Author Archives: The Night Writer

The five dumbest things you can do if you have too much debt

Posted on by
6

by the Night Writer

I noticed one of those ads next to an on-line article I was reading this morning. No, not one of those talking about Obama wanting mothers to go back to school or terrorists to go back to Guantanamo or whatever is being promoted this week. This ad appeared to speak directly to a significant issue: The Five Dumbest Things You Can Do if You Have Too Much Debt.

A better title, though, may have been “Obama doesn’t want you to read this.”

Following the link, I discovered that the ad really did list the five things you shouldn’t do, rather than just starting you on a trail of multiple clicks to suck you into a scam. Reading them I thought the advice was as relevant to a country as they are to a family. Here’s the list, with my observations:

The five strategies you may want to avoid:

The first piece of advice from experts in the financial field is to be sure you don’t make your situation worse by making common mistakes. In particular, try to avoid:

1. Paying only the minimum payment on your debt, as this will result in the amount you owe actually growing, and your problems will only become worse.

This is especially true if you only pay the minimum on your existing debt and continue to take on new debt at the same time.

2. Relying on friends and family, as this can damage relationships with the most important people in your life.

Do we consider China a friend? Can we count future generations as “friends and family”?

3. Unscrupulous credit counselors that demand cash upfront or high fees for help they promise, but don’t deliver.

Ben Bernanke, I’m looking at you.

4. Using new, high-interest loans to pay off lower interest rate loans. While it may be easier to just have one payment, it will actually increase the amount you have to pay back.

Isn’t this what Quantitative Easing is all about?

5. Declaring bankruptcy–this can have permanent and severe consequences on your financial future. Avoid it if you can, especially when debt settlement may work for you.

Declaring bankruptcy is a good thing to avoid. But what if other countries declare it for you by removing the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency?

As it turns out, the advertisement wasn’t completely altruistic. It eventually made a pitch for working with a Debt Settlement company to develop and execute a plan to get your finances back in order. Unfortunately, you can’t hire a debt settlement group for an entire country.

You can, however, elect them.

Now the TSA wants to reach into your wallet

Posted on by
2

by the Night Writer

Janet Napolitano is claiming that because the airlines have started charging bag fees, air travelers are carrying on more baggage, which is somehow costing the TSA extra money; so much so that she thinks her agency needs another $600 million or so. While inspecting more bags may take time away from the TSA’s preferred activities of ogling naked scans and crotch-groping, it isn’t clear to me how the carry-on situation is increasing the TSA’s costs.

1. Passengers are still limited, typcially, to one carry-on or one carry-on and a “personal item”. They are not suddenly bringing extra bags.

2. These bags may be more densely packed but there are still size limitations; there really is only so much you can jam in there.

3. Are the TSA agents charging by the bag, or are they paid hourly? If you work a shift aren’t you paid the same whether you check one bag or 100?

Methinks this is rent-seeking, pure and simple. I know, it’s hard to believe a government agency could do such a thing, but so far Frau Napolitano’s argument simply doesn’t scan.

I also had the opportunity to take a couple of flights this past week. Returning via Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, I shuffled through a narrow corridor to the x-ray machines at Security. A couple of guys about my age were in front of me and one asked the other if he knew whether this airport had the body scanners. The other guy didn’t, but asked his companion if he’d go through one or not. The first guy didn’t know.

I interjected, “I’m not going to go through a body scanner. The government can treat me like a criminal, but I’m not going to let them treat me like a guinea pig.” When the guys looked at me a little askance, I said “There’s no way they’ve had enough time to actually test out the health affects of those machines.”

“They’re supposed to be safe to use,” one of the guys said, a bit nervously.

“That’s what they said about Thalidomide, too,” I replied.

We shuffled on. There were no body scanners waiting at the end of the chute.

Lan astaslem

Posted on by
2

by the Night Writer

Pakastani Minister of Minority Affairs Shahbazz Bhatti was assassinated this week by radical Islamists over his opposition to the blasphemy laws. It was the second assassination in two months of a leading opponent of the blasphemy laws.

A Catholic, Bhatti’s life had been threatened many times since he accepted his office in 2008. He was undaunted in the face of these threats, honoring his faith and openly citing his desire to live up to the example of Jesus Christ. “Jesus is the nucleus of my life,” Bhatti said in 2008, after accepting the Minority Affairs portfolio, “and I want to be his true follower through my actions by sharing the love of God with poor, oppressed, victimized, needy and suffering people of Pakistan.”

In an interview with the freedom of expression group First Step Forum four months ago (and broadcast here, I believe, by Al Jazeera), he spoke of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus Christ made for the oppressed and that he understood “the meaning of the cross.” He vowed not to give in to the “dark forces” of extremism and said he was ready to lay down his own life for the sake of his fellow Christians and all other oppressed minorities in Pakistan.

Naturally, he was too dangerous to be allowed to live.

By the time I get to Phoenix

Posted on by
5

by the Night Writer

So, last July I started the planning for my company’s semi-annual conference for our key clients. We were in the middle of the heat of summer, and our minds were full of sun and sand as we selected a resort in the desert near Scottsdale, AZ for our February conference. I didn’t imagine that I’d have to escape a blizzard in order to get there, though.

Right from the beginning there’s a lot that goes into preparing for an event of this magnitude (our guests represent about a third of our total annualized premium) and the pace gets even faster as you get near the actual date. The last couple of weeks I’ve had several late nights at work as we counted down to yesterday’s departure. I was so wrapped up in it all that I scarcely noticed the Minneapolis weather forecast until Friday. Here we had several days in a row of temps in the 40s and NOW they want to tell me that 18 inches of snow are heading our way, with the thick of it hitting at almost the same time as my departure flight Sunday afternoon.

Sunday morning dawned gray and cold, but dry. By the time we went to church, though, the snow was coming down in those tiny little flakes that typically presage a major dumping. After church I checked on my flight status; it had been moved back from 4:15 to 4:45 but was still expected to take off. The airline in question, Sun Country, doesn’t cancel fllights unless the airport itself closes, unlike the other “hometown” airline. They merely keep pushing them back until they can take off.

It looked like whiteout conditions outside the big windows in the Humphrey terminal but our white jet eventually nosed up to the jetway like a glacier sneaking up on Minnesota, but it wasn’t ready to board until 5:20. Nevertheless, we were soon in motion shortly thereafter and I began to think we were actually going to get-away. We taxied for awhile as the engines wound up, and then were stopped because the runway needed to be plowed. After the runway was plowed, we needed another de-icing. Then we taxied some more and stopped while the runway was plowed again. Then we were told that we were finally all set to go — except that one of the airport’s ground vehicles had gotten itself stuck on the side of the runway and needed to be towed. Finally, about 7:30, we were at last airborne.

The delays were bad enough, but inside the jet it was also getting warm and muggy. Yeah, it’s a nice contrast to what’s going on outside, but not what you want as visions of jets being stranded on the tarmac for 14 hours dance through your head. Additionally, even though I had paid for the full use of my aisle seat, I was only getting about 80% of it because the large guy in the center seat next to me was spilling into my space. Now, being a kind of beefy guy myself, I tried to stay mellow about it, but being a beefy guy I really need 100% of my space and wouldn’t dream of taking 120%.

The arrangement was causing me to hangd out a bit into the aisle, which was also a problem because it was only about 18″ wide itself. Once we finally got into the air after the long delay and the seatbelt sign was turned off, half the passengers got up to get in line for the bathroom, and about half of them bumped into me on their way. Later, when I tightroped down the aisle myself to the bathroom I had to do a series of reverse-lambada moves with people heading the other direction because the aisle wasn’t big enough for two people to pass without getting more intimate than you’d typically care to do (perhaps this is where the TSA got the idea).

Earlier in the day we had prayed earnestly for favor in getting out of Minneapolis and to this conference; since I’m running it, it would be bad to miss it. The picture in my mind was the weather holding off, or opening up, so that we could get away cleanly. That wasn’t looking like the case, but I had put myself into a more laid-back frame of mind and decided not to let the situation ruin my day, and place my confidence in God that things would work out. I stayed mellow throughout, even as I literally made allowances for my seat-mate who certainly wasn’t deliberately trying to be huge. Once we got airborn we suddenly picked up a huge tailwind that knocked our flying time down to 2:23 instead of the usual 3 hours and 15 minutes. As I waited at the baggage carousel with a woman from our flight she told me that she’d just received a text from her friend saying that our flight was the last one to get out before they closed the runways last night.

God is good!

You may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”

Posted on by
8

by the Night Writer

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
wife
And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?

Well, more than six years ago my beautiful wife suggested to me that I ought to look into this new thing called blogging. And then six years ago on Feb. 15 I actually launched this site, thinking I’d give it six months. And now, six years.

I suppose I could recount the number of posts, the number of visitors, the number of comments, etc., but more dear to me is the number of friends I’ve met, the thoughts shared, and the encouragement I’ve received. Not to mention, a son-in-law and a grandson!

It has also been a thrill to have used this blog to launch Tiger Lilly’s novel-writing career, and to see her win a prize (and $1,000) from the Writer’s Digest for best self-published on-line novel.

While I haven’t been as prolific here as I was six years – or even one year – ago, I have no plans to retire this site or disappear. In fact, even when I’m not writing here, I’m thinking about it, and I like the fact that I have a place here to post some of my deeper thoughts. It is good exercise for considering my words, examining my reasoning and challenging myself to communicate something that will either resonate or draw a laugh or – ideally – both. Over the years, this exercise has brought me to the point of a new venture and I’d like to take this opportunity to share this with you.

For some time I’ve been fiddling with a book in fits and starts. Some times the inspiration is there and more often there is doubt, but I believe the vision is there and it is valid and I will complete this at some point. Events in recent months, however, have galvanized me with an idea for a different book; one that I’ve already started. In fact, I started it nearly six years ago when I wrote my first post about my kids.

I am going through the old posts, collecting the ones that in one way or another reflected our family life and my wife’s and my philosophy of child-rearing. Now I am moved to organize these into a more cohesive and accessible on-line book. My objective isn’t to produce a how-to manual; there are a lot of those out there and I can’t say that my ideas are particularly original. Instead, I want this to be an exhortation, an encouragement that it is possible — against all the obstacles and distractions in the world around us — to raise godly children and to see them grow and flower in the nurture of their own convictions, becoming full-blooded, creative and inspirational adults in their own rights.

I’m doing a lot of my Night-Writing in this cause right now, as well as editing the sequel to Tiger Lilly’s first book. My expectation is that both of these will be brought out into the light this year. I will still be writing here at about my present pace, a post very week or so.

The fact is, I would never have thought such a thing was possible if I hadn’t been plugging away here all this time, and I know I would never have kept at this if it weren’t for the friendship and support of the readers (and writers) I’ve met as a result. Thank you for being there, and I’ll be seeing you.

All our best

Posted on by
4

by the Night Writer

As with Job, that which I have feared came upon me.

Today was the day that had long been foretold and expected; my oldest daughter’s last day in our church. I had originally had a vision of this day coming about 11 years ago, and 18 months ago we had had a preview of this as the Mall Diva and Son@Night prepared to begin his pastoral internship (see the link for details) at a church in Savage, MN, but today was the real thing. S@N was officially ordained last weekend in a ceremony in his home church in Alexandria and they are leaving on Tuesday for their new ministry in Iowa. Today was the day our church finally laid our hands on them to impart our blessing in sending them on their way, hopefully lacking in nothing.

Despite the ample warning I was having trouble this week preparing for the inevitable. It began at last week’s ordination service as I met a group from the Iowa congregation that had come to Alex for the ceremony. Given the way I feel about my daughters, I started to say to the leader of the group, “We are giving you our best” but my throat got too tight. Perhaps it’s better for them to come to this revelation for themselves. A couple of times at work this week I was nearly overcome as I thought about today, but fortunately no one came into my office at those times and my phone didn’t ring. My wife and I have always tried to have the perspective that our parenting is a stewardship of what God has given us, knowing that we’d have to pass them on at some point. It’s a worthy objective, but when you start to get close to that time the mix gets lean on theory and long on reality and sometimes your thoughts close in on yourself.

This morning I was thinking about all of this and asking for strength for the service when I felt God say to me, “Your problem is you are looking at this in terms of what you are losing, when you should be looking at it as what you are giving.”

Of course. Ah, of course.

I’ve experienced the spiritual phenomenon — so contrary to the “natural” way of the world — of giving time and money and seeing these multiplied back to me so often in so many ways that there’s almost never a second thought now when an opportunity to do one or the other arises. But Matthew 6:21 also tells us that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Time and money are one thing, but perhaps now we were getting down to the treasure closest to the heart and hardest to part with. But truly, I could no more withhold this than any of the other, nor expect any less to come back to me in return. In truth, I had given this long ago when we had set our feet on this path, putting in motion the desire of our heart to see God glorified and his plan come to pass; a path that also included my daughter making her own choices and embracing her destiny. And all of this in the realization of how much we had already received even before we had given a thing.

Challenger

Posted on by
2

by the Night Writer

It was 25 years ago today when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on live TV shortly after take-off, killing the seven astronauts (including a civilian schoolteacher who was part of the mission) while the nation watched in horror. I was at work that day and I don’t recall how we first heard the news. Nobody had internet access in the office in those days and few listened to the radio in our office. Someone probably got a call from outside, but the news spread quickly. One of my co-workers had a computer monitor that could pick up TV signals, so we gathered around that constantly, hoping minute by minute for more news or an explanation. After about an hour my boss came over and told us all, gently, that we needed to get back to work.

I felt depressed and almost ill all day after that and that night at home I got one of those junk calls – someone selling siding or something. Rather than hang up or ream him out or play with his mind as I typically did back then I said, “You know, I really just don’t feel like getting into this right now.” The caller responded, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” We then spent the next five or ten minutes talking about the Challenger and the astronauts, their families and what the President had said and then we hung up.

In those few minutes, in that most unlikely situation, and in that shared tragedy we, too, “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and our isolated lives to become part of something much greater.

The reason for grandchildren

Posted on by
5

by the Night Writer

Down among the reeds and rushes
A baby boy was found
His eyes as clear as centuries
His silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

Our pastor likes to say, “God gives you children so that you can grow up.” The point is that your thinking changes when you realize the long-term responsibility you have, and your behavior (hopefully) changes when you start to recognize your less admirable traits showing up in your children. Unless, of course, you don’t mind your child turning into a despicable evil genius.

watching the game blog size

A second thought along this line occurred to me the other day: “and God gives you grandchildren so you can mature.” By that I mean the satisfaction that comes from seeing all the things you worked so hard to put into your child manifest itself in and around your grandchild. It’s the pay-off for the blood, sweat, tears and unpopular decisions you made to strengthen your own character as well as your son or daughter’s and it comes when you see how they love and teach their own children in turn, perhaps even with a greater patience and discipline than you yourself possessed at the same stage in your life. It’s at this point that you realize that your hopes for the future are bearing fruit and your work has passed from your hands.

I also realized that the same thing applies not just to the natural children you’ve borne or created, but to the “supernatural” or spiritual children you’ve discipled in the faith. How warm and glorious a feeling it is to see these children living on and sharing the things they’ve learned with others. Whether with natural or supernatural children, this is the point where you are truly overcome with the realization that something of you really is going to live on.

As an aside, this revelation may have germinated with me last week at the Bible study I lead at the Red Wing correctional facility. As it happens, each of the men in the study will be released at some point this year and I was moved to read the short chapter of Isaiah 61:1 to them. The first verse — “the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound…” — was what had first caught my attention, but it was the rest of the chapter that was the most powerful because it deals with what can happen for those that receive that word and that liberty. Among these is in verse 3 — “that they may be called trees of righteousness” — and especially verse 9: “Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, And their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”

The mens’ faces were a bit gob-smacked as I challenged them to be those trees and I saw the realization soaking into them of the effect they could have into the next generation and the next in the families they had yet to create. “You have the chance,” I told them, “to have your grandchildren say of you either that ‘Grandpa did 10 to 20’ or that ‘Grandpa was a mighty man of righteousness who was an example to our family and set my feet on the path.'”

And T. added, “Or they could say both.”

As for my own grandson, now five and a half months old, his face often has gobs of different things on it, but it is almost invariably smiling. And why shouldn’t he? He is literally surrounded by people who love him and are happy to see him and quick to want to hold him. As Paul Simon said at the beginning of this post, he’s never been lonely, never been lied to, never had to scuffle for fear or had anything he needs denied to him.  If called upon I would gladly and readily pour everything I am and everything I have into him, but I can relax because I see that my daughter and her husband already know what it is they have to impart. My heart overflows with joy when I watch my grandson or hold him close and at the same time I feel an ache knowing that every day the news brings stories of babies that are resented, cursed and abused.

I look into his eyes, as clear as centuries, and stroke his silky brown hair and think of those born into suffering now and the deprivation they face that goes beyond mere food, clothing and shelter. I think of their lives and future paths leading into captivity and the need for someone, someday, to bring the words of liberty. And I hold my grandson even closer and whisper into his ear, “Born at the right time.”

Correctification

Posted on by
2

With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day’s work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon — not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words — which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:

page 25 – So I signed it and left. Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim …  rectify

page 68 – You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto Bradish …  rectify

page 84 – But by night they had changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim … rectify

times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

HTs: 1984. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New edition of “Huckleberry Finn to lose the ‘n’ word.

Despicable Parenting

Posted on by
2

by the Night Writer

Despicable MeBehind every super-villain is a lousy parent. At least that’s the message I picked up on when the family sat down the other night to watch the DVD of Despicable Me, the animated movie featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segal and Julie Andrews. Whether it’s the main character Gru’s self-centered and impossible to impress mother or the demanding and bullying father of Gru’s also-evil nemesis, Vector, the path to megalomania appears to start in the nursery.

These two parents are only minor elements of the story, however, as the central dramatic tension and humor comes from the diabolically dysfunctional Gru’s attempts at parenting three orphan girls he adopts as cover for one of his fiendish plots. In fact, as I think of it, the only “normal” kids in the movie are the orphans who don’t have any parents, though they do suffer a bit at the hands of Miss Hattie, the director of the orphanage who is an “iron fist in a velvet glove while wearing a pair of brass knuckles type”. The plucky heroines are unfazed by either Miss Hattie or the woefully ill-equipped Gru’s attempts at authority.

Granted, I’m not going to get too serious about the “reality” or message of a movie that also posits that the moon, having been shrunk and stolen, will snap back into its normal orbit again when it re-enlarges, but still.

If a key part of humor is doing the unexpected then a movie where the adults are smarter than the children would surely be the smash comedy hit of the year.