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Recently I have wanted to scream from the rooftops on a few topics. I hate to use my Facebook account to share political news. It is more of a fun place where my liberal friends and far right friends can get along and laugh together at my jokes. But recently I have wanted to scream. So today I decided to just blog it.

One. This whole mosque thing has been propped up by the media to create a fight where a fight shouldn’t exist.  When there are strip clubs and McDonald’s restaurants closer to the actual site of ground zero, A Muslim recreation and community center should be preferred.  Calling Al Queda Islam is like assuming Tim McVeigh represents my Christianity. The Christian heritage of this country was born on the shoulders of men seeking religious freedom. Not a Christian state. Muslims, Buddhists, Athiests, and Jews enjoy more freedom here than in any other country of the world. Let’s not embarass ourselves or our history by finding fault with one religion in this country. Peaceful followers of Islam didn’t bring us 9-11 and Southern Baptists didn’t bring us Oklahoma City, lets quit pretending otherwise. Perhaps if those of the Christian faith began to love the men, women and children of Islam like we are called to do, instead of rejecting them in the face of our own teachings, animosity and hatred could make way for communication and peace. Lets try it.

Typos. Recently I have spent some time online searching for a used car. What happened to a little grammar? Craigslist must give English teachers nightmares.

T.V. Loved this season of Friday Night Lights. I look forward to Sunday nights at 10:00 for Mad Men like a fat kid waits for candy. Sons of Anarchy starts soon and I couldn’t be more excited. If there are other shows on t.v. I haven’t noticed outside of the Food Network.

My wife is trusting me alone with our kids for 10 days while she works as a short term missionary spreading the gospel of peace and love to the tribal people of Rwanda. If you are interested in supporting her work there contact me. The boys and I are going to have a little mini man road trip. We are thinking a southeast swing or depending on the weather a midwest jaunt through southern Indiana, Illinois and West Kentucky.

Our kids started public school this week.  For most of America this is a routine that happens like clockwork. In our house, we have chosen to homeschool our children and until this week neither of my boys have been in daycare, preschool or a traditional school. Both are well adjusted, social, smart, athletic and some say good looking and witty. They will be fine. Caleb, age 9, walked into his classroom at open house, put out his hand and said, “Hi, I am Caleb, I am one of your students.” I am a very proud dad today. I am sure both my boys, Andrew age 8 3rd grade, and Caleb, 9 and fifth grade, will surely become class leaders. I am also positive that both boys will honor the investment their mother has made over the last 9 years and will perform studiously.

Jeep. I have been in love with the Jeep CJ/Wrangler since I was a kid. I can’t explain this love affair. I have been actively shopping for a month for a used Jeep Wrangler. I was close to a purchase and my lack of planning allowed it to slip away. I hope to secure a Jeep soon and will retire my 95 Accord, 221k and counting in the near future.

Business is great. People are terrific. Life is wonderful.

One last thing. Tonight I plan to record my first podcast and will post here soon. Its a story, an original, a true story, in the same vain as The Moth.

I read this article today from a blog called Catalyst Space. I could easily identify with the article. Long story. It talked about how Pastors have become Rock Stars. The blog posts says if you are a pastor and you are a rock star you need to change. In short, its not about you. Thats how I feel about worship. I know a guy who used to sell orthopedic shoes, he led worship at my church. I remember two things about him leading worship. First.  He wasn’t entertaining me. He was worshiping the creator of the universe and I was invited along to worship with him. Second. He didn’t seem to notice anything around him, didn’t care how he looked, he simply was worshiping with voice and guitar and we were welcome to sing along with him. That is rare. Unfortunately rare.

Recently I attended a Catholic Mass for a special occasion, a wedding or funeral or something and I left there with a few thoughts about my evangelical..contemporary..protestant way of worship.
First: Catholics have better buildings. Just the architecture lends itself to worship and reverence. A coffee shop with a theater lends itself to community and entertainment.

Second: The Mass we attended had the musicians, aka worship leaders, primarily hidden from view. They were in an orchestra pit of sorts behind the pulpit. Again, the focus was on the cross, the moment, not on who the drummer was, or the shoes the guitarist was wearing.

So my thoughts are this:

What if my church closed the curtains. What if the cross was front and center. What if the music was the same. The vocalists the same. What if the two jumbotron screens displayed the same lyrics, but the band..the worship leaders were hidden behind the cross. What if they were second. What if I was second. Then would the object of our worship be first?

What if.

Perhaps then the music would also be secondary. Then the hymn or Crowder anthem would be less of an issue.
What if.

Perhaps then folks would be more apt to worship in their own way without regard to the 14 faces staring back at them during an intimate moment with God?

What if.

Perhaps the draw to a really nice theater at 9:00 a.m. on  a Sunday morning was worship, not a produced 1 hour 10 minute production that is repeated identically in 11 other locales in the 937?

Disclaimer:

For the last 14 years I have been a Christ Follower. I have worshipped my creator in a tiny 200 year old church with organ and hymns with all 40 members of the congregation. I have worshipped my savior in a park in Miami Florida in a bi lingual service where english was neither of the two languages, I have worshipped the Son of Man in the midst of 7000 others in one of the largest mega churches east of the Mississippi and have worshipped Christ with hundreds in a back ally in Havana. Worship can happen any where, at any time, by anyone who is willing to put themselves second and put the object of their worship first.  The point of this blog post is to simply question whether or not we can find a way to put our focus where it should be with a change of the drapes.

I have come to observe a few things recently while reading my Facebook and Twitter feeds.  The first is that people tell too much. I admit that I fall prey to this phenomenon way too often myself.  In our fish bowl culture of reality t.v. most Facebook and Twitter users use this medium to communicate every one of life’s events to the body public. There are some masters of social media in my sphere of influence who communicate well and provide for a conversation in my feeds and not just a diary dump of days events.

The second phenomenon was reported this week in the New York Daily News. This study researched people’s Twitter feeds to determine the best day of the week. I asked this question, “how could you possibly find that out?” Apparently you can. According to the study:

A study tracking the moods of Twitter users has revealed that people are angrier on Thursdays than any other day of the week.

“We’re not really sure exactly why Thursday, but people’s bad moods build from Monday until then,” said Northeastern University professor Alan Mislove.

“On Friday, it seems people’s moods change and they become happier until Sunday when the cycle starts over.”

Reading the article I learned that the folks at Northeaster University used keyword searches and produced a nifty video showing what they learned.

My point is, no body cares if your having a case of the Monday’s. If people can determine what your best/worst day is from your Facebook or Twitter page, then you are doing it wrong.

I am pretty sure that Facebook is manic. If your status updates have gone all 296 then take a break from Facebook. I have friends who only update their status if their life is perfect or falling apart at the seams. They never share real or helpful information, a music link, a news report, a story talking about a charitable work.  Only “my life is better than your life because my man/woman is better than your man/woman” or the “OMG what am I going to do with my life because .blah blah blah…”. If this is you, terminate your account now. There is room for all of it, lets just avoid the extremes and monotony.

I have to admit, I have a few friends on both Twitter (376 friends) and Facebook (941 friends) that fall into this category. I keep them in my stream only to watch from a safe distance. I am mocking you right now. Its like my own private reality t.v. show. For free.

So keep this in mind, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Plaxo, Youtube, Flickr, any of them, its like having a conversation in real life. I don’t care about your kitten, or your car sucking, or that you hate Thursday’s and can’t wait for Friday’s. Tell me something that will improve our relationship, teach me something, show me something new, give me something to work with besides “cant wait for school to start so I dont kill me kids before Aug 24″ or the dreaded, “8 days til my vacation starts”.

If I am guilty of these, call me out. Last week I did this very thing, in less than 10 minutes I deleted the post and apologized. Please do the same.

K? Thanks. TTYL.

See what I did there..that last line..yea..text lingo..I know..funny.

For the last 5 years I have watched and participated in various levels of local politics. I love politics. I am more right of center, more moderate than far right, and am proud to say I voted for Clinton two times, and ashamed that I never had sense enough to vote for Bush (43).  I had the pleasure to work on campaigns at all levels from Congress to tiny ward seats of city councils. I also spent two years in the trenches working in elections here in Montgomery County.   Here is what I observed in yesterday’s Special Democratic Party Primary for Ohio’s 3rd Congressional District.

1) The voting system worked. There are many complaining that the super vote center system disenfranchised voters. There is no evidence to support that. Both my friend David Esrati and acquaintance Mike Bock make this claim without anything to support their call to arms.  Special elections, even those for Congressional seats covering parts of 4 counties, rarely attract spring primary numbers. Voters are not disenfranchised when all are given equal opportunities to vote. In this election, every voter, all 323,843 of them were invited to vote by mail here in Montgomery County’s portion of the 3rd Congressional district.

The masses were not expected to show up to the vote center. They were expected to vote by mail.  Voting by mail has been advocated by both Esrati and Bock ad nausea. At some point the blame for low turnout has to fall at the feet of an apathetic electorate. Its the job of the parties and candidates to turn out voters, whether at local polls, vote centers or at the mail box. Not the Boards of Elections. The BOE’s job is to facilitate a fair, impartial election serving every registered voter. Yesterday they did that in fine fashion. Kudos to the staff for completing this while many of their co-workers vacationed in the weeks leading up to this important election.

Warren County opened all its regular polling locations in their portion of the 3rd Congressional district and only a fraction of the registered Dems showed up. With all polls open as usual, only 192 Democrats showed up, compared with 1982 back in May. Location had nothing to do with turnout, candidates and timing did. Lets not blame vote centers in Montgomery County when we had a higher turnout than Warren County.

2) Mike and Dave claim a number of 2-3% turnout. This is fuzzy math. Only 30,238 people voted Democratic Ballots in the May 2010 primary in the 3rd Congressional District of Ohio. This is only 27% of the total amount of voters who voted in the March 2008 Democratic Primary. A loss of 73% in two years. Two factors at work here. The first is that picking candidates to lose to Turner isn’t nearly as exciting as picking the next President. The second factor is that the President isn’t polling well and that keeps deflated Democrats home in a summer special election.

The real turnout was about 23% of all “registered” Democrats voted in this special election. That is a more respectable number in my eye. For comparison sake I should mention that the GOP registered voters dropped from roughly 48,000 in March of 2008 to 41,280 in May of 2010. Again showing that elections less than Presidential have lower voter turnout. In total the voter rolls dropped by 10,000 voters between those years in the Montgomery Counties portion of the 3rd Congressional district.

3) Why did Esrati lose? Was it because his voters couldn’t find the polls. No. Should the Board of Elections put signs up at the closed locations. Yes. But did it cost him the election. No. Most campaign managers, consultants, advisers and the like preach that Name recognition is everything. I agree, but  with one caveat. Name ID is only good if the name ID is good. I would suggest to Esrati, Bock and those who are scratching their heads that David Esrati’s name ID has been tainted by repeat losses. Voters don’t vote for losers. Except in the case of Lincoln, no one has lost as many times as Esrati and been able to pull of a win in the end. This is called ballot fatigue. Voters are tired of seeing the Esrati name over and over. One should look to see how many votes he had in 2009 from the 3rd Congressional district portion of Montgomery County. That can explain a small portion of Dave’s drop off in 8 short months. Not too mention that a vote for Dave for City Commission is different than a vote to send a guy to Congress.

This doesn’t mean that David isn’t qualified, able or even the best candidate. This just says that voters see a perennial name and pass it up for something fresh. Most voters have forgotten Fogle’s name and I would guess didn’t associate his name with T.V. in the Dayton market. He too had a failed attempt at a State Rep seat in 2006.

For a full analysis of this race I would wait and see what media was used by the Roberts campaign. When Campaign Finance Filings are complete in the next few weeks we can look at what mail was used, phone or web and see how Roberts picked up half the votes.

Counting the appetite of a 22 year old, the time change and early morning departure that was now 2,400 miles behind me, it was lunch time when the wheels touched down in the middle of the Pacific Northwest at Sea Tac airport. It had been three months since I had interviewed over the phone with my boss to be. The title sounded big, the opportunity sounded bigger, intern US Navy, Department of Morale, Welfare and Recreation, Pacific Beach Facility, Seattle Naval Station. What that meant exactly, I had no idea.

Stepping off the plane I was surprised at the temperature. Growing up in southwest Ohio breathing was especially a healthy thing to do in June. But in Seattle, even downwind from the Tacoma aroma, the air was full of pine, clean, low humidity, the breeze tempered from Lake Washington. This was great. I headed to the baggage claim hoping to find a ride to the beach and my bags simultaneous. Lumbar pack affixed, backback claimed and duffel in hand I began my search. I was hoping for a sign that read “Suddith” but found nothing in the small crowd that was now dispersing.

I called my mother, it had been almost 9 hours since we had last talked. I was alive. Seattle, the airport at least is great. No ride. I will call. Yes. I love you too. Yes I will. Okay. Bye.

After a quick search again I called the Pacific Beach facility. I got a hold of my boss and he apologized and said Harry was on his way. Gray hair, beard, Panama hat, shorts and he’s driving a white Navy van. I was warned that Harry is a bit eccentric but the ride to the beach will be great. I waited. Trying to not look like a disgruntled teen, I placed a Marc Cohn cd into my walkman and settled in for a wait.

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