The real St. Nicholas

I'm seeing so many posters and cartoons about Santa Claus this time of year, I thought I'd share one story.

 I'm reading Bill Bennett's "Tried by Fire" which is about the first 1000 years of Christianity. It's a bit slow going, and I'm only on p. 112 (got it several months ago). If you're familiar with the Christian church, you'll remember from the letters of Paul and Peter to the young churches (the New Testament) that they began squabbling almost immediately. Fast forward to the 4th century and the struggle between the supporters of Arius and the rest of the faithful. 

When the Christians were no longer persecuted by the emperor, and could worship without fear, things just got worse. So Constantine told them to behave, and they ignored him. Then he decided to call all the bishops together from all over world to come to Constantinople and work things out face to face. That's quite a trek from Spain and India and Egypt, so about 300 out of 1800 bishops made it. Neither of the two big stars of the squabble were there, Arius and Athanasius, but after the bishops decided to write up a document detailing their theological position, what we call Christianity today won, and we recite this in our churches--The Nicene Creed.  The date was June 19, AD 325. Arius was banished, but his heresy lived on for several generations. It pops up from time to time. Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) most recently tried to foist it on a gullible public. The church had always taught and believed that Jesus was God, but now it was decided by an official council of bishops and was in writing.

Skipping lots of names and stories here. . . "Another attendee was the bishop Nicholas of Myra. Nicolas had a reputation for generosity, such as putting coins in shoes that were left out for him. His life and works became the basis for our modern conception of Santa Claus. Unlike the image of Santa as a red and rosy-faced man [I think that was Coca Cola marketing] a forensic survey of Nicholas's bones in 2004 revealed that the real Saint Nicholas was around 5.5' tall had suffered a broken nose, and probably had a slight frame. The composition of Nicholas's bones also suggested that he may have spent a good deal of time in dank prisons, perhaps while suffering in the persecutions of the early fourth century."

   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHd79-XUFGQ



Christianity gets in trouble when it prospers, not when it is persecuted, according to Bennett.

Our most anti-Catholic president

Bill Donohue is President and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. He lists the reasons he sees Obama as anti-Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church has a big umbrella, and many Catholics pick and choose what they will accept in their church's teaching. Many support abortion and embryonic stem cell research and because Catholics have traditionally been Democrats, they also support the party rather than the church on many issues. Donohue has listed what the church says is necessary to be a member in good standing.

--In 2003, when Obama was an Illinois state senator, he led the fight to oppose a bill that would have mandated health care for a baby who survived an abortion, and he did so even after the bill explicitly said it would not imperil Roe v. Wade. The Catholic Church does not support infanticide.

--Before he was elected in 2008, he said he would sign a bill, the Freedom of Choice Act, that would have forced Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

--One of the first executive orders Obama signed after being sworn in on January 20, 2009 was to overturn the Mexico City Policy that denied federal funding of private organizations that perform and promote abortions abroad.

--On January 29, 2009, Obama said he looked forward to restoring U.S. aid to the U.N. Population Fund that pays for abortion.

--Obama supports partial-birth abortion, the procedure where a baby who is 80 percent born has his head pierced with a scissors.

--In 2008, Obama said the biggest mistake he ever made was to side with the parents of Terry Schiavo: they petitioned a federal court to allow their daughter food and medicine needed to live. Obama reversed himself, thus siding with those who said, just "let her die."

--Obama sent his two daughters to private schools but opposed every school choice initiative that would allow poor parents to escape the public schools by enrolling in a private or parochial school.

--Obama opposed the Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Bill Clinton that allowed the states to determine what defines marriage, thus undercutting the traditional definition.

--Obama supports same-sex marriage.

--Obama opposes a display of the Ten Commandments on public property.

--Obama supports the intentional killing of embryos.

--Obama sought to appoint Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel. She cut her teeth as a lawyer working with the ACLU in the late 1980s trying to take away the tax exempt status of the Catholic Church.

--Obama appointed Harry Knox to his Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership program. He has a record of hate speech against the pope.

--Obama was the first president to welcome atheist leaders to the White House, some of whom are Catholic bashers.

--When Obama spoke at Georgetown University in April 2009, his staff insisted that all religious symbols in the room where he was to speak had to be covered with a drape.

--Obama's Heath and Human Services mandate, still pushed by the administration, says that Catholic institutions that hire and serve non-Catholics are no longer Catholic, and are therefore subject to government oversight. This includes the Little Sisters of the Poor.

--Obama fought U.S. bishops for years—and is doing so now—trying to force Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization in their healthcare plans.

--Obama made sure that no grants went to Catholic programs that provide relief to the victims of human trafficking—even though the grant proposals received high scores from independent reviewers—simply because the Church's opposes abortion.

Trump staffer looks forward with hope

 The author, Kay Coles James, is black and first outlines the disappointments since the 1960s and the war on poverty.

"Fortunately, a lot of new talent is coming to Washington, D.C. People with deep compassion, vast experience, and a willingness to put their lives on hold while they help America get back on track. I’ve met many of these people, and each time I do, I feel a renewed sense of optimism about our country’s future.

Like me, they are driven by a desire to eliminate poverty, create jobs, fix broken schools, improve our health, and heal our families. Their focus isn’t solely on the black community, but every policy that is good for all Americans has the potential to be especially positive for African-Americans because of how far we’ve fallen.

The stage has been set with new players and bold ideas. Their sleeves are rolled up and their purpose is clear."

http://dailysignal.com/2016/12/08/what-african-americans-have-to-gain-from-a-trump-presidency/ 

Ms. James is currently serving on President-elect Donald Trump's transition team as the co-chair of the Management and Budget teams and has served in both the federal government and Virginia government. She is also a trustee of The Heritage Foundation.

Hyperventilating

Why didn't Obama call for a wall to stop the drug lords?

Tell me why Donald Trump is wrong to want to close the border to opioid drugs flooding into the U.S. from Mexico.The issue shouldn't be that Donald Trump is asking for a wall, but why didn't Obama build it to protect Americans? We've lost 6,853 Americans in combat and "other" in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, but 13,000 from heroin in just 2015. Wouldn't building/completing a wall have been cheaper in blood and treasure? Do these families not grieve also?

"The nonprofit Hudson Institute estimated the amount of pure heroin produced in Mexico in 2015 rose 67% over the 2014 numbers, and 170% over the estimates for 2013. Officials from both Mexico and the United States estimated at least a 50% jump in production in 2014, according to the New York Times."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/11/17/heroin-mexican-drug-cartel/94032394/

"In 2015 more than 52,000 people died from a drug overdose; of those, 63.1 percent involved an opioid. This MMWR Early Release features opioid overdoses data for 28 states and indicates that the increase in opioid overdose death rates is being driven by illicit opioids, like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. This new report also highlights the continued need for public health and public safety to work together to prevent overdose deaths."

https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pubs/index.html

Trump's enemies claim he is a racist for wanting a more secure border--I guess they think he doesn't read government reports or that the lives lost from heroin don't matter as much as gun homicides, which they now exceed. If heroin was flooding in from Canada and he objected, what would they call him, a Canadiphobe?
The president calling for more border security should have been Obama these last 8 years.

"United States cooperation with Mexican authorities has atrophied, removing the pressure and incentives for them to root out heroin production—production that feeds corruption and undermines the rule of law in Mexico. There are no reports that the president, the secretary of state, or the attorney general have called Mexican counterparts to urge joint action." Weekly Standard, May 19, 2016

 http://www.businessinsider.com/this-graphic-shows-what-mexican-cartels-and-drugs-come-to-your-town-2012-7

Posting on Putin

The MSM (Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) plus all the leftist social media like Vox, HuffPo, Daily Beast are admitting that all the negative publicity they put out on Trump after he won the Republican primaries was no match for the truth about the Clinton campaign leaked by Wikileaks.

Putin must be feeling really powerful. He tips the scale of the civil war in Syria after Obama opts out, and causes chaos among millions of unhappy American Democrat voters creating a panic about the next president. A leak of Podesta's e-mails told Democrats what was going on in that party. A G-mail account . And Putin gets the credit for their dishonesty and duplicity.

Much of the anti-Putin, anti-Russia news slant is recent. Most Americans are not on social media and many don't trust the MSM or this administration to report accurately. So I'm not surprised when we hear/read that a survey (fake news?) showed Putin rated high with Republicans (it's still a minus number but has come up). And why not? For over a decade liberals told how wonderful the Russians were, they were our allies, good source of new businesses etc. , churches were op...en and growing. And before that liberals loved the Soviets. President Bush said he looked in Putin's eyes and saw his soul, or something like that. Hillary Clinton as Sec. State was very chummy offered a reset button for them to play with and Obama promised off mic that after the 2012 election he could be even more friendly (obviously another promise broken). 

The Russians haven't bombed any nightclubs or Christmas parties, they haven't been cozy with Cuba since the 90s, so where would Americans get a negative view if not from this administration--and many of us hit mute when Obama takes the platform for disinformation? As Democrats began blaming Putin for their own failures (Podesta's e-mails), Republicans' view of him went up. Even the recent Aleppo news strongly condemning and blaming Russia is a little strange, since this administration helped create the chaos in Syria. As one Russian reporter pointed out, there hasn't been a single day of peace since Obama took office.

 Watched an analysis (don't know her name) on Fox today of Obama's presser yesterday criticizing the media for their negative coverage of Clinton during the campaign. I guess seconds or a minute about her e-mails was just too much. She said there wasn't enough soap in the world to scrub the brown off their noses. I thought that was pretty good.

 Huma Abedin's e-mails on her husband's laptop weren't hacked--the FBI found them when looking for sex crimes of her husband. I personally think that was very negative publicity--but certainly not from Putin.
FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation is still on-going. Was the FBI being manipulated by Putin?

One of the strangest things I heard in Obama's press conference yesterday was that he'd warned Putin personally in September not to interfere with our election. There would be consequences. If he believes Putin did it, why would he admit to one more failure?

Putin didn't say this--a Catholic priest did.

“Too many of the pastors—too many, practically all—in Germany refused to speak against national socialism,” continued Orsi. “And look [at] the result: millions of Jews, pastors, priests, homosexuals, gypsies all lost their lives because everyone was afraid. What are you afraid of, a couple of bucks? Your tax-exempt status? What’s that going to do to you? Your churches may be closed anyway, because if a certain party gets elected, this certain party said, if the churches do not agree with our interpretation of women’s reproductive rights, they’ll just have to change their doctrine.”

 

“If a certain party gets elected, I can assure you what kind of judges are going to be on those appeals courts,” he said. And those judges will be charged with deciding whether the government may force churches and religious institutions to pay for abortion, contraception, and abortifacient drugs, he noted. . . 

 

“Somehow, [Christians] have come to buy the story that you cannot be political in church,” said Orsi. “Let me tell you right now, oh yes, you can, and oh, yes, you better be. Because you might not have a church to go to if you don’t vote the right way in November.”"  Father Michael Orsi

A day of art

A fabulous day of art yesterday. First, we had lunch with our friend from church Harry Parsons at the Chef-O-Nette in our old neighborhood where we had our first meal as Columbus residents almost 50 years ago. We both had our favorite--the Hang-Over sandwich.  So many memories--our son (then about 4) and I used to stop there after dropping his sister off at Tremont School across the street.

Then we headed downtown to the Gallery in the Riffe building to see the Ohio Watercolor Show (OWS).  Best arrangement EVER. Hanging a show is an art--my husband does it for our church shows--and this one is perfection. There is one more drop in class there with Suzanne Acceta on January 4, 2017. 

Then on to German Village Meeting Haus to see the Central Ohio Watercolor Show (COWS). From there we went to an cartoonist's home to see his wonderful collection and his studio. The 1903 three story brick house faces Schiller Park--what a wonderful "front yard." Then home for a nap before pizza. 

 

The Peace Prize president--Barack Obama--not one day of peace

 A Russian reporter asks the obvious:

"America, in all the eight years [of Obama], did not have one day where it was completely at peace. There was one war or another, and not all of those wars were inherited by President Obama. And he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"Then, he -- he's like the first African-American president. But the race relations in this country have become worse. Not better, worse. It's also, I -- you know, you say some things are facts. Those are allegations. But I cannot say that it's a fact. It's an impression I get, that they are worse. But many people share this -- this impression."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/russian-reporter-does-obama-feel-any-responsibility-us-russia-relations

On destabilizing the Trump presidency

Mike Huckabee: "So far, liberals have blamed Hillary Clinton’s loss on racism, sexism, xenophobia, James Comey, fake news, hacked voting machines and a Russian conspiracy (To quote Graham Parker, “Is this a Russian conspiracy, or is it just idiocy?”) Before they take a cue from “South Park” and blame Canada, they need to read this exhaustive report from Politico, hardly a right-wing source. It details how Hillary blew the race in Michigan and hence the election (and $1.2 billion of donors’ money) all by herself, because she was a terrible candidate who surrounded herself with bad advisors and ran an incompetent campaign.

Her supporters can’t seem to fathom that when you nominate a candidate most Americans distrust; who piously preaches “public service” while getting wealthy off government connections; who told her core voters that she planned to put them out of work; who poured money into states she had no chance of winning while ignoring states she needed to win; who insulted millions of Americans and spent most of her speeches denigrating her opponent; who seemed, as one Ohio Democrat put it, to care more about transgender bathrooms than whether blue collar workers had jobs; and who was under FBI investigation for mishandling classified information – and whose excuse was that she wasn’t intentionally criminal, just incompetent – then she might legitimately lose."

From Politico
"Politico spoke to a dozen officials working on or with Clinton’s Michigan campaign, and more than a dozen scattered among other battleground states, her Brooklyn headquarters and in Washington who describe an ongoing fight about campaign tactics, an inability to get top leadership to change course."

I don't think it's exactly accurate to point out all the ways Hillary failed the voters--she obviously succeeded with more voters than Trump did. His handlers were smarter than hers and were able to plug in where it mattered.

The myth of the Christmas blues

Where does the myth of the Christmas blues come from? Statistical studies don’t back it up. It is "real" fake news, but it was created--perhaps by the very counselors people turn to for help.

“Writer Olga Khazan speculates that perhaps the answer lies with the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life—with its famous scene in which Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey contemplates suicide—and the way in “which basic-cable networks put [it] on heavy rotation as Christmas nears.” I wondered, however, whether psychiatrists and clinical psychologists might also have played a role in associating the holidays with acute mental health problems.” http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/major-depressive-disorder/holiday-syndrome-who-exactly-came-idea-those-christmas-blue

The author of this article gets a bit esoteric and technical . . . as one might expect from a writer for a psychiatric publication.

"It was James P. Cattell⁹ (d. 1994), a Harvard- and Columbia-trained psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who seems to have been the one to have shifted the discussion in a new direction. In 1955, he coined the term “the holiday syndrome,” describing it as a reaction in some patients that manifests itself beginning around Thanksgiving and ending a few days after January 1st. It is characterized, he insisted,

 '. . . by the presence of diffuse anxiety, numerous regressive phenomena including marked feelings of helplessness, possessiveness, and increased irritability, nostalgic or bitter rumination about holiday experiences of youth, depressive affect, and a wish for magical resolution of problems.^9p39"

Rosaria Butterfield's trainwreck conversion

Although I have read articles by Rosaria Butterfield I have never heard her speak.  This is a wonderful testimony, but only intended for Christians, or Christians who have wandered from the faith and are investigating the truth of Jesus and what he offers. It’s erudite--she’s a scholar and was professor of English. She attended Ohio State University! I love her way with words, her humor, and her analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVTTsD9o1IM  Through friendship, kindness and deep study of the scripture, she finds the Jesus of the Bible.  She fought, but Jesus won.

 https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2016/10/31/rosaria-butterfield-responds-to-jen-hatmakers-blessing-of-lgbt-sexual-relationships-as-holy/

 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/january-february/my-train-wreck-conversion.html

When I became a Christian, I had to change everything—my life, my friends, my writing, my teaching, my advising, my clothes, my speech, my thoughts. I was tenured to a field that I could no longer work in. I was the faculty advisor to all of the gay and lesbian and feminist groups on campus. I was writing a book that I no longer believed in. And, I was scheduled in a few months to give the incoming address to all of Syracuse University’s graduate students.

 http://www.kevinhalloran.net/the-secret-thoughts-of-an-unlikely-convert-by-rosaria-champagne-butterfield/

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgDAEPRXWgU  (longer version of conversion story)

Women are still not ready for prime time

The U.S. needs innovators. Our outdated federal IT system is just one of the problems. Some agencies are still using floppy disks, and they are spending billions patching and repairing.  Putting social manipulation ahead of innovation is a big problem. Although women now outnumber men in PhDs they are over represented in the social sciences, and are not innovators in the sciences. (They do write about it if you've ever looked at the research.) The exception is foreign born Chinese women living in the U.S. or who have become citizens. So do you manipulate hiring/appointing to include less qualified? Why are women avoiding the harder subjects? We've had special workshops and classes for young females for 40 years! I know because I helped teach them in the 1980s.

The demographics of innovation, Feb. 2016

"Rather than using entrepreneurship, advanced degrees, or patents filed as metrics to approximate the creation of successful, commercial inventions, we identify meaningful and marketable innovations and then study the people behind them."