What a gal...

Many of us feel pride on those special days... a child is born, a wedding event takes place and your son or daughter walks down the aisle looking handsome or lovely. A patriotic day is cause for pride and celebration, but it isn't often that one can look at every day and feel proud of his/her relationships. I am one of the fortunates that can address that feeling every day of my life, I have the pleasure of awakening every day with my wonderful wife. She is the reason for my pride. She gives of herself freely to the call of helping others. She has been working tirelessly for conservative candidates at the local, district and statewide level. She isn't just stuffing envelopes or making phone calls, although they are important activities as well, she is taking responsibility for seeing to it that volunteers are showing up by the carload to support our candidates. The candidates put up with me because I have a convertible and drive it in their parade assemblies. But April does it all. She walks the parade routes, walks the precincts knocking on doors and distributes literature, sets up and attends fund raisers, takes over web sites and adds her magic to their appearence. She has been praised by everyone with whom she works.

Now you can see why I awaken with such joy every day of my life. I am married to one of the most wonderful, caring, intelligent women in the world.

I am a lucky man!

Memories I'd just as soon not have.

It was about 1975. I was having a conversation with a young TV sales Rep, recently out of college. The conversation turned to the activities of radical young people, like the SDS (Students For A Democratic Society). The Viet Nam War had wound down in what I believed then and now to be disgraceful policies of the United States Government. Our conversation ranged over some of the influence the young radicals may have extended on politicians.

The U.S. Military was working toward the extraordinary state they enjoy today... a well-educated, all-volunteer force of top rated professionals. The college R.O.T.C. was an important building block toward that goal. This starting point for training future officers began with young people obtaining a college education. The military was then suffering from an ill-deserved reputation and building a corp of better educated officers should have appealed to everyone. Not so. Earlier, at the University of Kansas, an important ceremony in the progress of R.O.T.C. training had been interrupted, and in fact abruptly ended, by a rowdy group of protesters carrying pro-North Viet Nam posters and shouting a chant that contained the phrase "Ho Chi Minh will win, win, win!"

I am loathe to express hate. But I freely admit I hated the SDS. Again, my unchanged belief is that they inflicted great harm on this country I love. Most of these young radicals were from affluent families. Few had ever done an honest day's work. They truly were reaping all the luxurious benefits of the country their parents and grandparents had built, and which they chose to destroy. As part of their protest, they were largely unwashed, long-haired - perhaps with a flower in their dirty hair - weirdly dressed, drug using bums... demonstrating their difference from, and indifference to, society. Of course, they felt they were hip, and we called them hippies.

The Bob Fosse film "Cabaret" had been out a couple of years but was still being widely viewed. This story of a bawdy girl (brilliantly played by Liza Minelli) was set in pre-World War II Germany, and chronicled some of the rise of the Nazi's Third Reich. There was a scene in the movie that was set in an outdoor beer garden. A large number of patrons were quietly enjoying their evening when suddenly a teenage boy, clean-cut and washed, wearing a simple brown shirt, stood up and began to sing, in a loud clear voice, a song stating that "Tomorrow belongs to me." So infectious was his singing, adult patrons began to join him. Soon the entire crowd was on their feet singing with the Nazi youth.

Meanwhile, in 1975 America, there was widespread and deep felt disdain for the young American hippies. Remembering the beer garden scene from Cabaret, I told my friend that these young Americans were fools. If they wanted to sell their philosophy, they should learn from the Nazi youth of the late 1930s. Boy, do I regret that thought. Maybe the hippies had seen Cabaret. More likely, they learned from the same tutors as did the Nazi brown shirts. They did bathe. They did cut their hair and go back to school. They became college professors. They became the architects of much of what is happening in our government today. Can I say Bill Ayers? Bernadine Dorn?

I still hate them. And they are still hell-bent on destroying America.

Tears.

Nine years ago my wife and I stood in front of our TV watching images of the horror unfolding in New York, our eyes red and sore from hours of crying. At one point some new piece of news flashed on the screen and my wife sobbed, "I just can't cry any more." I agreed. There just couldn't be any more tears left in our bodies.

But there were more tears. We have cried since - cried at the loss of young Americans lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.... and Ft. Hood, Texas. These were not bad people, finally caught perpetrating some evil deed. They were good people who had sacrificed a career, a peaceful civilian life, to serve their country.

We have cried as we tried to understand why anyone would want to kill them. We have cried as we tried to understand why people would want to destroy our beautiful America, this land we love so much.

We have tried to understand our enemy, and tried to understand why we cannot seem to defeat them.

We cry as we hear that some Americans, persons blessed with citizenship in this extraordinary nation, have joined al qaeda and their fight against America. One of those citizens born right here in my city while his father attended the very university later attended by members of my family.

Today we cry again as we hear anew of the suffering of so many. We cry as we realize that people with radical ideologies hold reins of power in our nation; people who seem to demonstrate that they do not share our devotion to this nation; people who seem to resent America's exceptionalism and want to bring her down.

Yes, there have been more tears. And, nothing gives us cause to believe the sadness will soon end.

Made in China - Paid in U.S.A.

Mark Steyn revealed a disturbing fact this past week. Strangely, I've not heard any news medium mention it.

Simply put, Steyn looked at the annual payment the United States is making to China just to cover the interest on the money we have borrowed from them.

Then he looked at the total Chinese Defense Budget. Guess what... the figures were nearly equal!

Steyn then conservatively projected the increases in our interest payments - as borrowing continues and interest rates rise - and arrived at the astonishing fact that in a very short time, the good old American taxpayer will be completely paying for China's military. All those fancy Chinese jet aircraft. All those massive Chinese aircraft carriers. All those millions of Chinese soldiers. All paid for by you and me.

When I was a kid, attending a small country school, we once scheduled a baseball game with an even smaller school. But there was a problem: that school did not have nine players to field a team. We had to give them several players so we could have a game. That worked out okay - we still won. But I have never heard of one nation equipping another nation with an army so they could have a battle!

Now, I don't think we are on the verge of a war with China, but imagine if we were! Think of all the good paying Chinese jobs, building war materials for both sides... all paid for by America!

Congress! Go Home!

A crude riddle used to float around bachelor parties and locker rooms:

Question: What food is guaranteed to kill a woman's sex drive?
Answer: Wedding cake.

I have a variation:

Question: What act is guaranteed to turn an intelligent person into an idiot? Answer: Elect him to Congress.

The answer to problems is often clear and simple to anyone but an idiot. Congress rarely sees the simple answer.

Consider government spending. In Congress, it works this way: various departments of government submit budgets calling for a 5% increase over the previous year. For the purpose of illustration, let's assume that, spread over many departments, those 5% increases add up to $150 billion. Congress ponders these budget requests and decides to give the departments, on average, only a 3% increase. Then they proudly trumpet that they have cut spending by $60 billion.

Wrong. They increased spending by $90 billion.

The correct solution? Eliminate the department. A classic example is the Department of Energy, formed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It has not. Eliminate the Department. Billions saved.

The Department of Homeland Security. Formed in the nervous days following 9/11. We have the FBI, the CIA, the Army, the Navy, The Marine Corps, The Air Force, The Coast Guard, The National guard... all able to secure the homeland. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. More billions saved.

How much more spending could we cut? How many more departments are there in the federal government?

In Congress, they talk endlessly about doing the nation's work. Bulletin to Congress: The nation will work fine without you. Take a vacation!