4 lbs 9 oz.  We went up and held her today.  I should probably say I held her since I was hogging her for most of the time.  I couldn’t help it.  She’s so little and holdable and I was wearing my flannel shirt which she snuggled right into and well...Margaret kept on saying I should, so I did.  She’s just so hoggable...er...huggable.

They aren’t going to let her go home until later this week or early next week now.  She is still having times when her oxygen drops completely.  She is also not producing red blood cells the way she is supposed to and may need a transfusion to kick start her system.

If they send her home too soon and she needs to go back to the hospital, they won’t put her back in the NICU (Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit) but would put her in the pediatric ICU instead.  This would mean she would not have the close observation she currently enjoys.  Well, that’s okay.  Better safe than sorry.

Have you ever trimmed the nails on a cat or dog?  How about a rabbit?  You can easily sum it up in one word:  Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhh!  Tabitha, who has a part-time job as a Vet Assistant, although she often does Tech work, takes care of it for us with the help of the others.  Did you ever hear a cat cuss?  They growl and hiss and bite and scratchm but the dog is the worst.  It takes all of us to do her.  She acts as if you are torturing her, she fights and whines and yelps before you even get the clippers near her.  When it is all done she prances around like the Queen of Sheba.  She’s that way when she gets a bath, too.  The rabbit is actually very docile.  If Abby holds him, he just lets you do it.

Tabitha likes working in a vet’s office.  Doc is a congenial, older gent who has the personality and disposition to do his job.  He grew up in farm country in Nebraska and doesn’t do large animals.  He says he had enough as a kid.  He likes his job and it rubs off on Tabitha.  She helps him with surgeries, anesthesia, critter grooming as well as cleaning cages and walking dogs.  She started out as a volunteer cleaning cages and walking dogs and worked for several months that way until they wound up putting her on payroll.

Animals are interesting, that’s for sure and they do have the ability to learn (as I type this I recall Sam’s blog entry about bees' ability to learn) and depending on the animal, some of them are very intelligent.  They also develop feelings of loyalty and resentment.  I had some friends that visited the Holy Land who told me that if a camel becomes offended by you they will try to kill you, even if you have not been around him in years.  The only way to appease him is to have someone throw some of your clothing in a pen with him, which the camel tears to pieces.  The next day you can go by him again.

While I do not think animals are equal to humans and I certainly don’t think they have rights in the same sense of the word as humans, I do think there is something psychologically wrong with someone who is purposely, uselessly cruel to animals.  I am not talking about the use of animals in scientific experiments.  This is often necessary and has led to many important discoveries.  I am talking about some of the things you read about in the news that are too nasty to repeat in mixed company.  Many of the stories of the childhood of serial killers (Which I read in papers, I don’t buy their books) include stories of torturing small animals, pets, etc.

I think sometimes people get confused about the status of animals, however and don’t realize that part of our having dominion over them is managing them.  Herds of deer, elk, etc that are managed by hunting are healthier.  Cows and chickens could never live in the wild.

There was a subspecies of mouse here in Colorado called "Prebles Field Mouse" which was supposedly endangered and 30,000 acres of land, much of it ranch and development areas was held up for several years because of it, only to discover it wasn’t really endangered at all.  A mouse prevented many people from livelihood including ranchers whose families have been here for over a hundred years.  This is stupid.  First of all, anyone who has ever had any experience with mice knows that if a species of mouse is endangered it is because it must be stupid.  Whoever heard of a mouse that couldn’t adapt to adverse conditions and propagate itself?  This feller can jump 18 inches in the air, covering 3 feet and can swim.  Gestation is 17 to 21 days.  I get to be out on the eastern plains of Colorado every day and I see the raptors and coyotes that would feed on this mouse and they either are doing just fine without it or have found some.  This is probably because now science has discovered that there is no significant difference between it and the common North American Jumping Mouse.  (Link to report from Denver Museum)  Anyone remember the Snail Darter?

How about prairie dogs?  If you have never lived in ranch country, you might think they are just cute little creatures and cannot understand why those awful mean men would have contests to see how many they can shoot when they stick their heads out of a hole.  This is because you have never lost a cow to a broken leg because he’s stepped in one of their holes or had a friend injured because his horse stepped in one and broke it’s leg and landed on him.  This is not counting all the ecological havoc they wreak on grazing land.  They are rodents and vermin and it is a fun game that has a purpose.

Here’s another point to consider about endangered species, also.  In countries where endangered species like are kept on preserves that are allowed to make money from them, the populations of these critters flourish and grow, whereas in other countries the populations are in constant danger from poaching and the numbers of them are dwindling.  That’s because in the first example, money is involved.  They can make a buck on a buck and do something good at the same time so they capitalize on the idea of conserving species.

Part of the problem is that we are not all raised the same and  do not see the world in the same way.  I grew up in a culture where deer hunting is not only acceptable but necessary to the health and well-being not only of its own herd but of many other animals as well.  It has never bothered me that people kill and eat them.  Cows either.  To me it is as natural as breathing that we eat many different kinds of meat.

If you want to be a vegetarian and are fully persuaded in your mind, that’s fine.  Please do.  I can respect and even, to a point, understand your view.  I have at least made an attempt to respect and understand your beliefs, at least give me the same courtesy to legally hunt for whatever reason I might choose, whether it is the thrill and sport of outwitting a trophy animal, or for food, or whatever reason, leave me alone as well.

If I choose to try to outwit a creature whose every instinct and learned behavior says that I am it’s enemy, and I hunt it down and kill it and choose to enjoy a buffalo burger or a venison sausage, that’s what I should be able to do.  If it’s not opening day and you want to try to persuade me, I will probably respect you enough to hear you out, if you will listen to me as well.

I think that, if you don’t throw red paint on my wife’s fur coat (she’s saying, "What fur coat?") then I won’t throw a punch at you and we will be one step closer to civilizing the world.

Remember, the Good Book says, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

Woo-hoo!  It's Groundhog's day today.  This is the day when everyone in America slaughters their pigs and makes sausage from them.

Well...It could havehappened that way!

Really, everyone needs to find a groundhog hole or woodchuck burrow and watch when the little rascal pops his out.  Just shoot him, so he doesn't stand a chance to see his shadow and give us 6 more weeks of winter.

Groundhogs are good with ketchup, aren't they?

Ever since Nicole, whom people think is so nice and sweet, mentioned in one of her holiday entries that she was baking cookies and brownies, Scott W and I have been trying to get her to make us some.  We need to judge whether they are good or not.  She sent us an e-mail saying she was going to and sent this:

A PICTURE of the brownies!

Carter, put away the ketchup bottle.  No.  No ketchup on brownies.

As the Good Book says:  Some people think they’re pretty funny but they’d better make us some real brownies now!

Just got a call from Isabel at the hospital.  Savannah has been nippling all of her feedings and no longer has the tube down her throat.  If she can keep on with that, she could be home as early as next week!  Yes way!  Then they will test her and see if she is able to sit in the car seat for a half an hour to 45 minutes or more.  Ben and Isabel have taken their infant CPR classes already and they will probably get a heart monitor sent home as a precaution.  She will have oxygen at home as well.

 

It is hard to not be excited because even though there have been so many setbacks, she has fought her way through each one.  I think this is another area where we will just have to trust God.  You know, if you think about life in general, that is what you have to do anyway.  You have to trust God that he will watch over you and do what is best for you.

 

We had a missionary here who told about some church folks who were sitting in a beachside restaurant on December 26^th and were feeling kind of down that they couldn’t get a beach cabin.  They thought they had one reserved and this vacation was supposed to be a present for the kids, but when they got there they found out they had to take a cabin on top of the hill.  When they finished eating they decided they would just make the best of it and went back up the hill to the cabin.  The wave hit immediately after they got in the cabin and the restaurant they had just been in was gone.  The wife was a registered nurse, which needs no comment.

 

No human mind can plan such a thing and no human mind can comprehend the sum of God’s plans.  I said that to say that I have a personal belief that Savannah has been protected and helped by God and when she comes home, she is still in the hands of God.  We are all clueless as to the tragedies and joys that await us in life and it is why we have to love and appreciate the people we have while we have them.  I apologize for the digression, yet I don’t.  My heart is full.

 

The Good Book says, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet.”  Or, er, something like that.

 

AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH  I apologize that I had to edit this twice.  If you get the e-mail update, I'm sorry!

Ben and Isabel stopped by last night and Savannah is 4 lbs 5 ounces now.  Her de-statting is becoming less frequent all the time.  We are hopeful for her soon release.  Ben is going to check on her ketchup levels and report back per Carter’s suggestion.

 

In case Carter doesn’t add his comment in the previous entry, it was his new BDUs.  Ben laughed when I told him I said Carter should pack his dress greens and wear ‘em and come visit Savannah and hold her.  I also forgot to mention to you that we called Carter on Ben’s 16^th birthday but he was feeling too old to come and beat up Ben.

 

People still ask how I can stand getting up so early.  I get up, oftentimes without an alarm clock, about 3:30 every morning.  Sometimes I will sleep in until 4:15 and when I was really sick, I slept in until 5:00!  The reason I get up early is that this is a quiet time around the house and is about the only time I can get any real writing done, which these days seems to consist of blogging and e-mail.  There are times when I will just spend my time writing and not even get on the internet at all, but then I have to play catch-up which is not to be confused with playing in the ketchup.

 

First I check my 2 main e-mail accounts, and try to respond to whatever is in them.  I also have a couple of other accounts that I use mainly for junk mail, like when you sign up at a website that you have a feeling is going to sell you.

 

My problem with e-mail is that when I get a message, I feel that I need to respond to it like a regular correspondence, point for point.  Then, when I get a response to that, I reply.  Some people just reply once and then quit, but I can’t seem to do that, so if you write to me, I’ll get back to you in the same amount of detail, and we can have quite the in-depth conversation.  This takes time, however.

Then I have two sets of blogs I read.  (I am going to have to update my blog links list again soon.  Do you guys ever visit any of these blogs I have linked?  Just curious.  Sometimes I will click on a link on someone’s blog I am reading and find another interesting blog that way.)  The ones I consider my friends, who I have permission to link too and all others that are either people I don’t really know, but have interesting things to say, either once in a while or all the time.  Sometimes I run out of time and these are the first ones to go.

There are 10 blogs that I try to check every day without fail.  There used to be 12, but Elizabeth gave it up.  Fortunately some of these folks are like me and don’t update every day, or I would not be able to do it.  Then there are 7 that I read on occasion, but not all the time, although sometimes I will try to catch up on all of their entries.  These are people I don’t really know at all, and a couple are ones that I don’t always agree with (although many people will tell you I am just plain disagreeable to begin with) and don’t agree with the way they choose to express themselves, either in their choice of words or images.  They have good and interesting things to say, also, however, and I take the good with the bad.

I try to leave a comment when I can and will join in the “chatterboxes” occasionally as well.

 

This blog reading process can take a while.  Here is the list, not in order of importance, or even the order I check them, but just a list of blogs I check.  First are people who have given me permission to post links to their blogs.

Nicole.  She likes people to leave a note somewhere so she knows someone has visited.  http://nicoler.blogdrive.com/

 

Ashley, who is just getting hers started.  She used to be online all the time, but not so much now anymore.  She has friends from all around the world who will be excited about this news.  http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Abubblyfriend

 

Carter.  My friend.  Occasionally his language may get the best of him, but he is (don’t ever tell him I said this) very intelligent and witty and has knowledge of a wide range of topics from all manner of military history to the nuances of various brands of ketchup and many things in between.  http://carterking.blogspot.com/

 

Sam is a student in Singapore and has a very, very broad range of topics.  We met by accident and have become friends.  This is one of my faves.  http://samsam.blogdrive.com/

 

Susan, to whom I refer as Susan the Speeder because she is forever getting stopped by the Oklahoma State Patrol for speeding, but never getting any tickets.  I think they must all be male officers that stop her.  She has many good things to say and it is worth reading her back entries if you have time.  I have linked to her entry http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?tab=weblogs&user=sbalak&uid=174359431 about tips for modesty for men and women before as well as referred to things she has said.  I also like her keynote signature, “Much love and...”  She is at http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=sbalak

 

Mandy, a Texan, aspiring writer and all around just nice person is at http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=crzytexaschiq

 

Jinny, a friend of Sam’s originally and has since become a friend of mine.  When the tidal wave hit and I didn’t know any geography of the region I wrote to her and asked her about Sam because I was worried.  Turns out Sam just had a r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w connection.  She lives and goes to school in England.  http://jincruise.blogdrive.com/

 

Cindy and I used to work together but she is an extremely busy graphics arts student and doesn’t update hers very often at all but she actually got me interested in blogging in the first place.  http://strobelight.blogdrive.com/

 

Then I visit my 2 blogs and answer any comments or messages on either one of them.  I do this before I update them.  Please answer my poll question about the humor blog.  I’m going to keep it anyway, but I do wonder sometimes about it.  http://herbthiel.blogdrive.com/ & http://herbshumor.blogdrive.com/

 

I also check the Boy Scout page to see what atrocities they have committed.  http://www.bsalegal.org/

 

After that I check 2 humor sites, http://www.engrish.com/ which is a good-natured look at the misinterpretations that occur around the world and http://www.regrettheerror.com/  which tells about misprints in the news.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Occasionally I will visit the following blogs.  These are some that I have run across on my travels and think are interesting at times.

 

http://clintsday2day.blogspot.com/

 

http://skullbone.blogdrive.com/

 

http://hevenz-pasifyr.blogdrive.com/

 

http://aemilia.blogdrive.com/

 

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=kelbel53185

 

http://www.lilyger.blogspot.com/

 

http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/ (About the only “professional” one I read, and that is only occasional)

 

So, there ya have it.  If I get an inspiration for any other writing I will have to forego these pleasures, of course.

Remember, as the Good Book says, Whatever you find to do, do it!

Today our Savannah is 2 months old!  Yep.  2 months have gone by since they pulled her out with her little fist raised.  From 1 pound 8 ounces to 4 pounds 4 ounces!  I told her there were people all over the U.S.A. and around the globe that are and have been praying for her and hoping for her speedy health.  She is maintaining her body heat but she forgets to breathe when she is doing certain things and her stats drop.  She also still has the tube in her nose, but they are working on getting her to eat more by herself.

 

She is still smaller than either of the 2 preemies we had but that doesn’t look like it’s going to last for long.  We know God has helped her.  There is no question about it and we just trust Him.  She is still not out of the woods yet, but of course our hopes are raised each day with each new little victory.

 

Pretty soon Carter will have to buy a new set of B.D.U.s and come visit her.  This is an inside joke which is going to become an outside joke now.  (I hope no English students are using me for an example!)

 

Carter has always been a proud soldier.  We have known each other since, oh, I don’t know, around 1976 – 77?  He joined the Army the first time in the early 80’s, around the time I got married.  We corresponded sporadically and I sent a story called “The City Of Golden Beer Cans” which I had written in his honor.  I found the original copy recently and was absolutely appalled at the poor quality of the writing.  I may post it on the humor blog http://herbshumor.blogdrive.com/ (Do more than 3 people even look at the humor blog?) so you can laugh at my early writing as well as the story. 

 

Anyway, Ben was born April 19, 1983 and that year Carter was also home on leave.  The early 80’s were when the Army started phasing out the plain green uniform, which was comfortable and streamlined and replacing it with the “Battle Dress Uniform,” a camouflage thing that feels like pajamas when you wear it.  When I went in the Army the first time in 1981 we all had the plain green and ate C-rations but there was talk about the uniform and field chow changing and by the time I went in the second time in 1987, it was all BDUs and MREs.  The reason for this digression is to let you know how new the Battle Dress Uniform was.

 

Carter had bought a new set and brought them home on leave to show everyone, including me.  He came over to visit our new little family (He was at our wedding, which is a story fore another day) with them on, to let us see them.  Well, the proud soldier had ironed his uniform and really looked great when he came over.  He was watching Margaret change Ben’s diaper; she had just undone it and Ben took one look at him and hosed all over his new uniform!  Just got him before anybody could do anything about it.

 

Carter told Ben that when he turned 16, he would come back and beat him up.  We called Carter on Ben’s 16^th birthday but he changed his mind.

 

So, Carter will have to buy a new set of BDUs, no better yet, Carter will have to put on his dress greens and come visit Savannah.  Of course the way she is, he better not let her sit on his lap!

The Good Book says that “A friendly discussion is as stimulating as the sparks that fly when iron strikes iron.”

 

*****  Note  *****

Margaret remembers it as being his Dress Greens.  Maybe Carter will leave a comment.

**********

Okay folks, we have a 4 pounder!  Yep!  Actually 4 pounds 1 ounce.  She is now almost 16 inches long, too.  This little gal is getting to be a regular monster compared to her 1 pound 8 ounce, 13 inch start.  They are talking about a 2 - 3 week window when she may get to go home.  This is just in the talking stage at this point as she is still "de-statting," her monitors show she decides to quit breathing or her heart will stop, but the discussion is intense.  The criteria that the hospital is looking at is whether or not she can maintain her own body temperature, which she can, and whether she can "nipple" all of her own food, which she can’t.  She has to be able to take all of her meals from bottles and she is currently taking about half through the bottle and half pumped in through her nose, yet.

Ben and Isabel want to make sure that if she comes home she will not just wind up back in the hospital and also want the hospital to send along a heart monitor home.  This was what we did when we brought Abigail home, but they are saying it’s not necessary nowadays.  They can get a heart monitor that goes in the crib from "Babies-R-Us" but that does not address the underlying issue of why she is still "de-statting" all the time in the first place.  One of the theories lately is that she was really born at 27 weeks gestation, not the 29 they originally thought.  This would be a huge difference and mean she is actually doing much, much better than originally thought.

Her Great-Grandma, Grandma Pike, got to hold her Sunday.  She held her for a long time.  Of course, I did make sure I snuck a few minutes in too.  She had her eyes open for a long time.

Her digestive system is working.  When we were up there yesterday and Sunday, this baby made it very clear that some things are working just fine.  If she keeps this up she will say, "Grampa, pull my finger" instead of the other way around.  Carter, I was so proud there were tears in my eyes, although that may have been less from pride...let’s just say that she is turning out to be a real stinker.

I have been enjoying blog-surfing lately.  What I do is visit all of my friends’ blogs, first and leave comments where it seems appropriate to do so, and then, when I have a little time, I go visit the blogs of people’s names I have picked up along the way, either because they left a comment somewhere or someone else has recommended their blog or I just stumble upon it completely by accident.  The ones I don’t read or don’t read too often are the ones that are written in ThIs Up AnD dOwN stuff or are sooo far out there as to be unintelligible to me.  I also don’t care for real busy pages where there are a lot of animations or there is music playing or the writing doesn’t show up against the background.  I enjoy reading about what "normal, everyday" (I use the term normal in a very loose sense.  By it I mean I don’t read very many celebrities or ‘names’) people think about a variety of subjects or what goes on in their day-to-day life. 

I try to leave a comment as well, to let people know there are others out here reading their stuff.  That is, if it seems appropriate to do so.  If you leave a website listing when you leave a comment on some, it will link back to your blog.  I like when people join in our little sidebar conversations, but a comment will be around longer, so I like those, too.
Right now I check 17 blogs on a regular basis.  They are not all updated every day or at the same time, so I don’t wind up reading that many, usually.  Some are updated everyday, or more, but not all at the same time.  The first 9 are friends who are linked to at the right by their permission and 8 others, whose permission I don’t have, because I haven’t gotten around to asking permission and updating the list.  I guess you might ask, since they are on the WWW anyway, why would I bother asking, but it just seems polite.  Some people might not want to be too closely associated with an opinionated person like (Carter, they can’t smell my feet through the ‘puter, so that’s not it.) me.  I may be to conservative or too liberal, or I may talk too much about God or I may not talk enough about God, etc.  Anyway, I think asking before linking is the right thing to do.

Guess what else I learned?  If you have a Chevy or a Ford and the ignition switch goes out, you can get the switch, keys and all, and have it installed in an hour.  Not so with a 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan.  You have to wait until the dealer decides that he has time to deliver the part to your mechanic, which he may not be too quick to do since you are not having the work done there.  When it comes, it is in a little bag full of tumbler rods and springs and must be assembled by a locksmith who builds it to match your key.  If the locksmith next door to your shop has gone out on a couple of calls and will be back after closing, then, even though you have waited for 3 hours for the part to arrive and the mechanic has your steering column disassembled waiting for it, the whole operation can wind up taking well into the next day.  Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Well, I have to go and punch up my resume a bit.  Yes, there may be changes afoot for Herb, but there is nothing to say at this point.  Always keep your resume up-to-date and maintain confidence in your own abilities.

Remember, the Good Book says, "If ya don’t work, ya don’t eat."

The pix are up of Margaret and I holding baby Savannah.  http://herbthiel.blogdrive.com/galleries  You can see where she is touching the snap on my western shirt.  It won’t be long and we’ll be able to put a little pair of boots on her and a little hat...yeehaw!  She looks more and more like Isabel as time goes on.  3 lbs 11 oz at last report!  There has been discussion of the idea of sending her home in a couple of weeks, but that has only been talk, there is no way she is ready, as of yet.  She keeps getting bigger and stronger, though.

Other notes in this hodgepodge conglomeration of rambling thoughts.

You always hear the kook-left liberals teaching their claim that we all should be "tolerant" of others.  This is often merely euphemistic doubletalk meaning, "accept the gay agenda and the atheist lifestyle while we pummel any rights you have."  Why else would they be claiming that the president’s speech was too "God-soaked?"  I thought his speech was really very inclusive and in the spirit of our founding fathers, who also looked to "The Maker of Heaven and Earth" for their guidance as well.  In his 21 minute speech, in which he mentions the concept of freedom 48 times, he mentions things like "private character" and "the rule of conscience."  If that didn’t make them angry, they must have blown a gasket when he said, "Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth."  I am SO PROUD to be an American these days and I am proud of a man who will be a man and say what he believes, not what he thinks will win him the most points.  Of course if you meet ranchers, farmers and other real working American people, you will find that we as a people are outspoken and plainspoken and won’t back down from anyone, especially some two-bit tinhorn dictator that rules by rape and murder and fear and will kill his own people with horrible weapons.

There is something wrong with a mind that cannot see how much better off the world is with free people governing themselves.  The lefty media doesn’t tell you about all the hospitals, roads, and schools, where even girls can attend, but rather what some nut job, who is not even an Iraqi citizen, has blown up.  Or how, when we have killed 1,500 of the enemy in one battle, they tell you about the 8 of our guys who were killed.  Obviously that is a victory above a tragedy.

What probably made them really mad was when he said "God moves and chooses as He wills."  Or "May God bless you, and may he watch over the United States of America."  Or how about the Reverend’s benediction?  The man had the nerve to pray in Jesus’ name!  So, anyway, where is the tolerance and love the left-wing preaches about?  Why can they preach the acceptance of atheism but scream at the beliefs of others?

Alrighty.  Change of subject.  If you have ever read a western, had a dog, lived on ranch, just like to have fun, read "Hank the Cowdog."  They are actually for a young audience, but I find myself splitting my sides when I read them.  I have read 1 - 8 and 32, so far.  Try reading them aloud to little kids for a real challenge.

Well, everyone’s getting up and it’s getting harder to concentrate, so I will leave you for the nonce.

Remember, the Good Book says, "There is a time for strength and a time for weakness...a time for peace and a time for war."

Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end all the way to the top of my head.

 

I was totally creeped out.

 

What could do that?  Well, folks, I forced myself to re-read George Orwell’s “1984” again.  I am not a fan of Orwell and had not read this book since high school, but it is an important book that everyone should read.  It is not a great book and has a couple of boring spots, one of which is a twenty-four page book-within-a-book that basically seems to outline Orwell’s own philosophies and socialist ideas.  Keep reading though.  Even this has a part to play in the overall book itself.

 

I have said that I think everyone should read it, and I really think you should, even if some of the scenes disturb you.  That is the idea.  If you are one of those Christians that do not read any fiction or your whole reading background up to this point has been “Christian Romance” then you probably will find this book both disturbing and disturbed but, even so, I think it is important.

 

I also think Orwell must have been a load of fun at parties.

 

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”  And so we are introduced to the book and the main character, Winston Smith, a member of The Party.  With pictures everywhere of Big Brother watching you, we enter his life.  Everywhere there are “telescreens” that are switched on continually and blather out the official news that the party wants you to hear.  They are more than receivers, however, they are also transmitters so the Thought Police can observe your every action.  They are trained in psychology and the reading of even the minutest detail of facial expression and can predict what you think better than if they could merely read your mind.  They can tell when you are going to commit a crime before you have even decided to do it.  Even if you have only had a bad thought you can be arrested and taken to the Ministry of Love. 

 

There are four such ministries…Oh man!  I had the book sitting on the top of the smallest pile of stuff on my desk so I could reference it for a couple of quotes and went to look for it to verify the names of the four ministries and the book is gone!  My heart started racing and my blood pressure went up.  You can say that’s stupid and illogical, but that just means you haven’t read the book.  Whew.  I found it in a different pile.  It’s not where I remember leaving it, however.

 

Okay.  There are four ministries which run the country, The Ministry of Love, The Ministry of Truth, The Ministry of Peace and The Ministry of Plenty.  The Ministry of Truth is where Winston works.  His job is to make sure the news says exactly what the party wants it to say even if that means going back and changing stories that had appeared before.  You make sure that there are no existing copies and/or have them all recalled, then rewrite the story to whatever fits the needs of the party.  The Ministry of Peace is concerned with the ongoing war efforts, the Ministry of Plenty controls the economic indicators and the Ministry of Love is where the Thought Police do their business of correcting aberrant behavior, such as thinking bad thoughts, like there may be something wrong with this system.

 

“Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.”

 

While I read this book, with the mustachioed Big Brother watching me, I thought of Saddam Hussein, The Taliban, Hitler, Iran, Communist China and the former Soviet Union Communists.  Their total power over people’s lives, the way dissenting voices were and are dealt with, and their proclamations of how their countries are full of peace and plenty parallel closely with this book.  Look at how Saddam had worked himself into all of the history books and compare that to the revisionist historians in our own country that want to rewrite the lives of our founding fathers and take any mention of God out of their lives.  Notice how they dwell on the character flaws that each one had and not the greatness, strength of character and faith that was required to pull off a rebellion such as they did.

 

Could the United States ever become Oceania?  I think that any time a political party wants the government to be in charge of something rather than the individual, we are at danger.  Obviously we must have laws, but the more the government gets involved in anything, the more dangerous it is and the more detrimental to society as a whole.  While I was standing in one of the ridiculously long lines at the driver’s license bureau the man behind me, we had been in line together for two hours at this time, told me that he had visited Communist and Socialist countries and this was what it was like to do anything.  Want food?  Stand in line for your ration.  Need medicine or a doctor?  Get in line.  Get the government out of it and the opposite happens.  Grocery stores and convenience stores and bookstores pop up everywhere.  There is competition and prices go down, service goes up.  If the government ran a bookstore, there would be many titles that would be hard to get.  1984 might be one of them.

 

Read the book.  Don’t read anything that might give away the ending, like introductions, prefaces, etc, but start at chapter one, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” And read to the end, the last four words.  Don’t cheat yourself by sneaking a peek (I had to cover the last paragraph with a 3x5 card to avoid doing that) but just read it, even through the boring and tedious parts.  Maybe your skin won’t crawl and the hair on the back of your head may not stand on end, and perhaps you will come to hate Orwell and his writing as much as I do, but your way of thinking and the way you see the world will change.

 

A final note to Christians who may have read the “Left Behind” series (I am not criticizing the authors, necessarily, who have made a pretty penny on the books, merely an idea that Christians may develop from them) and somehow have gotten in your head the idea that you will be able to avoid the Mark of the Beast and survive the Great Tribulation, forget it.  If you cannot live for God now, with His Spirit in the world, you will never last.  NO gentile will be saved after the Church is raptured or more accurately, “caught away”.  NONE.  If you think you somehow will, read 1984.  Orwell was not writing with a Christian audience in mind and to what little I know of him did not believe, but there is a definite application here.  Read this book and think about modern technology, GPS, the Internet, tracking chips for animals which are now being recommended for Alzheimer’s patients and many other advances above and beyond television, spycam style webcams for instance and you will see, NO gentile will avoid The Mark.

 

¹⁶And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: ¹⁷And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ¹⁸Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.  Revelation 13:16-18

 

I am going to read “Hank The Cowdog in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” next.

They moved the baby back to the first NICU she started in.  The one she had moved to was for babies that didn’t need as much attention and she was "de-statting" too much.  That means that her instrument panel was going off too much.  Her oxygen drops, etc.  She also threw up one of the bottles they gave her.  No, I don’t think anyone showed her a picture of Carter, but that could do it.

She has the "burp" tube back down in her stomach, which was to catch the acids from her reflux.  The feeding tube down her nose had to be moved back to her mouth as well because she was getting nosebleeds.

Oh well.  I don’t know what this means as far as holding her goes but I am sure it is a rule of the upstairs NICU.  *heavy sigh*  Alas and alack! 

I pick on Carter, but he is a good soldier and a good friend and you all would appreciate our country being defended by the likes of him.  (He still owes me $5 and that should prompt payment.)

As the good book says, "Life is full of ups and downs, so sometimes you gotta go sideways."