The woke ads on TV

Has there been a break through? Last night I was watching an old movie (Sweet home Alabama, 2002, forgotten the channel) and there was a 10 commercial break. 8 of the 10 DID NOT have a minority as lead spox/actor, and the 10th was for Lincoln and had no people in it at all. Later I was watching another channel, forgotten the topic, and it was the same way. Let's hope this break out of sanity continues. I think the constant push for minorities in ads was working against the systemic racism message. Ads are unrealistic as it is and if you combine all that luxury, good life and fun and games with handsome, healthy POC, it just doesn't show well with the news media's woke messages about how evil and racist Americans are. Perhaps a stockholder or two noticed it.

The pandemic deniers--all Democrats with a few RINOs

 "School administrators often were more concerned with changing the name of a school rather than ensuring that students would receive an excellent education, or really any education at all. We were told to accept this whether we liked it or not. Educrats and teachers unions know best, little children. No wonder there was a massive parent revolt." 

In the long run, the Democrats will try to deny (talk about deniers!) that they had anything to do with this, that they were just following the science, which kept changing. That's just a lie. Even for the Republican governors and pastors who followed their bad lead. We had years of research and experience to show what to do with a massive health threat. 1) Protect the vulnerable, 2) allow the rest to keep life going. No matter how many times I wrote about masks studies (I was a medical librarian), some engineer would pounce and say I couldn't possibly know as much as he did. Some Democrats are now coming around, they see the economy is in shambles with their party being blamed, they've read the data on what has been done to the children. Now they say, "Well, sorry. We didn't know. Science is like that." Well, tough cookies. A lot of people knew you were wrong and instead of a "conversation" you destroyed their careers and reputations.

And since Democrats don't learn, they just lose, this will happen again. They are hoping the lies and clown show of January 6 trial and their October surprise at the "unguarded" Pelosi mansion will be enough to rekindled the hate, fear and angst in their faithful to get them to the polls. ‘Scientific-Technological Elite’ Is Destroying Self-Government in America (dailysignal.com)

"This is the crisis Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently points to, citing Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential farewell address in January 1961. The speech is frequently remembered for Ike’s warnings about the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower also warned about a growing “scientific-technological elite” that would pervert both genuine science and public policy.

A federally funded and tightly interwoven system of science and research—such as what developed in the United States in the 20th century—made the industry susceptible to being captured by an elite clique and molded by powerful insiders rather than open-minded scientists and the ordinary Americans it was meant to serve."

Transparency in salaries

ABC is reporting on a new "transparency" movement on salaries led in part by a Tik Tok spox/influencer. I heard the usual, especially POC and pay gap. However, unless you also ask about benefits and history with the company, it's meaningless. Elementary school teachers, look it up, make about $75/hour according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics if you factor in benefits. And it's much higher for those in administrative positions. Nothing makes people more unhappy than saying teaching is one of the best paying professions in the U.S. Also, government workers, which are heavily female and black, make far more than the private sector. Norma has the facts. Media lie. Politicians lie. Unions lie.

Total benefit costs consist of five major categories and include 18 benefit costs:
• Paid leave - vacation, holiday, sick, and personal leave;
• Supplemental pay - overtime and premium, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses;
• Insurance - life, health, short-term and long-term disability;
• Retirement and savings - defined benefit and defined contribution; and
• Legally required benefits - Social Security [refers to Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program], Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf 

Look specifically at Table 2 and Table 3 by occupational group. If BLS is wrong about teachers, then it's also wrong about accountants and truck drivers.

That said, I think teaching is one of the most difficult and important jobs; it's just too bad that their union leaders are such crooks.

2022 is the 500th anniversary of Luther's New Testament, 1522-2022

"German translations of the Bible have been around since the Middle Ages. After Gutenberg printed a Latin Bible in Germany around 1465, vernacular Bibles in German quickly followed. A Bible in High German was issued by Johannes Mentelin in Strasbourg in 1466. Low German vernacular Bibles were issued in Cologne in 1478 and 1479. In all, before Martin Luther issued his famous translation of the New Testament in 1522 (Luther’s full translation of the Bible was published in 1534), there were at least 18 editions printed of the complete Bible in German and several dozen editions of portions of the Bible, such as Gospel books and Psalters." https://scblog.lib.byu.edu/2013/04/24/german-bibles/

So, I suppose you could say this is a Brigham Young University Library (Mormon) source, but that's not the only source that reports on the many Bibles available in German before Luther's famous translation. Here's another one:

"By the time of Luther's birth in 1483, no fewer than nine such editions of the complete Bible in High German and two in Low German had appeared, with further ones still to come before the publication of the Reformer's "September Testament" in 1522. In fact, by the latter date, the total had increased to fourteen High-German and four Low-German editions of the entire Bible, to say nothing of editions of portions of Scripture and manuscript copies." https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/books/86/

Excerpt from the book, "German Bibles Before Luther, The Story of 14 High-German Editions," by Kenneth Strand, 1966. So why do I open a magazine from Fall 2022 (Lutheran Bible Translators Messenger) and read:

"Five hundred years ago, the German people lived in darkness. They needed relief and deliverance of the Gospel message. The church used a Latin translation, something only the educated understood. Some translations were available in other languages, but they were not very good."

Here's my take (and I'm a Lutheran in NALC, one of the newer synods):

1. To the victor belong the archives (this is a librarian axiom). All the easily available church history books are published by Protestant scholars and publishers, each of which has its own bias on the Bible and history,

 
2. Misinformation and disinformation is not a feature of just the 21st century. What we read, hear and "know" is cumulative, paraphrased, folded in on itself and sometimes just gossip. I read a few paragraphs in the Strand book (you can download it), and it would seem that before the early 20th century, no one even looked for older German translations.

3. Technology was changing lives and creating revolutions in the 15th century also, and Gutenberg did more for our learning and making information available quickly than Zuckerburg.

Just my thoughts.

The Pelosi attack is fishy

Nancy Pelosi said she wanted to punch Trump out and she'd be happy to go to jail for it. Hillary Clinton called 80 million Americans deplorable. Joe Biden has sent his Justice Department to attack parents at school board meetings and pro-lifers at abortion clinics. His verbal assaults on Republicans could be the source of vandalism at pregnancy clinics and offices of GOP. In fact, Biden has been the worst. Gov. Cuomo of New York said "America was never great." Then they have the nerve to call out Republicans for word violence when a crazy man attacked Pelosi's husband (at least that's the story right now--looks very fishy--smells like Smollet). Where were Pelosi's security guards and how did the police happen to be in the room before the perp attacked her husband? Isn't she the one who was also in charge of the security of the Capitol on January 6 and ignored the warnings?

A homeless, mentally disturbed illegal alien nudist who lives in a camp with a BLM banner at his place and all the media jump on the get Trump bandwagon. Yet it was Nancy Pelosi who threated Trump and said she'd be happy to go to jail.

And again, we won't be able to state the obvious, just like all of 2020-2021-2022 about the pandemic and its origin without fearing loss of a job, being called a racist, a white supremist, or a right wing nut. Once again, the Democrats will shut down our constitutionally protected speech.

A map of the history of slavery

 https://youtu.be/40d0eDAQ3t0

This documentary estimates that there are about 50 million slaves in the world today.  That's higher than most of the estimates I've heard.

Democrat Dumpster Fire

Andrew Klavan: “As the mid-term campaign season nears its close, Americans are preparing for election day when the free people of a great nation turn out to weep for what used to be a great nation when they were free people.

Democrats, who run all three branches of government and are therefore to blame for this dumpster fire, have been working to bring their campaign messaging to a perfect balance of subtle distortions and outright lies.”

What societal changes have created the "Nones"

Not all societal change moves at the speed of the lockdown’s spiritual and moral disruptions. Some take decades. So when Charlie Ollermann summarized in Sunday School on October 30 a few details about how Christianity and organized religion are losing both the numbers and the influence game, I took note. It went something like this (a quote from Pew site), “Pew's National Public Opinion Reference Survey found that the majority of Americans -- 63% -- consider themselves Christian, down from 78% in 2007. Meanwhile, 29% of adults list their religion as "none," meaning they consider themselves atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular." That figure has increased since 2007, when 16% said they have no religion.” As he moved on to our lesson in 2 Thessalonians, I jotted down four societal changes which I thought were the root causes building over the last almost 60 years. I expanded my thoughts here at my blog.

1 ) The War on Poverty (launched January 1964). Trillions (est. 16 in 2014, 27 in 2019) have been spent, the power of the federal government has grown enormously, and both liberals and conservatives strongly disagree on results, or even how to describe poverty. In my opinion religious groups whose Biblical charge was charity, benevolence, feeding and clothing the poor, in short, following the commands of Jesus as outlined in Matthew 25, were severely compromised by taking grants to do their “good works.” (This worsened after GHW Bush’s “thousand points of light.” Yet, over 50% of Americans do not pay federal income tax, and 25 million workers are given money when they file for taxes (EITC, $60 billion). The median income of a single mother household is $49,214, and for a married couple household it is $101,517 (i.e., 2 incomes) according to U.S. Census, 2020. Uncle Sam is not a good step-father, but poverty pays well. Children of married parents rarely grow up in poverty. All four of my points directly or indirectly involve marriage. If poverty were to be ended tomorrow at noon, millions of people would be out of work. . . very well paid jobs with amazing benefits, most in government, but many in non-profits and NGOs. That would require new government programs to aid those recently unemployed.

2 ) Vatican II (1962-1965). Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. don’t usually think that Vatican II affected us much, but in my opinion the Roman Catholic Church is our mother, or at least a grandmother in our major doctrines—Diety of Christ, the Trinity, a canon of scripture we call the Bible, sacraments as an expression of faith, the Christian life, evangelization, missions, what is heresy, etc. People catechized in the 70s or 80s speak about how poorly they were taught the basics of the faith. When we joined UALC in 1976 our “catechism” book cover was pink and orange with balloons. And that’s also a description of what was between the covers. I’d never seen a Luther’s Small Catechism until Dave and Pam Mann taught a night class at Mill Run about 20 years ago. I think growth of the “nones” reflects on the sloppy, silly and social justice Pablum people educated in the 70s and 80s received. They were not prepared to educate their own children when they were so poorly catechized—both Protestants and Catholics.

3) The Population Bomb and Earth Day (1970s) moving on to earth worship, Green New Deal and pantheism. Paul Ehrlich’s book “The population bomb” scared me to death. He said hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in spite of all the agriculture and aid programs we (many by churches) were supporting. Well, we’d already caved to contraception, so why not abortion? Now in the 21st century we can’t sustain a population replacement rate and killing the next generation is considered righteous even by many Christians. Now we’re forced to accept immigration, even illegal immigration, just to support our economy. But we’ve made a Faustian bargain (deal with the devil) and are taking in drugs, sex trafficking and criminals in the deal to maintain the population. Plus, Christian non-profits are taking huge grants from the government to manage all this. People from 200 countries now come through our southern border adding great stress to those states, which then make us all border states. Communing with nature now replaces “organized” religion designed for the family (which often seems very disorganized to some) with various efforts (and riots) to save the planet, our so-called Mother. This pantheism combined with demonizing men and marriage is reducing society’s need for churches.

4) Second Wave Feminism (early 70s for the general public). Although scholars would date this from the “pill” developed in the 1960s and various books, I didn’t pay much attention until “The women’s liberation movement” became a kitchen table topic among women. I was quite caught up in it myself. I had young children, had a master’s degree, and could really identify with the conversations so many were having. We were already active in a fair housing group, a prison reform group, and a race relations group (all loosely church based). Falling for the seductive message that the male/female differences were just cultural and should be changed was easy for my generation. Between the availability of the pill and free sex (which has never been free for women, only men) and the siren call of fabulous careers, prestige, and a bigger bank account, women were literally fleeing the home for the office. So who passes on the faith to the kids if both parents are working, exhausted in the evening, and using week-ends for family time, especially Sunday morning?

I do not point to the Baby Boomers (born after WWII and before 1965) for initiating these changes. The leaders of the various movements and authors of the transformational books were mostly born in the 1930s, or even the 1920s. But the Boomers as adolescents certainly bore the brunt of the changes and misinformation. They are the parents and grandparents of the “nones” who are not just skipping church-- many live in fear of a collapsing planet and won’t commit to anything, not even a job let alone marriage and a family, made worse lately by Covid, and no faith in Jesus.

Getting ready for our art show in November

 Things are a bit messed up in our house as we pull things out of closets, bags and off the walls in preparation for our combined art show November 13 - December 31 at UALC Lytham Rd. in Upper Arlington. I get to do the computer stuff like figuring out how to make little descriptive cards for the wall (nothing is for sale) and a sheet describing our "history" in art.  Here's what I've got so far--although it's a draft.

 

". . . this show is a story of our lives together with about 50 samples of our watercolors and acrylics. Both of us were interested in art as children, but only Bob pursued it as a career and avocation. He became an architect with a lot of fine arts and design classes in high school and college, plus some classes at an art institute as a child. Norma had the family dining room table with a lot of art supplies and paper, but no classes. Her teachers in kindergarten and first grade “featured” her art of a May pole dance, and drawings of horses were always scribbled in the margins of school papers. The Bruces met at the University of Illinois, dated and married in 1960, but art really wasn’t a focus. Bob’s interest in painting was rekindled by his friend Ned Moore in 1972, so he dug out his old brushes from college art classes. That piqued Norma’s interest so she began taking a few workshops.

We’ve chosen paintings that tell about our lives. In the Library Lounge is time we spent in Illinois where Norma grew up and where we vacationed with our children in the 1970s-80s. Included are some paintings of family—two of our son Phil who died in 2020--Norma’s childhood friends and siblings from the 1940s, and her grandmother in her wedding dress. Norma’s mother renovated her parents’ farm home near Franklin Grove, Illinois, as a religious retreat and we spent a lot of time roaming northern Illinois looking for farms for Bob to paint. In keeping with the farm theme we’ve added some flowers and vegetables, although we don’t garden. These are usually from a workshop at Lakeside or an artist “how to” book.

In the Hall of the administrative wing we’ve included paintings of our retirement travels in Ireland, Israel, Egypt, Alaska, and Spain—some borrowed from the current owners for this show. Bob went with the UALC mission group to Haiti for 10 years and taught architecture there and has offered art instruction for years. At the library door we’ve hung a painting of three children who were our neighbors at Lakeside reading their Bible together. They are homeschooled and Bob helped with their art instruction. Also you’ll see paintings of two of our pastors who’ve had a big place in our lives as Christians. In the Hall we’ve hung paintings of animals—Norma particularly likes to paint horses, and owned one as a youngster (no paintings of him).

We began vacationing at Lakeside on Lake Erie in 1974 and owned a home there from 1988 to 2022. Bob taught many classes at the Rhein Center for the Arts in Lakeside and we both took advantage of the classes in watercolor, acrylic, pastel, pen and ink, jewelry making, silk painting, fiction writing, guitar, trombone and pottery. Bob has been in the Lakeside summer art show for over 40 years. The Lakeside paintings are in the Fireside Lounge and are mostly by Bob.

Our proxy war

We are protecting Ukraine's borders from foreign invaders. It's called a proxy war. Billions of dollars. But we can't (or won't) protect our own borders. Not smart! Many walls could have been built (Congress voted for it in 2006), many border guards could have been trained, many drug cartels and human trafficking war lords could have been blocked for just a fraction of what we've sent to Ukraine. And even then, we were late to the party and ineffective on their border war too! This has leftist doctrine written all over it. Destroy your own country and culture while pretending to help another country and culture. Our enemy is on the inside--in the DC swamp, in academe, in the entertainment industry, in our "free" press, and in our wealthiest and most essential corporations.

Merrick Garland is dangerous--he hates the Constitution

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has taken a law hastily passed over 20 years ago after 9/11 to stop foreign terrorists (Patriot act) and is using it against parents concerned about the health and education of their children. He is arresting, with Joe Biden's approval and lip smacking grin, people protesting killing the unborn, i.e., American citizens using their constitutional rights under the first amendment. He's using government surveillance illegally to stop journalists who report the truth about use of fetal body parts distributed after abortions. It would seem that Garland does not have the best interests of the USA in mind because he has something against the children of our future.

At the same time, Democrats (and a few Republicans like Cheney) in Congress and in the Media are calling Americans "Nazis" and "Terrorists" for using their First Amendment rights, which is the exact opposite of what they charge. They get hysterical when citizens object to green taxes and coercion. They prove to be thickheaded simpletons who don't know world history of the 1930s and 40s or why American blood was shed in WWII. They demean and insult the millions who died under that regime. National Socialism (aka Nazi) is just one of the many offspring and grandchildren of Marx, Nietzsche, and more recently Foucault that have morphed into BLM and CRT. It's alive and well in our leftist politicians. That doesn't describe our patriots and citizens who want children to live and thrive in freedom.

And although I'm so thankful Garland didn't get his chance at SCOTUS having been blocked by Republicans when Obama nominated him, I do think he's trying to punish half the nation for that 2016 "insult." He was unfit then, and a disaster now.

Christian Martyrs in Nigeria

The slaughter of Christians in Nigeria was a concern of President Trump, so Biden and Blinken had them removed from the watch list! Apparently, didn't think it was a problem or, they want to tamp down the many good things for religious freedom done by Trump. There are now more documented cases of Christian martyrdom in Nigeria than every other country combined according to Revelation Media. Our current State Department is concerned about anti-Muslim hate crimes--but not they people they are killing.

"At the beginning of his administration, Biden called on the State Department to monitor vigilantly countries that do not embrace “transgender rights” and authorized diplomats to meddle in their affairs. A country that upholds the natural moral law is more likely to end up on a State Department blacklist than a country that violates it. To hear Biden and Blinken speak, one would think Christians pose the greatest threat to “global progress.” Biden’s rhetoric about Islamic countries is always very hesitant, but it turns very robust on the subject of “Christian nationalists” like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán."

According to Gallup poll in Dec. 2021, about three in four Americans said they identify with a specific religious faith. By far the largest proportion, 69%, identify with a Christian religion, including 35% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 12% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a "Christian." " And yet both Obama and Biden refuse to call this a Christian nation. Not everything is defined in the Constitution, like what is a woman, and what is a marriage, but sometimes politicians have no common sense about what is common knowledge.

https://spectator.org/christians-warned-biden-and-blinken-about-nigeria/?

Fulani Terrorists Kill More than 70 Christians in Central Nigeria | Christian News Network

Power to Help - Morningstar News

Christians killed in Nigeria (theallineed.com)

Nigerian Christians Protest Deborah’s Death...... | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

Raphael and the Salvation Army Band

Last Sunday, October 16, after church we went to the Columbus Museum of Art with our friends Howard and Betty to see "Raphael--The Power of Renaissance Images: The Dresden Tapestries and their Impact." Then at the end of the week, we went to a concert at our Mill Run church of the Brass Band of Columbus and the New York Staff Band of the Salvation Army. The Creation piece was multimedia and just breath taking.  A week of glorious fall color book-ended with beauty. I would see the exhibit and attend the concert over again in a minute. The tapestry exhibit ends October 30.

 "The exhibition is centered around six tapestries, woven in the 17th century, on loan from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery of Dresden), Germany, one of Europe’s most renowned museums. 

Working in partnership with the Old Masters Picture Gallery (part of the Dresden State Art Collections) located in Columbus’s sister-city of Dresden, CMA will present for the first time to American audiences these monumental and historically significant works, woven directly from cartoons (painted compositions) by the Renaissance master Raphael. The Dresden tapestries underwent extensive restoration in the 1990s but had not been on display since 2008. Following their début in an exhibition for European audiences at the Dresden Picture Gallery last year, this will be the tapestries’ first ever trip to the United States. The exhibition focuses on the creation of the Dresden tapestries and introduces their various patrons and owners through the centuries—in particular, Charles I, King of England, and Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland—while also highlighting Raphael’s broad impact and influence on later artists."

https://youtu.be/BPkHTwCdU9w

Raphael and Painting: 7 The Sistine Tapestries – The Eclectic Light Company

The Patron Pope: Julius II – The Eclectic Light Company

Raphael and Painting: 4 First frescoes in Rome – The Eclectic Light Company

New York Staff Band - YouTube

BrassBandofColumbus - YouTube

The religion of the Left

 The Party's faith in Sustainability, a poem

(by Norma Bruce, based on an idea in How Sustainability is Becoming the One True Corporate Religion by Ellen Weinreb, Dec. 20, 2011)

Their Religion, the One True, is Sustainability 
Their Cult is Climate Change
Their Cathedrals are on every college campus
Their Priests are staffing corporate H.R. departments 

Their Sacrament is Abortion

Their Baptism is a sprinkle of mRNA

Their creed is a CRT screed

Their church fathers are Marx, Nietzsche, Sarte, Marcuse, and Foucault.

Their testimonies speak lived experience of oppression

Their scripture contains no objective truth

Their Revivals are George Floyd riots
Their Galileo's trial is a January 6 Committee 

Their boards deny Corpernicus a seat
Their choir directors creates castrati 

Their missionaries translate language into chaos

Their pulpits are filled with media CEOs and intersectional academics.

Bill Gates, a capitalist who can control the world

Russian fuel for Europe is a problem, yes, but wouldn't be if the U.S. were at full production and didn't have Joe Biden and Bill Gates in charge. He's announced that yes, it's a setback for those who will suffer in the present, but in the long run, those countries will have to accept alternative fuels (which he'll also control) so it's actually good in his demented brain and value system. Think about this. Gates is also the largest "farmer" in the U.S. He has the power to both freeze and starve most of the world. Yes, one man, a very successful capitalist by the way (and when government and business moguls collude to deprive us of rights it's called fascism, not that flimsy definition the Dims wring their hands over of wearing a MAGA hat). His one world/globalist views also include decreasing the offspring of brown and black families through "family planning." And here I am using his company's technology. Ironic, huh?

https://summit.news/2022/10/19/video-bill-gates-says-european-energy-crisis-is-good/?

https://deepstatetribunal.com/bill-gates-now-the-largest-owner-of-farmland-in-america/?

The Ross Rant, Joel Ross

10/21/22:  The US economy was doing very well when Trump left office. We were energy independent, the stock market was still high, home prices were high, inflation was 1.4%, and consumers had a lot of money, and credit card use was very low. The Federal deficit was too high, but not completely out of control and unsustainable. We were still in Afghanistan holding off the terrorists and Taliban in most of the country, and the Iranians were struggling under serious sanctions. Russia was not threatening Ukraine and China was not obviously threatening Taiwan. Kim was quiescent. The US was still way ahead of the rest of the world in reducing carbon emissions and switching to gas and alternatives. In short, things in the world were OK as the pandemic was getting under control. Then Joe arrived with his band of social radicals and climate change crazies pulling the strings of the puppet. The decline of the US, and now the world, in under two years is a perfect example of how left-wing policies, and ESG, can destroy the world economy and peace in no time. How anyone can embarrass themselves and vote for Dems this election is beyond me. What is it they do not understand. The R’s will control the senate by 2-4 seats, and more governors. The wave is building again. The September inflation report was a killer for Dems. Bezos, Dimon, Bloomberg, Zandi, Interactive Brokers, and Summers all now say, the economy goes down more from here. Mortgage demand at 25 years low. The worst is yet to come. Get under the desk.

The 2020 election with Joe in the basement

I wonder how many Democrats would have voted for Joe if he'd campaigned on open borders, rising crime rates, a new war with Russia, higher taxes, destruction of the First Amendment, expanding the pandemic, destruction of our economy, raging inflation, a congressional investigation that exceeds the power of House Un-American Activities Commitee (HUAC) for disloyalty and subversive activities, shutting down desperately needed fuel for the rest of the world and killing the unborn up to full term?

I suppose that's why he stayed in the basement and didn't campaign in 2020. Although I did hear him say on one appearance he was running for the Senate. And another time he called a young woman a lying dog-faced pony soldier, and he sniffed a few little girls, so maybe he did say these things and loyal Democrats didn't care? I know a few, and they seem like normal, thinking, moral people . . . did they know, or did they hate Trump so much they voted for their hate?

Michigan governor silent about a white, elderly woman shot

An 84 year old woman has been shot in Michigan for being a "right wing nut," but Michigan's governor is only silent. But she's certain vocal about being a wing nut for abortion, saying "“Now is the time to use every tool in our toolbox to protect women and reproductive healthcare,” she tweeted after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, adding on another occasion, “Abortion is still legal in Michigan, and I’ll never stop fighting to keep it that way.” No wonder Richard Harvey who shot Joan Jacobson thought he'd help the governor out with her "tool box." That type of inflammatory language gets Republicans put in jail even if they weren't anywhere near a dust up or riot. Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Ms. VP Harris, Speaker Pelosi, California's Mad Maxine Waters and other Democrat high profile women spew political hate speech--not just hate for the unborn, but hate for those who are pro-life, pro-patriotism, pro-law and order, pro-border, pro-Trump, pro-sensible treatment for a pandemic, pro-fossil fuel, etc. 

Judge: Man Who Shot Elderly Pro-Life Woman Will Go To Trial (dailysignal.com)

What is your Red Sea?

Our Sunday sermon series has been on the Covenants of the Bible, and this past Sunday Pastor Steve Turnbull preached on the story of God's faithfulness to Moses, Exodus 14:5-7, 10-14, 21-29. Then on Tuesday evening via Zoom our small group (Edie, Kevin, Jane, Dave, Donna, Howard, Betty and us) met on-line to discuss it. Edie who lives in Florida asked for a copy of a poem I read that was in the Cynthia Maus book, "The Old Testament and the Fine Arts." I was about to send a photocopy, but checked the internet. Annie Johnson Flint was a popular writer of Christian verse and hymns (born in NJ, d. 1932) and had many challenges. She was orphaned young and from a photo it appears she was in a wheel chair (arthritis). Her poem does sound a lot like Pastor Steve's sermon about our own Red Sea struggles. Scroll through the link and you'll read some touching thought. https://www.preceptaustin.org/annies_poems  Bob also liked it and shared with his men's group Wednesday, also on Zoom.

The Red Sea Place

Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life,
Where, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back,
There is no other way but through?
Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene
Till the night of your fear is gone;
He will send the wind, He will heap the floods,
When He says to your soul, "Go on."

And His hand will lead you through - clear through -
Ere the watery walls roll down,
No foe can reach you, no wave can touch,
No mightiest sea can drown;
The tossing billows may rear their crests,
Their foam at your feet may break,
But over their bed you shall walk dry shod
In the path that your Lord will make.

In the morning watch, 'neath the lifted cloud,
You shall see but the Lord alone,
When He leads you on from the place of the sea
To a land that you have not known;
And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed,
You shall be no more afraid;
You shall sing His praise in a better place,
A place that His hand has made.

Diversity Equity Inclusion in higher education

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in higher education involve a range of objectionable elements, such as giving preferential treatment to job candidates from particular race and gender groups and generating a massive administrative staff that encroaches on faculty autonomy and attempts to structure and surveil even informal campus interactions." City Journal, Oct. 18, 2022  DEI Statements: Empty Platitude, or Litmus Test? | City Journal (city-journal.org)

Diversity means division.
Equity is inequality
Inclusion is exclusion.

D.E.I. departments are establishing tribalism in our country not based on kinship or blood ties, but on color and sex. Look how tribalism is working out in Africa. There are major civil wars in two African countries, Ethiopia and South Sudan, both with majority Christian populations and most people killing each other are the same race (just like Europe for many centuries). There are 83 tribes in Ethiopia and over 60 in South Sudan. If you are a member of a small tribe, you'll never get ahead unless a relative comes into power, then it's easy street.

And further, the acronym should be D.I.E. because that is the wish of the bureaucrats in the universities who have sent their graduates out to poison corporations which now also have DIE departments.