Gov's blog

I don't know who's creating Senator Obama's television spots, but he's an idiot.

Obama is one of the most electrifying speakers of our time. If you listen to one of his speeches, and give him half a chance, he'll make a believer of you. He's comfortable speaking to crowds, and the crowds feed him energy. By the time he's done, you'd be willing to buy some swampland in Florida to build a retirement home on.

You can't say that about Hillary. For every five words she says, three red flags come popping up. She doesn't think Barack Obama is inadequate because he's a black man, or because he's perhaps a Muslim (as far as she knows), but because he's not Hillary. She was ordained by God to be president - and besides, Bill promised her the Oval Office in return for her forgiving his adventures with Monica Lewinsky.

But Obama isn't playing well in these ads. He comes off as stiff, and as the sort that practices the politics he's been campaigning against.

Instead of Obama reading a script into the camera, someone needs to sit him down in front of a green screen and talk with him for an hour or two. He'll be relaxed, comfortable, and candid, instead of sounding like an Amway salesman. Yes, you'll need to edit this session quite a bit, and figure out what images to display on that green screen, but you'll end up with Barack looking real.

Supposedly, Barack can outspend Hillary 3 to 1 on television - but if he's running this ad, he could outspend her 20 to 1, and it wouldn't assure victory. He needs something a little less slick, a lot more genuine.

Carl and Raylene Worthington were indicted on Friday of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

The Followers of Christ Church, of Oregon City, Oregon, includes the Worthingtons as members. They believe in treating illness with faith instead of modern medicine.

Ava Worthington died March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection, age 15 months. Doctors say inexpensive antibiotics could have cured both disorders

In 1999 the Oregon state legislature changed the law to bar defendants, in most cases, from claiming their religious beliefs prevented them from seeking medical help. In the two years after the law passed, detectives responded to two cases of sick or injured Followers of Christ children. One child had Crohn's disease, the other, a broken arm. In both cases, police insisted that parents take their children to licensed physicians, and the parents complied.

In 2001, Carl and Raylene lost a baby boy. Stillborn, they said. Well, it happens. Several other Followers families had babies since then that were stillborn, or died during birth, but no criminal charges followed.

Undoubtedly, there are many who look at this as child abuse of the worst kind. Parents owe their children protection, they would argue. The odd thing, though, is that I think the Worthingtons would agree, and insist that parents owe their children all the protection they can provide. Perhaps they believe risking their own lives to save their daughters' soul is an obligation they owe.

163.118 Manslaughter in the first degree. (1) Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter in the first degree when:
(c) A person recklessly causes the death of a child under 14 years of age or a dependent person... and:
(B) The person causes the death by neglect or maltreatment...

(4) It is an affirmative defense to a charge of violating:
(a) Subsection (1)(c)(B) of this section that the child or dependent person was under care or treatment solely by spiritual means pursuant to the religious beliefs or practices of the child or person or the parent or guardian of the child or person.
- Oregon Revised Statutes, Chapter 163, Offenses Against Persons - 2007 EDITION

The question ultimately is, "Is there a fate worse than death?" If demonstrating faith in God, and asking God to save the child if that be God's will, results in everlasting life, and taking the child to a secular healer results in eternal damnation for both the child and the parents, it's better that the child's parents pray, isn't it?

Look at their pictures. Those aren't monsters. They were parents trying to do their best by their daughter. Look at Ada's grave marker. She's dead, anyway.

Would I do the same? No way. I could never practice faith-healing, for I subscribe to Mark Twain's definition: "Faith is believing in what you know damned well ain't so."

Even when I thought it unnecessary, but I wasn't sure, I took my son to the doctor. A grown woman is a different matter. She has the right to make decisions for herself - but there were arguments between my first wife and myself, and have been arguments between my present wife and myself, and I've always been on the side of having my wife seen by a doctor.

It hasn't always paid off. I think a doctor's mistake led to the death of my daughter. No point in suing; no amount of money would bring her back, and the doctor wasn't careless, he was simply wrong.

So were the Worthingtons careless? Did they kill their daughter through lack of faith in God's healing grace? Or did they kill their daughter through excessive faith in God and insufficient faith in antibiotics?

I'm glad I won't be on this jury.

I haven't bowled more than 20 lines in my life, but I think my scores on the last ten ranged from something like 108 to maybe 132.

Senator Bob Casey scored a 71 in Altoona last night. Barack Obama scored a 37. Several lanes over, a kid wearing a "Beer Hunter" t-shirt fell on his tush, and still managed to get a strike. Obama said to his fellow bowlers that his economic plan was better than his bowling. A guy shouted out that it'd have to be.

I've been listening to the broadcast from Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings. Last week was Easter; the Reverend Mr. Otis Moss III introduced a sermon from December 30, in which former minister Rev. Dr. Wright spoke on the woman at the well - which he pointed out touched on race, religion, and politics.

The woman at the well was a Samaritan. Wright pointed out that the Hebrew people split into two kingdoms, with the northern kingdom turning into the jews of Jesus' time, and the southern kingdom becoming Samaritans. When Jesus promised her water that would quench her thirst forever, she went back to her community and told them, not of this jew's promises, but of this man's promises.

Today, the sermon was by the new minister, Rev. Otis Moss III. "You've got to face the problem to fix the problem," he told his congregation, and he had them face each other and tell each other that phrase. Most of the sermon was on personal responsibility.

While based on Jonah and the whale, it wasn't really the biblical-based preaching that Wright usually does, but more the "relating christianity to our lives" sermons that are more common in mainline Christian churches; the UCC is one of the seven major mainline Christian churches. You can't blame the devil for your problems if you decided to spend your money on rims instead of paying the rent.

When Jonah was on that boat, headed in the wrong direction, he fell asleep as a storm brewed, and the crew panicked. They tossed the cargo overboard, hoping to survive the storm. Sometimes, Moss said, you find yourself in a storm not of your own making, and you need to throw the negro overboard.

Could it be that Moss first decided to defend Wright by showing that his sermons were both biblically-based and applicable to life - and then used this week's sermon to tell Barack to cast Dr. Wright overboard? I don't know - but I'm going to keep watching to see what develops.

Later this morning, "Auntie Ann" Beiler was on Dr. Robert Schueler's broadcast. She's a local (Gap, PA) girl who grew up in an Amish farming family. The Amish faith is one of America's fastest growing, because they have a high birth rate, and few members ever leave the church. If you leave after joining, church members - including your family - are supposed to not talk to you or have anything to do with you, as a means of encouraging you to return to the faith. If, as a teenager, you choose not to join in the first place, there's no stigma attached to that.

Never the less, life can be difficult for those who leave, and from what I've heard, Ann Beiler was among those who had considerable difficulty finding her way in the English-speaking world. They didn't talk directly about that on Schuler's broadcast. Instead, she talked about her second daughter, Angela, who was killed - 19 months and 12 days old - in a farming accident; Ann's sister ran over her with a bobcat. Ann grieved and became depressed, and the couple drifted apart.

The Beilers moved to rural Texas in the 1980s with some of Anne's siblings to help their minister establish a new church. Those were "heady, scandalous years" in charismatic Christian circles, and allegations of corruption and sexual misconduct tore the new church apart. The Beilers came home.

She was afraid, she told Schueler, to tell her husband for six years. She feared that he would kick her out, keeping his children. Finally, she told him: she had been one of those seduced by the minister. Jonas dropped to his knees, said he wanted her to be happy, and if she needed to go, she should go - but instead of sneaking out in the middle of the night, leaving a note on the bureau, she should tell him. He'd help her plan, help her pack, and oh, by the way, she had to take the kids with her.

I don't know how I'd take that if I were one of the other kids. Sounds like "Ransom of Red Chief", doesn't it? But the word "seduced" bothered me, so soon after hearing Rev. Moss speak about taking personal responsibility. She was not a victim of her minister; she partnered with him in her adultery.

That doesn't change the fact that she seems to have a nice guy for a husband. She credits him with the recipe that made Auntie Anne's a success, credits him with saving their marriage, and called him the most handsome man in the congregation.

Pretzels are part of the Lancaster heritage. The first pretzel bakery in the western hemisphere was founded in 1861 by Julius Sturgis, here in Lititz. It's currently owned by the Tom Sturgis Pretzel company.

The difference between soft pretzels and hard pretzels is that hard pretzels are dried out. My wife's late father invented a pretzel-twisting machine about 1970 for Trotter's, now known as now Baker's Best/Trotter's Soft Pretzels, Inc., but these days, most hard pretzels are extruded into shape, instead of being twisted.

I recently ran across a good recipe for soft pretzels.

Soft Pretzel Recipe
3 1/2 cups flour (preferably bread flour)
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon dry yeast, dissolved in 1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon baking soda in 1 cup boiling water
1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl.

1. Mix water, yeast, brown sugar, and salt. Add flour and mix until dough is smooth. If the flour is still sticky (which will depend on humidity of air), add more flour. Stick the dough in the fridge overnight in tupperware.
2. Divide the dough into a dozen pieces. Roll each piece into a rope, about 1/4" in thickness. Form a U with the rope, then bring the ends together and twist them, bringing the ends back and flattening them against the dough to form a classic pretzel shape.
3. Put the pretzels on a greased sheet (a half-sheet cake pan works nicely) to rise. They should double in 30 minutes.
4. Brush pretzels with baking soda solution, then brush with egg-water to give them a shiny glaze.
5. At this point, you can add cinnamon and sugar if you want, parmesan cheese, sesame seeds, or what else you might want to add.
6. Bake at 425F for 12-15 minutes.

When ESPN was new, they didn't have contracts to broadcast major sports 24 hours a day, so they ended up broadcasting "trash sports" instead. I happen to find some trash sports - curling, for instance - to be interesting. I'm sure there are people who would enjoy intramural mumblety-peg, or intercollegiate tiddley-winks. They suffered through a lot of jeers and hoots, though.

When Ted Turner announced CNN, the first 24-hour news channel, people said he was crazy, that there simply wasn't enough news to fill 24 hours. It turns out that the critics were right. When Orenthal James Simpson was on trial, they covered all the OJ news that was, and a lot that wasn't as well. When a guy went fishing on Christmas morning, and his pregnant wife went missing, it was "all Laci, all the time" on the news channels. And when they haven't got a hook to obsess over, their ratings suffer, not a little, but a lot.

Right now, they're obsessing over James Carville's comment that Bill Richardson is a judas for endorsing Barack Obama for president. Our reactions to that?

1. Bish
2. Tosh

With his misshapen head shaved bald, it's hard to take James Carville seriously. If he were to wear a turtleneck sweater, he might make a good spokesman for Viagra, I suppose, but otherwise, his appearance raises serious questions about his judgment.

So let's ask some questions. If it's disloyal for Bill Richardson to endorse Barack Obama for president, what about Bill Richardson's earlier endorsement? As I recall, Bill Richardson previously endorsed Bill Richardson for president. And if Richardson is judas, does that mean we're supposed to give Hillary Clinton a public execution?

One has to think that Carville is giving the news channels fodder, so as to divert their attention from the Rev. Dr. Wright videos. Not a bad strategy. It won't hurt Richardson, and it'll help Democratic chances for this fall, no matter who the candidate is - although it's obvious that it will be Obama.

It's hard to see why Hillary hasn't thrown in the towel. Even her chief advisors see her odds of winning the nomination as less than 10%. She came into this contest with high negatives. If Obama doesn't get the nomination after winning the most votes, the most states and the most pledged delegates, many of his followers will sit out the election - or will vote for McCain. Bill Clinton said that if Hillary didn't win both Texas and Ohio, it was all over - and then Obama won in Texas, 99 to 94.

Rumors are flying here in Pennsylvania. Her campaigning, and Bill's, isn't just saying that she's a superior candidate to Obama, but that McCain is obviously preferable. Initially, we heard speculation that Hillary is engaging in a scorched-earth campaign because she wants a clear shot at the 2012 nomination. If Obama wins in November, he'd be the obvious choice for 2012. If he wins in 2012, voters are likely to be suffering "Democrat fatigue" and will vote Republican in 2016. Even if he loses in 2012, Hillary will be old news by 2016, as likely to win the nomination then as Ted Kennedy would have been this year.

A more recent rumor has Hillary being asked to be John McCain's running mate. This one makes more sense. John McCain toyed with becoming a Democrat in 2001. In 2004, he was invited to become John Kerry's running mate. McCain has been campaigning hard to solidify his support among the GOP base.

And it's working. Jerry Pournelle, the science fiction writer, didn't like Bush and doesn't like McCain. "Indistinguishable Country Club Republicans. The one thing is that McCain is apparently honorable; he has made promises; I think he will keep them.... He isn't one of us and never will be, but we can live with him."

It'll be a jolt to the theocrats and the neocons in the GOP to accept Hillary as a candidate. It'll be less of a problem to the real conservatives. Hillary started out as a Goldwater Republican, and she's always been a hawk on military matters. Even after the 2006 elections showed the US citizenry was anti-war, she voted to give Bush the same authority to attack Iran as he had for Iraq.

And although Hillary has high negatives among Republicans now, that might ease if she switched parties. She's got a good excuse for changing parties; the party is sticking to the rules she agreed to, and indeed, helped write. In the spirit of IOKIYAR - it's OK if you're a Republican - old sins can be forgiven. As they say, Democrats fall in love (with a candidate) and Republicans fall in line. If she promises to be as successful at getting Democrats to vote Republican as Reagan was, the GOP won't just accept her, they'll passionately embrace her.

Pennsylvania has a closed primary. You had to have registered yesterday in order to vote, and you can only vote in the primary of the party you're registered in. About 60,000 Republicans re-registered as Democrats; only about 10,000 Democrats switched parties. There are a lot of Republicans who really care about who is on the Democratic ticket.

My neighbors, no matter who they support, tell me that it's almost a certainty that Senator Clinton has a hidden agenda. And almost universally, they tell me they considered re-registering, but said there wasn't anyone they support in the other party, either.

More and more, I'm planning to vote for Ron Paul, not because I approve of a racist candidate, but because as a conservative, I believe that our country's security depends on having a strong military that doesn't get used. The threat is always more effective than the reality.

The time is 4:12 PM, local time, on March 24, 2008. Martha Raddatz of ABC News is interviewing Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mrs. Raddatz: Mr. Vice President, I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq, Americans, and just what effect you think that has on the country. Your thoughts on that?

The Vice President: Well, it obviously brings home, I think for a lot of people, the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The President carries the biggest burden, obviously; he's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans.

It places a special burden, obviously, on the families. We recognize, I think -- it's a reminder of the extent to which we're blessed with families who have sacrificed as they have.

The President carries the biggest burden, obviously; he's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans. But we are fortunate to have the group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us.

You wish nobody ever lost their life, but unfortunately it's one of those things that go with living in the world we live in. Sometimes you have to commit military force, and when you do, there are casualties.

---

Many people found fault last week with Mr. Cheney's saying "So?" in response to a question about the administration's carrying on a war opposed by an overwhelming majority of the US citizenry. It seemed to indicate an arrogance that seemed to explain many of the failings of this administration. This interview underscores the contempt the administration has for our soldiers and their families. No wonder they don't flinch at sending 4,000 to die for a bunch of lies.

I'll only say that "This country needs a good Republican president, one who is fairly honest, a fairly decent man, a man who believes in the constitution and is conservative. But though we haven't had one since Jerry Ford, let's hope nothing happens to Mr. Bush."