Teaching the time away

Sorry for the delays. I haven't been able to return to my blogging schedule the past several weeks. The school year has just begun and I'm balancing teaching 9 classes between three institutions. It'll take me a few more days to catch up to where I can blog regularly. Until then, thanks for stopping by.

Cheers.

Persecution Update & News to Know - NHS Rationing, ACORN fraud,

HEALTH:

• NHS Turns to Rationing - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20932&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ncpadpd+%28Daily+Policy+Digest%29&utm_content=FaceBook
• Health insurers now forced to cover birth control - http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/the-movement/Blog/11-08-01/Health_Insurers_Now_Forced_to_Cover_Birth_Control.aspx

POLITICS/MONEY:

• Obama's Seven Deadly Sins - http://www.conservativecommune.com/2011/08/open-thread-obamas-seven-deadly-sins-add-your-own/
• Poll: Only 10 percent approve of Congress - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/10/fox-news-poll-record-low-10-percent-approve-congress/
• ACORN fined for voter fraud - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/10/judge-gives-maximum-and-fines-acorn-5000-for-illegal-voter-registration-scheme/
• U.S. debt reaches 100 percent of country's GDP - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/04/us-debt-reaches-100-percent-countrys-gdp/#ixzz1U3mFgG8L

ISLAM:

• Sharia: a law unto itself? - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8686504/Sharia-a-law-unto-itself.html

MISCELLANEOUS:

• Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKEqM5bi8K4&feature=feedu
• New spiderman is black, and might go gay - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021563/Marvel-Comics-reveal-new-Spider-Man-black-gay-future.html#ixzz1U3eX8nWl
• Users alarmed over Facebook posting confidential phone numbers - http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/10/facebook-exposes-confidential-phone-numbers-users-worry/
• Redneck Olympics threatened with lawsuit over word 'olympics' - http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/08/10/maine-redneck-olympics-warned-to-drop-olympics/?intcmp=obnetwork

PERSECUTION UPDATE

• The nightmare of communism in North Korea - http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-nightmare-of-communism-in-north-korea?md5=343ffe21d7dbe3029d9b7cbd7912aa80
• Voice of the Martyrs Prayer Update: 12 Aug 2011 - http://www.persecution.com/public/pray.aspx?clickfrom=bWFpbl9tZW51

News to Know - White House Fox hunt, gay history required, pastor may die

POLITICS:

• Emails show White House targeting Fox News despite denial - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/

TECHNOLOGY:

• Pentagon admits suffering major cyber attack in March - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14157975
  

EDUCATION:

• Gay history now mandatory in California schools - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/calif-gov-signs-landmark-law-to-teach-gay-history/

CHRISTIANITY:

• Iranian pastor sentenced to death could be executed if he doesn't recant - See post below. Link HERE.

Persecution Update: July 15

1) VOM Prayer Update:

Iraq--House church leader kidnapped
North Korea--The gospel finds a way
Burma (Myanmar)--Political unrest leads to ethnic cleansing

Read report HERE.


2) Iranian pastor sentenced to death could be executed if he doesn't recant - http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/14/evangelical-pastor-in-iran-may-face-death-if-doesnt-recant/

Verseday Thursday: Shakespeare Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

News to Know – TSA, bird pecks out eyeball, atheist wears colander

RELIGION:

• Freedom From Religion Foundation sues Governor Perry in the name of freedom of religion - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/13/religious-freedom-group-sues-gov-perry-over-planned-all-day-prayer-event/
• Austrian mocker wins right* to wear colander in license photo - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/niko-alm-pastafarian-colander_n_897700.html#s308414&title=Pastafarian_Niko_Alm
  

*Note, this article says he won a right. Rights are by definition things that cannot be won; they can only be recognized. Imprecise speech of this sort is misleading and demonstrates our intellectual feebleness.

GOVERNMENT ENCROACHMENT:

• Woman facing 93 days of jail for vegetable garden - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/julie-bass-jail-vegetable-garden_n_893436.html
• Woman jailed for causing refusing to let TSA search her daughter* - http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110713/NEWS01/307130115/Police-charge-mother-Nashville-airport-altercation
  

*Note: I have no way of knowing whether the woman was in the right or not. But one thing is certainly clear, the TSA consistently goes beyond reason in the name of safety. If it's a choice between liberty and safety, may safety be hanged. Liberty is never safe, and it is particularly threatening to big government.

Speaking of the TSA, check out this drama:

• TSA forces 95-year-old-woman to remove diaper - http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-tsa-removes-diaper-from-elderly-cancer-stricken-woman,0,657842.story
• TSA denies having required a 95-year-old-woman to remove diaper - http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-27/travel/florida.tsa.incident_1_tsa-officer-diaper-luggage?_s=PM:TRAVEL
• TSA defends removing adult's diaper for pat-down - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/27/national/main20074643.shtml

NOT VERY IMPORTANT NEWS:

• Black man named 'Casey Anthony' harassed - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/casey-anthony-pennsylvania_n_897147.html
• British man's eyeball pecked out by seabird - http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/12/british-mans-eyeball-pecked-out-by-seabird/?intcmp=obnetwork

Chastity as Patriotism

Contrary to everything we are taught, the family, not the individual, is the foundation of society and government. The family is a miniature nation: a kingdom in a tiny castle. It is, of course, a monarchy, but monarchies are the only appropriate governments for raising children. Those who are adults morally are able to govern themselves; those who are children morally need to be governed and made to do right. (That is why John Adams famously said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He might as well have said, “Our Constitution was made only for adults; it is unsuitable for children.”)

Just as the freedom of a society is dependent upon its moral adulthood, the quality of a society is determined by its values. Good values make good societies. Bad values make bad ones. These same values determine the health of a nation’s families. As the foundation of society, the state of the family determines the state of society, culture, and government. Therefore, that which affects family life for ill is an attack on the whole nation, and that which improves the family improves the whole nation.

Thus, laws that weaken parental rights are not only anti-freedom, but antisocial. Organizations which lobby for the autonomy of the child (against his parents) intentionally throw a wedge into the family, and are therefore antisocial. Even movies with kid-power propaganda (that is, the message children are smarter than adults––especially their parents) are antisocial.

Although these are all big offenders, the biggest villain is the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution cried that sexuality had been repressed and needed to be liberated from its moral tether. The trouble is that sexuality is not repressed by Judeo-Christian morality, but protected by it. We have discovered that in tearing down the moral wall, we “freed” sexuality but destroyed love. Love’s private garden has been turned into a public park, and the gardener has been fired. It’s no surprise that persons are afraid of commitment. The wall which guaranteed the garden is gone. (See The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom, chapter “Relationships.”)

Sexual behavior is required for the creation of a family, yet also has the most potential to destroy it. Sexuality, in its appropriate expression, unites married lovers and creates families. But anyone who has had an adulterous parent, a cheating spouse, an abusive relative, knows the destructive power of unchaste sexuality. This is no surprise. When perverted, the greatest goods become the greatest evils.

Misused, sex not only destroys present families, but also future ones. As a single person, my sexual behavior now affects the health of my future marriage. The more promiscuous I am now, the less stable my future marriage is likely to be. The less stable my future marriage is, the more likely it is that my children will suffer my divorce and marital unhappiness. And, as studies show, children in divorced homes are more likely to have divorces themselves.

Because families build nations, and sex makes or breaks families, our sexual behavior will either improve civilization or work to destroy it. Depending on how we use sex, we may either be patriots or traitors to the nation. It may be your body, but sexual actions have social consequences, so you may not do with it as you please.