Friday.....America.....Launching Our Barks On Unknown Waters

Last night the Internet news sites had bulletins that read Breaking News: Rush Limbaugh rushed to hospital with chest pains. It wasn't until this morning that his condition appeared to be stable. One might think that those such as I would have the future of America on our mind at a time like this, for Rush Limbaugh is the single most influential person, from the Conservative point of view, in America today. This was not what was going through my mind, I found myself thinking about his eternal destiny, as I hope I would for anyone in that situation, including our President. Rush is a God-fearing man in that he knows that God will judge individuals, nations and all of creation, but that and two dollars will get you a Wall Street Journal as far as our redemption is concerned. This is what the church fails so often to make clear. The born again experience has been described by different people in different ways but whether they describe it as such or not, it is always a ripping out of one substance from another. Some hear the tearing and feel the pain, others not delving into the particulars, instead rest in the thankfulness of their new existence, but an extraction has taken place as they are now children of the Living God.
I have often referred to a book that is very important to me. I related before that John MacArthur talked about it on his show and I went out and bought one. It is Valley Of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett and is a collection of Puritan Prayers. I admit that this will not sound exciting to the average person today but there is a profoundness about them that hits directly at our pride and exalts the glory and mercy of God. I say one of these a day, at the dinner table, and there has not been a time when I did not feel and lament my failures of that day but this followed by a fresh glimpse of a Loving, Merciful and Glorious God. The following is one of the book's offerings labelled New Year:

O Lord
Length of days does not profit me
except the days are passed in thy presence,
in thy service, to thy glory,
Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,
sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit
to supply every thought,
speak every word,
direct every step,
prosper every word,
build up every mote of faith
and give me a desire
to show forth thy praise;
testify thy love,
advance thy kingdom.
I launch my bark on the unknown waters
of the year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.
Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.
Give me thy grace to sanctify me,
thy comforts to cheer,
thy wisdom to teach,
thy right hand to guide,
thy counsel to instruct,
thy law to judge,
thy presence to stabilize.
May thy fear be my awe,
thy triumphs my joy.

Tuesday....International.....Intelligence Agencies

Intelligence agencies have a method they rely upon but that method itself is always under scrutiny. They use models and develop scenarios. Their intelligence gathering is categorized, they refer to history for past failures and successes, and predictions they may come up with are subject to change up to the last minute. It's an imperfect system but has served us well, overall, over the past three-quarters of a century even though examples of disastrous failures can be pointed to. There is one aspect of the intelligence community that bothers me and one aspect for the future that concerns me. There have been too many times that we (the public) have been kept in the dark, even deceived, for our betterment. When you start building a hole like this, it only gets bigger and bigger as time goes on. My primary concerns today are political involvement in the decisions made (always a concern but there are major warning signs in this area today) and the extent of the beaurocratic chaos from everyone protecting their own terf. There will always be problems in the gathering of intelligence and the following analysis of it but to inject political concerns into the final decisions made is a death knell to our nation's security. Most religions, no matter what "god" is worshipped, are powerful enough in themselves, due to psychological processes alone, to produce hate. Whatever the proportion is of terrorists in Islam, they kill for different reasons. Most of them, I believe, do so because they are haters. They hate. Maybe subconsciously some hate themselves (this is the same disposition that causes many other crimes in the everyday life of America,), maybe some hate what they are not? Many terrorists come from comfortable backgrounds and they probably need something that transcends the fleeting satisfaction of riches alone (some 60s radicals are examples of this.) I wrote in a previous blog from December 20th 2008 titled The Enemy At Home, that I concur with Dinesh D'souza's theory that we are hated because of the culture that we export, but that hatred still has to be dealt with because our culture is not going to change any time soon. My point here is that when you have multitudes who are of this mind, who hate, negotiations are going to be futile. We can negotiate with the leader of a Palestinian organization but he still has to deal with those in his organization who hate, who can and usually do, confound peace processes and who wield power well beyond their numbers. Most young people sent on suicide missions, are sent by men much older than they are. What this should tell them is that the ones giving the orders and providing the weapons have lived a long time without ever having done what they are gloriously describing to those being initiated. Reasoning in these instances might see results in changing minds but one still would have to deal with those in positions of power, who just hate. This is the war on terror, yet our government agencies are no longer even allowed to describe it as a war. The recent terrorist attempt to destroy an airliner is only the tip of the iceberg in the potentialities of terror that we may face. Certainly we have to reach out to the peoples around the world, and we have and do (see http://www.spiritofamerica.net/ for an extraordinary effort), but hate has no use for any such evidences. It has been my opinion throughout this blog that the great strength of President Bush was in his confronting this hate with the full force of the American military. It was precisely because many did not see the essence nor the determination of those who hate that he was so opposed; and it is precisely because of Barack Obama's relegating this war being waged against us, with negotiations, and naive you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours type of negotiations that he was elected. We have to realize the source of most of this terrorism if we are to confront it and prevent it. I'll recommend a book here by Brigitte Gabriel Because They Hate (isbn 0312358377) and her web site http://www.americancongressfortruth.com/ There has to be a secretive nature to our intelligence agencies but those agencies still have to have congressional oversight which begs the question of who sits on those congressional committees, and does politics inhibit the truthfulness of the agencies? The year 2010 may be a watershed year, should we make it that long, in the November elections. We need to scrutinize those we send to Washington more than ever. We cannot afford any more states sending individuals such as Al Franken (and many others) to Congress. Ultimately, the responsibility for our security will wind up at the feet of the American people. Are we going to vote our own pocketbooks or our national economy, our own particular ideology or truth the best we can discern it, and most of all are we going to humble ourselves before the God who gave us individual and national existence and has secured us, despite our vast inconsistencies, till this very day?

Monday.....Miscellaneous....Fairy Tale Come True?

On my twenty minute ride to work today, I listened to Glen Meakem who was a substitute host for Jim Quinn on 104.7 fm radio here in Pittsburgh (also Sirius/XM channel 158.) I have heard him in this capacity a few times and been impressed and know that he is very active and influential in Pennsylvania's politics and economy. Tonight I looked a little bit further to find a bio on him and now I'm wondering Why isn't this man running for the United States Senate? He's an A. B. (cum laude) graduate of Harvard and holds an MBA from there also. A successful entrepreneur and Gulf War vet with a thing for ethics in business. What's he waiting for? He started off the show today by reading Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes. Now we are all, to one extent or another, familiar with this children's story. I've probably written but the Empower has no clothes in this blog before but shame on me for hanging on to a quote and forsaking the meat. I'm just compelled to pass along here, Meakem's message on this story. In summary: there was once an emperor who spent vast sums of money on his wardrobe. He did not care about his duties as emperor or even the other entertainments of the day, only in wearing his beautiful clothes, changing into new suits as often as every hour! Two scoundrels appear claiming to be able to weave the most wonderful clothes that are so marvelous in their colors and patterns that they appear invisible to those unfit for high office or the simple-minded. The Emperor, lost in his own vanity, contracts the scoundrels to weave him a set of these most beautiful clothes. He supplies money, precious silk and gold thread to the rogues who only pretend to be working while carting off the booty every night. The Emperor gets a little bit antsy and sends a faithful old minister to check on the progress. The minister sees nothing for there is nothing there to see but cannot admit to being one of the foolish and unwise who cannot see such beauty, so they lie. The Emperor sent yet another official who also was not going to appear unfit for his high position. The whole town had fallen for the ruse. I'm not going to belabor the point by summarizing the rest of the fairy tale, for most of us know it, and Meakem's point has already been made. A vain man holds the throne and the bureaucrats simply cannot challenge what is before their eyes for they will lose their position. Glen Meakem emphasized the poor leadership all around, for leadership is a forte of his. Are we not in a similar position in America today, as Meakem pointed out? I only heard a small portion of the show and did not hear Meakem's full commentary. I don't see our President as the emperor in this story, I see him as one of the rogues who have come to the American people, awash in our toys, games and trivialities, and sold us a bill of goods. I have never been able to come to grips with the possibility of all sixty Democratic Senators and numerous moderate Republicans actually believing the bailout scams, global warming and Cap and Trade nonsense, let alone the Czar government and naive foreign policy. And what about various CEOs who obviously are brilliant people? The most ludicrous example are the keepers of the intellectual flame, the academics, the university professors? Maybe in their case, the robes and gowns they parade in from time to time are their own vain obsession? The story ends with the Emperor realizing his blunder and the people calling out that he no clothes but the die was cast and he went on with the procession with his aides holding up, even higher, nothing! As I was pulling into the parking space, Meakem commented that it was appropriate that Hans Christian Andersen wrote this story in Copenhagen.

http://www.glenmeakem.com/

www.taletown.com/emporor.html

Sunday.....Christianity.....A New Year

Jonathon Edwards lived from 1703 to 1758. It has often been said that he was America's premier theologian/philosopher and some have said that his was the most brilliant mind America produced in the 18th century! He would ride his horse through the countryside, thinking, and attaching pieces of white paper with a pin to his clothing as ideas came to his mind. It's said that, at times, it would look as if he were in a snowstorm at the end of his ride. He was one of those, along with Benjamin Franklin, that relied on personal resolutions, 70 of them to be exact, that he would go over once a week to see if he had remained on course. They are published in pamphlet form today and my son has a copy of them beside his bed. I rely on resolutions. I've used them sparingly to take them more seriously. Often I think of new resolutions at this time of year, thus the topic of this blog. I have four days left on a resolution I started January 1st but I want to be a little bit bolder this year. Diet is one of them. My goal to be the exact physical specimen that Charles Spurgeon is not popular in my family. I need to keep my big mouth shut for I have a tendency to purposely be contrarian. For example, I was with some friends the other day and they were talking about the nuisance of the smell of cigarette smoke. There just seems to be more important things to be concerned about in this day and age than this. My comment was If they made after shave in the aroma of cigarette smoke I would buy a bottle. I would like to go an entire year without saying the name Hillary (impossible!). I need to pay more attention to the micro elements of personal finances as opposed to the macro element. There are other more serious things that I hope to be considering over the next few days. How about you? If you researched your local Christian radio station, many of you would find R. C. Sproul's Renewing Your Mind, or John MacArthur's Grace To You available to listen to every day before work, or the White Horse Inn once a week. A book a month would be helpful. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress would be a good start. Some other suggestions of mine are:

Michael Horton's Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace (salvation)
R. C. Sproul's Grace Unknown (Reformed Theology)
John MacArthur's Ashamed Of The Gospel (heterodoxy)
Iain Murray's The Forgotten Spurgeon (Calvinism)
George Marsden's Fundamentalism And American Culture (history)
D. G. Hart's Defending The Faith (about J. Gresham Machen)
William Gurnall's The Christian In Complete Armour (3 paperback volumes)
Ken Myers All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes (culture)
Harry Blamires The Christian Mind
Peter Jones Pagans In The Pews (contemporary problems in the church)
Arthur Bennett's Valley Of Vision (Puritan prayers, I highly recommend saying one daily)

You might want to consider changing to the Reformation Study Bible for a source of commentary.


Familiarise yourself with a ministry and support it. Three suggestions would be:
Sproul's http://www.ligonier.org/
MacArthur's http://www.gracetoyou.org/
Michael Horton's http://www.whitehorseinn.org/

We don't know what a day will bring, let alone a year! One thing appears certain and that is that Christians will need increased discernment in the year to come. I need drastic improvement and I assume that there are many others in the same boat. Here are some resolutions of mine, some in force for some time, some recent, and some brand new:

Resolve, never to think that a valuable book is only to be read once.
Resolve, to keep Press On as my motto.
Resolve, never to let failures discourage to the point that I stop trying.
Resolve, to examine myself on a daily basis (refer to the previous resolution)
Resolve, remember that humility and pride are two sides of a card that is always on the table.
Resolve, to observe and learn from the lives of others.
Resolve, to pray exceedingly for discernment in my speech. (new)
Resolve, never forget past sins, for forgiveness of them is the source of overwhelming gratitude.
Resolve. pray for every person walking a highway (no transportation) for I was once there.
Resolve, to pray for every ambulance that speeds by with it lights flashing.
Resolve, to consider weekly whether this blog has any value or if it is detrimental in any way.

Friday.....America.....Goodbye To A Friend

A few hours ago I learned that a good friend had died. It was not a total surprise but unexpected nonetheless. I had known him for thirty years but we had become better friends over the last decade or so. I could not begin to guess the number of conversations we had in that time. Many of those conversations were related to concerns of the moment but of those where we had time to sit and talk, I don't believe that there was a single conversation that did not include our Lord and Savior Jesus. It was as natural as breathing that we would talk about this person or that person, and their eternal soul, or the church in general, or God's hand in all of our affairs. His conversation during his illness was as Christ-centered, if not more so, than before his illness. We only talked about death a few times. I have never known a person, or heard of anyone, or read of anyone who was more sure of his eternal destiny than my friend. That we are in the protective hand of Christ and our eternal soul under His care was a surety. In these few hours, I have not been thinking about times of laughter in the past for I have not been able to get by his faith at a time when it was truly tested. His faith makes me feel very small, yet very confident that Christ will indeed keep us. I shouldn't marvel at the outright attacks on faith in Jesus Christ today for had I not been regenerated beforehand, I would have retained my milquetoast faith or worse, would have moved into denial. In other words, I would never have been born anew had I not been given the eyes to see myself, my destiny, and God's offer. So how can I marvel? What I can do is plead with you, if you are one who has not tasted of God's mercy. If Christ does not come to your mind, as it did so often with my friend, there is a problem, but would you really have it any other way? Would it not be totally illogical to be a Christian, one saved from enmity forever from God, because of nothing but faith in the one who paid your debt, and not be overwhelmed with gratitude? With certain authors and certain scientists in mind, I would ask are you going to spend your 80 (on average) years of life in trying to defy what God has proclaimed to be true? What will you gain? Emporers, dictators and philosophers have tried to snuff out Christianity but it grows in greater proportion. Imposing figures in academia and the allure of fabulous celebrities mock those who know Christ but they often live to see their own family members numbered among the redeemed. My plea to you is to pound on the door of heaven from your mind. If God has not opened your eyes, if it seems that He does not love you enough to give you what others claim to have, then demand of Him to explain it. And then listen, through His Word, for the answer will be clear and it will make sense, and you will find yourself understanding that there is indeed no hope for you and that you deserve to be left out, but this is the beginning of your eyes being opened. There are multitudes of those who have gone on past this life, such as my friend, who were where you are now.

Wednesday.....Culture.....Health Care Reform In The Newspaper

The front page of Wednesday's New York Times delved into the world of end of life medical treatment. In a two page article titled Weighing The Medical Costs of End-of-Life Care, two academic analyses are compared. The first revolves around a group of hospitals in California that have earned a reputation as a place where doctors will go to virtually any length and expense to try to save a patient's life, and another called the Dartmouth end-of-life analysis. The former takes all statistics, including the patients that survived, into account and the latter considers only the costs of treating patients who have died. Quoting a doctor from the former If you come into this hospital we're not going to let you die. The Dartmouth analysis leads to criticism that these hospitals spend the most on end-of-life care but seem to have no better results than hospitals spending much less. U. C. L. A. doctors point to the fact that Dartmouth only considers the patients who have died, thus their conclusion. Two specific cases are given as examples. In the first, a 71 year old man was referred to U.C.L.A. for, other medical centers might have considered {him} too old for the surgery. The patient not only survived but is no longer considered in active need of a transplant. Quoting the article According to Dartmouth, Medicare pays about $50,000 during a patient's last six months of care by U. C. L. A. where patients may be seen by dozens of different specialists and spend weeks in the hospital before they die. By contrast, the figure is about $25,000 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where doctors closely coordinate care, are slow to bring in specialists and aim to avoid expensive treatments that offer little or no benefits to a patient. Continuing... By some estimates, the country could save $700 billion a year if hospitals like U. C. L. A. behaved more like Mayo. In the current House bill the Institute of Medicine would determine either to reward or penalize hospitals along this line. The California hospitals call this rationing and caution against real harm that could be done. Another example was given of a 49 year old man who needed a heart transplant. He was initially a good candidate but was deteriorating. The doctors tried every means possible to stabilize him enough for a transplant. They were unable to do so and he died five weeks later at a cost of $300,000. How are doctors to determine in advance which patients will die after five weeks or more of treatment? They cannot, they can't even guess. The only thing they could do is to establish a set of qualifications that must be met to "insure" success. The bar on this criteria will be high. Many would die who could be kept alive for normal lives..but...much money would be saved! If we give the OK to this method, the argument will be given that you could use it in other areas concerning life and death and even quality of life. The health care bill in the Senate right now does not have everything that Progressives want, but it is a start for them...a foundation that most assuredly would be built upon. For this reason, along with the nefarious schemes used to get it passed, the bill should be stopped and serious, legitimate reform of health care started.

Tuesday.....International.....Prophecy And The Newspaper

               The 1970s through the 1980s saw an explosion of prophecy teaching and prophecy books in Evangelicalism. The American church today primarily believes in what is called the pre-tribulation rapture. We see this ridiculed from time to time in the media and entertainment industries. Some believe that a rapture will occur before a tribulation period and some believe that it will occur in the midst on a seven-year tribulation period. Others see a rapture after all of the tribulation has taken place and some do not see anything that resembles a rapture or a seven year tribulation.
               One thing that we all agree on is that Scripture teaches very clearly that Jesus will return. We proclaim this often but how much we want it to be soon or even how much we really believe it, I don't know. I'm not doubting the honesty rather the logic. Certainly there are believers all around the world and even here in America that are experiencing so much pain through persecution that they sincerely look with hope towards the soon return of Jesus, but when one is raising a family with an expected bright future, it would be difficult for even the most devout to desire that it all will never happen, particularly if it means terrible tribulation beforehand. In my opinion, there are evidences that this time might be near.
              We are roughly at six thousand years of man's time on this earth. It's a significant number in Scripture. Even the most vociferous of those who deny that Israel has anything to do with the Lord's Second Coming, would have to admit that Israel's birth as a nation in 1948, particularly after a holocaust tried to eliminate the Jews, is more than only an interesting event in history. It has been a relatively short period of time since man has developed weapons that make end-times prophesies literally possible.
              I'll add two things that are of particular interest to me. Scripture strongly indicates that love will be in short supply and violence will increase during this time. I struggle with the newspaper every day in the tragic stories in how one man treats another man. Admittedly it is not new but in what once was considered a civilized society, it is startlingly frightful! If I remember correctly, when Carthage was uncovered, they found evidence of mounds of ashes where babies were sacrificed. We are not far from that, if apart at all, in our wanton killing of the unborn. And this, proudly defended as a right only for the last 40 years or so. The latest? Let the old people die so we can use the money that would lengthen their lives to improve the lives of children. That is if the pre-born make it past the Planned Parenthood Clinic.
             The second area that I am particularly interested in is terrorism. The 24th chapter of the book of Matthew is often referred to in prophesy, for the disciples actually asked Jesus when the time of the end would be. There are a couple parts of His answer that I return to again and again. He said And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. I have absolutely no training in the Greek language. I only have the reference books that anyone else might have. If the word rumors meant what we understand as a rumor, than it would be as if Jesus said You will hear of wars and "hear" of wars. The Greek word may primarily point to actually hearing the war or parts of it. (Now if you are a student of Greek and my words here are incorrect, I stand corrected and apologize for the confusion.) Terrorism is certainly not a new phenomenon but it has taken off like an Apollo rocket since the beginning of the 19th century and particularly so in the last century and more so again in the last forty years.
            I want to relate a disturbing story from the cover of today's Wall Street Journal. Here is a synopsis of what happened: Last week Mexican Special Forces killed a high-profile drug lord in a raid. A Petty Officer was killed in the raid and eulogized nationally as a hero. Hours after his burial, gunmen burst into a house at midnight and killed four members of the young man's family; his mother, brother, sister and and aunt. This is an elevation of the drug cartel killings and is generating extreme concerns that it is more related to the tactics around the world of full-fledged terrorism. Am I alone of those partaking of this blog, in thinking that we have to be pleading for God's mercy at what is happening around the globe? I don't think so. At the very least, we have to temper our temporal hopes, for the greater hope of the Second Coming.

Sunday.....Christianity.....Straw And Rebar

I just watched the television program Origins that deals with science and creation and gives the podium each week to a different scientist for a 30 minute lecture. Dr. David Menton was the guest and the topic was God's handiwork in the designing of bones. Dr. Menton (of Answers in Genesis http://www.answersingenesis.org/ ) gave two analogies, one of straw used in the making of bricks in Old Testament times and the other of rebar used in reinforced concrete, with the structure of bones. Concrete by itself would be too brittle and subject to breaking up. Rebar, by itself, would bend. The two materials need each other, and straw was needed for brick in the same capacity. My thoughts turned to the church. I'm only attempting to help hold the ladder in the building of sound doctrine from Scripture and defending it against false teachings emanating from the mind of man but there are those in the church worldwide that acknowledge the truths of Scripture and their ladder is used in more practical everyday matters of the Christian's life. There is a tendency for those on each ladder to give critical glances to each other as if to say Come over here and give help where it is really needed. In reality, either of us would collapse if not meld together and bonded together as brothers and sisters in Christ. If only we could lift up the work of each other. We cannot be so doctrinal minded that our salt has lost its savor and we cannot be so consumed with salting the earth that there is no firm ground for a foundation to build upon. It's my duty to examine myself daily on this issue. There are a lot of words coming from this blog on issues of terrorism, the economy and politics. There's a tendency for some to go right back to 1776 and for someone like me the tendency is to go back further to at least the Plymouth Colony but there is one big difference in the latter society and a structural difference with the former. We are no longer a Caucasian society. Ayn Rand's words do not help in building a nation of equals nor even does the words of Adam Smith. The Republican Party waved this banner of equality at one time while the other sought to tear it down, and the Democratic Party later waved it as the other party ignored it. Today the Democrats wave it but it is so enmeshed with political gain that it actually worsens the situation. I won't be so arrogant as to give an answer to this when others have labored their whole life on this concern but I will give my opinion that if the Christian church were strengthened, if it proclaimed Christ, and His cross rather than anything but, then we all would be so humbled that our views of what success is would not send us off in search of riches, and our view of ourselves would so prostrate us that we could not possibly look down on anyone.

Tuesday.....International.....China And You

The Rooney name is synonymous with Pittsburgh. Art Rooney Sr. was the founder of the Steeler football team, way back when, and more recently his five sons have owned equal shares of the team, keeping control of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the hands of the Rooney family. Then a problem came up. Two of the brothers owned racetracks with gambling. The NFL said that the gambling must be divested of but the brothers did not want to do that. To make a long story, short, and it was an extended period of time that Dan Rooney tried to keep the Steelers in the family, a deal was worked out. Any one of the four other brothers could have put the kibosh on the deal. One of the articles mentioned on the cover of the December 28, 2009 issue of Forbes magazine is described this way CHINA MELTDOWN, Be Very Scared and the article is titled Ponzi In Peking. I've mentioned before, as I have tried to follow this, that China is in a very precarious position, to put it mildly. Their economy is growing rapidly but the nature of this particular beast is that it must continue to grow just as rapidly. It has a dollar tapeworm. This is the outside looking in. The inside view is much worse. The Forbes article gives warning signs and is very serious about them. A speculative frenzy has produced an asset bubble that could bring their economy down. From the article-Signs of the times: government bureaucracies funding themselves by foisting debt on state-owned business enterprises; local governments raising capital by selling land at sky-high prices to corporations they own; and a People's Bank of China lavishing liquidity on the entire system in a way that makes the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke look downright stingy. They are churning out more office towers and luxury malls than can be leased for years to come (even if the economy does continue to grow at this rate.) They are artificially depressing the value of (their) currency and making it difficult for locals to invest abroad thus inflating property and stock prices. This is not just another potential economic crisis. I don't believe that China would settle for a lost decade such a Japan experienced, for they could not. They would effect other nations of the world more than Japan's problems did and hyperinflation in China could rock an already unstable political climate and encourage China's political leadership to follow through on military solutions. David Smick's The World is Curved, Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy (now in paperback) had the most impressive list of blurbs than I had seen for a while including Alan Greenspan's comment an essential read. I recommend this book because the news headlines might accurately be able to describe the relationships in ownership of a football team but cannot relay, on a daily basis, the relationship of China's speculative frenzy and your family.

Friday.....America.....Braddock's Defeat?

George Washington visited what is now Braddock, Pennsylvania at least twice in the 1750s. The Battle of the Monongahela, in the French and Indian War saw General Braddock's death hence the name of the town. Andrew Carnegie's first Bessemer Process steel mill began there as did the first of his famous libraries. The November 29th, 1904 issue of the Braddock Daily News announced HOSPITAL AT LAST. It would open in 1906. My mother worked the switchboard at Braddock Hospital after World War II and had nightly visits from a returning soldier who was badly burned on a troop ship from a Kamikaze attack, treated in Cleveland and then recovering at his hometown hospital in Braddock. That soldier was my father whose friends would boost him up to his room window each night after a few beers on Braddock Avenue, that is until this was discovered and he was banned from the hospital for life (according to my mother anyway.) The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), also an insurance company, now runs the hospital and decided in October that it should close in January 2010 due to financial concerns and low patient occupancy. There have been numerous protests, candlelight vigils and claims that closing it violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, for Braddock is a depressed community. Financially, the numbers of citizens in Braddock who use the hospital may be not enough justify keeping the hospital open, but someone at UPMC has to take in consideration that this community has been hit with one adversity after another. They do not need one last humiliation in being told to pack up the car and find their way to another hospital. There are not a lot of votes or political contributions from this area, just people, mostly black who do not have the transportation to just zip over to another community when their breathing is labored or the flu may be setting in. This decision to close Braddock Hospital needs to be put on hold until it can be ascertained that there is no choice but to close the facility, and this not just an economically wise decision. This is not a single payer medical insurance issue. It's a corporate issue that affects people's lives intertwined with their decisions.

Wednesday.....Culture.....KQV... Radio

It's truly a small world. In 1967 I could often be found on the step in front of the local dairy with a baseball glove under my arm, a pop and steamed hot dog in my hands, watching the girls go by, as if I had the slightest idea what to say if they looked over. Every night I listened to a radio station's popular disc jockey whose studios were only a few miles away. Five years later I was a returning Vietnam veteran, on the same step, this time with a softball glove under my arm, the same pop and hot dog in my hands and listening at night to the same disc jockey who had left Pittsburgh and returned, possibly due in some way to the influence of my cousin who had the capacity to do so. Skip ahead another five years. I was married and listening to the same disc jockey and probably (for I really can't remember the name) listening to a newly hired disc jockey. Thrilling so far, huh? This second platter pushin papa (here's to you Porky) was Rush Limbaugh, working under the name of Jeff Christie but it's the first guy I want to talk about here. Conservative talk radio is a phenomenon today. On the few occasions that I turn on the national evening news television shows, I am pulling my hair out within a few minutes. America is hooked on talk radio because their beloved country is collapsing and this is one of the few places they can hear the news accurately reported. It's not that dissimilar to the plight of Americans in the early 40s sitting close to the RCA and finely tuning the dial to hear news on the war. A lot of the conservative talk show hosts are very good! Some are just....good. Others require a couple of aspirins handy. A few are beyond measure in their discernment. Limbaugh is one and is without equal. The first disc jockey I mentioned is Jim Quinn. When in the music business here in Pittsburgh he was hugely popular. As a conservative radio talk show personality his program The Quinn and Rose Show (http://www.warroom.com/) emanates from WPGB 104.7 FM in Pittsburgh, and his show occupies the 6am to 10am slot on channel 158 Sirius/XM. He might show up on the top 25 conservative radio talk show hosts poll but this is not indicative of what he has to offer. I'm compelled to write this blog about him because of his ability to see beyond the hype, hyperbole and hypocrisy of the mainstream media and statements of public officials and financial elites throughout the world. This is not run of the mill commentary and it is a tad above even the best of conservative radio talk show hosts! Why hasn't he drawn the scorn of the radical left on a national level? Just a guess here, but if I were in their position, I should like it that he doesn't get any more exposure than he has right now. Somewhere in a previous blog, I commented that his delivery is rough, and it is, but this rough opinion given has something at its core that we need. There's a 7 year age difference in these two men but very little difference in the political commentary of these former deejays turned medium wave patriots.

Monday.....Miscellaneous.....There Is No Truth...And That's The Truth!

The United States Episcopal Church recently elected a lesbian as a bishop in their church. If she receives consent from a majority of the church's bishops, she will be installed in May. This blog is not about homosexuality nor Christian doctrine, it is about logic and postmodernism. The teaching on homosexuality in the historic Christian church is documented. The Scriptures, which are the foundation of all doctrine, is crystal clear on the issue. R. C. Sproul often uses the word perspicuity to describe biblical truths that are so clear that they can be seen by anyone. There is not an iota of evidence that can be used to reverse what Scripture says on this. Attempts made to do this are the absolute height of absurdity. One has the right to declare an offshoot of Christianity and hold to a belief that is not biblical. They would have the right to relegate the Bible to the status of a mere volume of good advice. In fact, this has been done. They would be wrong, but they do have the right to be wrong. What they cannot do, or I should say, what they cannot do without abandoning even the most basic rules of language, reason and logic, is look at an obvious statement and say that it does not say what it says but it says the opposite. The Christian Scriptures say one thing. One can disagree but not change what is said.....unless one is a postmodern. Whether it was the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason itself, or the more recent Modernism, we mostly dealt in facts, reason and logic to the best of our abilities. Modernism then collapsed. The high hopes of a scientific world evaporated in the slums of America and the battlefields all over Europe and Asia. The vacuum was filled by Postmodernism. A cursory search on the web for this topic would explain how thinking itself has changed, evidenced in everything from art to architecture, from film to literature, from linguistics to social theory. I'll recommend two books from a Christian perspective. The first is Postmodern Times (isbn 0-89107-768-5) by Gene Edward Veith, the second A Primer On Postmodernism (isbn 0-8028-0864-6) by Stanley Grenz. One quote from the Veith book is Knowledge is no longer seen as absolute truth; rather, knowledge is seen in terms of rearranging information into new paradigms.....These new models tend to be adopted without the demands for rigorous evidence required by traditional scholarship. We can see evidence of this, I believe, in the conclusions of some in the global warming debate. Grenz adds In the postmodern world, people are no longer convinced that knowledge us inherently good....The postmodern mind refuses to limit truth to its rational dimension....Finally, the postmodern mind no longer accepts the Enlightenment belief that knowledge is objective. My purpose here is to tie Postmodernism into the newspaper headlines of the day. Today, Senator Harry Reid said essentially that Republican opponents of health care legislation are like those who favored slavery. Only the convoluted mind of the Postmodern would brave the shoals of intellectual shipwreck to make a statement like that. On our side, commentators are arguing, correctly, that it was the Democratic Party that supported slavery but they should be addressing the absurdity of making a statement that reeks of chaos in the mind. Only the postmodern mind of an Al Gore could look right into the camera lens and confidently make the statements he does on global warming, and then say that the opinion is unanimous in the scientific community. Only a postmodern consensus could ignore the evidence of Barack Obama's socialist and radical training and consider it irrelevant. For decades now, we have heard stories in the news that literally numb us temporarily, and we then commence to argue against them as if they were rational to begin with, oblivious to the fact that we all do not process information in the brain the same way anymore. It has been my hope for a long time that the Republican Party and the Rush Limbaughs of the world would address this issue to make it more clear to the average American citizen, what we are facing, but alas, I don't think that they are familiar enough with it to take it to task. Postmodernism cannot be tied down to one theory, one leader or one method of interpretation and there are various theories as to what it is evolving into but the result is the same, truth is distorted, without qualms, according to one's preferences.

Friday/Sunday....America.....Reflection

How does one go about self-examination as to whether or not one has strayed from God's will or broken away from one's moorings? How does a nation? I know that many of my blogs are dark or pessimistic but I would ask you this "Is there ever a time for pessimism, and are there ever times that would be considered dark?" One would expect an ebb and flow of pessimism and optimism. My own answer to these questions would be yes and, these are the times, this is the moment. My gut feeling is that we (America) cannot possibly get through this mire that we have waded into without help. This should be a time for weeping and gnashing of teeth but we are hypnotised. We simply refuse to consider the extent of the trouble we are in. We continue to seek the good life. The 50s were a time for seeking this good life and the 60s gave us an image of it in many television sitcoms, none more so than in Rob Petrie's life, but disaster ensued in the late 60s and we have not been set free from this tailspin since. Can we even glean a hint of concern from the culmination of the Roaring Twenties and it's aftermath of poverty and war, yet the stakes are much greater today? Is it really what we want for everyone to be upbeat, without a concern? I addressed this concept of self-examination to myself before even considering writing about it concerning America. We are, as a race, inflicted with an infection that causes us to seriously err, the idealist and the realist both. The infection becomes deadly when we fail to acknowledge this. On the other hand, we cannot become discouraged or disconsolate and withdraw from the battle because we, or those we support, have erred. We have to live our lives acknowledging our own proclivity to make mistakes but humbly going on from there for there is no alternative. If we as individuals, or as a nation, can clearly see that this inherent weakness demands help from without, then we might seek it. I know this: God will not be mocked. He is long suffering, patient and loving but He is also a God of justice. We are on borrowed time, as the saying goes, right now. The foundation to discern where we have fallen short is the Bible, and the answers to our dilemma will come only through prayer and reading God's word to us, first. We are not going to meditate on our own and come up with the answers. The answer for America is also in reverencing God but not in words etched in marble above the Supreme Court bench but acknowledged in the minds of those sitting on the bench, not written in legislation but in the hearts of those who write the legislation, not from a speech writer's pen but through anguished prayer from the Oval Office and not on the decision of the voter in the booth but in his reliance on the Word of God the previous 364 days. Taking my own advice, I am far less than thrilled with my own self-examination.

Tuesday.....International.....Righteous Decisions

         It isn't the decision to increase troop strength in Afghanistan that concerns me. In a military sense, it is needed. There were roughly 500,000 American troops in Vietnam at it's height. This in an area of 173,000 square miles. The increase in Afghanistan will bring the troop level to about 100,000 in and area almost 50% larger. My concern is in the area of seeking God's guidance in these decisions.
          In both Korea and Vietnam, our ultimate purpose was stopping murderous and bloodthirsty Communism. One can debate the strategies and tactics used in entering those conflicts but our intent was in stopping a Communist surge throughout the world. We can disagree on President Bush's wisdom in moving to Iraq after Afghanistan but we know that he was after any nation that in any way supported the terrorist organizations that attacked us and continued to plan our destruction. Throughout the war in Iraq, the Left unmercifully attacked the administration. This motivated, encouraged and strengthened those fighting our soldiers. This was bad enough but our current president ran a victorious campaign on not pursuing these war strategies. This delayed decision by the president on Afghanistan troop strength dealt with both the question of succeeding in Afghanistan and at the same time appeasing the left that put him in office. Thus we have a timeline that is essentially a short-time calendar on the walls of the caves in Afghanistan.
          Ultimately, the war effort continues but the righteous intentions, in the decision making are questionable. It is said that the United States lost the Vietnam War, and indeed we did lose, but not on the battlefield. We lost on the television. With Pakistan unstable and Iran nearing some sort of nuclear weapon that they could either use or sell, my concern, more than ever before, is the safety of the military force on the field. America previously sought God's protective hand upon entering into war. George Bush, I and II, certainly did this.
         President Obama mentioned in his speech tonight that this was a just cause and indeed it is but the text of the speech handed out beforehand ended with the words God bless our troops, in between God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Surely it was just a slip after a difficult speech but God bless our troops was omitted. Insignificant, but in my mind, with the concerns that I have, it does not help. We enter into wars where, although our enemies are wantonly violent and the perpetrators of crimes that lead to these wars, our own sin in this world is not insignificant, thus we plead God's mercy. We need to seek that mercy now more than ever before.