A Day in the Life of Chaos

The King is Dead! Long Live the King.   The King of Thailand just passed.   He was eighty-eight and has been sitting on the throne since 1946 making him the longest serving monarch in the world.  I guess it is now up to Elizabeth to best his record.  He was a good king and very much beloved by the Thai people.  It is difficult to imagine having a focal point in a society like a monarch for 70+ years.  Very few Thais lived before him, making him all they have ever known.  Much of the world knows something we don't.  They know how to have institutions that unite societies rather than divide them.  America has no equivalent.  In sport it is the World Cup.  A once every four year tournament that is made up of national teams.  In America we think only of our regional favorites.  Go Cowboys... love you Gamecocks!  The Olympics is the only thing that comes close and for the most part it is a tournament of individuals.  Names we don't really know until they poke their head up

Recently former and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a minster from Arkansas and darling of the conservative Christian community gave a speech about health care.  As a minister I anticipated words filled with compassion for the sick and care for the poor.  This was after all the message of Jesus.  Throw out the money changers in the temple and care for the down trodden.  Had I lived prior to 100 A.D. Jesus would have likely found me to be a great sympathizer.   Well Minister Huckabee spoke concerning the issue of the new health care reform, specifically the new law that now forbids insurance companies from not insuring a person with a preexisting condition.  No longer can an infant born with a condition be denied.  No more can a person with a medical problem be denied coverage and sentenced to either death or poverty in the face of medical bills they can't afford.  While I would think Minister Huckabee's Christian leanings would have caused him to laud