The Thanksgiving lockdown is so convenient

Sometimes we oldsters complain that "kids today" don't know American history as we learned it in the 50s and 60s. But we've learned in 2020 that our elected leaders don't know the history of the 80s and 90s or even the 21st century. A Thanksgiving lock down plays right into the hands of the far-left, cancel culture, kill the sense of national identity and destroy the family game plan. It's like a gift, wrapped with a big bow and delivered by Amazon.

The battle over Thanksgiving and its origins has been going on for at least 40 years. Nasty powerful white Europeans with guns and a foreign religion came and destroyed a benign, peaceful, close to nature indigenous culture. Just google it--the algorithms are all set to find that meme for you in the top 10 listings.

Thanksgiving is not technically a religious holiday, although all religious people understand WHO is getting the thanks. True, it's not called family day on the calendar, but families under any definition or "like family" gather to eat at a table of shared abundance, tell stories, play games and watch football. Marxists can strike their biggest blow--they are anti-religious and anti-family, particularly the nuclear family because those two support the "system" they wish to destroy.

You can read the works of Karl Marx, or Vladimir Lenin, or the mission statement of Black Lives Matter. It's all there.

From little to big, from narrow to wide, from thin to fat, from minor to major, from cold to hot, from bright to dim, from friend to foe, from known to unknown

It is all such a mess. I’m as angry at the insignificant as I am the overwhelming.  When I look at my church website I see no order or sense, only glitz and programs I don’t care about. When I walk down the street I see a carelessly tossed empty can or sandwich wrap.  When I open the refrigerator I see nothing healthy or life promoting, just crumbs and crap. When I put on a shirt, it doesn’t fit, is the wrong color, or I didn’t notice a spot when I hung it in the closet. When I pull up my mask, I can’t breathe, and don’t really think they block anything.

And then there are the invading termites, ants and armies in our culture wanting to tear it all down from Confederate statues to language to schools with silly yard signs in our 99.9% white community. The world wide pandemic has our churches closed has become political and an economic crisis that makes the president’s enemies happy, rubbing their hands with glee at our suffering. The FBI swamp creatures knew the dossier was phony even before the misery of the impeachment disaster. Millions of school children will lose another year and do-gooders will accept grants to study the “gap.” All forms of sexuality have been normalized by our so-called “conservative” Supreme Court as our nation spits in the face of history and God.

Yes, it all looks like my church website or empty refrigerator, little or big.

Catering to the confused

Air Canada announced that it no longer will use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” on board its flights, as part of a “commitment to respect sexual identity, diversity, and inclusion.”

What's the fun in that? What are the guys going to transition to if airlines (tech firms, big pharma, academe, etc.) wipe out all the differences? How will they join the women’s track competition if there are no women?  It might be PC, but it's not respect.

Thankful the president isn't Clinton

The Democrats will continue to drag us kicking and screaming into some wasteland of Marxist gulag, but I think it has been slowed down just a bit. And maybe that little girl who survives the abortion mill will someday be president of the United States. Hollywood and academe still have conservatives locked out, and they are huge forces in the culture.

Washington Post throws a bone occasionally on the Opinion Page (8 out of 9 news articles are anti-Trump--it's owned by Jeff Bezos). This article brings out the big benefits, like the courts, that we have with President Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-thanksgiving-im-grateful-hillary-clinton-is-not-president/2017/11/22/68bafc9a-cee7-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?

"While the Supreme Court only hears about 80 cases a year, the federal appeals courts get final say on about 60,000 — and because Democrats ended the filibuster, they can’t stop Trump from filling those courts with conservative legal rock stars. The Senate has already confirmed eight of Trump’s nine appellate nominees — the most this early in a presidency since Richard Nixon – and Trump will appoint plenty more before his first term expires."

Also, Paris Climate agreement, freeing Americans in foreign prisons, putting some teeth into that red line Obama drew, EPA walk backs, removing shackles from the military, standing up to North Korea, and improvement over the softy and mushy Obama approach to foreign religions.

The great divide

It's no secret that I'm on here and Facebook a lot, plus several on-line e-mail discussion groups. That said, I think social media (blogging, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter [especially] and the others) are contributing to the break down of relationships among Americans along party lines, and probably Brits who just went through the Brexit vote. But it seems odd to me that Democrats feel more threatened than Republicans. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/majoirty-democrats-republicans-very/2016/06/23/id/735374/

The Left is winning the culture wars. They control all the major voices of the entertainment industry, news media and academe, even the public libraries, so I assume they also control the voices of social media. I can only glance at some of The Daily Beast or Huffington Post--my blood pressure goes up. But they are the more mild of the left wing internet news sources millions read and link to. And Twitter?  I only see comments of who said what to millions of followers. Here at the lake house I see more broadcast news than at home, and am always amazed at the echo chamber as though the three networks had the same writers and producers.

Our culture has practically collapsed in the last decade. Hate for all religions, not just Christianity is growing-it makes the rants about homophobia look like jokes, and worldwide Christians are being martyred by the thousands. Religion is a threat to the current administration and the governments of China and Russia, and Muslims kill Muslims if not in the right group. Catholics are terribly divided in support of the current Pope who seems to them a little squishy on church doctrine.  The U.S. government bureaucracy has redefined sex to be something called "gender" without a vote from Congress or the American people. That's the core of society--if you can't agree on basic biology and a 50 year old male with some surgical alterations and a new birth certificate is allowed to play on a college women's team, where's the hope for saving forests, or feeding the poor, or immigration? What the left says about white Americans, particularly males, would never be tolerated if said about Muslims or gays or blacks. Do they on the Left not read history?

I'm not the only Evangelical without a party or candidate

"There is consternation about the hard line Trump takes on immigrants and about the morality of a thrice-married man who has long bragged about his sexual conquests. But another factor is at work as well: The traditional social and cultural positions that drive many religious conservative voters, including same-sex marriage and abortion, have been cast aside by a candidate who seems to have little interest in fighting the culture wars."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/theres-nobody-left-evangelicals-feel-abandoned-by-gop-after-trumps-ascent/2016/05/08/

"Heather Dreesman said thinking about the election in November makes her feel sick to her stomach. She said she now carries a sense of grief that the country is forsaking its values and feels anguish about what will happen. She would like to see a third-party candidate but doesn’t think it’s a real possibility — meaning she probably won’t vote.

“I hate to make this comparison,” she said. “I really do feel like in the future I would hate to look back and say, ‘I voted for Hitler.’ I feel like that may be what is happening if I vote for Trump.”"

The future of Mother's Day

Photo from 1991.  Flowers from our patio today.

I'm enjoying seeing the mother stories as we near Mother's Day on Facebook. Just saw an amazing one about a mother who had been a missionary with babies in the bush and still reads her Bible in 6 languages every morning despite a debilitating disease, just to keep her mind sharp. 

I'm wondering how long posting or writing about mothers will be legal--it could be hate speech to say biology means something. After all, a transgender man/woman can't have a baby, at least until they get that womb transplant figured out so it works as well as the remodeled penis turned inside out to be a vagina. And even then s/he would have to borrow someone else's eggs. And what about those moms who decided to become men?  How do their children feel about this holiday made up to sell cards and flowers? Do they miss her soft chest and pleasant voice?

And some millennial in college won't be able to find a safe place because she had a bad mother, or mom won't extend her credit. Or maybe someone with 2 mothers will demand that they get two special days. Really, our "fundamentally transformed" society is moving so quickly, I really don't know what to expect next for holidays. Last year we never dreamed we'd have trouble finding a restroom for mom, yet here we are.

And all of this in the last four years

Think back to 2012.  Just four brief years ago, before Obama's second term.

• President Obama was still supporting traditional marriage.
• Dead baby parts were being sold, but the public didn't know and main stream reporters weren't defending it. 
• Women could use women's restrooms and locker rooms without concern that men would wander in with camera phones ready to share the space. 
• In 2012 no one could imagine that the government would be suing nuns who take care of the elderly poor. 
• A line in the sand from the President actually meant a threat instead of a joke. 
• In 2012, people weren't being threatened for knowing and stating climate change is one more scam by the liberals. 
• Low income people didn't need to fear a raise of $1 that would bump up their health insurance costs $500. 
• Who knew in 2012 that Christians, the most persecuted religious group in the world, would find no welcome in the U.S. when fleeing Islamic jihad. 
• Bakers weren't being forced in 2012 under threat of ruin and jail to participate in weddings. 
• College age voters actually knew what socialism meant--well, maybe not--cross out that one. 
• Methodist pastors still took seriously the vows they'd made. 
• Teens weren't buying birth control without medical checks. 

And this is just scary enough to bring out the Trump vote.

Six minutes, one mile, twenty four calories, and thirty years

My exercycle is next to my bookshelf, so for my third mile of the day I pulled a book off the shelf I'm not sure I ever read, The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987). So it's been 30 years (he wrote the preface in May 1986).

"There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative."  Introduction, p. 25

That was then.  Now every student is convinced that his or her own truth is absolute--could be Bernie's socialism, or Hillary's right to be our president because she's a woman and it's our turn, or Donald Trump is crazy and will destroy the GOP, or all policemen are out to kill black people, or all Muslims are moles for ISIS, or the U.S. is the most evil, greedy, racist country in the world, or that the end times are nigh and you only need to read your Bible. Just about everyone is an absolutist these days.  Unlike the students of 30 years ago which Bloom said could not defend their opinions, today's student has reality TV or Oscar monologues or Huffington Post opinion pieces or Right Wing Watch to gird their loins and minds. Today's student keeps up with only those views that support his own with Twitter, Instagram, Drudge, Yahoo or Facebook, and any number of news feeds brought by his app to his phone.

The student of 30 years ago, opined Bloom, had rejected natural rights and the historical origins of our civilization.  Today's student never even got a chance to reject them--never heard of them.

Bloom's mind at 25

We’re in big trouble, folks

“The president’s mention of the visa waiver program comes at a time of heightened scrutiny for the program. In recent weeks, members of Congress have proposed changes to the program, which allows citizens from 38 countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa.”  Daily Signal

“In the wake of the deadliest terror attack on American soil since 9/11, the Obama administration is promising swift action -- against Islamophobia.”   Daily Caller

Hillary Clinton writes in an Op-Ed on Wall Street that she would "fight for tough new rules, stronger enforcement and more accountability that go well beyond Dodd-Frank." New York Times

“I think the standard of living should be lower because I like to go to the bars and drink the alcohol for lower,” one woman, a Hillary supporter, said.  Watters world.

BYRON YORK: "But in the end, Obama's brief speech -- immediately after, he donned a tuxedo and dashed to a Kennedy Center gala -- contained no new measures against ISIS, and he spent as much time repeating old warnings not to offend Muslim sensibilities as he spent discussing any particular effort to combat terrorism."

“For nearly seven years, this Administration has been an abject failure in defining, confronting, and ultimately defeating the radical Islamist threat facing our nation. Radical Islam seeks to destroy our way of life and derives its power from the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Sharia Law and the desires of radical Islam are diametrically opposed to the values of America and they cannot co-exist. This is a fact and the President has refused to level with the American public.”  Rich Santorum

Bobby Jindal—it’s not that complicated

These shootings are a symptom of deep and serious cultural decay in our society.

Let that sink in for a minute.

These acts of evil are a direct result of cultural rot, and it is cultural rot that we have brought upon ourselves, and then we act like we are confounded and perplexed by what is happening here.

Consider the following brew of decay, and you will realize exactly what is happening here:

• We glorify sick and senseless acts of violence in virtually every element of our pop culture, and we have been doing that for at least a generation.
• Our movies and TV shows feature a continuous stream of grotesque killing of every kind imaginable. And this is true of virtually every genre, from horror to drama to comedy.
• We celebrate and document every kind of deviant behavior and we give out awards to producers who can push the envelope as far as possible. Rape, torture, murder, mass murder, all are cinematic achievements.
• Our music does the same thing, we promote evil, we promote the degradation of women, we flaunt the laws of God and common decency and we promote it all and we flood our young people with it.
• We have generations of young boys who were raised on video games where they compete with other young boys around the country and the world to see who can kill the most humans. We make it so fun, so realistic, so sensational.
• We devalue human life, we have no regard for the sanctity of human life in any regard, from the unborn, to the old, and to every single person in between, we devalue it and act as if we have almost no regard for humanity.
• Our families are a complete mess, and we have raised tens of millions of young boys who will never become real men because they have no values whatsoever, they have no truth in their lives, and they have no regard for common decency.
• Oh, we make sure that we stop them from bullying at school, but we are completely fine with them watching people get murdered and raped on the internet after school, and we are willing to let them go to the basement and join a fantasy world where they pretend they are killing people for 2 hours after school.
• And who is it that generally commits these evil acts of mass murder that are becoming routine? It’s almost always young men who have either no father figure in their lives, or a broken relationship with their father. Is this just a coincidence? Of course not.
• Now, let’s get really politically incorrect here and talk specifically about this horror in Oregon. This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns.
• Of course he doesn’t know. You know why he doesn’t know? Because he is not, and has never been in his son’s life. He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public. He’s the problem here.
• He brags that he has never held a gun in his life and that he had no idea that his son had any guns. Why didn’t he know? Because he failed to raise his son. He should be ashamed of himself, and he owes us all an apology.
• When he was asked what his relationship was with his son, he said he hadn’t seen him in a while because he lived with his mother. Case Closed.

This mess is not nearly as complicated as we pretend.

It’s the old computer axiom – garbage in, garbage out. We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.

https://www.bobbyjindal.com/jindal-we-fill-our-culture-with-garbage/

While liberals fuss about a flag

The real problem for black poverty and white privilege: marriage.  But from now until the election, what the federal government has done to black families with the War on Poverty will be ignored or lied about.  Why?  Because it works.  It redirects the attention to something that doesn’t matter in the real world and won’t change the economic statistics, and the Republicans (except for Ted Cruz) fall for it every time. Even with a bench of 14, they collectively have half a spine.  Children of married parents rarely grow up in poverty. They have a higher education rate, lower crime rate. Guess what?  Kids need a dad!  Adult children of divorced families have a higher divorce rate, lower marriage rate. Children of gay couples will statistically be such a small sample (adopted or AI, both of which have their own problems) I think we can ignore both the liberal and conservative perspective. Children of unmarried white parents are heading for the same route as black families with no slavery in their background and more dependency on government programs, lower church attendance.

In 2012 The U.S Census Bureau released a report that studied the history of marriage in the United States. They discovered some startling statistics when calculating marriage by race. They found that African Americans age 35 and older were more likely to be married than White Americans from 1890 until sometime around the 1960s. Not only did they swap places during the 60s but in 1980 the number of NEVER married African Americans began a staggering climb from about 10% to more than 25% by 2010 while the percentage for White women remained under 10% and just over 10% for White men. http://blackdemographics.com/households/marriage-in-black-america/

Get out while you can.

Leave the party of ignorance of history, dumb on biology and naive about culture. Forget the party that thinks a 7 month old unborn baby isn't a human, but a man with an amputated penis is a woman. Forget the party that destroyed Detroit and Baltimore. Forget the party that believes marriage and birth rate isn't important for the survival of a nation. Leave the party of fear--fear of global warming, fear of the Constitution, fear of words, fear of food, fear of differences, fear of having no victims they can pity and manipulate. Leave the party that whips up hate and racism, bigotry and ignorance. Get out while you still can. Republicans have a very deep, diverse bench. Democrats have Hillary.

http://www.wildwestcycle.com/f_pensees.htm

For the modern liberal, who is essentially a man of the Left, the immediate has apocalyptic urgency. He is an active member of the Cause-of-the-Month Club, forever prescribing drastic action to prevent the world from being blown up, overpopulated, poisoned, oppressed, or exploited. He thinks a government that maintains law and order--a big job at any time--is "doing nothing"; because to his mind a steady and quiet activity is nothing more than inactivity. Though he speaks the language of environmental preservation well enough, he never pauses to imagine the "environmental impact" of his own policies on a social ecology that is, after all, no less real because he disregards it.

Liberals aren’t

This past week has seen the outrage generated by parents of donor and invitro-fertilization children following a now-infamous Panorama magazine interview conducted with the fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana, wherein Domenico Dolce proclaimed, “You are born to a mother and a father — or at least that’s how it should be. I call children of chemistry, synthetic children.” Immediately, Elton John advocated a boycott of the designers’ products in retaliation for the perceived offense against his two sons, who were conceived via an egg donor and surrogate mother.”  http://www.npr.org/2015/03/16/393403211/elton-john-declares-boycott-against-dolce-gabbana

In another story a young woman named Heather wrote about how much she loved her mother and her partner (a lesbian couple), yet longed for her father. On the internet you would think she had suggested lynching them even though she wrote of fond memories with her mother’s lesbian friends and gay sponsored events. Children of other disrupted families are allowed to grieve, why not children of gay couples, she wonders. http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/17/dear-gay-community-your-kids-are-hurting/

A black liberal media personality, MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capeheart, in an op-ed apologized this past week for reporting on the Ferguson story before he had all the facts—particularly the “Hands up don’t shoot,” and I’d be surprised if he isn’t fired by Monday. It’s rare for any news journalist to sincerely apologize, liberal or conservative. He should be commended, not condemned. Just ask Juan Williams of Fox who was fired by NPR. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/19/hands-up-dont-shoot-did-not-happen-in-ferguson/

And my goodness, don’t even get started on the high STD and HIV rates among transgendered male to female persons. They are really messing with the stats for women.  I’d be surprised if studies will continue to be reported in JAMA.  It’s a tiny segment of the population with a huge problem. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/transgender/

And if you point out the high abortion rate for black women (about 38% of black pregnancies in NYC are aborted), then you are a racist—even if the government reports on it first.  I know this from personal experience when I posted the information on Facebook and was dropped by a liberal for being racist. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_07.pdf

Truth is a casualty when ideology is the goal. There was a time, even in my life time, when liberal was a proud word—stood for being open and tolerant to new ideas and exchange of information.  Now it means one must desire and vote for more government control and concede to the current culture or be called a hater.

Americans do come together, but . . .

If it is something that binds Americans together, the liberals/progressives are protesting it, suing it, fighting it and smearing it on social media. The Star Spangled Banner, the Pledge of Allegiance, a common language, an American flag on a locker in a police station or on a t-shirt, a motto on our money, prayer before community meetings, a local celebration based on our religious traditions. They say they want inclusiveness, but really, they want more people to think they are victims and to exclude God.

 

 

 

 

Imagining America—sounds great, but isn’t

“Imagining America was founded at a 1999 White House Conference initiated by the White House Millennium Council, the University of Michigan, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Conference participants became the basis for what was to become the group’s “consortium” of 100-plus colleges and universities. The group was initially hosted by the University of Michigan. Syracuse University took over in 2007 as IA’s temporary home, and will remain host through 2017.

Radical Objectives

Like many radical groups, Imagining America (its full name is Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life) couches its goals in soothing, innocuous-sounding prose.”

Read more about Imaging America.

Tolerance is not a Biblical value

              

Shocking isn't it?  Love, compassion, gentleness, kindness, patience, cheerfulness, respect, humility, conjugal fidelity, familial caregiving, honesty, happiness (blessedness), beauty, discrimination between right and wrong, justice flowing from God, the existence of and battle against evil, mercy, work, sharing, responsibility, wisdom, hospitality, gratitude, obligations to God and family, unity as God's creation, holiness, chastity, virtue, children as gifts of God, corporate worship, and many more can easily be located in the Bible and church tradition.

Not on the list of Biblical values are tolerance, Marxism, statism, utilitarianism, multiculturalism, sustainability, environmentalism (worship of Mother Earth), diversity, nihilism, redistributive justice, redistribution of wealth (aka stealing), lasciviousness, permissive sex, cohabitation, unity created by national or political grouping, disrespect for the aged, poor and unborn, relativism, fraud, --these and many others are all the province of the secular culture. Humanists and progressives may borrow temporarily some values and ethics from the Bible and not hurt or change who they truly are, but Christians are at grave risk when borrowing from the secular culture for their values.

Has Bill McKibben abandoned Jesus for Al Gore?

Looking back through his writings, I'd say YES. Five or ten years ago he was obsessed with correcting self-centered, me-and-Jesus Christianity, the failures of dispensationalism on the one end and Rick Warren on the other, with some CO2 and environmentalism as top dressing. Oddly, I didn't find much criticism of the humanistic, communistic, peace and justice Christians. The ones whose churches have emptied out from lack of following Jesus. From admiring Cuba's agriculture, to criticizing just about everything in American culture, his Christian veneer is desperately thin, even five years ago. Yesterday, the big 350 event, shows he's completely moved to climate changism. Algorism. No more "let's pretend". Since Jesus put all Creation in motion, (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. John 1:1-3 RSV), it's odd to see yet another man-made, spiritual but not Christian, movement go global. Ah, the power of the internet. Paul was much more convincing back in the first century and demanded much more of people than demonstrating, painted faces, group projects, and protests. Yes, much more demanding.

Hundreds of photos at the 350 site. From expensive sail boats to high tech bicycles. But I thought this one on the site of a destroyed culture seemed to best illustrate what eco-fundamentalists want for us--especially America. Didn't the rulers of some of these civilizations need human sacrifice to stay in power?

Whether gay or straight

Republicans can't catch a break. Democrats can frolic and wallow in a pit of slime, and everyone says, Oh well, it's no one's business, but not Republicans. Whether it is Newt and his third wife, a gay Congressman texting young pages, or a cabinet member with a gambling problem, the press just salivates--but only for Republican meat and potatoes.

John Ensign, a rising GOP star and possible presidential candidate, says he won't resign. Sen. John Ensign, an emerging Republican leader who has been mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential ...Link

Here's a news flash: Republicans, conservatives, Christians, whatever your label, have exactly the same personal and social problems as everyone else. Faith, like a condom in the wallet, provides no protection if you don't use it. The only difference seems to be Republicans know it's wrong when they are doing it. Democrats discover it is wrong later when the wife, kids, office, peers, press, etc. find out, abort it literarly or figuratively, or pay child support for 18 years, apologize on national TV and play kissy face, or rent an apartment outside the beltway and get the guy on the staff, and no one cares and they all move on.

The high cost of utopia

For every three “imperfect” children (in our stunted minds, not God’s) we may be losing two “perfect” children.

“Two healthy babies are miscarried for every three Down's Syndrome babies that are detected and prevented from being born, research has suggested.

The losses are down to the invasive methods used to test for the condition, which affects approximately one in every 1,000 babies conceived, the researchers claim. They also cast doubt on the advice and risk assessment given to the 6,000 women each year who are offered screening and subsequent testing to assess the health of their unborn baby.

If an expectant mother is deemed to be at risk of carrying a Down's baby following a blood test, she will then go on to undergo an amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS) test, which involves inserting a fine needle through the abdomen to either withdraw amniotic fluid or take a tissue sample.

The NHS cites a miscarriage rate of between one and two per cent following the tests, but the researchers, from the charity Down's Syndrome Education International, point out that only the number of Down's babies terminated, miscarried or born are recorded, not the number of healthy babies lost.”

What’s really ugly about this report is that the writers and researchers believe killing the unborn non-Down’s child is a tragedy--the other not so much. From Catholic Physician’s blog citing the Telegraph .