The United States spends almost $1,000 per person per year on pharmaceuticals. That’s around 40 percent more than the next highest spender, Canada, and more than twice as much as than countries like France and Germany spend. So why does the U.S. spend so much? Is it because Americans take more medicines or because they pay higher prices? Can Americans afford the drugs they need? And will the Affordable Care Act change anything? SOURCE:  Why do Americans spend so much on pharmaceuticals? | Updates | PBS NewsHour | PBS. This is a very interesting article so I encourage you to … Continue reading Why do Americans spend so much on pharmaceuticals?

The church frustrates me. I was once asked by a wealthy church what they could do to help end homelessness. I looked around and saw the thousands of square feet that lie empty every night, the dozens of toilets, the showers in the family life center, the full industrial kitchen and wanted to say, “It is a two step plan. 1) Read the Gospels. 2) Take it seriously.” I wanted to say that. But I didn’t. Look, Jesus nowhere says to stamp out poverty. However, he does say, fairly often, to love your neighbor. And if you truly love your … Continue reading Not Taking Jesus Seriously….

I’ve been using the word ‘empower’ for years. It’s a great word – one that implies giving dignity to others; the whole ‘give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime’ type story comes up when I hear the word empower…. It had never crossed my mind before that what this word implies is that I have the power and you do not. Therefore, let me give you the power. This also goes against my theology of humanity: that no matter our circumstances we are all … Continue reading Empower vs. Inspire….

What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 2) I know that from all the rhetoric about this topic you are expecting the next word in the title to be “Clear” but actually for me it is “Fuzzy”. I don’t know how many times in my life I have heard the phrase “just study the bible for the answer to your problems. When a child dies from a fall in the bathtub the Christian answer to our total devastation is to “read the Bible”. It is as if we can just randomly open a page and then the tragedy in our life … Continue reading I Read The Bible And Everything Became….

There are two ways to look at the great debate over light bulbs. One is that government regulations meant to save energy by filling the nation’s roughly 4 billion light sockets with vastly more efficient light bulbs are an outrageous offense to personal freedom. The other is summed up by a funny Internet spot last year for Cree’s super efficient light emitting diode (LED) bulbs: “The light bulbs in your house were invented by Thomas Edison in 1879. Now think about that with your 2013 brain. Do you still do your wash down at the creek while your eldest son … Continue reading More Heat Than Light…

Communities like RLC (Red Letter Christians) are so important because the Church, those of us who claim to follow Jesus Christ have more responsibility to be constantly examining our actions and behavior than anyone. This isn’t about being “self-hating Christians” or “criticizing the Church” it is about growing up. In the end, the wisdom and understanding needed to change the world and do real good will not come from the past, but from working together in the present SOURCE: What If God is Pragmatic? | Yaholo Hoyt | Red Letter Christians. Continue reading Critizing The Church…..

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”  ― John Steinbeck Continue reading Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires….

This is installment four of my melancholy posts for this week. I know there are those who lament how bad things are right now. Unemployment is higher than it should be and many are stuck in low paying jobs that are way below their capabilities. Due to corporate greed and the overwhelming wealth that is stagnated at the top it now takes two jobs to replace the one needed just thirty years ago.  Yes, we are living in some pretty tough times, that is unless you compare it to most  of history past. If you want to understand how good … Continue reading How Good We Have It…

According to a 2013 study by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute, 23 percent of 18- to 33-year-olds are religious progressives, 17 percent are religious conservatives, and 22 percent are non-religious. By contrast, only 12 percent of 66- to 88-year-olds are religious progressives, while about half are religious conservatives. Second, the conversation about income inequality in the U.S. and abroad — the driving force behind the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement — is gaining momentum. Taking up the cause of the poor is a central tenet of religious liberalism. Both Jews and Christians point to the Bible, … Continue reading Religious Conservatism On The Wane….

Shirley Temple, along with Will Rogers were the mega-stars during the 1930s. They both brought a little bit of comfort to people during the Great Depression. Shirley died this week at the age of 85. She was a star both in her childhood and as an adult. Continue reading Here's To You Shirley…

I have been pretty melancholy for the last few weeks. I’m sure part of this is because of the isolation due to all this miserable weather we have been enduring.  Because of the sub-zero temperatures I have regrettably missed more of my soup kitchen sessions than I have made in the past month. I am beginning to seriously miss all the people I interact with there on a daily basis. The cabin fever is messing with my mind. The title of this post came from an early episode of Grey’s Anatomy that I just watched. As I mentioned before I … Continue reading Finding Our Tribe…

What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 1) I have been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about the Bible and my experiences with it over the last decade or so. Around 2003 I decided to take up a serious study of theology and in particularly those around the words of Jesus. I naively thought I could get some clear directions for my spiritual life if I just understood why the Bible seems to mean so many different things to so many people. What I have discovered over this period of time awakened me. I did not get the … Continue reading The Thing Is…..

Make no mistake, there are some horrible people in prison, people who delight in the power of causing others suffering. Some are mentally ill. Others have been wounded first and learned that way of life. There is no excuse for violent crimes. I just want you to see their eyes for a moment. I want you to see the pain and the fear. Their eyes don’t change the past for anyone, but they tell us a deeper, more complicated story. They show us that there are some trapped people who can’t find an escape hatch. If they could, they’d use … Continue reading Look Into Their Eyes…

This picture has been on my desktop screen for some time now. I’m dreamin of Spring……. Continue reading Dreaming Of Spring…

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,place of ministry whatsoever…. Thomas Jefferson — An Act For Establishing Religious Freedom — 1786 From my study of Jefferson I think his separation of Church and State was more to keep the Church out of the State’s business than the other way around…. Continue reading Protecting The State…

First, Google cracked the code on Internet search. Then the company used its search platform to build the world’s largest online advertising business. Now, the Silicon Valley icon is turning its attention toward streamlining its business to focus on next-generation hardware and services, particularly in the mobile space. Judging by Google’s latest earnings report, the company’s core business remains robust, as the Cupertino, Calif.-based cash machine posted strong sales and profit growth on Thursday, sending its stock price surging more than 4% in after-hours trading to an all-time high for the second consecutive quarter. SOURCE:  Google Is Making Itself a … Continue reading Google Is Making Itself a Lot Leaner and Meaner..

Here we go again. Round number (I can’t even remember). They say it is snowing at about one inch per hour as I am writing this post and when it is published we are supposed to have up to a foot of snow on the ground! I can’t remember what it feels like to really be warm anymore. My desktop on my computer screen is of a wildflower meadow. It is the only thing that is keeping me sane right now. :) The generator is back on the front porch just in case the predicted ice happens to knock our … Continue reading Here We Go Again…..

We are so used to the things that the Red Cross does, that we sometimes just forget to praise them. But this time, in this flood, they outdid themselves feeding and housing and caring for as many as six hundred thousand. Lord, what a blessing an organization like that is.  I would rather have originated the Red Cross than have written the Constitution of the United States. Will Rogers June 19,1927 Sometimes it is hard to remember that the Red Cross has been around since before Will’s day. If this quote moves you a little bit please consider giving a … Continue reading The Things They Do….

Officials in Georgia are on the defensive, trying to explain why Atlanta was so ill-prepared for a snow storm that gridlocked highway traffic, leaving thousands of students stranded in schools and on buses, bringing out National Guardsmen and state troopers to help with rescue efforts. SOURCE: Who’s to Blame for the Atlanta Storm Chaos? – ABC News. I know that snow and ice are serious things for our neighbors to the south but those of us who live in northern States are rolling our eyes when we see the massive problems caused by 30 degree temps and a couple of … Continue reading A Little Inconvenience….

Similar attacks have targeted Shiite areas in Lebanon in recent months in retaliation for the Shiite Hezbollah fighters’ role in the civil war next door where Assad’s forces are battling chaotic bands of Sunni rebels, including extremists fighters linked to al-Qaida. SOURCE: Car bomb hits Shiite suburb of Beirut, killing 4 – Yahoo News. Sadly, it seems to always be  one religious group battling another when car bombs  go off especially in the Middle East. I am very happy that we in the U.S. have not been drawn into this form of violence. I think a big part of that … Continue reading It Seems To Always Be…

One thing I have gotten much better at in my retirement years is to savor the moment.  If I am enjoying something  I try to take the time to just sit back and thoroughly take in the experience. Some call this “Stop and smell the roses”. Over the years I have always enjoyed the HGTV Dream House that comes out about this time every year. I used to always make sure that I saw that show on TV.  Then about two or maybe three years ago something happened to turn me off on it. That is the time when the … Continue reading Savor The Moment….

At the same time, while many people mindlessly repeat the phrase, “We don’t make anything here anymore,” it’s simply not true. The fact is the United States remains the preeminent manufacturing power in the world, producing about 20 percent of the world’s manufactured goods in the United States, and a lot more outside the country. Though China produces almost as much as the United States does within its borders — also about 20 percent of the world’s goods — there is a big difference between what our two countries make. China is a world power in low-margin electronics assembly, textiles … Continue reading America unleashed…

I know I swore off politics as a whole but that does not mean I can’t weigh in on some of the issues once in a while. ;) The issue I want to discuss is the pragmatism of the president vs. the “Silver bullet Syndrome” of the Republican controlled House.  I must admit that I didn’t watch the “State of the Union” speech but I did see a few of the responses to it on the Internet.  It seems that the president is going to do piece meal what he can’t get the congress to do  in any form. When … Continue reading Pragmatism vs. The Silver Bullet Syndrome…

I was never terribly good at Calculus in college. I managed to get through three semesters of it was a grade of C+ or better but I never really understood its basic foundation. If it is not calculus, the equation above is very calculus like. So, why am I even showing it here? It is called the Drake equation after its creator, Frank Drake. He was one of the founder of the SETI organization. For those of you who don’t know that is the “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence”. The big question is are we alone in the universe. This equation … Continue reading Before We Destroy Ourselves….

Americans “A forefinger pointed towards the temple and twirled rapidly to indicate craziness.” SOURCE:  Cantonese Sign Language | TIME.com. I am always on the lookout for articles about those with hearing impairments so this one got my attention. For those of you who are not aware every country, and even different parts of the same country have basic differences in what they use to sign a particular word or phrase. But most often the sign comes from some general characteristic about the person or thing.  It is kind of humorous to see that the sign for “Americans” in China is … Continue reading Cantonese Sign Language

The first thing you have to understand about homelessness is that it is a series of losses – because homelessness is a process. Maybe you lost your job. And then you lost your partner and your kids. Then you start to lose your friends, and then your house. You stay with friends, which burns out the friends you have left, and then you end up sleeping in the shelter or in your car. You are now homeless, which means you have difficulty in our society finding a place to use the bathroom. The clothes you wear aren’t the clothes you … Continue reading Being Homeless Is A Process….

Residents waiting for their daily mail who haven’t shoveled out their mailboxes or sidewalks could be waiting for awhile, as postal carriers must have clear and safe access to make deliveries. Letter carriers of the U.S. Postal Service are not to take risks trying to deliver mail, according to local Postmaster Deb Egemo. So, if a mailbox is inaccessible, either on foot or by vehicle, the carrier won’t deliver. To ensure delivery: – -Keep walkways, steps and porches clear of snow and ice that can lead to dangerous falls. – Clear enough snow from curbside boxes to allow mail trucks … Continue reading Neither Rain, Nor Sleet….

“We’ll show the world we are prosperous if we have to go broke to do it.” – Will Rogers, 18 November 1927 This phenomenon seems to be so prevalent in our world today. Everyone wants to live a higher lifestyle even if they can’t really afford it. Continue reading Show The World….