The Myth About Drilling For Oil

In the current election cycle, we’ve heard from Republican candidates about how we can reduce high gasoline prices by drilling more domestic oil wells here in the US. You should know that suggestion is nothing short of campaign myth.

Refining capacity and domestic consumption aside, the price of crude oil is the single biggest factor affecting gasoline prices. As oil prices rise, gasoline prices rise, too. However, prices for crude oil are not set by a national market. As a general rule, oil produced from a well in Texas goes into the global bucket with oil from every other region in the world. Minor variations in price are based on sulfur content of the oil and transportation costs, not simply on the region from which it came. For more US drilling to change the price of oil, we would have to increase our production to a level high enough to lower the global market price (by increasing the amount of oil available in the market, therefore driving down prices). Based on oil production alone, moving gasoline prices from $5 per gallon to $2.50 per gallon would require a doubling of current global oil production.

Global oil production stands at a rate of 74 million barrels per day. In order to double global oil production, thereby reducing the cost of oil by one-half, the US would have to produce 74 million barrels of oil per day. US production, already the third largest in the world, is currently 6 million barrels per day. Moving the global market price low enough to drop oil prices to half the current price would require the US to raise its production by 12 times its current rate. The US currently has about 530,000 oil wells in production. Increasing production levels to twelve times the current rate would require more than 6 million new wells. Even if the US had the reserves to exploit, drilling that many new wells would be physically impossible.

Merely meeting US demand with US oil, a presupposition behind the call for additional drilling, would be equally impossible and do little to affect the price of oil. Currently, the US consumes about 19 million barrels of oil per day. With production at 6 million barrels per day, the US would have to triple domestic production in order to meet current demand. That alone would require the addition of a million new wells and would still not insulate US consumers from the effect of global oil prices. Simply producing as much oil as we consume would yield no market dynamic that would force oil companies to sell their oil at prices below that fixed by the global market.

Penn State

I want to believe the Penn State trustees acted from righteous indignation, but the cynic in me wonders if they weren't merely attempting to get ahead of the lawsuits, the NCAA, and the media. That doubt about their motives stems from the fact that everyone associated with the situation failed, and they failed because of the potential consequences that doing the right thing might have had on their own careers.

The graduate assistant - told his father and Paterno, and left it at that. Paterno - told a school official the next day, and left it at that. School officials - took away Sandusky's locker room privileges, and left it at that. Yet NO ONE CALLED THE POLICE - and meanwhile, a kid is getting his anus ripped out.

Paterno, being Paterno, could have called the police that night and they would have responded immediately. He could have had the grad assistant drive him over to the locker room, then to Sandusky's house. They could have made a huge deal out of it right then because a child was involved and the threat was immediate.

But they didn't. And I think they didn't because they knew that if Sandusky wiggled away from the charge, they would all see their careers evaporate. This is "winning is everything" taken to the extreme and it's an attitude and culture that permeates the entire school - you can see it in the reaction of the students - and it permeates all of college football. No one cares about anything except winning.

If there was ever "lack of institutional control" this is it. And I, for once, hope the NCAA gets into this case and closes the program and goes on a rampage through the ranks of college football and cleans house and rids the entire system of its obsession with winning and money. But they won't. And they won't for the same reasons no one acted to stop Sandusky - they're afraid of what will happen to their own status and position.

STAGES OF VOTING IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS

Even though the next presidential election is still more than a year away, political pundits are busy trying to figure out who the current Republican frontrunner might be and which of the contenders might have a realistic hope of obtaining the Party’s nomination and a realistic possibility of unseating President Obama. Having observed elections both up close and from the ease of my sofa, I have found that voting for candidates occurs in lengthy selection process that includes at least five stages. The outcome of each round in that process narrows the field of candidates and provides clues to the identity of the potential winner.

The first votes in an election are cast by political operatives. Working in the backrooms and back roads of America, they scour the country for candidates who will stand for election to offices at every level – city, county, state, national. Some of these operatives are party loyalists who see it as their duty to ferret out candidates who agree with their positions. Far more are paid employees of large corporations or influential political action committees. These operatives make their living locating candidates who agree with their employers’ political positions and facilitating their rise to office. Once they locate the right candidate, they offer inducements to entice the candidate to seek elected office. Those inducements include campaign contributions, technical assistance, and election expertise. The selection process by which these operatives find their candidates comprises the first round of voting. Candidates who are selected in this manner have a far better chance of success than those who choose to run for office simply on their own decision.

After professional political operatives vote, the potential candidates vote. They vote in the affirmative for themselves by agreeing to seek office. They signify that decision by filing the necessary documents to form a campaign committee and qualify with their party. That is the second round of voting.

At the third stage, major donors cast their votes. This is the point at which wealthy individuals, corporations, political action committees and the like make their choices from the field of candidates already winnowed by the previous stages of the process. In almost all elections, candidates who raise the most money – and raise it early – win the election. They get that money from a select group of major donors. You can see some of the major donors for President Obama and John McCain from the 2008 election by clicking on the links.

Then, in the fourth stage, those citizens who are registered voters enter the process. In elections for state and national offices they make their initial selections from among a slate of candidates in a party primary election.  That first round of voting narrows the field of candidates further, reducing the field to just one candidate per party for each office.

Finally, after these four rounds of selections are made, the electors go to the polls in the general election and cast a concluding vote. In many ways, Election Day isn’t a choice among candidates, pure and simple, but a ratification of decisions made by others long before the first campaign speech was delivered.

So, if you want to know which candidates have the best chance of success, just follow the professional political operatives and the money.

HAS THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT LOST ITS MIND?

With candidates lining up for a chance to unseat President Obama, Republican rhetoric has begun to take shape. One of the key elements in that rhetoric is a distinct dislike for “government programs.” Mitt Romney, among others, has shown a fondness for stressing the supposed error of those who think government can do things better than private business. This is part of the standard Republican campaign message echoing a strong belief in capitalism as the solution to every problem and a belief that business, left to its own designs, will eventually rectify every ill. This message is then wrapped in the cloth of the Founding Fathers and presented as the great American gospel. It is a message echoed by conservative Christian organizations such as Eagle Forum and the Christian Coalition.

It is true that those who crafted the Declaration of Independence held government in disdain and were skeptical of government’s ability to do much besides wage war. But the men who drafted the Constitution were equally skeptical, not of the ills of government but of the ills of mankind. They knew that individuals and private business COULD solve any ill, but they were skeptical that they WOULD unless compelled. The government created in our Constitution emanates from their point of view. Men may consider lofty ideals for the common good, but they are prone to act from selfish motives.

Those who oppose government programs and regulations need only look to the reasons behind those programs to understand why they were created and why they must exist. Social Security was enacted because the nation’s elderly, most of who were from the working class, were forced to live an impoverished, miserable life after their bodies were spent from physical labor. Employers, who reaped great profits from the labor of their employees, had done nothing to address the situation. Medicare was enacted for much the same reason. Elderly, who faced greater medical challenges, found they were unable to acquire health insurance and unable to afford medical attention. Private insurers could have offered insurance to them, physicians could have solved the problem on their own, but they didn’t (or wouldn’t) because there was not enough profit in the age group. The EPA was created because industries and developers chose profit over the environment. Automobiles were regulated because manufacturers chose profit over safety. And the list goes on.

This same scenario was repeated in the area of civil rights. Southern states, left to their own devices, refused to offer equal protection to persons of color. Had they done so on their own, there would have been no Civil Rights era. But they did not. And so, the federal government stepped in. Desegregation, school busing, affirmative action and the like were all instituted because people left to themselves chose to do the wrong thing.

In more recent years, we saw an unregulated mortgage industry loan its way to the bottom of the housing market. Securities firms then purchased those mortgages, packaged them as investment securities and sold them to investment banks and mutual funds. Banks and funds then securitized the risk of default in the underlying mortgages and sold that risk to each other as credit default swaps. All of that happened outside the veil of government regulation and proved once again that offered a choice between profit and common sense, private business will choose profit every time.

The problems we face aren’t the work of a left-wing conspiracy out to regulate us into submission. The problem we face is the ancient problem humanity has always faced. Mankind has a profound propensity for choosing self-interest over common interest. Conservative Christians – that part of Christendom that actually believes in the authority of Scripture – ought to know this better than any. Classic Reformed theology is grounded on the notion that human nature is totally and absolutely corrupt. Yet, in the current political cycle, conservative Christians lead the parade chanting the Republican-Tea Party privatization-deregulation mantra. They, who ought to be wary of trusting their lives to any mere mortal, want to hand themselves over to the care and whim of Wall Street executives, captains of industry, and titans of retail sales – the very people who have proven time and time again to be incapable of acting responsibly and sorely in need of a watchful eye.

TEA PARTY ISSUES IN PROPER CONTEXT

The Tea Party push for a smaller federal government and less onerous tax structure rests on the issue of state sovereignty. This issue is not new in American politics and has been the subject of rigorous debate since before our Republic was formed. Unfortunately for Tea Party supporters, the state sovereignty side of the argument has lost every time, and for good reason.

After the Revolution, the American central government operated under the Articles of Confederation which held state sovereignty supreme and created a very weak national government. That approach proved ineffectual in dealing with national defense and interstate commerce, two areas vital to the new nation’s survival. As a consequence, Congress threw out the Articles of Confederation and started over.

The Constitution that Congress drafted gave a nod to state sovereignty but created a strong federal government with final authority in the areas of national defense, foreign policy, and interstate commerce. It forced states to recognize the lawful acts of their fellow states and gave the federal government authority to levy its own taxes without state approval. The central government worked much better, but the tension between federal authority and state sovereignty continued to simmer. The issue came to a boil in the middle of the 19^th century and erupted in the Civil War – a war fought over the fundamental question of how to interpret and apply the federal constitution.

At the time it was ratified in 1789, the federal constitution was seen as a wall around the central government defining the limits of that government’s authority. Hemming it in, as it were, and restraining it from subsuming the authority of the states. But by the mid-1800s, life in the United States was quite different from the previous century. Industrialization was well on its way to transforming the economies of most western nations. The issues of commerce, foreign policy, and national defense had acquired a subtle complexity.

States in the southern half of the country were situated in a region where soil and climate conditions favored agricultural production. Cotton and tobacco grew well there. Southerners found a lucrative market for both commodities in Europe. Exports grew and the economies of the Southern states flourished.

By contrast, states in the northern half of the country were located in a region where conditions were less favorable to agriculture but more conducive to emerging industrialization. However, cost and quality issues hampered the North’s access to European markets. If industrialization was to continue in the United States, northern industry would have to find a profitable place to sell its goods. The southern states were a natural market for those goods, but as the South’s export trade to Europe increased their import trade did as well – partly as a matter of convenience but also because the southern plantation culture saw itself as a reflection of European aristocracy which it reinforced through the purchase of European wares. To remedy the situation, President Lincoln proposed a tariff that would have effectively ended Southern trade with Europe.

Whether Lincoln could have rallied enough support to win a war over the issues of trade and taxation is questionable. After all, these were the identical issues that lay at the heart of the Revolutionary War. Arguments advanced in support of colonial independence were easily transferable to the economic issues that the South faced in the 18^th century. But there was a twist to the complexity of these issues. The economic advantage held by southern agriculture was obtained on the backs of slaves.

In order to gain approval of the current Constitution, delegates and drafters had to sidestep the great moral issue of slavery. To do that, they relegated it to the control of the individual states. Those who were bent on securing approval of the new constitution viewed the move as a way of securing ratification. Those who valued state sovereignty saw it as a victory for their cause. In reality, the treatment of slavery in the Constitution put the issue of state sovereignty to its most crucial test – the morality test. Few, if any, state sovereignty proponents realized that the future of their argument for interpreting the Constitution hung in the balance.

All government, regardless of its structure, rests on the moral authority of its leaders – their ability to do what is right, even when it means opposing the interests of those whom they were elected to serve. Even monarchs and dictators derive their political power from their moral authority. That has not always been readily obvious but the steady erosion of monarchical forms of government attests to it, as does the collapse of communist governments in all but a few nations. They failed not because the form of government was inept but because their leaders failed the moral test. The Southern Confederacy met with the same fate.

Had leaders of the southern states exercised their moral authority properly and disbanded the practice of slavery, the map of North America might look quite different. Instead, they put the force and effect of their central government squarely behind the ownership of slaves and perpetuation of the plantation lifestyle slavery afforded. With it they staked the future of state sovereignty. When Lincoln finally made the abolishment of slavery the focus of the war, both the Confederacy and the notion of state sovereignty as the controlling doctrine for constitutional interpretation were doomed.

A century later, the state sovereignty argument resurfaced as a defense to state-enforced racial segregation. What little remained of the argument was sacrificed on the altar of prejudice and bigotry. Attempts by southern states to defend institutional segregation offered convincing proof that state leaders could not be trusted to appropriately exercise their moral authority.

Book Listed Among Most Influential in Affecting Congressional Policy

Not all of you would agree with this, but the 2008 biography I wrote about Sarah Palin was recently listed as one of the top five Christian books affecting Congressional policy.

http://tiny.cc/qp84b

Locked In The Garage

One afternoon last week my son, Jack, and I went out to the garage for our usual afternoon exercise routine. We walked out from the kitchen into the garage and pulled the door closed behind us. About an hour later we were finished and ready for a drink of water. That’s when we realized the door into the house was locked. We had the remote to raise the garage door but it was cold outside and getting dark. I already knew the other doors and windows were locked, so there we were, stuck in the garage with no keys, no cell phone, and no one else at home.


The garage got reorganized last year when we started going out there regularly to exercise, which meant we knew where everything was located. Rather than mope about it, I dug out a basket of art supplies, converted a cardboard box into a table, and set up Jack with a sketch pad and pencils. I found the extra Coca Colas and divided one between us (using a cup from some extra dishes stored on a shelf - wiped out with the tail of my shirt), then used the empty Coke can for an art lesson in perspective, etc. While Jack drew 2 versions of the can, we talked – about everything.

After an hour of that we were getting cold, so we went back to the treadmill and sit-up bench for a second round of exercise. Then we got out the tennis balls and made up a game. Finally, after almost four hours in the garage, our liberators arrived with supper.

Just the night before I had been talking to Jack about how we work hard to make memories, but the best memories turn out to be the ones we make on the way to making memories.

Will Republicans Sell Their Soul To Win An Election

The 2010 Midterm Election saw the Republican/Tea Party Alliance take control of the House of Representatives. Had they offered more credible candidates in several key Senate races, they may well have taken control of Congress. That said, the party faces a serious dilemma as it looks ahead to the 2012 presidential race.

As I outlined in my earlier post (Midterm Elections Show Republican Party in Crisis, see below), the Tea Party has brought fresh energy to the Republican effort. Credible Tea Party candidates did well, and their supporters voted. Their grassroots effort created a block of voters through which any successful Republican Party presidential candidate will have to pass. And that block is strongly motivated by opposition to President Obama, a fact reflected by the similarity between Obama’s Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll disapproval rating – 41% (http://tiny.cc/dwxcn) and the number of voters in 2010 House elections who identified themselves as Tea Party supporters – 41%.

A Republican/Tea Party presidential candidate, holding Tea Party policy positions, could expect to receive the support of everyone to the right of those positions – immigration reform, lower taxes, curb federal spending, repeal of recent healthcare changes. Those issues worked well in the House races which targeted individual candidates and compartmentalized voter choices. To get to the presidency, a Republican/Tea Party candidate would have to appeal to voters closer to the center. Not many issues offer the option of a move to the left of Tea Party positions. One possibility might be abortion.

Once the decisive issue among Evangelical Christian voters, opposition to abortion has faded as a motivating factor for the way Christians view and decide political issues. For instance, in opposing healthcare reform, only 3% of those polled said they opposed it because of the possibility of increased funding for abortion (Pew Forum http://tiny.cc/x8by5). Most said they opposed it because of the cost and increased government intrusion on their lives.

Opposition to abortion is not the primary motivating factor among Tea Party faithful. Their motivation comes from strong, deep-seated opposition to Barack Obama and is expressed through economic issues. Blue-blood Republicans, another faction of the Republican coalition, have longed for a day when they could jettison the Christian right. Now, they might have that opportunity.

A pro-choice Republican candidate, with genuine pro-choice credentials, running on a platform that stresses economic and personal liberty issues, would open the Party’s appeal to progressive voters nearer the center of political opinion. Evangelical Christians would be forced to decide between not voting, and handing the election to President Obama, or voting for a pro-choice Republican based on other issues. It’s a strategy that just might win.

Which leaves the Republican/Tea Party alliance, and Evangelical Christians, facing an interesting question: Will you sell your soul for the sake of opposing Barack Obama?

Midterm Election Results Show Republican Party In Crisis

According to 2010 Midterm Election exit polls, 41% of those voting in House elections favored the Tea Party. 31% opposed it. 25% had no response. Overall, 53% opposed the Republican Party – yet the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives. Traditional Republicans see this election as a referendum on the Obama administration and a mandate to undo many of the things that have been done in the past two years. Tea Party leaders see the election results as placing them in the driver’s seat for the presidential election in 2012. Actually, the 2010 Midterm Elections revealed a political party in transition and crisis.

In this election, Tea Party candidates ran as Republicans and were a big part of the Republican success in taking control of the House. But they did not run with impunity. Credible Tea Party candidates did well, but most of their candidates lost – many of them because of a lack of credibility. Yet, with 41% of voters identifying themselves as Tea Party supporters, the Tea Party has emerged as the source of energy in the Republican Party.

For the past thirty years, the Republican Party found its strength in a coalition of traditional conservatives and evangelical Christians. Those groups were bound together by hot-button issues like abortion, national defense, and lower taxes. Now, that coalition is changing and the emerging Republican alliance is an uneasy one – a fact revealed in the poll results showing 53% of voters identified themselves as opposing the Republican Party, even though a significant number of that opposition voted for Republican candidates.

The Tea Party tapped into voter anger over the direction of the economy, immigration, same-sex marriage, and a general distrust and dislike of President Obama. Fueled by that anger, the Tea Party turned to the familiar tactic of street protests to build support for its positions. (They called their gatherings ‘rallies’ instead of ‘marches’ but they served the same function just as well). Though somewhat ill-defined, the Tea Party has loosely coalesced around several charismatic spokesmen – Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh among them. They offered a hard-line, uncompromising, decidedly conservative message that energized supporters to hold local rallies, work for approved candidates, and vote.

As a result, the coalition under the Republican umbrella has now become a Tea Party-Traditional Conservative-Evangelical Christian coalition. However, the galvanizing issues for that coalition are no longer opposition to abortion, lower taxes, or military support, but opposition to President Obama and the undoing of measures passed during the first two years of his administration. This shift in motivation gave the Republican/Tea Party success in the midterm elections, but it puts them in a precarious position for 2012.

Assuming 2010 voter patterns hold in the 2012 election, any presidential candidate hoping to win from the Republican Party will have to do so with Tea Party approval. The Republican candidate will be a Tea Party candidate. That gets the Republicans a theoretical 41% of the vote, which leaves them 10% shy of victory. To attain a majority, the Republican/Tea Party candidate would have to appeal to half of the 21% who identified themselves as having no position for or against the Tea Party or the Republicans – essentially, undecided voters. Assuming the Tea Party’s 41% support lies to the right of center, a Republican/Tea Party presidential candidate would have to find motivating issues through which he or she could appeal to those slightly to the left of current Tea Party policy – without alienating supporters on the extreme right. Very few issues offer the potential for even a slight shift to the center and none of the potential candidates who have appeared so far seems capable of accomplishing the task. Getting from 41% to 51% will be a monumental task for the tenuous Republican/Tea Party alliance, one that will require a candidate who has yet to step forward.

The Walk, by Shaun Alexander

Earlier this year I had the privilege of assisting former NFL running back Shaun Alexander with preparation of his latest book The Walk (from WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House). The book is now available at your local bookstore and online at all the usual places.

The End of Dual Citizenship

For perhaps the first two hundred years of our American republic, Christians had the luxury of holding dual citizenship. Christians arguably could maintain a commitment to the Kingdom of God and the United States without jeopardizing their allegiance to the former by their allegiance to the later. That is no longer true.

When Christians in America turn to the question of civic involvement, they are faced with only two realistic choices. On the one hand, they can express their political interest by supporting candidates of the Democrat Party, a party that not only supports the right to abortion-on-demand, but which seeks to use government to promote that practice. Those not satisfied with that option can express their civic opinions through the Republican/Tea Party, which still has a pro-life stance but has adopted a Darwinian economic policy that damns the poor to a miserable existence for the sake of the wealthy, and a Draconian immigration policy fueled by racial hatred and division. The options posed by both parties place Christians at odds with Scripture.

In the end, religion has become merely one more tool by which politicians motivate their electoral base. And though that effort may have influenced the outcome of elections, it has done little to influence government policy. All the while, the church has grown more and more like secular society, reflecting the same rates for premarital sex, infidelity, divorce, and preoccupation with wealth.

Jesus wasn't kidding when he said, “You cannot serve two masters.”

The Place To Be - By Roger Mudd

Last night, I finished reading The Place To Be (Public Affairs/Perseus Group 2008), by former CBS News correspondent and television anchor Roger Mudd. I purchased the book from the $2 rack at Books A Million in Pensacola. What a surprise! After reading the first few chapters at my desk I resolved to limit myself to one chapter per night. It was a book I wanted to read, but I did not want it to end. Those evening chapters became a private conversation with Mudd about politics, politicians, the 1960s and 70s, media, news, and journalism. In the course of which I caught a glimpse of Mudd's life and the lives of the many people he knew. This book was a treat. I hope Roger Mudd writes more. You can find the book in hardback and paper at all the usual locations.

Barack Obama and the Ancient Prophets

When the ancient Hebrew prophet Daniel was a young man, Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonian army into the Levant and conquered Israel. After ravaging the countryside, the Babylonians gathered up the brightest and best of Israel's young men and took them back to Babylon. No doubt, Daniel would have rather stayed in Jerusalem. He would have rather had a Jewish king over him, and he would have preferred to have known Nebuchadnezzar only from a distance. But God had other things in mind.

In Babylon, rather than being forced into slavery, Daniel was placed under the care of Ashpenaz, Nebuchadnezzar's chief court official - his chief of staff. Daniel was fed the best food, offered the best living quarters, and afforded the best instruction available in the Kingdom of Babylon. After a while, Nebuchadnezzar experienced a series of troubling dreams and when he sought an interpretation from his court magicians he found them unable to answer his questions. As events unfolded, Daniel was able to interpret the dreams. In interpreting one of those dreams, Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, ". . . the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes." (Dan. 4:25)

That was a message for the king - he served at the pleasure of Another - and it was also a message for Daniel. God rules the kingdoms of man and He orders them for His own purposes.

Rather than fight against God's purposes, Daniel did his best to discern what God was doing and then joined God in that work. As a result, Daniel lived a long and successful life. He never returned to Jerusalem, but through him, God turned the heart of Nebuchadnezzar to Himself, which led to the Hebrews' eventual return to the Levant. And much later, a remnant of those who learned about God from Daniel came from Babylon to Jerusalem as the Maggi when Jesus was born.

Daniel didn't spend his days wandering the streets of Babylon searching for every opportunity to discredit the king. He didn't spend his time plotting to replace Nebuchadnezzar, and he didn't slink off to the corner and sulk. Instead, he yielded to God's purposes in placing him under the authority of Nebuchadnezzar, discerned every opportunity to join God in furthering those purposes, and submitted to God's choice of leadership.

Many of you spent the 2008 election cycle praying that someone other than Barack Obama would be elected president. Some of you worked diligently in an attempt to see that he did not win the office. But in the end, he won. If you believe God is at work in the world, if you believe that He still rules the kingdoms of man and sets over them whom He wills, then it is time to submit to His purposes, discern what God is working to accomplish through President Obama, and join Him in His work.

Abstract Abstraction - The Nature of Banks in the Current Era

Banks are often viewed as repositories of cash, evoking images of vaults with currency stacked to the ceiling. And we talk about the money banks hold as if it actually had substance. In reality, the concept of money is quite ethereal. Money, after all, derives its 'substance' solely and only from our confidence. Money has always been abstract.

Banks, on the other hand, were always places of substance. You put your money in there and they locked it in a safe. "Here for you anytime you need it." They also kept important documents for you and the image of that safe with the big doors made you feel like not only were your documents and money safe, you were, too. But, alas, times haves changed. Now, banks have gone over to the abstract side. Today, banks are not institutions with cash in the vault. Instead, they have become Government-Authorized Digit Allocation Centers.

Think of it this way - the bank operates a computer server on which, for a fee, one is allowed to create an account. Using a numeric code assigned to that account, customers may execute a defined set of transactions with other accounts on similarly authorized servers located around the world. Digits may be shifted from the simplest account (a time deposit, for instance) to specialized accounts through which complex transactions may be executed (brokerage accounts, for instance). At any given time, all or a portion of the digits in those accounts may be converted to a national scrip - paper currency or metal coin - or converted to a printed or handwritten draft drawn upon the institution that operates the server.

In this way, pizza can be ordered from the local pizzeria by entering the correct numeric code on the pizzeria's server authorizing it to notify the bank's server to subtract digits from a hungry patron's account and add them to the pizzeria's account. This is abstract abstraction. You can obtain pizza - actual, real, tangible food for your hungry belly - by entering a numeric code on your computer that tells the pizzeria's computer to notify the bank's computer to create a numeric image on the pizzeria's computer screen.

Family In an Age of Transition

We live at a time in history when many issues seem particularly polarizing. One of those issues is same-sex marriage. Conservatives find it easy to pontificate on the subject, railing against it as an attack on the traditional family. Liberals advocate for it from the high ground of civil rights and the inclusiveness of love.

I was born and reared in a traditional family - a traditional Southern family. My parents were decidedly heterosexual. They were married only once - to each other - and produced children who followed that same path. Yet, when I hear people talk about same-sex marriage as an "attack on the family" something in me recoils. And I think I've found out why.

Our family isn't traditional. I doubt yours is either.

Some of our family members live in relationships with members of the opposite sex, without benefit of marriage. Several of us were born out of wedlock. Two are from foreign countries. We have children from previous marriages, who have their own children, and no one thinks of them as anything other than child, niece, nephew, cousin, grandchild and great-grandchild. If we asked, a couple of us are of dubious family lineage, but we don't ask - and you better not either. And, our family includes two babies for whom we were a surrogate mother. Even though they now live thousands of miles away, and we may never see them again, we still oooh and aaah over the baby pictures. Don't try to tell us they aren't "really" part of our family. Someone will whack you in the head with a pot.

So, as I looked around the room at a recent family gathering of our "traditional" family, I realized that same-sex marriage can't and won't redefine family for us. We've already done that for ourselves. And I suspect your family has, too.

More Praise For WHAT THE RED MOON KNOWS

What The Red Moon Knows - WOW! A great read.

James Almand
San Francisco

Praise for WHAT THE RED MOON KNOWS

I'm on Chapter Nine and can't put it down. Wow!

Tom Sinclair
Fairhope, Alabama

Praise for WHAT THE RED MOON KNOWS

Fans of Joe Hilley will revel in his latest novel What The Red Moon Knows. Audacious and fun to read, Hilley sinks his teeth into the reader and promises to keep you guessing. There should be little doubt that Hilley is one of the most significant Alabama writers working today.

Lee Peacock
Evergreen Courant

What The Red Moon Knows

The Latest Novel From New York Times Best Selling Author Joe Hilley

Almost ten years ago, I walked away from the practice of law to write novels full time. My first book was published in 2004. Since then, the publishing industry and I have gone through a number of changes. One of those changes has been the rising influence of e-books; books released in electronic format, many that are quite successful but never introduced in traditional print format. This month, I am joining the ranks of those e-book authors.

What The Red Moon Knows, my latest novel, tells the story of Ruth England, a seventy-five-year-old widow who sees a man she is certain was once her teenage boyfriend. The only problem is that boyfriend was Elvis Presley. She knows Elvis is dead - she read newspaper articles about it, saw reports on television, watched the funeral on video - but she is certain the man she's seen is him.

Telling her things about their relationship only Elvis could know, he convinces her to go with him on a trek across Florida in search of a friend whom "Elvis" is certain faces grave danger. Together they follow a trail of clues that lead them far from accepted reality and deep into the secrets of powerful people.

When a reporter tells Ruth the man she's with is really Bobby Wayne Pugh, an Elvis impersonator who witnessed a murder no one was supposed to see, she quickly dismisses his concern. Then she notices the men in the car following their every move. Unwilling to abandon the man she now loves - whoever he is - Ruth holds on until the surprise ending and learns that even late in life dreams really do come true.

What The Red Moon Knows is available from Amazon as a Kindle Book. You can read a sample there for free. And it is available at Smashwords.com in multiple download formats.

For more information go to http://www.joehilley.com/

Age of Economic Transition

In the 2nd Century AD, Ptolemy devised a theory of the universe that placed the earth at the center of the solar system. That theory accounted for all information known about the universe and allowed for accurate prediction of the seasons. It was an incorrect model but provided a result that was adequate for its time.

As science continued to develop new information about the universe, Ptolemy's model came under criticism. Copernicus suggested an alternative model that placed the sun at the center of the solar system. His theory accounted for all known information but did so in a much simpler manner than Ptolemy. Galileo later proved Copernicus correct but the transition from a Ptolemaic orientation to Copernican was traumatic.

In the 17th Century, Newton provided theories about motion that explained the movement of objects in the heavens and objects on earth. His theories accounted for all the information available at the time. Later, Einstein reconstructed theories about motion and the universe in a way that replaced much of what Newton put forth as law. That transition threw much of physics in disarray but ultimately led to even greater discoveries.

Today, American culture is emerging from a period of transition easily as traumatic as the transition from Ptolemy to Copernicus or Newton to Einstein. We have witnessed this in every area of life. Now, that transition has reached our economic system.

When we began this Great American Experiment, Adam Smith Capitalism was in vogue. At the time, individualism reigned and Smith's theories fit well with America's worldview. Using his ideas, America was propelled to great heights of economic power. But American culture is not stagnant. It has continued to develop. Now, American culture is no longer driven by individualism but by relationalism - the notion that value and meaning are derived from relationship. Fact is no longer seen as absolute fact, but as interpreted fact with the interpretation determined by one's relationship to the 'fact' in question.

Cultural shifts are risky and both Liberals and Conservatives are running scared. Conservatives have rallied around a Darwinian view of capitalism - only the strong survive. While Liberals promote a collective policy - the State should insulate everyone from risk. Neither approach is adequate for American society. Both are passing away. In their place a new era of American Entrepreneurship is emerging. Old forms of employment, business and economics are passing from the scene. New theories and forms are rising to take their place. Just as the ideas of Copernicus, Newton, and Adam Smith replaced those of their predecessors, so also new ideas and forms are replacing theirs.

We live in an era of empowerment and that empowerment reaches to the most vulnerable levels of society. In the coming century, that empowerment will unleash American creativity in an explosion of ideas, solutions, and commerce unlike any in the history of mankind.