Motown icon Aretha Franklin once sang, “Change, Change, Change…” No, sorry, that was “Chain, Chain, Chain…Chain of Fools.” My mistake. However, change is the modern and more relevant mantra.
The global warming cabal even had to alter the name of their signature message to Climate Change. Undoubtedly, this is because we have entered a period of lower temperatures. Relax AlGore! Your scam of man-made (anthropogenic) global weather perturbation is safe because so few people realize that water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas followed by methane, with carbon dioxide a distant third.
The reason temperatures have stabilized is because our sun is in a cyclical solar minimum with fewer sun spots, solar eruptions, and therefore less solar wind. And with less solar wind to deflect cosmic radiation which interacts with particles in the upper atmosphere to increase earth’s reflective albedo, the earth has lately cooled. If you’re interested in science I suggest you read The Chilling Stars by Henrik Svensmark rather than listening to politician AlGore and his hockey stick analysis. Consider this admittedly simplistic syllogistic logic example: politicians lie; AlGore is a politician; therefore AlGore lies.
Everything changes, all the time. The secret of successful living is to adapt to the change and make the most of it. Change is certainly true of my body. I’m not as strong as I used to be. I’ll never be able to hit a golf ball like Brooks Koepka the winner of the recent PGA golf tournament. And I have found that I am not as good at multitasking, one of my strengths in years past. I’ve had to adjust my perspective and adapt to the new reality of being sixty-eight years old.
Democrats do not seem able to adjust to the reality that Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and that he did not collude with Russians. Nancy Pelosi and haters have lost their minds. Actually, it was Hillary Clinton’s campaign who bought and paid for the infamous Steele Dossier. Amazingly, a recent poll found that two thirds of Americans still do not know this. The non-verified and scatological “golden shower” hoax was the cornerstone of FISA Court warrants and the attempted soft coup engineered by the leaders of the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Justice Department, probably with knowledge of the Obama White House. Attorney General William Barr has certainly challenged Democrats with a changing landscape. I believe he will inform We The People of the Swamp’s skulduggery. When you shine a light in the basement the rats adjust their activities and scurry into the darkness.
Polling data is the mainstay of the Washington environment. The polls were utterly wrong about the 2016 presidential election. Australia is the latest demonstration that election polling has become so politicized that they are no longer valid. The “modern liberals” in Australia will have to adjust their plans now that the polls were wrong again and they were soundly defeated by the conservatives. I emphasize the term “modern” liberal to contrast this loosely used term with “classical” liberalism of the Founders era. They are vastly different. Modern liberals are actually progressives and “leftists.” Progressive John Dewey coined the term modern liberal in 1924 because the policies of progressives were losing so many elections. Later, modern was dropped from the name. Apparently, modern liberals and progressives just change their names instead of their stripes.
Even “liberal” Calvin Klein had to adapt to the insane leftist political correctness of today. A recent ad campaign featured a robot dressed as a woman being kissed by a human female model. The problem was the human model identifies as heterosexual and this so enraged the LGBTQ crowd forcing Klein to apologize and withdraw the ad.
Congress is not adapting well to the reality of Trump and has become “a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Shakespeare from McBeth). Trump recently challenged Nancy Pelosi to either “legislate or investigate.” We’ll see if she chooses the American people or her leftist base.
I’ve just finished a book by Reinhold Niebuhr entitled Moral Man and Immoral Society. I was intrigued by the title and the book was rated among the top 10 works of Christian apologetics of the 20th century. I don’t recommend this egghead book. But, I also dislike the movie Citizen Kane, which is number one on the list of great movies rated by cinema “experts.” I ascribe to the Count Basie philosophy. The great jazz pianist said, “If it sounds good, it is.” And my corollary to that is, “if you like something, it is.” Don’t let anyone define your tastes. However, with time and understanding some things grow on you, like the taste of coffee or a Rothko non-representational painting.
Actually, I was drawn to Niebuhr because he was the mentor of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Lutheran anti-Nazi of the Second World War, whose books I have read and whose courageous apologetics I admire. Niebuhr is most celebrated for the famous Serenity Prayer, even though his authorship has been challenged by some nattering nabobs. Nonetheless, the prayer speaks to adaptation:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
As I try to practice medicine “off the grid,” it requires adapting to a medical system which sometimes doesn’t find this fully licensed medical doctor in their databases. For more than four decades I “participated” in Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and various other commercial insurance plans. However, to do concierge medicine, I had to “opt out” of all governmental related insurance products. I have had to adapt to not being able to order physical therapy for my Medicare patient with a stroke or write orders for blood sugar testing strips for another patient with diabetes and government insurance. My freedom to practice the best care for my patients has resulted in consequences which I accept gracefully, most of the time.
The Master taught us that in this life you will always have troubles. He preached a message of adaptation, of being in the world, but not of the world. Successful living is establishing priorities and adapting to inevitable change. Some days I do better than other days. But today I sing, I love my life, I love my wife and I love my Lord, Jesus Christ – as best I can.
