On the Election

from the Prophet Shea (who also has a bunch of other interesting things posted--check it all out!):

...dark warnings of imminent "gridlock" are being emitted by the usual talking heads. To which I say, "Amen and amen! What else do you think the Constitution was designed to create? When the Feds aren't gridlocked and are all operating in smooth concert with one another, the first thing they do is agree to plunge us into stupid and catastrophic wars in Iraq or saddle us with trillions of dollars of debt. The whole Constitutional order is a celebration of gridlock and tortuous cross purposes. Bring it on!"

And to leaven the darkness a bit--the same author on gratuity and gratitude:

...I opened my eyes and something astounding happened: They worked! I saw not just light, but things! It turns out I don't just have a photosensitive spot but actual eyes! Two of them! They are arranged on the front of my head so that I can not only see, but see in a sort of stereo that makes it easy to estimate the distance or speed of whatever I might see. What's more, I can see color! I could see my curtains! I could see the face of the woman I love! I could see branches of an alder tree that has grown outside my window for years by means of a mysterious process involving wind, sun, and rain that nobody really understands fully. I saw water, a mysterious chemical capable of bestowing life on organic matter, falling freely from heaven! It was astounding!

Now, you might think, "That's enough for any person to be grateful for a lifetime!" But so lavish is God's gift to me that I haven't even gotten to the miracle part yet (though when you think about it, just seeing is quite miraculous and not a bit "explained," merely because some guys in lab coats have worked the names of some of the chemical processes involved). No. The miraculous part was this: I literally stuck my legs out of bed, put my toes on the floor, hoisted myself to my feet, and walked across the room.

It was actually easy, despite the immense symphony of coordination between brain, balance organs, nerves (both sensory and motor), muscles, joints, connective tissue, blood, lymph, endocrine, digestive, skeletal, excretory, and respiratory systems that had to be humming at peak capacity for me to perform this prodigy. A comprehensive miracle of quadrillions of chemical reactions had to take place within a few seconds, all in cooperation with my rational soul and a supernatural spirit. Indeed, as I was performing this prodigy, I also yawned and -- get this -- said, "Good morning," a feat which almost none of earth's inhabitants have been able to do until just a few seconds ago, if you compress the history of the earth down to a single day. Endless eons have passed, and no creature on the face of the earth -- until a few moments ago, in the geologic time scale -- had ever uttered those words, let alone done so while walking upright on two legs...