The Sockalypse

Just like me, many of you received socks as a Christmas gift.  By now you know the true meaning of the Mayan calendar.  It was not the end of the world, just the end of getting a pair of socks that fit.

I was raised in a time when you could purchase American made socks, that, no matter your age, the sizing chart was correct.  A size eight shoe size meant that any eight-ten sock size would work fine.  Not any more…  George Bush and Bill Clinton saw to that by sending all our sock jobs to China and Indonesia where people with tiny feet construct our socks to their size worldview.  NAFTA, GATT and all the other charitable giveaways have put Americans and western civilization as a whole in an awkward situation.  The elves that construct our socks are squeezing us to death!

Honestly, the last three packs of socks I’ve opened have all been two sizes too small.  Of course, as a gift, they have to be worn.  So you pull on these new socks which are beyond skin-tight, they are blood vein tight.  If you can stand the full foot pressure all day long, by the time you take them off, your feet are on the way to Geisha size.  Let me illustrate my belief with a picture.  Here is a normal size sock size 8-12.

Here is the same size from our tiny footed sockmakers.

And a proper comparison…

I have noticed however, that If you wish to pay three times as much, the sock sizes correct themselves.  This is obviously a mind trick to make us send even more money overseas.  Not only are profits higher due to less material being used to make a proper size for the masses, the top 10% are suckered into the scheme as well. A cash pyramid plan where the remaining American dollars(those left after buying Arab oil) are transferred for poor quality socks.  A financial Armageddon would follow bringing down the western world.  Our soldiers couldn’t even fight due to their squashed feet.  How evil and diabolical is that?

We must cancel the sockalypse!  Write your congressman now and demand a return of sock manufacturing to American soil.  Since foreign graft and corruption rule Washington, go immediately to plan B.  Buy all your socks two sizes larger.  We’ll show these tiny people they can’t fool us all the time, just most of it.

2012 Alabama Fall Colors

It’s  been a somewhat strange weather year and it affected our seasons.  Spring sprang about two or three weeks early and now fall has extended itself about the same.  My wife still has flowers blooming outside and we’ve only had two light frosts so far.  With tomorrow being the last day of November, colder weather seems to be still snug in it’s bed after hitting the snooze alarm.

I’m not complaining, fall has been especially beautiful this year.  I took pictures on three different occasions when I thought the colors had peaked, all several days apart.  So, if you haven’t seen an Alabama Fall…enjoy!



And maybe just a few more…


“God looked over everything He had made; it was so good, so very good!”  Genesis 1:31  The Message Bible

Bynum Cemetery at Maynard's Cove

I said in my last blog that we again visited Maynard’s Cove to find the Bynum family cemetery.  This time we traveled County Road 79 from Scottsboro, Alabama and turned right on County Road 21.  This descended into the cove from the west side and is quite a steep drive.  Just as the road flattens out at the bottom Jackson County Road 533 turns right and leads to the cemetery.  It is a narrow road which crosses a cry creek bed.  The road dead ends at a gate and if you aren’t careful, you’ll miss the gravesites.



There is a one car pull-off about two hundred feet from the gate, we parked  there and found the cemetery on a slight rise on the right.  There were no signs at the turn off from Highway 21 or at the end of the road.  My GPS marked it at 34  45.129′ & -86  06.009 and in decimal degrees 34.75215 and -86.10015

We found it to be in a dismal state.  Many of the graves are only marked with rocks not much higher than the weeds.


Most had no engraving or were deteriorated to the point of being illegible.  Of the few that were, these were the pictures;

This might be a good time to mention when near old gravestones, please do not scratch with them any object or use any compound to try to clean the stone.  Everything I’ve read said that you would do more harm than good.

I’ll include one more that was difficult for me to read. 
I also found a link listing the names of those buried there.














In my mind I would assume that the cemetery is near ground zero for Isaac Newton Bynum’s original home site.  Looking past the end of the road, there is one house and you can almost visualize what it might have looked like in the early 1800′s.  River flooding must have made the cove a fertile topsoil area and springs would have provided plenty of water.

The Bynum family was not the only one here.  The Maynard, Holland, and Proctor families were also early settlers.

It’s difficult to find Maynard’s Cove history on the internet but one interesting bit I found was that the churches were destroyed in a 1932 tornado.  God was obviously important because I found a reference to the Mud Creek Baptist Association being one of the oldest in the state.

There is a quote by Alex Haley which says, “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we came from.”  I encourage you to look back at your family history and discover the treasures that lie buried beneath the sands of time.

Genealogy Bug Bites Me

I came home from work recently to find that my wife had decided to do a trial membershp with Ancestry.com.  I thought, Ok, I’ve got seven days to fill in the blanks on my six or seven generation list.  At the time, I believed that was plenty, kind of like Bill Gates with his “64k should be enough for everyone”.

Quickly learning that genealogy can be addictive, I spent the next five evenings between arriving at home and bedtime, digging into the past.  I found my way around Ancestry.com quickly and discovered  how difficult it can be to solve the tiniest of mysteries.  On my Grandfather, Wallace Cox’s side, I couldn’t get past the fact no one seemed to know his mother, Emma Cox’s maiden name.  I hit a wall that couldn’t be scaled.  It would have been so simple to ask, “Hey Granddaddy, what was your Mom’s maiden name?”  But I never did, and all those who would have know it, have also died.  I’ve sent out some emails and will come back to solve that problem later.

With that problem unresolved, I jumped over to the Bynum side and traced the family’s migration from John Bainham’s voyage from England to Surry, Virginia in 1616 at the age of 26.  Spelling was more phonetic back then and the name eventually changed to Bynum.  Each generation seemed to want a new place.    There were relocations from Surry, Isle of Wight County Virginia, to Abermarle, North Carolina by 1746, then Pendleton County, South Carolina in 1781.  Isaac Newton Bynum(1757-1845) moved to Maynard’s Cove, in Jackson County, Alabama, after the Indians had been driven out.  His ancentors moved on to Blount and Dekalb Counties.

The name Isaac Newton Bynum intriqued me so I decided to go to Maynard’s Cove to take a picture of his grave marker as a primary photo in my genealogy list.  With the help of Google maps I found the cove near Scottsboro, Alabama, which was only a two hour drive.  Google also marked the cemetery halfway around the loop of highway 28 which was the main road through the cove.  All too easy I thought…

Not wanting to seem overly excited about a road trip to a cemetery, I suggested that we make a shopping trip to an old favorite store we visited several years ago called “Unclaimed Baggage” in downtown Scottsboro.  That worked well, so the next weekend four of us went shopping with only a quick side trip on the agenda for Maynard’s Cove.

The shopping stop was a dissappointment with zero good buys.  I was hoping the Cove wouldn’t be another.  We followed E. Willow St. and turned left on Tupelo Road which is County Highway 21.  The road was narrow leaving Scottsboro and gave me the feeling the asphalt would soon turn into dirt, but it did not.  About ten minutes out of town the scenery opened up to wide vista’s between two or three mountains of the Appalachian chain.  We stopped a couple of times for pictures then turned right on County Road 28.  It was nice scenery all the way and I understood why it would have been a great place to settle in.

We stopped near an old farmhouse to take pictures and suddenly realized there were no man-made noises.  It was awesome.  Another discovery a minute later was there were no bars on the cell phone, again, to me awesome!


Everyone enjoyed the trip to one of our families historical sites.  We did not find the cemetery on that trip and being pushed for time, had to start home.   We finished the Highway 28 loop and turned right on Highway 33 and headed toward the town of Hollywood and Highway 72.  On Highway 33, we quickly were back in civilization with many run down homes and a trailer park which had seen better days.  I was thinking that time seemed to have slowed down, maybe even rewound a bit while we were in the Cove.  That’s about when then the cooling towers of Belefonte Nuclear power plant came into view, a startling reminder that time and progress march on.

Judy and I went back to the Cove the following Saturday when we had more time and I did my research properly.  I’ll tell you about that next time.

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Don't Hate Your Union Either

 Hi, I'm an employee of AT&T and the following is my opinion...

This is just a short follow-up on my Don’t Hate Your Job blog.  Some of you may think I’ve become anti-union but that really isn’t the case.  It’s like the Democratic Party, they left me a long time ago.  I stayed with the union for as long as I could, thinking that they existed for my own good and that they just had a few bad habits.  Habits like supporting every political candidate that I was against and being militantly pro-choice.  Almost every good thread of value that holds our society together, they seem to oppose.  Their work as a protector of union employees seems to me, to have deteriorated at an alarming pace since AT&T purchased BellSouth.  The Union itself needs to do a little refocusing on its core values and what it was designed to accomplish.  I was certainly not the only disillusioned member.  I was sent a link for a CWA District 3: Petition of NO Confidence.  It’s a pretty interesting read with almost 3,000 supporters.  It wasn’t widely publicized or the numbers would have been much greater.

One Union member I know had to threaten Labor Board charges just to get a grievance accepted recently.  It should never get to that point in an organization that is designed to HELP employees!  It’s almost like the Red Cross refusing to give blood because they’re just too involved in sports.

My last blog mentioned how to leave the Union and I want to make sure I don’t mislead you in any way.  Another technician emailed me the procedure so here it is;

 Cancellation requests must be postmarked during the 10 day period preceding the expiration date of this Agreement and the same 10 day period each year during the life of this Agreement. Your opt-out period for 2012 was July 26 to August 4 of 2012.
CONTRACT: CWA District 3 BST Utility Operations
Section A.  Except as provided below, or as provided in Memorandum of Understanding between the parties, or as otherwise provided by applicable law, all cards may only be revoked during the 10 day period preceding the expiration date of this Agreement and the same 10 day period each year during the life of this Agreement.  Revocation of dues must be accomplished as follows (all conditions must be met):
*       Cancellation requests must be written or typed.
         *      Cancellation requests must be sent by certified mail.
         *      Cancellation requests must be postmarked during the 10 day period preceding the expiration date of this Agreement and the same 10 day period each year during the life of this Agreement. Your opt-out period for is 2012 period will be July 26 to August 4 of 2012.

Sometimes, an organization can only be corrected by the shock of bleeding away its members.  If you feel that way, then that information is what you need.  If you think an organization can be changed from within and want to work to that end, great!  I wish you the best, but I feel you have an uphill battle against overwhelming odds.

I will note also that AT&T announced September 28th that “wireline employees represented by the Communication Workers of America failed to ratify a three-year contract for the AT&T Southeast region”.  I consider that good news and a complete rejection of what CWA had negotiated for us.  I pray both sides will arrive at a fair solution.

Don't Hate Your Job

I am an employee of AT&T and the following is my opinion.

I haven’t written much lately about work, so I’ll bring you up to date.  I resigned from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) at the contract anniversary.  Just in case you didn’t know, that letter must be certified and received by the company and the union in the two weeks prior to that date.  I’ll even let you see what my letter stated;

This letter is to notify you of my separation from membership in the Communication Workers of America (CWA).  I wish for all payroll deductions of membership dues to cease immediately! 

 I was a member of the union for twenty-five years beginning in 1978.  I previously resigned membership over the issue of their political support for abortion.  I signed back on after the purchase of BellSouth by AT&T, but find little use for continued membership.

 The counseling entry that was placed in my personnel file on January 27, 2012 over MSOC results was removed July 27, 2012 by management.  My corresponding grievance was never scheduled nor met upon.   My “taxation without representation” will no longer be tolerated. 

The Union was absolutely no help, so it seemed silly to continue membership.  The dues I’ll be saving will be applied to the insurance that was negotiated for me in the new contract.  Thanks so much to CWA, because I know AT&T was having difficulty paying medical insurance with only $31.6 Billion in profit just in the first quarter of 2012!

I want to tell you a little about why I’ve slowed down on MSOC blogs when they are so popular.  The stress that all of AT&T employees feel these days is the same for me.  It seems everyone I talk to hates the management style being imposed on us.  A management source told me that they just want to get as much out of us as they can since they know things are winding down.  Well, when you set targets too high to reach and then punish employees when they can’t make it, the end doesn’t justify the means.  You are punishing good employees for nothing!

It became a tremendous burden for me because I’d always looked at my job as something I was good at.  But now, it didn’t matter what I did at work, I was basically unsatisfactory because I couldn’t leap tall buildings with a single bound!  I had to refocus because it was making me hate the company I worked for, and that just isn’t right!  I started working less overtime and picked up a couple of new hobbies.  I spent more time with family and became more involved at church.  In short, I stopped caring so much about making my numbers or trying to please management.  I still hate the fact that MSOC exists and love the fact that I am closer to retirement than yesterday!

After getting a phone call on a vacation day last week from a manager pointing a finger at something I’d done, I decided to bring the Burr back on line with a few changes.  I’ve allowed almost no comments to protect you from the company.  I know how vindictive they are so I felt shielding you was the best thing.  I think I’ve been a voice in the wilderness too long, some of you need to be out there too.  Beginning today, if you make a comment I’ll post it.  Remember to keep it clean and that I still have editing rights to make it family friendly.

I will also invite you to participate as a ghost writer or as a guest writer, if you have something that will help others that are going through difficult times.  You can drop me a line with any suggestions.
We are all just pilgrims here with an eternal home at stake.  Don’t do anything at work to damage what is waiting on you one day!  We do need to put faces and names on the numbers!  Let’s let AT&T see the hardship they place on people!  Employees are more than just a human resource!

Anybody Seen A Mason?

We’ve been looking for a brick mason to repair damage to a retaining wall.


I wrote about that in my last blog on Christian Benefits.  I remember in the movie “National Treasure” how masons were very involved as founding fathers and hiding most of the secrets in Washington D.C.  They must be still currently involved in world affairs and building hidden treasure troves because its difficult to get one to your house to work!

We called over ten for job estimates.  Only three came by to look.  One of those said he’d call back the next day, never heard from him again.  We got only two estimates, one pretty costly and the other very reasonable.  The second contractor needs to finish a job before starting ours.  Both said the repairs would be labor intensive, which is greek for “its gonna cost you”.
I’ve always felt like there was a mason trapped inside me wanting out, so I asked our visiting estimator to describe the labor intensive part.  Well, it was tearing apart the bricks, cleaning the old mortar off, and digging out behind the wall.  Ok, I thought, doesn’t sound so difficult.  I can probably do that.










So, I’ve spent my spare time in “wall prep” while waiting on a contractor to turn loose of world affairs long enough to earn some cash.  They must live on stored wealth from all the previous generations of rulers.

 I started my work by tearing down most of the damaged section from the worst crack to the end of the wall.   It was somewhat challenging to remove the bricks without cracking the good ones.  There were a few casualties, but overall I did a fair job of brick rescue.

After that, I had a pile of bricks covered in old mortar.  Sadly, the mortar has to be cleaned off.














I decided this is the part of the job where “labor intensive” should be capitalized.  It was slow going and muscle tiring.  My method involved taking a chisel and carefully pointing it between the brick and mortar and tapping it with a hammer.  Sometimes it went well and the mortar would pop off, more often though, it took repeated taps and rearranging of the chisel to get it all off. 

 I was working on this one evening when an older gentleman walking by commented that it looked like a hard job.  I said, “yeah, we’ve got the pay scale all wrong.  CEOs are getting tons of money for a little work and guys who do a ton of work get a little money”.

I think I do appreciate the guys who clean brick for a living.  They probably don’t even get into the secret society.  I am hoping that my mason work will at least land me an honorable mention if and when the masons take complete control and their plans come to fruition.

I started stacking my cleaned bricks up on the left and the broken ones on the right.  I noticed that masons often use the broken ones for support behind the wall so I didn’t discard them.  I’m still not finished, but my cleaned brick pile has grown pretty large.







I also dug the dirt out from behind the wall so the broken cinder blocks could be replaced.  I’m sure they’ll have some additional “labor intensive” work to do, but its a good start.

This being our first ever home owner’s claim, I want to mention how well everything was handled by Travelers Insurance.  Our adjuster was Alex Lovell and I’ve never seen anyone so anxious to give us a check for the damage.  I appreciate their prompt service and willingness to work with me on the delays( I wanted more estimates).

I need to give a Bible illustration from all this.  Our lives are oftentimes wrecked from sin and we can’t figure out who can fix it.  Jesus is the world ruler who has time for any life crisis, big or small.  He can clean up the sin problem quickly and at little cost to the owner.  He is available 24/7 and is just a prayer away.   I wholeheartedly  recommend His work and would encourage you to call Him anytime!  His pain is your gain!

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.  John 3:16 (CEB)

Christian Benefits

Usually, a person’s yard is one of the safest places to be.  I always thought that about mine, until last week. A young man got into his car about five houses down the street, started it, and then had a seizure of some type.  His vehicle lurched forward with his foot on the gas pedal, crossed the street at an angle, completely removed a large crepe myrtle tree in our yard.  He then crossed the driveway and smashed into a brick retaining wall.  The vehicle was almost balanced on top of the wall with only the right rear wheel still spinning  trying to get traction.  Smoke from the tire boiled up as our son, Stephen, ran out of the house and reached through the window to turn off the engine.


My wife called 911 and Alabaster police and fire personnel responded quickly.  The young man was taken to the hospital and released that afternoon.  He and his wife came by for a visit, apologizing for all the damage.  I was home from work by that time and we talked about how quick bad things can happen.  He didn’t remember anything after starting his vehicle, not the wreck or even being taken to the hospital.  My wife told him that she had prayed for his safety and tears came to his eyes as he thanked her.

It was a bad accident which could have been horrific.  Normally, there are children playing nearby or people walking down the street.  My wife, five minutes earlier, had stopped mowing grass.  She left the section with the crepe myrtles for the late afternoon, when it would be cooler.  One more unusual thing, was that Stephen normally parks his truck in front of the retaining wall.  For some reason that morning, upon returning home, he parked on the opposite side of the drive.

I know most people don’t believe in guardian angels, preferring to let their world spin on random chance.  But I can promise you from a lifetime of examples, that God works every day in this world.  He didn’t start it spinning way back in Genesis then walk away!  He is involved in your life every day just as He is mine.

Three weeks ago, I was about to climb a pole while working on a telephone trouble.  I heard a loud noise and the pole shook.  Turning to my right, toward the noise, I saw power lines dancing violently with sparks flying just before they hit the ground.  Needless to say, I stopped working.  I discovered a large tree had fallen two spans down.  The weather wasn’t bad and there wasn’t any wind.   The tree was rotten at the base and it’s time was up.  A definite close call.

One day last week, I was in a hurry to get home from work.  Delayed by a repair job, I was only fifteen minutes later than my usual time.  Halfway home, I found myself caught with traffic at a standstill.  I waited about 10 minutes with no traffic coming from the opposite direction either.  I decided to turn around and go the long way home.  I found out that evening two people had been killed in a head-on crash at 4:15pm, just ahead of me.  I missed being near that ground zero by the time I spent on the earlier trouble.

Now, I don’t want to sound redundant, but it’s pretty neat being a Christian!  Just consider a moment how it is having the God of the universe as your life coach.  Imagine the world as a gym with Jesus as your trainer.  It just doesn’t get any better.  Or, imagine  you’ve got to disarm the next catastrophe in your life and you’re sweating bullets wondering whether to cut the red wire or the blue one… snip the wrong one and everything unravels…  But wait, with God on your side, there is no catastrophe in the first place.

Have you ever seen those people who try to assemble one of their kids toys without the directions?  It isn’t pretty and it’s terribly stressful being around them!  God’s directions make your life easier and lets the disasters become manageable.

In Christians Make a Difference, I invited those of you who aren’t Christians to come over and join us.  I hope you have been reading your Bible and understand God a little more.  He is a loving creator who has made some tremendous promises.  If you’ve got some time, check out a few Bible verses and see if it might be in your best interest to join a winning team!

This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. Jeremiah 29:11

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
   or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
   He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
   He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
   And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
   gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
   young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
   They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
   they walk and don’t lag behind. Isaiah 40:29-31 (MSG)


And now I have it all—and keep getting more! The gifts you sent with Epaphroditus were more than enough, like a sweet-smelling sacrifice roasting on the altar, filling the air with fragrance, pleasing God no end. You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus. Our God and Father abounds in glory that just pours out into eternity. Yes. Phil. 4:19 (MSG)


“Because you hated Knowledge
   and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-God,
Because you wouldn’t take my advice
   and brushed aside all my offers to train you,
Well, you’ve made your bed—now lie in it;
   you wanted your own way—now, how do you like it?
Don’t you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots?
   Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.
First pay attention to me, and then relax.
   Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”  Prov. 1:33 (MSG)


But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.  Rom 6:23 (MSG)

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.  Matt. 11:28-29 (MSG)

If you feel your life is a little busted up and needs serious repair, I know just the God who can do it!  Oh, and don’t wait too long, you just never know when “something bad” might make your lack of choice… permanent!

Memorial Day for Lost Freedom

Listening to David Barton yesterday at Highlands made me feel like Sunday was Memorial Day.  After that good dose of Godly American history, I feel sad today.  Today’s sadness, on Memorial Day proper, isn’t for all the fallen heroes, it’s for all us Americans that have been left behind.

It is so ironic that men and women, in so many military campaigns, have lost their lives defending our freedom, and the rest of us let our politicians take it away after 9/11.  Our Constitution has been so watered down it barely exists.  The Patriot Act, along with other legislation, have taken away many of the rights we all hold dear!

• Freedom from unreasonable searches… gone!
• Right to a speedy and public trial… gone!
• Freedom of association… gone!
• Right to legal representation… gone!
• Freedom of speech… gone!
• Right to liberty… gone!

This is the way it now is – video!  You thought the “God-given rights” still existed?  No, not in today’s America.  If you don’t believe me, Judge Andrew Napolitano will tell you about it in this video.

There is a great quote from Benjamin Franklin that applies here, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Let’s face it, we were suckered on 9/11.  You can’t look at all that happened  and NOT think it was wasn’t preplanned.  Why would anyone have to give up any “God-given right” to keep a foreigner from coming in and attacking anything in this country.  All we ever had to do was increase security!  A police state should have been out of question by even our lawmakers.  They claim there just wasn’t time to read the entire 315 pages before voting on it.  Fine, don’t vote for it then.  If you voted for it, repeal it!  There has been time to fix it and it has not been fixed.  Our freedoms are still gone!

I read the news article this weekend listing the “words not to use” to avoid Homeland Security from listing someone as a terrorist.  I think I’ve used most of them in this blog.  I’m a Christian though, so I harbor no violence against anyone.  As a United States citizen though, I feel I must urge repeal of the Patriot Act and a return to the constitutional rights I was blessed by my Creator with!  Our founding fathers said it better than I…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long-established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.     Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

This year I’ve encouraged everyone to support Ron Paul for President.  The powers that be have opposed him strongly and positioned others ahead of him via propaganda in the media.  If you listen to any Paul supporter, it is liberty that is our main theme.  Fix the liberty issue and many other problems resolve themselves.  It is obvious that neither party is moving toward that end.  The same old way of governing isn’t going to be acceptable by Americans much longer.  Our future depends on new leaders who represent the citizens. Washington has proven it is more interested in appeasing foreign governments and corporations and forgetting about the average citizen and all the soldiers that died, fighting for freedom!

Maybe the word “terrorist” needs to be redefined.  After that, we just need to vote them out of Washington and put some real statesmen back in government.  We can fix all this, but it’s going to take a few election cycles!  This “Orwellian” society has to go!

One God and Soap

“Absolute cleanliness is Godliness”.  That is the first line on Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap bottle.  Just reading the label could keep you occupied for maybe twenty minutes.  I was drawn to it while shopping at Whole Foods recently.  I must have stood in the isle long enough reading, to realize I’d been standing there too long… reading.  I put the bottle in the buggy and thought, “I’ll finish this at home”.

At home, I again picked up the bottle and started reading.  I was perplexed because the statements didn’t flow well.  I believed I understood what it said, but my curiosity needed more.  I got on the internet and googled the product and was overwhelmed with information and accolades.  I even watched a documentary entitled, “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” on Netflix.  It was well produced and made me understand how Dr. Bronner came to America and began his work.

He was born in Heilbronn, Germany, to the Heilbronner family of soap makers.  He emigrated to the United States in 1929 and dropped the “Heil” from his name.  His parents stayed in Germany and were victims of Nazi persecution.

Dr. Bronner began making products by hand in his home.  His father was Jewish, so it is obvious that belief in God was important to Dr. Bronner and he wanted everyone to believe and be part of the “one faith”.  He used references from both Jewish and Christian sources on the labels of his soaps.

The documentary goes into detail about the strange events which occurred in 1947.  Dr. Bronner was speaking at the University of Chicago and promoting his “Moral ABC”.  There were objections and Dr. Bronner was arrested and committed to a mental hospital in Elgin, Illinois, on just a phone call from his sister.  Obviously, it was easier to have someone committed then.  At the hospital, Dr. Bronner had to endure “shock treatments”.  He escaped the hospital and eventually ended up in Escondido, California.  There, his soap making grew into a large operation which continues today.  Dr. Bronner died in 1997, but the business is still making soap and preaching about God!

Their business is pretty amazing.  You should click on this link to visit their website.  It has more info than I can possibly cover.  I will tell you that their soap is organic with a vegetable oil base.  Their products are completely environmentally safe and not harmful.  The soaps are concentrated, so just simply mix with water to dilute.  The “peppermint” is my favorite but they are all good.  They may be purchased at Whole Foods, Target, or almost any health food store.  I believe in bragging on good companies, because there are so many who shouldn’t be in business.  Good companies need encouragement and our business!

Getting back to their business model, executive compensation is capped at 5 to 1 to the lowest paid warehouse position.  All profits, not needed for business, go to worthwhile causes and charities worldwide.  From watching the documentary, their employees are extremely happy and receive big bonuses each year.  The website shares that one of Dr. Bronner’s “truths” was that constructive capitalism is where you share the profit with the workers and the earth from which you made it!
If you can do a little preaching along with it, that’s even better!

“Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”   Psalm 19:4

Christians Make A Difference

The hatred that spews from the network television shows, the internet, & politicians toward Christians, hurts everyone.  They try to stir up public opinion against Christians, that we are the bad guys and need to be run out-of-town.  Why?  Because we’re against most of the issues driving corporate America these days like greed and gay rights.  We are opposed to making families jobless just to make the stockholders & CEO’s more wealthy.  We are opposed to the murder of children by clinics who lie about women’s health, making profits of over a billion/year.  We are opposed to the unnatural union of gays and lesbians in legal marriage, creating a cultural abnormality.  We are opposed to polygamy and those who would declare the Bible corrupt.  In general, I guess we opposed everything that would make the cultural left happy!

Christians have made a distinct mark on civilization and America in particular.  Our founding fathers used the general principles of Christianity for our independence, our legal rights, and system of government.  The development of higher education, science, and medicine, all were from Christianity.  Art and music were inestimably benefited by believers in Christ.  It was the Christians that opposed slavery first and it is the Christian that is generally a better citizen in any government.

Why would a Christian be a better citizen or employee you ask?  Because Jesus taught that it is wrong to steal and kill.  He taught that government is  empowered by God, therefore we should respect and submit to it.  We are taught to love our fellow-man and reach out to help those in need.  Even today, it is Christians who are quickly on the scene when disaster strikes.  Christian relief has assisted Haiti, Sudan, Somalia, Belize, Japan, and every other location where humans were hurting or in need.  So we’re the bad guys… right, you just keep believing that lie.  We still love you, but our actions speak for themselves.

The reason you really hate us is the problem you have with God.  He is the one who doesn’t approve of your sin.  If every Christian in the world signed over a letter saying you have our approval for whatever sin you want to commit, it wouldn’t carry any legal weight with God.  He is the judge and jury.  And even if we approved of your actions, you wouldn’t quit your hate filled racist attitude toward us until we actually participated in sin with you.  You want us to be like you, a guilt ridden, unhappy human whose hatred for Christianity blinds one from the truth.

Listen, our side is better… come on over!  Being a traitor to your cause has never been easier or had so many benefits.  You get to hang out with the best people in the world!  Medical plans don’t matter, it’s better on the other side for us, anyway!  We live in the light of the Son and know that God loves us!  It just doesn’t get any better.  We’ll even pay your way to the third world country of your choice and let you dig wells for clean water or teach kids to read.  Not only that, but faith in Jesus… get ready for this… guarantees you a mansion in Heaven.  Is that awesome or what?

Now, you’re going to have to read the Bible some.  I’ll give you a heads up, it isn’t what you’ve been told.  The truths contained in that book are amazing and historically accurate at the same time.  It really isn’t just a children’s book, but the “inspired” Word of God!

At least consider it!  You don’t even have to carry around a Bible these days, look at it online!  You can do it when no one is around, until you feel like you are ready to commit.  I’d recommend downloading the app “YouVersion“.  And just to make you feel better, that you’re not alone… YouVersion has been downloaded over 50 million times.  The world is full of Christians. Estimates vary, but the number is close to 2 billion!  Christianity rocks, come on over!  Join us, we’re the ones who make a difference!

Originally published May 14, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com

Pepper Place in Birmingham

Today’s blog is about a visit to Pepper Place in Birmingham, Alabama.  They are located at 2829 2nd Avenue South, about three blocks north of Highway 78 and three blocks east of the Red Mountain Expressway.  It is an odd place for a farmer’s market, right in the center of a mostly industrial area.  Parking isn’t a problem since most of the businesses are closed on Saturday.

Since we are trying to eat better foods, we decided to check it out.   Organic, local flavor is now my favorite, without all the industrial additives.  The organic part was somewhat of a disappointment, only seeing one vendor.  There was plenty of local grown produce and vendors with various wares, from jewelry to plants and even a car dealer showing off a Scion.

It was crowded at times with plenty of dogs and babies in the mix as well.  We saw a cooking demonstration and even wandered through a furniture store nearby.  A large restaurant is open, plus outdoor sellers have many different foods.

We purchased strawberries, peaches, squash, and earrings. Please visit their website for more info.  I would have to say it’s a nice Saturday morning outing!

Realizing that pictures are worth a thousand words, here you go…


      

    

     
     

Originally published on May 12, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com
More pics available here.

The Unrelenting Pharoah

Un-re-lent-ing – Not giving way to kindness or compassion.

Hi, I’m an employee of AT&T and today’s blog is of course, my opinion. 

That disclaimer came from an intracompany post concerning social media.  The company requested it be understood by all that anything placed by an employee online should be considered “just an opinion”.  I post it, because they asked…

I’ve been drawn to the story of Pharoah for the last couple of days.  A short outline of the whole story is from Exodus 7: 1-5,  The Lord said:  I am going to let your brother Aaron speak for you. He will tell your message to the king, just as a prophet speaks my message to the people. ² Tell Aaron everything I say to you, and he will order the king to let my people leave his country. ^3-4 But I will make the king so stubborn that he won’t listen to you. He won’t listen even when I do many terrible things to him and his nation. Then I will bring a final punishment on Egypt, and the king will let Israel’s families and tribes go. ⁵ When this happens, the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

Moses found things just as God had said, especially the hard-hearted leader, who held in his hands the power to allow the Israelites to be free.  I’ve noticed that power and authority, in the hands of men, is always abused!  Pharoah is no different when it comes to a good thing.  He has cheap labor and for higher production, a rod to beat them with!

In the movie, the Ten Commandments, each scene, where a plague was about to take place, was so clean and sanitized.  I will give them credit for not adding too much to the Biblical narrative.  But you know, at first, there had to be some serious reasoning by Moses.  I can just imagine him telling the story of how the Israelites were faithful neighbors living in the land of Goshen, honored by the memory of Joseph, and the work he did to save Egypt during the famine.  In that historical narrative, we know from Exodus 1:8 that “a new king came to power.  He did not know what Joseph had done for Egypt, and he told the Egyptians, There are too many of those Israelites in our country… “  God still blessed the Israelites, even as slaves, and “because of this, the Egyptians hated them worse than before and made them work so hard that their lives were miserable.  The Egyptians were cruel to the people of Israel…“  It even reached the point where the King decreed that all male, slave babies were to be thrown into the Nile River.

I’m sure that Moses reminded the King about the good work the Israelites had done for him, and pointed out the marvelous monuments which dotted the landscape.  Being a man in authority, the King weighed the reasonings put forth by Moses and Aaron, and sadly chose a course of action which would ruin his life and seriously harm his own country.  The Bible says that God “hardened his heart”.  We don’t know exactly when that took place.  It may have been while reading his daily reports or “the numbers” produced by the slaves.  Much like the MSOC numbers that AT&T employees receive at work each day.  The numbers that are constantly changed and modified like a carrot moved further and further from an animal’s hungry mouth.  I believe the Israelite slaves were beaten and killed to achieve the goal of raising monuments to a short sighted, greedy, King.  Moses found his “let my people go” plea falling on deaf ears.

Today, a lot of cosmetics have been applied, but the goal is still the same.  Work hard and raise money for the corporate world leaders and the minions, who live off the crumbs from their table!  The 1% rule and the 99% drool.   CEO salaries have skyrocketed, even during the hard times that we’ve experienced lately.  Add to that the layer upon layer of management salaries, bonuses, retirement payouts, and stockholder dividends, and it is no wonder that everything we buy, costs so much.  Just like today, I imagine all of Pharoah’s minions shouting NO, NO, No, don’t let them go!  They probably imagined the hard times ahead if Pharoah relented and showed some compassion.  They might actually have to work for a living…  Of course, we know the story don’t we.  It cost Egypt dearly for their greed and stubbornness.

Compassion doesn’t cost much!  Not showing compassion, can cost everthing!  Hopefully, God wasn’t the one who hardened your heart…  that would mean He is going to get your attention!  He definitely got Pharoah’s attention!  It might be better to show Him some attention first, in the form of worship and showing a little compassion to your fellow-man.

Changing the topic, but not really changing the topic… our MSOC numbers did change in January, or early February.  I am now alloted .83 of an hour for most troubles and .61 for others.  Put your surgeon on that plan and see how it works out for you.  Sorry, doc, you’ve only got 30 minutes to figure out what’s wrong and fix it!  In January, the company placed the first, ever, entry in my file, for not doing my job correctly.  The entry is still there, and I mention it daily to someone!  To me, it is character assassination and an attack on my work ethic.  It has brought unnecessary stress and even fitful sleep at times.  They don’t understand that you should not beat an older employee with a rod to work harder and faster…  I am relentless in wanting that entry out and this should never have gotten this far in the public arena!  In my opinion, management is entirely to blame for this debacle.  I was told this week that I’m the only one in the crew getting a new truck… I never asked for a new truck.  I have asked over and over, to have the entry, which was unnecessary, taken out!

Mr. Stephenson, could you “let that piece of paper go”?  Your guys around here are unrelenting!

Originally published on May 4, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com

Earth Day 2012

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
      reflecting our nature
   So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
      the birds in the air, the cattle,
   And, yes, Earth itself,
      and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
   God created human beings;
      he created them godlike,
   Reflecting God’s nature.
      He created them male and female.
   God blessed them:
      ”Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
   Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
  Then God said, “I’ve given you
      every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
   And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
      given them to you for food.
   To all animals and all birds,
      everything that moves and breathes,
   I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
      And there it was.

That passage is Genesis 1:27-29 from The Message version of the Bible.   The shortened version would say that God created earth and placed us here to take care of it, till He comes back.  If you consider Jesus parable of the talents in Matthew 25, then it is very possible we may have to answer for our poor stewardship.  Let’s face it, humans have been brutal to our home planet!

If the earth itself brought us up on charges of misconduct with God as judge, there isn’t a lawyer in the cosmos that could even get us leniency.  Our list of abuse is long and sorrowful, and the worst is that we don’t even show remorse or repentance.  Repentance being that point where we say “ok, enough is enough,” and we begin to allow our planet to heal, that concept is completely anathema to us!

I’m old enough to remember the anti-litter commercials where an American Indian is standing beside the highway when a car passes and throws out a bag of garbage.  The camera panned back to a closeup of the man’s face to see a tear running down.  That commercial concept could be repeated in every nation and country on the planet, just pick a race and we can all cry a bucket of tears.  There is still little change.

Litter is the cosmetic problem.  It’s ugly and unsightly, like plastic bags hanging in the trees.  Fast food restaurant debris is still tossed out of cars, but we’ve evolved way beyond that.  Last week, the Bureau of Land Management announced their approval of “fracking” in the pristine Talladega National Forrest, here in Alabama.  Fracking is where the most toxic chemicals known to man are pumped underground to fracture rock, allowing natural gas and other minerals to be mined.  Fracking always poisons ground water!  Let’s all thank government bureaucracy for allowing enormous profits to be made at the expense of our planet’s health!

The British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, was another ecological disaster whose full effects won’t be known for years.  On the local news this morning, there was a report that some shrimp were being born without eyes and that fish were being found with odd lesions.  Should we even allow a process such as “deep water drilling” to occur when the risk of disaster is so high?  Politicians of course say “yes, because the oil companies need more profits.”  Obviously, a gazillion dollars per CEO means a little graft and corruption flows to the re-election fund.

HAARP antenna array (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My favorite waste of money and planet abuse culprit is the military establishment.  They cause everything from bombs being dropped to depleted uranium bullets.  There are forgotten buried mines and IEDs just waiting for any non-combatant to be injured or killed.  Military planes spew a toxic mix of chemicals in our sky and bombard it with microwave energy from HAARP to control the weather.  I won’t blame President Obama for starting it all, but he has done nothing to stop it either!  It’s been a long time since the natural weather cycles were allowed to take place.  But I remember, it all worked ok without dollars and health being spent to manipulate.  We just experienced the warmest month of March on record, so the new system isn’t working very well.  Yes, global warming is real and we caused it!  We can stop it by turning off the atmospheric heater called HAARP!  Propagandist will claim that all this is just myth spewed by angry conspiracist.  Some conspiracy, you can see it on the weather radar!

Planet abuse couldn’t be discussed without touching on our food supply a little.  It used to be natural, organic, but NOT ANY MORE!  We are inundated with hybrid foods created in the laboratory.  They have less in the way of what our bodies need to survive and more of what causes our bodies to deteriorate.  However, the flip side of that is that mega-farm owners and corporations have increased profits.  Our FDA is of course on top of things by approving profits over healthy consumers.  Corporations even create hybrid plants, put them out in the wild, and the cross-pollination causes an organic farmer to lose his crop or even worse, the entire farm through law suits filed by companies.  I hate to mention names but Monsanto is one of the worst culprits!

We have huge mono-farms raising everything from trees to pigs and chickens.  You won’t find anything like it in nature.  Nature has a variety of plants because it is a complete eco-system.  Everything needs each other and the waste is taken care of naturally and not in abundance, say like a chicken house!  If you were to visit a modern chicken house where the birds are given a chemical mix to make them grow faster and heavier while living on top of their own excrement, I’m sure chicken wouldn’t be on the menu!  The chemicals/antibiotics that all food animals receive flow directly to us.  Have you noticed larger people around you lately?

If you would like to wash down that hybrid food with a glass of water… better think again.  Fertilizers, fluoride, and pharmaceuticals are all found in that glass of unhealthy liquid.  I mentioned earlier that fracking poisons ground water for profits.  We poison it as well by flushing the toilet.  Most sewage treatment plants do a poor job cleaning up what we messed up!  I know indoor toilets are nice, but they really aren’t natural either.  Our bodies are 70% water so we need good clean water to survive.

It doesn’t make sense to me that we’ll go to war over religion, but won’t over environmental disasters.  Terrorists blow themselves up to kill infidels, but obviously consider killing the planet to make a buck, okay.

Looking at the body of evidence, we should have done a better job!

Camera pans to your face

tear running down…

Guilty, as charged!

Originally published April 22, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com

When Kids make you Proud

I’ll have to admit that I’m proud of our children.  The youngest, Stephen, a nineteen year old, is still at home and attending junior college.  Recently he was squeezing into a parking place at Jim & Nick’s Bar-B-Q and bumped a 2004 Volvo side mirror with the mirror on his Tacoma.  Naturally, there wasn’t even a scratch on the Tacoma while the Volvo had some cosmetic damage.  He had a friend with him and they waited till the owner came out, to confess about the damage.

The Volvo owner was a Vestavia Hills fireman and was very impressed that the boys didn’t just leave like most people might.  They swapped info and the guy called me the next day with the damage report, almost nine hundred dollars worth.  He said it was obvious Stephen was a good kid who handled himself well.  Sadly, it just so happened that $900 was the exact amount in Stephen’s savings account for his next semester.  Stephen met him at the downtown fire station the next day and they swapped the money for the local dealer’s estimate, verifying the damage amount.

It was an expensive lesson and one that won’t be soon forgotten.  It’s funny that I was the one who was the angriest, and I’ll explain that.  My wife and I had been trying to encourage Stephen to attend the college Bible class at Westwood Baptist church for quite some time.  That week he met a new friend at college, in one of his classes, who attends Westwood and agreed to visit with him.  The whole Bible class decided to go to Jim and Nicks for lunch, after church.  Turns out, the restaurant was so busy, that the only available space was the one he had tried to squeeze into, everyone else had already arrived and were waiting outside.

So why was I angry?  It wasn’t at Stephen for trying to squeeze into a parking place where the other car was over the line…  it was at God, for allowing it to happen in the first place.  I apologized to the Lord for that, but it was just one of those “life isn’t fair” moments.  On a day when Stephen finally attends Bible class (we always attended worship), he scratches a mirror and does the right thing by owning up to his mistake and it wipes out his bank account!

Working for AT&T,  I’m very familiar with those “life isn’t fair” moments.  I do hate it though, when it happens to someone so young.  Those are the times when many would say, why did I go to church this morning?  Or worse, I’m never going back again.  Stephen did neither! He went back the next Sunday and has been faithful ever since.  The “good guys” are hard to find, glad we’ve got one!
“A wise son brings joy to his father”  Proverbs 10:1

Originally published April 20, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com

Pray Without Ceasing

I must confess that I’ve been enjoying somewhat of a media fast lately.  The last two weeks have been good for me, spiritually, by refocusing on more important issues.  I still enjoy blogging, and there have been lots of good topics around, but we all need breaks once in a while.  I increasingly find our fast paced lifestyles, both at work and home to be dangerous in many ways.  We all need to slow down and reprioritize on the things that really matter.  If you were asked to make a list of what is REALLY important, my guess is that the person driving slow in front of you, wouldn’t be number one.

We let all kinds of unimportant stuff elbow its way up the list, instead of, going to the back of the line.  Let’s be honest and think about the important things a minute.  Number one has to be your spiritual state or your relationship with God.  I looked at my list and had to reach way down and pull that one back up where it should be.  On April first, my wife and I joined the Church of the Highlands here in Birmingham.  I can only believe that God was pleased with the decision because it seems that every lesson I’ve heard since then, seems to apply directly to me.

Putting God first is one of the best ways to reorganize your life to make everything else fall into place.  My illustration of a cluttered, out-of-order life, is like walking into a “hoarders” home.  You know, those people who can’t throw anything away.  I’ve walked into people’s homes and had to actually step on things to get where I was going, usually a broken telephone jack.  A Godly ordered life is just the opposite, it’s a clean home, with everything in its place.  We’re still going to misplace some stuff, but it’s much easier to get back on track.

I find that prayer to God helps immensely in staying pliant for His wishes.  We are here for a purpose and it is not what most seem to be striving for like money, power, and a good time.  The title of today’s blog came from 1 Thessalonians 5:17.  In context it says this, “Live in peace with each other. ¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. ¹⁵Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. ¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

In prayer, sometimes we just don’t know what to say.  At least our brain might be a little slow in speaking, I’m not sure the inner spirit is ever that way.  Often, a simple written prayer is a good start.  The internet is full of some great ones like the AA-Serenity Prayer…

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change, Courage to change the
things I can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.

Here is another, called

Matt’s morning prayer for sobriety and peace throughout the day

God, Show me throughout this day how to be of service to Thee and those around me.Allow me to show my love and gratitude to Thee, by loving, helping, listening to and comforting others.

Bless me to let go of the expectation that I need to be shown love, listened to, or comforted.

Bless me to do, what I do,  for Thee, and not for the outside reward that may or may not come.

Bless me to trust thee, and with this trust, to release the need I feel to direct or control the lives of others.

Bless me to lose my fears and live each moment as it comes today with a peace and enjoyment I feel when living for thee.

Divorce me today from dishonest self-seeking and selfish motives, that I may be an instrument in thy hands and show others, through my example, Thy way, Thy love, and Thy peace.    Amen

Whatever you use to kickstart your prayer life, I encourage you to get started.  Throw some things out that have pushed God down the list and reprioritize!  Hey, your prayer line is ringing…  are you going to answer that?  It just may be life changing!

Originally published April 17, 2012 at Thechestnutburr.com