…from Germany. Or Japan, or Italy, Korea, or possibly Kuwait.
Anyone supporting the Democrats “Campaign for Defeat” doesn’t have a comprehensive view of how we deploy U.S. troops around the world. According to CNN and the Heritage Foundation, we have half as many troops in Germany as we do in Iraq, double in Germany than Afghanistan. A boat load in South Korea, tons in Japan and Italy—two countries that we put a hurt on, occupied, and continue to have a presence some 60 years later. Why would we still have tens of thousands of troops in a country we defeated over a half-century ago, adjacent to a country who’s threat dematerialized nearly 20 years ago? Maybe its because we find it in our strategic interest.
Now I know you probably don’t think that it’s a fair comparison between troops at bases and hospitals and the troops in active combat in Iraq, but that’s not my point. I’m just shaking my head at those who thought that we could somehow just leave Iraq altogether with no future military presence. Our army has never done that, except when we lost the Vietnam War.
We need to say to our brave fighting men and women that we stand behind them, that we won’t play politics with their lives and families, and that we want our generals to execute the path to victory. We need to tell the Iraqi people that if they want freedom, we’re there to help. And we need to tell our leaders in Congress that it’s shameful and unpatriotic to tie funding the troops to pork-barrel projects in their districts.
I just did the very thing that frustrates the heck out of me when other’s do it: make a big change without knowing what you’re doing.
The story: I’ve been very frustrated with the Serendipity platform I’ve been using the past year for this blog. So I wanted to switch to WordPress, which has many more plugins and millions of folks use it without many problems. I wanted to maintain all of the links out there in the blogosphere so thought I’d just change the folder’s name, then keep the “serendipity” blog folder, then import the old posts into the new WordPress blog, which (stupid me) I loaded into the “serendipity” folder. Well…having no real knowledge how MySQL works, I must have just blown up my blog.
So know, all I’ve been able to maintain is the subfolder. Meanwhile I have to fix the template, all of the old posts which didn’t cleanly import (but thank goodness for Feedburner who had my RSS file), and build a custom 404 to tell everyone who follows my broken links where to find the old posts.
I have been so pleased to be involved with my brother Jeff on a project for over three years now that makes a true impact on kids’ lives. It’s called ErieKIDS, and it is a high-energy video project that deals with emotions that children face. I am a member of the cast, playing “Dr. Feelgood” the hologram/psychologist that helps kids understand why they feel a certain way, and gives a healthy action plan.
The latest video in casting right now deals with divorce. There are a boat-load of issues that surround it and we hope through the action and song to really help kids cope with their reality. Jeff was recently interviewed for a Caring For Kids segment on WSEE about ErieKIDS III that I wanted you to see.
When I was growing up, when this season of Lent rolled around, I started out focused. I wanted to make sure that I would abstain from something significant, that I would pray harder and try to act better in these 40 days leading up to Easter.
As I grew older and my faith journey took a different direction, I downplayed Lent. I wanted to express my freedom as one basking in God’s grace. There wer lots of times that I know that I expressed too much freedom!
After many years of observing Lent and not observing Lent, I think that the season has hit me in a strong way this year. I want God to use this time as one of renewal, self-examination, and prioritization as I ready myself for the celebrations of Good Friday and Easter.
I was reading today from John’s first letter: “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” (I John 1:8-9 NLT) Like our pastor in Nashville used to talk about, you’ve got to be careful with what he called “gooey grace.” I want to not only receive his forgiveness and grace, but also run away from things that drag me down. I think Lent helps me refocus my heart’s lens.
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