Who's in Charge Here?

I worked at the condo complex installing latches on utility closet doors. After a slow couple of weeks it was nice to have a real, paying gig for a change. Hey, somebody's got to pay for all that new landscaping out front. I may be doing some roof repair tomorrow, and Saturday I'll be doing several chores at Steve's office. They just moved into a new building and need some pictures hung...little things like that. So the next few days should be income-producing.

"Suicide by cop" is what they call it - someone who intentionally draws the cops into a situation where they'll be killed in a justified shoot. I feel badly for the cop who pulls that trigger; he knows in his head that he did the right thing but still bears the burden in his stomach of having killed someone who, as it turns out, posed no real threat to others.
Related to suicide by cop must be what happened yesterday in Omaha. Robert Hawkins killed eight people, choosing them randomly, and then killed himself before the police arrived. He could have killed himself alone, without any harm to others, but he chose to slaughter innocents because, as his suicide note read, "now I'll be famous."
A less publicized but similar suicide took place here in the Phoenix area yesterday. Richards Schwartz, a man linked to several area bank robberies led police on a high-speed chase through several areas of southeast Phoenix, reaching speeds of over 100 mph, darting through traffic. Much of the chase was caught by local news copters and broadcast on local TV. At one point, for no particular reason, Schwartz darted across all the lanes on his side of the road, crossed the median, then the lanes on the other side, hitting a car in the slow lane head-on. The impact was extreme, killing both drivers instantly. Alex Ahmad, 24, a student at the community college who worked part time as a valet, died because someone decided to go out taking someone else with him.
Can you make any sense of this logic? I can't! And the grief of these victims' families must be nearly unbearable.

Our first service is one month from today. Deo Volente it will not be the last. But starting a church, especially in an area like this, is a long-shot endeavor by human standards.
An adage I tried to drill into my students: "Act like what you want to be, not what you are." So we'll have two "hours" - a worship service including a regular sermon, and an educational hour, a Sunday School time. The latter will, for the adults, focus on issues related to starting up a church and a look at what the Bible has to say about basic principles. But what should I preach?I want it to be a normal, Bible-based sermon, not anything devised for this event. Hmmmm.

Mitt Romney tried to assure Americans in today's speech that his Mormonism posed no threat to his service as President. His decisions as leader of our country would be based on what was best for the country, not the standards of his church.
Interesting.
The parallels to J.F. Kennedy's speech have already been noted. But since Romney declined to discuss the specific tenets of the Mormon church, we'll note here that the leader of the Mormon Church, at this point a man named Gordon Hinckley, is considered authoritative when he gives commands to the followers of Mormonism. So, to use a ridiculous example, if Mr. Hinckley declared that all Mormons should wear pink hats, that decree would be completely authoritative, as though it came directly from God. Were he to do that, and were Romney to be President, would he wear a pink hat?
Of course that example is silly. But it would seem that, if Romney is truly a good Mormon, his first allegiance is to his church, which is to say it is, in certain circumstances, to Mr. Hinckley. Given the right (or wrong) set of circumstances, Romney would have to choose between being a good Mormon and being a good President. Which would he choose?
Note: The Pope claims the same authority - to speak for God under certain circumstances. So Kennedy faced, in theory the same dilemma. However, we now know that Kennedy was not a good Catholic! And you can bet that his local bishop was well aware of that.
But lest we look only outward, what would you, what would I do if service to country put us in a situation where doing what was best for the country was contrary to our commitment to biblical living?
That's why I decided not to run for President.

OK, let's see how you do. I got to level 10.
http://www.minijuegosgratis.com/juegos/hwdykyworld/hwdykyworld.html?a456=c6ba
I was surprised at how poorly I did with South America.