Unforgivable?

This type of crime is particularly despicable and contemptible.

Soldier Accused of Raping Girl

Japan’s prime minister on Tuesday denounced the suspected rape of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on the southern island of Okinawa, an episode with echoes of a 1995 case that jolted the U.S.-Japan alliance.

[…]

“It is unforgivable,” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told a parliamentary panel in his first public comments on the latest incident on Okinawa, host to a huge U.S. military presence.

“It has happened over and over again in the past and I take it as a grave case.”

Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed anger over repeated incidents despite frequent promises by U.S. officials to prevent them.

That story reminds me of this event:

Soldiers Rape Girls

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped, their ages ranging from infants to the elderly (as old as 80). […] According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women.

Has Japan formally asked forgiveness for those World War II events (and many other cases of rape during that war)? It seems it has.

But any possible hypocrisy and double standard aside, and the affairs of nations aside, and the posturing of politicians aside, these stories remind me of what Jesus had to say on the subject of forgiveness.

In Luke 11:4 we have this: “And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.”

And in Matthew 6:12,14,15 there’s this: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Then in Matthew 18 Jesus tells a story on the subject. Here are the concluding verses:

32 Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:

33 Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?

34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

So, now, which sin will I refuse to forgive?

For which offense or wrong will I continue to hold a grudge?

Who is currently on my No Forgiveness for These list?

What Qualifies Me?

The US Constitution qualifies me to be President of the United States:

  • natural-born citizen of the United States
  • at least thirty-five years old
  • resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.

Like I said in my first post on this subject, I meet all three requirements. Easily.

“That’s fine, Mark, but it qualifies millions of others as well. What other qualifications do you have?”

Picky, picky, picky. 🙄

OK, then, since you asked, I’ll have to toot my horn state a few relevant facts.

Leadership experience

  • husband and father and grandfather
  • missionary field director (ex)
  • church pastor (ex)
  • high school teacher (ex)
  • school principal (ex)
  • lead man on assembly line (ex)
  • Christmas tree crew foreman (ex)
  • textbook editing and review committee chairman (ex)
  • mission board chairman
  • school board secretary
  • Anabaptist Bookstore founder and owner-operator

“Ho hum!” you say?

“Too many ex’s there,” you say? Well, how much of the above can one man do at the same time, huh?

Like I said, picky, picky, picky!

But for your sake, I’ll add another category.

Read it all

Which Is It, Mr. Romney?

Tuesday night I heard you say you’re going all the way to the White House.

And I think I heard you say you’re going all the way to the convention.

And maybe even something about being in it for the long haul.

(If the exact quotes were important enough to me, I’d google your speech then.)

Anyway, I just heard you say another bunch of cheer-inducing (there at CPAC) stuff.

Then you withdrew from the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

So, Mr. Romney, the cheer-inducing stuff you said a few minutes ago — did you mean that more or less than what you said Tuesday night?

Just curious.

And, yes, you may change your mind about things.

Oh, and thanks for making a bunch more room for me in the Presidential race!

PS: As I was listening, I thought, “He’s launching his 2012 bid.” Am I right?

Known but to God

I’m not talking about the identity of the remains buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

I’m talking about the next President of the United States.

Only God knows whether it will be Obama or McCain or Hillary or Huckabee or Romney. Or Fred Thompson. Or Mark Roth. Or some other unknown-to-us.

Because God will set up whom He will.

McCain may be the Republican frontrunner who, after yesterday, has added to his Inevitability Quotient, but so was Luis Donaldo Colosio on March 23, 1994.

Hillary may have won the California primary, but so did Robert Kennedy.

Am I predicting an assassination that upsets the political applecart? 😯

Of course not. 🙄

God has all manner of ways of setting up whom He will, death by various means being only one of them.

The old stream media may think they’re setting things up.

The conniving politicians may think they’re doing the arranging.

The bloggers and radiotalkers may think they’re going to pull off something (though McCain’s successes yesterday, coupled with Huckabee’s, should put a damper on such thoughts).

The “powers that be” may be using all of the above — plus “tinkerers” who are “adjusting” all those electronic voting machines — to continue “running the show.”

But it’s the sovereign omnipotent God who’s doing the setting up and taking down.

I may not like the choice. But I submit to the Chooser and, thus, rest in His omniscient wisdom.

All glory and honor and praise and obedience and love to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Choosing a President

There for quite a while, Hillary Clinton was considered the inevitable Democrat nominee.

No more.

And for quite a while, RudyG (I’m stumped on spelling his last name) was an apparent shoo-in for the Republicans.

Today he’s out.

And Fred Thompson supposedly could have the nomination for the taking.

He finally reached out for it. It eluded him. And he’s been out for a few days now.

Then there’s Mitt Romney, who really seemed to have something going for him.

That effort seems to have stalled out.

And John McCain had supposedly reached the end of his rope this past summer.

Now he’s the Republican front-runner.

For now?

I’m looking forward to seeing who God has picked out to set up as President.

And how will Christians react to His decision?

Got Dirt?

Alternate post titles:

  • Where Does Dirt Come From?
  • Global Dedirting
  • Never Mind Global Warming
  • Save That Dirt!

It seems dirt must be an unreplenishable resource. I wonder where it goes. And how long it has been going there. And why I have to keep dusting it off slow-to-sell books and scrubbing it out from between my toes.

Nevertheless, as a public service, here’s the beginning of the article:

The lowdown on topsoil: It’s disappearing

The planet is getting skinned.

While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet.

Call it the thin brown line. Dirt. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil — the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth.

“We’re losing more and more of it every day,” said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. “The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.”

Agriculture, eh?

Maybe we should quit eating.

I think that would solve the man-caused global warming issue as well.

Now I’ve got to figure out in what category to place this post . . . .

Fred’s Resurrection?

Steven Stark has an interesting perspective over at RealClearPolitics :

The Republican race is coming into focus. Well, sort of. If John McCain can win the Florida primary on January 29, he’ll be the clear front-runner heading into Super Tuesday a week later.

But Florida is hardly a sure thing for McCain. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney are contesting the state heartily. Plus, Florida is a closed primary, meaning Independents can’t participate — and McCain polls far worse in contests where only Republicans can vote.

If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough.

This year’s Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he’s withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson.

That could be interesting, no? 😉

Meanwhile, down at the ranch American Prospect, Spencer Ackerman writes:

Indeed, Petraeus can basically write his next round of orders. But wherever he goes, his next important campaign probably won’t be on any battlefield. It’ll be political. For the past year, the GOP has laid the groundwork to enlist Petraeus as its standard-bearer in the fairly likely event that the party loses in November to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. You read it here first. Plant your lawn signs now. Petraeus 2012: Surging to the White House.

But maybe you actually read it here first, eh? 🙄

If the Petraeus thing were to happen, Hillary could trot out her famous “willing suspension of disbelief” line. 😀

Private
Above all, love God!