Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES - THE ART OF KNOWING WHAT TO SET ASIDE AND IGNORE

The following is from the valuable blog, "Between Two Worlds," and the specific post, Lloyd-Jones:  Focusing on What Really Matters:

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, commenting on Philippians 1:10 ("that you may approve what is excellent," or "that you may have a sense of what is vital"):

The difficulty in life is to know on what we ought to concentrate. The whole art of life, I sometimes think, is the art of knowing what to leave out, what to ignore, what to put on one side. How prone we are to dissipate our energies and to waste our time by forgetting what is vital and giving ourselves to second and third rate issues. Now, says Paul, here you are in the Christian life, you are concerned about difficulties, about oppositions and about the contradictions of life. What you need is just this: the power to concentrate on that which is vital, to leave out everything else, and to keep steadily to the one thing that matters.

- The Life of Joy: Philippians, vol. 1, pp. 54-55.

"CHARIOTS OF FIRE" AND THE STORY OF ERIC LIDDELL REVISITED

Many of you will remember the magnificent movie, "Chariots of Fire," (1981) which tells the story of the "Flying Scotsman," Eric Liddell, the man who ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics.  He was supposed to run the 100 meters race, but when he learned it was scheduled on a Sunday, he withdrew because he felt running on a Sunday would be (for him) dishonoring to God.  So on the following Tuesday he ran and won the 440 meter race and became a hero of Scotland, the U.K and the world. 

Instead of resting on his laurels and enjoying his fame, Liddell went to China as a missionary teacher.  As gripping as the story of his Olympic victory is, the rest of Liddell's life in China, his marriage, his internment in a Japanese prison camp, and his untimely death in the prison camp due to a brain tumor, is even more intriguing and moving.  This morning, I went through a box

CHRISTINE O'BRIEN - "DOCTORS MAY NOT BE AWARE OF LETHAL DRUG COMBINATIONS"

Here's the beginning of Christine O'Brien's article:  (HT: Cancer-Free)

It should be headline news. That's the degree to which your safety is at stake.

But, of course, it isn't—it's buried in science news sites, with nary a mention in the mainstream medicine. Recent research out of the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy found that medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous interactions.

Researchers sent a questionnaire to 12,500 prescribers (physicians, physician's assistants, and nurse practitioners) in the United States. They were asked to classify 14 drug pairs according to whether or not dangerous interactions were possible.

The 950 respondents correctly classified only 42.7% of the combinations. Out of the 14 pairs, four of them were potentially dangerous—the majority of prescribers correctly identified only ONE of those four pairs. . .    [more . . .]

The drug interaction website can be found here.  (Very useful... check out how your drugs interact!)

A "GOSPEL-CENTERED READER"

Click here for what looks like a very useful collection of articles related in one way or another to the "Gospel."  It was compiled by Timmy Brister.  His attractive and meaty blog is one I shall want to revisit.  (HT: Between Two Worlds)     (I note Tim Keller has a number of articles on the list.)

MUST-SEE VIDEO EXPLAINING "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" AND THE MSNBC "NARRATIVE"

Bill Whittle has produced a 13 minute video (after a 30 second commercial) which genuinely educates.  I'm indebted to Wintery Knight for the link.  He titles his blog post "How the Left Wing Media Suppresses News That Doesn't Fit Their Agenda").

Ever heard of the "Frankfurt School"?  Ever wondered about Feminist theory?  Gender theory?  The (exclusive) focus on slavery in America (and nowhere else?)  Get educated and watch this video!!   It's time we begin to understand the nature and development of the intellectual climate that now dominates the airwaves and universities.  While we're at it, we can learn more about "political correctness" by watching the following videos:

• Part 1 (10:36)
• Part 2 (10:30)
• Part 3 (7:36)

JUDY BACHRACH: LIVE THE LIFE OF A WOMAN IN A MUSLIM LAND

I already knew a great deal of what Judy Bachrach describes in the Summer 2009 issue of World Affairs (HT: NRO Corner), but it was still poignant to be reminded of the treatment women receive in Muslim lands.  It's a substantial article, and the few excerpts I offer below, represent only a taste.  Read the whole article for yourself.  Excerpts:

 . . . In Turkey, a nation often cited as “moderate,” wife beating is so common that 69 percent of all female health workers polled (and almost 85 percent of all male health workers) said that violence against women was in certain instances excusable. In April, a new epidemiological study in the European Journal of Public Health revealed that one out of every five homicides

OBAMA - TRAITOR TO EAST EUROPEAN ALLIES?

The Washington Times editorializes [my emphases]:

The United States is poised to dump a critical missile-defense agreement with two of its most dependable NATO allies. The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is going to scrap the "third site" anti-missile system scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were scheduled to be deployed by 2013. Now the plan appears to have been shot down.

This move sends the wrong signal to our allies in Eastern Europe. The former Soviet satellites have been among the strongest proponents of a robust U.S. role in Europe because they believed they could count on the United States to defend their interests against perennially predatory Russia. Both countries showed good faith by sending troops to fight in Iraq as part of the multinational force. The Polish and Czech governments acted courageously when they agreed to host the missile-defense system.  [more . .]

Me:  On July 20, 2009 I put up a blog post, "Central and Eastern European Leaders Send an "Open Letter" to the Obama Administration."  It looks like Obama has turned his back on the pleas of Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and others.  How to respond?  One wavers between screaming and crying, or at the very least, shouting:  STUPID!  STUPID!  STUPID!   What abominable drugs are Obama and his policy makers ingesting to produce such foolish decisions???  The editorial in The Washington Times concludes appropriately (if in an understated way):  

We are afraid to contemplate how long it will be before the Obama administration's national-security blunders have serious and irreversible consequences.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF RIFQA BARRY, THE YOUNG MUSLIM APOSTATE IN AMERICA?

Pamela Geller, whose blog, Atlas Shrugs, has been covering Rifqa Barry's story more extensively than any other, answers questions from Jamie Glazov of FrontPageMag.  It's a great introduction to an important story largely ignored by the MSM!!  It's the story of a an American teenage girl of Muslim background (Rifqa Barry) who became a Christian four years ago but who has had to flee her family because her life is in extreme danger due to the "honor killing" teachings of Islam.  Read Pamela Geller's explanation of Rifqa Barry's story here, and be sure to view the heart-rending video of Rifqa Barry.  Read the archives and keep following the story every day at Atlas Shrugs.

ABC, NBC WON'T AIR AD CRITICAL OF OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN

A comment is hardly necessary.  Television networks have thrown out any pretense of being objective and non-partisan.  They deserve the scorn and neglect they will inevitably reap.  Story here.    The 33-second ad by the League of American Voters can be seen here.  Dick Morris:

"It's the ultimate act of chutzpah because ABC is the network that turned itself over completely to Obama for a daylong propaganda fest about health care reform," he said. "For them to be pious and say they will not accept advertising on health care shuts their viewers out from any possible understanding of both sides of this issue."

Allahpundit over at "HotAir" wonders about NBC's alleged "facts in dispute" saying:

I’m curious to know which facts NBC thinks are in dispute. Cuts to Medicare, which even some Democrats are now hinting at? Rationing in Britain, on the heels of yesterday’s report about pregnant women being turned away from maternity wards? A crisis in Canadian health care, whose own administrators are calling for massive reforms even while they’re busy shipping patients across the border to the United States for treatment?

WHY SARAH PALIN'S "DEATH PANELS" FLUMMOXED LIBERALS & THE MSM

Scott Ott sheds light on how to discern who has common sense and who doesn't.  (HT: HotAir.com)  True, the House bill doesn't specifically provide for the development of "death panels," but as Ott says, Palin and the public understand certain truths far better than "elite" opinion in this culture.   He contends Sarah Palin's charge has legs because:

1.) The only way to save money in a government-run health system is to ration care.

2.) The majority of health care expenditures for most people come near the end of life, and thus the elderly present the greatest opportunity for cost savings.

3.) Special-needs people, like Palin’s son Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome, also require spending — another opportunity for economizing.

4.) The government, and too many in our society, believe …

a) infants in the womb to be less worthy of protection than Michael Vick’s dogs,

b) Trig Palin’s life to be Sarah’s foolish choice, and

c) the elderly to be a burden on society.

5.) Other governments which run health care operations have a track record of delaying and denying coverage based on the limited supply of medical professionals and equipment, as well as cost-containment considerations.

6.) The end-of-life counseling language appeared in a section of a bill on cost-containment.

7.) The American people don’t trust politicians, and would rise up in unified opposition if the federal government had a plan to take over and run little league athletics, let alone health care, which does involve life and death decisions.

8.) Americans love freedom.  [more . . .]

NON-HAGIOGRAPHICAL BIOGRAPHY OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY (1932-2009)

Discover the Networks provides a valuable overview of Ted Kennedy's life.   It doesn't omit the more unsavory and hypocritical elements of his life.

Update II- 8/27/09  - Carl M. Cannon - "Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddic: America's Selective Memory

Update III 8/27/09 - Robert P. George - Chappaquiddic Revisited  [This is a must-read!]

Update IV 8/30/09 - Dr. Zero posts a hard-hitting negative evaluation of Sen. Kennedy and Democratic voters.  See also Mark Steyn, "Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne: Only a Kennedy could get away with it.

Update I:  Victor Davis Hanson writes with sensitive and appropriate fellow-feeling of the passing of Ted Kennedy:

The country sends its condolences to the Kennedy family, as the last of the three prominent Kennedy lions passes from the American political scene. I have special empathy with the Kennedy family, since my mother — an appellate justice — also died prematurely from a cancerous brain tumor; the hope that a family invests in all sorts of cutting-edge treatments, the courage a patient shows in undergoing them, and the nefarious nature of such an insidious disease in the end become heart-rending — and overwhelming. At times such as these, it matters little that many of us disagreed with much of the vision of Ted Kennedy — nil nisi bonum de mortuis dicere. He had an incredible near-half-century run in the Senate, suffered terribly from the loss of his three brothers, and was a powerful and deeply sincere advocate for liberal causes respected by his peers of both parties. Requiescat in pacem.

CAN HEALTH CARE RULES THREATEN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? YES!

Chuck Colson tells the story of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic college that won’t allow abortion, sterilization, and contraception to be covered by its employees’ health care plan.  Colson writes:

[The Catholic Church] teaches that abortion, sterilization, and contraception are immoral. So it makes sense that a conservative Catholic college would make sure that its health plan doesn’t cover such practices.

Well, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a different word for Belmont Abbey College: “sexist.”

Using reasoning that could only be concocted by a consummate bureaucrat, the director of the agency’s Charlotte office has said that denying contraception is sexist “because only females take oral prescription contraceptives. By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”

The EEOC stepped in because eight college employees complained about the lack of coverage. The EEOC has now ordered the college to find a resolution. Even though North Carolina law protects religious institutions from having to cover contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization, the case could end up in the federal courts.

But as the president of the college, William Thierfelder, stated, “Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that

POPULAR MUSIC: GATEWAY TO DEBAUCHERY

Two days ago I bumped into an article on the kind of music that kids listen to these days.  I knew it was bad, but the article jolted me into still greater awareness.  Even if we prove able to defeat the very bad ideas of the current administration (and I certainly hope we can), the culture still does so much bottom feeding that only the power of God can turn the culture around.  And it is the culture, fully as much as the politics, that needs reformation.  That hit me in a new and fresh way after reading the article.

If that weren't enough, I decided I would further my education by going over to YouTube to check out the "most visited" music videos.   Here one finds music videos that have been viewed over 80 and 90 million times!  The culture is drowning in sensuous, salacious stuff.  Truly disheartening.  As a friend wrote me, "no wonder we have an abortion culture."

But good news!  Last night I came across a powerful antidote, the music and bell-like voice of the young Kiwi singer, Hayley Westenra.  Here are two links that will add an uplift to your day, almost a touch of heavenly transcendence.

The first link is to Hayley singing "Amazing Grace" at the Opening of the "World Games" in Kaohsiung, Taiwan on July 16, 2009.  The second link is her singing "Whispering Hope" at Truro Cathedral with the Cornwall Male Voice Choir on Nov. 2, 2008   Enjoy!!

TWO NEW BOOKS WORTH NOTING

--  Chris Castaldo is the author of a new book, Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, to be published by Zondervan next month.  Looks very good.  Justin Taylor posts lots of blurbs.  Here's a sample:

"Because the accounts of a number of high-profile Evangelicals converting to Roman Catholicism have hit the press, we sometimes overlook the fact that statisticians tell us that in America, Catholics are becoming Evangelicals faster than the reverse by a ratio of about three to one. What do these converts find? How do they cope? How do they—how should they—relate to their Catholic families and friends? This is the best book I have read that chronicles such pilgrimages. And it is full of godly commonsense."

                   -D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

-- Hunter Baker. The End of Secularism, is now available. "A number of folks are hailing this as the sequel to Richard John Neuhaus's The Naked Public Square."  (HT: Between Two Worlds)

Available online:

• The table of contents
• Introduction, Chapter 12
• You can listen to a recent interview on Moody's Prime Time America.

THE RELIGIOUS LEFT WORSHIPS AT THE ALTAR OF STATE POWER

Mark D. Tooley, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, notes the fervor of Rev. Jim Wallis in denouncing Sarah Palin's comment about Obamacare's "death panels":

“Please don’t invoke your ‘Christian faith’ anymore and embarrass the people of God even   further,” he fumed.  “May your efforts to scare Americans during this important debate fail. May your political future also fail, and may your star fall as fast as it rose just a few months ago — because we now know who you really are.” 

Tooley rightly comments:

Wallis is often likened by his Religious Left admirers to a prophet.  But prophets and Pslamists called their audiences back to worship of God, not worship of Big Government.  Palin’s sin, in Wallis’ eyes, is that she will not bend the knee to the alter of The Welfare State, which has been the object of Wallis’ fervor for over 40 years.

Tooley points out:

For the statist mindset to which Wallis and the Religious Left passionately subscribe, government is simply a cornucopia of gifts and services, benignly bestowed, as an extension of, or even substitute for, God’s grace.   But governments, unlike the private sector against whose “greed” the Religious Left perpetually warns, have coercive powers through taxation and law enforcement. . . .  

Understanding the moral limits of state power is foreign to the Religious Left, which imagines that expanding government welfare is always moral, and its critics, always sinister.  In the conference call for Religious Left activists that Wallis convened for the President, Obama  warned of “some folks out there bearing false witness,” of “divisive and deceptive attacks,” of “extraordinary lies,” and “fabrications.”     [more . . ]

WHY PUBLIC TRUST IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS IMPLODING

Hugh Hewitt posts an important piece citing numerous distinguished non-partisan, non-ideological economists who tear the Obama Healthcare plan to shreds.  According to the article, Obama and his administration "dissemble."   Well, that's one way of putting it.  In my world, to use the word "dissemble" represents an excruciatingly filigreed attempt to delicately say:  "Obama boldly lies, and thinks he can get away with it."

DENNIS PRAGER -- "JUDAISM'S SEXUAL REVOLUTION: WHY JUDAISM REJECTED HOMOSEXUALITY"

Prager's article appeared many years ago, but remains one of the best.  It's a "must read" on homosexuality:  "Judaism's Sexual Revolutuion: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality."  It begins:

When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world.  The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible.

Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.

This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.

It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.

Read the whole thing...

VIDEO GUIDE TO OBAMA'S CZARS

Glenn Reynolds (at Pajamas TV) has produced a straightforward 4 1/2 minute video guide to the almost 3 dozen czars appointed by President Obama.  Definition of "czar" - "one having great power or authority."  In the case of Obama:  "An executive with the President's ear."  (HT: Jonah Goldberg)

GHASTLY: "ETHICISTS" ADVOCATE HARVESTING ORGANS FROM ABORTED FETUSES

Chuck Colson reports on the gruesome suggestion. 

Utilitarianism has a hideous strength when it comes to medical ethics. If even a ghastly procedure can “save lives,” well, who’s to say it’s immoral?

 For years, scientists and celebrities supporting embryo-destructive stem cell research have used two arguments. First—blind to the destruction of the embryo itself—they argue embryonic stem cell research will save lives. Second, they maintain that embryos leftover from fertility treatments will otherwise be wasted.

Now, one stem-cell expert is using these same arguments to promote harvesting organs from aborted fetuses.

Speaking at a conference in March, Oxford University stem-cell expert Sir Richard Gardner commented that he was surprised the possibility had not been considered, and that experiments in mice have shown that fetal kidneys grow extremely quickly when transplanted to adult animals

As reported in the UK’s Daily Mail, Sir Richard, an advisor to Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority sees this ghastly practice as a potential solution to the shortage of

ANDY McCARTHY: "OBAMA'S PURPOSE IS REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY"

Andrew C. McCarthy hits it out of the park once again.  (I wrote about his insights a few days ago as well).  Today, in a National Review Online article, McCarthy notes that Obama is no ordinary politician. 

. . . These last seven months ought to tell us that the usual political rules don’t apply when predicting this president’s behavior. His purpose is revolutionary change in an American society he grew up understanding to be fundamentally unjust, racist, materialist, imperialist, and the agent of global misery. He is in Washington to transform the nation from the top down. Nationalized health care is key for him. If he gets it, sovereignty shifts from the citizen to the state. By law, government will be empowered to manage minute details of our lives. Over time — when, as the "American Thinker’s" Joseph Ashby observes, a “1,000-page health-care law explodes into many thousands of pages of regulatory codes” — that is precisely what government will do.

Obama is not a normal politician. He’s a visionary, and using health care to radically expand the scope of government happens to be central to his vision. For my money (if I have any left), achieving it is more important to him than is getting reelected. . .

And Congress may still give him his wish.

Things may appear to be going well at the moment for opponents of Obamacare, but the stubborn fact remains that only one thing can stop this monstrosity: wavering congressional Democrats’ discovery that they have more to fear from their districts than

BEN WITHERINGTON - "RELATING THE OT AND NT THOUGHT WORLDS"

Asbury Theological Seminary New Testament Professor Ben Witherington offers a substantial excerpt from his yet-to-be-published book, The Indelible Image (vol. 2).  Click here.  Very interesting.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: ASSESSING OBAMA & HIS ADMINISTRATION (SO FAR)

  Useful summary and insights.  Click here.

YALE'S COWARDICE

Key Sentence:  "If Western liberal civilization endures, it will be despite the modern university, not because of it."

That's Dennis Prager's considered opinion.  I agree.  He  writes:

When I was a graduate student at Columbia University in the early 1970s, I came to the then-tentative conclusion that I would probably never encounter a morally weaker, more cowardly group of people than college administrators.

While there are exceptions to this rule and there are other institutions that regularly exhibit as much moral cowardice as universities do, nearly 40 years later my conclusion is no longer tentative. . .  

For an explanation of what prompts these comments,  read on . .

TWO WOMEN IMPRISONED IN IRAN FOR CONVERTING TO CHRISTIANITY GET THEIR DAY IN COURT

The story is here.  (HT: Wintery Knight via Reasonable Faith)

MARYAM AND MARZIEH: “We will not deny our faith”

In a dramatic session before the revolutionary court today in Tehran, Maryam Rustampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) were told to recant their faith in Christ. Though great pressure was put on them, both women declared that they would not deny their faith. Maryam and Marzieh were originally arrested on March 5, 2009 and have suffered greatly while in prison, suffering ill health, solitary confinement and interrogations for many hours while blindfolded.

On Saturday August 8, Maryam and Marzieh were summoned to appear in court on Sunday August 9 in order to hear a verdict on their case. The chief interrogator had recommended a verdict of ‘apostasy.’ However, when they arrived, no verdict was actually given. Instead, the court session focussed on the deputy prosecutor, Mr Haddad, questioning Maryam and Marzieh about their faith and telling them that they had to recant in both verbal and written form. This made it clear that in the eyes of the court, Maryam and Marzieh’s only crime is that they have converted to Christianity.

Mr. Haddad, asked the two women if they were Christians. “We love Jesus,” they replied. He repeated his question and they said, “Yes, we are Christians.”

Mr. Haddad then said, “You were Muslims and now you have become Christians.”

“We were born in Muslim families, but we were not Muslims,” was their reply.

Mr. Haddad’s questioning continued and he asked them if they regretted becoming Christians, to which they replied, “We have no regrets.”

"BETWEEN TWO WORLDS" BLOG KEEPS PRODUCING INCREDIBLE MATERIAL

If you don't yet regularly visit, "Between Two Worlds," you will unquestionably miss valuable stuff.  Here are some items from recent posts that I am glad to know about:

- (Atheist) Michael Ruse: Why I Think the New Atheists Are a Bloody Disaster

- Matt Harmon:  How Did We Get Out Bible and Has It Been changed?    (Terrific 12-page study sheet)

- John Piper:  C.S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards on Layers of Self -Admiration

- Dan Wallace - Response to the video suggesting Obama may be the Anti-Christ

- Matt Anderson:  Perinatal hospice offers an alternative to the trauma of aborting a disabled child(World Magazine)

 - C. J. Mahaney Interviews David Powlison

- For Whom did Christ Did: 3 views

• Paul Helm (Calvinist View)
• Michael Jensen (Amyraldian View)
• Ben Witherington (Arminian View)  Update: On the general Arminian-Calvinist debate, see Wintery Knight's blog post wherein he invokes the Middle Knowledge perspective of Dr. William Lane Craig.

            - Justin Taylor:  John Piper answers the following questions in the latest Bible Study Magazine:

• How do you keep from growing indifferent to the Bible when you're so familiar with it?
• How do you approach the Bible?
• How can we make time for the Bible?
• How do you memorize Scripture?
• Is the Bible easier for you to understand than for other people?
• What would you say to someone who hasn't read their Bible in a long time?

THOUSANDS OF SENIORS LEAVING AARP OVER OBAMA HEALTHCARE

Update 8/19/09 - AARP under fire by seniors in Brevard County, FL.  Video here.

(Original post) - AARP has lost 60,000 seniors in a month.  Good!  This group has a long history of liberal activism.  Many former AARP members are going to the more conservative American Seniors Association.  Click here for the HotAir post which embeds CBS News' video coverage.

GROWING LIST OF SPONSORS BOYCOTT GLEN BECK PROGRAM

Update 8/19/09 - Ed Morrissey suggests an "unintended consequences" result.  Many sponsors (e.g. Wal-Mart) are backing away from news commentary shows in general  - which could mean devastation for lower-ranked MS-NBC shows.  CVS and Best Buy never advertised on Beck in the first place.  Same with P&G

(Original Post) - HotAir reports that Wal-Mart, CVS, and Best Buy have joined the boycott of the Glen Beck Program, thus adding their companies to ConAgra, GEICO, Lawyers.com, Men’s Wearhouse, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Roche, SC Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Sargento, and State Farm Insurance.

My first reaction is:  What's the deal???   I don't like this!  I may not be a totally sold-out aficiando of Glen Beck, but I think he says a lot of important things that need saying.  So why the big boycott?  WorldNetDaily does the necessary investigative reporting and fills in the blanks.  I think you will be surprised.  Read the report here.  Read also how fans are fighting back. 

ANDY McCARTHY - A MAN WHOSE OUTLOOK AND OPINIONS I HIGHLY RESPECT

Andrew C. McCarthy has long been on my list of "highly esteemed thinkers."  If I had time I would research all the posts on this blog in which he has figured prominently.  Failing that, I want to simply note that McCarthy does his own thinking.  Though he is often published by National Review Online, today he blogged Palin Was Right on the “Death Panels” — A Dissent from Today's NRO Editorial.  If you read it, you will understand why I respect his perceptions, convictions, and insights.  [Note: McCarthy is the author of Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad]

Update 8/18/09:   Another man on my list of "highly esteemed thinkers," Mark Steyn, agrees with McCarthy on the Palin "Death Panel" issue.  He writes:

INTRODUCING "NEWSREAL" BLOG

I read quite regularly David Horowitz's FrontPageMag website.  Today I learned that some of his own articles are cross-posted at "NewsReal" blog, a "David Horowitz Freedom Center" outlet with the subtitle, "Keeping the Cable Guys Honest."  I hadn't known of the blog before.  Drop over and see the conservative critique of leftist stuff that appears on cable.  Click here.

Skin Cancer Surgery Today

I was at a surgeon's office today from 8:45 AM to 6:15 PM.  The "Mohs microscopic surgery" required, in my case, going down five layers of skin to take out all the squamous cell carcinoma from a lesion near my nose.  Afterwards the surgeon took cartilage from my ear, skin from my thigh,  and a "flap" taken from my cheek to begin dealing with the hole in my face and reconstructing my nose.  Sorry if that comes across as a bit gruesome.  Maybe it would have been better had I not mentioned it. 

As it is, I am grateful for the prayers of friends and look forward to a speedy recovery.  I will need to visit the surgeon many times over the next weeks and months.  The staff and surgeon couldn't have been more professional and pleasant.  What a blessing!  I am truly grateful.

I am not sure how this will effect my blogging.  Hopefully very little.  We'll see. 

Welcome,  visitors from Pugnacious Irishman!  Please have a look around and come back often!  Thank you, Pugnacious Irishman for the link and for adding me to your blogroll. 

GOD'S COMMANDMENTS KEEP US FROM WANDERING IN THE DARK

Much could be said under the heading I've given this post.  Certainly one could launch into a disquisition on the 10 commandments, but I simply want to jot down a few perspectives I have "bumped into" during the last few days.  In a 1991 book titled How My Mind Has Changed, various theologians gave their answer to the book's title.  Elizabeth Achtmeier, then adjunct professor of Bible and homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, titled her response: "Renewed Appreciation for an Unchanging Story."  After recapping the Biblical story, she wrote:

I have come to a new appreciation of the place of law and commandment in the gospel, in both Old and New Testaments.  Obedience to the divine law does not form the basis of our relationship with God, but is rather the outcome of it.  God redeems us by the cross and

"THE SHAME OF ACADEME AND FASCISM, THEN AND NOW"

That's the title of Carlin Romano's Chronicle of Higher Education article that takes a look at Stephen H. Norwood's just-published, "brilliantly researched, utterly thorough and morally upsetting The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge University Press). 

The book, Romano says, shows how academic leaders got it wrong in the 1930s.

 A chilling chronicle of pro-Nazi enthusiasm, shabby indifference, and amoral tolerance toward Hitler in elite American academe of the 1930s, this book should exert direct impact in this season of cracking heads and bones in Tehran. It relentlessly names names, depositing fact after sordid fact before the reader in a way that leaves its implications for then and today overwhelming.

The book chronicles how Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and university after university failed utterly to respond appropriately to Nazi Germany.  Quite the opposite. 

In one remarkable chapter, Norwood exposes how "many administrators, faculty, and students at the elite women's colleges known as the Seven Sisters—Vassar, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, and Barnard—shared a sanguine view of Nazi Germany and enthusiastically participated in academic and cultural exchanges with the Third Reich."

Writer Romano asks if academic leaders will get it right regarding Iran today.  I would be very surprised.  More here...  (HT: Jonah Goldberg at the Corner)

EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER - PRO-LIFE CHAMPION PASSES ON

The Family Research Council's "Washington Update" eulogizes Shriver saying:

When President Reagan awarded the Medal of Freedom to Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1984, he lauded President Kennedy's beloved sister with these words: "With enormous conviction and unrelenting effort, Eunice Kennedy Shriver has labored on behalf of America's least powerful, those with mental retardation... Her decency and goodness have touched the lives of many."

Mrs. Shriver, who died today at 88, helped in many ways to improve life in America. She will probably be best remembered for founding the Special Olympics. At a time when, tragically, the vast majority of unborn children who are diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted, Mrs. Shriver affirmed the worth of their lives as children created in the image of God. She spearheaded Community of Caring--to help teen-age women and their children. She was a loyal supporter of Feminists for Life. Our prayers and our thanks go out to the Kennedy and Shriver families for the life of this extraordinary woman.'

CANADIAN HEALTH CARE STORIES . . .

Hugh Hewitt gives the "mic" (so to speak) to his anonymous ad executive friend "Bear in the Woods" whose experience living in Vancouver, plus the experience of other family members, is well worth reading.  Click here.

ANTI-OBAMA TRINKETS EXPLODE IN SALES

Reality settles in.  Obama mania fades.   Drawbacks of big government dawn on the duped.  At least such is fondly to be hoped.  Story here.   (HT: Drudge)

WORSHIP MUSIC - HOW DO WE DETERMINE WHAT IS "GOOD"?

Update 8/10/09 - Yesterday I caught a church service on TV which was being led by some special musicians.  The Spirit came through powerfully and I wondered who they were.  It was Keith and Kristyn Getty, who are producing theologically nutritious material set to modern musical sensibilities.  I blogged about this duo earlier.  Click here.   Also see this article.  And check out this Keith and Kristyn YouTube playlist.  (Words here).

(Original post) - Chuck Colson draws on an article in Touchstone magazine by Donald Willliams titled "Durable Hymns."  Colson cites certain "marks of excellence:

Among these marks of excellence is biblical truth. Lyrics need not to be literal Scripture, but they do have to be faithful to it.

Another mark of excellence—theological profundity. Think of how the words to this great hymn encourage us to worship God with our minds:

Immortal, invisible, God only wise
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes

By contrast, some contemporary choruses are often “so simplistic and repetitive

TOP-RATED, ATTENTION-GETTING, WEBSITES & YOUTUBE CHANNELS OPPOSING BIG GOV'T

- Update - Anyone following the Town hall meetings and the Leftist responses needs to check the Gateway Pundit regularly.

- (Original Post) - Hugh Hewitt posts opinions from his favorite anonymous ad executive, "Bear in the Woods":

Steven Crowder.  He's young, smart, funny, conservative, and completely gets popular culture.  He's familiar to readers of Big Hollywood, or viewers of PJTV, but a lot of folks first saw him when he released his healthcare video a few weeks ago.  There's a whole archive of great stuff he's done over the past year or so on his YouTube channel, accessible via his site:  stevencrowder.net.  Watch this guy. He'll cross fully into the mainstream -- a process that's already begun.  He's the next Dennis Miller, but not as smug.

Political Math.  Michael Steele calls him "The Pennies Guy."  He's smart, and his videos are, too.  Very DIY, very YouTube, very intelligent.  YouTube/user/10000Pennies

Alfonzo Rachel.  Another PJTV face who's been around for some time, and is finally breaking into the mainstream - deservedly so.  In my opinion, not quite as funny as Crowder, but still funny.  And just as smart.   Search YouTube for ZoNation, or find him on PJTV.

The Action Institute.  Coldwater Media sent me a link to a very nicely

SHOULD EARLY MARRIAGE BE ENCOURAGED?

Christianity Today magazine in its August, 2009 issue published a bombshell cover story on "The Case for Early Marriage."  Gene Veith agrees with the article (here and here).  Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, similarly agrees and offers extensive (favorable) commentary.  He writes:

Shifts in a culture are often signaled by unexpected developments that represent far more than may first meet the eye. The cover story in the August 2009 edition of Christianity Today may signal such a shift among American evangelicals. In this case the cultural shift is nothing less than an awakening to the priority of marriage. At the very least, it represents a public airing of the question of the delay of marriage among evangelical young people. In that sense, it is a bombshell.   [more. . ]

NON-CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY IN LATIN AMERICA

Christianity Today magazine reports on non-Catholic Christianity in Latin America.  It looks a lot like theological anarchy, which is a little discouraging, to say the least.  The article offers differing interpretations.  I found it insightful and valuable.  

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - WORST INTERVIEWER ON TELEVISION?

Ed Morissey thinks so as he posts an O'Donnell video "interview" with Peter Schiff.  I linked once before to an embarrassing O'Donnell interview (in which he was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt).   How such a man as O'Donnell remains on the payroll of MSNBC reveals something important to know about MSNBC. 

PALIN WARNS OF OBAMA "DEATH PANEL"

Update 8/9/09 - Gingrich defends Palin on "death panels" remarks. So does Ann Althouse.  Michelle Malkin offers a major roundup of comments and articles, including British examples.  A MUST-READ.   Update 8/10/09 - FLASHBACK:  Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon  (HT: Drudge)

(Original post) - Joseph Russo posts Palin's statement on the Conservatives4Palin website.  Her statement originally appeared on Palin's Facebook site:

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love

INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW PETERSON

- Related  - On church music issues, see this previous post.  And check out this Keith and Kristyn YouTube playlist.

- (Original post) - A friend of mine who thinks the world of Andrew Peterson will enjoy reading this two-part interview, here and here.  [Update: Part 3 here, part 4 here] If you don't yet recognize the name, click through and make his acquaintance.  From the intro to the interview:

It's true that so much of what passes as Christian music these days hardly seems Christian at all—which is all the more reason to praise God for Christian musicians who seem to be getting it right. And one of those artists is Andrew Peterson.

Peterson is the producer of ten albums, the author of three books (including the soon-to-be released, North! Or Be Eaten), and the creator of one website for artists and musicians. You can listen to some of his music—for free—at his personal site. You can also find him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.

Peterson was kind to answer some questions about art, music, writing, community, and the gospel for the readers of this blog. This is the first installment of that interview.

A PROFILE IN COURAGE

From an e-mail:

Read on for more pictures and an explanation...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I can live two months on a good compliment."  - Mark Twain

WHO WE ARE - i.e. Those Opposing Big Gov't, Socialism, "Obamacare," Leftism," "Anti-Americanism," "Global Warming"

- Update 8/9/09: C-Span Caller Blasts Media

- (Original Post) Dr. Zero says it best.  I urge you to read the entire piece:

There seems to be a bit of confusion among Democrats about the nature of the opposition to their plans. Maybe I can help clear things up, by telling them a few things about us.

We’re not paid minions of any corporate interest or lobby. Most bloggers working to stop the Obama health-care disaster are like me, writing when they can find the time, because we care about the future of our country. The same is true of the people showing up at town hall meetings, and organizing rallies. Some of us are well-dressed in tailored suits. Others wear jeans and T-shirts. Most of us are dressed in what we wore to work.

Our support for a massive government program does not increase when you tell us we’re not allowed to ask questions about it.

We’re not racists. We’re also not racialists. We don’t think a wise Latina is inherently more qualified to do anything than a wise Asian woman, a wise white woman, or a wise white man. We’re tired of being fed excuses for high government offices staffed by anything but the best people for the job. There are too many high government offices, so we’d like some of

OBAMACARE

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Earlier today I was going through an old computer file and came across the following quote.  I don't know where I picked it up.  If anyone knows the source, I will be glad to give proper credit. [Update: A reader informs me that this was spoken by the late Dr. Adrian Rogers of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN.]

Here's the quote:

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for,

 that my dear friend,

 is about the end of any nation.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS BLOG

If you haven't yet discovered Tim's "Random Observations" blog, it wouldn't surprise me if you wanted to add it to your bookmarks. When I pop by every so often, I am invariably treated to several original thought pieces of an extremely high caliber.  Tonight, for example, I greatly appreciated his post, "Detecting Religion in Atheists." I also valued his post, "The Origin of the Flat Earth," which taught me that "no one before the 1830s believed medieval people thought the earth was flat."  That was a charge invented, or should I say, "concocted" by atheists.  I appreciate his level-headed, dispassionate observation displayed in his post, "What's at Stake in the Intelligent Design Debate?"  There's a lot more to be found at his blog.  Happy reading!