My father recently said that Obama was the worst president of his lifetime. I wanted to answer back and say, no he's not. But then again, now that he is retired, he has a lot of time to watch his Fox News and be told that everyday. Combined with the common sense of historical lack of perspective we all have that leads us to hyperbole (e.g. "This is the BEST movie I've ever seen!" "I've never had a worse experience in my life"), I can see how he thinks that. But he's wrong.
And so, who are the best and worst presidents of my lifetime? Let's see.
-Richard Nixon. This is a tough one, because I was just a baby. His Presidency was overshadowed by Watergate, but it's interesting that he was overwhelmingly elected both times, beating Humphrey big and then absolutely crushing McGovern in 1972. So until Watergate, people liked him and must have thought he was doing a good job. He was getting out of Vietnam, the economy wasn't in terrible shape yet (though the recessions that followed into the early 80s were probably his fault, at least somewhat), and we didn't get involved in more foreign excursions. He's all over the place...had he not been so thin-skinned and paranoid, he might have been a great president. Let's give him a C.
-Gerald Ford. A good man who should have stayed in Congress. Rightly pardoned Nixon, was never seen as legitimate since he only became VP when Agnew had to resign, and the economy started to tank during his Presidency. Probably ought to give him an incomplete, but 2 1/2 years was long enough for America. C-
-Jimmy Carter. A great man who was in way over his head. Recently in watching The Seventies miniseries I got the impression that he had high ideals that were incompatible with a man who must exercise that kind of power. If I were president, I probably could do no better than him...you need to get along with Congress, and he was clueless about that. He had problems to fix, and seemed incapable of doing anything. The Iranian revolution is on his watch, and he was impotent to do anything about it. The economy tanked, and Reagan became President and looked great by comparison. A D+ is as high as I can go, and likely that includes points for the good things he has done after his presidency.
-Ronald Reagan. Now we start coming to people I can remember well. He was the president when I left elementary school and when I began college. Most people would give him a solid A, but many of the things he did have started to look worse in hindsight and led to many problems we have today. He lowered taxes, but the debt began to balloon. He helped bring back American pride after the 60s and 70s, but it has led many to believe in American Exceptionalism. He got us involved in many foreign policy adventures, all in the name of freedom (Panama, Grenada, Lebanon), and this has led to many intractable problems today. He took on communism, leading to the fall of the USSR, but this change the geo-political landscape, in that instead of a few large problems, we have many more small problems today. He began in earnest the drug war, imprisoning millions of Americans. He was likely the most transformative president of my lifetime, for good and for bad. I still feel fondly about him, even as I know his many failures. I'll give him a B.
-George Bush. We forget about him, but he was likely underrated. He pulled back on some of the excesses of Reagan's conservative revolution, but in doing so he alienated conservatives ("Read my lips, no new taxes") and did not go far enough for liberals. It's hard to really judge what he did, because Reagan's effects dominated his presidency. B-.
-Bill Clinton. Like Nixon, a scandal (Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater) overwhelmed good policy actions. Clinton was the last president to lead us to a balanced government budget and he mastered the ideology of centrism. But because he could not keep his pants up, and because enough of the scandals people accused him of had some basis in fact, he was not who he could have been. B
-George W Bush. Here was a man who was the conservative Jimmy Carter in his incompetency but allowed himself into so many disastrous policies by his advisers that America is still reeling. After 9/11, he looked good standing on a pile of rubble, but it all went downhill from there. The War on Terror went out of control on his watch, and we will be suffering its effects the rest of my lifetime. One wonders about how his presidency would have gone had he not had people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney by his side. I can't give him any better than a D-.
-Barack Obama. The black president with the Muslim-sounding name. He is the coolest president of my lifetime, and he could have been transformative. Remember those 'change' and 'hope' signs? But a combination of a hostile Congress and screaming conservative element gave him little hope to really get a lot done. He should have taken on the bankers and the huge corporations some more, but they had bought too many representatives and senators to make this possible. I sometimes feel he should have been more ambitious, but perhaps he did the best he could with what he had. The economy has stayed OK, we've not been involved in a lot more foreign wars (though we've been drone-striking terrorists), and social change has continued to progress. He's not the best president, but he's not the worst, either. B-.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
We Are Screwed
So yesterday morning another lunatic went in and shot up another nightclub and another 50 people died. Lots of questioning going on...was this guy (who had a semi-Muslim name) an ISIS terrorist? Was this a hate crime, since it was a 'gay nightclub' (as most reports said)? Were the guns he bought legally purchased? Why was this guy, who had been questioned by the FBI several years ago, allowed to buy these guns earlier in the week? And why, of course, do politicians of every stripe state their regular blather about 'thoughts and prayers' being with the victims when in fact nobody will do a damned thing about preventing this from happening again next week or next month?
Not long after I arrived at the office this morning a man in the community called seeking advice. Basically it came down to that he felt guilty that he wasn't sufficiently disturbed about what happened. Yes, he would have been more upsetting to him if it happened in a school or somewhere else, but that it was a gay club made him feel bad that he didn't feel bad enough. I honestly admire his concern; I don't know that I helped him, but I did tell him that likely a)we are all weary of these stories, so it is natural to shrug our shoulders...aren't we tired of the outrage? b)The best thing he could do was to show sympathy and compassion and a tender heart to those around him. I wish I would have said (I tried saying it but it didn't come out right) that if you let your heart be led to do compassionate things, then your feelings will follow.
Yet I failed in my advice, because I am so tired of these things and the inevitable gun control arguments, because nothing gets done. The NRA has sufficiently poisoned the waters for so long that there is no hope. If, as I have read in several places, there is a gun for everybody in America, this means there are 300 millions guns out there. 300,000,000, most of them not registered or trackable. So, let's say that Obama puts in a gun control measure tomorrow to make it where there are no more gun purchases, that Wal-Mart really does stop selling AK-47s and pawn shops aren't stocked with walls of guns for whoever would want one...is that going to end the killings?
Let's say that he goes even further, and orders the ATF or FBI or some other agency to start rounding up guns. This would play right into the hands of all the 2nd Amendment crazies, as they proclaim that the government is coming for their guns so that they can oppress the people. How many shootouts would follow? How many guns would be hidden? How many more terrorist attacks would come not in the name of Allah but in the name of Freedom or the Flag or My Rights or whatever else the lingo is today? Once again, the NRA has so allowed so many weapons to be bought over the years (300,000,000) that such a task of even the most draconian government would be impossible.
It's not a question of desire or even will, but simply reality. Perhaps this is why 'thoughts and prayers' still get mentioned...but maybe what we need to pray for is that God will suddenly dissolve all these weapons, like he dissolved manna in the wilderness if it stayed over to the second day. I'm sure that many of the crazies would think that Obama was still at fault for this, but then again I'm not so sure God is desiring to do this. I'm becoming more sure that his judgment on us is that we are simply reaping the fruits of the stupidity we have allowed ourselves to be led into in recent years.
Not long after I arrived at the office this morning a man in the community called seeking advice. Basically it came down to that he felt guilty that he wasn't sufficiently disturbed about what happened. Yes, he would have been more upsetting to him if it happened in a school or somewhere else, but that it was a gay club made him feel bad that he didn't feel bad enough. I honestly admire his concern; I don't know that I helped him, but I did tell him that likely a)we are all weary of these stories, so it is natural to shrug our shoulders...aren't we tired of the outrage? b)The best thing he could do was to show sympathy and compassion and a tender heart to those around him. I wish I would have said (I tried saying it but it didn't come out right) that if you let your heart be led to do compassionate things, then your feelings will follow.
Yet I failed in my advice, because I am so tired of these things and the inevitable gun control arguments, because nothing gets done. The NRA has sufficiently poisoned the waters for so long that there is no hope. If, as I have read in several places, there is a gun for everybody in America, this means there are 300 millions guns out there. 300,000,000, most of them not registered or trackable. So, let's say that Obama puts in a gun control measure tomorrow to make it where there are no more gun purchases, that Wal-Mart really does stop selling AK-47s and pawn shops aren't stocked with walls of guns for whoever would want one...is that going to end the killings?
Let's say that he goes even further, and orders the ATF or FBI or some other agency to start rounding up guns. This would play right into the hands of all the 2nd Amendment crazies, as they proclaim that the government is coming for their guns so that they can oppress the people. How many shootouts would follow? How many guns would be hidden? How many more terrorist attacks would come not in the name of Allah but in the name of Freedom or the Flag or My Rights or whatever else the lingo is today? Once again, the NRA has so allowed so many weapons to be bought over the years (300,000,000) that such a task of even the most draconian government would be impossible.
It's not a question of desire or even will, but simply reality. Perhaps this is why 'thoughts and prayers' still get mentioned...but maybe what we need to pray for is that God will suddenly dissolve all these weapons, like he dissolved manna in the wilderness if it stayed over to the second day. I'm sure that many of the crazies would think that Obama was still at fault for this, but then again I'm not so sure God is desiring to do this. I'm becoming more sure that his judgment on us is that we are simply reaping the fruits of the stupidity we have allowed ourselves to be led into in recent years.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
A Life Skills Quiz
As I am now in middle age, I know about life. OK, maybe I don't know nearly as much as I think I do...but I do know enough to know stupid living when I see it. And these days, sadly, I see it a lot. I see people, usually younger, but some older people as well, doing things that just make me shake my head. Hundreds of years ago the Darwin effect would have killed these people off rather early, but today our social safety net (a product of Christian charity) enables people to keep on living. Still, just because they live does not mean they live well. And so, as a service to you, I give you a simple life skills quiz.
-1)You are young, have a wife and small child. You need to buy a new vehicle to get to work and take your family around. You don't have much money...what should you do?
a. Buy a sensible used four-door sedan.
b. Buy a fifteen-year old convertible Camaro that sounds like a dying buffalo when running at 40 mph.
c. Buy a brand new Harley on a five-year payment plan, because it's badass.
-2)You and your baby mama are expecting your third child. You recently received your tax refund back. What should you do this weekend?
a. Put a portion of the refund away into savings.
b. The Fourth of July is coming, so load up on fireworks and with whatever's left swing by the liquor store for a few cases of Natty Light.
c. Take your other girlfriend to Vegas for the weekend, even as you tell your baby mama that you have to go see your grandparents.
-3)Your mother has passed away recently. It's the day of the funeral...what do you do?
a. Show up early, greet her friends and family and be thankful for her life.
b. Sleep in, show up late for the funeral, and as you can see everybody waiting for the funeral to begin, stand by your car and smoke another cigarette.
c. Smoke your last stash of pot, show up to the funeral wasted, and get into a fistfight with a cousin who gets into your face about how you are being an embarrassment.
-4)The end of the month comes and you don't have enough money to pay all your bills. What do you do?
a. Sort out what bills are priority and dated first, and pay those; those that you still can't pay, contact them and ask for an extension.
b. Spend your morning calling around to churches and charity agencies asking if they will pay your bill.
c. You still have money in your account, so go and get that new 50" flatscreen at Wal-Mart. Bills will take care of themselves.
-5)Your boss schedules you for an extra shift on Saturday. What do you do?
a. Go to work and be grateful that you have a job and now some extra money.
b. Show up half-drunk and half-interested. They can schedule you, but they don't own you, bro.
c. Quit that stupid job. Getting worked to death is for suckers.
-6)Your child is not doing well in school. What do you do?
a. Work with them to try and help them understand what is going on so they can do better.
b. Blame their teacher for not understanding your little genius, and storm into the principal's office demanding that you get your way.
c. Nothing. True playas don't need school.
-7)Your renewal for your lease is coming up. What do you do?
a. Make sure you have taken care of the property, paid your rent, and talked to your landlord about renewing your lease.
b. Have your cousin show up with his pickup after dark, because you want to get away before your landlord finds out that you put multiple holes in the walls to hide your stash.
c. Start stripping the copper wiring wherever you can, because you gotta get out of there as fast as possible.
SCORES:
a = 10 points
b = 0 points
c = -50 points
Finish with 50 points or higher, and you have chance.
0-50 points: you are an idiot, but you might survive.
Negative figures: Good luck. You'll need it.
-1)You are young, have a wife and small child. You need to buy a new vehicle to get to work and take your family around. You don't have much money...what should you do?
a. Buy a sensible used four-door sedan.
b. Buy a fifteen-year old convertible Camaro that sounds like a dying buffalo when running at 40 mph.
c. Buy a brand new Harley on a five-year payment plan, because it's badass.
-2)You and your baby mama are expecting your third child. You recently received your tax refund back. What should you do this weekend?
a. Put a portion of the refund away into savings.
b. The Fourth of July is coming, so load up on fireworks and with whatever's left swing by the liquor store for a few cases of Natty Light.
c. Take your other girlfriend to Vegas for the weekend, even as you tell your baby mama that you have to go see your grandparents.
-3)Your mother has passed away recently. It's the day of the funeral...what do you do?
a. Show up early, greet her friends and family and be thankful for her life.
b. Sleep in, show up late for the funeral, and as you can see everybody waiting for the funeral to begin, stand by your car and smoke another cigarette.
c. Smoke your last stash of pot, show up to the funeral wasted, and get into a fistfight with a cousin who gets into your face about how you are being an embarrassment.
-4)The end of the month comes and you don't have enough money to pay all your bills. What do you do?
a. Sort out what bills are priority and dated first, and pay those; those that you still can't pay, contact them and ask for an extension.
b. Spend your morning calling around to churches and charity agencies asking if they will pay your bill.
c. You still have money in your account, so go and get that new 50" flatscreen at Wal-Mart. Bills will take care of themselves.
-5)Your boss schedules you for an extra shift on Saturday. What do you do?
a. Go to work and be grateful that you have a job and now some extra money.
b. Show up half-drunk and half-interested. They can schedule you, but they don't own you, bro.
c. Quit that stupid job. Getting worked to death is for suckers.
-6)Your child is not doing well in school. What do you do?
a. Work with them to try and help them understand what is going on so they can do better.
b. Blame their teacher for not understanding your little genius, and storm into the principal's office demanding that you get your way.
c. Nothing. True playas don't need school.
-7)Your renewal for your lease is coming up. What do you do?
a. Make sure you have taken care of the property, paid your rent, and talked to your landlord about renewing your lease.
b. Have your cousin show up with his pickup after dark, because you want to get away before your landlord finds out that you put multiple holes in the walls to hide your stash.
c. Start stripping the copper wiring wherever you can, because you gotta get out of there as fast as possible.
SCORES:
a = 10 points
b = 0 points
c = -50 points
Finish with 50 points or higher, and you have chance.
0-50 points: you are an idiot, but you might survive.
Negative figures: Good luck. You'll need it.
Monday, May 16, 2016
United Passions
Tonight, being a lover of pain and soccer and having a free movie credit on Vudu, I decided to stream United Passions. This is a movie about the history of FIFA, the soccer governing body. In case you know nothing of FIFA, it has been shown in recent years to wholly corrupt, and many of its leaders have been indicted for taking bribes and kickbacks, even as soccer has continued to grow in popularity around the world.
This movie came out last year just as many of the scandals were getting full blown, and it was roundly mocked. Every review has savaged it; IMDB gives it a critic metascore of 1 (out of 100), and its ability to not make money (it cost $32 million to make, FIFA putting up most of the money) has become legendary...supposedly a theater in Phoenix sold one ticket for an entire weekend. You would think, from the reviews from critics, that it is the worst movie of all time.
Except that it's not. I've seen some bad movies over the years, and this wasn't the worst. Yes, it was not good...I gave it a 5 out of 10, which on my scale means 'not very good', but that's better than bad. It got the same rating as Aloha and a better rating that Cowboys & Aliens. Some of the cinematography was pretty good, there were moments of actual tension on the story, and the acting could have been worse. Again, it's not Schindler's List or anything and would make a nice selection for the upcoming MST3K reboot...but it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.
Something like this is a reminder that it's easy to listen to what everybody else has to say and be swayed by it. I was hoping to go onto Facebook and make jokes about it (example: 'if the makers of this movie had been in charge of Spotlight, the heroes would have been the pedophile priests!'), but to do so would have been dishonest. How many of the haters (over 3000 ratings on IMDB that give it an average of 2.0) didn't actually watch the movie? Have they heard so much about how bad FIFA is and just assumed that this is propaganda? Is it just an easy target for people who are lazy in their criticism?
In a way, this could have actually been two very good movies. It's a movie of three acts, lionizing the three non-English leaders of FIFA: Rimet, Havelange, and Blatter. But the substance behind the stories was actually interesting; in competent film directors who were more interested in the organization than the men leading them this could have been well done. The first movie could have been about the need for an organizing body for soccer and how difficult it was to pull things together pre-WWI. The second movie could have been about how FIFA re-directed piles of cash to poor nations to boost their soccer programs. Yes, of course, this has led to abject corruption, but good PR could have made this better.
Perhaps the biggest credit to this movie was that I watched the whole thing, and I don't always do that for movies I did not pay to see. A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching Birdman, which won a best picture award a few years ago...it was pure excrement, and I turned it off 45 minutes into the movie. It was just as self-glorifying as anything one could find in United Passions ("Oh, the beauty of live theater!"), but it was written to please the artistic crowd rather than the administrative professionals crowd. And so Birdman is considered a masterpiece while United Passions is considered the worst movie of all time. Doesn't seem quite right to me.
This movie came out last year just as many of the scandals were getting full blown, and it was roundly mocked. Every review has savaged it; IMDB gives it a critic metascore of 1 (out of 100), and its ability to not make money (it cost $32 million to make, FIFA putting up most of the money) has become legendary...supposedly a theater in Phoenix sold one ticket for an entire weekend. You would think, from the reviews from critics, that it is the worst movie of all time.
Except that it's not. I've seen some bad movies over the years, and this wasn't the worst. Yes, it was not good...I gave it a 5 out of 10, which on my scale means 'not very good', but that's better than bad. It got the same rating as Aloha and a better rating that Cowboys & Aliens. Some of the cinematography was pretty good, there were moments of actual tension on the story, and the acting could have been worse. Again, it's not Schindler's List or anything and would make a nice selection for the upcoming MST3K reboot...but it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.
Something like this is a reminder that it's easy to listen to what everybody else has to say and be swayed by it. I was hoping to go onto Facebook and make jokes about it (example: 'if the makers of this movie had been in charge of Spotlight, the heroes would have been the pedophile priests!'), but to do so would have been dishonest. How many of the haters (over 3000 ratings on IMDB that give it an average of 2.0) didn't actually watch the movie? Have they heard so much about how bad FIFA is and just assumed that this is propaganda? Is it just an easy target for people who are lazy in their criticism?
In a way, this could have actually been two very good movies. It's a movie of three acts, lionizing the three non-English leaders of FIFA: Rimet, Havelange, and Blatter. But the substance behind the stories was actually interesting; in competent film directors who were more interested in the organization than the men leading them this could have been well done. The first movie could have been about the need for an organizing body for soccer and how difficult it was to pull things together pre-WWI. The second movie could have been about how FIFA re-directed piles of cash to poor nations to boost their soccer programs. Yes, of course, this has led to abject corruption, but good PR could have made this better.
Perhaps the biggest credit to this movie was that I watched the whole thing, and I don't always do that for movies I did not pay to see. A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching Birdman, which won a best picture award a few years ago...it was pure excrement, and I turned it off 45 minutes into the movie. It was just as self-glorifying as anything one could find in United Passions ("Oh, the beauty of live theater!"), but it was written to please the artistic crowd rather than the administrative professionals crowd. And so Birdman is considered a masterpiece while United Passions is considered the worst movie of all time. Doesn't seem quite right to me.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Lament with a 10-year old.
I had a few people to go visit in this hospital on this Mother's Day, and my 10-year old daughter wanted to come with me, so I let her come. She has been interested in riding with me on some of my pastoral visits lately. I'm not entirely sure why...maybe she wants to spend time with me, or get away from her brother, or get out of the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. But when she comes with me, she goes into the rooms with me for prayer and visitation.
Today I visited two friends who are not well at all. One was a man in ICU hooked up to who knows how many tubes and his arms were more bruised than white; he's likely not going to leave the hospital alive. While I visited with the man's wife she kept coming into and out of the room; it was not a sight that most 10-year olds would understand. On the way from there to the other hospital I told her about her mom and my's wishes that we never get to that point. Someday we might be that ill, and she and her brother will have to make some life-or-death decisions, and I told her about my feeling this this is no way to die, that as Christians we have a greater hope in God and so what seems like pointless suffering is not something I want. She did not say much, but I hope that she understood at least something of what I was trying to say. Who knows, maybe someday she will be doing work like this and be a greater comfort to the families than I was today.
It grieves me terribly to deal with people I know and love like today; as I have been teaching a class on Biblical lament, recently I wrote a short one of my own.
Today I visited two friends who are not well at all. One was a man in ICU hooked up to who knows how many tubes and his arms were more bruised than white; he's likely not going to leave the hospital alive. While I visited with the man's wife she kept coming into and out of the room; it was not a sight that most 10-year olds would understand. On the way from there to the other hospital I told her about her mom and my's wishes that we never get to that point. Someday we might be that ill, and she and her brother will have to make some life-or-death decisions, and I told her about my feeling this this is no way to die, that as Christians we have a greater hope in God and so what seems like pointless suffering is not something I want. She did not say much, but I hope that she understood at least something of what I was trying to say. Who knows, maybe someday she will be doing work like this and be a greater comfort to the families than I was today.
It grieves me terribly to deal with people I know and love like today; as I have been teaching a class on Biblical lament, recently I wrote a short one of my own.
For My Friends, April 2016
O Lord, who is worthy of praise, who has created us and put
within us the very breath of life…
O Lord, why do my friends die so badly? Why do so many people I care about suffer so
much at the end of their lives? God, I
don’t understand how there can be years and years of hurt and anguish in which
somebody doesn’t get better. How do
those of us who sing songs about heaven on Sunday live the rest of our lives
acting as if holding onto this life is the most important thing?
O Lord, make dying easier for us because we have faith in
you. Lord, make life something that is
truly fulfilling for those who are in their old age. Lord, make it where my friends are not
drugged up, just surviving for the sake of ‘life’. Lord, make us who call on your name truly live.
O Lord, creator and sustainer of every one of us who call on
your name, let the world see that you truly desire to give us life and life to
the fullest and so turn to you. Let
doctors and nurses praise you because they can only see your miraculous hand
working to give people life. Let us all
depend on you rather than medication or invasive surgery or the things we think
are so important.
O Lord, I know that you are God, even when I can’t always
understand why things are the way they are.
May I continue to praise you in good times in bad, in times of happiness
and frustration. You are the giver of
all that is good.
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