Month: July 2024

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The News Cycles Get Faster and Faster These Days!

Well good golly. Things are happening so fast these days, this post will probably be outdated before it goes live!

President Biden has removed himself from consideration for the 2024 election. The poor guy got pressured from everybody to drop out, and he finally gave in before they made it really ugly for him. I can’t say I blame him, though I hope I will have retired at a much earlier age than him! What does this all mean for the 2024 Democratic ticket? At this point, it’s tough to say with certainty. Right now there’s a very large effort underway to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.

Mind you, that doesn’t mean she’s the best candidate. President Biden endorsed her the day he dropped out of the race, and people rallied behind her very quickly. This is probably a mistake on the Democrats’ part. I acknowledge the short timeline between now and the election drives a desire to quickly coalesce behind someone, but I think Democrats would be better served by taking more time to figure out who that “someone” should be.

Democratic voters have been exceedingly anxious since the Biden/Trump debate, when their candidate’s “A Game” was discovered to be at best a C minus. In hindsight, folks are realizing a lot of people have been covering up President Biden’s decline for a long time now. By comparison, Harris looks young and vibrant, and Democratic voters were quick to rally to her side because they’re more or less excited to have anybody besides the President. Right now polls suggest things are very tight between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, but I expect there to be some changes to the polling as the Veep gets out in front of more cameras or people and starts giving unscripted interviews.

Kamala Harris isn’t known for her gravitas or political acumen. (If you want a few giggles, search YouTube for “Kamala Harris – What can be unburdened by what has been (compilation).”) If she’s named the Democratic nominee, it’s definitely not for her merit as a political heavyweight, and if it’s not for her merit, we’re likely to be consumed by a fresh round of identity politics between now and the election. If she ends up the nominee, she’s going to need someone on the ticket with her who can counterbalance some of her weaknesses. Whoever it is, look for them to be a strong public speaker with a sharp wit, probably from a swing state.

But I’m not yet convinced Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee this cycle. Although many high-level Democrats have endorsed her as their nominee, she still doesn’t have the endorsement of Barak Obama or Nancy Pelosi. If those two give her their blessing, it’s a done deal. Until then, nothing’s for certain. When Biden dropped out of the race it freed the delegates he won in primary elections to vote for whoever they’d like; even though enough of them have pledged their support to Harris to secure the nomination, that pledged support isn’t binding. We may not actually know who the nominee is until the last night of the Democratic National Convention next month. From a strategy perspective, the best thing to do would be to let the excitement over Harris die down a little, get some more accurate polling information from Independents as people get a better handle on who Kamala Harris is and whether they want her as President, and then based on that and whoever else is available, pick your best candidate to be the nominee in a theatrical and dramatic way at the convention. I expect there are two main factions in the Democratic Party right now: the portion very vocal about supporting Harris, and the very quiet portion who’s fully aware of her flaws and weaknesses and is looking for an alternative and a way to install him or her as the nominee without severely disrespecting Ms. Harris in front of the whole world. Something that could increase Harris’s chances would be if Joe leaves the Oval Office before the convention. It would destroy Democratic unity to have Harris be president for just a couple weeks before announcing someone else will run to succeed her.

The irony of all this, of course, is that for all the talk of Trump being a threat to democracy and the Constitution, the fact of the matter is that whoever the Democratic candidate for President ends up being will have become the nominee without winning any primary elections. No everyday citizens will have voted for him or her. Kinda shady to bypass the will of the people, don’t you think? I understand these are unusual circumstances, but the fact remains the next Democratic nominee could be chosen by a small group of powerful people in a dark, smoky room without the electorate’s approval. Realistically there’s not enough time to organize a new set of primary elections so this is largely unavoidable, but this will forever be an interesting little asterisk in the history of American Democracy.

Another question is “What now happens to the ballots which have Joe Biden’s name on them already?” With President Biden forcefully insisting for weeks he’d be staying in the race, and the Republican National Convention having concluded by nominating Donald Trump as its candidate, it’s easy to understand if election officials said “go ahead and print the 2024 ballots using the names Joe Biden and Donald Trump.” Well right now only one of those candidates remains in the race. A very simple question suddenly becomes very complicated: “What happens when people vote for Joe Biden on those ballots?”

It depends on the election laws of the state the citizen is voting in, and we’ve got more than 50 different electoral jurisdictions (states, territories, districts, etc.), each with their own laws. Common sense dictates they’d be counted for whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being, but it may not play out that way. The best thing to do would be to move heaven and earth to get new ballots printed with the right names, otherwise Trump may very well end up winning some traditionally blue states on a technicality. If that happens, you can expect another storming of the Capitol Building in DC, this time by Democratic protesters.

In the meantime, look for some countries to take advantage of the U.S. disarray. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all have something to gain when the U.S. is weak or having a bad day, so be on the lookout for one or more of them to make some kind of move before Inauguration Day.

As always, keep our nation in prayer; we never seem to be short on unrest. No matter who wins in November, half the country’s not going to be happy about it. President Biden is still in charge, so keep him in your prayers as well. And finally, just because your neighbor doesn’t agree with you politically, help ‘em out if they need a hand. After all, Americans should come together when things are tough.

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When a Chance Encounter Doesn’t Happen by Chance

As a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard four summers. Thankfully I can count on one hand the number of times I had to take action to save anyone. There were a couple of times kids jumped into water a little deeper than they expected, and I was able to extend a rescue tube to them, but those were easy. I only had to go in after someone one time.

At the place I worked, we had two outdoor pools. One of them had both a shallow end and a deep end (three to nine feet deep), and the other one was deep all around, where the shallowest part was nine feet deep and it went to 12 and a half feet deep. It was my turn to keep an eye on the deep pool, where we had two diving boards. This pool was easier to watch because there were usually only a few people in the water at a time.

This one kid, probably somewhere in the 10-13 age range, got on a diving board and walked to the edge, then unceremoniously jumped in. It took him a bit to come back up, but he broke the surface eventually. It’s a difficult thing to watch someone who’s drowning. If they’re still fighting to keep their head above water, kicking is the first thing to stop. It’s a reflex; you kind of get tunnel vision and if you can’t see your feet, you don’t think about them. The person just stays vertical in the water and kinda slaps the water with their hands without kicking. This is what the kid was doing when I jumped in.

I totally blew off procedure. I forgot to blow my whistle to alert the guard at the other pool and I didn’t tell others near the diving boards not to jump into the pool; I just jumped in and started swimming toward the kid. Since I had a pretty good size advantage on him, I also totally skipped the technique I’d practiced countless times in training. Instead of swimming around behind him to scoop him up by his armpits onto the rescue tube, I made a beeline for the ladder nearest him and on my way past I grabbed him around the waist with one arm, holding his head above water even though it meant keeping mine under. The emphasis was on speed, trying to prevent an active drowning victim from turning into a passive drowning victim.

The whole thing was over in a few seconds. I got him to the ladder, where he was able to catch his breath. I asked if he was okay, and he gave a panting “yeah.” He climbed out of the pool and walked away, and at that point I just got severely irritated with him. I didn’t ream him out or anything, but I got instantly enraged. I didn’t say anything else, but how could he jump into such deep water if he didn’t know how to swim? If nobody was around, you would have died, dude!

For less than a minute more than 25 years ago, our two lives intersected. If I saw him today, I’d have no idea it was him. I’m clueless about what he went on to do with his life and whether he’s closer to the “dirtbag” or the “saint” side of the spectrum. He may not even remember that day so long ago, but whatever else was going on in his life at the time, it’s pretty obvious to me God wasn’t done with him yet. I’m confident anyone on our lifeguarding staff would have been able to bail him out of the trouble he got himself into, but I was the one sitting in the chair that day. The Lord allowed me to be the one to play a role in a small, but decisive part of his life.

Every now and then I think about that kid and wonder what he went on to do in his life. Think about the people you come in contact with on a daily basis. There are people you know and see on a recurring basis, but there are also plenty of people you’ll probably never see again in your life. For brief periods of time, your life will intersect with theirs. It could have been someone else, but it ended up being you. Not all those occasions will be so definitive or dramatic as pulling someone out of danger, but some of them might very well be (literally or figuratively).

Embrace those little encounters, whatever they end up looking like. You may have been put there to make a much-needed difference. Don’t squander the opportunity. Maybe one day you’ll look back and find yourself wondering whatever happened to that person. Better yet, that other person may look back and be thankful for the time they ran into you.

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Quick Hit: Why is Eden Guarded?

After expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, God posted angels with flaming swords near its perimeter to ensure they didn’t come back in. Ever wonder why?

The most obvious answer is as a consequence of their disobedience. God warned them what not to do; since they disobeyed, He had to impose consequences.

But an often-overlooked reason relates to what could still happen if humans got back in. The only limitation God put on the original pair was to avoid eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They obviously missed the mark there, but the Garden still had a very special tree whose fruit would catastrophically affect fallen humans: the Tree of Life.

“And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” – Genesis 3:22

Genesis isn’t terribly clear on whether they ate from the Tree of Life before they sinned, but it’s probably safe to assume they did at some point (how could you not try everything the Garden has to offer?). I can’t honestly say I understand what happens when sinless humans eat that tree’s fruit, but it would be a pretty big deal if an imperfect, sinful human ate from it. The verse above makes it pretty clear they’d be preserved in a sinful state forever. Christ still died for them/us, but without death, how can we ever be restored to true life?

In His infiniteness, God could doubtless still make a way to redeem them, but He chose, in His mercy, to prevent anyone from reaching the tree in the first place.

Still can’t get over the loss of that tree? Don’t worry, we’ll have access to it in the future: Revelation 22:1-3a notes “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed.” Don’t worry; you’ll get your shot at that tree (and its 12 different kinds of fruit) someday!

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The Good Ol’ Red, White, and Blue

Have you ever met someone that stayed positive and upbeat almost all the time?

Before I get into my story, I have to explain something to the non-military types reading this. When you’re in the military, there’s a lot of misery and generally terrible conditions you have to be prepared to endure. (After all, you don’t normally fight wars in the nice parts of the world.) As part of the coping mechanism, military branches and units try to buck up their troops with camaraderie and esprit de corps. There’s mixed success with this tactic, but it truly does help to know that when you’re trudging through the mud or up a mountain, your fellow troops are right there alongside you, and you’re not miserable alone.

Also, everything in the military is an acronym. Sometimes there are acronyms inside acronyms. It gets a little crazy. Don’t quote me on the history of this next part, but I think it was the Army that came up with the acronym “HUA.” It stands for “heard, understood, acknowledged.” It’s the military version of saying “got it.” It started getting applied in all kinds of situations. “Soldier, I need you to get rounds on that target NOW, do you understand me?!” “HUA!” Or maybe “we’re gonna grab some Chinese, then meet at the theater at 9, hua?” Over time it morphed into having different meanings; it became kind of a greeting, a rallying cry, or just something to say when you don’t have anything else to say. (I know a dude, long since retired from the Army, who couldn’t go more than two sentences without saying it somehow. “Hooah! Beautiful morning!” “Hooah, enjoy your day!”)

Different branches of the military are funny; a lot of times they want to do the same sort of thing but they don’t want to copy anyone, so they modify things a little. “Hoorah!” “Huh!” “Hooah!” “Oorah!” Where I spent time in the Air Force, it was “Hooyah.”

Anyway, all that’s prelude. When I tried out to be a survival specialist, we had to deal with a lot of uncomfortable, miserable, and/or physically arduous tasks. While we were waiting around for class to start, we spent the weeks doing different things like go on ruck marches in the mountains or in state parks with heavy packs, go on mini field trainings for three or four nights (think camping, but not quite as comfortable), and do a ton of physical training.

There was this one guy, Carl, who was relentlessly optimistic. Whenever he walked into the room or area where a bunch of us were, he’d greet us with a “hooyah, team!” He was so upbeat he came across as kinda goofy sometimes (this guy’s not really like this, is he?). If we’re on a ruck march, he’s bouncing back and forth to different groups of us, lifting our spirits. If we’re getting smoked during PT, he’s the one asking for more and encouraging the rest of us along the way. On one mini field training, when we’d already been out in the woods for a few days without any shower and we smelled like smoke, were tired and irritable from poor sleep and non-stop mosquito bites, and were generally over-tasked with things to do, Carl’s the guy looking for opportunities to goof off in a way that brings a smile to somebody’s face. This picture was one such moment. The other guy was hamming it up a little for the picture, but Carl saw him looking closely at the ground for a piece of gear or something and Carl seized the opportunity for a morale-boosting photo op.

One of Carl’s trademark moves was when we were all assembled at the start of the day. As the American flag was raised each morning to the sound of a bugle call, our formation snapped to attention and saluted for the duration of the music. As soon as the NCO in charge of us gave the call to “order arms” and go to parade rest (stop saluting and return to a more relaxed state), Carl would pipe up with a lone voice and shout “Hooyah, America!” Our instructors liked the sound of it so much that before long, we were all doing it in unison, every duty day.

Today’s our nation’s 248th birthday. That’s a long time for a nation to use a single constitution. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs as a country. Today it seems like the nation is trying to tear itself apart while adversaries band together. I came across the following statement and felt like it resonated with our current times. It applies to both men and women, but I wanted to present the original quote:

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

We’ve been through some tough times as a nation, and it feels like we’re in one of them now. We can get through this one, but it will require strong people standing up for truth and justice. Hang in there, speak truth to power, and help out a neighbor or someone you see who needs a hand.

Happy Independence Day, and Hooyah, America!