So, the First Amendment regarding Freedom of Religion no longer applies, nor Freedom of Speech? Tolerance of everything and anybody as long as they don’t believe the Bible? But if they do, you have to deny them their 1st Amendment?
The Boneyard – Thoughts on the Passing of Time and Old Friendships
By Jefferis Kent Peterson for his fellow high school classmates of Landon ’72 on the occasion of their 40th! Reunion, October 20th, 2012
Elephant at sunset on safari (Photo credit: @Doug88888)
Elephants are said to have memories, well, like an elephant’s… In nature, elephants live to 70 years of age. Their family structures are sort of like tribes. Unless interrupted by humans, they live together in family groups all of their lives. When an elephant dies, its family members engage in intense mourning and burial rituals, conducting weeklong vigils over the body, carefully covering it with earth and brush, revisiting the bones for years afterward, caressing the bones with their trunks, often taking turns rubbing their trunks along the teeth of a skull’s lower jaw, the way living elephants do in greeting.
There is something of the intimations of eternity in the actions of the oldest and wisest animals on the plant. They know love, loss, and a memory of the generations that have gone before. They share an appreciation of their young. Legend has it that elephants near death separate from their companions and trek alone to ancestral graveyards, dying only when they reach this special place, called a boneyard.
My grandparents only died in the past 15 years. My parents are just starting to approach their 80’s and are showing signs of age. I have found that losing those you love makes it somewhat easier to look forward to the time of your own end, with the hope of seeing those you love once again. Most of you don’t have grandchildren yet… Leigh and I have two now. We, like elephants, are starting to appreciate the transition of the ages. Children are a blessing, but grandchildren are a wonder. To be called Grandpa makes you start to see yourself as part of the generations gone before you. A link to the past with a link to the present and a link to the future.
I remember seeing the alumni coming back to Landon when we were there, and thinking, “Who are these old farts?” Those ancient alumni were probably all of 25, 30 or 35 years of age at most. Wow, how your perspective changes!
There is something in the memory of youth that makes us want to return here… memories that are still living in our mind’s eye and not dead. Times of play and joy, easier times, lesser responsibilities, when we all believed in the illusion of our own immortality. Friendships, like a tribe, have lasted a lifetime. When we meet up, it is as if all the years between have disappeared and we are back to our youth. There is something here we have shared, we shared with no one else. But there is also something in our memories, which speak to our hope for eternity. It is a memory almost forgotten… buried under leaves and grass… that life goes on even after the parting of familiar friends.
Ecclesiastes 3:10-13 “I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its season. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot comprehend what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his labor–this is the gift of God.”
This is our 40th, and it is hard to believe that many years have passed. The 45th and the 50th lie ahead. The circle may yet be unbroken, God willing, but there will come a time when our visits to the Boneyard will cause us to raise our glasses not just to the prior generations, but to the memories of our own. May the Lord keep us all safe until we gather again.
Why I Hated Lee Daniels’ The Butler
The Real Butler
I have to admit: the story was compelling. I was drawn in. It was well acted. It resurrected all my feelings about racial injustice I experienced as a late 1960’s teen. It reminded me of all my liberal angst. After all, it was based upon a “true story.” But then I found out just how much of it was fiction, a political stage to vent misplaced rage, and how cynical a manipulation is Hollywood in its use of “history” to reinforce its arrogant condescension. The true in the “true story” is that there was a man who worked as a butler in the White House, but that is about as far as it went. The rest of this is spoiler, so be forewarned.
For the documentation see the Real Story here.
We’re not trying to set out a word-for-word retelling of historical events. We’re trying to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement through a prototypical American family and how they experienced those turbulent times. …we were much more concerned about a universal truth than we were about people criticizing if Eugene Allen did X, Y, or Z.
-Danny Strong, Screenwriter (Word & Film, August 13, 2013)
Universal Truth? Then don’t lie.
Cecil Gaines is very loosely “based” on Eugene Allen. Eugene Allen’s mother was not raped by a white plantation owner. His father was not shot. He had only one son, who served but did not die in Viet Nam. His son was not a Freedom Rider, did not know or serve with Martin Luther King, Jr., did not go to jail, was not a member of the Black Panthers, and did not become a Congressman.
His wife was not an alcoholic adulteress. All these compelling elements of the story, were glurge. This isn’t close to being based on a true story, it is a vehicle for the writer and director’s own political agenda. What made me the most angry and the most upset was the cheap political shot a Ronald Reagan. The writer makes it seem as if they used Eugene (Cecil) as a token Negro at a State dinner, when it was just the opposite. It was not a turning point in his career, as if Eugene suddenly saw his hypocrisy in his role of servitude.
Eugene with President Reagan and Nancy Reagan. In their living room, the Allens displayed several pictures of such moments with the Reagans.
Eugene spoke of the dinner with excitement, “I’m telling you!” he said. “I believe I’m the only butler to get invited to a state dinner.” He was correct.
Is the movie accurate in depicting President Ronald Reagan as being racist?
No. The Butler movie depicts President Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman) stating that he will refuse to impose sanctions against South Africa for its racist policies. The true story behind The Butler movie reveals that the situation was much more complex than Lee Daniel’s film makes it appear. At the time, America was entangled in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and their communist allies. South Africa was the only country on the African continent that held a strong anti-communist position. Reagan’s hesitation to issue sanctions arose in part because he did not want to disrupt America’s anti-communist alliance with the country, not because he thought apartheid in South Africa was okay. The sanctions would have also impacted the least affluent in the country first, who were mainly the blacks there.
I think the most genuine part of the movie was the election of Barak Obama and what it meant to the black community. Not that I agree with the political reality, which turned out entirely opposite of the hope and promise, but I can understand why that hope for overcoming generations of injustice was signaled by his election. It meant, and still does, an end to racial inequality; even if the latent prejudice of racism remains in the hearts of some men. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the law cannot make a man love me,” and that remains true today. But the evidence that a majority of Americans can see past color to vote for a policy means that race is no longer the deciding factor in American politics; unless of course one cynically uses the false charge of racism to disqualify opposing political ideas.
The Decline and Fall of the Democrat Party
The high ideals expressed by John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address to the Nation spoke of sacrificial service to the country and the world. Today, the Democrat party is all about what the government can do for you. How far we have fallen.
The Decline and Fall of the United States
U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Written in 1995, the article correctly predicts the devolution of the United States, falling into such a state that it can no longer govern itself. The reason: the country violated the divine laws that make governance possible.
Excerpt from a 1995 article, Mischief by Statute on the Scholars Corner (http://scholarscorner.com/otheo/mischief.htm)
…The Founders of this nation never denied social obligations incumbent on individual members of society. They recognized that individual liberty was cradled in the larger responsibility of preserving the general welfare. The modern atomization of individual liberty into a selfish assertion of “rights” above the welfare of the community never entered their minds, for they understood every right presupposes responsibilities. The Founders accepted the necessity of sacrifice for the sake of the community, and to that end, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They lived in such a context that our modern craving for selfish interests would have been intolerable to them.
As they forged a new form of civil government to preserve the general welfare, the Founding Fathers were concerned about the accumulation of excessive power by government. Their recent experiences with British tyranny left them with a great distrust of centralized authority. The Constitution was so written as to restrict the accumulation of powers by civil government. But these limitations of power were not based on Enlightenment philosophy (though that influence was part of contemporary political thought). Rather, this founding principle of the Constitution was the Biblical acknowledgment of God’s supreme right over the lives of men, a right that even a legitimate civil government has no authority to transgress – not because a government would be robbing the people of their rights, but because the government would be robbing God of His!
The opening lines of the Declaration of Independence declare:
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…”
This statement about “equality” is not rooted in egalitarian philosophy, but in the belief of our equal value and worth to our Creator. Because we were created by God in His own image, we belong to Him. Because we belong to Him, He has certain rights over us that no State has a right to transgress. The Declaration was written to affirm God’s right over His creatures in opposition to a King who attempted to be god over his subjects.
…Can a civil authority remain legitimate and under divine favor if it throws off restraint and claims for itself rights and privileges not granted by God? No! Such a government sets itself up as a higher authority than God when it presumes to write and implement laws opposed to God’s Law. We have that situation today in America. The laws of the land, which now forbid the teaching of God’s Law in the schools and in public, imply that God is a threat to the State. The State must therefore control the free expression of religion in order to protect the people from harm. But the truth is that the State is entirely dependent upon the Law of God for its very existence! Yet the State, by its laws, has made itself the enemy of God.
If there is no authority higher than the State, then the State effectively becomes the arbiter of all that is just and right. The danger of this autonomous humanistic State is that it will not be restrained from exercising despotic and tyrannical power over its citizenry because it has become accountable to no one but itself. Recognizing no divine limit to its function, it becomes the arbiter of morals as well as policies. When a religious objection arises to a particular law or policy, the State appeals only to itself for its decision. It has no guiding principle higher than a flimsy social contract that is easily reinterpreted to suit present whims. There are no abiding principles or enduring truths to which the government must subject itself with reverence, respect, and awe. There is no absolute authority to which it may turn for counsel and wisdom.
When the Supreme Court publicly and officially expelled the Ten Commandments from our public schools in the 1960’s, it denied a divine sanction for morals and the State declared itself “Supreme.” A black-robed, gang of nine has become our nation’s god. It has declared its authority higher than the Creator’s by standing in opposition to God’s Law and by presuming to pass judgment upon the counsel of God. As a result, our protection as God’s property is being removed. Today, individual rights may serve the State’s interests, but tomorrow the State might change its mind. Who is to stop it now from dissolving those rights we so cherish? Are we nor already seeing an erosion of our freedom?
Cut off from divine favor and divine justice, the State can write laws opposed to the heart of God. Babies can be murdered in the womb as a legal right. Practicers of moral perversion can become a protected class deserving special privileges. The State is able to frame mischief (evil) into the very foundation and fabric of the law. Injustice and immorality are promoted and evil is rewarded and righteousness punished.
Secular authority in a vacuum cannot last. Without a divine sanction, a State loses its authority and ability to govern. As it writes mischief by statute it opposes God, and then God opposes the State. Just as Israel and Judah were destroyed by God for their defiance of His laws, His justice, and His divine compassion for the poor, so God’s patience with America draws to an end. The Founders knew, and cited often, the fact that when rulers in the Old Testament heeded God, Israel prospered, but when rulers did not, their nation floundered.4 Our Forefathers begged for mercy from Almighty God, lest this nation also fail to be sustained by divine favor and providence.
Thomas Jefferson said, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice does not sleep forever….”5
With the rejection of conscience and the Word, with the promotion of immorality and perverseness under the banner of liberty, with selfishness and greed replacing commitment and sacrifice, and with the blood of 30 million innocent children on our hands, can we really believe God remains indifferent to our disobedience? Can we really hope as a nation to be spared the rod of his wrath?
Global Persecution of Christians
It isn’t politically correct to talk about the real victims in this situation! 100,000 Christians are murdered per year, but nary a peep from the mainstream media or the State Dept… because it is politically correct to ignore their plight as victims? It up-ends the liberal mindset to think that rather than being responsible for all the world’s ills, Christians are actually suffering at the hands of the powerful…
Warning for iOS users with 1Password 4 trial!
Okay, I had 1Password 3 and the iPhone and iPad app, and downloaded the 1Password 4 to try, and now I’m screwed. I not only have to pay to upgrade version 3 to 4 but now also have to buy the iOS app for another $18 ?!! The iPhone app had been free.
Agilebits should warn people that an update to 4 will disable their syncing on the iPhone unless they upgrade it also. Dropbox no longer works with version 3 once you upgrade your database, which happens when you use the trial
So my upgrade would be $43 to restore functionality.
Just saying… I might not have downloaded a trial that smacked my database and made it impossible to downgrade.
Yahoo and Mercedes – How to be Boring on A Grand Scale
No Risk – No Reward
Yahoo!’s New Logo
Yahoo is “reinventing” itself, looking future-forward by using a 50 year-old font, Optima, in its redesign of its logo. Very cutting edge! Yah think Yahoo!?
Can you tell the difference? Does it make a difference? Does it even make a statement? Boring, staid, corporate, and a lack of imagination? Why bother to change? Okay, I like the chiseled 3D, but you have to look at a large image even to see that. It is not detectable on the home page in the upper left. I wonder if this redesign will go down as another blunder, like Ford’s Edsel or New Coke.
Which Brings Me to the New Mercedes S-Class
I watched the announcement of this new, top of the line, redesign of the S-Class Mercedes for just under $100,000 and my first thought was… It looks just like a Hyundai or Toyota Camry. Yes, sure, it has an incredible amount of technology, with auto breaking, stay in lane, and three-dimensional awareness, but couldn’t they have come up with a design that actually looks innovative and cutting edge?? It is just a boring car. This is a car you will lose in a parking lot. In fact, it is so run of the mill that it is starting to make the Cadillac CTS look absolutely futuristic. I thought I would never say that about a General Motors Car.
By Contrast Real Innovation: the Tesla
This car could not get off the ground without $40,000 in government subsidies for each vehicle, so I’m not commenting on the economics of the vehicle or the P/E ratio of the stock, which appears to be in fad mode. However, for design and construction innovation, everything we watched on The Jetsons when we were kids has now come to pass. If you want to be blown away by an almost completely robotic factory, watch this video. It is absolutely amazing.
#1 Complaint(s) about Business Catalyst Missing Features
I am posting this as a relative newbie to BC but as a long time (since 1994) web designer and programmer. I encourage others to respond with their own suggestions for improvement.
Business Catalyst’s Missing Features
1. The lack of responsive templates AND responsive menus ( I find this so far behind the development curve for current design as to be almost unbelievable. I normally learn new systems by taking templates and coding apart and putting them back together, but for non-coders esp., the system for creating flexible designs and menus is opaque to say the least. Adobe has a habit of developing products targeted towards designers as end users, but fit only for coders who ALREADY understand and know how to use the proprietary code. I suffered through 3 iterations of ActionScript (for Flash) only to finally give up trying to keep up with all the “improvements” which made it almost impossible for someone who was not a full-time programmer /coder to use. There are no “plugins” or “extensions” to BC that allow the non-dedicated coder to easily implement basic features already readily available with other programs like Word Press, Bootstrap, Drupal, or with third-party extension makers for Dreamweaver, like Project Seven (PVII) or DMXzone. In addition, the available documentation, like that from BCGurus, is not simple enough to add complex features like responsive menus or designs).
2. Related to #1, I have not found out a simple step-by-step tutorial as to how one might create a Dreamweaver set of templates that use responsive design and responsive menus, and make them work on BC. For example, the dynamic menu system in BC will not use PVII JavaScript, and its inbred detection methods invalidate PVII responsive scripts, so that is a no go. I went through an entire tutorial on BCGurus on creating responsive menus, but found them unhelpful because there was a complete gap on showing how to apply such menu systems to the BC CSS HTML menus. Yes there was a tutorial sort of, but it did not deal with multilevel responsive menus, only top-level, which was useless. What would be nice is a start to finish tutorial (for free on ADOBE), taking a Bootstrap or Dreamweaver template, with responsive design and responsive menus, and implementing it on BC.
If #1 were available, it might be simple enough to use the template as a structural code base and then edit the CSS of it to one’s liking; creating basically new sites with the template code, but even the BCGuru templates with responsive menus have so many levels of web apps embedded inside of modules inside of content holders inside of web apps, that trying to use those templates with custom designs (or client specific content!) becomes equivalent to a month-long African Safari tracking down the fabled wildebeest of Gnome.
I will not even get into, except mention, the lack of custom coding functionality of BC as compared to PHP/MySQL, or some of the basic features missing on the shopping cart available on most e-commerce sites today.
Anyway, that is my rant for the day.
