What do we do as Christians when confronted with these harsh realities? The Bible urges us to “remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself!” (Hebrews 13:3).  Jesus knew what it was like to have a loved one incarcerated. His cousin, John the Baptist, was falsely accused and arrested (and eventually executed).  Perhaps this is why Jesus, in Matthew 25, tells his disciples “when I was in prison, you visited me.”   As a victim of false imprisonment and injustice, Jesus entered into solidarity with the incarcerated and exposed the flawed justice system of his day.  Of all … Continue reading Jesus… One of “Those” People….

I wish President Bush and many of those presidents before him had taken the words of Jefferson to heart before they did many of the things they did.  I know it is against basic human nature to not utilize the power you control. Just look at all those yahoos in congress to see an example of abused power. I have read quite extensively on Jefferson so I know the words above were at the heart of his nature. OOPS –  I guess I was in too much a hurry to get this weekend quote out and forgot to add the … Continue reading Less Power….

Another academic year has begun, and if you (or your child) need a good set of wheels for college or high school, here’s a look at Kelley Blue Book’s five top picks for Best 2013 Back-to-School Cars. KBB editors compiled the list by looking at all available 2013 and ’14 models starting at $20,000 or less, then choosing the cars they believe offer the best combinations of style, safety and other qualities key to young drivers. SOURCE:   5 Best Back-to-School Cars to Buy in 2013: Fidelity. And here I thought everyone was struggling to put their kids through college … Continue reading 5 Best Back-to-School Cars???

Roadtrip Nation is a public television series and grassroots movement that encourages young people to hit the road in search of interviews with leaders who have defined their own distinct routes through life. The search for eclectic individuals who have resisted pressures to conform and who have become successful by following their own paths is what drives Roadtrip Nation. This remarkable movement documents these journeys of self-discovery in a free-spirited, adventurous series that encourages people all across the globe to move outside their comfort zones and explore the world SOURCE:  Roadtrip Nation | PBS. I recently discovered a very eye-opening … Continue reading Roadtrip Nation…

“They kept saying, ‘What do you think of the Muslim Brotherhood? What are the Egyptian military officers telling you about [Mohamed] Morsi?’” the general recalled, shaking his head in frustration. “I told them, ‘We had our own Arab Spring, now we have a democratic government, we have acute poverty, civil wars and al-Qaeda. Can you please stop talking about Egypt and start talking about Yemen?’” As for Egypt, it seems now that its main relevance in regional and global affairs is as a potential source of trouble. Its combination of instability, corruption and ineptitude makes Egypt fertile soil for radicalism … Continue reading Egypt No Longer Matters

It’s my honest opinion that we all want to leave our mark on this world. Some of us may not recognize this urge, but we all want to change something, to alter things, to create something that will last longer than us. Even if it is a scar. Yes, there are plenty out there who just want to inflict pain, because that’s the only thing they can do. Or the only thing they think they can do. SOURCE:  We all want to change the world « Cristian Mihai. Once again my young Romanian blogging friend got me to thinking on … Continue reading We all want to change the world

We are just here for a spell and pass on. . . so get a few laughs, do the best you can. . . Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.” – Will Rogers, 5 July 1931 I have been reading some new blogs lately. One is supposedly among the top twenty in the world, and I see much in the way of despair and futility. One makes the claim that since the universe is billions of years old and we humans only manage to live less than a century in it so anything we might … Continue reading Just Here For A Spell…

In a sane world, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would also be on the political ropes, in his case, for cheering the late Jesse Helms of North Carolina, an unreconstructed bigot who devoted his life to the defense of white supremacy and the advancement of far-right politics. Instead, Cruz—who in many ways is the ideological successor to Helms—will lose nothing, and continue to act as the avatar for forces that will destroy the Republican Party if they aren’t stopped. First, the details. Yesterday, Cruz delivered a foreign policy address at the conservative Heritage Foundation for the Jesse Helms Lecture Series. (That this … Continue reading About The Heritage Foundation…

In my life’s experiences I have found that it is extremely difficult to get people to cross a personal barrier in order to accomplish a common good. Politics…… It seems that the common good, that is things that people who have different political views can come together and accomplish, is becoming a rarity in the U.S. the last decade or so. There are a lot of things out there that could be accomplished if only some would learn the art of compromise. Everything doesn’t have to have a political point or exactly mesh with your “principles”. Religion…. The version of … Continue reading Crossing The Barrier For The Common Good….

In the case of UPS, the 15,000 spouses are husbands or wives whose employers also offer health benefits. This appears to be a case where they like the plan they have (they’ve opted for the UPS plan rather than their employer plan) and can’t keep it….. And for the 15,000 who are affected, it’s a bit simplistic to say their options are narrowing solely because of Obamacare. UPS didn’t say the law was the only factor behind its decision. And some health-care experts argue that businesses are using Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a convenient excuse for continuing a … Continue reading UPS drops health benefits for 15,000 spouses…

SOURCE:  Across Egypt, piles of ash where church pews once stood (+video) – CSMonitor.com. While we are meddling in the various civil wars in the Middle East, and aren’t almost all of them in one form of war or another, how do we choose which side we are one? It seems in Syria and Egypt the “rebels” are the extremists who are burning churches that are not muslim whenever they come across them.  How do we choose where to inject a few billion dollars to affect the outcome. Mr. Obama is trying to make the case to drop bombs and … Continue reading Across Egypt, piles of ash where church pews once stood

“If you are going to write, talk, comment, or argue over any public question, don’t do it by just reading one newspaper….You can tell in a minute a person that only reads one paper.” – Will Rogers, 18 March 1934 Some more words of wisdom for today spoken by WIll Rogers almost eighty years ago. I can say for a fact that many of my conservative friends and past classmates have Fox News running in their homes throughout the day.  I am also sure that is the only source of news many of them expose themselves to.  Well not quite, … Continue reading All About Fox News……

“I don’t suppose there ever was a time when everybody knew as little about what they were talking about as they do today.” – Will Rogers, 19 September 1933 A quote I often cite is “You don’t have to know what you are saying as long as you say it with authority”. That seems to mimic what Will is saying above but I think these times today that has far exceeded what it was in his days.  One example of that might be President Obama. His rhetoric captivated many during the 2008 campaign season (including me ) but lack of … Continue reading Knowing So Little….

Al-Qaeda-linked rebels take Syrian Christian village, activists sayIt is unclear how an historic village just 26 miles from Damascus could be overrun; locals say rebels burned churches SOURCE:  Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News – CBS News. It bothers me greatly that there will likely be severe innocent deaths associated with President Obama’s rush to enter into the Syrian civil war. Yeah, million dollar smart bombs and drones are more accurate than huge shells being blasted from the battleship Wisconsin as in the past but they still kill many who are just trying to survive the conflicts around … Continue reading And My Tax Dollars Support It???

Recent studies show, for example, that wealthier people are more likely to cut people off in traffic and to behave unethically in simulated business and charity scenarios. Earlier this year, statistics on charitable giving revealed that while the wealthy donate about 1.3% of their income to charity, the poorest actually give more than twice as much as a proportion of their earnings — 3.2%. “There’s this idea that the more you have, the less entitled and more grateful you feel; and the less you have, the more you feel you deserve. That’s not what we find,” says author Paul Piff, … Continue reading Narcissism And The 1%….

Skeptical European foreign ministers on Saturday urged the U.S. to delay possible military action against Syria until U.N. inspectors report on last month’s suspected chemical weapons attack. SOURCE: European leaders urge U.S. on Syria: Slow down – CBS News. Will President Obama listen to some of the leaders of the other 95% of the world’s population and not rush into another war, no matter how limited he claims it to be?  Going it alone has cost this country too much in terms of our debt and what we have left spend on the “least of these”, let alone the lives of … Continue reading European leaders urge U.S. on Syria: Slow down

 “Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” ― George Carlin … Continue reading How The Other Side Sees It….

The current Democratic Party is too skeptical of business, too hostile toward wealth creation, and overly abusive of America’s most productive citizens—often because there are votes to be had by poking the rich in the eye. Yes, a modern economy needs regulation, but that regulation needs to be targeted and have minimal costs. Like a good physician, we want to fix the problem—because there are problems that need government fixes—without messing anything else up.  — The Centrist Manifesto (Wheelan, Charles) Some folks, especially my more conservative friends (yeah, I got a few), don’t think I criticize the Democratic party enough … Continue reading Democratic Party Is Too Skeptical…

Right after 9/11, I asked a kid in my neighborhood what we should do in response.  His answer: “Those people did something very wrong…”  He thought pensively and continued, “But two wrongs don’t make a right.”  As Martin Luther King taught us, you cannot fight fire with fire, you only get a bigger fire.  You fight fire with water.  You fight violence with nonviolence.  You fight hatred with love.  As a Christian, a follower of Jesus the Prince of Peace, I am deeply troubled about the possibility of a military response to the violence in Syria.  Jesus consistently teaches us … Continue reading Shane Claiborne’s Statement on Syria – Red Letter Christians

But has Obama damaged the power of the president by allowing Congress its say? Is his decision, in fact, a “historic American retreat” – at least within the context of domestic politics? Certainly, he’s doing something that no recent US president has done. Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada in 1983 and bombed Libya in 1986 without congressional approval, and Bill Clinton committed US forces to NATO air campaigns in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 and launched a missile attack against terrorists in Afghanistan in 1998 without congressional backing. When Obama signed on to the 2011 Libya operation without involving … Continue reading A Weaker President – Good……….

His reasoning, according to officials who were in the room? He wants members on the record, rather than simply criticizing from outside whatever action he takes. SOURCE:  Obama’s Syria strike decision aims to get Congress on the record – CBS News. I made a personal vow to try to stay out of the latest saber-rattling from a U.S. president. After Mr. Obama’s strong words against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it has troubled me to see him seemingly repeat the same mistakes. I just hope that when he does it is of a much smaller scale than his predecessor … Continue reading The Hawk’s Delimina….

For two decades close to 40 percent of the highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. have performed abysmally, a new report asserts. These CEOs, according to the report, “ought to be exemplars of value-added performance,” given the prevailing notion that executives earn their high pay by adding value to their companies and to the U.S. economy at large. “Our analysis reveals widespread poor performance.” SOURCE: Highest Paid Worst Performing Chief Executives – ABC News. I generally believe in the saying in the title of this post but obviously it doesn’t apply to all circumstances. Given that yesterday was a celebration of the … Continue reading You Get What You Pay For??? Well Not Always….

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbeques and the end of summer vacation… Following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, the United States Congress unanimously voted to approve rush legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday; President … Continue reading Labor Day…

I like to think of the Great Emergence as reported in the book by Phyllis Tickle as  “Post-Religion”.  It moves beyond what we call currently call religion into the next phase of focusing on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. It moves beyond building cathedrals to building relationships and love between all of God’s people not just those in our particular version of Christian community. It moves beyond needing to pay someone to lead our worship services and tell us what to believe to our personal study of God’s word untarnished by religious baggage. It moves beyond strictly enforced … Continue reading It Moves Beyond….

I have been in a reflective mood lately. I don’t know why but I have been thinking of things of life. Pretty deep huh??  One of those things is how I feel about myself and my experiences of life. The Mark Twain quote below pretty well sums up one aspect. I am old. I recognize it but I don’t realize it. I wonder if a person really ever ceases to feel young – I mean for a whole day at a time. I don’t really see myself as an old guy like I saw my grandfather (I only knew one). … Continue reading Reflections….

“There isn’t a person on earth that would make fun of a bald three-year-old who was undergoing chemotherapy. And yet, if someone’s acting weird we call them names. … It’s so accepted that it’s frightening,” Laura said, highlighting insults like “whack job,” “nut case,” and “psycho.” SOURCE:  For those with mental illness, stigma cuts deep – CBS News. Let’s face it our society is still pretty much biased against those with mental illness.  Our prisons are filled with many who are in that category. They say about one-third of those homeless who live on our streets are afflicted with mental … Continue reading For those with mental illness, stigma cuts deep

“The liberal media would have you believe that there’s nobody that looks like the people on this stage that have an R behind their name. And that’s just not the case,” said Oklahoma’s Shannon, who suggested that the party should stress its belief in limited government and personal responsibility, two values that he learned from his local African-American church. Agness, the founder and president of the Network of Enlightened Women, argued that the GOP would benefit by tackling the problem of liberal bias in universities….. SOURCE: The Party of Old White Guys Changes Its Look | TIME.com. Here I am poking … Continue reading All Those Damn Liberals…..