The Land of Ozz

Wal-Mart’s move into toy action figures based on characters from Bible stories is likely a pure business decision and not because a senior executive got saved in church last Sunday. A story posted on USAToday.com tells of the retail giant’s move into a new line of toys in about 13% of its stores. The toys are distributed by one2believe.com. The web site URL for this company will redirect you to a Yahoo! online store with a URL of store.messengersoffaith.net where the company lists Focus on the Family and FamilyLife.com (a division of Campus Crusades for Christ) as partners.

Sadly enough, I think Jim Silver, editor of Toy Wishes magazine has probably nailed the fate of this effort.

“Once children turn 4, parents tend to get them what they want. And right now, kids are asking for Transformers.”

I find it interesting that 4 year olds get turned on to characters from a PG-13 movie like Transformers, but that is a subject for another day. Anyway, I agree with Mr. Silver, it is transformers this week, it was Spider-man a couple of months ago, and it will be more Harry Potter dolls in the weeks and months to come. With the release of the most recent Harry Potter movie (also PG-13), next week’s release of the latest book, and the upcoming Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park, the magical world of Harry Potter will cast spells on millions of American families.  Many will be Christian families.

Many parents can plead ignorance to the words given to use from God through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6: 12-13.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

For those Christian parents who do read and study the Bible regularly, I do not understand how they can still endorse things like Harry Potter, Spider man, and Transformers for their children, especially the young ones.  My rule of thumb is: If I discern a program, book, or toy to be anywhere between morally neutral and glorifying to God, then I will consider investing in that item for my children. I know, the real issue for each Christian is where to draw the line on the morally neutral end? My answer: If you are having to ask then you are probably too close to the line. Many Christians are under a misconception that God put us on this planet for our own personal enjoyment. While I do believe good clean fun for us humans is a good thing in God’s eyes, we were put here to glorify Him and serve His wishes above our own happiness.

The point that I am trying to come to is to tie together the comments of another person quoted in the USAToday article.

“Laurie Schacht, president of The Toy Book, a toy industry publication, says some parents also are dissatisfied with toys from conventional toymakers: “There are a lot of wild things out there. Parents want to give kids wholesomeness.”"

This lady got close to my point of view on toys, but her wording is just a little, shall we say, worldly. In all fairness, she is likely referring to parents in general and not just Christian parents. I personally want to teach my kids holiness above happiness and wholesomeness. There are not many items on your average Wal-Mart toy isle shelf to help get that job done.

It will be interesting to see how these faith-based toys sell in Wal-Mart.   “Stores that sell a lot of Bibles will carry the new line,” says Melissa O’Brien, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.  This line of thinking seems a little shallow and I hope they did not hinge too much of their marketing strategy on this one statistic.

My friend Danny Kaye over at nothingtoimportantto.us has tagged me.

Below are 8 things (plus one) that regular readers of The Land of Ozz might not know about me.

A few of them (2,3, and 5) are very similar to what Danny Kaye posted.  Weird huh? Especially since he and I have never met face to face. Oh well, maybe someday.

1. I love peanuts. I helped grow peanuts in our garden when I was a kid. By the way, I do not like tree nuts at all.

2. This one is nearly the same as Danny Kaye’s #2. I knew within a tenth of a point what grade I needed on my last final exam to graduate high school. I was in the top 10% of my freshman year, but finished HS in the bottom 30%.

3. The only “B” I earned in my first two years of college was in English 101. Caint ye tail frum weading my bwog? After the less than perfect English 101, I went on to complete my AS with a 3.95 GPA. I have a good excuse for that “B”. I was taking 23 semester hours during my first semester back to college in nearly nine years. I have no excuses for my lazy performance with my BS.  I graduated with a 3.65 GPA.

4. I am one of a handful of men on this planet that would prefer a cat as a pet over a dog. You don’t have to walk the dog, and a cat will eat bugs, snakes, and mice.

5. I have dislocated my right knee four times since the 11th grade in high school. The last time was over fifteen years ago. Each time required someone else to put my knee back in joint for me. The first time when I was 16, the PE teacher drove me to the hospital with my knee out of joint. The doctor took x-rays at several angles while my kneecap was still out of place. I am guessing those x-ray pictures have become a part of some doctor joke spam since then. It is probably listed as 1 of the 10 weirdest things the local hospital has ever treated in the emergency room.

6. I spent much of my childhood on a pig farm. We had as many as 150-200 pigs at times along with chickens, goats, a couple of calves, rabbits, one horse, over twenty cats, and several dogs.

7. With exception for NASCAR races, Food Network is the ONLY channel I watch on TV anymore. Alton Brown and Good Eats is my favorite show. I also like the shows where they try to pick the next Food Network star. It is the best reality type show with good clean competition. The competition does not show the lying, bashing, and do whatever it takes to eliminate the others type of mentality you get on network TV reality shows like Survivor, Big Brother, American Race, etc.

8. I can pick a standard household deadbolt lock. My fastest time ever was 14 seconds.

Bonus – One of my favorite foods is popcorn. I like it with butter and lots of salt. This is probably more salt than most people can handle. I can eat the salt directly out of the shaker. I often like my finger and collect the excess salt granules off of my plate after dinner, when my wife is not watching. Unfortunately, my oldest son has seen this trick and now does the same thing. Here we are with our favorite NASCAR racing snack. Well, we also like some butter pooh to go with the popcorn. You know, a little sweet to go with the salt.

I have been a little busy with family and other stuff, but I had to take time to comment on the recent NASCAR penalties.  I like the idea penalizing the crew chiefs for violations on the cars.  I am not a big fan of penalizing the drivers.  I have played the role of race car crew chief a few times in my life.  I can honestly say that I have done things to the car that I did not tell the driver about.  Nothing illegal, but I have adjusted things a little more or less than what was expected from time to time.  There are times when they need to worry about driving and nothing else.  The driver has plenty of distractions with fans, qualifying, practice sessions, etc.  They do not need to know everything and often don’t know everything if a crew chief is doing his job.

That said, here is my suggestion for NASCAR.  Continue to give the fines and suspensions to the crew chiefs who are caught breaking the rules just like you have been doing.  Continue to ban them from the garage areas for the entirety of the suspension.  The only change I recommend is that NASCAR make the suspension an on-track suspension.  I akin this idea to the hockey penalty box.  Don’t bar the crew chiefs from the track all together, rather require them to report to a NASCAR trailer at the track an hour before any official race activity is to begin.  That would include qualifying, practice sessions, and actual races.   Have them check all cell phones, radios, PDA’s and computers at the door.  Station a couple of NASCAR officials in the trailer with them while you force them to watch something like an annoying children’s video repeatedly for the entirety of their NASCAR trailer stay.  Require the crew chief to be in the trailer before their driver is allowed to move the team’s car out of the garage area.

It does not sound like that big of a deal, but NASCAR can prevent the crew chiefs from running their normal job via a cell phone from their couch at home or from the top of a motor home outside of the track.

Eury Jr. apparently parked his motorcoach on a hill inside the race track and communicated with Earnhardt from there. Earnhardt reportedly spotted his crew chief during a caution period, first yelling “Hey Man!” on his radio and then explaining “I just saw a friend out there.” Source: Yahoo! Sports

This little twist will require the team owners to cart the suspended crew chiefs to the track and ensure that they are in the presence of NASCAR officials before the team car is allowed turn a wheel on the racetrack.  This will add an additional level of pain to the teams and cost NASCAR next to nothing to enforce.  I call it the NASCAR Crew Chief Penalty Box.

My wife and I both felt led to attend church on Sunday even though we both were pretty exhausted from the events surrounding our son Caden’s hospitalization this past week. Caden had been out of the hospital less than 24 hours. We took turns attending church since we did think it would be wise to take Caden. I took Riley and attended the 9:30 service at Seacoast Summerville. I cut out before the last song and rushed home so that Sherry could make it to the 11:15 service. Our attendance was well rewarded with a message from Pastor Greg that was by a video he found on YouTube about a Lion, a crocodile, and a herd of water buffalo. You need to go over to Pastor Greg’s blog to get a look at the video and then listen to the awesome message that he delivered by downloading a free audio or video copy of week five from the antidote series at Seacoastresources.org. The message is packed with Biblical truths as well as some pretty detailed facts about how Seacoast Church operates being a non-denominational church.

After watching the video and/or listen to the message, you might find a close comparison between our little family and the baby water buffalo. We have found ourselves getting attacked from many sides during this past week. If you were to look at our family over the past several weeks prior to Caden’s surgery then I suspect you would have a noticeable look of surprise on your face. The things I wrote about concerning Caden’s health this past week were obviously the most important, but by far not the only things we have been facing.

For instance, in the past month or so we have had many other attacks including a few financial ones. When have been clipping along on a tight single income budget for some time now and a few financial attacks are almost expected from time to time.  We try to stay prepared with an emergency fund, but that was pretty much wiped out recently.  Our clothes dryer went out, our microwave bit the dust, and our refrigerator stopped cooling twice within a two week period. The refrigerator incidents spoiled a considerable amount of food on both occasions. It was only about a month before all of this that our central air conditioning system stopped working. Don’t forget to factor in how Sherry must have felt being 7 months pregnant with no A/C when we are used to running the house at about 72 degrees in the summer. These repairs and replacements have reached into the thousands of dollars. Never mind the fact that we have been trying to scrape together some extra cash to prepare for the newest addition to our family who will be born in August. These things plus many others that I am not at liberty to disclose along with the build up of emotions related to Caden’s surgery and hospitalization resulted in a fresh batch of stress for everyone in our household.

I feel like we have played the part of the baby water buffalo in the YouTube video. The praying readers of this blog as well as all of the names listed in my Thanks to all post on Caden’s Page, and countless others around the world who have been praying have been playing the role of the water buffalo herd. These folks have fought for us as the agents of the enemy (financial issues, bleeding, fever, and fear) have crept in like the lions and crocodiles trying and devour our little family. Our strong support system within the body of Christ continues to help protect us against attacks like the herd of water buffaloes came to the rescue of the baby water buffalo.