Soft on meth

This just in -- Mike Huckabee's opponents are attacking him for a bill he signed as governor of Arkansas that allowed convicted methamphetamine suppliers to be released from prison early for good behavior. Hence, the charge is that Huckabee is "soft on crime."

Perhaps. But also the last few weeks, Huckabee has been severely criticized by Mitt Romney and others for raising taxes in Arkansas.

I don't know if Arkansas is anything like Iowa in terms of prison populations. But if it is, then their prisons, like ours, are full. Beyond capacity. Outdated.

How do you solve that problem? Well, you build new prisons. Unfortunately, that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, how do you pay for that kind of expense? Hmm .... raise taxes?

See, you can't have it both ways. Prisons, roads, schools and health care programs require money. In a small, rural state like Arkansas, economic development will bring in some funds, but taxes have to bring in the rest.

You just can't win when it comes to politics and political attacks. Admittedly, we don't like our taxes raised, and we don't like criminals to be set free without proper incarceration (and hopefully, rehabilitation). The solution to one of these issues likely comes at the price of the other.

Politicians running for office put out these sound bites and jabs, and then sit back and see what kind of damage they can do to the other candidate. That's the very reason that most American's, while caring deeply about who our President and Congressional representatives are, hate the election process.

Generous Offers

Since this is the season for gift-giving and tremendous shopping offers, I scanned through my "spam" e-mail this morning to see what unbelievable deals might be available to me. I was astonished that I could take advantage of any of the following offers:

• 60 percent off vehicle warranties! (Never mind that both of my cars are more than 10 years old)
• Fast and easy term life with no medical exam! (I am an insurance agent and already well-insured)
• Make $1,000 in 48 hours with no product and no money! (What more can be said about that?)
• Law enforcement professionals are needed in my area and scholarships are waiting! (Ironic, since the Cedar Rapids police department recently went through a round of layoffs)
• Drop 20 pounds in two weeks! (Oh, if it were only so)
• Someone has sent me a Christmas gift card! (Wonder who the "someone" is?)
• Final attempt: confirm your e-mail address for K-Mart shipment! (I haven't shopped at K-Mart for years. Remember what Rainman said about K-Mart ...)
• Want the best free laptop in the world? (I'll bet that's a great machine)
• Wanna see my pics? (One of many offers to meet and/or see someone or something that I don't want to meet or see)
• Buy phentermine online without a prescription! (What is phentermine?)
• Blackjack tournament needs a high roller! (Uh, high roller has never been a phrase attached to me)
• Final attempt: confirm your e-mail address for K-Mart shipment! (I thought I had already received my final attempt???)
• Get $1,500 in your bank account in one hour! (Wonder how that happens?)
• Win Whoppers and free fries! (That would be a reason to respond to the "lose 20 pounds in two weeks" e-mail)
• Say no to drugs! (How refreshing, as 28 offers are asking me to say "yes" to drugs)
• Final attempt: confirm your e-mail address for K-Mart shipment! (Third time is a charm)

Of course, I never open any of these spam e-mails, and rarely look through them. My account separates them out (thankfully) into a separate inbox.

Well, if you're looking for just the right gift between now and the 25th, let me know and I'll set you up with any of these fine opportunities.

Steroids, HGH and Supplements, Oh My!

I have read the Mitchell report. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I scanned the Mitchell report. It is, including appendices and such, more than 400 pages in length. There aren't many pictures. It is written in attorney speak. Who would want to read it word for word?

Those among us who follow baseball, and even sports in general, know a little something about the Mitchell report. It is authored by former US Senator George Mitchell, and is the conclusion of a 20-month investigation into the use of illegal and banned substances by professional baseball players.

Barry Bonds has been the steroid poster child for the last few years. Bonds, who broke into the majors as a skinny, fleet-footed Pittsburgh Pirate, is finishing his career as a large, slow power hitter with anyone still willing to pay his salary. The all-time home run king is hated for his alleged cheating and various public relations blunders.

In the court of public opinion, and I think in reality, he is guilty. The question is, beyond Barry Bonds, who else is guilty, and how widespread is the problem?

The conclusion of the report -- many are probably guilty, and the problem has been widespread. I was glad to see that my past and present favorite players were not named, guys like Ryne Sandberg, Derrick Lee, and Albert Pujols. But like many, I was surprised to see many current and former All-Stars, including Roger Clemens.

So much has been written about this topic. To me, it all boils down to this. Players take this stuff because they want to perform better, because better performance leads to more lucrative contracts. Guys like Bonds earn $15-20 million annually, payed for through TV deals, ticket prices, and jersey sales. Bonds earns that kind of money because fans support MLB with their wallets. If we didn't go to the games, buy the Cracker Jacks, turn on the TV, and slip on our favorite hat (AKA reduce the demand) things might be different.

But, who's kidding who? Things will not change. Some percentage of athletes will always look for ways to get ahead. This is not new -- it is the human condition. And, why not inject yourself with HGH for a couple years, avoid detection (MLB drug testing does not detect HGH), and sit on your pile of millions the rest of your life? Not an unattractive life, depending on your scruples.

Holiday Entertainment Greats

Just 12 days to go before Christmas. In the song, "The 12 Days of Christmas," is today the first day, the 12th day, or are we not counting yet?

Beginning with "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," the television and movie theaters are full of holiday specials during the weeks leading up to Christmas. The screen offerings have become just as much of the holiday season as any other tradition. They are diverse as George C. Scott's Ebenezer Scrooge and Macaulay Caulkin's Kevin.

If you could watch just three holiday specials between October 31 and January 1, what would they be? Movies? Cartoon classics? Parades? Here are my three ...

1) From the big screen we have A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 42nd Street, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story (you'll shoot yer eye out!), Home Alone, and many more to choose from. But if I could only see one, it would be Christmas Vacation. It's clearly the best of the "Vacation" franchise films, and anyone with an eccentric cousin or in-law in the family will sympathize with Clark Griswold.

2) The Rankin Bass production company made holiday specials for the small screen throughout the 60's and 70's. You're familiar with their work, if not their names. The team that brought us Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer also brought as my favorite among this genre -- The Year Without a Santa Claus. As a kid I remember its two unique characters -- Heat Mizer and Snow Mizer. For two decades the show disappeared from network television, only to resurface a couple years ago. We DVD recorded it, so I'll never have to miss it again.

3) And what would Christmas entertainment be without "A Charlie Brown Christmas?" The "original" Charlie Brown specials of the 1960's are all classics, and this is the best among them. Of course, the highlight is Linus' rendering Biblical recitation of Christ's birth. Charlie Brown and friends do indeed discover the true meaning of Christmas.

No Grinch (though I like arsenic sauce), no parades (though Macy's usually marches through my family room), and no Bah Humbug (though the ghosts will visit our home). The rules were, only choose three.

Let's hear your favorites ...

Huckabee and the Iowa Caucus

I posted in the fall that Mike Huckabee was becoming my candidate of choice to support in the Iowa caucus. At the time his polling support in Iowa was single digits. He trailed Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Thompson. In just three months, he has apparently lept to the top of the polls and now has a real shot of winning the vote, which is just 28 days away.

What has happened, and what is a proper perspective on this?

First off, Huckabee supporters will tell you (as will Huckabee himself) that he knows who he is, and running for president doesn't require that he begin catering to a new constituency. He is a former Southern Baptist church leader and two-time Republican governor. He has a personal record and voting record that paints a pretty good picture of who he is, and he's not trying to reinvent himself. That's good.

Second, he has played the "Sleeper Risk" card to a "T". I'm referring to the classic board game Risk. As devotees of the game know, one strategy to winning is playing slowly -- not attacking your opponents too quickly, and not positioning yourself as a risk to other players. In other words, lull your fellow players to sleep and then surprise them with your strength.

Politically, this is Huckabee. For months at a time, his opponents paid him no attention. Quietly, with very little money, he has diligently shook hands with the conservative voters that play such a big role in the Iowa caucus. Most seem to like the message and the style with which its delivered. Its only within the last month that the bog dogs have noticed that Huck is no longer polling six percent (I believe he's at 28 percent now).

The larger question is not, "Will Huckabee win Iowa?" Rather, it is, "Can Huckabee win anywhere else but Iowa and Arkansas?" Nationally, he is still a low-poller, a distant fourth. It is a similar story for Democrat John Edwards, whose campaigning in Iowa for the last five years has yielded him respectable polling numbers, but whose national numbers are light years behind Clinton and Obama.

With 28 days left until 125,000 Iowans go the polls (just four percent of the state's population), anything can happen. I do plan to caucus, and at this point, will check the box for Huckabee. I'll keep you posted.

Lessons from the Lord's Supper -- Part IV

There are a great many lessons that can be drawn from the upper room the night Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with his disciples. Previously, I've mentioned these -- 1) that Jesus was eager to share this night with his friends, and 2) that Jesus continues the transition from the old covenant of Israel to the new covenant of His church.

Here's a third lesson: Jesus wants the cross to be remembered.

This may seem too simple to be of importance. Duh, of course Jesus wants the cross to be remembered. But let's be honest -- much of what happens in a church does not directly point to the cross. This is not a criticism, as much as it is an observation. Take for example:

• The modern day American church places a great and growing emphasis on music in worship. We have praise teams, and bands, and choirs, and instrumental interludes, and "special" music. We have practices, and rehearsals, and discussion about what style of music should be used in worship. At its best, our energy focused on music does remind us of the cross of Christ. But we must fight to keep the focus on Jesus and not on ourselves and our "performance." No church is immune, whether you have a choir of 50 or a single man leading an a capella service.
• No preacher is willing and able to preach the cross every week of the year, and most churchgoers would not be content for it to happen. Instead, we might spend weeks at a time going through the minor prophets, or the topics of marriage, child rearing, spiritual gifting ... all Biblical and helpful topics to be sure. It is entirely possible that a sermon might never mention the cross, or Christ himself. Is that true in your experience?
• Sunday school classes, particularly those for children, really hit the miraculous stories of the Bible hard. Kids learn about David and Goliath, the apple in the garden of Eden, Peter walking on water, and even Balaam and the talking donkey. And yes, our classes may broach the subject of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. But, perhaps not often.

You get the idea. It is easy to attend church for 90 minutes each week and not dwell on the message of the cross. But to the early disciples, Jesus had this request (as recorded by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians): "Take it [the bread]; this is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

Jesus knew there would be distractions, both for the disciples, and for us today. He knew that His followers might need a regular reminder of what happened at Calvary. And so, he uses the simple elements of bread and wine, passed among us, to visually and spiritually take us back to the cross. When there, we recall once again that our sin separated us from God; that Jesus is the unblemished sacrifice that bridges the gap; and that our salvation is found in this act of grace.

The disciples took Jesus direction to heart. Luke writes in Acts 2 that the early church was "devoted" to the breaking of bread. While no specific command is given as to how they demonstrated "devotion," the early church likely shared the Lord's Supper weekly, and perhaps several times each week.

When we gather around the Communion table, we do proclaim the Lord's death. In this act, we retell the gospel story over and over again. Let's never grow tired of such a tradition. Let us not take it for granted, even after a thousand cups of juice have been drunk. The cross is everything to the believer, and the Lord's Supper is surely about the cross.

Lessons from the Lord's Supper -- Part III

The book of Acts says that the early church was "devoted" to the breaking of bread, the remembrance we commonly call "The Lord's Supper." Last time we looked at the what the New Testament writer Mark says, that Jesus was "eager" to celebrate the Passover with his disciples. Jesus is still eager to see His followers surround the table and break bread with each other.

A second observation from the Lord's Supper is this -- Jesus uses Communion to continue the transition from the old covenant to the new.

Let's remember, Jesus was Jewish, as were the 12. As they gathered for the Passover, they were following the Law that God gave His people. The Passover represented the sparing of life, the protection of the chosen. Each and every year the story of God's wrath on the Egyptians and God's promise to the Israelites would be retold.

As was common with the Law, the Passover also represented sacrifice. The book of Exodus tells us that the Jews were to paint their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. The celebratory Passover week included the sacrifice of a lamb as a sin offering (Deut 16). Under the old law, sin was abundant. As a result, the need for sacrifices was abundant. God required blood to attain righteousness.

This theological pattern could have continued forever, sin = sacrifice. But God had a plan -- one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. The Apostle Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor 5:7 -- Jesus would become the final Passover lamb.

And thus, when Jesus asks His disciples in the upper room to take the bread and eat it, He tells them that His sacrificed body is represented. As He passes the cup, he says that it is "the new covenant in my blood." Translation -- the old covenant of Law and sacrifice has been fulfilled and replaced with a new covenant of grace, purchased with the blood of a Perfect Lamb.

This new covenant, and all that it entails, would be a point of discussion throughout the first century. Many of Paul's letters to the churches addressed this very topic. Even the disciples who reclined at the Communion table with Christ would disagree about the requirements of discipleship (remember the Jerusalem council on circumcision?)

I think we could say the same today. On one level, most born-again believers know that they are saved by grace alone, and not by the works they do -- that our personal sacrifices have no measure of saving worth compared to the one sacrifice made on the cross. Yet, we are quick to tally the balance of our sins against our works of faith, hoping the numbers are in our favor. And, we struggle to avoid counting the sins of others against them.

Jesus is eager to celebrate His death with us, because His death brings life. He reminds us, through the simple, ancient items of bread and wine, that the old requirements of body and blood are no more. Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe.