A Big God for Little People

This coming Sunday is the first day of the New Year. Sunday, December 3, 2006 is the First Sunday in Advent. As I think about the topic that will be our pastor's sermon this coming Sunday, I have run across so much good and encouraging material. One particularly striking piece is a brief article written by Dr. John Piper, entitled "A Big God for Little People." I believe as you read through it your heart will be lifted and encouraged. For starters, here's a quote:

"All the mammoth political forces and all the giant industrial complexes, without their even knowing it, are being guided by God, not for their own sake but for the sake of God's little people—the little Mary and the little Joseph who have to be got from Nazareth to Bethlehem. God wields an empire to bless his children...He is a big God for little people, and we have great cause to rejoice that, unbeknownst to them, all the kings and presidents and premiers and chancellors of the world follow the sovereign decrees of our Father in heaven, that we, the children, might be conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ."

May you be blessed this Advent season as you await the coming of our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Tit 2:13)!

The Noble Vehicular Savage

According to this story, several cities in Europe are getting rid of all traffic signs in a Rousseauian attempt to improve traffic safety and efficiency. According to the proponents of this "new" philosophy:

"The glut of prohibitions is tantamount to treating the driver like a child and it also foments resentment," and "the many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate."

History and anthropology have borne out that there is no such thing as a "noble savage." It's not the constricting laws of society that cause drivers to be bad. Drivers are bad because the hearts within the drivers are evil--not good. People (myself included) are, by nature, selfish, proud, and deceitful. Our own selfishness is what strips our ability to be considerate to others.

Anyone want to place a bet on how long it will be before this latest European fad goes the way of the Edsel?

Disclaimer: I'm not a student of philosophy, and so perhaps there was another philosopher whose worldview better explains this "new" model of government. But I do see it as a manifestation of Rousseau's flawed assertion that man is essentially good.

Baptismal Reflections

This past Sunday we had my youngest son baptised. Providentially, I was the elder assisting in leading the worship service that day and so I had the opportunity to make some comments about baptism in response to the pastor's sermon. I wanted to drive home some summary ideas about baptism since I knew that both sets of grandparents would be there and their sacramental views are typical "mainstream evangelical;" so there was much potential for confusion. I was discussing this with my friend Brant, and he asked me to post my comments on the blog. So, here they are. (These comments are by no means complete, and I'm sure I left out some other good points.)

As we have heard today, our Reformed understanding of Baptism rests on a number of key concepts:

1. There is in Scripture a fundamental unity and continuity between the Old and New Testaments: There is only one plan of salvation throughout the Bible. Salvation is and has always been by grace through faith in God.

2. Baptism doesn’t save us or our children any more than circumcision saved the Israelites.

3. As the song says, “Father Abraham had many sons…I am one of them, and so are you.” The Apostle Paul tells us that all who have faith in Christ are sons of Abraham (Gal. 3:7) and heirs according to the Promise (3:29). And God tells us from the start that this Promise, or Covenant, is everlasting (Gen 17:7).

4. Baptism is not a sign of something I did (my decision to follow Christ). It serves not as my witness to others, but as God’s witness to me. Since all men are helpless to save themselves and since salvation is the work of God alone, baptism beautifully portrays this spiritual truth: The water is applied to me, not by me; I am passive in the receiving of baptism, just as I am in the receiving the saving grace of God.

5. Baptism serves as a “stamp” or “seal” of Divine authenticity which God uses to assure us of His Promise of salvation to all those who believe in Him. The Apostle Peter reminds us that the same Promise God made to Abraham is “for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself” (Act. 2:39).

6. Scripture repeatedly teaches that God works redemptively not just in individuals, but through households. Children of believers are special in God’s eyes. They receive numerous blessings and advantages that those outside the household do not enjoy. The Great Commission is fulfilled first in the home—when godly parents exercise their great privilege and responsibility to raise up their children in the Lord. Children of believers are set apart from the children of unbelievers and therefore receive the mark of God’s promise to His people in Baptism.

7. Finally, Baptism sets us apart to a holy life lived for God. God’s gracious Promise of salvation is for those who embrace the Promise through faith and repentance. But if we do not live lives of faith befitting our baptism, we will receive God’s wrath and judgment. If you have been baptized but are not living a life of faith and love for God, and serving Him out of thankfulness for His mercy, see to it that you turn now and receive God’s abundant mercy and love.

Praise be to God for His faithfulness and mercy!

“But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them” (Psa. 103:17-18).

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations” (Deut. 7:9).

Black Tuesday

Today I'm suffering from the agony of defeat. In yesterday's election, out of the 49 persons or propositions I voted on, only 22 went the way I voted (45%). If that sounds pretty good, out of the 23 races I particularly cared about, only 8 went the way I voted (35%).

I have been saying to friends and family for several years now, the Republicans in Congress have squandered away their opportunity to enact conservative reforms that their electoral base was anticipating. So really, now that they've lost the House and probably the Senate as well, I think I can say they had it coming. And, truth be told, America has the leaders its deserves.

What grieves me the most, however, is the stupidity with which Californians seem to vote when it comes to the state propositions. Here are a few that went down the wrong way:

• 85 -- (FAILED) What parent in their right mind wants their teenage daughter to be taken from them by the public school, a college boyfriend, or a sexual predator to have a surgical procedure performed on them without their consent (much less their notification)!? (Apparently 54% do.) Nevermind that this surgical procedure takes the life of their baby grandchild and endangers the physical and emotional well-being of their own daughter. George Orwell's future is becoming our own present, by the express will of the people. (Hey stranger, please come take my children from me and do what you want with them--I really don't care.)
• 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 84 -- (PASSED) Together, these four bond measures will result in 77.9 billion dollars that has to be repaid by the government. If the government doesn't have the money now, they won't have it in the future either. Who will pay this outrageous fee? The same brain-dead people who voted for the measure!
• 90 -- (FAILED) This measure tried to protect Californians from seizure of private property brought on by the unconstitutional (and nonsensical) Kelso decsion of the U.S. Supreme Court. I guess Californians don't mind greedy "Big Business" coming and taking away their homes and churches for its own personal gain.
• M, O -- These three additional county measures will cost the taxpayers additional untold millions. (Not to mention the incessant traffic congestion brought on by additional inadequte road "improvements.")

The only real evidence of any possible remaining brain-activity in the electorate was its vote denying: 1) the $2.60/pack tobacco tax (Prop 86); 2) the $50 "for the children" property-tax surcharge (Prop 88); 3) the additional $4 billion gasoline tax (Prop 87); and 4) Taxpayer-funded political campaigns (Prop 89).

This election makes it increasingly clear that I am not a man of this world. Which shouldn't suprise me. The Bible makes it perfectly clear that Christians are "strangers and exiles on the earth" (Heb 11:13), that "our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20), and that we look forward to "a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Heb. 11:16), to a "city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God" (Heb. 11:10).

Furthermore, bad election results help remind us that it is our sovereign God who "removes kings and sets up kings" (Dan 2:21) and "rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will" (Dan. 4:17). This is imporant, lest we begin to think that we can save the world through our political efforts.

While we await the great and glorious day of our Lord's appearing, Christians must press on, striving to be salt and light in a decaying and dark culture. The only thing that can truly change the current course of our culture toward Gomorrah is the saving power of the Gospel. My prayer is that the results of this election will cause our nation's Christians to remember this fact, and that we will be emboldened to preach the good news and live out our vocations in society such that we may have a preserving and healing influence upon it. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Restaurant Review: Frescas

I'm thinking about starting a new line of topics on this blog, where I will review various restaurants I have visited. Since I am a lover of fine food, and since I do seem be blessed with opportunities to dine at some very fine establishments from time to time, perhaps this places me in a unique position among my peers to provide descriptions of my experiences. Perhaps you may find them helpful some day in selecting a restaurant for your anniversary or first date.

Fresca's Mexican Grill - 10/27/2006

Not wanting to bite off more than I can chew on my first attempt (ooh, bad pun), let's take a look at Fresca's Mexican Grill in Foothill Ranch, CA. I would classify this restaurant as one of the seemingly endless number of "high end fast food" establishments throughout Orange County. (Other restaurants in this class would be Pasta Bravo, Daphne's, and Rubio's, for example.)

Fresca's, as it turns out, is the most recent in a chain of seven restaurants in O.C (although I had never seen one before). Just walking in I pretty much guessed that was the case because this is one very nicely-appointed fast food place--and that kind of decoration, I imagine, costs more than most mom and pop establishments are able to lay down to start up such an enterprise. The ambience is Tex-Mex, there are two wide-screen TV's on the walls, and the seating is comfortable (the booths looked particularly comfy). Ambience is an important factor for a restaurant (it's importance is roughly proportional to the price), and Fresca's scores very well in the category.

The Foothill Ranch location has been open for 3 weeks, and the day I went there was a line out the door. But, of course, I should know that showing up at exactly 12-noon is never good if you want to avoid rubbing elbows with everyone else on their lunch hour. The process is typical: wait in line, order your food, pay the cashier, take a number, find a seat; wait for your number to be called, and then go pick up your food. Despite the crowd, the staff were hustling, and my food was ready in probably not much more than 5 minutes. Way to go.

Prices are typical for dining in this class: $6-7 for a combo plate with beans, rice, and chips; $2 tacos; #3.50-5.50 burritos, etc. Certainly not a great deal, but certainly in line with what other restaurants are charging these days. (And besides, they have to pay back those interior decorators and builders somehow, right?)

One nice little "bonus" for a good Mexican fast-food restaurant is if they have a decent "salsa bar." Fresca's has a very fine one, with at least 6 different varieties of salsa (from mild to scortching hot), each with a uniquely different flavor. I sat and snacked on chips and salsa while I waited for my number to be called--which, as I said, wasn't very long.

I ordered the #1 platter: Tres Enchiladas. This entree comes with one each of chicken, steak, and cheese enchiladas, and is served with rice, black beans, and chips. The presentation was nice, the food looked very appetising, and the portion was just right. However, I have one complaint, and that is the meat was fairly unsatisfactory. The chicken was a bit dry--probably overcooked--and both the steak and chicken were fairly tough. Good meat quality is one of my biggest demands. One expects mediocre meat at McDonalds, but when someone is spending more, one expects more. Meat should be tender, juicy, and well seasoned. Unfortunately, mine was none of these. Even though the overall flavor of the dish was very good, poor meat pretty much overwhelms everything else. (Perhaps most people don't notice anymore. But once you've had really good meat cooked right, it's hard to settle for less.)

I will go back to try Fresca's again. If the meat is better then this restaurant may become part of my regular rotation. If not, there's plenty of competition out there for my lunch-hour dollars.

I plan to end each review with a quick summary. I will rate the establishment with scores between 1 (horrid) and 5 (phenomenal) in five categories. Here's a summary of Fresca's:

Atmosphere (decor, comfort, and cleanliness): 4.5
Service (promptness, attitude): 4.5
Price: 3.5
Food (presentation and taste): 3
Overall (average of the above categories): 3.9

Advice? Check it out. Perhaps your exprience will surpass mine.

2006 Fall Presbytery

Tonight I depart for my first Presbytery meeting. The church which I help lead is a mission work of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC), a denomination with its roots in the Scottish Reformation and, surprisingly, still intact after 273 years.

If you wouldn't mind, please pray that I would have a safe trip, that the meetings would maintain unity centered on biblical truth, charity, clear-headed thinking, wise decision-making, and that Christ's Kingdom here on earth would be furthered.

Bible Theme Parks!?

Life often imitates art. Maybe you remember the episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders--the annoyingly wierd, overly zealous, legalistic supposedly Christian neighbor--opened up a Christian amusement park called "Praiseland." Well stand back, now there's "The Holy Land Experience" in Orlando, Florida (along with a host of other similar endeavors).

For $30 you can experience such exciting amusements as:

• A musical reenactment of Christ's death and resurrection, delivered daily by one of the park's three Jesus impersonators!
• A six-story replica of Herod's temple!
• A gift shop that sells Holy Land T-shirts, plastic swords and shields, and biblical cookbooks!
• And much more!

Some people have complained: "What you have is this radical, paradoxical combination of the sacred and the profane, or maybe the sacred and the trivial."

If you tend to agree, perhaps one of the Jesus impersonators could dissuade you: "There are a lot of things we could do here to bring in money, like serve alcohol, but we don't."

But one commentator observed: "places like Holy Land Experience and Dinosaur Adventure Land belong to a long-standing American religious tradition of evangelism as entertainment."

I guess it's not so different than your average Sunday morning worship service these days. And, hey, at least they don't serve alcohol. Because that would make it profane.

Chavez, the Lunatic Thug

Does this little girl look happy to you? Well, would you be happy if Hugo Chavez had his arms around you like that?

I'm enraged that he after he is graciously allowed to enter our country he then has the nerve to blast our president in the most uncivilized, rude, and immature manner. What a frightening, unstable man.

Can we please just kick the UN out of New York and get the heck out of the UN once and for all!? (It'll never happen.)

So Long, Tomcat

"By Friday [9/22] the Tomcat will be gone." This article talks about how the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat, made famous in the hit movie Top Gun, will be retired after 36 years of service, and includes bios of some of the men who flew it. Wow. She was a beauty.

Abu Ghraib II?

Where's the outcry?

About one week ago, American forces transferred to the Iraqis control of the Iraqi prison made famous for the degrading and humiliating treatment by a number of American servicemen and women. And what is the result?

• Allegations of routine torture: "...Screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects."
• Mass executions: "on Wednesday [9/6/06], 27 prisoners were hanged."
• Prisoners left behind suspected as much: "They had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards."

In the words of one suspected terrorist: "The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better."

Seems even America's terrorist enemies know that we will treat them better than their fellow countrymen will. So why is the American media machine so clueless? Where's the public outcry?

Meeting at the White Horse Inn

My pastor recently had the opportunity to meet the participants of the White Horse Inn radio program. I still haven't heard what all they discussed, but I was excited he got to do this. Perhaps I'm living vicariously, but oh well. (My pastor is second from the right.)

2006 Ligonier Conference

Join us this weekend--Friday, September 7 and Saturday, September 8, 2006--for the fall 2006 Ligonier Conference. The subject is the Atonement of Christ and its significance in our lives. Speakers will be R.C. Sproul and Ligon Duncan. Here's a brief summary:

Beginning with the man’s need for atonement, they will discuss the identity of those Jesus came to save, look at how He ransoms us from God’s curse, and answer common questions about the meaning of the crucifixion.

Everyone who is anyone will be there. It should be a great time. Join us!

Burkha Gowns

Just got back from Hawaii. But I'll talk more about that later.

Read this article today on Drudge. Apparently, Muslims will start getting their own specialized gowns whenever they go to hospital in the UK.

What I want to know is, do they flap open all way way down the back, like a traditional hospital gown?

Freedom of Choice

America is the land of choice. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Americans have far more choices in general than any other nation on earth. It's so ingrained in our psyche that we see "choice" as a given, almost an "inalienable right." This right to choose extends from the most grave (the choice to murder your own unborn child) to the most mundane (orange juice).

The last time I was at the grocery store I was struck by the vast selection of orange juice. Apparently, one or two choices is not enough for something as simple and basic as orange juice. For example, Minute Maid has no less than 10 varieties of orange juice! (This is excluding blends with other juices and "juice drinks.") Not to be outdone, Tropicana has at least 12 styles of OJ! According to Tropicana's website, you have the following options from which to choose:

• Original (no pulp)
• Home Style (some pulp)
• Grove Stand (lotsa pulp)
• Calcium + Vitamin D (no pulp)
• Grove Stand + Calcium (lotsa pulp)
• Light 'N' Healthy (watered down OJ w/vitamins--oh, and no pulp)
• Light 'N' Healthy with Pulp (some pulp)
• Fiber (some pulp--of course)
• Low Acid (no pulp)
• Healthy Heart (no pulp)
• Healthy Kids (because kids apparently need their own OJ)
• Immunity Defense (no pulp)

With all of those options before you, if you're like me you might just stand there in a daze for several minutes trying to figure out which one you want. And then you might just walk away emptyhanded, or go grab a Coke.

The Law Comes Naturally

The other day Brant and I were discussing the idea that the idea of Law comes naturally to us as humans. We all inherrently understand that good deserves reward and bad deserves punishment. Of course, reinforcement of this throughout our lives helps.

Last week, my wife called me up and told me that our eldest son's (he's three) sense of justice had been offended. I had driven to work, having forgotten to take the car seat out of my car and put it back into my wife's. My wife had to drive a couple of residential blocks with my son buckled in with the regular seatbelt to drop him off at his grandparents'.

When my wife explained to my son that she could get in trouble from a policeman if stopped, my son responded in bitter protest. But Daddy was the one who didn't put the car seat back--He should get in trouble! Though my wife tried to explain that that it's her fault for driving with him not in a carseat, he would have none of it. He saw the greater error as being my own and justice would simply not be served by punishing Mommy. And rightly so!

Ah, the clarity with which moral issues are seen by small children! (And may I never forget the carseat again!)

See: There was no moon landing

This story oughtta make all those conspiracy nuts out there who think that the US staged the Apollo moon landings on a Hollywood back lot feel real good. "Suuure you lost them. Uh huh."

Entertainment Junkies

America is a nation of entertainment junkies. We're addicts. Just like a heroin addict, all we can think about is our next fix. NFL, NBA, NASCAR, Snoop Dog, Christina Aguilera, American Idol, Sez and the City, Lost, 24, etc., etc. We walk around town in a trance with our iPod earbuds glued to our ears, faithfully attending Regal Cinema or the Troubadour or Edison Field on Sundays, where we bow to the gods and goddesses we have made with our own money, who in turn happily help us shoot up for another fix. Meanwhile, the important things of the world go on, and we're oblivious to them.

Want some proof? Here's the latest: Snow White's Seven Dwarfs are more well known than the 7 US Supreme Court Justices. What's worse? The 3 Stooges are better known than the 3 branches of US Government. And more people know Bart Simpson is Homer Simpson's son than know that the Illiad and Odyssey are the Greek poet Homer's epics poems.

Symptoms of a declining culture? I think so.

The Fashion of the Christ

Okay, I have no idea what possessed me. I think someone at the recent SCCCS conference mentioned Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. And today, on my way to lunch, the thought occurred to me: "Someone out there must have done something called "The Fashion of the Christ."

Sure enough, here's a fashion show, starring a Jesus Christ impersonator.

Yes, it's a bit irreverent--but probably not sacreligious. I see it as a demonstratation the common misuse of Jesus as an icon for people's (including Christians) current cause du jour. In other words, people commonly make Jesus the spokesperson and posterboy for their particular hobbyhorse; this illustrates the tendency a bit more clearly through idiodic humor.

Enjoy (or don't)!

SCCCS Conference

Reminder: This weekend is the annual Summer Conference, sponsored by the Southern California Center for Christian Studies. This year's theme is "Holywood Worldviews and the Cultural Mandate." Speakers will include (among others) Jack Hafer and Brian Godawa, Producer and Screenwriter, respectively, of the award-winning film, To End All Wars. Should be a good and informative time, as usual. Location is the Student Center of Cal State Fullerton. Time is Fri (8/4), 7-9pm; Sat (8/5), 9:30am - 4:30pm. Admission is free.

GeekSpeak: CRC's

Okay, here's part two of the introduction to checksums, as recently learned by this novice. The concept of a Cyclic Redundancy Check is derived from polynomial math. The idea is this: Take your file or a block of data in binary notation and convert it into a polynomial with coefficients of either one or zero. Ex, if your message was 1101:

1101 --> (1)x^3 + (1)x^2 + (0)x^1 + (1)x^0 --> x^3 + x^2 + 1

Do the same for some carefully chosen "key," Ex:

101 --> x^2 + 1

Multiply the message by x raised to the degree of the key polynomial (in this case, the degree of the key is 2). Ex:

(x^3 + x^2 + 1) * x^2 = x^5 + x^4 + x^2

Divide the result by the key. Ex:

(x^5 + x^4 + x^2) / (x^2 + 1) = x^3 + x^2 + x, R = x

The Remainder is the CRC. Convert this back into bits, Ex:

x --> (0)x^3 + (0)x^2 + (1)x + (0)x^0 --> 0010

Once you send the message, the computer at the receiving end can perform the same operation. If the CRC's are the same, then it is very likely your message was received without error.
All of this math is performed "modulo 2," which basically means that odd coefficients become 1, odd negative coefficients become -1, and even coefficients become 0. Ex:

4x^2 + 3x - 1 --> x + 1

Also, it is imperative that a "good" key is chosen. Really smart mathemeticians have figured out which keys work best. Generally speaking, the longer it is, the more error-proof it is. As an example, a very common CRC key is called "CRC-32". It's polynomial is:

x^31 + x^30 + x^26 + x^25 + x^24 + x^18 + x^15 + x^12 + x^11 + x^10 + x^8 + x^6 + x^5 + x^4 + x^3 + x + 1

As we would presume, computers can peform these operations in a more efficient manner than trying to do complicated polynomial math, but as other people have covered this well, I won't go into that here.

Anytime you use the internet, these kinds of operations are going on in the background without you even knowing it. Be thankful that people a lot smarter than you or I (well, at least I) have gone to the effort to figure all this stuff out for us!

GeekSpeak: Checksums

Here's something interesting to the techies. In my quest for learning new things, I did a little research about what a CRC (cyclic redundancy check) is. Since I found the subject interesting, I thought I would share a little about it here.

A CRC is a type of checksum, and is a way of attempting to ensure that data (e.g., a computer file, or stream of data over a network) has not become corrupted since it was first created. (And data can easily become corrupted because computers often misunderstand the messages they're being sent.)

A simple checksum works like this: you (or, more realistically, a computer program) goes through the file (or a specific chunk of data) and adds up the values of each of the bytes. The total is the checksum. If part of the file was changed, the total would typically change as well. This is actually a very easy algorithm to implement. For example:

Say you wanted to send your friend the following word: hello

The computer translates each letter into the following values: 104 101 108 108 111

The checksum would, therefore, be: 104 + 101 + 108 + 108 + 111 = 532

But, what if an error caused the 'o' to get lost along the way? hell

The new checksum would be: 104 + 101 + 108 + 111 = 421

If your friend's computer did a checksum and compared it with yours, it would discover the error and ask your computer to re-transmit the word--and it is unlikely that this time it would have an error.

Piece of cake! The downside is that there is a good chance the checksum will not catch certain kinds of errors. (For example, if a byte of data with a value of 0 get inserted, it will not increase the value of the checksum, even though the file size has increased by one byte.) Thus, a more robust--and complicated--technique is usually employed. Next time I'll talk about the CRC method of error-checking.

Orphans with Parents

Parents spend only 19 minutes a day looking after their children. This comes from yet another study (this one in the UK) which shows that parents are orphaning their children while they pursue their careers.

And yet, I thought the following quote was particularly interesting:

"Recent research showed that most mothers with young families would prefer to stay at home and look after their children."

So why don't these mums go home? Unquestionably, the middle-class life is expensive (probably even moreso in the UK than in the US), and the cost of living is continually on the rise. But the question that no one wants to ask is this: is the standard of living we demand for ourselves of greater importantance than spending more time raising our own children? Do we really need two Mercedes? Do we really need those gym memberships? The Tivo? The Satellite TV? All the latest techno-gadgets? The daily Starbucks venti, iced-blended, decaf, mocha frapuccino? Not that this will solve all of the problems. But I submit it would go a long way to reducing the number of orphaned children as our cost of living would often diminish to the point that mom could come home and pursue her dream of (and, dare I say, responsibility for) caring for the kids.

The above story reinforces what I have heard recently that American fathers, on average, spend only 4 minutes with their children each day! That is yet another problem. Does Dad always come home and plop himself in front of the TV, or does he spend this time rastling, snuggling, reading, worshiping, and praying with his kids?

Is there really any wonder that today's children have a different worldview than their parents, would rather spend time with their peers than their families, are promiscuous, get into drugs, and eventually grow up to be nasty, brutish adults?

Of course, what goes around comes around. You can just picture how the kids will respond:

"By the way, Mum. When you and Dad need care in your old age... Don't come asking me for help. I'm sure the government have a nice little hole carved out for you in some state-run nursing institution where you can waste away the remainder of your days while Sis and I are out looking after ourselves. Didn't you hear about the brilliant 103" plasma screen telie that's coming out soon? I've just gotta have one o' them! And, of course, the wife's gonna have to work to help us pay for it."

Scots Wha? Huh!?

So this is my first attempt at a blog. Okay, that's not quite true--I started a blog several years ago, just as they were coming around. But I ran out of time to keep it updated and eventually gave up. Now that blogging is "all the rage," I decided to try giving it another shot. (Of course, now I have even less free time, so we'll see...)

I always have lots to say--not that anyone really ought to listen. Then again, I figure that what millions of people post on their blogs is not really that interesting. And if they can do it, then why not me too?

So, what's with the name? I have to admit that I have an extremely hard time coming up with usernames and the like. But since a large part of my heritage is Scottish, and since one of my favorite interests is in all things Scottish, Irish, and English, I figured why not name my blog after the title of the poem by Scotland's bard, Robert Burns.

The title "Scots Wha Hae," which means "Scots who have," comprises the opening words of the poem. The poem is typical of the nationalistic poetry of Scotland, a land which struggled for independence from the English for centuries. I certainly don't know enough of the situation to make any sort of claim for Scottish autonomy today, but for historical (and literary) reasons, the poem is valueable.

Anyway, here's to high hopes.

Slainte Mhath!