SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Ephemeral links by their common ancestry!

The CRIB's periodically fugacious concerning church & cultural decay ...

• Getting away with murder in the land of the free and the home of the brave: despite the popularity of TRU TV's Forensic Files and CBS's CSI triumvirate, the homicide clearance rate in the good ole USA has dropped by a third in a third of a century. [Yahoo! News]


• DEEPAK CHOPRA: skillfully debunked by someone who, until recently, didn't even know the nonsense guru existed. Chopra blames his adopted country for the world' problems but makes no mention of Islamic fundamentalist's murderous global Jihad. [Am Spectator]


• SECULAR HUMANISM: Interesting Telegraph UK piece that comes alongside my posted review of Herb London's "America's Secular Challenge" [Telegraph UK; Sheep's Crib]


• SOCIAL ENGINEERING: Explain this to me - it's okay for your adolescent children to have tattoos and body piercings but not our pets / Hello! [Yahoo! News]


• ENDANGERED SPECIES: California Supremes put the Good Samaritan on the list. [LAT]


• 2008 WRAP-UP: Brussels Journal has an excellent wrap-up of "signs" from the UK and the Continent. [TBJ]

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POLITICAL: Ephemeral links by their common ancestry!

The CRIB's periodically fugacious concerning all things political ...

• You have to admit Obama's campaign logo was and is effective ... like to know how it came to be? [Next Gen GOP]
  


• Does the Hill have her own Constitutional Crisis? Yes she does, according to some. [Am Spectator]


• FAIRNESS DOC: again & again we're told by the left they won't seek reinstatement of fairness doctrine but here it is again [NewsBusters]


• E!! points us to a political grid test - where do you land? Left/right? Authoritarian/Libertarian? [Political Compass; h/t E!!]
  

• Coming to our shores soon - censorship the European way; "Freedom is what freedom does!" - Forrest Gump [Brussels Journal]


• Interesting Telegraph UK piece that comes alongside my posted review of Herb London's "America's Secular Challenge" [Telegraph UK; Sheep's Crib]


• IRAQ VICTORY: death rate in Basra, Iraq, now lower than that of Detroit, Mich. Cobb says, "smells like victory" [Cobb]

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FAITH: Ephemeral links by their common ancestry!

The CRIB's periodically fugacious concerning people and events of faith ...

• If it's true that Prez Elect BHO will offer up his first post-inaugural speech in a major Muslim nation, perhaps he should listen to this guy? [YouTube]


• Another fine article on the church at The M Blog; one I entirely agree with. [M Blog]


• Faith & Science have been at war for 3 centuries: a commentary. [First Things]


• The Establishment Clause did not establish what revisionists say it did ... but they control public podium, so it means whatever they want it to mean. [Medved: Townhall; h/t View From 1776]
  


• Russell Moore links to and comments on Christopher Hitchens' cristophobic and incoherent rant at Slate (Jesus for President) [Slate; h/t Moore to the Point]


• Interesting Telegraph UK piece that comes alongside my posted review of Herb London's "America's Secular Challenge" [Telegraph UK; Sheep's Crib]


• David Dockery writes response to Newsweek's diatribe duo at TBC [Baptist & Reflector - TBC]

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BOOK REVIEW: America's Secular Challenge - Herbert London

As the effects of and depression from Mistake '08 begin to wear off, my mind swirls with questions, issues, imperatives, responsibilities, and choices.

Often I imagine I must write a book on all of this, especially radical Islam, but the jumble of thoughts won't coalesce: hard and soft jihad, terrorism, taxes, America's socialistic drift, family, finances, deeply held spiritual concerns, children and grandchildren, collapse of traditionally democratic Europe, AIDS, political malfeasance, Sanctity of Human Life, absence of godliness, voter ignorance, biblical ignorance, and public ignorance ... to name a few.

But my main concern has been the continuing rise of secular humanism - a menacing cultural, geopolitical, and philosophical hydra - among our people, and its debilitating affect upon our will to defend ourselves.

Well, Herbert London (bio below) has had the same concerns and written a 97 page book which expresses them better than I ever could have.

From the Hudson Institute web site (CRIB's emphasis):

In this timely and wide-ranging book ... London argues that the pervasive culture of secularism in the United States is an inadequate response to the challenge of radical Islam. As London explains, in the so-called war of ideas, our reflexive belief in relativism has handicapped our ability to thwart the inroads of fanaticism.

Taken together, traditional religion, multiculturalism and cultural relativism, materialism, and the belief in scientific rationality as the ultimate arbiter of human value underwrite a view of life that is ill-equipped to meet the challenge of a zealous enemy with totalitarian ambitions. In undermining the traditional roots of America, secular humanism has destroyed the West’s only beliefs worth defending.

This anemic remodeling of our culture has left us exposed in the monumental battle against ideological forces with radical global ambitions. America’s Secular Challenge is a sobering wake-up call and a battle plan for the political and existential trials of the twenty-first century.

Author's Bio:

Herbert I. London is president of the Hudson Institute, a world renown think-tank in Washington DC. He is professor emeritus and the former John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University. And he was responsible for creating the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 1972 and was its dean until 1992. This school was organized to promote the study of "great books" and classic texts.

[...]

In 1989, Dr. London was one of the Republican candidates for Mayor of New York City. In 1990 he was the Conservative Party Candidate for Governor of New York garnering more votes than any third party candidate in the state's history. ....

Order your copy of this must read book here. Look, it's only 97 pages, who can't read 97 pages of really readable counsel. And for $18.00, the content cost less than 20 cents per page. And if you are a believer in American traditionalism and exceptionalism you would be wise to read America's Secular Challenge.

I actually made copious notes to prepare for this review but have decided the above is sufficient to the purpose here. If you have questions, leave a comment or email me.

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CENSORSHIP: The Standardized Chapel Library Project

Harrison Scott Key of WorldMag Blog makes us aware of the linked report which announces ...

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. [NYT]

I would expect to read this in the China Daily not in an American paper.

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.” [WMB]

Key gives us a link to follow to see the banned books list (sounds more like Nazi Germany than the USA) ... my question: who makes the decision?

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CHARITY: How I envy this effort of love!

Dan Edelen of Cerulean Sanctum has linked to a neat Wall Street Journal story on philanthropy.

Marie Delahoussaye, a widow in Texas, asked for money to replace an obsolete hearing aid that “whistles.” In neat, black cursive script on green-lined memo paper she wrote, “Please consider helping me. I live very frugally. I don’t waste anything.”

Ms. Buffett paid for two hearing aids that cost about $1,800 total. Ms. Delahoussaye—who says she never expected to receive a response—says the devices have helped her reconnect with friends and her community. Before getting the hearing aids, “I couldn’t hear the phone ring,” she says. “I would go to church and couldn’t hear the sermon.” She says the experience has reaffirmed her faith in strangers. “This has made me realize there are still good people in the world,” she says.

Though the WSJ piece is worth reading in and of itself, its Dan's comments on the story that makes clicking over worth the trouble.

A story that makes the heartstrings sing, right?

But did anyone here catch the deeper issue? This elderly widow couldn’t hear the sermons at her church. She writes to Warren Buffett. Doris Buffett comes to her assistance. And this hearing-impaired widow gets her new hearing aids. She says it reaffirms her faith in strangers.

But at whose expense does that reaffirmation come?

You see it? I hope I’m not the only one asking, “Where was her church?” I hate to think that she mentioned this to people at her church and no one did anything. It seems that way, though, doesn’t it? [CRIB emphasis]

Back in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries the church abdicated her throne for social issues; relinquishing control of all sorts of Christian responsibilities to the government and the welfare state. We've paid a heavy price for doing that!

Paul taught this ...

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3-4

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REALITY: I don't think the world will ever be real again!

This is NOT a test! Tell me what do you see in the ad below? [UPDATE: Someone hacked the site that held the graphic below and replaced the ad with an ugly-green smiley face ... let me know in comments if it happens again.]


If you saw six Blacks bowing down to a White massa', your shorts are knotted and you need to get real; you've lost touch like most of your neighbors.

If you're a black and saw that, I don't think there's any hope for your conflicted, hate-filled, self-obsessed soul!

If you're a White Homey and agree with the Black's; I'd suggest you send your degrees back because you're overeducated and didn't learn anything worth retaining, they're meaningless ... you over-educated, sophomoric slob ... you are so blind from your pompous self-righteousness you're wholly useless to your fellow man!

If you saw a confusing ad from a high-tech giant that makes no sense to you because you're tech-challenged ... besides what the h__l do six swimmers or runners have to do with Intel anyway ... for you, I assume the last thing on your mind was writing a letter because your sensibilities were offended.

Intel pulled the ad, giving in to political correctness ... gawrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!! [Even though it's a lousy ad the pressure was assinine!]

Stockholders have executives and Boards of Directors to make their decisions - right or wrong! How can the investors hope for fiducial responsibility from a rabble that drinks from the cesspool of popular opinion.

Here's why Intel caved!

According to Snopes' Urban Legends page:

The intent of the ad was to emphasize the ability of Intel's Core 2 Duo Processors to "boost productivity and efficiency by running multiple computing-intensive applications at once" through the visual imagery of presenting a team of (identical) sprinters down in set positions, ready to take off and blaze their way through the office environment while a pleased IT Manager stands amidst them bearing a look of confidence and satisfaction.

Unfortunately, more than a few viewers saw something quite different in that imagery: a group of dark-skinned men bowing down in subservience to a smug, light-skinned overseer. The ad created enough of a controversy that Intel pulled it from the publications in which it was scheduled to appear, and Intel's vice president of Sales and Marketing issued a public apology on behalf of the company ...

We're all living a surreal lala land! God please help us?

Now if you'd like to know how I really feel, stay tuned!

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COLLEGE FAITH: Some Old Myths Evidently Need to Die!

I'm one of those who've traditionally held that secular colleges and universities were deadly places to send our redeemed kids; perhaps I was wrong. I hope so!

WorldMag Blog led me to this -

College students are the least likely to abandon their faith than those who never pursued a college degree, a recent study revealed.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that college attendance appears to prevent young adults from losing their religion, contradicting widely held assumptions that students leave the church or their faith altogether during their college years.

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