Twists of Fate
Sometimes blessings can really surprise us. Consider this:
John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.John wants to recoup his losses from the medical community and says:
He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday.
Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected "tumor" was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.
"I'm really pleased that I've got a second chance in life... but if you haven't got no money after all this, which is my fault -- I spent it all -- they should pay something back."What do you think? Does anyone owe anything to John? And what would you have done if you were in John's place?
Deployed troops battle for child custody
By Pauline Arrillaga, AP National Writer
Sat May 5, 5:22 PM ET
She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, handled the shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading, made sure schoolwork was done. Hardly a day went by when the two weren't together. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.
A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in mind — bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she'd be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling.
"Not without a court order you won't."
Within a month, a judge would decide that Sara should stay with her dad. It was, he said, in "the best interests of the child."
What happened? Crouch was the legal residential caretaker; this was only supposed to be temporary. What had changed? She wasn't a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an abusive mother.
Her only misstep, it seems, was answering the call to serve her country.
Crouch and an unknown number of others among the 140,000-plus single parents in uniform fight a war on two fronts: For the nation they are sworn to defend, and for the children they are losing because of that duty. Read more here.
Sat May 5, 5:22 PM ET
She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, handled the shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading, made sure schoolwork was done. Hardly a day went by when the two weren't together. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.
A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in mind — bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she'd be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling.
"Not without a court order you won't."
Within a month, a judge would decide that Sara should stay with her dad. It was, he said, in "the best interests of the child."
What happened? Crouch was the legal residential caretaker; this was only supposed to be temporary. What had changed? She wasn't a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an abusive mother.
Her only misstep, it seems, was answering the call to serve her country.
Crouch and an unknown number of others among the 140,000-plus single parents in uniform fight a war on two fronts: For the nation they are sworn to defend, and for the children they are losing because of that duty. Read more here.
Simply Christian
Codepoke at Familyhood Church recommends this book saying that NT Wright agrees with him on many things. Here is the beginning of his review:Simply Christian is NT Wright's highly persuasive explanation of why Christianity makes sense. Everyone is fond of pointing out that this is Wright's Mere Christianity, and as much as I'd love to top that statement, it's straight up accurate. If you liked Mere Christianity, Simply Christian should wind straight into your heart.Read the rest of his review here.
Life Imitates Cartoons
It is said that life imitates art ... maybe it really imitates cartoons. Scott Adams has made a living from real life stories from his viewership. Did you know that Scott has a blog? I just found it today and added it to my Bloglines subscriptions. I added a CARTOONS tag to my blogsite and was surprised to discover how many of my posts included a cartoon ... I guess it is just another example of how life imitates cartoons :)
The Hoax | ★★★★★★
Ann and I spent part of our Date Night this week at the movies and watched this based-on-a-true-story movie starring Richard Gere and Alfred Molina. It is the story of Clifford Irving's bogus biography of Howard Hughes and how he deceived the book publishing business in the early 1970s.
I found the movie to be pretty entertaining and intriguing. I thought that Gere and Molina made the characters real and personable. I was surprised by a gratuitous nude scene which contributed nothing to the story line and should not have been included. I think that one message from the film is that people are often conditioned by their environment and their greed to believe a lie and embrace a fantasy. I thought that the movie presented a scathing commentary on the greed of McGraw Hill publishing and Life magazine. It also showed how a man with no moral compass acts in the face of rejection.
On a scale of 10 I give this movie ★★★★★★
Epitaphs
A few nights ago our small group got on the subject of funerals and epitaphs. Interesting enough Matt's post referenced a Des Moines article about epitaphs. In the article the author posted the following epitaph from Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Ariz.:
HERE LIES LESTER MOORE,He then offered a few choices for himself:
FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44
NO LES, NO MORE
I'VE CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT CLONINGI have closed comments here, so go over to Matt's place and tell him what you want your epitaph to be.
IF MY FRIENDS TRULY LIKED ME, THIS STONE WOULD BE BIGGER
DID THE CUBS EVER WIN?
SEND SUNSCREEN! AND FINGERNAIL CLIPPERS!
THE GUY TWO PLOTS OVER SNORES
I'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME
THERE'S A MILLION BUCKS IN MY PANTS
IT COULD BE WORSE. I COULD BE IN OMAHA.
HEAVEN COULDN'T WAIT
YOU CALL THAT A FLOWER?
IT WASN'T MY FAULT!
TELL MY EDITOR THE COLUMN'S GONNA BE LATE
BUT I QUIT SMOKING!
MEMO FROM HELL: THE BABE'S STILL FAT
QUIT CALLING MY CELL PHONE!
TAKE YOUR POSTHUMOUS PULITZER AND SHOVE IT
THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
WHO WON 'AMERICAN IDOL'?
ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR PARACHUTE
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL CASKET. TRUST ME.
DID YOU HEAR THAT?
IF I COULD DO IT OVER, I WOULD HAVE SKIPPED TRIGONOMETRY
Animusic
Animusic is a content creation company. Their principal focus is the production of 3D computer graphics music animation. I got this video by email from my young friend Michael. It is just fun.
Both the graphics and the music are entirely digitally synthesized. Virtual instruments are invented by building computer graphics models of objects that would appear to create the sound of the corresponding music synthesizer track. Graphical instruments range from being reminiscent of existing instruments to arbitrarily abstract.
Both the graphics and the music are entirely digitally synthesized. Virtual instruments are invented by building computer graphics models of objects that would appear to create the sound of the corresponding music synthesizer track. Graphical instruments range from being reminiscent of existing instruments to arbitrarily abstract.
Another Look at John Edwards
From Edwards rises to the moment:
It’s rare that a presidential candidate -- a Democrat, no less -- tugs his glasses off and says, “Let’s pray." It's rarer still that the candidate concludes, “In Christ’s name.”I began the campaign season mildly attracted to Edwards then was put off by his $400 haircut. Maybe I need to check him out again?
In an era of scripted and sterile campaign events, the massacre at Virginia Tech produced a striking spurt of resourcefulness and spontaneity from John Edwards and his staff.
If the presidency is about big moments, Edwards set himself apart from his competitors in both parties, all of whom responded more sluggishly – and with mere written statements -- to a tragedy that would quickly reshape the national dialogue.
One Woman's View of Complementarian History
You can find the author's comments about the video on her blog.
I am not too sure what I think of the video yet.
All I know is that it made me sad.
Disposable Workers
By Chuck Colson
4/2/2007
Why Capitalism Needs Christianity
Last week, electronics retailer Circuit City announced that it was laying off 3400 employees.
What made these particular layoffs noteworthy was not their size but, instead, Circuit City’s stated reasons. They had “nothing to do with [employees’] skills or whether they were a good worker or not.” Instead, “it was a function of their salary relative to the market.”
In other words, Circuit City was laying them off so it could replace them with people who make less. Rotten!
To be fair, Circuit City is not alone in this practice. It is part of a “new way of controlling labor costs in the service industry.” Employers “determine the prevailing market wages for particular jobs in various geographic regions” and “then find ways to make sure that their workers’ salaries stay within that range.”
There is no consideration of an employee’s productivity or quality of work. Nor is there any claim that the company can’t afford to pay what the workers are currently making—only that it doesn’t have to.
It is hard to imagine a clearer example of how rapacious unrestrained economic power can be. With all due respect to the late Milton Friedman, corporations’ social responsibility goes beyond maximizing shareholders’ returns.
But even if you do not think that unapologetically getting rid of workers so that they can hire cheaper workers is degrading and dehumanizing, it goes against your self-interest.
That is because it undermines the moral and cultural consensus that sustains free-market capitalism. Michael Novak has written about what he calls the “three-legged stool” that makes democratic capitalism possible: economic freedom, political freedom, and moral restraint. Take away any of these three and the system collapses.
Christianity’s great contribution to this consensus was that it provided capitalism with a moral dimension that capitalism could not provide for itself. Its teachings about the necessity for moral restraint in the marketplace were rooted in the Old Testament concerns for social justice, fair wages, and care for the poor. It incorporated the consistent biblical teaching about human dignity, including the dignity of honest labor.
Thus, when poet William Blake wrote about nineteenth-century England’s “dark satanic mills,” his criticism invoked unmistakably biblical language and imagery.
Christianity provided more than a basis for criticism of capitalism—it helped forge an alternative that kept what John Paul II called “the circle of exchange” going. In the aftermath of World War II, democratic capitalism in Europe appeared to have failed, leaving communism as its likely successor—until, that is, Christian statesmen like Konrad Adenauer of Germany created an alternative to amoral capitalism and socialism. It was called Christian democracy, and it saved Western Europe from communism.
Closer to home, there are companies like ServiceMaster and Herman Miller, which are run explicitly on Christian principles and have proven that a concern for your employees’ dignity is not incompatible with making a profit.
Christianity has shown that capitalism can be the servant of justice, which is why I am so disturbed at Circuit City’s actions. It is yet another reminder of Christianity’s diminished cultural influence, which leaves people as disposable commodities and dehumanized. This is a sober reminder of why restoring Christian influence is so urgent.
This article is a repost from Breakpoint.
4/2/2007
Why Capitalism Needs Christianity
Last week, electronics retailer Circuit City announced that it was laying off 3400 employees.
What made these particular layoffs noteworthy was not their size but, instead, Circuit City’s stated reasons. They had “nothing to do with [employees’] skills or whether they were a good worker or not.” Instead, “it was a function of their salary relative to the market.”
In other words, Circuit City was laying them off so it could replace them with people who make less. Rotten!
To be fair, Circuit City is not alone in this practice. It is part of a “new way of controlling labor costs in the service industry.” Employers “determine the prevailing market wages for particular jobs in various geographic regions” and “then find ways to make sure that their workers’ salaries stay within that range.”
There is no consideration of an employee’s productivity or quality of work. Nor is there any claim that the company can’t afford to pay what the workers are currently making—only that it doesn’t have to.
It is hard to imagine a clearer example of how rapacious unrestrained economic power can be. With all due respect to the late Milton Friedman, corporations’ social responsibility goes beyond maximizing shareholders’ returns.
But even if you do not think that unapologetically getting rid of workers so that they can hire cheaper workers is degrading and dehumanizing, it goes against your self-interest.
That is because it undermines the moral and cultural consensus that sustains free-market capitalism. Michael Novak has written about what he calls the “three-legged stool” that makes democratic capitalism possible: economic freedom, political freedom, and moral restraint. Take away any of these three and the system collapses.
Christianity’s great contribution to this consensus was that it provided capitalism with a moral dimension that capitalism could not provide for itself. Its teachings about the necessity for moral restraint in the marketplace were rooted in the Old Testament concerns for social justice, fair wages, and care for the poor. It incorporated the consistent biblical teaching about human dignity, including the dignity of honest labor.
Thus, when poet William Blake wrote about nineteenth-century England’s “dark satanic mills,” his criticism invoked unmistakably biblical language and imagery.
Christianity provided more than a basis for criticism of capitalism—it helped forge an alternative that kept what John Paul II called “the circle of exchange” going. In the aftermath of World War II, democratic capitalism in Europe appeared to have failed, leaving communism as its likely successor—until, that is, Christian statesmen like Konrad Adenauer of Germany created an alternative to amoral capitalism and socialism. It was called Christian democracy, and it saved Western Europe from communism.
Closer to home, there are companies like ServiceMaster and Herman Miller, which are run explicitly on Christian principles and have proven that a concern for your employees’ dignity is not incompatible with making a profit.
Christianity has shown that capitalism can be the servant of justice, which is why I am so disturbed at Circuit City’s actions. It is yet another reminder of Christianity’s diminished cultural influence, which leaves people as disposable commodities and dehumanized. This is a sober reminder of why restoring Christian influence is so urgent.
This article is a repost from Breakpoint.
Let Combat Veterans Blog!
I just read that the Army is clamping down on soldiers' blogs. The Army says that they want to ensure that sensitive information about military operations does not make it onto public forums. Reviews will be needed for Web site postings, blog postings, discussions on Internet information forums and discussions on Internet message boards, according to the Army directive.
Call me a cynic but I wonder just how many blogger security breech incidents the Army has documented. I wonder if this is just another way to silence combat veterans who want to share their experiences with the world. Perhaps the administration is a bit uncomfortable with the idea of information coming from an uncontrolled source. I guess I'd file this one under paranoia in the give-me-a-break file.
If you are interested in a few more of my thoughts about our wounded warriors please see my comment at Karen's wounded warriors post.
Call me a cynic but I wonder just how many blogger security breech incidents the Army has documented. I wonder if this is just another way to silence combat veterans who want to share their experiences with the world. Perhaps the administration is a bit uncomfortable with the idea of information coming from an uncontrolled source. I guess I'd file this one under paranoia in the give-me-a-break file.
If you are interested in a few more of my thoughts about our wounded warriors please see my comment at Karen's wounded warriors post.
Spiritual Soldiering
An interesting 9 minute video by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. This is my first viewing of Driscoll in action and I can see why so many people are attracted to his speaking. Bill Hybels criticized this video because it did not speak of women church planters.
I found it interesting how Driscoll equated soldiering and warfare with manhood. Of course, in the flesh, this might be a somewhat realistic picture of soldiering ... but in reality ... hello ... I know way more gals who pray and fight spiritually than guys. Sad that Mark uses 'soldier' language the way that he did. I thought that this video seems to be a very carnal take on 'soldiering'.
The cornerstone of spiritual soldiering is humility of heart ... maybe it is why we guys are so bad at it. I would be interested in a contrary (to my) perspective on the video if you have one.
I found it interesting how Driscoll equated soldiering and warfare with manhood. Of course, in the flesh, this might be a somewhat realistic picture of soldiering ... but in reality ... hello ... I know way more gals who pray and fight spiritually than guys. Sad that Mark uses 'soldier' language the way that he did. I thought that this video seems to be a very carnal take on 'soldiering'.
The cornerstone of spiritual soldiering is humility of heart ... maybe it is why we guys are so bad at it. I would be interested in a contrary (to my) perspective on the video if you have one.
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