Jeff Allen's Weblog

The Ultimate Gift

Happy Thanksgiving folks! I am sitting in the Houston airport once again pondering the meaning of life. Really, if it’s not a McDonald’s sausage biscuit what is it then? I have just finished a month long run of various Churches and fund raisers and am looking forward to getting home for the Thanksgiving and then Christmas holidays. I was in Conroe, Texas last night and ran into a couple of my comedian brethren at the show. It was nice to see them. I rarely get a chance to see other comics at my shows, because they themselves are usually working, but not so on a Monday night in Texas.

I hope this note finds you guys well and in good spirits for the coming month of what unfortunately in America has become one of the most stressful times of the year. I have made a conscious decision this year to put my time and resources into helping out the less fortunate, which, when I last checked, is no one in my immediate family.

I have already told my children that this year we will be buying a cow or a goat or some chickens for a village in Nicaragua and I will be doing it in their name. (If you would like to do something like this, you can click on this World Vision link and go from there). It is a great way to help someone and, in my case, keep from clogging the landfills of America with more junk that my kids will throw away. Doesn’t mean they won’t be getting underwear from their Mom and Dad, which always thrills them.

I would also like to ask you to search your heart and see if sponsoring a child in Nicaragua is something that you would like to give to a family member or something you and your children would like to do. It is $30/month well spent.

Last year, Tami and I gave two children to my sister in law for Christmas, and it is teaching their children that God’s love goes through them and expands to the other side of the world. Trust me when I tell you that our trip to see what World Vision does for the widows and orphans of this world changed Tami and me in very profound ways. First and foremost, the amount of gratitude that we experienced in Nicaragua for what they perceived as a great sacrifice on our part was overwhelming.

Because we really know how comparatively little we do for them. It is the World Vision volunteers that do all the real work. I tell a few jokes and send a few bucks down there, which then World Vision takes and, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, delivers something that a government cannot deliver, and that is Hope, Dignity and Self Respect, to a segment of the world that had no dignity, self respect and lived a hopeless existence. In other words, a miracle.

If God has blessed you financially and this is something that you might be interested in, please click on this World Vision link and check it out. I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

God’s Peace be with you.

Jeff

Lying Around with Barry Bonds

Just sitting here in the Atlanta airport... which in and of itself is not unusual, because to be perfectly honest with you I sit more in airports during the course of a year than I do in my living room. I should make a footnote here, but I am not going to be that long. The footnote is, that my living room is not necessarily where my wife and I spend our time; we remodeled the basement after our youngest moved out, and that is where we spend the crux of our time. But even if I use that as a measure of sitting time, it is a very close second to the airport.

I know my fans, and I know you are waiting for me to weigh in on the Barry Bonds controversy. I have to admit I am shocked to find out that a professional athlete cheated, and then lied about it. They want to clean up professional sports?  How's about starting with a third grade classroom? They can't even get third graders to stop cheating on their math tests, let alone athletes with millions on the line to stop cheating. We teach children the Orwellian newspeak, and take out words like ethical, moral, principal, and my personal favorite, discriminate, and wonder why they grow up to be none of those things.

I don't want this to turn into one of those things where I make a "value judgment" on Mr. Bonds, but I would like to know what happened to his legal defense. I know from watching C-Span that whenever you are under oath, amnesia works. "I don't know" is the proper response to every question asked whilst you are under oath. What pinhead actually denies anything under oath? Apparently Barry Bonds. So not only has he lost the respect of the fans, he may actually go to jail for perjury.

Since when did lying become against the law, anyway? Isn't that a "value judgment?" Really, read any leading academic today, and he or she will tell you that there is no such thing as truth - and all ethics are situational.

What will we tell our school children about this? Even more perplexing is how does little Joey process lying in his newspeak brain? 

Every one knew that Bonds was doing steroids; but the league waited until he broke Aaron's record to finish the investigation - which took four years and millions of dollars. One thing can be said about lawyers, they are nothing if not slow. At five hundred dollars an hour, I do believe that I would be taking my time also.

In defense of Barry Bonds, Balco could have pumped me full of HGH for twenty years, and I don't think I could have fouled off a major league curve ball - let alone knock it out of the park. I think the solution to this, if they are not going to teach children, who, I am told, are our future adults, that there is such a thing as cheating, and it is wrong, then they should just draw a line in the record book, pre-anabolic steroids and post-anabolic steroids, and be done with it.