TWO OF MY MOST READ BLOGS
Just in case some of you missed these two blogs I’m about to recommend, let me tell you they, of course, were about books, neither of them fiction. One of them, with the blog dated February 17, 2010, turned out to be a much-loved book by several readers, as it was mine. I happened to have corresponded with the author who lived in France, and knew the answer to a life-or-death question several readers wanted to know. You will read their comments on the answer in the blog. This is what makes blogs so worthwhile to the writer. That book is Yours Is the Earth, a war-time publication, by Margaret Vail. That war was World War II.
The second blog is, among other things, also about war, a possible war in the future, if we don’t take care of what we have. I taught this small book in high school, to seniors who were planning to go to college. The day they got their copies of the book, already checked out to them to save class time, I read the first chapter aloud to them, to make sure they’d want to read the rest of it. I was delighted the next morning when one of the boys could hardly wait to tell me, before class time, that he had finished reading the book “last night.” What a thrill for this teacher! This gem of a book is Man’s Unconquerable Mind by Gilbert Highet. This blog is dated February 15. 2010.
These two books are hard to find today. MUM can possibly still be offered by the publisher. Try a used book store. ♥
Friday, November 29, 2013
KRAUTHAMMER, THE SMARTEST MAN ON TELEVISION
Many viewers would agree with me, but many others surely have not heard of Charles Krauthammer, even if his new book Things That Matter reigns at or near the top of the best-seller list. He doesn’t do comedy, if you look for that, but exhibits the highest type of humor, the intellectual gem, the type which perhaps most people do not understand as laugh-provoking. In my reading in his book last night, an excellent example of his intellectual funny bone popped up on the page when he referred to “the geneticist’s old witticism that a chicken is just an egg’s way of making another egg.” He must have thought that was worth retelling and it was. It struck me as laughably funny.
What makes a man smart like Krauthammer? In addition to all the reasons you may come up with for that one, let me mention something he said in one of his recent interviews on Fox News. His father told him to learn everything, not to do everything, but to learn everything.
To learn everything, one would have to read a great deal. His big brother taught him in childhood all about sports. He loves chess but learned it’s addictive and he was smart enough not to let that happen to him.
But Charles Krauthammer had a mountain of things to learn after his accident. With astonishment, I saw him drive a car, especially made for him. And how wonderful that he has learned to handwrite again. We see him in a wheelchair on television (well, we don’t see the chair but it’s there).
I will talk more about this book and this man in future blogs. ♥
Many viewers would agree with me, but many others surely have not heard of Charles Krauthammer, even if his new book Things That Matter reigns at or near the top of the best-seller list. He doesn’t do comedy, if you look for that, but exhibits the highest type of humor, the intellectual gem, the type which perhaps most people do not understand as laugh-provoking. In my reading in his book last night, an excellent example of his intellectual funny bone popped up on the page when he referred to “the geneticist’s old witticism that a chicken is just an egg’s way of making another egg.” He must have thought that was worth retelling and it was. It struck me as laughably funny.
What makes a man smart like Krauthammer? In addition to all the reasons you may come up with for that one, let me mention something he said in one of his recent interviews on Fox News. His father told him to learn everything, not to do everything, but to learn everything.
To learn everything, one would have to read a great deal. His big brother taught him in childhood all about sports. He loves chess but learned it’s addictive and he was smart enough not to let that happen to him.
But Charles Krauthammer had a mountain of things to learn after his accident. With astonishment, I saw him drive a car, especially made for him. And how wonderful that he has learned to handwrite again. We see him in a wheelchair on television (well, we don’t see the chair but it’s there).
I will talk more about this book and this man in future blogs. ♥
Thursday, November 28, 2013
CONTINUATION
If Bill O’Reilly ever comes across yesterday’s blog, his explanation will probably be something like this: I (not we) wasn’t trying to write a magnum opus, but just a simple story that everyone could understand. That’s fine; we need that kind of story. And it was easy to read, in places seeming like reading from the Bible, and tears came to my eyes as I read about Christ’s great agony. But even the most-unread person in your readership would surely like the ending of the story included. After all, that’s what Easter is about: the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and the promise of the eventual Resurrection of the faithful. Even Webster knows this. Look it up in his book, a dictionary.
You say you two writers are Catholics. Does the Catholic faith not celebrate Easter? Doesn’t it believe in the Resurrection? If not, is that why your crucifixes show Christ still hanging on the cross these thousands of years? The Catholic Church is limiting the power of omnipotent God when it demonstrates His works in such crucifixes. You do need to publish a brief sequel and explain the rest of the story in pithy detail.
But you have, unawares, increased the vocabulary of a host of people. Those who did not know, before reading Killing Jesus, what in the world such a name as Church of the Nazarene meant, now know. It’s Protestant. ♥
If Bill O’Reilly ever comes across yesterday’s blog, his explanation will probably be something like this: I (not we) wasn’t trying to write a magnum opus, but just a simple story that everyone could understand. That’s fine; we need that kind of story. And it was easy to read, in places seeming like reading from the Bible, and tears came to my eyes as I read about Christ’s great agony. But even the most-unread person in your readership would surely like the ending of the story included. After all, that’s what Easter is about: the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and the promise of the eventual Resurrection of the faithful. Even Webster knows this. Look it up in his book, a dictionary.
You say you two writers are Catholics. Does the Catholic faith not celebrate Easter? Doesn’t it believe in the Resurrection? If not, is that why your crucifixes show Christ still hanging on the cross these thousands of years? The Catholic Church is limiting the power of omnipotent God when it demonstrates His works in such crucifixes. You do need to publish a brief sequel and explain the rest of the story in pithy detail.
But you have, unawares, increased the vocabulary of a host of people. Those who did not know, before reading Killing Jesus, what in the world such a name as Church of the Nazarene meant, now know. It’s Protestant. ♥
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
KILLING JESUS, THE SEQUEL
The authors of the best selling Killing Jesus must be busy researching and writing the sequel, because many people recognize their story, as it is presented, is unfinished. Killng Jesus is an appealing story, especially perhaps more for those who never knew the story of Christ’s life, so far as this book goes, but twice [I think it was twice] they present Jesus as saying He will tear down the Temple and build it back in three days. What a cliff-hanger! And we expect to have cliff-hangers explained by the end of the book, the movie, or whatever. O’Reilly and Dugard do not explain.
Christians everywhere know that when Jesus died, the veil in the Temple split in two, and within three days, Jesus arose from the dead. In a short while after that, He met in human form with His disciples and hundreds of other people, and He told them that the way He was leaving them was the manner in which He would return, and then He ascended in a cloud into Heaven. Of course, His bones have not been found anywhere on the earth. It would be nonsense for anyone to expect to find them. He took His bones with Him when He went to Heaven.
It is important to note that O’Reilly stated at the beginning of their book that they had consulted only one version of the Bible for their information. Please, sirs, more thorough researchers would have checked all the known versions of the Bible to write Killing Jesus. (to be continued) ♥
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Hilary, Obama, and the Senator
Another presidential election is not far away, with potential candidates already seeming to be testing the waters. But before you choose the one you want to see in the White House, let me remind you of a few things that happened before and tell you something you probably do not know. Researchers can verify the story if they wish.
The time period in question was during the Democratic Party’s campaign for presidential nomination which resulted in the win of Barack Obama. After slamming each other month after month, Hilary and Obama had a secret meeting in the Washington-area home of Senator Dianne Feinstein. I heard the Senator herself tell this on television. I began listening when she said someone had asked her for the meeting place, but I don’t recall who asked. She said the two candidates came to her house for a meeting and while they were there, she—Feinstein—stayed upstairs and did not hear the conversation downstairs. As soon as she made the statement, it seemed someone got her away from the microphone as if she should not have told this.
I watched for the re-airing of this bit of news, the type to be shown several times around the clock, but I never heard it again and never heard anyone else speak of it. I even sent an e-mail to a popular television commentator and heard nothing from him about it. All he had to do was tell the meeting occurred. He didn’t have to know the secrets of the discussion.
But when enough time had passed to disguise any connection between that meeting and Hilary’s next important move, she withdrew from running for the nomination and began campaigning for Obama. But I thought at the time, there was a connection, a big connection. Let’s analyze it.
Doesn’t it make sense that the one who suggested the meeting in the first place would have a request to ask of the other? And wouldn’t that person also know he or she would have to offer something in return? I think this happened. Obama was elected President with Hilary’s help and he named her Secretary of State. But wouldn’t Hilary want more than that out of the deal? They are two of a kind. If she were elected president, perhaps she would assume the health care mess that Obama created. Remember, the first major thing Hilary did when her husband became president was to try to rush through a health care program at great expense. It failed. It seems Obama’s health care plan is failing too.
Haven’t we had enough socialism in this country? I suggest you read an excellent biography of Hilary, A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein. Read how she would perform as the woman in charge. Everyone now knows Obama lied big. When Bernstein was interviewed shortly after his book came out, he was asked what one word would he use to describe Hilary. He said, "Liar." She is smarter than Obama and perhaps more dangerous. She said in her college days, she wanted America revolutionized to her thinking, not through violence, but through law. Are you going to give her that power?
Another presidential election is not far away, with potential candidates already seeming to be testing the waters. But before you choose the one you want to see in the White House, let me remind you of a few things that happened before and tell you something you probably do not know. Researchers can verify the story if they wish.
The time period in question was during the Democratic Party’s campaign for presidential nomination which resulted in the win of Barack Obama. After slamming each other month after month, Hilary and Obama had a secret meeting in the Washington-area home of Senator Dianne Feinstein. I heard the Senator herself tell this on television. I began listening when she said someone had asked her for the meeting place, but I don’t recall who asked. She said the two candidates came to her house for a meeting and while they were there, she—Feinstein—stayed upstairs and did not hear the conversation downstairs. As soon as she made the statement, it seemed someone got her away from the microphone as if she should not have told this.
I watched for the re-airing of this bit of news, the type to be shown several times around the clock, but I never heard it again and never heard anyone else speak of it. I even sent an e-mail to a popular television commentator and heard nothing from him about it. All he had to do was tell the meeting occurred. He didn’t have to know the secrets of the discussion.
But when enough time had passed to disguise any connection between that meeting and Hilary’s next important move, she withdrew from running for the nomination and began campaigning for Obama. But I thought at the time, there was a connection, a big connection. Let’s analyze it.
Doesn’t it make sense that the one who suggested the meeting in the first place would have a request to ask of the other? And wouldn’t that person also know he or she would have to offer something in return? I think this happened. Obama was elected President with Hilary’s help and he named her Secretary of State. But wouldn’t Hilary want more than that out of the deal? They are two of a kind. If she were elected president, perhaps she would assume the health care mess that Obama created. Remember, the first major thing Hilary did when her husband became president was to try to rush through a health care program at great expense. It failed. It seems Obama’s health care plan is failing too.
Haven’t we had enough socialism in this country? I suggest you read an excellent biography of Hilary, A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein. Read how she would perform as the woman in charge. Everyone now knows Obama lied big. When Bernstein was interviewed shortly after his book came out, he was asked what one word would he use to describe Hilary. He said, "Liar." She is smarter than Obama and perhaps more dangerous. She said in her college days, she wanted America revolutionized to her thinking, not through violence, but through law. Are you going to give her that power?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)