Alternate Titles for 'Jesus for President'

I've been trudging my way through Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw's manifesto "Jesus For President" and thought I should share some of the rejected titles for this book, most are actually better than the title they ended up chosing.

Jesus for General Secretary

The Hipster's Guide to Heresy

The Gospel of Marx

The Idiots Guide to Creating a Church Split

Gandi for President

Capitalism is Evil: For $16.99 I'll Tell You Why

How to Shun Friends and Condescend People

The Jubilee Book: Every 7th Copy is Free!

Obama for President

Pictures For My Heart

Every day on my way to work I drive a back way that has me driving past a building with the word ‘Family Planning’ posted outside, so I could be wrong, but I assume this is our local abortion clinic. Very often I think about this building and I am glad to rarely see a vehicle in its lot. Thursday was the first day I actually saw a person in the parking lot and it was one of those images that gets etched into your brain. She was a slender African American lady, who was wearing blue medical garb, so I assumed she was a doctor or a nurse, and she was walking into the building with her head hung so low that it made me feel her hurt. It made me wonder what she was thinking, what she was feeling, where she was at in her life. I don’t know her name and I don’t know her story, but I can pray for her when I drive by and think about the clinic.

This image reminded me of other images that have been impressed on me, like the four year old child quietly waiting on the backside of an upscale Vancouver hotel for dad who I then realized was searching for their dinner in the hotel’s dumpster.

The older lady who gave me money while doing a panhandling experience on the streets of Toronto. She looked so needy herself, why did I need her money? Her generosity broke me.

The sorrow in my seventh grade classmate’s eyes when she was caught cheating in front of a whole class, a class that already didn’t have fond feelings for her. I wish I could have been a bigger person back then… I hope that I could be a bigger person now.

The embarrassment in a 12 year old boy’s face at his first time at a youth camp in Ohio when he was being harassed for the smell emanating from his bunk; it turned out that his younger brother had used the sleeping bag at a previous camp and had urinated in the bag without anyone catching it before sending it back to camp with his brother. The stench was horrific from across the room, let along what it would have been like sleeping inside the bag. After some complications and the bag inducing vomiting multiple times, the bag was able to be cleaned; incidentally the paid staff counselors stopped harassing the 12 year old for the smell.

There have been a lot of images, good and sad, these were just a few reality moments that God has allowed me to be a part so far. I hope that He continues to minister to me through His world around me, both right away and sometimes touching my heart years later.

Myth: Most Americans do not have Health Care

This is a segment of a post that I originally wrote in January 2006 regarding Misconceptions that Canadians about the US. I thought it was relevant to current political issues:

Myth: Most Americans do not have Health Care

In 2004 the percentage of Americans covered by some sort of Health Insurance was 84.3%. This means that about 46 million Americans had no health insurance at for all or at least part of the year. Here is the age breakdown from the 2004 statistics of Americans covered by Health Insurance:


17 or under 88.8%

18-24 68.6%

25-34 74.1%

35-44 81.3%

45-64 85.7%

64 or older 99.2%

I have a few numbers that need to be pointed out about the 46 million people, keep in mind several of these number overlap, but that does not defeat any of these thoughts:

1. Over 14 million of these people earned more than $50,000 and either chose not to take Medical Insurance so they could pocket more income (something that I probably would do if I were single) or they were temporarily not covered because they were in between jobs.

2. About 11.8 million people are immigrants to the US and chose to move here. They may have come from a country that had no Health Care at all. Side note: when my wife and I moved to Canada, we had no Health Insurance coverage either, because we had recently moved and were in-between jobs.

3. Over 30 million of the people without Health coverage live in the Southern or Western parts of the United States. There is a noticeable percentage difference (West = 17.6%, South = 18%, Northeast = 12.9% and Midwest = 12%) between different regions of this country. There are many options involved with choosing employment, like Full time VS part-time, educational requirements, Salary package and location. A day has come where mobility comes with the territory for job seekers. Some people may need to move states or even regions to find jobs that meet there expectations and needs.

4. Over 8 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 do not have Medical Coverage. This is by far the largest group of uninsured Americans based on percentage. Many of these people have recently left their parents insurance plans and many of them are still students, either way, this is by far the age group with the lowest need for medical insurance. A few exceptions are pregnant mothers or the severely handicapped; both of these groups would qualify for plenty of government assistance.

One of the most important things to understand is that anyone that even goes a few weeks between jobs or between insurance companies or even after graduation from High School or college without insurance is counted in this 46 million people as well as everyone in their family. That exact figure is not published by the US Census Bureau, but some have estimated as high as 50% of the people without insurance fall into this category. Of the 46 million people many were still eligible for government assistance, Veterans Affairs help, assistance from State governments and then help from many other privately funded programs. Health insurance is available, I will not say that it is affordable, because neither is Malpractice insurance, which is an expense that trickles down to the patient and raises the cost of Medical insurance every year. Many Americans can be insured but chose not to be and that is their right, can a Canadian chose not to be on the Universal Health Insurance and be reimbursed their share of the cost? Probably not.

Appreciation for Diversity

So the whole Britain's Got Talent phenomenon has gotten pretty big on this side of the pond this year, so I thought that I'd watch a few of the videos tonight to see what the fuss was about. I have to let you know that I was was pretty impressed with the group that won, Diversity, is amazing. See for yourself:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkLhkeD2Z_A

Why Not Waterboard?

A great big round of applause for the Obama Administration for making the lives of Coalition Soldiers and Iraqi citizens less important than taking advantage of an enemy combatant's fear of drowning.

Obama's rush to appease his constituents will inevitably be realized as a big mistake; unfortunately, these people believe that stopping waterboarding, and other effective interrogation methods, will actually make a terrorist less irritable and cause him to put down his IEDs and a eventually him and his wife will host Obama fundraising dinners.

How asinine is it to think that the CIA would waste their time, skills, and personnel with waterboarding if it didn't work? They are trying to protect our soldiers, to protect us, and also protect other innocent peoples throughout this world.

Instead of eliminating waterboarding, I would propose allowing the CIA (or the FBI) to start waterboarding domestic terrorists, and while they are at it waterboard kidnappers, murders or anyone refusing to volunteer information about these types of major crimes when they have information need to save people or to prevent further crimes.

Why are these people's comfort more important than the lives of the innocent people?

Counting with Abel

Abel and I got to spend the day together on Saturday while the ladies were at a baby shower. We had some fun with the camera, here is one of the videos we made.

Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job?

This was a question in a National Post editorial today about President Obama's Homeland Security chief after she blamed Canada some involvement in the September 11 attacks in the US. Of course this is not true, just like it wasn't true back in 2001 when it was also proven incorrect. However I would like to address the question which makes up the title of this post...

Napolitano got her job because the US elected an uninformed, inexperienced, and unprepared first term Senator, who had never ran a business, had never been a chief executive in a company or more importantly in politics, nor had he ever served in the US millitary. Obama was elected to serve as the Chief Executive of the US Government and to be the Commander and Chief of the most powerful army in the world (at least it was at the time he took office). Of course he would select Janet Napolitano, what else should we expect from a guy who thinks the US has 57 states?

Obama hired her, not because she has any idea what homeland security is, but because she buys into the liberal/socialist agenda. Yes she has said a stupid thing about Canada, but she is also saying and doing stupid things here in the United States. Case in point, a recent Homeland Security memo that says a lot about what concerns the current administration: http://video1.washingtontimes.com/video/extremismreport.pdf Even if you have already read an article on this DHS memo or have listened to talk radio in the last week, you should still read this article, I was still shocked.

So back to the question: How (did) U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job?

Well, for that I need to give some credit where credit is due, and thank the hundreds of Canadians who "volunteered" their time to come down to the US or made phone calls to help get Barack Obama elected, and have the opportunity to apoint his band of incompetent men and women. Yes, you (70%) wanted him (along with 53% of Americans), and now the fun begins.

Well at least I didn't say "I'm going to move to Canada if Barack Obama wins", and I can move there.