verbal exhibitionism

They move from cell phone conversation to text message to tweet to website to i-tune to ... and then start all over again. This generation seems incapable of contemplation. And that is a very bad thing. Because if one is incapable of quiet contemplation, then one is equally incapable of hearing God's voice on a consistent basis.

I understand that the endless stream of gadgets and technology have prevented the latest generation from learning how to think, how to focus, how to concentrate and how to be comfortable with quietness. I even understand people wanting to be constantly distracted from their own self-doubt and self-loathing. But what I do not understand is the pandemic of verbal exhibitionism.

What I do not understand is why this generation has decided that the rest of us must be forced to listen to their endless, empty drivel.

Why must the rest of us be forced to overhear all their inappropriately public cell phone conversations? Without saying it in so many words, they all seem to be screaming: "Hey everybody, look at me! Look at me! Listen to what I think. Hey everybody, I'm cool, too. Pay attention to me.
Hey everybody, I know how to talk very loudly on a cell phone. Do you wanna listen?!"

 ... NO. As a matter of fact, we don't.

This new pandemic of verbal exhibitionism is downright infantile.
Apparently, somebody's mommy or daddy didn't pay enough attention to him or her.

We are raising a generation of insecure, immature, easily distracted exhibitionists who are terrified of silence and completely incapable of quiet contemplation and prayer.
And I'm not talking about unbelievers here. Of course, they won't be able to recognize God's voice.
I am referring to the generations being raised by professing Christians.

Raising God-fearing children (who will become God-fearing adults) is about so much more than just dragging them to church and "saying prayers" at bedtime. It begins with things as fundamental as teaching them how to think. Not what to think, but how to think. A child -- a person -- must practice being quiet and still with his own thoughts. A child must be encouraged to be contemplative. A child must have role models who are comfortable with quietness, stillness and silence, role models who pray (and not just the talking kind of prayer, but also the waiting and listening kind).

Children must be taught to hear and to recognize God's still, small voice.

It appears to me, however, that we are raising a generation of people who are incapable of that.

 

 
it has begun

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- World leaders on Friday issued sweeping promises to fix a malfunctioning global economic system in hopes of heading off future financial meltdowns. President Barack Obama said actions taken so far "brought the global economy back from the brink. We leave here today confident and united".

The leaders agreed to keep stimulus plans, which include government spending and low interest rates, generally in place in their respective countries for now to avoid derailing still-fragile recoveries. Obama had pressed for just such a course and praised the decision.

"Our coordinated stimulus plans played an indispensable role in averting catastrophe. Now we must make sure that when growth returns, jobs do, too," he said at a wrap-up news conference. "That's why we will continue our stimulus efforts until our people are back to work and phase them out when our recovery is strong."

In a statement, all the G-20 leaders declared major progress from what they called their coordinated efforts and "forceful response. It worked," they said. [What a load of self-congratulatory b...]

Although many of the pronouncements and actions taken by the leaders lacked specifics or details on follow-through [Gee ... I wonder why], leaders were bold in pronouncing the gathering - the third G-20 summit in a year - as a big success.

"There was unanimity around the table that the errors of the past won't happen again," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. 
[Here's the problem with that statement: The errors "of the past" are already happening again, you ridiculous liar.]

"The old system of international economic cooperation is over. The new system, as of today, has begun," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, referring to a decision to enhance the status for the Group of 20 to make it the lead group for dealing with future international economic issues, eclipsing the older, Western-dominated Group of Eight.  [A new world economic system. Hmmm? Any of this starting to sound familiar yet?]

  

gives new meaning to the term "MYSTERY MEAT"

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Southern California meatpacking plant that supplied beef to the nation's school lunch program slaughtered stumbling, potentially contaminated cows for four years before undercover video of animal abuse prompted a massive beef recall, federal court filings say.

THIS IS WHERE OBAMA SHINES
AND WILL IN THE FUTURE:
Presiding Over International Meetings

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- With President Barack Obama presiding, the U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously endorsed a sweeping strategy aimed at halting the spread of nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminating them, to usher in a world with "undiminished security for all."

"That can be our destiny," Obama declared after the 15-nation body adopted the historic, U.S.-initiated resolution at an unprecedented summit session. "We will leave this meeting with a renewed determination to achieve this shared goal."

"This is a historic moment, a moment offering a fresh start toward a new future," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, saluting the first such Security Council gathering of presidents and premiers to deal with nuclear nonproliferation.

Oh, it'll be a new future, all right, Mr. Monkey-Moon. It just won't be the one most of us wanted or expected.

 

Liver Damage

I just read the warning label on a bottle of generic Acetaminophen tablets. It warns: "If you consume three or more alcoholic drinks every day, ask your doctor whether you should take Acetaminophen or other pain relievers ... blah, blah, blah ... liver damage.

O.K. Whatever else it says is irrelevant, because if you consume at least three alcoholic drinks every day, choosing the right pain reliever is the least of your problems.
What you need ask your doctor is whether he can get you into a good rehab program, because you're an alcoholic. 

 

BARACK AND BILL
STILL ENJOY RUBBING HER NOSE IN IT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Obama on Tuesday spoke in New York to the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president's philanthropic organization. The president said former President Bill Clinton should be credited with saving millions of lives around the world since leaving the White House.  Obama said Bill Clinton has made an extraordinary difference for those in need. Barack Hussein thanked donors who helped make the work possible, especially during tough economic times. He said such private groups can bring about change in ways government cannot.

In a light moment, Obama joked about making it difficult for Bill to keep in touch with his wife.          
      [I bet Hillary just laughed and laughed...]
 

 

obama-mania dying down as reality sets in

 
CHICAGO (AP) -- Young Americans [mostly college students who hadn't experienced REAL life yet] showed their collective power when they helped vote President Obama into office. Inspired by his message of "change," they knocked on doors, spread flyers, voted for him by a 2-1 margin, and partied like rock-the-vote stars when he won.

Since the election, though, that fervor has died down - noticeably. And while young people remain the president's most loyal supporters in opinion polls, a lot of people are wondering why that age group isn't doing more to build upon their newfound reputation as political influencers.
"It's one thing to get excited about a presidential candidate. It's another thing to become a responsible citizen," says Jennifer Donahue, political director for the New Hampshire Institute Of Politics. She and other political analysts thinks they have yet to prove themselves.

Erin Carroll, a 19-year-old sophomore at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, blames the lack of engagement on her generation's short attention span. They want change - right now, she says - and haven't gotten it. "I feel like everybody walks around with their cell phone and their laptops. We feel like we need everything immediately. "We're the 'me-me-me' generation."

doomed to repeat it

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it ... and American political leaders seem to have already forgotten something that happened as recently as 1979: the Soviet Union gave up trying to conquer/occupy Afghanistan.

KABUL (AP) -- The Taliban's reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan's long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.

If I'm not mistaken, I expressed this very point recently to my wife.

DUMPSTER TIME, BABY! 

WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- A tender moment in a trash bin went all wrong for a couple who found themselves being held up at pocket knifepoint. Police said two 44-year-olds had climbed into a dumpster to be alone just after 6 p.m. Saturday when two men interrupted them and demanded their belongings. Officers said the man and woman were engaged in "an intimate moment" when they were robbed of their shoes, jewelry and the man's wallet.

Gross. 

I have a feeling there is more to this story than what the AP wire reported here.

Question: How does someone (or two people) reach the conclusion that doing it in a dumpster would be a good idea? 

 

HYPOCRISY AT ITS APEX

If something is "bad" for kids, then it is EQUALLY as "bad" for adults.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ads for erectile dysfunction drugs, beer and "soft-porn" films abound on pro football and baseball telecasts, upsetting parents worried about having to either mute the television or explain the side effects of a life enhancement drug to their kids.

In May, Rep. Jim Moran introduced a bill that would limit TV ads for erectile dysfunction drugs to between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. - not expecting it to pass any time soon but hoping it would send a warning to the drug makers. The Virginia Democrat had withdrawn a similar bill in 2005 after the companies offered to change their ad policies, but said the ads now "appear to have become even more pervasive and explicit."

There's no comparable move to legislate changes in beer advertising, which constitutes a huge portion of broadcast revenue for many professional sports. Nonetheless, many parents and health experts worry that children are adversely influenced by the drinking-is-fun message implicit in beer commercials. After the latest Super Bowl, the Drug-Free Action Alliance in Columbus, Ohio, surveyed 8,400 teens, and found that three of their five favorite ads during the telecast were for beer. The alliance said the result is an added inducement for young people to start drinking at an early age and an increased risk of problems with alcohol later in life.
 

The NFL has detailed rules about types of ads it prohibits on its telecasts - taboo products include hard liquor, condoms, strip clubs, firearms and casinos, as well as movies, video games and other media that contain "objectionable material or subject matter." Wine, beer, oral contraceptives and erectile dysfunction drugs are on the acceptable list.

"All the while, I have to explain terms like 'erectile dysfunction' to my kids, remind them that drinking beer isn't as cool as all the ads make it seem, and distract them from Go Daddy commercials that border on soft porn," one concerned mother wrote last month on her blog.

There is an embarrassingly simple solution for parents worried about the effects of TV commercials on their children: Turn off the television! ... and get a life.   Read a book.   Go for an exercise walk.   Play a musical instrument.   Paint a picture.   Write a song.   Look through a telescope.   Build a birdhouse.   Do anything else.   If you don't like the advertisements shown during football and baseball games, then stop watching football and baseball games.
Its very, very simple.
There's a button on the remote ...

Last thing: If you don't have more influence over your kids than TV commercials have over them, the content of the commercials is the least of your worries. Taking the time to develop and maintain a real relationship with your children might be a better place to start than lobbying TV networks and advertisers to change the content of their ads.


NASCAR MAY JUSTIFY ELITISM

Watching fast cars drive around a big oval ... over and over and over ... and over and over and over again. How fascinating?! Evidence that this country is populated by a very large plurality of mouth-breathing imbeciles is THE POPULATITY OF NASCAR. In fact, it may tend to prove that Obama's style of governance (elitism) is justified: because most of "us" are too unsophisticated, and too uninformed, and too lazy and too poorly educated -- and too busy watching a bunch of cars drive around and around an oval -- to make wise decisions about important things for ourselves.


 

A REAL ROLE MODEL

Now here is a man whose life and death should be celebrated the way the media and others celebrated Michael Jackson's life and death. 

DALLAS (AP) -- Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug rose from his childhood on an Iowa farm to develop a type of wheat that helped feed the world, fostering a movement that is credited with saving up to 1 billion people from starvation.

Borlaug, 95, died Saturday from complications of cancer at his Dallas home, said Kathleen Phillips, a spokesman for Texas A&M University where Borlaug was a distinguished professor.

"Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. "His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world."

He was known as the father of the "green revolution," which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations, helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives.

"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much," said Dr. Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school. "He made the world a better place - a much better place."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called Borlaug "simply one of the world's best. A determined, dedicated, but humble man who believed we had the collective duty and knowledge to eradicate hunger worldwide."

Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the end of World War II. There he developed disease-resistant varieties of wheat that produced much more grain than traditional strains.

He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa. In Pakistan and India, two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled.

His successes in the 1960s came just as experts warned that mass starvation was inevitable as the world's population boomed.

"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug in 1970. "We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace."

But Borlaug and the Green Revolution were also criticized in later decades for promoting practices that used fertilizer and pesticides, and focusing on a few high-yield crops that benefited large landowners.

Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real interest, which was to improve people's lives.

"We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech. "For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."

Borlaug also pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book about Borlaug is titled "The Man Who Fed the World."

Norman Ernest Borlaug was born March 25, 1914, on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, and educated through the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse.

He left home during the Great Depression to study forestry at the University of Minnesota. While there he earned himself a place in the university's wrestling hall of fame and met his future wife, whom he married in 1937. Margaret Borlaug died in 2007 at the age of 95.

After a brief stint with the U.S. Forest Service, Norman Borlaug returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctoral degree in plant pathology. He then worked as a microbiologist for DuPont, but soon left for a job with the Rockefeller Foundation. Between 1944 and 1960, Borlaug dedicated himself to increasing Mexico's wheat production.

In 1963, Borlaug was named head of the newly formed International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, where he trained thousands of young scientists.

Borlaug retired as head of the center in 1979 and turned to university teaching, first at Cornell University and then at Texas A&M, which presented him with an honorary doctorate in December 2007.

He remained active well into his 90s, campaigning for the use of biotechnology to fight hunger. He also helped found and served as president of the Sasakawa Africa Foundation, an organization funded by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa to introduce the green revolution to sub-Saharan Africa.

In 1986, Borlaug established the Des Moines, Iowa-based World Food Prize, a $250,000 award given each year to a person whose work improves the world's food supply.

He received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress, in 2007.

JUST ANOTHER TROJAN HORSE

Everybody still debating "health care"? ... another one of Barack Hussein's 
Trojan horses. Hidden inside that gift horse: gray, dreary, socialism.
Here is the real story today:

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Benjamin Netanyahu dropped out of sight for most of a day this week, a mysterious absence that has set off feverish speculation about what the Israeli leader was up to - and accusations he lied to cover up a clandestine trip to Moscow. After initially issuing a vague statement about visiting a top-secret Mossad installation inside Israel, Netanyahu kept silent Thursday as reports emerged that he flew to Moscow aboard a private jet for urgent talks on Iran.
 

The Israeli reports said Netanyahu was joined by his military secretary, Maj. Gen. Meir Kalifi, and national security adviser Uzi Arad. Arad, a former Mossad spymaster, favors a tough line against Tehran and would almost certainly be involved in any preparations to attack Iran. Israel has strongly hinted it is prepared to attack the country's nuclear sites if international sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to curb its atomic program.

As the rumors swirled of clandestine talks, Russian officials remained silent. "We have seen these reports in various media, and you know that not all the details add up, but there is nothing more I can tell you," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko was quoted as saying Thursday. The Russian daily Kommersant, citing a "highly placed source in the Kremlin," confirmed the visit and speculated the talks had been on an extremely urgent matter, "like Israel updating Russia on its intention to attack Iran."

 

SUCKS TO BE OLD IN OBAMA-LAND

Have you heard the good news:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday. Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level - about $66,000 for a family of four - would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.
 

But that's not even the part I want to talk about. This is: The Baucus plan would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. However, smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds.

What?! Five times as much for being old? How is that right?

And what about obese people? Will they be required to pay five times as much? They better be. Or is the "fat lobby" in congress too powerful?

What about old and obese? Ten times as much?

How about users of crack and meth? Fifty times as much?

What about caffeine abusers? And people who intentionally deprive themselves of enough sleep (by watching television and surfing the internet for porn all night -- for example)? Seven and a half times as much?
 

Why is Obama so down on elderly people? 

I guess it sucks to be old in China or Russia, huh?

I never realized until now that Socialists and Marxists and Communists were so hard on older people.

 

Tennis Questions

In the spirit of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, let me ask some "tennis questions":

1. Why do the female tennis players waste energy hopping up and down in between points, as if their muscles are going to freeze up on them in fifteen or twenty seconds? And have you ever noticed that male players don't engage in this pointless hopping behavior? 
   
2. Also - and even more importantly -- why do female players stuff a tennis ball in their panties when it is their turn to serve? Do they not realize that they are playing in the U.S. Open and that they can get as many balls as they want from one of the seventy-five or so ball boys (and girls) standing around the court? 
3. Moreover, why do so many players "check" the balls that are tossed to them and then throw out the one or two that don't seem to meet their standards (whatever those are). I have assumed they are looking for the newer looking, and therefore, more lively balls. So why stuff one in your sweaty panties? Isn't that ball now automatically not one of the more lively balls?
4. And another point to make about stuffing balls in your panties: they never seem to take that ball out and use it anyway. They just play the entire service game with that ball stuck in there. Hello-o-oo!
   
5. And last but not least ... it looks ridiculous.
   

P.S. 
I'm not even going to mention the useless, energy-sapping grunting that goes on. It doesn't help them hit the ball harder. It just uses energy they should be saving for the third (or fifth) set. It has gotten so bad that I have to watch the womens' matches with the sound turned down! 

Someone make them stop!  ...please!!

C'mon! Don't Kid Yourself

We've all wished we could do this at one time or another. 
 
I recommend hiring a guy like this to walk the floor at every Walmart store and do this full-time.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) -- Police say a 61-year-old man annoyed with a crying 2-year-old girl at a suburban Atlanta Walmart slapped the child several times after warning the toddler's mother to keep her quiet. A police report says after the stranger hit the girl at least four times, he said: "See, I told you I would shut her up."

Authorities say the girl and her mother were shopping Monday when the toddler began crying. The police report says Stephens approached the mother and said, "If you don't shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you." Authorities say a short time later Stephens slapped the child, who then began screaming [so he slapped her a few more times and she, apparently, shut up]. Police say an examination showed the girl's face was slightly red.

A call to the girl's mother was answered by a woman who identified herself as Sabrina Mathis, the victim's aunt. [Her mother was out on the front porch sitting in the detached front seat of an '83 Chevy drinking a 40oz. malt liquor -- just to "calm her nerves" after the incident at Walmart]. Mathis said that the girl is doing fine. "As of today, she has really forgotten about it," Mathis said. "She's been playing." 
           

McDonnell Needs To
Grow Some Cohunes

Of course Bob McDonnell believed what he wrote in his law school thesis paper about cohabitators, homosexuals, and fornicators, and he almost certainly still believes those same things today. I've read his thesis paper, entitled "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade", and although it is not one of the more persuasive or well written arguments I've ever read, the general premises are correct, and he should have the cohunes to stand by what he believes. ...Then again, I guess that's a little too much to ask of a politician.

I would be more specific than Bob "let-me-start-kissing-up-to-the-homosexual-lobby" McDonnell was in his 1989 paper and assert that this culture brings tremendous pressure to bear on mothers of young children to work outside the home. But that is more about economics, greed and difficult personal choices than it is about government policy. Hard-core "feminists" (a obsolete term, but useful in the 70's and 80's) and homosexuals are, without question, making this country a hostile environment for married couples who seek to live according to traditional Judeo-Christian family values.

And so, by the way, are spineless politicians who claim to be Christians, but who suddenly don't act like it when they fear losing votes or campaign contributions.

Mr. McDonnell concludes his 1989 paper with fifteen "standards that keep men free". Among those fifteen are these four: 1) be honest 2) have convictions 3) have courage and 4) stand for truth. These can be found in his Appendix B on page 84. However, it sounds to me like Bob has abandoned all four of those standards. I guess that means Bob won't be free any more.

You should be very proud of yourself Bob. You just did the backstroke more quickly than any other professed Christian politician in modern times. Well done ... coward.

P.S. Your law school thesis does, in fact, suggest you would support workplace discrimination against women. I don't think you would actually do that, and neither does your opponent. However, you have not adequately responded to that implication by merely pointing out that your daughters have master's degrees and that one of them served in the military. What the heck does that have to do with anything? That’s about as effective as asserting as proof that you have no racial prejudice that some of your best friends are negroes.

You may want to consider hiring a better damage control person for your campaign, if that’s the best you can do.