Yesterday morning Cheria and I were driving down a narrow country road on the way to my mom’s house in rural Widener Valley, Virginia when we rounded a curve and saw this young fawn drinking from a “mudhole” beside the road. I slowly pulled up beside the young deer and stopped, fully expecting it to dash off into the woods. But instead, it just kept on drinking while I grabbed the nearest camera and fired off several shots.

Perhaps it was too young to understand that we humans can be a threat, or maybe it was simply so thirsty that it didn’t care and decided to keep drinking anyway. Either way, the fawn’s mother was nowhere to be seen. I sure hope she was ok, waiting in edge of the woods for her youngster to finish drinking his/her fill. But as young as the little deer appeared to be I’m afraid that she might have either died or abandoned it.

It sure was a beautiful animal, and I’m sure God will watch over it with all the love He has in His heart for His wonderful creatures.

My dad absolutely loved every kind of food that was bad for him. For example, he wanted at least one meal of biscuits and gravy every day, and if mom didn’t prepare it for him he would “fix it” himself. And he would rather have had a needle stuck into his eye than for you to trim the fat from a piece of meat. In fact, he loved fat meat so much that he would open a can of “pork and beans” and skip everything but the pork! And to top it all off he smoked for decades.

Of course everyone who knew and loved him told him that smoking and eating all that fat and grease “was gonna kill him someday”, and sure enough it did. He suffered a heart attack during surgery and passed away in 2000. He was 82.

The people (including me) who told dad that eating all those unhealthy meals would come back to haunt him eventually did so out of love and concern, but I believe we all missed an important point. One of dad’s great pleasures in life was eating the “country cookin’” that he learned to love so much as a child growing up in his large family’s Widener Valley, Virginia home, and he wasn’t about to give up that important part of his lifestyle in the quest to eek out another year or two of life here on planet earth.

Life is way too short to spend each and every day of it thinking of ways to make it a little longer and giving up the things we thoroughly enjoy in an often-vain attempt to prolong it. Famed runner Jim Fixx is credited with helping kick-start the current American fitness revolution with his best-selling 1977 book “The Complete Book Of Running”, yet as fit as he appeared to be, he ended up dying from a massive heart attack seven years later at the young age of just 52.

The fact is, short of suicide we humans have little control over the timing of our own demise. Some people die in accidents, and some even succumb to genetic defects they never even knew they possessed. Only God Himself knows when and how we’ll pass away, and He is the only one who can really alter that schedule if he so chooses.

Now I’m not suggesting that we should simply live life with abandon, ignoring all that good advice about eating healthy, not smoking, and exercising daily. It’s clear that living a healthy lifestyle increases one’s odds of living a longer, healthier life. I also firmly believe that my dad suffered through years of unnecessary health problems that were caused by his poor diet and a virtual life-long smoking habit.

That being said, dad had apparently weighed the joy he knew he would receive from partaking in those unhealthy habits against the almost certain health risks, and he made the decision to eat what he wanted and smoke his cigarettes. Who am I to say that he made the wrong choices? After all, he lived to the ripe old age of 82, and he spent most of those years enjoying the things that gave him the most pleasure.

I logged onto my favorite “News” website this morning and saw the following headline:

“Citigroup posts $2.5B loss, but beats expectations”

Now I’m not very knowledgeable in the field of high finance, but it boggles my mind that a company can lose 2.5 BILLION dollars and have that fact be considered “better than expected”. Most Americans would consider losing 2.5 THOUSAND dollars a tragedy, yet the major corporations can lose billions and simply shrug it off as if it’s nothing.

Of course I’m just a country boy from the hills and hollers of southwestern Virginia, but things like this really don’t leave me with all that much confidence in the stock market.

Our nation has lost a great patriot and a fine man with the sad passing of Tony Snow. In addition to serving two Presidents, Tony spent much of his adult life behind either a television camera or a radio microphone bringing us news and commentary on all things political.

Although he was a staunch conservative who was always eager to lead the charge in defense of traditional causes and policies, he never spoke down to his guests or made them feel less than equal to himself. This man was truly one of the good guys in the media.

Tony lost his long, difficult battle with colon cancer yesterday, and glowing tributes quickly began pouring in from his colleagues and politicians from both sides of the political aisle. Even most of the folks whose views and opinions were diametrically opposed to his had nothing but praise for him as a man and as an American.

All Americans should mourn the passing of this great man. He was honest, respectful of all, and a crusader for conservative ideals to the very end. He loved God, his country, his family and his work, and now his long struggle with cancer has ended at the young age of 53.

We’ll miss you Tony.

Robert Anthony Snow
June 1, 1955 – July 12, 2008

George Walker Bush began his two terms as President in 2000 with a rare opportunity to push the conservative agenda to new heights and get positive results in many areas where others had failed. After all, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and given his campaign promises to govern as a “compassionate conservative” the stars seemed to finally be in perfect alignment for those who had gone out on a limb by backing him to reap some great rewards for their efforts. But alas, it quickly became apparent that he was going to waste virtually every golden opportunity put before him.

First, let’s consider the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no question that he did the right thing by sending our troops into Afghanistan to take out the Taliban and shut down the Al-Qaeda training camps after the horrendous attacks they perpetrated on our country on September 11, 2008. Our men and women in uniform did a spectacular job as expected, and they completed their assigned mission in short order.

While the President’s decision to go into Iraq wasn’t nearly as convincing as the one to go into Afghanistan, given the intelligence he had to work with at the time I supported that decision, and I still do. And once again, as expected, our troops kicked butt and took names, and in relatively no time at all they had decimated Saddam Hussein’s military regime and toppled him from power. And that’s where both campaigns should have ended…

But unfortunately, they didn’t. Instead of leaving the Afghans and Iraqis to clean up their own messes, Bush decided to embark on a pair of nation-building experiments that were destined for failure from the start. The mistake he made was simple, yet profound: He believed that the people we had just liberated in those countries would love us and rally around us, and allow us to help them set up a democratic form of government similar to our own. Had he paid attention in his world history class and spent some time watching the evening news he would have realized just how foolish that idea would inevitably turn out to be.

Radical Muslims simply do not see the world (and life in general) as we Americans do, and unfortunately in most Muslim countries the radicals tend to rise to power. Apparently Bush missed the lesson that most of us learned from the events that took place in Iran after the Shah was deposed in 1979.

The President made the ill-fated decision to stay in Iran and Afghanistan long after our work there was done, hoping against all reality to make some new friends and allies in the region. But those folks will never be our friends and they certainly will never be our allies, and Bush should have known that.

We would have been much better off getting out of those countries as quickly as possible, leaving behind only a stern warning: “We took care of business once, and we can and will do it again. Shape up, or we’ll be back and you REALLY won’t like us when the dust settles next time.”

The bottom line is that our military has no equal when it comes to fighting and winning wars, but they are not in the businesses of  “keeping the peace” or “nation-building”, nor should they be – especially when the people involved have nothing but utter contempt for our nation and our ideals.

Oh well, enough ranting about the wars…

Domestically, Bush’s legacy has been even more disappointing. He has somehow allowed most of his conservative promises and opportunities to slip right through the cracks. Again, he made a very simple, yet profound mistake: He believed that he could use his power of gentle persuasion to entice enough Democrats to support his proposals to get them through the Congress. Again, he was wrong.

Why? Quite simply, the Democrats absolutely despise him. They believe down in their collective heart that he “stole” the 2000 election from Al Gore (he didn’t of course, but they honestly believe he did). They were bound and determined from January 20, 2000 on to see to it that he failed at everything he tried to do, and for the most part they have succeeded in spectacular fashion.

Unlike President Reagan, Bush was unable and/or unwilling to use the powerful combination of charm and arm-twisting to push his agenda through the Congress. His vetoes have been way too rare and much too ineffective, and he left his conservative allies in Congress hanging in the wind so many times that they all but abandoned him for the last three years of his Presidency.

Worse still, it turns out that he was never a true conservative at all. His stances on illegal immigration, NAFTA, and a host of other crucial issues are about as liberal as they come. And don’t even get me started on the spending spree he has allowed (encouraged?) the Congress to go on during his administration.

I guess by now it’s quite clear that I’m deeply disappointed by the way President George W. Bush has led our nation over the last 7+ years, but there is one shining star in his legacy that pretty much evens out the scales. Whether by design or sheer luck, he managed to appoint and get confirmed two of the finest Supreme Court Justices to ever sit on the bench in Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

While not quite as conservative as their colleagues Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, they understand very clearly that their role as Supreme Court Justices is to interpret the Constitution literally while abstaining from the natural desire to color their decisions with their own personal beliefs and prejudices. During their short tenure on the court they have proven that they take their jobs very seriously and plan to enforce the law of the land (the U.S. Constitution) instead of trying to make laws of their own choosing. And in my opinion that is much more important than their ideological bents.

So there you have it. As President Bush and his family prepare to head off into the sunset, I wish them well. After all, just being elected to the Office of President of the United States is worthy of deep respect and honor. That being said, it’s too early to tell just how historians will treat the 43rd President, but my guess is their opinions will be somewhat similar to mine: Lot’s of failures, and one overwhelmingly important success.

Bob Parsons, the founder and CEO of Internet giant Godaddy.com isn’t at all shy when it comes to discussing his patriotism and his support for our troops. Click this link to watch Godaddy’s wonderful video tribute to Independence Day and all the fine men and women who work so hard to keep us all safe and free.

When Houdini became a member of our family he added several things to our lives. First of all, there is the love. This beautiful 150 lb. Great Pyrenees has the most gentle disposition I have ever seen in a dog, and he just loves getting and giving affection.

But along with the love and affection, he also added a considerable amount of frustration to our household. To put it kindly, Houdini isn’t exactly the most intelligent canine on the planet. He does some of the most unbelievably stupid things that we often find ourselves wondering just what we have gotten ourselves into by adopting him. But then here he comes with all that love and affection again and we soon forget all about his latest “dumb move”.

Houdini likes everyone, but he is especially partial to kids. He has loved Olivia from day one, and he absolutely adores little Madison (and the feeling is certainly mutual). For proof, check out this post. The other day Cheria was going through her photo archives when she found the above picture of Olivia hugging Houdini soon after we adopted him. Don’t they look really cute together?