Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 26, 2013

B4

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 26, 2013 

OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder


STUART Tolchin........On LIFE

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CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Lori Koop

Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Jasmine Kelsey Williams

WHAT’S IN A NAME ANYWAY?

I’M HAVING TROUBLE ADJUSTING

I cannot express how ecstatic 
I was when someone 
gave me a coupon 
for a free donut. Normally, 
I am not overly 
excited about "free."

All I had to do was fill out a little survey online 
and they would send me a code that would guarantee 
me a free donut. In my "daily diary diet," I 
have a whole section devoted to the subject that 
when a forbidden food is free it cancels out all 
calories.

When I first told the Gracious Mistress of the 
Parsonage she looked at me rather strangely and 
said, "Who said that?"

I know we are both getting old but we are not 
that old!

I got close to her, waved my hand so she could 
see me and said, "It's me. I just said it. Can you 
see me now?"

"That is not funny. You know exactly what I 
meant."

My grin drained from my face and I said to her, 
"Well, I said it."

"Did," she said inquisitively, "anybody ever say 
that before you said it?"

My wife has many talents, skills and gifts. It 
would be difficult for me to say which is her best 
gift but at the moment, her greatest skill is backing 
me into a corner. And in a corner I was thus 
backed.

I then had to explain to her, in detail, how this 
was an observation I worked through with much 
research. This is an original with me and I am 
quite proud to be the author.

All she said was, "Huh, that is exactly what I 
thought."

I will go to my grave believing when a donut is 
free it means it is free of calories. Call it what you 
will but free by any other name is still free in my 
personal dictionary.

Getting back to my free donut. I was anxious to 
get to the donut shop, cash in the coupon and enjoy 
a donut. I do not know when the best time to 
eat a donut is, so I just started at my convenience.

I got at the donut shop and walked in and the 
smell was overpowering. Nothing like the smell 
of donuts baking in the oven with a hint of coffee 
brewing in the background. I just stood there 
for a few seconds absorbing the luxury of this 
marvelous atmosphere. It is not often I can enjoy 
such luxuries, especially if my wife knows where 
I am.

When I became adjusted to the ambience, I 
walked up to the counter and presented my coupon 
for a free donut. It was at that moment I saw 
them.

I know I am not the most observant person at 
the circus. Many things get by me without noticing 
them. Sometimes I am just in deep thought 
and not aware of my surroundings. I can relate to 
Walter Mitty in many ways.

There they were, freshly baked Apple Fritters. I 
was stunned. It just never crossed my mind that 
a donut shop would have this kind of delicious 
tidbit. But there they were. Freshly baked and 
staring at me with alluring eyes of desire.

I do not know how much better a day can get 
than this. When I got up this morning, I did not 
realize this would be a wonderful day. There they 
were staring at me and I staring back and immediately 
there was a connection.

Standing in line I could hardly wait for my turn 
to order. I presented my coupon for a free donut 
and the young woman behind the counter said, 
"Which donut can I get for you, sir?"

I savored the moment, licked my drying lips and 
said, "I'll have an Apple Fritter." With that said, I 
sighed a deep sigh of true contentment.

"I'm sorry, sir," the young woman said.

"There is no need to be sorry, young lady," I said 
as cheerfully as I possibly could.

"No, sir, I'm sorry but an Apple Fritter is not a 
donut."

I can take a joke as well as anybody else. In fact, 
I have put forth my share of jokes. However, an 
Apple Fritter is no joking matter.

"Excuse me," I said almost breathlessly.

"An Apple Fritter is not a donut, so what donut 
would you like me to get for you?"

The thought began unfolding in my mind at this 
point that she was not joking. She sincerely believed 
an Apple Fritter was not a donut. I know 
an Apple Fritter is among the Cadillac of donuts 
but in my mind, it is still a donut.

I did not have much opportunity to set this 
young woman straight with one of the great fundamentals 
of life. I had to take one of her "free" 
donuts along with my coffee, go to a corner and 
think about these things. What good is "free" if it 
is not really what you want?

Sometimes people use the word "free" as a device 
to get you to a place where they can sell you 
something else.

The Bible is the only place I will accept a "free" 
offer. One particular verse sets this forth quite 
nicely. "And ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free" (John 8:32 KJV).

This is often used out of context. The truth that 
makes us free indeed is none other than the truth 
about Jesus Christ. He is the only One capable of 
delivering something absolutely free.

 Just after waking 
this morning I, as is 
my custom, turned 
on the morning 
news. There before 
me was this huge 
African-American who was just 
elected Senator of New Jersey. He was 
conducting the first legal same-sex 
marriage in the state of New Jersey. 
The marriage partners were two elderly 
African-American distinguished 
looking gentlemen. At the conclusion 
of the ceremony, Senator Corey Booker 
said “You may kiss the bride” and the 
two men passionately kissed before 
the cameras. Senator Booker, an ex-
footballer in addition to being a Rhodes 
Scholar, said something like’ “I want to 
join in” and enveloped both men in a 
huge embrace.

 My disabled son, hearing the TV, was 
now also watching the news and quite 
reasonably asked if everyone in that 
state had to be gay. What am I saying? 
It seems that there is a great amount of 
behavior that was formerly illegal or at 
least hidden which is now presented as 
absolutely mandatory.

 Does everyone have to be gay 
now? No, I don’t think so, but I 
think the current acceptable political 
viewpoint is that it is not acceptable to 
be uncomfortable with such displays. 
Both my son and I believe that people 
should have the absolute right to be 
with whomever they choose. Of course 
they do, and I am not uncomfortable 
mingling with gay people. Still, I must 
admit that I had trouble adjusting to the 
sight of grown men kissing. .

 I still have not adjusted to the 
presence of tattoos and piercings. I was 
amazed when I first saw the appendages 
of young lawyers covered with tattoos 
while their noses and tongues displayed 
all kinds of piercings. What’s it all 
about? Do parents encourage their 
kids to become tattooed or is it done in 
rebellion? Is it okay to ask people about 
their motivation or is it just none of 
my business. I think that’s part of my 
problem; it’s not okay to ask, but clearly 
people decorate or desecrate themselves 
because they want to be noticed. Don’t 
they?

 Another thing I don’t understand 
is what goes on in fitness centers in 
the name of exercise. I am pretty sure 
that moderate exercise is a good thing 
and I accept the fact that a half hour of 
walking is probably the best exercise 
provided that the rest of your day is not 
completely sedentary. What I observe 
today is not “fitness’ but torture. 
People are pushing themselves beyond 
reasonable limits and I, as usual, don’t 
understand. I used to think that people 
worked out so as to enhance themselves 
as potential mates. Really, I don’t think 
that is the motivation to me. Exercise 
does not seem to be about anything 
interpersonal, but instead seems to be 
about some narcissistic need for self-
acceptance. Maybe there is a secret 
message going around that has notified 
those in the know that being fat is like 
some sort of deadly disease such as 
leprosy, which will require that such 
out-of-shape people be shunned, if not 
completely eliminated.

 I made the above statement as a sort 
of joke but now that I think about it 
all sorts of people, acquaintances but 
almost strangers, will tap me on the 
stomach and ask me when I am going 
to lose some weight. It’s true I have a 
huge stomach and it’s undoubtedly 
contributory to my other medical 
conditions. I’ve made all sorts of 
attempts to lose weight but the excess 
weight remains. I think of it as a 
symptom of Type 2 Diabetes, but maybe 
it’s more of a cause than a symptom. 
The odd thing is that it is now probably 
socially correct to directly comment on 
people’s weight while it is not socially 
acceptable to comment about sex 
practices or body adornments.

 Returning to the subject of Race, which 
is never far away, it was not so long ago 
that African-Americans were seen as 
alien to the entire political process. The 
Recent TV Documentary, Muhammad 
Ali’s greatest fight, very interestingly 
focused on the establishment fear of 
Black People. Obviously things have 
changed - not rapidly enough for 
many people and too rapidly for some. 
Perhaps the underlying motivation 
of the TEA Party is their inability to 
adjust to an America that is no longer 
governed by aged White Heterosexual 
Men. In fact, there is probably some 
realization that one should never even 
mention this inability to adjust to the 
change. During my lifetime, one out 
of every three Jews were murdered. To 
people of my daughter’s generation it 
is somehow bad form to even mention 
this fact. Are these six million deaths 
an inconvenient fact that we should 
just forget about? Change takes place so 
rapidly and historical forgetting occurs, 
but alas, forgetting and ignorance do 
not erase the horrors of our recent 
past and the continuing horrors of our 
present.

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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN


HOWARD Hays As I See It

HOW A LAW BECOMES 
A BILL: 

TEA PARTY CIVICS

The President of the United States signed the Affordable 
Care Act (ACA), also referred to as ObamaCare, on March 
23, 2010. It then became a law. In March 2012, the Supreme 
Court heard a challenge to ObamaCare, National Federation 
of Independent Business v. Sebelius. On June 28, 2012, 
in a 5-4 decision, the court upheld the law. It was deemed 
constitutional by the people whose only function in government 
is to decide what is and what isn't constitutional.

Tea party intellectual Rand Paul wrote an op-ed this June titled: "Obamacare 'is 
still unconstitutional' one year after Supreme Court approval." Which is like saying, 
"Just because it's a force that makes things fall to the earth, doesn't make it 
gravity."

Actually, Rand, it does.

There's an old adage that says it's better to be silent and thought a fool than to open 
your mouth and remove all doubt. Rand Paul is a man of no mystery.

But he's not alone. Tea-guzzling lawmakers still refer to this more-than-three-year-
old law as a bill. Just last month, in September, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) on O'Reilly 
said: "We could have started three two or three weeks ago negotiating parts of the 
ObamaCare bill..." Sen. John Thune (R-SD) said on On The Record: "Well, I don't 
think you can do what they did in the health care bill." Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) on 
CNN's New Day said: "Republicans all are very concerned about the policies that 
are occurring through this health care bill." 

Why this word choice? I may be giving Republicans too much credit by saying it's 
a subtle way of communicating there's still time to stop ObamaCare and that will 
help in fundraising (Ted Cruz raised $1.9 million in the third quarter from his 
Cruz-ade.)

I think they actually just don't know basic civics. They don't want to know basic 
civics. They claim a monopoly on "common sense." And that's whatever their gut 
tells 'em. And their gut tells 'em willful ignorance is what those elitist professorial 
founding fathers would have loved about the tea party. That knowing nothing is a 
virtue if you believe hard enough.

As if this were finger painting instead of governing a nuclear super power.

Case in point: The tea party Republicans planned to shut down the government in 
hopes of killing ObamaCare. Senator Cruz offered some pretzel logic—if you want 
to call it that—in his marathon on-and-on. He remarked: "There are a lot of people 
with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo" right next to his recurring, 
"ObamaCare will hurt you" hook. According to Cruz, ObamaCare is the status quo 
and we have to stop it before it goes into effect.

It hurts, yes...one's head.

So Cruz and his clan shut down the federal government. All but essential personnel. 
Which led to three weeks of tired quips with overused air quotes about Congress 
being "essential." Since the tea party lawmakers can't be bothered to learn 
about the thing they hate (government) and the thing they now work in—tea partiers 
were outraged that the government they shut down, shut down DC monuments. 
Monuments, of, by and ABOUT the gubmint.

Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) who was instrumental in the government being closed 
for WWII vets (and other Americans) famously told a park service employee 
who at that moment for all was an unpaid volunteer, "The Park Service should be 
ashamed of themselves."

What does Rep. Neugebauer know about shame? Yet another desirable quality lost 
to willful ignorance.

Now tea party Republicans are upset because the government is open again, the 
country didn't default on its debts and ObamaCare is still (as it has been for more 
than three years) a law.

The government goes back to being just dysfunctional and the tea party thinks it's 
a loss for them.

Losers indeed.

Tina Dupuy is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist, investigative journalist, 
award-winning writer, stand-up comic, on-air commentator and wedge issue fan. 
Tina can be reached at tinadupuy@yahoo.com.

TINA Dupuy

I’ll say it again - one of the 
first things I turn to in the 
MVN is Greg Welborn’s 
column – because after 
reading his stuff, I want to 
look into it.

Last week, he wrote, “a 
small group of politicians 
will be selected to negotiate 
a broader-scope deal, but we’ve already 
had one of those – The Simpson Bowles Commission 
– but its very reasonable recommendations 
were pronounced DOA by the White 
House”. I hadn’t thought much about Simpson-
Bowles lately, so I thought I’d look into it.

 President Obama and Vice-President Biden 
actually got a lot of flak from progressives 
during the 2012 campaign for having endorsed 
Simpson-Bowles. The original 2010 
proposal envisioned Congress giving an up-
or-down vote on its recommendations. That 
idea was nixed when Senate Republicans 
who’d initially supported the proposal ended 
up voting against it. Co-Chairman former 
Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) complained they 
did so for no reason other than “to stick it to 
the president”.

 There was never an official Simpson-Bowles 
“report”, as it didn’t get the required support 
of 14 of the 18 commission members. Democrats 
objected to the cuts in Social Security 
and Medicare. Republicans couldn’t accept its 
assumption that Bush tax cuts would expire 
for those with incomes above $250k a year, 
nor its suggestion that tax rate reductions for 
all be offset by closing loopholes for the top 
1%.

 Greg also assures that as a result of the budget 
“sequestration” and the partial government 
shutdown earlier this month, “not much 
bad happened”. I looked into it, and found 
the Council of Economic Advisors predicts 
the sequester will cost 750,000 full-time jobs 
this year. It’s caused The International Monetary 
Fund to lower its U.S. GDP growth forecast 
from 2% to 1.5%.

 600,000 jobs in research and development 
could be lost over the next three years because 
of sequestration, with a resulting half-trillion 
dollars’ hit to our GDP. Francis Collins, head 
of the National Institutes of Health, looked 
into it and warned, “I worry desperately this 
means we will lose a generation of young 
scientists.”

 The F.B.I. looked into it last month and reported 
that because of sequestration, "New 
intelligence investigations were not being 
opened. Criminal cases were being closed. 
Informants couldn’t be paid. And there was 
not enough funding for agents to put gas in 
their cars."

 For the 2013-2014 academic year, 57,000 
children have been cut from Head Start programs 
because of the sequester.

 As for the shutdown, Standard & Poor’s 
looked into it and calculated a $24 billion cost 
to our economy, with billions more in lost tax 
revenue. Buyers of our debt from China to 
Saudi Arabia now question the soundness of 
U.S. Treasury securities, and whether the U.S. 
dollar is no longer fit to be the world’s pre-
eminent currency.

 As Greg motivates me to look into things, 
Sean Hannity got Eric Stern, writing for Salon, 
to look into a recent show on Fox News 
featuring “average Americans . . . feeling the 
pain” of the “train wreck” that is “Obamacare”. 
The Hannity show featured three married 
couples arrayed, according to Stern, “like 
game show contestants”, telling their personal 
experiences. As Hannity put it, “These are 
the stories the media refuses to cover.” Eric 
Stern decided to look into it.

 One couple from North Carolina told 
Hannity how, because of Obamacare, they’ve 
been unable to grow their construction business 
and had to trim employees’ hours to 
keep them at part-time status. Affordable 
Care Act requirements on employer-provided 
coverage only apply to businesses with fifty 
or more employees. Stern looked into it, and 
found this particular construction business 
has four. The only ACA requirement that applies 
to them is that they inform employees of 
the existence of the “healthcare.gov” website.

 Another couple said they’d received notice 
from their carrier that their policy would be 
changed to become ACA-compliant. They 
complained to Hannity this was evidence 
the president “lied” when he said folks could 
keep their current coverage under the ACA 
(as if insurance companies never changed 
terms of coverage prior to the ACA).

 This couple was currently paying $13,200 a 
year for coverage, which didn’t include one of 
their two kids because she had a “pre-existing 
condition” (whose coverage would bring 
their yearly premiums up to $20,400). Stern 
plugged their information into the exchange 
website and found, assuming they’re non-
smokers and make too much to qualify for 
subsidies, they could get comparable coverage 
for $7,600 – which would include their 
previously-uninsured daughter. When Stern 
asked if they’d looked into it themselves to 
see what was available, they said they hadn’t 
– because they’d heard the website wasn’t 
working.

 The third couple (he’s described as a “Christian 
youth motivational speaker”) complained 
to Hannity that under the ACA 
their premiums would be hiked 50-75% to 
cover stuff they don’t need; maternity care, 
prenatal care, etc. Their current premiums 
are $10,000 a year. Stern looked into it and 
found a comparable plan for them on the exchange 
for $3,700 – which does include a lot 
of that stuff they “don’t need”. When Stern 
asked where that 50-75% rate-hike figure 
came from, they said it was from an insurance 
agent. When asked if they’d go on the 
exchange themselves to see what’s available, 
they said they don’t like “Obamacare” and 
want nothing to do with it; they wouldn’t 
consider looking into it.

 Greg states, “a strong case can be made for 
a Republican victory”. A post-shutdown 
CNN poll shows 75% of Americans think 
Republican House members don’t deserve to 
keep their jobs. Public Policy Polling shows 
Democrats would take control of the House 
if the election were held today. Confidence 
in President Obama and support for the ACA 
grows, as the numbers for Congressional Republicans 
sink to historic lows.

 Before Greg or Ann Coulter again choose 
to extol the virtues of Republicans in Congress, 
I think they’d be well-advised to first 
look into it.


“The shutdown was so magnificent, run beautifully. I’m so proud of these 
Republicans” - Ann Coulter on Fox News

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