Archive for year: 2019
Oprah – “Churches Used To Do It.” vs Gov Abbot “‘The Problem is Not Guns, It’s Hearts Without God”
This is a tale of how two people said essentially the same thing about the mass shooting plague beseeched on America and how society reacted. Oprah is at the top of the heap in American entertainment while Gov. Abbott of Texas is an unapologetic Christian politician. Notice the double standard in coverage.
Oprah Winfrey Speaks Out on Mass Shootings
EXTRA On Wednesday night, “Extra’s” Renee Bargh spoke with Oprah Winfrey as she debuted her latest OWN project, “David Makes Man.”
Winfrey, one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, also spoke out about the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. What does she think is behind all the violence? Oprah said, “I think what people are missing is a core moral center.”
“Churches used to do that… It was a central place you could come to and there was a core center of values about a way of living and being in the world,” Oprah continued. “Until we can return to that, however that is, in whatever form, we will continue to be lost.”
Oprah is turning to her craft for comfort during these tough times. She explained, “That’s why I actually believe storytelling is a form of a new religion because it’s a place where people can gather and be inspired and see themselves and get filled.”
Texas Governor: ‘The Problem is Not Guns, It’s Hearts Without God’
At the time, Governor Abbott said:
We have evil that occurs in this world, whether it be a terrorist who uses a truck to mow down bikers in New York City, whether it be a terrorist who uses bombs or knives to stab people, or other terrorist who use vehicles, whether it be in Nice, France, or any other place in the entire world, who mow down people.
And I’m going to use the words of the citizens of Sutherland Springs themselves, and that is, they want to work together for love to overcome evil, and you do that by working with God.
Bottom line: Texas Governor Abbott is a dangerous religious extremist who believes guns aren’t the problem, instead he blames “hearts without God,” and claims that “a stronger connection to God” is the solution to gun violence.
A Journey To Second Path of Life – Male Rights of Initiation – Fr. Richard Rohr
I stumbled on an interview with Fr. Richard Rohr while he was out promoting one of his many books. His message resonated with me. This latest interview encapsulates Fr. Rohr’s life’s work around wounds men have to overcome to become full leaders in their families and communities. I see broken men every day around me and hope and pray they find their path forward to the second mountain in life. Give this a listen and think about your own journey (if you’re a man) or that of the men in your life.
Newman – Documentary
I highly recommend the documentary Newman. It came out in 2015 and covers an idea that is too good to be true. In the end, the story that had so much promise ends in tragedy. The story is about laser focus, commitment to a goal, fighting for what you know is right and overcoming your demons.
Politics 101 – Got To Have A Boogie Man
(From the74) Charter moratoriums have also picked up momentum over the past few years as teachers unions have turned to increased political activism, she said. While the #RedForEd movement began as an appeal for increased public school funding, particularly to augment teacher salaries, organizing energy has long since turned toward charters, which union leaders like Randi Weingarten and Lily Eskelsen García argue draw funding away from traditional public schools.
“Unions are having a lot of other issues coming up that are leading to political mobilization and strikes, and charters are becoming part of the mix of issues alongside other grievances,” she said. “And it’s an opportune moment to bring charter schools into that agenda.”
Since the Supreme Court ruled on Janus, which overturned 40 years of precedent regarding the mandatory collection of Union dues, the public union sector is in a fight for their life. Enter Trump and DeVos as Secretary of Education and you have a perfect storm. What looked like grassroots uprisings around the US surrounding the #RedForEd movements in West Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, and others were actually a very strategic effort by Unions to take back the narrative, win state houses and influence national politics.
When Cory Booker, a once school choice advocate, flips, you know the efforts are working.
Education always polls high on local elections as a major issue of concern for voters. The Democratic party has successfully made the issue national and it has the ability to move a number of state races as well. From a strategy point of view, it’s masterful.
The million dollar question is; ‘Is it good for kids?’
The Economics of Global Warming
I’m a weekly listener to Russ Roberts and Econo Talk. He is one of the most detailed interviewers that I’ve ever come across. His ability to dig in and hang with experts on so many different topics is amazing to me. Here Russ interviews an economist on the economics of global warming. From polar bears to hurricanes to sea level rise to solutions. Listen to the show HERE, it’s worth digging into a major issue with some rather smart people.
Bjorn Lomborg on the Costs and Benefits of Attacking Climate Change
Jun 10 2019
Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, talks about the costs and benefits of attacking climate change with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Lomborg argues that we should always be aware of tradeoffs and effectiveness when assessing policies to reduce global warming. He advocates for realistic solutions that consider the potential to improve human life in other ways. He is skeptical of the potential to move away from fossil fuels and argues that geo-engineering and adaptation may be the most effective ways to cope with climate change.
You Get To Decide What To Worship – David Foster Wallace
I stumbled across the acceptance speech from Kenyon College (2005)
From his ‘What Has Meaning’ speech:
Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth.
Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear.
Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and.
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
The full speech HERE.
The Philosophy of Nietzsche
The more I dig into this man’s ideas the more conflicted I am of his importance. Like anyone’s work, there is good and bad. His ideas made an impact. His ideas were controversial. His ideas were misinterpreted. His ideas were put forth at a time in the world where science and reason were challenging old held beliefs about religion.
To understand Nietzsche you have to understand the context of when he was writing his books. Clearly he was a genius and when he finally slipped into madness and spent the last 10 years of his life incomprehensible, you wonder if he flew too close to the sun.
For some fun, check out Akira the Don mixing Jordan Peterson reciting Nietzsche’s poem, The Tarantula. The mix is about the slide towards equality above all else. Spooky!