Worm Correction plus Politics: Dinesh D'Souza

First, a correction.  Thank you, Kind Readers, for not pointing out my Wormwood mistake from this post.  Lewis had the Wormwood character and Tolkien had Grima Wormtongue, which I discovered while watching the extended edition LOTR trilogy over the past several weeks.  However, I believe there is no coincidence in the fact both of these men used Worm for these two characters.  I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the Bird to hear the Inklings' literary discussions, especially this one!

In case you did not figure it out, the unnamed book from last week is Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.  Reading this feels a little like reading Mein Kampf did - not exactly a book you want others to see you carrying around or reading at the pediatrician's office.  Even though I lugged this book to Florida with me last week, I just could not bring myself to read it; I was on a Navy base, not the most radical, rule-changing place on the planet so I am stuck at chapter 2.

 Rules for Radicals is an important book to read and understand, especially in this political season.  Another book I would highly recommend is Dinesh D'Souza's The Roots of Obama's Rage.  When I read this book a few months ago, it was not with a highlighter or pencil in hand so I'm not going to be able to share pithy quotes or make comments on things that stood out to me.

The last chapter of this book is the most important for, in it, D'Souza makes three predictions about Obama's presidency: tax increases on the rich, lack of effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and an all-out campaign against the US military.

The first one we see happening before our very eyes.  THe Congressional Budget Office is reporting the US will go into a deeper recession if the Bush tax cuts are not extended, including those for the 1%.  Democrats are adamantly against allowing the tax cuts for the wealthily, which, since 2008, has an ever changing definition - first it was those making $250,000 and then it was $150,000 and then it was $100,000, and according to this blog, even lower than that.

The second one is also happening now.  Israel is going to do something about it but the US will sit idly by, or keeps telling Israel to wait or back off or thinks "crippling sanctions" will work.  The text of Obama's state speech given with Netanyahu follows Rules#  3, 4 and 12.  Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, there is no doubt in my mind on that.

If you have any doubt about the third one, I have one word for you: sequestration.

D'Souza and an Academy Award winning producer have come out with 2016:
"2016 Obama's America takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world’s most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, "If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?"

Across the globe and in America, people in 2008 hungered for a leader who would unite and lift us from economic turmoil and war. True to America’s ideals, they invested their hope in a new kind of president, Barack Obama. What they didn't know is that Obama is a man with a past, and in powerful ways that past defines him--who he is, how he thinks, and where he intends to take America and the world."

I have not seen this movie yet but it has received favorable reviews from 2 of my Facebook fans.  It has also surprised box office watchers with it's success.  

Election time is right around the corner.  No matter who you vote for, be an informed voter.

Interconnectedness

I am reading a book that contains this from the second paragraph of the prologue: "Few of us surveyed the Joe McCarthy holocaust of the early 1950s and of those there were even fewer whose understanding and insights developed beyond the dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxism.  My fellow radicals . . . . " (xiii).  Now, that should be a little clue.  I do appreciate an author who lets you know where he or she stands right off the bat.  Ayn Rand is like this, but of course, on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

Now, in this little volume, I thought there would be a dearth of things I agree with the author on.  Here's about the only point so far: " . . . today organized religion is materially solvent and spiritually bankrupt" (14).

I have found, however, many, many more points of contention. This man thinks that Moses and Paul were part of the middle class (20).  Hello?! Moses was raised in the household of Pharaoh and Paul was a rabbinic scholar, hardly the middle class in my mind.  The author must have missed that day in Talmud school (another clue).

I am also reading a book about the 14th century (see sidebar).  The section I am on now is about the various rebellions in which the French and English peasants revolted against the ruling class.  I was really amazed at all the revolutions that took place in France before the Big One, you know, the Les Miserables one: Marie Antoinette, let them eat cake! and all that.  The French have been angry for a long time, organizing themselves into revolts, albeit short-lived, without any help from community organizers or Marx.

The third book I've been lugging around has quite surprised me at how captivating it is.  Back in the 14th century, there was no journalism, only the reports of various, and at times, untrustworthy chroniclers.  While entertaining and informative, these reports were post facto.  This third book, All the President's Men, is a kind of post facto report but when one has 4 filing cabinets filled with notes (and that's just from the first 3 chapters) and documentation for each detective-type encounter, these chroniclers can be counted on to be trustworthy.

All the President's Men is a movie and I look forward to watching it, when I'm done with the book, of course!

I have seen Les Miz on stage in London; I cry almost every time I listen to the soundtrack, and my dear son informs me there will soon be a movie out on the same; hopefully I can get out of the 14th century before then! The book I mentioned first isn't a movie but we are living in a time where this book, whose author highly influenced our President and Secretary of State, is being played out before our eyes.

Guessed the book yet?

The Screwtape Letters

I am not reading this book now, but I have and consider it to be a classic, a must-read for any Christian, fan or follower.

C.S. Lewis takes his infinite imaginative skill by writing from a demon's point of view; a demon, Screwtape, who is set on helping his nephew, Wormwood, be a better demon.  But yet, the lessons really aren't for Wormwood.

They are for us.

Lewis dedicated this to JRR Tolkien.  If you've read any of The Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies, you know who Wormwood was.  Tolkien's homage to Lewis? Or Lewis's homage to Tolkein?


Either way, it is just so cool to me that Tolkien and Lewis were friends; that I have walked the same path they did.











That these buildings I saw at Magdalen College, Lewis worked in.

My plan for this blog was to write about authors in their birth month; Lewis's birthday isn't 'til November.  I feel like celebrating him today.

The summer reading list continues to dwindle!

Kyle Idleman is "the teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth largest church in America."  If his sermons are delivered in any similar way to his writing style, his congregants must spend a lot of time laughing, after all, a merry heart is good medicine.  But as soon as the laughing would die down, Kyle would hit them with a zinger, like: "Fans often confuse their admiration for devotion.  They mistake their knowledge of Jesus for intimacy with Jesus" (p.27).  And the purpose of this book is to help you "define the relationship" (p.22) between you and Jesus.  Are you a fan or a follower?

At the end of each chapter is the story of someone who had something happen to them which catapulted them from being a fan to being a follower.  Some of these stories are truly heart wrenching, heart warming stories of what God can do in someone's life.  However, not one of these stories is about an ordinary Christian living an ordinary life - that won't sell books will it?  But that is the story of my life.  I'm an ordinary woman who has not been called by God to start a ministry to strippers or who tried to kill herself.  I'm a woman who has been a fan at times in my life, but I am certainly not going to find my life story in a book like this.  Does that mean God hasn't worked in my life?  Goodness no!  I can look back over yesterday and see His care and protection.  I can look back over my past and see where He was there, preventing so many bad things from happening to me that could have changed the course of my life dramatically.  I guess I'm a little put out with a book that subtly seems to say you have to have an excitingly horrible thing happen to you for your life in Christ to matter.  Idleman says "[if] you find yourself measuring your relationship with Jesus by comparing yourself to others, that is likely a self-indictment" (p.26) yet Idleman holds up all these people as examples, as people for the reader to compare themselves to, fan or follower.

Lest you think I didn't like anything in this book, there were several places where Idleman explained some cultural contexts of Jesus's time which helped me understand Jesus's words better.  For example, when the man ask Jesus if he could bury his father before following Jesus, that really meant "when my parents die, I will follow you" (p.190).  Idleman contrasts this with the response of Peter and Andrew, who drop everything to follow Jesus right then.  His explanation on the definition of the Greek word doulos was instructive: "It is a word that is most accurately translated as slave . . . [but it] is usually translated as 'servant'" (p.151).  I would be most interested to know why that is because a servant, to someone who loves Downton Abbey, is in no way anything like a slave!

What I really like is when one book I'm reading highlights or emphasizes something I've read in another book.  This happened with not a fan and Abundant Simplicity, which opens with a discussion of two things I had never really known or thought about.  As a Christian, we can practice "disciplines of engagement, such as study, prayer, service, worship and fellowship. . . . . [which] help us take in the life of God. Disciplines of abstinence, however, such as fasting, solitude, silence, chastity, secrecy. frugality and simplicity of speech and time, help us let go of life-draining behaviors" (p.11).  The purpose of this book is help the reader begin to practice the disciplines of abstinence in ways that will simplify life, making it easier to be in a position to hear and obey God.

Abundant Simplicity intersects with not a fan in the area of "'impression management' - controlling what other people think about us. Disciplines of simplicity reveal the self-serving motives we thought only other people had: pride, greed and desires to control" (p. 16).  Idleman hits on this in the chapter "Self-Empowerment or Spirit Filled?" He confesses how he used to move the stopper on the weight machine so the next guy after him would think he lifted way more weight then he really did (p.94).  I have really been convicted in this area, even to the point where I was able to see my own self misunderstand and then get defensive about something because I was trying to manage someone's perception of me!

The two also discuss how living in America, the land of plenty, can effect one's Christian journey.  Idleman writes, "Instead of approaching their faith with a spirit of denial that says 'What can I do for Jesus?' they have a consumer mentality that says, 'What can Jesus do for me?'' (p.148).  Johnson says, "Consumerism is an attachment to materialistic values or possessions because we think they're required for our happiness" and quotes Evy McDonald: "A theology of consumption  . . . Slowly, almost imperceptibly we['ve] wondered away from the foundational teachings of Jesus-sharing our wealth, identifying with the marginalized. . . and [have begun] to identify our worth with how much money we made or how many possessions we owned . . . . " (p. 89).

Abundant Simplicity is designed with experiments to try at the end of each chapter.  Some suggestions include mediating on Scriptures discussed in the chapter, journaling, discussing with a trusted friend some topic, taking a retreat, and trying not to talk for a certain period of time <gasp!>.  There are also discussion and reflection questions, which would be perfect for a group setting.

If I had to pick one of these books to recommend to you, it would be Abundant Simplicity. It will probably be a book I read every year, with a new highlighter color to mark my journey through it each time. I found the topics much more pertinent to my life and where I am in my spiritual journey.  It has already had an impact on my life.

September is National Preparedness Month.

So why I am writing about preparedness in August?  Well, because here in the Tar Heel state, hurricane season really starts ramping up from August to November.  And if you wait to prepare for any kind of emergency until September, you could be up a creek without a paddle.

What is being prepared?  It is being able to handle almost any kind of emergency or situation that is out of the normal.  If your electricity goes out in the middle of the day for no apparent reason, what do you do?  All of a sudden, there's no water coming out of the faucet, so how do you handle that?  A hurricane/snowstorm/ice storm/bad weather system is headed your way so what should you do or not do? What supplies are needed?

Now, the government has websites devoted to preparedness information.  The CDC has one here but since we all know what happened to the Atlanta CDC in The Walking Dead, well, go there at your own peril.  FEMA has some information too, but they don't have a good track record and if you get preparedness messages on your phone then a coronal mass ejection obliterates satellites and the power grid, those won't be too helpful.  I guess you might be able to sense that I don't think it's the government's job to provide me with anything after an event of some kind.  You will not find me in a line waiting for government hand-outs after a crisis because I believe in being prepared, as much as possible, for what ever might come down the pike.  And frankly, I feel the government recommendations are on the scanty side.

There is a lot of doom and gloom out there, people who blog that the sky is falling almost every day.  I have to stay away from a steady diet of that because it makes my Hysteria Meter peg in the red and it takes my mind off the One who is my Hope and Salvation.  So, I try to focus on blogs that are very informative and educational.

Survival Blog 

James Wesley Rawles can be a bit hard-nosed, but what can you expect from a former Army Intel guy?  He's written two novels, the first a thinly disguised tech manual with a barely perceptible plot.  I haven't read his second novel yet.  If you need to know how to prepare for an emergency or a long-term, grid-down, TEOTWAWKI situation, this is a great place to start.  Mr. Rawles has a nice glossary complete with a pronunciation guide.  

Rural Revolution

Patrice Lewis is so practical and down-to-earth!  I enjoy the pictures and the fact Patrice and I have the same kind of sense of humor.

Paratus Familia

I first learned about canning bacon from Enola.  Enola and Patrice are also friends, which is kind of neat.  Enola has an ebook on dealing with illnesses that I would like to get.

Preparedness Pro

Kellene Bishop's is one of a number of fantastic sites on preparing written by Mormons.  Just like they have cornered the scrapbooking market, Mormons seem to really have a disproportionate amount of websites on preparing and I think this is a good thing.  I have learned so much from reading a variety of these blogs, I appreciate that they are taught to do this and then willingly share with others.  Kellene just wrote a piece on famine that is must reading.  The thought of my children starving is a driving force in my stocking-up.

Coffee, Tea, Books and Me

Brenda is such a gentle soul who so willingly and transparently shares her struggles.  She is one of the first bloggers I ever read about stocking up.  Click on the "Deepening the Pantry" tab at the top to read through her archives on how she survived through lean times.

Thinking that things will always be like they are is not wise.  Thinking that the government will care for you in a natural disaster situation is not prudent.  Be aware of what challenges your region of the country could experience and then plan for them.  Be prepared isn't just for the Boy Scouts!

Next week, I am going to be discussing not a fan and Abundant Simplicity.