Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 30, 2013

17

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, November 30, 2013 


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder


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

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CONTRIBUTORS

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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

‘TIS THE SEASON TO STUFF MYSELF 
LIKE A TURKEY AND GET AWAY 
WITH IT!

THINGS DON’T GET ANY EASIER

 This afternoon just before sunset my wife, her two young 
nephews, and I drove up the hill to view the sunset. At the top 
of the hill a huge housing project has been planned and the plans 
have gone so far as to include landscaping and painting lines for 
designated parking spaces. Parking lots have been constructed 
for as yet non-existent cars. The construction of the homes has not yet begun as 
our local city council has prohibited construction. The dispute is ongoing and just 
about everyone in town is opposed to the construction. The reasons for opposition 
are many but the most commonly verbalized is that the construction of the project 
will create all sorts of traffic problems in our little village city of 10,000. This is 
undoubtedly true, but a deeper reason is that the housing project threatens the 
nature of our very independent little, tucked-in-the-hills and hard-to-find village.

 I know this is a fight against “progress” and probably in the end, just as Joanie 
Mitchell predicted about forty years ago, future generations will notice that “they 
paved paradise to put up a parking lot.” We older Southern Californians still 
remember the orange groves that used to be all around us and now have disappeared. 
Their disappearance, of course, was connected with the construction of homes and 
commercial facilities that created jobs and were part of a new thriving economy. 
Well, now along with the orange groves, the jobs have disappeared and the house 
owners have faced foreclosure and there is a strange ghost-like quality to much of 
the city and much of the country.

 It’s all very confusing. The stock market is daily setting record highs and the 
very rich are getting richer all the time. Still, for recent college graduates, jobs are 
not very plentiful. Many young grads seem resentful and regretful about the time 
and money spent going to college. The huge loan debt that follow most college 
graduates puts them in an immediate economic bind and I hear the pundits saying 
that present college curricula are more like trainings than an education. If people 
can’t get the jobs they trained for they are not able to do much else, because they 
have not acquired any new skills or interests that would prepare them to do other 
kinds of work. On the Bill Moyers Journal this weekend I heard college described 
as a time for the destruction of imagination.

 Where will this all lead? The very rich still need the rest of us to buy their stuff. 
I can still remember when the area around Santa Anita Race Track was just a huge 
parking lot. Of course a large portion of this parking lot was soon filled with the 
huge Westfield Mall. Stores keep closing in the mall; but new ones open and on 
week-ends it’s impossible to find a place to park. Can this go on forever? Can 
Americans consume their way to economic equity? Where will all this progress 
lead?

 This whole article was inspired by a question that my wife’s 12-year old nephew 
asked me while we stood in the empty parking lot watching the ever-changing sky. 
Remember, he’s a pretty smart kid who plays all kinds of video games and does 
pretty well in School. He has known my children for all of his life, so I was quite 
surprised by the question he asked me. Ready for the question? “Uncle Stuart, are 
you a virgin?” Shocking don’t you think? I asked him how I could be a virgin if I 
had children. He said

he knows that people can have children without having sex and he knows kids who 
have gay parents and, besides, that he head heard something about turkey basters 
being used to make people pregnant.

 As I tried to maintain my cool and hold in my laughter, I got a real sense of how 
confusing this modern world is. Kids are exposed to all kinds of information, with 
the end result that they are frequently more confused than previous, more sheltered, 
generations. I wondered about how the future will treat these over-informed but 
clueless kids. I don’t mean to be insulting towards my wife’s nephew. He’s the 
same wonderful kid about whom I wrote a few years ago when he noticed some 
tomatoes lying on the ground. Maybe you remember the article when I described 
him saying, “We should bury those tomatoes, but first we should name them.”

 He had this basic humanity and imagination when he was 7. Over these past five 
years he has acquired much more information, but perhaps not much knowledge. 
I fear that forty or fifty or sixty years from now he will be left standing in an empty 
parking lot wondering what happened---and you and I won’t be around to tell him 
even if we knew. 

Now that summer is 
out of the way and the 
holiday season has begun, 
I can throw out the kitchen window all of 
those diet restrictions introduced by the Gracious 
Mistress of the Parsonage. After all, the 
whole purpose of the holiday season is to eat.

It begins in late October with the mass distribution 
of candy, which I have no objection. A 
little candy in somebody's life can go a long 
way to produce happiness. Why, a handful of 
jelly beans really makes the world go around, 
which may be why I am just a little bit dizzy.

From October all the way through to New 
Year's Day, it is nothing but one delicious delicacy 
after another. And, I love it.

Around the middle of October my wife announces, 
"This year you need to be a little 
careful about what you eat during this holiday 
season." Of which I smile back at her and 
nod my head in the affirmative, whatever that 
means. Far as I am concerned, a nod is not 
quite as committed as a word spoken.

In October when I am doling out candy to 
the kids knocking on my door, I always use 
this formula: one for them and one for me. 
After all, what's fair is fair. I have to make sure 
I have enough candy to go all the way around. 
As one who is very conscious about not wasting 
anything, I make sure all of the candy is 
properly consumed by midnight.

I get away with this because my wife usually 
has the grandchildren on the other side of 
the neighborhood going door to door getting 
candy. My duty is to distribute the candy 
however I see fit.

Thanksgiving really tickles my fancy. It is an 
opportunity to stuff myself like a turkey and 
get away with it. After all, with all the family 
around the Thanksgiving Day table there 
is little opportunity for my wife to supervise 
what I eat or do not eat. As long as the dishes 
keep passing, I keep participating.

One thing that makes the Thanksgiving Day 
dinner so wonderful is that you can stuff your 
stuff without feeling guilty about it. "Don't 
you think you've had enough?" my wife will 
ask.

I have one response to this query I have used 
for years.

"Do not worry, my dear," I say as I pile more 
mashed potatoes on my plate, "I plan to go on 
a diet for my New Year's resolution." What 
a wonderful New Year's resolution scenario. 
Whoever invented that should receive the 
Nobel Peace Prize because it has come in 
quite handy in my situation.

Thanksgiving is so close to New Year's that it 
makes a very convenient excuse.

Take the Fourth of July picnic, for example. 
That is a long way from New Year's Day and 
the New Year's resolution scenario that I cannot 
use that excuse. At that picnic when my 
wife says, "Don't you think you have had 
enough?" I have to smile and agree that perhaps 
I did have enough, and lay down my fork 
in surrender.

What about the summer family picnic time 
when all of us are getting together? The same 
thing is happening there. New Year's Day and 
its resolution scenario are too far in the future 
to use as a ploy to get second or even third 
helpings. During any summer picnic, I am on 
my own and in some regards, I do not like it.

But the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's 
holiday season is my kind of season.

The holiday season is a time for indulgence. 
After all, has anybody ever seen a skinny Santa 
Claus? It would be blasphemous to go to 
the mall during the holiday season and see a 
skinny Santa Claus. Personally, I would turn 
around and go home and sit in the corner for 
a while to get over it.

The holiday season is for extravagance. 
Christmas gift giving is giving people presents 
they do not really need. I cannot recall 
how many ties I have received down through 
the years as though I have not enough ties, 
but every one was an absolute delight.

The season begins with the hearty Thanksgiving 
dinner, goes to the Christmas Day dinner 
and then ends with the New Year's Day dinner. 
What more could a person really ask for?

There is something about the family gathering 
around the table indulging in the delicacies 
of the season and just having a good time. 
It is not a time to count calories, but rather, a 
time to count your blessings. It is not a time 
to monitor what somebody else is eating, but 
a time to enjoy the family fellowship around a 
good table set by somebody who knows how 
to set a good table.

If someone in our family did not cook so well 
I would not have a problem in restraining my 
eating. So, I do not believe it is my fault.

After the festivities have subsided and all the 
food has all been consumed, we still are left 
with the rest of our life. In light of that I like 
what Paul said, "Giving thanks always for all 
things unto God the Father in the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20 KJV).

For those who know the Lord Jesus Christ 
giving thanks for everything is a wonderful 
way of life all year long.

Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God 
Fellowship, PO Box 831313, Ocala, FL 34483. He 
lives with his wife, Martha, in Silver Springs Shores. 
E-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. His web site is www.
jamessnyderministries.com.

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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN


HOWARD Hays As I See It

IRAN: A DEFEAT 
SNATCHED FROM 
THE JAWS OF VICTORY

GREG Welborn


“There’s been so much 
noise and so much misinformation, 
and this incredible 
organized effort 
to block the notion that 
everybody should have 
affordable health care in 
this country, that I think 
it’s important for us to 
step back and take a look 
at what’s already been accomplished, 
because a lot of times it doesn’t 
make news. Controversies make news.”

- President Obama

Best I can interpret Greg Welborn’s column 
from last week, he’s suggesting “liberals” are 
revamping the Senate’s filibuster rules to distract 
attention from the Affordable Care Act. 
I don’t think that’s entirely true. 

A number of “liberals” have themselves capitalized 
on the ACA’s problems as an “I told 
you so” opportunity: had the administration 
not settled on a plan reliant on for-profit insurance, 
developed by the Heritage Foundation, 
promoted by Republicans as an alternative 
to “Hillary Care” and implemented by 
Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in Massachusetts – we 
might have gone instead for universal coverage 
through a single-payer system requiring 
nothing more complicated than expanding 
“Medicare for all”.

In filibuster reform, it’s not like Democrats are 
bucking some kind of tradition. The filibuster 
has been around since 1789, but a third of all 
filibusters over the past 225 years has occured 
only over the past six years - since Sen. Mitch 
McConnell (R-KY) became Minority Leader, 
and especially since Barack Obama became 
president. 86 presidential nominations have 
been blocked by filibuster under Presidents 
Washington through George W. Bush combined. 
82 have been blocked under President 
Obama alone.

Sen. McConnell declared early on the goal 
of Senate Republicans was to make Obama a 
“one-term president”. The filibuster isn’t used 
anymore to stall legislation or nominees for 
whom there are strong objections, but rather 
to make sure none of the president’s initiatives, 
executive branch picks or judicial nominees 
makes it to the floor for an up-or-down 
vote. It’s not to promote the well-being of 
our country, but the hoped-for failure of our 
president.

The final straw came with Republican refusal 
to even consider the president’s nominees to 
fill three vacancies on the D.C. Court of Appeals. 
It has nothing to do with qualifications 
or quality of the nominees. Some, like Sen. 
Jeff Sessions (R-AL), complain the Court has 
too many judges already. (The president is 
required by law to fill the vacancies, regardless.) 
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) vowed not 
to let any nomination come to the floor until 
he gets more dirt on Benghazi.

In retaliation for the Democrats’ action on 
restricting filibusters, Republicans have 
vowed to block all pending legislation (as if 
they haven’t been doing that over the past 
five years, anyway). One of their first targets 
is a bill addressing the problem of sexual assault 
in the military. As Robert Bowen writes 
on examiner.com, “They want sexual assault 
victims in the military to pay a price because 
Republicans did not get their own way (on the 
filibuster).”

The tactic of distracting attention remains in 
play in other ways, however. Last week, the 
Council of Economic Advisors announced 
that, largely due to the ACA, health care 
spending since 2010 has increased by just 
1.3% - the smallest three-year increase in history 
(while health care price increases were at 
50-year lows). The CBO cut its projection on 
Medicare and Medicaid spending in 2020 by 
10% - a $147 billion reduction. A Think Progress 
study shows that while this was covered 
in 23 news stories in print and online media, 
there were 224 stories on website problems.

Similarly, as Jonathan Chait observes in New 
York Magazine, “Florida Woman Facing 
Higher Costs” is a more “attractive” media 
story than “Millions Set to Gain Low-Cost 
Insurance”.

 

Stoking fears of what might come with full 
implementation of the ACA distracts attention 
from the situation right now. A report 
from the Commonwealth Fund released earlier 
this month reminds that while the U.S. 
spends more per capita on healthcare than 
any other industrial nation, 37% of us failed 
to get recommended care (seeing a doctor, 
filling a prescription) because of costs. (It’s 
6% in Sweden, 4% in the U.K.) 23% of American 
adults had serious problems paying medical 
bills, or were simply unable to pay them. 
(The next highest was France at 13%; the U.K. 
Sweden and Norway were all at 6% or lower.)

Replays of the president’s “you can keep your 
plan” promise distracts attention from the fact 
that for nearly a dozen years now, according 
to former Cigna exec Wendell Potter, insurance 
companies have been cancelling policies 
to move customers away from the HMO/PPO 
“managed care” model and into policies with 
higher deductibles, fewer benefits – and more 
profits for the insurance companies. Now, 
they can conveniently blame the ACA.

Complaints about cancellation notices distract 
attention from the 25 Republican-
controlled states which have refused to go 
along with the ACA’s provision that Medicaid 
eligibility be expanded to cover those with 
incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty 
level (with costs picked up by the federal government). 
It’s estimated that while 2 million 
cancellation notices have gone out in these 
states, 5 million working poor will be denied 
coverage altogether – as a direct result of Republican 
governors and legislators hoping to 
see the program fail.

Families USA estimates that only 0.6% of 
non-elderly Americans risk losing their current 
plans while failing to qualifying for either 
subsidies or expanded Medicaid eligibility. As 
pointed out by the group’s executive director, 
Ron Pollack, "That number is a tiny fraction 
of the 65 million non-elderly people with pre-
existing health conditions who will gain new 
protections . . . It is also a small fraction of the 
tens of millions of uninsured Americans who 
can also get help."

In other news, after months of behind-the-
scenes diplomacy, the U.S. and major powers 
have reached agreement on an interim deal 
with Iran. Most will wait to see what happens 
over the six-month term of the agreement. 
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), however, was 
quick with his reaction on Twitter: “Amazing 
what White House will do to distract attention 
from Obamacare”.

I seriously didn’t think the Obama Presidency could get much worse. 
Well, maybe I thought it was possible, but I hoped it wouldn’t be so. 
We’re well past the point where defeats only hurt the President and 
his fellow travelers. We’re at the point where his defeats are American 
defeats, and the Iranian interim nuclear deal is one hell of a loss – made 
worse because it truly is being snatched from the jaws of victory. 

Like President Clinton’s bombing of some aspirin factory when his 
presidency was floundering, President Obama is desperate to change the subject from his 
domestic policy failures, vanishing Syrian red lines, the fatal incompetency at Benghazi, 
Russia’s mockery of American exceptionalism, and the presidential snubbing at the U.N. So 
desperate is he to get “an agreement”, any agreement, that he took a deal which even the 
French call a “sucker’s deal”. As we open the covers of this wonderful impressive agreement, 
we find that the French were actually cutting us some slack. 

This defeat is especially hard to swallow because the U.S. was on the verge of winning the 
strategic battle with Iran. I can say that with confidence because the only reason Iran has 
come to the table after years of venomous deceit and stonewalling is because the economic 
sanctions were hurting so deeply. Iran’s economy is in shambles, its currency is all but 
worthless, and the regime for perhaps the first time truly feels a threat to its survival. There 
are only two things that really matter to the mad mullahs: retaining power and building a 
nuclear bomb, which, of course, earns them more power. Both were in jeopardy.

The economic sanctions took years to negotiate with our allies and the U.N., resulting in 
dozens of specific resolutions calling for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment and full 
access to all facilities. It took time for the impact to be felt, but almost precisely at the moment 
of our maximum negotiating clout, President Obama offers relief from the very pressures that 
were forcing the mullahs to get serious. The West weakens sanctions in return for pledges, 
assurances and meaningless reductions. There is no weakening, let alone termination, of 
Iran’s nuclear weaponization infrastructure.

The President took to the airwaves to assure us this is only an interim six-month agreement 
to “build confidence” until we reach a final agreement, but how can that make any sense at all. 
We’ve all gone up against the school yard bully; we’ve all dealt with a really tough negotiator 
at one point or another. When you reduce the pressure on your opponent, you don’t get a 
better deal. If assurances, pledges and unverifiable reductions are the best we can get from 
Iran now, what version of sanity makes us think we’ll get a better one when the Iranians are 
6 months further in nuclear development and their economy has had time to recover? It’s a 
rescue package thrown to the mullahs in return for a fig leaf, political rescue package given 
to this overwhelmed and under-prepared President who fears headlines more than he fears 
Hezbollah.

Iran promises to reduce enrichment and to not push forward. But Iran specifically stipulates 
that certain sites will not be subject to full-access, unescorted inspections. In other words, 
we get to look at their right hand, but aren’t allowed to see what’s in their left. In return, we 
allow more trade, release frozen Iranian assets, and increase the regime’s access to foreign-
exchange reserves. It’s a massive infusion of capital for an economy on the brink of collapse. 
Those of who said that President Obama “blinked” in his negotiations with Syria had no idea 
how quickly, and significantly, he would be asked to blink again. 

As tragic as the Syrian situation is, it was the canary in the gold mine. Iran’s ambitions are 
seriously dangerous, and they have now been advanced significantly. That’s the essence of 
the danger that comes from appeasement. It’s not the bad deal you just did, it’s what it says to 
your enemies who you’ll have to confront in future negotiations. It communicates weakness. 
It says the American president is not serious about standing by America’s allies and therefore 
is not serious about American values or goals.

We want a stable Mideast; we want a limited nuclear club; and God forbid there’s a nuclear 
war – even a small one. America’s retreat creates a power vacuum which others will rush 
to fill; there goes any hope of stability. Saudi Arabia will pursue (and most likely obtain) a 
nuclear bomb – from Pakistan. Egypt will seek one, and from there the list grows quickly; 
welcome to proliferation. Iran will get its bomb, and/or Israel will start a war to prevent it; 
the threat of war and a nuclear exchange just grew substantively. 

History tells us how bad the Munich deal with Hitler was for Europe and the rest of the 
world. This deal is worse than that one because our enemies are equally as deranged and 
committed as were the Nazis, but today the stakes are bigger. Ego and fear are terrible things 
in a presidency.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several civic 
and religious organizations on cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles 
area with his wife and 3 children and is active in the community. He can be reached 
gregwelborn2@gmail.com 

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