Kenny Kemp's Blog
November 22, 2009
FROM THE TIME OF THE APOSTLES' CREED, people have memorialized their beliefs in written form. In my religious tradition, thirteen "articles of faith" answered a newpaper editor's questions about a new church, and those assertions came to form the belief backbone of that religion. Benjamin Franklin wrote a little handbook entitled "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion" to formulate a method for attaining perfection in his personal life. Every week he focused on one of the thirteen virtues o...
November 16, 2009
THE GREATEST MORAL AUTHORITY in history, as well as the greatest example of that authority, is undoubtedly Jesus of Nazareth. He was born into a world where "an eye for an eye" was the culturally-mandated response to any offense. His gift to mankind was to supersede that maxim with a far more difficult moral imperative: Love your neighbor as yourself. For two thousand years Jesus' followers have struggled not only to follow his difficult invitation, but to discern exactly what "loving" your n...
November 8, 2009
I'VE BEEN THINKING about how much things change, and yet how little they really do. In other words, things appear to change because the particulars differ, but the underlying principles at work remain the same.Case in point: the election of the least-prepared president in the history of the country prompted millions to writhe in an ecstasy prompted by His presence and the promise of change they really, really believed in. We're now seeing that change: an unprecedented restructuring of America...
August 30, 2009
LAST WEEKEND I VOLUNTEERED at the Park City Jazz Festival in Deer Valley, Utah. It has become a tradition with me: excellent music, the joy of helping out, the beautiful mountain scenery, not to mention the respite from the August heat of the Salt Lake valley.In that milieu, I remembered again of the power of music and yet how easy it is to let it slip silently out of our lives. The music that moves me most is jazz, because of its heady improvisation, soaring instrumentality, and ability to enve
August 8, 2009
AUGUST, NORMALLY A SLEEPY MONTH FOR POLITICS, is sizzling with political heat all across America. Elected representatives are holding town hall meetings and getting an earful from the normally somnambulant populace, which has apparently beginning to awake to Washington's perfidy. It's about time.As a resident of the most conservative state, I have lamented the lack of political excitement in my own backyard, but then I went to the Board of Education meeting inaugurating a new school district whi
AUGUST, NORMALLY A SLEEPY MONTH FOR POLITICS, is sizzling with political heat all across America. Elected representatives are holding town hall meetings and getting an earful from the normally somnambulant populace, which has apparently beginning to awake to Washington's perfidy. It's about time.As a resident of the most conservative state, I have lamented the lack of political excitement in my own backyard, but then I went to the Board of Education meeting inaugurating a new school district whi
August 2, 2009
"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" -- John Conyers (D-MI)Fortunately, Congressman Conyers, some people have read House Resolution 3200 and some of them are lawyers and here's what it means, with the page numbers and a layman's translation:
Health benefits will be limited on an annual dollar basis (29). This means rationing.
Instead of you, your doctor, or even your insurance provide
July 26, 2009
AYN RAND'S ATLAS SHRUGGED IS NOT SO MUCH A NOVEL as it is a dramatized philosophical treatise, and its redundancy and length is no mistake: Rand is attempting to instill a respect for laissez faire capitalism, no easy task in these days of hate-the-rich anti-corporatism.Published over fifty years ago, Rand's book was at first received cooly by critics and public alike. Her editor, humorist Bennet Cerf, asked her to trim the 1200 page leviathan. Rand replied, "Would you edit the Bible?"
Arrogant?
July 14, 2009
THE HEALTHCARE DEBATE is everywhere, but it has become increasingly confusing. Trillions of dollars. More taxes on the rich. Increased employer taxes. Health-providers promising cost cutting. The result: health care that is timely, superb, and free.I'm not buying it. The same guys who run the Post Office now want to run healthcare. Government runs only one thing well -- the military -- and no one on earth believes they do so efficiently. Remember $40 screwdrivers?
So what is the solution? Make th
June 21, 2009
I WAS SO ANGRY, I ALMOST THREW MY SHOE AT THE TV. An entire nation had been subjugated, a people enslaved, their culture decimated, their vast wealth purloined by a totalitarian regime. The world stood by, the extent of its outrage limited to making angry faces at the aggressor.I am not talking about Iran. I am talking about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. When George H.W. Bush finally ordered the liberation of Kuwait, it was over so fast that everyone was stunned. They called it the "100 ho
