what do chuck norris and i have in common?

i'll give you three hints:

one_i don't have any uzis

two_i don't have a gigantic american flag

three_believe it or not, i don't own a sleeveless denim shirt

the answer:

we are both officially endorsing mike huckabee for president.

this has been one of the most difficult races for me to get behind a candidate.  i haven't been very impressed with anyone and having become a bit more liberal over the last couple of years i've thrown out my default republican status.  i've pretty much stayed morally conservative, but i have become much more fiscally liberal.  i knew finding someone who met those requirements would be a difficult task.

three or four months ago i took a poll on usatoday.com in which i answered multiple question in reference to key issues and then rated the importance of each issue.  upon completion of the poll it told you which candidate you were most like.  here were my results:

i was rather surprised, because a. i thought i'd be closer to some democratic candidates and b. i didn't really know much about huckabee.  at the time i kept him in the back of my mind, but wasn't really hearing much about him.

well, for those who pay attention to the primary races, you know that huckabee is gaining major steam.  because of that, there was a huge article in last week's newsweek.  i picked it up on a whim to read on my flight back to czech.  needless to say i was extremely impressed.

_seminary graduate

_baptist preacher for 19 years

_fiscally liberal (republicans are calling him a "closet liberal")

_lover of justice (as governor he attacked the judicial system for disproportionate sentencing of black males for drug crimes compared to white males convicted of the same crime)

_great leader (loved in traditionally-democratic arakansas)

_focused on education

most pundits are saying that even if he wins the republican primary there is NO WAY he can win the general election.  that leads me to a classic political debate: do you vote for who you think is the best candidate or do you vote for who you think has the best chance of winning for your party.  as a registered independent, this is a moot point for me, but you can look to my alan keyes vote in 2000 as proof of voting for who i think is the best candidate!

we're entering into one of the most exciting times in american politics.  not only is the primary and eventual general election process exciting (i sound like a dork, but did you know that i have my b.s. in political science?), but i have a feeling that this is going to go down as one of the more important elections of our time.  our country is at a crucial juncture and who we elect could have a huge impact on our future.

so, there it is.  huckabee for president.  it has a nice ring to it.  

[IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE READ]

i feel it imperative that you don't regard this as my plea for you to vote for huckabee.  as a political scientist (i paid a lot of money to asu to be able to say that), i believe in the political process wholeheartedly and love the election season.  this was more of an attempt to show you, faithful reader, what my process was for choosing a candidate.

wandering

a long time ago

in a state far, far away

bobby b gave me a book that i put on my shelf

then that book was put in a box and taken to czech

then it sat on my shelf again

finally i read it

wow.

________________



the book is called A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins.

it was inspiring. touching. challenging. revealing.

inspiring - to travel more
touching - by the relationship between a man and his dog (really impressive, since i don't like animals that much)
challenging - to spend more time with people, not to speed through life
revealing - the good and bad sides of america

as i read page 14 and peter described the state of the us at the time (early 70s), i thought: this isn't much differnt than the state of the us right now

_every time i watched tv or read a newspaper (or internet), it seemed like the end of the world
_we Americans were blowing up anything and everyone for no clear reason in Vietnam (Iraq)
_southern rednecks were in a quiet war to wipe blacks off the face of the earth (i read this during the Don Imus flap)
_what upset me most of all were the booming industrial powers that were destroying our only environment (see inconvenient truth)
_there seemed to be no hope or no help for the united states of america, once the greatest country in the world and my homeland

not much has changed in 35 years.


_________________


i was also inspired by what peter termed "mileage craziness". this the state we get in when the destination becomes more important than the journey there. in his words, "obsessively placing more importance on how many miles are traveled than on the real reason for traveling...my main purpose was to be where i was. most important, i wanted to find the real people out there, what they were made of, experience who they were, how they lived, and how they worked for a living."

i'd love to say that i don't suffer from "milegage craziness", but i do. big time. in almost all i do, getting it done is more important than the process...even now...i just want to finish this blog post...i don't want to slow down and enjoy the process of writing [creating].

i do it with traveling too...get there...wherever there is...as quick as possible...don't stop...don't take pictures...don't leave the main path...don't adventure...just get there

since reading this book i've made a couple of commitments to myself:

_ pick up hitchhikers
_ stop more for pictures

hitchhikers because they are stories (hopefully i'll be able to understand them!)
pictures because they tell stories
both because they will slow me down


________________


a couple of weeks ago my friend aubrey was here. one of the things that was great is that while travelling to prague we

took our time



before we walked around the town we played with a little kid



and while we traveled around prague we

went

where
we

wanted
_art galleries
_cafes
_we took pictures







i think i'm learning to slow down...

Immigration and Burritos

I love burritos. I miss not being able to eat them. Every once and a while someone finds a new Mexican restaurant here in the Czech. Everybody is excited, we go, it sucks. Really. I have yet to have good Mexican food here. It's sad.

But, I'm not writing about burritos. I was listening to a Rob Bell sermon a while back and he said something that really shed some great light on the whole immigration issue. As far as I know, the US news is onto some new big story and no one cares anymore, but I still felt compelled to share.

Rob (yeah, we're on a first name basis) was talking about how we are completely unworthy of anything that we have and how only the Lion of Judah is worthy (Rev 5). He shared about how in our human nature we naturally feel like life should be fair and that we feel like we are owed something. He then started talking about how God called the nation of Israel to care for those who couldn't care for themselves; those with whom life hadn't been fair. Those who had suffered a tough life (the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner). He focused specifically on Deuteronomy 24:17-22.

In this passage God commands the nation of Israel to "not pervert the justice" due to the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. God says that when harvesting their field that they are to leave anything that they forget to take. That when beating their olive tree, they are only to go over it once and leave the remainder. And finally, when they gather grapes that they are to go once and leave what they don't gather the first time. In all of these instances the remainder was for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. All of this was because they were to "remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there". God had redeemed his people. He had showed immesurable grace on His people and He was calling them to do the same to those who couldn't care for themselves.

As a Jew, I'm thinking, "What the heck? I work my butt off all year so that I can harvest my field/beat my olive tree/harvest my grapes. I'm not going to leave some for people who aren't doing anything; who aren't earning it. They need to work for themselves. They can't just come into my land and take what I have worked hard for. They aren't even Jews..."

Get the point.

It seems like the default argument for kicking the Mexicans out (notice they never talk about building a wall on the Canadian border) is that they are stealing from us. We work hard to make a living and they come in and "take from our fields". I can understand this from someone who hasn't receieved God's immesurable grace poured out on them. But as Christians, as men and women who have received an inheritence in God's Kingdom for free, for no reason other than that God poured out His grace upon us, shouldn't we be more gracious? Shouldn't we be caring for those that cannot care for themselves? As Americans we are born into amazing wealth...shouldn't we be more willing to leave our "fields" open for the widows, the orphans, and the Mexicans...burritos or no?