“It is funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.” ― David Sedaris link
Women: Do You Hate Putting on a Swimsuit?
Patriarchy: women are not to lead men, ever; not in church and not at home. They are to be the keepers of the hearth. In some circles, women are to have lots of kids. But, there's more. With the advent of Mark Driscoll and his minions, women are supposed to "smoking hot" at the same time. Driscoll merely parrots the Cosmopolitan and Hollywood viewpoint of women, attempting, yet failing, to put a Christian spin on it. Size 2 with DD breasts only exist in plastic surgery land.
Amongst the ridiculous comments, made by arrogant, hipster wannabe pastors, that I read, over and over again, is how "smoking hot" their wives are. Is it any wonder that many women hate the summer when they have to put on a swimsuit? Well guess what? I am not smoking hot although I am devastatingly witty! The only thing that gets me smoking hot is sex abuse, domestic violence and spiritual abuse. True confession: I hate trying on swimsuits.
Well, no more. Jessica Turner, the wife of Matthew Paul Turner, penned an essay, complete with a picture of her in a swimsuit and the post went viral. It's title: Moms, Put on That Swimsuit. I highly recommend you read the whole thing but here are a few excerpts.
-You've got two choices every summer — to put on a swimsuit or to skip it.
-Your swimsuit does not define you.
- That soft tummy you are trying to hide? Has stretched and grown life.
- Those thighs that have long lost their gap? Gave you the strength to carry that beach ball for nine months, then walk with life hanging on your hips for years after.
She makes a profound statement about women who will not put on a bathing suit.
Because when women stay on the sidelines because of insecurity, we are modeling unhealthy behavior to our children and we are missing out.
I have a challenge for everyone out there. Tell a woman that she is wearing a pretty bathing suit. In fact, tell her she looks beautiful. Let's throw away the expectations of Hollywood biased society and arrogant, hipster pastors. Put on the bathing suit and love being at the beach.
The majority of men, and some women, would rather be shocked than to alone with their thoughts.
Thanks go out to a reader, Old John Jay, who called my attention to this study published in Science which is a premier scientific journal. In the study, participant would be told to stay in a room for about 15 minutes with nothing to do but think. Most everyone found it difficult. The researchers even helped them by giving them pleasant things to thing about. The results were the same. Then they were given a device with which they could voluntarily shock themselves.
“It dawned on us: If people find this so difficult,” Wilson said, “would they prefer negative stimulations to boredom?” He gave them access to a device that would provide a small electrical shock by pressing a button. It wasn’t a very strong shock, as the device was built around a 9 volt battery. “But we weren’t even sure it was worth doing,” he said. “I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice.”
…when left alone in the room for a 15-minute thinking session, the participants exhibited some shocking behavior. One man (whose data was left out of the study) shocked himself 190 times. “I have no idea what was going on there,” Wilson said. “But for most people, it was more like seven times.”
And while only 6 of the 24 women shocked themselves, 12 of the 18 men did so.
The conclusion:
In other words, most men are more interested in seeking variety and stimulation than women are, even if that means getting 190 electric shocks in 15 minutes.
In the "What a crock department: Mars Hill Global isn't…
This week, Mars Hill finally admitted that they used the Global Find money to support Mars Hill needs. Rob Smith, in his blog, Musings From Under the Bus, spells this out in some detail. In a post, aptly titled, We promise to tell the truth, some of the truth, but not the whole truth, we learn some disturbing details. He is concerned that Mars Hill continues to refuse to tell folks how much of their donations were spent in the designated missions fields of Ethiopia and India. Accountants will enjoy this assessment.
They tell donors that funds going to India and Ethiopia have been consistent over the years, with an increase in 2012 to 2014.
Well, what I learned as a member of Mars Hill while traveling with certain Acts 29 leaders in Africa, was that the Indian pastors were given a monthly stipend to assist them. If my memory serves me correctly, it was about $75 per month per pastor.
So if Mars Hill is being consistent, which they claim, then prior to 2012 they supported no more than 33 Indian pastors at a cost of about $2,475 per month. In 2012, Sutton Turner attracted Mars Hill to support Ethiopian pastors, and 40 evangelists are being supported. To be consistent, they would also get a monthly stipend. So perhaps from 2012 to 2014 the total Indian and Ethiopian ministers being supported totaled 73, which at $100 per month amounts to $7,300 per month.
Under this consistency, the total amount spent from 2009 to 2014 would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $350,000. This amounts 0.35% of $10 million.
For us non-accountants, here is the bottom line. Less than 1% of donations went to Ethiopia and India. 1 stinking percent!
Given the “confusing” but otherwise blatant implication that donors are giving to the poor, needy Africans in Ethiopia, it would be a shocking truth to discover that after the preponderance of money spent locally buying U.S. buildings and paying U.S. salaries, the remainder that went to India and Ethiopia was less than 1%.
My advice? Stop giving your money to some of these churches and donate the money directly to groups who actually care about the mission field as opposed to pastors's salaries (estimated to be in the $1 million range), fancy buildings, and ridiculously expensive sound systems. There is much more to this story and I recommend that you follow Rob Smith and Warren Throckmorton to keep abreast of developments.
The 4th of July
Jonathan Merritt penned What many Christian get wrong on July 4th.
He looks at the issue of American exceptionalism.
This July 4th, like every other I remember, I’m going to a birthday party for a nation. But what makes this party unique from others is that the birthday girl—America—thinks she’s the fairest of them all. According to a 2013 Rasmussen poll, 59 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the United States is more exceptional than other nations. Just 27 percent disagree.
He makes a provocative statement.
Exceptionalism is bad theology.
What does he mean?
Many conservative Christians have long held that America has somehow achieved special standing with God. Working on a fundamental belief that obedience to God brings blessings and disobedience brings curses, these thinkers believe we’ve earned God’s blessings through historical obedience. This is rooted in several false beliefs, such as America being founded as a “sacred Christian nation” and the misapplication of Biblical passages addressing Israel to America.
…I love America, and I wouldn’t live anywhere else. But I also recognize the many difficulties in our country that aren’t so exceptional. We maintain a relatively high murder rate for an industrialized nation, and we have a high rate of prisoner execution. Our educational system is failing to compete with other nations, and continues to work against disadvantaged children in poor communities. An ideology that is constantly used as a tool to quiet those who want to deal honestly with our problems is a broken one.
He ends with a call to humility and a reminder of unmerited favor.
Accepting that America is exceptional due to God’s unmerited favor breeds the virtues of gratitude and humility. But a belief that America is the recipient of divine favoritism, on the other hand, breeds arrogance and triumphalism—an arrogance that robs one of any claims to being truly exceptional.
This July 4th, celebrate with gratitude, not with boastful entitlement. Let’s light fireworks, gather our friends and family, throw hot dogs on the grill. And most importantly, let’s bow our heads in humble gratitude to the grace-giver.
Thank you to all who have served our country in the military.
TWW reminds our readers that we support The Wounded Warriors Project. The following is a video of our wounded heroes, set to Carrie Underwood's "I'll Stand By You."
First??
Nuts…second! :-p
I do not mind the beach, especially in winter! I had five weeks of therapy following a broken neck that involved swimming an hour a day five days a week. Also was on a swim team in Jr. High and HS. As a result, I do not go swimming. A hot tub, maybe. A shower, always. A pool or the beach, nah — too much like work.
Most women look better in a dress or slacks and a shirt or sweater. And most men — showing one’s “Milwaukee tumor” does nothing for one’s image.
Thanks for addressing something that I’ve been curious about. As a non-American, I have wondered where the idea that America is “God’s country” came from. And on the idea that America has earned it’s status through good works, what of the comments by some conservatives about the declining state of Christianity in, say, Europe? Even the UK, to be specific? I don’t understand what they’re seeing in us that’s making them come to that conclusion.
Also, happy 4th July American friends! xx
@ Anna:
From time to time the media puts forth a story about declining religious participation, and in “only x% of whoevers attend church with even y frequency.” The cited figures are extremely low in such reports.
@ Anna:
BTW, Americans are also concerned about our own slipping numbers. For example the frequent mention of being a “none” on this blog and the mention of stats showing “none” increasing and such. Actually these reports of here and UK and Europe are pretty common. I personally do not see much popping up about South America or Africa, but there is right much about church growth in China. I have seen in the media articles saying that christianity is dwindling in the West, as a whole, and growing in the East as a whole and discussion of how to stop the loss in the West. Of course, none of us has the faintest idea how to validate this or not. I tend to believe it because it tends to be repeatedly said by various sources. If you have other information please put it out there, because this is discouraging.
I have a prayer request if that’s okay with people. I’ve been struggling this week mentally and emotionally with a lot of past pains and troublesome thoughts (for example fear of making mistakes, negativity, massive self depreciation) and it’s been very powerful and hard to ignore ( even though I feel I could have tried harder at it…). As a result I’ve made a pitiful amount of money this week and really not shown myself to be of particular value in a purely business sense. Fortunately I was very successful last week, including hitting personal-best-in-a-day, so the worst that will happen is people will go “Wtf what happened Anna?!” I’m not so much worried about the money, more about being valuable to the company, but most about I simply want my peace of mind!!! Please pray I will get to the other side of this phase swiftly and safely.
@ Nancy: The 2011 UK consensus said that 59% of brits identify as Christian, even though this is down by 13% from 10 years ago. Still, 59% ain’t bad!
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/blog/2012/dec/11/census-data-released-live-coverage
Anna wrote:
Events like WWII led to a lot of it. We won. And by a wide margin. And in many ways were the “last man standing”. Must be we are special.
(Not my personal beliefs.)
@ NC Now: Europe thinks differently when it comes to who “won” both world wars, as I’m sure you know.
@ Anna:
US industrial base. And soviet factories east of the Urals.
And a few million soviet troops used as human shields for two years.
Plus a few other things that you don’t learn in school when growing up.
@ NC Now: I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I was talking about the “America helped out at the last minute but we did most of the work” perspective that European countries tend to hold. Expand on what you mean?
Eagle wrote:
I’m so sorry to ruin it for you, Eagle!! Here’s hoping you’re having a wonderful 4th of July!
You better check the honesty of the Wounded Warrior Project. I think a good portion of donated funds go to high salaried executives.
Anna
I will pray for you and add the prayer request at the top of our home page. May God give you peace.
@ Bill:
Thank you for saying this. I will do so. I know some people who were helped by the group. But, as I have learned from churches, not everything is what it seems.
@ dee: Thanks dee, much appreciated!
@ Bill:
Here is a report from the Tampa News
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/wounded-warrior-project-spends-58-of-donations-on-veterans-programs/2132493
“Unlike the 50 worst charities the Times and CIR named on its list of America’s worst, Wounded Warrior does not rely heavily on for-profit solicitation companies to raise money. And it does not pay telemarketers to drum up donations.
Last year, the charity raised nearly $150 million.
About $81 million was raised through professional solicitors. Wounded Warrior paid 11 percent of that money to cover its solicitors’ fees and the expense of the solicitor-run campaigns. In comparison, veterans charities on the Times/CIR list paid an average of 82 percent to their solicitors.
Wounded Warrior Project spends most of the money it raises counseling veterans and running sports and educational programs.
Wounded Warrior also gave about $880,000 to nearly 100 veterans in the form of college scholarships and stipends for its year-long Track Program, which helps veterans transition to college and the workplace.
The charity has been criticized for its salaries, with 10 employees earning $150,000 or more. Chief executive Steve Nardizzi, whose total compensation was about $330,000 last year, said salaries are in line with similarly sized organizations.”
$330,000-compared to the megapastors out there! I will do further reading.
@ NC Now: American exceptional I am has been around since the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but I have this sneaking feeling that we would be *far* more temperate about it if we – like many European nations – had endured direct assault and/or invasion by a foreign power.
The very size of the country fosters isolationism and a sense of superiority.
@ Anna:
And you’re right to! The US did NOT “win” the Second World War, though you all (over there) know that we act like we did. Which I find embarrassing, personally.
@ Anna: very much agreed. We didn’t exactly help England during the Blitz, nor did we help hold back the German invasion of France, Belgium, the Netherlands (etc).
I will repeat my remark about mega churches. The only thing truly “mega” about mega churches is not the attendance, since that is only in the thousands, which would be “kilo”, so attendance-wise they are “kilo-churches” (and I like that term!)! “Mega” means million, so the thing about such churches that is “mega” is the compensation paid to the pastor in salary, housing allowance and perks.
An Attorney wrote:
Of course. Because God blesses His Man. 😀
As one whose grandfather, uncle and father-in-law spent blood and the treasure of time during WWII, both in the Pacific and European theatres, I must say this: the US did not ‘win’ the war on its own but–the allies would have certainly lost without US intervention, late though it was.
Numo, The U.S. contributed a majority of the forces that landed at Normandy and chased the Germans back to Germany. And the U.S. contributed the majority of the forces that chased the Germans out of Italy. And the U.S. contributed a majority of the airplanes, tanks, and other war material that supported the British, French, etc. forces in Europe. And then there is the war in the Pacific.
We did not win the war alone, but we made a substantial contribution of men and material to the allied effort in Europe and in the Pacific. It was a team effort. And without the U.S., the war would have lasted a lot longer and perhaps gone a different way.
And prior to the entry into the war, the U.S. was providing a lot of material to the allies in Europe.
The researchers forgot about human curiosity in their study about shocking one’s self.
@ Cousin of Eutychus:
My father in law lost his eye on the beaches of Normandy. He lost a number of his companions on that beach. 407,000 members of the military lost their lives while many others, like my father in law, were seriously wounded. Without the United States, the war may have gone quite differently. I honor all those who fought bravely for this country as well as others. They are my heroes.
@ Patrice:
Funny thing, i once had a bird feeder that would provide a mild, non injurious shock to mammals who attempted to access the seed. It was a never ending source of curiosity for my 3rd grade son and his friends. They would come over to the house and dare one another to touch it. It provided hours of entertainment. I gave up and retired the stupid feeder.
@ Anna:
Anna, You might find this interesting:
http://tinyurl.com/nal6bwb
I have a copy of this book given to all Amer servicemen by the US War Dept who came to or through England during WW2. It is interesting and quite amusing. Here are a few snippets:
‘THE BRITISH ARE TOUGH. Don’t be misled by the British tendency to be soft spoken and polite. If they need to be, they can be plenty tough. The English language didn’t spread across the oceans and over the mountains and jungles and swamps of the world because the people were panty-waists.
Sixty thousand British civilians—men, women and children—have died under bombs, and yet the morale of the British is unbreakable and high. A nation doesn’t come through that, if it doesn’t have plain, common guts. The British are tough, strong people, and good allies.
“BRITISH WOMEN AT WAR. A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves. There is not a single record in the war of any British woman in uniformed service quitting her post or failing in her duty under fire. When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic—remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone in Ipswich.”
As a lover of history I have always been so impressed with the fortitude of the
English people and what they lived through during WW2.
@ An Attorney: As much as I believe that the USA didn’t “win the war for us”, we definitely did most of the work, I also believe we would have lost if America hadn’t gotten involved. Europeans would show a lot more gratitude to Americans if it wasn’t for the overhyped boasting that we hear of.
@ dee:
Patrice must be right about the human curiousity in shocking oneself. My uncle had an electric fence on his farm. Us kids would hold hands and the one near the fence would hold a stalk of some weed to it and we would let the current pass through each of us. Why? I don’t know. Patrice has answered this for me. Human curiousity. Hee Hee.
I have always had a problem with any church or charity that is “secret” about the ways they use their budget. When it is a church that won’t share the details of their budget, my first thought is always, “they are hiding something”.
While the majority of Pastors work in small churches where pay is always on the very low side, too often those few that work on the other extreme are too secretive about their pay. At my church(less than 80 weekly) every single item we spend money on and receive is provided in a line item budget the second sunday of each month. This sort of accountability means that no one can ever pull the wool over peoples eyes.
Sadly, many people will be curmudgeons about pastor salary and it can be an annual battle for too many. The best way I have ever seen to combat this problem and make it a no brainer is tying the pastors salary to the local school district. Meaning, a pastor with an average to smaller church is simply paid what your community pays a teacher with similar experience and education. For larger churches as the Senior Pastor’s role grows, you tie it to administrative school positions(ie principal). You have never heard of a principal making 200k plus, so you never will have that problem. And it is hard for people to argue with it because it is clear, makes sense, and is reasonable in that local community.
Dee, I so appreciate your comments regarding this. It was fascinating to me to grow up around the WWII generation (lost my father-in-law at 90 just a few months ago.
My grandfather, (mother’s side) was career military, joined at age 15 and had been in nearly 30 years when the war started. His stories and view of the ‘enemy’ was much more from a professional respect than my uncle (father’s side) and father-in-law). He was a hard man, having served in both world wars–I only saw him cry twice in my life. Once while talking about the men he served with who died, who he was unable to help. The second, in his 80’s, when he spoke of his salvation story late in life.
My uncle, straight from the ranch to the war at 18, had a much less respectful view of the Japanese (harrowing time on Okinawa), and my father-in-law, also young, grievously wounded in Belgium, had nothing good to say about the Germans until he was in his 80’s. None of them would speak of the war except when pressed, none would speak of any personal heroism, only that they did what they had to do, what anyone else would have done. I miss them.
I served in a military hospital in Germany in the late 70’s; one of our German civilian medical technicians had been part of the Africa Corps during WWII–told me the happiest day of his life was when he was captured by the American army. It was interesting to speak with Germans who cities we bombed–but who related to us without bitterness. Humanity is both mysterious and fascinating. May the day come soon that the swords will be permanently beaten into plowshares!
My comments in general were about the popular myth in the US that we’re the best at everything. Geography has a lot to do with it. We don’t have to rub shoulders much (until recently with air travel and the internet) with other countries. We got to treat Canada as the almost 51st state and Mexico as well “let’s just try and ignore them”. So many in the US have no idea what things are like anywhere else. Or even across town.
As to WWII (and WWI) if you go back and study the time in the US most of the US had absolutely no desire to get into either war. And many felt we (the US) was tricked into getting in to them. The politicians and population in general then came to the opinion that everyone in Europe and Asia got themselves into a mess that “we” had to get into and “fix”. Messy details and facts that get into the way of this get ignored.
But as “As Attorney” said, if the US had not gotten involved Europe might be very different just now. The results likely hinging on how far the Soviets would have gone once they got things together enough to start pushing back against Germany. My comment about using Soviet troops as a shield early was about them throwing people into the front as fast as they could be killed to allow for time to build up a huge war machine east of the Urals. Would the world have had (and maybe still have) a Soviet state up to the German border with Germany extending Soviet style control through out most of the rest of Europe except maybe Spain or the Soviets rolling all the way to the Atlantic then pulling back and letting Western Europe turn into the Balkans? Or something else. But the Soviets were determined to throw back the Germans with our without the help of the US. We just made it easier.
And if the Japanese had done the 3rd strike at Pearl the US might have decided to sue for peace with no fuel and no repair facilities west of San Diego. Which might have led to no US involvement in Europe. And of course many will use this to back up the statement from the post:
Many conservative Christians have long held that America has somehow achieved special standing with God.
and get from it this is why God had the Japanese not put on the 3rd strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Possible_third_wave
Simplistic views of history are rarely correct. Along with “God is on our side” views.
Cousin of Eutychus wrote:
My father was a gunner in B24s over Europe. He got there in late 44 when it wasn’t nearly as bad as for the earlier guys. My mother in law was born in 28 and spent her teens in southern Germany during the war. She married a career US Officer in the Army in the 50s. Anyway it was a strange moment at my wedding rehearsal when my father and soon to be mother in law figured out they both took part in one bombing raid “together”. Him above and she below.
I am married to a woman who is significantly more attractive than I am. And when we were dating I once commented that she looked “hot”. She explained to me that she too often heard that phrase directed to her in an objectifying way and wanted me to not say it. She wanted to hear that I thought she was beautiful, not hot.
I get the idea of men wanting to complement their wives and so they use the word hot. But my wife caused me to think about it more deeply and, fair or not, the word hot has been co-opted by our society to imply something that is less than “pure”.
Another way to think about it is swapping the word hot for beautiful in for other ways you would want to describe your wife; “She has a hot personality” “She has a hot heart” “She has a hot mind” “She looked so hot on our wedding day” “I think she is the most hot when she is taking care of our babies”
It either sounds ridiculous, or, disturbing.
Anna wrote:
That thinking might come from this:
“Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people.
And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, “Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us”? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead. And that is the kind of nation we are.
Colin Powell
US Sec of State
(He is African American, btw.)
Just for clarification. I don’t think we singlehandedly defeated Germany at all. Some folks forget we still had Calvary posts in Texas with real horses when it started in Europe. The Brits took the brunt of the evil of the fighting. They held on with every fiber of their being and by the skin of their teeth when others had been invaded and occupied. We were late in committing actual troops and I hate that about us to this day.
I spent this afternoon with my 95 year old step father who was in the South Pacific and saw horrors. These brave men have just about died out.
I love my country for one main reason: We decided it was best to be a nation of laws. We obey laws developed by consent– not leaders. Our leaders are to be servants of the people who are elected by a majority. We had a lot of growing up to do to get it right. Now that “individual liberty” thinking is more commonplace around the world. Let us keep it so and lend a hand to others who want individual liberty free from invading tyranny. That was the fight against facisim. May we always be allies against tyranny. God Bless.
Dee, I think you’re “smoking witty” with just a dash of bipolarity for seasoning.
*
As for the swimming suit thingy, I’m not exactly out there flexing my paunch,
@ NC Now:
NC Now, what a wonderful (in the most ironic way) story–I think the loss of innocence that results from war is as great a cost as that which is stolen in terms of our physical lives. It is rare that the tip of the spear affects those most enthusiastic about sending our youth to war…
Speaking of pastors hiding income: I suspect more than a few megachurch pastors are diverting what would normally be taxable income into an untaxed parsonage allowance. This was allowed in 1954 by Congress. More recently, a Wisconsin federal judge has struck the allowance down as a violation of the First Amendment as an establishment of religion. The Obama administration is appealing the decision.
So when you hear that a mega pastor with a lot of books to his name is not taking an income, don’t believe it. He’s probably got a very nice parsonage allowance to cover his swank house and furnishing.
Size 2 with DD breasts only exist in plastic surgery land.
And then only with back braces.
Lydia wrote:
Yes the British took a real beating. But most of the loses in Europe in WWII were on the eastern fronts. But that didn’t involve any English speaking nations so we tended to not spend much time on it in history or movies or such. If you look up casualty figures (both sides) for that action they dwarf most of what happened in western Europe.
One analysis of how we, the US, best contributed to the total European war effort was via our bombing. The bombs didn’t do nearly as much to hinder the Germans as many want to think. But we did tie up over 10,000 of German 88mm guns and ammo production for anti-aircraft work that would have had a big effect in the German fight against Soviet tanks. The 88mm German gun could be changed from AA to artillery to anti-tank with little effort compared to most any other weapon of WWII. And it was a very effective weapon in general.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41
Patrice wrote:
“…Torture the data long enough and it will confess to anything…”
~Unknown~
@ mirele:
The parsonage allowance isn’t actually that big…at least in Ohio. You can claim up to 50% of your income as parsonage allowance. I make 29k a year, and so can claim 14ish as untaxable…even though a family of five with a wife who works part time, I don’t really get taxed regardless….And their are upper limits, not sure what it is, but you can’t claim, say, 100k in allowance. Most pastors, like me, have a small income and the parsonage allowance can make a big difference in being able to afford to live on a small salary and serve the local church and community.
Oh, and to add, you have to clearly show your allowance being used for actual living expenses. You can’t just say, ummm, I use 50k a year. You have to have proof of where it is going to justify it, and if you are audited, and don’t have proof that you actually spent “x” on electricity, big trouble.
I know I keep adding to this….but the parsonage allowance doesn’t “remove” salary from the church budget. It is still the pastors salary, it is just how it is viewed by the IRS. Now, if the church has a house the pastor lives in, that is different. But generally speaking, if a church buys a pastor a HUGE house, that is pretty impossible to hide. And, it then belongs to the church forever. And one could argue, it could have been a good long term investment if the church had a large amount of cash they were not going to be using anytime soon vs just leaving it in the bank. Not that I would ever recommend doing that….but one could make a mathematical case for it.
@ Cousin of Eutychus:
My father was on various Liberty ships, in convoy w/others, taking supplies, medicine and materiel to the UK and to Russian Arctic Circle ports during WWII, and got to meet a lot of the people in those countries who were holding the line at home.
He was a very patriotic man, but did impress on us the awareness of who, exactly, had fought the war, both at home and abroad. Needless to say, he thought very highly of the Europeans he met when he was (along w/them) risking his neck.
@ Patrice:
Indeed! I’m also wondering if the subjects were in a room with a nice view, or in a windowless room. Seems like daydreaming is very much aided by a view and natural light…
@ An Attorney:
Well, Canada Day was a few days ago, and I think the Canadians would have something to say about this… Keeping in mind that they were still part of the Empire at that point.
Still, the RCAF was there during the Blitz, and there were people from the US who enlisted in it so that they could fly sorties against Germany.
@ An Attorney:
The thing is, what you’re saying about numbers isn’t in dispute. I agree w/Anna that the attitude of many of us is what’s problematic.
Again, though, we were not dealing w/invasion or constant risk of invasion. In that respect, it was very different for us than for most Europeans, and for most of the folks in East and South Asia, Australia, NZ, etc etc.
@ An Attorney:
Are you referring to the beaches taken during the Normandy invasion, or to the US troops that landed after the invasion. I just double checked – the US and the Bits took two beaches each. Canada secured one. By itself.
@ numo:
Err, Brits, not bits!
@ Adam Borsay:
The housing allowance is limited to the fair rental value of the home, based on its appraisded value, taxes, etc., plus utilities. And it is limited to the amount SET BY THE CHURCH, through that church’s normal way of doing business, but it must be set! And the IRS has a program in place, based on the recent court case and some other initiatives, to specifically look at the housing allowances claimed by pastors and to determine if they are reasonable. There are several thousand currently in audit process in the SW region (inc. TX) alone, because of some recent abuses by the pastors who have been mentioned on this blog and others and elsewhere in the news.
@ numo:
First, they were all under one Allied Command together. And I was referring to the entire invasion force into Normandy and from there across France, Belgium, etc. and into Germany.
Anna, I am so sorry about your struggle! I know what it is like to feel “stuck”, fearful and not measure up. I bet you are hardest on yourself! I applaude your bravery for sharing your struggle and allowing us to share in your burdens. I have suffered from depression since I was a young teen and want to remind you that you will not always feel so bad. While you are stuck in the middle, it feels like it is permenant and relationships feel fragile. However, if you continue to suffer, there are resources that can help you during this hard time. Meanwhile, be kind to yourself and know you are valued for just being yourself. A big XOXO sent your way this weekend from me!
I have to put in a plug for the Russian people. By the time WWII had begun, they had already gone through WWII, Russo-Japanese war, revolution and a civil war. They lost more people than any other country during the war ( and after, due to Stalin’s paranoia). We are very fortunate, due to our geography! The Atlantic and Pacific have been our greatest buffer against a protracted war on our turf! (At least since the Civil War). Happy Fourth and a big thanks to all our soldiers and veterans! Ann
@ An Attorney:
The fact remains that US military took two beaches, the Brits two, and the Canadians one. Yes, they were Allied forces, but it was specific divisions from each country on specific beaches. I was reminded of this due to a Canada Day trivia quiz, which asked for the name of the beach the Canadians took (Juno; the Brits took Sword and Gold, while the US took Omaha and Utah.
I did check, and Canada declared war against the Axis on Sept. 10, 1939. But what I didn’t know is that opinion on it (fighting) was divided.
Muff Potter wrote:
Science that confounds the imagination lol
Dee wrote:
AMEN to that!
Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!
@ Anna:
Keeping you in my prayers! Thanks for having the courage to ask us to pray for you.
@ numo:
Gotta wonder about the guy who shocked himself 190 times, though. Maybe he was conducting his own experiment that, if the researchers had asked, yielded more ummm, conclusive results.
@ Patrice:
Err, yes (that guy).
@ Patrice:
He might have been a heavy smoker. In many cases one effect of smoking was to reduce feeling in extremities. My dad when doing electrical work around the house he would touch a wire to see if it was hot. All he got was a small tingle. I on the other hand would likely need to change my underwear.
@ Adam Borsay:
The parsonage allowance is in general a good law. So is tax exempt for charities, including churches (this can be disputed on theological grounds, but from an economics perspective it makes a great deal of sense). The problem is not with the system; the problem is with the 1% sociopaths who twist any and every advantage to their own gain.
I remember the war, but I was a kid in elementary school. I remember what I was told at the time, but of course I was just a kid. Take this for what it is worth. I did not get it out of a book. It is just what I can remember being told and what I observed.
I have tried to read all the comments, and I do not think anybody brought up about the fact that the war in Europe, or specifically our involvement in the war in Europe what not entirely popular in this country. As far as the war in the Pacific, there was after all Pearl Harbor. And besides which the Japanese do not look like most of us, and almost nobody spoke their language, and besides look what they had done to China, so going after the “yellow devils” was just something that had to be done. So we put the Japanese Americans in camps out West without a thought, apparently. And fought. My mother’s brother was in New Caledonia for a long time in the Pacific Theater. Seebees.
But the war in Europe was different. First off, there was some sympathy for Germany in this country. I do not know how widespread that was. People tended to say it was “not our war.” The idea went around that one of the good things about immigrating to America was to get away from the repeated European wars. Then, of course, the Europeans look like us, and lots of Americans trace their ancestry back to Italy or Germany. A couple tales went around. One was that FDR only got us in the war in order to get us out of the depression. Another was that FDR would have gotten us in the war sooner had there not been so much popular opposition to it. And then it looked like England would go under, and folks who had no very warm feelings for the continent did not want England to go under.
Now, once we got involved we, of course, wanted to be on the winning side and the whole nation threw itself into “winning the war in Europe.” Of course, if you have done something you really did not want to do, and if you have paid a huge price for doing it, then you are going to have a different attitude that if you yourself had been attacked. And you tend to want the people you helped fight “not our war” to be appreciative. In memory of the dead. In appreciation for the greatest generation. Maybe because of residual resentment that we had to get involved in the first place. VE day and all that. And then, of course, we “helped rebuild Europe” after the war at a price. And then we had to deal with the post-war Russians and the cold war and it just kept on and on.
Adam Borsay wrote:
I’m sorry, as one of those First Amendment absolutists, I’m going to tiresomely point out this is an establishment of religion. The Congress in 1954 didn’t even bother with a fig leaf of trying to hide it behind something else; it was granted as a way of stopping godless Communism. No matter, it’s an establishment of religion, is IMHO impermissible and should be stopped. Yesterday.
I’m also of the opinion that churches should have to file the same forms 501(c)3 charities file and open their books in exchange for getting the tax exemption. Now let me tell you where I’m coming from: I have two megachurches within two miles of my house and my town was founded by Mormons and the Mormon church has a huge impact here. I don’t have any insight into any of their finances, yet they get a tax exemption and I pay more in taxes. I do not benefit in any way from the presence of these organizations; I get to pay more. And no, they’re not doing enough charitable work to offset the costs in (at minimum) wear and tear to the roads, the hassle of getting somewhere during the four church services at Mega #1 or the five church services at Mega #2.
I’m NOT saying no tax exemption. I am saying, “let’s see your books.” I’m of the opinion that while we’ll find churches who are doing the right things, we’re also going to find churches funding lavish perks for their pastors, building a shopping mall in Salt Lake or buying up enough of Florida to own three percent of the state out of income originally derived from tithing.
I dislike that there’s this huge black hole of money and nobody seems willing to rock the boat to find out where it’s going and what it’s doing.
Re: OP “Mars Hill Global”
Evil minds think alike department-
Brent Detwiler exposes the scam fundraising methods by Sovereign Grace Ministries, which is rapidly depleting its reserves and liquid assets.
A quote: “the budget for World Missions has been cut from $973,285 in 2012 to $364,553 in 2013 to $173,100 in 2014. That’s a reduction of $800,185 over two years. In other words, SGM is investing next to nothing in World Missions this budget year and yet World Missions is hyped in the fund raising brochure. It’s a scam.”
http://www.brentdetwiler.com/brentdetwilercom/sgm-uses-strategic-global-projects-to-fraudulently-raise-mon.html
more: “If Mark Prater, the Executive Committee, the national Council of Elders, and the Leadership Team were honest they would have made it clear in “Hope Abounding” that SGM is hardly giving any money to World Missions in 2014! Therefore, don’t give to SGM with that misconception in mind! Instead, give to SGM in order to the cover the estimated budget deficit of $308,000 for our practically defunct [9 students] Pastors College”
One way to help veterans, wounded or not, is to call your congressman and urge that the government clean up this mess with VA that is all over the news. Support your local veterans service organization. Hire a vet. Volunteer at a VA hospital. Be sure your church recognizes those who have served. Tell a vet you appreciate his/her service. Speak well of America. Pray for our nation.
@ Nancy:
My great-grandmother was born in Germany, and her son (my grandfather) had to sign papers, before serving, stating that he would be willing to shoot his relatives if necessary.
I find this is really sad. This would be hideously easy for me. Then again I’ve been told repeatedly by multiple people that my brain’s not normal… 😉
The neighbors fooled me this year.
I thought this would be a quieter July 4th than previous years (which sound like World War 3), but that’s because in the past, they started shooting the fireworks off en masse around 7 or 8 PM. This year, many of them waited until 9 PM to get going, and it won’t stop until around 1 or 2 AM.
My cat is enduring the evening – I check on him every 20 minutes or thereabouts. I put down the garage door to help cut down on the noise.
Happy Independence Day to everyone. 🙂
The original post:
Single women get this sort of thing too, in both secular and Christian dating advice on how to attract men or how to get married.
Christians emphasize it a bit more than Non Christians do. They tell single women if you want to get dates or get married you have to be smokin’ hot to attract a man, but at the same time, don’t be smokin’ hot, because that’s immodest, and immodesty is ungodly and it causes men to stumble.
So in Chapter 1 of Christian dating advice books, you’re told to look hot, thin, pretty, wear fashionable clothing, lip stick, have long hair, but by Chapter 2 of Christian dating books, you’re told not to do that stuff, because it’s trampy and sends the wrong message.
Chapter 3 in that book then tells you not to harp too much on your physical beauty because it fades anyhow, God loves you for WHO you are, and Jesus thinks you’re cool as you are.
But then the last sentence of that chapter will say, “But men won’t date you if you don’t maintain your looks.” (Remember, you were just told God thinks you’re fine the way you are so don’t stress over your looks). So you get conflicting messages on that as well.
I haven’t figured out yet how a woman is supposed to be sexy and yet not sexy at the same time, or care about what she looks like, but not care at the same time.
Regarding:
I thought churches doing that was illegal? I thought that if people send in a check specifically for “Ministry X” that the church has to use it for “Ministry X” and nothing else, unless they specify upfront that the funds may go for something else?
I’m sorry if American donors got misled or ripped off by Mars Hill in their donating, but considering Mars Hill (IMO) theology is incorrect and that they have an abusive church culture, I’m glad if that money was not spent to make more Mars Hill church implants in India or where ever.
In a way, I think I’d rather have Mars Hill misuse the funds on buying Mark Driscoll more coffee or space on the NYT best seller list than opening a new church in Ethiopia, as it ultimately spares people in Ethiopia.
@ Nancy:
In my hometown on the Gulf Coast, it was well-known that there were native Germans who took food out to the German U-boats. One of those men lived in my neighborhood until his death. It was just one of those things we knew about but didn’t talk about. There was a rather large German population on my island. And my heritage is mostly German and English.
Back to the original topic of the post. I can’t imagine letting fear of my appearance in a swimsuit keep me out of the water. I have a large 7 inch scar down one knee, 4 inch scar on the other, one on my shin and an a particularly pretty one on my torso. But by golly I’m still going to put on a swimsuit and get in the pool because that is the only place I can move with less pain right now. My knees are in really bad shape (using crutches and wheelchair right now) but being in the water tends to bring a small amount of relief. My husband and I get a lot of stares as he helps me float around the pool and gently exercise my joints. My husband just tells people that my scars are a living reminder of a God who gives strength to the weak.
@ Nancy:
The problem is the Congress. Not enough money has been appropriated for years to deal with the flood of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who need medical services. Not enough money has been directed to ensuring that the records from DOD get to the VA promptly. Not enough money has been appropriated to allow sufficient medical doctors to be hired or to pay outside doctors to handle the cases of the veterans.
If you are going to contact your congressperson, tell them that more money needs to be appropriated to enable the VA to meet the goal of every veteran being seen within two weeks of requesting services. And the DOD needs to be told, by congress, to make it a priority to get medical records from the military branches to the VA within two weeks after discharge from the service.
I love my country. For all her faults she’s still the best thing to ever happen on the world stage. I served her as an Army medic long ago. That was back when we still wore ‘steel pots’, Hueys flew, and the worst thing you got from Rahab’s cathouse was a dose of the clap. Here’s my 4th of July tribute to the American Infantryman where ever he may be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPwrlKUtpwk
@ NC Now:
All I have heard in the media the last few years is how Americans are failing at X, Y, Z, ie, that the Japanese and whomever else are now more educated. I’ve no idea where you are getting the notion from that Americans think they’re the best at everything?
Usually when America enters wars, left wingers get upset and in a tizzy about it. If Americans do enter a war, they get chastized for when they enter it, how they fought it, and/or for how much credit they give themselves for it. Bizarre.
NC Now wrote:
I don’t know. How about Occam’s razor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
I was missionary abroad and at home for about 15 years. One thing drummed into my head by both the organizations I worked for-designated funds went to that for which they were designated! Otherwise, we could expect a visit from the IRS. The church I currently attend is so careful that, if a gift is designated for a fund and/or cause no longer supported, they will contact the sender to see if they a) want the gift to go to a different church-funded cause; or b) want it returned. At some point, the IRS should catch up with Mars Hill, and sooner would be better than later.
@ Adam Borsay:
My ex fiance’ told me all the time how “beautiful” I was, and I did not like i, and I told him I appreciated it, but after many months, I grew tired of it.
I asked him repeatedly to find something else to compliment me on (if he wanted to compliment me), but he never did. I was wanting him to notice my career achievements, something, anything, other than my looks.
Also, when you hear ‘you’re beautiful’ 670 million times from a guy over a several year relationship, it ceases to mean anything.
If anyone would like to research which charities are worth giving to (which use their funds well or are dishonest), there is this site, Charity Navigator, which reviews charities:
http://www.charitynavigator.org
There is a page on their site for a “Wounded Warrior Project.” I don’t know if that’s the same Wounded Warrior charity as mentioned on this blog or not.
The one on Charity Navigator says…
Wounded Warrior Project –
Scores:
Overall (out of 70): 54.39 / 3 out of 4 stars
Financial (out of 70): 48.29 / 2 out of 4 stars
Transparency/ Accountability (out of 70): 66 / 4 out of 4 stars
There is a Wounded Warrior charity that is frequently mentioned on the Bill O’Reilly cable news show, and in TV commercials, with actor Gary Sinise making appeals for them, and he uses his band to raise awareness for them, if I am not mistaken.
LInn wrote:
I have read in the last year or so that the IRS has become very adverse to going after churches for how they operate unless it is a clear violation of tax law. Too much blow back from most all sides.
Daisy wrote:
Many people don’t apply it correctly. From the article you mentioned.
I can agree with this to a limited degree. But a simplistic view of history doesn’t really involve few assumptions. It usually ignores lots of details.
And remember this concept was developed in the 1200s. And yet people today use it to ignore science they don’t understand. Not understanding something that others DO understand is NOT the same as making assumptions.
@ dee:
@ Lydia:
My sibs and I lived in a dairy town for a part of childhood. A farmer put in some of that new-fangled electrical fence and we spent time testing which materials were conductive. This rock? That rock? Grass? Hay? Stick? It had to be “dares” of course, then upped to “I’ll give you this if…” My youngest bro who was most reckless got a lot of our goodies when we got home. lol
@ NC Now:
Hah, that would make sense of what seems bizarre behavior. I wish such info were gathered and placed in footnotes of research writing because even though it’s beyond parameters of the study, it would enrich the material for further studies.
The scientific method is amazing but it can cause trouble when it’s all one knows. These scientists need a few lessons in creativity methinks.
Lydia wrote:
Oh this was fantastic! There are many ways in which us Brits do rock…it’s nice to be reminded sometimes. When I feel a bit feeble in the face of something I do remind myself of stuff like Dunkirk & straighten my back.
I think the exasperation with some American statements regarding the war comes out of some ridiculous representations of major wartime accomplishments from Hollywood – U-571 anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film) It even got mentioned by our then PM. Embarrassing stuff.
Adam Borsay wrote:
“Hot” came from broader society and has always meant super sexy. These guys simply co-opted it. To say such to an audience is to invite them to focus on wives’ sexuality with desire.
In much of broader society, it is considered distasteful because it takes something private and lays it out for all. People will wonder how much the spouse is loved when they hear someone break privacy to brag about one aspect.
I’m glad you heard your wife!
Beakerj wrote:
Cuts both ways.
The British movie “Breaking the Sound Barrier” was released before the secret that Chuck Yeager had done it was made public. Yeager said for years that people would ask him if he learned how to fly faster than the speed of sound from the British. 🙂
Patrice wrote:
Social scientists (a term which some in the “hard” sciences really don’t like) are notorious for not getting their controls nailed down.
I took advantage of my paid up dues to the AAAS and read the full alone with your thoughts article that is titled: “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind”. My hunch was that there would be an age effect, thinking that the young denizens in the always connected digital world would be less tolerant of quiet than us old fogies. But from the full article: “There was no evidence that enjoyment of the thinking period was related to participants’ age, education, income, or the frequency with which they used smart phones or social media.” So I’m clueless about what this means and welcome any comments.
However, both spiritual reflection and serious thought require solitude but perhaps very few are willing to listen for the “still small voice” 1 Kings 19:12 KJV.
Thanks to Dee for including this in Friday’s topics post.
@ NC Now:
Yeah, you’re right. ISTM the social sciences have long been jealous of the clean methodology of the hard sciences and have wasted much effort in sloppy attempts to use it in their own fields. The scientific method is magnificent but has limits. I suspect that if social scientists felt more secure about their own primary info-gathering methods (which because of the nature of their material creates less clear results), they’d use the scientific method more effectively when the material warrants. Do you see them moving that way, a bit?
I notice this particularly with economists who contort their field with complex mathematical constructs that they then plunk on top of the economy as “the way it is”. The softer information is considered irrelevant to the detriment of all.
We all mess up, we even mess up our learning methods, goofy creatures that we are.
Patrice wrote:
Creativity is an essential part of the sciences, but it is just the beginning. After a creative insight there is the demanding job of accumulating evidence supporting it, if any and relating it to relevant theory. To an outsider this followup activity appears to consume the most time.
I missed the blog and just now found it….
A lot of men too don’t like wearing swimsuits. As a formerly fat guy, I hated swimming. Even today, weighing less than what I did even in high school, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a pool, river, lake or sea without a shirt on.
One, psychologically, I still see myself as a fat guy, two, don’t nobody want to see me without a shirt, and three, I don’t want to be shot in some sort of confusion by someone thinking I’m either a bear, Bigfoot, or God forbid melt the minds of the YEC crowd that the missing link actually exsists….
I was a social scientist whose research focused on research methods and how they affected the conclusions in several fields of study, taught research methods and ethics, along with research planning (how to get data you can really analyze with some degree of statistical power). The biggest issue is that scientists do not work hard enough to identify their otherwise unspoken assumptions and preconceptions so as to be able to design the research to control and/or test for those assumptions and preconceptions. Much of the social science literature from the 1950s-1980s needs to be more studied to ensure that our conclusions are not predetermined by our assumptions and faulty methods/bad statistical analysis. Perhaps some of what we “know” may be in part what we assumed.
@ Arce:
BTW, a lot of our theology and preaching appears to suffer from what we presume regarding God and the scriptures, rather than what may actually be true.
To me, it is a matter of intellectual honesty to apply a skepticism to one’s own pet theory (or theology) that is, at the least, as rigorous as that which one applies to those other theories (or theologies!). But what we find in much of the scientific literature, of all types, are biases in the design of research (and exegesis) that tends toward making it more likely that our pet ideas will be supported and the ideas that are not our own will be “disproved”!
Arce wrote:
Left something out:
But what we find in much of the scientific (and theological/preaching) literature, of all types, are biases in the design of research (and exegesis) that tends toward making it more likely that our pet ideas will be supported and the ideas that are not our own will be “disproved”!
Apropos some of the discussion above, a favorite commentator has a new column about Bible knowledge and slanted Bible web sites:
http://baptiststoday.org/bible-odyssey-digital-adventure-awaits/
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Yep. What he said. And as Adam pointed out, the parsonage can mean being able to take a church that can’t pay as much so you can serve in a lower-income or rural community. I’m grateful for my parsonage, to say the least.
Cousin of Eutychus wrote:
Most credible historians of the 20th Century would agree with that summary. I am working on a masters in history with that focus and certainly agree.
K.D. wrote:
My concern is that if I am laying on a beach some well-meaning kids will mistake me for a beached whale and try to drag me into the water
NC Now wrote:
Not quite both ways (but I take your point), the truth about who cracked Enigma & the real fate of this sub have never been a secret.
Arce wrote:
You and I are singing out of the same hymnbook.
Regarding missions funds, I have observed that nowadays missions usually is code word for financing and building more churches and expanding the brand of the church. Never ever assume that missions involves feeding hungry people or such nonsense as “caring for orphans and widows.”
oldJohnJ wrote:
Yes, but doesn’t creativity also re-appear at the end, after the long effort? In “what might be contributing that we hadn’t considered at the beginning?”
FWIW, it helps humans to have something like a paper/pencil, a pretty view, or a few physical objects to manipulate (such as blocks). These help focus, slow the mind down, and also are places to send the excess energy that can then allow one to mentally wander.
Also thinking when not relaxed is distressed thinking, and humans can tolerate anxious thought for only so long at a time. We are very distressed people these days. And perhaps a shock gives the distress physical form—it is a great analogy to such feelings. Having had that one shock before hand might pique curiosity rather than satisfy it.
I don’t know, really, I’m merely an outsider spouting, yah. But one tentative conclusion might be that both participants and researchers display underlying problems with creativity.
I do know that we don’t value creativity as a common life activity, we have long left off teaching it, and we’re primarily consumers (of art and sport and thought and) not doers, except when professionals. Because of these lacks, regular individual’s explorations will often be self-censored. We have no ways to organize the chaos of our minds, much less turn it to usefulness, and so we turn to physical distractions for structure or for dismissal.
Nancy wrote:
I’m trying to embed the phrase “Barking up the same hymnsheet”.
@ NC Now:
As a matter of fact, a crucial technological innovation that enabled stable supersonic flight was made by the Brits.
oldJohnJ wrote:
By way of illustration, Einstein was one of the most brilliantly creative minds of the 20th century.
Everybody knew that gravity and acceleration kind of feel the same. It was Einstein who asked the too-obvious-to-be-meaningful question: what if they are the same?
And you’re right, OldJohnJ, in that there was still a lot of mathematics to do after that insight!
Arce wrote:
Arce, would you say that it is made more difficult in the social sciences because we are studying ourselves, our own systems? I see that setting aside biases/preconceptions is a big job in the hard sciences but it might be a breeze compared to teasing them out in social sciences.
So rather than looking at the social sciences with contempt as I’ve seen so many people do, we could see them with equal respect, attempting a similar but more elusive task.
@ Patrice:
I am unclear, sorry. I am talking here of the creativity of these specific researchers, not all researchers. But I do mean to draw from this situation (and others like it I’ve run across) to the general problems we seem to have with creativity.
And to also say that most of our thought is neither creative nor scientific nor logical nor emotional expression, but just raw energy that can be made useful, and is sometimes destructive just left running.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Seriously Nick I hope you are keeping a record of this. Put into book form this sort of thing sells really well at the local Barnes and Noble. Or, flip calendar form, with a little saying for each day, if you have that many. You are good enough at this that this might be an idea. Just saying.
Beakerj wrote:
My point was that movies tend to count more than historical facts in many situations. John Thompson, (elder), commented on the movie “Glory Road” something like “It is an entertaining movie but not some much history”.
Movies are almost always made with a goal of making buckets of money. If that can be done with facts, great. If not, well tell a good story and get “cheeks in seats”.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
And going back even further, Sir Isaac Newton had to invent calculus to adequately deal with his physical insight.
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Yes. But it didn’t involve reversing the controls when you got to the sound barrier. 🙂
Brits also came up with the angled flight decks and armored flight decks on air craft carriers. Then the US ran with it. Simultaneous take off and landing ops is a really big deal. 🙂
@ Nick Bulbeck:
Nick, three of my four grandparents’ birth names are old English trade workers names ending in -er, as in Baker, for example, suggesting where my roots lie. I think much of the accomplishments of the citizenry of the U.S. has roots in our common sense English backgrounds. BTW, the fourth was likely Scot, and my spouse has similar roots.
@ An Attorney:
So the U.S. and G.B. need not be involved in picky one-ups-man-ship! 😉
Daisy wrote:
Me neither, but I have figured out that women can quit reading the books that say that.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Patrice wrote:
One of if not the biggest problem in the social area is how do you get a group of people with all the same biases so that you can control all the variables. It’s not like with mice where you can raise up a few 100 from birth and treat them all identically till you run the experiments.
Here’s an interesting story along these lines about judicial biases.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/28/316552657/research-children-of-judges-may-influence-court-decisions
@ An Attorney:
Nick:
On the other hand, one of my great-grandmothers dropped off the trail (trial) of tears and married a Mr. Baker to produce my grandmother, which is a strain of ancestry not as common on your side of the pond.
Not sure if this has been posted, but if not… Mike Anderson from Mars a Hill leadership on why he left: http://mikeyanderson.com/hello-name-mike-im-recovering-true-believer
@ NC Now:
Thanks for link. Makes sense, knowing myself, too. Hard to know how to manage/determine that in studies.
I read a couple of Frans De Waal’s books. That we also put ideas of our complete separateness onto animals.
And, as you say, living creatures, unless born/raised/kept inside same place, have so many variables. Seems too much for trad scientific methodology in many areas. How does social science accommodate that?
An Attorney wrote:
On the other hand, a little competition…..!
@ Nancy:
+1, Nancy!
@ Beakerj:
I look at it from another view. Both sides brought strengths the other did not have whether that was in the area of resources, knowledge or training.
If we read of the inventions just to invade France it is incredible ingenuity from the beach landing crafts (American) to the mulberrys (temporary portable harbors invented by the Brits). Brits even invented a piece real fast to break through hedgerows with tanks because no one took into consideration the barrier hedgerows would present!
I see the War as a huge team effort and am amazed it all came off with such egos as Montgomery and Patton in the mix! Even down to the faked staging areas in Southern England as a ruse to the Germans. The Brit brains went to work on radar and encryption and Scientists from all over Europe went to Los Alamos.
Another strength rarely mentioned is that among American GI’s included many farm types who already knew how to shoot straight and fix stuff as it was part of their every day lives. If the trucks broke down they jumped out and fixed them rigging them up as they would do with the tractor or car at home. Most young American men in that era had some experience tinkering with such things. Not something so commonplace to the average Brit or European young man. Small things that can make a huge difference in the thick of things.
The average every day Brit had more “war” experience than the average American would ever encounter in their entire life. While my grandparents had to ration such things as bobby pins, butter and rubber many London moms had to send their children away to safety and spend many a night in a bomb shelter eating turnips from her tiny victory garden night after night.
It became a huge team effort that we can study today and be very proud of as Allies.
I think it is a big mistake to discuss who won the war because it keeps us from seeing a much richer picture of average people rising to the occassion, overcoming great odds and refusing defeat.
One day I thought to myself…What do I personally get out of looking good at the beach or not looking good at the beach? Hmmmm…I couldn’t think of anything. I believe that I embarrass my husband when we are there with better looking friends and especially our friends who (the wives) won’t get their hair, makeup and implants wet or put their polished toes in the sand. So my husband gets embarrassed when I’m the only female looking like a bedraggled little bit pudgy 8 year old dog chasing frisbees, splashing in the water and whatnot. I have no fun staying covered up and attempting to look as good as I can without surgery or excessive dieting. I choose me, selfishly me because I have way more fun remembering the fun I had at the beach than remembering some of my years where I actually looked good just sitting at the beach. Everything else is just stinking miserable pride for me. Now, if looking good at the beach IS actually fun for you and kind of your hobby I’m not going to judge that either, and I figure if I was the hottest on the beach, my husband would still notice you and I’d be back to square one misery.
Patrice wrote:
Well said, Patrice. I have often wonder about this with children. I have seen way too many kids today not “try” something because they say they “are not good at it”. As if you have to be to naturally good at it, first.
Whereas years ago, kids would try different things simply to “experience” it whether good at it or not from the get go. It was the exploration/experience that was important to them. They are not exploring many differnt things as was once a rite of passage in childhood. Could this be stunting brain formation and creativity in some ways? I wonder….
Brits and people on the Continent farm, have tractors, etc. too. The UK is very much a farming country, as are France, Belgium, and many others.
Assuming that Britons couldn’t have done what American farm boys could do just doesn’t make sense, for that reason and also because many urban factory workers would also have known how to repair trucks and the like.
Patrice wrote:
I suspect you did not mean this, but some minds are apparently more chaotic than other minds, and there are meds for some of this. But staying away from anything diagnosable, there is a big industry out there about meditation, and weekend retreats at monasteries, and yoga and breathing techniques, and “mind focus” in some martial arts, and contemplative prayer, and on and on.
Patrice wrote:
By and large this is true and also a vast contradiction. True, because if it can’t be quantified, packaged and sold with some acceptable metric, then it’s not worth pursuing. Most of the ‘lemmings’ are keenly aware of this and seek solace in their ‘smart devices’, texting frantically to get over the next hump. But there are those in the creativity bizz itself who have managed to generate mountains of moolah by bringing order to the very chaos you’ve described. We need only reflect on the weekend receipts at the cineplex with each new installment of X-Men to verify it.
@ Muff Potter: I see what you’re saying, yet very much agree with Patrice re. teaching both creativity and critical thinking skills. I believe the two go hand in hand, but the relentless focus on standardized tests and the like have pretty much ground them into the dust. Kids really suffer when no it given these outlets, and more so when creative disciplines and thinking are seen as unimportant compared to high test scores
The result: all kids are left behind – maybe “abandoned” is a better word for it.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
As your resident First Amendment absolutist, it is bad law in that it violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause. I’ll just note that the Federal government, in an attempt to try and deep six the original lawsuit, tried to get the plaintiff Freedom From Religion Foundation to accept the parsonage allowance tax exemption, even though FFRF is most certainly NOT a religious group. To its credit, FFRF said no to the tax exemption.
I can just about guarantee you that if it became generally known that the tax exemption for the parsonage allowance was funding atheists, Muslim imams, Buddhists priests and Wiccan priestesses, members of the dominant religion would become unglued. Plus, I live in a part of the country where one of the dominant sects has a lay clergy. So far as I know, men who serve as bishops in the Mormon church aren’t allowed to claim the parsonage tax exemption, so in that sense it’s discriminatory as well.
The parsonage allowance tax exemption was allowed for a non-secular reason and should be dumped as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. *smile* Now, for those people who think that Obama is the Anti-Christ, why is his Justice Department bound and determined to preserve this exemption? You’d think the Obama Administration would leap all over the chance to get rid of it if it were so godless. (Hint: it’s not.)
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Blaise Pascal.
The other day, on Facebook, I read an article titled “10 Things I Want To Tell Teen-Age Girls,” by Kate Connor. The final sentence was: “You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are enough.”
Dee, in your post, you wrote: “Tell a woman that she is wearing a pretty bathing suit. In fact, tell her she looks beautiful.”
FWIW, following are my comments on the article on FB I think it applies to all women, regardless of age (and all men, too, for that matter):
“Why must every teenage girl or young woman be told that they are beautiful, when it is obvious that this is not true? (I’m talking about physical beauty now, though not every girl/young woman possesses inner beauty either.) For one thing, it exaggerates the importance of beauty. The underlying message is that if you are not beautiful, you are deficient; therefore, everyone must be called beautiful. Also, the word loses distinctive meaning if it applies to everyone. (Similar to when we say that someone is ’90 years young.’ God forbid that anyone should be spoken of as old.)
Yes, I know about the ‘eye of the beholder’ thing, but I think all of us – in our culture, at least – have similar ideas of what constitutes beauty, or at least attractiveness. Though there might be some who find Margaret Hamilton (Miss Gulch/Witch in Wizard Of Oz) beautiful, I think it’s fair to say that they most likely constitute a very small minority.
You can be ‘valuable’ and ‘enough’ without being beautiful.”
JeffB wrote:
Funny you should mention that, JeffB, as I was just thinking about this this morning as I looked in the mirror and felt absolutely ugly because my hair has been falling out for years and it’s to the point that I had to buy a wig.
When I was a teenager, I told my mother I thought I was ugly. She confirmed that by saying that it was important what was inside. 🙁 That wasn’t what I needed to hear. I replied (in tears) “oh who wants to invite an ugly girl to the prom just to get to know her insides?”
With a little wisdom, had she replied something like, “You are beautiful to me!” “When I look at you, I see beauty,” I would have been able to walk away with a little more self-confidence than I did.
I’m not ugly, btw. I just feel ugly so what’s the harm in a little compliment to bolster one’s spirit? I know the world says beauty is all important. That’s why it hurts so awfully when beautiful girls/women are everywhere you look and you are just plain ugly. Or at least you think you are… 🙁 Oh, but just a little compliment here and there and/or a word of encouragement goes a long, long way.
Just my thoughts… I try to compliment someone on something every single day about something. Surely it’s not too hard to see good things about a person we come in contact with is it?
@ Victorious: I very much agree – young people are in need of real support, especially given all the superficial and downright phony images of “beauty” that are so pervasive.
@ Victorious:
Oh, absolutely. How does it hurt to build somebody up however it can be done? There is always something to find to compliment about a child or teenager’s appearance.
@ JeffB:
You know, I’m kind of there just a bit with you and that’s why I have learned to feel as I do about being comfortable at the beach. Who says only the beautiful people get to be there. If doesn’t matter whether everyone finds you attractive or not. It just doesn’t matter. We have to get over our obsession of wanting everyone to pay attention to us. Oh how I regret the wasted time I spent worrying so much about my looks.
@ Patti:
Oh, I agree with not obsessing. And especially now that I’m 71 yrs. old, divorced with no desire to remarry, have two healthy adult children, and lots of family and friends. But when you’re in your teens and hoping to look attractive to the opposite sex, the very least we can hope for is that we don’t think we’re ugly. All it takes is for someone to say, “You’re not ugly!!!”
Perhaps it could be compared to the desire of young men to excel in sports, or have muscles, or have a macho beard, or something they think will make them attractive to girls. It’s normal in my opinion.
That Jessica Turner post is phenomenal! Thanks for sharing it!!
@ Nancy:
Yes indeed, for those whose chaos is intractable, there are medications. But I think that quite often the chaos isn’t as intractable as we might believe, and can be altered/modified through meditation, etc, at least after the crises are over.
And I’m fairly certain that if we all regularly practiced an art, if it was woven though our days, there would be fewer among us who would need meditation (not as a discipline for those with that passion but as a device for management) and fewer who would need medication.
@ Muff Potter:
Yes, but I think that over-emphasis on the quantifiable is directly due to our devaluing process-over-product creativity. It ends up being a devaluation of all process: of learning, of maturation, of thinking, of imagining. Even our ideas of beauty are narrowed to a particular look at a particular time in young adulthood, and there we think everyone should stay. Actually, beauty is wide and broad, spanning ages and types but we don’t know that when we don’t work art into our daily lives.
And when we rely on art professionals, we do not receive the best of art, which is the process, but someone else’s product which we vicariously consume. Consumption of art is wonderful, too, but it is best done in addition to our own making, not in replacement. IMO.
I can’t put the cartoon on but if you click on the link you’ll see how men and women perceive themselves to be in the mirror. Pastor Driscoll probably thinks he looks like Arnie but he reminds me more of Hoss Cartwright of Bonanza! http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/men-women-perceived-body-image/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0088779/?ref_=tt_ov_st
K.D. wrote:
Well, we’re only an hour from Edinburgh, so you must drop in for tea. And you must avoid calling autumn “Fall” over here. I guess it would be a bit like me visiting the states and referring to the letter zed made of al-yer-MIN-yum.
If you enjoy nature, you must see the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. Entry is free. And the village of South Queensferry affords a fantastic view of the Forth Rail Bridge – one of the great masterpieces of 19th-century engineering, and still in full-time service today. And, I have to say, an extraordinarily beautiful structure. TBH, if you’re visiting Edinburgh and see only one thing, it has to be the Forth Bridge. (There is, incidentally, no Fifth Bridge.) The fact that it’s 124 years old simply beggars belief when you see it!
If you’re up for travelling a little further afield, then the Highlands of Scotland are famously beautiful – albeit with notoriously fickle weather. Giz a shout nearer the time if you’d like some pointers there…
Isn’t is called the Forth Bridge because it spans the Firth of Forth or something like that? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Forth+Bridge/@56.000649,-3.388439,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xe15e532beaaea823?hl=en
william wallace wrote:
Yes he does!
The cartoon about how men and women perceive themselves is hilarious! Thanks for the laugh!
@ Nick Bulbeck: I’m a fan of writer Alexander McCall Smith, and no visit to Edinburgh would be complete without at least a cursory look-in on many of the places he mentions, very much including the National Gallery of Scotland.
@ william wallace:
Loved the link to perceived body images! I had forgotten how young Dan Blocker was when he died.
@ numo:
Ah…the many varied perspectives….having once upon a time played pipes in a pipe band, if I found myself in Edinburgh, I would have a strong desire to see the Edinburgh Tattoo – which, as it happens, runs August 1-13 this year, which means it probably too early ofr K. D. and family to see.
@ Jeannette Altes: me, too! (Going to the Tattoo,not being in a pipes band.) I lived for a while in a town that had an annual pipes camp. You could hear the practice sessions from over a mile away… And back then, nobody wore hearing protection.
I think Highland pipes are very cool, but for actual listening, give me Northumbrian smallpipes. You get the sound without the fury, though the Great Music doesn’t work so well on them…
Adam Borsay wrote:
Of course. There is almost no chance whatsoever that the salaries of Mars Hill pastors aren’t extraordinarily high. Otherwise, they’d be happy to divulge them. But they can’t because if they were ever to be transparent, it’d be over for them (not that it isn’t already), as probably half the flock of hipsters attending (probably making an average of $25,000 – $40,000 a year) would be out the door immediately if they discovered Driscoll was making 20 to 50 times more in annual salary than they are. The few that remained, the hard core idolaters, would not be sufficient to sustain the system and allow MH to service its debt, they’d quickly cease to exist, if only for financial reasons.
@ numo:
I hear what you’re saying. Northumbrian are less….um…forceful. The man who was my pipe instructor (and leader of the pipe band) is from Glasgow and has player pipes nearly all his life. He is quite a character. He was scandalized that I was interested in learning the Irish – or Ullian (sp?) – pipes. They are much more versatile and controllable and make a more playable solo instrument.
mirele wrote:
The problem with being a First Amendment absolutist is the First Amendment’s a moving target; this is certainly true of the Establishment Clause. What is considered pure and unadulterated Establishment Clause doctrine today would’ve been considered oddly anti-religious and way beyond the mandate of the Constitution just a generation or so ago. All the clause says is that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”; doesn’t say a word about the states, doesn’t say a word about government support of religion. The prima facie meaning of that phrase would seem to me to be: Congress can’t establish an official U.S. religion. Outside of that, I don’t think it’s accurate to read any more into it. There were even a handful of states that continued with official state religions after the ratification of the Constitution, Connecticut well into the 19th century.
That said, I’m probably philosophically on the same page as you, Mirele, state entanglement with religion is not something I particularly appreciate, I believe churches should be subject to the same rules as any other not-for-profit, I lament Senator Grassley’s dropping of his crusade against some of those whom I consider thieves hiding behind pulpits, such as Kenneth Copeland. I despise these mega (and mini) churches that play the system and load their pastors up with tax free perks. I was pretty much persona non grata at a neocalvinist church some years ago when I pointed out to them that, based on my expertise and understanding of what they were doing tax wise, they were in violation of the law. I’m even working on an article on this subject now that I hope to get into a tax journal within the year.
But when I talk about my views stated above on church and state to students, I don’t bring the First Amendment into it, because frankly the Establishment Clause as written and understood for well over a century would’ve supported all sorts of things considered way too far into excessive entanglement today.
@ Victorious:
Glad you like it V.
@ Deb:
He seemed old when I was a kid but now that I’m old he seems young!
@ Jeannette Altes:
I’m fine w/any number of the different “less forceful” pipes, because Highland pipes do *not* work for indoor playing.
As for the Edinburgh Tattoo, I’d need to be wearing earplugs of some kind. 😉
@ numo:
Oh, Great Pipes are definitely not an indoor instrument! 🙂
Here is a sample of Uilleann Pipes (Irish Pipes)…..enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq3m_R3Lnu4
@ Patrice & numo,
Much to agree on here. I think it’s awful that art programs for kids get cut & cut while salaries for high level school district administrators go up & up. My daughter in law and her group fought against their lack of accountability where she lives with my son in AZ. They won. The power of mothers is formidable, especially when they’re in the right.
Nancy wrote:
I am commenting on what you said here not knowing if you are stating what you observed or what you believe yourself so please don’t take this as an attack directed at you. it isn’t a response to you at all, its just that when I read this I could totally see MD attitude towards those poor sinners in his church. it seems like pastors take the same view of abused people. we didn’t want to deal with it, it didn’t bother us that they were being abused in our church. when we finally had to deal with it we all got behind winning and then we expected recognition for all we had done. it cost us a lot.
again- not thinking about the war or your views, but just the similarity to the attitudes of people with power in churches.
another thought actually about WWII and American exceptionalism is the Jewish part we love to take credit for. We saved the jews from extermination by hitler. having spoken to survivors from Poland and read a lot of personal stories of immigrants that were displaced by WWII, we tend to take credit where I don’t think we see it in truth. the people that escaped often had to wait years to get to America because we had such small immigration ratios for citizens in the occupied countries. the Jews were being exterminated and imprisioned from the time Hitler came to power and they asked America for help but we turned a blind eye. for years. I remember watching interviews with soldiers that liberated concentration camps and their disbelief that this could have been happening for so long and no one did anything about it, a lot of the soldiers had no idea what the camps were for until they were liberated. the people in the other countries however said that their leaders and people that escaped had been telling the US for many years that it was going on. I don’t think we ever would have gotten into the war except for the pearl harbor attack. I think humility is when we look at ourselves honestly, not too highly or too lowly. I think from the men I met that served in WWII that they were indeed the most honorable generation we have ever had. I think that the British were very honorable and went through something we can’t understand because we haven’t had to go to bomb shelters when bombs explode on our houses daily. the French resistance and the underground in many of the effected countries produced some of the most brave and selfless Christians of our generation. The men and women that served during that war deserve honor, the families that supported the war effort were heroic and honorable. I have friends who lived in Japanese internment camps and they are honorable people that lived through something I hope no one in America has to go through again. God bless America with humility and compassion and the ability to say, I am an unworthy servant I only did what was my duty to do, like Jesus instructed us to.
When it comes to organizations who do great things for wounded soldiers, I’m aware of one whose name I don’t even know well enough to say it — but I do know that the people who manage it use a very small amount of donated $$ for organizational expenses, and also use much of their own time, their own personal properties and resources, often bringing those who’ve been wounded to their own farm for week-end activities. Given the choice, I’d rather donate to that kind of organization than one who normalizes $300,000 salaries by saying that they’re in line with what similar organizations do. And I don’t begrudge anyone making $300,000 for honest work of any kind, assuming they’re paid from honest profits. Beware when giving to any ‘charity’ — after being guilted into giving to the SGM ‘Missions’ Fund for several years, I’m much more interested in the nuts and bolts of where the dollars and cents go! So check them out. One group apparently has the right to use the term ‘wounded warrior’, but there are others out there who provide wonderful opportunities for veterans who’ve been injured. Thanks.
@ sam h:
Help yourself to anything I say as a springboard for comment. I often do that and then offend somebody, but that is nevertheless what conversation often entails.
But as to my comments, I was stating what I saw then as attitude (for good or ill) and what I think continues to be attitude of a large segment of our population. Remember that since then there has been Korea and then VietNam, when the majority of this nation thought “this is not our war.” And remember that I for a significant amount of time worked for VA plowing through thousands and thousands of medical records of our people harmed/injured (physically and mentally) and disrupted by mostly VietNam that was “not our war.” So, yes, my current attitude is partly affected by a childhood raised during a war that a child only partly understands, and the years I spent fact down as it were in the residuals of our subsequent wars. My personal attitude is that this nation has far too many entanglements that lead to war, and far too many wars and far too much failure of the government to deal with the broken and damaged among our people who pay the price. But, yes, sometimes there is no option but to go to war. That necessity is far less frequent, is seems to me, than the frequency with which we do it. And no, I am not a solitary voice from the wilderness, as we all know.
And for a religious comment, since I have outed myself as somebody who listens to scripture, based on what Jesus said about how things go in the world, I do not think this is apt to stop any ways soon, wars and rumors of wars being what they are.
BTW, love your comments, Sam.
Law Prof:
‘Of course. There is almost no chance whatsoever that the salaries of Mars Hill pastors aren’t extraordinarily high. Otherwise, they’d be happy to divulge them.’
I am sure this is true. In UK churches there is the requirement to make available the audited budget and this reduces the likelihood of pastors gaining power and awarding themselves (effectively) large salaries. The problem with the very large salary combined with executive power is that it distorts decision making. MD could become trapped by his own job, in which if he resigned he wouldn’t be able to find a job that matches his lifestyle, including that expected by his family. So even if he wanted to move on, there is a huge incentive to stay put and build the ‘business’ around his needs. This is the corrupting aspect of awarding yourself a large amount of money.
Nancy wrote:
Let me enlarge on that statement. It does not sound quite right. It is quite possible to hold the opinion that “well, it had to be, but dang it anyhow, why do we have to fight all the time?” These two attitudes do not conflict with each other. The way I originally stated it could be read as an either/or statement, and I did not mean to convey that. Nor am I saying that isolationism is a prevalent attitude as I see it; I know little about that except the vocabulary word, so to speak.
@ william wallace:
Interesting study about weight perception, though it does cut both ways – people don’t know where the lines are on either the overweight end of the scale, or the underweight end. They also don’t know that it’s unhealthy to be underweight. I know one lady who is 10ish lbs. clinically underweight (which is extra bad for her because she’s middle-aged and being underweight will affect her bone mass) and thinks she is at a healthy weight – and this after she gained back about 5-6 lbs. I also know another woman who reached the comfortable upper end of their clinically healthy weight range, but then deliberately drove herself to the lowest possible healthy number, not because she needed to to be healthy, but just to lose more weight. Of course if she gets really sick at that weight and loses any, she’ll be underweight which will make everything worse.
Personally, I know exactly where my healthy weight is and that I need to exercise more to get there…which is, you know, why I sit on my computer and comment here. Maybe it’s time to lay off the blogger Cheetos. 😉
Law Prof:
‘Of course. There is almost no chance whatsoever that the salaries of Mars Hill pastors aren’t extraordinarily high. Otherwise, they’d be happy to divulge them.’
Another issue I think is that the money issues (inappropriate use of money; inappropriate marketing for charity income) have coincided with Sutton Turner’s arrival on the scene. Possibly he has brought unreformed business practices into Mars Hill, in which it is ok to do something dodgy if it is legal and the end ‘justifies the means.’ If so, in all honesty one might expect other issues to be lurking there which we don’t know about. Whatever the situation, I think Mars Hill will only regain trust by publishing their accounts. Not to do so is damaging the ‘brand’ considerably.
An Attorney wrote:
Indeed, yes. I said that by way of a joke… there are many more bridges spanning the River Forth further inland.
numo wrote:
Agreed. And I always think of Indigenous peoples when I read these types of discussions, they seem forgotten.
@ Nancy:
Nancy,
The second war on Iraq was totally without any factual basis or need, but the justification was cooked up with lies. It distracted the U.S. from the somewhat justifiable war in Afghanistan, prolonging that conflict and our ability to resolve it. Both places are likely to be the hell on earth that religious extremism can create for years, decades, or perhaps centuries to come, in part because of the misadventures of western political leaders including the president of the U.S. that was appointed by our Supreme Court, as well as the world powers after the war that started a century ago this year.
And we still have to face the fact that, while our political leaders in Congress talk a good line about our veterans, the cause of the problems at the VA is the failure of Congress to provide sufficient financial resources to pay for the necessary medical staff to be able to properly care for the vets in any reasonable time period.
An Attorney wrote:
True. But I was working in the adjudication division (decision making based on medical records kind of function) of the local regional office, not on the clinical side. Immersed in the paper work. And that part of VA is also not functioning anywhere at a level to meet veteran’s needs. It is not just the hospitals, not by a long shot.
So let me clear this up. When the feds radically changed the medicare reimbursement for hospitals at a specific time in the past, our county hospital was one of the ones for whom that was lethal, and to survive financially I had to move on. My options were: go work for a VA hospital, go take up on the bottom rung of some radiology group if I could get that done, or go work for the VA regional office. This was after 35 years in clinical medicine first as a nurse and then as a doctor. I was too old and too tired and too burned out to basically care any more, and I grabbed the opportunity to get out of the clinical side of medicine and take something that was 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, with no nights and no call and no lawyers just hoping to sue me if they could. Job title: “medical officer, non-clinical”. (For my own purposes I continued to do CME in radiology and maintain license registration with the state under “radiology” and continued to be board certified in radiology. Why burn bridges, life is uncertain.) Besides, I liked this town, had been here to the local university medical center for continuing ed, and had thought many a time I would like to get a chance to live in this town. So I grabbed the opportunity to create my current life for myself and my children. I worked for VA for just a couple of months short of 15 years, as a “retirement job.” You know you have been working hard in the past when 40 hours per week M-F with no night and no call qualifies as “retirement.” So-just took the opportunity to explain what may have been confusing from prior statements.
And while I am at it, yes back in the day I did a short stint in a psychiatry residency and a stint on the medical staff of a large state psychiatric hospital, but it was not the right fit for me Besides, radiology made me an offer I could not turn down after they lost all their male residents to the VietNam war. I did the psychiatry thing after I had completely decided I was not going back to Africa as a career missionary, and I did not know what to do with myself. Psych is a huge area of need, especially at the state hospital level, and I thought that might work for me. It did not.
So when I say this or that or whatever and it sounds confusing and it may sound like I am making it up, I am not. I have just lived a long time which is plenty of time for all this, for better or worse. And the health care industry is more flexible than it may look from the outside.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/22/veterans.affairs.bonuses/
Peter wrote:
There is no question that there are other issues lurking in the background. We have been dogging Mars Hill for 5 years and have discussed quite a bit of evidence of weirdness. Sutton Turner was hired because he fits the vision of Mark Driscoll. He is just another boy.
@ Lydia:
From the article: “According to a Government Accountability Office report, the VA processed 60 percent more claims from 1999 to 2008 than it did a decade earlier, but the number of claims still pending jumped 65 percent.”
How they play around with the money is bad, but the quote above is the huge problem. To fix that would require a whole lot more employees, but not if the government has limited hiring practices. One issue is that it takes lots of employees to get these jobs done, but then there is the issue of people resenting what employees cost, even without the cited financial shenanigans in this article. No third way in that issue that I see. Hire them or do not. Get the work done or do not. And stay away from the money shenanigans because it makes everybody look bad.
Or, there is always lets have fewer wars and fewer veterans in need of help. But that is too radical, I guess.
And BTW. Richard Burr is a good man.
@ Nancy:
Why would people want to give money when it is now known there have been financial shenanigans for quite a while? Should the system that allowed such a thing not be fixed or perhaps dismantled for better options? My understanding from what I have read and doctors I know at VA is that bonus’ were given to NOT refer sick Vets to outside sources because they could not see them in a timely fashion. They had a process in place to refer these Vets for care but did not because they were rewarded for NOT using that option and saving money. In effect, VA admin were paid bonus’ to withhold medical treatment to Vets.
Vets should be given the best. But where can they go? It is not like there is any competition to be the best. That is not how governmental services work.
@ Lydia:
There is more to the story about referring vets, or at least there was. At one point while I was still working for VA, the matter was discussed (in congress if I remember) about dismantling the majority of the VA hospital system and having vets treated like everybody else at civilian hospitals using VA medical entitlement just like non-veterans use insurance for that purpose. Vets were opposed to that, the service organizations took up the cry of “****no” and the idea was scrapped. I do not know the current state of that debate and have not kept up with the issues.
The other thing which might be going on is the money issue that civilian hospitals are hugely expensive while what the government is willing to spend on civilian health care is strictly controlled (think Medicare reimbursement schedules) and perhaps, I don’t know, it is just a guess, perhaps it was a money issue with decision makers making bad decisions as to who could wait and who could not. If there is anybody out there who thinks that the government cannot and will not ration health care, now is the time to rethink that idea.
And one more thing. When I was there VA was forever sending out the latest instructions from Washington, sometimes allegedly from unknown sources we understood to be some communication from somewhere in the government to the central VA office in Washington and then to us. I think there is basically no probability that VA did this without orders from somewhere to do so. At least we were led to believe that such a process was always at work or allegedly at work.
@ Nancy:
I did not mention the news about some really horrible things that happened to some patients at some hospitals. i have been mostly talking about decision making as to who gets what. But about the care at some hospitals, there is administration, there are the unions, and there is corruption. All three aspects need investigated. Unions? Sure. I have personally had to “work around” some people who were not doing the job, unsuited for the job, had a tanked attitude and whom administration “could not?” get rid of because of the union. There is more than enough potential area for investigation of everybody in sight.
And some folks need to get with it because some it looks like crime, from what I read in the media.
Nancy wrote:
I agree completely and fear that is where we are headed in a much more vigorous way. And where does one go for redress in such cases? Can one sue the government for whom they have freely given the right to regulate and ration? Aren’t the protections from such redress in place in a myriad of ways from public sector unions to “losing emails”?
I just find it odd the idea that throwing money to a broken system will fix it. I do not understand why we demand accountability from churches (which has voluntary membership) but won’t from our “representative” government (that we cannot escape). Instead so many think throwing more money to it will fix it.
Most government programs/entitites operate much like our school system which pays very high admin salaries but little to the person in the trenches: The teachers. And worse, these highly paid bureaucrats call themselves “servants”. Sigh
@ Victorious:
“I try to compliment someone on something every single day about something. Surely it’s not too hard to see good things about a person we come in contact with is it?”
I agree, if you genuinely perceive the good things. I just don’t think we should say “You’re beautiful,” or “You look beautiful” when we don’t mean it.
“Perhaps it could be compared to the desire of young men to excel in sports, or have muscles, or have a macho beard, or something they think will make them attractive to girls. It’s normal in my opinion.”
Yes, and I doubt that you’d say to a really skinny guy, “Hey, nice muscles.” It’s just not being honest.
There’s a line from the play “Our Town” that I really like. A somewhat plain daughter keeps asking her mother if she’s pretty. Finally the mother says: “Emily, you make me tired. Now stop it. You’re pretty enough for all normal purposes.”
@ Patti:
“If doesn’t matter whether everyone finds you attractive or not. It just doesn’t matter. We have to get over our obsession of wanting everyone to pay attention to us.”
Exactly.
Haitch wrote:
haitch- your comment reminded me of a post someone made on my facebook page about illegle immigration in the us. took the wind right out of my sails, it was a picture of 4 native americans standing on the plains in buckskins way back in the day and the caption said, if you have something to say about illegle immigration and your not native American you should shut up! like I said, took the wind out of my sails!
@ sam h:
Concerning “illegal” immigration, why do we have laws concerning immigration? Why not just do away with them? I guess I don’t really understand where folks are coming from with this issue.
(Note: Someone very close to me is trying to immigrate here legally and it is a nightmare. This person is 5 years into the process with no end in sight)
@ Hester:
LOL
@ Nancy:
There are some unique kinds of illnesses and wounds that the VA system is better equipped by experience to deal with than the civilian system, once these are recognized. Things like agent orange exposure, explosion injuries, PTSD, etc.
@ sam h: agree w/both you and Haitch.
@ An Attorney:
Well, the shameful disaster of the current PTSD handling by VA has been in the news recently.
If by explosion injuries you mean traumatic brain injury, there is right much of that in civilian life (auto accidents, bicycle injuries, football, fights including but not limited to boxing and such.) I doubt that there is a neurologist in the country who has not handled many of these cases.
Agent Orange exposure is not something one treats. Some symptoms have been more or less attributed to AO, but exposure is not something one treats. The primary thing that VA pays comp for as due to in country contact with AO is diabetes, and the civilian medical establishment is replete with diabetes specialists.
Orthopedic injuries are certainly plentiful everywhere. And the general treatment of difficulties due to aging is not different for vets than for other people.
The arguments made by the vets at the time of the proposal to quit having separate systems was not anything due to quality of care, that we heard, but it was rather “we want our own thing.” It apparently had something to do with the specialness of it, though I am not sure exactly what.
The last point I want to make is this; if the VA hospital system was shut down, guess where the current VA docs and nurses and such would go. Into the civilian system. So, if it were determined that they had some special advantage or knowledge, IMO the medical centers would just set up a special department for certain vet conditions if necessary. That is what the local medical centers do already for this and that and the other. My feeling is that the quality of care for vets would be much better under such a system. And costs for duplication of services could be cut. All of this is why congress considered it in the first place, of course, but it did not fly apparently for political reasons of vet preference.
@ Lydia:
The biggest problem with the VA is that there are more vets, with more injuries, more severe injuries being survived, etc., than ever before. And the budget hounds in DC are not willing to fund the medical care to treat the vets from the optional war in Iraq and the extended (b/c of Iraq 2) war in Afghanistan. The system is broken in large part because it is overloaded. And in the private system, demand for care (esp. more intensive and expensive kinds of care) is also growing and we have relative to population fewer front line physicians. When Demand increases and supply does not, the price goes up as a means of allocation, so those with less ability to pay get left out or get second rate care — Economics 101.
@ An Attorney:
And the surplus of physicians in some specialties also raises costs, adversely to the standard micro-economic models. When more people enter a specialty than there is demand for, then those in the field, trying to maintain their income level, increase prices and add wrinkles to the services to generate more income from fewer patients.
@ An Attorney:
About the specialization issue, while economic models have their uses, the fact also is that there is exponential growth in medical knowledge and techniques and such and one human cannot do it all or know it all. Perhaps there is too much difference in pay between various specialties, but the need to focus on a limited area of medicine and get good at it is not likely to go away. Medicine is just way too complicated for that.
The medical establishment has addressed the primary care issue partly by the development of physician assistants and nurse practitioners (mid level practitioners) which is a big step in that direction. But, the family GP is not how it is done now. Family practice is itself a specialty with its own residency programs and board certification. Everybody is a specialist, the FP specializing in a certain level of care, and the pediatric ophthalmologist (for example) specializing in a certain set of conditions in a certain age group. But everybody is limited in practice to one extent or another. There is no going back to the good old days. BTW, they were not that good at the time. Not for the patient, they weren’t. I remember when men pretty habitually dropped dead of heart attacks in their forties and fifties. Men like Dee’s cardiologist husband now get much better outcomes for cardiovascular disease, for example.
@ Nancy:
I understand the arguments you are making, and I was merely supplementing them as you have in this latest comment. In 1977-78, I was a Congressional Science Fellow, worked briefly in the Senate for a Republican, mostly in a major Social Security reform bill that passed. Then spent most of my year with a freshman Democrat in the House. Rather conservative fellow who always wanted to do what was right, relied on staff, and was the most ethical person I ever met in DC. Staffed hearings on vaccination liability solutions for developers, government nuclear program health effects (nuclear navy, etc), health effects of hair dyes (on your head today, in your urine tomorrow). Taught basic stats to the boss over breakfast three days a week (research on hair dyes involved 2 genders and 2 species, all data was put together for analysis, showing no effect; separated data by species and gender and there were significant cancer occurrences in different sites in different species.) Plus a lot of work on hospice care funding under Medicaid and Medicare. It was fun to the Dr. so and so on the hill.
Also was “lent” to another Congressman for hearings on a Colorado nuclear weapon production site in his district, since I could explain the difference between “U238” and “U3O8” (238 subscript; 3 and 8 subscript; one is atomic weight of a particular isotope of Uranium; the other is an oxide of Uranium.) I later did EISs on nuclear issues for a contractor to USDOE.
@ An Attorney:
My hat’s off to anybody who survived that much contact with the “gummint” and came out of it sane and whole. I found the experience harrowing, and I was not in Washington.
Anna wrote:
Come here sometime. Rent a car. Drive from New York City to Chicago. Then take US 66 to the Santa Monica, California pier. Or Interstae 80 to San Francisco. Take your pick. Take your time. Talk with folks along the way. When you are done, you won’t have that question anymore.
Better: Take I 40 from the East Coast as far as it goes, then continue on another to the West Coast. Stop off and visit each of the major cities along the way. You see Raleigh, Asheville, the Applachians, Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, etc. The homes of the Blues, Country Music, etc., and a whole lot of pretty country.
@ Nancy:
I was actually inspired with the heart and ethics of some of the people I met. Two members of Congress who totally separated themselves from who had given them money (they really can’t do that now), who tried to do the right thing for the country and for the people who elected them, and who did not try to hide what they really thought from their constituents. One I worked for kept lists of people who had written him and which side the letter writers were on. The letters sent were identical except the opening sentence. “I know that you have disagreed with me on this issue, but I want to keep you up to date with what has been happening and what I think about this matter.” vs. “Thank you for your letter in support of my position on this matter.” Every six weeks or so for hot issues and once every three on anything else significant
JeffT wrote:
Very late to this party, but I fear I could not read your hilarious “beached whale” comment to Mrs A A for fear of “triggering”. You see, just 25 years ago she took the kids swimming at the lake with her cousin, his kids, and his 15-years-junior-size-0 second wife (or maybe still girlfriend then) whom he described as a “Barbie”. Then he joked that his six-months-pregnant cousin looked like a beached whale. All good fun, but she’s never forgotten. Sadly, the Trophy Wife turned out to be very ugly on the inside, indeed, and eventually divorced Mrs A A’s cousin.
In other 4th oh July news, we’re camping and hundreds of birds are merrily singing, so I roasted some dogs and mallows. My device tells me the temperature has dropped to a balmy 101 (that’s 38 across the pond) at shortly past 8pm…… But it’s a dry heat– and so’s the campfire!
TedS
Add to that the National Parks: Yellowstone, Glacier, Zion, Carlsbad,a trip down the Blue Ridge, and a stop at Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill for Fried Chicken and you will think you are on the shores of heaven.
An Attorney wrote:
I am kinda dumbfounded that you would support the governments handeling of agent orange in Vietnam vets since it took years and years for them to even admit there was such a thing, while vets died. I live in Washington state, the countries leader in the lack of concern for vets with PTSD, and also I grew up around handford nuclear facility, you know the one that wasn’t doing anything during WWII, never had any leaks, denied the downwinder suits, and leaks daily even now. I think I will go with whatever nancy says on these topics, no disrespect intended to you sir, but I haven’t seen the government handling anything like the VA care of veterans, or those other things that is anywhere near what a private company would do.
that should read @ an attorney, not an attorney wrote
@ sam h:
A lot like PTSD. Delayed. No one covering it at all for a long time. But finally, and after much effort by many vets and physicians to get the mid and upper level administrators at the VA to attend to what the issues really were. But in house expertise on the issue, coupled with exposure data, turned the corner of the AO problem. And a grad school friend went to work getting PTSD coverage for the Viet Nam era vets in the 1970s and had some success after more than enough time and effort than should have been the case.
The choice for the govt re vets is either to provide the care using salaried medical staff or pay for private care, at likely higher costs. I have many friends who have worked with and for vets to help them get medical coverage for their disabilities. Until the Affordable Care Act was passed, many insurance companies would not cover many conditions for veterans, treating those as pre-existing conditions due to military service, so that the vets had to get treatment at or paid for by the VA.
On a previously discussed topic. My daughter’s “friend” is, as I write this, up on top the roof of my house sweeping off the pine needles and such and about to clear out the gutters. I am thinking that there is “biblical manhood” in action.
Nancy
Picture…we need pictures!
@ dee:
Not if a swimming costume is involved …
@ Anna:
Well, to jump on the American tourism advice bandwagon, you could visit New England to 1) get part of the historical answer to that question (i.e., the Puritans) and 2) have the best lobstah and chowdah in the world. 😉
@ TedS.: Hehe. To be fair, I have been to the states five times and am very hungry for more. A grand tour is on my bucket list. Seriously, like a year long road trip. Fricking love America. <3
I recently acquired a book (at a used bookstore) where a photographer followed the Lewis and Clark trail and took pictures to show what it looks like now. On the coffee table. I love used book stores where the proprietor remembers you were there six months before.
@ An Attorney:
Speaking of bookstores, there used to be such a special one in Chapel Hill called The Intimate Bookshop, except that people just called it The Intimate. It was in an older building and inside there was this old staircase you could use to get to the upper level with its rather low ceiling and its book shelves close together and absolutely packed with books, almost floor to ceiling. Near that place there was an alley where people sold fresh cut flowers. It would have taken Renoir to do it justice. Such a special place.
The place I was talking about is in “downtown” Pittsboro.
@ Nancy:
Places such as you’ve described are getting harder and harder to find nowadays. There’s a used bookstore in my locale that caters to aficionados of various stripe. It’s located in a building that was built in 1912. It even has a gargoyle or two at the roof cornices. Word has it that the ‘city fathers’ are just itching to declare eminent domain and use the new earthquake retrofit standards as more ammunition to raze the grand old structure and replace it with ‘a more modern & upscale shopping area’, more in line with the ‘new age gentrification’ which is all the rage now.
An Attorney wrote:
I have not one but two copies of “In the Loop”, I find soaking up that form of satire the only way I can deal at the moment with the tragedy that was Iraq (alert – massive swearing in the film, some may shrivel).
@muff potter and patrice, loved the discussion on creativity…
@ Hester:
Okay….on American tourism….no tour of the States would be complete without hitting Western Colorado – the San Juan Mts (aka Little Switzerland)…The Grand Mesa (largest flattop mt in the world) – the Colorado National Monument (gorgeous desert canyons) – The Black Canyon (so name because the sides are so sheer in places that the sun never hits the walls and the striped granite is spectacular)…. 😉
@ Muff Potter:
One of the biggest reasons is that online book sales (of new and used books) has severely undercut the bookstore business. Ditto for CDs, LPs, etc. – chains and independent stores alike have gone under. It makes me sad, as I have always loved browsing for books and music, and spent many years working in bookstores ( primarily small independent stores). I used to hunt for and visit book and record stores whenever I traveled. But that has, sadly, gone the way of the dodo, mastodon, et. al
@ numo:
Making a decent income from owning a bookstore is just about impossible. People did/do it for love, not money.
@ numo: You can’t beat the browsing experience of a good independent bookstore. I need to hunt some down in my local area, the last one I went to was near the border of Scotland. Which is the other side of the country for me.
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To me, this is just the Alpha Male parading his Trophy before all the Betas-to-Omegas.
“SEE WHAT I’VE GOT THAT YOU DON’T? SEE WHAT I’VE GOT THAT YOU CAN’T HAVE?”
At the risk of coming late to this discussion and being a superfluous bore…
My own view is that the British and Commonwealth in both wars, but particularly the second, owe a great deal to the USA. In particular we should be grateful to President Roosevelt for his audacity in stretching the rules as much as possible to help us against the U-boats, which Churchill said were the only thing that really scared him throughout WWII.
It’s true that for two years we bore the brunt of fighting against the European Axis, and the Germans were tough opponents. But that is partly historical accident. At the time isolationist sentiment in the US was quite strong. Once Hitler showed his hand, the USA wasted no time in supporting us fully, including with ample supplies which again we were hard pushed to produce ourselves. The US also sent a lot of support to the beleaguered Russians in the form of trucks and tinned food, all of which helped them considerably. The Soviets for their part did make a huge contribution to the defeat of Hitler, even if their leadership was scarcely any better in terms of respecting human life.
I also have a lot of links with Germany, and I empathise with the earlier comment about a lack of bitterness on the part of most Germans about the war. Indeed I found many of them quite happy to talk about it when I was over there in the 70s and 80s. The vast majority of them accept that it was wartime and also that Hitler was a psychopath whose hold on Germany was only released with his death.
I too take exception to American exceptionalism, although as a Briton I have to accept that it is probably no different to the old British Empire attitudes about “the sun never sets” and “the white man’s burden” and so forth. Probably every nation on earth has been guilty of this at some point, so none of us should be in the stone-throwing business.
@Kolya, when meeting random Americans, my father, being close to the Pacific war zone, always made of point of shaking their hands and saying ‘thank you for your help in winning the war’. Often the point was lost on younger generations, but it was a demonstration of his gratitude and sincerity.