I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock. Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and the President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions and my St Senator Jeremy Hutchinson got to meet him too. I am very jealous.
This is not the first time,but President Obama is claiming that Reagan also would support his own position concerning raising taxes.
Yesterday President Obama tried to sell the “Buffett Rule” under a new moniker:
What Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we’re calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility; everybody doing their part. And if it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule.
Securing Ronald Reagan’s economic blessing is a new trend among liberals. And no wonder: Ronald Reagan is one of the most popular presidents in modern times.
But what did Reagan really say about the tax rates of the millionaire and the bus driver? Reagan proposed: “We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share, the loopholes” that “sometimes make it possible for millionaires to pay nothing.”
Reagan closed tax loopholes; President Obama wants to raise taxes.
President Obama does not acknowledge the profound difference between the “fair-share” solution Reagan sought in 1986 and the redistributionist tax hike he is proposing today. The 1986 law revolutionized the tax code by eliminating dozens of loopholes to make all incomes taxable (Like the Paul Ryan [R–WI] tax reform plan). Reagan aimed to close tax loopholes, including the infamous three-martini lunch, but he neverintended to take money from the small business owners who create the vast majority of American jobs.
It was Ronald Reagan who proposed the Economic Reform Tax Act [ERTA] of 1981, which cut marginal tax cuts by 25 percent across the board and reduced the highest marginal tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent. Two years after ERTA was signed into law, America began almost two decades of robust economic growth.
Ronald Reagan knew from personal experience that if you raise taxes, you erect barriers to innovation and job creation. As a film star in the late ’40s and ’50s, Reagan was taxed at 91 percent, which caused him to remark: “Why should I have done [another] picture, even if it was Gone with the Wind?…What good would it have done me?” Reagan would’ve made only 9 cents on the dollar.
His rationale for cutting taxes across the board was based on more than just personal experience. Reagan believed—and was proven correct—that, “taken together, tax cuts and budget cuts…will put us back on the road to a sound economy, with lower inflation, more growth, and a government that lives within its means. Our goal is a very simple one: to rebuild this Nation so that individual Americans can once again be the masters of their own destiny.”
Obama is not honoring Reagan’s economic legacy. The President may see the same “Buffett” problem that Reagan saw, but he is proposing a radically different solution—one that will not work. Obama may not like it, but the real Reagan rule is that when you close loopholes and cut taxes for everyone—from the top to the bottom—everyone benefits.
The individual mandate to purchase health insurance is the linchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is among the issues to be handled by the Supreme Court beginning March 26, 2012.
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I am little confused why the Democrats are still supporting Obamacare after the 2010 election results. I can’t figure it out.
Was ObamaCare doomed from the start, an unpopular proposal that was unlikely to ever catch on with the public?
My response:
Let’s remember how ObamaCare was passed — without a single Republican vote, and after the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the “Louisiana Purchase,” the Florida Flim-Flam,” and countless other shenanigans, including a phony 10-year price tag of $938 billion that the CBO now tells us will be $1.76 trillion. And remember too that ObamaCare’s passage was followed by the massive repudiation of the 2010 elections. Is it any wonder that it continues to be unpopular?
But the Supreme Court next week will be looking not at ObamaCare’s unpopularity but at its unconstitutionality — or so 26 states and others have claimed, and for good reason. The Act, if upheld, would effectively end constitutionally limited government in America. A government that can order individuals to engage in commerce is limited only by politics, not law. A federal government that can compel states to expand their Medicaid roles on pain of losing the federal tax dollars the state’s citizens must continue to pay is no longer a government subject to checks by the states.
The American people aren’t stupid. They know a massive power-grab when they see it. What makes this power-grab special is that it concerns not retirement or education, or the many other areas in which the federal government has usurped constitutionally unauthorized power over the years but that most intimate of human concerns, health care. Bad as our health care system is today, due to government meddling in the past, ObamaCare will transform it into one massive bureaucracy — high costs, poor service — and the American people know it. That’s why it continues to be so unpopular.
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.
GUIDELINE #9: Terminate programs rather than trimming them or phasing them out.
Budget cutters often commit the tactical error of settling for small reductions or lengthy phaseouts of obsolete programs instead of immediately terminating them. They mistakenly believe that securing small program reductions now will allow them to come back and cut the program more next time.
But leaving obsolete programs in place simply creates an opportunity for future Congresses to restore funding. Furthermore, retaining the programs leaves the bureaucracy in place and allows it to enlist interest groups in a counteroffensive against spending reductions. The old line that “those attacking the throne had better kill the king on the first shot” applies to government programs as well.
In the 1980s, President Reagan successfully terminated only 12 of the 94 programs he proposed be eliminated. Congress would often block the terminations by negotiating slight reductions and lengthy phaseouts, waiting a few years for the President’s focus to shift elsewhere and then restoring the programs to their original funding.30 Similarly, Members of the 104th Congress who proposed ending federal subsidies to programs such as AmeriCorps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were persuaded to settle for slight spending reductions and a promise to cut more later, and the budgets of those programs have since rebounded to all-time highs.
One must never assume that spending reductions today will be followed up with additional reductions later. Retaining a program means retaining a bureaucracy dedicated to self-preservation, interest groups dedicated to aiding the bureaucracy, and a budget line item to which Congress can easily attach a larger number next year.
Rising spending—not low revenues—is driving the long-term budget deficits. By 2020, spending is projected to be 6.2 percent of GDP above the historical average, while projected 2020 revenues are 0.2 percent of GDP above the historical average. Thus, the entire expanded budget deficit will be caused by rising spending, rather than by falling revenues—even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended.
Between 2008 and 2020, the cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and net interest is projected to rise from 10.2 percent of GDP to 15.6 percent of GDP—making them responsible for nearly the entire rising budget deficit.
(CNN) — Earl Scruggs, whose distinctive picking style and association with Lester Flatt cemented bluegrass music’s place in popular culture, died Wednesday of natural causes at a Nashville hospital, his son Gary Scruggs said. He was 88.
“I realize his popularity throughout the world went way beyond just bluegrass and country music,” Gary Scruggs told CNN. “It was more than that.”
For many of a certain age, Scruggs’ banjo was part of the soundtrack of an era on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” — the theme song from the CBS sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” which aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and for decades afterward in syndication.
But much more than that, he popularized a three-finger picking style that brought the banjo to the fore in a supercharged genre, and he was an indispensable member of the small cadre of musical greats who created modern bluegrass music.
Scruggs was born in 1924 to a musically gifted family in rural Cleveland County, North Carolina, according to his official biography. His father, a farmer and a bookkeeper, played the fiddle and banjo, his mother was an organist and his older siblings played guitar and banjo, as well.
Young Earl’s exceptional gifts were apparent early on. He started playing the banjo at age 4 and he started developing his three-finger style at the age of 10.
“The banjo was, for all practical purposes, ‘reborn’ as a musical instrument,” the biography on his official website declares, “due to the talent and prominence Earl Scruggs gave to the instrument.”
While Scruggs’ status as the Prometheus of the banjo may be overstated, many musicians feel he changed the game. John Hartman, quoted in Barry R. Willis’ “America’s Music: Bluegrass,” summed it up this way: “Everybody’s all worried about who invented the style and it’s obvious that three-finger banjo pickers have been around a long time — maybe since 1840. But my feeling about it is that if it wasn’t for Earl Scruggs, you wouldn’t be worried about who invented it.”
In an article on the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s website, bluegrass historian Neil V. Rosenberg described Scruggs’ style as “a ‘roll’ executed with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand” that essentially made the banjo “a lead instrument like a fiddle or a guitar, particularly on faster pieces and instrumentals. This novel sound attracted considerable attention to their Grand Ole Opry performances, road shows, and Columbia recordings.”
In 1945, Scruggs met Flatt when he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, for whom Flatt was the guitarist and lead vocalist. Along with the group’s mandolin-playing namesake were fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard Watts (alias: Cedric Rainwater).
Scruggs and Flatt left Monroe in 1948 to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame website. Along with guitarist/vocalists Jim Eanes and Mac Wiseman, fiddler Jim Shumate and Blue Grass Boys alum Rainwater, the group played on WCYB in Bristol, Tennessee, and recorded for the Mercury label.
He married Anne Louise Certain that year. In the ’50s she became Flatt & Scruggs’ business manager. They were married for more than 57 years until her death in 2006.
The Foggy Mountain Boys’ roster changed over the years, but Flatt and Scruggs became the constants, the signature sound of the group on radio programs, notably those sponsored by Martha White Flour, and as regulars at the Grand Ole Opry. They became syndicated TV stars in in the Southeast in the late 1950s and early ’60s, and they hit the country charts with the gospel tune “Cabin on the Hill.”
But it was during an appearance at a Hollywood folk club that brought them into contact with the producer of “The Beverly Hillbillies” and led to “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.” It was their only single to climb to No.1 on the country charts.
The 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde” featured their 1949 instrumental “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” with its distinctive Scruggs-style banjo solo perhaps the most ubiquitous of bluegrass sounds.
The duo split in 1969, and Scruggs’ fame as a solo and featured act continued to grow, even as his most iconic licks echoed through the years among his acolytes — basically, anyone who played banjo, and many who picked other instruments.
Playing “Foggy Mountain” on banjo became a staple of Steve Martin’s comedy routine, and blossomed into a reverential tribute. In November 2001, Martin and Scruggs were joined by Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas and others on “Late Show With David Letterman” to play a fiery version of the song — soloing alternately on banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, steel guitar and harmonica. Even Paul Schafer took the chorus for a spin on piano.
In an article in the New Yorker in January, Martin wrote, “A grand part of American music owes a debt to Earl Scruggs. Few players have changed the way we hear an instrument the way Earl has, putting him in a category with Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Chet Atkins, and Jimi Hendrix.”
Flatt & Scruggs were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985, six years after Lester Flatt’s death. In 1991, Scruggs, Flatt and Monroe were the first inductees in the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
His sons Gary and Randy both are accomplished musicians and songwriters, and played with their dad in a 1973 album, “The Earl Scruggs Revue.”
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The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Throws a Wingding – Season 1, Episode 20 (1963)
Stringbean with Earl Scruggs and Lester Flat-Run little rabbit run
Uploaded by Nekrophyliac on May 16, 2006 the best instrumental bluegrass song ever done!! ________ FLAT & SCRUGGS Uploaded by wininternetnetwork on Dec 2, 2007 Flat & Scruggs Shortbread From CNN: Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs dead at 88 By the CNN Wire Staff updated 11:43 AM EDT, Thu March 29, 2012 (CNN) — Earl Scruggs, […]
The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Throws A Wingding Uploaded by AllegroMediaMovies on Feb 23, 2012 The Beverly Hillbillies is one of the funniest and most inspired TV comedies of all time! The show was ranked #1 and attracted as many as 60 million viewers per week! The Clampett Clan includes Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan (“Granny”), […]
It has taken me a long time to make my decision but I’ve finally made it. Their 3rd best album is X&Y. I love this album so much! The CD includes many good songs like ”TALK” ”WHAT IF” ”SQUARE ONE” ”THE HARDEST PART” ”TILL KINGDOM COME” ”SPEED OF SOUND” and my favorite Coldplay song ever ” […]
Davy Jones was a great singer and we will miss him. Jones, 66, born in Manchester, England, became the principal teen idol of the rock quartet featured on the NBC comedy series “The Monkees,” which was inspired in part by the Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” and ran from the fall of 1966 to […]
(Sittin On) The Dock Of The Bay Uploaded by taylorgdaniel on Jun 9, 2010 Downtown Memphis, July 9, 2010, solo by Taylor G. Daniel of Germantown. This song was actually sung just a few miles away from where Redding originally recorded it in downtown Memphis at Stax Records. ______________________ Over the years Otis Redding’s influence […]
The “American Idol” contestant-turned-actress is getting positive reviews for her role in “Smash.” The singer plays an actress who is competing for the part of Marilyn Monroe in a Broadway show. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “‘Glee’ for grownups” and Entertainment Weekly calls McPhee “mediocre” but “very likable.” Great song: Uploaded by KatharineMcPheeVEVO on Nov […]
Dr. Williams gives an introduction to Schaeffer’s life and work at the Francis Schaeffer Centennial, an event honoring Francis Schaeffer’s 100th birthday.
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This year Francis Schaeffer would have turned 100 on Jan 30, 2012. I remember like yesterday when I first was introduced to his books. I was even more amazed when I first saw his films. I was so influenced by them that I bought every one of his 30 something books and his two film series. Here is a tribute that I got off the internet from Chuck Colson’s website www.breakpoint.org :
I cannot begin to express how many sympathetic back pats, mildly shaken heads and ever so slightly rolled eyes I have gotten at the news that I was reviewing a book on the apologetics of Francis Schaeffer. I must say that I have understood, at least partially, those reactions by Godly and loving people. After all, who can not have a bit of a smile, or a tug at one’s heart and maybe their intellect, at the thought of Francis Schaeffer? At the myriad explanations of him, the differing opinions on him, the disciples who revere him and the opponents who remain baffled by him even in their distaste for him?
Those of us of “a certain age” remember firsthand the differing schools of thought surrounding Schaeffer, the powerful way that he affected almost everyone who encountered him either personally or through his writings. What I found interesting even then was the way in which parishes and wide swaths of laymen were moved positively by Schaeffer to begin to study, yes STUDY, the doctrines of the faith that some had embraced uncritically since childhood. I remember the way these lifelong Christians say next to those still challenging the faith, those new to the faith and those just desirous of seeing what all the commotion was about. At the same time, I was moved by how many “educated” Christians, those with degrees, those who taught in seminaries and other institutions of higher learning, were frequently critical, even dismissive of this man that their unwashed counterparts in the pews embraced so fully.
In his book on the apologetics of this much-misunderstood thinker, Bryan Follis has done a grand job of untangling the knot that was the apologetic of Francis Schaeffer, without succumbing to the Alexandrian need to simply cut the knot and declare it untied. Follis has broken his book down into an Introduction, 4 simple chapters and a stirring Conclusion. He has shown a willingness to interact with major critics of a man he clearly loves, while at the same time seeking to use Schaeffer’s words, and not Follis’ own, to make his case for his understanding of Schaeffer’s apologetic. The chapter titles, “Calvin and the Reformed Tradition,” “Arguments and Approach,” “Rationality and Spirituality” and “Academic or Apologist” describe the path Follis treads in giving us a clear view of Schaeffer in light of the major influences on him and questions concerning him.
To oversimplify, Schaeffer received criticism from several different and differing viewpoints. The Warfieldian evidentialists dismissed him as a presuppositionalist. The Van Tilan presuppositionlists dismissed him as a rationalist with evidentialist leanings, and all looked with great disfavor on his extensive use of rational arguments with non-believers. Follis eventually places Schaeffer as leaning more toward the “verificationalist” method described by Edward Carnell in his “An Introduction to Christian Apologetics” published in 1948. While describing Schaeffer as being most like this method of apologetics, Follis shows that Schaeffer defies pigeon-holing, which is what seems to have driven his rejection, in large part, by the academy in his day.
Follis says this in setting the framework for understanding Schaeffer, “…it is impossible to understand Schaeffer, never mind properly evaluate his apologetics, unless we grasp that he was a practitioner and not a theoretician, and so interpret him in the context of what he sought to do.” Follis does an admirable job of keeping the focus on Schaeffer’s heart for the lost, and his willingness to understand the language and context of his conversation partner so that he could most effectively relate the Gospel message to that person in the way most relevant to their understanding and situation in life. What caused such consternation in academic circles, it seems in retrospect, is that while Schaeffer defied strict definition in philosophical/apologetical terms, he happily embraced the only definition he sought, Evangelist.
One of the areas in which Schaeffer was most roundly criticized was that of his lightly regarded scholarship, particularly as it relates to his formulation and interpretation of the flow of human history and how it related to the Modern and post-Modern thought so prevalent then and now. Follis makes a telling point when he shows that while some of Schaeffer’s critics might have had their say in his day, Schaeffer is most assuredly having his say now, as we see almost precisely the progression of thought and deterioration of values, language and morality that he predicted and against which he warned in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
In describing Schaeffer’s methodology, Follis continues to return to Schaeffer’s idea that we must lovingly “take the roof off of” the inconsistent logic, denial of reality and false psychological props that most unbelievers use to give themselves “a false sense of meaning or a fleeting feeling of satisfaction.” Schaeffer contended that we should never be cruel in exposing the unbeliever’s shortcomings, but rather learn his language and move into his story in order to solve the “problem of how to communicate the Gospel so that it is understood.”
The highlight of the read for this reviewer was the Conclusion, entitled “Love as the Final Apologetic.” In this section, Follis takes what he has given us in the previous four chapters and contextualizes it to the local church today. Follis asks the questions that are already coursing through the mind of his reader, “Do we see compassion and love like this (Schaeffer in his work) today in many churches? Can the outsider visit your church and experience the reality of Christ’s love and truth both being taught and lived? And what of our individual lives – do they reflect the love of Christ, and do we, in an age of doubt, commend His truth?” As the beginnings of an answer to these questions, this book will be a valuable addition to any bookshelf.
In the final analysis we can ask “Should we seek to teach Schaeffer’s apologetic?” The answer is “Probably not,” because Schaeffer’s apologetic seems uniquely fitted to who Schaeffer was. But if we ask, “Should we seek to instill Schaeffer’s heart for the lost in our own lives and apologetic, as well as the lives of all we teach, lead or among whom we live?” who among us could possibly answer “no?”
Bryan A. Follis / Illinois: Crossway, 2006
Review by Bing Davis, Pastor of Grace Fellowship, Spring Hill, TN
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Extra – Interview – Part 2 Francis Schaeffer had a big impact on me in the late 1970′s and I have been enjoying his books and films ever since. Here is great video clip of an interview and below is a fine article about him. Francis Schaeffer 1912-1984 Christian Theologian, Philosopher, […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 How Should We Then Live 10#1 FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth […]
What Ever Happened to the Human Race? Bachmann was a student of the works of Francis Schaeffer like I am and I know she was pro-life because of it. (Observe video clip above and picture of Schaeffer.) I hated to see her go. DES MOINES, Iowa — Last night, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann vowed to […]
E P I S O D E 9 How Should We Then Live 9#1 T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed […]
E P I S O D E 8 How Should We Then Live 8#1 I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, […]
E P I S O D E 7 How Should We Then Live 7#1 I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act on his belief that we live […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Extra – Interview – Part 2 Francis Schaeffer had a big impact on me in the late 1970′s and I have been enjoying his books and films ever since. Here is great video clip of an interview and below is a fine article about him. Francis Schaeffer 1912-1984 Christian Theologian, Philosopher, […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in Modern Science. A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.B. From an open to a closed natural system: […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live 5-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. […]
How Should We Then Live 4-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to how to be right with […]
How Should We Then Live 3-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so many problems today with this excellent episode. He noted, “Could have gone either way—with emphasis on real people living in […]
How Should We Then Live 2-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard to authority and the approach to God.” […]
How Should We Then Live 1-1 Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why it fell. It fell because of inward […]
During the Clinton scandals of the 1990s, we heard a relentless refrain from the big media outlets – personal behavior and character do not really count in job performance. They beat the drum that Clinton’s all-too-evident personal failings did not affect his ability to do his job well. I call that nonsense.
I remember a young pastor I knew who was being touted as “the next Chuck Swindoll” – a great pastor, great preacher, with a growing church and unlimited potential for the future. All of that was true right up until he appeared on the evening news for all the wrong reasons. His public and promising ministry was completely undermined by a chink the armor of his character than allowed the enemy’s arrows to pierce him.
Character matters.
This week, we had another extremely public piece of evidence in this sad debate. Bobby Petrino was forced out as the coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks football program. It had nothing to do with his job performance. That cannot have been any better. He took a struggling program and moved them to the head of the class. Next season was supposed to be their best, with a lot of returning players. Petrino is an excellent football coach.
Then, poof, it all went away. He was in a motorcycle accident. He claimed he was by himself. Not so much. He was with a 25-year-old former volleyball player with whom he had been conducting an affair (Petrino is married with four children) for some time. His girlfriend had recently landed a cherry job within the football program and it was discovered that Petrino had used his influence in that hiring.
That is what cost him his job. Not adultery. Not lying. Not cheating. He lost his job because he used his influence to hire the young lady.
But that is what people need to remember. These things don’t happen in a vacuum. Character drives behavior. Petrino has never been known as a paragon of honesty and virtue. An ESPN article by Mark Schlabach details his history of playing free and loose with the truth.
In 2003, which coaching Louisville, he met secretly with Auburn about replacing their coach, Tommy Tuberville. He denied it until the press produced records that proved the meeting took place. He then admitted he made a “mistake.”
In 2007, as coach of the Atlanta Falcons, he assured his owner he wasn’t going anywhere, but would fulfill his contract. A couple of days later, he resigned immediately to become head coach at Arkansas. His word was not his bond.
From this article, it was generally known that Bobby Petrino was not a man who tied himself too tightly to the truth or to his word. This tendency evidently bore fruit in this illicit relationship, the lying to the school, the manipulation of her job search and the eventual disintegration of his professional standing.
It is not a secret that I am no big SEC fan, and I could be accused of piling on here. That is not my intent. I like poor ol’ Doug Hibbard a lot and I know that he is hurting. This is a sad tragedy and any Christian who gloated over something like this would be sinning against God.
But I would like to make one point.
People act in accordance with their character. That is why character matters most.
The idea that we can compartmentalize our character and do a good job professionally while our character is misshapen is fiction, a myth like the phoenix or unicorns. You character flaws are going to find their way into your behavior in every part of your life. A man who will cheat on his wife will cut corners in other areas as well. A cheater will cheat. A liar will lie. Our character shapes our actions.
If anyone other than Bobby Petrino can be assigned blame here, it might be the university administration who ignored his character flaws when it benefited them. That choice came back to bite them. Did they think that occupying an office in Fayetteville would suddenly transform him? Soul transformation only happens through Christ.
Observations:
At some point, people are going to have to realize that character flaws cause significant behavioral issues that will come to evidence eventually. We cannot compartmentalize character.
There is another lie that is often told in the world. ”You are what you are and that is okay.” Nonsense. You are what you are, but every character quality that destroys our inner life and our outer behavior can be transformed by Christ so that we are conformed to the image of Christ. God doesn’t just change our behavior, he transforms us from the inside out so that we become different people – new in Christ. To deny that is to denigrate the gospel.
Okay, have your say.
In this undated image released by the University of Arkansas, Razorback Foundation assistant director Jessica Dorrell is shown. Dorrell was a passenger of Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino during a weekend motorcycle ride that ended with a crash that sent him to the hospital, according to a police report released Thursday, April 5, 2012. (AP Photo/University of Arkansas, Wesley Hitt)
If Bobby thinks he is bruised now, then he needs to read about the guy in Proverbs 7:10-27 and what happened to him. I really am hoping that Bobby Petrino can put his marriage back together. He has a clear choice between two paths. In the sermon at Fellowship Bible Church at July 24, 2011, […]
It pays to remember history. Today I am going to go through some of it and give an outline and quotes from the great Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers (1931-2005). Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times started this morning off with some comedy: From pro golfer John Daly’s Twitter account following last night’s Republican debate, […]
LONDON (Reuters) – Singer Robin Gibb, a founding member of the disco-era hit machine the Bee Gees, is in a coma surrounded by members of his family in a London hospital, British media reported on Saturday.
A spokesman for the 62-year-old, who has been battling cancer and recently contracted pneumonia, was not immediately available to comment on the reports.
“Our prayers are with Robin,” an unnamed family friend told the Sun newspaper, which first reported the news.
“He has kept so positive and always believed he could beat this. Sadly, it looks like he has developed pneumonia, which is very bad in his situation.”
The tabloid said that Gibb’s wife Dwina, sons Spencer and Robin-John, daughter Melissa and brother Barry were keeping a bedside vigil.
In February, Gibb announced he had made a “spectacular” recovery from cancer. But in late March he underwent further surgery on his intestines.
He was forced to cancel all engagements, including the world premiere earlier this month of his first classical work, co-written with Robin-John, called “The Titanic Requiem”.
Gibb had emergency surgery in 2010 to treat a blocked bowel and further surgery for a twisted bowel – the condition that killed his twin brother Maurice in 2003 at the age of 53.
He was diagnosed with colon cancer, which later spread to his liver.
Gibb originally formed the Bee Gees in Australia with brothers Barry and Maurice. The group released its first record in 1963.
But it was in the 1970s that they rose to worldwide fame, producing a string of disco favorites including “Jive Talkin'”, “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Night Fever”.
The brothers never matched that success in subsequent decades, however, but wrote and produced a string of hits for other artists.
The band’s distinctive tight harmonies and falsetto vibrato delivery helped the Gibbs sell an estimated 200 million records worldwide.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
What do you do when you’re losing a debate? Change the subject. That’s really all you need to know to understand President Obama’s resuscitation of his infamous “Buffett Rule” that would impose a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate on businesses and families earning $1 million.
The Supreme Court gave Obamacare a nasty audition two weeks ago, leaving even staunch defenders of the law grasping for straws while the former constitutional law professor now in the White House outrageously flailed the court for doing exactly what the Constitution intends. So what is the President’s response? Change the subject, of course.
After releasing a non-budget that completely ignored the nation’s near-term, medium-term, and long-term fiscal plight – an extraordinary trifecta not easily achieved – the President then tried to take the House Republicans to task for their proposed real solutions on all three. Nothing highlights irresponsibility like responsible behavior, and so Obama found sharp rhetoric and a frowning visage to be thin gruel when you’ve no policies of your own. Response? Change the subject.
Soaring gas prices have put enormous strains on family budgets and business plans. The President might deflect some of the resulting popular anger if he actually had an energy policy that might produce more energy. Instead, his policies have produced only more examples of why government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers (Solyndra). When your most notable policies relating to gas prices is to kill a major oil pipeline like Keystone, propose algae as an energy source and seek to raise taxes on oil companies, you’ve nowhere to hide. Response? Change the subject.
Then came last Friday’s jobs report, which was universally acknowledged as disappointing: job growth cut in half from the modest levels of previous months, and an unemployment rate that fell only because thousands of Americans just gave up looking. If Washington had merely left the economy to heal itself, performance today would have been much stronger and unemployment markedly lower. Instead, almost everything this Administration has tried has failed noticeably, and voters have noticed. Response? Change the subject.
With nowhere else to go, Obama has fallen back to his most comfortable setting – class warfare. Now that it is painfully obvious the Buffett Rule is the President’s chief policy priority and the centerpiece of his reelection campaign, it is fair to ask, what would the policy do to address any of the nation’s problems?
The answer is – absolutely nothing.
Strengthen the economy? No, when it comes to economic growth the Buffett Rule would weaken the economy. The tax would fall most heavily on job creators like businesses that pay their taxes through the individual income tax, investors, and entrepreneurs. The higher levy would confiscate from them resources they would otherwise use to start new businesses, grow existing businesses, and hire more workers. This will slow economic growth, job creation, and wage increases.
Reduce the budget deficits? More like “budget pixie dust” in the words of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). According to a recent analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the Buffett Rule would raise $47 billion over ten years. And that assumes no negative economic effects, which are certain to reduce the revenues gained. For perspective, during that period President Obama’s budget calls for adding $6.7 trillion to the national debt. The Buffett Rule would reduce the increase in debt in Obama’s budget by about one half of one percent. No joke.
The Buffett Rule debate is desperate political prestidigitation. President Obama is losing the fight over Obamacare, which remains intensely unpopular. Gas prices show no sign of descending. The economy at best is muddling. And the nation is looking for answers on the budget and the President has none. The President needed a change of subject. For Obama, what better time for a distracting, divisive fight over fairness?
When a President refuses to address the issues the country cares about, they tune out. Obama’s fairness fight is likely to fare about as well as the rest of his policies.
The individual mandate to purchase health insurance is the linchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is among the issues to be handled by the Supreme Court beginning March 26, 2012.
Michael F. Cannon is the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.
President Obama promised universal coverage under his health care overhaul. However, even with Obamacare, millions of Americans will remain uninsured. Those who do gain coverage will do so primarily through government exchanges or Medicaid.
Milton Friedman – Socialized Medicine at Mayo Clinic in 1978 Liberals think that people would just fall in love with Obamacare once they got a taste of it but it didn’t work out that way. Seven of Obamacare’s Biggest Failures from the Last Two Years Alyene Senger March 28, 2012 at 5:15 pm It has […]
Randy Barnett Discusses ObamaCare at the Supreme Court Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 Cato Institute Senior Fellow and Georgetown University law professor Randy E. Barnett discusses the arguments to be presented to the Supreme Court beginning March 26. I know that many people feel strongly that we live in a democracy and […]
Cato’s Michael F. Cannon Discusses ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 The individual mandate to purchase health insurance is the linchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is among the issues to be handled by the Supreme Court beginning March 26, 2012. Michael F. Cannon is the […]
It is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. Here Dan Mitchell takes it on. Everything You Need to Know about Entitlement Reform November 28, 2011 by Dan Mitchell Most people have a vague understanding that America has a huge long-run fiscal problem. They’re right, though they probably don’t realize the seriousness […]
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Senator Marco Rubio Talks Cuba, Budget and Obamacare Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Mar 22, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/22/exclusive-interview-sen-marco-rubio-talks… | Pope Benedict XVI will visit the communist island of Cuba next week. But while there, the Catholic leader has no plans to visit Cuban dissidents who are fighting for freedom from the Castro regime. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), […]
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