Thank You, Dave

Wednesday, January 1, 2020 5:30 pm Daniel J. Summers

“Dave” is David Alton Herrington, my father-in-law of right at 24 years (counting engagement time as well). He passed away Monday evening after a multi-year battle with cancer. I'm sad, to be sure, but when I think back to who he was and the time we had together, behind the sadness is a large pool of gratitude. The remainder of this is addressed to him, but public so that others know the positive impacts he had on my life. (I'm also grateful that I did not wait to share this with him; though the words aren't verbatim, nothing here would be new to him.)

First, thank you for your daughter. Listing the ways she improved my life would likely fall short; from changing my outlook on my own talents, abilities, and worth, to the gift of your three grandsons, to unconditional love, to challenges when I needed it - I am the man I am today, in large part, because of her. A girl does not become a woman of her character in a vacuum; your guidance is a large part of who she is today, and I am forever grateful for that. Besides, without her, I likely would not have even known you - and my life would have been lesser because of that.

Next, thank you for welcoming me as your son. That same guidance that helped Michelle also helped me. From clean laundry back before Michelle and I were even married, to a place to stay when we visited, to places to stay even when we weren't with you, to trips with you, you spared no resources to make sure that my family had a place to stay and a means to get where we were going. You advised me on investments, and not taking your advice is one of my regrets - you were right on that! You also respected who I was as a man - you didn't try to change me into you; that meant a lot.

Thank you, also, for being strong. Whether it was in business, advising me about safety issues when we both worked in the field - or whether it was in the face of a body that had decided to turn against you - you showed true tenacity in every circumstance. As my body decides it doesn't want to do everything it has done in the past, I look to your example to keep pushing it to do what it can. Thank you for applying both strength and resources to enriching the lives of my sons; each one of them can tell me fun times with “Papa and Gran” where they made memories that will be with them the rest of their lives.

Finally, thank you for holding on through this past Christmas season. I know that it wasn't really in your control per se, but I will always be grateful that we had the opportunity to spend your final Christmas together, celebrating and making memories that all of us will long treasure.

Rest in peace, Dave - and thank you.

It’s Not about the Breasts

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 5:32 pm Daniel J. Summers

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Lots of places turn pink for awareness, but I don't know exactly what this “awareness” is supposed to accomplish. We're now “aware” that grown men tackling other grown men while wearing pink uniforms is - uh - different, and that cars zooming around a racetrack with pink paint schemes bring back memories of Pepto-Bismol. In our sex-obsessed society, it almost seems as though it's Breast Awareness Month. “Save the Ta-Tas!” “Save Second Base!” (Although I do have to admit that the one with two bees dressed like ghosts, with the caption “Save the Boo Bees,” is quite creative.) Certainly many Halloween costumes accentuate the fact that their wearers still possess them; but, again, I don't think that's the awareness this month is really meant to bring about.

The issue at stake with breast cancer, as anyone who has ever had it, or had a loved one or friend who had it, is the same issue at stake in nearly every other thing that has “cancer” in the name. It's your life. According to the NIH's National Cancer Institute, there have been around 232,000 cases of breast cancer found in 2013, with 40,000 of those resulting in death; but that's just for females. Males are responsible for another 2,200 cases of cancer and 400 deaths. That puts the death rate at 17% of women and 18% for men; for women, this is the #1 or #2 cause of death from cancer, depending on your ethnic heritage. The breast cancer survivors I know would give their breasts up in a heartbeat (and I believe that all of the ones I know have) to be rid of the cancer, and live to see their children grow.

The death rates are decreasing, which is good. Awareness is leading to action. That's really the key - a change of behavior based on the knowledge acquired. Both men and women can benefit from regular self-examinations; if something feels different, get it checked out. It's not just a lump of flesh at stake.

2012 Year in Review: The Bad

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 12:00 am Daniel J. Summers

Either way you read it, this is the middle post of the “2012 Year in Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ridiculous” series. This past year has given me no shortage of things from which to choose to compose this post.

Mass Murder x2

2012 saw two mass murders on U. S. soil. On July 20th, at a premiere of the movie The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, 12 people were killed and 58 injured by a freak who made himself look like the Joker. Then, on December 14th, a troubled young man killed his own mother, 20 children, 6 adults, and himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. While the reaction made the ridiculous list this year, the murders themselves are here. They are a stark reminder that we live in a fallen world. Dr. Albert Mohler broke his less-than-a-day-old hiatus on The Briefing for a special edition, and he summed it up quite well.

Though the murders themselves were horrible and tragic, there were reports of heroes in both instances. In Colorado, men shielded others with their bodies, and ultimately gave their lives to save others In Connecticut, a teacher named Victoria Soto hid her students wherever she could, and told the gunman that the children were elsewhere. These ordinary people, stepping up to against evil, give us some hope that while we will never eliminate this sort of evil, it is far from the norm; and, there are those who will fight against it with little to no warning.

The Benghazi / Petraeus Affair

September 11th, for the past 11 years, has been a dicey day. Obviously, the one in 2001 was the worst; however, our intelligence and counter-terrorism forces have been vigilant to the point where we really had not had to deal with any actual attacks on that particular day. 2012 saw that streak come to an end, as a group of terrorists laid siege to the U. S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, kidnapping and then killing our ambassador and three others. Initially, the State Department blamed the attack on a spontaneous reaction to the film The Innocence of Muslims, a 16-minute film that made a great deal of fun over Mohammad. In the past few days (see why you write these things after the year is done?), the report has come out calling it “sloppy security.”

Conflicting reports came out about the threat level surrounding that particular embassy, and there were even conflicting reports on our reaction to the attack once we knew it was underway. Even with the report, many people still feel that the entire story is not known. Why would that be? Well, when a cover-up or misdirection is the initial response, how are the American people to know when the next answer is the right one?

But, surely, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the Secretary of State, could get the answers and bring them out, correct? This, too, was not to be in 2012. Thanks to a sexual harassment complaint launched in April and concluded in August, an affair between the CIA director, retired General David Petraeus, and his biographer, was revealed. This “trump card” was not played until after the election, and was used to oust Petraeus before he could give official testimony as the CIA director. At the same time, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, couldn't testify due to scheduling conflicts, then due to the “flu.” It may be just as well; she doesn't have a great history of having a very good memory when she's placed under oath. Additionally, the African Command commander was relieved of his position shortly after the attack.

September 11, 2001 is generally considered a failure of intelligence. The more we learn about September 11, 2012, it looks less like a failure of intelligence and more a failure to take appropriate defensive action based on that intelligence. To put it more bluntly, we hung our own countrymen out to dry, and four of them are no longer with us.

The Fiscal Cliff

If Benghazi's problem was inaction, then the CIA and State have learned it from the U. S. Congress. Over three years of Senate inaction have left us with a budget that is nearly 4 years old; Obamacare deferred-until-the-next-election mandates will kick in; we're about to hit the extended-several-times debt ceiling; across-the-board cuts, called “sequestration,” a compromise from the last debt ceiling expansion, are set to kick in; and the so-called “Bush tax cuts” which were extended a few times are once again set to expire (itself a concept that probably deserves a spot on a ridiculous list at some point). Since that's a lot to say, the term “fiscal cliff” was coined to describe these economic events all hitting at the same time.

What is required to keep the next U. S. national sport from being fiscal cliff diving? A budget. Will that be the solution presented? Probably not. As I write this (on the 1st), the Senate has passed a compromise bill, but several House members do not seem to approve. When the next congress is seated later this week, that bill will be invalid. Bills proposed by the president and the Senate have been rightly termed “unserious” by Republicans; however, their bills are not very serious either. On a family budget that's $24,000 in the red each year, we're cutting $360. Neither side wants to do the hard work of cutting spending where it needs to be cut.

Here's hoping the water is deep enough at the bottom of this cliff that we don't break our necks.

Mitt Romney Loses

I covered my incredulity at the results of the election in the ridiculous post; but here, the negative is that we do not have Mitt Romney at the helm to guide our nation away from this cliff. Not since Sarah Palin have I witnessed such a successful character assassination, where his positives became negatives, and his successes presented as disqualifications.

As a business, America is failing. The Securities and Exchange Commission wouldn't let our stock be traded. We need someone who cares enough about our country to make hard decisions about what needs to be cut, so that a leaner America can emerge and once again regain her strength. Who better to do that than someone who ran a company that did that for businesses over and over again? And what if this someone had also donated his entire inheritance to charity, and given 2 years of his life for his religion? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I know some of my fellow conservatives had some problems with him on social issues, or the size and scope of the state. I wasn't 100% with him (though in an isidewith.com survey, I scored 97% Romney), but if our country is not economically viable, social and domestic policy matter little; at that point, we'll be answering to someone else anyway.

Hurricane Sandy

Cross an Atlantic hurricane with a nor'easter, and it's not good. Hurricane Sandy battered much of the U. S. east coast in late October, merging with a northern storm just before Halloween, leading many to call it “Frankenstorm.” Its wake was no laughing matter, though, with over 100 dead. New York and New Jersey sustained the hardest direct hit, and current estimates have it as the second most costly storm on record, just behind 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Those two states provided a stark contrast in dealing with preparation and relief. New York City was particularly bad, with refugees being evicted from hotels for the “show must go on” New York Marathon, while generators were pulled from relief efforts to power the tents for the race. Mayor Bloomberg, at first a strong proponent of continuing to hold the race, changed his mind, and the organizers agreed to cancel it. Meanwhile, the Federal government has yet to vote on any special aid for Sandy relief; the Senate passed a bill, but the House won't take up any legislation except the fiscal cliff. (And these are the people we want in charge of health care? But I digress.)

Hurricane Sandy, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Sandra Fluke - 2012 was a bad year for disasters named Sandy.

Lance Armstrong Revelations

Lance Armstrong was a 7-time Tour de France champion. He did it while fighting cancer, and founding a charitable foundation. However, he had been fighting doping charges for years, and in 2012, decided to stop fighting the charges. All his wins have been vacated, Olympic medals stripped, and the Livestrong Foundation that he founded has kicked him out. His defense is that he was not taking any substance that was not banned, and that he had done nothing other than what others had done.

Even if we take him at his word - if everyone took the same enhancement, that's still a terrible way to determine athletic prowess. Professional sports should not be about who has the best chemistry; it should be people training their bodies to perform a specific task so well that no one else can do it equally. I'm not so naïve as to think that this means that no one is going to try; even NASCAR has had its fair share of drug problems. However, anything short of pure physical ability will inevitably lead to more and more use, and more experimenting. The NFL is already dealing with players who feel they were unfairly exploited and put in harm's way. How much worse would it be for the players who tried experimental (i.e., not-banned-yet) drugs whose side effects were unknown until much later?

There you have it. 2012 didn't lead to the end of the world, but there was much that we will be happy to see pass into the rear-view mirror. Other issues will still be here for us in 2013, waiting to be dealt with then. May we have the fortitude to do so.

Unsafe, Illegal, and Rare

Saturday, September 3, 2011 11:02 am Daniel J. Summers

Only a month late (when I originally wrote the bulk of this - now it's more like 8 months late), this is the 8th annual “Sanctity of Human Life” post. It's going to be a long one; please don't TL;DR it. There's too much to this topic to do it justice in 5 paragraphs, and putting it out in parts would invite debate and assumptions about the parts I'd left out. This post is free of my typical snark, and also free of (atypical for me) hyperbole; I am completely serious, and have reviewed my words to ensure they are the ones I intended to use. The premise is simply this - abortion is morally wrong (which we now know, given advances in medical science), and as such, should not be legal nor easy to obtain.

Let's start with the framework within which I view the issue. I believe that man was created by God and placed here on this planet to live for His glory, and that He has given us the earth for our pleasure and enjoyment. I believe that evil exists in this world, that bad things happen, and that actions have consequences. I generally believe (though not always) in erring on the side of caution. I believe that, as God's creation, all life is sacred. I believe that God has enabled man to discover many beneficial things in the area of medicine and health care, and I believe that He expects us to use this knowledge within the framework and principles laid out in His Word.

(I fully realize that many of you reading this may not agree with that framework. Feel free to debate about what appears below, but the above paragraph contains things that, for me, are past debate. I've heard the arguments against it, and I'm simply unconvinced.)

In looking back through my archives, the post entitled “Abortion: A Bad Idea Whose Time Has Passed” was my 5th post on this blog. In this post from 2003, I mentioned (without citing) the medical advances that had happened since 1973's Roe v. Wade decision. This page has a good description of what happens day-by-day. At 21 days (3 weeks), the heart begins beating. With ovulation occurring 14 days after menstruation starts, and another 14 until it's due to start again, a woman would likely not even realize she's late before her baby's heart is beating. 9 days later, at 30 days, this heart is circulating its own blood supply, completely separate from the mother's, thanks to the placenta. Day 35, we've got a 5-fingered hand, and on day 40, we have brain waves. By one and one-half menstrual cycles, we've gone from nothing to a beating heart and brain waves.

Let's look at what happens up to 12 weeks, which is when pretty much anyone who approves of abortion thinks it's OK. The liver starts making blood cells, and the brain is controlling the limbs in week 6. Week 7 brings the jaw, tooth buds, and eyelids. Week 8, and I quote, “the fetus has everything found in a fully developed adult,” including stomach acid and a complete nervous system. Fingerprints, fingernails, and hair appear in week 9. In week 10, “the fetus can bend, stretch, make fists, open hands, lift its head, squint, swallow and wrinkle its forehead.” Week 11 brings urination, and in week 12, the baby is breathing amniotic fluid, has sleep/awake cycles, and does exercises. All this knowledge has been gained due to ultrasound technology and other study.

Now, God, morality, and everything else aside - read those descriptions again. Does that sound like an unviable tissue mass? Sure, it's dependent upon its mother for sustenance, but how is that different from a newborn baby? It isn't - and that's what we've learned. It's not a blob of cells that represent an inconvenience, it's a new creation that has been entrusted to the mother. Even without counting abortion, an estimated 25-33% of pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth (according to HopeXchange, an organization that help people cope with these types of losses). With numbers that high, it would seem to me that the tissue masses that are unviable are taking care of things themselves.

Respect for life is one of this country's core principles; “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. Laws against murder are nearly universal, even in countries that cannot claim the God-seeking history that ours can. It is simple human nature that reasonable humans understand - it is wrong to take the life of another without cause. (This is not to imply that I am anti-death penalty or anti-military; there are limited times when life-taking can happen in a moral way.) With science again backing up Scripture, we see that the developing fetus is simply a pre-born baby that is being knit together in its mother's womb.

So now, let's look at the whole “safe, legal, and rare” thing, a phrase used by many pro-choice supporters to describe their desired state of abortion. It's a given that “safe” doesn't apply to the unborn baby - they suffer near 100% fatalities. (Yes, near.) But is abortion as we know it today safe for the mother?

• A recent study in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that abortion accounts one in ten of every adverse mental health issue women face as a whole, correlating to greater-than-double risks for alcohol abuse and suicide, and triple risks for marijuana use. Melissa Clouthier has a great summary of this study, as well as some commentary.
• Recent medial studies have found that there is an increase in breast cancer risk for those who have had abortions, similar to those who have given birth prematurely (before 32 weeks). The reason is that the cells that the body produces during the early stages of pregnancy are immature, cancer-prone cells, which mature during the final two months of pregnancy.
• There are many risks to the uterus as well. Risks of uterine perforation, cervical lacerations, and placenta previa all increase due to the trauma on the internal lining of the uterus.

Now, childbirth brings its own complications, to be sure; I don't mean to imply that birth is completely safe. However, birth does have the advantage of being how our bodies are designed to work. Given the risks, I believe abortion is unsafe for both mother and baby.

We've established unsafe; how about legal? We know that Roe v. Wade “legalized” abortion, but there are still laws regarding its practice. Different states have different laws; nearly all states permit abortion through the first trimester, and some allow it through the second trimester. Few permit it in the third trimester, and there is now a Federal law against “partial-birth abortion,” a practice so abhorrent I'm not even going to describe it here. But, do its practitioners follow these laws? Some do; others, like Kermit Gosnell (link gone) do not, and Lila Rose has made a career exposing the unethical and often illegal practices at the nation's #1 abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

Hmm - we're 0 for 2.

How about rare? Well, let's look at the statistics. In 2008, there were 1.2M, down a little from the previous year; however, births were also down 2%, to 4.2M births. So, we prevented 22% of the pregnancies from resulting in births. I would not consider something that happens between a fifth and a quarter of the time rare, and I don't think anyone else would define it that way either. What it comes down to is this: if it's safe and legal (as we've been told, and those who question are ridiculed), it won't be rare.

Now, let's contrast this with the opening paragraphs. Abortion is not safe; it kills the baby, and causes health problems from the ex-mother. It's not rare; it occurs in over 1 out of 5 conceptions. As a person with the beliefs I laid out above, this is an absolute no-brainer. God created our bodies to reproduce; it's a natural consequence of the act that leads to conception. The easiest way to avoid conception is to avoid intercourse (also advocated in Scripture for those who are not married), and the fruits of that intercourse are, time and time again, referred to as gifts from God.

As an American, I see 20% of two generations now cut down before they breathed their first breath. I see counselors having a very easy time convincing people not to have abortions, simply by using ultrasound to show these ladies the life that is living inside them. I hear of post-abortion counseling groups with waiting lists. Have we aborted the person who was to find the cure for cancer? The scientist who was to determine how to produce food in desolate regions? The person who was to invent the flying car? Who can say what the long-term consequences have been for our folly of convenience.

It's not safe. If it's made illegal, only then can we hope to make it rare.

Tony Snow - 1955-2008

Monday, July 14, 2008 10:44 am Daniel J. Summers

Tony Snow, former White House press secretary and host of Fox News Sunday, passed away over the weekend, after a battle with cancer. I enjoyed watching him, and sensed that he was a great guy - but, when all you know of someone is what's on TV, you don't really know. Judging from the remarks below, from those who knew him and worked with him, he was.

Michelle Malkin has the announcement, the White House's release, and an article that Tony wrote for Christianity Today. Others who have shared their memories and recollections of Tony include Susan Estrich, Juan Williams, Ellen Ratner, Cal Thomas, and Mike Gallagher (whose wife Denise succumbed to cancer two weeks ago, and had been communicating with Tony). I'm sure there will be many more tributes and memories shared as the two-days-behind syndicated column cycle passes.

We'll miss you, Tony.