BANKERS IN THE CROSSHAIRS

I know everyone in America is on board with hating the banking CEOs.  They took big bonus' and bought airplanes and redecorated their offices.  Yes, that was excessive and evokes a gag reflex because they didn't even seem to be aware it was inappropriate.  But they were not the only greedy ones.  Dangle free money and watch what happens in banking or government or Wall Street...or on my street.

Nonetheless, this week I watched that row of bankers sit there in the crosshairs of Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and the rest of the Congressional Finance Committee.  The bankers were accused and harrangued and humiliated ("raise your hand if you...") until I felt sorry for them.

Why the compassion?  Barney Frank and the Congress passed laws to MAKE those same bankers lend to unqualified folks.  Community Organizers marched outside banks threatening lawsuits to intimidate them if they didn't.  So the banks made the high risk loans.  Barney said not to worry, that Fannie and Freddie would cover them if the loans went south.  Right.  Maxine said Fannie and Freddie were in good shape.  Right.  Unbelievably, Barney Frank is on record saying "the private sector got us into this mess, the government will have to get us out".

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/433/whose-mess-congressman-frank

Well, maybe those institutions (FM/FM) COULD have helped if THEIR head guys hadn't siphoned off millions.  It is disgusting for the ones who started trouble to be sitting in judgment of others.

And for Maxine Waters to ask repeatedly why the banks charged a fee for taking the TARP money...and two different bankers answered her but she didn't "get it"...so she just ratcheted up the gestapo tactics until the Chairman put a muzzle on her.  Someone please pull her aside and translate what those big words were.  You could see the bankers look at one another in wonder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylufIKArbfk

I just don't know why the Democrats are not held responsible for the Community Reinvestment Act.  They passed it.  It worked about like you thought it might...giving money to people who didn't have to prove they even had a job or a way to pay back the loan.  Common sense banking practices were declared discriminatory.  "Redlining" (identifying areas hazardous to banking good health) was now politically incorrect.  And THAT governmental tinkering...not the free market system...began our economic woes.

But somehow now the bankers are in the black hats and Barney is the sheriff.  It would have been fun if the bankers had been on the other side of the tables, and they were grilling the Congressmen.  Sometimes life is just not just.  But if the Bible was ever perfectly illustrated, our culture has shown that...

"the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil"  1 Timothy 6:10

P.S.  An interesting disclosure about what the original TARP money went for can be found at

http://www.twincities.com/ci_11722986?source=most-viewed .

LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART, 

I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU!

In this "perfecting" process called marriage, Mike and I have had thirty-eight years of trial and error.  We are worlds away from our oblivious beginnings in 1970, but still things can sneak up on your blind side. 

Mike has a personality whose comfort zone is in doing just the right thing.  When occasions are coming up (like Valentines) he starts getting uneasy.   My personality leans more toward the creative side, and with a large dose of empathy.  So usually when I see his angst, we have a conversation about how I don't like to have to do something just because Hallmark declared a special day to act a certain way.  Still, we trade cards and go out to eat.

But it wasn't always that easy...

When the kids were in junior high/high school, Mike was bringing home a rose in a bud vase at Valentines.  Now you may be thinking...that's good...he remembered.  Doesn't he get points for that?  Yes, but there's always a story and here's the rose story:

Mike's mother liked roses; I'm the wildflower type.  So I coasted a couple of years and then I was goofed enough to tell him that I really didn't so much LIKE roses.  That took a lot of energy from my harmonizer side, but I thought it was worth it to get things straight.  The next Valentine's, I got three roses in a bud vase.  I flounced off to the bathroom, slammed the door and burst into tears, then pulled the heads off of each rose.  That felt good...but so much for "love is not touchy or resentful".   Mike was clueless, but he was desperately trying to figure out what had set me off.  Don't women like it when you give them flowers?

Well, this woman likes it when her husband listens.  And I count it important that Mike thinks of who I am and what would please me...not just check off the "to do" list with an oft-repeated and automatic gesture. 

The Cruses have lived through probably fifteen Valentine days since that bumpy one.  I can still tell that Mike dreads thinking something up.  And this year was more complicated because I'm on Weight Watchers, so chocolate wouldn't be helpful.  I've found that loving your man is loving who he is and speaking your needs.  So I said..."what I'd like more than anything would be for you to sit down and write me a letter about why you love me."

Best Valentine's EVER!

"Love is patient, love is kind...love is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it pays no attention to a suffered wrong...love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person...love never fails."  

1 Corinthians 13

ONE GOD 

(written December 2007)

One God calls us to love and       forgive

The other god calls for    intimidation and submission by 

force

One God adopts us into His family

The other god is master who permits servants

One God says sin is inside of man...and offers a Solution and a Helper

The other god sees sin coming from the outside and designed burkas

One God honors women; they are equally part of His story

The other god subjugates half his flock

One God pleads "come, let us reason together"

The other god does not stoop or promote the free interchange of ideas

One God offers a place to be with Him forever

The other god reduces heaven to carnality

One God is the Author of second chances

With the other god it is "one strike and you're out!"

One God sees man's disobedience and the Bible says it grieves His heart

The other god's woodshed is brutal

One God is a tender Shepherd who carries His lambs

Is that in the other god's book?

One God had a Son who came down to save

The other god's people reach up and hope they have done enough

In these last days and in His forbearance, the One True and Living God

Stands in stark contrast to the other god....

As He waits for all men to decide.

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever.  Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth, Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all."  1Chronicles 29:10,11

ETHEL NUNALLY

The Lord and I were thinking about pride this morning, and Ethel Nunally's name came up.  When I was in third grade, she was our neighbor when our family moved into 805 Poplar in Jonesboro.  And when I left home after college, she still lived next-door.  Mrs. Nunally's house was long and narrow and had been made into two apartments.  She lived in the back.

When I think of Ethel Nunally, I think of a retired widow lady who was tall and slim with pretty white hair that she pulled back into a bun.  Everyday she wore a dress and orthopedic high heels that tied...and she moved at a fast pace wherever she went.  Her long body would lean forward with urgency.  Our kitchen sink looked out onto the side of her house where her concrete stoop had three steps down to the ground.  Many times I can remember standing at the sink and watching her screen door fly open and those orthopedic shoes hit the stairs to go out back to hang out clothes, or walk down the street.  When her husband was living, they ran a small neighborhood grocery and their kids would deliver the orders.  Mrs. Nunally's habit of answering the phone was instinctive from all those years in the store.  If you called over there, instead of saying "hello", she would slowly say "alll...righttt..."  (as if to say, "I have my pencil ready, what can we get you?").  I guess that was the only slow characteristic she had.

The other thing that stands out in my mind about Ethel Nunally was that we got along very well all the years we lived side-by-side.  We borrowed from each other and took her places and visited across the driveway.  But I can remember always just "knowing" that Mrs. Nunally thought our family was going to hell.  (Well of course at that time we WERE, but who knew back then?)  And as I look back, I coped with her assumption by somehow diminishing her in my mind... "Well, bless her heart, she goes to a church where they think everyone's goin' to hell but them.  We love her anyway."  

In other words, I put her down to lift myself up.  That tendency toward feeling superior does come so easily.  I had to ask the Lord to please expunge that from my record.  I don't think He likes it when we exalt anyone but Him.

"For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy.  I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."  Isaiah 57:15

PIRATES  AND PARACHUTES

CEOs are not the only ones getting golden parachutes these days. Did you see this picture of the $3 million dollar pirate ransom floating down?  Who'd have thought in our day and time that we would have pirates?  Arrh!

Long before Johnny Depp applied eyeliner and played a pirate, Barbary pirates were alive and well.  In the 1700's and early 1800's, they preyed on the coast of north Africa from the city-states of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis (loosely governed by the Ottoman Empire) and the monarchy of Morocco.  Morocco harbored pirates and furnished markets for their slaves/goods.  These Muslim areas were called the Barbary Coast.

The pirates made a living by attacking trading ships going through the Straits of Gibraltar and along the coastline. They then asked for ransom for the passengers who were enslaved.  Christians were the best catch because they wrote pleading letters home asking for help. The pirates sold the cargo and the captured sailors, who were then put into chains beside an oar in the bowels of a foreign ship.  They also gathered black Africans from along the coastal cities and sold them as slaves.  Older people were of no use to them and were killed.  The women were sold for harems; young men were slave labor.  Children were made eunuchs (and many did not survive the "surgery") and were sold as well. Their belief system taught that they had a right to do anything they wanted to infidels...especially to Christians.

Many of our familiar books depicted these pirates.  Remember Robinson Crusoe, Master and Commander and The Count of Monte Cristo?  It might be harmless fun to read about them, but the reality was that these men answered to no authority and were cruel and ruthless.

In 1783, the United States was no longer under British rule and that was good.  But the bad news was our ships were no longer protected on the seas by the British policy of tribute payments.  So when we were attacked in 1784 and our ship stripped and people were enslaved, our brand new country had no resources to fight.  Against Thomas Jefferson's protest (he was then the ambassador to France and felt tribute only encouraged piracy)...Congress allocated money to pay the tribute.  And that remained the policy for 15 years, although the sum represented 20% of our annual revenue in 1800!

When Jefferson became President in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli demanded $225,000.  Jefferson refused; the Pasha declared war on the US and his Barbary buddies joined in.  Our navy had been up and running since 1794, so Jefferson sent frigates into the area to seize the Pasha's goods.  When our ships arrived, all the city-states but Tripoli folded. Congress never declared war (the President had not consulted them), but they did fund the effort.  The ships blockaded the Tripoli harbor and there were raids and skirmishes until 1803 when the USS Philadelphia was captured and their crew taken captive.  More fighting.  Then in 1805, the Marines came to the rescue overland with the help of Greek, Arab, and Berber mercenaries.  That action was why we sing in the Marine hymn "to the shores of Tripoli".

It is strange that in the treaty that was signed to end this First Barbary War, we still paid $60,000 for the 300 sailors who had been taken prisoner.  Jefferson felt there was a distinction between ransom and tribute money.  Some felt buying sailors sold into slavery was a reasonable way to end the conflict, but others felt the State Department caved.   Either way, within two years (1807) Algiers began to attack our ships again.  And because we were distracted by the beginnings of our War of 1812, we did not take action until 1815, when the Second Barbary War began.

That war was a quickie...just from March to June of 1815.  We sent ships under the command of veterans from the first war.  They used the pirates' tactics against them as they attacked and took pirate prisoners.  Algeria ended up saying they wouldn't ever attack our ships again, and paid us $10,000 to get their people back.  Everything was signed and we left and then they decided "kings X...just kidding".  So we had a nine hour bombardment of their harbor and they changed their minds BACK and even threw in a promise not to capture Christians anymore.

When I read all this stuff I wonder how in the world fact has flipflopped into fiction.  How did this part of the world become seemingly mysterious and charming...even romantic?  Pirates were murderous thugs!  I guess movies like "Casablanca" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" helped promote that idea.  And of course, Disney has the multi-billion (with a B) dollar pirate theme park ride that kids love.  The enemy sure pulled a fast one as the pirates of the Barbary Coast were glamorized.

"Deliver us from evil" Matthew 6:13

GETTING OLDER
Hmmm...getting older is so strange. The age that registers in your brain in no way matches what's going on with the rest of you. And you have out-of-body experiences! It's like you are outside yourself watching as you do things you used to snicker at your parents for doing. Payback! Now you are the puppet and Father Time jerks your string.

Take, for instance, when something is coming up on the schedule for the next day. That's a guaranteed partial night's sleep. Or consider how laughing/sneezing/coughing could seem harmless, but might be the "easy button" for clearing out the underwear drawer. What a dignity thief! And how about when you look down the grocery aisle for one of your friends...and you realize that you are only looking for dark-headed people? Or when the Prize Patrol doesn't show up with balloons and a big check, but your prize is either a crepe-y chin...double chin...or crepe-y double chin. And don't forget the jolt as you pass the mirror and see a deceased relative.

But my all-time favorite opportunity for humility associated with aging is when you are talking to your daughter and out of the blue she remarks: "Mom, are you aware that you did not finish that last sentence?"

"General indignities" used to be one of the boxes you checked for divorce filings. Certainly aging is an indignity, but I'm not headed down to the courthouse to file just yet.

"We are citizens of the homeland which is in heaven, and from it also we earnestly and patiently await the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform and fashion anew the body of our humiliation to conform to and be like the body of His glory and majesty, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to Himself." Philippians 3:20,21

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