This short monthly post is meant to be a postscript to a longer essay I wrote nine years ago, which focuses on two “big picture” aspects of Thanksgiving. I just re-read it, and I don’t think I’d change a word. Please take a minute to read the earlier post, Why Thanksgiving?, and then come back. Within the framework of that larger perspective, in November, 2024, I now want to be specific about several people and events for which I am particularly thankful. Although our large family has some...
This post has two parts: The Big Picture, and then Application. I’m a slow learner. I finally had an epiphany about what specifically bothers me so much about DEI—Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I’m a huge fan of Diversity. It’s one of our nation’s greatest strengths, and we all benefit from interactions with diverse people-types, backgrounds, characters and arguments. The main reason I like Diversity is because we don’t create it—God does. From the color of our skin and our gender to our...
Let me stipulate up front that this post contains several generalizations which I know do not apply to everyone in every case described. But focus with me on the larger picture, and I hope you will find the generalizations to be useful, as well as the many embedded reference links. Given my history in Russia and Ukraine in the early days of commercial real estate, friends often ask me why the Russian people don’t stand up more to the obvious lies and terrible consequences of Putin’s war on...
The confluence of Father’s Day and my 75th birthday within two days of each other this year reminded me of the power of families, and of the key role of fathers in the family. My father turned 75 in 1993, when I was 46. Like all of us, he was imperfect. But he was faithful, loyal, and loving. If he had a motto, it was “Always Do the Right Thing.” He put himself through Georgia Tech after the Depression and then fought in World War II. His father was in the first class at the Auburn University...
This month’s post will probably be labeled by many as right up there with Don Quixote's "Impossible Dream", but I still have faith in people, and so I'm going to write it anyway. It's addressed to everyone, and particularly to Woke, secular progressives, who think the Judeo-Christian foundations of our nation’s laws and principles are not important today. They are. Please follow this argument: The terrible, destructive impact of Evil, always present but usually doubted by modern thinkers, has...
Critical Race Theory is a lie at war with Christian faith because of its belief in permanent cycles of conflict and oppression. There is no hope for anything better. According to CRT, every white person is always a racist and an oppressor, even if she or he admits the error and actually changes. CRT teaches that racism for whites is as unchangeable as skin color. And the American system is “systemically” racist because it was created for and continues to be run by white people. People of color...
I am very concerned about finding and acting on the Truth, as any reader of my recent posts will attest. As a student of Russian History who made my first visit to Leningrad in 1969 at the age of 22, I have always been aware of how the Soviet State bent “truth” to suit its needs. From big lies, like portraying their one-party, top-down, controlled elections as “democracy”, to the small lie that prices in their economy had anything to do with real costs or demand—all were fabrications to help...
I wrote the original version of the following story almost twenty years ago, as the second chapter in an anthology of short stories, Ten Lies and Ten Truths. I have rewritten parts of the story this week, to capture the new realities of History 2021 A Story Harrison Gillies sat alone in the teacher's lounge of a prestigious New England private high school grading English essays. Paintings donated by the Art Department, an oriental rug, and a couple of decades' accumulation of furniture lifted...
At age 72 I hope you don’t mind if I want to focus on what’s real and true, not on what’s false or BS. The BS is that we in the U.S. are suffering through a terrible time of oppression, inequality, dysfunction and major problems. Yes, problems exist in varying degrees, and always will. But read Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now to be reminded that this is a remarkably great age for the world in general, and for the U.S. in particular, with the one exception noted in my earlier post. A...
Have you ever thought about how the most powerful and long lasting movements and institutions are each underpinned by a religious, secular or philosophical faith foundation, believed by many to be the Truth? In fact, without that faith foundation, these institutions would not survive. Virtually every such institution has been organized with power and authority flowing from the top down. The Divine Right of Kings and the Medieval Catholic Church were often at odds, but they were organized...
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