Today The Faith of Values of Sarah Palin officially launches. My co-author and friend, Stephen Mansfield, is in New York today doing some radio interviews and will be on Sean Hannity’s program tonight, as well as Fox & Friends tomorrow morning.

Of course, the readers of this blog who truly love me and care about my family have already ordered and received a copy of the book and will be writing a short but glowing endorsement over at the appropriate Amazon page any moment now. Others who are just merely fond of us will be doing so over the next few days. (I kid!)

Seriously though, I may be calling on a few friends in the coming weeks to volunteer a little help with some social media marketing I’m doing. Stand by for blegging. (That’s begging through a blog.)

In the meantime, here is the first of three videos Stephen and I did to help promote the book:

Friend and colleague Jon Simpson made these videos happen for me with the kind assistance of Michael Barton over at Barton Productions.

Awakened at 5:40 a.m. Wednesday by a phone call. My sister. A problem at Mom and Dad’s.

“I’m on my way.”

As I mentioned in the post below, Dad’s Alzheimer’s symptoms have gotten dramatically worse in the last month. I met Mom and my sister at a hospital in Henryetta, Oklahoma. He’ll spend a couple of weeks there. After that . . . well, we’re not sure. As a I said below, a season of hard decisions is upon us.

I took Mom home where she spent the first of what will almost certainly be many nights without her husband beside her.

The next day I drove her car into town to wash and service it. At the same do-it-yourself car wash I used back in high school 35 years ago, I dropped some quarters into the vacuum and went to work on the mats and carpet. While cleaning the passenger side floor, I noticed the ragged edge of a slip of paper sticking up from a crack between the carpet and the plastic door sill.

I gently teased it out of its hiding place and unfolded it. Here it is:

The camera phone picture quality is poor but the tattered card bears the words, “Army of the United States.” Puzzled by what I was holding, I looked more closely and saw my father’s name and a number typed in faded ink. The light came on for me when I saw these words at the top of the card:

Certificate of Service

This was Dad’s honorable discharge card. I flipped the card over and saw:

Period of Active Service

From: 29 Jan 51

To: 6 Jan 53

With the mystery of what I was holding solved, I turned to the bigger puzzle. What was a piece of paper issued to my father back in the Truman Administration doing wedged in the floorboard of a Buick my parents have only owned one year.

I showed it to Mom. She sighed and said it probably fell out of his wallet. But I can’t imagine that Dad has been carrying around his honorable discharge card for the last 57 years.

No, he put it in there recently. Of course he has been doing lots of unusual things recently. Over the course of the last year he has surrounded his favorite chair and his bedside with an astonishing assortment of family photos and memorabilia. He rummaged through the drawers of his old roll-top desk and retrieved long-buried photos and mementos, placing them around him

It is obvious what Dad has been doing. He has been fighting. Fighting to hold on to what he knows. Fighting to hold on to what he remembers. Fighting to preserve a sense of who he is. Or was.

At some point he came across that discharge card in a drawer and placed it in his wallet or pocket. And at some point, it fell out–which is an apt metaphor for what this hell-spawned disease has been doing to him for almost 10 years now.

Stuff he always carried around in his head or heart keeps falling out.

There has been another very telling aspect of this decline–one that has become more pronounced as the decline has accelerated.

On a daily basis Mom receives phone calls from concerned friends at church or from relatives. They are checking in on her and asking for a report on how Dad is doing. The problem is that, if she answers honestly, she must reveal some embarrassing things about Dad’s behavior or health problems, and when he hears her sharing this information, he gets very upset.

In recent weeks I learned to call when I knew Dad would be sleeping so Mom could speak freely about the struggles he’d been having. Otherwise, he would get very upset with her if she revealed anything about him.

There is a profound truth to be harvested in this field of blooming sadness.

All the marriage enrichment folks consistently claim that a man’s highest need–greater than even the core need for sexual fulfillment–is a hunger for honor . . . to be admired and respected by those he loves most.

I have always suspected this was correct, but now I am certain of it. Why?

Because as, piece by piece, most of what has made my father who he is has been stripped away–his gentleness, his calm, his good humor, his patience, his inclination to trust–one thing remains firmly intact. His need for honor.

Which brings us back to that faded, time-worn card, doesn’t it?

It is no accident that from among the hundreds of little cards and papers he could have selected,  he chose to carry one that said the following:

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT

JOHN F HOLLAND  US 54 007 570 Cpl

HONORABLY SERVED ON ACTIVE DUTY

Yes. Yes he did.

Period of active service: One lifetime.

I’m your host, Dave Sparseposter.

Here at Holland House, we’re adjusting to the rhythms and requirements of autumn with two fewer offspring in the mix. Now, with a senior back at Baylor and a Freshman freshly launched at the University of Oklahoma, we’re left with only one still at home on whom to focus all our parenting energies. You should probably pray for her.

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The official launch of the Sarah Palin book is still a week away but it’s been available online for a couple of weeks and it’s now showing up at bookstores. On the night of the launch, Sept. 21, my co-author, Stephen, will be on Sean Hannity’s show to talk about the book.

No, I wasn’t invited. That’s understandable and that’s okay. Stephen is a regular on Sean’s program and no one has heard of me. My hope is that I will be given some opportunities to do some media with this book and that I can translate those opportunities into a deal for my next book. Otherwise, I may need to find another line of work.

Here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the local Mardel’s store will be hosting a launch party for the book where I’ll be available to sign copies, answer questions, and just be generally charming and witty. It’s Saturday, October 2 at 1:00 p.m.. (details here) That happens to be the precise time of the kickoff of the OU-Texas game, so it will be embarrassing if my wife is the only one there. Super-embarrassing if she’s not there either.

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Things are not good with my folks. My father’s Alzheimer’s symptoms got dramatically worse after having an outpatient cancer procedure last month. He has really become more than my mother can handle as a care-giver. Some difficult decisions are upon us and I see no good options on the table–only bad ones and somewhat-less-bad.

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Speaking of hoping people will show up for something I’m doing . . . I will be teaching the “Prayer Tools” class at Gateway Church Sunday morning, October 3, at 9:00 a.m. in the big upstairs classroom. Come if you can. I’ll be signing copies of the Bible.

. . . was the fact that Pastor Flapdoodle in Florida got a knock on his door from the FBI right before he canceled his weenie roast.

I’m on record in the posts below of thinking the pastor is, to put it mildly, misguided. Though he may be on shaky biblical grounds, he was on rock solid terrain where is First Amendment rights were concerned.

Like me, the guys over at the Powerline blog are wondering what the heck the FBI is doing in this story:

This raises the suspicion that the FBI visit was an attempt to intimidate Rev. Jones. A vist for this purpose would be an entirely improper infringement on his (and by extension our) civil liberties.

That fact that the likes of President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, Gen. Petraeus, the FBI, the Pope, Oprah, the cast of Jersey Shore, and that guy from the Staples commercial who yell’s Wow! That’s a low price!” are all predicting new waves of jihadis and suicide bombers because some loon in Florida says he’s planning to burn some Korans, tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the moral equivalence of Islam and Christianity.

Andy McCarthy, the lead prosecutor on the 1993 WTC bombing case has it right when he says:

Terry Jones is a jackass. . . But that’s beside the point. Burning a book sacred to Muslims is a stupid, provocative thing to do. Yet, it is conscious avoidance — okay, willful blindness — to claim that Jones is causing the threat to our troops, in addition to the threat of other attacks and riots by Muslims (of the sort we’ve seen with the Danish cartoons, the false claims of Koran-flushing at Gitmo, the school teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammed, etc.).

Those are all pretexts. The cause is Islamist ideology, which is dehumanizing of non-Muslims (or, in the case of the Ahmadi, even of Muslims who reject core parts of Islamic doctrine). It is the ideology that puts the world’s Muslims on a hair trigger.

Christians are grieved and sometimes outraged when sacred symbols of the faith or even Christ himself is desecrated or defiled in art, film, theater or public protest. But such are commonplace in our culture and around the world precisely because those who do it know they have nothing to fear.

So some knot-head pastor in Florida with a congregation of 40 people announces an idiotic publicity stunt and it dominates the national headlines for a week and counting?

Really?

Sweet mother of cheese . . . the Pope felt obligated to weigh in on the matter today.

A commenter on some blog pointed out that on any given day, there are probably several dozen pastors of tiny churches doing something weird in this country.

Sadly, he’s probably correct. But it is also true that on any given day there are thousands of churches across this country doing wonderful things in their communities.  Sacrificial things. Redemptive things. Noble things.

And those acts will go unnoticed. Which is fine, because they are not done for show or for the praises of man.

So why is this nutburger with extra cheese the central topic of the national conversation day after day? Obviously, it is exacerbating a pre-existing condition. Namely, the debate over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

Indeed there is a lovely symmetry with these two proposed actions. In both cases, the parties have a constitutional right to do what they are planning. In both cases, they should decline to exercise that right.

Yes, I know that Muslim activist groups in this country are constantly whining and bellyaching about sensitivity and deference to Islamic sensibilities which makes the mosque project gallingly hypocritical.

But then Muslims don’t have Jesus in the Koran establishing what we call the Golden Rule. Those who claim the Bible as their final authority and guide do have encouragement to “treat others as you want to be treated.”

In his heart of hearts, does Pastor Goofball want to see groups of skeptics, atheists, Muslims, or Wiccans holding Bible burnings? I doubt it. So the biblical course of action is clear. But I doubt that he’ll see it that way any more than that detestable Fred Phelps fellow and his creepy cult followers do.

And so the media circus continues, with a little Florida church serving as the clown car in the center ring.

This truth is becoming so obvious that even the Washington Post is acknowledging it:

“Small Businesses Feel Squeezed by Obama Policies”

Of course, this is WaPo we’re talking about so note the qualifier “feel.” The acknowledgement is not that small businesses are being squeezed by Obama policies–only that they feel they are.

Squeezed is actually the wrong word. Crushed, smothered, traumatized, shell-shocked, or “under siege”  . . . by Obama policies would be a better descriptor of what the business community is “feeling.”

(via Mediaite)
Posted without comment.

Okay. One comment.

Can you imagine any Katy Couric doing that?

Among all the chatter and opinionating over the last few weeks about the Ground Zero Mosque and the supposed ugly “Islamophobia” that lurks just beneath the civilized veneer of those of us who think it shouldn’t be built there, a couple of worthy gems stand out.

If you don’t read anything else, check out Jonah Goldberg’s piece over at NRO. And for a welcome laugh, read Greg Gutfield (host of FNC’s RedEye) and his blog post about “Islamophobia-phobia,” which, as he explains, is the fear of being accused of having an irrational fear of Muslims.

You know, at some point the Left-wing media and their sophisticated allies in Washington, Academia and Hollywood may want to rethink their strategy of insulting and demonizing us regular Americans every time a poll reveals we are out of step with our “betters.”

It’s just a friendly suggestion.

You see every time some regular independent swing voter who happens to think it’s a good thing that Arizona wants to uphold U.S. immigration law or a bad thing that a large majority of California voters were just nullified by a gay judge on the gay marriage issue hears that he’s being called a racist or bigot or hater or stupid or a sufferer of some sort of mental disorder–his natural response will NOT be to run into the arms of the liberal aristocracy and beg for forgiveness.

The more the Left belittles and smears the vast common-sense middle of America the more alienated and galvanized that middle becomes.

The horrible story of the Muslim taxi driver who was attacked the other day is just one example. The lefty media jumped on the, “Are you a Muslim?” story as a validation of their premise. Then, as usual, the facts began to dribble out and undermine their point. Turns out the attacker was a drunken lefty tied a number of anti-war organizations. To add to the irony, it turns out the Muslim cab driver is opposed to the building of the Park51 Mosque.

The whole incident brought back an unpleasant memory for me . . . one in which I was in a foreign country and asked, “Are you American?” When I answered, “Yes,” I was attacked with a biological weapon.

Allow me to explain.

Several years ago I had a client that took me to the UK about five times per year over several years. Their offices were in the North of England and I routinely stayed at the same seaside Marriott hotel in Sunderland.

Lovely place. Lovely people. Couldn’t understand a word they were saying. (But then neither can anyone else in England.)

On numerous occasions I ate at a quaint little Italian restaurant on the beach across the highway. Like many of the restaurants I’ve visited in the UK, this one was run and staffed by Middle Eastern immigrants.

On one visit in 2004, I was sitting at table with a couple of colleagues from South Africa and had engaged our young Middle Eastern waiter in some friendly conversation. Toward the end of the meal he was obviously feeling that we had enough of a connection to ask me a question:

“Are you an American?”

Now I’ve been all over this big, diverse world of ours and I faithfully follow a couple of hard-and-fast rules when I’m traveling abroad. Rule one: Never, ever provoke someone who will be preparing or bringing you food. (This rule actually applies in all places and at all times.)

The second rule is, when you’re in a foreign country and the person who has just picked up on your accent eyeballs you and asks where you’re from, the correct answer is:

“Canada.”

On this occasion, however, our meal was finished. We were getting ready to leave. And after spending a week listening to the hyper-biased news coming from the BBC, I was feeling particularly patriotic. So I violated rule #2 . . .

“Yes, I am,” I said cheerily.

Then came the follow up question. “What do you think about Bush?”

Here is where discretion, being the better part of valor, should have bound and gagged my patriotic impulses and tossed them in closet. The correct answer was, “I don’t really follow politics.”

“I like him,” I heard myself saying with extra chipperness in my voice. “He has a hard job but I think he’s doing pretty well.”

He seemed sorely displeased by my answer, but just walked away. A few minutes later we left the restaurant and that was the end of it . . .

. . . until about a year later when I happened to re-visit the restaurant with a colleague from Scotland. To be honest I had completely forgotten about the exchange with my waiter the previous year.

He hadn’t. And as it turned out, he was our server on this evening. While taking our order he studied me for a minute and then said, “Are you that American fellow?”

“He’s a Texan!” my Scot companion volunteered helpfully. We ordered, ate, and left.

A few hours later, at the manor house in which I was staying that week, I become more violently ill than I have ever been in my life. I alternated between fearing I was going to die and praying that God would just take me home and end my misery.

Coincidence? Perhaps.

Indeed, I have no idea whether my waiter was a Muslim (although, if memory serves, his name was Mohammad). I didn’t ask his religion because I didn’t care. I didn’t have an irrational fear of Muslims. I do however have a very rational fear of hateful waiters.

I also have a very rational, quite well-founded fear that our nation’s foundations, weakened by liberal cultural self-loathing, are crumbling under an avalanche of illegal immigration, creeping Sharia, and multi-culti nonsense.

Nevertheless, if you’re ever in Sunderland and find yourself in a wonderful little Italian place right on the beach, if a waiter named Mohammad asks if you’re American . . .

Just say “Que?”

Breaking News

The official launch of the Sarah Palin book is not until September 21. But I hear from a friend that he received a message from Amazon today letting him know that his pre-order of the book had shipped.

That means those of you who were kind enough to pre-order the book should be getting yours soon as well.

It also means that I’m hoping the rest of my readers, friends, relatives, neighbors, and creditors will be so kind as to order a copy or two. Other ways to help you ask? Well, you could leave a glowing review on the book’s Amazon page. Or you could sent out an email to your vast network of contacts with a link to one of the scintillating excerpt blog posts I’ll be creating in the weeks to come.

Just remember, I have two kids in college. No pressure.

Speaking of Kids in College . . .

Female Offspring Unit #1 headed back down to Waco more than a week ago to prepare for the start of her final year at Baylor. A few days ago we drove FOU #2 up to Norman and moved her into the dorm at OU. Today FOU #3 started her junior year at Faith Christian School in Grapevine. (Yes, between the three, these annual tuition obligations total up to equal the GDP of a small Central American nation.)

Bottom line: They’re all doing well and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

Border Insecurity

Did you see the news report of the Texas girl who was kidnapped near the Mexican border this weekend? Probably not. The local TV news staffs are loaded with pro-immigration types and only carry stories that fit the preferred narrative. (I hear that Glenn Beck mentioned it at the top of his program.)

A 19-year-old girl was abducted near McAllen, Texas, transported across the border to Mexico, and held for ransom.

Fortunately the lawless idiots failed to check the girl for a cell phone. It seems that when it became clear to the bandits that they had picked a girl whose family didn’t have any money, they dumped her in a field outside of Reynosa, Mexico–right across the river from McAllen.

Then the problem for police on the U.S. side was to locate her and retrieve her when they have no jurisdiction in Mexico. “Why not alert the Mexican police and have them pick her up?” you ask.

Great question. It seems the U.S. authorities didn’t feel they could engage their Mexican counterparts for fear (a well-grounded on born of experience) that they would be corrupt, or might even be complicit in the kidnapping.

But wait! This story becomes an even more bizarre metaphor for all that is wrong-headed about our border and immigration policies.

A news report today reveals that the kidnapped girl is an illegal alien who has been living here with her mother since she was six. The girl’s father lives across the border in Reynosa.

Now some are wondering if perhaps the entire kidnapping was staged by the mother in order to get the girl a “U Visa” which would give her legal resident status. U Visas are issued by the State Department to immigrants who are victims of crime.

Perfect.