Potato sack races and three-legged races have been part of kid’s summer experiences and school activities for decades. But that’s no longer the case in Washington, England. School officials there have banned such events from an upcoming sports day because they say the children might hurt themselves.

Say what! Phil Gramm said we live in a society of wimps and he may very well be onto something. No more potato sack or three-legged races because the kids might hurt themselves. Give me a break. Simon Woolley, an education official in County Durham said, “We looked at a three-legged race and a sack race, but what we want to do is minimize the risk to the children.” So, what are the planned events? Woolley went on to say the kids will do some “hopping and running because there’s less chance of the children falling over.” They will also be allow to “toss ping pong balls into a bucket.” You better watch out for that game Mr. Woolley, the kids might get hurt if a ball bounces off the rim and hits them in the eye.

What is this world coming to!? Not only do we live in a society of wimps, but we’re creating a society of wimps. Of course much of the silliness revolves around the fact that we live in an age of litigation where people are looking for any reason to sue just to make a quick buck. As a result, we’re coddling our kids and creating a sense of fear about everything. Personally, I have no idea how my generation ever survived. We rode bicycles without helmets, and took vacations without seat belts. To top it all off, we also took part in potato sack and three-legged races, and from time to time, we even played dodge-ball! When will someone finally stand up and say — “Stop the foolishness!”

Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus

Come Monday, March 17 he will be known as former Governor Eliot Spitzer. He will also be known as the man who should have known better. He was a lawyer, the Attorney General of New York State, and someone who enforced law. But, obviously Spitzer thought he was above the law. In the end, as one law enforcement officer recently told me, he’s another example of a stupid criminal. That’s right folks, lets stop the pity-party-parade here for Spitzer and realize he’s nothing more than a criminal who bullied people and broke the law.

I’ve found it amazing how in this media-hyped sex-driven culture very few media outlets, or commentators, are talking about what really went on here. Instead, the sex scandal angle is pushed to the forefront, which in turn makes many people say - “Hey, it’s no big deal. It was just sex.” - Well, it goes beyond the sex scandal. As a matter of fact, it was Spitzers use of money, and transfering money around from one bank account to another bank account that led up to all of this!

That’s right folks, it’s less about sex and more about money.

For this very reason, Spitzer is in more trouble than many think. The case involving Spitzer started when banks noticed frequent cash transfers from several accounts and filed suspicious activity reports with the IRS. When the accounts were traced back to Spitzer, the case was then handed over to public corruption investigators. Once the FBI got involved, they set up wire taps, which in turn caught Spitzer in the sex scandal.

In other words, follow the money trail. This is less about sex and more about money. Eliot Spitzer was moving money around. Where did the money come from? I believe that’s where the real story is, and time will tell just how much of a criminal Spitzer really is.

It’s time to forget about Client 9 and wonder what Spitzer’s prison number might be.

Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus

In an interesting turn of events, that’s probably the only time Kurt saw or held the trophy for the day. Why you ask? The day after the race the young Kurt Busch, whom by the way just barely makes the legal drinking age, admitted in an interview that they did have beer in Victory Lane, and they did have quite a celebration. Now don’t get me totally wrong here. I understand they’re going to celebrate, but the rub comes with the staged celebration obviously put forth by a beer company.

First we have Kurt faking a drink from his unopened can, now Kurt admits when they left the track, they also left the trophy in Victory Lane! That’s right folks, in the midst of the media hype of making sure everyone gets drunk, no one on the team, NOT EVEN THE DRIVER WHO WON THE RACE, remembered to grab the trophy!

Good grief.

Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus

In the words of Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his ever popular Budweiser commercial, “Just because there’s Bud on the car, doesn’t mean there’s Bud IN the car.”

Someone needs to tell that to Kurt Busch, the driver of the #2 Miller Lite car.

First off, I thought it was supposed to be Gatorade in Victory Lane. Since when are drivers allowed to crack open a beer in Victory Lane? Then, Kurt Busch, who looks all of 12 anyway, tells everyone to run on out to their local store and buy some Miller Lite and party all week long! What a great role model that is. A race car driver wins a race, and then he encourages all his fans to go get drunk. I guess maybe he doesn’t mind contributing to the number of people with alcohol problems in the nation.

Now here’s the really funny aspect of this story. Kurt gets out of the car in Victory Lane at Pocono, someone hands him a can of Miller Lite, and he takes, what appears to be, a great big gulp of beer before the interview. But, when the camera panned back to show his hand holding onto the beer, it wasn’t even opened! Even our youngest son noticed that!

So, Busch goes through the entire interview, trying to cover up the brand name on the can while the camera pans back and forth, and then when the interview is finished, he fakes another drink from the closed can! He must have been practicing that one for a while, he even managed to fake a gulp to make it LOOK like he was drinking the beer.

Maybe Miller will come out with a new slogan to go against the Bud slogan. They can have a shot of Kurt Busch in Victory Lane with his can of beer and he can say something like — “Just because there’s Miller in the can, doesn’t mean there’s Miller in my mouth.”

If it wasn’t so laughable, I’d be upset that here we have another sports figure putting forth a very bad image for kids to be looking up to. Shame on Miller Lite for thinking it was a good idea to slip the can of beer into the post-race interview, and shame on the ever-image-conscious-NASCAR, if they don’t do something about the sudden appearance of their winning driver drinking beer in Victory Lane.

Just my two cents.
Dr. Rus

A number of years ago I discovered the writings of Thomas Merton. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the kindness of Dr. Jerry Mercer at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky who decided to offer his course on the writings of Thomas Merton during a semester that fit into my rather busy senior year. Merton was a Trappist Monk who spent most of his days at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, in silence, as a hermit. Thomas Merton was actually one of the last allowed to live the hermit life at Gethsemane. There he discovered the ever-present tension between living a holy life, in the midst of what can be a very unholy world.

Thomas Merton struggled with many internal battles. His life before the monastery was rather colorful. Some say he originally planned to become a Franciscan Monk. But, the day before he was to take his holy orders with the Franciscan monastery, he was called to the office and told he would not be accepted by the Franciscan order. Why? Some believe it was discovered Merton had a son out of wedlock for you see in the days before his conversion, he lived a rather wild life.

It’s here we discover the ever-present tension facing all of us in this journey we call life. In the midst of his past, Merton found himself living in the present, in the midst of a holy God, trying to sort out grace, mercy and yes, even life, as it relates to living a life for God. Some days are good, some days, not so good. While many days we’re simply faced with living life one step at a time.

In a July 1965 journal entry Merton writes; “Seeing more and more that my understanding of myself and of my life has always been most inadequate. Now that I want more than ever to see, I realize how difficult it is. (I have a sense that reality is smothered and words are substituted for it.) The job of the Church is to awaken in myself, and in others, the sense of real possibility and of truth, without arrogance and idealism. The terrible thing is we are often suffocated from the noise of our own propaganda, able to make ourselves believe whatever we want.”

What propaganda does the church put forth? What propaganda do we find ourselves believing as truth? How far have we truly strayed from the true message of the Gospel? How does all of this fit into the journey we call life?

The first Thomas Merton book I read was “New Seeds of Contemplation.” A truly fascinating book in which, as the title eludes to, Merton simply “contemplated” life. Maybe that’s where we’ve fallen short these days. In the midst of the suffocating noise of what many call truth, we’ve lost the ability to encourage people to truly contemplate, and discuss, what’s going on in life. But isn’t that where the rubber really hits the road?

In the midst of life, we discover a loving God who really does want to give us hope for the future.

Keep encouraged!
Dr. Rus

Once upon a time, in a land far away, when I was a young boy and thought I knew everything, life couldn’t have been better. Without a care in the world, well except for making sure the same amount of gas was in the car that was in it when I borrowed it from Dad, all that really mattered was having fun with friends.

I look back on those days with good memories. But to be honest, even though some say it would be nice to be a teenager again, I know I don’t want to go back to being a teen again. It’s not that my teen years were tough, I just don’t want to experience all that peer pressure again, nor have to worry about when my face is going to break out just before a date. Life for teens is also a lot different these days than when I was growing up. It’s true, we do live in a different world. While it would be nice to have the same moral base we once had, and it would be nice to not have to worry about all the trouble in the world today, there’s one thing we must reconcile within our lives. “The only constant in life, is change.”

As I look at how life rolls on these days, I must admit there are many blessings around me too. I guess I’ve never been one to look at a glass “half empty.” Instead, I’m the guy looking at the glass that’s “half full.” There are always options, and there are always incredible blessings on the way, or in our midst. All we need to do is open our eyes to see what’s going on around us, and in turn be thankful.

Could life be better? Sure. But, by who’s measuring stick are we using to measure betterness in life? As I sit here this morning I’m thinking about the wonderful blessings of family, friends, work, and yes, even a few material things. But most importantly, I’m thinking about the blessing of our middle son, who just returned from a mission trip to Mexico, who’s also another year older today.

Today Ryan is 17. That means tomorrow he’ll probably want to know if I’ll let him get his license yet so he can drive my Mustang!

Happy birthday Ryan!
Dad

Cool new feature on my webshots lets me put a slide show right here on my blog! Enjoy the collection of pictures from the opening day of the 31st Anniversary of the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York.

Every year we head out to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York and it’s always a great time. It’s one of our major summer promotions for the radio station I work at as well. Every Friday I interview someone from the festival, in character of course. It kicked off this time around with the annual interivew with Queen Elizabeth. That was followed by the Sheriff of the Shire, and now I’m getting set for interviews with Hey Nunnie Nunnie and Don Juan & Miguel. If you’re in the area, the festival is a must see! It runs weekends only until the weekend of August 19th this year. The weekends are always themed and there’s lots to do.

Here’s a picture of our fun from yesterday! This year Rachel arranged to have us get into costume for the festival. Thanks so much to Rachel, as well as Judy the wonderful costume designer who helped get us set for our day of fun stepping back in time.

Here we are with the Queen!

That’s “Ben the Pirate” (our youngest son). Sandra my wife, Queen Elizabeth, and me!

Can you tell we’re having fun!

Keep encouraged!
Dr. Rus

P.S. I’ll post some more pictures later!

I can take this no longer.

The talking heads on both radio and TV keep saying the problem with what’s going on in our nation today is a direct result of those in leadership ignoring the screamers of the nation. Time and time again we hear talk show hosts saying in the democracy we live in the elected officials have to listen to what the people are saying. While this is true, to a certain degree, there is one major flaw in such thinking. We do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. In other words, we the people elect to office people who are supposed to represent our views, and then make their decisions based on that. But, they make their own decisions.

What we have here is a breakdown of the basic understanding of rank and order and a breakdown of what it means to live in a republic, not a democracy. In other words, we the people elect those in political office to make the right decision. They don’t have to listen to what the people say because the whole idea of a republic is to put into place people of integrity and understanding to make those decisions for us. So, as far as the democratic society we live in today having the ability to stand up and scream something like “it’s our right to tell you how to run the country” is totally wrong. The only right we have as a people living in a republic is to vote out those in political office who have lost touch with what we the people hold to be true.

So, what are we to do? Instead of screaming at the politicians to listen to us as they shape government policy, we need to pray that they will make the right decisions. If we don’t like someone in office, then our democratic right is to vote them out of office. But the bottom line is this, when someone is elected to office, they then have the right, power and ability to make decisions concerning policy on our behalf, without fear of being screamed at.

As for the question of “who do we vote for” lets start looking for people of integrity instead of people who happen to have the deepest pockets. Lets look for people of integrity to elect to office. Lets begin holding party leaders accountable for whom they put forth as candidates. Time and time again those with integrity are not supported, but those with flamboyant lifestyles and obvious integrity issues, keep receiving support.

Instead of screaming, lets start looking for men and women of integrity and support them instead of some of the crooks we have in office these days.

Keep encouraged.
Dr. Rus

As most of you know who read this Blog, my wife and I are also movie critics. One of our main complaints about the Hollywood rating system revolves around the fact that in most cases those making the decisions about the MPAA rating have no idea what’s going on in the minds of parents these days. The MPAA is made up of a group of people out of touch with reality, and in many cases, out of touch with morality concerns.

Going over a This Date In History page this morning I came across a very interesting entry. It was on this date in 1947 that the classic film, Miracle on 34th Street opened. When it opened, the movie received a “B” rating as “morally objectionable.” Why? Because one of the main characters, a divorced woman, was shown in a sympathetic light.

Wow! Isn’t that amazing! It leaves me asking the question - Where are the people involved in that decision now!? Some of what gets through the movie sensors these days should be regulated to R rather quickly. But alas, that’s just not happening.

Keep encouraged!
Dr. Rus