Do Unto Others

A very contentious issue is on the ballot this year in the general election in Mississippi. It is an attempt to legally define when life begins. Proponents and opponents are avid in their views. Some religious leaders are for the proposal, and some are against. Ditto for some doctors. There is no room for compromise.

A blog that I participate in has brought people together from all over the State. Some are liberals. Some are conservative. All are Americans. While I don't think the issue has been discussed on the blog, it has been discussed on Facebook. Since most members of the blog are "friends" on Facebook it is very likely that a stated opinion is known by all the other members.

Members of the blog are a diverse group. There are workers and retirees of various ages from different geographical areas. We come from different backgrounds. Yet, we pray for each other, ((hug)) each other, and encourage each other as we face the trials and tribulations of this life on earth.

Every now and then, we have an actual get together where we can meet and talk in person. Such occasions tend to solidify the relationships.

But because of different views on the proposed ballot issue, some of the bloggers have left the group for one reason or another. Perhaps they feel those with opposite views were not Christians and they don't want to affiliate with them in any way. Since no reason was given for their departure from the group, it is not possible to know exactly what hurt their feelings or turned them away from the group.

As I stated earlier, we are all Americans. We all have the rights, privileges, and freedoms that come with citizenship. That includes the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. Whenever someone has an opinion they have a right to express it. Others will agree or disagree with the opinion, while some will just ignore it. But nobody can control your view point, your feeling, or your religious beliefs. Obviously we will all disagree sometime on some issue, action, or point. That's just part of being human.

One area which I will disagree with is any attempt to judge a person's belief in God or his or her religion. I think all of us on the blog are Christians. "Christian" is a title that is earned, not given.

With that in mind, I quote two passages of scripture. In the 22nd chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (NIV)
This passage is often referred to as the Great Commandment.

The second passage is an all time favorite. It is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."(NIV)

Neither of those passages includes the word "except". They are all inclusive. To me, that means it is not your opinion of an issue that is important, it is your Christian belief that is most important. In this world, we have many "Christian" religions. I think all of them agree on the issue of eternal life and salvation with slight degrees of differences in how we express that belief.

And so, dear friends, I promise I will not question your faith if you express a different opinion on a political issue and I hope you will extend the same courtesy to me. May Christ's peace be with you.

Initiative 26

This is going to be a long post. It's my perception of Initiative 26 which will be on the General Election ballot in Mississippi in November.

In 1981, Republican Jon Hinson was forced to resign from the U.S. Congress. A special election was to be held to fill the vacancy. The Republican party decided to hold a caucus to fill the party candidate slot. Several people, including me, jumped into the race.

As part of the campaign, we would go to various parts of the state to meet with caucus delegates for a question and answer session. At every stop some common questions were asked, "Who will be your chief of staff? Will your staff be integrated? What's your position on (name a topic)." I could artfully dodge some of the questions and answer the rest.

The question always arose as to my position on abortion. My answer was that I am opposed to abortion with three exceptions: rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is threatened. I think the woman should have the option of having an abortion when those situations exist. It wasn't a made up answer. It was my position then and is my position now.

Did it satisfy everybody? Heck no. The "Right to Life", anti-abortion right wing extremists exhibited outright anger at the answer. My response....you asked the question, you got an honest answer. What more do you expect?

Fast forward to January, 1986. I was serving in the Mississippi House of Representatives when a very strict abortion bill came up for a vote. There were only four nays cast on that bill. The four included the two females serving in the House, another male Representative and me. Interestingly, the two male Representatives were adoptive parents. Because of my stand on that issue, I was bombarded with dozens of phone calls from irate Pro-Lifers. I was told and so was my wife told that my entire family including our children will burn in hell.

On January 28, 1986, I was discussing the abortion issue with a constituent on the telephone. I was standing my ground and she wasn't budging an inch. Finally, I proposed this scenario; what if I was trapped in foxhole in Viet Nam and was being overrun by Viet Cong and certain to be killed; would it be acceptable in her eyes for me to kill my aggressor to save my life. Her answer was a shocking, "NO!" I told her that I thought it to be a very irrational answer. About that time, the Challenger blew up and we abandoned the phones to watch television. I have never forgotten that conversation because it showed me how adamant those people are about the issue.

In 2004, the medical providers were backed against the wall. They couldn't get medical malpractice insurance because of Mississippi's lack of tort reform laws. The Legislature commenced work on medical tort reform to help address the problem. Insurance companies were abandoning the Mississippi market, emergency rooms were shutting down, and OB-GYN physicians were leaving the state. Many counties were suddenly without medical assistance for births.

The Legislature passed far reaching legislation to help curb the ridiculous medical malpractice class action suits that were being filed daily. In addition to passing the law, the Legislature passed bonding and created a state run insurance company to help keep our medical doctors from moving away. The big class action suits ceased. The medical malpractice insurers began to ease back into the state. The state run insurance company was sold and the bonds were paid off. Since then, legal activity as regards the medical field has been minimal.

Now in 2011, the Pro-Lifers are pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions and have life be considered to exist at the moment of conception. Even those pushing the amendment admit the language is not perfected and the Legislature will have to fine tune it if it passes.

The medical profession has responded with a warning that they cannot endorse the proposal because of the legal uncertainness it generates. So here we go again. OB-GYN physicians will be most affected and will likely become uninsurable again. Emergency rooms and clinics which reopened after the last crisis will probably close again. The medical delivery system in Mississippi will be adversely affected.

Initiative 26 is a mean piece of legal mumbo jumbo. Here's my take on it.

1. It will not necessarily prevent any abortions because abortions will still be available in neighboring states. (Hello! Does anybody remember prohibition?)

2. It will put the lives of expectant mothers at risk because in a life or death situation the baby must be delivered even if the mother dies in childbirth. So what if it is the mother's second, third or fourth child? I think the mother should be given the choice of which action she prefers.

3. It will put pharmacies and doctors at risk of intensive litigation.

4. It will adversely affect the health care delivery system in Mississippi.

These are not all the reasons to vote against the proposal, but they are enough for me to make up my mind.

My take? It's bad law and detrimental to the general population of the citizens of this State. I'm voting, "No".

Day Sailor

Anybody who has known me for very long, knows I absolutely love to sail. I owned a sailboat from 1981 to 1995. It was an O'Day Day Sailor, light blue hull, wooden side boards, wooden floor boards, jib, mainsail, spinniker, and lift up center board. The boat was very sturdy, 17' long, 6 feet wide and with the board down had a draft of 3.5 feet.

This is not my actual boat but one just like her.


I bought the boat having never sailed before in my life. I bought a book and a friend and I headed to the reservoir for a trial run. Everybody was rigging their boats at the dock. I thought it would be easier to rig it while still on the trailer, then back it into the water and be prepared to sail away.


So we put the mast up, rigged the lines and the sails. Boy, she looked pretty. Then I started backing down to the ramp by the pier. All of a sudden I heard "zin, zipp, zipp, zing". I looked back and saw the sails falling into the boat. I had hit an electrical line. Well needless to say, we didn't get to sail that day.


But fast forward. That boat and I became soul mates. Often I would hit the water at sunrise and come in about midnight. My wife would ride with me for a few hours and then she would get tired. I sailed that boat through storms and rough water, in lakes where there was a current, and on days where the wind was consistent enough to allow for some significant heeling. I sailed her with a main and jib, just a jib and just a spinniker.


I did not use a motor but rarely had any trouble bringing her aside the pier under sail.


Sailing for me was a way to totally relax. Give me a cooler of drinks and some fried chicken and I was set for the day. I learned to read the waves, read the clouds, and to drop the sails when coming aside the pier if the wind was too high. I never turned her over but was in winds that turned a lot of other boats over both large and small.


Around 1998, I put her up for sale. When her new owner pulled out with my happy little boat, I actually cried. I hope they took good care of her.

It Happened!

(Note: This a longer than usual blog)
It happened! I had an accident on my motorcycle. I was headed east on Hwy 80 with plans to turn onto Trickhambridge Road and then home. A small foreign model white car was in front of me with two young men in it. He had to stop for ongoing traffic and so did I. When he could make the left hand turn, I looked and followed him up a small hill. He was going about 7 or 8 miles per hour and I was right on his bumper trying to keep the motorcycle upright. As he got to the top of the hill, he began to speed up and I followed suit. By this time we were probably going about 12 mph. Then, all of a sudden, for no reason at all, he slammed on brakes and stopped. I swerved to the left hoping not to hit his car. The next thing I knew, he was speeding away and they were laughing as I was thrown off the motorcycle.

Just as I was about to hit the pavement I remember either muttering to myself or yelling for the world to hear, "Aw shit!" Then I felt a crunch and found myself laying on my left side right on the center line of the two lane road. I immediately felt my clavicle and could tell it was broken. A mini van going the opposite direction stopped and two young ladies ran over to see if they could help me. A man in his yard came running too.
I got on my feet and saw my motorcycle laying perfectly on its right side. The handle bars were straight, both tires were about six or eight inches off the ground. The highway bar had caught the front end of the bike while the hard saddle bag held up the rear. With the help of several people we righted the motorcycle and rolled to a man's driveway. I gave the ladies my cell phone with my ICE number highlighted. The call was made to my wife who didn't answer the phone. The man and the lady whose driveway I was using got a wet towel as my left arm was rather bloody. Then the lady called 911.

In the meantime, I checked the bike and determined it could be ridden. Everything appeared operable except for the rear brake pedal which was blocked by the bent highway bar. Since I only lived a mile away, I thanked the people and told them I would just ride it on home. The two ladies in the minivan turned around and followed me to the house. My wife was in the basement and when I opened the back door I gave a firm shout for her to come up quickly. She must have sensed the urgency as she ran up the stairs. We went to the car and began heading to the hospital which is located about 4 miles from our house.

The hospital was able to check me in rather quickly, and wheeled me back to a receiving area. Shortly a local policeman came in and said I had fled from the scene of the accident. I told him that was not even on my radar. I just wanted to get home and have my wife take me to the hospital. He said that is why the city has emergency vehicles. I recounted the incident to him. Then he said he would not give me a ticket but also could not file an accident report. Somehow he found out who I was, went to our house and saw the bike, then came to the hospital. To give you an idea of how fast things happened, my wife and I passed the scene on the way to the hospital before any emergency vehicles had arrived.

I was a lucky boy. I have a broken clavicle, road rash on my left arm and knee, and somehow a badly bruised big toe. And when the clavicle broke, it caused the left pectoral muscle to bruise. I told somebody it looked like I had the mammogram from hell.

The bike has relatively minor damage. There is a two inch by 1/4 inch scratch on the front fender. The outer chrome rim around the headlight is bent. The highway bar is scuffed and bent from the force of hitting the pavement. The saddle bag on that side of the bike encountered some pretty tough scuff marks but is still very usable.

I was glad to have a full face helmet on as there were some rather deep grooves running from the temple area to the chin. The helmet did exactly what it was supposed to do.

This was a tough way to learn a lesson on safety. A few weeks ago, a biker was killed when he couldn't stop short enough because he was following too closely. I was following too closely and had no margin for error. I thought the kids were tapping the brake light requesting me to back off. I certainly did not expect them to come to a complete stop.

I have proper gear...a protective jacket, gloves, helmet and boots. I was only wearing the helmet. From now on its all the protective gear or no riding. I'm not sure if the jacket would have stopped the broken clavicle but I am certain it would have prevented the road rash down my left arm.

Will I ride again? Absolutely! Just let me get the fracture healed and replace a couple of bike parts and buy a new helmet. Then its zoom, Zoom, ZOOM!