“Describe one living person that you admire and hope to meet one day.”
It’s funny how I was hoping that a prompt like this would pop up sometime, and it already does on only my third response to a prompt.
If you know me, you already know the answer. If you don’t, it’s about time that you know that I absolutely adore Josh Hamilton.
Josh Hamilton’s story of redemption is most likely the greatest I’ve ever heard, and that’s not hyperbole. If you don’t believe that God still does amazing things, I suggest that you take a look at what He has done in Josh’s life. It’s seriously amazing.
Rather than try to summarize Josh’s story myself, I’ll let Josh do the talking:
Here’s another good one:
If you’re a Christian, I don’t think there’s even a need for me to explain why I love Josh Hamilton, but I will anyway. The guy hits a record 28 home runs in the 2008 Home Run Derby and is asked during this year’s All-Star Break what his favorite part of it all was and he says that his favorite part was sharing Christ to millions on TV. Josh is using his platform to give glory to God on and off the field. I can only hope that I can live my life in a similar way.
Josh’s story gives hope to drug addicts and warns those who aren’t addicted to never even be put in a situation that could cause one to fall into an addiction. I hate the taste of alcohol, so I doubt I’ll ever drink, but even if I liked the taste, after hearing what happened to Josh, I really don’t think I would start drinking.
I hope with all my heart to meet Josh one day. I want to encourage him and talk with him about what God has done in his life. I think that would be so cool. Josh, if you read this, contact me, lol.
I’ll conclude this with the verse that Josh found so helpful when he was trying to get his life back together:
“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
—James 4:7 (NLT)
It’s always bugged me, at least as long as i can remember. People demand that someone should be there for them. Now, I am all for a caring society where we do our best for each other. We have built and maintain a social society that has done an amazing job of raising the standard of living. But, you can only go so far with the resources that we have to hand.
I live in the UK so if you are reading this elsewhere some of the details might not be too familiar but the principles are, I believe, universal.
There are some people that understand the principles of scarce resources but many do not, or don’t want to think about it. And of those that do understand, most don’t follow through to the logical conclusions or dare not talk about them.
I suspect that for most people I am going to end up being controversial at some point or other, please don’t be offended, I believe that if we truly took hold of these issues then we could have a far better society.
So, what is the real issue here? Let’s take a couple of specific examples and then come back to the underlying principles to tie it back together again. Please bear in mind that for the two examples I am not judging either way, i don’t have enough information to do that, but merely using them as an example to illustrate a point.
Example One: The Health Service
I recently heard on the news about a gentleman that died of cancer. Relatives of the man were upset that he had not been allowed to have a relatively new, and rather expensive, drug that would probably have extended his life by several months – but not cured him. I would argue most strongly that we should be making decisions to withhold drugs like this on both a national level because some drugs are just too expensive to use widely and also on an individual level because the cost benefit to society is too low.
Whoah ! I just measured several months of someone’s life against a cost to provide drugs. I know many people will be horrified by that and in one sense I would agree – life cannot be measured. However, the simple truth is that there are lots of expensive drugs and treatments out there that would benefit many people, extending their lives, improving the quality of their lives etc. If we were to apply a rule stating that anyone who would benefit from a treatment should get it then the NHS (National Health Service) would be bust very quickly or, if government increased their budget to match, the whole country would be.
In practise, our health professionals make decisions like this all of the time. But, we, as a society, don’t like to talk about it too much. The reason we don’t like to talk about it is because of the underlying resource scarcity and the fact that some people will not get treatments that would benefit them and ultimately, there is nothing we can do about it. Even worse, if we do raise it we find that the public has many different views ranging from we have a right to whatever we need, through a variety of views, based on values, on what is important right through to, what I believe is that the health service does an incredible job of managing resources and expectations most of the time. (Not that it couldn’t be improved of course, but I don’t have time for that here).
Occasionally these health service issues make the news as did the story I heard on the radio. We hear debates on talk shows. We obviously don’t have it all worked out because if we did we would not need to talk, and argue, about it every once in a while.
Example Two: Afghanistan
Recently there has been quite a lot of discussion here in the UK about our role in Afghanistan. More UK soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan recently and it is beginning to raise more questions. Most specifically though has been the question of resources. There has been quite a high level argument over whether the UK troops have enough helicopters. The argument was that without enough helicopters the troops are having to travel by road much more where they are a lot more susceptible to roadside bombs.
In the last few days I also saw a report on TV that when UK troops are hit by explosive devices while travelling they sustain higher casualties than US troops because they are not so well armoured.
Both of these issues come down to resources and, ultimately, cost.
I am not going to pretend to know enough about the particular issues here to know whether we should be sending the additional money for extra helicopters in particular and I don’t want to get into that here. I am simply pointing out that we again have a need and a resource / cost constraint. Decisions have to be made based on a cost benefit basis. And again, like in the health service, the cost/benefit involves people’s lives and the issues are complex.
The Big Picture
Resource at the National Level becomes a balancing act between the interests of lots of different needs. The health service and our role in Afghanistan are just two, albeit high profile, examples. It can’t be easy to perform this balancing act of allocating resources amongst all of the competing resources.
Essentially, most people don’t see this big picture and just want to fight their own corner which leads to well, metaphorically of course, one big fight.
But, there are a lot of people out there who actually have to manage public budgets and to make the required decisions as to who gets what budget – even if it does affect peoples lives and sometimes come down to life and death.
Personally I think it would help a lot if more people said that they appreciate the work that these decision makers have to put in. Even better if they could be supported in some of the more difficult decisions and not criticised so much. Maybe one day they will even be able to talk more openly about the hard decisions that have to be made regularly and even daily in some circumstance. And then we will be able to make decisions that produce the best overall for everyone rather than having so many special interests pulling budgets in directions that really are not the best.
But first, we need to do a lot more work with the values of our cultures to open up the dialog and ensure we meet the basic needs of everyone for which I would turn to Spiral Dynamics – a socio psychological model that enables actions that support the multivaried needs of a society.
Well, I’m sitting here in a kind of mellow mood. I’m thinking of everything right now. I’m thinking of the past hurt that happened to me. I’m thinking of the pain I still feel in my aching heart. I’m thinking of the face that caused me the pain. That face is also the face that get’s me aroused as soon as I see it. My boyfriend, Spence, is my true love. Though he may be stubborn and hesitant, I love him. Whenever I see those beautiful hazel eyes, I feel the butterflies flying around in my stomach. Whenever I see his gorgeous feature, I think of kissing him. Whenever I see his huge arms, I bite my lip-ring so fucking hard that I sometimes drawl blood. I think of him and then I think of us. I think of a future.
I sometimes wonder if what he says is true. I don’t doubt for a moment that he loves me. But sometimes I ask myself if he is really in love with me. Some of the things he does or says hurts me terribly. But I stick it out as much as I can because I’m madly in love with him. I want to make it to the alter with him. I want a pug and a morbidly obese cat that hates the world. I want scrapbooks and pictures framed on the wall. I want Christmas’ and Thanksgiving’s at our families houses. I want to visit Disney World and road trip to concerts together.
I look at him and I can see us with wedding rings on. I can see us going on gay double dates with our neighbors (whom I love). I can see myself, twenty years from now, still getting hard every time he walks in the room. And I can see myself waking up to pancakes every morning and falling in love over and over again.
So… I’d say, probably this time next year, Spence and I will be moved in together. I’m not trying to jynx myself (knock on wood). I think things will get so much easier when we live together. We’re both just kind of bitter because we live so far away.
So… I’m not a party hearty type of guy. I don’t drink very often. And I have NO tolerence for drugs. And I don’t take well to bullshitters or cheaters. And I can’t stress that enough. I’ve never touched drugs in my life. Never will. Some people think when I turn twenty-one that I will be a big drinking, sort of slutty pot smoking boy who experiments with drugs. Can’t wait to prove those people wrong.
Well, I’m counting down the hours until tomorrow. And the years until I make it to the alter.
Argentina Court Ruling Allows Pot Use
By CNN – Tuesday, August 25 2009
Tags:
* Headline News
* Argentina
* decriminalization
* Latin America
* legalization
The Argentina Supreme Court ruled Tuesday it is unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.
Argentina becomes the second Latin American country in the past four days to allow personal use of a formerly illegal drug.
The seven-member Argentina Supreme Court decision was unanimous, the court’s Web site said.
The case in question involved five young men who were arrested for having a few marijuana cigarettes in their pockets.
Supreme Court Justice Carlos Fayt, who at one time supported laws that make personal use of marijuana illegal, told the state-run Telam news agency that “reality” changed his mind.
Argentina’s action came amid growing momentum in Latin America toward decriminalization.
Mexico enacted a law Friday that decriminalizes possessing low quantities of most drugs, including marijuana, heroin, cocaine and LSD.
Earlier this year, a Brazilian appeals court ruled that possession of drugs for personal use is not illegal.
Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue policy institute in Washington, sees the shift in attitude toward drugs as recognition that current policy is not working.
“It’s all part of a harm-reduction approach,” Hakim said, noting that policy is shifting toward figuring out how to reduce harm to the users and to society.
The king of blue collar movies is back, and this time Mike Judge brings us the tale of Joel, played by Jason Bateman, whose life just seems to be going nowhere fast. Joel’s small extract company is doing very well, but his employees never quite seem to be satisfied. Their hours are too long, their pay is never enough, and when rumors of Joel selling the company hit the floor, what little moral they had left goes right out the window. As if that wasn’t enough trouble for poor Joel, his marriage and sex life seem to be nonexistent, and when there’s an accident on the factory floor that causes one of the workers to loose a testical, things go from bad to worse. The incident not only threatens the buyout, but also catches the eye of a local grifter, played by Mila Kunis. Add to all this, a pain in the ass neighbor, brilliantly played by David Koechner, and a best friend bartender, played by Ben Affleck, who gives a surprisingly funny performance. This only seems to add to Joel’s troubles, when he suggests that Joel hirer a ringer to test his wife’s fidelity, so he himself might feel better about his thoughts of having an affair. Take all that and mix in Mike Judge’s unmistakable brand of comedy, and you have a bonafide hit.
Nobody can play an everyman quite like Jason Bateman. His timing is always just dead on. I could watch him all day, and I think I have on a few “Arrested Development” marathons. The entire cast does a phenomenal job, and Mike Judge’s writing/directing takes an average story and makes it something extraordinary. Just like “Office Space,” you’ll be quoting this movie in no time. Just ask ingus or dingus.
It’s not a bad way to start the fall movie season. After this past summer, we desperately need some good solid movies in the fall, and not just Oscar good movies either. No, we need fun, entertaining, and most of all funny movies. You know like… “Extract.” I can’t think of a better way to spend your Labor Day, than watching a bunch of people hate their jobs. It might even be safe to say that, “Extract” is so funny, you’ll bust a nut.” Too corny? Just go see it.
The Associated Press is reporting that three NASCAR crewmen have been suspended from competition due to violations of the substance abuse policy. The story seems to indicate the the three were caught actually using drugs or a banned substance at the track, which was Bristol. We thought those guys were thrashing all weekend. No wonder they are always so cheery.
The report also says that, with these three, the total number of crew-member suspension for the season is ten. As we all know, Jeremy Mayfield is the only driver who has been whacked by the new system.
Ten guys is a fair amount. It seems that the mentality that they’ll not get caught doing stupid or illegal things is still in the forefront of the offenders’ brains. Not surprising as it sounds like they have been cooking brain cells for a while.
“Poems. Prayers and Promises” is a song written by the late John Denver. I was playing and singing the song just the other day. I need to look at the lyrics and see how they apply to me.
I’ve been lately thinking
About my life’s time
All the things I’ve done
And how it’s been
I have been doing that a lot lately. I have been going through a middle-aged crisis since I was 30. I am saddened by what I missed and the mistakes I’ve made.
And I can’t help believing
In my own mind
I know I’m gonna hate to see it end
You betcha. I am not looking forward to dying, not just yet. I have so many dreams that need to be realized. The Caribbean calls.
I’ve seen a lot of sunshine
Slept out in the rain
Spent a night or two all on my own
I enjoyed being on my own sometimes. I was very lonely, mind you, but I did enjoy not having to care about or for anyone else. Sometimes I am just as lonely now as I was then.
I’ve known my lady’s pleasures
This goes without saying. Note the past tense in the lyric is correct.
Had myself some friends
Also past tense. I still do have a few friends, but none of them are close. That has to do a lot with me. I am very critical of people, but not to their faces. Just in my own snarky, secret way, which I think is a big turn off for the general population. Plus, I have a hard time enduring the fools of my life.
And spent a night or two in my own home
Which is a good feeling. I know some folks out there are wishing for more. I can’t complain too much about my crap shack.
And I have to say it now
It’s been a good life all in all
It has been a rollercoaster, but I do admit nothing catastrophic has happened. I am fed, have a home and loving wife and son, and am gainfully employed. Looking at the macro view, it has been good. It is the minutia (and a horrific childhood and adolescence) that bothers me and is hard to let go.
It’s really fine
To have a chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
Fire = computer screen
And watch the evening tire
= watching my EVE Online character mine ore.
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around
Pipe = my wife’s addiction to digital scrapbooking. I actually wish we could pass a pipe around. I need to be more mellow, but random drug tests makes the mental health benefit not worth the risk.
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
I believe in free markets, personal freedom, and limited government. I believe in the right to do to one’s own self what they will. I believe in firearm ownership. By most common perceptions, I must be a red-neck hillbilly hippie corporate weasel.
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
And you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t care. I do care. However, my definition of care is different than the popular television versions. I care for your soul, your individuality, and your well-being. I don’t care to force what I believe or follow onto you, though, in order for those things to exist.
How long it’s been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share
Our dreams and memories are both alike in that we can’t seem to be able to grasp either. You can’t live in a memory, and our dreams seem well out our grasp. Ok, MY dreams are our of MY grasp.
The days they pass so quickly now
Nights are seldom long
Ain’t that the truth. My son is growing up so fast. I feel that every minute I spend here or in my one leisure activity I am missing out on an eternity of development of my kid. And nights, well, it is hard to get up in the morning. A lot.
And time around me whispers when it’s cold
The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old
It does, somewhat. Being a teenager sucked, but being a twenty-something didn’t. Maybe that because my 30s suck, my 40s will be great.
For though my life’s been good to me
There’s still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
Sailing the Caribbean forever more. And maybe the South Pacific. New Zealand calls me as well.
I’d like to raise a family
Doing so…
I’d like to sail away
You betcha.
And dance across the mountains on the moon
Not really, but is niftily poetic.
I have to say it now
It’s been a good life all in all
It’s really fine
To have the chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and watch the sun go down
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long it’s been since yesterday
What about tomorrow
What about our dreams
And all the memories we share
EVE Online has really gotten me hooked. I am so enjoying it. Nothing like MMPORG-crack to keep me up at nights. It does keep me from trolling the dating sites looking for, well, anything. EVE is awesome and incredibly complex as well.
I went to a Brazoria Gamers group get together Saturday evening. I learned to play a new game. The folks are friendly, but I wonder if I could be friends. Outside of wanting some mental exercise in games, collectively we have little in common.
Still no definite takers to go see Dethklok and Mastodon in November. I am thinking now of just selling the extra ticket online or something.
My swimming is really wearing me out, which is a good thing I think. Hopefully, my stamina will slowly improve as my weight starts to slowly come down.
My meds are really doing a number on me. If I don’t take some of it with a wine cooler, then I get side effects. More Seagram’s Margarita-flavored booze, please.
