Right-Wing Agenda

Newt Gingrich? Really? Are my fellow Republicans smoking crack?

2012-01-27T13:12:00.000-06:00

I am a man. As such, I am attracted to pretty women. However, 18 years ago I met the one who stole my heart. Since then I can say with 100% certainty that I have not only been faithful to my wife ever since we married on April 1, 1995 (as well as after we met, by the way), but will do so until "death do we part." My mom and dad can say the same about their marriage. My wife the same about her parents' marriage (over 50 years, with her dad passing away a couple of years ago). All of these marriages have one thing in common: the parties to these marriages have character. Put another way, they are faithful people who can be trusted by their own spouses and total strangers.

This is why I cannot believe Republicans are choosing Newt Gingrich. "What about Christian forgiveness?" Many have said. He's been faithful to his current wife (the home-breaker, by the way) for more than a decade, and he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior so he's a new creation. And he's a true conservative and great debater (but is he really a conservative? He's called himself a Wilsonian, as in President Wilson who ushered in the Progressive movement in the U.S.).

Character isn't exclusive to Christians. I accepted Jesus into my life fully and completely in 1989, but I can say with the same degree of certainty stated above that had I married Mona as a heathen unbeliever back in 1995 I would have still been faithful to her. No question about it. Sure, there must be forgiveness when one becomes a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17) Indeed, the gift of the Holy Spirit will guide the believer in ways no unbeliever could ever experience. (Luke 1:35) Moreover, I've known many marriages ravaged by infidelity grow stronger after forgiveness by the wronged party. However, a one-time infidelity is not the same as the serial philanderer. For the latter, I have never seen a case where the underlying trust issue didn't get tested again after the initial round of cheating and unfaithfulness. Moreover, when a nation is contemplating a leadership change, shouldn't it consider the underlying character of the people it is considering, whether, as H. Ross Perot so famously said (paraphrased), "the American people can trust a man who's own wife cannot trust?"

There's scriptural basis (New Testament, as in post-Jesus) for this mindset. While it applies to elders and deacons in the church, I think leading the nation (such as King David vs. King Saul) could use some of this mindset, too.

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober- minded, self- controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. 1 Timothy 3:2-7 (ESV)

After reading this passage, do you see any "grace" for the overseer/President of the United States of America to have abandoned two sick wives and married the adulteress of the last one? Do you see Paul's words in the New Testament allowing for forgiveness post-salvation to cleanse a possible overseer of such wrongs to the extent that he can be pried into that directive? If so, what church do you go to? I need to get me some of that.

In summation, I can justify voting for a Mormon who has been faithful to his wife for more than 40 years (not to mention tithed to his church in the millions), who may have flip-flopped on a couple of issues a few times (though I pray that Santorum somehow emerges with the nomination). I cannot justify ignoring Gingrich's disgusting behavior toward two women who needed him to stand by them in their direst moments of need. I wouldn't blame them for wanting to get out of a marriage of such a man, but for him to pull the trigger when he was the wrongdoer, I don't think so.

Newt lacks the character inherent in a lifetime of good, humble choices. You may think he's changed, but his condescending, arrogant attitude during all the debates tells me he still thinks himself the smartest man in the room and that he believes he can talk himself out of any trouble, even when caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I think we've had enough of such arrogance in our current President. It's time to move on.

Ace Law Letter: Supreme Court rules that GPS tracking is a search ...

2012-01-23T19:04:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Supreme Court rules that GPS tracking is a search ...

Ace Law Letter: Officers may "guestimate" speed and have PC for a ...

2012-01-23T16:30:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Officers may "guestimate" speed and have PC for a ...: According to this recent Kansas case , an officer may guess that a vehicle is speeding and need not confirm this suspicion with radar or lid...

News updates 1-19-2012 2:46 p.m.

2012-01-19T14:46:00.000-06:00

Supremes consider medical marijuana

Law school made him attempt murder? Must be a provisional student.

Immigration cases to keep an eye on

Supremes weigh in on federal regulation of telemarketing

New strategy for capital defense: screw up so client can get off death row...or at least delay the execution.

"Ultimate power" kills!

5 ways to deduct legal fees from your taxes

Why gun sales are brisk

Puppet court reenactment

Perry backs Gingrich

Ron Paul is nuts!

So much for ex-wife forgiving Gingrich

Only cities to regain all the jobs lost during the Great Recession

Jack Welch has sold me on Mitt Romney

2012-01-16T09:03:00.000-06:00

We don't need another career politician in the White House. Our nation is in an economic hole. A big hole. And the hole was dug by career politicians buying and selling votes, Republicans and Democrats. Congress has its share of businessmen, but not enough to sway the votes in favor of business and capitalism, the things that truly are what made America greater than other nations in the past. And we've lacked a business-led President for decades. Think about it. Can you think of any President who was a capitalist and businessman before becoming a politician? The last one I can recall was Harry Truman, and his business endeavors failed. Maybe this deficit is what's led to the deficit? It's time for a change of pace, one that will address the one glaring problem in our nation's leadership. We need a capitalist, someone who knows how to run a business, in good times and bad.

I admit it. This is a clear change in my earlier opinions, sort of. Actually, now that I think about it, it's not really. I loved Herman Cain, a businessman first, politician second (actually, more like 10th or 11th). We know how that story ended. My second choice was Michelle Bachmann. She wasn't a businessman to the degree of Cain. She is an attorney who left her law career behind to go home to raise her family, and while there started a foundation that helped foster kids find homes. She even raised more than 20 herself. Her big problem is that there's no chance that she'll crawl out of the basement, which leaves just three or four viable candidates in the Republican field.

As an aside, it seems to me that when a candidate with business experience emerges, the career politicians on both sides (even his own) crush him like a bug. Maybe career politicians have an ethics problem? Or are just jealous?

Rick Santorum qualifies as a Conservative. But he's not what we need. He was a lawyer, then started running for office. Most of his background now consists of...you guessed it...politics. He's a career politician like all the others, only he's sold himself to the right hook, line, and sinker.

Newt? Please. Going from history professor to politician, to lobbyist, then back to politician does not show any practical business experience whatsoever.

Ron Paul? Great, he delivered over 6,000 babies as a doctor. But the professions, legal and medical, it seems to me, are not indicative of the kind of business experience it takes to turn bad businesses around, or to even run a "business" the way it needs to be run to keep it growing. The medical and legal professions are a simple matter of putting the shingle on the wall and waiting for the clients to roll in, with a little marketing in the early going. Once the doctor or lawyer sees a patient, there is no attrition. The average net income of an OG/Gyn, for example, is $261,000. Moreover, they tend to work for practice groups and not for themselves, as is the case with Paul. So, no practical business experience for Paul, either. Sorry, Paul Bots.

You can go down the line with the rest of the Republican candidates and reach the same conclusion, except for one, Mitt Romney.

Until last week I assumed I'd probably hold my breath when voting for Romney if it came down to him or Obama. He's a Mormon, my Christian brethren would say, and we need a "true" Christian. He got behind Romneycare in Pennsylvania, fiscally conservatives would say, so how can he oppose the author of Obamacare? He's a progressive, both groups would tell me, not cut out of the same cloth as Ronald Reagan, and we need Reagan again. Simply put, Romney haters scream at the top of their lungs the typical, ideological mantras they hear from their circles without considering the one aspect to Romney that should make them think with their brains and not so much their hearts. He's what we need at this point in time. What changed my position so dramatically? Two words: Jack Welch.

Last week former CEO of GE, the one who actually took a failing business and turned it into a manufacturing juggernaut (and without government subsidies for green energy, like his successor), Jack Welch, came out and said that Romney was the most qualified presidential candidate in more than 75 years. Consider his points.

One, Romney has a Harvard Law and MBA degree. (BTW, George W. Bush had an MBA and at least some business experience, but unlike Bush, Romney's businesses are still making money.)

Two, after coming on board of Bain Consulting, he spearheaded the spin off of Bain Capital.

Three, when Bain Capital was on the brink of bankruptcy, he came back and turned it around so swiftly that the following year it generated its best, most profitable year in its history.

Four, when Massachusetts was also on the brink of economic collapse, he became its governor and turned a multi-year deficit into surpluses. And yes, part of that plan was Romneycare. But, his issue with Obamacare has been the federal government's takeover of something that the Constitution leaves to the states. So if it was adjudged as a good thing for Massachusetts to do for Massachusetts, shut up! See the 10th Amendment, for goodness sakes. To paraphrase, if the power is not listed in the Constitution as retained by the federal government, it is up to the states to address it as they see fit!

Finally, after 9-11-2001, Salt Lake City was on the verge of canceling its bid to host the Winter Olympics. Instead, they hired Mitt Romney as a consultant to save their bacon. He did. Not only that, but it ended up being one of the most profitable Olympic games in history, and all thanks to Mitt and his ability to lead business. In this case, he sold many major U.S. corporations sponsorships, and the money generated by those sponsorships righted the ship. His salesmanship, the sin quo non of American business, turned lemons into sweet, satisfying lemonade.

It was these business successes that Jack Welch emphasized last week. More important, it was such practical business successes that Welch pointed out were totally and utterly lacking in all other candidates, as well as Obama, that compelled him to think that we should feel lucky to have a candidate like Mitt Romney. I am beginning to think he is right.

Two final points. First, Romney is smart enough to know what will happen if he doesn't get on board with the socially conservative issues we evangelicals think are important, such as abortion, and conservative judges on the courts. He is saying the right things now and we will hold him to them. Second, he is brilliant and polished enough to hold his own against the best and brightest (Gingrich?). He will pulverize Obama in those debates. He has proof that his business philosophies are better than the Marxist in Chief's. And he knows how to sell that position. If he starts to stumble, just press play on the Jack Welch YouTube video.

News updates 1-14-2012 2:08 p.m.

2012-01-14T14:08:00.000-06:00

Matthew 6:24 (ESV) “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

More than one fast and furious operation? These dudes hate the 2nd amendment.

Never bring a knife to a gun fight

If they will not work, they will not eat.

Most painful year at the pump...thanks to oil-hating president!

Court green lights sonogram mandate in Texas abortions. Yes!

Rich presidents make decisions that make stock markets rise. How is that a bad thing?

If this does pass, it will eventually be overturned and will hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees before it is.

Ace Law Letter: Courts can now consider results of bogus test when...

2012-01-13T10:47:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Courts can now consider results of bogus test when...: In City of Wichita v. Molitor , the court held that evidence of a DUI suspect's performance on the HGN test (pen test) is admissible to dete...

News updates 1-13-2012 7:45 a.m.

2012-01-13T07:45:00.000-06:00

Peeing on dead Pete a war crime? Geesh.

If you don't want to talk to the police, tough. Walking away just might give them reasonable suspicion.

DOJ says its boss didn't do anything wrong. That's credible.

Natalee Holloway finally declared dead

Urinating Marines deserve medal

More joblessness?

Philly mayor tells parents to stop acting like a%#h$&@?s

News updates 1-11-2012 8:40 a.m.

2012-01-11T20:40:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul wants all candidates but Romney to drop out

We've lost our self respect

Appeals court upholds mandatory per-abortion sonograms

4th amendment is being eroded by the court. Here's proof.

So you can't fire a teacher who can't stay awake in class?

Greed is good

Exploding car raises doubts? Duh.

Can Romney change his pro-gay stripes so easily?

10th circuit blocks law that bans imposition of Sharia/Islamic law due to Establishment Clause. To repeat, it is an establishment of religion to ban enforcement of a religious-based law. What?

When is our compassion too much compassion? I need to know!

2012-01-10T22:45:00.001-06:00

I lost my temper with a tenant, soon to be former tenant, today. He's been stringing me along for over four months without paying a dime in rent. Every couple of weeks he tells me he needs just one more week. Yet the week comes and the rent isn't paid. He promises again, and I believe him and give him a temporary reprieve. I know him to be a rather liberal sort, someone who has a problem with the haves, thinks they are greedy b#$%$#@s. But I don't think that's his problem at all.

His problem is assuming he's destined to be the victim, even though he's anything but. He's receiving unemployment benefits. Guaranteed cash every two weeks. Before he lost his most recent job he worked for a temp agency until that turned into a permanent placement. That was when the economy was smooth sailing. He had the same complaints about conservatives then, too. And now the economic situation gives him a seemingly viable excuse. But he's getting those benefits, and might be getting them for a very long time.

What should I do? He's already effectively receiving welfare. Should I also give him a private handout? I suspect that he's back in the rut, not really looking for a job. Sure, he has to be interviewing to keep getting those benefits, but the free payouts (premiums paid by the employers, not him, so don't pretend they aren't freebies!) started flowing three months ago, and when they did he told me his pay would be more regular and reliable, so the rent checks would be, too. They weren't. In fact, even though he actually received more money per month than before (not sure how that worked), he totally stopped paying rent. Three months later and I haven't received a dime. He told me last week that he was moved out so my maintenance guy went in today to prepare an estimate to get it ready to rent again. Guess what? That's right. He lied again. Not one shred of furniture or clothes has been moved. And he tells me that he can't say for sure when it will be moved since he'll need to store it somewhere.

So when must our compassion end? It seems to be that since that gas company turned off the gas long ago, and the winter is about to set in, and along with that the pipes might freeze, the time might be now. Actually, I think that time might have come to pass a long time ago.

I thought conservatives were heartless? I feel like a patsy. A large-hearted liberal patsy.

So the question arises again. When does compassion end and reality begin? Do you think that had I filed the eviction months ago this man would have been forced to stand on his own two feet sooner instead of relying on the patsy's good graces yet again, buoyed by one more bald-faced lie? To be frank, it's the lying to me and not so much the non-payment of rent that angers me most. At one point this man was a friend. He's worn that friendship down to the bone, and the grating that it's causing compels me to think I might be less compassionate, less trusting in the future. Whose fault is that? The liberal-minded fellow wore out his welcome. His selfish liberalism turned me into a selfish conservative, or did it?

Consider God's Word: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.'" 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NIV). Do you think that maybe our government constantly violating this command might have polluted our culture with those who assume they're entitled to charity from government and the private sector? (By the way, we tithe (10% of income to church), and give to charitable causes, so don't go there.) If so, maybe, just maybe I've been ignoring what God sees as true compassion. Helping out for a time, then letting them starve if they will not work. Teach them to fish and stop giving them freshly-fried fish and chips.

I'm not sure what the ultimate answer is, maybe somewhere in the middle. Clearly, I have erred to far on the left side of the ledger. For the short term I suspect I'll be leaning too far to the right. I have to. I need the rent. I got kids to feed (he's childless, so no issue there...in case you're wondering).

News and court updates 1-10-2012 8:35 p.m.

2012-01-10T20:38:00.000-06:00

Murder convicts overturned because the state intentionally withheld evidence on the only witness's credibility

Mark Levin says Mitt doesn't want to run on his record. Shouldn't he be proud of it?

Tebow haters

Carter pleased with Egypt polls. I was wondering how he felt about them.

Is supply side economics doomed?

Ace Law Letter: Does the end justify the means?

2012-01-10T19:15:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Does the end justify the means?: Here's a question that came to mind this week. A prosecutor is firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty. As long as he or she doesn't a...

News updates 1-10-2012 7:00 a.m.

2012-01-10T07:09:00.000-06:00

Didn't know high school girls had first amendment right to be slutty.

Read this to see that God maybe does get behind a team. Lots of 3:16 coincidences with Tebow.

Why are Republican candidates so weak?

Snoop arrested for pot again. No wonder he wants pot legalized

Alabama wins BCS championship 21-0. OSU should have played them.

Big brother monitoring journalists

Apple Siri coming to iPad?

News updates 1:00 p.m. 1-9-2012 (click on link to view)

2012-01-09T13:00:00.000-06:00

No minimum number of trash pulls to establish PC for drug search

Gun control kills jobs

Justice Breyer calls recusal controversy non-issue

Founding fathers would have no problem with this...

Something tax money should be used for

Wonder who Bristol will endorse

Going for the hip hop vote

Net worth of presidents

Ace Law Letter: All you get is the least of what you deserve

2012-01-06T13:04:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: All you get is the least of what you deserve: In Mattox v. State the Kansas Supreme Court reiterated the level of professionalism clients are entitled to under Kansas and U.S. Constitut...

To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question

2012-01-01T16:14:00.000-06:00

Time for reflection.

A little more than twenty years ago I set a few seemingly unreachable life goals.

1. Run a marathon.
2. Top 5% sales performance with my company.
3. Write a novel.
4. Become a lawyer.
5. Retire after a successful career in law, like my grandfather.

I had never run more than 5 miles at the time. I had quit the company I had worked for and just started with a new one, and didn't leave the old one on the best of terms. I had slacked off in college, especially in writing, and had only written a few short stories, very bad ones at that. And my college grades were pitiful, not the type of transcript any law school wants to see from its students. Simply put, that new year planning session that brought forth these life goals set the mark pretty darn high.

I shall repeat. In addition to my relationship with Christ (a relationship with a good woman and the kids that would follow hadn't dawned on me yet, so don't go there), my intent that first of many new years' planning sessions to follow was to declare the things I could do in my entire life to leave this world satisfied.

At the age of 45, here's what's happened so far:

1. Ran my first marathon just one year later. I've run a total of five, the last one during my third year of law school. Guess that takes care of number four, too.
2. Left my company on mostly a high note. Didn't end the last year in the top 5%, but was there a couple of years before.
3. Wrote my first novel (a really bad, 65,000 word manuscript that I used as a writing sample for my law school applications) four years later. Written a few more to date and I just now became a passable fiction writer. Even have an agent and, with God's grace, should have a book contract in 2012. Might even have two book contracts by the end of the year.
4. I have a successful law practice that has been serving clients for almost 10 years.

What's my point? Simple. I may not be rich. But I have a solid relationship with Christ, a beautiful wife and three daughters that I cherish and who cherish me. I've already accomplished a lifetime of goals and I have many years to live. As I determined back in 1992, if it all ended now life would be good if not complete. The rest, it seems to me, is gravy. I can say this because I never had new years' resolutions. Resolutions dissolve before any real fruit results. I had goals, goals that set me and my family up for yet more achievements. The ones listed above are just five, the five that seemed the most unreachable at the time. Many of the others were seemingly simple ones, like reading the Bible more, spending more time at home and less time at work. But those were perhaps the most enduring, the ones that my friends and family appreciated the most.

I've already had my goal setting session for 2012. I'll keep it mostly to myself for now. I will share the main objective that, if achieved, will leave me looking back at 2012 with a big smile on my face. Sign a book contact. Publish with a traditional publishing house. The other personal and professional goals and objectives have already mostly been achieved thanks to the seeds planted during the many preceding planning sessions. They'll happen in 2012 just like in mostly every other year before.

I share this for a simple reason. Be methodical with your life. Plan. Don't just drift along bumping into the shore every so often. Make a plan that means something to you and then stick to it. Life is too short to leave it all to chance. And one more thing, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3.

2012 should be the best year of our lives

2011-12-26T15:48:00.000-06:00

I resolve to be optimistic about 2012. Sure, we still have Obama as our Commander in Chief. Sure, if we all adopt this mentality and the economy turns around as a result, Obama will stand a better chance of being reelected, but I still choose the path of the optimist. The alternative, it seems to me, is unthinkable.

Stocks will sink lower.

Real estate will be more devalued.

Gold will be worth less.

My bank accounts will shrink, too.

So why should I hope the economy gets worse just so a Republican gets elected President? I shouldn't. Sure, odds are that as long as a socialist/communist resides in Pennsylvania Ave. America's prospects for a hopeful future are dim...or are they?

Common sense tells me that Ayn Rand was right when she predicted economic calamity as the government grew stronger and stronger, but isn't that the way of things everywhere? I thought our problem was solely due to Obama's socialist tendencies, but then Europe got kicked in the gut by Greek, Italian, and Spanish debt woes. Simply put, the whole world sucks right now, not just America. Indeed, of all the world's economies, it's America and China that seem to be best positioned to crawl out of the mire. One being victimized by creeping socialism (us), and the other a totalitarian, communist state.

Am I saying that I changed my mind about Obama's incompetence? No. He's still mostly a boob. I still earned less in 2011 because of the impact of Obamacare and his chastisement of the aircraft industry (Wichita relies heavily on private aviation, so when it suffers my clients suffer). But what I am saying is that people are resilient and not as stupid as it sometimes appears. For example, a bunch of poor people just got trampled because the malls didn't have enough Air Jordans, basketball shoes that sell for $180.00 and more. As long as they keep making stuff to buy, we will find a way to buy it, and employ manufacturers (in Mexico and China) and retailers to sell it.

Hence, I have decided to be part of the solution in 2012, and not the problem. I won't bash much, and I will look for opportunities to maximize the talents God has given me. I will optimistically look for ways to excel and succeed, regardless of who is President. To be frank, I'm not entirely certain that the men running for the Republican ticket aren't as boobish as the one in the White House now. They are just a little less honest about their motives, it seems to me. (Notice I said "men".)

So have a Happy New Year...or a depressing one. That's your choice. I'll have a Happy one, regardless of what happens. God bless.

Ace Law Letter: Can passenger challenge PC for traffic stop?

2011-12-17T11:58:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Can passenger challenge PC for traffic stop?: Here's an interesting case that isn't necessarily Kansas law, but likely will be soon. It's a Tenth Circuit case. The car's stop for DUI wa...

Ace Law Letter: Helpful ruling on breath tests and motions in limi...

2011-12-16T12:21:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Helpful ruling on breath tests and motions in limi...: In State v. Smith , the court ruled that just because a breath test is not subject to suppression due to it being illegally obtained as lack...

Ace Law Letter: Kansas finally adopts Supreme Court's expanded pro...

2011-12-02T11:09:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Kansas finally adopts Supreme Court's expanded pro...: A couple of years ago the U.S. Supreme Court drastically curtailed the ability of police to search vehicles of arrestees absent sufficient p...

Ace Law Letter: Whose this guy going to sue, the squirrel?

2011-11-30T22:21:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Whose this guy going to sue, the squirrel?: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20111130/UPDATE/111129034/Man-shoots-himself-effort-dislodge-squirrel-from-his-pants

God wants us to raise our expectations, not lower them

2011-11-29T14:40:00.001-06:00

“How was your thanksgiving?” The pleasant, very friendly lady asked me as I ordered my breakfast this morning.

“Good. Yours?” I asked back.

“Good, but I had low expectations, so it didn’t take much.”

I didn’t stare. I didn’t say anything, in fact. I just waited for my bagel and coffee and the final tally, smiling as I waited. To be honest, I was afraid that if I said anything else I’d hear something even more depressing.

It reminds me of something I heard Zig Ziglar say at a conference many years ago. Don’t ask the question “How are you today?” unless you’re prepared to get depressed, or are looking forward to a ministry opportunity.

Why do some people expect so little from themselves and others?

“This is the day that the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24. Some days are better than others. When my family experienced the collapse of a roof on a property we own and that we need for our retirement and to pay the bills, it was a bad day. But after the initial disaster, we chose to look at the bright side. I called the insurance company. I sent a demand letter to the contractor that collapsed the roof. In less than three weeks we had the settlement funds lined up from the contractor and the insurance company and the work began. Two weeks later we had a rebuilt building that was in much better shape than before the collapse. Sure, we lost a couple month’s rent, but we made out great in the mid- to long-term.

I choose to have high expectations. When problems hit, I pray first, then hit back. I attack challenges assuming the best in whatever circumstances I have to deal with. “All things work for good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Does that sound like a God who wants us to have low expectations so we aren’t easily disappointed? I don’t think so. It sounds to me like a God who wants to help us find the good in all things, good and bad. So what if we are disappointed every now and then. Disappointment just gives God the chance to show us the good that always comes from the bad if we’ll only give him a chance.

How about this for high expectations. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whomsoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) We may disappoint him with the stupid things we do, but he loves us anyway. Expect more. It’s the least we can do given what God did for us.

Ace Law Letter: Do NOT let police search your car without a warran...

2011-11-18T12:36:00.000-06:00

Ace Law Letter: Do NOT let police search your car without a warran...: Here's the scenario. You get pulled over on the highway while driving through a state not your own. Officer says "have a nice day" as he han...

Are you with me? If you're just making money and ignoring the Cross, the answer is an emphatic "NO!"

2011-11-08T08:56:00.001-06:00

What are you doing to make a difference in this world? In previous posts I've made it clear that I believe we all have a special purpose, one that not only involves making the most of our gifts and talents, but also leading souls to Christ. If all we do is go to work, make money, go home, hang out with family, and repeat, there's something missing. Indeed, I would contend that leading the typical American Dream existence will inevitably lead to burn out or, worse, total and utter disaster. It seems to me that this mentality just might be what leads men and women to look for greener pastures when they hit the big 4-0 or whenever the last kid leaves the nest.

I have this thought often when I step into the church sanctuary, and especially when I go to men's groups or Bible studies. In such intimate surroundings we often hear people unwittingly reveal their true motivations. You know what I'm talking about. Instead of people sharing awesome stories about how God used them to lead a neighbor or friend to Christ, they only talk about how this or that prayer for money, success, or some other selfish, worldly thing was answered. That's okay. But not when it is the only thing a person seems to care about.

I somehow doubt that God smiles when all we care about is getting another promotion at the plant.

Don't misunderstand me. I do think God wants his children in the workplace. He even wants what's best for us, to succeed. Indeed, God said, "What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?" Luke 11:11 (ESV). Moreover, the workplace is where many of the ungodly people live day to day, so that's where he needs us to be for him to reach them. That's not the point. The point is that sometimes we get so engrossed with money and success that we lose sight of the ball. We stop looking for ways to reach out and proselytize unbelievers and instead just get pumped up about accomplishing that next worldly goal. This is wrong. This cannot be the focus of a true Christian.

We are called to "make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19)." How can we be truly focused on this, the Greatest Commandment, if we shut down our Jesus radar 9-5 and only turn it on when we go to church? We can't. This leads us to focus on ourselves, to pursue a path that God does not want us to be on. "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment." Proverbs 18:1 (ESV).

It's time for all of us to stop putting our faith in the corner of the room to be accessed only when it is convenient. It's time to cloth ourselves in God, to be a shining example to all the world as to what it means to be a Christian, whether we are at work, play, church, or even in our own household. It's time to be the kind of Christian Jesus called us to be when he sacrificed everything on the Cross at Calvary. Are you with me?

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: Wall Street thieves are to blame for the guy who b...

2011-11-01T10:58:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Wall Street thieves are to blame for the guy who b...: I am blessed. I never lived on the fringes of society. I've grown up with a mother and father in the same home. I had a few rebellious momen...

I still think home-schooled kids are the smartest kids out there!

2011-10-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

I've been teaching a group of home-schooled high school kids Constitutional Law this semester. Early on it was apparent to me that these kids have not been shorted in any way education wise. Indeed, I even wrote an article on my pleasant surprise. Simply put, these kids are smart and able to formulate logical arguments that leave their government-schooled peers in the dust.

Fast forward to the middle of the semester (as in last week). After being exposed to a non-lecturing, Socratic Method style of teaching, they were given their first real assignment, as in graded. They picked their own Constitutional Law topic related to the semester's first half materials, then wrote a 5-7 page research paper. I began grading the papers this week, not sure what to expect. That's not entirely true. Going into the paper's deadline I was getting nervous.

Should I have lectured instead of used the Socratic Method?

Was I expecting too much from kids aged 14-18?

Am I in way over my head?

One other thing raised concern in my mind. Unlike government-schooled kids who are told how great they are despite their clear deficiencies (if your average math or science score is last of other industrialized nations, you aren't "the best and the brightest"), a couple of my students sent me email messages telling me that they weren't sure if they were "getting it," and one even mentioned he was thinking about dropping the class before it was too late. Another told me that he just didn't think he was a good enough writer to get to the then 7-page limit, which led me to adjust the assignment slightly. Simply put, unlike their government-schooled counterparts, these kids have also been raised to be humble. They should know that this is a good thing, not bad. "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom." Proverbs 11:2 (ESV).

I take some blame for their cold feet, too. We haven't had any tests or quizzes all semester, and the final grade is based on the mid-term paper and a final exam, so all the kids have had to gauge their performance is their responses to the questions posed in class, which I assured them has been quite logical and indicative of smart, prepared students (prepared in general--you know if you aren't one of these!).

But now is where the rubber meets the road. Halfway through grading the papers, and after I've scanned them all, I have concluded that all the kids "get it." Granted, I'm overlooking some of the grammar and spelling errors since the purpose of the paper is to determine if they understand the constitutional principles they are discussing, but the quality of their logical arguments and support of their positions with case law, original intent documents, and even contemporary source material is quite good. In some cases I would even call it excellent. There are even a few really good writers in this class (which means excellent self-editors--hint, hint!), kids who will blow away their peers when they go on to college. No way would I have so many of these types of students in a government school high school class, unless I was dealing with a speech and debate course where all the students are trained to be argumentative and to question everything.

In summation, the parents of these students did the right thing when they decided to home school them. So much for the need to rely on so-called "professional" educators.

Unexpected surprises and kudos to someone intent on doing the right thing

2011-10-28T10:13:00.001-05:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about a smallish disaster my family and I experienced. As a solo practitioner attorney, our retirement plans involve rental properties. Someday those suckers will pay off! In the interim, however, there's always something. A tenant moves out and trashes a place entailing hundreds of dollars in expenses. A storm takes out a tree that costs money to clean up. And regular maintenance issues occur that, if ignored, will turn into big money out of pocket. All of these sorts of things are part of doing business, but a few weeks ago something that is not a typical part of doing business happened.

We hired a roofer to replace a roof, and the weight of the supplies placed on the roof caused it to collapse.

At the time I was livid. This was an older 7-plex that we needed to generate cash flow to pay taxes, insurance, and other expenses. Take that $2,300.00 away and we are in the red and have to find the money to pay those things somewhere else. Since one side of the building was totally collapsed and the other greatly weakened, we had to tear up all the leases and return deposits and rents to the tenants. I expected to have this part of our cash flow gone for at least 3 months as we haggled with the contractor to fix its mess. That was 6 weeks ago.

Fast forward to today. Exactly two weeks ago we finally got moving on the repairs. Bear in mind that the roof on one side had to be totally replaced. Lots of work to be done, along with the originally contracted work of replacing the shingles. The other half was so weak that it had pushed out the eaves and the workers couldn't safely go into the attic to shore it up until bracings were put in place, then the same enforcements placed on the newly renovated side had to be put in place there too. Again, lots of work to be done. My other contractors who had done work for me in the past estimated the work to take close to 2 months.

11 days after the work began, the collaped side was rebuilt and the other fully enforced and pushed back into its proper place. They also installed the brand new decking and roofing materials required under the first contract. Also, no money will come out of my pocket. Half of my tenants want to move back in November 1, and the contractor promises those units will be ready. More important (here's where my stoicism comes in play), when the contractor is done I will have a new roof, more stable building, and a complete facelift on the outside, and will have only lost 2 months rentals.

Here's my point. No one is perfect. Mistakes happen. The issue is not whether you make mistakes but what you do to make things right. Homeland Construction has gone the extra mile to make things right. It's supplier, arguably, caused this mess, yet Homeland, having to deal with an out-of-state, self-insured supplier, is willing to take on the risk that it might not receive compensation from the supplier and is making me, the customer, happy. They've done great work for me in the past, and I guarantee you that I will use them in the future and recommend them to family and friends.

A peek at Flashback

2011-10-25T13:20:00.003-05:00

One of the books my agent is pitching right now is called Flashback. It's a legal thriller that has an underlying plot line of regretting one's life choices. Following is the Prologue. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Prologue

Ken was sitting in the City Java Cafe, a bohemian-style coffee bar located on the corner of the city’s busiest intersection, Grand and Broadway. He was sipping a large nonfat mocha and staring out of the cafe’s large plate glass window at passersby, mostly other professionals rushing from one point to another in downtown Dallas, Texas. He had a stern expression on his cleanly-shaven face as if he were deeply contemplating some insanely complex problem with its solution frustratingly far away. It was Monday morning, a little after 10:00, on a warm spring day. He was dressed in his darkest, most expensive custom-tailored suit, and a red power tie. The Brooks Brothers ensemble complimented his closely cropped hair, dark brown and flecked with gray, nicely.

Ken was a lawyer. He had been working on deposition questions for a case he had been dealing with for more than two weeks and was taking a few minutes away from his office just one building to the left and ten floors above his seat at the cafe to let his mind relax. No book, no Kindle , laptop or tablet computer, nothing but his mocha and classical music pumped through the cafe’s tiny ceiling-mounted speakers that was mostly drowned out by the noise of the cafe’s many patrons to occupy his thoughts.

As a junior partner at the firm, he was used to the senior partners often dropping cases in his lap that they were too ill-equipped, too lazy, or simply too busy to handle, and this case was one of these, qualifying on all three of those levels. The deposition that he was preparing for the assigning partner would make or break the case, as well as his reputation. He knew such was the blessing and curse of being, as one of the senior partners called him, “the firm’s sharpest mind.” But that wasn’t the problem that compelled him to take a break from his helter-skelter life of one-hundred-hour work weeks and deadlines that even his work ethic wasn’t enough to meet, nor was it the cause of his stern expression. Instead, it was a question that had dogged him for as long as he could remember.

Why had he chosen the path he had taken so many years before?

By all the world’s standards, Ken was successful before his divergence to the law occurred. He had more money than he knew what to do with, a five-figure monthly net cash flow from the ventures he now had other people running for him. Yet he had decided that being rich wasn’t enough. He wanted prestige, too, the prestige that came from becoming a lawyer like his grandfather. So when he graduated college he moved on to law school, all the time collecting weekly checks from the many business ventures he had begun over the years, from paper routes to real estate investments, with the first dating back to his freshman year in high school. He had known at the time what led him to become so ambitious at such a young age, but he had managed to block out most of those haunting memories. His dedication to excellence in his studies and business ventures masked something deeper and very troubling in Ken’s psyche.

As with everything else that preceded it, he excelled at law school, at Harvard, no less. Upon graduating with his service as editor of the Harvard Law Review on his resume, as well as a summer clerkship with the firm after his second year in law school, he was offered a prestigious U.S. Supreme Court Clerkship, which was followed by a $200,000 a year associate offer at the multinational, one thousand-lawyer-plus law firm where he was now a junior partner, the partnership offer coming after only two years of brilliant work on the firm’s most challenging cases. Until this very moment he had had no regrets.

“Why did I do it?” He said quietly to himself as his eyes began to moisten.

Suddenly his facial tension relaxed as he allowed long forgotten and suppressed memories dominate his thoughts. As happened every few years at unexpected moments, the memories of another life flooded his consciousness. “I miss them,” was all he said before the tears burst forth unabated. “Why?” He cried somewhat silently. “They are only a dream.”

The cafe was packed with people, a couple of them lawyers taking similar breaks from his own firm. The hustle and bustle of the city somehow masked his mental breakdown from almost everyone there. They were too busy either chatting and talking about their own lives with each other, or ordering and then waiting for their coffees before other patrons mistakenly scooped theirs up by mistake.

There was one person in the cafe who did notice him, though, a young woman with long brunette hair dropping to the middle of her back who appeared to be in her early twenties. Unlike the rest in the cafe, she wasn’t dressed like a professional, or even a secretary or office worker. Instead, she was wearing a very modest dress that fell all the way down to her ankles, with a high neckline and short sleeves still long enough to cover up her arms all the way to her elbows. It had a very pretty and bright flower pattern on it. She wore dainty strap-on sandals on her small feet and topped off her cute and wholesome ensemble with a pink sun hat. She looked enough out of place to attract a few judgmental glances from the one or two scantily clad women in the cafe. She also had a unique cuteness about her, almost girlish, so many of the men’s casual glances in her direction carried with them thoughts of “maybe,” or “whoever gets her is a lucky man.”

Sweetness and innocence, that’s the vibe she put off.

The out-of-place girl noticed Ken as he sat crying at his table. While others who accidentally noticed his emotional outburst, even those who knew him at the firm, walked away hoping he didn’t see them, afraid that he might actually tell them about his problems, she moved toward him without hesitation. When she reached him, she touched his shoulder and said, “Are you okay?”

He looked up, wiping the tears from his face with the sleeve of his suit coat. “Yeah.” Normally he would have said, “Bug off,” but he resisted the temptation. Actually, the temptation didn’t occur to him, which surprised him somewhat. “It’s just been a long morning.”

“Do you mind if I sit here?” She asked, motioning to the seat facing his, glancing toward the cafe with all its occupied seats.

He looked around, noting there was no other place for a lady to rest her tired feet. He said nothing, just nodded. She sat down and looked at him with gentle eyes.

“Who are you?” He asked. Part of him wanted to say, “Leave me alone. I don’t know you and don’t care to.” But he resisted. There was something about this girl that made him want to get to know her better.

“Just a stranger in a strange land, who noticed another stranger in need of a caring ear and maybe a nice word or two.” Somehow coming from this girl the words didn’t sound like a pickup line.

Up until that moment Ken had not smiled for what seemed to him like weeks. It’s not that he had a frown or a disgruntled look about him. He just looked a little bewildered and perplexed, like he was trying to process thoughts and feelings that had eluded him up until that moment. The tears were certainly a sign that he was sad, but his facial muscles had seemingly forgotten how to express the range of emotions they were capable of exhibiting. Up until then they were confined to emotional blandness or total depression, with little in between. But now he suddenly felt free to express something altogether different. A large expressive smile swept over his face, all of it, not just the upturned corners of his lips. Dimples he never knew existed formed on his cheeks. The cheeks pushed up against his bottom eyelids and caused his eyes to squint a bit. And his brows furrowed and creases formed on his forehead.

“Much better,” the strange girl said in response. “You look more peaceful and relaxed when you smile.”
He nodded his head and chuckled a little. “Thanks. I haven’t felt happy in a long time.” He paused a moment, using the dead time to pick up his ceramic coffee mug to take another sip of the now much cooler drink, more out of the need to take up the space now occupied by the lull in their conversation than from thirst. He glanced out the window for a brief moment then looked back at the strange girl. “What’s your name?”

“Stacy.” She didn’t ask for his, just sat looking into his eyes, hands crossed and in her lap. “So why the tears? What’s going on in there to make you cry?”

He sat the cup back down and broke eye contact with her, choosing instead to stare at the cup. He wanted to tell someone what he was thinking, but he knew that what he wanted to say was crazy. He even wondered if he was going mad. He had read about Hindus and their belief in reincarnation, but the thoughts that periodically resurfaced in his dreams, as well as his daydreams, weren’t visions of an old life in another time. They were of the here and now, yet different somehow. But there was something about Stacy that Ken trusted. He somehow believed that she, a total stranger, wouldn’t view his thoughts as those of a lunatic. He looked up at her, at first not saying anything at all. Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was actually no more than a few seconds, he said, “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

“No, I won’t. I promise.”

He paused and considered what he was about to do. He looked up and around the cafe, realizing that there might be a person or two who would love to tell his colleagues at the office that a competing junior partner was bonkers. He looked back at his new acquaintance. “Not here. There’s a quiet restaurant around the corner with a corner booth away from prying ears.”

Stacy nodded. Both stood up and left the cafe.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: Total waste of taxpayer money!

2011-10-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Total waste of taxpayer money!: I blogged last week about my jury trial, tempting you with my belief that the prosecutor wasn't doing the right thing in taking the case to ...

Chapter 2 of Birth of the Black Tigress

2011-10-19T14:19:00.001-05:00

For prior installments of Birth of the Black Tigress see earlier postings on RWA, below.

Chapter 2: Shipwrecked

The back of her neck burned. Eyes still closed, Emma reached back to touch it. When she did the sting her touch caused forced her to open her eyes. "Ouch!" she yelped. She was laying on her stomach and suddenly realized where she was. As her eyelids opened, a few grains of sand fell from her eyelashes into her eyes. She reached up with the hand that had touched her neck and tried to wipe the sand out of her eyes. Unfortunately, her hand had sand on it, too, and she only made her eyes more irritated. She gave up her attempt to wipe away the sand and instead rolled over on her back, then sat up. She gazed out onto the most beautiful scene she had ever seen in her life. On both sides of her, stretching a few hundred yards in both directions, was a white sandy beach separating the horseshoe-shaped cove from palm trees and, a few hundred feet back from the trees, hundred-foot high cliffs. The water was blue and she could even see a school of porpoise leaping out of the water in the middle of the cove. Past the cove for as far as her eyes could see was an empty ocean.
Her clothes were dry. She was wearing battered khaki pants that she'd thrown on right before the ship went down. She had been in a rush so left her long-sleeved nightgown on. It had been stuffed into her pants, but was now pulled out completely. She also noticed that her shoes were gone. She suddenly felt pain in her left wrist. She looked down and noticed that the left sleeve of her nightgown was torn to shreds around where her wrist hurt. Her right sleeve was still intact. She pulled up the tattered one and noticed bite marks. Then the images of the night before flooded her mind.
The ship had flipped over then onto its other side. A hatch on what was normally the roof of the cargo hold popped open right as Midnight and she tumbled past it. As it opened both slipped out of the ship and into the ocean. She had a life vest on, but as the ship went down it started to suck her down with it. Suddenly, at the moment the vacuum caused by the sinking ship began to pull her down, she felt Midnight's fur slip past her. She grabbed his collar and they both kicked with all their might to get clear of the ship's pull. Twenty feet away, a large wave helped them by sweeping them away from the ship and into the violent, dark night.
Much of the rest was just hazy recollections. She held on to Midnight as long as she could. At one point she grew exhausted. The life vest was too large for her, and she had not tied it securely. After two hours of swimming, she lost grip of Midnight's collar and let go. She then slipped out of the vest and began to go under.
As Emma recalled the events of the night before, the latest recollection made her rub her injured wrist. She now remembered how the injury happened. As she went under she suddenly felt an uncomfortable, even painful, tug on her wrist. Whatever had her pulled her back up to the surface, then the image of what it was flashed into her thoughts. Midnight was gripping her in his mouth. Then her mind went blank.
She hugged her knees tightly to her chest, buried her face in between them, and cried. The time between her running to free Midnight and the other animals was no more than a few minutes. She knew there was no way her family made it out of the ship and to the lifeboats in time. She knew that they were gone. Everyone who meant anything at all to her was dead. She knew that she was alone forever.
I'm still here, she heard in her thoughts. Yet, it seemed more than just thoughts. It startled her alert. She stopped crying and looked out toward the ocean. She saw nothing, then heard a growl close behind. At first, goosebumps arose on her skin. Should she run into the ocean and away from the vicious beast approaching her, or accept her fate? She spun her head around to where the growl appeared to be coming from. Walking out of the forest and toward her was Midnight. Her skin went smooth and a smile came to her face. "Hey boy," she said cheerfully. She rubbed her wrist again and said, "Thanks for saving me."
Don't mention it.
I'm imagining things, she thought. She had read somewhere that sitting in the sun for a long time could cause a person to hallucinate. She turned back toward the ocean, shut her eyes tight, and shook her head side to side, as if it might help her to shake out the cobwebs the heatstroke had caused.
What's wrong? the voice inside her head asked.
"Who said that?" she yelled.
Louder than she'd ever heard before, Midnight growled. Its suddenness startled her and made her jump up to her feet and spin her entire body around to confront him. Then the voice said firmly, I did. She even thought she saw his mouth moved as the words came to her in her mind.
"That's impossible."
Maybe so, but it's happening. It started as soon as you woke up.
She felt like running away from him, but couldn't. Before he was born she didn't have any friends. She only had her brothers, sisters, and cousins, but none of them were her age. When he came into her life she felt like he was a gift from God, a friend she could talk to and trust to keep her deepest, darkest secrets, even though he was just an animal. Now that he seemed to be becoming much more, she couldn't leave him, even though the voice inside her head scared her. The trust they'd built up the past year seemed to plant her feet firmly in the sand. Even if she was hallucinating, she wouldn't leave. Maybe this was a way for God to help her make it through what had happened. To be totally alone without any human contact on this island just might drive her crazy for real.
"Can you read my mind?"
No. But I can understand your words now, not just a few like before.
He had stopped walking up to her about five feet away, afraid he might scare her with his newfound gift of communication. Now that she wasn't running away, he closed the distance with slow, careful, methodical steps. Once he reached her, he rubbed against her side and started to purr. I'm really glad you didn't drown. I would have been very lonely without you.
"Me too, " she replied as she reached down to scratch behind his neck, his favorite and most sensitive spot. The purring grew louder as he arched his back.
As he kept rubbing his right side against her and started to circle behind her knees, he saw something totally unexpected. Oh my, he said.
"What?"
Look what the tide has brought us, he mouthed as he pointed his nose toward the water directly in front of them. She turned around to look where he was facing. Sitting on a slab of wood that was drifting fifty or so feet off the beech was a black and white lemur with a large parrot perched on its left shoulder.
"It's Linz and Kel!" Emma cheerfully said, almost yelling. Seeing the two members of their troupe drifting in from the sea made her think that maybe more were right behind them. More animals and people. She squinted her eyes and put her hand over them to shield them from the sun's glare as she vainly sought the image of some other debris or even a lifeboat drifting in from where they had come. After scanning the horizon from far left to right, she quit, then looked back toward the pint-sized circus performers. For a moment she imagined them performing together under the big top, with Kel the lemur riding her miniature bicycle with Linz perched on her shoulder, pecking away at the top of Kel's head like a backseat driver. Instead, she could see they were very terrified, clearly not yet seeing her and Midnight anxiously awaiting their arrival.
"Go get them," Emma said to Midnight. "They look scared to death."
Wait till they see a black water creature swimming toward them with fangs bared. This will be fun.
"Be nice."
* * * * *
"Bad tiger," Emma giggled as she tapped him on the nose. She didn't really mean it. In fact, as she watched Midnight reach the makeshift raft it was all she could do to hold her tongue, to keep from giggling out loud. The closer he got, the more panicked the two much smaller and defenseless animals became. Kel was yelping loudly making his high-pitched, panicked monkey noises, ooh, ooh, oohs, and aah, aahs; Linz was chirping loudly and actually flew up and away from what she knew would be a massacre. To the two smallish animals, Midnight must have looked like a sea monster preparing to feast on its midday snack. But then something unexpected happened, something that made Emma yell out to get their attention. Linz went on the offensive and started dive bombing Midnight. She almost poked out his eye, but he managed to dive under water just in the nick of time. It was then that Emma yelled out their names. Normally, animals wouldn't have had a clue what she was actually saying and likely would have continued to take on the attacking water beast or whatever else was underneath their smallish lifeboat, but an interesting thing happened yet again.
Look, she heard in her mind, it's Emma!
Not doubting what she heard a second time (actually, a forth since she doubted what she heard Midnight say twice before she accepted her new gift of interspecies communication as real), she yelled at the top of her lungs, "Stop attacking Midnight. He's there to help you to shore!" So Kel calmed down and Linz flew to shore, landing on the beach next to Emma. Soon they were all sitting under a palm tree just off the beach and resting. There were a few coconuts scattered under a tree nearby. Emma took a rock and managed to crack a few open. All but Midnight drank the sweet juices and ate some of the nuts' meat. Midnight wasn't hungry or thirsty. He had chased down a small rodent before Emma awoke and wasn't yet hungry after his breakfast, at least not enough to leave the company of his friends.
"So now what? We've got three talking animals, one little girl, and a deserted island somewhere in the middle of the South Pacific," she said aloud knowing that for some reason, while their words came to her in the form of thoughts, they couldn't hear her unless she spoke. At least that's what she assumed.
Well, since I couldn't wake you and I didn't dare leave you unprotected, I've only explored the edge of the jungle within sight of where you were passed out, Midnight said. I suggest we pair up in teams and explore some of the island to find out just what we're up against.
She smiled. Somehow the fear and sadness she had felt when she realized her parents and family were probably dead mostly disappeared. Adventure. That's the word that replaced grief in her mind. They were stranded on a tropical island and were about to explore the jungle. She had read a few adventure novels in her home schooling studies, her only option for an education since she was on the road with her family throughout the school year. The Heart of Darkness by Sir Author Conan Doyle came to mind. She also vaguely remembered The Lost World. She imagined dinosaurs lurking over the tops of the cliffs. If talking animals were possible, why not living, breathing dinosaurs? It sent a shudder up and down her spine, not of fear but excitement. "I think that's a marvelous idea."
So that's what they did. Midnight and Emma went off to the left, facing the jungle, and Lindz and Kel went off to the right, fighting and fussing as they did. As they always did.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Chapter 1 of Birth of the Black Tigress

2011-10-18T21:50:00.001-05:00

For prior installments of Birth of the Black Tigress see earlier postings on RWA, below.

Chapter 1: The show must go on

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer bellowed into his megaphone. It was Emma's father, dressed in a black top hat, red tuxedo coat with tails, and knee-high patent leather boots. He was standing in the middle of an arena, big top tent shielding the show from the elements, and fifty rows of bleachers filled with excited children and their parents on the elongated east and west sides, some eating popcorn and cotton candy, the rest just cheering, laughing, and taking in the festivities of The Woodley Wildlife Wonder traveling animal show. The year was 1947, just two years after World War II ended, and the world was just beginning to recover from the devastation WWII brought with it. "For our grand finale I introduce you to Emma Woodley and her tiger, Midnight, the world's only black bengal tiger."
A few of the adults in the audience silently thought, It's got to be painted. What a cruel thing to do to an animal. But they did not tell their children what they thought, choosing instead to preserve the fantasy that was mesmerizing the children's still-intact childlike imaginations.
Out of the far curtain just to the left of the emcee burst forth the lithe, blond-haired baby of the family, Emma, with Midnight prancing on her right side. She was dressed in white tights with a tuxedo jacket much like her father's wrapped around her torso and neatly buttoned. Instead of the top hat she wore a tiara that sparkled with fake diamond studs. In her left hand was a whip, but not once did she use it on her precious Midnight. Instead, she cracked it in the air for dramatic effect, but Midnight just shook his head side to side each time she used it, eliciting laughter from the crowd when he did.
Her performance was not yet as advanced and fine tuned as her older siblings' and cousins', who worked with Midnight's parents and the rest of the menagerie. She was too young, still learning just as her tiger was, and her tiger was not yet ready for a full performance with only three months of training. Up until Midnight's training began, she was a trapeze artist, one who was just as good as her older sisters and brother. Indeed, her parents had even been approached by the United States Olympic Team and asked if they would consider letting her train for the first Olympics after her 16th birthday. Emma refused. She loved the animals and her family and couldn't bear the thought of being away from them for any length of time. And now, she was progressing so well in her animal training and performance skills that leaving the family was unthinkable, even though she was not yet ready for a full-blown trainer/tiger performance.
Midnight was also young and small, just a juvenile tiger barely bigger than a large dog, as in Mastiff-big, but still small. But, although not ready for a big time show, Emma's dad saw something very unique about the bond between the two "kids," something very amusing and entertaining. So their act consisted of a more vaudevillian show, like a couple of comedians. They bantered back and forth. She would motion him toward a chair or stool, he would shake his head in mock defiance, then she would demonstrate to him what she wanted him to do, often making it look like he was the trainer and she the obedient animal. Sometimes he would imitate her and do as ordered. Sometimes he would shake his head and refuse. The audience knew they were acting, and hidden in their own thoughts both Emma and Midnight were laughing, too, having more fun with each other than their audience was having watching them. They had only been together for a year, since he was born, but they were already the best of friends.
* * * * *
The final show ended as it always did. The entire family and its road crew came out and bowed to the crowd, then the audience mingled with the performers and got their autographs.
WWW was a family business. For three generations the Woodleys had been raising various breeds of normally wild animals and training them to perform at circuses and fairs throughout the world. The animals would perform, the acrobats would add variety, and then the animals would perform again. Crowds loved them, regardless of the language spoken in whatever country they were in. They were so popular, in fact, that they bought a ship to help them meet the requests of overseas cities, towns, and countries. It was a modest size cargo vessel, the S.S. Menagerie, just big enough to house dozens of animals in its cargo hold and the thirty or so members of the family and support crew, not including the ship's crew of two dozen able-bodied seamen. Our story begins on a modestly populated island somewhere in the South Pacific where the family was in the midst of its Pacific Rim tour.
A half hour after the show ended, the family and the support crew were seated on one side of the tent's bleachers. Frank Woodley, Emma's dad and the family's patriarch and emcee, now dressed in brown work trousers and t-shirt, was standing in front of them. Not only was he a strong, tall man, but he had a full brown beard and wavy shoulder length hair with streaks of gray, piercing blue eyes, and a commanding presence that told everyone within eyesight of him that he was a man to be reckoned with and obeyed. "Okay everyone, settle down and let's get started. The captain informed me that there's a storm brewing off the coast of Australia. If we get loaded and out of the harbor within two hours, we will miss the storm and make our next show with time to spare. If we delay and don't get going by then, we will be stuck here another three days. We will miss all our shows at our next port of call. So, let's stop wasting time and get packed up."
With that he turned his back and walked toward one of the props in the center of the arena. Everyone else followed and started breaking down equipment and moving them to the crates that were opened and waiting outside the big top.
* * * * *
The harbor was calm. Indeed, at the moment, a few minutes before 10:00 p.m., the sky was clear and every star above could be seen with startling clarity, the effect of being on a mostly isolated island away from the bright lights of a big city. The ship was barely rocking to the gentle motion of the harbor-protected waters that moved in and out underneath the Menagerie. Captain Monroe, middle aged and sporting the weathered and reddish complexion of an experienced seaman, was standing on a walkway in front of the windshield that separated him from the wheelhouse, one hand resting on the railing, the other tilting his cup of coffee to his lips. He was staring up at the sky. Next to him was his second officer, Willie Jacobs. Though the gray bearded, gruff looking man was actually ten years the captain's senior, it was clear to the casual observer that the men were very comfortable around each other, more friends than master and servant, or mentor and protege. Willie was also holding a cup of coffee. He turned to the captain a couple of times, wanting to say something. Finally, the third time he did. "So what did he say?"
"He said we sail by midnight."
The captain was stoic. He didn't add anything else to his short, succinct reply. Willie, the second officer, wasn't as kind. "Idiot."
"If you bit your tongue more often you might be the captain instead of me," the captain replied, chuckling as he did. He assumed the description was directed toward Frank, but part of him wondered if Willie was calling him an idiot for not standing up to his boss and refusing to sail.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But what good is it to be the captain if your boss is leading you into a death trap."
Both nodded as they turned their attention back to the sky.
"Did you tell him it was a mistake?"
"Yep."
"What did he say?"
"Asked me if we had a a shot at missing the storm."
"What did you tell him?"
"Said we had a shot, but not a very good one."
Willie shook his head and frowned. "You're too honest."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"So we're going at midnight."
"Yep."
Just then trucks began pulling up to the docks loaded with cages and equipment. Captain Monroe was known for his efficient operation and quickly spurred his men into action. One after another, the cages and crates were lifted off the docks and lowered into the ship's cargo hold by cranes affixed to the docks and the ship itself. By midnight the ship was fully loaded and ready to sail, right on time.
They made it to sea and had fairly smooth sailing for a time. A few hours after that what was now reclassified as a hurricane turned north toward them and away from the western path the reports said it would take. Not long after that, the ship transmitted its very last radio broadcast. In a staticky and barely discernible voice, the radio operator said to every other ship within transmission range, "Ship going down. Abandoning ship. Please help." Before he could transmit their final coordinates, the Menagerie's antennae tower crashed into the ocean as the ship rolled over on its side, then upside down, then on its other side. It then sunk like a rock to the bottom of the ocean, 5,000 feet below.
The S.S. Menagerie and all those aboard it were lost at sea.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: Why not do the right thing?

2011-10-18T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Why not do the right thing?: I think there should be a prerequisite to prosecuting cases. Be a defense attorney first. Why? Simply put, throwing newly minted attorneys i...

Prologue of Birth of the Black Tigress

2011-10-18T13:10:00.001-05:00

Following is the prologue of a book I am writing for my daughters. I'd love to hear input from family and friends as to its potential. Ultimately, it's a superhero book written for teens/young adults. Let me know if you are hungry for more...

The ten to twenty foot high waves smashed against the ship's bow with a vicious intensity, spraying thick walls of salt water halfway to the stern with each assault. Captain James Monroe, captain's hat covered with the hood of his black rubberized raincoat, was standing in the ship's wheelhouse, water pouring in through the edges of the poorly sealed windows and hatches, gripping the 2 and 10 o'clock position knobs on the ship's large steering wheel. He was soaked head to toe despite the raincoat and was staring intently through the front windshield as rain and lightning slashed and hammered at the night as he tried in vain to see any obstacles that might get in the way of the ship's precarious trajectory. He could see nothing as he fought desperately to keep the ship pointed toward the waves, which were getting taller and taller as the storm grew more powerful. Two other crewmen were in the wheelhouse with him, and they were no less concerned about the maelstrom that was building up all around them.
"I'll never listen to a land lover again," the captain said to no one in particular. "I told them we might not make it to port before the storm hit, and I was right."
The crewmen said nothing in response, just nodded as they moved about the wheelhouse carrying out their assigned tasks, hoping that they looked busy enough that they wouldn't be asked to go out into the storm. One crewman had already gone over the side, likely to his doom. All the men except the captain had the look of intense and absolute fear etched across their weatherworn faces, despite the fact that they had more than half-a-century of sailing experience between them.
Suddenly and without warning the resistance the captain had been fighting at the other end of the wheel released completely. As it did the intense pressure he had been applying leftward as the ship tried to go right released and he was flung to the floor as his hands spun the wheel swiftly around like a muscle man playing roulette.
He jumped back up to his feet and stood up straight as he yelled to the crewman to his right, "Rudder broke! Full power to engine one. Full reverse on two."
The terrified crewman did as told, but all knew it would make no difference. The ship was about to be shifted perpendicular to hurricane force waves and wind. They knew what would happen after that. The ship would flip over and all those aboard would be sucked down to the ocean floor more than 5,000 feet below.
All had the same thought at precisely the same moment. They would not survive this night.
* * * * *
The Woodley family members were holed up in their cabins. None were sailors, but all knew that the storm they were in the midst of was bad. Indeed, moments before they had all been told to be ready to abandon ship just in case. All were wearing life jackets. "But what about the animals?" Emma, the twelve-year-old tiger trainer asked her dad as he, her mother, and she sat on a bunk in her parents' cabin fearfully hugging each other and hanging on to the edges of the bunks to keep from being thrown to and fro, Emma in between her parents for extra support.
Her father, a good sized, strong man under normal conditions, said nothing. He felt as weak and helpless as his daughter at the moment. As the ship pitched and rolled, the little girl pulled herself away from her parents and darted to the closed door, slipping on a pair of trousers over her night shirt as she did. "Come back here!" her mother demanded.
Emma ignored her. The animals needed her, at least her favorite one did, her tiger, Midnight. At the least, she had to open his cage to give him a fighting chance in case the ship went down. She didn't know if he could swim, but she had to give him a chance.
Midnight was a juvenile tiger, a very rare black tiger (as in the only one ever born or ever to be born) that she had raised from a cub. When he was born just one year before, she knew he was special. His mother and father were just ordinary tigers, orange, black, and white. Midnight was mostly black, no orange at all, with what would normally be a tiger's orange stripes a lighter shade of black, not light enough to be gray but still lacking any orange tint whatsoever. The white belly normally found on a tiger was grey. If not for his large size, above average for a one-year-old tiger, one might mistake him for a larger than average black panther, but the stripes made that impossible. Had there been any panther in the show some might think he was a hybrid, but there were none. In fact, there were only two big cats in the show at the time of his conception, the Bengal tigers that were his mother and father. After being licked clean by his mother, still blind, he crawled toward Emma after she had watched in wonder the miracle of his birth. Since then they had been almost inseparable and she had begun training him for the family's circus act just three months before.
She would not let her tiger die. She pulled open the door and left the cabin. She battled the pitching ship as she maneuvered the cramped corridors toward the cargo hold where Midnight's cage was kept along with the other animals' cages and kennels. It helped that she was an acrobat in the show long before she became an animal trainer. She made it to the hold in less than two minutes. The animals knew they were in trouble. They were shrieking, growling, baying, and making whatever other noise their natures' compelled them to make. None of the handlers were there, so there was no one present to give them reassurance that the storm would pass and they would be taken care of. The handlers were ordered to their cabins, which were closer to the exits in case the ship went down. Emma cried as she gazed upon all the desperate and scared animals.
Tigers, bears, chimpanzees, monkeys, birds, and pretty much every kind of circus animal one could imagine--even two elephants--were caged and helpless, stacked side by side and one on top of another in the cramped cargo hold. What can I do? she thought to herself. She couldn't let them all loose. The tigers and bears would eat the birds and dogs. She couldn't let the adult predators loose. They might attack the people in their panic to survive. She started to cry as the ship jerked suddenly and the bow plunged twenty feet downward into the sea as it crested a wave. The sudden shift was so powerful that she lost her footing and fell to the ground. She heard a loud growl as she did, a growl she would recognize anywhere, under any circumstances.
She got up and almost ran to Midnight's cage, which was wedged between the bears and his parents. "You're not old enough to kill anyone," she said as she unlocked his cage and grabbed his collar to lead him out. "You stay there while I let the others out."
She then ran to the cages of the more docile animals, the monkeys, chimps, birds, and dogs. As she passed the bear and tiger cages, especially Midnight's parents, she said tearfully, "I'm sorry."
Suddenly the ship rolled over on its side, then turned upside down. Cages, gear, Emma, and Midnight fell to the port side wall, then tumbled onto what once was the cargo hold's roof. Even twelve-year-old Emma knew what was happening. The ship was going down.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Thou shall not covet an iPhone 4s

2011-10-17T10:18:00.003-05:00

I love new technology, especially when it concerns Apple iOS gadgets. Still, I waited six months after the first iPhone was released to buy one. Then regret came. It didn't give me all the wonderful organizational tools my Palm Treo did, so left a big hole in my professional life--I had to return to the good old days of paper to-do lists! App store to the rescue! I soon had my Toodledo app to solve this problem. But the app store took so long to launch I could have waited another six months. I didn't really need an iPhone and its stinky AT&T cell service. I managed to hold out for the 3Gs for my first upgrade. It was warranted. Better signals on AT&T's network, and much faster internet speeds, which I rely on heavily. I waited three months after the iPhone 4's release to upgrade, and then only because I knew my wife needed a new phone and would inherit my 3Gs. I won't be buying the iPhone 4s for a very long time (although the 64gig memory would be much appreciated). I simply don't need it.

What's the point? The mere urge to buy the latest and greatest Steve Jobs' product has me feeling guilty and self-indulgent. Yesterday as part of my time with God I read Chapter 27 of Thomas A. Kempis' Imitation of Christ, a classic. The chapter's title says it all, "Self Love is the Greatest Hindrance to the Highest God." The excerpt that got me thinking about our culture's love affair with the latest, greatest Apple product states: "Do not covet what you do not have. Do not possess anything that can hinder you or rob you of freedom." A few of us might read about Siri and all the other great upgrades in the latest iPhone and say, "but it will make me more efficient, so it actually gives me more freedom." My iPad addiction tells me this is mostly bunk. Before the iPad, I limited my computer use to short spurts, and read books in my free time on Kindle. Now I feel drawn to it each time I pass it on the kitchen island. When I pick it up I usually do much of nothing on it. Am I alone in my addiction? Probably not totally. When we buy the newest gadget, and slap down hundreds of dollars for it, we naturally feel obligated to use it, no matter how much time it wastes.

We buy new technology to play. Regardless of how many productivity apps we load on it.

Another reason I felt compelled to write about this particular self-indulgent habit is a number I just came across. 4 million. That's the number of iPhone 4s sales that have been made since the phone's launch last Friday. It's more than double the iPhone 4's sales for the same time period following its launch. College students are buying them. Underemployed professionals and non-professionals are buying them. Many iPhone 4 and 3Gs owners with just enough money in the bank (from $199.00 to $399.00) are buying them. If I weren't a Christian and therefore opposed to gambling, I'd wager that a few thousand of them were purchased by people who had their homes repossessed in the mortgage meltdown. And with that breathtaking number, I strongly suspect that many (if not most) people who don't need the new gadget are buying it because they simply want it. They "covet what they do not have," but a newly issued credit card cures that state of being in short order.

I thought the economy was bad? Doesn't the 9%-plus unemployment rate confirm this?

Modern society has lots of issues that make God wince. More than half of all babies are born to single moms. Most if not all highly-rated prime-time TV shows have one or more gay characters, and we never see the lifestyle of such characters referenced in a negative light. If you believe the data, abortion has become a mere "medical procedure" for the majority of Americans. Debt, or mortgaging our future to enjoy today, is what led us to our current economic malaise in the first place. Radical Muslims are blowing up their children to get back at the Jews and the Western nations that support them (and those cultures that flaunt sex in every corner of their societies!). And perhaps the best example of our out-of-control hedonistic culture, protestors are using their expensive Canon, Nikon, Sony, et al., digital SLRs and videocameras (and, yes, iPhone 4s's) to take pictures of themselves as they lambast greedy American corporations that sell them these nifty gadgets.

As my dearly-departed grandmother would have said, "We are going to Hell in a hand basket!"

Put another way, for believers it is important that we not be so obsessed with what this world has to offer that we direct our attention away from Christ and toward the world. Consider Luke 21:34: "But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap." (ESV). Imagine being one of those hundreds of people waiting in line for an iPhone 4s at the Apple or AT&T store. Imagine Jesus coming back at that very moment. Imagine telling him that the reason you weren't in the Word at that moment was that you wanted to be one of the first people to have the shiney new iPhone 4s in your hands. I'm sure he'd understand. Just to be sure, punch the home-screen button on your new iPhone and ask it; it is, after all, your new god.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

My Prayer

2011-10-14T12:14:00.001-05:00

I've been going through the motions, Lord. I have half-heartedly read my devotionals every so often, but not daily. My daily time with you has mostly been my end-of-day prayers with Mona and the girls at bedtime, but even then my heart hasn't been with you. I have been distracted. I have excused my failure to honor you by claiming that the stress and difficulties at work tire me out, so I instead sit in front of the TV or play with my iPhone or iPad. The truth is I have focused on selfish, ungodly things, things that rob you of the time I should be gladly giving to you, time that would restore my soul of whatever energy the trials of this life have drained from me.

Lord, I ask for your forgiveness. Forgive me for focusing on the temporal. Forgive me for not being heavenly minded. You were heavenly minded when you submitted to Rome and died on the cross. You were heavenly minded when you took the cup Our Father handed over to you; you took the lashes and the torture this sinful world meted out and did not flinch. I am not God. I am not the Son of God. Even Peter turned from you in those final moments. But through your strength I can focus more on you and less on me. I ask that you give me the grace I need to do this. Give me the grace to become less like me and more like you. Amen.

Turning Point

2011-10-10T15:27:00.003-05:00

The sales call went well. I inventoried the drug store’s over-the-counter painkillers and the manager ordered an end-cap display for an upcoming promotion, more than $1,000.00 of products. I packed up my sample case and said goodbye to the friendly clerks and cashiers on my way out. I stepped through the automatic doors that opened onto the front walkway separating the store’s entrance from the parking lot. As I walked to my car with a good feeling inside knowing that this day would be a good one—how could it not be, I just nailed a sale worth more than a grand before 9:00 a.m.? —I looked up toward my car. Sitting on the trunk with his arms crossed and an evil grin on his face was my manager, Carl.

“Late start?” He asked sarcastically.

My brisk pace slowed as I answered, “Not really.”

I was barely more than twenty feet from him when he added, “I thought I told you to be in your first account at 8:00?”

“I was here by 8:30.”

“Open it up,” he demanded, pointing to the trunk as he did.

We had a field ride the week before and he chastised me for the disheveled state of my display materials. I had the materials there, but they were messy. When a new box of display materials arrived I would rip it open and throw the plastic and cardboard displays into the trunk. Carl told me then to get the “g$% d#$@ed trunk organized or start looking for another job!” I hadn’t expected his return for another three weeks so hadn’t organized it yet.

I sat my case down and slowly reached into my right pants’ pocket and pulled out my keys. I inserted the key into the trunk and turned it, popping the trunk open.

Carl glanced down, snickered, and said, “I suggest you have another job and another car the next time I’m in town.” He turned his back to me and walked to his car, which was parked several spaces away from mine.

I truly hated Carl for what he had just done and what he was about to do. I was not a Christian yet so had no idea what it meant to turn the other cheek or love your neighbor as yourself. I wanted to take a baseball bat to his windshield and his skull. Instead, I just fumed inside. I liked the company if not the man. The company had great products. The man was offensive. My feelings were mixed since quitting the company would extricate Carl from my life, but it would also force me to do something I had never done before, quit a job before I had accomplished my goals.

A year or so before, I had accepted a transfer and promotion that moved me more than 350 miles from home. I accepted it because I sensed that there was something about maintaining my old relationships that was not healthy. There was something spiritual going on, I knew, but I didn’t realize what it was. And now I was about to get fired. The only car I had was the company’s. The moment Carl returned for the keys, I would be without a job and transportation…and stuck in an apartment with all my stuff more than 350 miles from home.

How could there be a “spiritual” purpose to this?

That night the full emotions of the situation hit me like a Mack Truck. I told my mother what happened on the telephone. I had already told her how abusive Carl was as a manager. “Win through intimidation,” she called it. As I found myself perplexed by what I could do to prevent the very worst from happening, I started to cry. I said goodbye when I knew Mom fully sensed the depth of my despair. Then the answer came to me.

I was sent to Wichita to find God. Within a few weeks of moving there I forged friendships and relationships in the very same places as before, bars and clubs. “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (ESV). The spiritual and godly led me there; the unspiritual and ungodly embraced me. In a rush of realization, tears burst forth. I dropped to my knees and blubbered, “I’m sorry, Jesus, please help me though this. I will change. Save me!”

I stood up and walked to the telephone book underneath the phone’s base. I randomly picked a church close to home. It was Friday evening so I decided to use the next day to organize my car, review my accounts to make sure I could take away any reason Carl had to fire me by improving my numbers, and go to church Sunday morning.

It was the lowest point in my life and the most important. That church is the one where I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. The decisions I made there led me to a company that was the answer to prayer in more ways than one. That church is where I met my wife. It is also where I felt led to quit sales altogether and go to law school. Suffice it to say that the low point I reached with Carl did more to get my life on a Christ-led path than any high point before or since.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18 (ESV).

Are you facing a low point in your life? Maybe you need to look at it another way, as a turning point, a point where God is telling you to take an about face and redirect your life to where he meant you to go from the beginning. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (ESV).
Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Tiger Woods is Barack Obama

2011-10-07T09:17:00.002-05:00

Tiger Woods is Barack Obama. Before you rip into me and claim I am being racist, let me begin by assuring you that my message has nothing to do with race. It's more purposeful than that, so please let me state my case before you reach such a ridiculous conclusion. (By the way, I'm a Herman Cain supporter, and he appears to be more black than Tiger or Barack--darker skin and all--so there!)

At one point in the nadir of both men's lives, they were at the top of their games. We can agree on that, right? Tiger Woods crushed his competition. He was on track to leave Jack Nicklaus' records in the dust. Then his ego and lack of humility destroyed him. His wife kicked him out of the house. Stories broke revealing not one, two, or even three illicit affairs, but dozens (perhaps hundreds). It seemed that every time he was away from home, he was fooling around. This led to a nasty divorce, then murmurs of steroid use, which led to him allegedly cleaning up his act. No girls, no more steroids, and the end of his dominance on the links. He tried to come back from his precipitous fall, but injured a knee, then tried another comeback, but ended up playing really poor golf, missing a couple of cuts, culminating in his most recent performance at the frys.com Open, where he ended his first day six shots back.

It's the frys.com Open, for goodness sake. A lower tier tournament. You think maybe his quick recovery from injuries in the past had something to do with steroids? He's definitely clean now, and he's looking a little smaller and less sure of himself. Also, instead of clinging to people who knew him back in the day, people who could have helped him correct his swing problems and keep an eye on his wandering ways, he fired them, including his loyal caddy for more than a decade, Steve Williams. It's really humorous that the very same caddy went on the next week to caddy for the Bridgestone Invitational champion Adam Scott. Hah!

So how is this philandering, egotistical, whore mongerer similar to Barack Obama? Let's discuss Barack. Remember back in 2006 when he stormed the gates of the American political system? Everyone loved him. He spoke with eloquence. He even made staunch Hillary supporters forget the glory days of Billary's two terms and jump ship to support a man who never ran a business, never held a real job, and never held an executive position that would have given him at least some clue as to how to run a country, state, McDonald's franchise, or whatever. Americans fell in love with him--for the record, I disliked him and his socialist ideas from the beginning. Then he took office. He embarked on one lame-brain, anti-Capitalist crusade after another, then he took what should have been a cyclical recession and turned it into the Great Recession. And he kept on going, doing the same thing he did to get us in this mess over and over again, the latest being yet another "jobs plan" that includes taking away charitable deductions from wealthy Americans, people who know better where to spend their money for the public good than the federal government albatross. Unemployment kept rising, his support kept faltering, Americans kept going bankrupt.

The most absurd thing this clueless man has done is just when an industry begins to recover from his horrifically short-sighted policies, he trashes it in the press. Twice he's done this with the private aircraft manufacturing industry. Just when Cessna, Beechcraft, et al. begins receiving orders again from corporate America, Obama will give a speech bashing wealthy Americans' and corporations' use of private aircraft. As a Wichitan (Wichita is home to these companies, at least it will be until Obama's mouth forces them to move their operations somewhere else) I've seen this many times, and friends of mine who work the assembly lines of these companies end up laid off within weeks of each speech. He's doing the same thing with banks right now. Mortgage rates are at an all-time low, so the banks felt compelled to add fees for the convenience of debit cards, seemingly all they had left to book some profits in a battered industry. So, true to form, Obama bashes them. Stock prices tank. Rumors of bankruptcy abound. Good job Obama!

As an aside, did you know that the Obama administration begged Bank of America to go through with its purchases of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch? The fear was that if BAC backed out after discovering the depth of those institutions' problems, the next Great Depression would have been upon us. Those purchases did more to stave off a depression than Obama's Keynesian experiments, and perhaps offset the damage such big government programs caused. Now, BAC is evil incarnate. That will teach corporate America from backing a socialist.

Two men with egos the size of Mount Everest. Both more prideful than ever, no matter how shaky their foundations have gotten. "Pride cometh before destruction; a haughty spirit before the fall." Proverbs 16:18. Looking at the wasteland that is Tiger Woods' golf career, you'd think that the destruction and precipitous fall had arrived already. Yet, he clearly hasn't fallen far enough to right the ship. In the past he would have a bad outing or two, hole up with his swing coach, and annihilate his peers the next few tournaments. Now the exact opposite happens. He falters, the peers pile on. Same thing with Obama. Where once he stuck his ear to the political rails and listened for the oncoming train, then gave a rousing speech that contained exactly what the voters wanted to hear, now his pitiful approval ratings make it clear that close to 70% of Americans think he's doing a lousy job, yet he invokes more class warfare and gives yet another speech making it clear that he still thinks he's the smartest man in the room.

Both men think they're still all that and a can of cheese whiz. Both men refuse to admit that they are wrong and that they need to listen to those who are more right than they are. Both men need to just go away. Brothers from another mother.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Born Again

2011-10-03T21:40:00.002-05:00

Mona's water broke after midnight on March 15, 1999. I was in the middle of my final semester of law school and was squeezing many things into my very limited time, including my studies, law review duties, and a law clerkship, and these worldly things that promised success and wealth someday seemed very important to me at the time. But my wife's fateful comment in the dead of night, "It's time," and the events that followed changed all that.

The timing of Emily's birth wasn't a complete surprise. Mona and I knew she would likely force her way out of her mother's womb that week or the next; we even did what most parents do, packed an overnight bag. Yet, as Mona's words echoed in my thoughts and we scurried to load everything into our car and drive to the hospital before Emily spontaneously dropped out of her mommy's belly (we were new parents so didn't know any better!), my own thoughts supplanted them with Oh my Gosh! I'm about to be a daddy!

Fortunately, my inward desire to let my emotions burst forth was suppressed by my "man" training; I suppressed the emotions I was feeling long enough to deliver my wife and our unborn baby to the hospital. We made it to the hospital without incident. We were in our room within half-an-hour of our arrival. It was a modern birthing facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, that delivered the baby and housed the mother, baby, and family in the same room after the birth. The nurses popped in every few minutes to check on mom and unborn baby's vital signs. The doctor made it, too, though he didn't stay long. My wife's slow dilation told him he had time to deal with other more critical matters, so he sped out as my wife "breathed" her way through contractions. As we drew closer to the moment Emily would enter this sinful world, a scripture came to mind: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV).

"Breath," I said gently as my wife's grip grew stronger and the hand she held grew weaker from the lack of blood flowing to its fingers' vise-grip restricted tips.

"I love you," I said many times during Emily's birth's prelude. Most of the time Mona just nodded her sweat-drenched brow, saving her energy for the unbelievable pain and trauma that was about to occur. Up until that moment she hadn't looked at it that way--childbirth was a blessing, so couldn't be that painful, right?--but the pain was starting to build, already reaching the point where she regretted a choice she had made early on, no pain killers, no epidural, no anything.

"Tell the doctor I want something for the pain!" She now almost screamed. I glanced at my watch. Wow, I thought. I had lost track of time. More than two hours had passed since my wife slipped into her hospital gown and onto the birthing bed. "Where is he!" She yelled.

"I'm here," I heard behind me. "Getting anxious?"

I stood up, walked to him, and whispered, "She wants something for the pain," into his ear.

"Oh," he replied, "I'll do something for the pain." He then winked at me with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face. At first I felt the urge to punch him, but his humor was oddly disarming. I almost felt guilty as the hidden meaning in his reply--that he would deliver Emily and end the pain that way--made me want to laugh along with him. I later learned that we had passed the point drugs would have done any good. It would have been nice if he'd told Mona; she wasn't in on our little joke.

The rest is a blur. Mona had progressed faster than the doctor had anticipated. An hour later our first child was born. Barely out of the womb with the umbilical cord still attached, very slimy and just barely wiped down, the doctor asked if I wanted to hold her. I reached out and took the very precious, delicate newborn infant from his hands. The tears erupted and poured down my cheeks as I gloried in Emily's beauty and wonder. "You did it, babe," I said. "She's gorgeous."

I remember Emily crying very loudly. I also remember stroking her cheeks gently with the back of my hand. It calmed her down and she almost cooed in response. "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward." Psalms 127:3 (ESV). Before I held Emily I didn't fully appreciate that scripture. Now that I held her newborn life in my arms, life that God had created through her mother and me, I did. At that moment I realized that Emily wasn't the only one born anew that day. I was, too. I was a new creation, a father, and would never again be the same. Thank God for that.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: Better go into a plea with eyes wide open

2011-09-30T17:10:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Better go into a plea with eyes wide open: We revisit an issue I blogged about a few months ago, withdrawing a plea before sentencing. The case is State v. Brown . It involves a defen...

Stop hitting the snooze button and attack the day!

2011-09-28T13:06:00.016-05:00

To paraphrase Henry David Thorough, stop hitting the snooze button on that alarm clock and “attack the day!” Walden (public domain). Does this mean that if you aren’t a morning person you are doomed to failure? Of course not. In fact, I habitually set my alarm clock one hour before I have to get up each morning so my hitting the snooze button four or five times won’t result in me oversleeping. Fortunately, she and I are made from the same mold in this regard—she does the same thing! The snooze button isn’t the issue.

This principle is not about being a morning or night person, or even habitually hitting the snooze button. It is about embracing the day and the tasks you must do each day in a responsible manner. It’s about not running away from our challenges, but embracing them, dealing with them now so they don’t snowball into an avalanche of troubles.

A COMMON CHARACTERISTIC OF CRIMINAL DEFENDANTS

When I first left the District Attorney’s Office and hung my shingle in private practice, I hadn’t yet been desensitized to the plight of the typical court-appointed client. The first thing that came to my mind back then and to most Christians today is “poor.” People who can’t afford to hire an attorney on their own are poor, right? That’s why they need the State to pay for their legal fees, right? Sometimes, but not always. Indeed, when it comes to those types of cases where the State can appoint a public defender or court-appointed counsel, I would say that in most situations where someone is in need of legal counsel and can’t afford to hire an attorney with his own resources (in Kansas, a person is entitled to court-appointed counsel when he financially qualifies, and then only for misdemeanors and felonies), it is usually because he failed to “attack the day” in a responsible manner, and this failure led to many more, bigger problems.

Traffic court is the best example of this. It’s a place where most of the defendants who get charged with a misdemeanor do so because they forgot to pay off their speeding tickets and ended up with suspended licenses (called “failure to comply” which happens when a court suspends someone’s license to force them back to court), or didn’t insure their cars (this often happens when one buys insurance month-to-month instead of 3-6 months at a time, or decides to buy a big-screen TV instead of hand over $500.00 to an insurance agent!). Much of the time their problems are magnified because no matter what they are ticketed or arrested for, they tend to put their cases on the backburner which results in yet more failures to comply, more new suspensions, and more Driving While Suspended (DWS) misdemeanor citations, and concludes with arrests on the outstanding warrants.

What does this have to do with attacking the day? Everything. People who attack the day find themselves dealing with a minor speeding ticket a few times in their lives. They go to court when told, work out deals that have lesser impacts on their driving records (or just pay the darn things off!), and close the cases. Such people are more careful about driving at least for a time, so the one-time-in-a-few-years citations are just bumps in the road and have negligible impacts (if any) on their driving records and insurance rates. On rare occasions one of these responsible people forgets that ticket, gets a notice in the mail that she didn’t appear in court (a “failure to appear” or FTA), then does the above, once again making a minor ticket mostly disappear. On even rarer occasions, usually because she moved to another address and never got the notice, the FTA turns into a suspension, which results in another traffic stop followed by a DWS misdemeanor and accompanying arrest. But most prosecutors acknowledge that stuff happens and permit such people to take care of the old tickets, get their licenses reinstated, then amend the misdemeanors to something really minor thereby resulting in their problems going away because they dealt with these temporary challenges head on. Again, their experiences with traffic court are few and far between and the messes caused by the changes in addresses seldom happen again.

In contrast, most of the defendants sitting in traffic court are looking at second or third DWS or Driving Without Insurance (DWI) misdemeanor charges (or both). Had they attacked their earlier traffic court challenges head on and sought legal counsel, or at least talked to a prosecutor for more than a few minutes, they likely could have bought some time to take care of the suspensions and been able to amend the new DWS charges down to something less problematic for their driving records. Had the ones charged with DWI paid a visit to an insurance agent, they wouldn’t have been cited at all for that charge. A good number are sitting in court for a second or third time following the initial arrest, but the first time after a second arrest for the same charge. This happens because many of these people didn’t bother showing up to court when their own recognizance bonds or citations told them to, so brand new warrants were issued for their arrests. Because they have a habit of approaching their traffic court problems in such an irresponsible manner, they will likely be habitualized eventually. This means that, in Kansas anyway, a person who is convicted of serious traffic misdemeanors three times within a five year period will lose his license for three years. Indeed, many of the aforementioned defendants are sitting in traffic court because they drove after being so designated, and many will face 90-day sanctions in jail or house arrest because of it.

These people’s big problems began with running away from little ones. Most aren’t begging the court for court-appointed counsel because they are poor or victims of an unfortunately set of circumstances. They are poor and dealing with this unfortunate set of circumstances because they deal with many of their life challenges irresponsibly. Instead of attacking their problems head on, they do nothing as if the problems will miraculously disappear with inaction.

Faith in God, great. Faith in stupidity and irresponsibility, not so great.

WHY WORK YOUR TAIL OFF IN LAW SCHOOL IF

THIS IS HOW YOU PRACTICE LAW?

Sadly, I’ve known a few lawyers over the years who ended up not being much different than their clients in traffic court. The Kansas Supreme Court issues its latest opinions every Friday morning. See www.kscourts.org. At the bottom of the list of opinions are the disciplinary decisions, those opinions dealing with irresponsible lawyers who mishandled their duty to represent clients responsibly (these case titles always begin with In re, in case you want to read a few). Two of the most common reasons to suspend or disbar lawyers are (1) failure to communicate, and (2) due diligence. They go hand in hand, as a review of any of these opinions reveals. The common practices cited are a lawyer’s failure to keep the client informed of the status of the case; the lawyer’s failure to return telephone calls and respond to correspondence and email messages; the lawyer’s failure to timely file motions, orders, or other court documents; the lawyer’s failure to respond to communications from opposing counsel; and the big one, the lawyer’s failure to keep proper records and inform the client on the status of the case’s time and billing records, and trust fund balance. In summation, the ineffective, mal-practicing lawyer deals with problems the same way many irresponsible defendants do, he ignores or runs away from them.

Another common characteristic for the lawyer indefinitely suspended or disbarred is that it’s never one or two clients who complain. It’s usually several, indicating that he hit that proverbial snooze button throughout the day, and hid under the covers as if frittering away the hours would result in fewer problems when he woke up, and more time to deal with the problems when he finally did wake up.

I’ve hit a few bumps on my journey as a lawyer, but good mentoring from others in my early days of practice taught me to not hit the snooze button. If a problem comes up, no matter how minor or major, deal with it head on. Analyze the problem, determine how best to deal with it, then contact the client and tell him what happened and what is being done to deal with the challenge. After 12 years of practice, I have never had a complaint docketed with the disciplinary administrator’s office. I have made mistakes that shouldn’t have occurred (who hasn’t?), but dealing with them head on turned potentially disastrous situations into opportunities, and my clients, more often than not, return for additional representation on future legal matters. It also helps to send lots of letters updating clients on the status of their cases, as well as return all telephone calls and respond to all client and opposing counsel letters and emails promptly.

I have yet to see a disciplinary opinion dinging a lawyer with so much as a censure when he did these things, when he confronted his problems head on. In fact, many of the disciplinary opinions arise due to alcohol or drug addiction, or a mental illness such as depression that went undiagnosed or untreated that impaired the lawyer’s ability to take responsible steps to deal with even regular, day-to-day affairs let alone problems.

JONAH HID UNDER THE COVERS,

AND ENDED UP IN THE BELLY OF A BIG FISH!

God has a few things to say about running away from one’s problems. Consider Jonah. His big problem was bigotry. He believed that the residents of Nineveh were so ungodly and sinful that they were not worth saving. So when God called him to go to Nineveh to take God’s Word to that ungodly place (Jonah 1:1-2), he hit the snooze button. Actually, he did much more that. He ran away. He booked passage on a ship to take him to Tarshish, thinking that if he sailed an ocean away from where God told him to go, somehow this challenge from God would go away. See Jonah 1:3.

God issued a warrant for his arrest, just like those traffic defendants who ignored their small problems long enough to make them big ones. Unfortunately for Jonah, God wasn’t reliant on a few sheriff’s deputies or police officers to serve his warrant. As Jonah slept in the cargo hold of the ship, God stirred up the seas. Jonah 1:4. A great storm tossed the ship so violently that the captain commanded all those aboard her to pray to their gods (little “g”). Jonah 1:5. He also told Jonah to pray to his: “So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.” Jonah 1:6 (ESV). Still, the storm raged. The captain knew that someone’s god (again, little “g”) was angry at him, so they cast lots to see who was responsible. The lot fell to Jonah. Jonah 1:8. When asked about what he had done to anger God, Jonah admitted his sin, that he had run away from God’s challenge instead of embracing it. Jonah 1:10. Jonah then told them that the only way to save the lives of all others on the ship was to throw him into the sea. So they did. And the seas calmed. Jonah 1:15.

The good news for Jonah was that God was merciful. He sent a fish to swallow him and keep him safe while he fully considered the impact of running away from God’s challenge (jail?). Jonah 1:17. It only took one irresponsible act for Jonah to (mostly) learn his lesson. He prayed, he repented, and the fish eventually vomited him up on dry land. Afterward, God spoke to Jonah again, telling him to go to Nineveh. Jonah 2:2. This time he listened. He embraced the challenge, “attacked the day,” though he wasn’t very happy about it. Jonah 4.

JUST BECAUSE ATTACKING THE DAY AND ITS PROBLEMS WILL BRING ABOUT THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULDN’T ACT RESPONSIBLY

That last line and Jonah chapter 4 contains a lesson in itself. Jonah finally did what God told him to do, and he wasn’t at all happy with the outcome. God saved Nineveh, as Jonah knew he would. For us, we don’t have to be happy with what we know will happen when we attack our problems instead of run away from them. We don’t have to be happy that we have to mow the yard instead of go to the lake. We don’t have to be happy that we have to undergo that important yet painful medical procedure. But just as God saved an entire city from Hell, Fire, and Damnation, good will always come from handling things responsibly, for attacking our problems and challenges head on, sooner or later. The yard will look great after we mow it, and our neighbors will greet us with a smile instead of a frown when we pull into the neighborhood. That health issue that makes it hard to cough and impossible to lift heavy objects will disappear once recovery from the surgery takes place, and we will be able to cough pain free, as well as lift more than ten pounds at a time. And that traffic ticket that we stuck in the center console months ago will be dealt with and our fear of getting pulled over by the police and taken to jail for the outstanding bench warrant will abate.

THE SOLUTION

Make a list of those things that have been dogging you lately, then list them in order of importance. Take the one that poses the greatest risk of making your life more difficult if you put it off any further, then do the same for each remaining item. Attack these tasks one at a time. When each is resolved, move on to the next. Repeat. If you are a multitasker, you might be able to handle a few simultaneously, but be careful if you do. The danger is that you open up lots of projects but never close a one. In my law practice I’ve learned that a phone call to clients telling them what the plan is will enable me to stay focused on another more important or time-sensitive task (such as preparing for an upcoming jury trial that must be dealt with NOW) until it is done, while reassuring the client that I am on top of his legal matter, too. Pay attention to time deadlines. Obviously, if one seemingly lesser task has a deadline of tomorrow that cannot be altered, it might take precedence over a more serious matter that doesn’t have to be brought to conclusion until next week. You get the idea. Ultimately, the goal is to handle things responsibly. As long as you are dealing with your challenges head on and not postponing or ignoring them indefinitely, you are on the right track.

It’s stupid to keep repeating the same thing you did yesterday when yesterday didn’t turn out to be all that great

2011-09-26T12:53:00.000-05:00

Pride. It is a word that is the source of all the world's problems. Humility, on the other hand, just might be the solution for all its difficulties. There is good reason for this. Simply put, imperfect humans who puff up their chests with pride at their accomplishments often don’t see the stumbling blocks that lie ahead. For example, at the time of her construction, many believed that the Titanic was the perfect ship. Indeed, White Star Line Vice President P.A.S. Franklin proclaimed, “We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe the boat is unsinkable.” Those who designed, built, and sailed her took great pride in their accomplishment, so much so that they didn’t bother looking ahead at the iceberg that would pierce through all the prideful safeguards the ship’s designers put in place.

Pride sank the Titanic, and it will sink us, too, if we aren’t careful. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18 (ESV).

MRS. HENDERSON KNEW ME BETTER THAN I KNEW MYSELF

Have you ever wondered how your life would have turned out if you could relive it with all the life lessons you’ve learned in adulthood? I have. More than once, to be honest, though the accompanying reality that I would have to give up all the wonderful things God has blessed me with, especially my wife and three daughters, to reboot my life always brings me back to reality. But the sad truth is, for you and I, we don’t need to relive our childhood with all our adult knowledge to make it better. All we need to do is strike out the word pride from our vocabulary, which would remove the blinders to the words of wisdom that were around us all the time, words spoken by parents, teachers, and even our more mature friends and classmates (the latter were probably referred to as geeks and nerds by us prideful, immature kids!).

Here’s a summary of my childhood. Easy. I went to public schools my entire childhood and just did what I had to do to get by. I made good grades. In fact, I had mostly As with a few Bs thrown in here and there. I avoided honors classes and didn’t stretch myself at all. I was in speech and debate, which was filled with kids a lot smarter than me, but I did that mostly for fun and didn’t stretch myself there much either. I just did the basics and went to debate tournaments most weekends, though never fully embracing the incredible benefits a competitive attitude would have provided. I thought I was on a clear path to college and bigger, better things. My grades and class ranking told me that I would have a blessed life. My mom filled me with positive mental attitude mantras to make me think my stuff didn’t stink. But then something happened that I didn’t expect, and my reaction to it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I signed up for Mrs. Henderson’s Senior English class.

To be clear, Mrs. Henderson was a very nice, caring, compassionate woman. Strict disciplinarians usually are. But she was anything but easy. The warning signs—the icebergs—were there from day one, but pride kept me from seeing them. On the very first day of class she told us that she would grade us as we deserved to be graded. This was senior English, after all. Her objective was to prepare us for college and the more critical grading we would experience there. To get an A on our essays in her class as well as college, our papers would have to be perfect, mistake free. Perfect grammar. Perfect syntax. Clear, logical flow. Perfect in every way. But grammar and spelling were most important to her. On a 100-point scale, each misspelled word would knock five points off the grade. Ouch! Today, after I’ve gone over a 1000-word article for publication many times, I doubt at least one or two typos haven’t snuck past my own eyes and even the computer spell checker (a “to” where a “too” should be—I hate that one!), so her standard was tough even for a seasoned writer. I wrote my first paper, turned it in, and waited with baited breath for a grade my pride had trained me to expect by that point in my high school career, an A or, at worst, a B+.

On the day that first paper was to be returned, I waited in my seat as Mrs. Henderson called one name after another, each classmate walking up to the front with hope in her eyes, but walking back to her seat with a downcast expression. After several such experiences, with only one walking back to his seat happier than when he walked to the front of the classroom, my name was finally called. I stood up and walked the same path a few of the students on my row had already taken, still expecting good results. Mrs. Henderson handed my paper to me, upside down so as not to reveal the grade to other students. She had a frown on her face, and didn’t make eye contact with me, which should have told me that I didn’t do as well as I hoped. Assuming I would be able to brag about the grade, I immediately flipped the paper over as I walked back to my seat.

The red letter and symbol next to it written across the top of the paper sucked whatever hope I had of skating through another class out of me. C+. What! My thoughts screamed out, mirrored by the shocked, surprised expression on my face. I would like to tell you that it was the last C I ever received, that it was the wake-up call I needed to get past pride and humble myself enough to learn from the experience and move on, thereby turning a disappointment about my own bad attitude into a learning experience. Alas, that’s not what happened at all.

IT’S STUPID TO KEEP DOING THE SAME THING YOU DID YESTERDAY TODAY AND EXPECT DIFFERENT RESULTS

Here’s what I did in response to that C+. Nothing. I dug in my heels and refused to acknowledge that Mrs. Henderson was right and I was wrong. After all, my mom had always told me I was special, that I was better than the other kids. Granted, at least some of those other kids in my class had earned Bs and As on that first paper, but I still believed Mom. Her baby was special, not the babies of those other moms. I knew that I was right and the teacher was wrong, so I dug in my heels expecting a battle.

The grades on future papers in that class improved, but not by much. We even had an assignment wherein we did a project integrating pop culture into classical literature. My group decided to make a movie with the Three Stooges performing Hamlet. Playing around during one of our late-night sessions, we filmed a segment in negative exposure. It looked really psychedelic which compelled one of my classmates to pretend to inhale smoke from a mock marijuana cigarette. He said a line from the play like he was high. It was hilarious!

Mrs. Henderson hated drugs. She lectured on it in class many times. She made it clear that she didn’t think there was anything funny about drugs at all. So what did I do? I included the above scene at the end of our movie, as an outtake. It took an A- grade on the project down to a B+. Nice. Pride strikes again.

Sadly, my wall of pride didn’t end with Mrs. Henderson’s Senior English class. That was just a warning sign. My worst grade in high school was in her class, a B-, I think. But I didn’t learn the lesson she was trying to teach me. My pride got in the way. So I took my pride with me to college, and my grades continued to plummet. Fortunately, I was able to take easy classes there, too, so I at least graduated, but barely. I remember getting in line for commencement rehearsal, wondering if I managed to make a passing grade in Business Administration. Going into the final I had a D, and I didn’t feel very good about my performance on the final. I passed, but graduated with a C-average. It was only sometime in my senior year in college when my pride finally came tumbling down. My guidance counselor told me that law school was out (it took several years of success in the business world and a good LSAT score to convince law school admissions directors to ignore my grades and take a chance on me—I don’t recommend this route), a decent, respectable graduate school was also out, and any good job with a well-known company such as IBM, Microsoft, et al., was also unlikely.

THERE’S A VERY GOOD REASON GOD HAS NOTHING GOOD TO SAY ABOUT PRIDE, AND LOTS OF GOOD THINGS TO SAY ABOUT HUMILITY

Whatever version of the Bible you have, try an experiment. If you have a computer program to help you research, type in “pride” under the search term. If not, look up your version on the internet and find a site that allows you to search scripture. Doing this exercise with my ESV version, the word comes up 49 times. Do the same with the word humility and humble. ESV brings up 48 hits. But that’s not the end of this assignment. Read the scriptures that include those terms. Many have both terms within them. The references to pride are always negative. Thus, God never views “pride” with favor; it is always a stumbling block between God and man, between goodness and evil. In contrast, humility is always viewed favorably; it is the bridge that brings man into closer relationship with God. In other words, pride is a stumbling block, humility is a stepping stone. Consider the following scriptures, all from the ESV:

§ and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. Leviticus 26:19.

§ But Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah. 2 Chronicles 32:26.

§ For when they are humbled you say, ‘It is because of pride’; but he saves the lowly. Job 22:29.

§ In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” Psalm 10:4.

§ The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. Proverbs 8:13.

§ When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 11:2.

§ “Scoffer” is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride. Proverbs 21:24.

§ One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. Proverbs 29:23.

I could go on, and on, and on. The above scriptures were taken one after another, in sequence, and I could have listed all the ones containing pride, as well as the ones addressing humility, and the exact same theme would have been intact. God hates pride; God embraces and lifts up the humble.

PRIDE LEADS US TO REPEAT OUR ACTIONS; HUMILITY MAKES US CONSIDER WHETHER OUR OWN WISDOM IS FLAWED

What’s the point? Consider this question. What leads a person to repeat the things he did yesterday, even though yesterday didn’t turn out very well? Pride. He refuses to admit that he was mistaken, that his own “game plan” was flawed and that the time has come to admit his mistakes and go in another direction. Such overweening pride keeps the arrogant dictator in power. It takes a great sports team and turns it into one known for stroking the ego of the owner to the detriment of the franchise and the fans who buy his tickets. It takes successful, family values politicians and ministers and turns them into skirt-chasing, family wrecking louts. Pride and a lack of humility makes otherwise smart men and women do the stupid thing of repeating yesterday’s mistakes which leads to the same result as yesterday, and often to even bigger, seemingly insurmountable catastrophes.

THE SOLUTION

Check our ego and pride at the door. We know when things aren’t going well. The businessman knows if business is slow. The employee knows if his performance isn’t up to par. The student knows if her grades aren’t where they should be. The parent knows if his kids are struggling with school or other things. The key, then, is to stop being so arrogant and prideful that we think that all those bad signs aren’t at least partly due to what we’ve been doing. It’s not always the weather, economy, peer influences, or mean teachers who are to blame. Most of the time, it is us and the things we ourselves are doing. Remove the blinders. Humble ourselves so we are prepared to acknowledge the part our own bad choices and decisions played in the outcome. Only then can we stop doing the things we did yesterday that led to failure.

To wait or not to wait, that is the real question

2011-09-23T12:17:00.000-05:00

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

--Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

We know these words are true, yet when we face real-life challenges and difficulties, it is so hard to apply their truth to our own life circumstances. We want to act, to solve the problem our own way. Case in point, the travails of a professional writer. For a brief moment, consider my experience trying to get my book published, the things I did to not only write something worth reading, but to get that something published. Here’s my checklist:

1. Finish manuscript. Check.

2. Rewrite manuscript. Check.

3. Rewrite manuscript again. Check.

4. Rewrite manuscript a third time. Check.

5. Have friendly yet critical relative who has terrific grammar skills read and mark up manuscript. Check.

6. Rewrite manuscript again. Check.

7. Hire professional editor and writing coach to whip the manuscript into shape for presenting to agents and publishers. Check.

8. Write book proposal. Check.

9. Rewrite book proposal. Check.

10. Find legitimate agent (as in no fees out of my pocket until the book is sold). Check.

11. Begin presenting book proposal to publishers through agent. Check.

12. Sell articles to Christian periodicals to get name out in the marketplace. Check.

13. Sell book to publisher…

I’ve been stuck on the last one for several months now, and I don’t like it. I’m quickly losing patience. I am sure my agent, David, knows this, too. How could he not? I call him every two to three weeks checking the status of the latest round of pitches, which usually elicits a response of “I haven’t heard anything yet, but I have follow-ups scheduled for next week. I’ll send you a list of publishers who have the proposal and update you then.” Then I hear nothing for another few weeks, grip the edges of my seat impatiently, and resist the urge to bother David yet again. I know that his job is much more challenging than mine, and that he is working feverishly to place the book with a good publisher.

Simply put, writing books is easy. Selling even good books to publishers is hard. Many writers lose patience and get so desperate to publish that they go the route of subsidy or self- publication just so they can get their name in print (it’s called vanity publishing for a reason!). Unless you are a preacher in a church of a few thousand congregants, or speak regularly to groups of similar size and are in a position to sell your books from a stage to thousands to tens-of-thousands of fans, this is a guaranteed method to throw lots of your hard-earned money down a huge black hole that has no bottom. Hence, the true professional writer-to-be never pays someone to publish his works. He instead waits until his book is seen by an editor who believes in his story enough to buy it and then sell it to the masses. In the meantime, the writer must have the patience of Job.

Such is the status of my most daunting career challenge, one that demands patience, but I know I am not alone. We all face problems and challenges that are best met with patience and not a bull-in-a-china-closet approach. What are you dealing with today that is tempting you to short-circuit the process and make things happen before they are meant to happen, before even you are truly ready? I know my experience is very petty compared to what many others are facing. I read about a local family who has a child with leukemia. They have been through a full round of chemotherapy and are awaiting test results to find out if their four-year-old son is in remission. They won’t know for another day or so. It’s not the many months I’ve been waiting for something to happen with the book, but I am certain that the patience they must exhibit over the next 48 hours is much more difficult to exercise than mine. The stakes are much higher.

What must we do when we face a situation where impatience will only make things worse--cause ulcers at the least, and a heart attack or worsening of the situation at best? We must find rest and solace in the Lord and his Word. Isaiah 40:31 is a good start, but it is certainly not the only reassurance God gives us. A couple of weeks ago we had a roof collapse at a rental property, taking a smooth roof job replacing shingles and turning it into a major catastrophe requiring a total replacement of the top half of the building. Here’s a verse that immediately came to mind, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 (ESV). Yet another promise, one that guarantees that all things work together for good. And another, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV). How can anyone argue with that?

Please don’t misunderstand me. Patience doesn’t mean we should just sit on our hands and do nothing. The writer has to write. My roof disaster demanded that I file an insurance claim, and send a demand letter to the contractor who caused the calamity. But something else must be done if you believe in God’s Word and his limitless grace and omnipotent power. Pray. Whatever difficulties you are dealing with, you must pray for God to get you through them. “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:22 (ESV). So what are you waiting for?

Ace Law Letter: Hire a lawyer who hates to lose but isn't afraid t...

2011-09-21T15:36:00.000-05:00

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Ace Law Letter: Yet one more smell that will justify a vehicle sea...

2011-09-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Yet one more smell that will justify a vehicle sea...: Before Friday, the only odor in a vehicle that provided sufficient probable cause for a vehicle search absent a search warrant was marijuana...

Home-schooled kids scare me...in a good way

2011-09-16T13:33:00.010-05:00

I’m experimenting on a group of home-schooled high school kids, ages 15-18 years. Specifically, I’m dissecting their brains to determine how swiftly their neurons transmit data, and how this physiological process translates into their ability to think logically. I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I am an attorney. My scalpel is a metaphorical one. It is the Socratic method of instruction wherein one question leads to an answer, which leads to more questions and yet more answers with the ultimate destination being the truth. After just four weeks of teaching these kids Constitutional Law, my experiment’s initial result has affirmed the wise choice my own family made many years ago to home school our own kids.

Home-schooled kids are brilliant!

It’s helpful to know how I am conducting the class so you can understand why I am so surprised by how sharp these kids are. We have a syllabus with assigned readings for each class, but the class discussion is very fluid. Just like my law school days, there is no “lecturing” as today’s government-schooled high school and undergraduate college students are subjected to, although they will be held accountable for the readings via one final exam (there will also be a mid-term paper, and a legal brief on a legal question to be determined later). Instead, I review the assignment and prepare a list of questions to spur discussion. Going into the first class four weeks ago, I was a little fearful that these young men and women barely past the age of puberty would be engaged and prepared well enough to sustain a full hour of class time. My fears were unfounded; the first few questions stirred their minds so effectively that many debates ensued, and at the conclusion they asked me if they could extend the class time by half-an-hour. Since that first class we’ve gone for at least an hour-and-a-half per class and most of the students linger afterwards much longer than that peppering me with many more questions outside of the assigned reading.

Big deal, you say. Anyone can talk. Anyone can bloviate their way into an extended discussion. In law school they call such students “gunners,” always talking but never listening, with most of these ending up in the bottom quarter of their classes, if they manage to graduate at all. But that’s not what’s happening with these brilliant home-schooled kids. Consider their unanimous response to a question that was posed to them in week four’s session. While discussing the ever-encroaching federal government and what led to such centralized power, I brought up the 13^th and 14^th Amendments. I then asked them what led to the Civil War.

Here’s what government-schooled kids most often say: Slavery. Their textbooks and teachers focus on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the different views of slavery held by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. The South’s fear of losing its slaves led it to an armed insurrection. Indeed, most people reading this article might have said the same thing.

Here’s what all of my students said (prepare to be blown away), rephrased by me to include all of their points in the most succinct way possible. The Civil War was caused by the United States’ unbalanced trade policy that favored manufactured goods over agrarian products, including bans on exportation of agricultural products to Europe, which forced the South to employ cheap slave labor to offset the exorbitant cost of maintaining its agrarian economy in a hostile tax and tariff environment. Lincoln’s election forced the South to sever its ties to the Northern politicians who were intent on destroying the South’s economy.

Wow! In the back of my mind I had several follow up questions meant to lead them to that conclusion, anticipating the typical response and intent on using my scalpel to lead them to the correct answer, yet they knew it already. Unbelievable. To be completely frank with what I’ve seen so far in these kids, I would put them up against many undergraduate and law school students (and lawyers, for that matter). Thanks to the commitment their parents made to home school them many years ago, they have the ability to think for themselves and to analyze complex questions better than their government-schooled counterparts.

But I am also afraid. I am afraid that one day these kids will go to law school and return to Wichita, Kansas, to practice law in the very same courts I practice in. Another ten or so years of learning and maturing just might make my job that much more difficult when I am forced to fight them toe to toe with the substandard government education foundation I am cursed with. Maybe teaching a few more of these classes will result in their brilliance rubbing off on me. I can only hope.

Ace Law Letter: Just because the supplier caused the damages doesn...

2011-09-11T00:06:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Just because the supplier caused the damages doesn...: I had a recent disaster hit me. We contracted with a roofing company to replace a roof on a rental property. It is an old building, but the ...

Top ten reasons a collapsing roof is actually a good thing

2011-09-09T10:43:00.002-05:00

I received word yesterday afternoon that I may be on the hook for the depreciated value and the deductible of the roof repairs on the apartment building that suffered the collapsed roof. We're still negotiating, but best case scenario, I fear, will be a long, drawn out lawsuit with the boobs who dumped the several thousand pounds of materials on the top of my building. I am stoic and even put together a list of the top ten reasons a collapsing roof and all the financial issues it will cause is a good thing:

10. I needed to paint the exterior and wouldn't have done it willingly. Now I must since putting on a new top will require painting everything on the outside.

9. I have a golden opportunity to warn my friends to not do business with roofing contractors who insist on using Gulfeagle Supply. Would you believe that none of the workers unloading the product understood English well enough to understand me when I told them to get that crap off my roof?

8. I needed a new insurance company anyway. This and the initial roof claim are certain to make the old one drop me.

7. Not only will I get new shingles, but new framing, too! Yeah! It's like a whole new building with a restart of depreciation. My accountant will love me!

6. It's good to purge myself of 7 tenants. A fresh start means a whole new set of personalities! Who needed that $2,200.00 a month, anyway?

5. The rents I received for September would be better spent on the Obama recovery. Give them back to the tenants so they can find a Democrat landlord to hand the money over to.

4. I just found out that my insurance company may be the only one to pay, which means I have a deductible and depreciation. Maybe I can hand the $30k out of pocket to some church and have them do the renovation. Tithe and offerings out the wazoo!!!!

3. Pray for rain. If it rains, not only will the roof need to be replaced but the insides of the apartments will be trashed also. Yes! I can raise rents with brand new apartments! I can get back my renovation expenses in about ten years.

2. I've never had to take medication to control high blood pressure and stress. Maybe this mess will give me a chance to enjoy that experience.

1. God is good. In our deepest moments of despair, he alway comes through. Tough times are just new opportunities to find rest in him. "[B]ut they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31 (ESV).

Things will work out. As I stated in yesterday's post, our problems are nothing compared to the difficulties many are facing. Sick children, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, death, et al., are all infinitely worse traumas to deal with, and our collapsed roof will eventually get fixed and we'll move on. It will take a year or so of sacrifice, that is, if we don't get a settlement from the contractor and supplier, to make up for the financial hit, but then we'll be better off. If the contractor and supplier do the right thing, it's a bump in the road. Again, things will work out. Heck, someday we may actually laugh about it.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

The roof collapsed...and they were happy and did dance

2011-09-08T07:21:00.004-05:00

The call came just after 3:00 p.m. "You need to get down here," the tenant said. "Something's not right."

"What do you mean?" I asked as fear began to bubble up in my gut. He was renting a place from me in a 7-unit apartment building. That morning I had signed off on the roofing contractor's plan to reroof the building, the first phase of a multi-phase renovation. The roofing materials had just been delivered and were now sitting on the peak of the elongated roof from one end to the other. I tried to imagine what could be "not right" about the situation.

"It's creaking," he said, "and the eave is pulling away from the building."

"On my way," I said in a panic. After slamming the phone handset down onto its base, I shot up from the desk in my office and rushed out of the door so quickly that I left my cell phone behind. As I drove my truck across downtown Wichita, I was shaking. I knew what was happening, what was about to happen, and it scared the living daylights out of me, for more than just one reason.

Was anyone still inside? How much is this going to cost me? Seven lost tenants in the blink of an eye, and a mortgage payment had to be made despite the loss of revenue and the inevitable condemnation of the building. At that point, I could think of nothing good that would come out of this disaster, for me or the tenants.

What about you? We live in a fallen world. Disasters happen, natural and otherwise, and sometimes of our own making. A short while ago Hurricane Irene devastated the east coast. I read a story about a family that owned a beach house in Nags Head, North Carolina, that was more than a century old. The hurricane left behind a few peers. A family treasure and historic landmark that can never be replaced was reduced to a few sticks sticking up from the sand. Living in south central Kansas, the heart of tornado alley, we see such scenes almost every year. The public interest stories almost always end with someone saying, "We have our lives. That's what really matters."

Sometimes we need someone to give us perspective. I wasn't about to lose a national treasure. I wasn't about to lose my life. In fact, despite the indigestion I was feeling on my drive to the building, along with the periodic thoughts of other recent financial challenges my family has been dealing with, a scripture kept running through my thoughts. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 (ESV).

Then I pulled up in front of the apartment. Instead of being greeted by disgruntled tenants, I was instead met with their smiles. The roof was still bowing in the middle, but no one was really upset. They actually expressed sympathy toward me. They had just been told that they could not go back into their apartments until the building stabilized, yet they were happy and laughing.

I rushed up to the supplier's workers and asked why they weren't removing the several thousands of pounds of materials from the roof. No one could speak English so no one took any action to prevent the unthinkable from happening. I heard a pop and loud creak coming from the front of the building. Then a truly unthinkable thought occurred to me, bringing yet more perspective to the scene. Is anyone still inside?

I looked around at the tenants gathered in the yard. "Where's David?"

"I woke him up, but he's still in his apartment," Jeff said, still smiling.

I ran toward the front breezeway that covered the building's front doors. That's where the eaves were pulling away, leaving a gaping wide gash exposing the void of the attic to the outside world. Thinking twice about running under a collapsing roof, I instead ran around the back toward David's back door. Another pop and an even louder creak rang out as I reached his door. I banged on it hard and then pulled it open. He was taking his time looking for a pair of shoes. "Get out now!" I yelled."The roof's coming down!"

The moment he exited his apartment it did. It wasn't violent. It just slowly bowed down and the weight of the roof and all those brand new shingles came to rest on the rafters. But everyone was safe. Perspective was restored. In fact, since the roof didn't collapse into the apartments, the tenants were able to retrieve some necessities for their extended time away.

After the panic subsided I talked to the supplier and the roofing company. Insurance will pay for a total remodel, the tenants will get compensated for lodging expenses while the building is fixed, and I will recoup the lost rents from the forcibly-vacated apartments. After learning all this, another scripture popped into my thoughts. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV). Remember that the next time you face a crisis, and don't forget to put things in perspective.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Why do we waste so much time?

2011-08-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

Our church had a guest speaker a few weeks ago who preached on the one great equalizer of all men, time. We all have the same number of minutes and hours of each day. How we use this time is what sets us apart.

Right now I am sitting in a coffee shop doing "research" and preparing a lesson for a Constitutional Law class I am teaching to some home school high school kids. I like to think I'm being productive with my time, but am I really? My vocation is lawyer with some spare time given to real estate endeavors. It's not teaching. I do this because a family friend asked me to, and I thought it would be a good experience. Sure, I'm at least reading and studying good, uplifting materials (this week's assignment is chapter 1 of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and chapters 3-5 of Constitutional Law for Enlightened Citizens by HSLDA's Michael Farris), but is this really a wise use of the finite amount of time I have each day? I'd say "yes," but I know better.

Here's what I usually do when I get home each evening. First, I eat with my family, that is, if I get home in time to do so. Usually my poor use of time during the day puts me home after 6:30, so I often eat alone. Then I "unwind" watching the news or a show recorded on TIVO. Starting this week, I do some schoolwork with my oldest daughter on Monday evenings, but most of the time I veg or workout. So here's the question. What if I prepared for class, worked on various writing projects, and extricated those "unwind" activities that rob my family of my time when I'm home (except for the workouts since God does expect us to be wise stewards of our physical bodies as well as other blessings)? I think that maybe this is what our guest speaker was talking about, and not necessarily people who devote every spare hour to activities that generate cash flow.

Consider Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

(1) For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
(2) a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
(3) a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
(4) a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
(5) a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
(6) a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
(7) a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
(8) a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.(ESV)

I don't see "a time to watch Fox News while sitting on the couch doing nothing" so I assume such time is better spent on other things, like playing with my daughters, sitting with my wife on the couch talking about our day, and, in general, embracing this wonderful blessing we have called life. So unplug the computer, turn off the TV, turn the cell phones to vibrate, and live.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: Don't assume you're guilty just because you hit so...

2011-08-20T10:44:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Don't assume you're guilty just because you hit so...: In Kansas and most other states, you have the right to use reasonable force to defend yourself. This right often gets disregarded when one g...

Ace Law Letter: You cannot appeal a guilty plea...or can you?

2011-08-12T11:06:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: You cannot appeal a guilty plea...or can you?: "Be careful when you plea guilty or no contest to a criminal charge. When you do, you will have to waive your right to appeal the conviction,..."

Common sense tells me the S&P did the only responsible thing it could do

2011-08-08T10:06:00.000-05:00

The Obama administration is going nuts over the S&P's downgrade of the US's debt rating from AAA to AA+, claiming that there's no basis for the downgrade and that US Treasuries are still the Gold Standard for sovereign debt holdings. Clearly, such whining is the result of living lives isolated from the realities of life. Put another way, if you've never held a real job, never created opportunities for others via run a business or paid another person's salary, such a reaction is predictable. It reminds me of how my 7, 10, and 12 year old daughters react when I tell them we can't go out to eat twice a weekend anymore due to our own Obama/Democrat-restricted family budget. Good news is that all I have to do is explain to them that times are tight. They understand and move on. They are realists, not politicians.

Funny and true story. My oldest daughter asked me after the family speech if it was Obama's fault. I said "yes." I won't lie to my children.

Back to my point. The US's debt-to-GDP ratio is worse than Mexico and Canada, which are just two examples of what the S&P considered in its action. (Mexico's, by the way, is just 25%. Ours is 95%. Holy crap, Batman!) Moreover, the debates in Congress made it clear that as long as the Democrats hold the White House and the Senate, as well as more than 40% of the seats in the House, there will be no substantial spending cuts. Obama is blaming the mess on the Republicans' unwillingness to consider tax increases, but what we are seeing in Europe with the economically viable nations forcing the socialism-bloated governments like Greece to implement draconian austerity measures, i.e., cut spending to the bone, as well as the S&P itself stating that the Congress isn't serious about "cutting spending," tells me that the S&P had to maintain its credibility by cutting the rating. Heck, I'm surprised it wasn't downgraded to AA-.

News for Obama. When you borrow $.43 for every dollar you spend, there's a problem. Pull your head out of your rear, Mr. President. Kill Obamacare and every other socialist program you can. Stop throwing money away on non-stimulous spending programs that haven't and won't ever work. Get your economic house in order. Try pretending that you're running a business that will go bankrupt if you keep spending more than you make since that's exactly what will happen if you get reelected for a second term.

Our economic malaise is Barack Obama's fault. Period.

2011-08-05T10:12:00.001-05:00

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 1,000 points the past two weeks. Investors lost more than $2,000,000,000,000.00 in value from their portfolios. Think about that. That's a huge loss to look at. For individual investors, seeing ten, twenty, or fifty thousand dollars evaporate from your hard-earned investments will cause concern, if not downright panic. And when did the bulk of that loss occur? Who is to blame?

I blame Barack Obama. His words and not Bush, Clinton, or Reagan economic policies threw the markets into a tail spin.

How can one man be responsible? Simple. While the Democrats and Republicans were bickering over the debt ceiling issue the past few weeks, Obama sat in the White House doing little more than nothing, playing golf here and there, calling a conference with Boehner when it appeared he wouldn't get his way, and mostly listening, waiting for the opportunity to spew his vitriol and hatred for wealthy Americans. Allegedly, he bulled his way into the process and claims some credit for the ultimate compromise, but then he undid whatever productive outcome should have happened after the deal (not a great one, but at least something) was reached.

Just as the markets were prepared to heave a sigh of relief knowing that the compromise gave them reassurance that massive tax increases on productive Americans (i.e., rich) wouldn't happen, Barack Obama went on the record by saying that tax increases were still "on the table."

I'm not rich. Indeed, I am not even close to being "well off," for that matter. But I'm also not jealous of those who are, and I know from where my economic blessings flow (besides God, that is). As a Wichitan (transplanted from Texas, which I will always claim as my home town), I know that Cessna, Beechcraft, Bombardier, Boeing, and Spirit Aerospace are the bread and butter of this region. Rich people and corporations buy planes, not middle class or poor people. When they pay more in taxes, they spend less on planes. They also save and invest less (this, by the way, is the key to Supply Side Economics, to increase deposits so banks have to lend out more money to keep their reserves in check, which necessitates lower interest rates). So, tax policy that makes it more difficult to buy such "rich" items means the workers who build them make less money, or get terminated. In fact, each time Obama has opened his mouth to curse rich people buying planes (the latest occurring a month or so ago), plane orders drop like a rock.

Simply put, rich people who pay less in taxes spend more on stuff that is built, sold, or serviced by the clients who hire me to represent them. They also do all that for the people who buy whatever product or service your own company sells. And when our President demonizes the rich by telling us that they should pay more in taxes, it kicks the living crap out of our economy. It makes his ignorant, liberal constituents happy, but those people are mostly made up of the 55% of Americans who do not pay one dime in taxes because they aren't fortunate enough to be schooled in the advantages of a free enterprise, capitalist free market system. Their minds are filled with class warfare hatred. They hate producers, even though it is the producers who pay their wages. If we speak in conspiracy terminology, Obama and his ilk don't care if the economy gets better. The larger wedge they can put between the rich and middle class productive Americans and the rest, the more likely they are to get reelected.

Blast the rich and the poor will cheer, all the way to the bread lines.

So there it is. We have a president who never created one single job as a productive member of society. He sows hatred for productive Americans, and drives the latter out of America entirely. I hope enough logically thinking, realistic Americans see what he's doing and vote him out of office in 2012. We're barely surviving his first three years. Four more years will ensure America's place as the number one nation in the Third World.

Federalist No. 2. It's amazing how easy it is to agree with reasonable minds.

2011-07-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

Federalist № 2
Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence

To the People of the State of New York:

When the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it, will be evident.

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more to the interest of the people of America that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one federal government, or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government.

It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion that the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our best and wisest citizens have been constantly directed to that object. But politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous, and that instead of looking for safety and happiness in union, we ought to seek it in a division of the States into distinct confederacies or sovereignties. However extraordinary this new doctrine may appear, it nevertheless has its advocates; and certain characters who were much opposed to it formerly, are at present of the number. Whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen, it certainly would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new political tenets without being fully convinced that they are founded in truth and sound policy.

It has often given me pleasure to observe that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected, fertile, widespreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities.

With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.

Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.

A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.

This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Still continuing no less attached to union than enamored of liberty, they observed the danger which immediately threatened the former and more remotely the latter; and being pursuaded that ample security for both could only be found in a national government more wisely framed, they as with one voice, convened the late convention at Philadelphia, to take that important subject under consideration.

This convention composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their patriotism, virtue and wisdom, in times which tried the minds and hearts of men, undertook the arduous task. In the mild season of peace, with minds unoccupied by other subjects, they passed many months in cool, uninterrupted, and daily consultation; and finally, without having been awed by power, or influenced by any passions except love for their country, they presented and recommended to the people the plan produced by their joint and very unanimous councils.

Admit, for so is the fact, that this plan is only recommended, not imposed, yet let it be remembered that it is neither recommended to blind approbation, nor to blind reprobation; but to that sedate and candid consideration which the magnitude and importance of the subject demand, and which it certainly ought to receive. But this (as was remarked in the foregoing number of this paper) is more to be wished than expected, that it may be so considered and examined. Experience on a former occasion teaches us not to be too sanguine in such hopes. It is not yet forgotten that well-grounded apprehensions of imminent danger induced the people of America to form the memorable Congress of 1774. That body recommended certain measures to their constituents, and the event proved their wisdom; yet it is fresh in our memories how soon the press began to teem with pamphlets and weekly papers against those very measures. Not only many of the officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, or the undue influence of former attachments, or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good, were indefatigable in their efforts to pursuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic Congress. Many, indeed, were deceived and deluded, but the great majority of the people reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting that they did so.

They considered that the Congress was composed of many wise and experienced men. That, being convened from different parts of the country, they brought with them and communicated to each other a variety of useful information. That, in the course of the time they passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true interests of their country, they must have acquired very accurate knowledge on that head. That they were individually interested in the public liberty and prosperity, and therefore that it was not less their inclination than their duty to recommend only such measures as, after the most mature deliberation, they really thought prudent and advisable.

These and similar considerations then induced the people to rely greatly on the judgment and integrity of the Congress; and they took their advice, notwithstanding the various arts and endeavors used to deter them from it. But if the people at large had reason to confide in the men of that Congress, few of whom had been fully tried or generally known, still greater reason have they now to respect the judgment and advice of the convention, for it is well known that some of the most distinguished members of that Congress, who have been since tried and justly approved for patriotism and abilities, and who have grown old in acquiring political information, were also members of this convention, and carried into it their accumulated knowledge and experience.

It is worthy of remark that not only the first, but every succeeding Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union. To preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in forming that convention, and it is also the great object of the plan which the convention has advised them to adopt. With what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts at this particular period made by some men to depreciate the importance of the Union? Or why is it suggested that three or four confederacies would be better than one? I am persuaded in my own mind that the people have always thought right on this subject, and that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the Union rests on great and weighty reasons, which I shall endeavor to develop and explain in some ensuing papers. They who promote the idea of substituting a number of distinct confederacies in the room of the plan of the convention, seem clearly to foresee that the rejection of it would put the continuance of the Union in the utmost jeopardy. That certainly would be the case, and I sincerely wish that it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that whenever the dissolution of the Union arrives, America will have reason to exclaim, in the words of the poet: Farewell! A long farewell to all my greatness.

Publius. [John Jay]

First published in the Wednesday, October 31, 1787 issue of the Independent Journal.

Contemporary thoughts on Federalist No. 2

Our first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, penned this paper. I agree with his analysis of the need for a central government. Unlike Hamilton, he doesn't focus on the opposition's supposedly unrealistic positions, such as Hamilton did when he claimed that "the people" are more of a threat to freedom than "the government." Instead, he focused on those things that need to be done and are often hampered by the lack of cooperation of multiple heads of state, such as providing for the common defense. He also contrasts the lack of disagreement when the nation as a whole were faces a crisis versus the opposition to union expressed once the crisis passes.

In summation, Jay is correct. For some things, we need a federal government. Indeed, I would say that for the enumerated powers expressed in the Constitution, a federal government is ideal. The problem comes when the so-called living, breathing Constitution grows into something it was never intended to be absent the natural act of amending it pursuant to the will of the people. Therein lies the deep pit we are in today. Too bad Jay wasn't psychic and able to predict what fallen man would turn his venerated Constitution into.

The Federalist Papers were wrong! Federalist No. 1 and a citizen's commentary on its wrongness.

2011-07-14T12:19:00.004-05:00

Over the next several weeks I will be posting one Federalist Paper at a time, along with my spin on what's actually happened with the passage of time as it relates to the fears voiced during the ratification process by Anti-Federalists. Following is Federalist No. 1 along with my commentary.

Federalist № 1
General Introduction

To the People of the State of New York:

After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the union, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this nature. I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or ambitious views. Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable—the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my fellow-citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them, that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution. Yes, my countrymen, I own to you that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I affect not reserves which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation when I have decided. I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded. The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity. I shall not, however, multiply professions on this head. My motives must remain in the depository of my own breast. My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth.

I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:

the utility of the union to your political prosperity
the insufficiency of the present confederation to preserve that union
the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object
the conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government
its analogy to your own state constitution
and lastly, the additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty, and to property.

In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the union, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one, which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose the new Constitution, that the thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole. This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it. For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution or a dismemberment of the Union. It will therefore be of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the certain evils, and the probable dangers, to which every State will be exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address.

Publius. [Alexander Hamilton]

The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several of the late publications against the new Constitution.

First published in the Saturday, October 27th, 1787 issue of the Independent Journal.

A practical analysis of Hamilton's position

Alexander Hamilton is my least favorite Founding Father. He was George Washington's most valuable lieutenant both during the American Revolution (actually, he was officially General Washington's aide-de-camp during the war) and after. But he was also, ironically, a big fan of big, centralized government, despite the fact that we revolted against such centralized authority in the form of King George. Indeed, perhaps his most enduring legacy was the establishment of the first national bank of the United States, the equivalent to today's Federal Reserve, when he served as Secretary of the Treasury, which led to the United States Supreme Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), which the federal government has wielded like a two-handed sword ever since to slash away the powers of the individual states, along with our own individual freedom from government tyranny.

Back to Hamilton's Federalist No. 1. Reading the paper, one can't help but conclude that Hamilton didn't have a whole lot of respect for the uneducated masses. Indeed, he states multiple times that Government guarantees freedom while Democracy squelches it. As stated in his own words, "a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government." There's some truth to the proposition that out of control direct democracy can subject the people to a "tyranny by the majority." Samuel Adams famously stated so during the Revolution when he said, in paraphrase, that he would "rather be ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away than 3,000 in my own back yard." But this isn't a problem unless the source of such democratic tyranny is government handouts and the dependency such handouts create. In such a society, the masses who lack financial resources will vote for politicians that they believe will continue to take from those who have and give to those who do not. Sound familiar? But such an unjust outcome of democracy begins with the Big Government that Hamilton was such a fan of. It's Big Government, after all, that proposes and passes such laws in a representative democracy, not the people.

Thus begins the Federalist Papers, a series of articles penned by Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison for the sole purpose of convincing all the colonies to hand over the powers of governing their people to one federal government. One of my favorite Founding Fathers is Benjamin Franklin. To paraphrase his quote on the topic, one contrary to Hamilton's views in many ways, "one willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither." This was precisely the intent of Hamilton and other Federalists, to convince the people in the colonies that they should give up a little individual, state freedom or autonomy in exchange for the security of a strong federal government. I would add that for a time Thomas Jefferson was straddling the line between freedom and fugitive status because he so vociferously opposed the Federalist stance taken by Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Hamilton. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed for the purpose of silencing Jefferson and other Anti-Federalists by making it a crime to speak out against the government, something he didn't hesitate to do. He continued to voice his opposition to more centralized power all the way up to his election to the presidency. Indeed, such tension between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists eventually resulted in Aaron Burr killing Hamilton in a duel.

The purpose of my discourse on the Federalist Papers is to consider whether the fears that the Anti-Federalists voiced during the ratification process have come to pass, and to consider what, if anything, we can do to turn back the clock and recapture the Spirit of the Constitution that we lost. After all, the reason the Founding Fathers added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution in the first place, regardless of the Articles and Amendments to the contrary, was to prevent exactly what Jefferson and other Anti-Federalists feared, yet here we are, living in a country that is moving closer and closer to disaster in the form of bigger government and spending programs designed to encourage the majority to vote against the interests of the minority (welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, etcetera). I am not fomenting rebellion, but I do think We the People need to be more assertive of our God-given Natural Rights before we pass the point of no return.

Copyright © 2011 by Kevin Mark Smith. All rights reserved.

Ace Law Letter: Caylee's Law is a good thing, isn't it? Maybe that...

2011-07-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: Caylee's Law is a good thing, isn't it? Maybe that...: "First, let me say that the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial, not guilty of the most heinous crimes, was shocking to me. However, shocking ..."

My immigrant friend from the UK has changed his mind...thanks to Obama

2011-06-27T12:58:00.001-05:00

Our government is out of control. It is micromanaging our lives and forcing hardworking small business owners out of business. Here's an example: OSHA. It's a federal agency that supposedly looks out for employee safety. If you own a business, there's a good chance that something you are doing, such as forcing your secretary to sit too close to a monitor, or not giving her a fifteen minute break every couple of hours to smoke a cig, is unsafe and likely to get you fined. But my latest example is very real, and is likely at least partly to blame for the sputtering home construction economy.

It's the 4-foot tethering rule.

In summation, the rule provides that if your workers have to work on an elevation of 4 feet or higher, they must wear a safety harness and be tethered. My immigrant friend from the UK tells me that this process adds substantial time to his work, and risks his health since it makes him wear a very large harness in the heat of the summer, which just makes his job installing fireplaces on already hot roofs that much more heat exhaustion inducing. If your workers (or yourself if a subcontractor) get nailed for going without, with your consent or not, you will be fined $30,000! If you are a subcontractor, the builder will have to pay.

Let me say it again, for the person who has to pay contractors for work, it adds time, the thus, expense, to the bill. And who do you think will ultimately pay the fine for noncompliance? Duh!

This absurd rule along with the confiscatory taxes and additional regulations have made my friend's decision to immigrate here two decades ago less wise. His brother is a tradesman in England. Would you believe that the UK has rolled back such regulations such that it costs less to run a business there than here? So my friend has started to rethink his plans to turn his work visa into citizenship. Merry old England appears to have less of a problem with the King than the colonies yet again.

Those of my friends who have never had to deal with the headaches of running a business won't have any idea what my friend and I (as well as any other small business owner) have to deal with. Simply put, as long as we have professional politicians bent on controlling more and more of our lives, we are hosed. Will American voters ever figure this out? Less government and taxes, good. More government and taxes, bad. Period.

Fathers Day admonition for all dads

2011-06-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

"These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (ESV).

How can we "the people" be expected to obey the law when those sworn to enforce it don't?

2011-06-17T12:31:00.003-05:00

Driving to court this morning I saw something that made me very angry. A Sheriff's Dept. detention deputy was flying down Kellogg weaving in and out of traffic on his Super Bike. The dude was in his uniform, department patches on his shirt, handcuffs and tazer on his belt. But that wasn't the end of it. He then exited Kellogg and turned onto Main St. He sped up to 50 mph, wove in and out of traffic, cut cars off, and basically drove like an idiot on one of the busiest downtown streets where everyone could see his blatant flaunting of the law.

First, bear in mind this guy was probably a new recruit at the jail. Such recruits are sometimes not the sharpest bulbs in the box. You've got to be pretty dim to think driving like a jerk in your uniform will not have consequences, so I suspect this fellow is one of the dim bulbs. Hopefully, he will get canned before he's there long enough to move to road patrol. But you never know.

If we give this bonehead the benefit of the doubt we would assume that he didn't think about what he was wearing. However, he was driving to work. We both pulled into the County parking garage with me going to court and he walking straight to the jail. So let's not give him that benefit.

If we assume the worst we can only conclude that he thinks his badge gives him the privilege of disobeying laws and placing civilians at risk. Sounds like he'll make a good politician someday.

I have often quoted Romans 13. The two verses that once again come to mind are 1-2: "1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

I called the incident in to this man's supervisor. I hope he "incurs judgment." You or I would, that's for sure.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Ace Law Letter: New DUI law changes are good for all Kansans, not ...

2011-06-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

Ace Law Letter: New DUI law changes are good for all Kansans, not ...: "On May 26, 2011, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed off on the recently passed bill that provides for sweeping changes in Kansas DUI laws,..."

Jesus took the wheel

2011-06-08T11:38:00.001-05:00

Carrie Underwood's hit song Jesus Take the Wheel tells the story of a woman who finds herself facing a life-threatening crisis. Her car is out of control and she yields to Jesus to get her through it. As our Savior always is, he faithfully “took the wheel” and directed her car to safety. It's just a song, inspiring though it may be, but I can relate.

My Jesus Take the Wheel moment occurred many years before Ms. Underwood's Top-40 hit single. I vividly recall that night. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was driving home to Dallas from Wichita late at night, sometime before midnight, during a severe storm, mostly rain but also some sleet. I had bought a rear-wheel-drive, two-door sports car a few weeks before. Rear-wheel-drive sports cars don't have the best traction during clear weather conditions, and can be downright dangerous in ice and rain. Sadly, back then I wasn't knowledgable about this fact, so I didn't bother driving under the speed limit to compensate for the precarious road conditions. I wasn't speeding, but, at the 70 mph speed limit, I was driving faster than the thirty-mile-an-hour crosswinds combined with the torrential downpour of rain and ice demanded.

I was also just a little bit distracted. I brought my smallish white persian cat, Rosebud, with me. She was laying on the front passenger seat, very nervous due to the noises reverberating through the coupe's cabin. Hard raindrops and sleet were crashing onto the windshield; the stereo volume was turned up loudly so I could hear the late-night talk radio program over the outside noises; and the gentle rumble of the car's 250 hp engine was thumping through the cabin. Such distractions served to make Rosebud more jumpy than her mousy nature made her under normal circumstances, so I periodically took my eyes off the road to pet her, to reassure her that her master was in control. Unfortunately, I was not.

Somewhere on the Wichita side of Oklahoma City, I hit a section of I35 that had just enough of an indentation as to allow the fresh rainwater and a little ice to pool. The second my front wheels hit the spot, I hydroplaned at full speed. The traction did not return. Instead, my car went from moving forward with little control, to spinning around almost a full 360 degrees with no control whatsoever. I yelled and prayed, “Jesus, please help me!” as I released the wheel and let it spin back and forth as the car's trajectory forced the front wheels to jerk around in multiple directions. Thankfully, Jesus did just that. As I saw the headlights of oncoming traffic approaching rapidly, the front of the car stopped a split second before its nose was about to enter the other side of the very busy highway.

After the car came to rest, my heart was beating a couple hundred beats a minute as I sat in my seat and just listened to the windshield wipers squeak back and forth on the windshield, and the rain and sleet continued to pound the roof and windshield of the car. I glanced over to where Rosebud had been laying moments before. She was gone. I glanced over my right shoulder. There she was, shaking nervously next to her overturned litter pan under the car's hatchback, the slightly moist cat litter now scattered all over the back with some, I just then noticed, flung onto the center console where my right elbow rested. I didn't mind the mess. We were alive and uninjured.

Looking back at what happened, I realize that I almost died that night. No car that goes into an uncontrolled spin at 70 mph on the busiest travel night of the year on one of the busiest highways in the nation makes it though unscathed without divine intervention. Jesus answered my prayer with power and mercy. He delivered me through a harrowing experience. Jesus indeed took the wheel, and I will never forget his divine intervention on that fateful night. I am sure Rosebud was thankful too.

Copyright © 2011 Kevin Mark Smith

Book deal II: One step closer to the dream

2011-06-03T22:30:00.002-05:00

Latest book is edited, clean and crisp, yet bloated by another 5k pages. It's just a hair over 80k and reads well, much better than the one David's (my agent) been pitching to publishers (and will eventually get published, I firmly believe). We've also polished up the book proposal. This one's got the classic ingredients of a legal thriller with a strong Christian message woven throughout, though the book isn't preachy at all.

Here's an excerpt:

There was one person in the cafe who did notice him, though, a young woman with long brunette hair dropping to the middle of her back who appeared to be in her early twenties. Unlike the rest in the cafe, she wasn’t dressed like a professional, or even a secretary or office worker. Instead, she was wearing a very modest dress that fell all the way down to her ankles, with a high neckline and short sleeves still long enough to cover up her arms all the way to her elbows. It had a very pretty and bright flower pattern on it. She wore dainty strap-on sandals on her small feet and topped off her cute and wholesome ensemble with a pink sun hat. She looked enough out of place to attract a few judgmental glances from the one or two scantily clad women in the cafe. She also had a unique cuteness about her, almost girlish, so many of the men’s casual glances in her direction carried with them thoughts of “maybe,” or “whoever gets her is a lucky man.”

The Blakely Rule or "A very bad way to become infamous"

2011-06-02T12:45:00.009-05:00

“ Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Romans 13:1-2 (ESV).

One common characteristic of criminal defendants is a seeming inability to submit to authority. As Romans 13:2 tells us, failure to submit to such authority will result in judgment. No one knows this better than Jane Doe (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent), who was the inspiration for The Blakely Rule (name also changed to avoid embarrassment of the deputy) in the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.

Late one Friday night Jane and her friends were cruising the streets of Wichita, Kansas. Deputy Blakely received a 9-1-1 dispatch report of an erratic driver and sped to the general location of the report. Sure enough, he spotted the suspect vehicle crossing the centerline a couple of times so got behind it and activated his emergency lights. It didn't pull over, yet also didn't speed away. In fact, it was traveling a good ten miles under the posted speed limit. It then pulled into a trailer park, still not pulling over. Deputy Blakely accentuated his lights with siren bursts a few times, but only after the vehicle's driver, Jane, made it to her driveway did she stop her car.

The car never sped. Indeed, after entering the park, its speed dropped to under ten miles per hour. Despite this, Blakely jumped out of the car, drew his firearm, then yelled at Jane through her opened window, demanding she unlock her door and put her hands where he could see them. She didn’t comply immediately. By this point Blakely noticed four very large black men in the vehicle and grew nervous at Jane’s failure to respond, so used the hand not holding his sidearm to unlock the door himself. Jane was still slow to respond. Blakely now had a backup officer standing to his right. With the other officer close by with his sidearm also drawn, Blakely tired of Jane’s failure to comply with his directives so holstered his sidearm, ripped open the door and grabbed the only loose appendage he could, the top of Jane’s hair.

Suddenly and without warning, Blakely let out a gasp as the top of Jane's hairdo pulled out, his body contorting like he'd just seen a ghost or dead body as it did. It looked like a large tarantula. He threw it to his right like a hot potato, which happened to be where his backup officer was standing, which resulted in that officer also gasping, hopping out of the way, and mimicking Blakely’s body movements as he did. Moments later Jane was in custody and her passengers secured, and the hair weave locked away so it could do no more harm.

Jane learned the lesson of not submitting to authority. Her bald spot was exposed for all the world to see. And for the rest of time Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department trainees will be indoctrinated with The Blakely Rule: Never stand to the right of Deputy Blakely lest you be assaulted with a suspect's hair weave.

This video shows the kind of crap cops deal with. Warning! Bad language.

Stand for truth! Following are notes from last Sunday's service. It will burn the sinner's ears.

2011-05-16T14:27:00.000-05:00

See LifePoint Church website for podcast of the sermon the following notes were taken from.

Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Stand for the TRUTH

John 18:33-38 NKJV
Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.”

Jeremiah 7:23-28 NKJV
But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. “Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. “So you shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God nor receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.'"

WHAT IS TRUTH?

John 14:1-6 NKJV
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Truth is...The very ESSENCE of God

"The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." Psalm 119:160

The ENTIRETY of God's Word

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

1. Remember TRENDS change, TRUTH doesn't

Psalm 119:89-91 NKJV
Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, For all are Your servants.

Hebrews 13:8-9 NKJV
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

Our focus becomes METHODOLOGY rather than THEOLOGY...instead of the truth of God's Word.

Galatians 1:6-12 NKJV
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

There is one gospel, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. If anyone teaches contrary to God's Word, it is a perversion and a lie. (This is the theology.)

Philippians 1:12-18 NKJV
But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

As long as the gospel is being preached, it doesn't matter what the preachers' motives are. Are people being saved? Good.

2. If we don't LIKE it....TWIST it

When people fee guilty about their lifestyles, they will twist the Word into saying something it simply doesn't mean. We change the definition of the Word instead of our behaviors to fit the truth.

Judges 21:25 NKJV
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Secular HUMANISM. We follow our own desires.

Romans 1:18-32 NKJV
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 NKJV
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Ephesians 6:10-18 NKJV
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

Ayn Rand had the right idea

2011-05-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

I am reading Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand's amazing characters are the stuff America was made of. They don't laze around waiting for manna to fall from Heaven. They don't live for the weekend, or even retirement. They produce. They find their gifts and work to fulfill their potential. America needs more people like these. I no longer feel guilty for enjoying my work. This is why I hope Herman Cain becomes president. He would've made a terrific addition to Rand's story.

Do I want to be the guy who lives for the weekend and eventual retirement? No. I want to be the one who builds a spiritual and financial legacy for his children. If I am the first to die, I want Mona to not be pressured to marry again. I want her to know that if her desire is to do good and help others, she can do just that. She won't have to find another man to marry, or go to work outside the home, just to make ends meet. If she goes first, I want the same for me. If I want to step back for a time and recover from the loss, to grieve, I will be able to do so without hesitation. Once the grieving is over, I will resume building up again.

I do not work to get rich. I work to fulfill God's purpose and be a wise steward of God's resources. This is why I work so hard in the legal and real estate businesses.

I love my God. I love my family. I love my work. I love my career. I love the freedom I have to explore even more options. I do not relish the idea of sitting around doing nothing. Some leisure time is good, but I truly do mean "some." A movie every now and then, great. A vacation one or two weeks a year, fantastic. Taking Saturdays off when I'm caught up at the office, that's nice too. Any more and I'm wasting time, and I don't have that much left to waste.

What I don't get is the concept of "paycheck-to-paycheck." If a person is stuck in that grind, no wonder he lives for the weekend. But why be stuck in it? We make our own opportunities once God reveals our gifts. Whining and moping about your lot in life doesn't do a thing to stop the grind. As Zig Ziglar put it. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same results." I just call such a mentality "stupid." You can quote me on that.

Running away from problems only makes the problems get worse. Do what Gen. Patton did: Attack, Attack, Attack.

2011-04-28T11:32:00.000-05:00

An observation about living the responsible life is in order. This morning I was facing the docket from Hell. I had to be in a zillion places seemingly at the same time. It's par for the course in the life of a busy attorney. Two review hearings at 8:30 in Domestic, PV hearing at 9:00, and two suppression motions in traffic court at 10:00. Things started rough. One attorney didn't show up on time in Domestic, so I had to leave there and attend to the PV matter. That got resolved quickly. Then I ran back to Domestic. Couldn't get a judge as quickly as hoped, so it got started late, at 9:30. The attorney on the other side was far too long winded (here's a hint: State your position, present cases supporting your position, then sit down! Anything else just ticks people off, including the judge). So I was late to traffic, walking in at 10:30. Fortunately, one of the cases was a no brainer, a speedy trial issue for a 1991 case. The prosecutor relented and the case was dismissed. The other was for hearing, but the judge was tied up by two preliminary hearings so the court continued it. Simply put, a rough morning went a smooth as glass.

This happens fairly often. Strangely, I always stress out a little when I see a docket like this creep up on me, yet things always end up just fine, and usually better than fine. Great even.

What's the point? The typical person who is faced with a daunting schedule of life issues runs away or refuses to deal with his problems. It's why most misdemeanor traffic and criminal cases end up being charged. We ignore that ticket. It turns into a suspension. We get stopped for a DWS, which turns into another suspension. The snowball takes over and suddenly we can't "do the right thing" for our family by driving to work without breaking another law. The stress drives us to partake in alcohol or drug abuse, which leads to even bigger problems. And so on, and so on.

Responsible people realize that if they attack big and small problems head on that things will work out. Things won't always work out as we hoped they would, but they will work out. In the mid- to long-term, we'll be okay. Indeed, if we attack all of life's challenges this way we'll eventually be terrific and not subject to where the winds of trouble blow us.

I see other attorneys face ethics issues for the very same reason clients face legal problems, namely, when troubles arrives they run away. They refuse to return client calls or emails. They let things stack up on their desks until the amount of work they are facing is simply overwhelming. Then deadlines are missed. Clients get mad. Mad clients file complaints. Again, simply put, no matter who you are or what you do, it never pays to avoid the problem. Deal with it head on and whatever problem there was will get resolved, one way or another. Life will smooth out, and eventually life will get simply fantastic. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

Update on journey to publication

2011-04-24T21:49:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I provided an update on this perilous journey. Last time I gritted my teeth and nixed the contract with a publisher who wouldn't give me a publication date, and handed the book over to an agent. He sent proposals to several houses, and at least one requested the full manuscript for review. That one, sadly, took a pass, telling the agent that it was "good stuff, but it doesn't fit our current mix."

Strangely, the obstacle for some is that the book is part of a series, and taking on a first of a series when they don't know how well it will sell is a risk. The book is also not a traditional "legal thriller"; rather, it is a story of spiritual discovery that follows the principal character's journey toward the revelation of God's purpose in his life.

Better to write a standalone title than one that needs it's sequels to fully develop it's characters.

About four months ago something amazing happened. I was sitting in a Freddy's Frozen Custard restaurant talking to my agent about the above book. I asked him what it took to get a book contract in the Christian market. He said the book needs twists and turns, and the unexpected. I then threw out an idea I had, even though I told myself that I would not write again until the book the agent was pitching got published. He liked the new idea better than the plot line in the book he was already representing me on, so I decided to write again.

By the way, in case you are wondering, David is a good agent. Roughly translated, this means he has never asked me to give him a penny. He gets paid when we get a book deal!

To make a long story short, four months later I have a 75,000 word manuscript finished and in the hands of my editor. I worked on the other book off and on for five years! And the new one is much better, has all the twists and turns David said a publishable book needs, and is a true legal thriller that stays true to my faith and desire to help lead people to a deeper understanding of Jesus Christ. David already agreed to represent me on it too and should be sending out the first proposals next week.

I pray something else amazing happens.

We are getting buried by our irresponsible leaders (especially Obama) who think the rule of wise stewardship doesn't apply to them!

2011-04-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

Standard & Poor's just cut its long-term view of America's sovereign debt to negative from positive. Why? Simply put, S&P's credit rating subsidiary thinks that our leaders in Washington aren't serious about cutting the deficit. In the words of Charlie Sheen, Duh!

Put this in perspective. Obama's proposals would "merely" roll back the tax rates on so-called rich Americans to pre-Bush levels. Yet, even with this "tax the rich" class warfare initiative, we still only see a $100 billion a year reduction. The annual deficit now tops $1.5 trillion! Ryan Paul's proposals, in my view, are more reasonable. No tax increases to speak of. Just some common sense if not politically-popular spending cuts, including a change in how those under 55 contribute to social security. The trimming of the deficit, however, is only marginally better than Obama's proposals.

It seems to me that until our leaders stop worrying about whether their constituents will vote for them if they take away benefits, the S&P predictions will only grow more dire.

What's the likely outcome of the S&P outlook? We could see the overall credit rating of American debt instruments (i.e., treasuries, bonds) lose their Triple-A ratings. It seems to me that the S&P got a black eye by giving positive ratings to corporate debt instruments a few years back. When I read about how high America's deficit has gone then an article like the one linked to above that laughably continues to rate U.S. sovereign debt triple-A, I wonder it the same thing isn't happening again. But this time the S&P will have two black eyes and facial bone fractures.

I'd rather buy gold and even stocks that a U.S. government t-bill or bond. Those bozos in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, are too busy buying votes with pork projects and more social welfare programs to be taken seriously. Maybe sewing some money into our mattress might be a good idea about now.

Total hogwash in 3 parts. Who does Obama think he's fooling?

2011-04-14T20:48:00.003-05:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

So here's the question. If Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, et al. are what make America great, what were we before Roosevelt strapped those weights to our ankles and threw us in the Hudson? You know, back when we were the envy of the world?

Here's another one. If we are $1.5 trillion in the hole, how will cuts in spending of less than $100 billion a year mean diddly squat in the grand scheme of things? If those sacred cows aren't killed or severely crippled, where does that leave our children and grandchildren?

Is he serious when he says his plan makes us "live within our means while investing in our future?"

Do you spend 150% of your annual income and borrow what you spend in excess of your income, or do you spend 50% less? How long could you survive without declaring bankruptcy with such "living within your means?" Not long I'd guess.

This dude's got to go. He's driving the bus off a cliff, and we're strapped in for the ride.

What bothers you the most? Obama's decision to go to war over oil, or his hypocrisy in bashing Bush for doing the same thing?

2011-03-31T11:40:00.000-05:00

We are now in another war in the Middle East. This time our president told us that all the US would be doing is flinging a few missiles at some airplanes. The French will lead. I will refrain from pointing out the oxymoronic aspect of that last sentence...actually it reminds me of a joke. Do you know why all the streets in France are lined with trees? So the Germans will have shade the next time they invade.

Anyway. I like driving my truck. I get a paltry 18 miles per gallon so appreciate cheap gas. How do I continue to get cheap gas? Keep the Middle Eastern oil spigot flowing. Cheap oil does more than this. It keeps the wheels of industry spinning in third world countries (as well as our own), which means those impoverished nations have more money to spend on food to feed their hungry masses. Simply put, cheap oil saves lives, millions of lives. Hence, going to war for cheap oil is a worthy endeavor. So if that was Obama's intent when he signed off on the French and English efforts to keep their oil reserves intact, kudos to him.

What bothers me is the disingenuous nature of our hypocrite in chief. He ran on ending the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet expanded the American role in both. Now he is intervening in a civil war, something America might have had a problem with had England took the side of the Conferderates in our own Civil War. Worse still, while claiming he is committed to a limited role, as in maintaining a no-fly zone, we just learned that the CIA has boots on the ground.

Obama is a liar. Obama is a socialist (or worse). Obama has no intention of representing the will of the American people. Obama has to go.

I look forward to this blatantly pro-American, anti-Evil movie...

2011-03-27T20:13:00.000-05:00

Remember when Superman fought for "truth, justice and the American way"? No more, but at least we still have Captain America. Can't make him a United Nations' warrior...