Blog break redux

I am on a business trip this week, and will be unable to update this blog during that time. Hopefully, I can resume on Saturday.

See you then.

Liberal generosity

“Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples’ money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people’s freedom and security.”

—William F. Buckley Jr.

Vacating the homestead

I'm off on an adventure with my wonderful wife!

I'm not sure I will be blogging during this time, but may have the opportunity.

I will return around 1 July.

UPDATE: We have returned home in one piece. I will resume blogging shortly.

Star Trek XI

More Star Trek goodness . . .

Star Trek, Stardate 2008.12.25

Can it be?

Sorry about the black out

I've been extremely busy getting an Advent guide published for our church. I'll be posting more, now that it is finished, but I'm still very busy in RL, so I won't be able to spend a lot of time blogging.

I'm hoping for more time as we get closer to Christmas.

Light blogging

I've been quite preoccupied with real life -- both at home and at work -- so my blogging is going to be even less than it has been. This will continue to persist for a few weeks. I will try to get the heritage quote posted at the very least.

I thank you for your interest and your patience.

Blog slowdown

I apologize for not posting much more than Heritage Quotes the last few days. I've been very much involved in real life the last six weeks, or so, and it is catching up with me.

I will endeavor to provide more of my alternative news content in the near future. In the meantime, I will try to keep the Heritage Quotes coming.

Thank you for visiting my site and for your indulgence while I take care of home, hearth, and health.

Support your local soldier

I have just become aware of a personal blog, named The Wide Awake Cafe, dedicated to supporting the families of service members who have deployed in the defense of our nation. Reading it illuminates a dimension of military life of which I only have limited insight.

I highly recommend it!

On Hell

C.R. Hardy has an introspective essay in which she considers the existence of Hell.

Four years before 9/11, the summer after my junior year in college, I had my own encounter with hell on earth. I was sitting in the back of an ugly, old tour-bus when the girl I was traveling with, a friend of just two weeks, asked me out of nowhere (it seemed to me), Do you believe that hell exists? I was somewhat annoyed, once the question had registered. We had just visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. The rest of us were sitting quietly, trying to process the scale of the awfulness we had just seen, trying to understand why those people had to suffer the loss of everything — there we were, sitting on a comfortable tour bus on our way to our third comfortable meal of the day right smack in the middle of a very comfortable life. We were squirming. And my friend, annoyingly, wanted to make this personal.

Recommended.

[Via Annika's Journal.]

On sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs

LTC Dave Grossman (Ret) has a compelling essay that explains the three types of people in this world". He begins with a quote from William Bennett about honor.

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?

- William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

Then he goes into the three types of people. It is a very interesting essay. Highly recommended.

An ethical blogger

Jay Tea, over at Whizbang!, responds to a commenter with an excellent essay on personal ethics. He concludes with:

So yeah, John, sometimes my own philosophical beliefs directly conflict with my own self-interest. That's OK with me. Hell, in some ways, it's reassuring. It tells me that I am not simply taking the most expedient, selfish, easiest way out of a situation.

So sometimes it gets a bit uncomfortable. But it helps me sleep a bit better at night.

Though he and I differ on several issues, I have a lot of respect for this guy.

Go read the whole thing.

Light blogging

I have been very busy lately with proposal activities at work and a death in the family across the country. As a result, my blogging has been spotty, at best, and it will continue to be for the remainder of this month.

I will try to (at least) post Heritage Quotes every day.

Please don't give up on me, because I'll be back in a few weeks . . .

Happy 2007!

My family and I wish you and yours a happy new year!

It's looking to be an odd year, isn't it?

Light blogging

As you have undoubtedly noticed, my blogging has been rather light the last few days. My family and I are on a holiday break until after the new year, so I've been taking it easy on the blogging front. I'm not reading or watching much in the way of news -- or even other blogs. I'm just being slothful for a few days.

However, I'll be back. ;->

'In Hoc Anno Domini'

I missed this column posted yesterday at OpinionJournal, and feel that I just have to reprint it here. It was written by Vermont Royster in 1949, and it is about the freedom Christ brought to our world 2000 years ago.

I put it in the extended entry.

In Hoc Anno Domini
Vermont Royster's annual Christmas message.

Monday, December 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression--for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers[e] places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Amen.

Merry Christmas to our troops

Crosscards has a nice animated Christmas e-card for our troops nice animated Christmas e-card for our troops.

Go check it out.

Hybrid hypocrite?

According to this article I am a hypocrital hybrid owner, because I have both a hybrid and a SUV in my garage:

But does that still apply if they're both the same vehicle?

Her heart is in the right place

RightWingSparkle is quitting blogging, and I wish her Godspeed.

I appreciate her honesty, and hope that she reconsiders and resumes blogging -- as a ministry, perhaps . . .

Bronchitis

. . . has had me flat on my back this week. As you see, it has greatly curtailed my blogging activites. I hope that I'll be able to resume them now that I'm on the mend.

Blupdate

I apologize for the light blogging lately, but have some good reasons: 1) I am still awaiting replacement parts to effect repairs on my computer at home, 2) I watched The Path to 9/11 (a very good dramatization, in my opinion, that was generally pretty accurate with what was in the 9/11 Commission report) so Sunday and Monday evenings were taken, and 3) I'm fairly busy at work this week.

I hope to be able to increase my blogging efforts by next week. In the meantime, I thank you for your patience.

Computer still down

Just FYI, my computer has a motherboard problem that I cannot repair. The motherboard problem has caused other problems, as well. I have been able to ascertain that my hard drives seem to be okay, so data is not lost. However, I cannot access that data easily until the new board and CPU that I've ordered are installed. Hopefully some time next weekend it'll be back up and running.

In the meantime, I am using my lovely wife's very nice Dell laptop for performing computing tasks that cannot wait until next weekend. One of those tasks is to re-create a tribute I had prepared about Jose Cardona, who died five years ago tomorrow as a result of the murderous attack on the World Trade Center.

Thank you for your patience.

9-11 is tommorow

Sporadic Blogging

My PC is experiencing frequent catastrophic shutdowns, so my blogging will be sporadic at best.

Parts are on order.

I appreciate your patience.

Take Pride

My sister tipped me off to this website. It's selling t-shirts sporting graphics and text that is supportive of our troops overseas. TakePride also takes at least 20% of sales and donates them to charities that specifically support our troops and their families.

I highly recommend that you visit TakePride and browse around. The slideshow has some really nice pictures of our troops doing what they do best -- protecting you and me from harm.

And you might just find a tee that you'd like to buy -- to show the world your support for the noble men and women who go in harm's way on our behalf.

Light blogging

My family and I will be travelling to Houston and environs for a long weekend.

I doubt seriously that I'll be doing much, if any, blogging after today due to 1) I only have access to a dial up connection and, 2) I have failed to prepare anything in advance.

I will be able resume blogging next week when we get back home.

Tesla Roadster

File this one under what I want for Christmas.

Day by Day debut

Check out Chris Muir's daily Day by Day cartoon that I've put in the left sidebar. I enjoy it immensely and read it every day, so decided that I should put it up on my blog.

Since I like it so much, you could probably say that it tends to be a bit conservative. No worries, though, because Chris makes it truly entertaining!

We're Baaaaack . . .

Just wanted to let you know that we have returned from our very successful choir tour. We are very tired and a week behind on chores and stuff, but I will resume blogging tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way, I am counting on the Mavericks winning the NBA championship this week. (I hope I haven't jinxed them by stating that.)

Light or nonexistent blogging

My family and I are embarking upon a youth choir trip to Georgia tomorrow that will last through next Saturday.

You will be relieved to know that I will not be singing. I am serving as driver/mule for the duration of the trip.

I may have some opportunity to blog during this time, but cannot really commit to that.

This announcement is a public service for my two regular readers and for those unsuspecting souls who have accidentally stumbled upon this blog.

Thank you . . .

10,000

Yesterday on May 30, 2006 at 7:52:53 AM, my 10,000th visitor appeared (very, very briefly) from Georgetown University.

That is quite a milestone. Thank you all for reading my stuff.

My goal here has been to balance the mostly left-leaning coverage in the mainstream media with the other side of the stories.

I hope I have been successful in achieving that goal.

Cheers!

Opposite of "in touch"

Peggy Noonan, at OpinionJournal, shows us the common denominator between Bush's immigration speech and the movie 'The DaVinci Code".

She must have enjoyed writing this column.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

Out of Touch
What the president's immigration speech and "The DaVinci Code" have in common.

Thursday, May 18, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

What was missing in the president's approach the other night was the expression, or suggestion, of context. The context was a crisis that had gone unanswered as it has built, the perceived detachment of the political elite from people on the ground, and a new distance between the president and his traditional supporters. The president would have done well to signal that he knew he was coming late to the party, as it were; that he'd come to rethink his previous stand, or lack of a stand, and had begun to consider whether there was not some justice in the views, and alarm, of others.

Without an established context the speech seemed free-floating: a statement issued into the ether, unanchored to any particular principle and eager to use, as opposed to appreciate, whatever human sentiment flows around the issue of immigration. It was a speech driven by an air of crisis, but not a public crisis, only a personal and political one.

To acknowledge what he apparently thinks are the biases of the base, he used loaded words like "sneak"--illegal immigrants "sneak across the border"--as if to establish his populist bona fides. This was, not to put too fancy a rhetorical term on it, creepy, and managed to be offensive to everyone.

What was needed was a definitive statement: As of this moment we will control our borders, I'm sending in the men, I'm giving this the attention I've given to the Mideast.

Once that is done, all else follows. "Comprehensive solution" seems like code for "some day we may do something". No one believes in comprehensive solutions. They believe in action they can see. No one believes in the wisdom of government, but they do believe it has a certain brute power.

---

The disinterest in the White House and among congressional Republicans in establishing authority on America's borders is so amazing--the people want it, the age of terror demands it--that great histories will be written about it. Thinking about this has left me contemplating a question that admittedly seems farfetched: Is it possible our flinty president is so committed to protecting the Republican Party from losing, forever, the Hispanic vote, that he's decided to take a blurred and unsatisfying stand on immigration, and sacrifice all personal popularity, in order to keep the party of the future electorally competitive with a growing ethnic group?

This would, I admit, be rather unlike an American political professional. And it speaks of a long-term thinking that has not been the hallmark of this administration. But at least it would render explicable the president's moves.

The other possibility is that the administration's slow and ambivalent action is the result of being lost in some geopolitical-globalist abstract-athon that has left them puffed with the rightness of their superior knowledge, sure in their membership in a higher brotherhood, and looking down on the low concerns of normal Americans living in America.

I continue to believe the administration's problem is not that the base lately doesn't like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn't like the base. That's a worse problem. It's hard to fire a base. Hard to get a new one.

---

Speaking of the detachment of the elites, the second big news of the week--in some ways it may be bigger--is the apparent critical failure of "The DaVinci Code." After its first screening in Cannes, critics and observers called it tedious, painfully long, bloated, grim, so-so, a jumble, lifeless and talky.

There is a God. Or, as a sophisticated Christian pointed out yesterday, there is an Evil One, and this may be proof he was an uncredited co-producer. The devil loves the common, the stale. He can't use beauty; it undermines him. "Banality is his calling card."

I do not understand the thinking of a studio that would make, for the amusement of a nation 85% to 90% of whose people identify themselves as Christian, a major movie aimed at attacking the central tenets of that faith, and insulting as poor fools its gulled adherents. Why would Tom Hanks lend his prestige to such a film? Why would Ron Howard? They're both already rich and relevant. A desire to seem fresh and in the middle of a big national conversation? But they don't seem young, they seem immature and destructive. And ungracious. They've been given so much by their country and era, such rich rewards and adulation throughout their long careers. This was no way to say thanks.

I don't really understand why we live in an age in which we feel compelled to spoof the beliefs of the followers of the great religions. Why are we doing that? Why does Hollywood consider this progressive as opposed to primitive, like a pre-Columbian tribe attacking the tribe next door for worshiping the wrong spirits?

"The DaVinci Code" could still triumph at the box office, but it has lost its cachet, and the air of expectation that surrounded it. Its creators have not been rewarded but embarrassed. Good. They should be.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

The truth comes out

Phoenix expresses some degree of trepidation, and Sadie responds:

I frighten you people, don’t I?

I'm inclined to agree with both ladies.