Quoting the wicked sea witch from "The Little Mermaid", "Life's full of choices…idin it ???"  And here we are about three months from making a decision as a nation that just may affect the profile of what we call freedom from here on out. It is a no-brainer that we have, over time, drifted into the shallow end of the gene pool, politically speaking. I truthfully believe that we are now beyond party affiliation as viable criteria for a presidential candidate and have now entered "the leftover zone."  What we, the ex-hippie, baby-boomer generation feared has indeed come upon us. When I was about nine or ten, we used to get to buy popsicles from a freezer near the school cafeteria after we ate our lunch. The trick was to get your lunch down as quickly as possible so you could get to the freezer first to have best pick of the available Popsicle flavors. If you lacked too much speed or grace, there was a chance that you would end up with a choice that was less than appetizing.

Usually, what was left was a choice of Raspberry, or Pineapple. That is how I see our current choice of Raspberry Obama or Pineapple McCain. We are not given the choice to elect what is best…we have been presented with what is left. I can remember the squatty Benedictine Nun with the expression of total intolerance on her face as she grunted out…raspberry or pineapple??? Hurry up kid!  So you shelled out your nickel and "sister" handed you what you timidly blurted out as you felt the pressure of presumed authority before you and the frustration of peers behind you. Now you have this choice you have made and as you aimlessly drift down the sidewalk, you realize that this half frozen disaster you now own is not even close to what you really wanted. That's when the grim realization hits you that you are now stuck with your choice. I believe that millions of Americans will have that exact revelation on January 2^nd of 2009 when the smoke clears from all of the election rhetoric, the last of the holiday fog has cleared from our vision and we realize for the first time that no matter who wins, we are in trouble.

In just one week, we have seen the moral failure of a major player and even possible democratic vice presidential candidate.  We have watched as Russia shows its true colors of having an ex KGB agent for a President and goes back to its true nature of terror and bully tactics. And now we see the ouster of the Pakistani President, our only true Middle East ally in the war on terror. How many more events can happen before we reach an impasse where candidate and qualifications begin to look like a hilarious joke? Neither of these men truly have the leadership skills or the moral fiber to head off what faces us next. Barak Obama has already stuck his questionable foot so far down his own throat that were he elected, he would spend his first term of office responding to the inconsistencies of his campaign. John McCain will not have the usual Democratic and Republican gridlock. His gridlock will come from the wish- washy rhetoric of trying to put a democratic spin on his republican name-plate. That is like trying to make a Cadillac into a Lincoln by simply putting a Lincoln sign on it. Essentially, it is what it is.

I was sorely disappointed in what I saw on the Saddleback interviews with Rick Warren. I believe if anything was a true violation of the separation of church and state that was it. It really amounted just a yes man session where these two salesmen were trying to use a "quasi-conservative" vein of media to peddle their wares.  I believe that all it did was to give these two showmen another television op and boost Rick Warren a little higher up the seeker friendly food chain, while once again showing Christianity as a manipulative jezebel, rather than the true bride of Christ.

So what do we do? We pray. We pray long, and we pray hard. We pray that no matter who is elected, he will fall under the Holy conviction of Jesus Christ and that he will lead our nation according to the Ten Commandments rather than the 435 different opinions found on Capitol Hill. We pray that he would lead the nation according to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and not the roar of special interest groups and money grubbing lobbyists. We pray that he run with the vision that is through the eyes of God rather than the blindness that is politics. We pray…and we continue to pray.  Because I've been to the freezer…and all that's left is Raspberry and Pineapple.

We cannot help but consider the poor state of affairs that the world is in presently and wonder how it melds with the plan of God. We know from His Word that for those who serve him, his destinations are heavenly. But what about the unsaved; those not yet reached with the Gospel. My heart is heavy for the lost and dying in the world and any calling themselves believer who does not feel this way should examine himself thoroughly.  The news we are hearing from the other side of the world is yet another contraction telling us that the birth of Jesus' second coming is at hand.

If the term "Mexican standoff" ever fit in a situation it does here. For the United States of America, it means that diplomacy is a matter of walking on broken glass. Here we have the independent state of Georgia in the former Soviet Union and on the other side Vladmir Putin and his armies set about a plan to crush the tiny country. At this writing, one of its cities has already fallen to Russian domination. As an ally, The US has provided air transport to Georgian troops returning from Iraq to help their country and Putin's response was that Bush's actions were that of "cold war" tactics. This coming from the mouth of the same man who said that Russia's invasion of Georgia was in response to their acts of "ethnic cleansing". ETHNIC CLEANSING?!? There was an old term for this down the bayou when I was a kid. It was called the pot calling the kettle black. What do you call it when a nation with a history of opression and torture goes into a tiny country where there are problems and fabricate an excuse that best describes the actions of the agresssor in question here. Where is a liberal when you need him? Won't one of our well paid Hollywood types step forth and stand up for the "ethnics" that are being systematically exterminated at the hands of this "Soviet ploy" that has in fact been playing possum for decades? Where is Tom Cruise, or Alec Baldwin? Oh Jesse and Al where are you now? It seems like the term ethnic cleansing would turn the stomachs of these strong towers of wisdom. Instead, the word from the liberal camp is that the current administration has no place to criticize when we have done essentially the same thing. I am by no means in favor of war or violent conflict of any kind as a remedy to social ills, but the loudmouth cowards that are always chiming in about social injustice and humanitarian efforts ought to put their money where their twenty million dollar jets are. The American people need to bone up on how their government works so they will not hear insidious statements like this and actually believe such "democratic rhetoric". All this said as their prospective leader slumbers in Hawaii. The truth is that the independent state of Georgia has done no atrocities such as the terrorist Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. We liberated a nation that suffered at the hands of a tyrant. The people of Iraq are no longer subject to this murderer or his homicidal maniac sons, who killed innocent people for their entertainment.  I would however liken this to Hussein's failed attempt at pillaging the tiny country of Kuwait for its oil wealth. At that point the United States embarked upon a UN backed invasion that led to the liberation of that country's people. It was not until the events of September 11, 2001 that we realized the connection between this evil monarchy in Iraq and its terrorist ties. Now we have Russia, a major player in the world picture assaulting a former territory to regain control and no one can see any logic behind Putin's madness save trying to push the world's buttons into a full on conflict using the US as its pawn. Handling Putin could be as difficult as a military confrontation or as simple as taking the milk and cereal off his breakfast table ( UN economic sanctions).  We must pray for our nations leadership that in this hour, that way of peace may be shown to us.

I have never been one who was considered to be, even in the slightest, political in nature.
Up until the events of September 11, 2001, I led a pretty accepting life. I was accepting of what was handed me by much of the news media, much of religion, and much of our government. Something happened to me on that fateful day when I watched two planes take down symbols of American Freedom along with thousands of human lives. I began to question in my heart about what we have done and what we are doing as a nation, a people. I believe that not only me, but millions of Americans began to look at their heritage in a whole new and sobering way. Now as a pastor, I am not allowed by federal law to use my pulpit to voice political opinion. There are churches in this country that have actually lost their tax exempt status for doing just that. But today, I am speaking about this as private citizen and taxpayer, Larry. And what I have to say is simple and plain. THIS COUNTRY NEEDS ANOTHER TEA PARTY. 

The New Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal recently sent out a letter to public servants involved in all levels of Louisiana government. He very respectfully requested those people to submit information about their income, business involvement, and other pertinent facts that are important to know from any politician. And if a politician has the best interest of his constituency in mind, it seems he or she would happily comply. It was alarming to see the response with which the governor was met. Some took the request as an insult, others became defensive, and some just went along with it. What was shocking was the number that simply sent letters of resignation to the governor. When Governor Jindal was elected to office, he promised the people of Louisiana a new day. He made a commitment to an end of political corruption in our state.  After seeing the good results of one honest man, I am encouraged and now know it is possible. This should cause us to think, If Louisiana can change, so can our whole nation. It is time we stand against old line political causes and crybaby agendas from wealthy corporations and lobby groups.
Have we not learned that we do not control those people we send to congress?  The great and wondrous promises they make to us on Election Day are sold to those who offer the perks of power at move in day on Capitol Hill. While we pay nearly four dollars a gallon for gas and listen to the rhetoric of Al Gore's rebuke about ecology, he flies from city to city in one of the most gas guzzling private jets ever produced. While half of Hollywood reproves the working force of this nation for trying to stay cool in their three bedroom two bath tract home, they lay up in one of their four or five mansions and drive the largest and most fuel in-efficient vehicles they can find. We experience all this while we drive to the theater in our Nissan Sentras to see their movies and make them even wealthier. Now if you do not believe what I am saying, ask yourself this question, why is it every time a solution is found to energy supply or pollution control, some "ecological watchdog" (aka Hollywood) shoots it down? It is because no one is in there batting for the little guy anymore.

I believe the solution is simple and it is clear. Americans need to quit buying the package that has been sold to us by what we will call "interest groups".  We have allowed slick marketing to label us as white, black, democrat, republican, liberal and conservative. If Americans will all get on the same page, we will get much more done. The Boston tea party, if you remember your grammar school history, was not enacted by a political group, it was triggered by true Americans who got tired of the tyranny of taxation without representation. Now the lie says "we have representation!" Do we really?  I will pose this question to you. If you went to work everyday and at the end of two weeks told your boss that the reason you got nothing done was "gridlock", how long do you think you would have your job?  Well, that is what we as American taxpayers are told every year at the end of the congressional sessions. No healthcare plan…gridlock, No Tax reform, gridlock, No energy plan, gridlock and on and on and on. 

If you have ever seen a Disney movie that came out a few years ago called a Bug's life, it told a very revealing and true story. In that film the lowly ants spent all their time working to provide a harvest for the locusts that came at the end of the season to claim the fruits of all of the ants' work. At the end, the ants discover that if they unite they become more powerful than the locusts and end the tyranny of the locusts' reign of terror.

The sub plot of the movie was that the locusts knew that if the ants ever united in cause, it would be the end of their party.  The facts are this, we send millions upon millions of dollars to Washington every day and we are not protected. We are led around by the nose at the hands of Arab oil sheiks; we are given the crumbs from the tables of the captains of industry not only in this nation but foreign corporations as well. Lobby groups and special interest entourages are wined and dined at your and my expense. We are further divided when race cards are incited and religious causes are irritated and we are forced into corners of democrat and republican. It almost smacks of another confederate conflict, but this time without cessation.  Neither Democrats nor Republicans pulled off the Boston Tea Party, it was AMERICANS, tired of being exploited at the hands of a corrupt system.

The government we are under is not the government that is described in our constitution;

of the people, by the people, for the people.  What we get at the end of the day is simply the word, "gridlock".  If all a politician can offer his constituency is a string of double talk and the word gridlock, it should be a sign to the American people that he is no longer employable. We need to learn to say two words our public servants if they do not perform…"You're Fired!"  It is what they would tell us on our jobs and politicians are not above correction or the law. There are millions of great Americans in this country who would lead this nation to greatness once again. They may not come from the right colors or the right Massachusetts bloodlines, but they are great Americans who could make a difference. It is time we stop listening to political agitators like Sharpton, Limbaugh, Jackson, and O'reilly.  These guys are making millions winding you and I up like tin toys. They set brother against brother and further divide a people that desperately need to unite. I have looked at the pathetic careers of each of these men and have determined that outside of making a fortune for themselves, they have changed absolutely nothing.  It is time we stop electing politicians based upon their promises and begin to place them and hold them to accountability. It is time to stop accepting crumbs from our government and begin to demand better. Our national Anthem speaks of a murderous battle with heavy cost that led to a precious freedom for its people, not a select "lucky" few. Not everyone will work their way into wealth and affluent lifestyles, but everyone should have the opportunity for a good life in this beautiful land. In the movie "the high cost of low prices", the story of Wal-Mart's double standard of ethics, they tell the story of how this retailing giant comes into a small town and systematically closes down local business from the mom and pop pet store to the locally owned sporting goods shop.  The heart and spirit of the entrepreneur in America has been crushed by our government's protection of big corporations to do what they want while they let the little guy die a slow painful death. And the sad fact is that it is all about an "elected official" who gave in to big business to better his own view in life. All those little people he sacrificed for his new yacht are the same people who believed his "promises" and voted for a lie.

I have spent the last three years watching governmental response on all levels to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We are still supplying food and supplies to those whose lives have been forever destroyed because there was nobody there for them. I have spoken to missionaries and first responders to the tragic tidal wave in Sri Lanka and they confirm that the United States response to that catastrophic event was much faster and more orderly than its response to Katrina. It becomes kind of hard to interact with as many people in areas like the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans as I do and know in my heart that virtually nothing has been done that will someday end their suffering. I was asked to attend roundtable meetings in Washington DC in October of 2006. On the agenda were meetings with HUD, Department of Labor, and lastly, a member of the White House Staff. While there my wife and I were sickened at the site of a building directly across the street from the white house.  The building was majestic in stature. Its colonial design and meticulous manicuring was almost obscene after where we had come from and what we had lived through. The building was the international headquarters of the American Red Cross. All that grandeur and the only thing they could come up with for our people in New Orleans were stale sandwiches and Gatorade. They were on the scene for a couple of weeks and then they were gone, leaving what they called a case management staff.. The interesting thing about the American Red Cross is that they are the official responder for any catastrophe in this country. The sad thing is that there are much smaller organizations that are much more effective. About a week after Katrina, one of the area bigwigs for the ACR showed up and called all of the churches together for an "organizational meeting". The insane thing was that most of the churches there were up, running, and serving people already. The better number of us were wondering the same thing. "Where have you been???" Again, The American Red Cross is in the pocket of the U.S. Federal Government and is funded as such. One of the recent ACR chiefs left his office in shame after allegations of massive embezzlement surfaced and were subsequently proven. The books showed he was pulling down over 651,000 dollars a year salary.  Oddly, the head of the Salvation Army makes 13,000 dollars a year plus a conservative housing. The Salvation Army made a much bigger difference supplying hot meals and other provisions to those devastated by Katrina. The Salvation Army made their parish headquarters on our church campus and I know they were with us for over six months. The following head of the ACR, a married man with kids, resigned after he was nabbed having an affair with another employee.  It's a short trip for corruption from Capitol Hill into the pockets of so-called charities.  

Yes, we definitely need another tea party. In 1773, a group of AMERICAN colonists had simply had enough. They became angry about supporting foreign concerns and lining the pockets of the wealthy while they struggled along with their principles. So, John Hancock, the Sons of Liberty, and others decided that they would not take things into their own hands, they would take things into the hands of the reason they were here, to know a freedom that does not find tyranny acceptable.

We must learn to throw things overboard when they become rotten. We must throw this divisive political party system overboard. We must stop voting our party and begin voting our heart. We must root out our corrupt Electoral College system and reform it to a fair plan that accurately reflects the voice of the people. We must throw political corruption overboard.  We must make our elected officials accountable, morally and fiscally. Just as we have a job review, so should they live by a report card and it they are ineffective, they are replaced. We must throw yellow journalism overboard.  The news media has its own Hippocratic Oath. It is bound to give an honest and accurate assessment of the facts, not according to opinion or preference, but according to an ethic that protects our freedom of speech from becoming freedom of lying. You and I have both heard news stories that are so slanted to one direction or another they seem more like an infomercial than a news report. We spend much too much time giving free air time to pet political and social views while the hard new goes untold. I will cite the coverage of O.J. Simpson's trial.

No one deserves that much coverage for murdering. But, it sells advertising. The same goes for Scott Peterson. You know what? I hope you still love me after I say this, but it is really none of our business. Scott Peterson has his appointment in Hell should he fail to repent, but that is really not our concern. He is captured and off the streets now let's move on. But the News Media, really the entertainment media, travels even further from any kind of morality by not reporting what it sees, but what it wants you to see. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press was given by our forefathers that we would know the truth, not someone's opinion or version of the truth. We must protect our amendments by the core values of which they were written, not by a revisionist's view of how he sees them.   We must throw the political dynasty mentality overboard. We do not always need a Kennedy, or a Bush, or a Clinton in public office. If you added up the combined significant accomplishments of all of the people by this name currently serving in office, you could not fill up a soup can. George Herbert Bush is not George Walker Bush. Bill Clinton is not Hillary Clinton, and Edward Kennedy is certainly no John Kennedy. Still, we feel comfortable with name recognition and some of us somehow secretly believe these names are magic chants that will solve our problems. We must place movers and shakers in office that will serve the people…period.  We do not need presidents that sleep with aides. We do not need a president who's daddy was the president, and we do not need a president because he is white, black, Christian, man, or woman. We need a leader of the people, by the people, for the people. The good news about the Boston tea party is that it was the spark for the American Revolution. There's nothing wrong with another American Revolution. The better news was that three years later a new nation was born.

And brother there's nothing wrong with that kind of new.

You know, I was born in 1953.  Now that is what would be considered the later early fifties. There were still leather clad greasers with Cuban heeled low quarter shoes sporting silk shirts and enough oil in their hair to make an Arab sheik cry. The top hits were still in the neighborhood of shu-bopp and rang a lang a ding dong. Though the fashions were still humorously post war, I seemed to arrive in the dawning era of modern life. By the time I was able to remember; I was seeing the glary rays of the black and white screened television and singing into my extension cord microphone to Bobby Darin and Fabian. In the middle 1960s, my precious older sister and I were now accompanied by two younger sisters and the vibrations of the Beach Boys and the Beatles now reverberated through our home on less than audiophile quality stereos. Still, somehow, we could hear every nuance of John, Paul, George, and Ringo's combined musical talents on our fold out RCA portable stereo phonograph. The mid sixties also saw the birth of a lifelong love affair with music that is with me even today.  I played my first guitar, touched my first Hammond organ, sang in my first real microphone (no more extension cords), and dreamed my first rock star dream in the middle sixties. How many things change in just ten years? In the middle seventies, I was now a college student. The Beatles had been gone as a collective unit for five years now. John Lennon did not know it, but he had only five years to live. Kennedy begat, Johnson, who begat Nixon, who begat Watergate, who begat shame, who begat a lot of other cans of worms yet to be unopened. We saw the sadness of what war can lead a nation to. In 1975, I learned to quit being a "know it all" teenager and love my father, whom I would have for just one more year. I found my peace in learning to escape pain with music and all of its trappings. In the middle seventies, I learned the meaning of thinking on your feet. Like the styles of the day, so many found themselves in a place of undefined identity and seeking for answers that could not be found. By the middle eighties, I was a married man…finding the woman of my dreams. Now the father of two children, I would welcome the arrival of the third, a wonderful daughter. In the middle eighties, I had no idea that years to come would bring me three more children, all as precious at the first three. The middle eighties were hard for my precious wife and I. We faced extreme years of lack and loss. We did not understand the season. I had met Jesus just a few years before and could not understand why my life felt like it was coming undone, still, we held on to our faith and each other.  By the time the middle nineties arrived, my wife and I had become pastors.

God had seen us through the loss of both of her parents; we had seen personal and spiritual struggles that we still to this day do not understand. All of the sixties bands I knew and loved were gone in their original state and were now being reborn and cavorted on the stages of casinos across the nation…what a sad commentary for a rock hero. I said goodbye to a good friend in the middle nineties who left me way before his time. I learned in the middle nineties that no one is guaranteed a tomorrow, only a future with Jesus. In the mid nineties, we learned that a ministry is not a building with people in it; it is a heart with people in it. Since the mid 1950s, I have not experienced such growth in all of my time here on earth as I have in these few years. I learned about what is really important, who is really important, and how to know the difference. 

It is now 2008. Some would call it the early latter two thousands.  I am now on the cusp of turning fifty-five. I am older, wiser, and happier. I can say this because I now know that I know nothing save Jesus and Him crucified. My life is not happy because I have what I want, but because God has given me what I need. I have a tremendous legacy, not because of the buildings I have built, but because of the lives that the Lord has built up through me. Peace no longer flees me like a thief, but pursues me like a wave of the sea.

I take pleasure in sunrises because they are the dawn of a new day, and sunsets because they are the accomplishments of the past one. I love the rain for its rhythm and the sunshine for its illumination of all that God created. What have I learned in the past fifty-five years? Only that God loves and watches over us all…even a little boy with an extension cord microphone.

I am certainly no expert on revival or revival History, but a am somewhat of an aficionado of human nature, being one. As I write this, I am recovering from a six hour encounter with God that is occurring right now here in Lakeland Florida. For the past forty-three days, an amazing visitation has been occurring here emanating from a surprisingly medium size church called Ignited Church. In retrospect, ignited was an excellent choice in names as God has used this reconstituted Wal-Mart building to launch a move of His Spirit that I have never before encountered.

     As a student, not of revival, but of seeking His Presence, I was attracted initially to this move because of the unlikely candidates that God chose to use to carry out His awesome plan. After being involved in the revivals of the early to mid nineties, I saw the Lord move in unbelievable ways. Through revivalists such as Stephen Hill and Rodney Howard-Browne, my life was changed in ways that I could have never imagined. But as in all good things, over time, the Glory of God became the target of the Glory of Man. The innocence that accompanied the early waves of Glory that I knew as the revival soon gave way to the infection of marketing and man-pleasing. The revival police showed up in full force. The revival soon became a revival of church politics and power personalities. The point was further driven home when the religious royalty of this world showed up at the meetings demanding special seating, regal treatment, and, self-promotion became the new agenda in the midst of what God was trying to do. Talk of healing and restoration soon gave way to hour long rebukes over giving and the need to support the agenda-driven projects of man. In their aggressive attempts to expand revival, they succeeded in tainting its aroma before God, and quite frankly, God shut it down.

     Now we have this new face of revival before us…and the revival police are out in full force.  Todd Bentley, a tattooed, pierced, basal looking young man now carries this mantel of revival. Something I personally find hysterical is that this man comes from an opposite camp from the one where I first tasted God's Glory, so I am hearing all of the negatives from the other side of the fence. Bentley aligns himself with contemporaries from all sides of the faith, but mentors such as Bob Jones and Paul Kane from what is described as the "Kansas City Bunch", have drawn negative attention for Bentley, who truthfully, needs no help in that area given his very "unreligious" appearance. Still, as in all things, the church can't seem to figure it out on its own so they instead build yet another wall of division. This comes from the school of theology that says, "If I can't control it, I don't believe its from God". Another way of saying that would be "how dare they start a revival without checking with me first".

     The largest complaint that I have heard about this current move of God is the citing of the past sins of those involved, from Bentley on down.  Isn't it strange that it takes God to forgive sins, and man to keep bringing old sin back up again?  The last time I checked, that is called "unforgiveness" (which according to Webster isn't even a word). I would rather call it what it is, "having ought against your brother".  What I say is one should not cast stones if he lives in a glass house himself. If that brother is preaching the Gospel, whether he majors on a minor or two or not, we should pray for and support what God is doing in his life. If  people are amazingly being set free and healed by the Power of God, who are we to question who God is using. The way I see it, God using a person who has repented for his past sins is no problem, Now on the other hand,  someone who walks in pride, and arrogance, and present and future sins for which he has not repented, nor plans any repentance; that is a problem.

 I have now spent sufficient time here in Lakeland Florida and I will give a short list of what I see missing:  What is missing is the preferential treatment for religious royalty, everyone sits on the same seats, wherever in the building, no matter who you think you are. What is missing is the power ties and the fifteen hundred dollar designer suits and the ostentatious five hundred dollar alligator shoes. Jeans and t-shirts are the nom d'plume  of this move, Glory to God.  What is missing is the diamond bracelets and the Rolex watches and the stench of Pharisee leather clad lawgivers who expect the best seats in the temple, while walking in their severely overrated opinions of themselves. What is missing is everything that can ruin a revival. The first time I walked in to a Rodney Howard-Browne meeting and saw hundreds of people laughing hysterically, I thought it strange..then I laughed with them. The first time I walked into the sanctuary at Brownsville in Pensacola and saw hundreds of broken-hearted believers weeping before God, It thought it strange..and I wept with them.  And when I walked into the Florida Outpouring and saw thousands worshipping with abandon…for hours…I thought, this is the next logical step..and jumped into the worship…Thank you Jesus. 

As a pastor, I have encountered a great deal of intra-societal struggles, but none fascinates me as much as the ever evolving race issue. In the church it has virtually divided Christianity into black churches and white churches, especially here in the good old south. Growing up here, I have met my share of low-browed, redneck, types that insist on keeping up the facade that caucasian is some how better than any other life form in God's universe. What this kind of insipid mentality seems to spawn is nothing more than the business as usual prejudice that has plagued mankind since the dawn of time. The Egyptians enslaved the Jews for hundreds of years and that ought is still carried against the Jews almost worldwide. The original Africans who were plucked from their homeland, arrived in America greeted by the selfish ambitions of rich land owners who discovered that for the paultry price of keeping them alive, these poor humans would work tirelessly as indentured servants. Abe Lincoln arrives on the scene, the nation goes to war, slavery is abolished and we're on the high road to civil rights. Which brings me to today. I am honestly one of the most colorblind people I know and my friendships of whatever color are based upon the character of their being  and little else. I do however see a new form of racism that has emerged in our midst. I see an elitest crew of "motivational speakers" who have done for the African American what David Duke did for what we call the white race. These men tout racial equality as the reason for their cause, but they have done little more with their careers than make  themselves national celebrities. I speak of course of a Mr. Jackson, and a Mr. Sharpton. Through all of their loudmouth antics and high lifestyles, they prey upon the poor of those they represent and seem to show up at the right place at the right time voicing the opininon of a people that I really do not think they represent accurately. My wife and I minister in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans at our church which meets on a vacant lot where something used to be before Katrina. We have been minsitering to those wonderful people of all colors for about a year and one half now and I talk to them frequently and in great depth. I do not show up there just when CNN cameras will be there. I do not bring them food and supplies when there is a speaking engagement arranged for me or a press conference where I can exploit my career before national media. We are there when there is no more food in the cabinet. We offer words of hope when the news media cameras are somewhere else. And we talk to these people and they all ask the same kinds of questions. The most prominent question we hear is...where is all this help they promised us? Mr.Sharpton and Mr. Jackson are good at what they do. They come into a tough and stuggling situation, offer finger-pointing, and discord, and railing accusation...maybe throw a little money at the problem and then climb onboard their respective jets and never look back. The only good they did was to send even furthur division among a sorely divided people. I was disappointed to see a man I respected, Pat Robertson, pushing some greenhouse gas crap on the same screen with Al Sharpton...and the best thing the pathetic ad agency could come up with was that after all their left and rightisms...they could agree on the ecology. You know what...save your money...and buy a couple of thousand tree plantings with the cash wasted on producing that intelligence insulting media hype. If you are truly concerned about the ecology, quit fouling the air with more racist spin. Mr. Robertson, also a minister, should choose his company more carefullly. What does it say in the Bible Rev. Pat...bad company corrupts good character. As a former broadcaster, I had the unbelievable privelege of watching Al Sharpton take down a broadcast legend, that being Don Imus. Granted, Imus stuck his big size 15 shoe in his mouth, but have you ever listened to the slanted twisted yellow-journalism that passes for the Al Sharpton radio show?  Mr Imus, while proving his lack of finese as well as racial understanding...also operates a substantially large free kid's camp in Arizona for terminally ill children of all colors. Mr. Sharpton's contribution is to come to New Orleans, blow in, blow up, and, blow out, leaving the poor precious souls that I minister to every day to believe that his worhless airbag speech  may give them a chance of recovery.  So where are we now. We have a population stirred by a bitter dissertation that has no substance, poisoned against the people who could offer help, and actually receiving little or no help from anyone. I have not spoken of Mr. Jackson because quite frankly, I believe him to be in the same category of Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Edwin Edwards, and everyother sandbag politician to darken the door of the common man, whatever color, in America. I truly believe people of all races have figured Mr. Jackson out. Supporting a "mistress" on "ministry" funds is a no-no in anybody's denomination.We won't even talk about this married "reverend" commiting adultry on his wife. When it comes to that kind of help...the best way to be is quiet. I live among the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I have touched their lives and they have touched mine from every race. I love my people in the Ninth Ward, and I take high exception of anyone using a political or religious spin to acheive their goals at these precious folks price. Sean Penn shows up down here and the cameras fire up to cover the news. He is twice the son of hell as Mr. Sharpton if all he can offer is yet another lie to these people who have received their lifetime quota of lies all in the past two years. I have great admiration for Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie. I believe their heart is to truly help those who have lost so much. I have great respect and fondness for Spike Lee...his accounting of what happened down here is painfully honest. I may not agree with any of these people philosophically or theologically, but one thing is for certain. Racism has a new face...and it is being delivered by both the ususal suspects as well as some who are simply using their color to build their careers at the expense of their innocent bretheren.  Peace