Looking back at the origins of FHA

The right margin of this interesting article from Woman’s Day about an early FHA backed mortgage is missing because my grandmother who clipped it was interested in the quilt pattern on the other side (Star and Ring). From the clothing and hair styles, I’d place it about 1948 because the husband isn’t in uniform and those drapes look familiar.

FHA has had an interesting history. On the one hand, it allowed generations of Americans to own their own homes, but the unintended consequences are it contributed mightily to our current recession brought on by the collapse of the housing market.

It was created in 1934 during the Great Depression because housing loan periods used to be much shorter with a final balloon payment, and when the economy failed, many people lost their homes. But there were also some fairly stiff standards on the quality of the home, a modest down payment and the ability of the buyers to pay. After 25 years or so, politicians decided this was unfair to African Americans who were being left behind in the decaying inner cities as whites moved out to newer housing stock (like in the picture of the Knudsen family home near Washington D.C.).

So that’s how we got all this “creative financing” with the seller, instead of the buyer, providing the down payment, but not really, because it actually came from a non-profit organization like a church or community group (think ACORN) which got the money from the government. In 2000, these types of mortgages made up less than 2% of FHA insured mortgages. By 2007, that percentage jumped to 35%. And I guess you know the rest of the story.

“The FHA’s standard insurance program today is notoriously lax. It backs low downpayment loans, to buyers who often have below-average to poor credit ratings, and with almost no oversight to protect against fraud. Sound familiar? This is called subprime lending—the same financial roulette that busted Fannie, Freddie and large mortgage houses like Countrywide Financial.” WSJ, Aug. 11, 2009

To be fair, conventional loans during the same time period were also requiring nothing down, so there’s plenty of blame to go around when mortgage lenders, non-profits dependent on government grants, home flippers with venture capital and politicians collude.

But this is just a reminder that more government interference in the housing market is not necessarily a good thing. The current housing credit of $8,000 for “first time buyers” (and there’s tremendous fraud in this) is costing us taxpayers something like $48,000 for each one.

Incidentally, Dorothy Ducas, the author of the Woman's Day article had a very interesting career and would make an interesting topic for a thesis if it hasn't been done.

A generation raised to expect breakfast

The man in front of me at Panera's today (fabulous bakery items, in case you've never been there) was buying a delicious selection of breakfast goodies--dense in calories and nutrition. In jest I said something like

"You must be really hungry today."

"These are for my employees. I love to see their smiles and they work harder."

"How nice," I replied. "All I ever got was a paycheck for working hard."

When we were out of earshot of others, he explained in hushed tones the real reason.

"I'm a contractor and I've learned that most of my mid-20s employees grew up getting breakfast, lunch and snacks provided to them by their schools. They have no idea how to feed themselves and they expect to be fed by whoever is in charge. When I give them a job to do, they say, 'But we haven't eaten yet.' "

Most are on food stamps and they come to me from an agency. If I want them to work, I have to feed them."

I'm still in shock. What have we done?

Fascinating radio lead in

While driving to the coffee shop this morning, the radio announcer provided the lead in to two news stories, but by putting them in one sentence, he created a startling word picture.

"A stench returns to a Cleveland neighborhood and the President still hasn't made a decision on Afghanistan."

Stench indeed. And the smell of politics is overwhelming that of the dead bodies hidden by a serial killer of women. He'll sit on it until he gets his way with health care, endangering the lives of our military and Afghan allies. The man has no shame.

Cite your sources, please

Today I was reading a passage about Leo Tolstoy in the book A Faith and Culture Devotional. Parts of the book are used in an on-line guide, so this link is to that. I have the print copy. (It's a wonderful book in case you're looking for Christmas ideas.)

The passage about Tolstoy’s treatment of his wife Sophia and their children was used to show how a quest for holiness and perfection may backfire in the lives of those nearest and dearest.

“There is so little genuine warmth about him; his kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles.… no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest and never—in all these 32 years—gave his child a drink of water or spent five minutes by his bedside.”

But Philip Yancey, the author of the essay on Tolstoy, provides no citation. Yancey is an editor of Christianity Today and should know better. Oh well, now we have the internet and it shouldn’t be that tough to track down, right? Wrong. I spent about 45 minutes (it was an interesting search) and still don't have the exact source. I did find a wonderful source at NPR with photos of Sophia and a new book about the family, but not that passage. However, I kept finding this same quote in numerous sources, all without a citation. It was like trying to track one of those viral e-mails or an urban legend.

Eventually I revised my search and found a partially scanned copy of Sophia’s autobiography with extensive notes at the end about the battle of the diaries. I looked through it quickly, and I’m guessing this popular legend about Tolstoy's family life came from her book, translated and published in 1922. Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy [Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy] By Sofʹi︠a︡ Andreevna Tolstai︠a︡, translated by S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf. 1922.

However, in reading the extensive notes at the end (more interesting and complicated than my original quest), it is easy to see that wives of famous people (Mary Lincoln comes to mind) don’t fare well at the hands of male historians and biographers. They seem to grasp that although she was caring for 9 children when Lev decided to go on his spiritual quest and give away all their wealth and possessions, and that several of her 13 children died, and there were family squabbles enough to populate several large Russian estates, she was the one who was crazy. Go figure.

Did she say what I think she said?

"On Tuesday, that heavy task [of facing grieving Americans] fell to President Obama. At a memorial service five days after the largest mass killing on a U.S. military base, he reached for words of sorrow and solace, then summoned determination." Ann Gerhart, WaPo, Nov. 11

Yes, I think she just called it. He's a cold, cold caricature of a caring person, of a decent, warm human being. He reached, couldn't find it, so he just went on with banalities. As a eulogist and comforter, he flunks. That speech combined with his bizarre behavior last week at the news conference in which a stunned nation waited while he just announced more wealth redistribution and gave shout outs, have pretty much confirmed that we've got President Robotic Obama in office. Nothing will detract him from his agenda or his focus on himself.

Atlantic and NYT, ever the apologists, ever the big O cheerleaders, swooned over this cold collection of dead words and slipped in their own spittle.

Take back America in 2010

It's up to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=UZkvkLmkYVg

Veterans Day

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I've told the story of how my parents, who were very young children, heard about the end of WWI. Because WWII was the defining event of their young married life, I'd never thought to ask them about WWI, until. . .

"I didn't hear about WWI memories until sometime in the early 1990s. I had interviewed my father for an oral history to include in a family recipe collection for a reunion of the descendants of his parents who had died in 1983. I had interviewed my mother about her parents' personal library for two articles I wrote. Both recalled in their 80s the first Armistice Day (now called Veterans' Day) even though they were 5 and 6 years old. I imagine they listened in on adult conversations and caught the fear and dread that gripped their communities. My mother's father who was 44 was registered for the draft. And although I haven't seen the record, I would assume my father's father, who was a much younger man, did too. There were no radios or television, and newspapers would have been too slow. So the plan was to ring bells when word came to the nearest town that the armistice had been signed. The church bells would be rung; then each farmer would begin to ring the bells they used on the farm; then the next farmer a few miles further away would hear and begin ringing his bells. Both my parents had exactly the same memory of that first Armistice Day--hearing bells tolling throughout the countryside from all sides. The war was over."

Armistice Day now honors all Veterans, living and dead. On this day I think I've shown photos of Uncle Clare, and Uncle Russell (Joe) and Dad, so here's a photo of Uncle John, Dad's brother. Dad's brother John was inducted into the Army in December, 1942. He served with glider troops in North Africa and Sicily. In England during preparation for the invasion of France, he served as glider instructor. He took part in the invasion of Normandy and was wounded then and again in Belgium. He was discharged in June 1945. Uncle Russell, Dad and John's younger brother (probably still a teen) served in Sitka, Alaska, and then was with the first wave of Marines who stormed Iwo Jima and was wounded; he was awarded the Purple Heart. Dad's cousins Andy, Bill and Phil were in the Army serving in Europe, Philippines and Korea; his cousin Wayne and brother-in-law Glaydon (Gramps) were in the Navy and served in the Pacific; cousin-in-law Harlan served in the Army in New Guinea and the Philippines; brother-in-law Johnny was in the Coast Guard; brother-in-law Charlie was also in the service, but I don't know the branch. Another brother-in-law, my mother's brother Clare, was in the Army Air Force and died in the China, Burma India Theater in 1944. Dad served on the U.S.S. Mayo and made two trips across the Atlantic and one trip each to Okinawa, the Philippines and Japan. Not bad for a farm kid who had probably not been further away from home than Chicago and never learned to swim. All but two of these men were from the same town and all are deceased now. [Service records and photos of over 400 men and women for a town of less than 3,000 appear in "War Record of Mount Morris" edited by Harry G. Kable, 1947.] Even the town band was part of the National Guard and served in the Fiji Islands. (From a blog I wrote 11/10/05)

Best carpet spot cleaner I've found

A bottle of glass cleaner--can be Windex, or just a blue or green knock-off. We have a cat. Hair balls and vomited dyed cat food (that's for owners since I think cats are color blind). The first time I grabbed a bottle of window cleaner it was because it was handy. In my office and our lower family room/laundry room level we have very tightly woven, expensive commercial carpet that could serve a busy theater lobby it's so good. This stuff cleaned it like a dream and left no light spots. So the next time she tossed her cookies on the white living room thick shag, I tried it on that. Works like a dream.

Today I'm taking a bottle with me to exercise class with a heavy cloth (paper towels are OK, but can come apart and then you're cleaning up paper pieces). The carpet in our fellowship hall is disgusting. People are very careless with food and coffee spills, and I think I'll try some spot cleaning. I've made no progress after a year+ of complaining about the pink soap dribbling and staining the white counters in the ladies room. I even brought one of the pastors in to show him. Our maintenance staff must not notice the pink stains turning gray. It's useless to remind people to be cleaner and cautious because of the flu if the rest rooms and carpet look grubby, don't you think? I'm a visual person. The visual environment counts too!!

Sensitivity vs. stupidity; fairness vs. foolishness

Apologists and victimologists for Nadil Hasan who can only find evil motives on the Christian far right could benefit from Eugene Robinson's column today. He says there's a difference between being sensitive and being stupid, and apologists are actually hurting American Muslims by refusing to see that the military had plenty of warning about this guy and dropped the ball.

• He had told people of his serious doubts about U.S. military campaigns
  
• He made no secret of his reluctance to serve in Afghanistan
  
• Army doctors told their superiors of their concern about his divided allegiance
  
• Fellow officers had complained about his anti-american rants
  
• He was possibly a follower of a radical cleric.

And if you've been following the story you know there were more speculations, some being investigated, others being buried.

If you disagree, please contact Mr. Robinson, eugenerobinson@washpost.com

How to understand what's happening

to the Christians in the United States. Lutherans are in grief and shock--well, maybe not those who think only the local congregation matters. But the August "Church Wide Assembly" which approved gay pastors and marriage after 20 years of nibbling around the edges, for some reason, surprised some (not me). Here's one of the best explanations I've read by David Housholder to catch you up, just in case you're not a Christian, or you only show up for weddings, funerals and Christmas Eve.
Full document here.

"There are two emerging Christianities.

1) One is a postwar liberal movement with roots in the 19th century social gospel, liberal German theology from that same era, and flavored with a shot of very resilient Marxism. This faction has firm control over most mainline Protestant North American denominations, colleges, and seminaries. Their preaching is cool and reflective and nuanced.

"Let us then go forth brothers and sisters to renew our efforts to establish justice and peace throughout God's creation. For the sake of the greater Gospel and the Christ who was crucified."

2) The other was born around campfires on the mission field and the songs of slavery. Its piety is "warm to hot," expressive, potent, and unpredictable. There is a supernatural vibe to the body language and speech. It is a high-touch world of prayer and laying on of hands. It can be found in storefront churches full of immigrants in any major world city."

These two, writes Housholder repel each of like two poles of a magnet--in some ways they gain identitiy by NOT being like the other and each sees their group as an upgrade over and against the other. They are mutually patronizing. When I (Norma) used to be on Usenet (all text) for a writers group, the Christian groups were the most vicious and snarly so I never joined any of those groups. Liberationist or charismatic or dispensationalist, it made no difference.

The fault line is not whether gays are saved by the work of Jesus Christ (Christians can't work their way to salvation), but whether they can be pastors in committed relationships or can be married in the church. In the good old days of theological splits and snipes, writes Housholder, traditional family morality was upheld by both groups (even as our divorce rates soared). Now that is gone. The Protestant denominations are unraveling. Yours too, in case you aren't there yet, there is a study group or task force planning to take you for a free and painful ride until the crash at the end.

All the king's horses and all the king's men will not be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. A community cannot be held together with two sets of rules on the big-ticket issues. There may be more understanding and consensus on the abortion issue than this one which goes to the heart of biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation.

The grand coalition of North American Protestantism has unraveled, he says. Liberals will retain control of the mainline denominations, Housholder predicts, and the conservatives will either 1) stay and keep quiet, 2) leave the mainline world and join a non-denominational group, or 3) be visionary and creative.

At last, an honest Democrat

"Mr. [John] Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes [on the New Yorker web site]. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run." Review and Outlook, Nov. 10

I would modify that editorial just a wee bit. Democrats will benefit over the short run; and in the long run, they will destroy the country. Think about what they were celebrating at the Berlin wall site yesterday--and now we're building one.

Where are your "green" priorities?

Certainly not with saving lives. We're about to repeat the slaughter of the disastrous malaria resurgence where our western environmentalists killed millions and millions of Africans every year for the last 30 by prematurely withdrawing DDT from the market because a bird egg might die (none have). On the advice of a non-scientist, Rachel Carson.

So now we're going to launch, with the blessings of our global power hungry president and congress, a war against all poor and undeveloped nations. From yesterday's WSJ

"Getting basic sanitation and safe water to the 3 billion people around the world who do not have it now would cost nearly $4 billion.

By contrast, cuts in global carbon emissions that aim to limit global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius over the next century would cost $40 TRILLION a year by 2100. These cuts do nothing to reduce the number of people without access to clean drinking water and sanitation." Bjorn Lomberg, WSJ, November 9.

Why Obama isn't at the Wall

Sure, he doesn't want to celebrate the fall of communism in Europe, flying a big RED flag that his socialist, statist policies won't work. There's a bigger reason, however. HIS EGO! He'd have to share the stage! Have you seen the photos!!! OMG! Every important president, chancellor, premier and former-anybody of Western Civilization is there.

• UK Premier Gordon Brown
  
• French President Nicholas Sarkozy
  
• Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
  
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
  
• German president Horst Koehler
  
• Poland's Lech Walesa
  
• Hungary's Miklos Nemeth
  and even
  
• the former USSR's Mikhail Gorbachev

Who established our institutions of higher learning and why

Interesting introduction in the book by James Anderson Hawes, Twenty Years Among The Twenty Year Olds A Story Of Our Colleges Of Today, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929) which attempted to explain to students of 80 years ago how much better off they were than those who had come before them. He probably wrote it before October (stock market crash).

"Harvard was the first college or school in America and was founded in 1636 by a vote of the "General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," which agreed "to give four hundred pounds toward a School or College," for the purpose of educating a selected few for the Church from their earliest days, "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in dust."

The next educational institution founded was the Collegiate School of the Dutch Church in New York, . . . The third institution William and Mary was not chartered until 1693, when it was organized by the Church . . . with a similar object, "that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of Ministers of the Gospel, and that the youth may be properly educated in good manners, and that the Christian faith may be propagated among the western Indians to the glory of Almighty God."

In 1695 St. John's College at Annapolis, Maryland, was founded. . . Sixty-five years after Harvard, Yale was founded largely to supply a local demand for the early training of ministers and because Harvard even then began to be looked on as rather too liberal in theology for the good old Puritan Fathers.

Therefore the first five institutions of learning on this Continent were founded as schools to train young boys of a select class, as leaders in Church and State. Please note that the founding of all our early colleges was to provide the advantage of training selected leaders, and never apparently for the purpose of offering free higher education to any and all who might wish to learn something of almost anything. They certainly had no purpose of helping all-comers to get jobs or secure wealth for themselves. The principal object of the founding of these early colleges was frankly theological and for many years a majority, or at least a very large proportion, of those who graduated entered the ministry.

. . . the fact must be remembered that our entire educational system from top to bottom was instituted and for many years carried on directly by the Church in every one of our colonies. Not only was this the case in New England, but Princeton, founded next, was a product of the interests of the Presbyterian Church. The next founded was Pennsylvania, in 1750, when Benjamin Franklin interested the cultured Quakers in a center of learning for their city and section. . . the first with any definite idea of charity in helping the poorer classes.

The next in order was King's College in New York, changed at the time of the Revolution to Columbia. This institution was founded largely by the Episcopal Church and supported by Trinity, perhaps the richest private church corporation in the world. It was essentially aristocratic in its organization and a school for the better class of New Yorkers, especially of the Episcopal Church, as the charter reads,
“The chief Thing that is aimed at in this College is, to teach and engage the Children to know God in Jesus Christ, and to live and serve Him in all Sobriety, Goodliness and Righteousness of life, with a perfect heart and a willing Mind.”

Rutgers followed on a foundation by the Dutch Church . . ."

It takes a Romanian village

Matthew Dalton has an article in the WSJ today about fighting obesity, and why the "village" approach (i.e., government control) is needed. Except the fat women were gathered in a Romanian village. I don't know why they think these Romanian women didn't have "walk to school" days when they were children or that they should stay away from those Big Macs down the street.

"Instead of hoping that individuals can muster the self-discipline on their own to avoid processed foods, fast food and days without physical exercise, the idea is that governments must actively work to change environments and reduce the menu of harmful options available in everyday life.

As a result, hundreds of towns in Europe and elsewhere have adopted a version of this strategy, aimed particularly at preventing children from becoming overweight and obese. They hired dietitians to counsel children and their families in schools, organized walk-to-school days, hired sports educators and built new sporting facilities. The U.S. government, meanwhile, is increasing its funding for cities and towns to pursue so-called community-based obesity prevention, in an effort to gather data about which kinds of tactics work best."

Last night our condo association had its annual potluck. I overate. Now, why would a sensible, healthy eater who goes to exercise class 3 times a week, and eats 3-4 vegetables for lunch do that? Because everything tasted good and the fellowship was great, and it was 2 hours past my regular meal time. The artichoke dip was particularly wonderful both as an appetiser and a dessert. I'm not all that far removed from the village square in Romania.

So what about the government hitching a ride in your grocery cart or camping out in your pantry, telling you what to eat and when? This isn't about safe or nutritious food, you know. We're way past that. This is about control of every little aspect of your life.

I'm not sure if anyone understands the chemistry and biology and culture of obesity. But every time I read Junk Food Science by Sandy, I learn a little more. And she's not writing about food that's junk--it's the science.

Blood vessels might predict prostate cancer

"The study of 572 men with localized prostate cancer indicates that aggressive or lethal prostate cancers tend to have blood vessels that are small, irregular and primitive in cross-section, while slow-growing or indolent tumors have blood vessels that look more normal.

The findings were published Oct. 26 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. OSU news release. . .

"It's as if aggressive prostate cancers are growing faster and their blood vessels never fully mature," says study leader Dr. Steven Clinton, professor of medicine and a medical oncologist and prostate cancer specialist at Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center-James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute.

"Prostate cancer is very heterogeneous, and we need better tools to predict whether a patient has a prostate cancer that is aggressive, fairly average or indolent in its behavior so that we can better define a course of therapy surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormonal treatment, or potentially new drugs that target blood vessels that is specific for each person's type of cancer," Clinton says.

Isn't that just so silly? Everyone knows who's been following JAMA for years that nothing happens in medicine that isn't about poverty, race, education or poor nutrition. If it were, there might be more grant money released for true research instead of keeping all those social science folk employed writing papers and applying for more grants.

Christian Dispensationalists and Israel

Prophecy and end times are not Biblical concepts in which I spend a lot of time. But many Christians do, and they spend years and forests debating each other--not unbelievers. Dividing the Bible into time periods (dispensations) with a message specific to certain groups or reading scripture like it was a daily newspaper is not what I do. However, some who do often provide interesting insights into history. Although I think Israel should be our ally regardless of what we believe about end times or find in Ezekiel or Zechariah, it is an amazing country (we were there in March) as pointed out by David Reagan at www.worldviewtimes.com .

"Another accomplished fact is the revival of the Hebrew language from the dead. When the Jews were scattered from their homeland in the First and Second Centuries, they stopped speaking Hebrew. The Jews in Europe mixed Hebrew with German and created a new language called Yiddish. The Jews in the Mediterranean Basin mixed Hebrew with Spanish and created a language called Ladino. But the Bible prophesied that the Hebrew language would be revived in the end times (Zephaniah 3:9), and that is exactly what happened in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries through the efforts of one man - Eliezer Ben Yehuda. Today, the people of Israel speak biblical Hebrew.

Equally certifiable is the reclamation of the Jewish homeland. As pointed out earlier, the Bible prophesied that it would become a desolation after the Jewish people were expelled from it. But the Bible also prophesied that when the Jews returned to the land, it would once again become a land of milk and honey:

"The desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passed by. And they will say, 'This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate, and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.'" (Ezekiel 36:34-35)

When the Jews started returning to their homeland in the late 19th Century, it was a total wasteland. Nearly all the trees had been cut down and the soil was badly eroded. The land resembled a desert. Most of the valleys had become malaria-infested swamp lands. The Jewish pioneers began planting trees, reclaiming the soil, and draining the swamps. Today, Israel is the bread basket of the Middle East.

Another prophecy that has definitely been fulfilled in our times is the resurgence of the Israeli military. Zechariah 12:6 says that in the end times, God "will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples..."

The fulfillment of this prophecy can be seen today in the incredible military power of Israel. It is one of the world's smallest nations, yet it is ranked by all experts as one of the four top military powers in the world."

It isn’t me, honest

I found someone on the Internet with my name leaving comments at bars, restaurants and hotels about the quality of food and service over a two year period. She must be quite a traveller and loves to eat and party. I have no idea where Kalamaki or Zante-Town are, but she really likes to go there. Also, it’s not American English. And I wouldn’t order lamb or rabbit.

We drank here whilst we were on holiday in September. Staff very friendly. We had a breakfast here one morning and it was very nice. Hopefully we will see you the guys again in the future. Iguana Bar Kalamaki

After reading all the comments we were looking forward to eating here. What a disaster!! My husband had mousakka it was vry sloppy. I had grilled king prawns on a skewer looked very nice until I turned the skewer over and the prawns were burnt. I wanted to send the meals back but my husband did not want to make a fuss. Neadless to say we would not go back to this restaurant. Olive Tree Kalamaki

On our last visit to Kalamaki this was our favourite restaurant. Unfortunately things have changed. Frozen vegatables rather over grilled sword fish and very very dry Lamb Kleftico. Sorry we will not be eating here again. Zepos Kalamaki

We had disasterous meal here. The waiter could not speak good english and screwed up the order. Our main meals were ready before our starters arrived. So therefore the main meals were only aired. My son had Rabbit Stamas and it was full of bones. The location is lovely pity about the food. Village Inn Zante-Town

This is the real Norma, at our favorite date place, The Rusty Bucket, a sports bar in Upper Arlington. Not exotic--no prawns, rabbit or lamb on the menu--but I do love their Philly Cheese with fries and my husband loves Gary's 3-way.

Might this have been the source?

Apologists and victimologists are digging deep for accounts of discrimination and hostility toward Hasan for his faith. Could it be that he "started it?"

According to The Washington Post, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic during his senior year as a psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Instead, Hasan lectured his supervisors and two dozen mental health staff members on Islam, homicide bombings and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting against other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A source who attended the presentation told the paper, "It was really strange. The senior doctors looked really upset."

The Powerpoint, entitled, "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military," consisted of 50 slides, according to a copy obtained by the Post.

Why would you think fellow military and physicians should have quietly accepted his beliefs uncriticially?

I'm just asking. Because Hasan had access to returning military who may have needed counseling, was the long term damage and planted bombs he imposed on the military the advice and counsel he was allowed to give as his supervisors looked the other way? Is the Army so PC that no one suggested he was unfit to treat anyone, even himself?

You can do anything, but stay off of my Darwin!

Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron plan to give away 100,000 copies of a special edition of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" on 100 university campuses for the 150th anniversary of the book. Their book challenges the theory of evolution with a 50-page introduction that includes an overview of Darwin's life and presents a case for a universe created by God. [OMG--how shocking, just shocking!] Although I wouldn't expect this campaign to get many followers, or converts to Christianity, the vitriol and hysteria from their detractors are off the charts. Just google "Kirk Cameron Darwin" if you want to see how far we haven't evolved in terms of allowing someone with a different viewpoint freedom of expression. You can read the introduction at
Living Waters web site.

Someone once graciously said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” However, it seems that some contemporary atheists don’t share such honorable convictions. When they learned about this publication they threatened lawsuits, book burnings, and even censorship in vowing to tear the Introduction out of the book. If the Special Introduction has indeed been removed from this publication, you may view it freely on www.livingwaters.com to learn what some don’t want you to know.

It was Irish playwright and skeptic George Bernard Shaw who warned, “All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.” Ray Comfort