Buffalo Gal

Today was one of the hottest, most miserable humid days of the summer.  So what do I do? Put on my garden clothes (old seersucker pull-on pants, tank top, thin blue denim LONG- sleeved shirt, cold wet bandana hanky around neck, my mosquito hood, and my old shoes and head for the Pumpkin Patch in this dastardly heat about 2 p.m.     Yes, I am slightly crazy…you are correct.    I had to put some marker stakes by the plant roots so that a neighbor can do some watering for me while I am away for a few days…so it had to be done today.   While I had "the outfit" on, I decided to pull some nasty weeds that have been growing next to the tomato cages .  More bending, sweating uncontrollably, more courting of a heat stroke.  

The Pumpkin Patch is glorious!  All my careful cultivating of these exotic plants; all the laying of black garden cloth to prevent weeds;  all my faithful watering of the plant roots….the vines are de-VINE!!!   There are big yellow blooms and little green pumpkins.  I also put in 2 hills of northern variety cantaloupe and those vines are going crazy in the intense heat of the summer.  They are loaded with blossoms and bees.   I have spotted many little green melons growing also.  It is almost worth it to get heat prostration see the beautiful vine-yarden on the far north side of my biggest garden bed.    I actually felt dizzy and faint when I came inside and it was a bit scary because I never feel that way ever.  I have to chalk it up to the extreme heat and humidity, working a little too hard in that blast furnace heat and not having enough water in my system.

Today when I came inside I took a long cooling shower and drank a lot of water as I felt dehydrated after a morning of drinking coffee with my best friend at a new coffee shop in Detroit Lakes….get this name for the business:  "Brewed Awakening".  It is a delightful shop with big black and white classic tiles on the floor and delicious coffee flavors, nice baked goods, a lunch menu and other good things to go with the coffee.  It is about 3 doors south of the old Gopher Grill on  Washington Avenue.  How did I get so "off" the subject?  Oh yes—dehydrated—-coffee does that and so do Doritos.  When I stopped at the Wally-World store on my way home, I had a Doritos attack and bought a 2- for- 2 dollar deal and ate a whole bag of Doritos on the way home.  I was pretty dried out by the time I hit the Pumpkin Patch.

My pumpkins are of the exotic variety.  I planted 2 hills of Lumina (white) 2 hills of "Once In A Blue Moon" (greenish-blue skin) and 2 hills of "Jack Be Little" (mini orange pumpkins).  I am anticipating a bumper crop and can line the entire driveway with my strange pumpkins come fall.

But I need to lie down and get over my near-heatstroke and hope that tomorrow I will be sensible and not go out in the sun again like I did today.  Some people (me) are just slow learners in the heat of the summertime.  I know there is some famous adage about "mad dogs and Englishmen" going out in the hot sun and getting their brains fried.  That was me today.

The monthly issue of DAKOTA BEACON arrived yesterday and as always I make a lunge for the interesting journal that comes out of Bismarck ND.  It’s subtitle is "a journal of politics, economics, science and culture."    It should also include "education"  because there is always at least one good article about education in ND or elsewhere, written by an English teacher at Bismarck College.

The article that caught my eye immediately this month was titled "The Wussification of America" by Dennis Patrick of Stanley ND, a retired military officer plus a degree holder in political science from Colorado State University.  Mr. Patrick’s thesis says that boys have been systematically been taught NOT to follow their natural masculine traits in favor of "wussification" brought on by the Feminist movement that really started rolling in the 1960s.   A "Wuss" is defined as "an ineffectual weakling".

Mr. Patrick makes a lot of controversial statements in his essay and I am passing along a few of them to you in this blog:

"By design, American young men are losing their masculinity, their sense of manliness.  Men become wusses when they think, act, and feel like women."    Then Mr Patrick goes on to give two examples from recent current events to illustrate this point.  He begins with the horror of the shooting at Virginia Tech last April.  Not one person, male or female, made any attempt to stop the shooter as he sytematically slaughtered 32 students and faculty that day.  The only person who did anything at all was an Israeli-born professor who barred a classroom door enabling his students to jump through a window to safety.  He risked his life and lost it that others might live.   The second example was of an incident on a NWA plane in June 2007 when one of the attendants asked two elderly men for help in subduing two unruly passengers.  One man was a retired police officer and the other was a former marine.  When the retired policeman tried to line up assistance from other male passengers, all the younger men averted their eyes and would not help. 
The two elderly gentlemen succeeded, alone, in restraining the unruly troublemakers,finally getting them into handcuffs.   I suppose an example of "reverse wussification" would be the courageous passengers on the airline flight over Pennsylvania on Sept 11, 2001, led by Todd Beamer, who attacked the hijackers and saved Washington DC from another attack . They all sacrificed their own lives for this purpose and crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania that fateful day.

Another quote from Patrick’s essay says, "Social models devaluing maleness while protraying women more like men are firmly acclaimed…..has anyone seen a TV commercial depicting a woman in a ‘dumb blond’ role?  Belittle a woman in the same manner as men are made to look stupid and inept and watch the fur fly."

And also:   "Even the military is not exempt from wussification.  Change began during the 1970′s with women- in- combat- debate and spread to the 1990s to become a social playground of social experimentation with the pro-homosexual policies of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.  It’s amazing that the military has survived as an effective fighting force."

Part of his conclusion says this:   "Confronting Wussifiers requires parents to stick it in the eye of a culture stacked against boys. Parents must encourage boys to handle anything thrown their way. The boys’ challenge is to make things more orderly, more beautiful, more prosperous.  Boys must be lifted through their testosterone fog and instilled with a sense of of masculine responsbility……Boys are not to abuse, mishandle, abandon, ignore, mistreat or neglect that which for which they are responsible. They must be taught a sense of self-discipline, to behave honorably as if there were no government, court, church or school.  Parents must teach boys to aspire to be providers and defenders of the family.  Boys must not seek to be led by females when their male instincts tell them otherwise."

Patrick also gives recommends book titles that deal with his thesis, one is  a runaway best seller in England right now, THE DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS and also  THE WAR AGAINST BOYS.  He also slyly suggests reading Shakespeare…. if anyone is confused about male/female roles in life! 

(I had to take a whole course in Shakespeare in college for an English major; maybe that is why I was able to mother my sons and have them turn out to be very manly men who are providing for their families!!)

Patrick surely gets his reader to think through some cultural issues that have become ingrained over three decades.

We have just completed a delightful time with second cousins from Norway who came to visit us this past week.  This was the third time we have had visits from relatives from that nation and each visit has been a bonding of friendship and family that will not be broken!! We spend a lot of time talking and laughing and comparing things in our families and our countries.  It made for a most stimulating conversation at all times.  These cousins included a husband and wife and their two children who are 20 and 16 years old.  We were so "taken" with all of them but the two children were notable….not your average young adult whom you expect may be kind of bored with adult conversations.  On the contrary, these kids were eager to converse, they were so gracious and appreciative of everything we did and were genuinely happy to meet  us.   It made for a wonderful interlude in our summer of 2007.   Like the kids we know best, they loved to go outdoors and throw a ball to each other and to anyone else who would do it;  also to lie in the pleasant sunshine we have had the past days and catch a few rays of sun-tanning time.   They never asked to watch TV one time!!!   

We all went to the Street Fair on Thursday.  The cousins were eager to see it and we all enjoyed the very pleasant day on Broadway in Fargo and all of us chose different foods from the well stocked Food Court.  All in all, our visit with our Norwegian cousins was a great pleasure.  They left us and were on the way to Ada MN to see other American relatives; from there they will visit more "family" in Greenbush MN and Minot ND.  The evidence of massive emigration from Norway in the 1800s is evident by the many, many relatives scattered all over the U.S. ….but especially in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Now its "our turn" to vist relatives in Norway and we had a very kind a generous offer from these cousins to use their cabin in the Valdres Valley for as long as we want when we do make a trip to the Mother Country!!!   It is a wonderful gesture and we are thinking most seriously of accepting that kindness and generosity. 

There was a time not too many years ago when one of the big news stories was the migration of "Killer Bees" making their way into the southern part of the United States. 
We have not heard much about that topic recently but a fresh report of the death of 5 teenage girls at Canandaigua, NY has caused another possible "Killer"…..cell phones and text messaging.   The news report about the deaths of the teenagers, all high school graduates this spring, informs us that directly before the fatal crash the driver was sending text messages to someone while driving in the dark on a two lane highway.  She lost control of her SUV and crashed head-on into a huge truck and the SUV with the teenage girls aboard burst into flames killing every one of them.  This may be classified as an "accident" but it was an accident waiting to happen…just as is the case with every driver who is doing something else other than paying total attention to his/her driving and cell phones are one of the biggest distractions we have.    Every time I see a driver with one hand holding a cell phone to his/her ear and "driving"  with the other hand, I breathe a prayer, "Oh God, don’t let me meet that driver somewhere else/don’t let  any of my family meet that driver on the road."    

I do not know what it is going to take to get cell phone usage while driving banned once and for all.  There are too many accidents caused by such behavior.  The ones like the deaths in New York state get widely publicized but what about all the others we do not hear about???

Only a few states have passed laws prohibiting talking on cell phones while driving and I bet there are plenty of law-breakers on that  one.  It appears that talking on cell phones is such a major obsession in today’s culture that a cell phone addict would not be willing to give up their obsessive talking, dialing, text messaging….whatever.

Cell phones are one of the recent examples of a good technology used for really bad reasons.  When they first came out, I thought it was a good way to send an emergency call while driving …if you had some sort of car trouble on the road and needed help.  It never entered my mind that a call would be made while a person was driving…..pull over to the side and make the call was what I envisioned.  Now cell phones are used for the worst of reasons—-mindless yakking because many people cannot stand to be quiet or be in the midst of a quiet situation.  The ringing of cell phones at concerts, in theaters, in churches, in restaurants….is symptomatic of a really thoughtless, shallow segment of society.  People who talk on their cell phones in public places are always LOUD….for god’s sake, do we need to listen to the loud one-sided conversations of the inconsiderate lummoxes who have a great need to trumpet their personal talk to everyone within hearing distance?   It gives me the urge to take a pitcher of ice water and pour it over the head of the Lout doing the public  gabbing via cell phone.   Only badly behaved children whose parents have not a clue that their kids are disturbing everyone in a public venue are as irritating as the slobs who conduct cell phone conversations amidst a crowded restaurant or other public place, inflicting their peevish behavior on their "neighbors".

There are still good uses for the little monsters; I know that parents use a cell phone to contact a child and keep track of what they are doing or the C.P.s are still used in emergencies on the road or elsewhere…but the mindless yakking one sees everyday while driving anywhere is the worst usage of the otherwise useful technology.

I heard a really interesting question posed yesterday.  If poverty is a root cause of crime in this nation, why was there so little of it during the Great Depression in the 1930′s?  I do not know what the statistics show about crime rates during that era nor do I know how badly people were affected by stark poverty (statistically).  I do know what the people of that generation have shared with me and it seems that almost everyone was in dire straits due to the economic crash in 1929 which affected the lives of Americans for the following 10 years or more.  Many people were jobless, homeless, and poverty-stricken for a long time but crime did not run rampant.

There goes another theory of the modern politicians who insist that our high crime rates are related to being poverty stricken.

When I have more time, I think I will look into this topic a bit more.  The question fascinates me.

OK, hang onto your hats!  I read two essays over the weekend that have re-steamed me big time.  It is about our national political situation so if you are totally discouraged with the do-nothing – important status of our national legislators do not read on.  If you are with me about being steamed up about this "yellow streak" national scene,  continue.

The blog title is lifted, word for word, from an essay by Jed Babbin who is the editor of a national online news outlet, HUMAN EVENTS.   His essay concerns the sorry state of our national "leaders" who seem most interested in feathering their own political nests instead of doing what is best for the nation.  I could not agree more after reading numerous news accounts of the events in Washington DC of late, following national news on several TV national Tv outlets and listening to some national radio reports .   We all know that Congress’s approval rating among the American people is lower than a snake’s belly.  The President’s approval rating is very low—–but Congress’s is even lower than GWB’s and that is really low, folks!!!

The new Congressional leadership came in in January 2007 with many promises about ending the war in Iraq and doing other things that would totally change our national scene.  And what have they done so far?   They have fought with each other and done every possible thing to continue their path of undermining every effort of the present adminstration without offering any constructive plan of their own—–which they fooled us into thinking they have!!!!   Their plan consists of the same old thing—constant drumbeats of criticism with no alternatives in sight.  The so called run-up to the 2008 election is also a sorry sight. In the first place what are these "candidates" doing out on the political trail two years before the election?   It is proof-positive that all they really care for is their own agendas and their own hoped-for elevations via election.   The heck with the nation!!!!  I quoted a Mark  Twain remark recently in another thing I wrote, and Twain hits the nail squarely from over a hundred years past:  " We ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse that dictates and compels man’s every act: the imperious necessity of his own approval in every emergency and at all costs."

Underline the part that says "at all costs" !!!!    The selfish motives of Congressional leaders and members is leading to an "at all costs" disaster.   Between squabbling over so called "bills" with all their attachments and selfish pork-barreling, we have not solved any serious national problems like the war in Iraq, the illegal alien invasion which continues full force, or any other important domestic or international needs.

As an example of the foolishness of the present Congress’s non-actions, Babbin lists a timeline of events since January 2007:      1.  January 26:  the Senate confirmed Gen. David Petraeus to be US commander in Iraq by a vote of 81-0. The progress of the Surge in Iraq was to be reported on by September 2007.      2.  By Feb 13, the House was already voting to consider a resolution to disapprove the Surge and the Senate, 4 days later, was voting on the same measure.    3.  March 14:  the Senate was voting on Sen Harry Reid’s legislation to force withdrawal from Iraq by March 2008.     4. April:  Sen. Reid said "the war was lost" and the Surge was a failure.(even though it did not get fully implemented til June 2007)      5. July: Sen. Jim Webb says "I don’t care what the report says in Septmember" and Sen. Reid says "We cannot wait til September."    (quotes from the Babbin essay)   In none of these actions did any member of Congress have the guts to propose cutting off funds for the war they love to hate.  That would be too dangerous to their re-elections if they did such a thing as that which would immediately end the war.  Thier own self-approval trumps all other things….especially the interest of the Nation.

Are we seeing a national Congressional case of extreme Schizophrenia???    To ordinary citizens it looks like a mass attack of mental illness,  the ultra-anxiety/angst to end all anxiety!!!

The Congressional members are terrified.  Anxiety rules them as anti-war howlers and ghosts of defeat from the past haunt their every moment and their every decision.  They are caught in a trap of defeat echoing down from the years when Vietnam was abandoned and a debacle of retreat and disaster unfolded before our wondering eyes as television cameras caught the frantic mess atop the roof of the American embassy as the last Americans escaped from the North Vietnamese takeover of Saigon.  They are scared to death that they will have another debacle on their hands and their records if they summarily end the Iraq war.  They do not have the courage of their so-called convictions to do it for fear they will bear the stigma of losers and defeatists.  Anti-War activist Cindy Sheehan says she will run against Nancy Pelosi in the next California election for House members in that district…now that is a debacle to be watched nationally!!!!

This present Congress seems not to care one whit what happens ultimately in Afghanistan , Iraq, or Iran.  All the posturing being done in the halls of Congress means thing:  that they protect their own personal record and when we are defeated in those places,they will have a reason to blame it on someone else and be able to say "It’s not our fault."  What  an incredible heap of horse manure!

I can remeber a time when our national Congressional leaders actually deserved the title of "Statesmen" but that time is long gone.   We will ultimately pay the price in our nation for the "yellow streak" mentality of our current Congress.   What a waste of time, energy, and brainpower!!! And what an impending disaster looms for our nation if things continue on the present path.

It is July 15 today and I am already saying, "what?  where is July going so fast?"   I said the same thing about June, May, April, March, February…..ad infinitum…..time goes by as quickly as it did when I was fully employed and thought that maybe the perception of time passing would slow down in retirement, but it does not.

I have been on a long ramble this morning without leaving the house, my bed, or my recliner chair.  After some great exertions on the Buffalo Bluff in the past days and weeks, it finally caught up to me and I knew that my body needed to rest today.  I remarked to Buffalo Guy this  morning that if I thought I had to spend the rest of my life suffering the muscle and ligament aches and pains I currently am enduring, I would be discouraged.  Fortunately it still goes away with resting the limbs and other body parts for a day.  Taking an Aleve doesn’t hurt either!!!

The raspeberries have been harvested and are slowing down their production.  The cucumbers and melons and pumpkin vines are covered with blossoms and the bees are here in spite of my earlier worries about their possible absence.  They are pollinating like crazy just like they have been doing for ages and ages.  Thank goodness!   I never realized how much I took honeybees for granted til this summer when we thought they were absent earlier.

As part of my rest therapy today, I wrote two leisurely e- mail letters to two good friends…one retired and one still teaching in our school district.  I love writing letters; it is like talking to them even though I cannot see them very often as we all live in different locations.  I am waiting for the Sunday paper so I can read it and do the crossword puzzle which takes more time than those that appear in the weekly papers.   I bought a big book of puzzles awhile back and worked on them until they got so difficult I could only get about 5-10 answers on each of them…that is a bit too hard and I cannot take the time to look everything up in a crosswork dictionary which I have discovered is not all that helpful a lot of the time.

I have been studying some cookbooks this morning also  and making notes about ingredients and making some menus for  upcoming company this week.   This what it takes to get organized for me…company coming…otherwise the cooking is really casual around here. It has almost like getting ready for a high school graduation and that was a big deal in the days I did them.  Lots of preparations were made and sometimes later, I wondered, what did I do all that work for?   Oh well— it is one good way to get a lot of things done in a house.

The delicious home- brewed, freshly ground coffee, the quiet resting, the ice bag on my sore knee,  the anticipation of a lot of reading….(the 2 Aleve I took)…all are making me feel like I will continue tomorrow and will not feel like I have been "drug through a knothole backwards."   Life is good, as it always is when you look for all the good things that are there—- and there are many good things for which to  be thankful.

Our highways are loaded with road signs….left lane closed, right lane closed, road work ahead,  two-way traffic….we are surely in the season called "construction".   When I was driving home from a shopping trip today, I noticed a sign that must stay up all year but I never noticed it before.  It was just west of Glyndon and it said, "Snow Removal Creates Visibility Hazard".   Hah!  What a good feeling to see that sign in the middle of July.  The way time seems to fly by, it will not be long before we will have to take special note of the sign about watching out for flying snow from snowplows…..but I ruin our summertime!! Never mind!!

The true signs of summer are all around; I also took note of the ripening grain fields which seems to happen just overnight.  The wheat and barley fields are turning that golden-green combination of color that signals harvest not  far away.  Harvest….grain dust and sunsets affected by the stuff in the air at low altitudes.  We get some of our most spectacular sunsets during the days when the combines are rolling and the dust is kicked up into the air. We also get some spectacular moon – rises during the harvest season.     Allergy suffererers do not enjoy harvest at all.  Poor Buffaloguy can hardly stand to be out in it and then shortly thereafter the goldenrod starts to put its pollen into the atmosphere as if the grain dust is not enough to trigger red eyes, sore throats, and near-bronchial attacks.

My Asian lilies—-the most beautiful of blooming plants—are nearly done with their annual extravaganza.  The faithful petunias and zinnias—and my Old Geranium— are holding their own and will—until frost. Purple coneflowers are also coming into bloom.  They are also known as echinacea daisies because their roots are used to make echinacea extract for natural herbal medicines and homeopathic remedies.  I should dig up a few roots and save them to chew on when I get my first fall cold.  Our raspberry patch is on the wane….only 1 empty ice cream bucket got picked yesterday instead of two.  The bumper crop has been frozen and packed away in a big freezer in our basement.  The raspberries will be wonderful in the dark drear days of December.

My wildflowers from the "Hummingbird Mix" I sowed has attracted a lot of little green hummingbirds; they are not the ruby-throats but they are green with white breasts and are regularly visiting my flowers and my new hummingbird feeder with a perch.  The little birds like to sit down and eat!   I had not seen the hummingbirds sit still before but they do.  Someone told me that if you have food for them and live near woods, you will attract hummingbirds.  It is true!  Their nests and their eggs must be so tiny!    When we were in St. Cloud last week, our daughter in law feeds bluebirds and they come to their deck each morning, noon, and night hoping for another dish of meal worms.  They also eat grape jelly for dessert from another plate on the deck. Bluebirds are some of the most beautiful of birds with their blue backs and russet breasts. I saw several colorful finches at the feeding plates in St Cloud also.  At our place, we have seen so many goldfinches this summer.  They used to be the state bird of Minnesota when I was an elementary student.  I remember our fourth grade assignment to make a "Minnesota book" and I particularly enjoyed drawing and coloring the goldfinch sitting on a flowering thistle.

The days are already gettting a bit shorter and that part of full summer is not to my liking; it is inevitable and part of the cycle of seasons but I still do not like the nights getting darker earlier.  I never will—-I am a creature that loves the long days and does not like the short dark days of late fall and early winter.  I better "buck up" as the old folks used to tell us when I was young.  "Bucking up" could solve any pout or snit back then.  I do not think young people today would know what "Buck up" means but I wish they would do it just the same…especially those who are miserably spoiled by the adults in their lives.

"Beans, Beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot, the more you toot, the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal!"           How’s that for a familiar childhood chant right off your best remembered playground???     I learned it when I was in grade school and every time I eat beans I think of it.    The puny bean plants in my garden, which were battered and bruised by the heavy rains of June, have surprisingly began to produce the "musical fruit" in spite of all the weather odds.  The plants were so small that I kind of ignored them thinking it would be a bean bust this summer but Lo and Behold!  a few days ago I saw green and yellow string beans peaking out of the feeble foliage.  I have picked beans twice (it is not a bumper crop) but I have had two meals of beans including a 3-bean salad which I absolutely adore.   I adore it so much that I always eat too much of it, and last night when I slipped under the covers, there was a bit of "musical evidence" of the green, yellow, and kidney beans from my salad at lunch.  The rhyme is too true and it tells it like it is.   I also remember another childhood laugh-producer and I bet you do too:

"Order in the court!  The Judge is eatin’ beans, now he’s in the bathroom, shootin’ submarines!"   I can remember chanting that one with friends and abolutely rolling on the ground with mirth.  What is it about kids?  They love "potty humor" and almost every little kid I have ever known (including myself) goes through that particular state of humor.

Another familiar food rhyme that we chanted, especially in the summertime when we had more of it was:   "Lemonade made in the shade, by an Old Maid, Stirred with a rusty spade, snakes in the bottom but don’t be afraid."   It took me awhile not to think of snakes when I encountered a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade, as a child.  It was the only kind of lemonade that we had then.  I can still see my Mom sqeezing lemons on the old glass juicer that she used, not only for lemonade but for our morning orange juice also.  The fresh ades were the best!  How did we ever arrive at powdered mixes?  They are a lame substitute for the real thing.

A  foody-y tongue-twister I recall, though not all of it, began "Betty Botter got herself a bit of butter, to make a batter but the butter was bitter………….and on it went.  I never could say it all and I still can’t.

I’m sure there are a lot of food chants that I have missed but it was fun to remember the ones about the beans.  Now what makes me remember them?  Am I still stuck in the "potty humor" phase?    I do not even want to think about it.  

 It surely is fun having garden beans again though!

That is the title of a long article in the most recent issue of TIME magazine.  There is an artistic rendition of 3 leading Democratic presidential candidates (Obama, Clinton, Edwards) pictured in front of a stained glass church-ey looking window and all three of them have hands in an attitude of prayer.  The long article goes on to narrate the recent developments in the candidates’ campaigns..the hiring of staff to deal with and promote the concept of their faith notions. 

 It seems those of the Liberal persusasion have finally conceded that they can no longer ignore the idea of personal faith.  They never really have, in reality;    one of the hallmarks of recent presidential campaigns  by Liberals (Gore and Kerry);   Hillary Clinton for Senate as well as other candidates for state and local offices has been the candidates’ appearances in church pulpits—usually in the South, usually in a Baptist church; usually the congregation is primarily made up of Black citizens.   For these Liberals who are most familiarly shouting about the "separation of church and state" I have been greatly confused by their preaching to the choir from church pulpits during campaigns.  The Liberals do it far more often than the Conservatives who have traditionally, made faith based issues a part of their agendas when running for elective offices.

I well remember the stunned response in 2000 when Republican presidential candidates were asked to name the person that had been most influential in their lives.  When Governor George W. Bush named "Jesus Christ" and went on to elaborate on his own faith experience, the audience, the Moderator and the other candidates all looked incredulous as if they could not believe he had said what he said.   It changed the face of political campaigns right then and there.

I have noticed over the past decade (or even less than 10 years) that if one brings up the name of "God" in conversation, it does not cause any consternation;  but, name the name of Jesus—-call Him the Christ, or call Him Savior or Messiah…..and you will be met with a blank stare;  a sneer;  a look of embarassment; or total silence followed by a quick change of subject.  It is interesting that the scripture speaks of this….the violent reaction to the name of Jesus by people who do not want to hear it at all.

Now the political candidates are trying to talk about "faith" without naming Jesus or God and they are having quite a time of it.  Their "faith consultants" are working night and day to try to come up with some way that the candidates can appear "religious" without actually referring to the Diety or to scriptures.   A few smatterings of scripture are allowable in speeches when they are merely vague references…..but do NOT appear to believe what scripture says when campaigning…that will lose you votes!!!

It is getting more and more interesting to watch the "separation of church and state" advocates trying to walk the "faith tightrope" without falling off and taking a bad spill, causing them to lose votes and voters who begin to wonder what kind of hypocrites they really are.   They cannot campaign without that factor, yet  they are so uncomfortable with it and the language they use is getting more and more creative all the time.

The article in TIME for July 12 is most interesting.