Bush Bashing is Flawed

You know, I'm tired of the Bush bashing that is the media's favorite pasttime. All CNN does is show the devastation that is now New Orleans along with a running commentary about how it is all the fault of the Bush administration. This is just not accurate.

My heart goes out to the citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Oh my gosh, the catastrophe and heartbreak is unbelievable. But it is not because of George Bush! Why must there always be blame associated with suffering? Why do we (thanks to the media) insist upon pointing the finger at somebody when things go wrong? Why not just roll up our sleeves and try to make things better? and that includes trying to improve everyone's morale.

Ben Stein says it so well:

A Few Truths
By: Ben Stein
Published 9/2/2005

A few truths, for those who care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for as long as we can trace back. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There were far worse hurricanes than this one before George Bush was even born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that, if it does exist, it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To think otherwise is just plain ridiculous.

6.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good; mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans' residences neglected to pay heed to the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused or ignorant to understand how dangerous the hurricane was going to be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people. old people, and people without cars in New Orleans. Being president does not include the responsibility to make sure that every adult in America is in good health, has good sense, and has a car.

7.) George Bush was not responsible for gangsters shooting at rescue helicopters while they were trying to rescue people from rooftops. Nor is he responsible for the gang bangers raping young girls in the Superdome, nor for the looters who stole everything they could get their hands on; TV sets, clothes, jewelry, weapons, etc. It was these people, not George W. Bush, who helped turn New Orleans into a living hell.

8.) George Bush is not a racist either in mind or soul. This should be apparent (to anyone not totally biased against him) from the appointments he had made in his administration, over and over. To claim that he is a racist is just plain idiocy.

9.) George Bush is doing all he or anyone else could do to rush federal aid to New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize and mobilize the needed troops, convoys of food and water, medical supplies, and doctors. Now they are there and more is arriving, and considering the vastness of the tragedy and the lawlessness of the city it's a miracle of bravery and organization that they are there and able to do the job of rescuing survivors and helping those in need.

10.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise only shows a bias against the president and the desire to put him down.

11.) If the energy that the left wing, liberal news media is putting into blaming Bush for an Act of God -- worsened by the stupendous incompetence of Louisiana's state officials and New Orleans' city authorities, and the malevolence of the criminals of the city -- was directed toward helping the morale of the nation, the nation would all be a lot better off.

12.) New Orleans is a great city with many good people. It will recover and be greater than ever, but sticking pins into an effigy of George W. Bush, an effigy that does not resemble him in the slightest, will not speed the process of that by one day.

God bless all of the people who are suffering so much from this tragedy, and God bless those who are helping them, starting with George W. Bush.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer who lives in Beverly Hills and Malibu, California. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator.

My Response to Your Comment

A reader left a very thought-provoking comment on a previous blog I wrote about the Power of Prayer. I've spent a long time trying to formulate what my response would be. Even now, I'm not sure I can put my thoughts into concrete words.

First of all, let me say that even though we prayed for hurricane Dennis to change its course so that Mobile Bay would suffer less, we certainly didn't intend for the destruction to be dealt to other people and areas. And it isn't for us to decide who should be spared and who should suffer. It was presumptuous of me to imply that our prayers saved Mobile Bay during hurricane Dennis.

Furthermore, one does wonder what happened to all the prayers of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I wish I had a satisfactory answer.

I am no theologian; no Biblical scholar; no member of the ministry. All I have is my faith in God to put the words in my brain and let my fingers type them out. I have no other agenda than to try to explain what I feel in my heart.

As mentioned in my last post, I believe God put us in this life to prepare us for the next life. I agree with the idea that He "is more interested in [our] character than our comfort." He never promised that we would be happy or healthy or safe. All He promised was eternal life to those who follow Him. Our life here on earth is but a tic on the timeline. There will be better times ahead for those who remain faithful.

It is through prayer that we keep our faith alive. By talking and listening to God, we can get a better idea of where He wants us to go. Prayer gives us hope. It reminds us that, no matter how much we may suffer in this life, heaven awaits us with eternal peace.

Being devoted to God and striving to be more like him leads us to do the things He would have us do. Yes, we will be challenged. Yes, we will face huge obstacles. We may even die before we thought we would. But if we believe in God, we'll be arriving in a much better place when we leave this one. We get only one guarantee when we're born: that is that we're going to die. Furthermore, it isn't up to us to decide when that will happen. It is up to us to make the most of the time we have here.

Why, we ask, does God let bad things happen?

I'd have to say that God is not a puppetmaster, nor are we His puppets. He gave us brains and resources. We can use them to His glory or we can misuse the resources and wind up causing all sorts of problems for ourselves. We can succumb to the devil's tools, power and greed, and also cause hardship and destruction for ourselves and other innocent people. We make choices. If our faith is strong, we at least try to make God-like choices.

God's own son suffered. Who are we to think we should be exempt from suffering?

The victims of hurricane Katrina are suffering terribly. Moreso than many of us will ever have to endure. Why them? Why the tsunami victims in Asia? Why the Jewish people during the holocaust? I have no answer for that. I also believe there are answers we aren't meant to know. Knowledge that we simply are not equipped to handle. But as their brothers and sisters, it is up to us to reach out to them and try to ease their suffering. It is up to us to pray for them. To pray that they can remain faithful so that they will be comforted in those eternal streets of gold when it is their time.

Human Doings

My cousin, Kay, sent this to me not long ago. It is worth reprinting here, in its entirety, with no further comment. Read it and learn:

In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren said:

People ask me, 'What is the purpose of life?' And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity.

We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body -- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ's likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys. You go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or --- you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is 'my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.

I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do: Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan - to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back.

It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, 'God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better.'

God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Migraine Headaches

Mirgraine sufferers may spend a lifetime trying to figure out how NOT to have another headache. If you've ever experienced one of these painful events, you no doubt understand what I mean. Yesterday I accompanied my daughter to her doctor for a recheck after being treated for migraines. This guy really knows his stuff about migraine headaches - probably because he, too, suffers from them. I thought I'd share what I learned.

Family history is one of the first things a physician may choose to explore with a patient suffering from severe headaches. Unfortunately, migraines are hereditary. If there is no family history, then it becomes likely that further testing should be done, i.e. CAT scans or MRI's to rule out blood clots or other problems with the brain or optic nerve, etc. Even though such tests may still be performed for complaints of severe headaches, it's a good bet that the sufferer inherited the malaise if it is indeed a migraine.

A migraine can be triggered by different stimuli. This is what many of us spend years trying to determine. Some common triggers are: wine or alcohol, certain foods or preservatives, hormonal changes in the body, changes in barometric pressure, smoke, dry air, or certain odors. Personally, I can almost predict when rain is imminent. As mentioned in a previous blog, I am most often the designated driver. I can only spend a short amount of time in a highly perfumed environment (like a candle shop). Smoke - whether from a fireplace or a cigarette - will send me scurrying out of the room. My headaches began when I first took birth control pills. I turn on humidifiers as soon as I turn on the heat in winter time.

So what do you do when you're in the grips of the most excruciating pain imaginable? pain that curls you into the fetal position, causes you to wear sunglasses even at night, keeps you scurrying to the bathroom, and sends you home from work.

There are prescription medications called Triptans that are on the market now. If taken at the first indication of a migraine, they will work their magic on the nerves in the brain to keep the headache from occurring. Different triptans work better for different people. I take Zomig; my daughter takes Imitrex or Relpax. The trick is to take them at the initial onset of the pain. Give it a couple of hours, and you should be back up to snuff, mostly pain-free.

If, however, you find that you're needing these medications more than, say, 4 times a month, you should talk to your physician about a medication to be taken daily on a regular basis. What happens is this: you feel the onset of a headache on day 1, so you take a triptan. The headache goes away. Day 3, you feel another headache coming on, so you take another triptan; headache goes away. Ditto for day 5. At this point, you can be assured that there will be another headache on Day 7 and Day 9 and so on. These latter headaches are called Rebound Headaches and are actually being caused by the repeated use of the medication. What I learned from this physician is that your best bet is to NOT take the triptan on Day 5. You may suffer one day, but you won't continue to have headaches on days following.

Sometimes a migraine occurs in spite of the triptan, or if you don't take the medication early enough. These are called Breakthrough headaches. There is an Imitrex epi-pen available for severe migraines in cases like this. (I've gotta get me one of these.) Another thing to do is get an injection of Phenargan to knock you out. The serotonin released when we sleep helps combat migraines. Chances are, when you do wake up, you'll be headache-free. I have to report here, however, that my headaches occur even when I am asleep. They will awaken me throughout the night. No doubt there is a medical response to this, but I don't know what it is. Also, my headaches tend to last two to three days. At times I beg for someone to just shoot me.

Another, less conventional, headache relief that I've discovered comes from my chiropractor. Now, my daughter's physician does not believe that this kind of treatment works; she asked him. (I kept my mouth shut; I was merely a visitor - not his patient). But my chiropractor can adjust my neck and manipulate my cranium, thus relieving pressure on nerves and vessels, and allowing the "juices" therein to flow more freely. I gotta tell you, more often than not, it works. He also advises me to put ice at the base of my skull and over my eyes. That feels good, too. I'm a believer; it's definitely helped my migraines.

Can migraines ever be cured? It doesn't sound like it. Will they ever diminish? My daughter's doctor suggested that it's possible that they may change after a woman gives birth - either for the better or for the worse. I think that, as time goes by, we learn to manage our headaches better, and that may seem to make them diminish. Unfortunately, I also believe I'll be plagued with migraines for as long as I live. I wish someone would tell me this theory is wrong.

Let me emphasize here that I am certainly NOT a medical professional. What I've written is only what I've heard from doctors, or what I've discovered for myself. Certainly if someone is having a severe headache, they should have it checked out by their own physician. There are plenty of methods by which to determine if it is a migraine or something much more serious.

I'm also interested in what fellow migraine sufferes may have discovered. Feel free to share in the comments section for me and for other readers to learn.

The Power of Prayer

As hurricane Dennis fast approached the Gulf Coast on Sunday, July 10, our relatives' home on Mobile Bay was in line for a direct hit. They hadn't even completed all the repairs from damages caused by last year's Ivan. If Dennis would only turn a little bit more to the east, the potential problems would be significantly less.

My sister-in-law phoned my mother-in-law moments before she left for Sunday School.

"Please pray for us," she asked, "and have your Sunday School class pray for us, too. Pray that this hurricane turns away from us."

They did. and it did. and this is no surprise to any of us.

We've always claimed that my mother-in-law has a direct connection. She is faithful in her prayers. We're certain that this is why our own lives have been so blessed. She prays while my better half is in the air, flying on business trips or in the midst of an important presentation. She prays for our son to be successful in his college courses. She prays for her friends who are suffering. My better half swears that she prays for all the rain we've been having in order to keep him from riding his Harley, of which she doesn't approve.

My friend, Lucille, has connections, too. She has her rosaries and her special prayers, and she, too, prays for us. Her faith is strong. It sees her through every day. We are blessed because of Lucille's prayers as well. Although I doubt Lucille has been praying for rain.

Maybe this is why I can be so laid back. I have these powerful prayers being lifted up on our behalf, and I know that we are being watched over by some wonderful angels. These prayers, combined with my own simple ones, remove my own burdens to the shoulders of One who is much better equipped to deal with them.

I talk to God as though He is sitting right beside me at the kitchen table. We have wonderful conversations. Once I've poured out my thoughts and concerns, I shut out the rest of the world and just try to listen. Sometimes I hear him; sometimes I don't. But I am, nevertheless, more peaceful. I believe with all my heart that God will tell me sooner or later what I need to know. Even if it isn't the answer I hope to hear, He will tell it like it is. And then, sometimes, there are simply things I don't need to know. I accept that, too.

Our country needs our prayers. This world needs our prayers. Lucille and my mother-in-law can't handle it for all of us. We all need to pray from our hearts.

Satan is alive and very well in this world today, and he is actively trying to shatter our faith with the evil things he is encouraging people to do. Only through faith and prayer will we overcome his influence. He is more powerful than our guns, bombs, government, plans, or defenses. He works through greed, power, money, lust, and selfishness. Look around you - his influence is everywhere. But he can't be successful against a prayerful, faithful society.

Personally, we have some friends who need your prayers today. There are some whose marriage has fallen apart, and who are now dealing with starting over at mid-life. There are those whose marriage is crumbling and who have lost their love for one another. There are those who may face days of suffering ahead as they come to terms with very difficult decisions to be made. Please pray for these friends of mine. With your help, and with Lucille's and my mother-in-law's, I pray that these friends will find peace and guidance.

Prayer is powerful. If it can change the course of an impending Catagory 3 hurricane, don't you agree that it can calm the turbulence of our own lives?