Pray Before You VoteWritten by Kathy Simcox
I was hesitant to share these words out of a concern of turning them into a religious sermon or political plight. But then I decided to share them anyway because, thanks to President George W. Bush, I am still free to speak my mind way I choose.I consider myself to be a woman of very strong faith. Being actively involved in a wonderful Lutheran church, I can not think of a better way to spend my Sunday mornings. But despite my religious convictions, I am human, after all, prone to wander, make wrong choices, and be, well, human. But it is my faith that carries me through those oh-too-often human moments in my life. It is that wondrous Amazing Grace that finds me each time I am lost and that same Amazing Grace will eventually carry me home. It is within this strong faith that I find my peace, whether I'm singing with my church choir, kayaking down a lazy river as mist rises from water, hiking alone among sweet-smelling pine trees of some forest, or doing something so simple as playing with my cat Sophie. I look around me and marvel at God's miraculous creations and I realize how fortunate I am to be an American, free to enjoy everything this beautiful life has to offer. As my sense of peace grows, so does my spiritual maturity, again, despite my imperfections. As more years stretch out behind me, more I seem to understand how God works. I don't profess to know how Something, or Someone, so profound as God thinks; no, that is a feat left for academia to ponder. But evidence of how He works can be seen in His people. I don't mean to narrow this down to Christian God; indeed, God of all religions has something special to share with world and all do so in His own unique way. But because I am a Christian, there is, and will be, no other God before me. Which is why I must say this: I do not care what happened on that fateful election night in year 2000. I don't care what was counted, how many times it was counted, what was not counted, or who did counting. By very convictions of my own faith and with every ounce of my heart I believe that God was looking out for America that night. He chose right man at right time. If anyone else had been chosen, it is true that we might not be at war right now. No one likes war, whether they have tremendous responsibility of declaring war or actually fighting in one. It's ugly business. But to not go to war would've been gravest mistake in American history; indeed, in world history. Why? Because it is never a mistake to protect freedoms within God's creation - not just American freedoms, but those of entire world. Regardless of what God a person worships, I guarantee that that God wishes everyone in His creation could praise his name without fear, fear of torture, prison, deadly gases, or even death. Freedom from fear is what this war is all about. And again, thanks to President Bush and our superior military forces, one of world's worst initiators of this fear left his power buried in a little spider hole.
| | You're Fired!Written by Sheldon Reiffenstein
You’re Fired! by Sheldon ReiffensteinThe scene opens in a boardroom with three men, two seated on one side of a large rosewood table, third seated on opposite side facing them. The third man is speaking: "George, Dick, you’ve had four years to run this business - four years! I’m looking at balance sheet, and, frankly, I’m disappointed. Just looking at numbers here freaks me out. When you took over, business had a surplus of $200 billion and today we have a deficit of over $400 billion. Plus you’ve had to layoff about two million people. If I ran a business like this, I’d be bankrupt." "But, Mr. Trump, we did run into some bad times. September 11 cut a large hole in our revenues..." "Yes, George, I know that September 11 was devastating, but it only accounts for about 30% of this deficit. And, in three years you should have been able to pull business out of red. Didn’t you promise that when you put in place those major tax cuts of yours? Weren’t they supposed to have revived business?" "Well, it’s starting to, Mr. Trump. We’ve added almost 700,000 new jobs this year, and unemployment rate is only 5.4%. I think that’s good progress. We’re moving forward and we’re not turning back." "George, don’t try tossing those ridiculous feel-good lines at me. Do I look like an idiot?" "No, Mr. Trump." "Right. So now that we’re clear on that. You made a big hit with employees that day you stood at ‘Ground Zero’ and hollered through that megaphone. Then you bombed Afghanistan. Those were good things. But, George, you’ve lost your focus since then. This Iraq venture, what is it with that?" "He was a threat to free world, Saddam was." "How? He had no WMD, no nuclear program, which you claimed in front of whole world. His army was in disarray, his economy could never have supported any kind of war or invasion of another country. Worst of all he had absolutely no ties to real criminal…you do remember his name don’t you, George?…That Osama guy, guy you threaten to capture dead or alive? Just what happened to him?" "We have men searching for him right now." "How many? A few hundred searching hundreds of thousands of square miles of mountains in Afghanistan. You really think you’re going to find that needle in a haystack with that force? While you’ve got 140,000 troops tied up in this Iraq mess, and for how long? It’s going to be five years or more according to your own reports." "But America is safer, Mr. Trump, with Saddam gone." "How are we safer? You have no proof that Saddam posed any threat to United States. All we have to rely on are your words. A lot of people are looking at mess in Iraq and they don’t seem to trust your word, your simplistic little phrases, so much. How can we believe we’re safer? Osama is still on loose; we know that Al Qaeda ranks are growing; militants are causing terrible havoc in Iraq cities; over 1,000 American soldiers are dead, almost 900 of those since you declared ‘Mission Accomplished’. What was it with that anyway?"
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