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Category Archives: Ethics
Right-Wing Ideology is Abhorrent, "Christian" or Not
I'll give you two quotes, you decide which one is acceptable and which one is unacceptable.
"Infidels in the region have three choices: convert to Muhammed, pay a tax, or die." – The Islamic State to non-Muslims in their territory.
"The time has come that we need to either convert them, which I think is next to impossible, or kill them." Phil Robertson, patriarch of the "Duck Dynasty" family and elder in the Church of Christ, speaking about the Muslim extremists on the Sean Hannity radio show.
Okay, have you figured out which one is wrong? I'll give you all the time you need……
Here is a hint. Both statements are reprehensible, and for the same reason. Both are born of a far right-wing ideology that replaces faith with fanaticism. "If you do not agree with me, you deserve to die, no questions asked, no quarter given."
The first statement is reprehensible enough coming from practitioners of the "Religion of Peace." The second is even far more reprehensible, coming from a follower of the Prince of Peace, who sacrificed his own life so that all men could have the hope of a reconciliation with a Holy God.
How is it that men can replace religion with such hatred? Especially coming from one who claims to follow the Christ who said, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." Somehow I do not see how, "Convert or we will bomb you into eternity" is much of a loving or prayerful statement.
Tonight in our college Bible study we read and discussed the book of Jonah. The college kids got it. God loves all people. Even the people of Nineveh, the capital of the nation of Assyria.
As in, the capital of the proto-nation of Iraq, the modern day nation of all the Muslims Phil Robertson wants to convert or kill.
God actually loved the Assyrians enough to send a prophet to them to warn them of their sinful ways. Yes, the message was, "repent or perish," but that message came from a God that is "gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity."
I think Phil Robertson needs to read his Bible a little more carefully. I think he needs to read the Sermon on the Mount, and I think he needs to read the book of Jonah.
And I think that anyone who agrees with the kind of faith that would rather bomb someone into damnation rather than pray for them a path into glory should really, really re-examine whether they are following the Prince of Peace or a hate-filled creed that is as damnable as the ideology they seek to destroy.
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Why America Will Never Move Beyond Racism If Racism Is The Method Of Measurement
Taking a break from writing to do a little writing...and it's been a long summer of writing!
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Another example of the inability of America to move beyond its racist past has embroiled the country in a racial stare down. The major media outlets are full of articles and stories and editorials about how we can fix this problem or that problem. The biggest problem is, the solutions offered will only serve to make the problem (racism) worse. Every solution involves the distinction of races, making racism the measuring tool for the elimination of racism. It just won't work.
For example, the overwhelming majority of articles, and editorials I have read over the past several weeks pontificate that "white people are going to have to…" or "white Christians are going to have to…" or more generically, "the white Church is going to have to…" When you identify a group of people by their skin color or some other ethnic identification you have become part of the problem. You are a racist.
I have noticed a glaring absence in all of these articles and editorials and blogs. Nowhere have I read, "the problem with black America is…" or "black Christians must…" or "the black Church must…" According to the overwhelming majority of mainstream media, "Christian" bloggers and preachers, the only people who have a race problem are white people.
That is simply racist, and you probably think I am racist for thinking so.
In this latest example of racial unrest, a young man was killed by a police officer. Oops, I forgot to mention those two adjectives: a young black man was killed by a white police officer. What would have happened if the officer was. . .black, or Latino? What if the officer was female instead of male? Would there have been riots? Where would Al Sharpton be?
You see, there is a huge racial problem in America. There can be no denying that fact. Deniers in this case are not only ignorant, they are stupid.
There may have been a racial component in the shooting of the young man in Missouri. Only an unbiased search for truth will bring that out. If the officer is guilty of a racial bias he needs to be punished appropriately. If there was no racial bias, and if, as has been suggested, the officer was fighting to save his life, then he needs to be exonerated.
But, this also needs to be said… Every day dozens of young black men are killed as the result of gangs, drugs, and other criminal acts. There are no riots, there are no marches, no caravan of satellite TV trucks show up, there is a glaring absence of the politicians crying out for justice and equality. The difference is that in Missouri the black man was killed by a white police officer, and in Chicago and New York and Los Angeles and Atlanta and in virtually every other major metropolitan city, when a black man dies at the hands of another black man no one seems to notice or care.
In God's kingdom there is no such thing as race. Every human is equal. Every death matters – God does not wish that any should die (Ezekiel 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9). God certainly did not desire the death of the young man in Missouri. And God does not wish the death of any police officer who is killed in the line of his or her duty to protect the lives and property of the citizens he or she is sworn to protect.
The reality is, until we can learn to see past race and view each death as the death of a human being, without any attachments, we will never move beyond the issue of racism. As long as we use race as the measuring stick, we are doomed to be a nation of racists.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once so famously and correctly said, let us move toward the day when all young men and young women will be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
In Memorium – Glen H. Stassen
I just discovered that one of my recent professors, Dr. Glen H. Stassen, passed away today. Dr. Stassen was the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. This is extremely difficult news to hear. I only knew Dr. Stassen through a couple of phone calls and his comments on my course work, but even those all-too-brief encounters with Dr. Stassen were life changing.
I was assigned to Dr. Stassen as my professor of record in a guided study on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I had visions that the course would be fairly easy – it was a topic of my own choosing and I knew nothing of Dr. Stassen. I guess I found out how serious a scholar and theologian Dr. Stassen was when he sent back some comments on my suggestions for my course work. He agreed with my list of books (although he had some comments) and he had a slight alteration on the book reviews I suggested. I suggested a page to a page and a half, double spaced. He said three pages. Single spaced. Oops – this was not going where I wanted it to go.
Well, I did the three pages, single spaced book reviews, and also some reviews of lectures that I heard on Bonhoeffer in Chicago, and a comprehensive paper comparing Bonhoeffer's theology to that of the Restoration Movement, particularly Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. It was over 90 pages of work. I really had no idea how Dr. Stassen would respond. I waited in equal parts terror and despair.
When I received my work back I was blown away. I was pleased that Dr. Stassen liked my submission, but what astounded me was the detail with which he responded to my work. He commented on all of my book reviews. He commented on my lecture reviews. He made extensive comments on my paper. He critiqued, he corrected my grammar, he added insights, he challenged, and when appropriate, he agreed with me.
Dr. Stassen was an accomplished author and leader in the realm of Christian ethics. I have a couple of his books, and now I am challenged to add to this collection. His epic Kingdom Ethics (co-written with David Gushee) is a masterpiece in the genre. His A Thicker Jesus is thought provoking and life changing.
I will remember Dr. Stassen for many things. He was an accomplished scholar in Bonhoeffer studies. He was a leader in proposing new steps in Christian ethics. His scholarship cannot be questioned. He demanded his students to perform at a high level, and he rewarded that high level of work. But, most of how I will remember Dr. Stassen is what a wonderful gentleman he was. He was so kind. The couple of phone conversations I had with him will be treasures in my memory. I will also treasure his written comments on my papers until I am no longer around.
Dr. Stassen's death is a huge loss to the Bonhoeffer studies community, those who work in the realm of Christian ethics, and especially hard hit will be the Fuller Theological Seminary community. I was profoundly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Dr. Stassen. One of the things that I was looking forward to in finishing my Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller was the chance I was going to have to meet Dr. Stassen in person. Now that opportunity is no longer a reality, but in a very small way I did get to meet Dr. Stassen, and I hope that as I finish my dissertation I will remember what he taught me and that I will create a final product that would have met with his approval.
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"And Now For Something Completely Different…"
Anyone familiar with the 1970's British hit "Monty Python's Flying Circus" will recognize that tag line. In the 30 minute shows that aired on our PBS station that line would occasionally pop up to signal a shift from one really weird skit to another. That was the thing about Monty Python. Nothing was ever "normal." You went from completely different to completely different.
I am not going to state my age (because, hopefully, it will be continually changing) but I will say that in my lifetime the moral culture of the United States has changed more radically than during any equivalent time period. I am not speaking in terms of technology, as there have been other generations in which technology has advanced more than during my lifetime. (I think of my grandfathers who were born before Lindberg and who watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.) What I am talking about is in relation to what is considered right and wrong. I came from the time period in which Mary Ann had to keep her belly button covered to appease the censors. Rhett Butler was almost black-balled because he said he really did not care. Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in twin size beds separated by a night-stand.
Today, a person is considered a bigot if he or she thinks that marriage should be defined as an intimate relationship between a man and a woman. I have to take my shoes off at the airport because some crazy might try to blow the plane up with a bomb in his sneaker. I dread the month of April knowing that someone is going to shoot up a school, a movie theater, or bomb an athletic event.
I know there was a huge shift in morality centered around the major wars – the Civil, the World War to end all World Wars and the World War after that one, the Korean "Conflict" and the Vietnam "Police Action." But, thinking in terms of the general public, the "man on the street," has there been a more radical change in the mores and values of the American public than in the past 50-60 years?
Just think of it – we are now actually debating what the concept of "Freedom of Religious Belief" means. When I was born we were only concerned about freedom from ring-around-the-collar.
What does the future hold? Who knows – I cannot see it getting any better for persons of conservative religious or moral belief. You cannot put toothpaste back in the tube once it has been squirted out. Mary Ann's bare mid-riff has morphed into Miley Cyrus' bare, um, well you get the idea. Unless there is a cataclysmic change in society's perception of "right" and "wrong" I can only picture things getting worse.
Does that mean we give up, throw in the towel, wave the white flag? No, never. But it does mean we must learn how to challenge the changing moral landscape a lot more intelligently than we have for the past half-century. It means, oddly, that we are going to have to go back to a way of thinking far more similar to the first century than the 21st century. Jesus, Peter, Paul and the early church fathers lived in a world where homosexuality was openly practiced, women were treated like chattel to be bought and sold, and infants were routinely allowed to die if the father rejected them. Yup, kind of sounds like the LGBT, pornographic sex-trafficking, and Planned Parenthood culture we live in today.
We can no longer rely on our supposed "Christian" foundation. If we ever had one it is quickly disappearing in our collective rear-view mirror. We must own up to the fact that biblical standards of morality will be viewed as "abnormal" and even bigoted and hateful. What once was normal is not normal anymore.
"And now for something completely different…"
Institutional, Systemic Racism and Christianity
So far I held off on commenting about the George Zimmerman trial. Well, that's not exactly true, but I had to delete the posts I wrote Saturday night. At the risk of severe overstatement, let me say I was crushed by the verdict that jury reached. Far more than the O.J. Simpson verdict, or even the Rodney King verdict, I felt that, as a caucasian, conservative, attempting-to-be-disciple of Christ I was truly injured by this decision. When a miscarriage of justice speaks so clearly to one of the fundamental sins of our culture, everyone in that culture is injured – whether they realize it or not, and whether they admit it or not.
Several facts that came out during this trial prove to me that race was the sole and determining factor in the verdict. The primary one is that Trayvon Martin was doing nothing, absolutely nothing wrong when he was racially profiled by George Zimmerman that cold rainy night. He was a young black man walking down the street in a "hoodie," a hooded sweatshirt. He had just been to a convenience store to buy a snack. George Zimmerman saw him, saw that he was black, became his own judge, jury and police force, and set out to make sure Martin did not get away.
Trayvon Martin did not need to "get away." He was not doing anything illegal. He was returning to his father's house.
George Zimmerman instigated this whole event. He was the one who decided Martin was guilty simply based on the color of his skin. He was the one who followed – make that stalked – Martin on the way back to his father's house. Zimmerman got out of his vehicle and chased Martin some distance before an altercation occurred. What happened during that altercation no one will ever know – Martin was shot dead and the only witness to the shooting is a lying, self-serving, arrogant racist who claims self defense. And this became the greatest crime in the whole sordid story. In order for Zimmerman to make his case, he and his defense team had to turn Martin in to the aggressor. The victim of a shooting became the perpetrator of a fist fight. A man who was told not to follow Martin and who was carrying a loaded 9 mm pistol became the victim in a scenario that he created from start to finish.
And because Zimmerman looks lilly white (he claims Hispanic genetics as well) and because Trayvon Martin was black, and because Zimmerman represented law and order and because everyone knows that young black men are just murderers and rapists and burglars just waiting to happen, the predominantly white, all female jury let Zimmerman go totally free.
The Ku Klux Klan never had it so good.
This story would be despicable as it stands, but it gets worse. All across the country white people have gone on record throwing around some of the most hateful, vengeful, sinful racist comments imaginable – all worthy of coming out of a sweet little old church lady's mouth. Martin "got what was coming to him." Oh really – going to the convenience store deserves a death sentence? "Martin should not have been where he was." Nice – he was visiting his father who lived in that gated community – and Martin was just walking home in the rain on a dark night. "If some punk jumps me and I have a gun you better believe I will use it to defend myself." Oh, so racially profiling a young man (regardless of race is being profiled) and going against police dispatcher instructions and chasing (stalking) that same young man is perfectly okay, but having that young man defend himself is wrong? Here is the absolute tragedy of this case. Zimmerman, who is white, is afforded the right to shoot and kill a young man for the supposed reason of self-defense, but a young black man is not allowed to use his fists to defend himself. Remember – we do not know who started the fight. The only words we have are from the white killer who gunned down the black man. The same white man that, incidentally, was caught in multiple lies before and during the trial. Do you honestly think he would admit to starting the fight that ended in Martin's death?
The prosecution of this case was a joke. I honestly believe the prosecutor wanted to lose this case. He did the defense's job for them, and did not prosecute Zimmerman at all.
Perhaps worst of all was the racist venom spewed by national and regional news commentators. Sean "the white man's Al Sharpton" Hannity was the worst, although several others came in closely behind. To these individuals all you need to do is look at the color of a man's skin and that tells you who is innocent and who is guilty. Zimmerman – white = innocent; Martin – black = guilty.
Where does this story intersect with Christianity? Just this – anytime a racial or economic power can force its will, and warp justice, because of that race or because of that economic power, God will condemn those who perpetuate that hegemonic power. Just read Mary's song in Luke 1:46-56. Read the scathing denunciation of the abuse of power in the book of Amos. Read Jesus' own words of turning racial hatred upside down in the parable of the good Samaritan or in his dealings with the Samaritan woman at the well or the Canaanite woman and her demon possessed child. (Luke 10:25-37; Matthew 15:21-28) Read the concluding passages in Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians and see how Paul commanded Christians to view others and treat others differently than what the prevailing culture sees and treats them.
The verdict in this case is nothing more than a repugnant stain against any claim of racial equality that white Americans want to delude themselves into believing.
I mourn this verdict. I mourn because Trayvon Martin did not get any justice. I mourn because his family if forced to deal with the incessant and vitriolic hatred of white so-called "Christians."
And, I mourn this verdict because at the very core, if a young black man or black woman cannot walk home from a convenience store without being profiled by some racist vigilante, then my very white, very blond and very blue eyed daughter is not safe to walk home from that same convenience store.
As long as a person's skin color is allowed to define innocence and guilt, no child is ever safe. But it appears in this country, African Americans have the most to fear.
(Postscript: Just to highlight my claim of racism, this story was brought to my attention. In the same state in which George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, and just few months more than a year ago, a young single mother was convicted of shooting a gun into the air when she felt threatened by her abusive husband. No one was injured, certainly no one was killed. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The judge in that case rejected her plea that she was simply "standing her ground" and defending herself. And, oh, by the way … she was a young single black woman. Here is the link, as long as it is valid – http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57433184/fla-mom-gets-20-years-for-firing-warning-shots/?tag=socsh. Do you still think racism is not an issue in this case? By the way, I do not know if subsequent to this sentence there has been any appeal or overturning of the sentence. The point is that Zimmerman's claim of self defense only works if the supposed victim is white, and the supposed aggressor is black.)
Supreme Court Validates Homosexual Marriage – Places the Church at Crossroads
Boy, did I nail it. I predicted here that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) would strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as well as the Proposition 8 in California which denied homosexual marriage. While the court did not actually rule on Prop. 8, they refused to rule against the lower court ruling which invalidated the proposition, thereby basically throwing the proposition out.
Make no mistake – completely removing the morality of the issue for a brief moment, these rulings are monumental – epic even.
Stop and think about what just happened. Both of the rulings overturned the legislative or the popular vote of a majority of elected officials or the population of a state. The DOMA was enacted by both houses of government of the United States and signed into law by President Clinton. Proposition 8 passed by a significant majority (if it had been a presidential election, the winning side would have claimed an 'overwhelming mandate'.) In viewing both of these popular statements by a majority of Americans as being in violation of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the SCOTUS basically said that they, not the elected officials of the country, nor the general will of the population of a state, have the right to make the laws of the country. No piece of legislation that has been or ever will be passed that in any way, manner or form infringes upon a person's real or imagined rights under the 5th Amendment will be considered legal.
And that, my dear readers, is epic. These rulings make Roe v. Wade look like a kindergartener's crayon drawing when it comes to long term repercussions. We have been dealing with the fallout of Roe v. Wade for the past 40 years and we still have not figured out exactly what "right to privacy" means. That will all seem very tame in comparison to what was just delivered by the SCOTUS.
So, what is the church supposed to do in response?
Any legislative recourse has been effectively eliminated by the ruling itself. It matters not if the Senate and House of Representatives both passed a law unanimously declaring that marriage should be defined as between a male and female (and that was never going to happen anyway). The SCOTUS would simply strike that law down as well. I really do not think people understand how massive this ruling is. Our legislators do not matter anymore. The only law makers who have any power at all right now are the 5 liberal judges who sit on the Supreme Court.
So, Caesar has revealed his hand. The amazing thing is that some people are shocked, utterly amazed, at what just happened. I called it months ago. Anyone with eyes in their faces and ears on their head could have called it. These rulings were as close to "fore-ordained" as anything John Calvin ever proclaimed.
Will this wake the church up? Will we rise out of our slumber? Will we, at long last, finally realize that we are not living in a Christian nation, that the United States Constitution is not inspired by God, that it is a fallible, corrupt and corrupting piece of human governance? Will we learn that the only way to change the course of human events is to change the course of human hearts? Will we quit trying to convert the world to kingdom ethics by passing feeble legislation that can be overturned and erased by 5 utterly corrupt human beings?
Will we ever learn that leaning on the broken reed of human strength is the only sure way to destroy a nation? (Isaiah 36:6; 30:1-5; Ezekiel 29:6-9).
As I said in my earlier piece, this may be the best thing that could have happened to the church – at least in one respect. Now we can no longer hide behind flimsy legislation to advance the kingdom of God.
Let us stop trying to fight Satan with Satan's tools. Let us repent of our misguided attempts to do so and return to the power of our God.
Last time I checked, no court has ever managed to invalidate any of His rulings.
5 Suggestions For Creating A Winning Organization
Okay, I don't know why I am writing this. I am not a businessman, and some would say I am not even a very good theologian. This is certainly not a theological topic, but it is something that occurred to me over the course of the morning, so in order to get it out of my head I thought I would put it in a blog.
I have been a part of some really good companies, and some really dreadful companies. As I pondered over what made the good companies great and the bad companies really lousy, a very few characteristics came to my mind. I hope I have crystallized them succinctly and beneficially enough. Maybe you have another one or two to add. Feel free to push back or add to. Here goes:
1. Really good companies hire the best person for the job and then let that person achieve what it was that he or she was hired to do. That is, really good companies ditch the boiler-plate human resources department mumbo-jumbo run-around that sucks so much life out of new hires and, eventually, the entire company. Really good companies take risks, look for creative, hard workers, and understand that a spotless resume often means an empty brain, and a somewhat tarnished resume might also reveal a brilliant worker. This applies to churches far more than the average pew sitter would expect. I cannot tell you how many "boiler-plate" job descriptions for ministers are out there. Everyone wants the most successful evangelist, most spellbinding preacher, highest educated teacher, most devoted home leader, accomplished counselor and universally admired retreat/lectureship speaker. Know how many of those there are out there? Yeah, I thought so: exactly zero. But chances are a good man will have two or so of those traits, and many will have one outstanding trait among all of those. The fact is you cannot be 100% introvert and 100% extrovert, which is what many companies demand (or, at least, demand on paper). But, find the best individual there is available and then release him or her to do his or her potential!
2. Very closely related – do not micro-manage your company. If you release your employees (or your volunteers, if that is what you are working with) then allow them to succeed brilliantly and allow them to fail spectacularly. Great achievements are born from the ashes of previous failures. Let your good people take ownership of their work, and that means you have to get your long nose and oversized posterior out of their workspace. In the job where I had the best owner/boss, he let us make our own decisions and we knew that. We knew we would have to justify those decisions if it cost the company money, but we also knew that our boss would have our back if our decisions were questioned by his superiors. Folks, that is the kind of boss I would run into a burning building for. On the other hand, the most wretched company I have had the curse to work for made it impossible for me to do my job without the fear of my immediate superior calling me into her office for a periodic dressing down. It was brutal. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from the worst teachers, and, heaven forbid anyone would have to deal with a teacher like that, um, person.
3. Never, ever, ever issue instructions or demands that result in a "double bind." A double-bind is a situation in which an employee or a volunteer cannot obey one command without violating another. For example, one company I worked for had one "bind" that we would obey every single regulation that the FAA handed down to a perfect "t" and there would be no questions asked. However, an unspoken but very clear rule was that we were to deliver our packages on time and precisely where it was to be delivered, also no questions asked. So, even though it was against FAA regulations we flew in weather we were not supposed to, in aircraft that were not airworthy, and carrying freight that we were not authorized to carry. There was no way we could obey one "bind" without violating the other. I hate to say it, but during the time that I was associated with that company 3 pilots lost their lives. In every situation the "official" reason was "pilot error" but those of us who knew the inner workings of the company knew better. And, by the way, yes I did make an official complaint to someone outside the company in an official position of authority (law enforcement). To the best of my knowledge, my complaint went nowhere.
4. Do not write checks on the bank accounts of your employees (or volunteers). This one has more to do if you are working with volunteers, but never commit your employees or volunteers to do something that is physically impossible, or strategically improbable, for them to carry out. An example of this would be to commit your volunteers to give more time than is reasonable, or expect higher levels of sacrifice than is realistic, or to expect higher levels of return than what your people can deliver. If it takes an hour to fly from point A to point B, don't promise you can have a package there in 30 minutes. If it takes an hour to create a poster, do not demand that 3 be made in the same time period. If your people sacrificially gave $100.00 last quarter, do not demand $10,000 this quarter. There are so many ways in which this is done in business and in churches. Be honest, be fair, and work with what your people can give you. You would be surprised at how frequently they will willingly give you more!
5. To inspire loyalty, demonstrate loyalty. I could not leave Jezebel and the company from Hades fast enough. While I actually enjoyed the position, the company ethics and the office politics were in the process of killing me. It was a wretched experience, but, strangely enough, I am glad I lived through it. It taught me how not to treat people. There was no loyalty, and yet the ownership demanded absolute loyalty. Workers came and went on almost a weekly basis. Morale was low. To hear the owner speak, though, you would have thought his company was the happiest on earth. There are many former employees who would disagree with him on that point! On the other hand, I truly regretted having to leave the "pleasant" company. I had to for health reasons – but it was anything but an easy decision. It certainly was not a glamorous position – socially far beneath the excruciating company position – but infinitely more enjoyable and worthwhile. While the nature of the company encouraged a considerable amount of turnover, many former employees would come back to this company after their next adventure did not work out. We had a standing joke that our company was the embodiment of the Eagles' famous song, Hotel California – "You can check out any time you'd like, but you can never leave." We (at least most of us) loved the company and parted on good relations with the management.
So there you have it – my five foolproof ideas for how to create a winning organization, whether it be a company or a volunteer group.
Many happy landings!
A Meditation on the 10 Commandments (#9)
You shall not steal. (Exodus 20:15)
A very good friend gave me a surefire way to determine whether you have violated this commandment. Just follow these questions –
Is it in your possession? (yes)
Did you buy it? (no)
Did you trade something for it? (no)
Did someone give it to you? (no)
Did you make it? (no)
Then you stole it. Give it back.
That logic is pretty easy to follow if we are talking about a candy bar at the local convenience store. But when the discussion gets to adult issues the answers are not so easy to come by.
Is gambling stealing? Well, at least if you win something?
What about the lottery, is that really gambling? And if you win something, are you guilty of stealing other people's money? (They obviously don't have it anymore!)
And, (drum roll please) what about the 6 million dollar question – is making a living off of welfare considered stealing? A person on welfare (and a whole host of other governmental give-aways) is not earning anything, is not receiving the benefit of any labor. A whole bunch of other people do not have the money that they did earn by hard work that was taken from them (by force of law, by the IRS). So, is welfare stealing?
Some would argue that living off of welfare is simply being taken care of by a benevolent government. I would agree with that argument if the government was accepting donations for the welfare system. I would also be more willing to accept it if the recipients were required to produce something in order to get the benefits. But when you coerce people into surrendering large portions of their income to support a systematic method of discouraging industry and self-reliance then I have to question whether there is any benevolence in the system at all.
In God's economy as illustrated in the Old Covenant, a wealthy land owner was able to cultivate, plant and harvest his crops. This provided for his family, and no doubt the families of his hired hands (or slaves, as the case may have been). Perhaps he also sold or bartered his crops for the other things his family needed. It was an economy that was certainly not capitalistic as we use the term, but it did allow for hard work and industry to be rewarded. However, the land owner was specifically commanded not to harvest to the very edges of his field, and was not to scrape every last grape from his vine. He was to leave the edges, the corners, and the odd bunch of grapes for the poor, the homeless, the landless, and the outcast. There was no welfare system in God's economy. Provision was made so that poor people could eat, but they had to get out and harvest or glean for their well-being and the care of those who were depending upon them. It was a perfect system of checks and balances. The wealthy could earn a decent living, the poor could be taken care of. But everyone had to contribute.
In my opinion, welfare is nothing other than legalized stealing, big government sanctioned theft. As I mentioned, that goes for a host of other government sanctioned subsidies and grants. We are simply stealing from the industrious and giving to those who cannot work, or more insidiously, are able to work but are simply not willing to work.
What about gambling and playing the lottery? A case could be made that, since everyone involved plays willingly, there is no theft as such. While the issue is not as clear-cut to me as the issue of welfare and other governmental "redistribution of wealth," I do have some serious misgivings about such "games of chance."
For one, gambling and the lottery have been rightly described as a repressive tax against the poor and ignorant. There is a reason wealthy people do not use gambling and the lottery as a way to get more wealthy – they know that the house always wins. It is true beyond question that the wealthy gamble, and gamble in huge amounts (just consider horse racing, the "sport of kings"). But I would suggest that for wealthy people gambling is primarily a recreation – a sport, a competition that raises their adrenaline level and makes their otherwise boring lives a little more interesting. On the other hand, the poor and the ignorant see gambling and the lottery as a way to move up, "I'm gonna hit it rich sometime." There is a joke that says rich people have IRAs, 401(k)s, stocks, bonds, and other retirement portfolios; rednecks have PowerBall. That would be a lot funnier if it were not so true, and so very sad. Billions of dollars are wasted annually that should have been spent on rent, food and clothing.
(I suppose in the interest of open disclosure, I have been known to occasionally buy the tempting PowerBall ticket myself. The baby always needs a new pair of shoes. What was I saying about "ignorant"?)
It all boils down to those simple little questions and the heart of the disciple. Did you earn it? Did you make it? Was it a gift fairly given? Did you buy it or trade for it with money or something else you fairly earned?
If not, you stole it. It does not belong to you.
Give it back.
Book Review: "Living the Sermon on the Mount" (Glen H. Stassen)
Many of you have followed my series of articles on the Sermon on the Mount, and several have commented on one or more of the entries. I realize that there are many who would like a more in-depth treatment of the subject, but are either unable or unwilling to access the material I referenced because of two very good reasons: (1) Dr. Glen Stassen's book Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context is 491 pages long and not everyone wants to wade into a volume that long and complicated, and (2) the article "The Fourteen Triads of the Sermon on the Mount" is found in the Journal of Biblical Literature, a resource not many people have access to or even the desire to access. In order to alleviate those two issues I suggest a third possibility – Dr. Stassen's smaller and much more accessible book, Living the Sermon on the Mount: A Practical Hope for Grace and Deliverance (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006) 201 pages in an easy-to-read format with many pages consisting of graphic illustrations.
This book eliminates several of the problems that are associated with longer, college text-book type volumes, and especially with articles in peer-reviewed journals. The book is written for the common member of the church, with few (but adequate) endnotes and a non-technical writing style. However, in terms of content, the book follows Dr. Stassen's explication of the fourteen triads of the Sermon on the Mount and even goes beyond the more technical works in providing some concrete proposals for how the "transforming initiatives" can be worked out in our contemporary society. The book is divided into 10 chapters, but in his preface Dr. Stassen provides information about how to divide three chapters in half, thus providing for a 13 week study of the Sermon on the Mount to fit into a congregational Bible class format.
Even though the book is relatively short (the 201 pages are easily read – this is not a cumbersome technical exposition) do not be misled – there is a lot of "meat" in this book. Dr. Stassen has studied the Sermon on the Mount in-depth and his writing reveals his research. One thing I found particularly valuable was the many ways Dr. Stassen ties the Sermon back into the prophets, particularly the prophet Isaiah. This is important because I think that all too often we believe that Jesus was teaching something new and never-heard-before, while all along he was teaching what His Father had been teaching through the prophets for generations.
Another aspect of the book that I genuinely appreciated was the illustrations depicting the "traditional teaching, the vicious cycle, and the transforming initiatives" that are located throughout the book. For those of us who are visually oriented, this is a big help.
Another thing I like about this book is that Dr. Stassen included a much longer section about the spiritual disciplines in this book, as opposed in particular to the JBL article, and this is a significant addition. In fact, Dr. Stassen goes to great lengths to show that the section on prayer is the pinnacle of the sermon, and every other teaching found in the sermon is incorporated into Jesus' model prayer. It is this kind of working through the text as Matthew constructed it that makes this little volume so valuable.
This book is NOT a critical commentary on Matthew 5-7. If you are looking for a careful definition of terms and high-falutin' biblical language, you will not find it in this book. This is a book designed to the the word of the Sermon on the Mount into our hearts, and therefore into our hands and feet. The scholarship behind the book is solid, but the presentation is in a popular writing style.
The standard caveat directed to every book applies to this one as well. I am sure that you will find something that Dr. Stassen writes with which you disagree. So be it. I have more than one question mark placed in the margin of my copy, along with an editorial "hmmmm" or two. But I do not buy nor do I read books simply to reinforce that which I already believe. Those volumes are okay to a point, and I have several of those type books on my bookshelves. But what I really look for in a book is the answer to the question, "What does the author have to tell me that I do not know, or that furthers my understanding of a particular topic?" Closely related to that question is another: "How well has the author prepared himself/herself to write this book, and how well does he/she present his/her research?" On the basis of these two questions I can recommend Dr. Stassen's works on the Sermon on the Mount unreservedly. He is an accomplished scholar and knows how to write both professionally and popularly. He challenges with his insights, and even when you disagree with him you have to accept that he has done his homework well and that he presents his case energetically.
Bottom line – this is a fine addition to your "Sermon on the Mount" section in your library.


text:
LeBron, Noah headline All-Defensive Team
By Blake Bass
Content Coordinator
Follow @ BlakeeBass
Content Coordinator
Follow @ BlakeeBass
If you were anchoring your defense with one center in the NBA right now who would it be?
For the past few years the answer was Dwight Howard, he was the perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate (voted on by the media) and NBA All-Defensive First Team, voted on by the coaches. But if you watched the hobbled Howard this year you knew he was going to slip, as was his teammate Kobe Bryant.
Source: Kurt Helin, NBC Sports
Tags: Chicago Bulls, Joakim Noah, LeBron James, NBA - Miami Heat

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Linda L. Berger
Linda L. Berger, A Rhetorician's Practical Wisdom, 66 Mercer L. Rev. 459 (2015).
Linda L. Berger, Metaphor and Analogy: The Sun and Moon of Legal Persuasion, 22 J. L. & Pol'y 147 (2013).
Linda L. Berger, A Revised View of the Judicial Hunch, 10 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric: JALWD 1 (2013).
Linda L. Berger, Metaphor in Law as Poetic and Propositional Language, The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms, Journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) (2013).
Linda Berger & Jack L. Sammons, The Law's Mystery, 2 Brit. J. Am. Legal Stud. 1 (2013).
Linda L. Berger, The Lady, or the Tiger? A Field Guide to Metaphor & Narrative, 50 Washburn L.J. 275 (2011).
Linda L. Berger, Studying and Teaching "Law as Rhetoric": A Place to Stand, 16 J. Legal Writing Inst. 3 (2010).
Linda L. Berger et al., The Past, Presence, and Future of Legal Writing Scholarship: Rhetoric, Voice, and Community, 16 J. Legal Writing Inst. 521 (2010).
Linda L. Berger, Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching and Scholarship, 61 Mercer L. Rev. 803 (2010).
Linda L. Berger, How Embedded Knowledge Structures Affect Judicial Decision Making: An Analysis of Metaphor, Narrative, and Imagination in Child Custody Disputes, 18 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J. 259 (2009).
Linda L. Berger, Of Metaphor, Metonymy, and Corporate Money: Rhetorical Choices in Supreme Court Decisions on Campaign Finance Regulation, 58 Mercer L. Rev. 949 (2007).
Linda L. Berger, What is the Sound of a Corporation Speaking? How the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor Can Help Lawyers Shape the Law, 2 J. Ass'n Legal Writing Directors 169 (2004).
Linda L. Berger, Shielding the Unmedia: Using the Process of Journalism to Protect the Journalist's Privilege in an Infinite Universe of Publication, 39 Hous. L. Rev. 1371 (2003).
Linda L. Berger, Do Best Practices in Legal Education Include Emphasis on Compositional Modes of Studying Law as a Liberal Art?, 1 J. Ass'n Legal Writing Directors 158 (2002).
Linda L. Berger, Lies Between Mommy and Daddy: The Case for Recognizing Spousal Emotional Distress Claims Based on Domestic Deceit That Interferes With Parent-Child Relationships, 33 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 449 (2000).
Linda L. Berger, A Reflective, Rhetorical Model: The Legal Writing Teacher as Reader and Writer, 6 J. Legal Writing Inst. 57 (2000).
Linda L. Berger, Applying New Rhetoric to Legal Discourse: The Ebb and Flow of Reader and Writer, Text and Context, 49 J. Legal Educ. 155 (1999).
Linda L. Berger, Note, Government-Owned Media: The Government as Speaker and Censor, 35 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 707 (1985).
Commentaries, Essays, and Reviews
Linda L. Berger, What is the Sound of a Corporation Speaking? "Just Another Voice," According to the Supreme Court, Admin. & Reg. L. News, Spring 2010, at 8.
Practice Oriented Publications
Linda L. Berger, Document Design for Lawyers: The End of the Typewriter Era, Ga. B. J., Feb. 2011, at 62.
Linda L. Berger, Master Metaphors: Metaphors Have the Power to Help Us Reason, Learn, and Persuade, Complete Lawyer, Nov. 2008.
Linda L. Berger on the Scholarly Commons
Law and Rhetoric
Legal Writing


text: Landscape Maintenance Do you remember when you purchased your first piece of power equipment? Maybe you were still a teenager, and you bought a walk-behind mower that you stored in your dad's garage. Maybe it was the first riding mower you bought when you decided to go into business for yourself, after putting in a few years working for another company. Whatever it was, the decision was probably not a difficult one. You knew what you needed and you knew exactly how much money you had to spend. More


text:
Gai is a Konoha Village jounin and sensei of the team whose members are Rock Lee, Tenten, and Hyuuga Neji. Like Lee, he is a specialist in hand-to-hand combat or taijutsu, but unlike Lee, he can use ninjutsu and genjutsu. Gai and Lee are very close. Lee is Gai's favorite student because of his nindo, (way of the ninja), and because Lee looks like him in his younger days. Gai is also proud that Lee has mastered the renge, secondary renge, and the ura renge at such a young age. Gai especially appreciates Lee because he has the same eyebrows and the same nindo. He sees his childhood self in Lee.
He and Kakashi are known as eternal rivals, Gai is in the lead with 50 wins to 49 losses. Later it becomes known that this is just the score of a rock-paper-scissors game they played when they were kids. He is also a fantastic teacher since he really cares about his students and their feelings, especially Lee. Although he really cares about his students, he is very strict about his rules and those who break them will receive a punishment.
Comments: 61
|Gai is one of the strongest ninja ever. His taijustu is very awesome, cool and amazing. I so much love him and rock lee's funny act
Comments: 2
|taijustu is the way of ninja
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|Dynamic Entry!!!!!
Comments: 2020
Comments: 934
|Gai is one sexy beast. look at dat face... damnnnn


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Ain't No Thing Butta Chicken & Pig Wings
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turkey and oh-yeah pork too. A boneless can be grilled or baked for an healthier choice
Chicago Baking & Pastry
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A place for Chicago area cooks in the baking & pastry industry to meet, network and share
high altitude baking
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high altitude baking, recipes for high altitude baking and cooking
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Baking with Olive Oil, Baking recipes that use Olive Oil in place of other oils
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Helpful tips with baking
and seek help with their baking dilemas., When you are baking anything, the most important
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sprinkled (which are fun), but chop up some nuts, the guests to enjoy., cook method: Bake
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The joy of cooking your own cheese, baking your own bread, stiring your own cat-sup. We
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My Blog
My Blog, Recipes,baking,cooking and other fun with food...., cuisine: American
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text:
While I still very much need to get my current garden under control, I've been dreaming about transforming other areas. We have two tiny, sad little side yards. One is a pass through, the other just a no man's land between two houses. Generally both are completely overgrown with weeds, although when I went out to take pics someone had mowed one side down.
Here's the no man's land.
And the pass through.
I've been pinning garden ideas. They all have a secret garden quality to them, with paths, sculptures, shade plants, found objects. Things I'd never in a million years put inside I'm drawn to for a garden space. I'd like to make each of these spaces feel intentional and I'd love to create some kind of secret garden in the no man's land. I think some rocks and varying heights could make the pass through weed patch charming.
Is your garden style different from your decorating style? Anyone have a beautiful urban side yard I should check out?
I really wish I was an awesome gardener. I would love to have any of those in my yard. So far, I'm a dismal failure :(.


text:
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This profile for San Francisco Fog Rfc is located in San Francisco, CA. San Francisco Fog Rfc industry is listed as Membership Sport/Recreation Club.
Derrick Mickle serves as the President
Key roles for San Francisco Fog Rfc
Derrick Mickle
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text:
Illini Host Indiana for 'Great Escape' Sunday
Jan. 23, 2013
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- No. 5 Illinois will host Indiana Sunday at 1 p.m. at Huff Hall in the fifth-annual "Great Escape", the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics announced Wednesday. The Illini look to improve on their 5-2 overall record and beat the Hoosiers for the third consecutive year.
As they have all season, Illinois fans will receive free admission and the first 800 people through the Huff Hall doors will receive free pizza. Fans will also be able to win men's basketball tickets for an upcoming conference game. A pair will be raffled off for students while another to the general public. Also, don't forget, the Illini starters will throw T-shirts tot he crowd during the introduction of starting lineups.
In addition to the free food and prizes, Sunday will serve as Civil Service night. Members from the Champaign, Urbana and Savoy EMT, Fire and Police departments will attend the dual. The branch with the most attendees wins an Illinois Our State Our Team Flag which is signed by all Illini head coaches. The short ceremony will take place after the first five matches.
Also, be sure to get your Ultimate Fan Punch Card punched at the marketing table in Huff Hall for your chance to win a free hotdog and drink at the Big Ten Championships. If Illini fans attend and punch their card at all four home duals, they will be able to redeem their prize at the concession stands in Assembly Hall.
The Illini will host the 2013 Big Ten Championships at the Assembly Hall on March 9-10. This year's championship marks just the ninth time Illinois has hosted the conference championships, welcoming the conference's best first in 1930 and following with events in 1933, 1946, 1958, 1966, 1991 and 2002. For more information on tickets, contact the Illinois Ticket Office at 1-866-Illini-1.


text:
UTSA newsletters
» UTSA Expressions -- Student Center for Community Engagement and Inclusion
UTSA magazines
» Giving
» Discovery -- UTSA Research
» Innovations -- College of Engineering
» Ovations -- College of Liberal and Fine Arts
» Spectrum -- College of Education
UTSA Office of P-20 Initiatives honors Bexar County mentors for youths
(March 9, 2010)--The UTSA San Antonio Mentoring Forum (SAMF) recently hosted the annual mentor recognition luncheon. Mayor Julian Castro was on hand to congratulate area mentors for their work. The event honors outstanding mentors and brings attention to the need for mentors for youth in our community. The event also raises funds for UTSA mentoring initiatives including scholarships, training and mentoring awareness programs.
This year's honorees included:
- Outstanding Adult Mentor: Theo Sumler and Erin Mankus
- Outstanding College Student Mentor: Austin Novak
- Outstanding Corporate/Business Mentoring Program: Rackspace Managed Hosting
- Outstanding School Mentoring Program: Monroe May Elementary School (NISD)
- Outstanding Advocate for Mentoring: Jeanne Russell
The event was part of a National Mentoring Month campaign with many activities across the country. In a proclamation designating January as National Mentoring Month, President Obama praised mentors for "building a brighter future for our nation by helping our children grow into productive, engaged, and responsible adults." The President urged Americans "to give back by mentoring young people in their communities who may lack role models."
Read the complete proclamation.
The campaign's goals are to mobilize community volunteers to mentor young people and to increase knowledge about how mentoring can greatly enhance a young person's prospects for leading a healthy and productive life. Research shows that mentoring has beneficial and long-term effects on youth by increasing their chances of high school graduation and college attendance and decreasing the likelihood of substance abuse and other risky behaviors.
The San Antonio Mentoring Forum is a UTSA Office of P-20 Initiatives program and serves as an informal organization for mentoring organizations and mentoring advocates. It is a place where groups such as Communities in Schools, Big Brothers Big Sisters, School Districts, faith-based organizations, businesses and other mentoring advocates come together to share mentoring information, promote mentoring awareness and foster collaboration in the mentoring community. The forum is a UTSA mentoring initiative and focuses on one-to-one mentoring for youth in Bexar County.
For more information visit the San Antonio Mentoring Forum Web site.


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27 year old man | Columbia Heights, MN, USA | Seeking women 19-28 within 25 miles of Minneapolis, MN
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." Romans 12:12
I'm a psychology grad student, a stand-up comedian, an uncle that's crazy about my kiddies, and a Christian. There is more to me than that, but that's the foundation. It is important that my date be serious about her faith, as well as be open to spontaneous adventures! My faith, family, and friends mean the world to me. If anyone of the people I care about needed me at any time, I am there. I make an effort to be the best brother, son, friend, and uncle that I possibly can. My siblings, nephew and nieces, and my parents are my stronghold. My kiddies (nephew and nieces, not actual children of mine. Just to clarify, ha) are the most adorable kids in the world in my completely objective opinion. I would do anything for them. My siblings and I, in-laws included, have always had a good relationship, and I cherish that. My mom and dad have always been there for me, in presence and in encouragement, I owe everything to them. All that to say, if any person doesn't value family, they need not apply. My faith journey is very important to me, and if that doesn't resonate with you, I'm not sure I'm worth your time to chat with. I am a stand-up comic by hobby. For a few years I was going pro, and although it was fun, it was not at all conducive to having a family...ever (a very long story I'd be happy to go into greater depth into if prompted). So aside from a few local shows and some traveling gigs, I kinda hung up the mic professionally. I still love making people laugh though, and my friends and family are now at the mercy of hearing the bits I come up with. In a first date I can take a walk, sip hot chocolate (i don't drink coffee...weird, I know), have dinner, go get a drink, go to a movie, a wine tasting, go dancing, or do anything with a date that gives me an opportunity to get to know her better. I'm a movie and music fanatic, but not a snob (in some cases I am, just being honest), and a phenomenal film with a girl that can appreciate it would be my Nirvana...if I were a Buddhist. My ideal lady can spontaneously join me for Saki in a bar we don't fit in at, or can sit and chill watching TV or a movie with popcorn in hand. The decision obviously being a team effort. A girl that can catch me off guard and make me laugh is a major plus. I have no qualms with humorous levity, yet when I really want to get to know someone, conversing in great depth is a must. Submitted from mobile
Movies/Videos , Museums and art , Music and concerts , Nightclubs/Dancing , Religion/Spiritual , Wine tasting
Baseball, Basketball, Bowling, Cycling, Football, Golf, Skiing, Tennis / Racquet sports
I exercise 1-2 times per week.
I don't believe in astrology
I like Dogs
I love driving. I sometimes drive and get lost just so I can jam out to my music and get to know an unfamiliar part of the area. I enjoy hearing live DJs spin as well as live music of all forms. Classy bars and wineries are my jam.
Northwestern College, St. Paul, MN
I love burgers, quality beer and too many movies and musical artists to name. My favorite movie is Shawshank Redemption, and my favorite artist if pressed to decide would be Prince, Cake, Timberlake, or Miles Davis. Stand-up is also a huge passion
I love spending time with family and close friends. I am a die-hard uncle and spend every possible moment with my adorable kiddies as possible.
I love psychoanalytic research. It sounds dorky. The last one I read was a psychoanalytic profile on the life of Chris Farley, John Belushi, and Lenny Bruce, very interesting. I try to read my Bible every day as well.
Z{{Cta}} {{#if HasMoreInfo}} ?{{CtaSecondary}} {{/if}}
|What he is looking for
|6'1" (185cms)
|3'0" (91cms) to 8'11" (271cms)
|Body type:
|Athletic and toned
|Slender, About average, Athletic and toned
|No preference
|Light brown
|No preference
|No Way
|No Way
|Social Drinker
|Social Drinker
|Financial / Accounting / Real Estate
|No preference
|I'll tell you later
|No preference
|Never Married
|Never Married
|Have kids:
|No preference
|Wants kids:
|White / Caucasian
|White / Caucasian
|Christian / Other
|Christian / Catholic, Christian / LDS, Christian / Protestant, Christian / Other
I grew up in a CMA church and now go to a Covenant church. I appreciate pastors that preach right from the Word, so that is a must for me. Too much fluff/opinionated talk from the pulpit and I'm out typically.
|Graduate degree
|Some college, Associates degree, Bachelors degree, Graduate degree
I'm going to grad school for Marriage and Family Therapy and am looking toward a PhD. after that.


text:
The following is an archive of a post made to our
'vox-tech mailing list'
by one of its subscribers.
On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 12:53:39AM -0800, Jeff Newmiller wrote:
> Jason Snyder wrote:
> > I just upgraded to linux 10.4 from linux 9.10 and am having problems
> > with running programs and looking at directories in the terminal.
> >
> > For instance the command ls should give me all the contents of the
> > directory that I am in. However, this is what I get when I enter ls:
> >
> > snyderjm@snyderjm-laptop:/$ ls
> > Command 'ls' is available in '/bin/ls'
> > The command could not be located because '/bin' is not included in the
> > PATH environment variable.
> > ls: command not found
ugh. That is enough to give you grief, especially if you have a project
you are working on. I usually wait until the end of the semester (or
quarter) to do an upgrade, for that specific reason. I seem to often do
wierd tweaks that will send an upgrade in odd directions.
> >
> >
> > Can you please help me resolve this issue ASAP so that I can start
> > working with programs that are on my desktop and also on my external
> > hard drives from within the terminal? These include many fortran
> > based programs.
> >
> Looks to me like you have NOT upgraded to 10.4... that is, the upgrade
> did not complete successfully.
> Unfortunately, there are enough ways for an upgrade to break that this
> may not be resolvable via the mailing list. A clean OS reinstall is
> often the simplest way to fix it (having /home on a separate filesystem
> from / makes this relatively painless, but if you followed a default
> install then you probably have a single filesystem). You did back up
> your data before upgrading, right? ;)
Or, in a pinch, use the Ubuntu USB thumb drive. When spell check didn't
work because I deleted the spell check program (later reinstalled it
when I figured out it was missing), I was able to boot from the Ubuntu
thumb drive, open my document on my hard drive, spell check it, and then
save it right back to my local hard drive, or copy it somewhere else.
Brian Lavender
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to
show their absence!"
Professor Edsger Dijkstra
1972 Turing award recipient
vox-tech mailing list
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Hungary Mourns Last Emperor's Son Otto von Habsburg; Dies At 98
By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (BosNewsLife)-- Hungary mourned Monday, July 4, Otto von Habsburg, the oldest son of Austria-Hungary's last emperor and a longtime member of the European Parliament, who has died at age 98.
His family said Habsburg passed away "peacefully and without pain" Monday, July 4, in his sleep at his home in Pocking Germany, where he lived and stayed out of the public eye since his wife's death last year.
As news emerged about his death in Budapest, Hungarian lawmakers held a minute of silence in parliament honoring Habsburg's memory.
He was remembered for his support through speeches given around the world of Hungary's crushed 1956 revolution against Soviet occupation. Habsburg also played a key role in opposition against the Moscow-backed Communist regime in Hungary.
Farmotel Stefania is located in hunting area in one of Hungary's most prestigious wine regions. Near hills, forests and lakes. It has all the facilities of a fine hotel and offers full privacy, huge outdoor space, sauna, grill house and much more.
In 1989, he and Hungarian politician Imre Pozsgay helped to organize a Pan-European Picnic on the border between Austria and Hungary, allowing some 700 East German refugees to escape to the West. A reporter of what is now BosNewsLife witnessed how emotional families and small children ran to freedom.
The move eventually lead to the collapse of the Iron Curtain and, eventually, the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also backed Hungary's efforts to join the European Union.
Following the collapse of communism in 1989, there was even a brief movement in Hungary to make him president, or king, but Habsburg declined. "His life and fate carried with it the history of the 20th century," Hungary's parliamentary speaker Laszlo Kover recalled in remarks on Monday, July 4.
After the fall of communism, "he personally did much to strengthen the process of our European integration," Kover added. Hapsburg was born in 1912 in Reichenau, Austria, the great-great-nephew of Emperor Franz Josef.
His father, Charles, became heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and became emperor two years later.
The empire ended with its defeat in 1918, and Charles died in 1922.
While Hapsburg did not give up his claim to the throne until 1961, he became actively engaged in European politics and an advocate of European unity and peace.
As a young man, he opposed the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and lived in the United States from 1940 to 1944.He reportedly managed to contact President Franklin D. Roosevelt and later claimed to have prevented Allied bombings of a number of Austrian cities by pleading with the U.S. military.
Habsburg was also credited with having helped about 15,000 Austrians, including many Jews, escape the Nazis. He later negotiated Austria's postwar fate with Roosevelt, Britian's Winston Churchill and France's Charles de Gaulle."Otto von Habsburg was one of the great personalities of modern European history," said Karl Hafen, head of the German chapter of the International Society for Human Rights in an interview.
Habsburg was educated in several European countries and received a doctorate in political and social sciences at the University of Louvain in Belgium.
He and his late long-time wife, Regina, had seven children. Their eldest son, Karl Habsburg-Lothringen, now runs the family's affairs and has been the official head of the House of Habsburg since 2007.
Habsburg will be buried July 16 in the Emperor Tomb in Vienna, below the Austrian capital's Capuchin Church, officials said.Before then, his body will be held in the St. Ulrich church in Poecking for three days for people to pay their respects.
Requiems are also planned for Poecking, Munich, Mariazell, Vienna and Budapest.
Otto Almacht, an aide to Habsburg's son Georg, told The Associated Press news agency that Otto von Habsburg's heart would be buried in the Benedictine Abbey in Pannonhalma, central Hungary, where the Catholic Church is the largest denomination. "My father was a towering personality," Habsburg's oldest son Karl Habsburg-Lothringen told the Austria Press Agency.
"With him we lose a great European who has influenced everything we do today beyond measure." (BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos contributed to the story).
Copyright 2008-2013 BosNewsLife. All rights reserved. This material may only be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed by those sponsoring BosNewsLife for $10/month and/or with our prior written consent.
This is an open forum. Any opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of BosNewsLife, its parent company BosNewsLife News Agency or BosNewsLife.com.
7 Responses to "Hungary Mourns Last Emperor's Son Otto von Habsburg; Dies At 98"
Louis von Plankenstern Says:
July 7th, 2011 at 6:42 am
I pay my respects to the Head of the oldest dynasty in Europe, Otto von Habsburg. He was born in times of Kaiser Franz Joseph, and was just 4 years old, when he walked with his parents the Blessed Emperor Karl and Empress Zita behind the funeral cortege, which took to the Capuchin Church his great granduncle. The same way, that his sons, grandsons and great grandsons will follow quite soon in Vienna, to take him to the burial place of the Habsburg Imperial and Royal House. Valery Giscard d'Estaing said when he turned 90 years old, "Imperial Highness, you are not any longer the sovereign of a nation, but you are the father of Europe." Otto Archduke of Austria, Apostolic Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, was the last Imperial and Royal Prince of this vanished world. He fought against Hitler trying to save the freedoms of the old nations of his Empire; he was much cleverer than any foreign minister or primer minster of the time. Even Edward Benes hated so much the Habsburgs, that he said, better Hitler than a Habsburg, few months later, Hitler occupied the former Kingdom of Bohemia. When the tyrant organized the annexation of Austria, called the whole operation as "Otto", knowing that the young heir to the Habsburgs was struggling against him and the Nazis. Hitler condemned him to death "in absentia", alongside with his mother Empress and Queen Zita, plus brothers and sisters. His cousins the sons of Archduke Franz Ferdinand were sent to Dachau, with other dynasts. They lived in exile in the USA and Canada during the war. After the war was over, his new foe was Stalin, Otto started a new war of principles and ethics against the Soviet occupation of central and Eastern Europe. He was the man, as a deputy to the European Parliament, who opened the Austrian boundaries, to thousands of Hungarians, in 1989. After that year he enjoyed the end of the Soviet tyranny and Communism and the proclamation of this father as a Blessed Man by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. Conrad Adenauer admired him a lot, and amongst our present-day politicians, was Chancellor Schüssel from Austria who called him, the Architect of Modern Europe, when the European and Austrian elites, celebrated the Archduke's 90th anniversary at the Hofburg (City Imperial Palace in Vienna). God bless him and My Dear Sovereign rest in peace.
Johan Th. Bos Says:
July 7th, 2011 at 10:28 am
What an interesting story.
Ignatius Gonsalves Says:
July 7th, 2011 at 11:50 am
He was indeed a great and holy man.
May his soul now rest in peace.
I am a journalist and teacher of communication , from India. I had the privilege of talking to him over the phone during my visit to Munich in 1989. It was a lengthy conversation and the topic was India's history and culture. He wanted to meet me at his residence at Poking.But it did not happen because of previously agreed programmes from his side.But he did sent his son George to the hotel I was staying, to meet me. As a token of appreciation he had also sent me a bottle of exquisite wine, through his son.
I also remember him requesting me to hand over a small packet to one of his priest- friends in India. It was a medal in honour of his mother Empress Zita.
The recipient, Rev.Dr.Joseph Thykoodan , was very happy when I gave it to him.
Rev. Dr.Thykoodan and I had the honour of meeting his gracious wife Regina, son Paul , and his wife at Cohin,Kerala, India, a few years back.
The hallowed memmory of Otto Von Habsburg will live for ever.
Ignatius Gonsalves,
Chief Editor,
Jeevanaadam( Voice of Life ),
Cochin, Kerala, INDIA
jozsef v. Dombovary Says:
April 20th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Dr Otto von Habsburg superb sensitivity, understanding, gracious kindness held my life together.
I suffered the mosrt horrendous Nazi persecution and the mosrt dreadful Stalinist persecution.
Every member of our family was murdered and when my Mother the ONLY survivor of Nazism and Bolshevism was murdered on 2nd Jan 1990, I could not shock Dr Habsburg and indicated that she "died". His Very Warm-hearted condolence greatly helped me in my sufferings, and undoubtedly Dr Habsburg sensed that it was an "unusual" death. He was the most wonderful Personage in my long life and every contact by him was so helpful, so very kind that I survived persecutions because of his saintly goodness.
Jozsef v Dombovary Says:
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:13 pm
I am deeply indebted to Dr Otto v Habsburg; after sufferings, what no other human being could have survived,I would leave this cruel world as a happy man, would I live the day of the Beatification of Dr Habsburg would begin. He used his genius and energies to benefit Mankind and rejected the idea of "SELF". Still we all owe Him to help that future generations would know His name and the example of Goodness, what would enrich the world.
Jozsef v Dombovary Says:
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:25 pm
We who had he privilege to know Dr Otto v. Habsburg, do have the duty that future generations could learn that a completely unselfish personage who benefited us by his genius and by his remarkable energies, his wonderful sensitivity was a God-given example for benevolence. One way His example would survive if His Beatification would start soon. So let us hope that men of Good Will would support the mainentance of His gracious memory.
Jozsef v Dombovary Says:
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Dr Otto v Habsburg left a legacy to be unselfish, considerate to Others in minute details, benevolent to all without knowing any discrimination. He used His genius and energies to benefit mankind. Hopefully the process of His Beatification would start soon. That would be one link that future generations would learn what true goodness means.


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Comment: Re:Incredibly farfetched (Score 1) 255 255
That was actually a no brainer
Much like the original article.
That was actually a no brainer
Much like the original article.
They aren't that smart if they think machines could ever be sentient. Machines are deterministic. They do what you tell them to.
And what happens if we tell them to behave randomly? A particle filter, for instance, uses randomness to generate a set of states for evaluation. Sensor fusion takes large numbers of highly error prone sensor readings and merges them into state estimates. Both methods introduce uncertainty into state estimation and, therefore, present non-deterministic foundations for reasoning. Even if the reasoning processes are strictly deterministic, you can still get non-deterministic behavior, and that's without even introducing any explicit behavioral randomness.
But, let's be honest: No one has ever provided a definition (that I've ever seen) for sentience which precludes deterministic response. Are you proposing irrationality as a fundamental identifier of intelligence? I'm not sure I'd call it a feature, but maybe it's an inevitable consequence.
Anyone with enough insight and humility knows there's still an extremely large piece of the puzzle missing in our understanding of life. And you need to understand how something works before you can create it.
I don't think there is an extremely large piece. I think there are hundreds of thousands of little pieces. Also, we create things all the time without understanding them. I mean most people don't have any idea how mitosis works and yet we don't have much problem reproducing. Anyway, the point is that I don't think we need a full understanding of human intelligence to create some kind of intelligent agent.
Nobody who is driving today will ever see ubiquitous self-driving cars. You don't realize the deep connection between the automobile and drivers' need for autonomy. How closely the desire to own a car is tied to the desire to drive.
I own a car, but I've always hated driving. I value the freedom of having the ability to go anywhere, whenever I want. I also value my free time. I would trade the joy of attending to my 45 minute commute in the morning for the next episode/chapter of whatever in an instant. The desire to drive isn't a desire I share. I share the desire to get somewhere, which an autonomous vehicle will, pretty soon, achieve.
And the biggest problem with self-driving cars is that they don't really show their benefit until everybody's using them. A busy highway filled with a mixture of human-driven and machine-driven cars would make for a very enjoyable Michael Bay movie.
Actually, self driving cars will always have to deal with unpredictable behavior from neighboring vehicles. This will never change. They can react faster to other's wrong behaviors, evaluate and plan faster than human drivers, have greater knowledge of road conditions and environment, plus they don't get bored or inattentive. While they aren't up to the task yet, they are coming fast, because they have value for every driver who isn't just driving to drive.
I agree pervasiveness will be more than 5 years, but you'll be able to buy any car with an autonomous driver option in less than 20 years. In 5 years the first autonomous work vehicles will be on the road (specifically long haul trucking). Shortly after that someone will implement the autonomous traffic cop (red light camera on wheels), and traffic cops will be on their way out.
Don't really wanna make it tough
I just wanna tell you that I had enough
Might sound crazy,
But it ain't no lie,
Bye, bye, bye
Well, he clearly owns the copyright on the photographs, so if anyone wants to contest that they are SOL. The privacy concern is legitimate if and only if the pictures were taken in an area where there was an expectation of privacy. A sporting event with people in the stands cheering certainly doesn't seem like a private event...
I don't know...This seems like some kind of alternate reality setup for the Venom creation story. *I'm* not wearing anything woven from this stuff is all I'm saying.
I always suspected that automakers were amateurs. Real engineers use CMake.
Why is this tagged Cod Equality? I mean, I'm all for fish rights, but that's just sil...heh.
All I'm wondering is whether there has ever been a single quote in the codename before? Virtually guaranteed to break someone's build system...
Out of curiosity, how many crew members do you think died in the first 100 or so trans-Atlantic sailing boats? I'd wager it was a hell of a lot more than 1 in 60.
I have worked support for a ISP before, If I had a dime for every time a conversation started with I'm a lawyer, technician, or etc.. so I know what I'm talking about. I would be a millionaire.
I wish more people understood this. There are plenty of ways during a support contact to show me you are an exception to the norm, but telling me you are the exception just makes you less exceptional.
AKA: Show me don't tell me.
It doesn't matter how much money you spend here, by staying only here you are committing the species to a single point of failure. Fault tolerant design requires the elimination of single point failure architecture, particularly if the detection and correction of the failing element is difficult or impossible prior to failure.
We are pretty bad at detecting dangerously large rocks flying directly at our faces. Said dangerously large rocks have the potential to kill every one of us in one event. There is no safe mitigation, there is no localized preparation that can eliminate the risk. Parallelism is the only idea that provides the proper redundancy. Extra-solar would be better, but we can't reasonably achieve that yet. We also might not be capable of colonizing Mars yet, but we should all get behind the fact that we really need to.
We engineer so we draw things out write out UML or some type of logic flow then get to coding.
I personally build little modules then add on higher functional work loads until I have a finished product...
Son, you are adorable! So cute with your UML diagrams, logic flows, little modules, thinking, and all that. In the real world of startups and Minimum Viable Products, we just code whatever comes in our minds before dinner and ship it.
I wish to live in a world where this is funny, because right now it's a little too on point.
I switched to a Note 2 from my old iPhone 3GS, because I wanted more screen real estate, and it was a huge adjustment. Took me about a month to get used to the size (mow the 3GS seems laughable). After almost two years I'm still not OK with Android, but it was worth the annoyance for the larger size. I'd give it a little time...particularly give it long enough to determine if you actually need your tablet any more. I certainly didn't.
Well, software development is about many stakeholders. You, as the developer, are one of those stakeholders. Yes, the customer has a set of requirements, but you have a set of requirements as well. You make technical decisions every day based on those requirements whether you have explicitly enumerated them or not.
My read on this is that it's a set of governing principles for making implementation decisions about how you write code. As such any one of these guiding principles can be set aside to accomplish specific requirements they might conflict with, but where they don't conflict they should guide decision making.
From that perspective I guess they are helpful, if kind of obvious, guidelines. They seem kind of asymmetric though..."use message passing" is a pretty specific choice, where "elastic" is vague to the point of uselessness. On the whole I guess this seems like someone who really likes message passing and is tired of trying to justify the extra overhead every single time it comes up.
Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.


text:
Why is a hypothesis inappropriate for a qualitative study?
1 Answer | Add Yours
People who argue that a hypothesis is inappropriate for a qualitative study do so because they believe that a hypothesis leads a researcher to approach the subject in a biased way. The researcher, it is believed, will tend to want to confirm the hypothesis.
In a quantitative study, this is not a problem. This is because the researcher will get numerical data that will prove or disprove the hypothesis. In a qualitative study, by contrast, the "data" must be interpreted. Since the researcher has to give meaning to the data, it is important not to have a preconceived notion of how the data will come out.
Therefore, in a qualitative study, one should ask things like "how will levels of education affect quality of life" rather than stating a hypothesis such as "people with lower educational levels will generally experience a lower quality of life than those with more education." Stating it as a hypothesis will generally lead the researcher to look for ways to support the idea that the quality of life is lower for less-educated people.
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Archive for the 'Events' Category
10 Big Ideas to Make Boise Greener
Thursday, November 28th, 2013
USGBC Idaho is pleased to be presenting at this upcoming community event at the Egyptian Theater. Executive Director Charlie Woodruff will be giving a talk entitled "The Central Addition: A Neighborhood Approach to Building a Smarter more Resilient Boise one Neighborhood at a Time". Join us to hear about the #CentralAddition and about 9 other great ideas to make Boise greener.
Tags: Boise, Central Addition, Community, District Energy, EcoDistrict, Energy Efficiency, Neighborhood, Resiliency, sustainable development, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted in Events | No Comments »
Green Building Rating Systems Discussion
Wednesday, October 30th, 2013
Ever wondered about the differences between LEED building and Green Globes? How much further does a project need to go beyond LEED to achieve living status? What about Green Globes and Energy Star Green Buildings? Join USGBC Idaho for a conversation on green buildings where we'll convene a panel of experts to tackle these questions.
Our Green Building Rating Systems Panel is being held from noon-1 on Thursday, Nov 14th in the conference room at Idaho Power, 1221 W Idaho Street in Boise.
This is a free, public event for anyone interested in learning more about green building. Chicken and vegetarian coconut curry with waldorf salad is available for lunch and is $10 for USGBC Idaho members and $14 for non-members. Those purchasing lunch are requested to confirm their orders through our RSVP form.
Posted in Events, Luncheons, USGBC Idaho | No Comments »
Wells Fargo Supports Green Schools in Idaho
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013
Wells Fargo is a generous contributor to USGBC Idaho's Green Schools Challenge program. Now in its second year, 10 schools from across the state are competing for bragging rights and cash prizes associated with the Green Schools Challenge. For the 2013-14 challenge, Wells Fargo has donated $7,500 to underwrite this fantastic program.
Posted in Events, Green Schools | No Comments »


text:
You report that finger skin wrinkling as a result of soaking in water could be a beneficial adaptation as it gives better grip in wet conditions (12 January, p 15). Surely this is a classic example of what author Raymond Tallis calls "Darwinitis".
Not every physical characteristic need confer an adaptive advantage. A characteristic can surely be adaptively neutral, of no great benefit or disadvantage.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.


text:
Everyone needs a midwinter pick-me-up, and Sean's colorful snack seems like just the ticket! Root vegetables can get repetitive and a little heavy, but slicing them thin and getting them delightfully crispy makes them just different enough to be addictive. I like to eat these with an assortment of dips; hummus, a simple guacamole, maybe a salty tapenade…happy munching! -Amy
Roots are strange old vegetables. They live a dark and secret life underground, detached from us humans in a place we can never go. Of course they're more a part of this earth than we are, but there's something slightly alien about root vegetables. With gnarly, twisted faces, strange hairy beards and long witchy fingers, they're definitely not glamorous. I suppose their looks might have something to do with their neglect. Sometimes I forget about roots for months on end, but I truly believe they are the unsung heroes of the kitchen. For those of us living in colder climes, we should praise roots for standing by us, whilst all other vegetables have long since abandoned the fight against frost.
Root vegetables are an interesting alternative to the potato in any meal – swap potato for celeriac in chowder, swap mashed potatoes for rutabaga mash or try this recipe: swapping potato chips for root vegetables chips. They are sweeter than potato chips, slightly softer but somehow have a heartier crunch. With a liberal sprinkle of the Lemon Rosemary salt, these chips are far more elegant than any potato chip. Served up before a meal, the sweet and salty combination leaves any guest's palate nicely seduced. The salt is worth making anytime, or as a great little gift for any foodie friend – it's simple but used as an everyday seasoning, it brings any dish to life.
Root Veggie Chips with Lemon Rosemary Sea Salt
For the chips:
- 6-7 mixed root vegetables (celeriac, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, turnip, beets)
- 48 fl. oz canola oil
For the salt:
- 1 ½ cups kosher salt
- ½ cup fresh rosemary
- 2 lemons – zest only
- 2 cups of flaky sea salt (such as English Maldon)
Make the salt first, as it will keep indefinitely. Remove the stalks from the rosemary and add to a food processor. Add the lemon zest and kosher salt. Pulse until the rosemary is blended into the salt.
Put the flaky sea salt in a bowl and stir the kosher salt mix into it until combined. Heat the oven to 150˚F and spread the salt out onto a baking sheet. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Either add to jars and give away as gifts, or keep: it's ready to use.
For the chips, peel the roots and slice them as thin as humanly possibly. A mandoline is a useful little tool here. With smaller vegetables like carrots and parsnips, it's often better to shave them with a veg peeler.
Add the vegetables to a bowl. Sprinkle with 1 tsp regular salt (not the rosemary salt), mix and let them sit for 15-20 minutes – the less water the vegetables contain, the better they will fry. Rinse and pat dry with kitchen paper.
Pour the oil into a tall-sided saucepan. The oil should be about an inch deep. Heat the oil up to about 350˚F, but of course, it will be very hot, so do be careful. To test the heat, drop one slice of root into the oil, when it sizzles, the oil is ready.
Carefully places batches of roots into the oil. Fry the chips until crisp, maybe 3-4 minutes, turning the roots over now and again. When they start to gain a bit of colour remove them and let them dry on kitchen towel.
Sprinkle with the lemon-rosemary seasalt whilst warm, but let the chips cool completely before serving.
Photos taken and styled by Sean St. John.
Eat Boutique discovers the best small batch foods by boutique food makers. We share recipes, maker stories and city guides to eating boutique. We host tasting events and markets for food makers, cookbook authors and food fans. We craft seasonal, regional gift and tasting boxes and sell individual items that you can order in the Eat Boutique Shop. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest.
Sean St. John
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- Chestnut Pear Tatin - December 15, 2014


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raisindot wrote:Ser, if a person is killed 'for good' is it possible for the laws de morte to require that said victim remain really 'dead'--i.e., silent, wordless, non-participatory, even as a ghostly observer, so the rest of us who are still alive can try to figure out what the hell's going on without being subject to said victim's endless jabber for at least a certain amount of time, say, oh a week?
Tee hee! I didn't have time to read Jan's last two posts. I'll get round to it.