partsofspeaking

  From Jonah Goldberg:  In a modern society, where the state has a monopoly on the use of violence, private violence is largely criminalized save in self-defense. If you grew up in such a society—which I assume most of you did—using violence to achieve private benefits is rightly seen as abnormal. Of course, it’s a constant struggle to keep it that way, because humans by nature have a violent streak that can come out among the poorly socialized. This is why calls to abolish the police are so idiotic. Human nature doesn’t change. Fail to tend the garden of civilization, and nature will reclaim it. Because gardens are not natural, they do not spontaneously emerge. They must be cultivated (a word that shares its root with culture ) . But given human nature, if crime no longer seems like a problem because it doesn’t touch your life, it’s no wonder that some people will think policing has outlived its usefulness. As G.K. Chesterton teaches us, it’s common for people to arrogantly a...

 We don't usually see "white" people as refugees. Now we are. Does it matter? I fear it does. Either way, Europe must do something for these people. Addendum March 26: Europe is doing something, and now is at its full. Now America must. In my city there is a good-sized group of Ukrainians already, so they would be welcomed here. Bring them. Perhaps when Putin is conquered, they can return to their homeland and rebuilt their rich and beautiful land, even more along U.S. lines (the good ones, not the bad).

Watching Shawn and Neville this afternoon. Shawn just interviewed British Ambassador Pierce. He asked "what do you say to those deluded people who are defending Putin at this time."   I am glad the news side can tell the opinion side they are full of --it.  Tucker Carlson and such idiots should have a big "I'm stupid" sign on their heads. 

 My last post "You Can't Help People" must not be misunderstood. It's about people in the U.S. who prefer their lifestyle and want you to fund it. Not at all about people in real need.  I have, like many, so much anger and frustration and fear for and about what's going on in Ukraine. I'm not going to virtue signal. We can only pray and find a legit organization that can help them, although right now that seems impossible.  Ukraine is a deeply Christian country and a deeply resource-rich country. The first matters more, but the second is why Putin is attacking, really, and the first will come under attack if the nihilist wins.  And they are taking their own defense seriously, not waiting for help from a lethargic Europe. I can't accept that Europe was so useless in this drama.  The words of the president Zelensky resonate: "I need ammunition, not a ride."

  You can’t help people. What? You might say. Hear me out. You can only help people if they accept the help. The exception would be if they are unconscious or without conscious choice due to a physical accident or similar situation. You can only help people if they take the help and make steps on their one to use the help. Now, they might take the help at first, and keep taking it, and keep taking it, and not make any efforts on their own to improve their situation. In which case you are not helping them; you are only rescuing them over and over and over. I know this sounds terribly cold. This is from a person who has paid other people’s rent and given out lots of money to those who needed it, and seen them choose to keep their lifestyles. I donated the money because it was needed immediately, and I don’t begrudge that. But when the person stays in the situation by choice so that they are in a years-long need of help, something is wrong.   There are some impo...

I’m in an organization (not the church) that is telling me my chapter will be shut down because we aren’t big enough and need more members, yet I am a dues-paying member. I can pay my dues but if I don’t get others to, I will be without a chapter and my dues won’t matter. I’m supposed to proselytize for this organization in order to keep being a dues-paying member.    As I told a member, it's like joining a gym and only being able to use it if I get other members to join.   What kind of a Ponzi scheme is this? I don’t think so. I’m out.  

Someone close to me used this word the other day to refer to a woman. It was unacceptable, and I let him know. Few other words are as demeaning to women. Shrew, the c-word, yes, those are bad, but bitch has become so easy to use that I have to address it. (I didn't put it in the title so it wouldn't get that much attention.)   A bitch was traditionally used to refer to a female dog, specifically one in heat, which would affect her personality. Any woman who expresses an opinion a man doesn’t like is in danger of being named a bitch. Any woman who has emotions a man feels uncomfortable with is in the same danger. Any woman who makes a man feel guilt about his actions is an even worse one. I’ve been called it many times. By students who didn’t think I had a right to express an opinion or to require work on deadlines (these were on student evaluation forms, thank you). By men in my family. They used it because …. Because they thought they could get ...

  Why are higher educators so concerned about power and “safety?” Why not risk? Risk is a necessary part of life. Everything is a risk. Getting in a car is a risk. Getting out of bed is a risk. Everything is a risk. How far are we going to take this?   Good grief.  I'm sitting through talks about "trauma-informed pedagogy." A new thing. Has no generation ever had trauma before? However, students who have lost family and friends to COVID, or who lost jobs for several months, should be reached. Those who had the sniffles for a few days, that's not trauma.   My rhetorical style is to write something pretty forthright and controversial, and then back off, then reiterate a softened first point. That's what I'm doing here. COVID is controversial, and even more so our responses to it. Did we overdo? Who can know? The virus is so unpredictable in its effects. Most were just inconvenienced, more by the quarantine than by the disease features. Others suffered greatly, a...

  In my study of the Christian faith over 50 years, I have been able to see trends, fads, and new understandings. Some were nonsense, like the Prayer of Jabez (actually a marketing tool). One valuable emphasis, at least for me, is the significance of 70 AD. Our interim pastor explored it last Sunday in regard to Mark 13. The passage is taken by dispensationalists to be about the end times, and it partially is, but it’s really about the fall of the Temple which was to happen in AD 70. Short version of important, long history: In AD   66 The Jews mounted a rebellion against Rome that actually had some success, for a while, until the emperor had enough, sent Titus (who would later become emperor, since it wasn’t all about family succession), and the rebellion was quelled and the Temple left “not one stone upon another.") But, the part I wasn’t taught: The Jewish Christians in Jerusalem had departed, fled, warned in a contemporary prophecy to leave. (Thus, Jesus words about th...

This may very well get me in trouble. It is geared to those who live in Congressional District 14 of Georgia. Gazpacho police – Oh, my, word. Gazpacho confused with Gestapo. I so want to write something scathing here. For the love of all things related to the reputation of North Georgia, stop tweetin g!  Even better to the rest of you, for the love of our region, kick her out of office immediately! She does nothing for us! She was kicked off committees! She is wasting your time and tax dollars. This is a travesty.  Thank you.

As usual, "the man" Russell Moore nails it.   https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/february-web-only/russell-moore-deconstruction-faith-church-dangerous-form.html I think "deconstructing" is a bad name for what people are doing, especially since as Moore points out, there are wide varieties of what is meant. I question, reflect, get mad, get frustrated, revel in God's love, worship, become sad, every day. And we come back to John 6:68. "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." And Peter meant more by that than "a ticket to heaven." Read the whole context.  For some, deconstructing is just an excuse to not bother living what they never really believed in the first place. For others, it's real and painful and sad. For others, it brings a transformed mind and heart. 

Seriously? Why is the United States competing in the Beijing Winter Olympics? Why are the Olympics even being held there? Why has the world bowed the knee to the CCP?   Athletes can’t even use their cell phones (not that huge a sacrifice, but symbolic of what we would give up to be accepted by China for its markets.)  The Babylon Bee is sometimes sophomoric, but this one hits the right point. https://babylonbee.com/news/pelosi-condemns-jesse-owens-for-criticizing-the-nazis-at-berlin-olympics The only justification would be if we won every gold medal. But that ain’t happening.

I finally watched this, 32 years after it came out.  It was cute in a way, vile in a way.  It hardly changed my life. I won't watch it again ( While You Were Sleeping , however, is one rom-com I will watch again; it's pretty clean and human/humane; the dialogue is real, not forced). WHMS has too much explicit sex talk and the whole premise is when are they going to have sex (at least we don't have to see the humping and bare butts). However, the vignettes with the older people talking about love are cute and kind of save us from the Generation X angst.  Men and women can be friends, but there have to be boundaries. There is a limit to how intimate they can be. The friendship can't invade the marriage; the marriage vows sort of make close friendships with the opposite sex off limits. By close I mean sharing a great deal of personal information and information about the marriage relationship. This seems like common sense, if such a thing exists any longer.  Whether a c...

I Peter 2:9: 9  But you are a chosen generation , a royal priesthood , a holy nation , His own special people , that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10  who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. 11  Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims , abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, 12  having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. I think we cannot ask and answer this question of identity without reference to I Peter 2:9-12. In a sense, perhaps, we are like Israel, but not at all. Some of the words are similar, but the relationship is completely transformed, It is spiritual and real rather than physical and real only in human or genetic terms.  "Not all Israel was Is...

Well, there has been plenty of ink spilled and gigabytes expended (through electronic means) over the bizarrely uninformed comments Whoopi Goldberg made on TheView (like this was the first time she ever made a bizarrely uninformed comment on The View, a show I NEVER watch and skewered in one of my novels. I have no idea what the purpose of that show is. But Whoopi stuck her foot in it.  She took the name Whoopi Goldberg as a stage name because she farted like a Whoopie cushion and her mother thought Goldberg would make her stand out. Although not all people named Goldberg are Jewish (I could name a couple I know of), it is seen as a standard Jewish name. She defended it over the years saying she had Jewish background, but there is no proof of that.  This seems to be committing the sin of cultural appropriation, to me. It also seems like a lie.  If this leads to a better discussion of what race is (and I realize to a large extent race is a construct or at best misunderstoo...

 A long time ago I developed the thesis that we must (my target audience at the time was Christians, but I think it applies to everyone) first transcend our culture in order to re-enter it and communicate with people within it and from other cultures.  By transcend I mean get a 30,000-foot view of what actually motivates us in our culture, what's really going on, get an understanding of how it infiltrates (almost) everything we do (I'm not a cultural determinist), and then re-enter our own or reach out to people of others with a renewed or transformed "consciousness." Of course, one would also need a theoretical, at least, understanding of the other culture's motivating factors, although total identification with it would be impossible without long-term immersion.  I like to think that my study of cultural communication theory has at least given me a 10,000-foot view.  Most communication theorists in this field make the primary distinction between collectivist and...

 Whenever you get on a high horse or a low horse, study Psalm 73. It will bring you back to reality.

The Creator knows His Creation.  He is not Dr. Frankenstein, despite how we act. I have been reading a lot about student success. It begins to get repetitive, and it needs deconstructing. There is a lot of discussion about purpose, but it's confined to purpose in work, finding meaning in work. Perhaps it's because public higher education has by its nature abdicated any responsibility related to discussing higher purpose, deeper purpose, existential questions, world view, etc.  How can we really discuss student success without giving space to those questions, those vital areas? I agree with the Frederick Beuchner quote about our purpose is where our deep longing (passion, joy, skill, talent) meets the world's great need. I agree more with the Westminster catechism: Our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Our purpose is not to find joy in being a cog in an organizational machine, especially as a woman, which seems where feminism has landed us.  Now that I am at...

I got an evaluation from a publisher whom I paid for a formal evaluation. It was a very thorough one, so they earned their pay. But....she told me to change my male protagonist into a lesbian.  Yeah.  And to put in more cussing.   My point is that that would kind of change the whole book and the arc of the main character, who is very dear to me now. I can't imagine him as something/someone else.