Christians are disappearing from Islamic countries

Megamosques are in the news, but ordinary mosques should raise some questions too. In the past few decades, thousands of mosques have been built in post Christian Europe--France, Germany, England--and in Christian America and Australia. But I wonder how often a Christian church is being built in a Moslem country? I think we'd hear about it. I did hear on the radio the last Christian church was closed in Afghanistan (our ally?). With the Arab Spring, with support from our own President who praised it, Christians have been sent into hiding, have lost jobs, or have had to immigrate. At one time when Jesus first commanded his disciples to "GO" there were Christian cultures in Turkey, Syria, Egypt--in fact, that part of the world was Christian a thousand years before Scandinavia.

We have a President who was raised a Muslim, who converted to Christianity in a church (UCC, Rev. Wright, Chicago) where hatred for whites, Western Civilization and the United States was preached. He says he didn't notice--but maybe he just didn't attend that often. In any case, President Obama says we are not a Christian nation. Being a nation that doesn't demand its citizens attend a Baptist or Presbyterian or Catholic church must be what he means--it's what allows Muslims, Bahai, Jews, and Wiccans to pursue their spiritual needs.

In the past, our Presidents have had a "bully pulpit" for human and religious rights. With his "multicultural" past and his attempts to reduce our own religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, any words of warning to despots and monarchs can be laughed away. "Human rights" and "religious freedom" in Muslim countries are terms defined by Sharia Law, not ours. The July 30 report by Secretary of State Clinton must be viewed with the August 1 HHS Mandate currently being fought by Catholics and many other Christian groups in mind.

We’ve been down this road before—with FDR

Perhaps you believe Rush and Beck are just alarmists about the Muslims in the White House even if maybe backing the Arab Spring wasn’t such a good idea.  Ok, so maybe thousands are being slaughtered by the guys BO supported.   After all, the progressives (Democrats, Socialists, media) all say there is no problem or we shouldn’t expect their version of democracy to look like ours. But remember, that's what Communist sympathizers in the press and government said about Stalin and the USSR too in the 1930s, when FDR reigned and Ukrainians were dying at 25,000 a day from starvation.

As one of the best known correspondents in the world for one of the best known newspapers in the world, Mr. Duranty's denial that there was a famine was accepted as gospel. Thus Mr. Duranty gulled not only the readers of the New York Times but because of the newspaper's prestige, he influenced the thinking of countless thousands of other readers about the character of Josef Stalin and the Soviet regime. And he certainly influenced the newly-elected President Roosevelt to recognize the Soviet Union.

What is so awful about Duranty is that Times top brass suspected that Duranty was writing Stalinist propaganda, but did nothing. In her exposé "Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty, the New York Times's man in Moscow," S.J. Taylor makes it clear that Carr Van Anda, the managing editor, Frederick T. Birchall, an assistant managing editor, and Edwin L. James, the later managing editor, were troubled with Duranty's Moscow reporting but did nothing about it. Birchall recommended that Duranty be replaced but, says Taylor, "the recommendation fell by the wayside."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/791vwuaz.asp

And still there are Democrats who trust him to lead

Contraception as a health issue for women

In 1955 the famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey said, “. . . we have found the highest frequency of induced abortion in the group, which in general, most frequently used contraceptives.”  Alan Guttmacher, for whom the research wing of Planned Parenthood of America is named said, “. . . there is no scientific evidence that increased availability of contraceptive services will clearly result in a decreased abortion rate.”  Keep in mind, this was before the pill, before legal abortion.  And nothing has changed.  Statistics kept today at PP show that half of the women using abortion services have been using contraception. And we’re having one million abortions a year, and for blacks it’s over 40% of the pregnancies are ending in abortion.  It explains how Planned Parenthood guarantees repeat customers, since even teen girls after their 2nd or 3rd abortion are given contraception after their procedure to destroy the baby.

Citation:  Abortion in the United States (New York: Harper and Row, 1958),  pp 157, 182.

So by requiring that all employers, including religious institutions that are against both contraception and abortion, provide for contraceptives in their insurance plans in the HHS Mandate of Obamacare, our misguided president is not preventing unwanted pregnancies,but encouraging them, and then calling the result “health services for women.”  It’s a 2-fer—hurts women and hurts blacks.

Was he homophobic and hateful in 2008?

In 2008 Barack Obama ran on a “traditional values” and “one man one woman marriage” plank in his leftist platform.  For people who didn’t read his books or weren’t stampeding because of his Marxist friends and views, this was a good ploy.  But he dropped it last year, and came out.  Now, those of us who didn’t flip flop on marriage are being called intolerant by gay activists (Shep Smith on Fox News) and bigots and hateful (have you seen the YouTube of the sweet CFO  who harassed a poor clerk at Chick-fil-A when he drove through for free water?).  So what happened between 2008 and 2012?  Well, Obama’s leftist base was getting cranky and threatening not to support him.  So the marriage views, held by reasonable people for thousands of years, had to go.

Political ads--Ohio is a swamp

Team Obama has spent $131 million on TV ads in the last 3 months to tell us he hasn't done what he has done, didn't say what we all heard him say, and that he has done what he hasn't done. The blacks won't desert him--about 90% will vote for him despite their record high unemployment during his reign. Unions are replenishing his coffers, even though about 1/2 of their members are Republicans. He expands the wars he challenged during the Bush years to keep us in a state of panic. Women are still looking for a sugar daddy, and so his support is strong there. The river of white guilt runs shallow and wide, so a lot of Democrats stubbornly hang in with him. He's fighting cleaning up the voter rolls, so the dead are still in his corner. That leaves only the undecided to watch those expensive ads. People who don't know what they believe or why. That's who is choosing our next president

Friday family photo—exercise class

My husband left his partnership at Feinknopf, Maccioci and Schappa located in downtown Columbus in 1994 and became a sole practitioner with me as his only staff.  We borrowed a small computer from a friend for billing and specs, and purchased a copier and fax (still using them), and everything else was in his head and hands. Eventually, as his business grew, he moved it from his art studio off the master bedroom to our family room which had an outside entrance for clients.  It was an interesting and exciting time for us. He used to tell people, “The kids left home, Norma got tenure, and the cat died.”  So it seemed a safe time to do something he’d always wanted to do—be in charge from the beginning.  Even so, it seemed unrealistic to expect we’d ever have the income he had as an owner of a successful, larger firm.  Having health coverage on my plan was a huge benefit, of course,  and he arranged for a buy out of his stock in the company to run over several years to give us a small cash flow.  I worked out a cash only budget  and being able to cut our spending (and credit cards) wasn’t hard with just the 2 of us. I simply stopped going to retail stores and reading ads.  We already had everything we needed.  What he didn’t have was an exercise group which he enjoyed on his lunch hour down town at the YMCA. He was part of the PULSE (forgotten what it stands for) instructors and really enjoyed it.  I mentioned to him that there was a morning class at our church, UALC, and he could check into that.  A women’s exercise class?  Oh horrors.  But he did join it, and loved it, and the women loved him.  It was a huge group that also had evening classes.  Over the years as the organizers and original members went back to work or into retirement homes or moved away, the group dwindled and he gradually took on first substituting for instructors, then becoming one, then managing the group. Today we (I joined a few years ago) are a group of 10-15 if every comes, and sometimes “alumni” show up if they are on holiday, or are between jobs.  We currently have three instructors, all from the class, and he subs if one of them goes to India (Rita) or Poland (Christine), or has a busy season at work (Molly). By mid-June we close for the summer, and this year got together at Christine’s home for a brunch and to see photos of her recent trip.

                                          

Marriage--what's your excuse?

It used to be that if you said the word "marriage" people knew what the word meant. It was a state and church recognized contract between one man and one woman. For thousands of years and in all sorts of religions and cultures from primitive stone age and idol worshipers to Lutheran mergers in the USA it was understood that in order for there to be a solid family, the bedrock of all society, there had to be a recognized contract between a man and woman and the governing authority, whether the village elder, the king, or the state. Occasionally polygamy was recognized, (still is for some Muslims), but that too is for protection of the family unit and ultimately the state. Even those societies that encouraged or winked at relations among homosexuals, like ancient Greece or decadent Pompeii, never gave them the stamp of state or society approval of marriage.

These days you have to qualify the word marriage with the word, "traditional," if you mean that relational contract between a couple and the state. And if you own a business, it's not enough that you are a fair and just employer and you hire, train and promote people of all genders, faiths, and ethnicities--you must also contribute money only to those organization that support "non-traditional marriage." Like Chick-fil-a, a restaurant whose product I've never used, but will have to check out.

That said, we conservatives, Christians or otherwise, should be ashamed to target proponents of gay marriage as our marriage problem! We messed that up all by ourselves. Homosexuals didn't send the divorce rate soaring; they didn't invent the trophy wife or annulments; they aren't dropping babies to be raised by the state on welfare and Medicaid; if they are shacking up without our blessings, it's because the state and the church haven't an alternative for them.

No Ordinary Time--FDR and Eleanor on the home front

Our September book club selection is No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about FDR and Eleanor and the WWII White House. I'm slogging through it, but I didn't like FDR much before, and like him even less now. He extended the Depression by a decade, and then after rescinding the failed programs by 1943 since the war created full time employment, he relaunched his socialist dreams in 1944 (at least that's where I am now). And Eleanor's fertile mind an energy seemed behind much of what he did. But the author is a masterful and excellent writer and researcher. She definitely deserved the Pulitzer for the amount of detail she pulled together to recreate what seems like a minute by minute account of those years.

A Cuban freedom lover living in New York

On Facebook there is a page called “Humans of New York” with photos of odd, interesting, and fashionable people.  Sometimes there is a brief explanation, sometimes a whole story.

                                 

A couple weeks ago, I posted this photo with this caption:

"He barely spoke any English. But I did gather that he'd recently moved from Cuba, and had come to America for "La Libertad."

After seeing the post, the man sought the services of a translator in order to fully express his story. Here is the version that showed up my inbox today:

"This is my story and it’s real. I was born in the humble town of Central Guatemala on the Island of Cuba after Castro's revolutionary triumph. I have been living in exile in the USA for the past 3 years. I come from a very beautiful and united family. I miss and love my family immensely. I never stop thinking about them, not even for an instant. Despite living here in America I still worry about their well-being and day-to-day necessities.

My mother, who is the most precious person in my world, is battling cancer. Not being able to see her face-to-face and tell her how much I love her deeply hurts me. Due to Castro's cruel dictatorship, however, living in America means that my entry into Cuba is not permitted. As such, it’s not possible for me to see my mother, to hug her, and to tell her how much I miss her. I am afraid that I may never see my mother again.

Being a professional sportsman gave me the opportunity to represent Cuba in a workshop in Venezuela named ‘Barrio Adentro Deportivo’, which is one of the methods used by the Cuban regime to portray Castro's dictatorship as benevolent. Many of us are ‘selected’ to go abroad using coercion, deceit and threats. If you refuse to go, the regime degrades your economic and social status. Some Cubans opt to follow this charade and use it as a means to improve their social and financial status. Others, like me, decide to use it as a gateway and potential escape to a better life.

Migrating to a new country has been a very difficult experience, as it has been for many other Cubans who, like me, made the decision to leave Cuba to be embraced by this and other nations. These adopting countries have given many of us their support and solidarity because they are aware of the suffering we have experienced in leaving behind our families, friends, culture and, often, our hearts. Many of us have risked our lives fleeing through the borders of several nations in search of liberty. It is shameful and painful, but nevertheless true, that many Cubans have to face such calamities in order to achieve a right that The Creator has given to all humanity: the right to freedom."

Wow.  What a message.  I wish our President and Senate would read this! Thank you, young man for reminding us.

The cost of medical care?

How many times have I heard in my adult years that our health care is the most expensive in the world, but with only mediocre results?  However, have you ever seen the research?  Does that include over the counter?  Supplements? Exercise club memberships? Insurance policies that cover tattoo removal? Does that include everyone in the census (people) or citizens? Does it include the profit insurance companies make or the dividends investors (retirees like me) get in their 401-Ks?  Pelosi thinks welfare payments and unemployment benefits actually provide a return to the economy.  Don’t health care costs?

What is known for sure, is that today the Health and Human Services mandate of Obamacare goes into effect.  This we know is a violation of the First Amendment freedom of religion clause. This, if it takes place, will enormously raise your health costs because it will put the Roman Catholic church out of the health care and social services business—or so they (the U.S. Bishops) have promised.  Obama thinks the Catholics should be like the Amish, who have religious freedom because they take are only of their own.   The Catholic church is the largest provider of social services in the United States.  Even Catholics who are poo-pooing this because they use contraceptives and see no big deal, don’t seem to realize that this camel’s nose is way inside the tent, and soon Catholics will be scooping out the dung that will include insurance coverage for abortions, gay couples, and other things coming down the “choice” pike like incest, polygamy and man boy love.

What is also known is that to the three biggest government health systems we have, the VA, Medicare and Medicaid, are riddled with waste, cost overruns and fraud, and there is no reason to think Obamacare will be different. A recent issue of JAMA includes a story about dual billing of VA for Medicare Advantage—to the tune of about $13 billion.  Now if the feds can’t track its own veterans which is a much smaller population than the entire country, why do they think they can follow the rest of us. Obama is simply shifting costs to the states, which are mandated to balance their budgets, which he isn’t. 

This man is so bad, so evil, and so statist, that our only hope is to vote him out before he completely destroys our country.

John Wesley’s advice for singing our national anthem

Actually, Wesley, one of the most famous hymn writers of all times had never heard the Star Spangled Banner strangled as we’ve heard recently at the Olympics and at various sporting events. . . But, he did give “Directions for Singing” in his 1761 preface to Sacred Melody, and some apply to our difficult national anthem and the screeching and yodeling we sometimes hear as performers attempt to stamp it with their own interpretation.  And here are a few tips:

1.  Learn these tunes before you learn any other; afterwards learn as many as you please.

2.  Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.

3. Join with the congregation

4. Sing lustily and with good courage.  Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice wit strength. . .

5.  Sing modestly.  Do not bawl . . .

6. Sing in time. . . Do not run before nor stay behind it. . .

7. Above all sing spiritually.  Have an eye to God in every word you sing.  Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. . .

Forward

Obama's mail to Chicago come January, 2013.

Closing out the closer with half price goods

I'm so disappointed in this season's Closer, TNT's award winning program now in its 7th season. Last night's tired old, anti-Catholic scripts that has been done on dozens of shows; predictable group think and talk; Kyra is a caricature of Brenda; and last night's episode wasn't a cliff hanger, it was over the cliff. Maybe they've brought out all the reserve team writers and directors for this season, so we won't miss it when Major Crimes begins immediately after its death. They shouldn't have waited so long to end it. . .

TV writers are not so clever about their anti-Christian bias, if you watch a series for any length of time. All the boogey men and rumors and myths are brought out in the story, then the priest, minister, pastor, etc. are absolved in the end, but the seeds of suspicion and hate have been firmly planted. This also happens on Bones and Law and Order. But Muslims--they are not treated this way. They are usually the victims of prejudice in the story line by unnamed bigoted groups. All the Closer team was going along with the theme--a murdered priest had been a child molester, the church was doing a massive cover up--but he was completely innocent and had been killed by someone whose confession he had heard. Closer also has a strong anti-Mexican theme in many stories and with blatant stereotyping, but allow the one Hispanic character (whose Spanish sounds about as good as mine) on the show always has to interpret the church to the rest of the crew.

Once upon a time, you were an embryo

 

Monday Memories—wringer washer at our 2nd apartment

Or maybe it was our third apartment.  It was on Third Street, in Champaign, Illinois.  I think it was called Harvard Apartments.  I was living in a rented room at Maude Peter’s home in Urbana so I could do my student teaching at Urbana High School (in Spanish), and Bob was finishing a class in Indianapolis living with the Moir family in the Spring of 1961.  We’d been married less than a year and were already “separated” by circumstances.  So we probably moved in shortly before I graduated—I have photos taken at the apartment of me in my cap and gown.  Anyway, there was a wringer washer in the basement (we lived on the third floor) for the tenants.  As I recall, it was 25 cents a load; for that you got wash and wring, and if you were really quick, you could get er done.  Fortunately, I’d helped with the wringer washer my mom had before 1953, so I knew how to use one. After our son Stanley was born, it was really important, because trying to boil diapers on the kitchen stove and wring them out, and dry them on a rack, was a lot more work.

 

                                                      

Mitt Romney in Jerusalem

"Let me turn from Iran to other nations in the Middle East, where we have seen rising tumult and chaos. To the north, Syria is on the brink of a civil war. The dictator in Damascus, no friend to Israel and no friend to America, slaughters his own people as he desperately clings to power.

... Your other neighbor to the north, Lebanon, is under the growing and dangerous influence of Hezbollah.
After a year of upheaval and unrest, Egypt now has an Islamist President, chosen in a democratic election. Hopefully, this new government understands that one true measure of democracy is how those elected by the majority respect the rights of those in the minority. The international community must use its considerable influence to ensure that the new government honors the peace agreement with Israel that was signed by the government of Anwar Sadat.

As you know only too well, since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, thousands of rockets have rained on Israeli homes and cities. I have walked on the streets of Sderot, and honor the resolve of its people. And now, new attacks have been launched from the Sinai Peninsula.

With Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel from the north, and Hamas rockets aimed from the south, with much of the Middle East in tumult, and with Iran bent on nuclear arms, America’s vocal and demonstrated commitment to the defense of Israel is even more critical. Whenever the security of Israel is most in doubt, America’s commitment to Israel must be most secure.

When the decision was before him in 1948, President Harry Truman decided without hesitation that the United States would be the first country to recognize the State of Israel. From that moment to this, we have been the most natural of allies, but our alliance runs deeper than the designs of strategy or the weighing of interests.

The story of how America – a nation still so new to the world by the standards of this ancient region – rose up to become the dear friend of the people of Israel is among the finest and most hopeful in our nation’s history.
Different as our paths have been, we see the same qualities in one another. Israel and America are in many respects reflections of one another." - Mitt Romney in Jerusalem

Making the legal seem illegal

I receive a weekly digest from the U.S. Treasury Dept. (although it seems not that often) and today it was about FATCA, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act  --an act passed by the Obama Administration in 2010. A little late for Timmy Geithner, though.

"FATCA was enacted in 2010 by Congress as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. FATCA requires foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to report to the IRS information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest."

Reading through the complex, obscure language that only bureaucrats can compose, I did determine that it isn't illegal to have foreign investments or work for foreign companies, so why are Obama ads (in Ohio, a swing state) making a big deal about Romney's legal investments regulated by our ever vigilant IRS?  Except of course, to make voters think he's doing something illegal.
 http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1653.aspx

John Tesh opens Week 6 at Lakeside

John Tesh was fabulous last night! One of the best shows ever!! I thought I might have to leave because of the deafening sound level, but after about 3 numbers he began the interaction with the audience and talk part, so that reduced the pain level. The 11 member band was so loud, we couldn't hear Tesh at the piano. In the middle of the show he gave his Christian testimony. Lakeside loved it.

On our way back to the cottage about 10 pm, our 80 something neighbor whizzed by on his bicycle, and said, “That was the best program I’ve heard at Lakeside.”

Tesh was co-host of Entertainment Tonight for 10 years.  This was his “big band” sound and a similar show is airing on PBS.  He is married to Connie Sellecca (20 years) who he say was the inspiration of his current radio show. The night before Lakeside the band was in Dayton, and one of the trumpet players had appendicitis, so they came to Lakeside with a PhD trumpet player from U of Cincinnati who plays with the symphony there.

Pandering to His Base

I just don't get it.  I know many intelligent, capable, patriotic Democrats who just don't care about what Obama is doing and the company he keeps.  What has blinded them?

He is moving sharply to the left on issue after issue: immigration, religious liberty, welfare, gay marriage, the environment, race, the role of government. Why? It's an election year!

And then there are the expanded wars . . . the crony capitalism . . . the deliberate moves to hurt the economy by denegrating small business . . . what is up with this guy and his supporters?

Pandering to His Baseyear! Have Democrats really gone over the cliff as a party?