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  • When Academic Achievement is a Disaster (When It’s on Wall Street)

    I rest my case against those who insist that only those who excel academically (and of course those who go to the right schools) are worthy to direct our society with this, from (of all places) the New York Times:

    “The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.” He took a sip of his martini, and stared straight at the row of bottles behind the bar, as if the conversation was now over.

    “But weren’t there smart guys on Wall Street in the first place?” I asked.

    He looked at me the way a mathematics teacher might look at a child who, despite heroic efforts by the teacher, seemed incapable of learning the most rudimentary principles of long division. “You are either a lot younger than you look or you don’t have much of a memory,” he said. “One of the speakers at my 25th reunion said that, according to a survey he had done of those attending, income was now precisely in inverse proportion to academic standing in the class, and that was partly because everyone in the lower third of the class had become a Wall Street millionaire.”

  • Ya missed a line…typical Anglican…

    In response to this posting about broadcaster Paul Roberts, I got the following response from WGOW (Paul’s last radio station) Program Director Bill Lockhart:

    Towards the end of his (Paul’s) life I visited him at Memorial Hospital (our Catholic hospital in Chattanooga) on a Sunday morning.  A Lay Minister (Catholic) came in…offered communion (I declined…being Episcopalian) then a prayer.   I said the Lord’s Prayer with him.   After the guy left, Paul looked up…with a twinkle in his eye, said ” Ya missed a line…typical Anglican…”

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  • Créteil Bébel: Mosque League, Maybe?

    We’re one step closer to “ignition” between the Muslim and homosexual communities:

    Creteil Bébel is excluded

    The amateur soccer team, primarily made up of Moslem players from the Paris region, was excluded from their league because they refused to play against a homosexual club, Paris Foot Gay. The Leisure Soccer Commission wrote:

    “The Creteil Bebel team is excluded from the CFL for refusing a match for reasons of discrimination.”

    To fight against Islamization, we can count on the support of the gay lobby…

    Many times, I feel that Christianity (and especially Evangelical Christianity) is caught between two very adamant forces: Islam and the homosexual movement.  But as both of these communities become more visible in the West, the potential for direct conflict between them grows also.

    Muslims have already had a significant impact on the homosexuals in Europe. The Muslims have effectively “swept the streets” of Amsterdam (traditionally a wide open kind of city) of homosexuals and other people pursuing lifestyles not to the Muslims’ taste.  Today more homosexuals in the Netherlands vote to the right than ever before, something unheard of there (or here) until recently.  Yet the LGBT community continues to target conservative Christians as “the enemy” when they have other enemies more likely to “play for keeps.”

    We all need to recognise that freedom is good for everyone, and work to keep it.  Evangelicals helped to bring it to this country before and after its founding.  But as long as identity politics and centralised power are the “name of the game” in our society, those who wield the biggest stick will win.  And, with 1.5 billion adherents, the Muslims wield a pretty big one when they put their minds to it.

  • Smokey Robinson: Tears of a Clown, and a Tribute to a Great Broadcaster

    I’m taking my series of videos of music alluded to in the novel The Ten Weeks in a different direction this week with Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown,” a television performance that is very much from the time the song was released (and the setting for the novel too.)

    But it brings up something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: a tribute to radio personality Paul Roberts.

    I’ve lived in South-east Tennessee for over thirty years now, but as regulars to this site know I was raised mostly in South Florida.  One day I was driving around these hills listening to WGOW, our premier talk radio station in the area, and I heard a very mellifluous announcer named Paul Roberts reading the news.  I got one of those “déja-vu all over again” moments: where have I heard this guy before?  I racked my brain: maybe on another station here, or even maybe when my family first moved to Chattanooga in the early 1960’s.  Media personalities in this area tend to have longevity, so I thought I had heard him on another station here.

    But not so: one day Roberts and some of his colleagues at the station were talking about the “old days,” which for Roberts went back further than others at the station.  Roberts was talking about his days in Miami, and then it hit me: I had heard him on the radio back home, and specifically on WQAM, which was one of America’s great “Top 40” stations in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  (I know that a “great Top 40 station” is an oxymoron for many of us, but WQAM fit the bill.  That’s Paul at the left from his WQAM days, when he didn’t have to be the “old guy” at the station.)

    It’s not very often that a living reminder of the “old country” comes my way, and a good one at that.  Paul Roberts was one of the most professional newscasters out there in any market, and Chattanooga was privileged to have him.

    For those of us who heard him–either in the land “where the animals are tame and the people run wild” or here in the hills–it’s easy to say that now.  I was blessed to have  the chance to meet him and to tell him that personally.  Roberts continued to be on the radio almost up to the time of his death in April 2006, and this posting and the next few video postings that follow are in his memory.

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  • The “Dementia” of Francis Collins. Or Is It Someone Else?

    New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris needs to think some things through:

    In contrast to the majority of scientists whose wondrous discoveries seem to inspire humility, today’s advocates of scientism can be every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear. We saw an example a week ago, when the New York Times reported that many scientists view “outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”

    The reporter was Gardiner Harris, and the object of his snark was Francis Collins—the new director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins is perhaps best noted for his leadership on the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the genetic makeup of man. But he is also well known for his unapologetic talk about his Christian faith and how he came to it.

    Harris and other New Atheists (well, he certainly carried on like one, in this case) need to understand the real meaning of their own idea.

    In a world where there is only material reality, only material results matter.  Francis Collins lead the Human Genome Project, an epic accomplishment in its own right.  If this is a desirable result, then the scientific output is what’s important.  And that, for a true materialist, is all that should be of import.

    What this evidences is that secularists aren’t as sure of their own “closed universe” as they’d like to have you to believe, thus the pot shots at those who disagree with them.

  • Why Russia is not afraid of Iran

    It’s always been a puzzle to me (other than the Russians need for cash,) but this is the most sensible (and about the only) explanation I’ve seen yet:

    While Russia had, until recently, vetoed UN Security Council resolutions against the Iranian nuclear program, Medvedev suddenly hardened his rhetoric, mentioning sanctions as a possible course of action. Either way, it is quite clear that Russia, which borders Iran on the Caspian Sea, does not fear the emergence of its new nuclear neighbour and is even actively aiding the construction of the nuclear station in Iran. Why? The reasons are manifold.

    Middle Eastern politics are never simple.  Throwing the Russians into the mix only makes it worse.

    The leitmotif of this whole business is counteracting the U.S.  But if things keep going the way they are, they’ll be looking for someone else to counteract in the near future.

  • The Unity Church Fails to Have Unity

    When it comes to selling the property to the Palm Beach Day Academy:

    A bid to sell the Unity of the Palm Beaches for $3.65 million to the Palm Beach Day Academy failed to win the required approval from church members at an Oct. 4 vote.

    But the deal is not dead yet, say officials from the both sides of the sale.

    According to the church’s newsletter, 84 members voted on a proposal to sell the property at 1957 S. Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach to the Day Academy. A yes vote by 75 percent of the voting members was needed in order to approve the sale.

    With only 72.3 percent voting for the sale, 26.5 percent voting against the sale and 1.2 percent abstaining, the proposal failed.

    The sale would include the property, which runs from Flagler Drive to Olive Avenue, with a 10,386 square-foot church building and a 3,737 square-foot school building. The 2009 appraised value of the property is $1.48 million, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s website.

    Oh, well…

    Unity (the denomination) used to have a program from 0645-0700 on WPTV (Channel 5) in the 1960’s, back when WPTV really was “Palm Beach Television,” i.e., their studios were on the island.

  • Hugo Chavez: “What has Obama done to deserve this prize?”

    Our President is really in the tank this time:

    Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama had done nothing beyond wishful thinking to earn the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Chavez, who has mixed praise for Obama personally with criticism of his government’s “imperialist” policies, said he thought it was a mistake when he read the U.S. leader had won.

    “What has Obama done to deserve this prize? The jury put store on his hope for a nuclear arms-free world, forgetting his role in perpetuating his battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his decision to install new military bases in Colombia,” Chavez wrote in a column.

    “For the first time, we are witnessing an award with the nominee having done nothing to deserve it: rewarding someone for a wish that is very far from becoming reality.”

    For once, I agree with the Venezuela’s leader.

    In addition to the Colombian bases, one other reason Chavez might feel this way is that the Obama Administration has refrained from sending the U.S. military to put Manuel Zelaya back in the saddle in Honduras.  That’s one place where Obama’s instinctive dislike of the military and lack of decisiveness has actually been a blessing.  I think that a Bill Clinton would have done differently (his performance in Haiti and Kosovo indicates that) but Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton.  In this case, that’s a good thing for both the Honduran people and the rest of us.

  • Brent Childers Marches with the LGBT Community, But Barney Frank Thinks It’s a Waste of Time

    I am sure that self-proclaimed evangelical Brent Childers is proud of himself for marching with the LGBT community in Washington:

    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans are a diverse, extraordinary, resilient, and passionate group of forgiving men and women. I wouldn’t be standing beside them demanding full and equal treatment under the law and speaking out against the harm caused by religion-based bigotry at the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11 if I thought they were not created in God’s image the same as myself, same as my family, as we all are—we are all God’s children.

    But Barney Frank thinks the whole episode is a waste of time:

    Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay member of Congress, says he’d rather see gay rights supporters lobbying their elected officials than marching in Washington this weekend, calling the demonstration “a waste of time at best.”

    Frank said in an interview with The Associated Press that he considers such demonstrations to be “an emotional release” that does little to pressure Congress.

    “The only thing they’re going to be putting pressure on is the grass,” the Massachusetts Democrat said Friday.

    Stuff like this is why, for me at least, it’s becoming frustrating to be an evangelical these days.

    Mr. Childers doubtless feels better about himself for coming out and marching with these people.  And they in turn think that they will make some kind of impact with such a demonstration.

    But Barney Frank, for all of his faults, is focused on what this is really all about: empowering the LGBT community through the coercive force of law.  He knows that the only way to get this done is to get laws passed by Congress and the enforcement power of the state behind it. And he knows what kinds of pressure are most effective; he is, as a Member of Congress, the recipient of that kind of pressure from a wide variety of groups.

    Childers, for all of his “progress” on this issue, is making the same fundamental mistake as his right-wing counterparts: he confuses the uplifting of moral standards with the imposition of legal strictures.  His agenda, in this respect, is no better than the people he thinks he’s an improvement over.  And those he marches with are, in many ways, as uninformed about the realities of what they are doing as Childers.

    A more libertarian approach to our current situation–starting with the abolition of civil marriage–would go a long way for making life better for everyone.  But, in a country where the government is held up as the be-all and end-all (sadly, by more than liberals,) that’s a hard sell on either side.

    Short of that, it’s reasonable to expect that much of the mistreatment that Childers describes in his piece, rather than going away altogether in a society of his liking, will simply reverse direction in a country where the LGBT community has the upper hand.  That’s just the way it’s done here, especially in our schools, where socialisation is an obsession.  And that can be an ugly process if you’re not in the favoured group.

    P.S. I’m not sure who Childers is referring to when he speaks of “forgiving men and women.”  Two years ago I got into a debate on this blog with a gay Californian, and that was one of the most brutal experiences I have ever had.  That is, until I ran the abolition of civil marriage up the flag pole…

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  • “The problem with the Barack Obama administration is not its policy of containment, its biggest problem is its weakness”

    Roman Catholic blogger Ysais Martinez hits the nail on the head re Obama and the Middle East, in this letter to Asia Times Online:

    The problem with the Barack Obama administration is not its policy of containment, its biggest problem is its weakness. The Middle East is a place where you have to make deals with the devil, and extort, lie, deceive or murder. Extremists in the Middle East smell fear. They know how to exploit weakness and in Obama they see their wildest dream come true. The Obama White House doesn’t know how to exercise power, especially ruthless power if it is necessary. Exercising power is not just an essential aspect of politics but also in business. People will trust the leader that understands and exercises power. People will trust the leader who doesn’t hesitate in making tough decisions and using force. Obama’s America is weak and guilty of everything wrong under the sun. So I’d say that Obama is not trapped behind the wall of containment, Obama is trapped behind the wall of weakness and incompetence.

    Sounds like he’s been reading When the Sheep Have Anthrax (or its sources…)

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