What Santa does with naughty reindeer

Thank you, Grandpa

On the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Houston Chronicle observes a sad fact:

The youngest of the World War II veterans are now in their 80s and it's estimated less than 1 million Pacific war combatants, primarily from the Navy and Marine Corps, are alive.

My grandfather is one of the remaining Marines who served in the Pacific theater during WWII. He's 85, very ill, and we've just been told he has a few weeks to live.

Grandpa was 17 when war broke out in the Pacific. He and his friends ran down to the recruitment office to volunteer for service. He became a navigator/bombardier on a B-25 Mitchell. We still have his certificate from bombardier school along with a photo of the handsome young Marine in his uniform.

Many years later, when I was in my 20s, Grandpa was delighted when I told him I was joining the Marines. He smiled widely as he remembered boot camp, and told me it wasn't as terrible as people think: just do what the DIs tell you and you'll be fine. He hid his disappointment when I was disqualified at MEPS for extremely poor eyesight and asthma.

He rarely talked about his service. On a few precious occasions, he would tell us grandchildren amusing little stories -- tantalizing tidbits -- about his time in the South Pacific. To him, it was a job, not heroics. When he came home after the war, he did his best to create a normal life for himself and his family. He worked decades at the same job, driving around the state selling janitorial supplies to schools. He never complained that it was a dreary, unfulfilling job. He found fulfillment in taking care of his family of six, in going to church, in volunteering his time at the local Catholic thrift store, and in skiing on the local hills and hunting on his beloved Steens Mountain.

Grandpa indulged in few luxuries. He lived in the same house for sixty years, and only changed the furniture once in all that time. Most of what he spent was for other people. When his children became teenagers, he surprised them by trading in the old family car for a new Camaro. He drove the same old truck for thirty years, but bought a new dirt bike for the grandsons to use on visits to his hunting cabin. He bought my mother a car when she was a destitute college student with two young children, and paid for my braces when I was a teenager. He never had a VCR or fancy stereo; he had the same small TV and Hi-Fi that seemed to last forever. He did surprise us once by splurging on a skiing trip to Austria, but I think that was more for my grandma than for him. Most of what he earned went into investments and savings. Over six decades, that added up to a lot: when he passes, my grandfather will leave a substantial inheritance to his children and grandchildren.

But nobody is looking forward to the inheritance. We would all rather have Grandpa. There will be one fewer Marine in the coming weeks, and it will be a terrible loss for our family.

Carnaby and I owe a lot to Grandpa, more than can be expressed in words. His sacrifices have often moved me to shame, that his generation gave so much and I have given so little. But as my father reminded me, that is precisely why they gave so much, so that their children and grandchildren could live in peace and prosperity.

Thank you, Grandpa.

No

Got a questionnaire in the mail from the RNC yesterday. The questions are supposed to make me think they care about my opinion, but what they really wanted was my "most generous contribution." Here's what I sent them instead.



Not that it will make any difference, but it's worth a try.

Update: Emailed the photo to Michelle Malkin and she liked it.

Degradation of Civility in the Passing Scene

I watched an old movie recently with a throw-away moment that showed how much civil behavior has degraded in this country. (I can't remember the title, but I think it had Fred MacMurray in it.) The scene: A woman reporter is about to enter an area where construction men are working, a tunnel or something, and MacMurray instructs the foreman to warn the men about her arrival "and tell them, for God's sake, to watch their language." Do men do that anymore? Why bother, when women don't watch their language anymore, either.

My high school research intern mentioned that yesterday was "hip-hop day" at her school. Students dressed up as "gangstas and hos." Mainstreaming a degenerate subculture at any school is bad enough, but this was at a highly-regarded Christian school. Are Christians so desperate to appeal to kids that they go for the lowest common denominator? In this economic climate, it's understandable that institutions are desperate to hold on to revenue, but compromising your beliefs for $20,000 tuition per student makes you an ecclesiastical prostitute.

Our realtor and his brother helped us move into our new house a few months ago. When I entered the spare bedroom to drop off a box, I saw the brother admiring a large mirror on the wall next to the bed. He quipped that it should come in handy when my husband and I want to "have some fun." I don't understand why any man thinks it's okay to talk to a woman that way, let alone a married woman he hardly knows.

T-shirt seen on a patron at Wal-Mart last month: f*ck all y'all. In front of kids, old ladies, everyone. Growing up in the 1970s, I remember a time when even the toughest scruff would've been ashamed to have kids or old ladies overhear bad language, let alone see it displayed all over his chest.

Have you heard of Gao Zhisheng? He was considered one of China's top lawyers, but went missing over a year ago when he was arrested by police. His crime (besides being a practicing Christian) was writing to the U.S. Congress, just before the Beijing Olympics, protesting his country's human rights record. He had been arrested and physically tortured for his outspokenness in the past, so he knew the risk and did it anyway. I thought of Gao as I looked at a pair of dangly, plastic testicles hanging from the back of a truck in traffic last week. People are tortured in gulags and die fighting for the right to criticize their governments while some guy halfway around the world uses the right to free speech to display plastic genitals on his truck. Or to tell everyone within view "f*ck you" on a t-shirt.

Sigh.

I linked to an article a few days ago about pastors who avoid the culture war. Like Giles' waffling pastors, I, too, am tempted to permanently retreat into the cloistered environment of church and Christian fellowship. This is item #4 on Giles' list: "Last Days Madness." Giles is right that, irrespective of whether this depressing incivility heralds the apocalypse to come, we have a duty to engage the culture.

If the [Christians] within the good old US of A would crucify their fear of man, get solidly briefed regarding the chief political issues, not sweat necessary division, not get caught up in last days madness, maintain their hope for tomorrow, understand their liberties under God and our Constitution, not become so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good, focus on the majors and blow off bowing to cash instead of convictions, then maybe . . . just maybe . . . we will see their righteous influence cause our nation to take the needed sharp turn away from the secularist progressives’ speedily approaching putrid pit.

Amen.

Atheism vs. Christian Theology 101

Some fascinating back and forth at Common Sense Atheism and Vox Popoli over the verity of Christianity and the nature of evil:

Common Sense Atheism letters 1, 2, 3

Vox Popoli responses 1, 2, 3

"10 Reasons Why Pastors Avoid the Culture War"

Big Hollywood blogger Doug Giles takes waffling pastors to task

Given that the culture-dividing issues, thanks to Obama, are more obvious than Joan Rivers’ last lip implants, it is mind-boggling to me that many ministers are mute or side with parties, policies and principles that are antithetical to the Judeo-Christian worldview. I don’t know if you got this memo in seminary but pastors are not only supposed to salvage souls but also build the good society.

RTWT.

Sounds like a real page-turner

Ralph Nader has written a novel, called Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us, that appears to be Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged materialized from a parallel universe.

Consider. It's long (700 pages), it's an ideological fantasy, and it centers around the world's elite and super-wealthy. But instead of society's most productive members withdrawing on principle and letting the world fall into chaos, we get society's most earnest members withdrawing to come up with a plan for mega-regulation. Instead of John Galt and his famous radio speech, we get Patriotic Polly the parrot who squawks platitudes over the airwaves. Instead of powerful industrialists like Francisco D'Anconia, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart, we get Warren Buffett, Phil Donahue, and Yoko Ono.

One of the joys of Rand's novels was the aptness with which she named her characters, especially the villains: Mort Liddy, Cuffy Meigs, Chick Morrison. What does Nader come up with? Lancelot Lobo. As this WSJ reviewer quips, it's a good thing Nader chose so many well-known people for his characters.

Say It With Me: INSURANCE

So many people involved in the health care debate seem unclear on the subject of health insurance. Let's start with a look at the term. From dictionary.com, we have:

in⋅sur⋅ance
–noun
1. the act, system, or business of insuring property, life, one's person, etc., against loss or harm arising in specified contingencies, as fire, accident, death, disablement, or the like, in consideration of a payment proportionate to the risk involved.
2. coverage by contract in which one party agrees to indemnify or reimburse another for loss that occurs under the terms of the contract.

Since some folks have better reading comprehension than others, we'll help everyone out with that word, contingency:

con⋅tin⋅gen⋅cy
–noun, plural -cies.
1. dependence on chance or on the fulfillment of a condition; uncertainty; fortuitousness: Nothing was left to contingency.
2. a contingent event; a chance, accident, or possibility conditional on something uncertain: He was prepared for every contingency.

I'll make the reasonable assumption that nearly everyone knows the meaning of health and thus we can move on to the term health insurance. From the definitions above, we can see that health insurance is a contract one party purchases from another such that by some chance the fulfillment of an undesirable medical condition was to befall the purchaser of said contract, the second party, which supplied the contract, agrees to reimburse the the first party for some or all of his or her medical expenses that arose due to the fulfillment of said contingency, as provided in the contract.

That's all health insurance is, or at least that's what the term health insurance means. A person buys health insurance to protect himself from significant financial loss in the event that he one day is beset by a serious medical condition. I have such a health insurance plan. I pay $340 per month for a family of four for a policy that covers our medical expenses up to one million dollars per person per year.

Now, with such a low premium, the insurance company also has a large deductible. Our deductible is $6,000 per person per year or $12,000 for the whole family per year. No big deal, $12,000 never ruined anyone, and it's unlikely that we'll need to spend that much on health care in any one year anyway (I think we spent about $2k this year). Now to be $50k, $100k, or $500k in the hole due to something serious like cancer, that's a big deal.

Then we have this guy:

My name is Bing Perrine and I live here in Billings, Montana, with my beautiful wife and baby boy. Last June, I collapsed because of congenital heart problems. I need open-heart surgery, but I have no insurance and no company will insure me.

My friends and family have been a blessing. With hearts as big as a Montana sky, they have helped with bake sales and benefits. But my wife and I still owe over $100,000 in medical bills.

None of this debt would have piled up if I had the option of buying into a public health insurance plan. Private insurance companies need competition. They profit by denying care to people like me.

Senator Baucus, when you take millions of dollars from health and insurance interests that oppose reform -- and oppose giving families like mine the choice of a public option -- I have to ask: whose side are you on?

Let's have a closer look at what he said:

None of this debt would have piled up if I had the option of buying into a public health insurance plan.

Meaning: None of this debt would have piled up if someone else was forced to pay for my medical care whether they wanted to or not.

Then he shows his lack of understanding of the term we learned above: health insurance.

Private insurance companies need competition. They profit by denying care to people like me.

The insurance companies denied care to you?!? Did they really? Do the insurance companies even provide health care? No they don't! Doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc., provide health care. As we saw above, insurance companies provide you with insurance. That's what an insurance company does. This is not a difficult concept to grasp! I'm thinking that you got your education from the public option, and maybe it wasn't so good.

Now let's look at what you may have meant to say, that "health insurance companies profit by denying health insurance to people like me." Darn tootin' they do! How can an insurance company survive, let alone make a profit, if they have to insure against contingencies that are 100% certain to occur? I suppose there's one way they could survive, they'd simply charge a premium that is equal to the cost incurred due to the contingency, but then that would leave you in the same $100k hole.

I'll wrap this up, because I'm done steaming, but besides all the other stuff the government could do to improve the health care / health insurance industry (like tort reform, allowing competition across state lines, etc.), they could require that every American purchase a health insurance plan of some sort. It could be cheap and have a really high deductible, but you'd have to have some minimum insurance.

I know I'm gonna lose my libertarian street cred with that statement, but it's true. It must be done. The reason is the following. If some dumbass without health insurance becomes gravely ill, or suffers an accidental, but serious, injury, s/he will not be turned away from the hospital. That person will be treated and we will all get the bill. Much as things ought not to be this way, the fact remains that things are this way. So everyone must have a minimum amount of health insurance.