On The Uphill Grind,Tuesday

Mike Adams as usual was able to raise my spirits and get the blood moving a bit, of course the beer helps. His column on a ski trip with a liberal is hilarious. I find it ironic in that I was into the hippy scene till a kind friend got me sponsored on a ski trip with Young Life to Co. from Al., I had been to Colorado just a couple years before and loved the mountains so I graciously accepted. Having been Reborn just a short time before it cemented my friendship with Christ and the inherrent good in man as has been shown in the response of America's many churches to our natural disasters highlighted by Katrina.

Sugar Mountain

Mike S. Adams (archive)
September 20, 2005 Print Recommend to a friend
And a great quote or two.

When Neil Young wrote the song “Sugar Mountain” in the 1960s, he was just a teenager. The song wasn’t about a real place. It was about coming to terms with growing up and leaving one’s childhood behind. I was 18 the first time I heard him sing the line, “You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain.” Today it’s still one of my favorite songs.
Last winter I went to an actual place in North Carolina called Sugar Mountain. The occasion was a youth ski trip organized by a local church. I was a chaperone. One of the other chaperones was a former hippie from the 1960s. He’s not really a hippie anymore, although he’s still a liberal. Now he’s raising four kids.

And a quote or two from The Federalist Patriot "Brief"

FOR THE RECORD
"Reporters covering the evacuation of New Orleans last week have noticed an interesting phenomenon. People who have lost everything are staying in shelters. And who are running those shelters? Churches. Christians were the first to arrive on the scene—literally the first responders—the first to help with the devastation in New Orleans, even before the first government assistance arrived. And Christians shouldn't be surprised at this, even if reporters are. Because throughout history, Christians have been passionate about human dignity. We believe all humans are made in the image of God. This is why Christians throughout history have rescued abandoned babies, fought slavery, and passed child labor laws. Today, we care equally for the mother dying of AIDS in Africa, the six-year-old sex slave in Thailand, and the homeless family in New Orleans... As the story of Hurricane Katrina begins to fade out of the news, as it inevitably will, we must not let our memories fade with it. Loving our neighbor requires perseverance. Those rendered homeless by Katrina will need help for years to come—and as we have recently seen, we cannot always rely on government help... Christians reaching out to those who suffer offer a tremendous witness to secular observers—a witness to the fact that throughout history, whenever there are people who suffer, it is Christians, just like now in New Orleans, who are the 'first responders'." —Chuck Colson

and

THE LAST WORD
"Always being one who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, I present here a list of proposed changes in Federal response that would have, in hindsight, prevented the Katrina debacle. Reform 1: Assume any municipal government involved is blatantly and irretrievably incompetent. Looking back, this one should have been obvious for any disaster involving the city that elected Ray Nagin mayor. America was lulled into a false sense of security by the magnificent response of Rudy Giuliani on September 11th. Since then, we have always assumed that it was some sort of natural law that there was, for every disaster, a Churchill-like figure that would rise to the occasion. This neglects the fact that most major metropolitan areas in America are one-party fiefdoms in which offices are essentially assigned in the primaries based on a political and racial spoils system. This selects for know-nothing back-scratching butt-kissers with no other known skill set. So in the future, the Federal Government must create an Emergency Mayor Reserve (EMR). The EMR would consist of a small group of competent former-mayors (small by necessity) that would be kept in a state of cryogenic preservation in an undisclosed location with Dick Cheney. Upon the outbreak of any attack or disaster, the bozo mayor of the afflicted city would have the option of hitting a 'Competency Alert' button kept on a lanyard around his neck. A Real Mayor Reservist will then be thawed, briefed, loaded onto a cruise missile and fired at the troubled city. The good-times mayor can then be sent to a secret 'War Room' with a case of Johnnie Walker Red to wait out the crisis, then take credit for any eventual solution after the hard work is done." —Mac Johnson