"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Yes it is Wednesday, November 20, 2013, and I have some news hot off the presses. Or, that's how they used to say it when they printed news on presses and folks would wait on the street corner to read all about it. Statistics can be tough to handle. One fellow lamented the fact that as a white guy, he is more likely to become a serial killer than a rapper. Bummer! Another fellow shared that in his experience, any restaurant that can afford to advertise nationally is not one you would want to patronize. Rule of thumb I suppose. I read about a group preparing for a surprise retirement party for one of their co-workers. In this case, the party was not the surprise. Oops! One lady said there are days when she wished she could push a button to restore her original factory settings. I think we all can identify with that one. We don't always get do-overs. Right? Another lady said she went to a restaurant where they treat you like family. The first thing they told her was to sit up and they asked if she had gained weight. Real homey. Maybe too real.

America's media elite continue to be alarmed at the popularity of Duck Dynasty. They believe it portrays everything that is wrong about our nation. The family values featured on the show are like going backwards to them. They call the Robertson family lots of names including racist and animal killers along with Bible thumpers. What they cannot understand is why America has fallen in love with these people. Many have attempted to figure this out. Hey Jack, I can tell you this, if we have to choose from all the junk available to watch versus reruns of Duck Dynasty, their reruns win every time. We've seen some of those shows three or four times, and call us crazy, but we still laugh and enjoy them. There's something appealing in seeing the family ties and love of God and country that attracts people to this show. Sitting in my Santa chair last weekend, I had a very upscale mom tell me that she guessed her fussy little guy just had a problem with the beard. She quickly added that she didn't understand why with Duck Dynasty on all the time at their house. Enough said.

Just how far out of touch are the folks in Washington who make decisions that impact our daily lives? The US Department of Education is pushing a new Common Core Curriculum that is being heralded as a way to prepare our children to compete in our technologically driven world. The parents are up in arms as they learn more and more about the liberal agenda that saturates this approach to education. One example is a 4th Grade writing assignment that asks the student to envision themselves as a Nazi and to come up with reasons for why they hate the Jews. When people criticize, the centralized government tries to shut them up. The Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, characterized the parental backlash in this way: "White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t as brilliant as they thought." I don't think Mr. Duncan wants to take on the moms in this country who express concerns over what and how they children will be taught. I'm also very sure the values espoused by the Robertson family are not a part of this curriculum. I believe we all had better stay focused and ready as Big Government attempts to alter the shape of the way we think and the way that we live our lives. May God help us is my prayer. Amen.  ...More later.