The Fence! The Fence! The Fence!

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Sign petitions, and by all means, encourage entities, people, officials who are standing up for your rights and making a difference.

Remember what happens when good people do nothing?

It happened. We're going down as I wrote in my last column, so what have you got to lose besides your integrity? Your possessions? Your personal property? What are you waiting for?

I get petitions all the time to sign and almost all of them are from legitimate, worthy entities. In the past I said, “Ah, no, I can’t do this. Someone’s going to take down my name and I’ll get put on a list.”

In a word, tough. I’ve signed and it hasn’t happened and if it does, fine. That fence too many of us have been straddling for too many years has decayed and is crumbling. If anyone thinks that hiding under their bed will make them safe, the bed will someday be gone, too. Sooner, than later, I believe.

There are organizations like Florida Family Association – one of many – who have either filed suit, protested, contacted sponsors of TV shows such as Family Guy (an anti-Christian TV show), or Craig’s List, which has sponsored “escort services”, and have gotten things done, in the name of moral, Christian, American, righteous values.

Support these organizations, even if you just sign a petition. I know you believe in what they’re doing. And use your real name and email address. THAT’S what you can do. But for the sake of what you hold dear, please do something!

Bad Thoughts, Good Eyeglasses

America is failing, because it’s so diluted, it’s hamstrung.

Try and do anything. Get a job. Function. Write. Succeed. THINK. There’s probably a law against it.

We’re not going to change it, even though our complacency and inertia are totally to blame. But unless you get up and do something about it, that’s America’s Destiny.

I believe we’re not a player in these End Times. It’s the End of the Age. And, unfortunately, we are going to be wiped out.

We’ll still be around, but not as the America in which we grew up. The Baby Boomers. Hula hoops, rock ‘n roll, post WWII prosperity. Foolish. Ask the Greatest Generation.

There has been another force at work that successfully, and surgically undermined all that was good about America. That force was described by the Prophets, going back to Isaiah and of course, the Book of Daniel.

We are “The Young Lions” the bible speaks of – tall, proud, smooth-skinned people feared by all the nations. They shall be drunk and transfixed by our wine of economics and prosperity; a modern day Babylon if you study the scriptures.

But we will fall to Rome. And it will be at the hands of the Muslim henchmen and Russia. And economically, China – the country that will send an army of 200 million towards Israel (John, Isle of Patmos, Divine Revelation) and their ultimate destiny: the Valley of Meggido.

The Seven Hills upon which Rome is built (I’ve seen them and have photographed them personally) will rule the nations. There is no doubt – it’s God’s perfect number.

We will not save America. For those of you who have had those thoughts, and are people of God who stand on His Righteousness (US Cong. Rep. Mark Kirk, who is a shining star but will not rise), remember the Bible says that the Gentiles will dominate Israel for a short time. In that time, the victory is wholly theirs.

Why? Because the Victory is wholly God’s, not man’s. It’s a matter of Pride. As good as we think we are, as Godly, as Right, we will not win. I believe we will be raptured out (Rev. 3:10) and saved from the time of Jacob’s Trouble. I don’t believe we will be “taken through”. The language of the Bible denies this (“ek” vs. “dia”).

But while we are here we are to tell the message of the Good News. In fact, it is our Commission. It is the ultimate best we can do. But we will not win, though God will win and bring millions of His saints back to Earth, wave after wave, succeeding the Bridal Feast. Meanwhile all Hell breaks loose on the Late Great Planet Earth. We will gladly clean up, having suffered the fools who would not turn. We will have the skills and the muscle, both dead and alive, courtesy of Christ the King who shall return on a snow white steed, with a double-edged sword in his mouth and his name written upon his thigh. And what a thousand years it will be!

Stay tuned.

PS Happy Birthday Frank Capra, and Happy 101, Jimmy Stewart, this Wednesday.

Randy’s Recipes: Chicken Strips in Soy Sauce and Garlic

For two or three appetites!

Place a fairly large boneless chicken breast in a gallon size freezer bag and smash (I use a short length of 2x4).

Cut the breast into strips, lengthwise. Put the strips in a baking dish (rinse them in cold water and dry with a paper towel, first). Add ½ cup of soy sauce. Chop 2 cloves of garlic, add to the dish, also, a little coarse ground pepper. Add a tsp. of olive oil. Mix it all up with your hands, cover and put in the fridge for half an hour.

Slice a large baking potato on a grater. I used the side that makes potato chips or scallops. Watch your knuckles!

Heat a large pan. I use a 3-½ qt. non-stick stainless steel saute pan by Cuisinart. No aluminum and copper is sandwiched into the bottom. It spreads the heat evenly and it you condition the pan with mineral oil once a month or so, use wooden utensils, wipe it out with a paper towel or wet sponge, no soap, it’ll last forever.

½ c. olive oil to the pan.

Put the potatoes in first. Once they get going, clear a space in the middle of the pan and add the chicken. Work on the chicken, turning it so it cooks evenly. I happened to have some smoked bacon on the bone. I cut off the fat and added a little to the chicken.

Mix in the potatoes, then start adding the veggies. I used the following:

soy beans (shelled)
baby carrots
green onion or chives
mushrooms

I didn’t use it, but chopped, fresh kale is also good in this dish.

Because of the flavor of the soy sauce, the only spices I used were coarse ground black pepper and a little minced onion and garlic.

Salt only after you place the food in serving bowls. Add a tablespoon of Earth Balance spread and enjoy!

Carrie: Double-Edged Sword

It’s a great photo, isn’t it?

Carrie Prejean is a beautiful girl.

And the “other” photos? You’ve seen them. They’re posted all over the I-net. I’m not a Christian woman but if I were, I wouldn’t have made the choice she did. Why? There are limits and for Christians in particular, within those limits there is Joy.

I know this is true. I go out of the limits – I told a couple of good friends earlier this week I hope God gives me a mulligan for having looked at porn.

Yeah, very funny. Carrie’s pictures bring home a lot of things. I do believe God has used her, in her flaws and in her beauty, and with the choices she’s made. And in a way that only He can do.

She’s shown the world its hypocrisy. And I'm right in the middle of the pack. No, I’m not homosexual, let alone homophobic, at all. But does it make it all that better to drool over someone of the opposite sex rather than the same sex?

I didn’t drool over Carrie, but I don’t agree with Trump’s statement about her semi-nude photos being fine because it’s the 21st Century. If that were true, it’d validate all the relative morality arguments. Truth is truth – it’s an absolute – deal with it.

And don’t the gays and the libs and the agenda-driven media know that? They do, it’s God’s word that we all know right from wrong. Everyone. Believers and non-believers alike. He created ALL of us. It’s somewhere in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy or Leviticus that those laws are written inside our hearts, undeniably and indelibly. Right and wrong, black and white, they are our laws, from Him.

Through Carrie Prejean, God is showing us that we're ALL hypocrites – not gays, not libs that Christians, by definition, disagree with. We’re NOT any better than one another. Kind of gives us a basis of love for fellow man/woman, doesn’t it? Hate their sin and hate ours as well. Because we’re on an equal playing field.

I’m learning a lesson.

BTW Carrie, take all the photos you want, semi-nude or in your birthday suit. Paste them up all over you and your husband’s bedroom, once you’re wed. The marriage bed is pure.

Somewhere

Regretfully, I couldn't find the photo of my mom that I wanted to run today.

She looked beautiful. It was taken before either I or my sister, who's five years older, was born. It may have even been shot around the time my folks were married or right before my dad went into WWII.

It was before the verities of a long marriage had set in: raising two kids, managing the finances (she socked it away in envelopes to pay the bills and put what was left in the bank before dad said a word), the cooking and the cleaning over and over again, planning all those parties and family events, dealing with a husband with post traumatic stress syndrome well-before that term was coined or anything was in place to help returning vets with those problems.

There are no lines or wrinkles on her face in that photo. She was in her early 20s and the ravages of her 2-pack a day cigarette habit was more than a half century away from taking their final toll. She had already lived through the Depression and you couldn't tell that she had to live in an orphanage with her sister when she was four because her mom had gotten paralyzed scrubbing floors in a factory in the winter with the windows wide open.

And she didn't have to pray and hope and worry yet over a son who would stay in college during the riots of the late 60s-early 70s, drive a bus on the old 41 route through Cabrini Green and then backpack and hitch hike through Europe with the money he'd earned. It was either that or the Navy and Vietnam.

Rather she looked like she was posing for a portrait for her new husband. She had that Gibson-styled hair (no, it doesn't mean she had a guitar on top of her head. The "Gibson-girl" look was pretty popular in the 40s). Her makeup was perfect. And she wore her famous raccoon coat. I remember when it got damaged beyond repair in a flood in the basement at the old house. She had stored it in a trunk along with love letters from my dad and other memorabilia from the early years of their marriage. It was almost all lost.

The flood was around 1990 -- their 50th wedding anniversary. Losing those items was a turning point, because by the end of the decade, Mom and Dad were both gone. Mom first.

That picture is somewhere. And so is Mom.

Randy's Recipes: Grandma's Favorite Chicken Hash

In honor of my grandmother’s 122nd birthday (she lived to 87) and since I’d just made chicken soup, I thought it’d be a great time for this recipe.

My mom got this one from her. Every time she made chicken soup from scratch, the next day she made delicious hash with the left over chicken. If you keep the chicken in broth, it’s even better the next day. After that, forget it. So make the hash the day after.


This feeds two really well, three isn’t stretching it.

Dice two red potatoes, leave the skins on. Rinse and put them in water. Bring water to a boil.

To the water add the following. If you have a small grinder, grinding the herbs/spices will unlock the flavor like you wouldn't believe:

1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
several peppercorns – I use about ten
tsp. dry, minced onion
tsp. dry, minced garlic
tsp. parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. thyme
tsp. dry dill
tsp. chives
1 medium bay leaf

This is incredibly aromatic, and GREEN!

Put about 2/3rds of this mixture into the boiling potatoes.

Add a couple drops of olive oil to the water, then blanch some fresh broccoli (I separate half a head and then chop the stalks) in the boiling water. The oil will turn the broccoli deep green. Don’t leave the broccoli in too long. It should still be al dente when you take it out of the water. Set it aside.

Chop the following and put in a large bowl:

a quarter of a medium sized Bermuda onion (any onion is OK)
one stalk of celery
a small carrot (or use a few baby carrots)
one clove of garlic
small handful of walnut pieces

Pull all the soup chicken meat off the bones, throw it into the same bowl.

Heat a fry pan (I use a large sauté pan and it’s perfect for all my recipes) and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Put in all the ingredients, including the broccoli, and stir with a wooden utensil.

Drain the potatoes. Make sure they drain completely, then add them to the pan. Don’t be afraid to let it all brown lightly, especially the potatoes. As it cooks, add some green olives (cut them up), and sesame seed. If it starts to dry, add more olive oil or a little Earth Balance spread.

Spoon into serving bowls or plates. Top with some grated Parmesan, coarse ground black pepper, and a little Kosher salt.

Driving While Liberated

It made national news -- a woman who admitted she was painting her fingernails while driving at a high speed, slammed into a motorcyclist, throwing the biker hundreds of feet, killing her.

Last winter (Feb. 2008) I was in the same general area, waiting to turn onto a main road. Speed limit on the main road was 45. Family in a white SUV was waiting to turn left onto the smaller road I was on. I was waiting to turn left onto the main road.

Some traffic. Typical situation. I was first in line to turn, couple of cars behind me. I had the radio on and I remember looking at the knobs or switches because as I looked down for a second, I heard an atomic bomb go off.

A kid in an old car slammed into the back of the family's stopped SUV at 60 mph. In an instant, what was an SUV turned into an accordion. Before anyone could utter, "Oh my God!" the kid, badly broken up, got out of his car and tried to walk to the van. And he was busted up bad, I can tell you.

Text messaging, ringtones, the radio, whatever he was doing, his choice changed lives forever. I turned right instead of left, pulled over and called for help. Paramedics and police arrived quickly. Other motorists got out of their cars to help with traffic. I waited for the police and then left. I called them later to see how the victims were and to give my name as a witness. At that time, they said there were no fatalities. Yet.

The year before, my neighbor was on her way home from church at night (Good Friday) and got rolled over and dragged 100 feet by a lady in an SUV, on a cell phone. Fire department had to use a hoist to get the SUV off of her -- she was pinned underneath. Both of her arms were broken near the shoulders. Miracle, she survived, had months of therapy, and is now back at work.

I remember standing on the El platform in 1983, waiting to catch a train downtown to go to work. The tracks ran along the expressway. I was appalled to see a guy driving his car on the Kennedy, with a newspaper folded over the steering wheel.

Bicyclists too, are getting killed in droves in Chicago.

Any suggestions? Is this another freedom of speech issue? Do people have a right to drive a vehicle and do virtually anything they want on the basis of being liberated and "empowered"? There couldn't be enough laws passed and enforced to cover any of this -- they'd have to have devices to measure where the eyes are focusing, if the head turns too often towards the dashboard, if hands come off the steering wheel. Sensors all over the car. Voice sensors, too. Oh, that'd fly.

People have to choose whether "defensive driving" is an antiquated, extremist term, thus taking on the meaning "offensive driving" in this brave, new upside down world we call home. Or is there some small portion still alive in the human psyche that says there are limits as to how much one's own selfishness is serving them and society.