Much has been written about our 250th Anniversary by people much smarter than me. I particularly enjoy the Opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal. Here are two really good, recent ones by Gerald Baker and Barton Swaim. I also re-read the post I wrote 13 years ago for our 237th Anniversary, before Trump, Covid, and so much more (but Iran was there!). If you have another minute, please take a look: “Who or What Will Fill The Leadership Void in Our Nation?” Sadly, we continue to elect our...
It’s almost June 6th, the anniversary of D-Day. For the last several years on this morning I’ve watched at least the first thirty minutes of the incredible movie, Saving Private Ryan, as my sincere but insufficient act of remembrance. My parents were married in Baltimore on June 3, 1944, and they tell the story of waking up while on their honeymoon three days later at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York as church bells pealed across the entire city early that morning, and people flooded into...
As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach I know it’s easy to be pulled into all the planning details and to wind up dreading the month, just the opposite of what God intends. So this year I’m going to actively focus on three aspects of these special days which are not always on the table with the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pies. The first is Gratitude. I don’t see it much. Rather than regularly recounting our innumerable blessings, many of us appear to be worried, slightly angry, or downright...
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...
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