Nathan Glazer's Warning

I've expressed concern often at this blog about what government is doing to non-profits and church charities and outreach. Nathan Glazer warned that social policy often does more harm than good, and extends this to what happens when the government footprint squashes local charities.

Just as families and buildings risk harm from social policy, so too do nonprofit social-services organizations. In The Limits of Social, Policy

Glazer makes clear that the sort of marriage between government and nonprofits that the Obama White House is pursuing may fundamentally change what makes the helping organizations of civil society so great. As an example, he points to the Meals on Wheels programs that bring food to elderly shut-ins. These programs were effective and cheap back when local charities ran them on their own. “They are small, they rely on volunteers to cook and deliver the meals (often using their own cars and their own gasoline), they are sponsored by churches and other voluntary organizations, they depend on local contributions for the cost of food and whatever paid staff they use, they generally charge for the meals but provide them free for those who cannot afford to pay. All in all, a useful and economic service.”

But then Congress voted to provide federal assistance to the programs. The result was a “host of potential difficulties,” including requirements “that each service must provide more than one hundred meals daily, that they provide auxiliary social services to meals recipients, that they cooperate with area-wide comprehensive planning services for the elderly, that they train their staffs and send them to seminars provided by the Administration on Aging, . . . that they have full-time directors.” Glazer’s concluding reflection can be applied to other programs as well: “When one realizes that meals-on-wheels programs are small, use volunteers, are unacquainted with elaborate paperwork and regulations involved in qualifying for federal assistance, one sees the difficulties they will have in satisfying government regulations and in also remaining who they are.” Government’s seemingly benign endeavor to extend the reach of local social programs, then, is deeply hazardous.

Nathan Glazer's Warning by Howard Husock, City Journal Summer 2011

But in addition, churches that take government money are then stifled in their primary responsibility--providing the Gospel to the needy. Who is it that tries to stop the Gospel?

Obama's accomplishment?

I was just reading through a long list of Obama's accomplishments in an e-mail--someone must have taken them off a White House web site, so I just picked one to check--increase in military housing, which led me to the new GI bill. And here's what I found at the Military.com website:

"In July of 2008 the Post-9/11 GI Bill was signed into law, creating a new robust education benefits program rivaling the WWII Era GI Bill of Rights. The new Post 9/11 GI Bill, which goes into effect on August 1, 2009, will provide education benefits for servicemembers who have served on active duty for 90 or more days since Sept. 10, 2001. These benefits are tiered based on the number of days served on active duty, creating a benefit package that gives current and previously activated National Guard and Reserve members the same benefits as active duty servicemembers."

So yes, it went into effect under Obama, but it was signed into law under Bush, and knowing how long these things take, who knows how long it was in the hopper.

The Role of Carbon Dioxide During the Onset of Antarctic Glaciation

Summary:

Earth’s modern climate, characterized by polar ice sheets and large equator-to-pole temperature gradients, is rooted in environmental changes that promoted Antarctic glaciation ~33.7 million years ago. Onset of Antarctic glaciation reflects a critical tipping point for Earth’s climate and provides a framework for investigating the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during major climatic change. Previously published records of alkenone-based CO2 from high- and low-latitude ocean localities suggested that CO2 increased during glaciation, in contradiction to theory. Here, we further investigate alkenone records and demonstrate that Antarctic and subantarctic data overestimate atmospheric CO2 levels, biasing long-term trends. Our results show that CO2 declined before and during Antarctic glaciation and support a substantial CO2 decrease as the primary agent forcing Antarctic glaciation, consistent with model-derived CO2 thresholds.


The Role of Carbon Dioxide During the Onset of Antarctic Glaciation

Monday Memories--I was a stranger and you invited me in

After Dad returned from the service after WWII he was assigned a new territory by Standard Oil, and he moved our family to Forreston, Illinois in 1946. Poor Mom! Housing was scarce and the old farm house Dad bought didn’t have a bathroom and the indoor water was a pump in the kitchen. I was only 6 and thought it was a great adventure--horses in the pasture next door, a new puppy, a different school and new friends.

Our next door neighbor, Helen Vietmeier, was beautiful, kind, gentle and soft spoken. Her family lived in a lovely home where I often visited and played. Although I didn’t usually call adults by their first name, she was always Helen to me which is what her lovely teen-age daughters Doris and Betty Jo called her. Helen reached out to the strangers in that shabby house and invited our family to the Lutheran church, one of three Protestant churches in the town of 1,000 settled by Germans in the 1850s.

Although we were members of the Church of the Brethren 15 miles away in Mt. Morris and remained “visitors” the five years we attended, we children participated in everything--choir, Bible school, Sunday School, plays for special events like Mother’s Day and Christmas pageants, and those wonderful Lutheran pot lucks. Because we were so young, we effortlessly learned the liturgy, difficult hymns, the creed and the Lord’s Prayer through regular Sunday attendance. When I didn’t understand Pastor Hersch’s sermons I would look at the amazing stained glass windows for which 19th century members had sacrificed. My sisters and I were all baptised in our former church, and they also attended confirmation classes at the Lutheran church. My oldest sister began her career as a church musician on the organ at little Faith Lutheran. We returned to our home community and church in 1951 after Dad owned his own business, and I didn’t see Helen again until my mother’s funeral almost 50 years later.

In 1975 we’d been living in Upper Arlington for 8 years. I heard about a speaker who was going to be at Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, so I decided to attend. I was a stranger and didn‘t know anyone, but I sat next to Dottie Wharton who invited me to attend services with her and a neighborhood Bible study at Denise Kern’s home. About a year later on Palm Sunday 1976, we were confirmed by Luther Strommen and joined UALC. I felt right at home.

Praise God for believers who reach out to strangers to extend a welcome and the Gospel. And praise God that the stranger is being Christ to the believer.

AmeriCorps to help classroom teachers teach service

This seems odd to me. I saw an article in the local paper that an AmeriCorps staffer trained by "Partnerships make a difference" is working with our local teachers to incorporate service activities into lesson plans. Hmmm. We have tax supported colleges to train taxpayer paid teachers to work in tax supported schools. Our public school teachers with years of training and experience need additional tax supported college kids still finding their own career path to teach the teachers about "service?"

Service to our community and neighbor is a component of most religions, and if we can't let the Bible, which teaches the importance of service as a result of faith, into the classroom, isn't this just backdoor religious instruction?

So I looked up "Partnerships make a difference" and it turned out to be an OSU 501(c)3, a "non-profit" that gets government and private grants to exist. Locally, service projects are required in order to graduate, and they are important on college applications.

Here's an idea--one I've had for a decade. The teen-agers in Upper Arlington park on Northwest Blvd and walk 2-3 blocks to the highschool. This makes it impossible for the older people who live in those four-family units to shovel the snow in the winter, especially if the plows have been by and buried their sidewalks and driveways. Have each teen keep a shovel in his/her car, and before rushing off at the last minute, they could shovel 5 or 10 ft of sidewalk and driveway for the families they are blocking.

Going after Newt with the G-Word

Notice how liberals always bring up the scary G-word? And I don't mean God.

"On Wednesday night, Candance Gingrich-Jones, the openly gay half-sister of GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, appeared on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show and endorsed President Barack Obama."

They do that hoping to defeat Republicans who might be supporters of Newt, who didn't reject a family member who was gay. That's how narrow they are and how little they know about Republicans, who love their gay relatives, some of whom are also Republicans. They've got one finger pointing out and three pointing toward themselves for hypocrisy, devisiveness, and fear mongering.

Latest issue of Edible Columbus is free

Edible Columbus issue 8 (Winter 2011) is complimentary and available at a number of local stores. I got mine at Giant Eagle. I met the publisher and editor-in-chief, Tricia Wheeler, about 2 years ago when we sat next to each other at Panera's and I notice she had a mock-up of Issue 1 (I collect first issues). We talked about the concept (buying and eating locally), and when we said good-bye, she asked me my name. I told her, and she said, "We live in your house!" They had purchased our home of 34 years from the people we sold it to.

The First Amendment puts limits on Congress, not us!

One of the reasons for the First Amendent's guarantee of religious freedom (Congress couldn't establish a religion and couldn't prohibit the free exercise of religion) being listed first was the power in some of the colonies of some established churches, particularly the Congregationalists and the Anglicans. They had become fat, lazy and rich through taxing everyone for a state church. Doing something frivolous on Sunday could get you mobbed, or thrown in jail. The American colonies which became the 13 states had many, many denominations and sects--Dunkards and Mennonites (my background), Presbyterians and all sorts of Dutch and English Calvinist groups, German Lutherans (my current church but with the Scandivanians mixed in), Quakers, Moravians, French Huguenots, Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Jews. New York alone had 12 different denominations.

These "dissenters" wanted to be free of the taxes and wanted to preach their own faith from the pulpits (many states had state-paid ministers). The first amendment was added to the Constitution in "The Bill Rights" and was intended to stop government supported sects, not to create a wall of separation and have religion (more specifically Christianity) removed from the public square, as our Supreme Court has done for the last 50 years.

Now we have a federal government hostile to religion (primarily any group respecting The Bible) with many state and local governments following along. Instead of Christianity, a religion, it promotes "spirituality" in environmentalism, multiculturalism, greenish-Gore climate protection programs, humanism, progressivism (the core of socialism), feminism, and globalism. "Spirituality" is very subjective and has no outside standard of truth, with the result that adherents soon become coersive and demand compliance to their version of truth, the very principles the First Amendment was supposed to prevent.

Sustainability and Stewardship are not synonyms!

Stewardship is a Biblical and spiritual principle--God created the world, he is the owner and appointed man to be a manager of his creation, a job for which he must give an accounting (Luke 12:42; 16:2; I Cor. 4:2). There are numerous Biblical stories about responsible servants and house/estate managers. The concept of stewardship affirms that God retains his sovereignty and that his creation is good and applies in all areas of life.

Sustain as a verb (to prop up, to maintain, to cause to continue, to endure) has a very different connotation than steward (to manage, to supervise, to control). In English, a very flexible, innovative language, you can make a verb into a noun by adding suffixes such as -ship or -ability or -ment. However, sustainability is not in my Webster's 2nd International (1948) nor my Webster's Collegiate 9th (1983)--so it developed sometime after the first Earth Day (1970), our most recent return to pagan goddess worship.

In contrast to God's revealed "creation is good" in Genesis, other religions treat the material world as bad and dark, always in conflict with the light, and it's up to humans to either rise above it through altered states (meditation), or redeem it.

In my opinion, as an ethical concept sustainability is an unruly teenage noun dressed in the latest fad fashion with tattoos and nose rings, chasing and teasing the much older and wiser noun, stewardship. It's an orphan who reports to no higher power, certainly not to our Father God, a newcomer who loves to hang out in pagan temples with secular and mystical spiritual leaders.

Think of it this way if the above is too esoteric. If you have a pension, do you want it to endure and run on the lowest level of maintenance, flat lining on life support with infusions from all cultures and governments around the globe, or do you want it to thrive with sound management and control in a market economy guided by the God of the Bible?

"Selfless Audacity" Means Creating a Sustainable Not-a-Business Model

Since librarians as a group are already 223:1 liberal to conservative, what do you suppose "selfless audacity" means in the publishing field? Libraries will not only be selecting (purchasing) the book, but publishing them. Will any conservative title see the light of day or ever make it to the library shelves?

"Selfless Audacity" Means Creating a Sustainable Not-a-Business Model | Peer to Peer Review

Conestoga Christmas program

Last night our Conestoga group (Friends of the Ohio Historical Society) met at Saint Joseph Cathedral, 212 East Broad St., Columbus, for a wonderful dinner, tour of the building and an organ concert. I couldn't begin to describe the beauty of the organ, which took two years to build, and the fabulous concert performed by Cathedral Director of Music, Paul Thornock. There is a series called "Cathedral Concerts," and the next one will be Sunday, December 11, at 3:00 p.m., for Lessons and Carols for Advent and Christmas.

Some Christian books have no Gospel (good news)

This drives me crazy. My husband says I'm fighting a losing battle, he's heard me say it so often. Gospel-free Christian books. Christian "how to" books that are longer than the New Testament. Like Willow Creek's book on "Leading life changing small groups." Lots of mnemonic devices like: Mission statement--mandate, method, model, mechanism, means. Discipleship--Grace, growth, group, gifts, good stewardship. Leadership--Love, learn, lead. Chapters on structure, on leadership, on personal growth, group life, crisis care, and resources. What's missing? The Gospel.

No one was better at making lists, giving tips, and admonishing the slackers than Paul, who basically structured the Christian church after the resurrection of Jesus. But he also began with the basic gospel before he launched his topic so they were all on the same page and had the correct foundation.

I've checked the website, and there is a 2007 revised edition--the one in hand is 1996. However, it's virtually impossible to tell the good news, without the bad--sin and God's wrath. And modern day evangelicals think it's unkind or harmful to point out sin. Therefore, they have nothing to offer except a mechanical list of rules to follow to change or modify behavior.

Monday Memories--Christmas in the 1940s

When I remember Christmas 1944, I'm aware that at that time, I remembered Christmas back in Illinois and I knew it was different, but 1944 is really the earliest clear memory. In 1944 Mother had moved her family of four little children in a 1939 Ford to a foreign land filled with people of many ethnicities and strange customs--California. It even smelled funny to me--Alameda and Oakland--you could smell the Bay and the ocean. My father was in the U.S. Marines and the country was at war.

On the one hand, it was a scary time for a little child, but on the other, it was fascinating. Ribbons of highway, miles and miles of flat land, eating in restaurants, sleeping in camps, strange bugs and animals, mountains, desert, the great Salt Lake, picking up hitch hiking soldiers to help with the driving, and always our strong Mother who seemed to have everything under control (but who was only 32 and had probably never driven outside of a few counties in Illinois.

We lived in a stucco ranch house in Alameda. We went to school with children of many types--Filipinos, Chinese, black, Oakies and Arkies, visited local sites like the San Diego Zoo (although that's certainly not close to Alameda--maybe it was San Francisco), and played with neighborhood friends. I can't remember a Christmas tree in that house, but I suppose we had one. I do remember Christmas caroling in the fog--that's how I know I had memories then of earlier Christmases--because I remember thinking how odd we didn't have snow. I recall going to a community gym where I think we had church, and hearing a group sing "White Christmas," which in those days, was a "new" anthem of nostalgia. Somewhere in the mix my mother's brother Clare was killed in China and my father shipped out so our reason for being there was over.

Dad came home when the war was over (to our house in Illinois) shortly before Christmas 1945--I seem to remember an announcement that he would be home for Christmas. What I remember are the glorious presents Mom had wrapped--and I do remember that tree and the excitement. A doll house and a sled--to be shared by all--but it seemed to me that she must have "broken the bank," and indeed, 30 years later my daughter and all her cousins had played with that same 2 story doll house in mother's basement--having been "redecorated" many times.

For Christmas 1946 we must have been in Forreston in the little farm house that didn't have a bathroom until Mother installed it, because I remember receiving my first Bible, a KJV which I still have. I think I remember going back to Mt. Morris and possibly Franklin Grove to have dinner and presents with my grandparents, but we did that many years, so I've sort of put those memories through a blender and filter. We were attending Faith Lutheran Church so it's possible we were in a Christmas pageant. We weren't Lutherans, but that church took us in and made us feel welcome.

Norma in 1946
By Christmas 1947 we had moved to a lovely 4 bedroom brick house with a big porch and yard. We girls all had paper routes, and it seems to me the snow was very deep. Christmas 1947 meant spending hours near the tree with my brother, shaking and handling presents, trying to guess what might be in them. The tree was real, and I recall some of the ornaments were Disney characters. I remember clothes hand made for my dolls from scraps left from the dresses Mom made for me. I still have some of them. The four of us sang in a quartet for community groups with my oldest sister the accompanist--Frosty the Snowman, Winter Wonderland and White Christmas. I don't think we had a lot of talent, but the Cuteness meter was off the charts, especially with my charming little brother.

At Christmas time at the Forreston school which contained all 12 grades, all the classes would gather in the hall and the principal, John I. Masterson, would read the Christmas story from the Bible--the Luke passage. As one of the younger students, I thought being together with the high school students was more awesome than the actual celebration.

Good times, good memories, thanks for reading.

World's Shortest Books--a list going around

MY BLACK GIRLFRIENDS
By Tiger Woods
________________________________________

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY COUNTRY
By Jane Fonda & Cindy Sheehan
Illustrated by Michael Moore
Foreword by George Soros
________________________________________

MY CHRISTIAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS
& HOW I HELPED AFTER KATRINA
By Rev Jesse Jackson & Rev Al Sharpton
______________________________________


THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
By Hillary Clinton
_________________

Sequel: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HILLARY
By Bill Clinton
_________________

THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD
By Bill Gates
____________________________________

THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY
By Dennis Rodman
_________________________________
THINGS WE KNOW TO BE TRUE
By Al Gore & John Kerry
_____________________________________
GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC
By Amelia Earhart
____________________________________

HOW TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST
By Dr. Jack Kevorkian
__________________________________
TO ALL THE MEN WE HAVE LOVED BEFORE
By Ellen de Generes & Rosie O'Donnell
__________________
GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE
By Mike Tyson
__________________________________
THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY

_______________________________________
MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS
By O. J. Simpson
_______________________________________

HOW TO DRINK & DRIVE SAFELY
By Ted Kennedy
_________

MY BOOK OF MORALS
By Bill Clinton
With introduction by
The Rev. Jesse Jackson
and forward by
Tiger Woods with John Edwards
_______________________________________________

HOW TO WIN A SUPERBOWL
BY THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS
_______________________________________________
AND, JUST ADDED:

My Complete Knowledge of Military Strategy
By Nancy Pelosi
_______________________________________________
And the shortest book of them all.........

THINGS I DID TO DESERVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
by Barack Obama
------------------
HT Kay Ferris

Have a blessed Christmas and a joyful New Year

If you're a Christian and grumpy that the signs at the stores all say, Happy Holiday, keep in mind you still have the freedom to greet people any way you wish!

"Jesus loves you--happy Christmas."

"Have a blessed holiday with your family."

"May the New Year bring you blessings from God."

"God bless you for your help."

"I'm really enjoying the Christmas music in your store."

And so forth. No one can steal your joy unless you hand it over.

Former SEIU Boss Andy Stern Becomes Albatross then gets a Columbia appointment

I noticed that Andy Stern, former boss of SEIU, and frequent visitor at the White House and Obama confidant had been appointed to a faculty position at Columbia, Senior Fellow for the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, an interdisciplinary academic center jointly administered by Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School.

I thought that was odd since I had a vague recollection he'd had some legal problems--does that make him qualified for a position with a pricey Law School? Then I found out that just a month before his Columbia appointment he'd been declared an albatross by Publius Forum. They were certainly wrong about that!

Former SEIU Boss Andy Stern Becomes Albatross « Publius Forum

I stopped donating to the University of Illinois because of Bill Ayers being on the Chicago campus--each time I'd get a request I scribble a note across and mail it back. I think Columbis graduates should do likewise.

This should be fun!

A friend has given me her book manuscript to read--world history. Will be a challenge. I'd learned a lot just reading the forward. I can tell we have different ideas for adverbs, but I think that's just writing style.

Before the Closer, we enjoyed Moonlighting with Bruce Willis

Moonlighting was Bruce Willis' first really big break with Cybil Shepherd. Then he married Demi Moore and they have 3 daughters, all with very odd names. He remarried about 2 years ago. I don't follow his movies, maybe he needs the money. Lots of people have been hurt by the reession.

As was reported earlier in the week by various celebrity real estate gossips, Golden Globe and Emmy winning actor/action star Bruce Willis listed one of his many properties in the rural and rugged mountains of Hailey, ID with an asking price of $15,000,000.

The Real Estalker: Is Bruce Willis Bailing on Hailey?

Compensation Report for Architects

"Payroll employment at U.S. architecture firms was in excess of 240,000 at the end of 2007. By the end of 2010, firm employment levels fell to under 156,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, producing more than a 25 percent decline in payroll positions over this period." But strangely enough, compensation is up for the industry. "Architecture compensation increased 32 percent between early 2002 and early 2011, compared to 27 percent for all professional and related staff in the economy, and 25 percent for all private workers. Architect compensation increased faster than economy-wide compensation during the period of strong economic growth between 2005 and 2008, but slower during the economic downturn. . ."

The American Institute of Architects - AIA Compensation Report, Economics

Olive and Obama on Iran violence

My Mom (d. 2000) would have voted for Barack Obama--she and Dad (married 65 years) always crossed out each others votes. Mom also didn't spank us when we misbehaved. She would have said, "I'm deeply disturbed by your behavior," and given us "the look" or lectured us about our responsibility. Sometimes, we wished she would just spank us and forget the lectures. Thought about that today hearing Obama's "harsh" criticism of Iran. What a wuss--even though I think he's invaded without Congressional approval three countries.

Obama faults Iran for British Embassy violence