Mountain Views News          Saturday, September 13, 2014

B4

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, September 13, 2014 


Mountain 
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Susan Henderson

CITY EDITOR

Dean Lee 

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Joan Schmidt

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LaQuetta Shamblee

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CONTRIBUTORS

CoCo Lasalle

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Dr. Tina Paul

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

Marc Garlett

RICH Johnson

BUFFET AND MY OTHER 
FAVORITE WORDS

CLEANING UP MESSES, 

PARSONAGE STYLE


By Dr. James L. Snyder

Throughout the glorious years of our marriage, the Gracious Mistress of the 
Parsonage and Yours Truly has had few disagreements. I suppose I could count 
them all on my one hand, but I am not sure if it is my right hand or my left hand 
so I will just leave it at that.

 I hear, of course, of many couples who do nothing but bicker and fight from 
morning till night. I have always wondered what the purpose of all that was and 
what it ever accomplished. I think there is a better way to live together.

 There are several phrases I have memorized and used throughout the years of our marriage that has 
kept me in good standing.

 �Yes, dear.� �You�re right, dear.� �I�ll do it right away, dear.�

 I have found that if I include the word �dear,� with all of my responses it fares better for me. 
Of course, I am the kind of person that does not have to be right all the time, which makes me the 
perfect husband. Admitting you are wrong, even if you do not think you are, is really not the end of the 
world. In fact, it may be the beginning of a bright new world.

 I said �few disagreements,� and I need to explain what I meant by that.

 The major disagreements that my wife and I have had throughout the years can be boiled down into one 
phrase, �It�s a mess.� Usually, actually all the time this phrase is being used, it is coming from the lips of my 
wife.

 Our disagreement is in the definition of �mess.� She has one definition and I have another definition, 
and the twain shall never meet. Mark my words on that.

 If you would come into our home, you will discover that every room in the house is well organized and 
very neat. Well, not every room. The one room that does not come up to that criterion is the room in which 
I occupy. It is my space. My well-organized wife will walk by my room, pause, look in and say, �It�s a mess.�

 It took me a long time to realize what she was talking about. Eventually, I got to the point where I 
understood that what she was referring to was �my space.� Unfortunately, we did not share the same vision 
of my space. I am of the mindset that if I am working I need to have organized messes all around me.

 I have tried explaining to my wife that I am a messologist. I had to explain to her that a messologist is 
someone who specializes in organizing intentional messes. I am not sure I have convinced her yet of this.

 I really think that one person�s mess is another person�s workspace. I cannot really work efficiently 
unless there are intentional messes around me, protecting me, giving me the incentive I need to pursue 
the job at hand. My basic philosophy is simply this, if I cannot find what I need when I need it, I probably 
do not really need it. It has worked for me most marvelously.

 The real trick of a messologist is knowing where to find what you need when you need it. 
My wife can walk into my space and look around and be utterly confused by what she calls �a mess.� 
Of course, it looks like a mess to her. It is not her mess! If it was her mess she would understand it and be 
comforted by it.

 My wife is of the idea that organization has to do with numerical or alphabetical order. Now that works 
for some people, I suppose. But, as I keep telling her, that is not the only circus in town! I cannot tell how 
many times something new has developed in my thinking while I was searching for something I could not 
really find. That is the genius of a messologist.

 Some people, like my wife, like to go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4; or, A to B to C to D all the way to Z. To a normal 
person, and I am guessing my wife is normal, that makes a lot of sense. But to a messologist, that kind of 
thinking is rather confusing.

 What I want to know is, what do you do when you come to the end of the alphabet? Where do you go 
from there? Then, it is rather important that you have the alphabet in alphabetical order. If I would ever try 
to do that I would end up being so confused, they would have to admit me in some rehab facility to clean 
my mind out.

 So, the thing that makes our marriage so blissful is that we have an agreement and that she does things 
her way and I do things my way. This has been the recipe for blissfulness in our marriage. I do not make 
her do it my way and she cannot make me do it her way. We both have brains, but they tick after a different 
tock.

 I then thought of a verse of Scripture that rather fit my situation. �There is a way which 
seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death� (Proverbs 14:12). 
My way has to be in complete harmony with His way or my life will be completely destroyed. 
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. Call him at 1-866-
552-2543 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net or website www.jamessnyderministries.com.


 Anyone know what my favorite word �buffet� means? 
Believe it or not the French definition is different than the 
British definition. 

 The French word means �to strike with the hands or the 
fist�. That�s certainly not my favorite use of the word. The 
British word means �a meal at which guests help themselves 
from a number of dishes and often eat standing up�. 

 I like the British definition better. I�ve rarely eaten at a 
buffet standing up (maybe in transit when I couldn�t wait to get back to the table). 
I wonder if, when you eat standing up, your shoe size will expand rather than 
your waist. Gonna have to try that. 

 Currently there are two great buffets in Sierra Madre. The Peppertree Grill is 
back to being open on Monday Night offering an all-you-can-eat buffet to keep 
you occupied while you watch the Monday Night Football game (They are at 322 
W. Sierra Madre Blvd). I think it starts at 5:00 on Monday nights. And Tuesday 
and Wednesday noon time Corfu has a buffet (They are at 48 W. Sierra Madre 
Blvd). 

 What�s your favorite word? I read somewhere (so it must be true) that our 
favorite word is our name. When I asked my friend, Barney, he just laughed at 
me. I guess there are some exceptions to that rule. 

 Along with buffet, I would have to consider my kids names as my favorite word: 
Olivia and Alex. But which child? Probably Olivia more than Alex cause she�s the 
good child. It would probably rotate. High up on my list of favorite words you 
would also find Beatles and guitar.

 Can acronyms count as favorite words? Acronym is a set of initials representing 
a name or organization. If acronyms are acceptable I know my friend Carolyn�s 
favorite word: NASCAR!! If they aren�t acceptable I�ll bet Carolyn�s favorite word 
would be �Disneyland�.

 I think it�s a pretty safe bet acronyms are peoples least favorite words. Like take 
IRS for example. Or DMV, or DOA. Are you someone who thinks the whole 
new genre of texting acronyms like LOL, are horrible and portents of the fall of 
Western Civilization? 

 In my considerable library of useless trivia and quotes, lives a book entitled 
�The Superior Person�s Book of Words�, penned by Peter Bowler. It houses 500 
word missiles we can use to establish our superiority. Here are a couple: 

Acerebral: Without a brain. Usage of this word could be aimed at species on this 
planet that use both two and four legs to get around.

Afflatus: A sudden rush of divine or poetic inspiration. I get this a lot.

Alopecia: Unfortunately this word also describes me. It�s meaning? Baldnes. My 
alopecia really shines on a sunny day.

Bastinado: Beating the soles of one�s feet. Some people would prefer that to the 
ear bashing one receives at one of our JJ Jukebox golden oldies concerts. (By the 
way, JJ Jukebox is performing Saturday, November 8, 2014 at the Peppertree Grill. 
6:30 to 8:30. 322 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. Make reservations at (626) 355-8444.)

 Be sure to try the Peppertree Grill�s Monday Night Football Buffet. It�s on 
Monday nights I think (I think I�m going acerebral).

 

 LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 

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HOWARD Hays As I See It

GREG Welborn


THE PRESIDENT�S WAR PLAN

�I�m not going to apologize for trying to do something while they�re 
doing nothing.�

- President Obama, responding to House Speaker John Boehner�s 
threatened lawsuit last June

 I was glad to see Greg Welborn back with his column last week. 
Reading through it, I was almost surprised he didn�t somehow attribute 
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to the president�s �incompetence�.

 I know � the world�s a mess. I also know how impatient some are to 
have us once again invade and occupy a Muslim country, or reignite 
a Cold War with a nuclear power. Dan Rather had a good response to 
such eagerness; �I will hear you out if you�re prepared to send your son, your daughter, 
your grandson, your granddaughter to that war for which you�re beating the drums. If 
you aren�t, don�t even talk to me.�

This is being written in advance of President Obama�s address to the nation Wednesday 
night. I�m sure he�ll make a priority of building coalitions with allies and regional players. 
A German diplomat interviewed on NPR, asked to compare coordinating with the 
Obama Administration on Ukraine with coordinating with Bush on Iraq, had a quick 
response: �At least we�re talking with the Obama Administration.�

 Another ongoing priority is to make clear that for our help to do any good, nations 
have to get their own acts together - we can�t do it all for them. After months of pressure, 
there�s finally a new Prime Minister in Iraq with whom we can coordinate to help defeat 
the Islamic State in that country. He replaces the previous CIA-approved holdover from 
the Bush years, who�d become one of ISIS� biggest recruiting tools.

 In Afghanistan, as we�re trying to get our troops out by the end of the year, we�re dealing 
with two presidential candidates who both continue insisting on claiming victory some 
three months after the June run-offs, and despite a subsequent U.N.-monitored re-count. 
In Libya, there�s fortunately only one government in its capital, Tripoli. The problem is, 
there�s another in Tobruk claiming it�s the real deal. There�s Qatar, host to one of our 
largest air bases in the region and also one of the largest sources of funding for Islamic 
terrorism.

 It�s complicated, and it�s reassuring to have a president who thinks things through 
before �trying to do something�. For Congressional Republicans, though, it�s simple 
� responding the same as to immigration reform or most any other issue: knock the 
president for not taking action on his own, avoid having to cast a vote on the record by 
�doing nothing� as a legislative body, and then threaten to sue (or impeach) the president 
for taking too many actions on his own (as House Speaker Boehner did last June). Aside 
from that, it�s hoping things go south to provide a better campaign issue against President 
Obama and the Dems.

 Now that Congress is back from vacation, planning for maybe two weeks in session 
before the November elections, it looks like they�ll manage to run out the clock �doing 
nothing�. If anything, the focus might be on Congressional tea-baggers toying with 
another government shutdown, with �establishment� Republicans concerned about re-
election wishing they�d shut up.

 It�s hard to predict how evolving world crises will play out in the campaigns. 
Republicans have got to be hoping things only get worse, as they�re running out of 
issues to campaign on. There�s the Affordable Care Act, for example. Sen. Minority 
Leader Mitch McConnell remains opposed to �Obamacare�, but now tries to suggest it�s 
somehow �unconnected� to the popular Kentucky exchange, which has enrolled nearly 
a million in the state. Republican governors in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Indiana 
and Wyoming have abandoned their initial opposition and are now moving to implement 
the ACA�s expansion of Medicaid in their states. Enrollment nation-wide has exceeded 
targets. Premium costs, which Republicans warned would skyrocket, are projected to 
undergo a �modest� increase at most, or to actually go down � as has per-person costs for 
Medicare.

It�ll be hard for them to hit Democrats on the economy. Last week, Forbes came out 
with an analysis by Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners, who offered 
this assessment of the Obama presidency: �This is the best private sector job creation 
performance in American history.� The Purchasing Managers Index of the Institute for 
Supply Management shows 63 straight months of economic expansion, with 25 straight 
months of manufacturing growth.

 As for Wall Street, Deitrick points out that at this point in the Reagan presidency, a 
dollar invested when he took office �would have yielded a staggering 190% return. Such 
returns were unheard of prior to his leadership.� Under Obama, the return would be 
220%. �This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration.�

 Continuing the comparison, �the current administration has reduced the deficit, 
which skyrocketed under Reagan. Additionally, Obama has reduced federal employment, 
which grew under Reagan . . . and truly delivered a �smaller government�.� Forbes 
concludes, �President Obama�s administration has outperformed President Reagan�s in 
all commonly watched categories.� 

 The policies which brought this �unprecedented� economic recovery were, of course, 
universally opposed by the Republicans.

 With issues like the economy and the Affordable Care Act effectively taken off the table 
as viable campaign fodder, the most Republicans can hope for heading towards November 
is intensifying world crises and a bungled response from a Democratic administration. 
Here�s a theory: The surest way to achieve that would be to goad the president into repeating 
the same disastrous mistakes made under the Bush Administration; which is maybe, just 
maybe, why so many Republicans are urging him to rush in and �do something� without 
taking the time to think it through.

 Most voters, though, appreciate a leader who�s thoughtful and deliberate while actually 
�trying to do something�, and aren�t going to be conned by those �doing nothing� other 
than complaining about those who are.

As we mark the 13th anniversary of 9-11, it will be interesting to see 
if this week�s and last week�s articles stand as philosophical book-
ends to the Obama presidency. I was very critical of President 
Obama�s unwillingness to seriously engage the world as it really 
is and to therefore confront the evil which walks so much of the 
world unconcerned about what the greatest nation will do. If it 
turns out I wrote prematurely and that the President does have a 
coherent war plan, then I will be more than happy to commend 
him for that action. For now, I will simply say that he deserves hearty and unreserved 
public support if he is truly willing to fight this war.

 A willingness on the President�s part to do just that would be in and of itself a major 
accomplishment. It would mean he has undergone a sea-change and is now willing 
to acknowledge that we are in a �war� (not a skirmish, struggle, police action or even 
a conflict) and willing to acknowledge that he is a wartime leader. For someone who 
has gained so much political mileage from opposing past wars and has based so many 
of his presidential decisions on extracting the U.S. from physical military participation 
in, or even leadership of, the world war which rages around us, this change is no doubt 
difficult, but nonetheless desperately needed.

 But this change from naivety to reality, and hopefully from failure to success, will 
require other changes in how this president conducts his administration and chooses 
to lead the nation. These will not go well with his closest advisors � made up almost 
entirely now of sycophants � or closest supports � made up largely of the hard left who 
may not be able to make this same transition.

 Starting with the obvious, the war campaign he needs to launch will have to focus on 
the goal of destroying ISIS, not just degrading it, and certainly not on trying to manage 
it. Each of these verbs has been used by the President in recent speeches, and each 
represents dramatically different goals, strategies and tactics. His words last night were 
the right ones. I pray they were not just words to smooth the American public while he 
implements more benign and disengaged actions to satisfy he core base.

 A successful transition also means accepting the wisdom and prescriptions of an 
earlier president from whom Obama has so assiduously distanced himself. President 
Bush told us that boots on the ground would be needed for the long-term unless we 
wanted to �surrender the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda�, �risk mass killings on a horrific 
scale�, �allow terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq�, and to �confront an enemy 
even more dangerous�. President Bush is owed an apology for the mockery his words 
received, but at the very least, President Obama will take to heart the senior president�s 
advice and stop trying to distance himself from someone whose policy prescriptions he 
is increasingly having to continue or reinstitute. In short, President Obama will have to 
commit significant boots on the ground. There will have to be an American presence 
over there.

 President Obama also needs to quit eviscerating the U.S. military. He will go before 
Congress at some point to ask for funds to finance this new campaign, but those will be 
the tip of the iceberg. We can no longer draw down the standing forces we have, starve 
the services of needed technological developments or accept the current diminished size 
of our naval fleet. As he wages war on ISIS, it�s time to stop waging war against our own 
military.

 His pattern of giving a speech and then moving on to another topic must stop. 
This topic needs President Obama�s full attention and effort, and will likely need such 
sustained focus for the remaining 28 months of his presidency. If September 10th�s 
address becomes just another speech, just another idle warning, there will be hell to pay 
on the shores of these United States. If that�s the type of commitment we just witnessed, 
we�re going to witness some mass killings of Americans very soon.

 Domestically, President Obama needs to unify the political leaders currently serving 
at the behest of their constituencies. Republicans can no longer be referred to as the 
enemy, ridiculed for having evil motives and dismissed as having no good input or 
place at the table. Elections do matter, as this president is so fond of saying, and every 
one of our representatives is there as a result of an election. Acknowledging that and 
negotiating accordingly is a requirement if any military campaign is to work. 

 President Obama also needs to restore domestic trust in his leadership. Much has 
been written about how our nation�s enemies do not fear him and our friends do not 
trust him; a similar sentiment exists domestically because of the President�s habit of lying 
to the nation about known facts and his habit of threatening to simply use that magic 
pen and phone of his to dictate extra-constitutional executive orders. Elected officials 
and the public at large do not trust this man as much as a wartime president needs to 
be trusted. President Obama has a few short weeks (maybe even days) to correct that 
problem with honest, inclusive and truly transparent communications and processes. 

 In summary, we need to be willing to rally around this president. The stakes are too 
high to not give him a full measure of the support that is needed for what lies ahead. But 
that is not a one-sided requirement; it is not without its quid pro quo. President Obama 
seems to have made a crucial and healthy transition, but there are other important 
actions and changes which are needed if we are to be successful and safe. 

 

 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@gma/5l.com

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