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Happy last day of May!
Today’s quote is from a songwriter and composer: “The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.”
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back to top42 Comments to “Whirled Views 5.31”
Irving Berlin, who also said – “Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.”
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Irving needed to read “The Power of Now.”
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GRIPE: the third Saturday in a row without a “BOOK” thread. (But maybe Lynn signed up to write that one, and, if so, she’s excused.)
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So let’s hijack this one. I just read Geraldine Brooks’ March an adult novel that tells the Little Women story from the point of view of Chaplain March serving in the Civil War.
Beautifully written with interesting aspects of the war I had never heard about before, I enjoyed it a great deal. Brooks’ husband, Tony Horwitz, wrote the hysterical Confederates in the Attic about Civil War impersonators. She recounts in the acknowledgements that riding around with him as he researched nearly drove her crazy, but it also led her to appreciate and then write this wonderful book.
It is graphic, brutal Civil War death scenes and Brooks places March on a plantation rented from a war widow in the south, with his job as teaching the former slaves to read. But first they have to work 16 hours a day in the cotton field–though it’s for wages this time.
Captain March, of course, ends up ill in a hospital in Washington D.C., which is what I remembered from Little Women. Remember, John Brooks has to retrieve him and in so doing wins Meg’s hand and heart?
Brooks uses information from Louisa May Alcott’s novel, mixes it with stories of her transcendentalist neighbors Emerson and Thoreau and blends it with biographical elements of Louisa May’s father. A wonderful read.
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OOOOHHHH Michelle. That sounds interesting. I might have to read that one. I pretty much ruined all the Little Women books for myself by researching Louisa May Alcott. Henry David Thoreau was her love but never returned the feelings. He is the basis of Laurie. Her parents were vegetarians in the 1800’s and she had to write and work to support the family. Her father was more of a “thinker” than doer.
There is also another book coming out along those lines. It is Gone With The Wind from Rhetts perspective and tells the story of his family. I did NOT like the book Scarlett.
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This appeared in WORLD Magazine Page 46, Anita Palmer wrote the story – Mobile blessings – May 17/24 2008
The VIDEO on link below, you don’t want to miss it.
Free Wheelchair Mission
http://www.freewheelchairmission.org/
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McCain is out of touch with reality.
On Thursday McCain said, “I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.”
Fact: the troop level in Iraq is at about 155,000 right now, well above the 130,000 that would mark a return to pre-surge levels.
Is he just forgetful?
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The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer had this to say: “The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways. It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”
So what does McCain do? He uses a picture of General Petraeus in his latest ad, shamelessly using the military for political gain, even though he voted against our veterans.
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Didn’t McCain say Mosul was quiet?
“Another suicide bomber driving a police vehicle struck Iraqi commandos earlier Thursday in Mosul, killing three of them and wounding nine other people, according to battalion commander Capt. Aziz Latif.”
And didn’t he say Basra was quiet?
Basra-Iraqi soldiers fired in the air over supporters of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to prevent them from gathering for Muslim prayers Friday in the southern city of Basra, enraging the worshipers and straining a fragile truce with the government. Iraqi police in Basra said one person was wounded in the shooting in a square in the northern part of the city. But al-Sadr officials contended that one person was killed and three wounded.
And didn’t he say it’s quiet in Sadr City?
“From Sadr City to Kufa in southern Iraq, thousands of followers of al-Sadr prayed and then stood in protest. In Sadr City, followers set fire to an American flag and an image of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Saddam Hussein’s green military uniform.”
155,000 troops or 130,000? Quiet or not so quiet. Who knows? Not McCain.
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The Liberal group Move On is calling on McClellan to donate all profits from his book to veterans groups.
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Michelle,
Good idea! Except that I’ve wrapped up three projects in the last 24 hours and I’m not completely sure my brain is working.
As a rule, books that add to the story line of a long-in-print book by rewriting it from another angle have proven to be a disappointment. A few years ago I read Ahab’s Wife (Moby Dick) and was astonished how many liberties the author took. (I reviewed it on amazon.) I do like the book that fills in the gap of the missing part of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood–though it’s dark enough that one can see why Laura skipped over it, and I don’t know that I’d give it to children along with the series. I’ve tried a couple others, and am usually disappointed. I recently read a review about a prequel to Anne of Green Gables that made me think I’ll skip it–the reviewer concluded there’s a reason we know about Anne’s hard life without having to live it along with her, because as a book it’s simply too depressing.
But this sounds interesting. Thanks for the note on it.
Now to lie down and snuggle with my dog a few minutes, and give my brain a rest….
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The month of may = fewest deaths to US servicemen in any month in four years.
This is good news for all of us, regardless of our various positions on the mission they are seeking to accomplish.
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It’s interesting that Obama and his wife just now resigned from Trinity. What in the world took them so long, and how can they now justify their long-term relationship with the so-called “Rev.” Wright?
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Cheryl, #10, about re-writing a story.
When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading Tom Sawyer and the sequel Huckleberry Finn immensely. So, I found a book called Tom Sawyer Grows Up. A great disappointment. The same thing happened with A Return to Treasure Island. But I understand the sequal to Gone With the Wind was a success; though I haven’t read it.
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Outkast. Some people say that we are making Obama “guilty by association”.
As I said before, McCain’s big problem is that he has a record. Obama’s big problem is that he has no record.
In absence of a record, the only thing we know about Obama is the people he runs around with.
Some of you Obama fans tell me what else we know about Obama, except who his friends are.
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Amen Chas. McCains flip flopping record is a huge problem.
America can’t wait for 2008! Vote for Bob Barr!
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Looks like the Dems will seat the Florida and Michigan delegates and each will have a half vote. Obama’s total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5
It’s looking more and more like an Obama vs. Barr election in November.
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Friends,
Check out my new right of center group blog that deals solely with issues of religion and the American Founding.
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/
While we differ in our opinions, the three of us who are (so far) members of this blog agree that America’s key Founders were neither strict Deists nor orthodox Christians, but rather somewhere in between.
As John Adams put it, when speaking of his anti-Trinitarianism:
“If I understand the Doctrine, it is, that if God the first second or third or all three together are united with or in a Man, the whole Animal becomes a God and his Mother is the Mother of God.
“It grieves me: it shocks me to write in this stile upon a subject the most adorable that any finite Intelligence can contemplate or embrace: but if ever Mankind are to be superior to the Brutes, sacerdotal Impostures must be exposed.”
– John Adams to Francis van der Kemp, October 23, 1816.
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Vote for Barr if you want to see Obama in the White House next January.
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Friends,
Which Founding Father was Roger Sherman referring to when he wrote the following:
“With regard to his moral character, I consider him an irreligious and profane man—he is no hypocrite and never pretended to have any religion. He makes religion the subject of ridicule and is profane in his conversation.”
Click on my new blog for the answer.
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Hey Outkast/Jeff,
I found out that your relative Ezra Stiles, though he was an orthodox Christian, was also a fervent supporter of the French Revolution (as many orthodox Christian “Whigs” were). Do you want me to point you to the primary sources?
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So we’re in Iraq when 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia? Now this?
DOBOJ, Bosnia – For years, Saudi Arabia flatly denied it had provided money and logistical support for Islamist militant groups that attacked Western targets.
But that assertion is disputed by a former al-Qaeda commander who testified in a United Nations war-crimes trial that his unit was funded by the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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The legacy of liberty:
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” ~ John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, July 10, 1790.
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Roger Sherman’s grave was among those I used to visit on memorial at the GFrove Street cemetery when I lived in New Haven, CT. He signed all the major primary documents of the US. Andother great founder at that cemetery was Noah Webster, who did more than anyone, culturally, to unify and educate us as Americans.
But Roger Sherman was not God and whomever’s faith he was judging does not concern me. Such opinions can go all over the map in this life. They can be wrong or change at will. He may have revised that opinion later, who knows? Not us. It would be unscholarly and unfair to actually judge that other person’s faith, by the judgments of a completely different personl.
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Sherman was talking about a one legged avid adulterer and fornicator who also happened to be one of the greatest of the Founding Fathers.
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Let me get this straight. The DNC TOLD Florida and Michigan in plenty of time that if they moved up their primary their votes would not count. Being defiant Florida and Michigan chose to go ahead and have their primaries EVEN THOUGH they had been told the votes wouldn’t count and now that Little Miss Hillary has her knickers in a knot they have decided to let the votes count as half votes? Well, that just makes all the sense in the world. How would that work if we applied it to other area of personal and business life. Let’s see…thou shalt not steal…oh but now that you have go ahead and use half of what you stole and we will only punish you half as much.
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I thought I would share my church newsletter article with you all today. Okay, it’s the first time I’ve done this so, bear with me. I won’t make it a habit (skip, if not interested).
Beyond Commencement Clichés
It’s graduation season! So watch out for commencement clichés like; “Believe in yourself;” or “Dare to dream;” or “You are the future leaders of America.”
If any school invites me to deliver a commencement address, here are three big points I would make:
First, I would challenge the graduates to get a strong work ethic. I’d fire them up with a few clichés their grandparent’s lived by:
* “Diligent hands bring wealth.
* “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
* “Settle down and earn the bread you eat.”
* “Each should carry his own load.”
* “Ill-gotten treasures are of no value.”
If that sounds boring to them, I could always leak the scandalous fact that these clichés were stolen from the Bible! I know some schools ban the public use of the Bible, but as graduates, they can read it all they want!
Second, I would dare them to honor marriage. Any decision regarding a life companion stands taller than most any financial, entertainment, health, or career decision they will make. Plus, the future of civilization is tied to honoring marriage. Take it from that same best-seller:
Jesus said, “From the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female… For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)
That’s male and female; not whichever you prefer. That’s two becoming one, not three or five. We have Jesus’ word on it, “from the beginning.”
I would beg the graduates to protect the sanctity of marriage at all cost. Don’t dismiss it, disrespect it or redefine it. It’s where the future comes from. Your children will need you to be married even more than you will. Walt Disney rightly said, “Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.” Trash marriage and you jeopardize that precious national resource.
I recently heard a parent say that when his kindergarten-aged daughter learned of an upcoming marriage, she asked whether the woman was going to marry another woman or a man. She had already been taught at school that it can go either way. If this does not rip your heart to pieces, you need a new heart.
Third, give up every nickel and dime, every pricey pearl, every talent and treasure and every shred of property or pride you have to get that new heart from God. If God gives you anything else in return, then live on grace and gratitude until you graduate for good.
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Money and gay marriage??
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“Previewing the world for the next U.S. president, a top U.S. intelligence official this week predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.”
No kidding? Bush a failure? Who would have ever guessed?
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Joel Mark, Re: “You are the future leaders of America”.
In 1972-73, I was a grad student at Purdue. My family had remained home while I was pursuing my masters degree. During the summer, and final session, my thirteen year old son came to visit for two weeks. He loved it. It was also a great teaching experience.
One of the several things that happened occurred in the Grad West day room. We were there and noticed the grad students watching daytime TV, and grading undergraduate papers, etc. I remarked to Chuck, “Someday these guys will be running the country.” He looked at me with an expression of sheer terror. He assessed the situation correctly.
Some of the grad lecturers were quite good, however.
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Joel Mark, I enjoyed reading your post. I’m at a crossroads, and it reminded me of what was important. Our speaker in law school had been a prisoner kidnapped in the Middle East, but I don’t remember the speech. I do remember the Mass (it was a Catholic school) because the priest said that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea who took Christ off the cross had been lawyers. I had never thought of them that way before, nor since, mainly because I repeated that to my own minister and he just stared at me speechless. He did tell that I had guts for going to law school, but he did ask “what were you doing in a place like that?” I felt like a prostitute.
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Joel – I too am glad you shared that. Too bad you can’t share that message with many graduates!
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Scott McClellan says he will donate a portion of the proceeds from his book about the Bush administration disaster to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans groups. How much, he did not say. You can bet it’s more than any other administration official has done to help our vets. Or any of their profiteer friends and cronies.
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Continuing our discussion over “what is Christianity?” here are some quotations from America’s Founders on how they understood Christianity. Question: Was their “rational Christianity” that rejected original sin, the trinity, incarnation, atonement and elevated works over faith for salvation, “Christianity,” or a different animal?
Here is Jefferson elevating works over faith:
“My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.”
– Thomas Jefferson to Thomas B. Parker, May 15, 1819.
Here is Franklin on how works, as opposed to faith, defines the essence of true Christianity:
“Faith is recommended as a Means of producing Morality: Our Saviour was a Teacher of Morality or Virtue, and they that were deficient and desired to be taught, ought first to believe in him as an able and faithful Teacher. Thus Faith would be a Means of producing Morality, and Morality of Salvation. But that from such Faith alone Salvation may be expected, appears to me to be neither a Christian Doctrine nor a reasonable one….Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End: And if the End be obtained, it is no matter by what Means.”
– Benjamin Franklin, “Dialogue between Two Presbyterians,” April 10, 1735.
Here is John Adams on how “good people” are Christians:
“I believe with Justin Martyr, that all good men are Christians, and I believe there have been, and are, good men in all nations, sincere and conscientious.”
– John Adams to Samuel Miller, July 8, 1820.
And here George Washington speaks of the death of a loved one and suggests that people are justified through works:
“She is now no more! But she must be happy, because her virtue has a claim to it.”
– George Washington to Tobias Lear, March 30, 1796.
If GW were an orthodox Christian what I’d expect him to say is “But she must be happy because she has trusted in Christ and His blood atonement.”
Am I wrong?
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Lumps
A ‘portion’ is how much? Is it 1%, or 5% or maybe 2% after the sale of 4 million books? Get the figures Lumps and let us all know.
Can you PROVE that no other offical from the administration has given help and aid to our vets, or how much? How about their friends, do you have PROOF that their friends didn’t give money or help to the vets?
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Vico-
Please read more carefully.
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Sorry. That should have been:
PLease rEAd moRe CAREfully.
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I read just fine Lumps…..
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If you could read you would have seen where I said the neo-con propaganda peddler McClellan did not say how much. And that I said I would bet he gives more. I still will. Get your numbers and win the bet if you think you can girl.
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I remember when Barbara Bush donated money for Katrina victims. It was earmarked such that it could only be spent on her son Neil’s software. That was oh so generous of her. gag. Just what people without homes need. Software from her son’s struggling company.
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Lumps – Is it your ambition on this blog to dig up dirt on conservatives whom you don’t like or with whom you disagree? So far, you have not contributed anyting positive to the discussion, just muck raking.
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I’m not muck raking. John McCain is joined at the hip with extremist lobbyists who represent the worst in governing. Iran, Myanmar, etc… People need to know this.
And Bob Barr is the REAL conservative! VOTE FOR BOB BARR IN 2008!
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