Church Decision

After long and deliberate thought, I have decided not to name the church that is at the center of this post. Writing this has been hard and it was equally as hard to come to decision to speak my mind in the church last night after 15 years of holding my opinions and feelings in. In personal conversation I don't think I would have a problem identifying it, but not in a forum like this.

In recent months, I was coming to the decision to start returning to church after 15 years by attending Wednesday night services. I'll probably never be an every Sunday morning church service attendee but I have started to like the informal yet informative nature of the Wednesday night services and I have taken a liking to the current Pastor.

During the last year, a committee has been working on new bylaws for the Church. Last Wednesday, they presented copies of the old and new bylaws to the Church and there was to be a vote on them this Wednesday night. I read the new bylaws and was immediately struck by the fact that they could have the effect of reversing some of what drove me away from the Church and from organized religion as a whole over the last 15 years. These bylaws would remove the political power of the Church from the hands of a select few and spread it among the Church membership by rotating committee positions and chairmanships and by imposing a form of term limits. To me, things were looking up.

I attended the service last night so that I could cast my vote in favor of them (I have never given up membership in the Church, I simply stopped going for the most part). During the business meeting, it immediately became apparent that there were those who were opposed to the bylaws because they realized that their power in the Church was threatened by them. After listening to almost an hour of the debate, I finally raised my hand and said what I've been waiting for 15 years to say. I told the assembled that they hadn't seen me much for 15 years, then went on to explain why. I told them that I was disgusted by the way previous Pastors had been treated (backdoor politics and backstabbing come to mind) and that I was turned off by the fact that the Church was run by a powerful few. I concluded my stating that the new bylaws would be just the thing to help remedy those problems.

In retrospect, I should have realized that the process was doomed to fail. It did fail. The powerful few were able to garner just enough votes to make the vote fall short of the 2/3 majority by 4 votes. Personally, I think that the failure to pass the new bylaws could very well have been the torpedo that broke the ship's keel. It has led me to reconsider becoming active in that Church again. In closing the service/meeting last night, the Pastor asked if we were serving the Lord or if we were serving ourselves. I truly believe that those who led the defeat of the bylaws were serving not the Lord but themselves. I will be going through a lot of deep thought and consideration in the near future. If you are a religious person and reading this, please keep me in your prayers. There are some hard decisions to come.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

The Gamble

I recently picked up a copy of Thomas Ricks' The Gamble - General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. I began reading The Gamble this week and found it very much an advantage to have read Fiasco, Ricks' previous book on the Iraq War. General David Petraeus being central to the book, I also have found it helpful to have read In the Company of Soldiers, Rick Atkinson's book about the 101st Airborne in Iraqi Freedom (Petraeus commanded the 101st during that time).

I'll have more to say on The Gamble after I finish reading it, but I found it interesting that Ricks relates a story of one Republican Senator breaking with the Bush line in Iraq after reading Keegan's history of World War I, which I have just finished re-reading. The Senator compared the BEF's General's repeated attacks into German trench defenses to the US Military's resistance to change in Iraq.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Saxby Chambliss and Imperial Sugar

I rarely post anything political, but after reading the article in this morning's Savannah Morning News, I felt motivated to post.

In the aftermath of the Imperial Sugar refinery explosion last February, Senator Saxby Chambliss faced a decision; would he support his constituents in the form of voters that elected him to office or would he support his constituents in the form of businesses like Imperial Sugar that fill his campaign coffers with money. Before I go any further, I'll admit to having no opinion one way or another of Senator Chambliss until this event. I don't share many of his views, but he always seemed to represent the state of Georgia well.

When faced with his decision, it seems that Senator Chambliss decided to support Imperial Sugar. If the accusations are true, Senator Chambliss attempted to encourage the families of the explosion victims not to sue Imperial Sugar. He also vigorously opposed witnesses against Imperial Sugar in a Senate Committee Hearing (a committee of which he was not a member). Senator Chambliss unfortunately decided it was in his best interest to work for a business that provides him campaign money rather than to work for the people he represents: the people of the State of Georgia.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

F1 News - 18 February 2009

A couple of F1 news items caught my eye this morning as I was checking the Autosport website:

1. The USF1 program is interested in testing Danica Patrick. I can only see this as a publicity and marketing move. Danica Patrick would not be a good choice as a team driver for an F1 team, especially a new or lower rung team. She has proven an inability to communicate with her engineer to improve the handling of her IRL car during a race so it would follow that she would be unable to communicate with engineers to develop a new race car. That would be disaster for a new team. Danica would bring a lot of publicity and a lot of sponsorship to USF1, but she likely wouldn't be able to bring anything to the table in regards to car development.
2. Dietrich Mateschitz says that team owners should own F1. I think that he should look back at the history of the CART series here in the US and realize that team ownership of a series is doomed to failure. You need one strong person to run the series. The teams will be concerned about what is best for them and fight politically amongst themselves. That one strong individual would be better able to do what is best for the whole. As much as I dislike many of NASCAR's decisions, it seems that their model for running the series has worked better than others. Although you can use Tony George and the IRL as an argument against it, CART is the series that eventually failed.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

NASCAR Thoughts

Just a few thoughts from the last two weeks of NASCAR at Daytona:

• 50-something cars attempted to make the Daytona 500 and Daytona International Speedway filled the stands, so the economy, according to NASCAR and the talking heads, has had no negative effects on NASCAR. There will always be plenty of cars trying to make the Daytona 500 because it is the Daytona 500. Let's judge the economic impact on car county 5 to 10 races into the season. As far as filling the seats go, let's not forget that Daytona had to reduce ticket prices (something they shouldn't have to use the economy as an excuse to do - ticket prices should be lower in the first place).
• I will preface the following by saying that I am a Tony Stewart fan. Stewart-Haas racing will only be as successful as Hendrick Motorsports decides they will be. Should Stewart-Haas be too good, I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of the chassis and engines supplied by Hendrick to Stewart-Haas adjusts.
• Richard Petty Motorsports is Richard Petty in name only. Anyone who has followed NASCAR for a long time knows that Richard Petty would not run a beer sponsorship. With the 9 car still boldly displaying the Budweiser colors, that pretty much proves that GEM is using Richard Petty's name for the marketing possibilities that it opens up.
• I'm really impressed by the performance of A.J. Allmendinger the last two weeks. He has shown great improvement over the last year and I won't be surprised if Red Bull ends up regretting their decision to dump him for Scott Speed. They dropped Allmendinger just as he was getting his feet under him.
• Once again, NASCAR proves that it has two sets of rules: one for the Superstars and one for everyone else. Jason Leffler gets 5 laps for spinning someone in the Nationwide race but Earnhardt Jr. gets none for spinning someone? I'm waiting to see if anyone with Fox, Speed, or ESPN has the nerve to put a microphone in front of Helton or anyone else with NASCAR and ask why..
• Bud Shootout - Great Race. The Twin 150's - Great Races. The Truck Race - Great Race. The Nationwide Race - Pretty Good Race. The Daytona 500 - Not as good as I thought it would be and not what it had the potential to be (and it wasn't all due to the weather).

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Racer Magazine "Racers of the Year"

After having to take some pain pills for a Kidney Stone, I slept off and on for most of the day so now I find myself awake and looking for something to burn some time. Here is my commentary on some of Racer Magazine's "Racers of the Year" from the March 2009 issue that recently arrived in my mailbox.

Racer of the Year: Kyle Busch
This is hard to argue with. Kyle Busch and an amazing 2008 season; he was successful on short ovals, mid-size ovals, and the superspeedways. He was successful on the road courses. He was successful in three different kinds of cars: Sprint Cup cars, Nationwide cars, and Craftsman trucks. What's more, he also was frequently racing a short track car during the week and on his offtime. There is no doubt that his Sprint Cup season ended on a disappointing note, but if you take his season as a whole in all three series I doubt you can find a much better racer.

Oval Racer of the Year: Jimmy Johnson
I have to take exception with this choice. In my opinion, even though Johnson won his third consecutive championship Kyle Busch was the oval racer of the year. Why? See above.

Road Racer of the Year: Scott Pruett
My Road Racer of the Year would be Alan McNish. I still can't get over his drive in the 2008 Petit LeMans at Road Atlanta. With the support of an outstanding Audi team, he won the LMS championship against a much faster Peugeot. McNish rarely put a foot wrong and more than atoned for it when he did (see Petit LeMans). Despite having the slower car, you never heard McNish publicly complain; he simply put his head down and got on with the job at hand.

Racer's choice of Scott Pruett is one that I can understand, but I have lost some respect for Pruett over the last few seasons. He has complained too much and has proven himself to be a hypocrite. He cries when another driver lays a fender against him but yet he has no problem laying a fender against someone else. You can't have it both ways. If you're going to use your bumper don't complain when someone uses theirs on you; if you're going to complain about someone using their bumper on you, don't use your bumper on them.

Rookie of the Year: Joey Logano
I'm not sure that I would have picked Joey Lagano as Rookie of the Year. He didn't really do a full season in any of the major series in 2008. If he did well this year, he would certainly be a candidate for Rookie of the Year. Personally, I think that Gibbs Racing is doing him a disservice by putting him in a Sprint Cup car this year; he should do a full season of Nationwide or Trucks before going fulltime in the Sprint Cup series.

Team of the Year: Target Chip Ganassi Racing (Indycar)
Given that choices like Hendrick and Roush in NASCAR would have been much more popular choices, I like the choice of Ganassi's Indycar team. I think you could also have just as easily picked the Ganassi Grand Am team for Team of the Year. Both did exemplary jobs in 2008; no one in either series showed up more prepared, exercised better strategy, or adjusted to changing conditions as they did (with the arguable exception of Penske in the IRL). What sets them above Hendrick and Roush is that they did it with 2 cars, not 4 or 5.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Milka Duno to Newman Haas Lanigan?

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-milka-duno-and-robert-doornbos-to-newman-hass-lanigan/

Surely this is a joke. Doornbos I can understand. If it is true, I can only describe Duno's signing as a bought ride. I can't decide whether to be mad at NHL or feel sorry for them. Has it gotten that bad?

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net