Mark Twain

Sharon surprised me this past Christmas by getting a copy of Mark Twain’s autobiography for me. Twain asked that this work not be published until one hundred years had passed after his death, so it just came out (the first volume). I’m working my way through it (it’s huge) and rediscovering why I like him so much.

It’s mostly his nonfiction that I enjoy. Of course, he’s famous for Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Gilded Age, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Prince and the Pauper, and other fictional works, but the way he describes his own adventures knocks me out.

For instance, he wrote Innocents Abroad, the story of a trip he took with other Americans to Europe. It’s fun to see the contrast of the brash Americans as they navigate their way around cosmopolitan cities with their hundreds of museums and art galleries. The Americans are not really hicks in this entourage; they show up well in comparison with the people they run into during their sightseeing excursions. Twain tells of his group’s suspicion when they are shown in one museum the skull of Christopher Columbus as a child and another skull of Columbus as an adult.

He also wrote Life on the Mississippi, where he describes in beautiful prose the allure of the river. We meet all sorts of odd and intriguing people, engaged in piloting and working on those magnificent paddlewheelers as they trekked up and down the Mississippi. Twain narrates his story of becoming a riverboat captain, in which he goes from a naïve kid to a seasoned veteran of the journeys up and down the dangerous and ever-changing river.

Then there’s Roughing It, probably my favorite. Here Twain looks at the American West through eyes of wonder and confusion. Again he starts out as the innocent outsider who has to learn the ways of a very different culture and landscape. He gets lost in a snowstorm, has to deal with a bunch of tarantulas let loose in a dark room at night, buys a horse with qualities he didn’t count on, and encounters all sorts of picturesque people and places.

If you haven’t read Twain in a long time, you can probably get these somewhere on the internet for free. I hope you enjoy him half as much as I do.

Freedom, Islamic style

I think it’s important at times to be reminded of all the liberties we have in this great country. We hear so many negative things about the U.S., drummed into our heads by the media, politicians, textbooks, intellectual elites, etc. One thing I love is our religious freedom. Compare that to this story out of Egypt as reported by Voice of the Martyrs, an organization set up to let the world know of the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

In Egypt there is a truck driver who is a Christian. He drives into the wilderness at night to feed 42 Christian converts who sleep on cardboard mats in a small house. Many of these people are former Muslims who were part of a radical Islamic organization called the Muslim Brotherhood. They are now hunted by the police for converting to Christianity. I find that ironic--the police also search for Brotherhood members because these are deemed dangerous to the state since they advocate Islamo-fascism. But now they're hunted because the police see the converts as a new danger to the state; they owe allegiance first to God, not Egypt.

The truck driver tells how impressed he is with these outcasts. They can’t find jobs, but they are not sorry for their conversions. They devour the Bible, they ask many questions about what they read, they sing songs to Jesus.

This truck driver (no name to protect him), was caught by the police, who have a special division that focuses on Christians who talk to others about their faith. He was stripped, hung upside down, and beaten. But he says he carries his cross for Jesus with pleasure. He mentions verses that sustain him through these difficult times—Hebrews 13:13 and Revelation 12:11 in particular.

I compare that to the robust freedoms we have here. Oh sure, we get some flack from non-believers, but put that into a global perspective. People are killed around the world for their religious convictions. Moslem countries are notorious for their persecution of those differing from Islam. So much for political correctness that praises all cultures. I’ll take our freedoms over their closed-mindedness any day.

The "Big Bang" is misunderstood

This is a shorter blog than usual, but it's on an interesting topic. We hear a lot about the Big Bang in cosmology. It was a term applied sarcastically when it was initially brought out as an explanation for the beginning of the universe. But now scientists are satisfied that it is the true description of what happened at the very beginning--the universe expanded from a single point into the vast array of stars, planets, dust, and dark matter that we encounter today. This concept is widely misunderstood, and Hugh Ross (head of Reasons to Believe) wrote a short piece that clarifies what the Big Bang really means.

When we think of an explosion, we picture an uncontrolled event with pieces being driven in random directions out to random distances. Think of a grenade going off or a stick of dynamite exploding. But this isn't the case with the start of the universe. Its expansion is neither random nor chaotic.

In fact, the Big Bang was precise and fine-tuned in such a way as to bring life into existence. As an example, the rate of expansion had to be exactly right. If it had been slightly slower, all matter would have collapsed back together so that no stars or planets would have formed. If the explosion had been any faster, all would have flown apart, resulting in no stars or planets sticking together.

Ross says there are two physical factors that control this cosmic expansion, and they illustrate the precision of the initial explosion. These two factors are the mass density and dark energy density. If you want more info on this part of his explanation, take a look at his books or go to his web site (reasons.org).

Ross claims that the Bible has described all the key principles of big bang cosmology in its pages. He can show you various passages that refer to the beginning of matter/energy/space/time, ongoing cosmic expansion, and the constancy of physical laws. Again, you can check these points for yourself by reading some of his provocative books or looking at items on his web site.

The Big Bang is not a threat to our faith in an intelligent designer as some would suggest. It acts as confirmation of the existence of a creator God who fashioned a universe in which humans could exist and ponder how they got there. I highly recommend Ross and his organization. Let me know if you'd like some good books to start with in this area.

Disgusting journalism

The New York Times is highly respected among the intelligentsia in America today. It used to be respected among all levels of society. Not any more. Here's the latest reason why most people have given up on the paper. Consider the terrible shootings in Arizona.

Remember the rampage of a Muslim at a U.S. military post, where he shot up many soldiers? How did the Times react? It urged caution when trying to assign blame: "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."

That seemed like a proper note of restraint. But the Tucson Safeway massacre prompted exactly the opposite reaction. What was once known as the paper of record egged on its readers to draw invidious conclusions that are not only prejudicial but contrary to fact. It was disgusting and immoral to do so. Here's what the Times came up with:

"It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people . . . Now, having seen first hand the horror of political violence, Arizona should lead the nation in quieting the voices of intolerance, demanding an end to the temptations of bloodshed, and imposing sensible controls on its instruments."

The Times has outdone itself in a frenzy of blame. To describe the Tucson massacre as an act of "political violence" is, quite simply, a lie. The paper has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. Consider the words of its star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was." Even his Monday column had not given up on this fantasy when he said violent rhetoric caused the massacre, falsely asserting it is "coming, overwhelmingly, from the right."

Oh really??? In the National Review an author ran through a list of examples of violent rhetoric that came from the left. Check these out:

"Even before [George W.] Bush was elected president, the kill-Bush talk and imagery started. When Governor Bush was delivering his 2000 convention speech, Craig Kilborn, a CBS talk-show host, showed him on the screen with the words "SNIPERS WANTED." Six years later, Bill Maher, the comedian-pundit, was having a conversation with John Kerry. He asked the senator what he had gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry answered that he had taken her to Vermont. Maher said, "You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone." (New Hampshire is an early primary state, of course.) Kerry said, "Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone." (This is the same Kerry who joked in 1988, "Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle.") Also in 2006, the New York comptroller, Alan Hevesi, spoke to graduating students at Queens College. He said that his fellow Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer, would "put a bullet between the president's eyes if he could get away with it."

Then there's the Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania who just last October told a newspaper, "That [Rick] Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

Another bit of violent rhetoric appeared as the lead sentence of an article on the Times op-ed page in December 2009: "A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy." The author: Paul Krugman. This is the same man who held a party on the night of Obama's election to the Presidency: "We had two or three TVs set up and we had a little portable outside fire pit and we let people throw in an effigy or whatever they wanted to get rid of for the past eight years. One of our Italian colleagues threw in an effigy of Berlusconi." This is the same man who now bleats about the vicious rhetoric of the right.

I don't know about you, but this smear against conservatives is a new low in my book. Before all the facts were in (we now know the shooter in Arizona was simply deranged), leftists were accusing conservatives of stirring this crazy individual to action. Decent people of whatever political stripe must say enough is enough.

Congress and the Constitution

I was happy to hear that the first order of business in the House of Representatives was reading aloud the Constitution. Of course, this alone will not bring us any closer to limited government, but it will help focus on an important issue--the role and power of the Congress in relation to the Constitution. An article by Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute explores this issue. I read it and wanted to share it with you.

Pilon says that for much of the history of the United States, members of Congress and presidents alike rejected legislation because they believed there was no constitutional authority to enact it. They all believed the key element for America was individual liberty. The Constitution gave the federal government the authority to pursue certain limited ends, like national security and ensuring free interstate commerce, but otherwise left us free to pursue our ends either through the states or as private individuals. It did not authorize the federal government to provide us with the huge array of goods and services that today turn so many into dependents.

The first question the new Congress will be asking of any proposed law is simple (but overlooked lately): Does the Constitution authorize us to pursue this end? If not, that ends the matter. If yes, the second question is: Are the means we employ "necessary and proper," as constrained by the principles of federalism and the rights retained by the people that are implied by a government of enumerated powers? That's pretty simple. The Constitution was written to be understood by ordinary citizens.

Pilon then explains how modern constitutional law got so complicated and federal power so expansive. It's true that several provisions in the Constitution were written broadly to allow for contingencies. But those provisions were not supposed to create boundless congressional power. The idea was that any political redress of unexpected problems would be done only in conjunction with the larger structure, aims and principles of the document.

The author sees the growth of government in the last one hundred years due to the rise of progressives. They rejected the Constitution's plan for limited government, advocating social engineering schemes instead. Rule by government experts was the order of the day. As people and politicians succumbed to those ideas, especially in the states, courts would often block the schemes in the name of constitutional liberty. Can you imagine? The courts were on the people's side. Man, those were the good old days.

But under the Franklin Roosevelt administration, according to Pilon, the courts buckled. They essentially gave Congress the power to redistribute and regulate at will, eviscerating the very foundation of the Constitution: the doctrine of enumerated powers.

This year's Congress needs to get to the root of the problem if the representatives want to start restoring limited constitutional government. There are several things they can do, Pilon believes.

First, they'll have to keep the debate focused on the Constitution, not simply on policy or practicality. Second, they'll have to call a halt to the idea that Congress can do virtually anything. The Supreme Court was wrong in allowing Congress to exercise power not granted it by the Constitution, and courts today are wrong when they uphold those precedents—even if they're not in a position today to reverse them until Congress takes greater responsibility. Third, Congress has to start taking greater responsibility. It should stop letting the President take power from it.

This is going to be tough, and it will take years. But, says Pilon, "the alternative—our Leviathan state, which recognizes no limits on its power—is simply unconstitutional." Amen.

Finding the right career

There's a new book out to help people take practical steps to find the right career for them. It's called 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller. It was recently reviewed in World magazine by Marvin Olasky. Between the two men, there were useful insights into career searches, in case any of you would like some advice or know someone who would..

They suggest one place to start is by listing your dreams and passions. What would you do if money was not important? What recurrent themes keep coming up in your thinking? What did you enjoy as a child but later people told you was unrealistic or impractical as a career?

They warn of a potential problem -- putting material considerations first when choosing a career. Miller says aiming for position, status, and power can be elusive, leading to rapid burnout. In addition, a person may end up with a job that has little security.

Olasky claims two things are the key to a proper career search. First is understanding the biblical approach to work. It is not seen as a necessary evil or simply a way to pay the bills. Everything we do should serve and glorify God, including the work we do. We want something that is a vocation, a calling. The Bible gives dignity to all work. We should not think of a separation between our work and full-time Christian service since all work is Christian service.

He says the next important key is how to find your calling. He suggests two questions: What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? He believes God hands out talents in a focused way. He claims most people come to find that they enjoy what they're good at because God gives us the desire to gain pleasure from being productive and having others respect our work.

Both suggest it's important to specialize. We need to become excellent at one thing, and, therefore, we should not think failure at some other things is terrible. As a teacher, I have seen students who struggle with writing, but they are amazing artists. Miller says we should spend 80% of our time working in an area we consider our strength.

The last piece of advice is important. Both describe the value of challenges in our careers. There was an interesting story here about David Livingstone, the famous missionary who went to Africa. A missionary society asked him if he had found a good road so that other missionaries could easily join him. His response was powerful: "If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all." I remember leaving high school teaching. There were several other teachers who said they wished they were leaving too, but they liked the security of their jobs. When we talk to our children or others seeking careers, let's keep Livingston's reply in mind. People need a challenge in life. Even if we already have a career, I'm sure there are challenges we can take on as well. Maybe we can think about that in the new year ahead.

Global warming--time to see how the predictions have turned out

I wanted to start the year out with a look back. There have been all sorts of dire warnings from the global warming crowd. I came across some of these and wanted to share them with you so we can understand the nature of these warnings.


1. Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

Well, ten years have gone by since this predictions was made. I guess we know how that turned out. England had the most snow recently since who-knows-when.

2. "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers." Michael Oppenheimer, published in "Dead Heat," St. Martin's Press, 1990.

But I read that NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation -- rain and snow -- has increased slightly over the century. Hmm . . . another miss by the global warming set.

3. "Arctic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000." Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1972. In 2008 Dr. David Barber of Manitoba University said "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time," (ignoring the many earlier times the Pole has been ice free).

Actually, accounts I've seen say the Arctic ice is thicker and temperatures are not rising. You know, even if the ice did thin out, records show this has happened periodically over the history of the earth.

4. "Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010." Associated Press, May 15, 1989.

OK, so here were are at the end of 2010. How did this prediction turn out? According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period. According to some, NASA data have been known to have a problem accuracy, because instead of collecting data from temperature stations, NASA makes assumptions regarding what the temperatures should be.

5. "If present trends continue, the world will be ... eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." Kenneth E.F. Watt, in "Earth Day," 1970.

Oh that's right, we were told back in the 70s that there would be global cooling, that the Earth was facing an ice age. Maybe that will be the new message after this winter.

6. "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.

You may remember Ehrlich, a fearmonger who was listened to by the intelligentsia back in the 70s. He lost a famous bet with another, more reasonable man (I forgot his name) who bet him that precious metal prices wouldn't soar as Ehrlich had predicted in his doom-and-gloom scenarios. Erhlich lost the bet.

7. "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970

Ehrlich made a good living spewing stuff like this. We know now that scientists can get more funding if they create alarming scenarios like this.

8. Al Gore sold his scary global warming film, An Inconvenient Truth, shown in almost every school in the country, with a poster of a terrible hurricane. Former US president Bill Clinton later gloated: "It is now generally recognized that while Al Gore and I were ridiculed, we were right about global warming. . . It's going to lead to more hurricanes."

But the past 50 years has been about the quietest on record for US hurricanes. The decade of the 1940s was the worst. Researchers at Florida State University concluded that the 2007 and 2008 hurricane seasons had the least tropical activity in the Northern Hemisphere in 30 years. This year there were plenty of hurricanes in the Atlantic, but they were generally weak and did not hit land. Pacific hurricanes were at a record low in 2010.

That's enough for now. Remember that the alarmists are being rewarded for extreme statements with more money, so there's no incentive to stop. Don't jump to any quick conclusions until reason takes over.