My Father who art in Anniston...

Back in April when the Nascar race visited Talladega, AL, my earthly Father was tapped to say the opening prayer for the "Nationwide" race on Friday afternoon. It's not the main event, which takes place on Sunday, but still a pretty big deal. In preparation, Dad went through countless drafts and revisions, practiced in front of the mirror, and spent countless hours in prayer so that his moment in the spotlight would shine like a beacon unto all the viewers, both in attendance and watching at home on TV.

Unfortunately, this was the week of Taylor's springbreak and Christena, Taylor, and I were in Gulf Shores. As the start time approached, we were sitting in Lulu's Restaurant (which is owned/operated by Jimmy Buffet's sister). Realizing that I'd forgotten to record the race and not wanting to miss his nationally televised prayer, I asked our waitress if she could tune one of the televisions to the Speed Channel. She did...

Mysteriously, like many of the Lord's works I'm told, about 15 minutes before the prayer was scheduled to begin, the heavens opened, not with the glory of God, but with rain. So before Dad was given the opportunity to shower the Nascar Nation with his much rehearsed prayer, the Lord showered the "congregation" to the point that the race, along with my father's prayer, was postponed indefinitely.

Sensing that Dad was quite disappointed that his masterpiece of a prayer would never be unveiled to the hundreds of thousands of spectators in need of his words of enlightenment, I undertook a covert operation. Mom found the original text that he'd planned to read from at the track and forwarded it to me. Sadly, we were unable to determine if the stains on the paper were from his tears of disappointment or from the rain that fell on that fateful day.

Undeterred, and with his prayer in hand, I set out on a mission to find a surrogate minister with not only the ability to perform the prayer with the enthusiasm and fervor that it deserved, but also possessing the poor decision making skills to agree to do it. Thankfully the Lord provided Joe Nelms.

This past weekend Rev. Nelms approached the microphone at the Nashville Nationwide Nascar event and delivered a rousing version of my father's prayer. Dad told me that a couple of his own performances in the shower approached the powerful delivery of Rev. Nelms, but on the whole he was quite pleased with the vessel that I found. Those interested in seeing my father's prayer, as performed by Rev. Nelms, are invited to click here:



In a related note, my Dad's career as a prayer ghostwriter has hit a bit of a rough patch. He thinks it's a by-product of the poor econ0my and not an indictment of his skills. Readers are encouraged to form their own opinion. Thankfully, he has various disaster-relief projects to keep him busy while the prayer consuming public forgets this debacle.

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EDITORS NOTE: Various portions of this post are true. John was scheduled to pray in Talladega, his prayer was rained out, and everything after that might be the product of his son's imagination. Here at the Razor, we've never spent a lot of time worrying about accuracy, whether in content or in spelling.

Mispelled Words and other poorly written things...

As I've mentioned before, there are several words that I have no idea how to spell, and despite hours of practice seem to be making little headway. Whenever it comes time for me to type the word "neccesary" I generally just start out with an n, add a couple c's a couple s's, sling in some vowels and let spellcheck work it's magic. One of the other words that gives me trouble is sarcasm. I've always felt it should be sarchasm.

So the other day I got one of these FWD:FWD:FWD: emails that usually contain mildly humorous nonsense and seem to ping pong around the Internet until everyone in the cyber-world has been exposed to it. The premise of this particular email was to add, subtract, or change one letter from a known word, thus making a new word and to give it a meaning. Here are a couple highlights:

• Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an butthole.


• Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

They continued for a while, but I think you get the point. The one that hit closest to home:

• Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

If that doesn't describe the Razor, I don't know what does.

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Jay Nordlinger wrote some interesting stuff about Cuba the other day. It can be found here. There are links contained within his article that we'll take you to even more Cuban talk. In fact, I would imagine that you could spend quite a large amount of time just following the links deeper and deeper into the Internet until you've read virtually the whole thing. Not that I suggest doing that, but you should at least click the link I've provided and tool around a bit.

While on the topic of Cuba, did you see Anthony Bordain's episode of "No Reservations - Cuba" on The Travel Channel the other night? I watched it twice and was absolutely fascinated. I enjoyed seeing the Cuban people at the ballgames, hanging out on the street, etc. But more than just seeing them, I wish I would've been able to hear them. What do they think of Castro? Their socialist system? Of course, I've heard that the Cuban people won't even speak freely in private conversations, fearing being overheard and facing persecution.

And about the TV show? Well, you can't expect Bourdain to toe the anti-Castro line, it wouldn't make for good TV and probably would've gotten him tossed out of the country. Even so, I thought the program was quite fair. He had to do a bit of a balancing act with portraying the scenery as beautiful, the people as interesting, and the government as oppressive. And he got in a few shots at Castro anyway.

More than anything thing else, the program left me wanting more. Mainly more personal interaction with the Cuban people. It's been official Razor policy that I'll head for Cuba as soon as the Cuban people are freely allowed to visit here. Interestingly, I find myself pondering ways that I could justify going now. Yes, any money I spent there would be funneled to the regime, but man I'd like to check that place out.

Of course, there is the sticky situation about this dang wristband. I've been wearing it in support of the Cuban people for 3+ years. We've read what they do to people wearing these things in Cuba and I sure don't want to end up in the Gulag. So, in addition to the perceived hypocrisy of a trip, I gotta figure the wristband part out too...

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Most of you have been introduced to my ladyfriend Christena, either through writings here, or via her blog "Life in the Fast Lane". She is currently shopping for a new television. I've tried to tell her that the one she has now is perfectly fine to view the Food Network as well as all of the other channels that I've approved for her to watch.

Sadly, she's pulling the ole 'Since you won't marry me and I have my own place I can buy a new TV if I want to' silliness. Her entertainment center is only of average size so the max screen width she can accommodate is about 33 inches. Most of the TV's she's looked at are 60hrz. I barely know enough about that kinda thing to be dangerous, but I kinda thought that 60hrz might not perform very well with sports/movies.

So if you have any advice on purchasing a medium sized flat screen TV, we'd appreciate it...

So long

The Razor Returns, Weakly...

Long suffering Slicers will be delighted to know that I'm back from a short blogging hiatus. A combination of work, play, and a lack of creativity kept me from blogging recently. You might be tempted to say that a lack of creativity has been a hallmark of the Razor. You are encouraged to not say it very loudly, or to me, or to any potential consumers of Razor merchandise (here).

As I predicted two weeks ago, Rachel David won the Dancing with the Wiregrass Stars competition. I'll assume it was the support of the Razor that pushed her over the top. Thankfully, Christenas' Uncle Ray came to town that day and I wasn't forced to attend the event. Uncle Ray is from South Carolina and is an avid reader of the Razor. He told me he enjoys it and isn't the least bit offended. I think it's safe to assume he hasn't read this, this, or this...

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Some interesting news coming out of Libya. Since the NATO bombing campaign began, I have stated many times that I was a supporter and more so, I expected it would work. With the most likely outcome being Qadaffi negotiating to live out the remainder of his days in exile, hosted by a country that was acceptable to all sides. While many of us would prefer to see him dangling from the end of a rope, the efficiency of exile cannot be denied.

Which brings me to the point. Multiple sources are now discussing on record that a deal has nearly been reached. I assume the host country has been chosen and just a few odds and ends need to be tied up before he rides off into the Arabian sunset. Good for the people of Libya. They have adequate energy resources to support their population and without a dictator syphoning off all the wealth, should be capable of doing quite well for themselves. Notice I said "capable". We should not assume that a positive outcome is inevitable. The next question to be answered in Libya? Can the opposition govern?

Above I mentioned briefly that I was (and am) a supporter of the bombing campaign. I feel I should qualify that somewhat. I wish the US had taken a lead role in the action and I wish that we had committed the full might of our military to do so. If for no other reason than to encourage Qadaffi to expedite the negotiations. Some might also argue that Obama should have gotten Congressional approval for our actions, and perhaps he should have. In these instances, I'll give him a pass as it appears that we'll achieve the desired "ends", regardless of the details of the "means".

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I've always been careful to not include content on the Razor that might be misconstrued as investment advice. In fact, anytime I've come within a 1/4 mile of the line, I've offered a disclaimer. Once again I hope you will read the following commentary for what it is: a political observation. I'm not sure how someone could read this and then make an investment decision, but if you're tempted to, DON'T.

Once again, the United States Government has maxed out the credit card and must either cut spending drastically or raise the credit limit. This scenario has played out many times before. I draw your attention to a statement made in 2006 by the then-junior Senator from Illinois:


The fact that we are here today to debate
raising America’s debt limit is a sign of
leadership failure. It is a sign that the US
government cannot pay its own bills. It is a
sign that we now depend on on-going
financial assistance from foreign countries
to finance our Government’s reckless
fiscal policies…. The cost of our debt is
one of the fastest growing expenses in the
Federal Budget. This rising debt is a hidden
domestic enemy, robbing our cities and
States of critical investments in
infrastructure like bridges, ports and levees;
robbing our families and our children of
critical investments in education and health
care reform; robbing our seniors of the
retirement and health security they have
counted upon… Every dollar we pay in
interest is a dollar that is not going to
investment in America’s priorities. Instead,
interest payments are a significant tax on all
Americans—a debt tax that Washington
doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington
were serious about honest tax relief in this
country, we would see an effort to reduce
our national debt by returning to
responsible fiscal policies.
Increasing America’s debt weakens us
domestically and internationally. Leadership
means that “the Buck stops here.” Instead,
Washington is shifting the burden of bad
choices onto the backs of our children and
grandchildren. America has a debt problem
and a failure of leadership. Americans
deserve better.

Well said. Quite well said. Sadly, the speaker seems to have had a change of heart. "Failed leadership" it seems, is easier to spot when you're not the one doing the "leading". It would be funny if it weren't so sad, but it is sad and so, not funny, not funny at all. If only President Obama could look back on his own words and recognize the wisdom of Senator Obama, perhaps America would get what it deserves, "better".
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I realize that today's post was not particularly entertaining. Please accept my apologies in arrears.