Well all weekend I have been snatching bits of time to collect Palin-related links, only to come home from the grocery store ($115 poorer, even with the $5 off $40 coupon, but having scored loads of cheap meat) and learn the new big news about the teen pregnancy in the fam.
The pregnancy story bothers me a lot. But I am optimistic about the possibilities here. Certainly the Palins are going to be living out their faith in a very public way. The seminarian expressed optimism (oh yeah) that this won't turn into a big deal because the press always stays away from the candidates' kids. I'm sure they will this time. Right?
Well, I was just about done so what the heck, maybe people who actually did something fun this weekend instead of gobble up news stories might be interested:
From Hot Air: Desperation from Democrats
From NOW: A press release reminding women that when they mean "women's rights" they really just mean the right to an abortion. (Found at Right on the Left Coast.)
Semi-related to that - I think it's funny how some people are gushing over Mrs. Palin's courage in not aborting her last baby even though she knew he had Down Syndrome. I guess they can't comprehend that for some people, killing the baby is simply not an option under consideration.
Sandy at Falling Like Rain has some comments about abortion. The links she provides might be interesting to you too, particularly if you are a Christian woman on the fence about a working mom in a high position in government.
Douglas Wilson is pastor of a Reformed church in Moscow, ID. I don't agree with every word that comes out of his mouth, though his books on marriage and childrearing are excellent. I enjoyed his comments on Mrs. Palin. Read all the way to the end! The reference to Deborah can be found in Judges 4.
The Democracy Project has 10 reasons Sarah Palin is a good pick.
City Journal's Heather MacDonald has concerns about upping the diversity ante: can we ever have an all-white-male ticket again?
And finally, Scrappleface on the teen pregnancy story. (Just so you know - it's a satire site.)
Saturday, August 30, 2008
If I hear "...one heartbeat away..." one more time...
well, I don't know what I'd do. But it's making me crazy.
I can't stop thinking about Sarah Palin as VP. I admit I had not really known anything about her. I guess I had a vague idea that Alaska had a pretty sharp female governor. Her supposed lack of experience does not worry me. I do agree with those who are saying she has more executive experience than Obama.
Last night I spent some time looking for reactions by conservative Christian women. I was right in guessing that some would not be happy about McCain's pick. Who's taking care of those kids, especially that baby? Should a woman be in authority over men? I am disturbed by women who say they won't vote in this election. People you have got to vote! And while I believe, in theory, in "voting your conscience" even if that means a third-party candidate, as a practical matter it's just not helpful. I voted Libertarian a few times. Now I see that there is too much at stake to vote for a candidate who can't win.
But I also saw some people talking about this woman being brought forward "for such a time as this." (That's a reference to the Old Testament book of Esther. Great book, check it out.) To imagine a staunchly pro-life, family-loving woman in a high position in government... almost seems providential. Another blogger is excited about the effect Mrs. Palin's candidacy may have on peoples' perception of Down Syndrome babies.
This morning while I was walking the dog I was pondering all this, and I suddenly thought about Christians who think it's fine for a mother to leave her children in boarding school or with other relatives to go work in the mission field. It seems like to some folks, abandoning the kids in order to do "God's work" is OK, but having childcare while doing some other kinds of work is evil. Of course that assumes that only direct ministry work is "God's work." I don't happen to agree with that. All work can be God's work if it is done with his glory in mind.
Of course I am also a person who believes that God is sovereign and it is he who raises up and brings down nations. He graciously allows us to participate in this (that's why you need to vote!) but ultimately we will get the government we deserve (who said that first, anyway?). And if we are worried about God's curse, what is worse: a woman who gets help caring for her kids, including her Down Syndrome baby, or a guy who would have supported her in aborting her baby, maybe even letting him die if the abortion failed? That is not necessarily a rhetorical question, if you are of a mind to comment on it.
Well, that's enough of my thoughts, scattered as they are. Here is some Mark Steyn for some more cogent thoughts on the topic.
I can't stop thinking about Sarah Palin as VP. I admit I had not really known anything about her. I guess I had a vague idea that Alaska had a pretty sharp female governor. Her supposed lack of experience does not worry me. I do agree with those who are saying she has more executive experience than Obama.
Last night I spent some time looking for reactions by conservative Christian women. I was right in guessing that some would not be happy about McCain's pick. Who's taking care of those kids, especially that baby? Should a woman be in authority over men? I am disturbed by women who say they won't vote in this election. People you have got to vote! And while I believe, in theory, in "voting your conscience" even if that means a third-party candidate, as a practical matter it's just not helpful. I voted Libertarian a few times. Now I see that there is too much at stake to vote for a candidate who can't win.
But I also saw some people talking about this woman being brought forward "for such a time as this." (That's a reference to the Old Testament book of Esther. Great book, check it out.) To imagine a staunchly pro-life, family-loving woman in a high position in government... almost seems providential. Another blogger is excited about the effect Mrs. Palin's candidacy may have on peoples' perception of Down Syndrome babies.
This morning while I was walking the dog I was pondering all this, and I suddenly thought about Christians who think it's fine for a mother to leave her children in boarding school or with other relatives to go work in the mission field. It seems like to some folks, abandoning the kids in order to do "God's work" is OK, but having childcare while doing some other kinds of work is evil. Of course that assumes that only direct ministry work is "God's work." I don't happen to agree with that. All work can be God's work if it is done with his glory in mind.
Of course I am also a person who believes that God is sovereign and it is he who raises up and brings down nations. He graciously allows us to participate in this (that's why you need to vote!) but ultimately we will get the government we deserve (who said that first, anyway?). And if we are worried about God's curse, what is worse: a woman who gets help caring for her kids, including her Down Syndrome baby, or a guy who would have supported her in aborting her baby, maybe even letting him die if the abortion failed? That is not necessarily a rhetorical question, if you are of a mind to comment on it.
Well, that's enough of my thoughts, scattered as they are. Here is some Mark Steyn for some more cogent thoughts on the topic.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Personalizing the Weather Underground
Because history really is important.
From "Fire in the Night," in City Journal:
Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.
--------------
Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.
Oh, found at Instapundit, natch.
From "Fire in the Night," in City Journal:
Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.
--------------
Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.
Oh, found at Instapundit, natch.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mission creep in the public schools...
coming soon with the Obama administration:
Schools Are Not Social Service Centers... yet.
The argument runs like this: kids do better in school when they’re well fed, healthy, and so forth. Therefore schools should be transformed into social-service centers that will not only teach students, but also provide health care and lots of other services. Schools would be open all day and provide a wide variety of community programs.
We seem to be about one generation away from parents being required to turn their children permanently over to the government full-time at age 3.
I often wonder what life will be like for my kids as parents. Will they have the freedoms their dad and I have to raise them the way we think we ought? Will they even live in the US or will they have to go someplace where they can be free? And where would that be?
And from the Wall Street Journal: Protect Our Kids From Preschool
Our understanding of the effects of preschool is still very much in its infancy. But one inescapable conclusion from the existing research is that it is not for everyone. Kids with loving and attentive parents -- the vast majority -- might well be better off spending more time at home than away in their formative years. The last thing that public policy should do is spend vast new sums of taxpayer dollars to incentivize a premature separation between toddlers and parents.
Unless separating toddlers from their parents (specifically, the parents' philosophy and beliefs) is the goal...
Homeschooling is not for everyone, but even people who use public schools should be afraid of the mission creep of the education system.
Schools Are Not Social Service Centers... yet.
The argument runs like this: kids do better in school when they’re well fed, healthy, and so forth. Therefore schools should be transformed into social-service centers that will not only teach students, but also provide health care and lots of other services. Schools would be open all day and provide a wide variety of community programs.
This will, of course, cost a ton of money and entail a huge expansion of the government educational bureaucracy. Which has nothing to do with why the unions want it.
Read the whole thing and check out the links and comments, like this one:We seem to be about one generation away from parents being required to turn their children permanently over to the government full-time at age 3.
I often wonder what life will be like for my kids as parents. Will they have the freedoms their dad and I have to raise them the way we think we ought? Will they even live in the US or will they have to go someplace where they can be free? And where would that be?
And from the Wall Street Journal: Protect Our Kids From Preschool
Our understanding of the effects of preschool is still very much in its infancy. But one inescapable conclusion from the existing research is that it is not for everyone. Kids with loving and attentive parents -- the vast majority -- might well be better off spending more time at home than away in their formative years. The last thing that public policy should do is spend vast new sums of taxpayer dollars to incentivize a premature separation between toddlers and parents.
Unless separating toddlers from their parents (specifically, the parents' philosophy and beliefs) is the goal...
Homeschooling is not for everyone, but even people who use public schools should be afraid of the mission creep of the education system.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
I love youtube
because almost anytime I think of a song from my past, there it is.
Utica Club is/was a brewery in upstate New York. I am quite sure I never drank the beer as I left NY at age 9. We had this 45 and at some point converted it to an 8-track (yes I am that old), and then to cassette... and then it was lost. But no more.
Oh, the reason I was thinking of this today? We finished taking down a dead tree in the back yard today and the seminarian started singing an old Miller beer commercial. One thought led to another....
Utica Club is/was a brewery in upstate New York. I am quite sure I never drank the beer as I left NY at age 9. We had this 45 and at some point converted it to an 8-track (yes I am that old), and then to cassette... and then it was lost. But no more.
Oh, the reason I was thinking of this today? We finished taking down a dead tree in the back yard today and the seminarian started singing an old Miller beer commercial. One thought led to another....
Friday, August 22, 2008
Good Question: What is the purpose of VBS?
What is the purpose of Vacation Bible School?
a. To provide daycare during the summer months when kids are underfoot
b. To introduce teen volunteers to the joy of teaching and doing crafts with little kids.
c. To bring the gospel to unchurched children.
d. To reinforce knowledge kids have already learned at church and at home.
e. To test the endurance and memorization skills of the adults of congregation (at least those without paying jobs that make them unavailable during the day).
OK, OK, it's c. And d, I guess. Or, that's how it started out. Just like Sunday School, VBS was begun as a way to bring biblical teachings to kids whose families don't go to church. (But are open to their children learning about Jesus, presumably, or they wouldn't let the kids go.) People tell stories of the church bus coming around the neighborhood to pick kids up for church and Sunday School. I guess that probably still happens, somewhere. But I think mostly kids go to church, or don't go to church, based on their parents' beliefs.
In my experience, VBS doesn't get many unchurched kids. (Remember I said in my experience. That doesn't mean someone else hasn't experienced something different.) I don't recall a single VBS experience in my 8 years of involvement with various VBSes where someone was exposed to the gospel for the first time.
In the VBS we just finished, the teaching was way below most kids' knowledge level, except maybe the 4-7 year olds. The 8s and up? Forget it. But mostly they seem to enjoy it; there are always some kids who are way too cool, till they find themselves having fun playing duck duck goose. They have fun with the songs and seeing the adults singing and doing those hand motions. The crafts were pretty good this year, because they involved paint. So it was a nightmare from a logistical standpoint but worth it in the end for what we produced.
Since we are Presbyterians, there is no altar call at the end. No one is asked to make a decision for Christ (is that the way to put it?). We send them home with, we hope, questions and a desire for further exploration. And their t-shirts, bracelets, promise boxes and new Bibles. And I guess that fulfills the purpose.
Oh and next summer? I'll be getting a job (see e above).
a. To provide daycare during the summer months when kids are underfoot
b. To introduce teen volunteers to the joy of teaching and doing crafts with little kids.
c. To bring the gospel to unchurched children.
d. To reinforce knowledge kids have already learned at church and at home.
e. To test the endurance and memorization skills of the adults of congregation (at least those without paying jobs that make them unavailable during the day).
OK, OK, it's c. And d, I guess. Or, that's how it started out. Just like Sunday School, VBS was begun as a way to bring biblical teachings to kids whose families don't go to church. (But are open to their children learning about Jesus, presumably, or they wouldn't let the kids go.) People tell stories of the church bus coming around the neighborhood to pick kids up for church and Sunday School. I guess that probably still happens, somewhere. But I think mostly kids go to church, or don't go to church, based on their parents' beliefs.
In my experience, VBS doesn't get many unchurched kids. (Remember I said in my experience. That doesn't mean someone else hasn't experienced something different.) I don't recall a single VBS experience in my 8 years of involvement with various VBSes where someone was exposed to the gospel for the first time.
In the VBS we just finished, the teaching was way below most kids' knowledge level, except maybe the 4-7 year olds. The 8s and up? Forget it. But mostly they seem to enjoy it; there are always some kids who are way too cool, till they find themselves having fun playing duck duck goose. They have fun with the songs and seeing the adults singing and doing those hand motions. The crafts were pretty good this year, because they involved paint. So it was a nightmare from a logistical standpoint but worth it in the end for what we produced.
Since we are Presbyterians, there is no altar call at the end. No one is asked to make a decision for Christ (is that the way to put it?). We send them home with, we hope, questions and a desire for further exploration. And their t-shirts, bracelets, promise boxes and new Bibles. And I guess that fulfills the purpose.
Oh and next summer? I'll be getting a job (see e above).
Thursday, August 21, 2008
It's the hand motions, baby
People keep asking me why I don't like VBS. I figured it out last night: it's all the hand motions. The songs and the memorization all require hand motions:
"It is He who made us..." (clasp hands in front, sway like you're holding a baby)
"Shout..." (put hands in front of mouth like a megaphone)
"Enter His courts..." (jog in place)
And the ever-popular
"We are His..." (hold hands over heart)
Yes, I know that this aids in memorization. I know that doing things in various ways cements learning. No one has to lecture me on that, OK? I know the kids (some of them, anyway), find it fun. Some just think it's babyish.
Actually, after helping out this week I think I'd say that VBS should be for about ages 4 - 7. I think that's about pre-K to 3rd grade. The older kids don't seem to be getting a lot out of it.
Most of the kids at our VBS go to church - if not ours, then somewhere. It would be different if church was a new experience for them. But these guys are not hearing the gospel for the first time. They really don't need to keep hearing the basic stories over and over again, but are ready for more depth. And, they don't need to glue jewels onto a fun-foam crown each day. Now, painting the symbols on t-shirts has been cool and fun for the bigger kids. But still. They groan just a bit when I ask why we are painting a snake, a cross, and a crown. Duh. Oh, and don't forget the rainbow!
"It is He who made us..." (clasp hands in front, sway like you're holding a baby)
"Shout..." (put hands in front of mouth like a megaphone)
"Enter His courts..." (jog in place)
And the ever-popular
"We are His..." (hold hands over heart)
Yes, I know that this aids in memorization. I know that doing things in various ways cements learning. No one has to lecture me on that, OK? I know the kids (some of them, anyway), find it fun. Some just think it's babyish.
Actually, after helping out this week I think I'd say that VBS should be for about ages 4 - 7. I think that's about pre-K to 3rd grade. The older kids don't seem to be getting a lot out of it.
Most of the kids at our VBS go to church - if not ours, then somewhere. It would be different if church was a new experience for them. But these guys are not hearing the gospel for the first time. They really don't need to keep hearing the basic stories over and over again, but are ready for more depth. And, they don't need to glue jewels onto a fun-foam crown each day. Now, painting the symbols on t-shirts has been cool and fun for the bigger kids. But still. They groan just a bit when I ask why we are painting a snake, a cross, and a crown. Duh. Oh, and don't forget the rainbow!
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