The world is changing fast..

Dear Family and Friends,
Throughout my life I've heard about last day events and often I've heard the words that they would be rapid.  Having lived through the very slowly changing world situations its been hard for me to think of world events happening rapidly.  Now I can see that it can happen.  In a matter of weeks many of the countries in the middle east are in uproar and when oil producing states are in uproar we feel it in our own fuel prices.  Why we are not drilling and producing all the oil we can within our own shores I don't understand but of course that is another subject.  Yet I can see how rapidly the world we know can change before our eyes.  Sylvia was set for a birding trip in Egypt for the very time the country was exploding, the trip was cancelled but she could easily have been there in the middle of it.  I've been to Jordan, walked the streets in the evening, ridden buses out to Petra and now Jordan is experiencing unrest in the streets.  Its tense in Israel, a country that is far from perfect in its treatment of others but finds itself surrounded with hostile neighbors who want to destroy the Jews.

And in our own country a long festering problem of unfunded mandates is now exploding to the surface.  Tonight it is reported that 1/2 of Detroit's schools are going to be closed, high school classes could reach as high as 60 kids.  For too long public officials have just given in to the demands of public servants rather than have a fight. As long as the money flowed things appears OK but now that the money is no longer flowing who is going to honor these generous agreements when there is no money.  Unions have done tremendous good in this country and around the world but at times they are their own worst enemy, always pushing for more benefits, more pay and less hours until the jobs get shipped to another country where labor costs are much lower and suddenly the union does not look so good.  The idea of a union forcing all teachers in a school district to belong, pay huge dues or not work is just wrong.  And then taking the dues and pushing just one political party, the one most likely to give them ever bigger wages and benefits, that seems totally wrong as well.  I was listening to a lady tonight who is a teacher and the school district forced her to pay $700 a year in dues.  She then discovered that that same union was publishing lies and distortions about her husband who was running for public office.  Her money was being used to defame her husband.  When she raised the issue her calls were not returned.  This whole situation is just wrong.

My brother was an engineer for years for the railroads, had a great union and enjoys a reasonable retirement.  He was treated mostly fair by the union who represented him well.  That is a case of a good union outcome, there are other situations that are not so ideal and in the case of public employees their pay has gotten way out of hand.  To have healthy people retiring at 55 with most of their wages, now retirement to continue for the rest of their lives, there is not enough money in the cities coffers to cover that as time goes by.  My own state of California is a prime example.  With millions of undocumented people here, with rules upon rules squeezing businesses, with high taxes it is no wonder that people are leaving the state by the thousands.  There is little golden left about our state, its so sad to observe.  And yet we elected the same people who got us into the mess again.  What can we expect?  Gov. Brown will try but he was created by the labor unions, they own him and the whole democratic party, its hard to see the way out.

Before I got up this morning I was praying and thinking about my own little world, remembering people, family, friends who need an extra dose of God's blessings and thinking about how God views the world at this time, He must just shake His head with sadness to see the mess we humans have made of things.

Oh that the day coming would come soon, when God says enough.

Good night my family and friends,

I love you all,


Tim