This and that. . .

I made snickerdoodles with dried cranberries today for a Christmas party tomorrow (like I REALLY needed this).  I actually tasted the raw dough.  Remember when we were kids and that was the favorite part of Mom’s baking?  Now everything is unsafe.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/beware-of-raw-cookie-dough/?_r=0

Tooting my own horn. I think I have licked the caffeine addiction and the awful coffee at home syndrome. I've been drinking coffee since I was 13--and trust me, I'm a librarian who researches everything, coffee doesn't taste good, some just is less awful than others. It's an acquired taste and it actually does have health benefits--with or without the caffeine. Maybe it's the cold weather or da...rk mornings, but showing up at the coffee shop down the road at 6:30 a.m. just doesn't have the appeal it used to, so I've been making decaf at home, but a little stronger than directions. I've bought half n half, and just about, almost, maybe it tastes fine. I still show up occasionally to make sure everyone at Panera's is OK, but it will save about $10 a week for my Travel to Spain in 2015 fund. Even a small amount of real coffee will cause me problems, but not to worry--it actually helps some people with arrhythmias.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/coffee-new-health-food

Thursday I made the Cheeseburger in Paradise, but used sausage just to see if it might be good for a brunch.  The next day I gave a slice to my son who had stopped by to give us his Christmas ham.  He called later raving about it.  I guess it passes the test, uh?

David Meyers and Elise Meyers, well known Columbus authors (prisons, popular music, Lazarus history, Columbus jazz, true crime), are beginning a new project--the famous, now gone (as of 2000) Kahiki restaurant. I'm guessing some of you went there for special events in the past and perhaps you have memories or old photos you'd like to have memorialized in their new book. You can e-mail me for further information on arrangements to share what you know about a Columbus landmark.

                            

My friend Lynne loves to say around this time of year that we are closer to Spring than we were in September.

It’s hard to choose, he told so many

Obama’s next big grab, because the last one was so successful

“If you believe the left, the leading economic problem that Americans face today is not a lack of jobs
or the cost of living, but a crisis . . . of income inequality. . .

The left inflicts poverty and then campaigns against it. It raises the prices of products and the cost of services, it devalues incomes, destroys jobs and raises energy prices… and demands even more regulatory powers so that it can finally solve the poverty mess it creates once and for all.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-poverty-of-income-inequality.html

Tolerance is not a Biblical value

              

Shocking isn't it?  Love, compassion, gentleness, kindness, patience, cheerfulness, respect, humility, conjugal fidelity, familial caregiving, honesty, happiness (blessedness), beauty, discrimination between right and wrong, justice flowing from God, the existence of and battle against evil, mercy, work, sharing, responsibility, wisdom, hospitality, gratitude, obligations to God and family, unity as God's creation, holiness, chastity, virtue, children as gifts of God, corporate worship, and many more can easily be located in the Bible and church tradition.

Not on the list of Biblical values are tolerance, Marxism, statism, utilitarianism, multiculturalism, sustainability, environmentalism (worship of Mother Earth), diversity, nihilism, redistributive justice, redistribution of wealth (aka stealing), lasciviousness, permissive sex, cohabitation, unity created by national or political grouping, disrespect for the aged, poor and unborn, relativism, fraud, --these and many others are all the province of the secular culture. Humanists and progressives may borrow temporarily some values and ethics from the Bible and not hurt or change who they truly are, but Christians are at grave risk when borrowing from the secular culture for their values.

Obama Repeals ObamaCare

I don't recall in my lifetime, any mess worse than Obamacare. He's all but admitted it doesn't work, he's violated his own law more times than we can track, offered cronies and supporters cover until after the next election, and has pulled back on the individual mandate (but is still going after Christians with a conscience). All major social legislation since the 1930s has had at least some support of both parties. The Democrats own this one 100%.

“HHS and the Senators must have coordinated in advance because literally overnight HHS rushed out a bulletin noting that exemptions are available to those who "experienced financial or domestic circumstances, including an unexpected natural or human-caused event, such that he or she had a significant, unexpected increase in essential expenses that prevented him or her from obtaining coverage under a qualified health plan." A tornado destroys the neighborhood or ObamaCare blows up the individual insurance market, what's the difference?

The HHS ruling is that ObamaCare is precisely such a "significant, unexpected increase." In other words, it is an admission that rate shock is real and the mandates drive up costs well into hardship territory. HHS is agreeing with the Senators that exemptions should cover "an individual whose 2013 plan was canceled and considers their new premium unaffordable." In her reply letter, Mrs. Sebelius also observes that some people "are having difficulty finding an acceptable replacement." She means the new plans are overpriced.” WSJ Review and Outlook

What the Left has left us for manhood

If you haven’t seen it, the guy on the right in the red jammies, its advertising for Obamacare over a cup of cocoa.  This juxtaposition is just too funny.  But sad, too.

A promise kept

Until the 20th century, virtually all Christian churches taught the same as the Roman Catholic on contraception and abortion. The HHS mandate is intended to end whatever vestige of Biblical teaching is left, and Sebilius a Catholic is leading the way. Not that Protestants have protested.  I’ve certainly never heard a sermon in my church on the sanctity of life, or even marriage for that matter.  Until the current administration, almost all Christian churches and denominations with the exception of a few "mainline" (and poorly attended) agreed on homosexuality. In fact, until the last election, even the President was coy and evasive about same sex marriage, flip flopping as he went to please which ever audience he was addressing.  With the leadership of "Hollywood" and celebrity values and the government's attacks on the first amendment freedoms of speech and religion, and the 4th amendment guarantees of privacy rights, indeed in 5 short years he has fundamentally changed the country. The idea that our Constitution and our Bill of Rights which originally were intended to protect us from an overbearing, oppressive government has been flipped to the government is our friend and buddy here to help us out of all messes and jams. This has pretty much been Obama’s goal. He’s reaching it with the help of Christians.

Obama’s vision—Pajama Boy and Julia

O

“Perhaps the goal of OFA was to create a readily mockable image to draw attention to its message, in which case Pajama Boy was a brilliantly successful troll. The right immediately Photoshopped him into the Mandela funeral selfie and emblazoned his photo with derisive lines like “Hey girl, I live with my parents” and “How did you know I went to Oberlin?” “

Julia needed the help of Obama-supported programs at every juncture of her life, and Pajama Boy is going to get his health insurance through Obamacare (another image shows him looking very pleased in a Christmas sweater, together with the words “And a happy New Year with health insurance”).

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/366806/pajama-boy-home-holidays-rich-lowry#!

The biggest lie and the biggest story of 2013

“The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place.

Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime.”

Charles Krauthammer

“Three years ago I predicted that Obamacare would turn insurers into the lapdog equivalent of utility companies. I undershot. They are being treated as wholly owned subsidiaries. Take the phrase “strongly encouraging.” Sweet persuasion? In reality, these are offers insurers can’t refuse. Disappoint your federal master and he has the power to kick you off the federal exchanges, where the health insurance business of the future is supposed to be conducted.”

Phil’s mission—to tell people about Jesus and love them

The big lie Obama tells again and again

Another favorite lie of Obama is the BIG ONE--income gap/inequality. Few remember this but Bush took office with the effects of the 1999 recession on his hands; income of the top 1% plummeted well before 9/11. You've probably forgotten because Bush didn't waste a lot of breath blaming Clinton. And the income of the top 1% has been going up since, and has really taken off under Obama.  Have you heard him mention how well they are doing—surely you’ve seen the photos of the parties.

Also, wealthier households are usually married couples and better educated. Why promote education as a solution to poverty if you demonize those whose parents, grandparents and self have finished college? And do the math. Two wage earners with college educations are better off than a single mom who didn't finish high school. There will be a gap!

The biggest loss in wealth in 2008 was from the housing recession. Progressives will argue this to the grave, but it was our own federal bank regulations (the 1977 CRA and its expansion)  intended to help the poor by putting them in mortgages they couldn’t possibly afford and punishing banks if the didn’t, that created that. Blacks and Latinos were hurt the most in the housing collapse. CRA was bad for the poor and bad for the country, and ended up hurting everyone.

Also, people are retiring at a baby boomer rate--that means pensions pay less than jobs and people move down a quintile or two. We certainly did. Our children now have incomes much higher than ours, but it wasn't that way in 2000 when we had two incomes. Boomers also have different work rates and divorce rates than pre-boomers.  Women earned much more than previous generations, and the men earned less. After divorce, they both have less.

Yes, Obama’s big one is the wealth gap—the gap has always been there, but his policies plus factors he had no control over because they began years ago are the reason.  Yes, the federal government discourages marriage and encourages dependence on hand outs, and that’s not a good formula for wealth building.

Friday family photo—Aunt Martha’s quilts

I have two lovely quilts made by my grandmother's sister Martha Sanders who died in childbirth in 1889. No one in our family knew she had a granddaughter living in Dixon, IL, with many descendants. In 1999 my aunt Muriel noticed her obituary and the names of her parents and realized she was a cousin. She passed it on to me and I entered the names in the family database and corrected my copy of the family genealogy, The Jacob George Family of Adams County, Pennsylvania, (1998). Today my brother plans to meet with two of her daughters and hopefully find a good home for the quilts I've had for 40 years.

 http://memorypatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/aunt-marthas-quilts-pt-2.html

http://memorypatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/aunt-marthas-quilts.html

Presidential lies

LBJ:

• We were attacked (in the Gulf of Tonkin)

Nixon:

• I am not a crook

GHW Bush:

• Read my lips - No new taxes

Clinton:

• I did not have sex with that woman . . . Miss Lewinski

GW Bush:

• Iraq has weapons of mass destruction

Obama:

• I will have the most transparent administration in history.
• The stimulus will fund shovel-ready jobs.
• I am focused like a laser on creating jobs.
• The IRS is not targeting anyone.
• It was a spontaneous riot about a movie.
• If I had a son.
• I will put an end to the type of politics that "breeds division, conflict and cynicism.”
• You didn't build that!
• I will end the influence of lobbyists in Washington
• I will restore trust in Government.
• The Cambridge cops acted stupidly.
• No family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.
• The public will have 5 days to look at every bill that lands on my desk.
• It's not my red line - it is the world's red line.
• Whistle blowers will be protected in my administration.
• We got back every dime we used to rescue the banks and auto companies, with interest.
• I am not spying on American citizens.
• ObamaCare will be good for America.
• You can keep your family doctor.
• Premiums will be lowered by $2500.
• If you like it, you can keep your current healthcare plan.
• It's just like shopping at Amazon.
• I knew nothing about "Fast and Furious" gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels.
• Claimed to be the post-racial candidate in 2008.
• I knew nothing about IRS targeting conservative groups.
• I knew nothing about what happened in Benghazi.
• I have never met my uncle from Kenya who is in the country illegally and that was arrested and told to leave the country over 20 years ago.
• And, I have never lived with that uncle. (He finally admitted  (12-05-2013) that he DID know his uncle and that he DID live with him.

What is happiness?

I heard an interview on happiness this morning.  He said there are four elements of happiness:  faith, family, friends/community, and work. He said women do a better job with cultivating and maintaining friendships than men--that 60% of men will say their wife is their best friend, and that's unfortunate (only 30% of women say husband is a best friend). The happiest people are conservative women; unhappiest are liberal men.

He said it is a myth that depression and unhappiness stalk us at Christmas--that is actually the happiest time for most people; the months of greatest depression are May-July (I think that's when women try on swim suits, but he didn't really give that as evidence--that's my own thinking). People are not happier when they are given things (like welfare) or win the lottery because work provides the satisfaction that leads to happiness.

It was the Bill Bennett show and I think he was interviewing Albert Brooks who recently had an article in the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html?_r=1&

"Free enterprise gives the most people the best shot at earning their success and finding enduring happiness in their work. It creates more paths than any other system to use one’s abilities in creative and meaningful ways, from entrepreneurship to teaching to ministry to playing the French horn. This is hardly mere materialism, and it is much more than an economic alternative. Free enterprise is a moral imperative."

Robertson vs. Podesta

So Duck Dynasty’s Robertson is fired for stating what's in the Bible, but Podesta, an advisor to the President, gets to slander and vilify gay Republicans, senior citizen Republicans, Latino Republicans, Jewish Republicans, Black Republicans, and over half of all Americans? He called us a Jonestown cult. Why doesn't he get fired? He actually is part of the government from whom we are protected by our Constitution. A&E is just an "evil capitalist" who doesn't like the Bible. http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/12/18/podesta-gop-jonestown-cult/4109385/

Can't have anything tainted or smutty or outrageous on pure as the driven snow A&E cable TV. . . "the network that airs “Bates Motel,” the series “The Killer Speaks,” which interviews convicted felons, and “Psychic Tia,” and that has in the past aired “Growing Up Gotti,” “Criss Angel Mindfreak,” and “The Sopranos,” has deemed “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson unsuitable for its broadcast because of an interview answer where he paraphrased Corinthians 6:9–11. That’s where they draw the line! (Jim Geraghty, National Review Online) http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/366724/ae-finds-something-it-absolutely-cannot-tolerate-jim-geraghty

This morning, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal issued a statement in response to the news of Robertson’s suspension: “Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana,” Jindal said. “The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

Jindal will be in deep doo-doo now with liberals for a reference to a cultural icon like Miley Cyrus.

Purge with a passion

Here's a new book--but I'm not sure you want to give it as a Christmas gift--it might seem like a hint. Buy it for yourself and keep it on the coffee table. "Purge with passion; organizing principles from a Christian perspective," by Jodie Watson, WestBow Press, 2013. (ISBN 978-1-4497-9513-9, $17.95).  WestBow is a division of Thomas Nelson.

I'm not a hoarder, and I'm not swamped with clutter. . . but I do have "stuff." Stuff that's really important to me, that belonged to my great grandparents—tools and dishes, or my grandmother’s scrap books, or a Christmas dress sewn by my mother for a 1955 dance, or Mother’s Day plates my kids made for me 40 years ago, or books I'll never read, or my grandfather's 11th ed. of the Encyclopedia Britannica (also the 12th and 13th), or glass dishes from my childhood, or my wedding dress (also my sister’s, made by our mother), or my parents' bedroom set, and so on. See? Just the important stuff.

Watson, who is from England, has family in West Africa, and when she visited she saw they had so much less than those of us in "developed" countries, but seemed happier. This is so much more than a book about clutter. It's about being free to live your life for Christ when you lay down your burdens.

http://www.supremeorganization.com/wordpress1/Assets_Library/Media_Kit/2011_Media_Kit.pdf

Snowbama

Common Core—are you smarter than 4th grade math?

Government bureaucrats, from your local board up to Arne Duncan (Dept. of Education) will demean your concerns, calling parents the educational equivalent of racist or homophobe if they try to organize and express their concern. Time to stand up for your children.

Progressives on Social Security

There are so many holes in this testimony about Social Security it is hard to know where to poke. GW Bush wanted to reform SS by creating private accounts, but the "progressives" screamed.  It would have meant we actually owned and controlled and passed along our investment--taking it out of government hands, an anathema to the left.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/testimony/testimony-on-the-importance-of-social-security-for-sustaining-living-standards-in-retirement

Stop with the anti-Christmas meme!

Not once have I ever been stopped from saying “Merry Christmas.” Now, I have complained in the past that the Upper Arlington Public Library “holiday book list” doesn’t contain a single mention of Christmas; but there are churches that call their bazaars Holiday Frolic, and their concerts Festive Fun for All.  Why should I expect more from the library?

Hey, there are real Christians really being murdered for their real faith in other parts of the real world.  Areas and nations where they used to worship in safety, or a few hundred years ago, represented a major religion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christians-face-organised-persecution-from-islamists-in-middle-east-says-prince-charles-9012254.html

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/jihad-on-jesus-militants-firebomb-new-christ-statue-and-ancient-monastery-syria/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-james-clark/christianity-most-persecuted-religion_b_2402644.html

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/persecution-of-christians-on-rise-in-u-s/