Inexperienced teenage drivers are known to be prone to distraction and accidents. And five-year old children are known to be careless and clueless when they play near roads and streets.

Those two grim facts of life intersected with awful efficiency on the long gravel driveway to Steven Curtis Chapman’s country home this afternoon.

According to this news report, one of the Chapman’s teenage sons was driving the family’s SUV up the driveway as his little sister Maria–one of three little girls the family has adopted in China in recent years–was playing there. He never saw her. And she is gone.

Here at our house, we stopped and prayed and shook our heads at the immensity of the grief that a fallen world visits upon some of its very best souls. What a horrific blow for a wonderful family to have to absorb. What a cruel weight have laid upon narrow boy-shoulders.

As we prayed, I was reminded of a song Chapman wrote several years ago. He called it “Hold On to Jesus.” The lyric he wrote says:

I have come to this ocean
And the waves of fear are starting to grow
The doubts and questions are rising with the tide
So I’m clinging to the one sure thing I know
I will hold onto the hand of my Savior
And I will hold on with all my might
I will hold loosely to things that are fleeting
And hold on to Jesus
I will hold on to Jesus for life

I’ve tried to hold many treasures
They just keep slipping through my fingers like sand
But there’s one treasure that means more than breath itself
So I’m clinging to it with everything I am
Like a child holding onto a promise
I will cling to His word and believe
As I press on to take hold of that
For which Christ Jesus took hold of me
Hold on for life

Hold on, dear Chapman family. May you find mercy and comfort and solace and hope as you do.

That’s me on the left.

Based on this photo, I could tell you a story of my early years of poverty and deprivation growing up in rural Southeastern Oklahoma. Of cultural backwardness and intellectual malnourishment. I could tell you such a story but, despite what the picture above suggests, it wouldn’t be true.

No, pictures don’t always tell the truth. And this frozen Kodachrome moment tells a whopper.

That’s my little brother and I (4 and 6) having the time of our lives in the Summer of 1966. Both Mom and Dad were college professors. And this Summer, we spent six weeks living in this cabin on Lake Texoma as Dad–a biology teacher–did research for a paper he was writing on some obscure species of sand wasps.

He spent each day sitting in a lawn chair with a legal pad in his lap, logging the comings and goings of little wasps. Meanwhile, my brother and I–perpetually shirtless, shoeless, and careless–lived liked two wild men of Borneo, swimming, fishing, tree climbing and whatever else we jolly well pleased.

As I look at this picture now through the eyes of a husband, I have to wonder how good a time my Mom was having during those six weeks. That cabin didn’t have much more than running water. And a quick check of NOAA’s historical weather data shows that the temps in July of ’66 were way above normal. I suspect most of the cooking was done outside on that little charcoal grill because it was simply too hot to consider cooking anything indoors.

Two years later Mom would get to build her dream home. And over the 10 years that followed my brother and I would do our best to destroy it with the help of two sisters who would come along eventually. There would be piano lessons, drama workshops, science fairs, and reading of all the right books.

But for part of one hot summer, we all lived like depression-era sharecroppers. And that was all right by me.

Five place settings at the table tonight.

Yesterday Mrs. Blather and I ran down to Baylor to move Female Offspring Unit #1 out of the dormitory and back home for the Summer.

Throughout my college years (all seven of them), I could pretty much fit everything I owned in the back of my Toyota Corolla. Yesterday I hauled a volume of shoes out of a tiny dorm room that would have crushed that Toyota.

FOI #2 still has a week and a half of school remaining and, because she is a conscientious, high-achiever, has that grim-pressured look on her face most of the time. Papers, projects, and finals weigh heavily. #3 finished today and she has that giddy, relieved look of a defendant who has just been told charges are being dropped due to a technicality.

Of course, for us grownups, Summer doesn’t mean much, does it? Other than higher electric bills, that is. The hamster wheels of work and obligation and duty must continue to spin.

It’s just as well. Everyone in the household is now so. . . scheduled. Between summer jobs, camps, activities and engagements, I’m not sure we could find a commonly-available week for a vacation, even if Lord Hamsterwheel were inclined to permit it. Which he’s not.

Still, there are the memories of sweet summers past and less complicated times. Like when we were still living in Minnesota and flew to Florida. There the girls saw the ocean for the very first time. We parked at Cocoa Beach, got out of the car, and they ran down ahead–stopping as close to the water’s edge as they dared.

You rarely have a camera in your hands when one of life’s fleeting, golden milestone moments composes itself before your wondering, welling eyes.

But occasionally you do.

Five place settings at the table tonight. Here at Summer’s edge, things are as they should be.

Good,  sobering stuff. An excerpt…

On a tiny strip of land narrower at its narrowest point than many American townships, Israel has built a modern economy with a GDP per capita just shy of $30,000 — and within striking distance of the European Union average. If you object that that’s because it’s uniquely blessed by Uncle Sam, well, for the past 30 years the second largest recipient of U.S. aid has been Egypt: Their GDP per capita is $5,000, and America has nothing to show for its investment other than one-time pilot Mohammed Atta coming at you through the office window.

Read the whole thing.

Sixty years ago a tiny outpost of Western Civilization was established in the vast cultural wasteland of the Middle East. It took two world wars and a collective global recoil from the horror of the holocaust to set the stage for such an improbable event.

Today there are those who actually believe the Middle East would be a giant love-in if Israel didn’t exist. All harmony and understanding. Sympathy and trust abounding. Seriously.

However, some knoweldgeable folks at Foreign Policy magazine imagined “A World Without Israel” and came to a different conclusion:

Imagine that Israel never existed. Would the economic malaise and political repression that drive angry young men to become suicide bombers vanish? Would the Palestinians have an independent state? Would the United States, freed of its burdensome ally, suddenly find itself beloved throughout the Muslim world? Wishful thinking. Far from creating tensions, Israel actually contains more antagonisms than it causes.

There were about 200 people present on May 14, 1948 when David Ben Gurion proclaimed Israel a sovereign nation. Only one of those witnesses to history is alive today. His name is Arieh Handler. And this is his story.

The official Poet Laureate of BWR (or in Texas is it “Poet Lariat”?) is friend-of-Blather Bonnie Wilks.  She and her husband Wayne just returned from a trip to Israel and Bonnie crafted a lovely piece of verse inspired by some ancient mosaics they saw and photographed. Enjoy.

I have been a registered voter pretty much continuously for the last thirty years. And somehow I have never been summoned for jury duty. Until today.

A few weeks ago I got a notice to appear at the Tarrant County courthouse on this day. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. as instructed, and found myself in a room with about 150 other prospective jurors. I had heard from others who have been summoned recently that the odds are against even been called out to be a jury prospect pool.

So after some initial instructions they began calling out numbers and names for the first jury pool. Number 1, Jane Doe. . .Number 2, Joe Blogs. . . Number 3, David Holland. . .

Okay then. I was in a jury pool. Me and about 14 of my closest new friends clipped on our “Juror” name tags and headed up to the sixth floor in search county courtroom 15. There we were handed surveys to fill out. The early questions were about profession and level of education. But a little farther down we got questions like:

• Has someone close to you ever been the subject of a restraining order or protection order?
• Has someone close to you ever been a victim of spousal abuse?
• If something is crime when done to a stranger, is it always a crime when done to a spouse?
• Should someone be prosecuted for a crime against a spouse even when that spouse does not want that person to be prosectued?

After a few of those, I was ready to take a wild guess as to what kind of case we might be hearing. But would I be selected or rejected? I was praying for rejection given the fact that I couldn’t really spare the hours I was already losing.

As it turned out, the judge had 10 cases on her docket today, and every single one of them ended up in a plea bargain or with the charges dropped. As we were dismissed, she explained to us that knowing that a prospective jury is waiting out in the hall tends to concentrate the minds of the attorneys in ways that gets deals done.

So I didn’t get pulled into a multi-day trial and my work life was saved.

A few days ago I made some wiseacre observations about a 1950s-era Camel ad featuring Rock Hudson. It is a typical example of the era for cigarette hawking in that it combined both celebrity endorsement AND dubious scientific claims. It a formula we also see in this Phillip Morris ad:

Here Lucy and Ricky hold out the alluring promise of an end to the dreaded “cigarette hangover.” We’re also reminded that these cigarette’s are special because they are “made differently” than other brands.

Different how, you ask? After all, how many ways can there be to roll dried tobacco leaves into a paper cylinder, you wonder? “Shut up,” they explained. We apparently don’t need to know. All we need to know is that the making is “different” somehow. And that Lucy says it will help me avoid something that sounds bad.

In my recent exploration of the world of Happy Days cigarette advertising, one startling revelation was that before the Marlboro brand was marketed solely to men who wished they were craggy, weathered cowboys riding the fence line of a Montana ranch–Marlboro was marketed to women…specifically stressed out young mothers. Behold:

Yes, if Gerber-babies could talk, that’s what they’d say when Mommy fired up another one. Certainly not, “Gee Mommy, thanks for the life-shortening secondhand smoke.”

The subtle message for young moms here was this: “Anything that helps you be less stressed out, makes you a better parent. A happy mommy makes for happy babies. So light up all you want. It’s the parentally responsible thing to do.” Until you start feeling “over-smoked” anyway. I’m guessing it’s not good to feel over-smoked. Which probably leads to “cigarette hangover.”

Just how far was Marlboro willing to take this play-on-the-guilt-of-young-mothers thing to sell cigarettes? This far:

Oh, yes they did.

They armed nicotine addicted mommies with the rationalization that if they didn’t fill the house and car with choking, toxic fumes, they might turn into shrieking, psyche-scarring scold-harpies.

At the root of this campaign is something behind a lot of effective advertising for vices and luxuries. The key is to help someone feel good about the thing they feel bad about.

The fine print at the bottom of the ad tells us that Marlboro’s are available in “Your choice of Ivory Tips, Plain Ends, Beauty Tips (Red).” I’m guessing they dropped the “Beauty Tips” version once the Marlboro Man became the brand icon.

Some thoughts along lines similar to those I expressed below from. . .

Victor Davis Hanson

Andy McCarthy