Money and the government...need I say more?

I got a heads up on this video from the John Birch Society...this is serious stuff.




In the mid-nineteenth century America was in similar circumstances. True it was individual banks rather than the government printing the money, but the money was being printed without the backing of real currency-gold or silver.

How did we solve it then? Well we created a common currency and tied it to something with real value-gold. Did the economy of that time get turned on its head? Yes! Did America survive? Yes! Did we learn from history? Apparently not.

We are now mired so deep in debt, and so entrenched in the habit of debt that the government thinks that more dept and the resulting devaluation of our currency is a solution! Are we so in love with the things that our debt provides for us that we cannot see the root of this love smothering our own heart and soul? The lie of prosperity we have perpetuated for the last twenty years has come to light; I say it's time to start digging out the stifling root that got us here, and fall out of love with debt and money, government and people alike.

It's time for a rumble: We The People VS. Washington DC. This has become a defining social issue as much as it is a fiscal issue. The freedom of the average American family to save and to provide for their own needs, to plan for the future with confidence is slowly being squelched; squashed into oblivion. It's time for the 100 million of the Family Research Council, the Focus on the Family, the CATO Institute, the John Birch Society and every other freedom loving organization, but most especially individuals, to become the voice of reason and the fostering force for conscience in the mind of every congressman and senator, and in the mind of our president.

We must drown out the chaos of the lobbyists and the special interest groups with a firm and uninterrupted flow of communication and with united purpose and resolve. We The People have allowed the creation of they the government, and have through inaction, fostered it's growth to a great and festering blight on the body of freedom, the constitution and the founding ideals of America.

We can no longer simply enjoy our freedoms and idly leave the governance of our nation to others. Nor can we tolerate the ignorance, disregard and inaction of our elected officials. If they will not serve honorably, they must be pulled down ignominiously. If they cannot hold aloft the torch of freedom for fear they cannot hide, then we must hold it up and and bring to light every concealed action and closed door conversation.

I know personally people who have not voted because of apathy in three or more presidential election cycles. Awake America, Arise America, Be America!

They the government, their days are numbered. This bloated boil that sits atop a deep abscess must be cut away and the infection scraped out, however deep it may be, so that healing may begin. Borrowing must end, entitlements must decrease and then end, and spending must become balanced. Taxes must decrease to the point of only sustaining actual needs and government budgetary surpluses must be kept at acceptable levels not spent on the whims of the electors as dictated by the voice of the party or the lobby or the special interest. Now is the time! Wherever we stand is the place! We must raise our voices high and be heard.

It's time for a change that we make.

The week after surgery

So I decided to go back to work last week...dumb move.

Beside there being way too much to do compressed into the last week before the yearly University two week shut down I had knee surgery three days ago!

I went home at the end of Monday exhausted, and thinking 'only a few more days'. I went home Tuesday exhausted, and thinking 'I have to go back for that installation meeting in the morning'. I came home Wednesday for lunch and fell asleep for three hours.

God knew I was going to try to finish out the week so...on Thursday the University sent everyone home at lunch time because of the impending ice storm.

The ice storm happened but there wasn't any damage in our area and the roads were blessedly clear the next day because Friday I had an appointment at Johnson County Orthopedics to get my sutures out. So we were up early Friday and driving.

If you have never had the opportunity to watch someone pull metal staples out of your skin, it's pretty cool! They have this tool that is shaped like a mini sheet metal crimper that grips the center of the staple and presses it down between two prongs and curls the ends up and out of your skin. I had always wondered how they did that; now I know.

So, I walked into the appointment on crutches, and after the nurse and the doctor were finished with their work the Athletic Trainer came in. He told me to get rid of the crutches and the brace; said didn't need them, at least at home. So I've taken him at his word and it's been great.

The main reason for this blog post is to show you some pictures from the week after surgery...


You can see the three small holes around the knee cap for the orthoscope the meniscus repair, two on the right and one low on the left; the other two holes served multiple purposes: drilling holes in the bone to set the new ACL and getting hamstring tendons for the repair and whatever else, I'm not sure. All in all not very invasive considering what I've seen on others.

My bruising on the other hand is impressive to say the least, so without further adieu:



One of the reasons it's so bad is that they used a tourniquet during surgery to control blood lose.

The long and the short of it is that I'm healing, I'm walking, and I have a couple of weeks of vacation coming up filled with family time and great activities, and may be even some time alone with my sweetheart! I'm not jumping for joy...because it hurts, so I'm sitting with energy.

Merry Christmas.

I had a successful knee surgery on 11 Dec. The doctors fixed my ACL as planned but also fixed my MCL and cleaned up my Meniscus since there was a considerable amount of scar tissue; there was a lot of damage. All things considered the doctor told Amber that my knee would be better than most men's knees till the arthritis starts setting in twenty or so years from now.

Amber waited patiently the whole time amd drove us home afterword. She's wonderful.

Compaired to my previous general anesthetic experience this went very well...no nausia afterword, I was able to eat as soon as we got home without any problems, which was very nice since I had been fasting since the previous days lunch.

Goerge was a trooper the whole time, I think he slept the mjority of the time we were on the road. Uncharactoristically Amber did not have the camera with her so we don't have pictures of the facility, doctors, nurses, and before and after of the leg, I guess you will just have to imagine a really nice facility and lots of great poeple...and of course my beautiful leg with the middle third shaven and then wrapped quite tightly to cover the five little incisions they made to fix it up; hows that for a picture?!

Now a couple of days later I am feeling rather useless on the couch as I have a hard time completing my physical therepy excersizes or getting up to do anything else at all. Yesterday I had my first physical therepy appointment, which though somewhat painful, I thought went rather well. Chad (the therepist) was impressed that I could, the day after surgery, bend my leg more than 90 degrees and straighten it out to 0 degrees. The leg lifts are a little painful but the bending stuff really smarts every now and then.

That's life right now...eat, take pain pill, sleep a little, hold George, change the occational bum (not mine), excersize, eat, pain pill, sleep, repete. I'm going to try to go back to work Monday, I'm not sure how that will go, but I think I'll be glad of something else to do. We only have another week before the university shuts down for a couple of weeks for Christmas and New Years Day so I will have some unstructured recovery time and hope to make the best of it.

It would really nice to be walking after the first of the year; I think that is realistic. I go in next Friday to get my stitches and staples out we will see what the doctor says then.

Honesty in Political Advertising

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Mormon.org - The Restoration of Truth

Mormon.org - The Restoration of Truth

I love this very eloquent and simple testimony that the Lord's words never cease. It portrays my feelings and beliefs about revelation and an open cannon of scripture. The Lord loves us and will never leave us alone in the darkness of this world without the comfort of His never ceasing word.

Evolutionary Thought

What I think I am, what I think I was created to be, what I think I should be...

In the end it is only what I choose to be that matters.

I cannot think of a more simple synopsis of the meaning of life: thoughts and actions. I am made of that which is acted upon, but I am that which acts; I build, I begin, I create, I complete. I also dream, and imagine, and believe, and think, but the substance of these is in the action. Without action I am merely that which is acted upon.

Choice is the end of life, and the beginning; but if I do not choose I never live, I only exist.

Evolutionary theory has a new twist: self-determination. Self-determination recognizes that there is natural order in all things...snow flakes, lipids, genes, etc; when acted upon, everything changes to a more ordered state.

There is a wonderful step forward in this line if thinking, but the idea of a rock self-determining in the midst of a magma flow is quite absurd since the elements that compose the rock and every other kind of element for that matter have no self, they are not that which acts but that which is acted upon. So what does determine this order? Does it change? Are there exceptions? How did the order come to be? If we understand the workings of this order where does that lead? If we understand the workings of this order can we determine the end results? Can we change the results within the framework of this order? Points to ponder.

Family Vacation

On the 14 of June we arrived home from a long anticipated family vacation. We left home on the 29 of May en route to Denver Colorado for the Mason Family Reunion and arrived late in the afternoon. Grandpa Mason provided us and everyone else rooms in a posh hotel for three or four nights and we enjoyed being reacquainted with aunts, uncles, and cousins (and lots of second cousins at this point).

This is the over head picture of the pizza party we had on Saturday night, it was mostly Galbraith's, but then most of the family are Galbraith's, more than two thirds.

One of my favorite parts of the family reunion was staying up till two or three a.m. playing cards with Dad, Nathanael, and Ryan; we did that two nights running. It was fun to just relax, talk, and tell jokes and stories with them; it's kind of a tradition that Dad and I started at the first Mason Family Reunion in 1997.

We went to the Denver temple on Friday and that was the first time that I have been in the temple with all of my married siblings at the same time; eight of us are married now. We did a sealing session with Grandpa and the spirit and experience were great. I think that was the most poignant moment in the whole reunion for me except possibly the fast and testimony meeting we attended with Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday. I got up to bare testimony and testified about families in our Heavenly Father's Plan and paid tribute Chet and Mary Lou Mason as the great patriarch and matriarch of our family.

On Monday the 2 of June we packed up and headed for Utah and our great friends the DeMille's.