Pastor Rick Warren's Son Takes His Own Life

Pastor Rick Warren’s son, Matthew committed suicide yesterday in an inconfirmed case of shooting himself.  I don’t know – maybe he was just commemorating an anniversary of Kurt Cobain shooting himself with a gun, I don’t know.  Matthew Warren killed himself in his home in Mission Viejo at age 27 after “having an enjoyable evening with his family” the night before.  They made it sound like there was almost this “demon” of mental illness pursuing him and out to get him.  They claim he’d been “batteling mental illness” for at least ten years.  Maybe this is one of those secrets “everybody else” already knows, like Magic Johnson has a gay son, or something.  It’s like a little “closeted” secret, if you catch my drift.  So what is the sequel to “A Purpose Driven Life’ going to be called- - “A Suicide Driven Son”?  As you can surmise I am not in particular sympathy with Rick Warren at this time.  These pastors brag endlessly about how perfect their lives are and it’s all because they are “smart’ or astute enough to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and if others appear to be less well off, it’s not because of some objective external cause like your Dad embracing radical right Tea Party reactionaryism or economic policies of the government, it’s all because they don’t have Jesus in their lives.  I have a bias for my own personal reasons of seeing other pastors and people of the Born Again bent - - and they look almost down upon even loved ones to whom misfortune comes.  It’s like they see themselves as evolutionarily superior to them or something or perhaps like that Next Generation episode- - they themselves “suck off psychic energy” of those around them and vicariously saddle these “weaker vessles” with their own emotional problems like some kind of emotional waste receptical or something.  You see - - if we were to apply Biblical principles strictly - - even by voting for Mitt Romney as President you vicariously adopt all of his policies like all of the employees he drove to despair or even business owners who turned to him for help.  And then there is all this crock about “mental illness” and here again perhaps my personal biases are showing but I think the term “mental illness” is used as a blanket coverall for not probing the true nature of the relational problems.  Too often – particularly in decades gone by, psychology and drugs were used as a cover to rationalize old fashioned character flaws.

I said I watched the Chris Matthews program on computer starting a little after two, because I wanted to finish up before the game started, and I wasn’t sure exactly when that was, so I didn’t listen to all of the Hillary for President thing.  Hillary sure is looking older and frumpier and tired and the sparkle about her from a few years ago is gone.  Of course wearing those glasses didn’t help.  On Meet the Press we learn that she’s really chummy with Joe Byden and that they “have the same political base”.  We also learn that “political campaign strategy has changed a lot in the past five years and that last time Hillary didn’t run an up to date campaign.  Of course this time she had James Carville, who has come out of what seems to be virtual obscurity these past dozen years ago- since President Clinton was last in office.  Carville was the pit-bull that defended Clinton so forcefully at every turn and put the fear of God into the opposition.  President Obama could have used someone like Carville when the Republicans were talking all over him last year.  Of course - - one other factoid from the Matthews program may be out of date.  President Obama tried to be conciliatory and offer up a deal to John Boehner and put something substantive on the negotiating table.  It seems Sen Lindsey Graham and Bill Richardson are more moderate and conciliatory and just might work something out legislatively on a lot of issues, were it left up to the two of them, both on the economy and the deficit and revenue enhancement- - but also on immigration.  Richardson believes that seventeen or however many years you have to wait now “on that path” to become a citizen- is just too long

The Basketball game proper started at almost a quarter after three in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.  It was a moving version of the Star Spangled Banner with that choir and all.  The Louisville Cardinals beat the Witchata Shockers by a score of 72 to 68.  But the Shockers shocked everybody into thinking their just might be an upset.  But Louisville rallied in the fourth quarter and came from twelve points down in a sixteen point swing to win the game.  This was after dinner.  I had been worried that the game would not still be going after dinner because at least of half of the second half- probably more- remained to be played – since we eat so gosh darned early around here.  The game ended about twenty minutes to six.   Michigan defeated Syracruse by a score of 61 to 56.  Unfortunately like I said above, I fell asleep during this game as it approached eight thirty due to a caffeine deficiency from an off brand of instant coffee.  So now we have two long established teams of Michigan and Louisville facing off on Monday.

Let’s return to the Mc Laughlin group where a whole host of productive issues were discussed.  First John Mc Laughlin laid out the whole timeline the past month or so with the ominus war drums going in the background, one could imagine.  There was threat and response and new threat and stronger response- - making a whole train of offences that Kim Jung Uum is guilty of now- with no indication he’s going to let go of this firecracker before it explodes in his face.  Pat Buchannon doesn’t even want this war and was chided for sounding almost dovish on the issue of War on the Korea peninsula.  Of course China is afraid that is the North takes over like in Viet Nam- - that the whole peninsula will be communist and there will be an even more powerful entity to contend with.  If Kim Jung Oom wants to prove his manhood let’s put him back in his place and show one and all that this bozo is not qualified to be a world leader.  This next story is most troubling.  British Petrolium is now de-funding all of its wind driven turbines and also its solar cell research, officially known as photo-voltiac cells, that have been around for fifty years and in that time they seem to have had zero progress in efficienty or marketability, perhaps due to do little ongoing research.  Research in wind and solar doesn’t have any immediate reward for British Petrileum and since there is so much energy around now in traditional hydrocarbon fuels- - BP considers research in the future a waste of time and money, because of course they can’t see past the bottom line.  People like Judy should be extatic, sionce people like her maintain that “These alternative energy forms will never pan out and we are just wasting time and jeapordizing out national security in pursuing them”.  Meanwhile going to a real farce of a story, last week President Obama said that he’s giving back five percent of his salary, which is like Gene Scott giving back five percent of his.  It isn’t the salary but the expense accounts where all the money is poured down the drain since Air Force I costs prodigious amounts of both money and fuel to maintain.  On Friday the President made a strictly political trip to Colorado and California and then back.  The President now sees himself as some kind of “professional tourist’ like Cisco and Ebert were professional movie watchers.  The president’s job should be a whole lot more than being “The propagandist and chief”.

Of course then we have Mort Zuckerman’s “doom springs eternal” stance on the economy.  Zuckerman and Mc Laughlin were the two pessimists on this show saying that we would eventually go to DEF CON III in the upcoming war in Korea, and also that the economic news would gradually worsten throughout the year of 2013, an assertion I dispute.  People have said that Fed Chairman Ben Vernanke is the best friend this fledgling economy ever had, and they are correct.  There was also the news story about how in North Carolina that parents are taxed more because they can’t take their children as dependants is they Vote - - at an address not their parents’ house. (?)  This is like if they are on a campus or something.  There is news that Sears Portrate studios are closing down because nobody is having professional portrates done any more because we are all such egotists we take amature pictures of ourselves with delayed camera, and then sent them over the internet to announce “Here I am!”  They also said that possibly unattractive women aren’t shy about announcing who they are nowadays.   Also in the news there is this SWAT-ting thing about LA Police dispatchers fielding 911 calls and they are deceiving the department about what phone number they are calling from because they have this sophisticated electronics that keeps them from being fingered for fraud, by endlessly sending the Police to a celebretie’s home- - only to find that nobody is being stabbed or murdered.  Of course this costs the department money and they’ll get GPS soon to counteract this possibility.

Doom and gloom also reigns about the Republican’s chances next year because now they say that the table is tilted tword the Republicans in the Senate- - and that this legislative body is in danger of falling into the hands of the Republicans.  But we need to watch things such as minorities and the under thirty vote because people who were under thirty in 2008 will be 36 next year and this constitutes eighteen years of legal voting.  The Republicans have won the popular vote in a Presidential election but one time since 1990.  And strangely, people born AFTER 1990 are now of voting age.  Nicholas is of voting age and that’s a real eye opener for me.  Of course on the gay issue, Proposition Eight only passed by a few percentage points five years ago, and there have been considerable shifts in demographs since them, as old people are dying off, and the like.  People have come to expect things such as “signers” at rock concerts where some woman near the front row is “sign”ing the lyrics for deaf people.  And if what Dr. Levy says is correct, the NO-BUTTS people will give you free nicotine patches, upon a doctor’s signature.  I’d like to see that one realized.  Are organizations that altruistic?  Sometimes people will deliberately not calculate for certain things.  Somebody goofed on their weather prognosis yesterday.  Because the weather they predicted would happen, would be true is what they were seeing were a High and not a Low pressure system.  With a High you would first see a lot of wind and cold and clear skies, but the wind would turn warmer and subside.  But with a low in the same position you would get possibly rain and continued cloudiness, which is what we have today- - and the weather would be more moist, but not as cold.