Unedited Footage From a Bookstore #1

No Nazi Scumbags Allowed In The US Military | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Is The Gig Economy Working?

The internet and all of its accouterments has transformed many things, not the least of which is the way we work. Work in all of its forms has been revolutionized, but the question remains - is this new way of working really working?

Is The Gig Economy Working? - by Nathan Heller, The New Yorker

Proverbs

From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys 

good things, 

but the unfaithful have a craving 

for violence.

Proverbs 13:2

Encouraging Good Writers

What Parents Can Do to Nurture Good Writers. An interview by Dana Goldstein. The New York Times, August 2, 2017. Read the article here. 

Several of you asked about digital versions of my earlier novels. An eBook version of Sober Justice is now available. Here's a link

We Face A Test

Refugees, immigrants, minorities, and the poor do not present a threat to us. But our response does. If we as Christians embark on a political, social, or personal path that ignores them, turns them aside, casts them back to the despair from which they have fled, then we harden our hearts to their cry and to the cry of the Holy Spirit. And when we do that, we cease to be the Church, cease to be a body of Believers, cease to be Believers at all.

For us, the issue of how to address the disadvantaged people of the world is a test. One that poses the question, do we really believe what Jesus said, and are we really committed to living in obedience to Him, or have we reduced His words and life to a collection of religious tenets to which we merely give mental assent? One offers the way to life. The other leads only to death - theirs and ours.

Capitalism and Democracy

Capitalism threatens Democracy - Democracy threatens Capitalism

Fourth of July

The Star-Spangled Banner is not a Gospel hymn.

We Need Real Leadership

We need real leadership. Not the constant-campaign we get from the GOP. That latest healthcare bill that passed the House wasn't designed to help Americans get healthy and stay healthy. It was designed to pass, so GOP members could say to the right-wing base, "We kept our promise." That's all. No intention of moving us forward. No intention of solving a problem. No purpose whatsoever except to help members remain in office.

THE BABY BOOM IN PERSPECTIVE

According to available data, birthrates in the United States have steadily declined from a rate of about twelve live births per female of childbearing age during the eighteenth century to a current rate of less than two. Plotted on a graph, the birthrate trend-line follows a slope steadily downward with only one deviation - the period associated with World War II known as the Baby Boom.

Demographers date the Baby Boom in the US at various times, but from a statistical perspective the birthrate rose above the trend-line in 1940 and increased steadily to a peak around 1955-56, then declined back to the trend-line after 1964. During that twenty-five year period, approximately 33,971,000 babies were born (US Census Bureau, Table 53, Statistical Abstract of the United States (1970), p. 47). Births during that period produced a generation of men and women who went on to lead one of the most creative periods in human history.

In 1973, abortion was legalized in the United States with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (410 US 113 (1973)). Following that decision, the rate of reported abortions rose from 0 in the 1970s to approximately 1.5 million procedures in 1980. Thereafter, the rate declined to approximately 1 million per year, where it has remained since. From the time abortion was legalized through 2011, a total of approximately 40 million abortions were performed (See, Trends in Abortion in the United States - 2011, Guttmacher Institute (January 2014)).

Think about that for a moment.

Abortion has eliminated a generation the size of the Baby Boom generation. And with it, the creativity, ingenuity, and advancement that generation might have produced.

SAVING CHRISTIANITY FROM THE AMERICAN DREAM

The book Radical, by David Platt has been out a while and I'm sure many of you have already read it. It has been on my e-reader for quite some time, but I only started reading it a few weeks ago. Great book about rescuing Christianity from the American Dream.

In this era's highly-charged political environment Believers often view Christianity through a political lens, rather than the other way around. Politics drives the train. Likewise, devotion to the American Dream, with its underlying philosophy of self-determination, often drives our lives, our priorities, and our theology. This book addresses that dilemma.

The will of God and the American Dream are not one and the same. Jesus calls us to a life of radical faith, not radical self-achievement.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream

CHINA STEPS UP INVESTMENT IN AFRICA

Four hundred years ago, more or less, Isaac Newton told us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The notion of homeostasis applies a similar idea in a different way, suggesting that change in one area of a system dictates change in another. And so we find one of the great axioms of life. Whenever one thing wanes, another waxes. One lessens, the other increases.

As the United States withdraws from engagement with the world others, most notably China, have stepped in to fill the void. Trains, power plants, investment in agricultural production. Providing financing, technical support, and operational assistance. We back away, they step up. Our influence wanes, theirs waxes.

See below, Andrew Jacobs, "Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, With China's Help," The New York Times, February 7, 2017

He Who Oppresses the Poor

He who oppresses the poor 

shows contempt for their Maker, 

but whoever is kind to the needy 

honors God.

Proverbs 14:31

December Retail Sales

From 1992 through 2015 (the most recent year available), retail sales for December have increased in every year except one - 2008.

America In The Age of Socrates

Socrates made a fatal mistake. He thought the Greeks wanted to know the truth. What he learned, albeit too late to make a difference, was that truth no longer mattered. The Greeks only wanted to be persuaded - to be moved - to be stirred. Truth, it seems, had been redefined to mean only that of which one could persuade another. And now we enter that age ourselves.

Truth and Lies in the Age of Trump, The New York Times, December 10, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/truth-and-lies-in-the-age-of-trump.html?_r=0

Quiet Oblivion

I see people on the street who seem to live a life of quiet desperation - but in the pews and shopping malls I see more who seem to live a life of quiet oblivion.

Near The End

Near the end, people will revere the symbols of freedom more than freedom itself.

Twilight Of The Republic

During the recent presidential campaign, candidate Trump turned hyperbole into an art form, creating supposed facts to suit the sort of American mythological claims many think are true. Like the notion that vast numbers of immigrants come here illegally in order to commit crimes (the crime rate among immigrants is roughly equal that of the population in general), vote in our elections (voter fraud requires the collusion of hundreds of local poll workers at every level), and other claims for which neither he nor anyone else has an supporting evidence.

Now that he has won election to the highest office in the land, some had hoped that president-elect Trump would move to more reserved, judicious, comments based on substantiated facts and actual truth. After all, when a president speaks his words have consequences, both at home and abroad. But this weekend Trump returned to his old form, Tweeting on the topic of a three-state recount that the reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote was due to "millions" who voted illegally for her. Claims for which no one has any supporting evidence.

Campaigning by hyperbole is one thing. Governing by it is quite another.

When one campaigns by hyperbole, their statements are often dismissed as political rhetoric or mere puffery - the kind of statements the stereotypical used car salesman might be expected to make when attempting to sell a car of dubious quality and value.

When one governs by hyperbole - making up supposed facts and using them to justify policies that obviate, obfuscate, and contravene the constitution - mere hyperbole becomes propaganda.

The kind of propaganda Trump attempts to sell - that elections are tainted by voter fraud (though only affecting those who voted for someone else), that illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs, that globalism doesn't work, that we can withdraw from the world economically while imposing our will militarily - not only lays the basis for constitutional crisis, but turn us away from an electoral republic toward a dictatorial empire and the death of everything we claim to value about America.

If We Abandon The World

If we abandon the world - globalism, international monetary system, and the like - the world will abandon us. Our economy lives on credit, much of it extended to us by other nations, and on the constant supply of goods from abroad. Foreign countries only deal with us because it is profitable for them to do so. If we, as a consequence of our own choices, make dealing with us unprofitable, they will no longer buy our bonds and notes, or trade with us in the manufacture of the products we consume.