COMMON MATTERS

It's So Hot in Oklahoma

I heard it's so hot that chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs and ice is worth more than gold. Well, it's not quite that hot. But it sure is mighty uncomfortable. And also extremely dangerous. I'll explain.

Many folks are losing electricity because grids cannot handle the need for all the electricity to cool homes. Air-conditioners are breaking down in record numbers. To contend with heat, we seek those things which cool us down. Air-conditioned buildings, and transportation. More treats from Carnival Ice. Cooler meals which do not call for oven-cooking. To endure the constant heat, we keep a fan going along with our air-conditioning.

Was it this hot when pioneers traveled in covered wagons? Or before air-conditioning was invented? Wonder what they did to keep cool? If it was as hot as it is now, I don't see how opening a window would do much. Fans, yes. Would say that they were a necessity. I remember a time when fans were simply cardboard attached to sticks, each propelled by a human's hand to create a waft of air. That's hardly enough for me these days. I can't stand to even breathe this air. Speaking of air; I think I came close to blowing up my Prius this past week due to the hot air build-up in Oklahoma City.

It was 104 degrees out. Hubby and I went to OKC to purchase some concrete stain and sealant for our floors in the house we're building. Our plan was to meet some friends from Kentucky at the Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner. We arrived an hour too early so after getting the sealant and stain, we parked outside the restaurant, put some quarters in the meter and decided to go walk along the Bricktown waterway a bit. After about twenty-minutes of that, I was not only overheated, my back was killing me from walking. So I told hubby I wanted to go back to our car and wait in the air-conditioned vehicle. When I opened the door, it smelled like a massive vat of kerosene. I choked on the fumes. We quickly rolled down all the windows and turned on the air. I told my husband as we sat waiting for the fumes to dissipate, that it's a good thing we don't smoke. Had I opened that door with a lit cigarette, it would have exploded on the spot.

As it was, we were able to air it out enough after 10 minutes, that we could run the air-conditioning with the air being drawn from outside the vehicle and cooled off as we waited for our friends. During dinner we cracked our windows to let the fumes escape. It wasn't till yesterday afternoon that my daughter told us that our sealant had a "flashpoint" of 105 degrees. In other words, we are pretty doggone blessed that our Prius didn't explode when we got back from our quick walk around Bricktown. Our car had to have been cooking up temps of over the 104 degrees it was on the streets of Oklahoma that day. Had we not returned when we did, the ATF would probably have been tracking us down to see why we put a bomb in our car. We had no idea that the three completely sealed 5-gallon buckets of sealant were that volatile.

Ignorance is not always bliss, folks. I'm am ever grateful that I was feeling too hot and too impaled by back pain to continue walking around Bricktown while we had a potential bomb in the hatch of our car. Had we lingered...well, it's just great that God works in marvelous ways, don't you think?

Concerned Citizen

I am concerned about the moral decline in our world, and specifically, America. It's one thing to look at other countries, such as Iran and be appalled at the fact that a young Christian pastor is about to be executed for loving Jesus in an Islamic country (/link). It's another thing entirely to consider that in America, a man would smother an 8-year-old child and dismember him (/link). It's sick, folks.

I grieve for the parents of this child...the fact that he was alone and lost on the streets of his New York neighborhood is sad and will trouble them for years to come. It was considered one of the safest neighborhoods in New York City. What this evil man did to their child will haunt them forever.

We live in a country that has legalized the slaughter of the unborn. There is no place of refuge for a child in a society that gives so little regard to life. There are no neighborhoods safe enough.

In America, each and every commandment of the Most High God is broken every day without any sense of remorse. At one time the Ten Commandments dressed the walls of every single schoolroom in the country. Today the display of those laws is considered unconstitutional. Today, they are broken and flaunted in the halls of justice--condoned, tolerated and legislated against. Though murder is offensive, it is not as offensive as dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" in the letter of man-made laws.

America's problems reach farther than the arm of the law. It rests deep in the heart of man.

Cheating in schools is no longer a problem with children; it's a problem with the educators teaching those children. Teachers seduce vulnerable children every day. Lying. Coveting. Stealing. Dishonesty. Lasciviousness. These are the character traits being exemplified to young people?

Why is it too much to expect marriage to be an institution of God between one man and one woman? It's totally unnatural to consider marriage as anything else.

Sin is something to be proud of today. We even pay money to see violence, adultery, lying and cheating and manipulation--sin glamourized in movies, television and reality shows. We purchase products that promote more of it. We have a love affair with products, clothing, and accessories that bathe us in self-gratification...with the exterior of ourselves. We are self-saturated. It's all about me and my pleasure and my comfort and my desire and my needs. It's less and less about being created in the image of God and more about being re-created in the image of man.

Should we be surprised brothers strangle their mother because they didn't want to play Yahtzee? And just because they didn't want to play a boardgame, it was perfectly okay to murder their mom and bury her body and lie about what happened to her? How awful it was of her to want to play a boardgame and infringe upon their desires! You'd think it would have been simple enough to play a couple of games to avoid prison. Wonder if they'll be playing Yahtzee in prison?

I am concerned that our relaxed state of mind about all things of God has warped our ability to reason. Common sense is losing space within the mind of man. No wonder jurors have problems understanding reasonable doubt. Everything seems to be tolerable under the right circumstances. A National Day of Prayer is exactly what is needed for our country as Gov. Rick Perry is being criticized for calling citizens to do in Texas. However, I think we need prayer every day, not just once a year. I'm concerned...are you?

It Came In An Email

I get all kinds of silly emails from friends. Some have hilarious pictures of cats nursing baby skunks, and drenched kitties crawling out of toilets. Some forward You-tube videos and links to other spectacular natural wonders. Those are particularly exciting to save and share with my grandchildren. They love to see pictures of animals doing crazy things, with nutty expressions on their faces.

A lot of my gal-pals love to send cartoons imparting Maxine's wisdom about getting old (like me). Her insightful cartoons often crack me up and give a much needed relief to the weightier issues of life. Recently I got one that shared Maxine's take on a current political situation (I think Maxine is an Independent). This one struck a chord of common-sense I thought you might like to see, too (especially if you don't have the luxury of internet email buds). Maxine poses a legitimate question as she muses about Obamacare. She writes:

"Let me get this straight. We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan that we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't...Which purportedly covers at least ten million MORE people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents...

...written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it (but exempted themselves from it), and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief (who didn't pay his own taxes), for which we all will be taxed for FOUR YEARS BEFORE any "benefits" take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, and all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and financed by a country that is broke!!!

What the heck could possibly go wrong???"

You have to love cartoons and satire. Maxine has presented one of the greatest cases of reasonable doubt we could have a nation of jurists deliberate over. It really shouldn't take a nano-second for America to return a verdict on this piece of legistature. Maxine couldn't be more convincing. Considering her argument, the "nation of jurists" would convict our legislature of complete and total lunacy.

Well, I think like Maxine. You've read my thoughts on this before. It seems that we have more than enough reasons to doubt this health-care system will work. And it is even more doubtful that we will receive better medical care than we are already receiving because of it. I guess what concerns me the most is all the real-life doctors who have no desire to practice medicine under the guidelines that a panel of pencil-pushers will hand down to them for their patients. It also concerns me how many big-businesses and corporations and unions are getting waivers so that they are exempt from participating in this health-care plan. Seems someone is going to have to pay the brunt of it and I'm afraid, once again, it will be the small businesses, the mom-and-pop shops, the self-employed farmers who are barely scraping by as it is.

If my voted counted on this nation of jurists, I'd vote guilty. Our legislators have lost their minds and need to be committed. Committed to us--Americans--not lobbies and special interest groups. But I'm only one vote. If Maxine puts together a petition, I would sign it. Who knows?  Maybe that's the next one I'll get in my email.

FIREWORKS, FEAR, AND FREEDOM

After watching blazes rage and waiting for news about the fires at Medicine Park a couple of weeks ago, I was glad when the fire marshalls decided we couldn't have fireworks to celebrate July 4th this year.

It's odd when you consider that we are celebrating freedom, yet do not have the freedom to set off fireworks in honor of Independence Day. However, with all freedom comes responsibility. Just because we are free, we do not have the right to encroach upon others and jeapordize another's freedoms. In America we have the right to live in peace and without fear. But do we?

 

Last night I read numerous posts on Facebook from mothers who had to go out and tell their neighbors to stop setting off rockets. The noise frightened their children. It woke them up. It sent dogs cowering beneath beds. One man's joy is another man's fear.

 

I think about the freedoms we have in America. I think about how 9-11 changed some of our freedom to come and go as we please--the need to protect others comes at the price of inconvenience, and curtailment of another. Our military are still fighting around the world. People in many countries are fighting for their own independence in their worlds. They fight oppression. Dictatorship. Injustice. One man's freedom is another man's war.

 

I saw where fellow Americans were fighting home-owner associations for the right to fly the American flag. I saw where some were fighting to eliminate crosses and flags. I saw where a national television station removed "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance when they made a video. I saw the uproar.

In one report I saw a young soldier return from Afghanistan and say, "We are doing good things over there." In another I saw our President call for withdrawals while commanders are saying it is a mistake.

 

I read where ministers think it is wrong to have patriotic services in church. Then other ministers rebuked their rhetoric. My heart raced as I read the debates.

 

Legislators passed a law to make same-sex marriage legal in the state of New York. My mind reeled. Culture is changing.

 

I read where a handful of counties in California want to secede from the United States. A Texas judge overturned the ruling of another judge who tried to prohibit prayer at high school graduation and a student's right to mention God.

 

Each week society succumbs to the pressures of a minority bent on ripping apart the soul of America. .

 

Did this happen overnight? No. Did it begin when atheists lobbied to remove prayer from school? Did it begin when feminists fought to legalize abortion and the women's right to choose. Did it begin when separation of church and state became the separation from church and state? When sin was redefined as diseases, rights, choice, addictions? When freedom of speech gave rise to the voices shouting God's name in vain? When victims became criminals and criminals became victims?

 

Or did it happen when good men decided to do nothing? when the majority remained silent? when the only fireworks we saw were sparklers once a year? when we watched the American flag trampled in the streets? when we sat down instead of standing up?

 

I don't know. I do hope and pray my grandchildren will not wake up some day to a country which jails people who preach unashamedly the Word of God. I hope they will always have the freedom to own land, to pursue happiness, and worship as they choose without fear. I really do.