed, graft and corruption involved in local government happened here in the county where I live. Every elected politician and bureaucrat puts his hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution and act in an honest manner. It was found that the head administrator of the local ABC board controlling retail liquor stores, is paid $342,000 a year. His son (his assistant) is paid $115,000 a year. On top of these salaries the board gave him a $30,000 bonus, his assistant son received a $20,000 bonus. One family (two people in the democrat trough) paid nearly half a million a year for managing a few liquor stores (39 employees). This shows the extent of graft and corruption in local government. $600,000 disappeared one year in North Carolina (mental health). It is reported billions have disappeared in the federal government. Yet this year Senator Boxer of California demands funds in health care legislation that women get abortion funds if men get funds for Viagra.

I speak as a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran. The 100% disabled veteran, blind, cripple, gets less each month than a college ROTC student. Poison is in the well. Stark discrepancy can no longer be ignored, the “hope and change” Obama promising to bring the boys home. A man who has never fired a BB gun, but knows how to collect a peace prize, is sending thousands more of your brightest, best, to the most God forsaken area of the world that I have ever visited (including the depths of the Sahara): Afghanistan, and soon Pakistan. For those who return alive you not only pay for your country's posturing while in unpredictable environments during the war, but on coming back and trying to resume a normal life, you pay over again in taxes to support medieval activities in parts of the world with which you are totally unfamiliar. There are 126 military bases outside the US. The veteran is expected to pay the taxes of warfare for the rest of his life. Like the blind (your writer) even though I can't use a public park, public library, most public auditoriums, your prisons (total number of disabled in prison insignificant), you keep paying taxes for those who have never served their country, who care nothing about their country.

Not in my lifetime have I seen the church or the Christian so attacked by the liberal aggressive media. Do not be surprised, Christ warned us of this. He was not loved by the world while He was walking here. His Holy Spirit in us, his church, will be attacked to the very end. The cross separates all history. From the flood to the cross, about 2,000 years, we had persecution of believers of faith under the law. From the cross to present, 2,000 years, we have the persecution of believers in Christ. Remember, only 5% of Christian church members have a real relationship with Christ. Most have never talked with another person about salvation. If the civic club or the country club or a business were as slack about their mission as the church, all would fail It is our blessed thought to know Him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering (Philippians 3:10). We are at the pivotal point in our history as a country, as people of faith and as citizens of the world.

Merchandising Mercy

In other commentaries, I have described in some detail the poverty in which I was raised on a tobacco farm in eastern North Carolina. I challenge you to find anyone, anywhere, in any country in the world, any poorer than this writer and most people reared in eastern North Carolina. If a divided state, North Carolina from Hwy 95 to the Atlantic Ocean, would be the poorest state in the Union. Mostly tenant farmers, cotton mill workers, day laborers, who spent their lives just surviving to live another day.

Senator Herman Talmadge, a solid south democrat senator known for his corruption, said about the people of Georgia, “The people of Georgia only have three friends, me, Jesus Christ and Sears and Roebuck.” So it was with eastern North Carolina EXCEPT, they did not have a senator or other politician who cared a flip about them. Dyed in the wool democrats, they walked in lock step to the polls to vote as instructed by Josephus Daniels, editor of the democrat bible “Raleigh News and Observer”, for white men chosen by Raleigh to deliver the democrat vote but absolutely nothing insofar as better living conditions, highways, schools or public health. As one public health official at UNC-Chapel Hill told me one time when I was a student there, and as the Chairman of the Dept. of Public Health at UNC-CH (second largest public health school in the nation) has said again recently, “There is more breast cancer and other preventable diseases in eastern North Carolina, especially the northeast corner of the state, than you will find collectively throughout the nation.”

In recent years, with the influx of bifocal Yankees to the enticing coastline, the definition of a bifocal Yankee is: from up north they think of the cruelty towards black and poor whites in the South but, when they arrive here they jump right into the box with the elitist politicians who have kept the peasants under submission for their greed and benefit. IT IS A MATTER OF PHYSICS YOU CANNOT LIFT A BOX BY STANDING IN IT. Those of us in the forefront in civil rights, who helped break down the barriers of Jim Crow and the donkey-crow enslavement of cotton mill workers, despair at seeing the descendants of enslavement still register and vote straight democrat. Most blacks do not realize, yet, that it was Republicans who brought on emancipation through their blood and toil.

I graduated from a small, rural high school, there were 13 in my graduating class. The county school superintendent realized my potential and made the necessary arrangements to get me into the University at Chapel Hill. At least, unlike black students with amazing potential, I was allowed to go to the state university. I was at Chapel Hill when the first black student was allowed to go to their state university. Only those who have experienced the shame, the disgrace, the bigotry of discrimination, whether racial or social, can understand the imprint, the idolatry of discrimination leaves on the soul of those so undignified. The dignity of man, regardless of skin color, regardless of genes, regardless of financial prestige, is something that has been in battle from the very first men. From ancient Babylon, near the Euphrates, to modern Babylon, on the Potomac, men feel they have the right to enslave one another. This very day, in the power halls of Washington, a select group will try to determine your lifestyle, your choice in health care, the future enslavement of your children and grandchildren with always increasing taxation. As a Russian official said recently, “The people of Russia are much freer than the people of England.” As has been stated in many commentaries, I have traveled through almost every communist country in the world (Russia, China, Korea, Balkans), I can tell you without fear of contradiction that the people of America are more controlled by authoritarianism, totalitarianism and collectivism (all the products of Marx), than any communist country that I have traveled. I cringed in traveling through Russia (12 time zones) on the Trans-Siberian Railway seeing the way the peasants were treated, seeing chained prisoners lined up on the way to the gulags of Siberia. But, I cringe every time I must get a permit to do anything anymore, license or permission from some bureaucrat to do anything other than breathe. In England, many old houses have very small windows because in the past the people were taxed by the amount of sunlight going into their house. There are democrats in Washington who probably have that in mind for you.

So, a university student for eight years studying to become a doctor, it was necessary to work at night in order to go to school during the day during those years. But, in the summers, I sold books, door to door, down every “pig path” in eastern North Carolina. I sold large family bibles, dictionaries and, of course, “Aunt Charlotte's Bible Story Book”. One lady accused me of merchandising on God's Word. I wonder what she would say now about these coiffured TV evangelists. One book which I enjoyed selling was a small hymn book, which the black people in particular, always wanted in their possession. A woman could put it in their purse, a man in his suit pocket. This was at a time when men still wore suits, when real women, not drag queens, owned purses. It was necessary for one hymn to be in the book for the sale, “A Charge to Keep Have I, A God Have I to Glorify”. I can still remember, if the family had a piano, my playing the piano, as the family sang these old hymns. How people cheat themselves when they do not glorify and praise God. In the Old Testament, no books, few musical instruments, few houses of worship, God's people would always stand as the scriptures, mostly oral, were quoted. Their praise was a matter of song. Just imagine singing the 119^th Psalm...the longest chapter in the Bible (176 verses).

With Mr. Obama's spending and spreeing, harassment and hallucinations, he took it upon himself, without any congressional action, to select 32 czars, “pinkish” appointees of his Marxist/Muslim style of government.

1. Holbrooke, Afghanistan

2. Crowley, AIDS

3. Montgomery, Auto Recovery

4. Bersin, Borders

5. Hayes, California water

6. Bloom, Car

7. Ross, Central regions

8. Stern, Climate

9. Rosenthal, Domestic Violence

10. Kerlikowske, Drug

11. Volcker, Economic

12. Browner, Energy and Environment

13. DuBois, Faith based

14. Zients, Government Performance

15. Davis, Great Lakes

16. Jones, Green Jobs (already gone, a known communist)

17. Fried, Guantanamo Closure

18. DeParle, Health

19. Kundra, Information

20. Blair, Intelligence

21. Mitchell, Mideast Peace

22. Feinberg, Pay

23. Sunstein, Regulatory

24. Holdren, Science

25. Devaney, Stimulus Accountability

26. Gration, Sudan

27. Allison, TARP

28. Chopra, Technology

29. Brennan, Terrorism

30. Carrion, Urban Affairs

31. Carter, Weapons

32. Samore, WMD Policy

Study each of these individuals and you will find that each should have undergone congressional scrutiny concerning their ideology and their fitness to be the determining factors in government. Government agency controls are no longer the purview of the congressionally approved cabinets.

One czar is missing, a czar of Shame. Shame for the tripling of the national debt, shame that the first action of the new President was extending the parameters of abortion all over the world, through American taxpayers, shame for the near destruction of the financial and commercial enterprises (the corporate structure) that have made the country great, shame for the disguise of science resulting in quackery where there should be solid, intellectual enterprise. The greatest shame is now in progress, whereby, under the sham of Cap and Trade, a world tax will be placed on American citizens since we do not pay enough tax locally, to the state, to the federal government (with the ludicrous, shameless taxes on income), during every business transaction, and even to the food which we eat which enables us to continue our enslavement.

David Kupelian, in his book “The Marketing of Evil”, has shown us the ground work involved wherein hook, line and sinker, America has swallowed Satan's bait, promoted by a lifestyle of ease and permissiveness, encouraged by the trash available by the American Idol in every living room, television, computer and now the suicidal exploits of a ruthless and reckless administration.

Ballad to Loiusiana's Mary Landrieu

#413

Ballad to Louisiana's Mary Landrieu

Mary, Mary quite contrary
How does your Kingfish Huey bayou garden grow?
With tainted 300 million tax bells, jambalaya, crawfish, pie shells,
Donkey whore senators in tow, in a row.

Everyday, in every way (print, audio), how can things get worse? Congresspeople, such as Louisiana's Landrieu, being bought off by your tax dollars to vote the Obama way. In direct revulsion to holy scripture (1 Ti 3:2) a lesbian woman in California has been appointed a Bishop in the Episcopal Church. In direct repudiation of the scientific method, scientists across the world have been smeared by the brush of incompetence in manufacturing evidence to support the hair-brained, debatable, incompetent theory of “climate change” and/or “global warming”. If scientists, if scientific periodicals, can not be trusted, if university centers of learning have been so compromised for the sake of government grants, what type manure are we mired?

If the “sell outs” of our biggest and brightest conglomerates by political hacks are not enough then surely the “bail outs” of the financial system, which has made America the wealth depository of the world, the economic forecast of this country and the world, is beyond the eclipse of doom. In a time when 50% of all marriages end in divorce, when 50% of all young girls have STD's, when 60% of all children are reared in single family homes, when the world's highest paid, most famous athlete stays in the front lines for his sexual dalliances, when even the Oval office of the White House was used as a place of perversion, when gate crashers can come and go at the world's most protected residence, when witches are used to cleanse this same residence of demons, are we surprised when 18 members of our military commit suicide each day?

The only nation in the world with an obese, diabetic problem (I have traveled through 157 countries and only in America do you find fat people), 50,000 or more overweight, eating, drinking fans in stands, watching 22 millionaires running up and down a field, who are in good shape and do not need exercise. Think of the foolishness of the millions sitting at home with comforts that the Pharaoh or ancient Kings did not know. Eating and drinking to their doom, unwilling to walk to a house of worship where just a very few short years could direct them to endless years.

Beware of voting for politicians, bureaucrats, or anyone else “picking your pockets”. Brokers (securities, insurance and real estate) have the right name, they will keep you broke.

Political correctness is the law of the day, stray away from the truth, people are addicted to lies. The truth will get you fired as were John Stossel and Lou Dobbs. The pulpit, with a diabetic gospel (sugar and substitutes), will ensure the broad road to hell.
This weekend one of my cousins was very insulted because her parent's church would not allow her two large Irish Setter dogs to attend her wedding in their church. Why should we be surprised? $45.5 billion are spent in this country each year on dog food. $34.5 billion was reportedly donated by all reporting denominations as being given to God's work last year. The omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign God of the Universe on which we depend to live, move and have our very being, receives less of our money, given in worship to him, than the dogs (not counting the many other pets) on which many probably give more attention and love.

27 times in the Psalms, we find these words, “His mercy endures forever”. Help us pray for the mercy of God in these times marked by the inconsistencies and absurdities of man. Help us realize that the wrath of God is only superannuated by the love of God. HE LOVES US MORE THAN WE LOVE HIM. Only through his mercy will we escape the sin which has befallen us as individuals, our country and the world. When things seem inequitable, when the playing field is not level, words which should scare everyone, “Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.” (Psa 98:9)

Christmas Time

The celebration of Christmas has changed completely during my lifetime (80 years). As a child, Christmas was centered around the white, clapboard church built by my great grandparents on both my mother and father's families in 1874 as they recovered from the Civil War and the destruction of every religious symbol in the community when the Yankees moved through on Sherman's march to the sea.

I personally object to Christmas decorations in a house of worship. Most of the decorations are symbols of the pagan activities of that season of the year which the Christians took over from the worshipers of heathenism. But, in the very isolated, rural communities, the poverty which was there when I was a child (remember there were no radios, television had not been invented, one telephone in the entire community, no electricity) gave the children in Sunday school a reason to look forward to this time of year, because it was a time that they participated in enjoyment not found at any other time.

I still remember there were children in the community, at the church, who had never seen an orange or banana. The only Santa Claus they knew anything about was the one they saw on the pages of the Sears Christmas catalog, which came to every home. They could wish for things but the chances of them getting any thing was slim to none. My mother related so many times about how she and her sister wanted a doll for Christmas. They each received a child's purse in which was a note which read, “Perhaps next year will be better and you will get a doll. Signed, Santa.”

Over my long and exciting life of traveling the world as a blind person, then, as now, having everything described to me by someone else, I was interviewed by a reporter from a large newspaper about my experiences around the world at Christmas time. It is very simple, only in those countries where Christ is known will you find the celebration of Christmas. Certainly not in the 48 Muslim countries. Perhaps the most exciting Christmas was celebrated at the South Pole, Antarctica. Next in excitement would be spending Christmas Eve at Bethlehem in the Holy Land. I fully described this experience in one of my blogs.

How, when I arrived at the hotel in Bethlehem from Jerusalem, the place was full and my driver and I were given rooms on the outside in rooms reserved during tourist season for bus drivers. I described how cold it was in Bethlehem that time of the year, emphasizing, again, the known fact that our blessed Lord was not born in the latter part of December because there were no shepherds in the fields with sheep at such a cold time of year in the Holy Land. But, on that Christmas Eve as all my senses reconciled my metabolism in the physical knowledge of that part of the world at any time of the year, I rejoice just to be there. On Christmas Day, I went into the Church of the Nativity, which is built over the cave where our blessed Lord was born. Even though being in the Holy Land at Christmas, celebrating the birth of the Light of the World, my guide told me he did not see one Christmas decoration, one Christmas light, EXCEPT in a small store just across from Absalom's Tomb (Absalom, son of King David).

I was in Athens, Greece at Christmas one year. The people at the hotel and others told me they had never seen one city so beautifully decorated as Athens. Of course, having been here several times, I knew the Acropolis, on which the Parthenon is located, is always illuminated at night. Crawling up the Acropolis to the Parthenon on Christmas day, reaching Mars Hill (where the Apostle Paul had much to say about the God's of the Athenians) I thrilled in the knowledge that all history, every calendar, every date on any document, all punctuated by the birth and life of one solitary man, God-man. When you move around the Mediterranean, you realize this one solitary figure of history never walked over 50 miles from where he was born, never owned anything except his robe for which His crucifiers gambled as he hung on a tree.

This Christmas, you do not have to travel the world as I have at Christmas time (South Pole, Holy Land, Majorca, Holland, Greece, Rio, Tokyo) to know the real meaning of Christmas. When you look at the Christmas tree, think of the tree on which our blessed Lord was crucified. When you see the thorns on the holly tree, think of the crown of thorns on His head. When you see the red berries, think of the drops of blood he shed for you, when you see the bright lights which the world has distributed up and down every street, a world which has denied Him over and over, think of the Light of the World and the fact that every day, in every way, the world prefers darkness to light.

Over spending, over eating, over activity, is the way pagans celebrate Christmas. To the world, it is not a holy day but a holiday. Keep pagan practices out of your house of worship; there is nothing more beautiful than Christian Church, Christmas music. The gifts of Santa Claus do not compare and should not be mixed with the incomparable gift of the Christian Christmas. Don't get confused, God is not mocked. For the believer, the believer in Christ, Christmas is a time to rejoice in children, even in seeing a pregnant woman. God chose to put a tent of human flesh on a small baby born of a virgin mother, to live among us, to die for us, and has told us only to remember Him at the communion table. Celebrating the Lord's supper is the only way we were instructed to remember him. The rest is just peripheral, to be done with sobriety, thoughtfulness, and an excellent time to show man's humanity to man.

Ballad of Tiger Woodley

(Apologies to Tom Dooley)

Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Poor boy you're bound to lie.

I met her in Las Vegas
And there I cheated on my wife
I met her in Aussie land
And clubbed her with my drive.

Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Poor boy you're bound to lie.

This time tomorrow
Reckon where I'll be
If it hadn't been for Florida Sun
I'd've been in Nordic glee

Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Poor boy you're bound to lie.

This time tomorrow
Reckon where I'll be
In some lonesome courtroom
A hangin' to a lawyer's fee

Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head Tiger Woodley
Poor boy you're bound to lie...

Mr. Tiger Woodley (Woods), world's highest paid athlete, world's most famous athlete, world's most recognized athlete, a man with a remarkable talent, a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, parents who gave him every opportunity, a country which held him up to their children (especially minority children) as a role model.

Now, we find that Tiger has clay feet like the rest of us mere mortals. Why did not someone advise him that the world is full of Jezebels only too willing to share everything they have in the ultimate conquest, and he was the ultimate conquest. Sampson was very relaxed and happy with his head in Delilah's lap. Little did he recognize how much sight he would gain after he lost his eyes. With the liberal media in this country and their delight with the misfortunes of the gallant, their happiness that every man can demonstrate weakness and sinfulness, that sin of any type is acceptable, that fornication and adultery is as normal as the intake of food and beverage, Tiger will probably escape the perils involved in media ridicule. He may even be more popular than ever because debauchery has always been a competition in popularity.

Simply because his wife showed her effectiveness with a golf club, simply because his children will always look back on this time of parental publicity, simply because his devoted father is probably reeking with despair, simply because there still are some decent children in the world who are disappointed with the failures of adults, I am still waiting to hear one news reporter, in print or audio, radio or television, talk about the sin of adultery.

Tiger could have had any woman in the world he wanted, on any terms. The billionaire athlete could have surrounded himself with people who could have protected him from this embarrassment, if it truly is an embarrassment to him. One thing Tiger should know, when God breathed breath into man he installed a living soul with a conscience, the ability to know right from wrong. It seems to some of us that many in America have lost that conscience because of our spoiled, humanistic, secular belief system. Even in the most remote native villages of the world, where the message of Christianity has not reached, we are told that a system of law exists whereby one male honors the wife and children of another male, where, even without a Supreme Court, these natives know that murder is wrong, lying and cheating are wrong and adultery is wrong.

Don't confuse celebrity with accomplishment, think of Madonna and Helen Keller.

Obscurities

On the islands of the South Pacific, in Asia, on many church buildings, you will see a sign which indicates it is a Mormon edifice or a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall. These areas have been subjected to missionaries from these denominations. Once, in the Cameroons, Africa, my vehicle passed a brush covered edifice, a sign by the road said “Sweet Home Baptist Church”. I said, “Stop the car! I want a picture of the only Baptist church I have ever seen outside the United States.”

A member of SBC for so many years, I was well aware of how much money Baptists had given to the cooperative program and to Baptist missions. With so much money given to God's work, I wonder what men have done with it? In Kenya, Africa, I came upon a group putting the top onto a Methodist Church who told me they were about to finish their house of worship. A young missionary was assisting.

At lunch with him, he discussed his life, his calling, and I will never forget his words, “I have learned much in Africa, but I am pretty enough, ambitious enough, articulate enough, talented in music enough and know enough that I can go back to America and become an evangelistic success.” He later said, “One might as well scam for Jesus. If people will line streets in England to cry and clap over an old, ugly lady riding in a carriage drawn by horses, who will shell out millions each year to support she and her family in a lifestyle beyond compare; if thousands will gather in a theatre to clap and praise for a small, disfigured, queer, black boy, Michael Jackson, who lives a lifestyle beyond compare; if thousands will go to an arena and watch young, black and white millionaires bounce a round ball up and down a court, and this is all they are able to do in their life, and have a lifestyle beyond compare; then I KNOW I can return to America, get on the evangelism circuit (television) and be as successful as the young, gay preacher, Jimmy Baker and his ugly wife, Joel Osteen and his ugly wife, Oral Roberts and his ugly family, Pat Robertson and his ugly family, Paul Crouch and his ugly family. All with wealth and lifestyles gained by faking love for Jesus, love for their fellow man and their willingness to bring the troubles and sicknesses of others to God for a price. I know I can be successful in the greatest scam ever perpetuated since Judas.” It was not many years later, that I witnessed his performance on CBN, the Crouch Show, with the painted wife and gold grand piano. Him singing and performing, supposedly, to the Glory of God.

After the year 1535, when the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church, just after the first African slaves reached Portugal, morality has been in decline. The Pilgrims, real Christian believers, finally escaped the counterfeit, make-believe, religiosity of England. They came to America just seeking religious freedom and opportunity. Slowly but surely, Europe is gone (more caskets than cradles, more mosques than churches) and, slowly but surely, America is on its way down. The blacks, the academics, the bureaucrats, all under the liberal tent of the Democratic Party who sought darkness rather than light, has brought our blessed heritage from the altar of faith and freedom to the sewer of despair and deception.

It has been the same old battle between light and darkness, truth and error, the absolutes of right and wrong. Instead of the Church changing the world, here and elsewhere, the world has changed the Church because even the born again believer wants the world and the things of the world.

In medical research, it has been found that the rat genome is within about 5 percentage points difference from the human genome. Those of us reared on a farm have seen the barn cat, after catching a mouse, tease and pester the mouse for quite awhile before eating. The cat had learned that the mouse is much tastier after the neurological fright, stress and aggravation of such testing. We humans have learned that our testing is not to be compared to the blessing of our full obedience, to the Creator of both man, the mouse and the cat (Romans 12:1-2).

Most Americans, even churchgoing Americans, are much more concerned with conforming to the world and are much more interested in the preposterous, obscurities and stupidities of the world than they are of their life here on earth or their life after they depart this realm of sordid dysfunction. The President should take no satisfaction in the fact that a couple can get close to him, with all the hugging and smiling going on, in the richest house in the world. Mr. Tiger Woods should take no satisfaction in the fact that although he can be the highest paid athlete in history, can be the idol of young people around the world, his wife is still as effective with a golf club as he, himself.

But, Americans are much more interested in these obscurities than they are in being enslaved by a monster health care system, by a monster Cap and Trade system, by terrorism building up around the world with weapons which can easily wipe out the world. Over 50 years ago when I was getting my military indoctrination as a medical officer with some rank, I was shown a bottle of poison. The scientist said, “One drop of this nerve gas would kill everyone in a large theater.” To the uninitiated, everything is obscure. Astronauts travel through space at 14,000 mph. You are destined one day, you don't know what day, to leave the unpredictable harassment of this Earth's relativity adventure into the hallowed realms of heaven or the horrendous vacuum of hell. This thinking, this attitude, is not as obscure as you might wish. Mark Belakovsky of the Russian Space Program, the ancient writings of Nostradamus, nor the Mayan calendar predicting world's end in 2012, will have nothing to do with your eternal welfare. “Only what's done for Christ, His Holy Spirit in your life, will last.”

An Open Letter to Edward Finley

December 4, 2009

Edward S. Finley

North Carolina Utilities Commission

4325 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC 27699-9816

re: Open Letter on my blog to State Utilities Commission Chairman Edward Finley, Attorney General of NC, and others.

Dear Sir,

This is an open letter to you, members of the Commission and others in North Carolina and around the world who read my blog. I believe the action of government in it's treatment of the average citizen (even those totally disabled, who gave their eyes for your country, or those who do not have the ability to write a letter) is indicative of the reason our once great nation is on the slow, but sure, chasm to insignificance. From 1535 to the present, when African slaves were first brought to Portugal, when the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church, there has been an eclipse of morality in government. Europe is gone.

For nearly 50 years, as a totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer veteran of the Korean Conflict, I have tried to live a productive life. I challenge you to find any man, anywhere, who has been more productive in acquiring wealth and paying taxes and still, until the age of 80, works everyday, takes care of himself totally, and is still subjected to the harassment perpetuated by government bureaucracy. For several months now I have tried to get electric service restored at just one office unit in one office building. I had a landlord agreement for years and have paid thousands of dollars to keep service connected to many buildings. Without notice, simply because I had a dispute over an incorrect reading of the meter (the readings, payments, etc., should have been studied by your office so they can see the inconsistency with one month), the service has not been reinstated.

Even though, because of my conversations with your employee, Mrs. Debnam, I agreed to pay the disputed amount and she told me that she would have Progress Energy send me a print out of all payments to this one property for the perusal of my lawyer and accountant, I heard nothing from your office (I sent you copies of 3 messages to Mrs. Debnam), nor have I heard anything from Progress Energy except that they doubled my rates on other buildings.

Because I wrote to the Chairman of the Legislation Committee and others, Mrs. Debman finally decided to contact me and I finally got a chance to talk with 3 people (they kept passing me from one person to another, each time asking for the same information as evidently they do not own computers where information is stored and shared) until finally Bernice took an application as if I had not done business with you for the past 60 years, and supposedly the service is to be reconnected.

My question is this, “Is this the way a MONOPOLY business should treat people, any citizen, whether disabled, poor, uneducated, whatever?”

Some years ago, I owned a large building in downtown Wilmington (15 S. Front Street) with an adjacent empty lot where another building had burned in 1945. The old water meter had never been removed for the burned building. A new meter reader read the meter for the burned building right next to my rented building and I was told by Mary Gornto, City Manager at the time, that if I did not pay the ludicrous water charges for this burned building she would have the water disconnected for all my property. all over the city. Since I always furnish all water to keep from having it terminated at the change of a tenant, this would have been a disaster. So, I paid the ridiculous amount. Again, an empty building, the water bill was $1,200 (Park Ave).

They finally told me I could pay half the amount but an employee of the water company called me herself. Without giving her name, these are her exact words, “Dr. Morris, I have heard you on radio talk shows for years, I know you are an honorable man. Only 3 gallons of water went through your meter but they will never admit a mistake, a wrong meter reading”. Twice in the past 20 years CP&L, now Progress Energy, made a mistake on my property. Once, disconnecting a paid account on the day of my mother's funeral. The house was next door to Henry Belk, editor of the Goldsboro News Argus. He wrote a stinging editorial about the mistake. Again, all the food in a freezer on Bermuda Dr, Wrightsville Beach, spoiled.

The mouse is much tastier after the cat teases him for awhile. The bureaucrats and those who run monopoly businesses enjoy, I do believe because they have no morals at all, pestering the public since it is within their power to do so. Bureaucrats, like the farmer about to butcher his cow, do not care what the cow thinks of him. If the Utilities Commission, if any other regulatory, oversight agencies of government, has any mission at all, it is to be the “watchman on the wall” of these unconcerned, shameless, monopoly bureaucrats largely controlling the lives of the public.

I am too old to fight many battles anymore as someone else must do this typing for me, must run around for me to check on things. I speak for the disenfranchised, the disabled (I have never yet found a bureaucrat or a business person who has read the ADA law).

Thank you for your help,

Dr. T.R. Morris
Lt. Col USA Retired
Blind/Dictated

Golden Leaf

I am a product of eastern North Carolina. According to statistics, if North Carolina, from Hwy 95 to the Atlantic Ocean, were a state, it would be the poorest state in the union. I have traveled the world (passport stamped in 157 countries), I have seen the poverty of third world nations, peasants working in the rice fields and in the agriculture areas of Asia and Africa. In all these places, poverty of the cruelest kind, but I have never witnessed as much poverty as I witnessed while growing up in eastern North Carolina.

Most of this poverty was due to the growing of green tobacco. The marketing of that tobacco, the witnessing of seeing those who grew the tobacco, did the back-breaking, unending work, taken advantage of by the landowners, the tobacco auction warehouseman, the cigarette manufacturers who purchased the product. In the winter, the farmer began preparing his plant beds, the areas where he put the seed for the tobacco plants. Because of insect delight in tobacco products (even insects, worms of every type are addicted to tobacco), the tobacco beds were covered with plastic and poison gas used to kill infestation. From the time the tobacco seed germinated and the plant began to grow, ready for transplant in the fields, poison was used in an effort to raise plants for market. Over and over, the stomata, gummed plants were poisoned in the continued fight with nature against insects. After the plant matured, a leaf structure of about six feet in height, the leaves ripened from the bottom towards the top. Each week, young men and women (tobacco croppers), would go down the rows of the tobacco fields taking the ripened leaves to an area where, when I was young, the leaves were attached to sticks which were in-turn hung into curing barns. My tobacco growing cousins tell me that the procedure has changed completely in recent years. Anyways, then or now, the leaves, with their residue of poison, were subject to tremendous heat in curing facilities.

When I was young, the leaves were graded at home before market and carefully prepared for the auction floor where, at the mercy of the buyers, the farmer obtained whatever price he could get for his carefully prepared, months long growing of this cash crop from which he earned his living, supported his family, supported his church and kept the economic welfare of eastern North Carolina going. If lucky, if blessed by good weather (as with any plant, the farmer had to depend on soil, rain, sun and hopefully few storms such as wind and hail) the tenant farmer, and most, especially black, were tenant farmers, gave from one half to one third of his earnings to the landlord. Usually large farms, handed down from generation to generation by families who had gained control of the land early in the country's founding. Most of the landlords lived in the towns and cities where they enjoyed the life of the “good ol' boy”, caring little, if at all, for the poverty existing on the very land that they owned. These “good ol' boys” were not rich Republicans (as the media would have you believe) but rather racist, calculating conservative democrats, part of the one time solid south.

The sons and daughters of these landowners, the warehousemen, the proprietors of the country stores where the peasants were indebted for their livelihood, were the only ones in the eastern part of the state allowed within sight of a tax-supported college or university. I will despise until my last breath the hedonistic commercial owners, the hypocritical preachers, the newspaper editors, the radio commentators, who just turned a blind eye to the disparity, the absolute tyranny, toward the good people who did the best they could with what was provided to them. Once in a while, as was the case with this writer, responsible, respected educators would recognize the aptitude and the work ethic of some students and some families and help them obtain an education and get ahead. But, believe me, those from the hinterlands, the pocosins/swamps of this state, were never accepted by the “blue blood”, “big I little you” toxic-minded, incest-infected hierarchy families who felt they had some entitlement from Heaven to rule their fellow man simply because large parcels of land had been inherited or their family was fortunate enough to have an Oldsmobile franchise.

To this day, and I hate to wish anyone his roasting in Hell, I remember as a young, working university student selling books door-to-door all summer among these beleaguered people who loved me as much as I loved them. Having enough money to pay my tuition, I went to the Chevrolet dealer, where my family had done business for many years and some of my relatives were actually related to them (Blalock Chevrolet, Fremont, NC). At that time a 1952 Chevrolet cost $2,000 (this was about the time of my involvement in the Korean War) and I paid cash for the car. The owner asked my father, who had come to inspect the car, “where did this “boy” get this money?”. My father said, “he worked for it”. You see, the children of poor people were not supposed to gain anything from hard work, they were supposed to be enslaved, as had been their parents and grandparents, to the whims and welts, as white and black slaves of eastern North Carolina.

In spite of these people, the incestuous, moronic placards of the Old South bigotry, many have survived and moved on to demonstrate, to the state and to the world, that the lowly can rise, that our God of justice is still the supreme judicial authority. You are not stuck where you start. Hell would have to be enlarged to accommodate the landlords, the tobacco warehousemen, the cigarette manufacturers, the political representatives who loved these enslaved people just enough to get their votes and to use them for their greed. The public relations protagonists have run overtime in building up the Dukes and the Reynolds...just two of the families who made fortunes beyond belief from the sweat of their fellow man and who can now clamor for attention with their ill-gained gifts to universities, hospitals and, God help us, puny grants supposedly for the good of mankind.

Because China (62% of Chinese smoke) and other countries were growing so much tobacco, producing cigarettes so cheaply, a great mental barrage of concern encircled the halls of government and, supposedly, tobacco farmers were paid off not to grow the weed. A “good ol' boy” group of corrupt politicians (Jim Hunt, Bill Friday, God help us Holding, Barber, Chambers, Davenport, Worley, Penny, etc.), old time corrupt democrats who have run and ruined this state their entire lives, have taken these funds and used them for their own pet projects. One of the most interesting Congressional hearings I ever observed, John McCain was chairman, he mocked governor Jim Hunt, almost crying, as he told the need for educating the people of NC against smoking (500,000 people die in this country each year from smoking). Hunt, Friday, these other hypocrites, could care less about our children smoking. I believe more women smoke today than ever before, they say it is a sign of their liberation.

The money of the Golden LEAF Foundation is used, and everyone in the Legislature knows this, for the benefit of the “good ol' boys”, their political allies and their personal aspirations and comfort. Those who have defended the country, the returning warriors (all of whom live on food stamps), the black and white descendants of the tenant farmers and the cotton mill workers of this state, who lived in poverty, whose only friend, as Senator Herman Talmadge (another corrupt democrat) has said “is and was Jesus Christ”, are still waiting for the largess of government and the justice of God to be visited on those who besmirch the very idea of liberty.

All's Well That Ends Well

To the existentialist, history means nothing and the future is unpredictable; how pitiful that the human mind so limits itself.

This country boy did not fall in love with Shakespeare until college. Steele Building is now an administration building at UNC-CH but when I was a student there it was a dormitory where I lived. It was right next to the historic PlayMaker's Theatre. That Greek architectural structure which brings gladness to the hearts of so many alumni. One of my friends had introduced me to one of the actors in Shakespeare's play “All's Well That Ends Well”. He was standing outside the theatre smoking a cigarette one day and said he was leaving me a ticket for a play at the ticket office. It was at that play that I fell madly in love with Shakespeare. Little did my friend know, or did I know at the time, how many Shakespearean plays I would live to appreciate in the future. In England, at Stratford-Upon-Avon, I was at the play “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” and I went through the 400-year-old Shakespeare home, walked the streets where the Bard himself had walked.

Life, at best, is a very short experience. Death has become so fantasized on television, so sanitized to those left behind, almost an embarrassment to a family because your death interferes with their routine, their me-ism lifestyle. One of the most lovable, respected men I have ever known, who lived next door to me, died some years ago. One neighbor, Margaret, asked me to go with her to the funeral. This man, graduate of Williams College, successful by every measure with which men measure success, did not have one member of his family at his funeral, just a handful of business acquaintances and friends.

Years ago, I left instructions with my Trust, who will handle my estate, that my death will be only a paid interlude with no services and no visitation of any type. As several of my disabled friends have told me, people, especially family, have erased me from their memory and recognition while alive. Why should I want any of them around me after death? The Trust department will be paid to have my body cremated and interred next to my beloved parents and they will dispose of and distribute the philanthropy which I have left. While alive, even those to whom my wealth will be left, could not be bothered so why should they be bothered at my death? Although a 100% disabled service connected medical officer veteran of the Korean War, I have made very sure that your government will not pay one dime to bury me, not even to a flag under which I served proudly. The Veteran's Administration has done everything possible to deny me any benefits of my service, so why should I count on them for anything at death? It troubles me that those brave, young warriors, now and then, get such callous appreciation.

I had the joy of knowing real Christians, real people of quality, real people of concern. I have not forgotten one marvelous Christian lady who was a patient of mine for several years after I returned from the War. Living way out in the country (Grantham, Wayne County), she had been left a large inheritance by her family. She had never married, lived in the same house in which she was born, still used a hand pump to get water out of the well. Once, I remember this more than anything else, I had a full head of wavy black hair, which is now white and she said one day, “I just want to put my hands in your hair”. I felt, since she had never had a man to love, I could grant this gesture. Her extensive family were all members of a Pentecostal church where she played the piano for 75 years. They asked me to speak at one of their homecomings and I haven't forgotten the nice box of food she insisted I take home with me, knowing I lived alone.

One morning, her aging brother called and told me that Miss Lilly had died in her sleep and that nothing would please she or her family more than to have me say a few words at her service. I came face to face with real death, a real funeral, a real burial.

The large, framed church off the main highway was overflowing with community people (black, white, rich, poor). Her cheap, plywood casket covered with cloth, had been brought from her house to the church on a pickup truck (remember this lady was a large landowner, a woman of wealth who drove a car at least 50 years old). As the casket was taken out of the truck and her two brothers and four nephews took it into the church, the large crowd all sang Christian hymns. Every one of her former pastors, who were still living, spoke for about 5 minutes, giving the Christian message of death. The fact that she had already died to a life of sins ruin and Christ redemption many years earlier and had been baptized by immersion, thus, showing to the world her death to the old life of sin and rejection and her raised into a new eternal life. This was only clinical death whereby her weightless, vision-less soul without mass would go on to the glory for which Christ had redeemed her, having escaped through clinical death.

Several members of the community spoke about her Christian witness. I will never forget one old black man, weeping openly, who said, “There was much sickness in my family over the years and I could always depend on seeing her old car coming up the path to my house with food for my family”. This is the way she was known throughout her community. She and I had discussed, many times, the healing touch through the Holy Spirit in our hands. She always put her hands on the forehead of any sick in the community.

I only spoke a few words, I said that in her presence I felt the inspiration of Christ. I knew that Miss Lilly had not only been with Jesus but stayed with Him every moment of her life.

At the end of the service her two brothers and four nephews took her cheap casket out to the churchyard/graveyard to an open grave, which they had dug themselves, and with ropes lowered the casket down into the ground. Then, as the family and friends stood around singing (“Rock of Ages” and “In The Sweet By and By”), members of the family with shovels filled the grave with dirt. To this day, I can still remember the sound of the dirt hitting the casket.

This is the way death was handled by our forefathers who had the courage of faith, who knew that the splendor of life and death, the reality of trust, the assurance of faith, who knew nothing of political correctness or the insensitivity of letting a funeral home handle everything, except just a few minutes at a hypocritical service...a visitation with people staring at the corpse, the most insensitive, inhumane act of life.

Often, the funeral home goes to great extent to make the dead look better in death than in life. One of my friends, a mortician, said, “The wealthiest families have the very least to do with the deceased. Many never even look at the deceased after death, they just throw the church pall over the casket and it becomes “party time” for family and friends,...eating, drinking, celebrating”. One can celebrate the “home-going” of a Christian, but it is a sad thought to think of an unsaved, deceived loved one spending eternity in hell. The charisma of a beautiful inter-spring casket, adornment with expensive clothing, extravagance with flower arrangements, eulogies by lying, deceiving preachers do not change the eternal destiny of the soul, the real person, as the “shell” is buried, entombed or cremated.

All's Well that Ends Well

Death of a Nation

I have studied the history of the world on this side of the flood; I can say with all sincerity and honesty that we are now in the worst historical condition in the history of the planet. During my lifetime, 80 years, I have seen America, a democratic republic, change totally. I have tried to think, “When did the change start?”

I believe the change for the worst started with the killing by this nation of its president, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, TX in 1963. Studying the details of this assassination, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that the Warren Report, and all other government detail of the killing, was a cover up. Lee Harvey Oswald, blamed and killed, was right when he shouted to the news media that he was a “patsy”. Eye witnesses and film of the despicable government distortion were ignored. The public has become so dumbed down that we no longer recognize the facts involved in government cover up (JFK, 9/11, or even the recent massacre at Ft. Hood). Then, in 1963, an innocuous 21 word prayer was thrown out of the school house. The courts and the parents decided it was better to have police in the schools patrolling the halls than have prayer in the classroom.

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that the killing of the most innocent of human life could be reconciled with the Constitution. The culture of death, the holocaust of abortion, the euthanasia of the elderly (physician-assisted suicide in several states), has lead to the death of nearly 53 million babies which would have brought much happiness and productivity to the American experience. In 1970, 90% of surviving children were reared in homes with a mother and father. Today, 50% of all children are reared in homes with just a mother. 35% of all black children are reared in a single parent home (52% of all black babies are aborted).

From 1799 to 1892, the Supreme Court declared this nation a Christian nation. There are still many Christians in this nation, but according to the Marxist-Muslim President Obama, this is no longer a Christian nation. The crime statistics, the lackadaisical attitude of most citizens, the surge towards pleasure and “me-ism”, pornography, drug addiction and every decadent and satanic pleasure the world can conceive, marks us a profane nation on the brink of destruction. If this country, the world as described on the printed page and that I have witnessed in 8 round the world trips traveling every continent, survives in its present state, God will certainly apologize to Sodom.

Nonsense has become worship in most churches. Yesterday, I heard a pastor invite his members to the church to decorate the building for Christmas. Some churches actually put a Santa Claus figure in the vestibule of the church welcoming the public into a supposed faith based, sovereign, grace thrilled sanctuary for believers. The last place a Christmas tree (phallic symbol in the pagan religions) should be seen is in the scripture based, omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign House of God. The only tree with which Christians should be concerned is that cruel tree on which our Savior died to redeem the world. The only lights the Christians should memorialize at this season is the light of the world who came to overcome darkness. The only red balls, or holly thorns the Christian should memorialize at this season are the thorns on the crown of our blessed Lord or the red blood drops for the washing clean of our sins and our atonement.

If you missed this meaning of Christmas, you have missed Christmas. Mixing “Here Comes Santa Claus” (the greatest myth ever perpetrated on the Christian church) with “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” is as preposterous as the now decadent practice of young Christian people spiking their punch at their Christmas banquet with vodka. No wonder that 75% of all young people brought up in a Christian church abandons Christianity. The Catholic Church, which boasts 70% of the American voting public, in the last election voted 54% for abortion-promoting Obama. The Catholic Church may not be right about some things, anymore than most denominations are not right about everything, but the Catholic Church is right about its attitude towards the killing of the most innocent of life. Catholics could have prevented the election of this culture of death.

We are living in an age of deception, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sameul 15:22). Obedience and submissiveness is foreign to the unsaved and very unpopular with the Christian. Even believers want God on our terms, not His terms. Today's churchgoers can sit on the padded pews in absolute comfort and go “smiling through” (Broadway play) any message pertaining to sin (Romans 1:21). The Church has dragged the world into its sanctuary. Unless closely observing, you cannot tell the church service from the nightclub or country club...same people, same clothes, same attitude, same language, and in most cases, same music. God requires the Christian Church to be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a peculiar nation...the salt of the Earth. I am convinced, the only reason, we, as a nation, though in the throes of death, are still standing.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, well known writer, stated recently that perhaps the second leg of this depression will awaken those who are not yet awake. I lived through the Great Depression of the 1930's. I remember the “Hoover carts”, empty store shelves, hungry people coming to the door asking for food, real Christian people on their hands and knees at the church altar begging for mercy for themselves and their country. We now have a soft, spoiled population.

Several times recently, I have heard one of these young, pretty, empty-headed talking heads in a news broadcast say, “Socialism is not all bad, Islam is not all bad, why don't we all just worship Allah so we will have friends around the world?”. The geometric, square, black stone Mosque at Mecca (Ka'aba edifice, windowless, one door) which is without images of any kind, to which Muslims bow in its direction five times a day, to which two million Muslims visit each year and walk around counterclockwise seven times, is not the God which we, as redeemed, blessed children of the Creator of the Universe, worship. We do what we do because we believe what we believe. Most of our problems, whether at the White House, the courthouse, the church house, the school house or your house, is because of stinking thinking. Nations have died in the past. This old, totally blind veteran tells you that this one is worth saving.