I detest abortion. I think it is a disgusting practice, and I think it is a damning indictment on our society that we accept it as casually as we do. But I do not believe it should be made illegal. I believe there are better solutions. See, according to the data I have read, there are situations where an abortion may serve a medical purpose. According to what I have read, these instances comprise the minority of cases, but I do not feel when these cases exist that a doctor should have to c...

Late last night I wrote up a song about a homeless man I had met some years back, and his vision. Today I premiered it to a few people, to mixed reviews. Basically the people who appreciate folk music appreciated it, those who didn't did not. I played it at the Guthrie Center, and one of the ladies who started the Guthrie Center in Pampa, complained that it was "the same monotonous tune" (meaning I was playing the same chords; ironically, I was NOT, by the way). I grabbed a Woody Guthrie song...

Right now, I'm a little overwhelmed. Want an analogy? OK, I feel like a pitcher with a career 6.00 ERA suddenly throwing back to back no hitters. Like a career third string quarterback suddenly winning back to back Superbowls. OK, I'll back up a little bit. See, last week a friend I met in Okemah came out to Pampa to visit. He left today, but over the week I found a person that has fueld my creativity to a point where I am genuinely overwhelmed. In the past 48 hours, i have produced 4 ...

Well, I'm back, from a long weekend which I will relate as soon as my thoughts congeal properly. One of the stories I couldn't tackle in my absence was the story of the Hindu prayer offered up in the Senate. I wanted to start the article by saying unequivocally that I don't like it, that it didn't belong in a government institution, and that those who are offended have every right to be offended. In short, I'm saying what every evangelical Christian is saying right now on the subject. ...

Back when I was 10 or 11, I was busted shoplifting. Not long before, a friend had shown me the "cool" way to lift items from the store, and I got greedy. With an unnaturally protruding belly shaped oddly like a Dolly Madison fruit pie and a can of Dr. Pepper, I attempted to exit the store. The store owner caught, me, I was taken home, and I had to face the punishment. I think I put in something like 20 hours of community service for those snacks I never got to taste. Lesson (mostly) learned. ...

We've all seen the sitcom scenario. Junior trashes the family car then tries to hide the damage from the cheap auto repair. But try as he might he cannot hide the damage and the car is irrevocably scarred, even worse than it was when Junior ran it into the utility pole. Junior now faces consequences FAR worse than he would have faced had he simply faced up to the music. LW wrote a wonderful heart rending article that tells this story from a woman's perspective. One who has been there. One who...

On a summer day just shy of twelve years ago, we brought our oldest girl, Destiny Marie, home from the hospital. As young, new parents, we spent many hours discussing the future we had for our new daughter, who, of course, was practically perfect in every way. She would not watch TV outside of a few videos, she would not date when she was a teenager (we still believe the idea of courtship is far closer to God's way of selecting a mate...but discussing that here would set this blog far afield), a...

Link This is the kind of thing that really annoys me. For years, I have heard the assertion that we are a nation that hates children, but it is only within the last year or so that I am becoming more certain that is true. William and Rachel Poczatek's young girls played regularly in the backyard pool, laughing and squealing as children do. Their neighbours had them charged with violating a noise ordinance as a result. Although a judge dismissed the complaint, this, in my opinion, shows ho...

When I was a child, people complained about high taxes. Sadly, that day is all but over, at least among the working class. Now the complaint I hear more often than not is service related. And it's not a partisan issue; Republicans are as bad as (sometimes WORSE THAN) Democrats. Everyone wants increases to their pet program, be it military, cancer research or the murder (err, excuse me..."abortion") industry. The reason people are so quick to demand the increase is that most of them do not PAY...

There's a newspeak term for illegal aliens in this country, one that frankly, I'm glad to see. It's a word that shows the TRUE intentions of the illegal immigration movement, and shows that assimilation, unity, and citizenship are NOT the goals of these people, but rather conquest and imperialism. The term is "nuevo pioneers", and it raises the acrid taste of bile in the back of my throat. Think about it. How do we view pioneers. We view them as settlers to undiscovered lands, as builders,...

Since the 9/11 attacks, our government has rhetorically promised us a "war on terror". Not only has our government NOT delivered (as if they actually COULD deliver a victory in a war on an ideology), the newest actions of our government are attempting to run up a white flag and offer a complete SURRENDER to terror. The truth is, the worst terrorists our country face are not in some Middle Eastern country. They are inside our borders, in our inner cities. And many of them are illegals. The ...

I'm pretty much a live and let live kinda guy when it comes to personal lifestyle choices. And I speak up against injustice when it shows up. But I am sick and tired of the gay rights movement and its attempt to push an agenda. The truth is gay rights are NOT civil rights. To imply such is to imply that they have been DENIED civil rights. That they have been treated as a second class of citizens, when in fact, they have not. They are subject to the EXACT same laws as straights. There is no...

One of the statements I heard made years ago when I was a socialist was in reply to comments I would hear people make saying that "if you redistribute the wealth, the wealth will be back in the hands of the same people within five years". My challenge back then was that we should try wealth redistribution then, because it wouldn't hurt the wealthy and would, in fact, give them a five year tax write off. The fact that we don't pretty much supports the fact that even the most hardcore capitalist d...

As the world reaches out for solutions to the problems that plague us, there are those who embrace the concept of a world government. Although they usually use euphemistic terms and refer to coalitions, the idea basically is that the world needs to become more pluralistic and more united. It's my contention that not only would this not work, but it would backfire horribly. Far from being a bad thing, borders are what keep the world sane, what keep the world from totally failing. Borders are g...

One of the things that really irks me is the tendency to believe that poverty causes violence. People will point to third world nations and demand that their violence is an end result of their poverty. I don't buy that. Not for a second. I believe that the violence is the disease, and poverty the symptom, not the other way around. These nations are by and large impoverished because they embrace violence as a culture. This is a more obvious conclusion, because if you think about it, in a viole...