Fruited Plain

 Follow up to this post and post 

Laremy is a Christian. He still runs his cafe in Iowa and still turns out a good product. He still derives satisfaction from it because he sees how it fits into God's good creation.

Fruited Plain Cafe demonstrates the value and mission of work from God's point of view in Genesis, when He tells humanity to "have dominion". The point is not selfish or careless domineering of nature, but rather a sort of co-creation in cooperation with The Creator. 

"I can add my own knowledge, care, and love to coffee beans and milk, using tools that I understand intimately (café owners must also be espresso machine repairmen after all) to create a final product that honors God and blesses my patrons."

This is second level creating along with God--taking what He's provided both in the material world and within the human person (within Laremy and within you and me) to make something "useful and beautiful!"

Pink XX bands

Some parents of girls playing high school soccer in New Hampshire don't want them playing against male-bodied athletes. Well, who would? Answer: the school wants it.

Objections from the parents went nowhere. But they did not disrupt the games in any way. All they did was to wear pink wristbands with XX on them.

 

The school went ballistic. "They stopped the game, demanded the pink armbands be removed, and issued police-enforced “No Trespassing” orders against at least two parents."

"My daughter’s playing in the homecoming game this weekend, and I’m banned until the 23rd,” said Anthony Foote of Bow, N.H. “I can’t watch her play in homecoming — which is ridiculous.”

It's ridiculous, it's unfair, and it has to stop. How any otherwise rational human being can force girls to compete against male-bodied opponents is really beyond me. Read the account.

from New Hampshire Journal

A test coming 2

Re-post from 2021, "Robbie" George's choice for integrity

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Princeton Professor of Law Robert P. George has made up his mind in advance of the testing he thinks will come. When/if powers in our culture demand that he affirm what he does not believe, he will not do it. Not in public, not in private, not to save career or friendship.

"There is only one thing about my life that is completely in my control, namely, my integrity. No one can take it from me. If I lose it, it can only be by way of my own freely chosen decision to yield it up. This I will not do.

"How about you? The only thing in your life that no one can take from you--even if they take from you everything else, everything you love, treasure, or cherish--is your integrity. Will you sacrifice it for other things? Or will you refuse to yield it up, no matter the cost?

"You will face the test. Pray for me, as I will pray for you, dear friends, that all of us, with God's help, will pass the test--that "like a tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved."

A test coming 1

 A re-post from 2021, well worth seeing again

Corruption in our national life is distressing. People of integrity will have to decide whether to  cave under pressure, or take a stand against the corruption.

Robert P. George posted the following on Facebook.

"A time of testing is coming--indeed, for some it has already come. We are each going to have to decide. As for myself:

"I will not pretend to believe what I do not believe, or pretend not to believe what I do believe.

"I will not speak as if I believe to be true something I in fact believe to be false.

"Not in public. Not in private. Not for the sake of career or friendships. Not to fit in or avoid being thrown out (or "canceled").

(cont'd tomorrow)

Megachurches 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Calvary Temple also produces 650 television programs per month in seventeen languages, and plans to launch another 40 megachurches like this one in the next ten years. They provide meals for 200k people per month: "service to mankind is service to God."  Their reach is staggering.

"In a society where many people can only dream of having a birthday cake, the church’s volunteers hand deliver a cake to the doorstep of every member on their birthday — almost 4,000 cakes a day." Five 2-hour services take place every Sunday. Despite the cultural caste stratification, all worshipers are seated equally in the sanctuary. 

Mass conversions started happening about 20-30 years ago, according to one observer, and other big churches are growing. Thousands convert from Hindu, Sikh, and other religions weekly. The wave arouses persecution, accusations, anti-conversion laws (photo).

 

Most of the growth is Protestant in nature, since the Catholic Church decided to focus on "making better Hindus" rather than conversions back in the 1960's.

from Stream

Megachurches 1

Picture the nation of India as you imagine it to be with its Hindu temples and masses of people. Now add to that picture some Christian megachurches.

Satish Kumar grew up as a "rowdy lad" in a poor Hindu family. When he heard from a street evangelist that Jesus Christ could change his life, he embraced the message. Beginning as a manual laborer for conferences, he started a youth fellowship group. That was followed by a new church of 25 members in 2005.

In ten years that church had grown to 130,000 members. Today Pastor Kumar's congregation numbers over 300,000, a church size unknown in the U.S. and hard to imagine.

Hillbillies

Dominican friars aren't known for their musical performances. Or, at the least, you might expect medieval chants over American bluegrass. But they're performing bluegrass all right . . at the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville TN.

Their name, "Hillbilly Thomists," is a reference to Thomas Aquinas who lived around 1200 AD in Britain, an influential monk.

In the words of one fan, "Their folksy music is at once complex and lovely with lyrics rich in poetry and Scripture."

Cat reporting

At the presidential debate last week, one of the candidates said of migrants in Ohio: "They're eating cats/dogs." Yikes. It stirred up controversy.

Media fact-checkers denied it, some calling the claim a "racist smear." How are they sure about that? CBS was sure because the mayor of Springfield OH said there's no police report about it. But of course that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

What should CBS have done to find out the truth, given its massive resources? They should have done the work of journalism: sent a reporter to the area to interview the eyewitness and the neighbors, find the visual evidence, conduct background research.

That's what investigative journalist Christopher Rufo did. His team found the party who posted the relevant video and went to the site, found a grill matching that in the video, confirmed the location by knot patterns in the fence, matched voice patterns, and much more.

Conclusion: "Our interview with the eyewitness matched the details of the original video and was unambiguous in its conclusion: “This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill. They was barbecuing the damn cat!”

Get the rest of the story, the video, and detail corrections from "Fact Checking the Fact Checkers"

Waiting for #5

Follow up to this post 

"Starships need to fly.  The more we [SpaceX] fly safely, the faster we learn; the faster we learn, the sooner we realize full and rapid rocket reuse."  

Like some of you, I'm anxious for test flight #5 of Starship. What's holding it up? 

Well, it's not SpaceX. "The Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for Flight 5 have been ready to launch since the first week of August."

"Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork (photo) to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware. This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space."

The FAA estimated a late September launch, but now has delayed it to late November. "[T]he licensing process has been repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd." 

Does the government have other issues going on here? A future post topic.

 from SpaceX

Polaris 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Go here for SpaceX's video of the spacewalk along with their real time comments.

"A lot of us work here because we want to do this," says a narrator of the video. Gillis and Menon were the ones who really did get to do this, the first time in space for any SpaceX employee. 

Civilian and commander of the mission, Jared Isaacman, paid for it out of his personal wealth. It could be called "space tourism," but it's not like going on a cruise. It's brutal out there.

Temperature can go from 250 degrees above zero (in the sun) down to 250 degrees below (in  Earth's shadow). There's radiation, and zero breathable air. Their spacesuits have to protect from all of that, while keeping the astronauts comfortable enough to function.

"It's kind of like a suit of armor made of fabric," said SpaceX's principal spacesuit engineer. He explains its design in a video posted on X.

Polaris 1

At the age of 41, he has his own Wikipedia page. He's rich, so he has the money to do what he's always wanted to do: be an astronaut. Jared Isaacson started his own successful companies, and funded and organized the mission called Polaris Dawn.

Four civilians (photo) launched last Tuesday, but not for NASA or any other national space program. SpaceX took them 870 miles into space where Jared and SpaceX engineer Sara Gillis did an EVA (extravehicular activity), the first ever for civilians.

Their "spacewalk" didn't involve a tether, but rather they kept in contact with their vehicle, Crew Dragon Resilience, the whole time. Just for this mission, a new hatch called "Skywalker" replaced the capsule's normal ISS docking port to enable the EVA. 

They tested their spacesuits and Starlink laser-based communications, conducted over 30 science experiments, and returned to Earth safely yesterday. Two more Polaris Project missions will follow.

from Space

(cont'd tomorrow, the EVA and the spacesuits)

On Monday . .

 Private individuals go into space with SpaceX . . details coming on Monday.

Resisting 6

Follow up to this post

In spite of Maduro's threats, X (Twitter) would not comply with his demand that they censor his political opponents. So a much higher penalty was set.

X is banned in Brazil. Some citizens might want to switch to a VPN (virtual private network) to get around the ban and continue reading X, but that strategy is squelched as well. A justice speaking for their Supreme Court announced that anyone doing that will be fined US$8900/day--more than the average yearly salary.

The CEO of X says, “This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it did not have to come to this – it breaks my heart.”  She added that Brazil's constitution forbids censorship.

X's legal representative in country was threatened with imprisonment so she resigned, and even then all her bank accounts were frozen. 

Both in America and in other countries, we take the freedom to speak for granted. But it's gotten to the point where we'll have to fight for that freedom because: "Just about every tinpot dictator on the planet wants to stamp out our right to hear alternative voices . ."

from Mind Matters

Try socialism 4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

 If socialism is called by another name, like "democratic socialism," is it better? 

Will the outcomes be good if people actually vote for it in an election? No, the outcomes still won't be good.

Try socialism 3

When Cambodia shifted to economic freedom, things got a lot better for the people. No, we don't want socialism. Freedom is best for Americans.

(cont'd from yesterday's post).

Freer market reforms during the 1990's opened the door to optimism. Mr. Lim's parents had no hope for a better future, but his own generation saw that grinding poverty as rice farmers was no longer the only option: they saw freedom to improve their lives.

From 1995 to 2017 Cambodia's economy grew at an average rate of 7.7% per year. (To compare, good growth in the U.S. used to be about 3% per year.) In 2007 the poverty rate was still about 47%, but by 2014 it was at 14%.

photo

What does Cambodia look like now? This author recently visited Mr. Lim and reports:

"Mr. Lim works in tourism. He drives a Lexus SUV on paved roads. He buys groceries from a thriving local market, and his daughters go to school. His brother owns a pharmacy in Phnom Penh. Another brother is a nurse at a major hospital . . There are entrepreneurs everywhere . . I witnessed family-owned coffee shops, restaurants, general stores, and roadside markets."

In one generation the grim poverty was turned around. Mr. Lim says it came because of: "Peace, education, technology, and the entrepreneurial spirit of Cambodian people.”

from "Entrepreneurship Lifts Cambodia from the Clutches of Extreme Poverty in a Single Generation"

Try socialism 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

 

Pol Pot's hideous regime (Khmer Rouge) was ended by Vietnam, which captured and plundered the capital (Phnom Penh) in January of 1979. The ruined nation of Cambodia became the "People's Republic of Kampuchea" (the PRK) and remained a communist state.

"Under Vietnamese control, the PRK was established in the wake of the total destruction of the country's institutions, infrastructure and intelligentsia wreaked by Khmer Rouge rule."

Lim Pengkhun was born to rice farmers in 1980. "For the first 15 years of [his] life, Cambodia was a command economy controlled by communist and socialist policies and remained one of the most impoverished nations in the world."

Things started to change in 1989 when the last Vietnamese occupiers left Cambodia, and reforms started transitioning their economy from "command" to free market. New private property rights turned state-owned enterprises into person-owned enterprises. The U.N. invested in education, infrastructure, and health.

photo

(cont'd tomorrow)

Try socialism 1

One of our political parties wants us to try Socialism policies in America, a theme that comes up every four years in our national election. It's not a new idea. Other countries have tried socialism, and we don't want their results. The story of what happened in Cambodia is the theme of this week's posts, re-posts from five years ago on this blog.

A boy who had been educated in Cambodia's elite schools went to Paris, France, and became a follower of Marxist-Leninist communism there. Returning in 1953, he joined communist forces fighting the Cambodian government. The boy was Pol Pot.

Eventually he led his armies to defeat the government, and took control of Cambodia's politics and economy in 1975. His goal was to create an "agrarian socialist society," so he forced people out of cities and onto collective farms. His vision demanded social uniformity. His solution to dissent was to kill dissenters.

photo of mass grave

"Following the examples of Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot brutally murdered more than one million Cambodians in the infamous Killing Fields of 1975-1979 as he implemented his vision of communist utopia. He abolished private property, money, prices, commerce, and even cities—a full descent into barbarism.

"Death sentences were levied against any number of “class enemies.” Simply being a former civil servant, student, artist, or capitalist of any variety—including a “street noodle vendor or a motorcycle taxi driver”—was enough to earn a spot in one of Pol Pot’s mass graves."

from FEE
(cont'd tomorrow)

U of Austin 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

UATX was founded to be the right kind of university, where truth is pursued with respect for each other, with humility, with honesty. As one of the founders, Bari Weiss, put it, "grievance and resentment define the current cultural moment. It’s a dead end. We must get back to gratitude." 

In his convocation address, President Kanelos didn't just complain about the degraded state of our existing universities. He tried to clearly express what this new one was created to do.

"We are returning to the very roots of the Western . . civilization that brought forward these extraordinary institutions called universities.

"This university is dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth."

"Human beings have freedom and agency, and . .  we will learn how to use our freedom well. [Our] purpose is not simply knowledge, but wisdom."

Hopefully this new attempt at higher education will help to create a new generation of Americans dedicated not to grievance and resentment (photo), but to goodness and truth and beauty.

U of Austin 2

 Follow up to this post

As Konstantin said, "there are people whose brains have been broken by an excess of education who believe that our history is evil, that we do not deserve to be great . . that we must be punished for the sins of our ancestors. To them our past is abominable, our present must be spent apologizing, and our future is managed decline." 

It's a disaster to this country and to the West that our colleges and universities, yes, are "breaking brains." Peter Boghossian (yesterday's post) said that they're beyond recovery, that the system should be burned to the ground.

But a few people decided to try to return sanity to our higher education system, and Boghossian joined them in the effort. They created the University of Austin to be different, not woke, and they just opened their doors to the Class of 2028 last week.

New president Pano Kanelos explained three years ago why they want to do this: our universities today tend to pursue emotional comfort rather than pursue knowing truth, the essential goal for a university.

"We can't wait for universities to fix themselves. So we're starting a new one."

from Free Press

(cont'd tomorrow)

University rot 4

Follow up to these posts

In an interview video, Peter Boghossian has the time (one hour+) to explain the poor condition of our woke elite universities from his point of view as an insider who spent ten years teaching at that level. 

photo

Freedom of speech, valued so highly by Americans until about five minutes ago, is no longer valued by some--because there's an overruling agenda. Under the banner of DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), no diversity is allowed. He says the intolerance is ubiquitous; it's practiced at all American and all Western universities. 

It got so widespread and embedded because the scholarly peer-reviewed journals became intolerant years and years ago. Only one point of view could be published.

What should we do in America with an education system that has gone off the rails, that is impervious to reason, where craziness and madness (his words) prevail? He doesn't engage in wishful thinking: "Burn it to the ground." 

Follow up tomorrow

Immigrant POV

Konstantin Kisin was born in Moscow, but came to Britain at the age of 12 with his parents. Naturally, he has a somewhat different point of view than the average Brit. He's grateful to be there, and published An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West.

It seems to him that his adopted country has turned to "self-loathing." As an "anti-woke" comedian, he offers a different POV.

Zuck regrets

Did you doubt it when you heard that social media censors speech? Or when you heard that the current American administration was pushing them to do it, because the government we have now wants to silence some of us?

If so, doubt no more. Mark Zuckerberg (photo), founder and CEO of Meta, confirms it in a letter he wrote to the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives:

"In 2021, senior officials from the . . White House repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content . . and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree." There were other subjects, too, that the government wanted censored.

He says they would handle the situation differently today than they did then and expresses some regret. "[W]e're ready to push back if something like this happens again." 

Meta cooperated with the government to violate the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing free speech. Zuckerberg seems to admit it, now that the House of Representatives is investigating.