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Time for a Presidential survey

This past week I made the hard decision to have my car’s very expensive leaky/broken convertible top replaced. It didn’t make me happy. But the experience I went through with the dealership (I was forced to go to) made all the difference in the world. They took a lot of the pain away.

Then a day later I received a phone call from a very polite woman asking me kindly for a few minutes to answer 5 quick questions about my experience.

The questions were about the service, fulfillment of commitments and treatment I received from those who helped me get a very difficult job done.

Have you noticed that everybody you buy from wants a survey? Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Hotels retail stores like Macy’s. They all do. And why? because they care how well they’re doing and they want to improve their service so you and others will come back.

I see our government in a similar way. There are many things we depend on our Government for and because we have no choice, in a way, we’re forced to go to them. And you know what? I think our government should provide its citizens a list of survey questions we can answer, regarding the services received, from the President on down.

Voting is still important of course, but after the person wins all the votes and has a chance to do what we hire him to do, based on his promises,  we need to be given the opportunity to answer some  survey questions on how we think his or her performance was. Then, when and if they seek reelection we go back to the surveys and see if they are even qualified to run again. I say, if they score an average of 75% of better, let them try to get our votes again. But if they average less than 75% voter satisfaction its back to the private sector.

I think the survey should go something like this.

  1. On a scale of 1-10, one being very dissatisfied and ten being extremely satisfied how would you rate the fulfillment of the campaign promises?
  2. On a scale of 1-10, one being very dissatisfied and ten being extremely satisfied how would rate their ability to work with others to get important legislation done?
  3. On a scale of 1-10, one being very dissatisfied and ten being extremely satisfied how would rate the number of times your representative conducted town hall meetings to find out the constituency’s thoughts and feelings on an important vote?
  4. On a scale of 1-10, one being very dissatisfied and ten being extremely satisfied how was the over all conduct  of your politician?
  5. On a scale of 1-10 one being very dissatisfied and 10 being extremely satisfied how consistently did your represented uphold the constitution and laws of our nation or states as they swore to in their oath of office?

That’s all. A simple 5 quick questions. I betcha GM does it, Ford does it, your insurance company does it. All those organizations that feel YOU the CUSTOMER are important do it. So why not the citizen who is at the mercy of the politician who simply enjoys politics for the fulfillment of community service it provides or those who do it just for the prestige, power and perks. Let us, the American people “customers” see if they care enough about the citizenry to risk having an opinion or “customer/citizen” satisfaction survey done on them to determine whether they are even qualified to run for office second time.

Please Like and Share if you agree

And that’s A Christian American Opinion.

Mark


Dad, he’s peeing in the kitchen!

So me and the wife decide we need someone to manage our household affairs. After interviewing several choices, we vote as a family. My wife and kids win because they like this guy’s endearing personality. I go along because the  guy  promises to change things in a very positive way. He even gets an award for his recent performances. Well we’re all excited until one day, soon after voting him into our home, I caught him peeing in my kitchen. I brought this up to my wife and kids but they excused it saying that I was  just being unfair. They said it was only because I didn’t vote for him in the first place. Well this goes on and every so often I catch this guy peeing in my kitchen. I got so upset I told some of my neighbors and they just shrugged it off and said I was being too critical.

The next thing I find out is that instead of going through our established household channels, like asking my wife or my permission, he starts taking cash right from our “vacation money” drawer and gives it to our kids; as special gifts for favors! Well now I’m really pee o’d. I can’t take this anymore. But when I talk about it, display any angst or complain I’m laughed at and criticized.

Well let me ask YOU! If this was your house and this was happening to the family you loved and the home you respected. What would you do? Just sit in your arm-chair and let it happen or get off your duff and do something about it. Oh, you might say house managers are all the same no sense getting all excited . Things will eventually be ok. Well that might eventually be so, but what does that say about your self respect or for your house and your family for that matter! I dare say one could accuse you of being derelict as a husband and a father.

Not this American. You disrespect my house and my family you are out on your ears. So come November 6th 2012 what are you going to do. Sit at home in your apathetic loving arm-chair and continue to let the disrespect continue in OUR House or will you at least grow a little courage and say something. I for one am tired of the stink in the kitchen.

And this is a Christian American Opinion,

Please  don’t be in dereliction of your citizen’s duty, vote anti-socialist!

Mark


Katie, bar the door and Annie, get your gun

I’m a pretty level-headed guy. I consider myself open-minded and strive to see things from different perspectives (eventually) both agreeable and disagreeable. This past weekend was a real challenge. Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as his VP running mate. The MSM was on fire from the left. Instead of discussing the attributes and known facts about Paul Ryan all the liberals could do was attack. Some of their attacks were countered with comparisons about President Obama’s policies and programs and their similarities. But the libs could not answer any questions that might shed a bad light on their messiah. Then after I had my fill of the morning shows I went to twitter and Facebook to see how things were trending. It was obvious to me that the liberal comments vs the conservative ones made me feel as though we were watching two different morning programs. I am convinced the Liberals on the left are incapable of having an honest intellectual debate on facts. Liberals are mostly emotionally driven and since the ends justify the means the facts mean nothing. This is a dangerous place to exist politically speaking because every time a despotic dictator takes over a population they do it through twisting facts to paint an emotional picture that panders to the ideology of their followers. So I’ve come to the decision that I will only debate a liberal if they are willing to accept negative facts that represent their side of an issue. If not than it’s war and Katie, bar the door and Annie get your gun!

So for now that’s an American Christian Opinion

Mark


Sunday Sunday, so good to me!

As a child, Sundays were a very special day. The memories are so vivid. Of all the wonderful memories that have been retained I must say they fell on a Sunday. They were a Church day on stage as a Catholic alter boy for the first time, a dress-up day for Easter Sunday with a new suit, a family day with all the relatives I hadn’t seen in a year, a big food day with my Italian Grandmother’s 7 course meal from soup to nuts, a sports day hitting an infield  grand slam homer to win the division championship, a Good Humor Ice Cream day while sitting on our front porch and hearing the bells ringing from down the street, a Wonderful World of Disney,  Lassie and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom day until it was time for bed! The only negative at all was that the next day was Monday. These positive emotional experiences travel through time. Especially since the most exciting Sunday ever was an eternal one, the day our Lord and Savior rose from the grave and proclaimed the unrighteous righteous. Now that’s a Sunday worth reliving. Sundays are a perfect example of an “Abundant Life” the Lord wants us to live in this world (John 10:10). I suspect we could watch Football on the NFL channel,  reruns of Wild Kingdom and Disney, eat big dinners every day and fill up on Good Humor ice cream till our belts became too tight. But I don’t think we’d experience the same satisfaction, do you? There may only be one way, and that is, to make every day Church day by spending time with Jesus.

So today as you get home from church, just in time to watch the wrap up of the olympics, right before you sit down to your big Sunday dinner or when you finish the day with a big bowl of your favorite ice cream, think about past Sundays. Let’s think about making a plan for the coming week, how we can keep Him a part of it.  Then we can live the abundant life He wants us to live. And if we can,  make every day a Sunday.

Now that’s A Christian American Opinion

Mark


Fumigate and Disinfect the Office

There are so many admirable aspects of Mitt Romney’s persona and character that go unnoticed via the media. Aside from their deliberate attempt to smear and defame him through slander and libel, they don’t take notice that he has been the leader of a 2 huge companies for many years and has dealt with many critical issues as a leader that Obama only reads about (if he does that). But these attributes do not come across well on TV. I’ll tell you why. He’s not a celebrity.

For 16 years I worked for what may have been the most successful homebuilder in America from the 1950s through 2005. I had the opportunity on occasion to meet and talk with its CEO, CFO and President. The kind of people who make it to those levels of leadership are unique. They don’t play well on prime time TV. They have a bland personality with a global view of an organization’s functions and goals that are very different from a manager or director’s. And certainly miles away from a community organizer.

I see our new Conservative Republican team as a breath of fresh air. A demonstrative step back to sanity and the way our government was supposed to be led. The contrast between the two teams is like night and day. In January  the office of the President will get fumigated, disinfected and squeaky clean again with all that Chicago corruption and slime scrubbed away. It hasn’t been that clean for too long a time.

A new movie, 2016 is being released this week. I strongly recommend you see it. It details Barak Hussein Obama’s past, present and possible future. It shows the powers that control his convictions and policies, his corruption and how his future plans are clearly unAmerican. We’ve seen the influences  that are from this country and that they are from the most depraved sources i.e. Rev Jerimiah Wright, George Soros, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezco.

The Office of the President of the United States of America is an honored office. The past two Democrat occupiers have not honored its halls. They represent the two  most radical expressions to come out of the debauched 1960s. Sexual promiscuity and anti-American sentiment.  So now we have a choice to repent and maybe get things going in the right direction. It’s up to us, the voter, and not only our vote but the ones we can influence from the streets of ignorance and unpolitical obscurity. We need to do it for our children and our children’s children and also for the world.

Won’t it be great to feel clean again. I feel like our country hasn’t taken a shower in 4 years. Imagine  bringing back honesty and integrity and civility and prosperity and Christianity. Wow. Time to fumigate and disinfect Washington DC. That’s this Christian American’s Opinion. Share yours.

Mark


HOT TOPIC SEX, Intimacy or Love?

With the Chick-fil-a discussion only a week behind us, I’ve had time to think and pray about the arguments and attacks from the left and the homosexual community. My wife Jan and I were doing our morning bible reading in I Corinthians 13, the love chapter, and it became very clear that what is being described as love by those who disagree with chick-fil-a isn’t love at all. Take the time to run through this short list of examples.

Love is patient and kind:

Love is not jealous

Love does not brag

Love is not proud

Love is not rude

Love is not selfish

Love cannot be made angry easily

Love does not remember wrongs done against it

Love is never happy when others do wrong, but it is always happy with the truth

Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits

Love will never end

In society most think love is a fireworks display of emotions, a gushy mushy feeling or an erotic tingle or physical reaction. But the truth is that those experiences couldn’t be farther from the truth. True love is a spiritual experience because God IS love and those who truly love must have a spiritual relationship with their partner and with God. Real love, I mean to actually love someone or be loving does not come  easily.  Now you might say I have some friends that are very much “in love” and they are atheists or homosexuals. Well I challenge that definition of their relationship. They may have an intimate relationship or a compatible emotional or  physical relationship but that’s it. Making more of it is a presumption. I will go as far as to say many marriages that may be Christian and heterosexual may not be love based either. To be a loving person takes Grace, God’s grace, and this one thing I know for sure is that the LGBT lifestyle is not sanctioned by MY God, the REAL living died for sinners God. And that’s A Christian American Opinion.

1 Corinthians 6:9
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals.

So you decide. Is it Sex, Intimacy  or Love

Mark


Out and Out-liars

What is an Outlier? A person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system.

These days our Main Stream Media does not stand out as detached from the system. They are all complicit with the liberal democrat politicians and are moving in the opposite direction of a true outlier. So I’m calling them Out-liars instead, and for good reason.

Gallup Polls show that most Americans do not have confidence in the main stream media “to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly”. In 2011 a 60% majority reported a perception of media bias, with 47% saying mass media was too liberal, 13% too conservative. According to Gallup, in every year since 2002 more Americans think the media show liberal bias than think the media show conservative bias. Wikipedia

EXAMPLE: Media Manipulation. Turning the Victim into the Aggressor

Yesterday, while at my local pharmacy, I happened to catch CNN on the TV monitor in the waiting room. The show was Wolf Blitzer‘s Situation room. He was interviewing CNN political contributors Mary Matalin along with Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons. The debate was mostly about which campaign was raising the most money. The conclusion was  that Romney was winning. Since this didn’t sit well with the lefties they shifted the topic to what they described as Romney’s war on women. (Romney’s war on women? Jeeezzzz)

But before they made a full turn into this illogical topic I heard the most blatant admission to media bias I have ever heard and it came from Jamal Simmons the Democratic strategist and defended by Blitzer (through his silence) when he said, and I am quoting from the transcripts:

 SIMMONS: If they (the democrats) get outspent in cash, at the end of this campaign, it’s going to put them in a bad spot when it comes time to communicate with the voters. The one good spot though is in a presidential race, media like this, CNN, all the television networks. All of the newspapers, they’ll have a much bigger impact (for the democrats and Obama) than campaign advertisement. So that maybe the only silver lining here, but Democrats have got to raise more money.”

Next on the show we get a full  illustration of the bias and manipulation!

BLITZER: They certainly do if they’re going to compete. Three months to go exactly, Mary. You know, look at the new ad that the Obama campaign just put out going after Mitt Romney on the issue of women. Listen to this. (BEGIN CLIP OF ANTI ROMNEY AD see TRANSCRIPT)

The show continues with a full anti-Romney ad, free of charge from CNN! No anti-Obama ad from the Romney side (of course) to balance things out.

Now this show is at the 4-6pm news hour. It’s a NEWS network that is biased toward the political/spiritual left  and is broadcast at all the airports, restaurants, bars and most public places in prime time,and biased  with impunity! I feel like I’m in the move “They Live” and the only person in the room with the special sun glasses that allows me to see the truth about them!

So take a stand and be vocal to all your friends and neighbors. You know, the decent folks in our lives that believe in fair play. Maybe if enough of us demand a stop to the liberal biased monopoly in the most powerful industry on the planet we just might get something done. But be careful, don’t let anyone dare try and compare their liberal onslaught to AM radio as an example of balance, how ridiculous. Like, who except radical right-wing conservatives like me or someone stuck in 1950,listens to AM radio. I bet most people don’t think AM radio is  even around anymore. No, its the Out and Out-Liars on TV that are influencing impressionable people these days. DON’T BE FOOLED!!!!

Put your special glasses on!

Mark


A Vacation Package Chapter 10

Our journey picked up after we dried off. We drove until dark. He apparently knew exactly where we were headed, though this was new territory for me. I just remember a lot of trees and winding roads. We eventually made it to a parking area that was only lit by the car’s headlights. There was a sign posted, “north ridge 9100 ft.” We shined the car lights over to an area around 150 feet from where we parked. There was a split-rail fence and a ledge that appeared wide enough to camp on.

My driver grabbed his stuff from the trunk including a small flashlight and we began to walk. The ledge overlooked nothing that could be seen from our vantage point but pitch black on a moonless night. There was an eerie cavernous dirge of a wind blowing through what seemed to be pine trees located near the precipice of the abyss. The ledge that we laid our sleeping bags on was slanted oh so slightly but comfortable enough. This was a ghostly feeling. The wind and the dark and the cold and also the unknown…what was out there? Why was there such a deep howling like I had never heard? The stars were bright but not enough to light anything more than the bit of black around them.

The wind was continuous, but we eventually drifted off to sleep. I slept well, considering the conditions, a light sleep though. The events that followed were normal at first but eventually became most incredible. My eyes peaked from behind my lids as the sun began to rise. The wind was still whistling through the pines, though not with as much a lamentation as the night before. The ever so faint sign of the dawn reflecting against what seemed to be something faintly orange got my keen attention. I couldn’t quite make out what I was beginning to see; but it became ever so clear in an instant. As the sun continued to rise behind me the reflection of a vast chasm wall continued to grow wider and deeper every second. Oranges, yellows and reds of every shade were being unveiled, thousands of feet above the canyon floor. I was totally mesmerized, my eyes glued to its magnificence, astounded beyond any wonder I had ever, ever experienced. The Grand Canyon was indeed grand, grander than I could have ever imagined. I was awestruck. I can only strain for the words to paint such an incredible scene. It was bigger than life itself.

This is an excerpt from my new book Seeking God, Searching for a Daughter

The  true story or my 20,000 mile trek by  faith and thumb across America in search of my girlfriend who I believed was carrying my yet to be born daughter Trinity.


Flesh and Blood

For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood (contending with only physical opponents), but against the despotisms, against the powers, against (the master spirits who are) the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere. Ephesians 6:12 (AMP)

OK…put up your dukes. That was the challenge I remember back in the “old” days. The days when Godly correctness ruled our society and before political correctness ran amuck. Back in the days when boys became men by standing against their aggressor or the playground  bully. Fighting used to be considered socially acceptable  behavior as a gauntlet to manhood. Back in Passaic New Jersey, a small industrial town 15 minutes from New York City, fighting was a way of life but through no choice of my own. Some days I would have to literally fight my way down the block to get to my paper route. And I did not like it. I was afraid of fighting. So why did all the bullies, and there were many, always pick on me? I guess now it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I never ran or backed down from a fight. I had my honor, more that a bloody nose, to protect.

Not so much anymore. Our current left of center society wants nothing more but to negotiate and compromise with the bullies so everyone will like them. But who are the real bullies we’re fighting these days? The Bible says it’s “the world rulers of this present darknes, against the spiritual forces of wickedness”. So if you believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and have a passion to defend yourself against the bullies of this age, you must take the apostle Paul seriously. If a person or politician is not for Jesus Christ and His ways, he is against Him. And if he is against Him he is on the side of spiritual wickedness. Therefore, are we to back down from the bullies, seek compromise or take a stand against them?

Many will defend compromise and say we only want a fair or “balanced” amount of Jesus. I say there can be no compromise. It is either all or none of Him. Love the person but seek no compromise with the rulers of this present darkness that control them.

If you value your honor and character, more than a bloody nose, or better yet, if you love Christ more than life itself, there is only one answer. Take on the whole armor of Christ and put up your dukes.

Have a Christ filled Sunday,

Mark


Surreal Saturday

It’s a great morning in sunny south florida. I will take a short break from the olympics and spend some quality time enjoying our great outdoors. We have to wash Booda our English Bulldog and maybe take a walk to the Peace River. Here’s a picture of what that might look like.  Jan’s an animal rehabber and we get several litters of raccoons every year. This is probably DJ our foot sucker (see http://youtu.be/qxyuNq5MT0Q ).

I’ve already started my day on Facebook with an attack by an angry bitter homosexual who thinks Christianity was no better than Islam. He had some historical examples of Church Government brutality that were indisputable. All I could do was share the truth.

Jesus Christ is God..the only God. His Love for me and you led him to be brutally beat and nailed on a cross for our sin so we could have life, eternal life. That’s the bottom line. Any other religion or church teaching is man’s pride or erroneous interpretation of God’s will for us and it’s wrong. I will not pander to your mockery due to your bitterness towards the actions of others. Many people have done things in the name of Christianity with disregard for Christ and his teachings. But that doesn’t diminish His truth and teachings. If I hurt someone in your name I don’t think you would believe you were responsible. In the same way give Jesus Christ a chance based on His own merit. Take the time to read the New Testament and receive His gift of eternal life. Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are we saved through faith, and not of ourselves, it is the GIFT of God, not of works lest any man can boast.

Have a Surreal Saturday Ya’ll!!!

Mark

Walk to the Peace River

Here’s our brood…at least part.