State Rep. Chuck Kruger, the Democratic chairman of the Maine Legislature’s Moderate Caucus, tweeted in August, “Cheney deserves same final end as he gave Saddam. Hope there are cellcams #cheney.” The Maine Wire first reported this, and preserved a screen shot of the now-deleted tweet.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Always civil, the Democrats
Dietrich Bonhoeffer at Union Seminary
Accustomed to the rigors of German scholarship and theology, the visiting young student Bonhoeffer not yet 25 writes in 1930 about his colleagues—faculty and students—at Union:
“The theological atmosphere of the Union Theological Seminary is accelerating the process of the secularization of Christianity in America. Its criticism is directed essentially against the fundamentalists and to a certain extent also against the radical humanists in Chicago; it is healthy and necessary. But there is no sound basis on which one can rebuild after demolition. It is carried away with the general collapse. A seminary in which it can come about that a large number of students laugh out loud in a public lecture at the quoting of a passage from Luther’s De servo arbitrio on sin and forgiveness because it seems to them to be comic has evidently completely forgotten what Christian theology by its very nature stands for.”
“Things [outside the seminary] are not much different in the church. The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I’ve been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation, and that was delivered by a negro. . . One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak about Christianity. . . There’s no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached. But then what becomes of Christianity per se?”
The American seminaries had, of course, taken their lead from the 19th century German theologians, even though as Bonhoeffer noted they were not even up to the level of the fundamentalists they ridiculed. America had long since lost the fervor of the “awakenings” that had shaped it, at least in the seminaries. At that time, Hitler’s small party was gaining ground in Germany. Germany has since recovered from that disastrous time—at least politically and economically. I’m not sure the American mainline churches have been able to expunge the demons of the liberal seminaries.
From p. 105-6 of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
On reading Bonhoeffer
I’ve decided to recommend Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas for next year’s book club selection. In order to have it finished by the next meeting in May, I have to read at least 22 pages a day. The following description is from Truth and Triumph, for which he’d done an interview:
“Eric Metaxas is the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. His work has been published in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, Regeneration Quarterly, Christianity Today, National Review Online, Beliefnet, and First Things. He's also been featured on CNN, The Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio. He lives with his family in Manhattan.
Last fall, Metaxas' newest book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy, became a New York Times No. 1
bestseller. In the book, Metaxas explores what happened when the German theologian's profound faith convictions ran up against a Nazi regime determined to co-opt, corrupt, and then neutralize the voice of the church in Germany.”
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking
My goodness she has written a lot of books. It took me awhile to find the right cover photo! I got it for 90 cents today at the resale shop. I don’t do a lot of “scratch” cooking these days, and hers are guaranteed “nothing is made from scratch.”
Overview
- Recipes for every palate and mood—the Semi-Homemade way creates an inspiring pairing of fresh ingredients and packaged foods.
- Quick-to-the-table, delicious recipes to satisfy any culinary whim any time of the day. Delectable breakfast fare, light lunch bites, family-pleasing dinners, simple appetizers and snacks, sassy cocktails, and more.
- Most recipes prepared in 30 minutes or less.
- All-new bonus chapters on red-hot topics: slow cooker favorites, restaurant remakes, and kid’s cooking.
- Time-saving tips for shopping, prepping, leftover storage, and Sandra’s brand recommendations for success.
- Wine suggestions to create delicious dining occasions every day.
- Beautiful photo of every recipe.
My Valentine by Paul McCartney
Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp
You won't find anything prettier. . .
“The videos were shot on 35mm and Paul worked with Academy Award winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight), editor Paul Martinez and producer Susanne Preissler to create these elegant and powerful films based on an original idea by Stella McCartney.
'My Valentine' is the second Paul McCartney music video Natalie Portman has starred in, the first being the Michel Gondry directed 'Dance Tonight' in 2007. For this new performance, she was exclusively dressed by Stella McCartney. Johnny Depp also plays guitar in his version and recorded the track's guitar solo live. His guitar take was then mixed and mastered into the final track. The original guitar solo on the studio version of the song was performed by Eric Clapton. “
Adjusting to the poor house
The Obamas’ adjusted gross income was their lowest income since 2004 when he wrote his best-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” This was the first year since 2006 that the Obama family income dipped below $1 million. In 2010, his adjusted gross income was $1.7 million; in 2009, it was $5.5 million.
I wonder how much the fabulous vacations they’ve had since January 2009 would rack up in any other family’s budget, the incredible state dinners, the gifts of clothing from designers, the servants to attend to every need, the limo service and celebrity entertainment? I’m sure it’s a stressful job, but for the wife and kids, it’s pretty nice—especially considering how that life style is condemned almost weekly in his speeches. If we elect Mitt Romney, I’m guessing he’ll pay his own way for many of the perks Michelle has come to demand.
Friday, April 13, 2012
My friends and readers could say this about me. . .and do
“When I read your constant barrages aimed at the first black president, I think to myself, "Doesn't [Norma], the devout Christian, understand what it took to get to this place? And where would [Norma] have been in the years of the freedom struggle that finally eventuated in some measure of equality for African-Americans and even a black president?" Isn't there some way you can temper your attacks on Obama with this history in mind?. . . "The presidency of an African-American is a dramatic symbol of the advances in the struggle for human rights in this country so long denied to black citizens. Unless you have a record deep in the civil rights struggle, relentless attacks on this symbol will be seen as giving aid and comfort to, if not an expression of, the latent racism that is still much with us in this country. That is why criticisms of this president-as-symbol are not to be made in the same way as the conventional political fisticuffs."
But it was said about another writer critical of this president. . . someone named Pete who insists on judging the president on his actions and knowledge, his political and economic leadership, not the low expectations and double standards of liberal supporters and the American media.
If John McCain, a great patriot and war hero, had won in 2008 and took the same downward path, reversed his promises and then told lies, I would still be writing a blog about the deficit, the czars, expanding the war into more middle east countries, the over regulation of the health and energy industries, the strange reasoning of the Buffett fair tax, even his narcissism if it jumped out in every public appearance. And if McCain’s wife (the second one) who is quite pretty for her age appeared in Las Vegas in a crotch exposing skirt disgracing the office of FLOTUS, I’d mention it here.
ABC dives into the sewer
Creator/Producer Nahnatchka Khan thinks this is real life America. And maybe it is in his neighborhood. Turn it off.
“Last night Don’t Trust the B---- in Apt. 23 premiered on ABC at 9:30 pm Eastern/Pacific -- that's just 8:30 in the Central and Mountain time zones -- and it may well represent a new all-time low for broadcast television.
The program is a sexist mixed-bag of hedonism, drug-use, alcohol abuse (including the main character plying a 13-year-old boy with alcohol to get him drunk) and explicit levels of promiscuity that are shocking even by today’s broadcast TV standards. “
http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/publications/emailalerts/2012/0412.htm
It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life
Of all the great and necessary freedoms listed in the First Amendment, freedom
to exercise religion (not just to believe, but to live out that belief) is the
most important; before freedom of speech, before freedom of the press, before
freedom of assembly, before freedom to petition the government for redress of
grievances, before all others.
This freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, is the trunk from which all other branches of freedom on our great tree of liberty get their life. Cut down the trunk and the tree of liberty will die and in its place will be only the barren earth of tyranny. Our founders understood this, and that is why James Madison described the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom as "the true remedy."
It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life by Rick Santorum.
This freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, is the trunk from which all other branches of freedom on our great tree of liberty get their life. Cut down the trunk and the tree of liberty will die and in its place will be only the barren earth of tyranny. Our founders understood this, and that is why James Madison described the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom as "the true remedy."
It Is Hard to Be Catholic in Public Life by Rick Santorum.
Many schools looking at start times
To me, it looks like bus transportation is the problem. But what about that metropolitan area traffic for the bus drivers if schools start later [110,000 students along 6,500 routes , 1,500 buses]?
“Most high schools in Fairfax County, VA [suburban Washington DC, median family income $122,200] start at 7:20 a.m., with bleary-eyed students getting picked up by their school buses as early as 5:45 a.m. In Arlington, the high school start time is nearly an hour later, and in Loudoun [richest county in the country] most high schools begin at 9 a.m.
“It’s important for the physical and mental health of our adolescent students,” said School Board member Sandy Evans (Mason), who sponsored the resolution and was a co-founder of the advocacy group Sleep, which led previous efforts to shift start times.
Evans cited research indicating sleep deprivation contributes to such problems as depression, obesity and poor academic performance. In a county survey, two-thirds of students reported getting seven hours or less of sleep on school nights.”
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples--
A Statement on Religious Liberty
pdf version
to order copies
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
Excerpt
Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:
- HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
- State immigration laws.Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:
It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4
- Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
- Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
- Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
- Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
- Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion
Do couples still get married in churches?
Recently at our Faith of our Fathers group (FOOF) at the UALC Mill Run church we were discussing the removal of most religious/Christian content from public education textbooks and courses despite its inclusion in the founding documents. But maybe we should be looking closer to home.
Today I picked up (free) a copy of Columbus Bride at Giant Eagle. You'd be hard pressed to find any religious content in the wedding photos--hardly even a church or cathedral. Lots of country clubs, old barns, the Atheneum (which has sort of a faux chapel), Franklin Park Conservatory, old wineries, city streets, parks, and party barns. Maybe it's the interior of the modern churches which look like theaters and party houses--so why not just rent one or take the photos outside?
When we were in Russia in 2006 we saw so many weddings in the public square--in front of government buildings, fountains, parks etc. They had 70 years of Communism. What's our excuse?
Top, bottom and middle
--everyone is doing better in this country. The income of households between the 60th and 80th percentiles grew by 40 percent, and those in the 40th to 60th percentile grew by nearly 40%, and of course, these groups are very fluid. I've been in 4 of the 5 percentiles myself and am at the bottom again (retired), same as when I was 21 and graduating from college 5 months pregnant and no job. But I know that cutting taxes works better for me than raising them, and reducing my spending is the only way for me to have money to invest or to donate to charity. However, I also know a household made up of a married couple of college educated parents with 2 or 3 children will always do better economically than a single mom with a high school education and 2 or 3 children. That's just math. That's not even political affiliation or loyalty, or race or age. If it didn’t work that way why would we have all these grants and loans to send low income people to college, if not to elevate them?
But there is a party who come November will say Uncle Sam is a good step-father, but it lies.
Can you handle one more conspiracy theory about JFK?
I know nothing about the author of the book review, the author of the book, the murder of this particular lover of JFK, or the website that posted the review, but after I started reading the very lengthy book review, I did sort of get interested. http://www.fff.org/comment/com1204g.asp
“In early 1976 the National Enquirer published a story that shocked the elite political class in Washington, D.C. The story disclosed that a woman named Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was a divorced spouse of a high CIA official named Cord Meyer, had been engaged in a two-year sexual affair with President John F. Kennedy. By the time the article was published, JFK had been assassinated, and Mary Pinchot Meyer herself was dead, a victim of a murder that took place in Washington on October 12, 1964.
The murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer is the subject of a fascinating and gripping new book by Peter Janney, Mary’s Mosaic, who was childhood friends with Mary Meyer’s three sons and whose father himself was a high CIA official. Janney’s father and mother socialized in the 1950s with the Meyers and other high-level CIA officials.”
One of the clerks at the coffee shop loves “true crime” type books, so I may print this out for her. For me, just reading the review was enough. The further away we get from 1963, the less we know it seems.
Another Catholic under attack by Obama administration—Paul Ryan
Henninger in today’s WSJ mixes some metaphors, with fortress, ICBMs, carpet-bombing, drinking the Kool-aid, and encyclicals, but he’s on target—one dare not attack the Democrats at the heart and soul of their beliefs—big government even if it collapses under its own weight is good for you personally and for the nation. Paul Ryan outrages them into launching the big religious guns:
Ah, he gutted them and they know it. “. . . one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent .”“What Mr. Ryan actually said is worth quoting, because it should revive the debate over the proper relationship between individual citizens, including the poor, and the national government:
"A person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private. So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?
"To me, the principle of subsidiarity . . . meaning government closest to the people governs best . . . where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.
"Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto a life of independence." “
The Obama administration will have to fight to the death over this one truth. So they have to bring down what formerly was the largest social agency in the country (before the War on Poverty), and is still the largest globally, the Roman Catholic Church.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Tax money sink hole
This is probably not a lot of money considering the national deficit, but there are thousands of programs like this one. I’d just been reading through a $25 million ArtPlace article when I noticed this one:
I have no idea what a place-based community oriented crime and neighborhood revitalization initiative is, but I’m pretty sure justice won't include the arrest or impeachment of Eric Holder for Fast and Furious or looking into arresting the New Black Panthers who are threatening Floridians. This really sounds like an ad for ACORN with fancy gummit talk.“U.S. Department of Justice: Launching a New Place-Based, Community Oriented Crime and Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative
The Department of Justice is looking for a fellow to help support the development and launch of a new place-based, community oriented program that is part of the White House’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI) and is being implemented in collaboration with the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development. The fellowship will be located in the Bureau of Justice Assistance, whose mission is to provide leadership and services in grant administration and criminal justice policy development to support local, state, and tribal justice strategies to achieve safer communities. The fellow will work on several aspects of this project, including the site selection process for the first round of the Building Neighborhood Capacity program. The fellow will support coordination with the other partners in NRI and assist in other assessment of data and resources to support the program coordination and selection processes.” Link
Alternatives to MSM, Cable, Beck, Rush, Fox
Here is Catholic News Roundup for April 11, 2012
You’ll hear news here that won’t be elsewhere, and see sponsors you’ve never heard of.
I just discovered it, so I don't know how long the daily news stays available, or if it continues to roll backwards for the archives. You only have to google Michael Voris STB to see that many Catholics don't agree with him.Back in my day. . .
Oh, young people love to hear that one, don't they? My chosen career, librarianship, was and probably still is, at the bottom of the pay scale for an advanced degree (entry level degree is a master’s but many have PhDs). But I loved it. What could be more fun than buying, organizing, preserving and distributing information, knowledge and wisdom? ("For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage o...f knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it." Eccl. 7:12) I don't envy Bill Gates' wealth or the 3 winners of the Megamillions. In fact, my religion says coveting is very, very bad not only for a society but for me personally. However, my president says it's good. He wants "fairness," which actually means coveting what others have. If you don't believe me, try teaching fairness to 6 year olds--you'll create jealousy as they each eye what the other has and start to whine.
The Buffett rule is something for President Obama to talk about during the campaign so he doesn't have to face the huge economic problems he has created and to rail against “rich Republicans” if it fails. The biggest, wealthiest donors are all contributing to Democrats, but don’t let the facts confuse him—he’s already way off track and it plays well with the unemployed he hasn’t helped. He wants the government to take more of what you or someone else has, not to use for any particular purpose, but to satisfy a vague belief in "fairness."
The Buffett rule takes money out of the economy and gives it to the government, where it will be spread around the various bureaucracies, revolving door non-profits and unions and you'll never see a dime of it.
Leaving the church because of sex
A blogger I’ve known only through our shared cyber-space as librarians on discussion lists and as bloggers mentioned at his blog that he has moved over to an Anglican church from the Catholic church due to the Roman Catholic’s position on women clergy, on marriage of gays, and the sexual abuse scandals.
That’s putting a lot of stock into current cultural beliefs in the face of 2,000 years of church history and teaching, plus all the Hebrew/Jewish traditions that came before that. In fact, it flies in the face of the history of the human race and all religions, not just Catholicism. There’s virtually no mention of homosexuality in the Old Testament except in veiled references to temple practices of other religions which the Jews were supposed to avoid at all costs. But dalliances with young men and male temple prostitutes were certainly well known and even accepted in Greek and Roman cultures. Gracious! Have you seen some of those murals in collapsing ancient buildings? The Greeks and Romans lived in sex saturated times, male, female, animal, child, multiples—made no difference (if we can believe their art and literature, and why shouldn’t we?). They probably inherited profligate and perverted sex from the civilizations who came before them. God chose the Jews for a reason—they were the only ones, even in sin who seemed to really get the story of creation.
That said, even with trips to the temple for sex with young, beautiful temple prostitutes, male and female, when it came to building blocks for the society, it was marriage between a male and female. Yes, some engaged in polygamy, or polyandry, some had mistresses and concubines and some men may have preferred a male concubine, but the state/monarchy/emperor or tribal elder recognized the marriage. There was a distant memory and command in the mind of all cultures.
As for women priests, show me a church that is growing under female leadership. Sure, maybe you support it, but have you joined one? Have you encouraged your call committee in that direction? Even men who claim to be “feminists” don’t like sitting under the authority of a woman, often not at work, but certainly not at the church. They’ll never admit it, but quietly, the numbers begin to drop.
Child abuse? The Roman Catholic church is a huge target; and it’s rich. Why sue a school system where the abusers, at least until recently, are just passed from school to school, protected by their unions? We’re just beginning to hear how many female teachers are predators as the stories are leaked to the papers. How many Protestant clergy have been caught with their hand in the . . . well, and just quietly moved on to the next small church thinking the problem will go away if we just warn him. Although many young girls have certainly been molested at the hands of clergy, teachers, babysitters, etc., the number of boys and gay men involved is way out of their proportion (1.5%) in the general population.
But this particular librarian who has left the church, who became a convert to Catholicism and took all the instruction in 1992, now thinks that the profound spiritual wisdom of the 20th and 21st centuries exceeds that of the church he committed himself to just 20 years ago and in which he agreed to raise his children and be faithful to his wife (who has remained Catholic).
Imagine all the stuff a Protestant is exposed to in RCIA which must completely have baffled him—like 7 sacraments, or the teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, or all the stages to go through to become a saint, or all the special holidays, seasons and observances he’d never heard of. Think about undoing all the teaching Christians hear in Baptist or Lutheran or Nazarene churches about evil, unscriptural Catholicism. That’s a huge leap for gay marriage and the ordination of women priests!
And he threw it all over for a fad, fable and fantasy. I’m not a Catholic, but it appears he wasn’t either.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
What does the Buffett rule achieve?
Nothing. Obama calls it “fairness.” I call it a ploy for more votes for people who don’t understand economics—and a few who do, like nancy g and Lynne W, but will vote for him anyway. What will “fair share” do for you? Nothing. You’ll never see it, hear it, touch it, taste it. I’m not rich, and I don’t envy anyone, not if they inherited, won it gambling, or worked hard for it. It doesn’t belong to me. Three Maryland people have won the Megamillions. Is that fair to all the others who paid in to it? Well, the others obviously must have known the risk and the chances. But they got nothing. Some might call it unfair that they were lured into spending money at impossible odds. The richest 400 pay 19% every year, their secretaries pay about 16%. Warren Buffett’s secretary, according to an article in Forbes probably makes about $200,000+ a year. Is that fair to other secretaries who don’t work for Buffett, but work just as hard? Why does she/he get so much? Why does she earn more than librarians?
This is not about the deficit or about taxes, it is about a politician’s idea of “fair” and we know all that money goes into the bureaucracy and not back to the people. It’s never been any different in any society. The word “fair” is guaranteed to create jealousy—how many times did you hear your kids whining about “fairness.” Just try it in any classroom of first or second graders, which is about the level the Democrats are right now. The rich pay most of our taxes. Is that fair?
I was a librarian. One of the lowest paid jobs you can have that requires an advanced degree. Is it fair that lawyers or hospital board members like the Obama couple back in the 90s could have 6 or 7 times my income just because of who they were?
Americans can’t afford her lifestyle either
Am I surprised Michelle couldn’t make things work on Bo’s salary? Not.
"In 2005, when Obama began serving in the U.S. Senate (and his daughters turned 4 and 7), he and his wife were earning a combined annual income of $479,062. Barack Obama was paid a salary of $162,100 by the U.S. taxpayers, and Michelle Obama was paid $316,962 to handle community affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center."What a shocker—Obamacare will cost much more than estimated!
Charles Blahous of Mercatus Center at George Washington University has some news about Obamacare that Republicans already knew and Democrats will deny, and the White House will find a way to blame on Republicans. Realistically, have you ever known a government program that didn't cost way more than estimated or confirmed, whether it be a war or a welfare program? Right now, the WH is hiring thousands of IRS agents which are part of Obamacare. How will that help your health? It's the Full Employment for Government Workers Act.
Let's cut to p. 45 of the report--the conclusion: ". . . despite the fondest hopes of its supporters, the passage of the ACA unambiguously darkens a dim fiscal picture. . . expected to increase federal spending obligations by more than $1.15 trillion. . ."
People—listen up. This was never, ever ever about saving money on health, or providing better health care, or covering people who currently don’t have health insurance. It was always about the government taking over a huge segment of the economy. Period.
Cost of the IRS agents: Half a billion dollars, paid for off-the-books by taxpayers through a massive $1 billion Health and Human Services slush fund that got tucked into the bill. Investors.com
Monday, April 09, 2012
Obamedia
CNN and msnbc in a ratings battle seem to have their shorts in a knot over someone's racist FB page, and when and where to use the N word and the F word, but are they ignoring a lengthy audio of the new black panthers in Florida threatening a new "red sea" of blood and calling for the deaths of whites and especially Zimmerman, using all sorts of racist terms. You can get the audio on just about any website with Google, but haven't found it on the news. And Van Jones, the former White House green jobs guy who left to start trouble elsewhere is also calling for race trouble.
Praise the Lord for new believers in Christ
According to a member of the Columbus Chinese Christian Church who is in my exercise class at our church, Upper Arlington Lutheran, they had 26 baptisms on Easter! They serve 1st and 2nd generation Columbus area Chinese Americans and Chinese students at OSU and have services in 3 languages, English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Communist Mao killed about 70 million of his own people—no one really knows for sure how many—but the result of Communists forcing the people of China to standardize their language (everyone now speaks his dialect, Mandarin), the Gospel has been able to be shared much easier. He meant it for evil, but God has used that evil man to bring the Gospel to the Chinese.
All Obama all the time
Even for the children’s egg roll at the White House—it’s not about the kids, or Easter—it’s about Obama. This man’s narcissism knows no bounds. Basketball players joined in with a clinic for the kids, and the balls all had Obama campaign images on them.
Look here if you dare. It’s sickening.
Yearbooks and Annuals
I don't know what generates the ads on the right side of my screen on Facebook, but this morning noticed one for yearbooks. I have my four high school yearbooks, The Mounder, from Mt. Morris High School in Illinois, two Illios from the University of Illinois (I was married by the time I graduated and couldn't afford one for that year), one from Manchester College, The Aurora, in Indiana, and three from Mt. Morris College, Life, 1929, 1931 and 1932, my uncle Clare's, my mother's and my father's. The college closed in 1932 and merged with Manchester. We also have my husband's yearbooks, The Arsenal Cannon from Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, a school that was larger than the town of Mt. Morris, and Tech's memorial yearbook for the first 50 years. One of the best things about yearbooks is reading the crazy stuff people wrote in them!
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Summer’s coming—do you know where your college student’s brain is?
“While there is not shortage of good, foundational texts to educate the student interested in America’s economic history, there is a shortage of interested students. This is where parents must play an active role in their children’s education. Sending them off to a four-year institution and assuming that upon graduation they will be economically literate flies in the face of reality. If parents abdicate all responsibility to liberal professors, there’s a good chance the graduate will come home spouting liberal claptrap and looking forward to his or her next Occupy Wall Street rally.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/6/dangers-of-academias-indoctrination-mills/
Class warfare in a graph—the Buffett rule
The tiny, almost invisible smudge at the top is the Buffett reduction of the deficit. This nonsense us purely to create anger and hostility toward successful people and lie about how much they actually do pay in taxes.
Why does Obama pursue class warfare?
This past week from his words and walk-back it seemed that President Obama knew nothing about constitutional law or the history of the country; he also doesn’t know much about taxing and the rich. His drum beat and direction seem to be class warfare.
“To vilify success and the rewards it garners is an assault not just on capitalism but on liberty itself. As Will and Ariel Durant observed in "The Lessons of History" (1968), "freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies . . . to check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed."
Nowhere is the political debate over income inequality more detached from reality than the call for the top 1% of American income earners to pay their "fair share." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data on the ratio of the share of income taxes paid by the richest taxpayers relative to their share of income show that the U.S. has the world's most progressive tax burden.
The top 10% of earners in the U.S. pay 35% more of the income tax burden than in Sweden and 22% more than in France. These figures—from the 2008 OECD publication "Growing Unequal?"—include all household taxes imposed on income at the federal, state and local level, including social insurance taxes.” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2012, The real causes of income inequality.
Friday, April 06, 2012
On reading Luke during Lent
Last year during Lent I read the Gospel of John. John is an amazing document—no meek and mild Jesus to be found. He’s so confident in his mission and dogmatic in his words with all the “I am” statements. And Pilate! What a piece of work—kept trying to pass the buck—and did he really want to know, “What is truth.” Was he just like people today who question the kingship of Jesus? But what grabbed me last year I’d never noticed before—only John mentions that the notice fastened to the cross which read JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS, was written in three languages Aramaic (for the Jews, God’s chosen people), Latin (for all the earthly powers for it was the language of the great and mighty Roman empire, the language of commerce and the military), and Greek (for all the educated people, for it was the language of literature and the arts, a linguistic passport to any city and profession that mattered). What perfect symbolism!
This year I read the Gospel of Luke. This is really a two volume work, with Acts being the second volume. Several thing pop out to me from Luke. First, a section many probably passed right over to get to the story is 1:1-4 which explains how the information was passed down from eyewitnesses, investigated by Luke, then written down in an orderly fashion, so it could be passed on to me and you in Lent 2012.
Second, I noticed how many times the words CROWD or CROWDS or a paraphrase like PEOPLE CROWDING AROUND, A LARGE CROWD WAS GATHERING, or ALL THE PEOPLE are used by Luke to describe the huge number of people who were taught by or healed by or followed Jesus. Luke mentions that Jesus’ own family couldn’t get near him because of the crowds. The word/phrase appears so often that I was left to wonder if there were any Jews, Romans or Greeks in that area, the cross roads of the civilized world, who hadn’t either met him, or talked to someone who had. By the time you count women and children who witness the miracle of the bread and fish, there must have been at least 12,000 in that crowd alone. Sometimes the crowds were warm and friendly, sometimes they were evil and nasty, like when they drove him out of town and tried to push him over a cliff. Sometimes Jesus was very blunt: “This is a wicked generation,” he said the the crowd increasing in 11:29.
Educated, religious people don’t look good as Luke records the memories of the followers and crowds. Pharisees, teachers of the law, experts in the law, synagogue rulers, elders, chief priests, authorities, rulers and even the 12 disciples and the 72 who were sent out who were with him everyday often appear clueless and hapless, some even evil and plotting to kill him. To the experts he also didn’t have warm words: “You foolish people,” ”Woe to you (6 times in Ch. 11), “You hypocrites,” but he ate with them in their homes just like the other sinners.
Demons, demonic spirits and evil spirits are really big in Luke. Jesus created the world—I think he knew the difference between disease, mental illness and demon possession or demonic influences. The Greek word diamonia is used 60 times in the New Testament, and other forms of the word many more times, and demons or Satan are mentioned by every writer, but the concept, singular or plural just seemed really to jump out as I read Luke, particularly in Chapter 8. If you care to investigate the language, there is a 42 p. document on demonology on the internet, plus many books.
But oh the women! They followed, they listened, they were healed, they served Jesus food, they brought their children for him to bless, and there’s no record of them doubting. Since women are big talkers, I think they held on to the stories until Luke interviewed them and recorded their memories. The big reward for the most loyal women who had followed him first in life, stayed with him at the cross and and then went to the tomb, was they were the first to know about the resurrection, the first post-crucifixion group told to go and tell the called disciples, the cowering fumblers and deniers who thought all was lost.
Stevie Nicks is 63
Sigh. Looks good (just watched a video I won’t post from 1987), but says they have to do the lighting just right. Doesn't want to look 20 something, just 40 something. Still has hot flashes, but no children to worry about. . . her. I know she's had a 4 decade career and is a multi-millionaire, but she always sounds off key to me. Don't think she's made it to Lakeside yet. We get them on their way up and on their way down.
InterviewBehind every powerful man. . . is a smart woman
Some might call La Malinche a traitor, but if you were a slave, and slaves were destined for sacrifice to the gods when the winners changed in ritual wars, who would you side with? Pretty it up as much as you want with cultural anthropological chit chat, but the woman may have been ahead of her time. She is the mother of the mixed races of Mexico. And God only knows what the radical feminists do to this story.
“Before the Spanish conquest, the Aztec civilization controlled trade routes from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and as far south as Guatemala. Its rich and populous empire was helld together by marriage alliances and ritualized battles in which large numbers of enemy warriors were captured and sacrificed to honor and sustain the gods. When Hernan Cortes sailed from Cuba to claim the Mexican mainland for Spain in 1519, he could not have anticipated the odds against him and his small force of 600 foot soldiers and 15 horsemen.
His ultimate success in subduing the Aztecs was in large part due to the help of a Nahua slave woman called La Malinche, who became his chief interpreter, advisor, and the mother of his firstborn child. She advised Cortes on the weakness of Aztec alliances with other indigenous groups, their respect for ruthlessness, and their preference for capturing rather than killing their enemies in battle. Cortes used his information to defeat an army that was better supplied and much larger than his own. After God, he said, La Malinche was his most important ally.”
Thomas B. Cole, MD, MPH, JAMA March 28, 2012 describing the cover of the journal named for La Malinche.
Trayvon Martin, what we know for sure
“What we know is that two families and a community are suffering and being ripped apart because of the incident. It is also a fact that race mongers and the anti-gun cabals will attempt to use this tragic situation as currency to further their disastrous agendas.”
Sharpton and Obama Prostituting Martin Shooting
"If Trayvon Martin was a victim of white racism (hard to conceive since the shooter is apparently Hispanic), his murder would be an anomaly, not a commonplace. It would be a bizarre exception to the way so many young black males are murdered today. If there must be a generalization in all this—a call "to turn the moment into a movement"—it would have to be a movement against blacks who kill other blacks. The absurdity of Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites."
Shelby Steele, WSJ, April 4
CBS, Consistently Biased Source
I watched the “balanced” story on billionaires supporting super PACs on CBS last night. 95% of the content was based on an interview with appropriate snarky and straw man questions for Julian Robertson, father of hedge funds and founder of a Mitt Romney PAC. He’s given $1.25 million to get Romney elected, the man he says is the best in the history of the presidency in terms of qualifications. At the tail end, almost as an after thought, the reporter included a reference to an e-mail (we don’t see it) from Hollywood’s Jeffry Katzenberg who has contributed to Obama’s campaign $2 million and justifies his donation as fighting the right wing. He had no tough questions and no face to face on camera time—just a throw away paraphrase of an e-mail. Katzenberg said nothing about Obama’s qualifications and accomplishments, at least not for this report. Nor was he asked if he would seek special favors.
I’m not sure the reporter even mentions how mad Obama was at the Supreme Court over PACs, and then decided to get one for his own campaign. Nor did he note what a big supporter of environmental issues Robertson is—usually a cause to make the MSM swoon. The point of this interview was to cut down on Romney who is starting to look like the guy to go after. Don’t believe me when I tell you that if you watch only broadcast news you only get news for Democrats slanted to make the GOP look bad? Watch the video.
Prager University—the power of the visual
“Men and the Power of the Visual.” Well worth taking a few moments for a refresher of how gender differences used to be taught. This is the way I learned it in college psych classes, and the way I heard it in parenting classes in the 70s. What is being taught to young people today? Is it now capitalism's fault, and a problem of a paternalistic, male-dominated system?
Who or what motivates the first lady to show up at public celebrity events dressed like a 16 year old whose parents don't know she escaped the house in that skimpy outfit? Should she become enraged if men notice her long legs and exposed crotch with a skirt that doesn’t cover her derriere? Whose fault is that--the designer, hers, her husband who gives her no attention, or the men taking a longer look?
http://www.prageruniversity.com/Life-Studies/Men-and-the-Power-of-the-Visual.html .
Prager University has some interesting offerings to counteract the socialist left theories taught today.
The Redeemer (movie) 1965
This morning I turned on EWTN about 5:30 a.m. and the movie “The Redeemer” was just starting. It appeared to be the story of the last hours of Jesus beginning with Judas’ betrayal, and since this is Good Friday, I sat down to watch it. Something seemed familiar, but also odd, then I realized the face of Jesus was never shown and the faces of the actors weren’t familiar. So I looked it up on Google and learned it was a Spanish film from 1959, directed by Joseph Breen and Fernando Palacios, dubbed for American audiences in 1965. Macdonald Carey was Jesus’ voice and the narrator was Sebastian Cabot, which is probably why something seemed familiar to me. In the style and mood of the 1950s, the well-known, but always fresh story of the cross and resurrection moves more slowly and thoughtfully with pauses for thinking—much less whip lash than modern films.
Here is a blog entry from Bible Films Blog which provides some information, but also in the comment window there is additional information with links to two other films in the series, "The Savior" ("El Salvador") and "The Master" ("El Amo" or "El Maestro"). Some parts have been recut for use in Sunday School. The links to those other films no longer work, and one website that promoted them said “no longer available.” The Amazon link is called “The Life of Christ the Amazing Trilogy,” and are for used DVDs.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Dependency on the Government at an all time high, but read the small print
One of the problems with a lot of right wing/conservative web sites that cite the Heritage Foundation Special Report of Feb. 8, “The 2012 Index of Dependency” is they don’t note that for purposes of reporting, Social Security and Medicare are included as government assistance programs—as in, my husband and I are lumped in with 67.3 million Americans who depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid and other assistance. “These programs [SS, Medicare, Medicaid] currently make up 42 percent of all non-interest federal program spending. . . Jointly, these programs will enable the government dependence of nearly 80 million baby boomers.”
Those of us who have paid into Social Security and had Medicare payments deducted from every paycheck don’t like being included in that. We just sent in our 2011 tax returns, and 85% of my husband’s SS check is taxed, as is my STRS pension. So we’re not exactly free loaders when it comes to paying taxes.
Index [of Dependence] measurements begin in 1962; since then, the Index score has grown by more than 15 times its original amount. This means that, keeping inflation neutral in the calculations, more than 15 times the resources were committed to paying for people who depend on government in 2010 than in 1962. In 2010 alone, the Index of Dependence on Government grew by 8.1 percent.
Bloggity bits about health
In Nauru, an island in the Pacific, the prevalence of diabetes has reached more than 40%, one of the highest in the world. Nauru is the fattest country in the world, with over 95% of the population obese. I can’t find any record of a McDonald’s or Wendy’s on the island, however. (NEJM, Dec. 22, 2011)
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The “best buy” health interventions for non-communicable diseases according to NEJM, Dec. 22, 2011, is 1) tobacco, 2) alcohol, 3) bad diet—high sodium, high fat, and 4) lack of exercise. The most bang for the buck and we not the professionals are the ones who make the difference.
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Overdoses from prescription opioids (painkillers) result in 40+ deaths a day, and 1.2 million emergency department visits a year, a 98.4% increase since 2004. Isn’t that around the time drugs were added to many health insurance policies? JAMA, Jan 4, 2012
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Brain food—eat fish that is baked or broiled at least once a week to protect your brain. It’s easier to protect your brain than repair it.
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I was reading about Charles Burchfield’s The Sun Through the Trees on the cover of April 4 JAMA and discovered he was a Lutheran.
In the early 1940s, partly prompted by his conversion to Lutheranism, his wife's faith, Burchfield returned to the natural landscape with renewed conviction. He reworked his early watercolors, often incorporating them into larger compositions by painting on strips of paper added to the edges. These monumental, visionary paintings evince a quasi-religious embrace of nature. Link
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26.7 million adults aged 50 years or older have a clinically significant hearing loss, but fewer than 15% use hearing aids. And now age-related hearing loss has been found to be independently associated with poor cognitive functioning and dementia. Needs more research to find out why. JAMA March 21
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When I was young, births at home were becoming increasingly rare. A friend of mine was named after the doctor who delivered him at home in our little town (also delivered me but in a hospital). Now there is an uptick among white women having home deliveries. An increase of 36% among whites, and a decrease among blacks and Hispanics and other minorities. JAMA April 4.
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And finally, not in any magazine, but a miracle of sorts on my husband’s face. About three weeks ago he had a tiny spot of malignancy removed from his face. Probably from sunburns as a child. Although it was tiny, it required a huge incision, and he looked like he’d been the loser in a sword fight. Today, I can hardly see it. Our daughter, who works for a doctor, gave us his name after advising us not to let the dermatologist do it. She’d seen his work on their patients. What excellent advice. She also can download photos to my computer without losing them, and glue our microwave back together.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Obama is giving community organizers a bad name
Is he lying, deceptive or ignorant? Commentary says he has jumped the shark (a term coined to apply to TV when the program had outlived its freshness and viewers had begun to feel that the show's writers were out of new ideas.)
“Set aside the fact that the House, despite a huge Democratic majority, passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by a margin of 219-212, hardly a “strong majority.” In fact, it barely qualifies as a plurality. Let’s turn instead to the substance of what the president said.
Obama, a former community organizer who is perhaps unaware of the finer points of the law, might want to acquaint himself with an obscure 19th century case, Marbury v. Madison, which established the doctrine of judicial review and grants federal courts the power to void acts of Congress that are in conflict with the Constitution. What Obama describes as “unprecedented” has, in fact, been done countless times since 1803.
Then there’s Obama’s confusion about judicial activism. It is not, as he insists, simply the act of overturning an existing law; it is when judges allow their personal views about public policy, and not the Constitution, to guide their decisions and often invent new rights out of thin air. For Justices to invalidate a law they deem to be unconstitutional is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do. (“No legislative act … contrary to the Constitution, can be valid,” is how Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist #78.) If one takes Obama’s words literally, he believes an unjust and unconstitutional law, if passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress, cannot be overturned.”
Fudge phrases—rich, thick, gooey
“Experts agree. . . “
“The new model recognizes that. . .”
“While data are limited. . . “
“The answer probably has to do with. . .”
“While outcomes data on alternatives are limited. . . “
“Consistent with this proposal, . . .”
“It is also possible. . . “
These were all in Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel’s (Rahm’s brother and Obama’s house doctor) first third of a paper arguing for shortening medical training by 30%. I have no opinion on this. However, once he’d warmed up to the topic with vague generalities, he then became very dogmatic and authoritarian about values and ethics. On that, I do have an opinion. It’s dishonest. It should be noted that these are his opinions not based on data or a high power from which ethics flow.
“Efficiency has its own value.”
“Waste, especially wasting the time of some of society’s most highly educated and talented people, is unethical.”
“Changing the structure of training would force medical leaders to eliminate unnecessary and repetitious material and emphasize training physicians to become part of a care team.”
In the first half of his article he lists 3 medical schools, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, and Harvard, that have rearranged different parts of medical training, and one, Texas Tech that offers a 3 year program. Then at the conclusion, he confidently states, “many medical schools and residency and fellowship programs have already shortened their training in various ways. . .”
You can tell he’s worked in government (for both Obama and Clinton) can’t you? But that isn’t noted in the JAMA, March 21, 2012 “Viewpoint,” only that he’s in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at University of Pennsylvania. His NIH web site: “Ezekiel J. Emanuel is Head of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and a breast oncologist. He is on extended detail as a special advisor for health policy to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. “ According to a quote at Wikipedia, he believes you and I have an obligation to participate in biomedical research as a civic obligation.
Obama has been wrong about a lot of legal points . . . and this is the latest flap
These judges can pass on ever getting appointed to anything by Obama! What would be the point of taking this to the Supreme Court if it had no power to examine a federal law? And it is not judicial activism, Mr. President. That’s when your appointed guys make up things that aren’t in there.
“(CBS News) In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president's bluff -- ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.
The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president's comments yesterday about the Supreme Court's review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was "confident" the Court would not "take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."”
Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented -- since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise -- despite the president's remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said. . .
In asking for the letter, Smith said: "I want to be sure you're telling us that the attorney general and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts, through unelected judges, to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases."
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Obama appointee had pledged responsible and ethical term
Why did it take so long to get her resignation? This happened about a year and a half ago. In my working days I probably attending 20 some “team building” type exercises. IMO, they are worthless. They do employ trainers, caterers, janitors, speakers, etc., however, and Obama was all about getting people employed, wasn’t he?
“The General Services Administration is undergoing a total administrative overhaul after throwing an $823,000 conference in Las Vegas in October 2010. The four-day affair included "a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception," as well as countless pillaged minibars.
GSA chief Martha N. Johnson resigned yesterday, in the wake of a year-long investigation and report by GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller. The report, which provides hilarious details of the four-day event ("300 items of $5.00 'Boursin Scalloped Potato with Barolo Wine Braised Short Ribs'") called the conference "over the top" and blamed "excessive spending" on travel, catering, and vendor costs. Miller also targeted a series of "semi-private 'parties'" hosted in GSA employee suites and "catered at taxpayer expense." “
The $50 light bulb
Apparently it wasn’t supposed to go over $22. 00. Well, that’s comforting.
The Department of Energy awarded lighting giant Philips the $10 million L Prize despite the fact that the winning energy-efficient bulb failed to meet several contest criteria requirements, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Philips raised eyebrows when it debuted the winning bulb with a $50 price tag. That is far beyond the $22 cost recommended by the department, which is now working with utility companies to cut back on the upfront cost through rebates.
Department documents, however, cast doubt on whether the expensive LED bulb was even worthy of the prize.
God had a better idea
Blue is nice for sky, but for trees, I prefer the original plan.
http://mydesignstories.net/profiles/blogs/blue-trees-by-konstantin-dimopoloulos#comments
Faith AND Works
“John Wesley died as he had lived from his conversion. For 53 years, he had faithfully preached that men need and are saved only by faith in Christ, but the corollary of that was that they would be judged by works—by how they live. He often prayed, "Let me wear out, not rust out. Let me not live to be useless." Until a week before his death, when fever incapacitated and forced him to take to his bed, he had in his 88th year, continued to preach, write, supervise and encourage. He died on the morning of March 2nd 1791, and no sooner was his spirit released than those who had come to rejoice with him "burst
into an anthem of praise. "No coach, no hearse were needed for his funeral, for he had given instructions that six poor men, in need of employment, be given a pound each to carry his body to the grave.” “ from England Before and After Wesley, By Donald Drew
Global warmist is thief and forger
Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a believer in the religion of (AGW) man made global warming, stole documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative, free market think tank the left loves to hate and attack. At least any time I cite it you would think I’d just written, “Rush Limbaugh has personally baptized this.” Gleick, according to various conservative news sources who know what the code word “sustainable” means, “obtained the documents under false pretenses and then passed them on to liberal blogs. Now a computer analysis by Dr. Patrick Juola at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, concludes that one the documents, the so-called “climate strategy memo,” is a fake, most likely manufactured by Gleick himself. “ CRC Green Watch, April 2012
The mischief is now known as “Fakegate,” and Gleick has taken a leave of absence from his position as President. I have no doubt his institution which is doing the investigation will find he has done nothing wrong because his heart was in the right (left) place.
Dr. Gleick has admitted that he impersonated a board member of the Heartland Institute in a series of emails to obtain confidential documents, a criminal practice known as “phishing.” Gleick, apparently, had hoped to obtain funding documents that he could use to discredit Heartland and scare off its donors by showing that it was simply shilling for Big Oil and Big Coal and other “dirty” corporate interests. . . the documents Gleick obtained from Heartland contained no smoking gun, so Gleick, or one of his over-zealous AGW alarmist confederates, had to spice things up by concocting a fake document entitled, “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” which Gleick then mixed in with the purloined Heartland documents and sent off to blog sites of fellow activists. (New American)
These people need scandal and intrigue (hellfire and brimstone) to continue getting donations from the private sector and grants from the government. Gleick’s supporters and fellow religionists consider him a hero and a martyr for the pantheist cause (global warming). The truth matters not. Their science is weak and their politics is global, even if the warming isn’t. The regular “free” press doesn’t vet them anymore than they vetted Obama, so most Americans will never find the truth. Besides this is April, and it was news in March.
When Gleick is tried in a court of law for stealing and fraud and found innocent, I’ll post that—but these kinds of thefts rarely get that far. Unless you’re on the right and pretty small potatoes.
Seniors encouraged to take college loans in 2010, and blamed in 2012 for doing so
One could get whip lash reading about senior citizens and college loans. Is is a good idea or not?
In August 2010, this article appeared in USAToday. "There are more opportunities than in the past for senior citizens to take college classes and get help paying for them," says financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com.
Many community colleges and some four-year colleges allow seniors to audit classes for free and significantly reduce tuition for those who take them for credit. The financial arrangements vary widely by school and so do the age requirements — generally 60, 62, or 65 and over.”
Yes, in 2010, before the news about the next bubble burst, people were being encouraged to borrow money for college. But in today’s USAToday, Washington Post and other sources buying the boilerplate from the NY Federal Reserve research, there’s a different story, although much overblown, since the small print says 5.8% of the college loan debt is for seniors, and 10% are in arrears. That’s a pretty small portion of college debt.
“New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.
The fact that even seniors remain saddled with student loans highlights what a growing chorus of lawmakers, economists and financial experts say has become a central conflict in the nation's higher education system: The long-touted benefits of a college degree are being diluted by rising tuition rates and the longevity of debt.”
Think Progress, a leftist bloggity news/opinion site, uses the phrase “crushing America’s Senior citizens.” Anything to avoid talking about what a bad job this administration has done with the economy, and to suck more people into a mentality of victimhood to be saved by BO. Obama is taking credit for an economy that could have rebounded in spite of the him, faster and healthier, by dragging us further trillions into debt.
Why recovery has taken so long
“If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
-Candidate Barack Obama, Jan. 17, 2008.
Just for Democrats. Republicans haven’t forgotten.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Woman loses her voice, continues to serve God
Need a good cry? This is a wonderful story about Sister Noel Devine who is 85-years-old, and for 67 of those years has served as a Maryknoll sister. She has now lost her voice to Primary Lateral Sclerosis, but continues to serve. Watch to the end when a 93 year old sister sings a hymn. Watch her eyes glow with the love of Jesus.
The earning potential of college athletes
Ohio State is out of the Final Four. I heard a discussion about college athletes turning pro on the radio—speculation about one or two of our Buckeyes. If I were a 20 year old, talented, uninjured college athlete, I wouldn't need 20 seconds to decide. You can always go back to college; you get only one chance at being 20. What do you think?
Thomas Jefferson High School again
I don’t buy this. The whole purpose of high school clubs is to learn leadership skills and develop friendships. There are plenty of clubs which will mingle children of different races and cultures—math club, Spanish club, thespians—but the leader of the black students club should be an African American. TJHS doesn’t have very many blacks now; don’t dilute their effectiveness and learning opportunities. And no, I don’t want a guy in charge of young mothers club.
Of the 1,800 students who attended TJ last year, only 34 were black and 42 were Hispanic, school figures show. The overwhelming majority of their classmates were Asian (906) and white (787).
Glenn Beck is on vacation
Tonight there is a rerun on GBTV.com. He’s on vacation for 2 weeks. David Horowitz is one of the guests. Years ago I read his book Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey about growing up Marxist, knowing his parents’ friends were blacklisted Communists during the McCarthy years, and becoming a Black Panther. Now he’s a conservative and a very active (and protested) speaker on college campuses. He considers Ruth Bader Ginsberg the most radical of all the Supreme Court Justices. Other guests on tonight’s rerun are David Barton from Wall Builders, Geronimo Aguilar, a pastor of The Roc who says he was conceived at Woodstock, and some other conservatives. We’ve seen it before, but worth a second look. Discussing the important of a 2 parent home.
“Going to church regularly will add 7 years to your life (if you are white) and 14 years if you are black,” said one of the guests. I think I need to fact check that stat. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Check here.
Wait Till Next Year—Book club today
“Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.
We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin’s early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound; and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers’ leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood. “ (author’s website)
Question from leader of discussion, “Did her description of childhood trigger any memories of your own childhood such as neighborhood games, local Mom and Pop stores, best friends, church activities, family life, school and sports?”
Because in my early years our family lived on the same block as Nelson Potter and his family, I can claim at least what little interest I had in sports was because of a famous baseball player living near by. He was in college with my parents, and his son was in my class in school, and we still stay in touch at Christmas.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
This could be bad news for poverty pimps
There could be biological reasons for racial disparities in health!
Doctors long have thought that less access to screening and follow-up health care were the reasons black women are 40 percent more likely to develop cervical cancer and twice as likely to die from it. The new study involving young college women suggests there might be a biological explanation for the racial disparity, too.
Fourteen people shot in Florida at a wake for young black man
Maybe race hustlers Sharpton and Jackson have time to show up to lead a protest and hamper the police in their investigation, and perhaps the President can take some time from his campaign events to call the parents. Maybe Oprah can check in, and Spike Lee can tweet something inaccurate and Roseanne Barr can stir up a posse. What? Two dead? Black gang violence? Never mind. Manhattan Institute notes that in New York City, there were nine civilian victims of police gunfire last year, whereas there were “several hundred black homicide victims in the city, almost all shot by other blacks or Hispanics, none of them given substantial press coverage.”
Aventura Police Sgt. Chris Goranitis told CBS4 News the funeral was for 21-year-old Morvin Andre who died on March 16th, one day after he jumped from the 4th to 2nd floor of the Aventura Mall parking garage in an effort to escape pursuit by Bloomingdale’s loss prevention employees.
The Medical Examiner ruled his death a suicide because he chose to jump rather than be apprehended, according to Goranitis.
Meantime, a senior police commander told CBS4 investigative reporter Jim DeFede that Andre had some connection to several South Florida gangs and some of those gang members were in attendance at his wake to pay their respects.
The commander said someone at the wake touched Andre’s body in the casket in a way that other gangs took as disrespectful. This led to an argument inside the funeral home which spilled out to the street.
I was hoping this was an April Fool joke
But it wasn’t. A First Lady of the United States actually wore this in public.
Not sure why it is called a system
Our health care system had a broken leg--no one disagreed on that. It was a bi-partisan medical diagnosis. Band-aids were liberally applied. So in order to fix it, the federal government under the control of progressives and Democrats decided to equalize things, break the other leg, both ankles, the wrist on one arm and the elbow on the other, just in case anyone would get the bright idea of offering crutches, and then prescribed a massive dose of hallucinogens mislabeled as pain killers.
The “Roe v. Wade” of this generation said the Manhattan Declaration Blog. Charles Colson wrote in 2009: “This is a huge religious-liberty question. It isn’t about contraceptives or even abortifacients. It’s about whether the United States government can limit the free exercise of religion by telling us which of our beliefs are entitled to conscience exemptions. It would be one thing if this came through the courts; still another thing if it were passed by Congress. But this edict is handed down by unelected government bureaucrats [White House Administration Staff] ... This is a momentous issue. There have been other threats to religious liberty by legislation and sometimes by court order — but never at the whim of an unelected government official.”
The Enterprise blog said, “Scalia nailed it with the very first question asked by a justice. Why not “address directly” the main problem with American healthcare, the overconsumption of healthcare services driven by the third-party payment system?” Exactly what I thought from the beginning. Insurance created this problem--the dream that someone else pays while I select from the banquet table of tests, screening, vaccines, and advice about my own habits I should be controlling; why would more insurance cure it?
Palm Sunday
Today is Palm Sunday, and if attending any Christian church today you may hear something like this, compiled by Sarah Ciotti. Some churches reenact Jesus' triumphal entry; some pass out palm branches to wave during the hymns. At our service we'll be hearing from Pastor David Mann, our missionary to Haiti.
“9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’” (Matt 21:9)[1]
These holy words have inspired the Church for centuries. Known as the Sanctus, a part of the Eucharist Prayer, Christians have sung the end of this verse since before 400 AD.[2]
The Sanctus, listed below, hints at a juxtaposition innate in sacred mystery; God as Divine as expressed in the first stanza and God as man, riding on a donkey, in the second.[3]
“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts
Heaven and earth are full of your glory
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest”(Sanctus 2010).[4]
Continuing the Holy Week reflection, Jesus’ triumphal entry highlights our need to make our new commitment public. We want to announce it and name it; whether it is a new goal, a project, a new partnership, etc. We long to celebrate with family and friends. Yet, in the joy of announcing our plans, sadness exists. Like in the Sanctus, we hope for something great; yet we know our human nature. What if we fail? What if we can’t bring our commitment to completion? We desire publicity; but we realize the fragility that comes with such an announcement. Hence, today’s paradox.[5]
[1] Revised Standard Version, s.v. “Matthew, The Gospel According To.”
[2] Michael G. Powell, “An Introduction to the History of Christian Liturgy in the West. s.v. ‘sanctus,’”http://www.yale.edu/adhoc/research_resources/liturgy/d_sanctus.html
[3] Ibid.
[4] Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation.
[5] Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, “The Mysteries of Holy Week,” Retreat, Pocatello, ID, March 2012.
Pro-Lifers disagree with Cheney on marriage, but. . .
they applaud the doctors, technology and his own bravery in getting a new heart. Nasty people on the internet were complaining that Cheney was too old for a heart transplant (actually, what they really mean is he is a Republican). I’m 72, and although I think that’s probably too old to run for President (first term), it’s not too old for a heart transplant. And those nasties might change their minds if he were their father, brother or husband—or indeed, if it were their hearts that needed a replacement. He waited 20 months; but there have been amazing changes even in that time. Read the article.
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