August 11, 1988: Twenty Years Goes By So Fast

Twenty years. Two decades. Long enough for someone not even born on that day to be halfway (or more) through a Bachelor's Degree or post-high school military enlistment. Enough time to have five different Presidents of the United States if each is elected only to a single term. A nice round number that doesn't even begin to denote its significance.

Twenty years ago - on August 11, 1988 - my life moved from the past to the future on a day that I will never forget. It was not the significance of a crippling injury, a childbirth, or even a major objective accomplishment, but it no doubt was the date that marked a turning point - one of so many - in my own life. A few days earlier, maybe as much as two weeks earlier, I had met the young lady. I worked at Pizza Hut Delivery just outside the back gate of Columbus Air Force Base for all of a month. It was my first 'regular' job that actually paid me minimum wage, a whopping $3.35 an hour back in those days. Of course, gas was less than $1 a gallon, so it went much further than today's minimum wage. The lady's name was Pamela Sue Warren. Her sister, Terri, was a cook. Terri stood out because she was the only worker at the store at that time who did not deliver pizzas. To the best of my recollection, she couldn't drive. But I first noticed Pam when I walked into the door around 5 p.m. one typically hot Southern afternoon. (As a side note, the record LOW temperature for August 11 was taken the next year, 1989, and still stands). I thought she was beautiful. She didn't look like she belonged working at the slave labor camp with the rest of us. I only saw her one more day, and she quit. I just happened to learn that she was Terri's sister.

I had been going through my own personal crisis for a number of years; it's called adolesence. The previous November I had received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I was trying to live to please Him. I was also painfully shy when it came to girls, probably dating to the time in the eighth grade when two back-to-back incidents - my girlfriend departing for the USA (from Germany) and another girl laughing in my face when I asked her out - scarred me enough that I didn't date until my high school prom (May 15, 1987). At the time I decided I wanted to date Pam, I had only been out on two dates, my prom and with a Norwegian foreign exchange student who moved back home a week later.

As most college students, I needed money, and I needed it quick. I was offered some extra hours for the company going out and 'door hanging.' For those of you who may not know, door hanging is that irritating little slither of a coupon that you find attached to your door one afternoon when you come from work that does little more than get in the way. Terri needed extra hours, too, so she and I went out into several 'safe' neighborhoods door hanging. This also gave me the time to pose questions to Terri. Did Pam have a boyfriend? No. (I must admit that was probably the most shocking answer to the many questions I posed). What were her plans? She's joining the Navy in January. Do you think she'd go out with me? I don't know, I'll ask her. I must have badgered Terri for the entire time we were out.

After two hours of bothering Terri to no end, I went home and told her I'd call Pam about 3 pm. I did. I asked her out and she accepted. Except she had no idea where she wanted to go or anything. I decided to be decisive even if it meant disaster, so we went to the local Captain D's seafood restaurant. The date had disaster written all over it. I told her to dress casual. So I wore shorts while she wore a yellow summer dress. The time at Captain D's went fast, and then we just drove around a few places in the county in my 1973 Volkswagen that was the first car that was ever actually mine. The date lasted - are you ready for this? - less than two full hours.

I went home happy but a little frustrated. We ended with a handshake because that's the way it was done back in my day. I went home thinking I had committed a complete and total disaster. But I must've done something right because Terri came into work the next day telling me that Pam had a great time and had talked about the date. That was good. Neither one of us was spoken for so we went out again - this time the movie, "Young Guns," where Pam stated I had a vocal resemblance to Emilio Estevez. Pretty good movie I must say. The next week we decided we'd go see 'Bull Durham,' but I wound up having to work past my time and we didn't make it, so I just went over to her parents' place and hung out.

It all sounds good, and it was. My memories of the time are overwhelmingly positive. She helped me learn my lines for the fall play at my junior college, "Death Takes A Holiday." She drove me back to college once, and she wrote every week. She always closed her letters with some witty advice such as 'Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.' And our birthdays were only four days apart although she was three years older than I. Everything seemed to be moving along like a dream.

But the dream soon became a nightmare, and the blame rests entirely on me. Pam never - and I mean never - did anything wrong. And it was not that I had a completely wandering eye although I was looking around. Pam joined the Navy, and the understanding (so far as I understood) was that we were free to date. I did, twice. Neither girl was Pam but there was simply a problem: when I was with Pam, I never felt those overhwelming feelings of desire and love. It wasn't her fault; maybe I was pushing myself in the wrong direction. I felt sort of like as a couple we could be content as friends and that was about it. I was confused and turning in every direction. So I did the only thing I could do: I chased her away from me intentionally.

"It's not you, it's me" has become a cliche' for the break-up. I did not know about such cliches at the time, but it was (and is to this day) true. It was me, and it appears that Pam was able to find someone who could love her better than I was capable and in a way she so richly deserved. I have since apologized for my ineptitude and the issues that overwhelmed at the time of which I was unaware.

Pamela Sue - thank you for helping to put me on the right path, for being a good friend, and for being fun to be around. I'll never forget you, and though I dropped the ball, I thank my God that I was privileged to know you for all-too-brief a period of time.

In my own way, I love you.

Dear Marie: You're Out of Touch

Today's blog is a response to Marie Wilson's arguments on CNN's webpage that Hillary Clinton's failure marks a turning point that will guarantee other female candidates' future success.

The supporters of Hillary Clinton's attempt at the Presidency, particularly female supporters, are now in full-fledged mourning with the announcement that she is going to concede that she has lost the nomination to Barack Obama by announcing her endorsement of Senator Obama on Saturday. But a simple reading of Wilson's comments show that the feminist left that supported Hillary's candidacy was, to put it mildly, out of touch. No other comment summarizes the self-deception of Wilson (and others) than this particular statement:

Overt or understated, this primary season was undeniably disrespectful to a woman who instead deserved our utmost respect, just like any other candidate for our nation's highest office.

I wonder if Ms. Wilson thought Dan Quayle - who had more service in Washington than Mrs. Clinton ever dreamed - got 'respect' as a candidate or if she thought (or thinks) he deserved it. Part of the 'respect' shown by our media was none of them bothering to point out that Hillary was less experienced than Quayle and for that matter almost all of the other eight Democratic candiates who ran for President.

Ms. Wilson seems not to understand a fundamental truth in this whole thing: Hillary Clinton is living proof that the feminist movement's fastest route to power is, always has been, and always will be by latching onto a successful man. Does anybody really believe that if Hillary Clinton were Hillary Smith with the same undistinguished record as a senator she would be considered a viable candidate for higher office? Let's face it: where would Hillary Clinton be without Bill?

The larger issue, however, is that Wilson didn't see what the non-partisan American people saw: an unqualified candidate for President. Let's face it: Hillary felt ENTITLED to her office and didn't think she was going to have to work for it. She began the race in first place with more money than anybody. And what sunk her was her arrogance. That trait will undo a person every time, be it man or woman. She clearly had no plan B for what to do when she didn't clinch the nomination on February 5. That fact alone disqualifies her from any serious consideration as a President. Presidents must have alternatives when their plans go awry as the country has learned so sadly with George W. Bush's plan of 'stay the course,' whatever that means.

So Ms. Wilson please note: Hillary didn't lose because she was a woman; she lost because she was a lousy candidate who demonstrated her utter incapacity for the job. It is a good thing the country found out now rather than later.

UPDATE: A Response To Dr. Thomas Strouse

On May 1, 2007, I began a response to Dr. Thomas Strouse, a KJV Only advocate who is also a member of the Dean Burgon Society. I will finish it later, but I wanted to include a response by an Anonymous poster at this blog, who posts some interesting information in regards to the Comma Johanneum.

Jim:

This grammatical argument favoring the inclusion of the Johannine Comma is a hoax. The assertions of its rationale regarding the grammar bear no resemblance whatsoever to what is consistently observed to actually occur in the Greek language throughout the New Testament. Whereas there is such a thing as grammatical gender agreement, there is no such thing as grammatical gender agreement with multiple nouns. It never happens. And whereas there is such a thing as gender attraction, there is no such thing as gender attraction either between substantival (functioning as a noun) participles or between nouns. It never happens. Grammatical gender agreement can occur only with a single referent noun, and gender attraction occurs only with a relative pronoun in a specific grammatical construction. Frederick Nolan and Robert Dabney simply made up in their imagination their assertions regarding the grammar, and people such as Edward Hills and Thomas Strouse have simply parroted their nonsense.

There are only 8 instances in the New Testament in which the referent (the idea to which a word or phrase refers) of a pronoun or substantival participle is represented in the text by multiple nouns (Matthew 15:19-20 and 23:23, John 6:9, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:19-21 and 5:22-23 and Colossians 3:5-7 and 3:12-14), and grammatical gender agreement does not occur in any of them, even when all of the multiple referent nouns have the same grammatical gender (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:22-23), the reason being that grammatical gender agreement between a pronoun or substantival participle and a noun can occur only when the referent of the pronoun or participle is represented in the text by a single noun. Even then, grammatical gender agreement is not a requirement, but merely a frequently used option. Otherwise, whether the author simply chooses not to use grammatical gender agreement with a single referent noun, or whether the referent of the pronoun or substantival participle is represented in the text either by no noun or by multiple nouns, the gender of the pronoun or substantival participle conforms to the natural gender (the nature) of the referent (the idea to which a word or phrase refers) of the pronoun or substantival participle, either neuter for a thing or things or masculine for a person or persons or feminine for a female person or person (constructio ad sensum [construction according to sense]). What has just been explained is both dictated by common sense and corroborated by what is consistently observed to actually occur in the Greek language throughout the New Testament.

Therefore, based on what is observed to actually occur in the Greek language, is there any reason to expect grammatical gender agreement between the substantival participle “the ones bearing witness” and the multiple nouns “Spirit” and “water” and “Blood” in 1 John 5:8 (Majority Text [MT])? The answer is no. There is nothing wrong with the grammar in this verse. First of all, there is no such thing as grammatical gender agreement with multiple nouns. Secondly, the three nouns in this verse are not even referent nouns, because John’s equation of “the Spirit and the water and the Blood” to “the ones bearing witness” in this verse is not direct (this is that), but comparative (this is like that).

In 1 John 5:8-9 (MT), John comparatively (this is like that) equates “the Spirit and the water and the Blood,” which comprise “the witness of the God / the witness of the God which He has born witness regarding the Son of Him,” to “the ones bearing witness,” who comprise “the witness of the men,” hence the masculine gender of “the ones bearing witness.” The gender of “the ones bearing witness” is masculine either (1) because it refers to persons (the “men” in “the witness of the men”), or (2) because of grammatical gender agreement with the single referent noun “men” in the phrase “the witness of the men,” or (3) both.

In Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15, Moses prescribes two or three witnesses (men) to establish the truth of a matter. This two-or-three-witness tradition is cited in Matthew 18:16, John 8:17-18, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 5:19, Hebrews 10:28-29 and 1 John 5:8-9 (MT).

In 2 Corinthians 13:1, Paul comparatively (this is like that) equates three things (his three visits to Corinth) to the two or three witnesses (men) prescribed by Moses to establish the truth of a matter.

In Hebrews 10:28-29, the author comparatively (this is like that) equates three things ([1] trampling the Son of God and [2] considering His Blood to be ordinary blood and [3] insulting the Spirit) to the two or three witnesses (men) prescribed by Moses to establish the truth of a matter.

In 1 John 5:8-9 (MT), John comparatively (this is like that) equates three things (“[1] the Spirit and [2] the water and [3] the Blood”) to the two or three witness (men) prescribed by Moses to establish the truth of a matter (“the ones bearing witness”).

Moses requires two or three witnesses (men) to establish the truth of a given matter. According to John, in conformity to this two-or-three-witness (men) tradition, God provided two or three witnesses (“the Spirit and the water and the Blood”) to establish the truth that Jesus is His Son. John comparatively (this is like that) equates these two or three witnesses provided by God to the two or thee witnesses (men) prescribed by Moses (“the ones bearing witness / the witness of the men”), hence the masculine gender of “the ones bearing witness.”

There is nothing wrong with the grammar in 1 John 5:6-9 (MT). Everything is written exactly as it should be written.

Further, the correct number of witnesses provided by God (the Spirit and the water and the Blood [two or three witnesses]) in conformity to the two-or-three-witness (men) Mosaic tradition in the absence of the Johannine Comma proves that John did not write the Comma, but that it was added to the text by Trinitarians.

The Hillary Clinton Campaign: Dead On Arrival

I write this knowing full well I may have egg on my face. But keep in mind that I was one of the few pundits who did NOT predict a Clinton-Giuliani ticket. In fact, I picked John McCain as the GOP winner back on March 23, 2007 on this very blog. (Granted, I picked Edwards for the Democrats - but note two things: a) I was obviously too charitable towards their intelligence for picking the most likely to succeed candidate; and 2) I didn't pick Clinton like everyone else did). Hillary's career is about to be buried by a neophyte who has never won a competitive race for elective office in his life. How did that happen?

You must understand that Hillary Clinton, for all of the attempts to declare her the smartest woman in the world, is utterly lacking any self-respect. Why did she stay with a pathological sex addict even when he betrayed not only her trust but the trust of every voter in America? Because her lust for power exceeded her husband's own lust for women, and that's no small feat. She not only put her self-respect on hold, she aided and abetted Bill's philadnerings with vicious attacks upon an unseen 'vast right wing conspiracy.' And now she has demonstrated that the very arrogance and lust for power that pushed her to lie for her husband is a character trait that would be disastrous were she ever elected President.

I tried to tell people. Nobody would listen. I told friends and foes alike that Hillary would NOT win the nomination. They looked at her astounding poll numbers and figured she'd ride a yacht to the White House. None of them ever listened when I pointed out that Gary Hart had higher numbers in a larger field, that Howard Dean had a bigger lead late, that the Iowa electorate is hostile territory for front-runners, and her poll numbers are based ENTIRELY upon name recongition and nothing else. But you must remember that using the old little girl's mantra of 'life should be fair' and the feminist mantra of 'whatever it takes,' Hillary's split personality led her into an arena of arrogance particular to Democrats: entitlement. You see, because Hillary put up with so much abuse and betrayal, she was ENTITLED to the Presidency. Anyone who thinks she didn't believe that has not watched this campaign, the Clintonian version of the 'Keystone Kops.'

Fooling the idiots who live in New York State is no big deal. Jeez, for all of their dismissal of Southerners such as myself, they still have a large contingent of New Yorkers who think professional wrestling is real and that the disaster of September 11, 2001 ENTITLES (that word again) that state to host a Super Bowl in the near future. So fooling a bunch of New Yorkers who simply punch D on the ticket - particularly when she ran against the quintessential empty suit (Do you even know the name of her opponent in 2000? It was Rick Lazio) - was hardly a big deal. Fooling the nationwide populace, however, is a much bigger task, and clearly one that has not been able to master.

Why? And what went wrong?

I think the quote that says it best came from Tom DeFrank, a respected journalist, who noted that Hillary had told former chum George Stephanopolous, now of ABC News, that she would sew up the nomination on February 5, Super Tuesday. She clearly had no plan for what to do if her best-laid plans went awry. And I would add that THAT FACT ALONE disqualifies Hillary from even serious consideration as a President. If a prospective candidate doesn't have a back-up plan to alter course, why in the world should the voters think she has one when a crisis such as 9/11 happens? Or the Challenger explodes? Or the Oklahoma City bombing occurs?

Reasons Why Hillary Lost

1) Her poll numbers were entirely on name recognition.

2) She had the highest negatives of any candidate in the race. Funny how the media who points this out when it is a Republican never bothered to play this particular angle up for public consumption.

3) She failed to lower expectations in Iowa. Even the great Ronald Reagan lost Iowa, and in 1988, GHW Bush finished THIRD behind Bob Dole and Pat Robertson. This history should have told her that she was walking into a buzzsaw. But either Hillary or Mark Penn should have seen the pending disaster and told the media that they would 'probably lose' Iowa. If this had been done, the assessments made by the press would largely have been irrelevant. She could then have focused on New Hampshire and not had to cry in hopes of winning.

4) The crying episode. It is one thing to push out a tear as Ronald Reagan did while addressing the nation after the Challenger disaster. It is another to wallow in self-pity because you're not riding a boat to the White House but you have a first-class cabin on the Titanic. The Clintons - both of them - have never been able to figure out why Ronald Reagan was so popular and Clinton wasn't. Hey folks - it might be because Reagan said the same things in 1964 as he did in 1984 and didn't take a poll before he said them. Authenticity goes a long way. But the Clintonian arrogance of looking at every voter as stupid made authenticity less appealing for their own use. After all, who really wants to vote for a conniving, manipulative, and vindictive figure like Hillary
Clinton? So authenticity was out.

5) '35 years of experience?' I would say that she has 33 of covering up spousal peccadilloes, but this lie reminded people of what Bill Clinton was all about - lying. I suspect Bill Clinton probably lied when he printed his name on his SAT. He lied about everything even when it served no purpose other than to inflate his ego. Consider the follwing liberal Democratic women who have more political experience than Ms. Clinton:

Barbara Boxer - 16 years in Senate, 10 years in House, and comes from a bigger state, California

Maria Cantwell - elected the same day as Hillary, she not only served 2 years in the House but she also spent 6 years in the state Congress and was a dot.com millionaire.

Dianne Feinstein - 16 years in the Senate, she also served for nearly a decade as the mayor of San Francisco. Translation: She has executive experience that Hillary does not.

Mary Landrieu - 12 years in the Senate. Oh, and if relationships count, her father was the mayor of New Orleans for a long time.

Blanche Lincoln - four years in the House and 8 in the Senate.

Barbara Mikulski - 10 years as a representative and 21 in the Senate.

Patty Murray - Senator for 16 years

Debbie Stabenow - she was elected to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners in 1974 and was the youngest person and first woman to chair the Board (1977-78). She was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives where she served for twelve years (1979-90) and rose in leadership, becoming the first woman to preside over the House. She served in the State Senate for four years (1991-94). Elected to Congress in 1996 representing Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, she won election to the U.S. Senate four years later. (This adds up - amazing as it seems - to 34 years of experience).

So Hillary should have been in line behind AT LEAST eight other liberal Democratic women. But for some reason she moved to the front of the line. And that reason is another albatross on her noomination.

6) Bill Clinton - good riddance. Hillary seems to never have digested the message of the 2000 Presidential election. That message was, "This man's only true accomplishment is surviving impeachment that he forced on himself. We'll look elsewhere for a leader."

Despite all the glamorous tributes showered upon Bill, many Senators are angry that they had to put their collective necks on the line for him by voting him not guilty when they knew full well that he was. It probably cost Tom Daschle his Senate seat in 2004, and it no doubt cost Liebermann the Vice-Presidency in 2000. These folks gave to Clinton who only had pardons for convicted felons to give in return. Since neither Daschle nor Liebermann was in the slammer, he was of no use to them. No doubt they now realize that if they had removed him and Gore had run for President as the incumbent in 2000, he would have wiped the floor with Bush because he'd have been on the job for over a year showing his 'experience.'

Hillary Clinton is going to lose Texas. She is going to lose Vermont. Since both voters in Rhode Island are related to her, she will win that race. And Ohio? She'll win, but it won't matter. Bill has already declared she had to win both in order to be the nominee. You don't think Bill would lie, now, do you?

Miscellaneous Sports Tapes

NBA BASKETBALL

1990 NBA Finals Game 1 Detroit vs Portland
1990 NBA Finals Game 2 Detroit vs Portland
1990 NBA Finals Game 5 Detroit vs Portland

1991 NBA Finals Game 1 Chicago vs LA Lakers
1991 NBA Finals Game 3 Chicago vs LA Lakers
1991 NBA Finals Game 5 Chicago vs LA Lakers

NCAA BASKETBALL
1985 Championship Villanova vs Georgetown
1991 Final Four UNLV vs Duke
1991 Championship Duke vs Kansas
1992 Elite Eight Duke vs Kentucky
1996 Final Four Miss. St vs Syracuse

OLYMPIC HOCKEY
1980 Miracle on Ice USA vs USSR

PROFESSIONAL BOXING
Bowe-Holyfield I
Bowe-Holyfield II
Moorer-Foreman
Tyson-Holyfield I
Tyson-Holyfield II
Tyson-Lennox Lewis I
Clay-Liston II (rebroadcast on Classic)

New Hampshire May Doom This Clinton

February 18, 1992. That was the day one of the most biased reports in the history of American politics sent Bill Clinton on his way to the White House. For reasons that absolutely mystify me, Clinton somehow was called 'the comeback kid' by virtue of turning an 11-point lead in the polls on January 16 to an eight-point loss a month later. That kind of commitment to truth symbolized the Clinton years, culminating in the impeachment for perjury.

Now another Clinton - one lacking her husband's ability to lie as convincingly - stands on the precipice of political oblivion. If Hillary Clinton loses to Barack Obama in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary, her dream (and perhaps the Clinton's marriage?) is over. A loss to Obama in yet a second largely monolithic white vote state will render her path to the nomination highly unlikely.

The blog had a good week last week, correctly predicting both Obama's win and Hillary's third place finish and former Governor Huckabee's victory in Iowa.

The predictions? Obama beats Hillary, but not by as much as the polls suggest. Call it a virtual tie with Obama the winner. McCain will win the New Hampshire primary, but Romney will be the big story as the candidate 'on a roll.'

Iowa Caucus Predictions

I have to keep it short for time's sake today.

In Iowa, I predict Obama first, Edwards second, and Hillary third for the Democrats. The Republican order will be a slight win for Huckabee, who will share the spotlight with Romney. I think McCain can finish third and Thompson will be, for all intents and purposes, out.