This comic strip is often very funny. It’s like a snarky version of Calvin and Hobbes — another favorite. But occasionally the artist comes draws what amounts to a political cartoon. This one cracks me up. Click the picture to see it larger.

We went to Richmond to visit my aunt and uncle for the last weekend in October. My cousin Jessica is living with them, and we’ve been wanting to visit for awhile. Friday was her birthday, so we went down to surprise her. Tricia had her open the door thinking it was trick-or-treaters (it was Oct 31). We yelled “trick or treat” when she opened the door. It took a few seconds for her to realize just who was on the door step. It was a great surprise.

We relaxed Friday night. Saturday we went to Maymont park for half the day. It was a beautiful day in the upper 60s. The park is quite large with various paths. Throughout the park are various animals (goats, bears, elk, deer, birds), a Japanese Garden, and a mansion. Since it was so warm most of the animals were out. The mansion has several buildings around it. You can take a tour of the mansion. We visited the basement since it was free.

We celebrated Jessica’s birthday Saturday night. On Sunday we went to church and visited until it was time to head back to Radford late afternoon. We enjoyed the visit and are glad we were able to suprise Jessica for her birthday.

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1. Race was an issue in the campaign. As much as people try to say otherwise, it mattered. I am genuinely glad for black people that this is so. It affirms what they’ve been trying to say for over a hundred years–that their skin color doesn’t make them less important. But now that we’ve elected a black man into the White House, the “American is racist” argument will lose a lot of its clout. Of course, those who really believe it will find some way to keep it alive, but I don’t think it will be nearly as persuasive.

Further, Obama will ultimately prove the equality of the “races” when he makes a mistake and has to pay the consequences. Just as the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton during the primaries proved that women have an equal right to criticism, a strong opposition to Obama’s policies will show that black people really do get treated the same way as white people.

2. Campaign finance whining might go away. Obama raised an enormous amount of money. If McCain had raised that much and won, the media would have accused him of buying the presidency (and in a sense, he would have). But they won’t criticize Obama for his financial success. In the future, Republicans should feel free to raise as much as they can (legally), since any media criticism of their success would be obviously disingenuous. I realize that the media’s ability to spin things to fit their narrative will still be powerful, but I think the “buying the election” epithet will lose some of its power.

3. Republicans should know how not to run a campaign. McCain’s campaign was pretty sorry. He survived on people’s hesitancy about Obama and a few spectacular successes — the “surge,” Gov. Palin (a mixed blessing, more below). His response to other issues, e.g. the economic “crisis,” was pretty bad. It took a plumber from Toledo and a slip from Obama to focus the message on the obvious. McCain and Co. were just flopping around, and it hurt them. In fact, McCain and Palin never really explained any of their positions very well.
Voters reminded the GOP that ideas do matter, and if you can’t express them cogently, you won’t win.

4. A young rising star in the GOP got national facetime. Gov. Palin has been a touchstone for the debate within the GOP about the party’s direction. She represents one vision of Republicanism (I think the more conservative side). It was nice that she could be introduced to the country to remind young conservatives that they can actually go places in politics, and that people really do care about conservative values. To be sure, certain aspects of her candidacy were badly handled, and she may not have been ready to be president (I’m not sure that Obama is either). But she could represent a future GOP that a lot of its younger members would like. She may not be a good candidate for president, even in the future, but her success should remind the movers and shakers that they can’t ignore the right.

5. Conservatives aren’t whining. When Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004, there was lots of griping about all the unfair things that happened. Most conservatives are pretty prosaic about this campaign. Many see it as a deserved punishment for a party that has behaved badly. Further, they think it proved that moderate Republicanism doesn’t work very well against “moderate” Democrat-ism. The introspection may be very healthy.

Some not-so-good things and observations:

1. Senator Obama ran on a campaign of “hope and change.” He never really bothered to be more specific about the kind of change or what we should hope for. His success in vagueness prompts a couple of points, any or all of which may be true.
a. Americans don’t care about the meaning of words. They think emotionally; which makes no sense, but I think it captures the sentiment. In reading the various analyses of the campaign, both during and after, I was struck by the freqency of aesthetic language and imagery. Obama’s campaign was (perhaps intentionally) cast as a artistic event. And people today generally think that art is something that you interact with emotionally–and without thought. They don’t care about the meaning of art; indeed, they may think that it has no meaning. Obama capitalized on this sentimentality to propel his campaign.
b. Americans were so sick of Washington that they were willing to “vote for change” regardless of the nature of the change. When people don’t trust the current government (and it was perceived as Republican), “change” is automatically a powerful idea. I think voters were so disillusioned with Republicans that they were willing to give nearly anything else a chance. Obama essentially said “I’ll do things differently.” And voters said “Go for it.” They may have thought they had nothing to lose. It couldn’t get that much worse. (It can, but it’s hard to convince people that it could be that much worse.)

2. The mainstream media might as well be an extension of the Democrat party. There are a few journalists who actually did a little journalism, but for the most part, reporters were incredibly lopsided. In this campaign, no one could accuse journalists of educating anyone, or even of being “fair and balanced.” The public’s ignorance of relevant issues (like economics, foreign policy, etc.) permitted Obama to run his vague campaign, but the media never tried to inform the American voter about the relevant points in the discussion. They vacillated between gross simplification and technical jargon/academia-ese. This certainly played in Obama’s favor, since he appeared to cater to many people’s rudimentary understanding. His unclear positions allowed voters to project their ideas onto his without damage, so his ideas looked like their own. This is not a good thing, and the media could have helped prevent it.

All said, an Obama presidency may be good for the country in a couple of ways. If he governs like Clinton, we’ll do all right. If he governs like Hoover, the economy probably won’t do well. But as Robert Bork has observed, one thing that would help restore religious sentiment to our culture would be deep depression. It’s just that economic depression isn’t likely to win many voters. Obama’s power is highly derivative. We would do well to remember that if he tries to make waves, that doesn’t mean he controls the oceans.

Over at least the last two generations, and particularly the last two decades, America has enjoyed, yea championed, the vices of Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Greed. Look at the news stories that tell what Americans are complaining about now. They resent the loss of their luxuries–those things that they had no right to but have pursued to excess. They dislike the fact that excess, combined with laziness, eventually leads to want.

Perhaps I should say “we.”

But now they have a savior. He promises them relief from the loss of their pleasures. He offers ease from the hardship that they have brought on themselves. He claims that they need not suffer for their own sins.

How does he do this? By telling us that our previous sins are not our responsibilty and by calling us to Pride in our own worthiness, Envy of those who have succeeded, and Wrath against people who expect us to take care of ourselves.

In short, he tells us that we have not sinned enough.

This is the job of a “community organizer” (probably better labeled “agitator”). Stanley Kurtz at National Review has documented Senator Obama’s positions and activities. Obama’s MO basically motivates sinning people to sin more so that they can keep sinning. He wants to remove the law of sowing and reaping. Unfortunately, his opponent doesn’t clearly disagree.

Speaking of sowing and reaping, the American public has long elected politicians who have stayed in power by appealing to the basest instincts of their constituents. It works to do so. But the state shapes the people, so as the politicians themselves are vicious, the people become so too. And then the people turn around and elect more vicious politicians. Many polls and news stories suggest that Americans have lost their faith in their government. Considering the kind of government we have, it’s about time they stopped believing.

Government is not our salvation. Usually it tends merely to delay the consequences of vice. Now, more than ever, our government is actively and unashamedly trying to absolve the sins of the people. And the people are poised to elect someone who will add more sins, not remove them.

Salvation requires repentance and faith. With a faithless government that doesn’t demand repentance, it’s hard to imagine how government could do anything but make things worse. But then, that might be a good thing. The sooner people remember the law of sowing and reaping, repent, and put their faith in something more substantial and transcendent, the better off we’ll be.

I have some pictures from the event. Hopefully they turned out ok. We were just behind the media section (a good spot), but it was still pretty far away, and my camera isn’t nearly as nice as the ones the media use.

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I don’t want to bash the family at the beginning, and I wouldn’t wish economic hardship on them. But if their difficulty is limited to fewer snacks (or rationing them out over a week), I confess that I’m less sympathetic. In fact, the suggestion that this is the kind of economic hardship going on is insulting. It insults both the viewers’ intelligence and those who really are getting hurt by the downturn. Sure, things aren’t as smooth-going as they were, but at least the family in the video is frankly a long way from starvation.

I think the average person out there knows full well that this family isn’t getting hurt too badly. Are all these plans Senator Obama suggests intended to help out these kind of people at the expense of those of us who are little closer to subsistence living? I fear so. But the pretense of the video is spectacular. The remainder of the infomercial doesn’t get much better.

Part 2 of the infomercial

Part 3

Part 4

Is it just me, or was the live portion of this video kind of odd? He returned to the “hope and change” lines from early in the campaign. If he had clearly discussed policy in the previous 25 minutes, that might have been one thing. But instead we got a list of sob stories that seemed a little contrived and some vague promises to fix their problems. We want to know how he’s going to fix the problems — but once we know, we might not like it. I guess the question is whether the hope and change mantra will survive until Tuesday.

I should have quit when I was almost 1/4 cup short of oil (I melted some butter to make up for it), because also didn’t have enough zucchini or cinnamon. But, I made do without.

The result…two very yummy and moist loaves of bread.

Here’s the recipe:

Zucchini Bread

INGREDIENTS
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F ( 165 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in oil and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt and nuts; stir into the egg mixture. Divide batter into prepared pans.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until done.

There are dozens of vendors and exhibitors. The best two, in my opinion, were the falconer and the sheepherder. The sheep dogs were amazing. With slight commands they could manuver sheep through obstacles and control them, even with a crowd of people around.

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We planned to go to Shot Tower State Park, but it was closed, so we headed on to the New River Trail State Park (NRTSP). The NRTSP is Virginia’s longest park — 57 miles. The park follows an abandoned railroad right-of-way. The trail is for walking, biking, and horse-riding. Our entrance to the park was in Foster Falls, VA.

Foster Falls used to be a center of iron industry. Now all that is left are some deserted buildings near the river, a Methodist church, a post office, and several homes. A hotel, built in 1887 is still standing, though it fell into disrepair in the 50’s. After it was a hotel it became a girl’s industrial school and a children’s home.

While in the park we walked along the trail a few miles in each direction (North and South). The scenery was beautiful. Some sections had rocks on both sides of the trail. We had a picnic lunch and wandered past the deserted buildings by the river. Andrew enjoyed taking some pictures.

It was a beautiful day to spend outside enjoying God’s creation. We would enjoy going back and renting bikes for half a day in order to go further along the trail.

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