Yesterday, Playboy, Inc. CEO Scott Flanders announced that nudity would no longer be present in future editions of Playboy magazine. While it has been several decades since I viewed the magazine, certain events and happenings are just earth shakers.    Replaced by all kinds of garbage, readily available on the internet, Playboy’s tame titillations are now a thing of the past.                 That’s all I’m saying.  WHAT THE HECK !

This is a story that just keeps on giving.   Again, courtesy of the National Health Service(NHS) in the United Kingdom, general practitioners all across the U.K. are openly discussing a mass walkout and closure of doctors’ offices, citing the combined pressures of an aging population, increasingly complex health needs, funding cuts, soaring costs, and lack of incentives for new trainee doctors.   The tipping point appears to be the latest directive from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to force GPs to offer seven day access, meaning that a GP would be forced to open evenings and Saturdays to ensure that patients would be seen within seven days of an appointment request.    I’ll bet the UK medical schools are just buzzing with excitement !        It would be the height of naivety to assume that this type of scenario isn’t right around the corner here. WHAT THE HECK !

I received some news yesterday that just knocked my socks off,  news that sounded too good to be true.  And you know how that kind of news usually turns out !   But in this case, the story is confirmed, and amidst all the bad stuff going on today in our world and in our communities, God shows His face and His love for us in most remarkable ways.

Two years ago, a highly successful Christ-based ministry serving misguided teenage girls in rural Florida was forced to close.    Despite the efforts of many to find a new ministry to occupy this unique residential farm setting, the property was put up for sale by the denominational group that the property was deeded to upon cessation of the original ministry.  This is hard to explain without names, so please bear with me.  No need to jinx the process in the 9th inning.

Another faith-based ministry, located several miles away, and serving a wide range of foster children/youth has been seeking ways to expand their services from a facilities base on a farm that they lease from an absentee owner.  This ministry was one of the parties that had been trying, unsuccessfully, to utilize the closed farm referenced above.   Financing was the issue, as the original farm property was worth approximately $1.3 million.

In pops a wealthy Christian family, well-entrenched in Florida real estate, with a heart for foster kids.  After many hours spent with the folks running the leased property ministry, they are directed to purchase, not only the 23 leased acres, but also the original farm property formerly serving misguided teenage girls.   And finally, the two properties are to be deeded in full to the ministry with no financial or ministry handcuffs.

Like I said, sounds like too good a story to be true !  Closings on the properties are scheduled in the next month.   God clearly at work.

WHAT THE HECK !

Oops, forgot to mention that the same National Health Service, responsible for administering Britain’s fine one-payor health care system,  two days ago started refusing hearing aids for people with “mild” hearing problems.  The directive suggested that those affected should take certain steps, including learning to lip read and turning off noisy televisions in order to “make the best use” of their hearing capabilities.   You just cannot make this stuff up.  It’s just around the corner here !                          WHAT THE HECK !

Just back from a wonderful five day trip to Wales and England, complete with five rounds of golf and two live football matches. While in London, I couldn’t help but notice the “big news story of the day” on the front pages of all the London fishwrap (that’s newspapers, for those of you from Birdsboro).   One headline read, “GPs TO GET BONUS IF THEY DON’T REFER YOU TO HOSPITAL”. Confirmed by the National Health Service (NHS),  the story details  a nationwide  system of cash bonuses paid to general practitioners  for not providing surgery referrals.   Believe it !      Specifically, one are of focus is on the limitation on cancer consultations or tests which are intended to be carried out within two weeks from an initial diagnosis by a GP.  Britain already has one of Western Europe’s lowest cancer survival rates.    What a great systematic  cost containment program this is, one which should not surprise anyone as being just around the Obamacare corner here in the States.                               WHAT THE HECK !

The list of questions I have for God at the pearly gates continues to grow.    I must constantly remember to temper my curiosity by referencing Isaiah 55: 8-9 which says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts.  Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”   In other words, Tim, you’re not supposed to figure everything out !   Yet  my sinful self keeps trying, much to my frustration and confusion.

Two weeks ago in the local fish wrapping, a local Tampa rabbi justified his temple’s acceptance and encouragement of gay marriage by suggesting that, “at the time of the Bible the accepted practice was that men married women to have children and then went out in the fields at night and had sex for pleasure with men.” Wow, let’s try to find that in the Torah.   So, let’s just pull some fiction out of thin air (accepted practice) and use it to justify a rite not at all condoned , rather condemned by the Torah.   Glad I didn’t wake up and read these words from my rabbi.

And then this week we have Pope Francis touring the East Coast, ravishing our form of capitalism, and preaching wealth redistribution via climate control reform.   Yes, he forgot to mention the long record of the USA in meeting God’s commission to us to love God, and to love one another.  Did he forget that the USA  steps up every time disaster strikes around the world at levels not reached by all other countries combined ?   Maybe he favors the more dictatorial style of his native Argentina, which has repressed its people socially and financially (over-spending – currency devaluations) for two centuries.

The message of peace and hope spread by an optimistic, smiling Pope is wonderful to see, whether Catholic or not, but I certainly wish he would stick to the book of Matthew .    WHAT THE HECK !

Robbin and I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Manhattan , and we decided to head downtown to check out the revitalization of the World Trade Center area.  Unlike my last visit 5-7 years ago, which was rather discouraging given the politicians’ inability to decide how to proceed, all the New Yorkers have gotten their collective acts together.  Two of the three new towers are complete. The bustle of loud, brash, construction workers fill the air.  All in all, this is a very optimistic environment as opposed to the discouraging scene from a few years ago.  You get the impression finally that America is bouncing back.   Highlighting our visit was the official 9/11 memorial, built directly over the top of one of the tragically razed buildings.  It is just the perfect memorial.  Not American gaudy, just the right tone of dignity and remembrance.    All who perished that day have their names etched in the granite encircling the memorial.   Congrats to the New Yorkers, as they all got it just right.

But oops, we are in New York City, and of course someone came along to ruin it.  Just as Robbin and I were gazing into the memorial, some Muslim dude approached and tried to sell us a beautiful, four-color booklet of 9/11 photographs.   Definition of irony ?             WHAT THE HECK !

Somehow, with all the clutter of politics and crazy world events, the press from time to time misses a really big story right under their collective noses. The same holds true for the entourage of wannabee athletes who write and report about the world of sports.  Today’s posting is a sports story, one that is so remarkable and unbelievable, yet remains under the radar

of the sports press.    I’m willing to bet that most of you have no clue as to the identity of the baseball player pictured above.  Well, let me fill you in.  His name is Ichiro Suzuki, age 41, who is fast closing in on one of the most coveted records in the sport of baseball, a statistic that normally yields a free pass to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.     Ichiro, who has played for the Seattle Mariners, the stinkin’ Yankees, and the Miami Marlins,  is fast closing in on his 3000th career major league hit.  He currently has 2,932 hits.  Yes , that’s a nice story you may say, but what’s the big deal ?  The big deal is that Ichiro only came to the USA in 2001 at age 28, after playing nine professional seasons for the Orix Blue Wave in the Japanese Professional League.   During those nine seasons, at a level of baseball rivaling our own MLB, Ichiro amassed 1278 hits. Now do you get it?   Add the two hit totals together, and you reach Pete Rose-like numbers.   One could make the case that Ichiro is the best hitter ever to play the game.    Oh, I forgot to mention that he is a ten-time All-Star, a ten-time Gold Glove winner, and remarkably the leading career active base stealer in the Major Leagues with 498 stolen bases.    Cooperstown will be getting a lot more Japanese tourists in coming years I believe.     WHAT THE HECK !

With fourteen months until the general election, the ever-present media crush demands our attention to this crucial process.  Actually, unless we are not breathing, coverage of the process is hard to escape !  I’m a fairly structured person who generally prefers order to chaos, prefers reaching conclusions quickly versus never-ending discussion, and prefers solutions to issues that fit on a 3″X5″ card. Therefore, to maintain my sanity in a world full of lawyers and pundits and pinheads and politicians, here is how I am attacking my own selection process.  I want to see the person I end up voting for prioritize the following two issues:   1) closure of our Southern border.  I’m very flexible about what should be done with those illegal immigrants who I don’t blame for coming to the land of opportunity through our porous border, but let’s turn off the spigot.  Now ! First !  The rest is negotiable.  2) cut federal government spending to achieve a balanced budget.  When we have to count the burden we are placing on our children in the trillions, it’s time to act and stop talking about it. Do it like any well-run business would do it – immediate across-the-board 5% cut in all spending, no exceptions, not even beloved Social Security.   Then freeze hiring for three years and freeze that budgeted level of spending for three years.   Shazzam, balanced budget !

I also want my candidate to pay close attention to maintaining the integrity of our Constitution, a document that is being shredded by our current Emperor, and stands to be burned by the inauguration of the previously identified crime family (ONE DOWN,ONE TO GO  —  June 5, 2015)  starting with the letter C. Secondly, I want God to be in the mix, to be identified as the guy in charge and the guy in which we trust.    Acknowledgment of who’s really in charge, and reliance on Him for guidance is a litmus test for me.

This week, star Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker James Harrison returned the sports trophies his two sons received merely for participating.   Bully for James !   Making  kids “feel” good all the time, and rewarding them not for accomplishment, but just for showing up, breeds a cycle of entitlement and complacency that cannot have a positive influence on their attitudes as eventual adults.  Dummying down the population sadly is becoming part of the DNA of the USA.                      WHAT THE HECK !