A Humbling Experience

When we first started this blog almost two months ago we had no idea how God was going to choose to use it, much less whether anyone would actually read it besides ourselves.

This morning I received quite a shock when a friend of mine called this morning to say that our blog was mentioned by Hugh Hewitt in his column this morning for The Weekly Standard. Full disclosure: after Mommypundit posted this last night, I encouraged her to e-mail the post to Hugh Hewitt since he had previously linked to our blog for his web symposiums here (scroll down to the Monday 9:25PM group - the previous symposium is not archived but you can read the post here) But I never imagined that our little blog would be singled out in an article appearing on a major media outlet’s website. It’s a great honor and very humbling at the same time. While the temptation of the flesh would be to boast about this, the Bible reminds me of this:

“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth for in these I delight, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:23-24

To Hugh Hewitt, thank you for the inspiration to start this blog. We are honored and humbled that you chose to highlight us from among the literally thousands of blogs that you could have selected.

To those who are paying us a visit for the first time, thank you for checking in with us. We hope that you will visit with us frequently.

Rick Boucher is running from his record

In the Virginia 9th district congressional race, Republican challenger Kevin Triplett has repeatedly issued challenges to incumbent Democrat Rick Boucher to appear at a series of debates. Boucher has agreed to one debate in Roanoke this Friday which will be broadcast to about 1/3 of the 9th district voters forgoing the others citing a busy schedule. Triplett wanted multiple debates or candidate forums throughout the district to allow the majority of voters an opportunity to hear from the candidates. Boucher's refusal to participate in the forums has caused organizers to cancel them. He was invited to appear at forums on October 19 and October 21. Instead he will be attending fundraisers (see them here and here). Why is Boucher afraid to debate? Perhaps he doesn't want people to find out the truth about his record that it reflect's John Kerry's values more than Southwest Virginia values.

If the president can take time out from prosecuting a war and conducting a national campaign to take questions from voters on three occasions, shouldn't Southwest Virginia expect our Congressman to forgo a couple of fundraisers to answer our questions?

Polls being manipulated to help Kerry?

Hugh Hewitt mentioned in his weekend symposium wrap-up that there is a theory being tossed around that pollsters have been manipulating their data to try to give the impression of a Kerry surge. Here is the original analysis from Steven den Beste. This brought to mind a book I recently read by Clay Jacobsen (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers) entitled "Circle of Seven". In it, the protagonist, an investigative reporter, discovers a group of media elite who are using polls to manipulate public opinion as well as policy decisions. It's a fascinating look at how polls are conducted. If you weren't skeptical about opinion polls before you certainly will be after reading this book.

Information Overload

How strange it has been to go from last week which became an unintentional fast from the news and the internet to this week which has been a flood of information. Today I experienced what I would call "information overload" meaning that I was so overwhelmed with information that I couldn't think straight.

Let's face it, we can be bombarded with information if we allow it. Never has information been more abundant. I'm constantly amazed at what there is to be found on the internet. In a way it's like a scavenger hunt surfing the net to see what we can find. But how easily it slips into surfing for the sake of surfing without any specific objective that we are trying to meet. Before I know it, valuable hours have been wasted that could have been better spent on other things.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is value to the internet. There is also value in following the news and staying informed on the events of the day. However, it has become more critical than ever to carefully choose what sources we seek information from especially given the recent missteps in the MSM.

So what do I consider my reliable sources? Where should I be going for information? Most importantly, how do I balance my need to be informed with the demands that my job, my wife, my children, my church, and most importantly my walk with God place upon my time? Time is a precious commodity that cannot afford to be wasted.

First, I have to recognize the limited amount of time I have available to seek out news and information. There are many blogs out there, for instance, that update numerous times during the day. There are others that post maybe only once or twice a day. Which do I choose? Which news sources can I trust to provide reliable information? Which sources do I know share my worldview which is shaped by my faith? Which sources am I likely to disagree with but at least will make me think through my positions?

As far as news is concerned, the best site I have found is NewsMax. It tends to focus on real news rather than gossip. As an e-mail alert subscriber I get top stories delivered to my e-mail account that I can read at my leisure and still feel current on events.

For commentary, I recommend Townhall which provides an e-mail summary daily of conservative commentary and The Federalist which has an e-mail summary three times a week of key political happenings.

As far as blogs are concerned, Hugh Hewitt posts frequently but not so much that I can't keep up. Plus, he's on top of what's happening in the blogosphere and will link to key commentaries. Neal Boortz has a great daily blog that also serves as his program notes. His Reading Assignments at the end of the blog are a great summary of important news articles and editorials.

For Christian commentary, I go to Mark Roberts and Evangelical Outpost. Mark seems to focus more on issues facing the church while Evangelical Outpost will tackle a variety of issues.

In the wake of my overload syndrome, I've also decided it's best not to overdo it on talk radio. Again, the internet provides amazing access to talk radio programs and there have been days where I've had it going all day. That also seems to be feeding my overload. So, I am going to have to narrow it down to one program that I will listen to and even at that I won't listen every day. For me, the logical choice is Hugh Hewitt's show. First, Hugh is a Christian and conservative so I know that he has a similar religious worldview as well as political worldview to my own. But probably the biggest reason I would choose his show is the ability to listen anytime I want. His Los Angeles affiliate, KRLA, has an online archive which allows you to listen to the latest show on demand. That helps me a lot to know I don't have to worry about meeting the show's schedule and can listen in whenever I want to.

It's important to be informed. It's more important to seek truth. In the tidal wave of information that washes over us daily that truth is sometimes hard to find. It comes down to knowing where to look for it. But the one place that we can always find truth is in God's word, the Bible. And it is there that we need to be first before we go anywhere else.

Check out this...

This post from Hugh Hewitt is absolutely priceless. I can't say it any better than he does.

Random Thoughts

On the way home from vacation and finally have Internet access again. Actually, we had it but only if we were willing to pay a hefty fee. No thanks. I'd rather buy more souvenirs for the girls.

Just finished watching the opening of Saturday Night Live. First time I've watched it in years. They opened with a parody of last night's debate that was hilarious.

Since we didn't have the Internet readily available while we were gone we handed off maintenance of the blog to Sister Sophist. Thanks to her for keeping things going while we were out of pocket. She continues to impress me with her breadth of knowledge on a variety of subjects. Anytime I can't find some piece of information I need, I know I can turn to her and she'll know it or know where to find it.

We also didn't watch any news during the week. It was both strange and refreshing. It felt a little odd being out of touch with what was going on in the world. However, when we turned on the news tonight we realized we hadn't missed much. The break from the constant influx of information was much needed.

We did take time last night to watch the presidential debate. I'll have some thoughts on that in the next couple of days. I'm still mulling over some things I observed during the debate. The bottom line is President Bush clearly won this debate.

Kudos to Charles Gibson for his outstanding job moderating the debate. The questions selected were equally tough on both candidates. The questions were also refreshingly direct - not something we are accustomed to seeing from the MSM.

Bill O'Reilly said last night after the debate that he was willing to meet with Senator Kerry anytime to do the same type of interview he did with President Bush. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the Senator's call.

We spent at least a couple of days over at Disney World. Even celebrated my birthday in the Magic Kingdom. At least I was able to act and feel like a kid and not be ashamed.

The reason Disney World is the best place to take the family for vacation is the folks who work there (in Disneyspeak they are called cast members). Hats off to two cast members in particular - Kat at Cape May Cafe and Teresa Marie at O'Hana who made our visits especially memorable.

Apparently there is a new program that Disney has that allows college students to come work at the parks for a semester and continue to take college courses. It gives them a taste of working for Disney while allowing them to continue their studies. We met a lot of students while we were there (it was the first time we noticed that there were college students working in the parks) and across the board they all were enjoying the experience. I can only imagine how cool it is to work there. I keep saying to Mommypundit that when I retire we should relocate to Orlando so we can go work at Disney World.

More to come soon.

A battle of worldviews

Kathleen Parker makes a great point today. This election is not about policies or proposals, but about worldviews. Take time to read it.

Why a blog?

Mommypundit correctly pointed out in her first post that much of the inspiration for starting this blog came from Hugh Hewitt. In fact, it would be safe to say that one of the most affirming signs for me was reading his book If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It. His book was really more affirmation of our recent involvement in politics (more about that later) than about blogging. However, it was our interest and involvement in politics that really served as the impetus for starting the blog.

Let's face it, there is only one issue we really need to be concerned about in this election. Who will keep us safe? Will it be Republicans or Democrats? A quick review of recent events will show you that Republicans truly understand the threats our country faces and will do everything possible to eliminate the threats before they come to fruition.

So back to how we recently became involved in politics. We've always had an interest in politics and have tried our best to stay abreast of what's happening in the world. But it has only been in the last few months that an opportunity to really be involved has presented itself. It's been almost 2 years since we moved to Southwest Virginia. Of the many people we have met and become friends with are Kevin and Jill Triplett. When we first met them we were only vaguely aware of his campaign for the U. S. House 9th district seat in Virginia. As we got to know them better, we discovered that Kevin and Jill decided to raise their family where they both grew up. Then Kevin decided to run for Congress against 22 year incumbent Rick Boucher. Never before had we personally known someone who was involved in politics and certainly not on the federal level. Here was an opportunity to get involved in a campaign. Here was an opportunity to do more than simply say we support Kevin. We were being called to get involved.

That's really the message of Hugh's book. It's time to get involved. It's time to do everything we can to make sure that Republicans are elected. Which brings me back to why we started this blog. A couple of weeks ago, mommypundit was doing some research on Rick Boucher's voting record (research which incidentally became her post on Southwest Virginia Values. After spending a great deal of time researching this issue and coming up with lots of interesting information (testimony to the power of the Internet - you can find just about anything) she was left frustrated at the end of the evening not knowing what to do with all her hard work. This blog is the result of that research.

Of course, not everything we write about will be political. We expect in the coming weeks to write about a whole variety of issues. We are also realistic that we're probably not going to be as widely read as Hugh Hewitt, Kerry Spot, Powerline, Instapundit, Best of the Web, or any of the many other blogs that we read on an almost daily basis. So we won't get hung up on whether lots of people read what we have to say. What we hope is that folks will drop by to see what we've posted and take the information we've found and share it with others. That's all we can ask for.