Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
I just did. I went to the Senator’s website and sent this below:
Over the past decade, Congresses and Presidents haveundertaken a
surge of spending that has accelerated America’s speed along the road to
economic ruin. Since 2000, non-defense discretionary outlays have expanded 50 percent faster than inflation. Antipoverty spending has risen 83 percent faster than inflation, and other programs have grown rapidly. Despite multiple government audits that have shown many programs to be duplicative or ineffective, no significant federal program has been eliminated in more than a decade. Government continues to grow, financed by taxes on Americans and an explosion of borrowing that is imposing huge additional burdens on future generations.
Thus, although the major entitlement programs are the primary driver of
long-term spending and debt, Congress must take tough action on discretionary programs and smaller entitlement programs to reach a balanced budget and ensure that federal spending is smaller, more effective, and more efficient.
Under the Heritage plan, non-defense discretionary spending—appropriated programs such as foreign aid, K–12 education, transportation, health research, housing, community development, and veterans health care, which account for 4.5 percent of GDP—is reduced to 2.0 percent of GDP by 2021. These reforms will reduce the burden of government, thereby empowering families and entrepreneurs and promoting economic prosperity.
In addition, antipoverty spending is reformed. Obamacare is repealed, as
noted earlier, and replaced with an alternative solution to uninsurance and high costs. Agriculture and education programs are structurally reformed. The central goal for defense is to guarantee national security as prudently and economically as possible. With improvements in efficiency, we estimate that defense needs will require spending approximately 4 percent of GDP for the foreseeable future.
Rather than across-the-board spending reductions, which would not set true priorities for government, the Heritage plan follows six guidelines in designing reforms:
The federal government should focus on performing a limited
number of appropriate governmental duties well while empowering state and local governments, which are closer to the people, to address local needs creatively in such areas as transportation, justice, job training, the environment, and economic development.
Functions that the private sector can perform more efficiently
should be transferred to the private sector.
Duplicative programs should be consolidated both to save money
and to improve government assistance.
Federal programs should more precisely target those who are
actually in need, which means reducing aid to large businesses and upper-income individuals who do not need taxpayer assistance and enforcing program eligibility rules better.
Outdated and ineffective programs should be eliminated.
Waste, fraud, and abuse should be cleaned up wherever found.
By following these six guidelines, the Heritage plan produces a more
effective and efficient government and promotes stronger economic growth.
Last Tuesday night I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I commented how I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard about what other things in his father’s life are not like he thought they were.
In today’s sermon at church I heard our pastor say that Randy Alcorn said one of the main reasons he did not want to have an affair was:
Hurt to and loss of credibility with my beloved daughters, Karina and Angela. (“Why listen to a man who betrayed Mom and us?”)
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT NICK SAID IN THE PROGRAM LAST TUESDAY!!!!HE GREW UP THINKING HIS FATHER HUNG THE MOON AND NOW HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IS AUTHENTIC ABOUT HIS FATHER’S LIFE ANY MORE.
Today I went to my church, Fellowship Bible Church and heard one of our teaching pastors, Brandon Barnard, deliver a message on Sexual Purity.
He started off the sermon by reading three chapters from Proverbs. Here are the verses:
Proverbs 5:1-23
English Standard Version (ESV)
Proverbs 5
Warning Against Adultery
1 My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding, 2that you may keep discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge. 3For the lips of a forbidden[a] woman drip honey,
and her speech[b] is smoother than oil, 4but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword. 5Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to[c] Sheol; 6she does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it. 7And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth. 8Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house, 9lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless, 10lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, 11and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed, 12and you say, “How I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof! 13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors. 14 I am at the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation.”
15Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well. 16Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets? 17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you. 18Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated[d] always in her love. 20Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?[e] 21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he ponders[f] all his paths. 22The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. 23 He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.
Proverbs 6:20-35
English Standard Version (ESV)
Warnings Against Adultery
20 My son, keep your father’s commandment,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching. 21 Bind them on your heart always;
tie them around your neck. 22 When you walk, they[a] will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you. 23For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, 24to preserve you from the evil woman,[b]
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.[c] 25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; 26for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,[d]
but a married woman[e] hunts down a precious life. 27Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned? 28Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched? 29So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
none who touches her will go unpunished. 30People do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry, 31but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold;
he will give all the goods of his house. 32He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself. 33He will get wounds and dishonor,
and his disgrace will not be wiped away. 34For jealousy makes a man furious,
and he will not spare when he takes revenge. 35He will accept no compensation;
he will refuse though you multiply gifts.
Proverbs 7:6-27
English Standard Version (ESV)
6For at the window of my house
I have looked out through my lattice, 7and I have seen among the simple,
I have perceived among the youths,
a young man lacking sense, 8passing along the street near her corner,
taking the road to her house 9in the twilight, in the evening,
at the time of night and darkness.
10And behold, the woman meets him,
dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.[a] 11She is loud and wayward;
her feet do not stay at home; 12now in the street, now in the market,
and at every corner she lies in wait. 13She seizes him and kisses him,
and with bold face she says to him, 14“I had to offer sacrifices,[b]
and today I have paid my vows; 15so now I have come out to meet you,
to seek you eagerly, and I have found you. 16I have spread my couch with coverings,
colored linens from Egyptian linen; 17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon. 18Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;
let us delight ourselves with love. 19For my husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey; 20he took a bag of money with him;
at full moon he will come home.”
21With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him. 22All at once he follows her,
as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a stag is caught fast[c] 23till an arrow pierces its liver;
as a bird rushes into a snare;
he does not know that it will cost him his life.
24And now, O sons, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth. 25Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths, 26for many a victim has she laid low,
and all her slain are a mighty throng. 27Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death.
Then Brandon made several points concerning the scriptures. Probably the most powerful point he made was referring to the exercise that Randy Alcorn had challenged all men to make. This below is my advice to Gene Simmons.
Personalized List of Anticipated Consequences of Immorality
Grieving my Lord; displeasing the One whose opinion most matters.
Dragging into the mud Christ’s sacred reputation.
Loss of reward and commendation from God.
Having to one day look Jesus in the face at the judgment seat and give an account of why I did it. Forcing God to discipline me in various ways.
Following in the footsteps of men I know of whose immorality forfeited their ministry and caused me to shudder. List of these names:
Suffering of innocent people around me who would get hit by my shrapnel (a la Achan).
Untold hurt to Nanci, my best friend and loyal wife.
Loss of Nanci’s respect and trust.
Hurt to and loss of credibility with my beloved daughters, Karina and Angela. (“Why listen to a man who betrayed Mom and us?”)
If my blindness should continue or my family be unable to forgive, I could lose my wife and my children forever.
Shame to my family. (The cruel comments of others who would invariably find out.)
Shame to my church family.
Shame and hurt to my fellow pastors and elders. List of names:
Shame and hurt to my friends, and especially those I’ve led to Christ and discipled. List of names:
Guilt awfully hard to shake—even though God would forgive me, would I forgive myself?
Plaguing memories and flashbacks that could taint future intimacy with my wife.
Disqualifying myself after having preached to others.
Surrender of the things I am called to and love to do—teach and preach and write and minister to others. Forfeiting forever certain opportunities to serve God. Years of training and experience in ministry wasted for a long period of time, maybe permanently.
Being haunted by my sin as I look in the eyes of others, and having it all dredged up again wherever I go and whatever I do.
Undermining the hard work and prayers of others by saying to our community “this is a hypocrite—who can take seriously anything he and his church have said and done?”
Laughter, rejoicing and blasphemous smugness by those who disrespect God and the church (2 Samuel 12:14).
Bringing great pleasure to Satan, the Enemy of God.
Heaping judgment and endless problems on the person I would have committed adultery with.
Possible diseases (pain, constant reminder to me and my wife, possible infection of Nanci, or in the case of AIDS, even causing her death, as well as mine.)
Possible pregnancy, with its personal and financial implications.
Loss of self-respect, discrediting my own name, and invoking shame and lifelong embarrassment upon myself.
I’m older now, turned 55 a few days ago. My daughters are grown, with children of their own. But the list of consequences of immorality is larger than ever. I have two sons-in-law and four grandsons. Many people have read my books, so the circle of people I would be letting down has grown. (For resources on this subject, see my book The Purity Principle, and my booklet Sexual Temptation: How Christian Workers Can Win the Battle.)
It would still break my heart to let down my Lord Jesus and my wonderful wife. That’s why I’m more careful than ever to avoid the little compromises and indulgences that could lead to moral disaster.
If we would rehearse in advance the ugly and overwhelming consequences of immorality, we would be far more prone to avoid it.
Last Tuesday night I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I commented how I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard […]
Last night I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard about what […]
I watched with great interest the first episode of Gene Simmons show two days ago when his wife left him because of his repeated unfaithfulness. Nerve editors are divided on the subject of Chelsea Handler, by which I mean that I find her kind of funny and Ben made a barfy face when I said […]
Parents, Public Braced for Amy Winehouse’s Death Through Five-Year Fade
Posted Sun Jul 24, 2011 12:13pm PDT by Chris Willman
To Amy Winehouse’s family, the singer/songwriter’s death was not unexpected. It was “only a matter of time,” her mother, Janis Winehouse, was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror. She’d visited her daughter the day before she died, and said, “She seemed out of it. But her passing still hasn’t hit me.”
She said their final encounter had ended with the weakened Amy saying “I love you, mum.” “Those are the words I will always treasure,” Janis said. “I’m glad I saw her when I did.”
Father Mitch Winehouse had been in New York preparing to do a series of showcases for his new jazz album. He canceled the shows and was seen at JFK a few hours after the news hit. “I’m completely devastated,” he was reported as saying. “I’m coming home. I have to be with Amy. I can’t crack up, for her sake. My family needs me.”
Mitch Winehouse had been vocal in the past—too vocal, for Amy’s tastes—about his daughter’s substance abuse. As far back as three years ago, he was raising the specter of her possible demise when he publicly revealed that she was suffering from emphysema. “Doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her,” he was quoted as saying in 2008, while issuing an ultimatum to drug dealers to stay away.
If the family had clearly braced themselves for this news at various points over the years, so had the public, which had grown nearly inured to tales of the singer’s inebriated escapades and false promises of new output.
With Amy Winehouse, sadly, drug counselors finally have the all-or-nothing case study in creative stifling they need.
It never helped their cause that other famous members of the so-called “27 Club” who’d also died at age 27—including Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin—had managed to record great music right up until their deaths. These legends’ romanticized swan songs helped foster the belief among some drug users that, even if the grim reaper looms, artistic genius can coexist with or even be aided by addiction.
But the five fallow years that have passed since Winehouse released her second and final album, the Grammys-sweeping Back to Black, tell a very different cautionary tale about promises unfulfilled. There’s no reason to expect the kind of posthumous releases that followed the deaths of figures like Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur. It’s not at all clear Winehouse managed to record anything more than a few cover songs in the half-decade that passed since she released one of the most triumphant recordings of the 21st century.
The only confirmed recording Winehouse has in the can is a duet with Tony Bennett of the standard “Body and Soul,” set for hisDuets II album, which will be out Sept. 20. Winehouse was said to have been cheeky but capable when she joined the 84-year-old Bennett at London’s Abbey Road studio March 23, calling the experience “a story to tell my grandchildren to tell their grandchildren to tell their grandchildren,” according to a reporter from the Telegraph who attended the session.
But unless the recording sessions were an incredibly well-kept secret, there’s no album no. 3 in the vault. Answering fan queries online, she always had an answer ready when the inevitable questions would come about when we should expect the next album: “Soon!” Writing on her Formspring web page last summer, she told fans, “Aww, my album is coming. I can’t wait”—followed eight months ago by the tease, “Do you want to know my first song from my new album?” She never did use that forum to name the promised song, or even mention the supposed album-in-progress again.
Last year, there was conjecture of a project with the Roots’ Questlove. On March 1, 2010, she tweeted, “Me an Quest, sittin in a tree, makin a s-up-er group.” Little was heard about this highly anticipated hookup again.
Her professional relationship with producer Mark Ronson, who was responsible for much of Back to Black, had definitely been on-again, off-again in the intervening years. Famously, in early 2008, Ronson abandoned sessions that were intended to produce a possible theme song for the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, diplomatically saying, “We tried to work for a little bit. I’m not sure she’s ready to work on music yet.”
In July of 2010, she appeared as a surprise guest at a club gig by Ronson, singing her B-side, “Valerie,” though she failed to remember all the lyrics. Things between the two seemed to take a bad turn last September, when she tweeted some invective aimed at her producer:“Ronson you’re dead to me; one album I write an you take half the credit- make a career out of it? Don’t think so BRUV.” But three days later, she attempted to make up with him online, writing, “Ronson I love you; that make it better? You know I love you- it’s a jew thing…”
More recently, Winehouse and Ronson collaborated on the last recording released during her lifetime, a cover of Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” for a star-studded Quincy Jones tribute album. Her vocal was widely panned, with fans and critics wondering what the unedited tapes sounded like, if that was the best performance Ronson could patch together with the help of editing tools.
Winehouse’s last appearance on stage was just three days before her death-a non-singing cameo at a show by her beloved goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield, at the iTunes Festival in London. Her final actual gig had been a disastrous June 18 tour kickoff in Serbia, the booing of which was seen and mocked around the world on YouTube. Three days later, the cancellation of the rest of the tour was announced.
The day after the Serbian disaster, her father, Mitch Winehouse, who had been candid about the extent of his daughter’s troubles, tweeted, “Amy was advised by me and her manager not to do gigs. These were contracted months ago when she was well.” Two days later, he added, “By the way, Amy is not retiring. She is going to get some r and r and come back better than ever.”
Norma Bates noted on the Arkansas Times Blog yesterday
The most common justification throughout history – the elephant in everybody’s living room – is religion. “God is on our side.” “We are the chosen people.” “God gave us this land.” “God said to — .”
Judaism, Christianity, or that relative Johnny-come-lately – Islam – are all exactly alike despite their man-behind-the-curtain smoke-and-mirrors fright shows of Truth and Superiority to the others.
As Richard Dawkins says in “The God Delusion,” “Religion is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no discussion.”
________________
HERE IS A GOOD ANSWER TO DAWKINS:
When I asked Ravi Zacharias about religion causing violence as Dawkins claims, Zacharias unapologetically said, “Dawkins is pathetic at this point. He is either ignoring political fact or is misusing numbers to convey something that he is predisposed to want to convey.”
The biggest point Dawkins is missing, Ravi Zacharias said, is “irreligion and atheism have killed infinitely more than all religious wars of any kind cumulatively put together … Joseph Stalin’s violence and eradication of 15 million of his own people was a result of his stepping away from God and into a rabid kind of atheistic thinking.”
By the same token, in their zeal to enforce an atheistic communism, “Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot caused the extermination of tens of millions of people,” Zacharias said.
Norma Bates noted on the Arkansas Times Blog yesterday, “Communism was a comprehensive, all-embracing religion and not simply a political party, political system or philosophy. This fact is illustrated by the numerous ways in which Communism embraced and attemped to promulgate peculiar quasi-religious (and often clearly anti-scientific) beliefs which had nothing all to do with politics or government. Although Communism typically touted itself as anti-religious and pro-science, it was, in fact, deeply anti-scientific and clearly a religion. One of Communism’s hallmarks in the Soviet Union and China was its aggressive and violent suppression of other religions. Communism was ‘anti-religious’ only in the sense that it forcibly suppressed all religions other than itself.”
If it walks like a duck . . . .
____________________________
Francis Schaeffer in the episode “The Revolutionary Age” in his film series “How should we then live?” which is available on youtube, made the point that Communism is atheistic and has NEVER EXISTED WITHOUT BRINGING REPRESSION. A few months ago a young person said to me, “I think that Marx was misunderstood and that true communism has not been really tried yet.” I responded that there are a hand full of Communist countries today and they all have several similar conditions: NO FREEDOM OF PRESS, NO POLITICAL FREEDOM, NO FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND NO ECONOMIC FREEDOM. I noted that Schaeffer has rightly said that Communism is basically based on materialism and a result it must fail. It does not have a Reformation base.
I have corresponded on several occasions with the humanist Paul Kurtz. I must say that he is one of the finest gentlemen on the face of the earth. I have had dinner with several other secular humanist who have signed the Humanist Manifesto II and had very civil discussions with them. None of them ever suggested that the Communists were not atheistic. They just simply thought that these particular men murdered to suit their own purposes but were not following logic which would have led them to treat others with respect. However, this idea that humanists and atheists can come up with a logical moral system that rules out murder is not realistic. Rationally they can not do it. Without God in the picture then you only have this world of time and chance. If evolution teaches us the survival of the fittest then why would “might makes right” ever be wrong?
The movie maker and atheist Woody Allen knows this best.
I am a big Woody Allen movie fan and no other movie better demonstrates man’s need for God more than Allen’s 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors. This film also brought up the view that Hitler believed that “might made right.” How can an atheist argue against that? Basically Woody Allen is attacking the weaknesses in his own agnostic point of view!! Take a look at the video clip below when he says in the absence of God, man has to do the right thing. What chance is there that will happen?
Crimes and Misdemeanors is about a eye doctor who hires a killer to murder his mistress because she continually threatens to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. Afterward he is haunted by guilt. His Jewish father had taught him that God sees all and will surely punish the evildoer.
But the doctor’s crime is never discovered. Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his father had with Judah’s unbelieving Aunt May during a Jewish Sedar dinner many years ago:
“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazi’s, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says Aunt May.
Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”
Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”
Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”
Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”
Judah’s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”
The basic question Woody Allen is presenting to his own agnostic humanistic worldview is: If you really believe there is no God there to punish you in an afterlife, then why not murder if you can get away with it? The secular humanist worldview that modern man has adopted does not work in the real world that God has created. God “has planted eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is a direct result of our God-given conscience. The apostle Paul said it best in Romans 1:19, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has shown it to them” (Amplified Version).
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen – 1989) – Final scenes
It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” The Humanist, May/June 1997, pp.38-39). Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism.
Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (The Humanist, September/October 1997, p. 2.). Humanists don’t really have an intellectual basis for saying that Hitler was wrong, but their God-given conscience tells them that they are wrong on this issue.
Below is a study by Francis Schaeffer that makes the point that the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution in Russia should be compared.
E P I S O D E 5
How Should We Then Live 5-1
T h e
REVOLUTIONARY AGE
I. Bible as Absolute Base for Law
A. Paul Robert’s mural in Lausanne.
B. Rutherford’s Lex Rex (Law Is King): Freedom without chaos; government by law rather than arbitrary government by men.
C. Impact of biblical political principles in America.
1. Rutherford’s influence on U.S. Constitution: directly through Witherspoon; indirectly through Locke’s secularized version of biblical politics.
2. Locke’s ideas inconsistent when divorced from Christianity.
3. One can be personally non-Christian, yet benefit from Christian foundations: e.g. Jefferson and other founders.
II. The Reformation and Checks and Balances
A. Humanist and Reformation views of politics contrasted.
B. Sin is reason for checks and balances in Reformed view: Calvin’s position at Geneva examined.
C. Checks and balances in Protestant lands prevented bloody resolution of tensions.
D. Elsewhere, without this biblically rooted principle, tensions had to be resolved violently.
III. Contrast Between English and French Political Experience
A. Voltaire’s admiration of English conditions.
B. Peaceful nature of the Bloodless Revolution of 1688 in England related to Reformation base.
C. Attempt to achieve political change in France on English lines, but on Enlightenment base, produced a bloodbath and a dictatorship.
1. Constructive change impossible on finite human base.
2. Declaration of Rights of Man, the rush to extremes, and the Goddess of Reason.
3. Anarchy or repression: massacres, Robespierre, the Terror.
4. Idea of perfectibility of Man maintained even during the Terror.
IV. Anglo-American Experience Versus Franco-Russian
A. Reformation experience of freedom without chaos contrasts with that of Marxist-Leninist Russia.
B. Logic of Marxist-Leninism.
1. Marxism not a source of freedom.
2. 1917 Revolution taken over, not begun, by Bolsheviks.
3. Logic of communism: elite dictatorship, suppression of freedoms, coercion of allies.
V. Reformation Christianity and Humanism: Fruits Compared
A. Reformation gave absolutes to counter injustices; where Christians failed they were untrue to their principles.
B. Humanism has no absolute way of determining values consistently.
C. Differences practical, not just theoretical: Christian absolutes give limited government; denial of absolutes gives arbitrary rule.
VI. Weaknesses Which Developed Later in Reformation Countries
A. Slavery and race prejudice.
1. Failure to live up to biblical belief produces cruelty.
2. Hypocritical exploitation of other races.
3. Church’s failure to speak out sufficiently against this hypocrisy.
B. Noncompassionate use of accumulated wealth.
1. Industrialism not evil in itself, but only through greed and lack of compassion.
2. Labor exploitation and gap in living standards.
3. Church’s failure to testify enough against abuses.
C. Positive face of Reformation Christianity toward social evil.
1. Christianity not the only influence on consensus.
a) Church’s silence betrayed; did not reflect what it said it believed.
b) Non-Christian influences also important at that time; and many so-called Christians were “social” Christians only.
2. Contributions of Christians to social reform.
a) Varied efforts in slave trade, prisons, factories.
(1) Wesley, Newton, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and abolition of slavery.
(2) Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and prison reforms.
(3) Lord Shaftesbury and reform in the factories.
b) Impact of Whitefield-Wesley revivals on society.
VII. Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection
But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement.
A. With Bible the ordinary citizen could say that majority was wrong.
B. Tremendous freedom without chaos because Bible gives a base for law.
Questions
1. What has been the role of biblical principles in the legal and political history of the countries studied?
2. Is it true that lands influenced by the Reformation escaped political violence because biblical concepts were acted upon?
3. What are the core distinctions, in terms of ideology and results, between English and American Revolutions on the one hand, and the French and Russian on the other hand?
4. What were the weaknesses which developed at a later date in countries which had a Reformation history?
5. Dr. Schaeffer believes that basic to action is an idea, and that the history of the West in the last two or three centuries has been marked by a humanism pressed to its tragic conclusions and by a Christianity insufficiently applied to the totality of life. How should Christians then approach participation in social and political affairs?
Key Events and Persons
Calvin: 1509-1564
Samuel Rutherford: 1600-1661
Rutherford’s Lex Rex: 1644
John Locke: 1631-1704
John Wesley: 1703-1791
Voltaire: 1694-1778
Letters on the English Nation: 1733
George Whitefield: 1714-1770
John Witherspoon: 1723-1794
John Newton: 1725-1807
John Howard: 1726-1790
Jefferson: 1743-1826
Robespierre: 1758-1794
Wilberforce: 1759-1833
Clarkson: 1760-1846
Napoleon: 1769-1821
Elizabeth Fry: 1780-1845
Declaration of Rights of Man: 1789
National Constituent Assembly: 1789-1791
Second French Revolution and Revolutionary Calendar: 1792
The Reign of Terror: 1792-1794
Lord Shaftesbury: 1801-1855
English slave trade ended: 1807
Slavery ended in Great Britain and Empire: 1833
Karl Marx: 1818-1883
Lenin: 1870-1924
Trotsky: 1879-1940
Stalin: 1879-1953
February and October Russian Revolutions: 1917
Berlin Wall: 1961
Czechoslovakian repression: 1968
Further Study
Charles Breunig, The Age of Revolution and Reaction: 1789-1850 (1970).
R.N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and Practice of Communism (1963).
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1957).
Peter Gay, ed., Deism: An Anthology (1968).
John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church (1970).
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1957).
Louis L. Snyder, ed., The Age of Reason (1955).
David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1975).
J. Kuczynski, The Rise of the Working Class (1971).
Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma (1958).
John Newton, Out of the Depths. An Autobiography.
John Wesley, Journal (1 vol. abridge).
C. Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, Ireland, 1845-1849 (1964).
In Norway we read of Breivik and what he did at age 32 by killing those people in Norway and now we find out that this socialist country in Europe knows better than us and is letting mass murderers out in just a few years.
The alleged mass murderer who killed nearly 100 people in Norway on Friday may be facing just 21 years in prison if convicted. Norway does not have the death penalty.
Oslo police chief of staff Roger Andresen told the San Francisco Chronicle that the maximum prison term suspected killer Anders Behring Breivik could face is 21 years under Norwegian law.
Two law professors at the University of Oslo confirmed Andresen’s assessment.
“21 years in prison is the maximum,” Professor Per Ole Johansen told The Daily Caller.
“The max punishment may — theoretically — be increased, but not for crimes which are already committed,” he said, when asked whether it was possible for the punishment to be increased considering the scale of this specific mass crime.
“[I]f the prisoner behaves, he or she will probably be released several years earlier,” Professor Nils Christie told TheDC while also confirming that 21 years is the maximum penalty in Norway.
Christie, however, said it is theoretically possible for the perpetrator to be held in prison longer than 21 years, though it almost never happens.
“If, however, the person is seen as a particular danger to society, the person might receive a sentence that authorize prison authorities to keep him or her even longer when the 21 years are coming close to the end,” he added. “This wish must again be brought up for a court. As far as I know, such a situation nearly never appear.”
Police are labeling the attacks as acts of terrorism, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Breivik, 32, is suspected of being behind attacks Friday that killed at least 94 people and injured many others. A car bombing in the Norwegian capital of Oslo killed at least seven and a shooting spree at a youth camp on the island of Utoya outside of Oslo killed at minimum 87, many of whom were teenagers.
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I am a Christian and because of that I firmly believe that capital punishment is clearly taught in the Bible. Below is an article that makes this clear. Also I do believe it is a deterrent. Greg Koukl rightly noted, “I was listening a couple of years ago to KABC and talk show host Michael Jackson. He was making the point that capital punishment never works. And of course, he’s thinking of it as a deterrent. My response is, capital punishment works every time. Every time it’s used, the prisoner dies.”
Also I agree with Koukl that in the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing the murderer deserved to die. The same should be said about this case in Norway!!!
There’s a reason both the Old and the New Testaments promote capital punishment. That reason was applicable then and still applies today.
Apparently, Jesse Jackson made some comments on “Meet the Press” this morning referring to the possibility of capital punishment for Timothy McVeigh. He said, allegedly, that executing McVeigh would just be a trophy that the people of Oklahoma City would like to get in their trophy case to make them feel better.Jackson should have been ashamed of his comment. To refer the punishment of a man who is a convicted killer of 168 citizens of Oklahoma City by those who are deeply interested in justice as simply a quest for trophies is an insult to every person who lost a loved one in that explosion. It’s an absolute insult, and it should be an insult to every clear-thinking American.
Capital punishment is not about getting trophies in any trophy case, any more than life imprisonment is about putting man in a cage as a trophy in a human zoo. It’s about justice. What the people in Oklahoma City want– and all Americans who are in favor of capital punishment for a man who violently snuffed out the lives of 168 people– is not a trophy. They want justice.
I’m actually stunned, to be honest with you, that there are so many Christians who oppose capital punishment on biblical grounds. It ought to be clear to anyone familiar with the biblical record that God is not against capital punishment. It was His idea. He started it.
Go back to Genesis 9:6 and you’ll find this: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.”
You see, the crime of murder is not principally based on the idea that you robbed a person of his life. That confuses the Fifth Commandment with the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not steal.” It’s wrong to take someone else’s possessions, including his life.
No, murder is not a crime of theft, but of destruction. We have destroyed the life of one made in the image of God . God says such a crime deserves the most extreme punishment. You take a life, you surrender your own life.
By the way, read through the Old Testament and you’ll find 21 different offenses that called for the death penalty. Only three include an actual or potential capital offense by our current definition. Six are for religious offenses, ten are for various moral issues, and two relate to ceremonial issues.
So if you’re going to call anybody frivolous about using capital punishment, you can start with God. God instituted it for a wide range of offenses, not just murder. But it included murder, and would certainly be justified, in God’s eyes, for someone who murdered 168 people.
I’m not suggesting we reinstate capital punishment for the offenses of the Old Testament or even that capital punishment is obligatory. I am saying that it’s a moral alternative that is, at least in principle, totally approved by God.
Some feel that even though capital punishment was approved in the Old Testament, the New Testament has changed all of that. I will tell you why that is not a good way to argue. They say Jesus, or some teaching in the New Testament, has somehow changed that. My response is, “Where?”
Actually, capital punishment is strongly assumed in the New Testament. In Romans 13, Paul argues that governing authorities are set there by God. He says, “If you do what is evil, be afraid, for the government does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is minister of God and avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” God ordains the governing authorities, and those governing authorities have a God-ordained responsibility to execute justice with the sword.
Peter says in 1 Peter 2:13-14 that these authorities were sent by God for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do right.
People say, “Well capital punishment is just revenge.” My response is they’re right in a sense. It is revenge. In fact, it’s just revenge. It’s God’s vengeance based on justice, executed through the machinery of government that God ordained.
Paul uses the word “sword” here. I don’t think he had in mind paddling people with the broad side of the sword. No, capital punishment is in view here as a proper tool government would use to express the vengeance of God in a just fashion against gratuitous evil. That’s the biblical teaching.
What about Jesus? Some say Jesus’ ethic of love and forgiveness requires us to end the death penalty. This was the appeal Mother Theresa made when Robert Alton Harris was facing the gas chamber here in California. She appealed to the governor saying Jesus would forgive.
With no disrespect towards Mother Theresa, I think her comments were mistaken because her view simply proves too much. What should be done instead with capital criminals? Should we put them in prison for the rest of their lives? But Jesus would forgive. Should we put them in prison for ten years? But Jesus would forgive. Should we put a murderer in prison for one day? But Jesus would forgive.
You see, if this argument works it becomes justification for the abolishment of any kind of punishment whatsoever. This argument proves too much.
Further, that Jesus would forgive is a different issue from whether the governmentshould forgive. God can forgive evil. That doesn’t mean the government should forgive it in terms of its exercise of justice.
In fact, Jesus never challenged the validity of the death penalty when He had perfect opportunity to do so. Even in John 8, with the woman caught in adultery, he never challenged the death penalty itself. He didn’t enforce it under what seemed to be an unjust situation because all the witnesses fled. Remember, Jesus said, “Is there no one here to condemn you? Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” The Law required witnesses to convict someone.
Jesus did not speak against the death penalty here. It was required by law. Jesus upheld the law. He just realized there was a nasty situation of injustice that was going on and so He found some other way to get around it.
And when Jesus was on the cross He asked God to forgive, not Caesar. He never suggested that capital punishment was inappropriate.
I think that we have to argue for the coherence and consistency of both Testaments on this issue. The question is not, “Was Jesus right or was Moses right?” The question is trying to find a way to bring them all together. Clearly, there was no abrogation of capital punishment in the New Testament.
In fact, if you recall Paul in the book of Acts (25:11) made this appeal for his life: “If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.” Paul didn’t take exception with capital punishment, even for himself. His point was that he wasn’t guilty, not that capital punishment was wrong.
Which, by the way, brings us to another point that Mr. Jackson raised this morning on TV. He said Jesus was crucified. Jesus died at capital punishment. To which I respond, “So? What follows from that is…what? The significance of that is…what?” The answer is: nothing. The issue regarding Jesus was not capital punishment, but his innocence. In Acts 2, Peter condemns the act of handing over the innocentJesus to godless executioners.
Now, God’s mercy is always available in God’s court. But man’s court is another matter, ladies and gentlemen. It is governed by different biblical responsibilities. So one can’t say that capital punishment is patently immoral on biblical grounds. It just isn’t. There’s a good reason why. It has to do with something I explained very carefully to the man who interviewed me for US New and World Report on this very issue.
Capital punishment is important. The Bible–Old and New Testament–is for it, not against it. There is nothing in the New Testament that would give us any reason to think otherwise. In fact, it presumes capital punishment in many places.
I was listening a couple of years ago to KABC and talk show host Michael Jackson. He was making the point that capital punishment never works. And of course, he’s thinking of it as a deterrent.
My response is, capital punishment works every time. Every time it’s used, the prisoner dies.
You see, the reason for capital punishment is obviously not to rehabilitate somebody. The deterrent may be a secondary factor. But that isn’t why we use capital punishment. We use capital punishment to punishsomeone (pardon me for stating the obvious).
You see, all of this relates to your view of what human beings are. If human beings are machines determined either by genetics or by environment, then what do you do when a machine goes bad? You fix it. And if you can’t fix it, you throw it away. That’s the basis behind the rehabilitation idea. And of course, the throwaway mentality we see in a lot of other ethical areas.
however, if you think that human beings are personal creatures capable of choosing and, therefore, have moral responsibilities–when they do good we praise them, (which everybody wants), and when they do bad we punish them–then punishment makes sense. Punishment of all kinds. Even capital punishment.
Human beings are moral creatures who either deserve praise or blame depending on the circumstances–when they choose well, we praise them and when they violate a serious moral mandate, we punish them. (When we praise and blame, by the way, in both cases we’re expressing respect for the dignity of man in virtue of the fact that human beings are made in the image of God and have the capability of choosing.)
Punishment may range from a parking ticket to death. What determines which punishment? An ancient principle called lex taliones , “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”–the point being that the punishment must fit the crime. If somebody steals a loaf of bread, we don’t whack their arm off.
By the same token, if somebody kills 168 people, we don’t just put him in a cage for the rest of his life. He took 168 human lives! He should be punished in a way that fits his crime. He should sacrifice his own life.
That’s the basic question: What is a human being? I think he’s a free moral agent. If he is, then we should praise him when he does well. But if he doesn’t, then he deserves to be punished, and the punishment should fit the crime.
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com (2 min Mike Huckabee on Death Penalty in Republican Primary) Max Brantley rightly noted that “no one has been executed in Arkansas since 2005″ (Death Penalty in Decline, Arkansas Times Blog, Dec 27, 2010). However, the debate is clearly not over. In the July 13, 2006 article “Waiting for Death” by Max Brantley and […]
I love the movie “Midnight in Paris.” However, here is a negative review below:
Woody Allen’s current film, “Midnight in Paris,” is his most enjoyable work in many years. In it Allen captures his constant preoccupations — mortality, time travel, the coreless, nebbish protagonist — in a new and amusing way. Still, it — like all of Allen’s work — falls short of great art. Here are six reasons:
1. The hero isn’t heroic. Actually, Allen’s films have gotten worse in this regard — from his highly imaginative early works like Bananas and Take the Money and Run where, despite the films’ surrealistic anticness, the main character is engaged in an heroic struggle. In “Paris,” Owen Wilson is engaged to a woman he dislikes from a family he disrespects. That he needs to escape from their grasp is so self-evident from the start that there not only is no suspense to that effort, but viewers can’t respect the character who is stuck in this predicament. Great art never mocks its own themes and characters. Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, no matter how ridiculous he appears to be, is never less than heroic.
2. The supporting characters are unmotivated. It is often fun to see the array of more or less talented acters Allen has assembled for a wide range of supporting — usually cameo — appearances, where they serve as props for the main character’s amusement and to fuel his ruminations on life and people. But they are obviously not real human beings. In “Paris,” the subsidiary characters are — even more than usual in Allen’s films — props and side shows.
3. Allen’s self-conscious riffs about intellectuals get in the way. Allen is a brilliantly talented man who didn’t graduate college and still hasn’t gotten over it. He — and his protagonists — are preoccupied with “pseudo-intellectuals.” But what is worse is that his own main character’s idea of displaying his intellectual chops is to outdo the pedants in pedantry — as though understanding and appreciating art were a matter of time-lining the artists’ mistresses and wives. And, of course, the cameo appearances by the great artists of the twentieth century simply reinforce popular caricatures of each — in “Paris,” Allen’s preoccupation with Hemingway as his own antithesis takes up way too much time and energy.
4. The hero can’t love. Wilson, as the Allen stand-in, bests Hemingway in winning the love of his beautiful heroine. But the film has no real love scenes — even Allen’s love goddess is a prop for the Allen stand-in character. Compare this to Charlie Chaplin’s classic films — like “The Gold Rush,” “City Lights,” and “Modern Times.” In the first two films, the Chaplin characters’ hearts are broken by their unrequited longing for the beautiful women whose regard they cannot hope to obtain. In “Times,” Chaplin creates a remarkable partnership with the Paulette Goddard character with whom he walks down the road at the film’s end. Many years ago, the New York Psychoanalytic Society staged a film festival in which the “The Gold Rush” was shown. When the analyst who selected the film was questioned about his off-beat choice, he said: “When I was a youngster and I saw The Gold Rush, I laughed. When I was an adult and I saw it, I cried.”
5. You can’t summarize a great film in one sentence. Ironically, Owen Wilson’s — and “Paris”‘s — concluding insight is the same as the point that the pedant pseudo-intellectual first makes on hearing the theme for Wilson’s novel — that being lost in nostalgia for an unrealizable past is simply an escape from living in the present.
6. Allen’s cityscape montages. The best thing about “Paris” — as was also true of “Manhattan” — are the cityscape montages of the two cities. Allen really loves Paris and New York, in a way he seemingly does not love people (Owen Wilson’s love interest is the Paris of the 1920s), and viewing the snapshots is a tremendous pleasure. Great directors like John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock also use iconic scenes — see Ford’s use of Monument Valley in “The Searchers” and Hitchcock’s use of Mount Rushmore in “North by Northwest.” But they don’t include these to savor the scenery — the scenes of which they are a part are intimately connected to the plot and the main characters’ lives and struggles. That is, the films are integrated wholes.
I apologize in advance to Woody Allen fans. It is great to have a contemporary director who is so seriously engaged in film-making and who tackles serious matters confronting society, the psyche, and the soul. I admire his dedication and constant work. I ony wish that Allen and his films could transcend their artistic limitations.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them—costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually—fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.
Lawmakers diverted $13 million from Hurricane Katrina relief spending to build a museum celebrating the Army Corps of Engineers—the agency partially responsible for the failed levees that flooded New Orleans.
When the blond man in the police uniform started firing his assault rifle, many of the youths couldn’t believe it was real. It had to be a sick prank. Something this crazy could never happen in quiet, sensible Norway.
Then terror flared in the eyes of friends with a better view: of teens and young adults crumpling to the ground, blood streaming from point-blank bullet wounds. Hundreds turned and ran to every corner of Utoya Island. They opted to cower silently or swim for their lives.
One day after a gunman posing as their protector killed at least 85 campers at a youth retreat for Norway’s ruling Labor Party, survivors and the local boatmen who helped save them recounted their two hours of horror, confusion and fear.
3:30 p.m.:
Three days into their annual summer camp, some 600 Labor Party youth activists from all over Norway hear the first, vague news of a bombing in the capital, Oslo, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) away. Far too distant to see billowing smoke or hear sirens. No way to tell how bad the explosion, just four minutes before, might be.
For some, a main concern is whether the camp will continue, and whether Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will still visit their lake-locked retreat that weekend.
4:30 p.m.:
As footage of destruction and news of deaths confirm the huge scale of the Oslo explosion, Utoya’s campers gather in worried huddles and talk quietly at tentsides, in the cafeteria, at fir-lined coves and the island’s tiny harbor. They touch foreheads while watching news on their smartphones. Those from Oslo call parents and siblings to confirm they’re all right.
“We consoled ourselves that we were safe on an island. No one knew that hell would break out with us too,” one Oslo Labor activist, Prableen Kaur, writes on her blog the next day.
5 p.m.:
Amid the coming and going of several small boats, a lone policeman arrives.
The officer _ armed, unusually, with two firearms visible on his hip and shoulder _ says he’s there to boost security. To ensure they’re safe.
Then, witnesses say, he raises his assault rifle and opens fire with bursts of automatic fire. His hunt of defenseless left-wing political activists has begun.
5:10 p.m.:
At the camp’s food hall, Jorgen Benone is still talking with friends about the Oslo attack as they “hear panic down by the water.”
“We were wondering: What’s happening? Is it some balloons exploding or is somebody kidding?” he says. “Then we started to understand that people actually had been shot. Chaos broke out everywhere, and everyone started to run.”
People at the camp report trying to call Norway’s emergency services but are told to keep off the line unless they’re calling about the Oslo bomb.
5:15 p.m.:
Witnesses say the gunman enters a village of tents, the residential heart of the weeklong retreat, and spots desperate individuals hoping he’ll spare them if they run back inside their homes. But the killer is seen working his way tent by tent, shooting many point-blank, one by one.
5:20 p.m.:
Kaur joins a group of panicked, confused campers. They are running from the approaching gunman, his “POLICE” moniker crystal-clear to see from even middle distance.
“My first thought was: Why are the police shooting at us? What the hell?” she writes.
More than a dozen crowd into a dark corner of a camp building, and all lie down on the floor. She cries quietly _ then sees her best friend from camp, a boy, through a window.
“I wondered if I should go out and bring him to me. I did not. I saw fear in his eyes,” she writes.
5:25 p.m.:
Kaur says a burst of gunfire extremely close to the building triggers panic and the entire group leaps out of a far window. Several suffer injuries, including a girl with a broken ankle, but the shooter doesn’t immediately pursue them. She takes new cover behind a low brick wall, telephones her mother on her cell phone, and sends a text to her father.
“Many were there,” she writes. “I prayed, prayed, prayed. I hope that God saw me.”
5:30 p.m.:
As the gunman picks off lone campers who run from their hiding spots as he draws near, many find themselves at the shoreline with only one apparent escape route _ the water.
Kaur says the gunman tries to draw out the hiders near the brick wall, shouting, “I’m from the police!” Campers shout back, “Prove it!” He shoots at those who move. She lies still, on top of the legs of a teenage girl covered in blood.
5:38 p.m.:
Police say an armed SWAT team is deployed from Oslo. They drive rather than take a helicopter, police say _ because the chopper would take too long to prepare for flight.
5:45 p.m.:
At another camp site on the mainland shore near Utoya Island, camp owner Brede Johbraaten has been listening to the sound of gunfire _ sometimes lone pops, other times staccato bursts _ waft across the humid evening air for more than half an hour.
But it’s only now that he discovers the horror unfolding some 800 meters (yards) of frigid water away.
The first survivors, among the strongest and luckiest, have swum the full distance. They aren’t wounded but say many of their campmates are dying in the water behind, some bleeding to death from bullet wounds, others cramping up and drowning.
Johbraaten, 59, and other campers rally several small craft to join a local flotilla converging on the island from several points, including another island to the north. They pluck both flailing swimmers and lifeless bodies from the surface.
“It was hard for some of these youngsters to swim a distance of 800 meters under these conditions,” Johbraaten said.
Amid the chaos, the arriving police SWAT team complains that no boats have remained on shore as they’d expected, compounding the delay.
6 p.m.:
Witnesses lying low behind rocks, aware that the “policeman” is really the threat, watch helplessly as four campers run to the officer for help _ and are each killed with shots to the head.
6:20 p.m.:
Police say the SWAT team finally reaches the island and fans out, still unaware of how many gunmen they’re trying to find.
Benone has remained behind the same boulder, trying not to move.
“I felt it was best not to sit quietly, not to run in the open because then he could see me. … I thought of all the people I love, and how I just wanted to go home.”
6:35 p.m.:
Police say they find the gunman and order him to lay down his weapons. He complies and is arrested.
Around this time, Kaur says she finally plucks up the courage to stand up _ and sees that she’s been lying on a lifeless teenage girl: “My guardian angel,” she calls her. She jumps into the water to join a group of campers clinging to a large innertube. A passing rescue boat throws them all life vests but is too full with other rescued campers and can’t collect them too.
7 p.m.:
The private rescue flotilla continues to circle the island in search of survivors. The boats come closer now that the shooting has stopped. Kaur is scooped from the water. But many campers fear leaving their hiding spots.
Benone sees several boats approaching but wonders if these rescuers might be killers, too, and hesitates.
“I didn’t know if I could trust them. I didn’t know who I could trust anymore,” he says. “But I started waving and jumped into the water. I was crying, that’s how happy I was. But I was so cold. Ice cold.”
Back in June of 2010 Max Brantley posted on the Arkansas Times Blog:
Paul Krugman has a timely column as Republicans continue to block extension of unemployment benefits. He argues that stimulus, not austerity, is what’s needed now, both here and in Germany.
Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession. And here in Germany, a few scholars see parallels to the policies of Heinrich Brüning, the chancellor from 1930 to 1932, whose devotion to financial orthodoxy ended up sealing the doom of the Weimar Republic.
… In America, many self-described deficit hawks are hypocrites, pure and simple: They’re eager to slash benefits for those in need, but their concerns about red ink vanish when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthy. Thus, Senator Ben Nelson, who sanctimoniously declared that we can’t afford $77 billion in aid to the unemployed, was instrumental in passing the first Bush tax cut, which cost a cool $1.3 trillion.
Proponents of government spending are fond of citing 1937 as an example of when government implemented sharp austerity, and the economy derailed. This argument is dead wrong.
On Thursday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that fiscal austerity right now would make our economic crisis worse. “Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse,” writes Krugman. As his proof, he offers that “if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery …”
But both Professor Krugman and President Obama have their history entirely incorrect. Total government spending never decreased in the 30s, certainly not after 1937. Rather, total government spending went up:
Heritage economist Bill Beach adds that then-Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, in 1939, after seven years of New Deal spending, noted, “We have tried spending money. We have spent more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”
Recent studies, however, have found the opposite: Countries that rely primarily on spending cuts tend to experience less economic pain in the short term. Moreover, in some cases, the cuts seem to spur faster growth.
The monetary fund study reported that a 1 percent fiscal consolidation achieved primarily through tax increases reduced economic activity by 1.3 percent over two years, while an identical consolidation driven primarily by spending cuts reduced activity by 0.3 percent.
Fortunately, the American public disagrees with Dr. Krugman and President Obama, but agrees with conservatives that spending cuts now wouldn’t hurt our economy, but would help it.
by Jane Dratz, Guest ColumnistPosted: Monday, February 25, 2008, 10:14 (GMT)
In the midst of her success as a singer, Amy Winehouse was a tortured soul. Riding the crest of a highly successful album and recent winner of five Grammy awards, her music career stands in stark contrast to her personal challenges that get splashed across the headlines. Personal battles with drug and alcohol addiction, a husband in prison awaiting trail for assault and for attempted trial fixing, paint a picture of a life spiraling out of control.
Before Amy finally headed for rehab, her husband, Blake Fielder-Civic, acknowledged from prison that
“Every day I fear the prison chaplain is going to walk into my cell and break the news that Amy is dead [from a drug overdose].”
Fielder-Civic admitted that he and Winehouse were blowing $1000 a day on heroin and cocaine before he was arrested and put behind bars.
Fortunately Winehouse recently entered rehab, a definite positive first step toward pulling herself out of her downward spiral, even though ironically her biggest hit song is about refusing to go into rehab. Check out these lyrics in her song that recently won Record of the Year.
They tried to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no.
Yes I been black, but when I come back
You won’t know, know, know.
I ain’t got the time
And if my daddy thinks I’m fine
He’s tried to make me go to rehab
I won’t go, go, go…
I don’t ever wanna drink again
I just, ooo, I just need a friend
Im not gonna spend 10 weeks
Have everyone think im on the mend
It’s not just my pride
It’s just til these tears have dried.
Can you hear the pain, hurt, defiance and desperation shouting through? Substance abuse or any form of self-harm, from cutting to harming, are symptoms of deeper problems. Self-harming behaviors reflect hurting individuals’ desperate efforts to fill the God-shaped hole every human has deep in the soul. When God isn’t invited in to fill that hole, many individuals try to fill the emptiness with other things…alcohol, drugs, sex, cutting, material things. The list is as varied as the hurts crying to be stifled.
In the end, the only real answer to filling the God-shaped hole in the human soul is GOD. Without Him in our lives we will bounce from one attempt to another to mask the hurt or pain that life will eventually dish out to us. But the Good News is that Jesus extends his offer of grace and love and rescue to all with His words:
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Do you have friends who are either dabbling in or trapped by addictive behaviors? Friends who need to experience the reality of God pouring Himself into their souls and filling their God-shaped hole? If you do, try prayfully using Amy Winehouse’s song Rehab as an opportunity to turn the conversation toward God-talk. Here are a few ideas to help you:
The lyrics to Amy Winehouse’s song Rehab communicate both pain and defiance. Which do you think comes through louder?
Have you ever been in a place were you identified with the lyrics to this song? Or do you know someone who’s in that place now?
Why do you think people sometimes find themselves struggling with substance abuse? Do you think it’s a symptom of a deeper problem? Listen and then share what you believe about God creating us with a God-shaped hole in our souls that only He can fill.
Find out if your friends are familiar with Jesus words in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Explain what those words mean to you in your personal experience.
If you or a friend are struggling with self-harming behaviors, you need to know that God’s love and grace extend to the darkest places. You also need to be aware that many, many people have found that they need outside help and accountability in order to overcome addictive behaviors. It helps to know you’re not alone, so prayfully bring God’s light, love and truth to the darkness.
Jane Dratz works for Dare 2 Share Ministries in Arvada, Colo., a ministry committed to energizing and equipping teens to know, live, share and own their faith in Jesus. For more information on Dare 2 Share Ministries, please visit http://www.dare2share.org. Send feedback to jane@dare2share.org.
Contrast the life of Shawn McDonald:
Redemption Songs: The Music and the Journey of Shawn McDonald
By Jennifer E. Jones
CBN.com Producer
CBN.com – It’s easy for a guy to feel insecure sometimes. You wouldn’t know it by looking at his album sales and nationwide tours, but soft-spoken Shawn McDonald is not entirely comfortable in the spotlight. “I’m not a person who likes attention and likes being up in front of others. I’m kind of quiet,” he tells CBN.com
It’s an odd description for the Sparrow Records artist who recently released Live in Seattle, a concert album where he plays many of the hits from his debut record Simply Nothing. Strange indeed but nothing about this Oregon native’s life is typical. Shawn is a walking, breathing testimony of how far God is willing to go to rescue one of His own.
It’s been almost seven years since Shawn saw rock bottom. “I can’t communicate how crazy I was,” Shawn says. “Who I was then and who I am now is like night and day. You name the drug and I was selling it and doing it. I was a confused kid, and my confusion boiled up into bitterness and anger. My life had become a hard, closed shell. I was extremely rebellious, miserable, and lost.”
No one would have picked him to be successful at life, let alone at music. He didn’t sing or play an instrument. Raised by his grandparents, Shawn was constantly in and out of jail, and his extreme party lifestyle was driving him over the edge. At one point, police rang up nine felony charges against him for drug abuse. Although he’d tried to mix his deadly habits with the spirituality of Hinduism and Rastafarianism, like his idol Bob Marley, he realized that there had to be something more to life. With the help of his college roommate, Shawn found Christ.
“What God has done in my life is amazing,” he says.
In spite of his inability to play, Shawn always loved music. After getting saved, he found the easiest way to express his feelings for God was through song. “I was sitting in my room. I had this old, beat-up guitar that I would learn worship songs on – just in the quiet of my own house,” he recalls. “That’s where it started, and it was very simple — just chords. I never expected it to go anywhere else.”
Unbeknownst to him, those simple songs were the humble beginnings of Shawn’s remarkable music career. “It’s really fun and exciting,” he says. “It’s almost like you plant a seed. The seed sprouts, it begins to grow and out comes this bud. When you finish a song, it’s like that bud finally decides to bloom, and you see this beautiful flower. It doesn’t always happen that way but that’s the way I look at it. I think our goal is to make something bloom.”
Shawn still doesn’t consider himself a guitarist although his smooth urban-folk style of music would beg to differ. Shawn is among a growing genre of singer/songwriters (such as Paul Wright and Mat Kearney) who play hip-hop rhythms on guitars and sing with an honesty and vulnerability that’s almost uncomfortable. And yet, it’s a quality that’s clicking with fans.
“People never cease to amaze me. It blows me away when people come up and say, ‘God uses you to draw me closer to Him’ or ‘God saved me through one of your songs’. I hear that kind of stuff, and it’s crazy [to think] God’s at work and using me,” he says. “I’m just an average joe like everyone else. I’m just this kid that somehow, for some reason, God decided to instill some songs in.”
Today, Shawn is one of CCM Magazine‘s “Artists You Should Know”. With a solid debut that unleashed radio hits “Gravity” and “All I Need”, a brand new live album, and a new studio record slated to hit stores in the summer, Shawn is one “Sparrow” that’s flying high. However, staying grounded doesn’t seem to be a problem.
“It’s very humbling. Who am I to write something that someone else enjoys? How is it different from another? It’s random. I think it’s easy to want to take the credit for that [but] it’s a gift. It’s a miracle.”
I read this article in Christianity Today about Amy Winehouse a couple of years ago and it rings more true today than ever. How to share your faith using Amy Winehouse‘s ‘Rehab’ by Jane Dratz, Guest ColumnistPosted: Monday, February 25, 2008, 10:14 (GMT) In the midst of her success as a singer, Amy Winehouse was a […]
Papa Roach – Last Resort (Censored Version) This series of posts concerns the song “The Last Resort.” Amy Winehouse died today and it was a tragic loss. That really troubled me that she did not seek spiritual help instead of turning to drugs and alcohol. This post today will give hope to those we feel like […]
I am in the middle of a series on the Papa Roach song “Last Resort” which deals with suicide and then today I hear this sad story about Amy Winehouse. Inside Amy Winehouse’s troubled life With the news that British R&B star and tabloid target Amy Winehouse has died from as yet undisclosed causes, […]
Papa Roach – Last Resort (Censored Version) Amy Winehouse died at the young age of 27 and she had lived a life filled with drug and alcohol addiction. This series on Papa Roach is meant to provide answers to those who feel trapped. Hopefully it will people to avoid troubles like Amy Winehouse experienced. Today I […]
But unless the recording sessions were an incredibly well-kept secret, there’s no album no. 3 in the vault. Answering fan queries online, she always had an answer ready when the inevitable questions would come about when we should expect the next album: “Soon!” Writing on her Formspring web page last summer, she told fans, “Aww, my album is coming. I can’t wait”—followed eight months ago by the tease, “Do you want to know my first song from my new album?” She never did use that forum to name the promised song, or even mention the supposed album-in-progress again.
Drama: Members of the press and local residents watch as Winehouse’s body is taken to the van
The Daily Hatch 