Bill's Comments

I accuse Bishop Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA and President of the World Lutheran Federation, of subverting his position as leader of the Lutheran Church to further his own political priorities.

In 2002 or 2003, he met with the Secretary of State Colin Powell. He obtained that meeting as the leader of the ELCA, not as Mark Hanson, ordinary citizen. In 2005, he and the Synod Bishops of the ELCA, signed a letter asking for removal of the tax rebates for the rich and applauding the continuation of the food stamp program. And now he has called for "'a full international and independent investigation' into the deaths of nine activists killed May 31 when Israeli military forces intercepted ships bringing aid to Gaza." (The Lutheran, July, 2010, p. 13) He continued calling for an end to the blockade and expressing concern over the proportionality of response by Israel, code words for Israel is not supposed to fight back.

On October 16, 2005, I posted the sermon I gave that day on Matthew 22:15-22, in which Jesus says "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's." At that time I also pointed out that the converse was true, "Do not render unto Caesar that which is God's or render unto God that which is Caesar's."

Bishop Hanson's behavior is a violation of the first half of the converse statement. In making pronouncements on political situations as the leader of the Lutherans in the US and the World, he is pretending that he speaks for all of the Lutheran churches in supporting these positions. Or that the weight of the believers in God are behind these statements. Nothing could be further from the truth. One simply has to look at the results of the adoption of the homosexuality statement by the ELCA to see that it is not a homogeneous body. I can look at my own parish, which I consider representative, and find the entire range of political belief and expression.

I once tried to protest the Bishop's behavior to both the Bishop and as a letter to The Lutheran. I was ignored. Were Bishop Hanson to be other than the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA and President of the World Lutheran Federation, say a synod bishop or a parish pastor, he would have no audience other than his parishoners. That he should use the audience his position gives him for other than the spreading of the word of God is sacrilegious at the least. He has no right to speak for anyone other than himself. He was not elected to be a political but a religious leader. He is no better than the celebrities that think they have political knowledge and wisdom by virtue of their fame (or infamy).

Please be very sure that there is a great difference between Bishop Hanson's actions and those of the Pope when he said those who vote for or support abortion should not commune. The Pope was not making a political statement. He did not say repeal abortion. He simply emphasized what the Church was teaching all along, that abortion was a grave sin, and to support as a Roman Catholic was to support sin, and thereby become equally sinful. (Remember that Jesus taught that the thought was tantamount to the deed.)

Let me make it very clear. Though I currently consider myself a member of the ELCA, Bishop Hanson does not speak for me, nor do the inaccuracies on the Middle East in the Lutheran receive my acceptance. I have found that internal protest is ignored. Should I become sufficiently angered, I will dissociate myself from them.

I have just returned from a trip to the past with my friend Jim. We went to the 100th anniversary celebration of steam railroading in West Virginia at Petersburg, WV, and then rode one of the top tourist trains in the country today.

We drove to our hotel on Thursday, and that evening watched a really excellent railroad movie, "The Emperor of the North" with Lee Marvin, Ernest Bourgnine, and Keith Carradine. Really excellent film; I highly recommend it. There are a few discrepancies from railroading reality to help the story line along, but they are minor. It truly captures the essence of railroading and especially railroading during the depression. Not only that, it has a very satisfying ending.

Getting to the festival was an adventure in itself, over winding, steep West Virginia roads, getting lost temporarily in a small WV town, and finally arriving in Petersburg. All part of the fun. Did we ask for directions? OF COURSE NOT. We're guys, we can figure it out eventually and did in short order. (Yes ladies, railroaders and hard-core rail fans are male chauvenist pigs. We actually hold doors for ladies, put them in cars, and still believe in chivalry. We also do it our way not yours. Oh, yeah, we leave the seat of the toilet up a lot.)

The steam festival at Petersburg was OK. We visited with our old acquaintances, John and Barney Gramlin who restored and run Flagg #75, an 0-4-0T switcher, rode in pre-1920's open windowed passenger cars behind 0-4-0T switcher #17 from the New Hope Valley RR, and saw the most beautifully preserved B & O F7 passenger diesel pull in the day trip passenger train. The only fly in the ointment was that CSX, true to their jerky reputation, refused to allow Western Maryland steam locomotive to travel 10 miles over their tracks to the festival. It really put a damper on things, because full-size locos like WM 734, a 2-8-0 Baldwin freight engine, are a major draw to these events. Note that CSX considers themselves one of the two main sponsors of the event.

HOWEVER, that turned out to be a blessing for Jim and me. We left the festival early in the afternoon, and started back. Jim's boss was there (Jim works for a railroad) and told us where the Western Maryland starts and ends. So off we go first to Cumberland, MD, where the train starts. There we found the station and got the schedule. Because the steam engine had not gone to the festival, it would pull the excursion train the next day. We then headed back towards Frostburg, MD. Now I had put us in a hotel in Frostburg because it was the closest known quality motel to the festival. As it turned out, Frostburg was the other end of the excursion train ride, so we had to find the station where there was also a turn table.

Here was another adventure. We didn't know where the station was in Frostburg, but we did know that it had to be at a low point in town, and possibly on a street with a name like Railroad Ave. You have to really understand railroading and railroad engineering to know why we were so certain it would be at a low point. So we drove back an forth over the various major roads in Frostburg. As a working hypothesis, railroad stations are often close to downtown, or easily accessible to it. I only know of one exception, Vincennes, IN, where the station is at the crossover diamond of the B & O and the C & E I. Oops, those are fallen flags. Now it would be the CSX (boo!) and the CSX (boo!)[corrected from original post. bk]. So we go through downtown twice and realize it is on the side of a hill. So we take a highway that goes downhill from downtown, and part way down, there is.... Depot Street! A quick right turn, some curves, and there it is...the station and the turntable. After parking and taking some pictures, we start out the other end of Depot Street, and find it goes straight up hill to the middle of downtown Frostburg. The road would have been better as a funicular than a road. San Francisco has nothing on this street.

Back at the motel, we research our two options for Saturday, 1) do the WM and go home or 2) drive to Cass, WV, and do the logging train and go home. The realities of getting to Cass from where we were eliminated that as an option. So we chose to go ride the Western Maryland from Cumberland to Frostburg and back and then go home. After dinner we then watched an excellent video Jim had purchased at the festival on steam railroading in China. They still use steam engines in regular freight and passenger service in 2009. However, HEADS UP. They are converting to diesel and electric, and there will be many 2-8-2 engines in good running order available in the next few years, and they are standard gauge. If your fantasy is to own a working, real, steam engine, it could come true.

So today, Jim and I packed up and headed for Cumberland. Of course, we got up at 7, got dressed, ate breakfast, and were in Cumberland by 9:20. The train didn't get to the station until 11. That is how hard-core railfans are. They would rather sit in a station than in a motel. We wandered around the station, took some pictures, looked into the kiddie gift shop (more about that later), listened to some BS from a guy that talked a walk he didn't do, and finally the train came around the bend into the station.

At this point I am back to standing on the platform in Vincennes, watching the switcher go by. The WM 734 is a big, powerful freight engine that hauled coal from of MD and WV mines. It is at least 15 feet tall and 80 feet long. Because it was for power instead of speed, the drivers were small, about 48 inches in diameter. But the sound of the whistle, the sound of the cylinder steam, and the smell of coal smoke are all intoxicating. What is really sad is the ignorance of most of the passengers about the potential dangers. They cross in front of the engine, they stand too close to the edge of the platform, they generally do not realize the hazards of a real, running railroad. In fact, the engine had to stop well short of the platform, and wait until everybody finally got the message from the loud speakers to stand back. The most egregious occurance was some old man that apparently deliberately sauntered across the track after everyone else had gone and the engine was almost at the platform. He was acting stupidly, but if there were an accident, guess who would sue? And in today's legal climate probably win.

When the cars were positioned at the platform, we all loaded. Jim and I took a seat in a chair car, but shortly after the trip started went forward to the open-air portion of one of the cars. There we experienced the sound of a properly- and hard-working steam engine, the sight of it as we went around curves, the smell of the smoke, and the cinders that fell on our head, arms and shoulders if we leaned out. At one point we passed through a 914 foot long tunnel and had smoke right down in the car. The trip lasted an hour and went though some spectacular scenery in the Appalachians.

When we arrived in Frostburg, the engine was cut off the train, advanced to the turn-table, and reversed. It was placed on the run-around track after which it ran down past the end fo the train, then backed up to the train and coupled for the return trip. In the meantime we were able to take pictures of all this and then get lunch. The return trip was just as spectacular, though Jim and I opted to stay in the coach this time. Once we arrived at the station in Cumberland again, the Western Maryland gift shop was open. This was what I expected in a gift shop. The other one had almost nothing but Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and kiddie things. This one had railroading books, and adult clothing for the WM.

At the festival I acted like a GERF (Glassy-Eyed Rail Fan). I bought two hats with B&O and Pennsylvania RR insignia, two painted steel plates with the two insignia, and five hat pins, for B&O, Pennsy, Union Pacific, Santa Fe, and Norfolk Southern. My five favorite railroads. At the adult gift shop I bought a serious history and pictures of the symbiotic relationship of railroads and coal over the last 150 years.

One of the many things that trouble me about the upbringing of modern children, is that they are not taught what railroads really meant to the development of this country. We seem to be stuck in the Granger whining about freight rates and the Ida Tarbell journalism about the Robber Barons. Festivals and tourist railroads like the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, show people at an experiential level something of the romance of railroading, but they do not really convey the reality of the danger, the sacrifices, the visions, the courage, that built railroads and made them a part of our everyday reality. It is a possible start for some, but in general my perception was that most people really see excursion trains as another version of an amusement park ride--one in which they do not have to be strapped, and in which they can walk up and down and buy snacks and soda during the ride. Yet, I wonder if at some level they really do sense it. After all, they coughed up $30 plus their snacks and lunch for a four-hour ride, and no one seemed to feel cheated.

So, once again, I have been able to go back in time, and pretend that railroads are still all that they were when I was growing up. And next year we will do it again.

UPDATE: Here are links to the two Facebook picture albums I created from the trip
Petersburg festival: Here
Western Maryland: Here

One of the prevailing factoids today is that Jihadists are “only” 10% of the Muslim population, and that the vast majority of Muslims are moderates. Where are they? We see no evidence in the press of moderate Muslim activity or statements. All we see is the assertion that they are there. In the meantime we suck up to the violent side if Islam, by our behavior recognizing it as Islam. We have been calling Islam the Religion of Peace since 9/11, and yet all the violence we face is backed by some form of Islam. Save for a minority set of Christians in Lebanon and Egypt, all of whom face constant hostility, and Israel, the entire Middle East is Muslim. Even Turkey which was the great example of a secular Muslim state, is succumbing to Jihadism and Sharia.

Any reading outside of the MSM will show that Islam is inherently violent. It gives permission to kill infidels with no guilt, and in fact that is a virtue. It encourages lying to the infidel (taqiyya). It believes in allowing infidels to live only as long as they are subservient dhimmis, paying protection money, jizyah. And where is there anything to state otherwise? I don’t read it in the MSM or in any commentary. To those that would claim there are more pacifist passages in the Quran, I would note that they occur earlier in the Quran and are overridden by the later entries. It is one of the rules of Quranic interpretation that the latest writings take precedence over the earlier writings.

I have read that “moderates” are threatened by the radicals into subservience to the Wahhabbi rule of the mosque, and that there have been murders of families that tried to stand up to the jihadists. If this is so, why has it not been reported or more note taken of it? Why have the threatened ones not gone to the authorities? Why have enclaves of jihadists, far more virulent and violent than any of our home-grown militias, been allowed to grow and remain? Why have we allowed the recruitment in our prisons of jihadists?

This is where political correctness proceeds to condone murder and prevent our real understanding of what goes on in the mosques in this country. If it were a known fact that sedition is being preached in the mosques, political correctness would do everything it could to prevent our sending undercover agents into the mosques to determine it exactly. If the preaching of the imams in the mosque encouraged the violation of law, we would be equally prevented. HOWEVER, let it be thought or even hinted that such a thing were occurring in a Christian church and it would be swarming with undercover agents from both law enforcement and the IRS.

Are the “moderates” not reporting this because they are afraid that since it relates to Islam they will be damned to Hell for reporting to the infidel? If so, I feel sorry for them for such a belief. It will indeed kill them and their families in the long-run, either from eventually disobeying the imams, or from being considered part of the problem when the whole mess blows up in this country, as it will.

Moderates, if such a thing exists, have to make a choice, either they are with the Jihadists or they are not. If they are not, they need to make it known and very visibly and vocally so that if the jihadists come for revenge for apostasy, it will make a big enough splash that we will have to do something about it. Islamic murder stories have no legs, so to speak, to date. They occur and then die out almost overnight, yet we can spend days of newsprint on tawdry affairs and murders of our own society. We also need to entertain the idea that there are no moderate Muslims. The concept relates to more to Judeo-Christianity than to Islam. Judeo-Christianity has many tolerated interpretations of doctrine, many of which would be considered “moderate.” In Islam no such thing occurs. If one ascribes to a particular branch of Islam, then one is committed for life, and what’s more, is subject to the death penalty for trying to leave the faith.

Political correctness projects onto Islam our concepts of what a religion is and then treats it accordingly, despite obvious evidence that it is not the same at all. Political correctness also insists on there being moderate Muslims. I suggest that it is the very nature of Islam that there are no moderates. There is no tolerance when the surface is peeled away. Any so-called tolerance is only a form of taqiyya to buy time until Shiria is implemented. We are looking for something that exists in our society and is never allowed in Middle-Eastern culture. In the Middle East, it is my way or die. The highway is not an option. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can start protecting ourselves.

Long before Emmanual Rahm, politicians of all stripes were making sure crises were not wasted. He simply made it explicit what they were doing. However, in the past few years crises have been manufactured to achieve various agendas. The most notible is global warming, but we have another one with roots as deep. It simply flies under the radar most of the time until Michelle Obama wants a bit of press.

From time to time we hear of an obesity epidemic or crisis, that this nation is too fat and we have to do something about it. I have spent the entire Memorial Day weekend and last night watching large crowds of people who represent a fair cross-section of this country. The idea of an obesity epidemic is pure, unadulterated BS. Less than 10% of the people I saw were overweight by a reasonable standard.

So where does this come from? For at least thirty years we hear from time to time from wannabe food cops that certain foods are unhealthy--"Spaghetti Alfredo is heart-attack on a plate." We have the FDA issuing guidelines for vitamin intake, and some government agency issues guidelines for healthy height and weight combinations. What I have noticed is that the height and weight guidelines have been becoming harder to meet over the years. At this point one has to be a version of Twiggy (You do remember her don't you?), or Kate Moss for the younger crowd, to meet them. By using these changing standards, more people can be considered overweight, and therefore one manufactures a crisis and thereby an excuse to regulate one more aspect of our daily lives.

At the same time guidelines for diabetic blood-sugar and for normal blood pressure are also dropping. This plays right into the hands of pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceuticals are the treatment of choice for both Type II diabetes and hypertension. After all it takes more and more treatment to get that next little bit of improvement. In fact, there are now starting to appear articles indicating that one can too tightly control sugar and blood pressure in Type II diabetics and thereby increase their risk of stroke and heart attack. Gasp! Heresy! It also plays into the hands of the regulators, because the more stringent requirements for diagnosing Type II diabetes creates still another crisis that is co-existent with the obesity crisis--a two-fer.

What we need is something for these idiots to regulate that doesn't get in our road. We need some great, never-to-be-solved but always-to-be-attacked crisis
that will occupy them while we go about living our lives and being productive. Just for the record, I am obese. I will continue to be obese as long as I don't take it seriously and do something about it--ON MY OWN. I have been thin before, so I know what it takes. When I want to do it I will get there, and as long as I don't really care or want to, all the coercion in the world won't help. That is something that do-gooders and wannabe regulators never consider.

A couple of months ago, I received an email requesting I post a link on my blog to the Amazon listing of the book, "Climatism:Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic," by Steve Goreham. Steve himself sent me the request based on what he perceived my own views on the topic to be. At that time I told him I had a rigid rule of not posting commercial links on my blog, but would purchase the book, read it, and post a review. This is that review.

Climatism is the term the author has given to the ideology that drives the global warming alarmism and the resultant politics. The book is organized into three parts, the first discusses the science concerning climate and the published data that has driven the great Global Warming alarmism. The second discusses the history and fallacies of the global warming movement. The third part discusses the various solutions and why they will not work as desired.

The book is remarkably even-handed on a topic that quickly polarizes people. The science in the first part is made very accessible to anyone with the ability to read and think. I saw nothing beyond what a person with a high school education could comprehend with a little effort, and at the same time it was not trivialized science. The only concession the author made to non-scientific people was to turn a number of charts upside down to emphasize the correspondence. It was very effective, because though I am trained to read charts as plotted, I saw a closer correspondence than I would have seen the other way.

The second part was a very good presentation of environmental history and the political forces that have become attached to environmentalism. I learned a lot about what was going on back when I was interested in other issues so was not following environmentalism closely. To quote one of my fellow bloggers (Gates of Vienna) "We are in a new phase of a very old war." And the greatest problem we face is, though the press is rapidly coming to reveal the errors, the political momentum is built up and those who gain power from environmental issues have a solid position of control.

The third part discusses the various remedies that are touted as "The Solutions" to global warming. The author does an excellent job of showing just how unrealistic they are as complete solutions. He very clearly says that they should be tried, WHERE APPROPRIATE. This part of the even-handedness of the overall book. Where there is logic on the environmentalist side, he accepts and shows it. Where there is illogic and wishful thinking he exposes it. The one place where he is directly confrontive is to state and demonstrate that the goal of climatism is power to control our lives.

The only real downside in my opinion is his constant reference to carbon dioxide as 4 molecules in 10,000. I understand the point he is making, but having made it once, I think it would have been better to use other phrases. By constant repetition, he falls into the trap that is commonly used by liberals of trying to win arguments by trivializing the argument of the opposition. This book is too strongly written to use such tactics.

As a single source on the entire global warming debate, this book is outstanding, and I strongly recommend that anyone interested in this topic purchase it. There is also a website with useful links as well.