The Americans for Tax Reform Website is offering a card (click the pick above), to comemorate when Candidate Obama promised to not impose any form of tax increase on families making less than $250,000.00 per year.

What this goes to show, is you should always watch how someone lives their life, as oppossed to just what they say, or promise.

As for this promise, it has gone by the wayside.

To be honest, though, I didn’t believe it when he said it. Wish he had meant it though…

This is a quote from the article:

According to the Provincetown Banner, the program requires that students speak to a school nurse or trained counselor before receiving condoms.
The committee also directed school leaders not to honor demands from parents who object to their kids receiving protection.
Some members on the committee were wary because the program requires that students speak to school officials first.

So to make this plain… only requirement needed to get a condom for a 6 year old: speak to a school nurse or trained counselor; The Committee (sounds so Kremlinish) is not to listen to the objections of the parents; and the wariness of The Kremlinish Committee is that the children have to speak to someone first. I’ll break this down on two points:

First, complaints are made continually of Parents not being involved in their children’s school lives, but according to The Kremlinish Committee, their input isn’t wanted.

Secondly, the children shouldn’t even have to speak to someone, according to The Kremlinish Committee, but a bowl of available condoms should just be sitting there. At 6 years old, Johnny and Susie can’t really read, but we want to encourage behaviors which should first be given in marriage, and importantly only to adults.

Contrarily,

On June 24th, Candy Cigarettes were banned by the FDA (Click here for the full article)… The article states:

The ban is a part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act. Officials have been arguing for years to eliminate candycigarettes because of the likelihood that children would eventually move on to the real thing.

A recent poll revealed that 22 percent of current or one-time smokers ate candy cigarettes during their childhood. On the contrary, just 14 percent of non-smokers used the fake cigarettes.

National concern has erupted to prevent the sale and distribution of (for the love of pete!!!) CANDY CIGARETTES, because this behavior could cause them to, let’s repeat again, “move on to the real thing”! WOW!

So in America, as of June 24th, for a 6 YEAR OLD (specifically in Providencetown)…

IT’S ILLEGAL TO EAT CANDY CIGARETTES; BUT HAVE ALL THE CONDOMS YOU WANT!

Candy cigarettes are so subtle and devious to the undermining of the values of a child. Actually what undermines their values is erroneous values that even a 6 year old can see through.

I’ve very thankful that as a child I never had access to condoms… but we did have candy cigarettes!

Korean Peninsula

Donald Rumsfeld’s words, at the unveiling of painting of him at the Pentagon,  were captured :

“Some might ask how our country has endured?  Well, it should be no mystery.  It is because we are a free people, blessed with a free political and a free economic system – Where we are: free to think and act; to believe and protest; to vote and petition; and, yes free to succeed, to fail, and to start again.

“The night satellite image of the Korean Peninsula, my favorite as many of you know well, captured many miles above the earth, tells the whole story.  Below the 38^th parallel, South Korea is bathed in the light of dozens of cities, monuments to that nation’s freedom.  In one of the most successful economies in the world, millions of South Koreans go about their work, creating opportunity and prosperity for themselves and their families. North of the DMZ is darkness.  There live exactly the same people, with the same natural resources.  But those millions of Koreans labor not for themselves or their families, but for a regime that enslaves them.

“The stark difference between the free and the unfree is illuminated in that picture.  The boundless energy of human beings is most assuredly not unleashed by governments of boundless power.  That energy is unleashed only by free political institutions and free economic systems.”

New forms and model are just exactly the same way. Watch this funny video and see if you see your church in it…. GROWTIVATION!

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

I personally love the process of using a fountain pen. They are beautiful instruments of writing that seem to require me to use more concern and deliberation when writing. I own several, a few of which are inexpensive. One is priceless to me.

It was given to me by my Grandmother, Granny Vaughn. I was probably around 10 or 11 at the time, and I thought it was the greatest of gifts. Not only was it from her, but it was a bladder type pen. (If you don’t understand what that means, you are unfortunately ignorant of finer writing instruments.)

What I didn’t know at the time was that the pen was broken. The bladder that held the ink was ruptured and couldn’t be refilled. I couldn’t have cared less. I would dip it into an ink well and write. It was an “old school” pen that looked every bit the part of the 30’s to 50’s before ball point pens invaded the earth. Eventually I found someone to repair the pen and I use it joyfully.

Fountain pens require much more deliberation when writing. If you write too fast the ink smears and you have a mess on the paper and possibly your clothes. It never fails though, whenever I use one, and it doesn’t matter which one I use, I always walk away from writing with ink on my hands, and sometimes on my clothes. People make jokes about it, but I love it. It shows me that I was writing, and that is something that gives me joy. The power of creation is in my hand when I have a fountain pen… deliberate creation.

I use a computer to write also, and am doing so now. I don’t enjoy the process nearly as much. I do enjoy auto-correction of errors, but in signing documents, or writing a personal note, nothing beats a fountain pen.

Although, it’s a requirement of the times to use a computer keyboard for sending an electronic document, or upload a blog post, I want to give a few reasons why you too should switch to using a fountain pen as opposed to a ball point pen (even though ball point pens, are cheaper, quicker, cleaner, and safer):

1. Ball points and computers are not as pure as the foundational writing implements that have been used for centuries.
2. Your Great-grandparents used fountain pens, and you should honor their heritage by using one.
3. The early documents of the United States Government were written with quill type fountain pens. If it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for you.

Those three arguments are the same basic arguments that have been given for any change that comes around to society.

Could you imagine me requiring my children to use the pens of my grand-parents (their great-grand-parents)? That is however what we do with aspects of life that we personally do not gravitate towards.  We create reasons why society and others should stay with our preconceived notions.

If you use a fountain pen, use it for your pleasure, but not as a precondition of the acceptance of someone else.

Personally, I’ll always use a fountain pen when given the option to write a note of love to someone; but if placed in a situation, I’ll use any pen available to write the message that God loves them; Christ died for them; and I love them.

People don’t care what instrument was used to write or share that message with them… they just want the message shared!