A Messade to Judith

Hello Judith

I'm not sure if you're aware of it quite yet, but you're standing on the sea of greatness! Believe it.

If I may, just one word of caution though. Back when MJ's, "Thriller" and "Off the Wall" were on top of the charts for seemingly a generation, the music industry was much different. The focus then was on longevity. The thought was, the longer an artist could sustain his/her career, the more lucrative for everyone. Gradually, and for a variety of reasons, the focus began to shift. Instead of supporting one artist for as long as they could, a belief that it's more beneficial to recruit and "push through" a larger quantity of artist began to evolve.

And so today we see many artist, some very talented, and some not so talented, caught up in the waves of artist that roll in with the tide, and then out again. If they're lucky, they may tread water long enough to land a reality show.

You Judith, are one with overflowing talent. Talent that can become a tidal wave for the entire industry, one that can return a meandering industry to one that values superior talent, and long-lived careers.

I'm certain that many are approaching you now with promises of grandeur, and encouraging you to take advantage of the opportunity that now presents itself. They are correct, when opportunity come ashore, you have to ride it. Now is precisely the time that you've prepared yourself for. Just remember that there are an infinite number of waves that will continue to roll in. Don't rush yourself on the first one, to the point that you loose your focus and wash out.Trust your judgment. Only one person can keep you afloat, only one person can insure that you're in the right position for the next wave. That person is you, Judith Hill. If you start to feel rushed or like you're being encouraged to compromise your musical philosophy, take a step back, and stay true...to you.

Your association with MJ has brought the sands of good fortune to you, but it is only your talent and pursuit of "Judith's" music that will keep them from slipping through your grasp.

I look forward to the tidal wave that is Judith Hill.

Peter Hester

www.judithhillmusic.com
Heal the World


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What Happens After Death?

Will there be pain, suffering, or hurt in heaven? Not in the heaven I dream of. But I have to refer to this question each time the discussion on the afterlife is presented.

I remember as a kid, one of my brothers’s had a toy that I dearly wanted. It was a cobalt-blue Hot Wheels car. I wanted that car so bad. I took it and hid it in my room. Well, my brother knew how much I admired the car. When it went missing, he came directly to me. I was determined to keep the car, so I steadfastly denied taking it. We had a bitter battle that lasted what seemed like hours.

I was raised by my mom and stepdad. My stepdad was the son of a Baptist minister. Though we were not Baptist, we would on occasion visit my Grandfather’s church. On a Sunday, a few weeks following the Hot Wheels incident, we worshiped at his church. During the sermon, he mentioned a member of the church who had recently passed away. In a very consoling tone, he said, “The dear sister has moved on. But do not despair; she’s in a better place. She’s up there looking down on us.” I was mortified. What that meant to me is my two uncles, who had also passed away, saw me when I took my brother’s car. For the next couple years, I was a very good kid.

But a conflict was developing within me. Attending a Christian academy, I was often taught stories on heaven. Heaven, as I was taught, is a place of unimaginable beauty, it’s a place where pain and suffering cease to exist; and death will no longer occur. One of the appealing characteristics after all, is that we will live in peace through eternity.

But if when we die, we go directly to heaven, what are our emotions when we see our loved ones on earth hurting or suffering? If someone you care about is diagnosed with a terminal disease or catastrophic illness, and you’re observing that experience from heaven, do you continue to gleefully fly around heaven as if all is well? Or do you hurt for your loved ones who are suffering? If heaven is the next step after earthly death, the implication is that there is pain and suffering in heaven.

I think to some it’s comforting to believe that someone they love, hasn’t really ceased to exist at their death, but rather, they’ve moved on to another existence. For this reason, the belief that we go to heaven at death has persisted in Christianity and is taught as biblical truth. But this state of being would not be a spiritual blessing, but rather a curse of being eternally subjected to misery, pain and hurt.

God is so much more gracious than that. The Bible teaches us in Ecclesiastes 9:5 that “the dead know nothing”. In verse 10 it continues, “…for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” Psalms 146:4 describes the state of the dead like this, “his breath goes forth …in that very day his thoughts perish”. Clearly the Bible has not allowed for any form of consciousness while dead.

So why is this gracious? Aside from complete exemption from all of earth’s ills, it means that after death, the very next image we’ll see will be our Saviors face, when He returns. That is divinely glorious!

An Evening with Boney James

I Enjoyed an up close and personal session with Boney James. He played several tracks from his latest CD, including "Touch", "Stop, Look and Listen (To Your Heart)" and the title track, "Send One Your Love".

It was one of the rare occurrences when the performer can be intimate with the audience. He played about five feet from the audience on a ground-level stage only about ten feet wide. At several points during the show he walked into the standing audience and grooved, hip-to-hip with enamored fans. I overheard on lady describe the passion she was feeling as her own personal summer! It was very intimate.

Afterwords he stood among the crowd and answered questions for about a half hour. When asked who is the one artist that he'd most like to perform with, he said Aretha Franklin. That's a show I wouldn't miss!

View video at http://qik.com/video/1084387

Should the Automotive Manufacturers Receive Additional Bail-out Funds?

For may years, I lived in South-eastern Michigan, home of the Big 3. I have first-hand experience of the impact the automotive industry has on an entire region of our country. However, the Big 3 are only a fraction of the regions economic equation. According to the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, in 2004, our nations 3000 automotive suppliers accounted for 783,00 jobs. The Big 3 account for 239,000.

Automotive suppliers are responsible for most of the 15,000 parts that go into every automobile. While the name plates may say General Motors, Chrysler or Ford, Industries like electrical engineering, sheet metal stamping, plastic injection molding, iron foundries, rubber, textile and glass manufactures, provide the components that comprise the final product.

The jobs generated by these suppliers are not high-paying , with generous benefits or lucrative pensions. They are, bread and butter, blue-collar jobs that drive regional economies from Michigan to Kentucky. It is estimated that over 90 percent of the earnings from these jobs are immediately returned to the economy through expenditures for every day living expenses.

The expenditures support a host of community foundation industries. Groceries, home improvement centers, clothing retailers, services and entertainment, even municipal tax bases are all inextricably tied to the automotive manufacturers.

If the Big 3 fail, entire communities and counties, with no other industries to support them, will suffer catastrophic collapse.

Should we invest an additional ten, twenty or forty billion dollars to prevent this collapse? No. The collapse is inevitable.

An influx of cash, no matter how substantial an amount, will not correct the the cause of the crises in the automotive industry. While it is true that the national economic slow-down resulted in reduced car sales, a reduction in sales would not cause a solvent corporation, with billions of dollars in annual sales, to fail. Their impending failure, is the result of poor strategic planning, a bloated corporate structure, lack of vision and greed. The slowdown only unveiled pre-existing financial instability and poor management.

Is it only a coincidence the request for a bail-out, coincided with the decision by the federal government to consider funding a stimulus plan? Did they not recognize their fiscal condition prior to that? If they did, why weren't they taking any corrective measures? The Government should not have needed to require them to develop a plan to correct their circumstance as a condition of the bail-out. They should have already had a contingency plan in place. If they didn't have a contingency plan, then they certainly should have had a plan in development once recognizing they had a problem. Only three months later, they are requesting an additional bail-out, and threatening bankruptcy if they don't receive it. Their claim is that in a few months, they went from thriving global corporations, to impending bankruptcy, avoidable only by a second multi-billion dollar infusion of funds, that coincidentally corresponds with the announcement of a second stimulus plan.

The bail-out will only serve to sustain failed corporations, for a little while longer. The solution is not additional funding, but rather, a corporate restructuring to correct the existing, ineffective business model and intellectual insufficiency.

Unfortunately, the workers and communities that depend on the automotive industry will be impacted adversely by the demise of the industry. But to regain our global position as leaders of automotive manufacturing, a reduction in size and scope of the Big 3 is necessary. To mitigate the adverse impact, it would be more prudent to to direct the bail-out funds to finance retraining of the displaced work force, in viable job sectors like technology, education and health care.

Peter J. Hester, Sr.