THINKING ABOUT 2008
Would you agree that our election was THE story of 2008? This fall Mike and I had that bronchitis where your throat hurts like a big dog and you lose your voice. Similarly, since November 4th we feel like we've lost our voice. We're not whining because our party lost and we want to take our toys and go home. We're scared because our country reached for "pie in the sky" without connecting any dots. When did America quit thinking?

The country seems to be on a crazy cycle with all the thought process sucked out. You know that's true if you've seen Jay Leno go out on the street and ask the simplest questions. People are busy emoting rather than deliberating. "How does that make you feel?" they wonder. Well, we feel like hollering "use your head!" When Grandmother said someone didn't have sense to come in out of the rain, she was talking about folks who lacked plain ole good judgment. Onto that palette, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber "popped" like shining stars.

Miss Scarlett may have gotten away with "thinking about it tomorrow", but sometimes you HAVE to think responsibly...and on the spot. Take that spot in a New Jersey WalMart, where the crowd stomped an employee to death. Was that not crazy, criminal mindlessness? Then there's a new song out this month called "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow". A couple of governors from New York and Illinois danced like there was no tomorrow. Those boys embodied "to thine own self be true"; accountability must have come like a bolt out of the blue. It's hard to feel sorry for either one, but how devastating and humiliating for their families. Who could forget Mrs. Elliott Spitzer's ashen face at his press conference? Unfortunately, it's not news that power or sex or greed have often trumped logic. But this year we're talking about something else...two HUGE examples of rational disconnect.

First, some folks apparently thought you could lend money to people who couldn't afford it and somehow they could pay it back. Then compounding that, just keep rolling those bad debts into big wads of debt and one day it will either be all better...or at least it will be someone else's problem down the line. We seem to be down the line now, and the solution is to just print more money? This is nuts! Doesn't anyone know there's a day of reckoning?

Secondly, the big three carmakers are paying wazoo salaries to CEOs. Certainly there's nothing wrong with paying well, except they are paid millions to lose billions. And CEO pay is not the only problem; unions pushed contracts that are impossible. Who actually thought they could pay Saturn workers in the Columbia, TN plant for a whole year NOT to work? How many generations do we need to go backward to find some common sense people who would have KNOWN that dog wouldn't hunt?

We need to be saved. Saved from leaders who turn out to be profiteers, making decisions based solely on their gain...saved from corporate's greedy who show no regard for faithful employees' pensionless future...and saved from Democratic Santas with faux compassion who legislated economic collapse and now turn around and point to Wall Street.

This IS a wonderful life, but we sure need more George Baileys. Wonder if even George's angel, Clarence Odbody, could tackle our complicated dilemma? These days the non-thinkers and corrupt thinkers seem to have outnumbered the rest of us. We need a man to step up to the plate and "do the right thing"...a patriotic leader who can problem solve and do it with good judgment and common sense.

God grant us one.

"'Come now, and let us reason together' says the Lord." Isaiah 1:18