No Problem Mon

The ten day break in posts here was due to a cruise my wife and I and 160 other Christians of like mind had taken. I know.....160 other people even slightly similar to me is a scary thought! Only two incidents kept it from being a perfect trip. I walked into a restroom at the Atlanta airport only to wonder why there were so many big round mirrors and also why the first two (of about 20) people I saw looking into those mirrors looked liked women. This took all of two seconds as I ran out to a chorus of laughter and comments on the coloration of my face. The second incident involved losing all of my tobacco at the beginning of the trip. I was determined to find pipe tobacco in the small town of Falmouth, Jamaica. No problem mon! I was taken down an alley (some will do anything for tobacco) and sold this rope of what I was assured was pipe tobacco. I mean, like man, that tobacco was groovy. I mean peace and love was all I could think about while smoking it, that and maybe robbing a bank to get money for some more.....Folks...I'm kidding here!!!   It was just tobacco and did suffice (barely) for a couple of days. Anyway, as I always do when travelling, I try to strike up conversations. Two in particular stand out. We met a young Asian Canadian who attends York University in Toronto. He was very intelligent, choosing all his words carefully, and so polite. His parents are conservative and try their best to influence him but he has so far retained a liberal bent to his thinking. The other conversation was with an Englishman. I asked him if he was interested at all in politics. He gave me a firm "no." I persisted a little bit and he opened up. He talked about Margaret Thatcher...excuse me...Lady Thatcher and Churchill with great admiration. He went on about today's politicians and used a word I had not heard before...and subsequently forgot so I can't look it up. He talked about the solemnity of the moment when he visited the river and the spot that The Bridge On The River Kwai was filmed. All this and more from someone not interested in politics! By the way...there was no Internet for me on the cruise. No Internet and no (good) tobacco....the only thing left to sustain life was air, food and water and fortunately there was plenty of that. The remainder of this blog is more serious, and directed, as I've done in the past, to people from other countries who happen by this blog while navigating the World Wide Web. You ask me my thoughts on politics in America? Well, I'd be happy to answer your question. We are a quasi-democratic society right now. Oh yes, we have elections but don't let the appearance of democracy lead you to believe that it always accurately describes what is actually taking place. Take our current presidential primary season.....we are free to vote but not to think beforehand. It is what's going on in our minds that departs a little from democracy in action, particularly this year where big money is vying to be the determining factor. The "elites" place their bets and control the spin of the wheel. "We the people"... get to watch. I sat in a seat at Gate B19 of the Atlanta airport and had to laugh as the CNN newsman on the television over my head adamantly declared that after the Nevada primary win for Mitt Romney, it was time for Newt Gingrich to get out. I don't think that Tass or Pravda could work more efficiently at times than our own "news" media. It's said that the Independents (those neither Republican or Democrat) will decide this election but that is not correct. It is rather that the non-thinker...the "oh look, there goes a bunny!" and "what in the world are you writing a stupid blog while the Super Bowl is on" American whose vote will decide, and whose vote can be bought with minimal use of smoke and mirrors. In order to beat the system in this particular election a candidate for President will have to reach beyond the pocketbook and no one is doing that very well right now. We have a Marxist President and they are ranting and raving over the menu on the Titanic. Unfortunately for the Elites, we the people do have more control over our Congress but even here we have to struggle, for once someone has had that special parking spot at the Capitol for a couple of years, or the Kremlin's or Parliament's I presume, it's tempting to give in to the bullying to keep it. Unfortunately also for them we have a rock-solid, perspicuous Constitution that should protect our freedoms but unfortunately for us they have had remarkable success in appointing the judges who adjudicate that Constitution. Are you with me so far? Yes it's bleak... but we have one redeeming characteristic. We are a very religious people... but unfortunately again, we are also a prodigal people now sleeping with the pigs. I wish that I could tell you where we will wind up but I don't know. I am though, confident to write this...if we recover from what we have become it will have had to have coincided with a revival within America and a reformation within the American church, and if we do not recover, something not only possible but probable, the church will be revived and reformed in the devastating aftermath. Either of the two scenarios will only bring glory to God.