This was forwarded to me this morning and I agree 150% with everything he said. Read carefully and please feel free to pass this on to everyone you know.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters

celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

I was sitting in front of the television tonight watching smallville and a McDonald’s commercial came on. Once again a commercial stating what you can and can’t do with a $1.00. The lightbulb kicked on. They claim in these commercials that you can actually buy stuff for $1.00, but you can’t. Yes, they have a $1.00 menu, but they charge you a dine tax or a carryout tax, so no matter what you are still not getting anything for only a dollar. So here’s what I suggest. On Saturday the 27th I say we all walk into our local McDonald’s and demand that they sell us a chicken sandwich for exactly $1.00. It would seem to me if they don’t it’s false advertising, isn’t it?

Who’s with me?!?

I love the word irony and ironic. There are so many things around us everyday that are just downright ironic.
First, there’s John McCain saying that the reasons these big companies are going under now is because of past greed. We need to get rid of the need to be greedy. Yet, he owns 10 houses?
Next, there are people in this country losing their homes everyday. Children are going hungry. There are even some kids in this world wearing clothes with holes because they have too, not because they want too. It’s been on the news the last few days that more money has been raised for this presidential campaign then in any other year in history. It’s in the billions of dollars. We have people losing their homes but billions of dollars are being spent so that two men can slam each other on tv, travel around in fancy planes and buses to slam each other, and lord only knows what else they’re paying for. Oh and I almost forgot, not just to slam each other, but to lie to us. You know they spending billions of dollars trying to say what they think we want to hear so we’ll vote for them.
How about taking some of those billions and spending it on the american people who really need it?
Sometimes politics and irony just go hand and hand.

I found out a couple of days ago that my niece is having some trouble in geometry. I was quit to say count me out. Math was not and still isn’t my subject. So I did some checking and I called her this evening and I told her that one option would be to talk to my brother. He’s always been good at math. I said I don’t think he ever took geometry but take your book to him and I bet if he looks at it a few minutes he can figure it out. She said “I don’t have a book”. My brain sort of locked up and couldn’t grasp that concept. I said what do you mean you don’t have a book. She said she didn’t have very many books at all, only three. I said how do you function without a book. She said she had her notes. She said it’s been this way for several years. I remember many many hours spent flipping from the math problem back through the book to figure out how to work the problem. Now all they have are notes?
No wonder education is slipping. We are obviously not giving children today the tools they need to learn. We seem to be pushing out thousands of children who can’t function if they don’t have a cell phone or a computer. What happened to books, paper and pencils? Even now sitting here my brain still can’t seem to grasp this.
Well, Mr. Gates you said that you were worried about kid’s education these days. How about giving them some books???