Lingering the Summer Months

Hello everyone - it has been a while, hasn't it?   So far, it has been a busy summer, and with work and other activities I haven't had the time to write, although that has changed.  I want to first catch everyone up with the summer, and then I have a few random thoughts to share.

Our summer - which, based on 27 years in Florida prior to moving back home! - started in May with a graduation and a trip to the emergency room for me.  On May 6th, I ended up with a nasty series of profuse nosebleeds that necessitated a couple of visits, first to an outpatient clinic and then to the hospital emergency room the same day.  Besides having a "RhinoRocket" (a small thing that resembles a tampon) shot up my nose to control the bleeding (which did not work), I also had to have a cauterization in my nasal cavity to stop the bloodflow.  If you have never had one of those done, here is essentially what it is - a doctor essentially takes a soldering iron consisting of heated silver nitrate and applies it to the lesion to cauterize the blood vessel; in essence, my nose was welded.  It is not an experience I would recommend, as it was extremely unpleasant, but it did what it was supposed to do and I stopped bleeding, thanks be to God.  And, thankfully, no nosebleeds since, although that particular episode of nosebleeds cost me about $2,000 in medical expenses.  All of this, naturally, happening just days before my Master's graduation in Steubenville - fun way to start a week.  But, the graduation went well, and I am very happy to have accomplished finishing my graduate degree.

This summer has proven one thing - our family has become acquainted with the local hospital for sure!  A month or so after my visit, my mother was hospitalized for both an afib attack and double pneumonia.  That episode happened one morning last month, when we were getting ready for work and had to call an ambulance for Mom to go to the hospital.  Luckily, she recovered too, and even now is getting on my nerves as I write this - due to the fact she smokes a lot and also eats crap, she needs to learn to maybe make some lifestyle changes if she wants to live to see 75. 

But, it was not over there - Barb ended up in the hospital this past weekend.  On Saturday, she was doing some things around the house, and over-exerted herself.  This led to her blacking-out while sitting on a kitchen chair, and then pitching face-forward to the floor.  Other than some damage to her ulnar nerves in both arms that will heal within time, she is doing better.  Meritus Hospital has definitely made a thorough acquaintance of the Thrower household to be sure. 

Aside from medical emergencies, I am also now a Knight of Columbus officially - I received my 2nd Degree a couple of weeks ago, and it is nice to be part of such a wonderful organization that is faithful to Catholic teaching as well as committed to traditional morality.  I hope to be part of the Knights for many years to come.   Oh yes - we also have two adorable bunnies now too - Trixie and Bella.  Trixie is a black Mini-Rex bunny, and Bella a fluffy white Lionhead.  They are both adorable, although Trixie is a bit mischievious and tends to escape, but that adds to her cute personality.  Here are some pictures of them:

Bella

Trixie

Other than a trip to Smoke Hole Caverns (which will be inspiring a nice article for my Sacramental Present Truths blog in a couple of weeks), that has essentially been our summer.  Now that I have updated all of our summertime activities to this point, I want to spend some time reflecting on some thoughts I have been pondering, as there has been a lot on my mind that I need to talk about.

As I am doing some reorganization of my personal memorabilia, I am also printing out and cataloging obituaries of many people we knew from years ago.   As I do this, I am getting a realization of the fact I am not young myself anymore - being a year and a half shy of a half-century, it makes one think about certain things.  I am in shock at realizing just how many people I knew from years ago are now gone onto their eternal rewards, and to give you an idea of that scale, let's look at the town where I spent a lot of my childhood - Kirby, WV.   About 60% or better of the neighbors we had there years ago are now passed on, and that is sobering when you think about it.  I just got word Sunday of another one who had passed.   That, compounded with the medical issues Barbara and I both experienced over the past couple of months, really makes one ask some important questions.  In my research, I often look to a former professor of mine by the name of Dr. Kenneth J. Archer and a discussion he had in one of his books about what are called "Central Narrative Convictions."  Archer is not one of my favorite people - he is actually very theologically liberal, somewhat arrogant as a person, and ambivalent to certain long-held convictions even in his own religious tradition.  But, on this, I have to appreciate what he says, as his analysis of CNC's is actually quite insightful.  Basing his premise on the suggestions of J. Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh, Archer notes that CNC's address the following questions and attempt to answer them in the worldview of the person holding them, and those questions are as follows:

1.  Where are we?
2.  Who are we?
3.  What's wrong?
4.  What's the remedy?

The attempt to find meaningful answers to these types of questions is what produces the "story" of a community or even of an individual (Kenneth J. Archer, The Gospel Revisited {Eugene, OR:  Pickwick Publications, 2011} p. 39).  Taking this into the realm of the philosophical, those aspects of the "story" that are shared with a wider group are known as having communicability or universality, whereas the individual expressions of the same are unique to the person and have incommunicability.  Archer's analysis of the CNC's is a pretty basic and workable outline, but a more detailed one is proposed by eminent Appalachian religious scholar Dr. Loyal Jones in his book Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands (Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1999).  On page 51 of that text, Dr. Jones seems to rephrase the questions as he presents them this way:

1.   How did we and all around us come to be?
2.   Is there a God who created us and everything?
3.   If so, what is His nature?
4.   Why did He make us as we are, and what is His purpose for our lives?
5.   Is there something beyond this life, and if so, what is it like?
6.   How is God related to us and all around us in this day and time?

Archer's four and Jones's six questions deal with the same issue - questions in life essentially.  CNC's are formed when those questions are given answers based on a worldview (philosophy + faith working together).  As Christians, we have a worldview rooted in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, and it is also summarized in the way we as Catholic Christians especially approach Scripture, noted as the "Four-Fold Hermeneutic:"

1.  Literal reading (what it is)
2.  Allegorical meaning (what we believe about it)
3.  Moral meaning (what it calls us to do)
4.  Anagogical meaning (hope in the future - where are we going?)

In essence then, the Four-Fold Hermeneutic attempts to answer these questions based on God's revelation of Himself, and thus it forms the CNC's that make up the Christian worldview (or should, anyway!).  I notice as we get older though these questions tend to be pondered on a little more frequently - those of you my age or older will affirm that.  A trip to the doctor, a major life change - those events tend to provoke pondering these things.  Or, even when you feel that ache in your back or notice that you have to strain to see a stop sign on the way to the store.  More morbidly, it can evoke thoughts when you find yourself checking obituaries online every week (as I do) to see if anyone you know has died.  Add to that a gander in the mirror - you see the saggy belly, grey hair, and baggy eyes looking back at you in the mirror, and you start asking yourself, "who on earth is that old geezer in the mirror??"  It does tend to provoke these questions, and in some cases one may be compelled to rethink long-held CNC's too.  The truth of the CNC's that define a community or an individual are unchanging - we don't seem to think so because we are too busy focusing on what we see in front of us too often instead of seeing the bigger picture.  CNC's, therefore, are good things - they represent continuity, tradition, and security.  When something challenges them, it tends to make us defensive, and with good reason - it threatens the very identity of who we are.  Let's take that to today's world.

I have noted in many places over the years how iconoclastic the postmodern culture has gotten.  Never have I seen such an effort on the part of some to radically redefine even some very basic concepts - a boy wants to be called a girl, marriage is being redefined as joining oneself to anything that we "love" (the "marriage" of a woman to an amusement park Ferris wheel, for instance, is a case in point), and a White girl thinks she is Black (Rachel Dolezal) while a fat, middle-aged man decides he is going to be a six-year-old Filipino girl.  This iconoclasm is an assault on long-held convictions that have kept human nature and society in check for centuries, and by removing boundaries from fundamental things that should be obvious, we open the door to the erosion and decay of civilization as we know it.  I know this will not endear me well to some out there (oh well - can't please everyone!) and it definitely doesn't sound "politically-correct" (again, ask me if I care!), but fact is fact - take away boundaries, and the stampede will run over everything.  As we get older, many of us notice this deterioration, and therefore we have to find ways to cope with the culture outside our front door while preserving those things we know should be preserved.  For instance, when "Star Trek" all of a sudden goes "gay" and promotes agendas instead of entertaining, I would prefer to watch old re-runs of Hogan's Heroes and The Carol Burnett Show on an alternative channel.  When overpaid, spoiled athletes who make more in one week than many of us see in a lifetime decide to make political statements at football games by "taking a knee" and disrespecting our flag and those who died to defend it, then I feel more at ease playing Yahtzee with Barbara and my mother on a Sunday afternoon.  In other words, it is the CNC's that give us motivation with how to cope with the negative postmodernism out there, and it may be what keeps many people sane in the midst of insanity in the world.  So, instead of seeing the weekly obituaries as a death sentence for yourself, remember those people who died that you knew from years ago, and you will honor them and immortalize them with your memories of them.  Any rate, that is enough soapboxing for now.

My post here sounds more like something for Sacramental Present Truths than it does here, but in this case it is my own convictions as they relate to life experience, and therefore why I share it here.  I hope everyone who reads this - especially those in my age bracket - will maybe take away some encouragement and inspiration.   Any rate, so long until next visit.

From Stuart Hill to Steubenville - An Educational Legacy

As I write this, I am approaching the day when I walk the aisle to get a major educational achievement - I will be receiving my long-awaited Master's degree.   This is happening about 43 years after I stepped into a kindergarten class at the age of five in Baltimore, and both of these events inspired my title of this piece.

If you go into downtown Baltimore at the corner of Gilmor and Lombard Streets, there is a massive brick building with white trim called Stuart Hill Academy.   In 1975, I was a kindergartener at Stuart Hill, as at the time we lived nearby on Stafford Street where my mother was helping out my great-aunt Ruth.  Back in those days, that section of western Baltimore had a lot of West Virginians who had settled in the area, including a large number of our family.  The move to Baltimore started for many West Virginians shortly after World War II, when many of the small towns back home started to decline - businesses that once thrived were moving elsewhere, and as a result people needed incomes.  Being many West Virginian young men had went through Baltimore on the way to the theatres of war they were sent to fight in as they enlisted in the Army, Marines, and Navy, many saw the glamour of city life for the first time.  When they came home from Europe and the Pacific in 1945, many of these young men were able to buy homes with the GI Bill, and they moved their families to the cities where they found work.  If you happened to be from northern or eastern West Virginia in those days, you more than likely ended up in Baltimore.  And, many of our family ended up there as a result.  At the time I had arrived there, it was late 1974, and Mom and Dad had recently divorced and Mom was essentially wanting to bunk at relatives' houses.  So, that is what we did, and it was our Aunt Ruth's house.  With our arrival, Aunt Ruth (or Pip as we called her) had quite the full house.  Aunt Ruth was bedridden from multiple sclerosis at the time, and in return for staying there Mom helped our young cousins, Greg and Gayle, out with her.  It was at this point I also started my first year of school at Stuart Hill Academy. 

I don't recall much what my actual first day was like when I started kindergarten, because frankly I was too young.  However, I quickly adjusted to the elderly teacher, Mrs. Doughty, who was very longsuffering of a precocious five-year-old.  I remember though the walk to school, often with my cousin Gayle, and that was interesting.  I also remember Mom coming up there to get me, and when she'd get paid on Fridays, we would go downtown and Mom would get me an orange soda at a store owned by a Jewish grocer.  Anyway, that was how my academic saga started. 

Let's move ahead 43 years - I am living back in Maryland again, interesting enough, but I have finished another aspect of my academic saga at a very different institution.  Franciscan University of Steubenville is in Ohio, and is an institution that is over 70 years old and also one of the most dynamic Roman Catholic institutions of higher learning in the country.  However, unlike Stuart Hill in Baltimore, which was a few blocks walking from where we lived then, Franciscan University is two states away from us, and my first visit to that campus will happen on my graduation on May 12th.  Due to the miracle of cybercommunication, I was able to do my entire degree online over the course of four years, and have never had to be on campus.  So, this will not only be my first time visiting the campus, but actually my first time visiting Steubenville itself.  I am actually anticipating the experience.

There is a lot to do in the next two weeks before taking off.  I have to get a cap and gown (and my Master's hood) and I also have to schedule a visit with the barber, as well as buying a new outfit for the occasion.  I am actually, on Barbara's advice, going to coordinate school colors into my outfit - I am thinking mint-green dress shirt and gold tie?  That of course is subject to revision, but that is the line of thought.  And pictures - many pictures!  I plan on getting professional pictures done there, as well as getting a picture with Fr. Sheridan, our university President, and additionally a lot of pictures we will be taking ourselves.  The amount of planning that goes into something like this can be a bit overwhelming, but given the accomplishment, this is also a time of celebrating my achievement.  So, a lot to do.

Another thing too - Steubenville is not where it ends either, as I also plan on pursuing my doctorate, and plan on starting that in September 2019.  There are preparations to be made for that too - I have to schedule a GRE exam, take a French class as an unofficial prerequisite, and fill out lots of paperwork.  Ironically, when I finish that, I will be 55 years old, and it will be approximately 50 years at that point since I first stepped into that kindergarten classroom in Baltimore.  And, another kicker - my doctorate will be done at Catholic University of America (provided everything falls into place) which is in our nation's capital.  So, my final academic achievement will be earned in about 6 years from a university that is only 30 miles from where I went to kindergarten.  A lot of interesting parallels with things to be sure.

Good Lord - when I earn my doctorate, I will have been in school (off and on) for over 50 years!!  I think starting school at 5 years old and finishing up at 55 years old will be a legacy in itself.  But, as we quickly find out, education is a lifelong process for the inquisitive, and the active mind never starts learning.  However, the learning will transition to daily life rather than a formal classroom.  Just some insights I have had going on over the past several days I thought I would share.   At the risk of sounding cliche, for younger readers my encouragement to you is "stay in school," and perhaps you can write your own legacy some day. 

Dealing with Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theories Among Fellow Traditionalists

I make no apologies about being a Traditionalist in the truest sense - those who know me will attest to that.  I have the following credo I subscribe to in regard to my personal worldview:

Politically Monarchist

Philosophically Thomist

Economically Distributist

Religiously Catholic

Morally Traditionalist

As all of this, I am also culturally American and that necessitates realizing that a diversity of ethnicities and cultures makes up not only America, but also the Church - the Church is an institution that embraces all ethnicities and cultures, and thus this means there is only one race - HUMAN!!  Therefore, it has always been inconsciable to me for someone who claims to be a Catholic Traditionalist engaging in behavior that contradicts the mission of the Church.  Recently, I have seen this behavior displayed on certain social media outlets where Traditionalists have pages and groups, and the behavior I have seen has been shocking.   I have heard some of these people actually make derisive comments about Jews in particular as "big-nosed power grabbers" and other derogatory terms, language that is more suitable to a follower of Hitler than for a follower of Christ.  I have also heard expressions of the "Two-Percent Control" conspiracy - the same old "Zionist conspiracy" theory that asserts that because 2% of the most powerful echelon of humanity control 98% of the wealth and power are somehow culturally Jewish (which is also a myth), that implicates the whole Jewish nation as being somehow "evil" and thus an object of hatred.  The people who advance this myth are functional idiots honestly, despite how "Catholic" they sound, and for them to actually believe this garbage means that their Catholic faith is to be called into question.   I also feel the same way about some who advance the "Vatican control" conspiracies too.  Anti-Catholicism and antisemitism are both evil, immoral, and sinful, and no professing Christian of any confession needs to be giving these myths any credibility.   After watching a documentary series about the "inner circle" of Hitler's henchmen, I also have reaffirmed that antisemitism is at its root satanic and pagan, and thus has no place in traditional Catholic worldview.  For professed Catholics therefore to embrace such nonsense calls into question the sincerity of their Christianity.  That is why I feel compelled to address this issue. 

Christianity - and Catholic Christianity in particular - owes much to the Jewish people.  After all, it was the Jewish nation that gave us the Savior we worship, and it also has given us a lot of the patrimony of our own Tradition.   That being said, Judaism and Christianity both have contributed to the betterment of Western civilization, although Christianity has the fullness of Revelation which perfects civilization.  Therefore, the Church has historically maintained that God has not forgotten the Jewish people, and indeed we as the Church are to love them and pray for their conversion.  It is the Church who then, in true Traditionalist understanding, becomes the protector and preserver of the Jewish nation, in that God's plan is to have a future "ingrafting" of natural Israel (the Jews) into spiritual Israel (the Church).  This means therefore that antisemitism from a traditional Catholic viewpoint is pointless, illogical, and at its core anti-Christian.  And, this is why it must be rejected by those professing Christianity. 

Now, love and respect for the Jewish nation does not equate with Christian Zionism, nor does it mean that there is some antinomian grace that Jews have by their status, as some misguided Protestant Evangelicals have wrongly proposed.  Jews, like the rest of humanity, are prone to sin and some do sin.  The person who subscribes to ridiculous conspiracy theories has to, however, understand two important things  First the sin of the individual does not implicate the nation.  Secondly, many people who possess Jewish heritage (George Soros comes to mind) yet engage in anti-Christian activities with great influence actually do so in spite of their heritage and not because of it.  Freud, Marx, and Spinoza may have been ethnically Jewish, but what they did was based on individual choice and was not in part due to their heritage.   Every ethnicity has good and bad people - not every German, for instance, is Hitler, and not every Black person is Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan.   That same consideration equally applies to the Jewish people as well.   And, not every Traditionalist is an anti-semite either - as a matter of fact, a self-professed Traditionalist who embraces antisemitism does so in spite of his or her faith, and not because of it.   It is time we start to accept that fact. 

That leads to my final point.  The modern nation of Israel exists because God allowed it to, and it I believe exists for the purpose of the "ingrafting," the great conversion of the Jewish people to the fullness of Christian truth.  That then means that we cannot sanction everything the state of Israel does as "good" (despite what some Evangelicals think) because Israel is led by fallible human beings just as any other nation is, and thus they will get things wrong.  Therefore, you can support Israel without endorsing everything Israel does as a nation.   That is a fresh perspective you won't hear a lot either.  

This also means that a self-professed Traditionalist Catholic needs to do some self-examination as well.  Many of these people are sticklers for doing things "liturgically correct" - they think it is "blasphemy," for instance, to receive Communion in the hand rather than on the tongue, and many outside this community do not realize what a big issue of debate this really is.  Yet, those who decry Communion received in the hand as somehow "blasphemous" often commit the greater blasphemy of receiving Communion properly in external action without allowing Christ to utilize supernatural grace to transform them within.  They are dutifully taking Communion while their minds are far from Christ, and that is a serious problem.   Given that is theological in scope, more will be said on that at some future point on my other blog site.  However, Traditionalists need to exercise care to not be inconsistent. 

I have said my piece for today, and will see you again soon. 

Parkland and the Pigg-let - Some Perspectives

This weekend, some things have been troubling me about the recent Parkland shootings in Florida, in particular regarding this kid, David Hogg (whom I will be referring to as the Pigg-let), and his arrogant, nasty, and disrespectful demeanor.   I was also able to read up on some things about the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, and much about what I have seen is revealing.  But, before I get into all of that, I want to just share a little bit of my own experience when I was in middle school.

Honestly, my 7th and 8th-grade years were one of the most hellish experiences I believe I have had to ever experience, and I literally hated that time in my life.  Although things would dramatically turn around for the better by the time I got into my freshman year of high school, middle school is a part of my life at times I just want to forget.   Kids who are in their early teens tend to be cliquish, and they also tend to be some of the cruelest and hateful individuals in general that walk the earth - many of you know exactly what I am talking about.  For some, that continues into high school.  In my case, I went to middle school in the mid-1980's, and at that time there was a very identifiable materialistic attitude among most of American society, but middle-school kids often took that to extremes.  Let me tell you a little of what I was like at that awkward time between the ages of 13 and 15.  I was from what is often called "the wrong side of the tracks," in that I was from a broken home (my parents divorced when I was very young) and my mother, who raised me, also was not what you'd call a model parent - we were poor, she had a serious drinking problem, and she was often detached from me when I was a kid.   This happened when I was in elementary school, but it became more pronounced as I got older and I was often forced to sort of fend for myself a lot of times because my mother was not all that involved in my life unless she had to be.  We were also extremely poor - at that time, our household subsisted on food stamps and about $100 in child support per month we got from Dad.   This meant that I didn't get my clothes from trendy stores either.  Most of what I wore was purchased from the local second-hand store, and at times the sizes were disproportionate and they wore out quickly - I went to school a lot with missing buttons and well-concealed holes in my pants.  That fact alone set me up to basically be singled out for derision by classmates.  Also, I had my own unique interests and personality traits that didn't exactly mirror my classmates then either - for instance, whereas many of my classmates in those years listened to Michael Jackson or Madonna, I was collecting and listening to Guy Lombardo, Glenn Miller, and Lawrence Welk.  I also didn't wear jeans (still don't) or tennis shoes, or any other faddish clothing of the time.  Naturally, all of this together got me singled out and slapped with the reputation of a "geek," and that too often invited persecution from others, the more popular kids.  Let me elaborate on that a moment.

For those who lived through the experience of middle school, you know often that if a kid is made fun of for being "different" or a "geek," there are two ways this happens.  First is outright bullying - the "tough" kids will often do vulgar things, or they will even get abusive - they pick on those they see as weaker than they are based on their own insecurities a lot of times but also because they know they can.  And, in the mid-1980's, the emphasis on preventing bullying didn't exist, and I have actually witnessed even teachers allowing it to happen and laughing at kids who were being treated in such a way.  The other way this happens is from the other extreme - the "popular" kids will do this sort of patronizing snobbery of kids that don't "make the cut," and although they are not physically abusive (in most cases anyway), they get a sadistic joy in belittling and acting condescendingly of those they feel are "geeks" or just not as "popular" as they are.  These "popular" kids are the ones who sport their designer clothes, have the latest this or that, and they are often the ones who are the big shots in sports or student organizations - your star football players, head cheerleaders, and the like.  Also, the mid-1980's were a time when this "political correctness" we see so prominently today didn't exist, and these two groups (the "toughs" and the "popular kids") would often employ pejorative terminology to label and deride those of their classmates they thought of as "undesirable" - terms such as "retard," or even pejorative homosexual references, were common.  Any way you look at it, the "popular kids" and the "toughs" were both bullies.   I witnessed a lot of this behavior in my junior high years, and was also on the receiving end of way too much of it, and therefore today it is more important than ever that kids be taught how bad and destructive such behavior is, and looking at the Parkland tragedy and other issues, bullying can lead to this easily.

Bullying of any sort is something that those who are on the receiving end of it can find it difficult to deal.  And, despite a greater awareness of the negativity of bullying as well as the proliferation of "political correctness," not much has changed since the mid-1980's when I was in middle school.  When a kid is subjected to this type of treatment by his or her classmates, it is important to understand how that kid feels sometimes.  If you are in that position, you want to escape it fairly quickly, so you are going to try to keep a low profile to avoid attracting unwanted attention.  However, kids can be cruel, and they will often hone in on one of their own like buzzards on a gut wagon and then they pick, and pick, and pick - emotionally, it causes a lot of difficulty for the one on the receiving end of this treatment, and that person wants to just be left alone.  This happens at lunch, often during classes, and then if that isn't enough, they are subjected to it on the ride home on a bus, sometimes for over an hour at a time.  The kid's home and the solitude of his room is his only sanctuary, and at least he can have some respite until the next day.  However, in this day and age of technological convenience, now there are "smart phones," social media, and computer access 24/7, and as if getting bullied in person is not enough, now such a person is subject to being trolled, bullied, and slandered on social media too.   There are limitations to the human experience, and there is a point where a person breaks from all this abuse and mistreatment, and if pushed far enough, when that breaking point comes it can be tragic not only for the kid subjected to such treatment, but also to society as whole.  And, that brings me to Parkland.

The young man who was implicated in the Parkland shootings was a 19-year-old former student of the school by the name of Nikolas Cruz.  I was able to read up a little about his life, and as it turns out he didn't have it too easy at all.  He was adopted at a young age, and also had a form of autism, and he was a loner.  Although he seemed to excel in his studies (he was a B-average student by some accounts and also in the JROTC program), he was nonetheless treated as a social pariah by his peers, who would often make fun of him and cause him problems.  This type of treatment led him to also become very racist, as minority students were some of the perpetrators of his bullying, and his interest in firearms also added to this volatile mix.  It is my guess that after a while Cruz just snapped - he got to a breaking point where he couldn't handle all this nonsense anymore, and given his own state of mind (a developing racism, interest in firearms, and his emotional/psychological condition) it was going to lead to some action on his part.  And, he did act on all that by shooting up a school of innocent kids.   This in no way excuses what Cruz did - this is a heinous act regardless, and he does need to account for that.  But, it leads to some other questions too.  Here we enter "Mr. Activist" himself, David Hogg, the Pigg-let.

I was able to read up a little on the Pigg-let too, and as it turns out he was originally from California, where his parents worked with both the FBI (his father) and CNN (his mother) - his mother was directly tied to the whole Podesta incident too.  For those unfamiliar, the Podesta incident entailed a lobbying scheme around 2009 where extravagant amounts of money were received and thus aroused suspicion, leading to investigations that are currently being conducted.  Podesta is a lobbying and public affairs firm based in DC, and is reported to have close ties to the Democratic Party and the Obama administration ("Podesta Group," at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_Group, last edited 1/5/2018 - Accessed 3/26/2018).  By all accounts, the Pigg-let was the popular kid in school, and his apparent arrogance he displays when he is on TV indicates he had the potential for bullying people himself.  In monitoring the Facebook discussions about this on various pages, some people have even insinuated that the Pigg-let and Cruz knew each other, and they were not the best of friends.  It was even insinuated by some that the Pigg-let may have been directly responsible for the emotional breakdown Cruz had that caused him to shoot up the Parkland school, but this is all speculation although not outside the realmrea; of possibility.  One person on one of the pages actually brought up a profound point in relation to this - if the Pigg-let perhaps knew Cruz, why didn't he reach out to him and at least try to befriend him, or was he too busy making Cruz's life hell?  Many, many questions, in other words.  The bottom line is though that Cruz did snap, shot up a school, and now is in custody probably for the rest of his life, while the Pigg-let is enjoying seeing his name in lights and 15 minutes of fame demonizing innocent members of the NRA, who had absolutely nothing to do with the incident.  Many have rightly discerned that an agenda is afoot, and the Pigg-let, as the newest "golden boy" of the political Left, is playing his role well.   But, those questions lead to some closing observations.

Cruz did a very heinous and evil thing, but let's look at this from the whole panoramic view, shall we?  The cops refused to act when Cruz went on his rampage - maybe lives could have been saved had the cops did their job and neutralized the threat.  But, that leads to another issue, and that road leads right back to Ferguson, MO.  Cops are often so demonized in the media that it could be that many of them feel it is not worth the effort to do their job just to lose it, so in essence the cops may have had some justification - however, it doesn't excuse their lack of action.  Then, let's look at "instant activist" Pigg-let and his role in this, as well as those popular cliques of kids in many schools who often ostracize and ridicule mercilessly other kids they classify as "geeks."  What was true in the mid-1980's when I was in school is still true now, but maybe even worse today - popular kids and strong-arm bullies still like to prey on other kids who don't fit into their definition of "cool" or "popular," and while there is a greater awareness of bullying, often that emphasis is driven by ulterior motives - it is often used as a tool of the "gay agenda" or those who cowtow to Islamism rather than helping real victims of bullying, such as the poor kid who maybe has the alcoholic mother or the kid with a learning disability who has a hard time in English class.  Those types of kids are still marginalized and bullied by the supposed "inclusive" and "politically correct" elite.  And, as we know, kids can be very cruel, as their natural immaturity doesn't often realize the negative long-term consequences of their actions.  However, that bullying, marginalization, and cruelty on the part of "jocks" and "popular kids" can have catastrophic consequences, as the kid they are picking on may be the next Nikolas Cruz or Columbine shooter.  This means that a "popular kid" like David Hogg the Pigg-let may be ultimately as culpable for the Parkland tragedy as is Nikolas Cruz.  That is something the so-called "mainstream media" won't tell you, because they themselves often act like the popular kids in a middle school when it comes to pushing agendas, and thus it makes the environment they generated as big of a factor as anything.  In other words, look at the underlying cause of what made Cruz snap, as there is enough culpability to go around.  That being said, I will add further that the NRA, President Trump, and conservatives in general have little to do with it - they are now the ones being bullied by the "popular kids" of the liberal/progressive establishment.

I could say more, but I think for now this warrants enough.  People will disagree for sure - go right ahead, but if you do, I want to just say "wait and see," and when the real truth comes out, many of you who are detractors have a big "I told you so" coming your way!   The root cause of all of this ultimately is an imperfect society - the more we shut out God and traditional values, the more corrupt and dangerous society gets.  That should be sobering food for thought as well.  Have a good week everyone. 

Perspectives on Dance Bands - the Ethnic Melting-Pot

The idea of America as a "melting pot" is often expressed in two areas - music and cuisine.   Cuisine is a whole different area of discussion, because we want to discuss music, in particular our ongoing discussion of big dance bands.  In the earliest years of the recording industry, it was not coincidental that one of the greatest waves of immigration also happened.  A lot of the traffic that came through Ellis Island would in time end up on an Edison disc, and so it was in the case of some of America's most successful popular music for 50 years.

One of the greatest contributors by far to American entertainment was the Jewish community - whether in vaudeville, music, movie production, etc., the Jewish contributions were epic.  The majority of the composers of the "Great American Songbook," for instance, were all of Jewish heritage (Gershwin, Kern, Berlin, etc.).  Also, the earliest movie production companies were all the brainchildren of Jewish entrepreneurs (MGM comes to mind in particular).   Music, likewise, was a great center of Jewish culture, and the dance bands were definitely well-represented when it came to Jewish maestros in the early days - pioneering bandleaders such as Ted Lewis, Sam Lanin, Ben Selvin, Boyd Senter, and later younger talents such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Irving Fazola, and Mel Torme (among MANY others!) were all of Jewish heritage.  For Jewish musicians, dance orchestras were a natural transition, as many of them came from generations of musicians called klezmorim, and represented a great Jewish music tradition called klezmer.  The klezmer contribution to American big bands cannot be underestimated as well, and it even shows up in popular songs of the 1930's such as "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" and "And the Angels Sing" (the later was an adaptation of a klezmer dance called the freilach, and made jazz history around 1937 when a young Jewish-American trumpeter with Benny Goodman's orchestra, Ziggy Elman, made it famous and a standard).  It is at this point I want to discuss klezmer in particular and go into some history.

Seth Rogovoy points out in his book, The Essential Klezmer (Chapel Hill, NC:  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000), that contemporary klezmer as we know it today originated with 19th-century Jewish (and Gypsy - more on that momentarily) musicians from Eastern Europe.  These musicians played all sorts of dances, weddings, and other functions, and when they came to the US, they also adopted popular styles of the time (jazz and ragtime) to their repertoire, and that is also how so many of them ended up integrating into the early jazz and dance band culture in the US.  Klezmer's tradition goes back as far as the 14th century with the Jewish Diaspora, and these musicians formed active guilds of musicians as far back as the 16th century (Rogovoy, p. 23).   What is really interesting is that the standard instrumentation one sees in dance bands and jazz groups of the 1920's through the 1940's was already utilized by klezmorim in Europe centuries earlier, which indicates a proto-dance band tradition being in existence well before the era of recorded sound.  I mentioned Gypsies, and indeed, Gypsies were often employed for their own musical talent in klezmer ensembles, and some of them rose in prominence on their own, notably Russian Gypsy accordionist Mishka Ziganoff (1889-1967).  Gypsies would later make a huge impact of their own on jazz and big band music when Django Reinhardt would pioneer the genre known as "Gypsy jazz," but that merits a story of its own.  For now, the contribution of Gypsies to klezmer (and subsequently, dance bands) is what is pivotal at this stage.

Russian Gypsy klezmer accordionist Mishka Ziganoff

An early klezmer orchestra

In time, klezmer and big band musicians really began to overlap, and from the jazz end was Ziggy Elman (1914-1968), who turned the klezmer dance into a jazz standard with a 1937 recording by Benny Goodman's orchestra of the pop standard "And the Angels Sing."  The subtitle of this was interesting enough "Freilach in Swing," and was also based on a much earlier klezmer recording called "Der Shteiller Bulgar" by pioneering American klezmer recording artist and bandleader Abe Schwartz in 1918.  Other klezmer techniques - notably Boyd Senter's "laughing clarinet," which was also noted on Sydney Bechet recordings as well - began to find their way into jazz and big band arrangements, and a musical legacy was born.  

Noted big band and jazz trumpeter Harry "Ziggy" Elman

Another personality worth discussing here is a more purely klezmer figure named Dave Tarras (1895-1989).   Tarras was a Russian-born Jewish immigrant who personified American klezmer, but he also integrated the best of American popular music into his own repertoire.  Tarras played with many pioneering klezmer orchestras, and even led for a short time a klezmer big band in the early 1940's  that played some fairly good swing arrangements as well.  In the mid-1950's, Tarras teamed up with his son-in-law Sam Musiker (a jazz/klezmer clarinetist who was also a sideman with Gene Krupa's orchestra in the 1940's) to produce a phenomenal LP for Columbia called Tanz!  Any discussion of klezmer must essentially reference Tarras at some juncture, as his legacy is extremely important to the genre as a whole. 

Klezmer clarinet legend Dave Tarras

In addition to klezmer, it is also important to mention another genre of music which impacted the big bands that also came from Eastern Europe.  In this case though, the custodians of the music were ethnic Slavs instead of Jewish musicians, and the music we speak of is polka.  Polka is much-aligned in American society, often being dismissed as "corny" and such, but in reality it had a tremendous impact on American popular music.   Perhaps the greatest polka musician who also made a mark on the big bands is Lawrence Welk (1902-1992), whose famous TV program was on for over 30 years,  although Welk himself had been leading orchestras since 1927.  Welk, however, was not a polka purist, as that designation would go to one of his older contemporaries, the late "Whoopie John" Wilfahrt (1893-1961) of Minnesota.  "Whoopie John" was the earliest person we could safely call a "Polka King," and his Swiss/German roots are also reflected in the "Dutchman-style" polkas he recorded that are characteristic of the upper Midwest.  However, much like Dave Tarras, "Whoopie John" was not afraid of incorporating popular music of the day into his repertoire, and this resulted in a prolific catalog of recordings beginning in the 1920's and continuing well until his death.  Although "Whoopie John" could be said to be the most popular of polka bands of his time, polka itself also dates back many centuries.

Polka legend and bandleader "Whoopie John" Wilfahrt

Polka's influence on popular music is often overlooked, but it is still integral in particular to dance bands, but in one unlikely area - Western Swing.  Western Swing was a style of music that had its origins in an adaptation of jazz technique into the traditional cowboy string band music of the Southwest.  What is less-known though about that development is that in the late 1800's. Texas became the focus of a great immigration of Czech and German immigrants, particularly in the south-central "Hill Country" area adjacent to San Antonio (Victor Green, A Passion for Polka. Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1992. p. 23).  Many of the immigrants assimilated into Texas culture, and their native polkas and waltzes also influenced the local music.  We see that in the fact that many of the best-known Western Swing bands of the 1930's through the 1950's - Adolph Hofner, Milton Bruner, Hank Thompson, and Pee Wee King - were led by guys who were of either German or Slavic heritage.  Even country legend Willie Nelson cut his professional teeth in one of those Tex-Czech polka bands then.  Even today, central Texas remains a cultural hub for polka music as a result. 

The other area of influence regarding polka music came from its beginnings.  Polka is primarily a dance music, and it was played originally in the Old Country by orchestras that were remarkably similar in instrumentation to jazz and dance bands in the US.  Also, many Jewish klezmorim in the Old Country also incorporated polkas as part of their catalog of arrangements.  The first polka bands to record in the US were largely local, from areas such as around Denver (the Volga German "Dutch Hop" style), Chicago (the more "Honkey" Polish small-band style), New England (the Polish big-band style), and Cleveland (small-group Slovenian polkas).  A more Russian/Eastern European polka tradition also sprung up in Canada's Great Plains, where a large population of Ukrainians settled.  There were also some overseas polka pioneers, namely Will Glahe (1902-1989), who actually started in the 1930's with a society-style tipica orchestra similar to the Argentine and Uruguayan tango orchestras (this is also why Mantovani, who is noted more for light classical "elevator music," is included as part of the dance band legacy, as he too had a similar tipica orchestra at around the same time).  Glahe later recorded more polkas, and is considered today to be a polka legend.  Other than perhaps Bernie Witkowski, an early polka pioneer in New England, and the Baca family in Texas, there is little information about these early polka bands that precede 1920, but they do have recordings that can be found if one knows where to look.  In time, with Dick Rodgers, Larry Chesky, and Jimmy Sturr, the polka would be fully integrated into the big band format.  

There are other ethnic influences that could be noted as well - the Cuban danzon orquestras, Argentine tango orchestras, and others.  Also, individuals who played a role should be noted, in particular Russian-Jewish mandolinist Dave Apollon (1898-1972) as well as Italian-American accordionist Charles Magnante (1905-1986), both of whom made an amazing impact on popular music for decades to come.  As I conclude this overview, it is important to know that the American dance band tradition exemplifies the "melting pot" in the truest sense - it represents a lot of ethnic contributions to what would be a uniquely American art form.  And, this also establishes as well that it was not only Blacks who helped create jazz, but a number of cultures made their contribution.  Hopefully, those reading this will gain a greater appreciation for the dance bands of the 1920's-1950's, and will see that they didn't just appear out of a vacuum.  So long until next time. 

Perspectives on the Oscars

I really wasn't even going to bother discussing the Oscars this year - to be honest, I could care less, especially considering what a political soapbox opportunity for the Left that such things have become in recent years.  I view the Oscars in much the same way in recent years that I view the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade - simply put, they are all a waste of time that can be spent doing something more constructive with one's life.  Unfortunately however, the Oscars are an unpleasant reality, and their existence does compel conversation in daily life at some point, so here we go.

Another inspiration for sort of tackling this was from a History professor at my alma mater, Southeastern University.  Dr. Alan Snyder has written some insightful commentary over the years on his "Pondering Principles" blog, and although I don't always see eye-to-eye on every issue with him, I do have an interest in what he says.  Dr. Snyder countered much of the hoopla over the Oscars with his own recommendations of movies over the years, and I think that is a brilliant idea.  So, I am going to do that here myself.

I mentioned The Promise first because it was a movie that came out in theatres last year, and it was especially significant to me because its story line deals with an issue that is very much a part of me - the Armenian Genocide of 1915.  Although the main actor (Oscar Isaac) was Hispanic, he played an excellent role as the main protagonist of the film, a young Armenian doctor who, when the Genocide happens, takes refuge in a remote Armenian village.  He witnesses the atrocities of the Turks, and eventually escapes with his French-born Armenian love interest, a philanthropy worker, and an American journalist (played by actor Christian Bale).  Veteran actor James Cromwell also does a magnificent job playing Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, who was the American diplomat who blew the whistle on the atrocities committed against the Armenians at the time.  It definitely should have won an award honestly, but I have my suspicions as to why it didn't - the Turkish government still to this day denies that the Genocide ever happened, and it has invested a lot of resources into debunking the facts of this horrific event.  Fortunately, many Hollywood celebrities have stepped up and did the right thing, and they span the political spectrum - Left-leaning actors such as George Clooney have joined forces with more conservative actors such as Dean Cain to advocate for Genocide recognition, and their efforts are to be commended.  The Armenian Genocide is one of the few issues, as a matter of fact, that many on the Left side of the political spectrum actually do agree with conservatives like myself on, and it is my hope that someday soon the US will formally recognize and commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide - Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and so many others. 

Another excellent film that came out last year which was totally ignored by the Oscars primarily because it was a Netflix release was a picture called The Fundamentals of Caring.  The main protagonist in the film (played by actor Paul Rudd) is an out-of-work writer who is down on his luck and needs to make some cash fast, so he takes a course and signs up as a caregiver.   The assignment he is given is working for a single British ex-pat mother whose teenage son Ben is paraplegic and is bound to a wheelchair due to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.  In time, the guy and the kid form a bond, and the story is actually very inspiring.  Two things really stood out though.  For one, a caution - the language in this film is not exactly PG in content, as the "f-bomb" is dropped several times by all the main characters.  The second is the role that Selena Gomez plays in the film - she is totally different in this character than her bubble-gum Disney Channel persona, that is for sure (maybe she did it as an emotional release from hanging around with that Bieber twirp perhaps?).  In the film, she plays a runaway hitchhiker named Dot, and to be honest, she is appealing - she looks cute, but also is very rough and street-savvy in this role. She develops an interest in Ben (the crippled kid who is the star of the movie) and he initially is infatuated with her - they end up more or less dating at the end of the film.  Once you get past some of the "f-bombs" and raw humor in the film, it is actually an endearing story and I believe should have been Oscar-worthy.  And, by the end of the movie, you are hoping Dot and Ben get together, and they actually do.  It is a movie I would recommend strongly, albeit I would also attach a disclaimer for some of the language.

I am not going into a lot of the others of last year's movies, although my wife did enjoy the new Guardians of the Galaxy sequel that premiered (she likes that endearing little tree creature, Groot).  Bottom line is that some movies which should have received recognition didn't at the Oscars, and many of the ones that did were pure crap.  Again, though, I view the Oscars kind of like I view Yahoo news feeds, Rotten Tomatoes reviews, and most contestants on "American Idol" - totally irrelevant to me personally, and honestly I have better things to do with my time such as watching good movies.  It has been interesting over the years that many good movies that should have gotten some recognition are just passed over, ignored, or relegated to cult followings - one of those was the 1998 film Smoke Signals, which I have seen dozens of times now and is one of the best movies from an American Indian perspective I have seen.  I also add to that category 1994's Swing Kids, which featured some great music and also shed light on another aspect of Nazi cruelty at the time, the persecution of a counter-culture of German kids who liked big band music and Western fashions.  The third film of interest for me as a history buff is 2008's Valkyrie, which had as its storyline a failed but courageous 1944 plot by Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler - despite his standing as a Scientologist flunkie, Tom Cruise did a great job portraying Stauffenberg in the film, and even looked like him!  Another film that I felt should have gotten more recognition than it did was 1985's Cotton Club, which centered on the gangster culture of 1920's Harlem in New York City.  Cotton Club also featured a fantastic soundtrack - Lonnette McKee's touching rendition of the 1930's classic "Ill Wind" is one of my favorite musical moments from that film.  One thing though about Cotton Club to recall though is that it can also be a racy film to watch too, as it does have some very R-rated scenes that I would caution against regarding younger audience viewing.  There are others I could mention, but we'll stop there for time's sake.  Bottom line, the Oscars often do not truly reflect good taste in film, nor do they really reflect what the viewing public likes.  In recent years, the Oscars are more of a political rally than an awards show anyway, and thus they lose credibility in that not everything receiving what used to be a prestigious award necessarily deserves it (same could also be said these days of the Nobel Peace Prize - talk about a stupid joke in many cases!).

I am thinking about maybe doing my own little synopsis each year of things I think should win awards but often get passed over, and in doing so I wonder who would see it the same way?  It is just a thought I may or may not pursue, but definitely worth thinking about.  Thanks again for allowing me to share.

Liberal/Progressive/Secularist Double Standards And Other Thoughts This Week

Last week, one of the most iconic religious figures in American history, Rev. Billy Graham, passed on to his eternal reward.  Rev. Graham was a beloved figure for many, and he also introduced many people to the Christian faith in his great crusades.  Although he was by no means perfect - to be honest, his books were rather dry that he authored, and on occasion, he espoused some things I would differ with considerably - there is no doubt that he was a powerful figure and deserved the honors he received at his passing.  And, with Graham's passing, a generation of influential American Christian leaders is pretty much gone, as there are few of that era left.  I preface this story with Graham's repose because I want to talk about another very influential Evangelical Christian leader that I greatly respected for many years for his stand on social and moral issues, and the person I speak of is Dr. D. James Kennedy.

Dr. D. James Kennedy (1930-2007)

Georgia-born D. James Kennedy was a former minister in the conservative Presbyterian Church of America who for many years pastored the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  He was noted for his television outreach, as well as for his Evangelism Explosion program that many Evangelical churches used in the 1970's and 1980's as an evangelistic tool.   One thing that always impressed me personally about Dr. Kennedy's ministry was his demeanor - he was a brilliant theologian, pastor, and activist for decades, and I also liked watching his program that broadcast from the Coral Ridge Church for many years for the music - Diane Bish's playing of that magnificent and beautiful Ruffatti pipe organ was enough to make anyone feel like they have been to the throne of God and back.  One thing more importantly that Kennedy impacted me with was a social conscience - as a teenager, I had thought it was "sophisticated" to flirt with progressive politics, and without knowing what it was I identified with it even for a few years after my own conversion.  Dr. Kennedy's messages enlightened me a lot on what the "progressive agenda" was really about, and thanks to his insights over the years, I have solidified and developed a more consistent Judeo-Christian worldview as well as becoming an unapologetic traditionalist.  In a sense, Dr. Kennedy "mentored" me in a number of ways, and although I disagreed with his theological positions on occasion (Kennedy, as a conservative Presbyterian, was a staunch Calvinist as well, which differed significantly with my own theological convictions) as far as social and moral issues I considered it an honor to stand in agreement with him.  Although he passed away in 2007, his ministry still continues today as led by Dr. Frank Wright and Kennedy's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy-Cassidy.  It was a recent issue involving Kennedy's ministry which prompted this article, and I will go into that now.

The interior of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, with the prominent Rufatti organ.

A few years back, a number of Christian businesses were targeted by the "gay agenda" for their refusal to bake "wedding cakes" for lesbian and gay couples, and some of those people have been harassed and litigated out of business.  Many of the progressive/liberals who targeted these businesses said that they were "hateful" in that they "discriminated" against the LGBT community, which in reality was not true at all.  When I have touched on this issue before, I emphasized that patronage of the business was not the real issue - I don't think any of these Christian business owners would have any issue whatsoever selling a dozen cupcakes, cookies, or doughnuts to a gay person, and they probably have in years past.  There is no moral constraint against cookies, doughnuts, or cupcakes, and therefore no problem in selling such items or consuming them.  However, a wedding cake is a symbol of something - for the Christian, it means a sacred covenantal bond between one man and one woman that was established as God's natural order for the family unit and thus the procreation of the human race, and therefore it is not something that a civil government can legislate, define, or enforce.  Marriage is the sole sacramental jurisdiction of the Church, and 2,000 years of Christian faith and doctrine have defined exactly what it is.  So, when a gay couple decides to participate in what they define as a "marriage," it is disordered and not something that a person of devout Christian faith can participate in or endorse with business or anything else.  Quite honestly - and I may catch flak for saying this, but I don't care - a so-called "gay marriage" is nothing more than a sham, a deception, and it goes against both divine decree and natural law.  Now, for those who want to engage in that deception, they have the free will to choose to do so; however, the Christian baker or any other businessman also has the free will to refuse to participate in anything that is in opposition to their convictions as well.  After all, the Christian owns the business, and it is ultimately his or her hard work and investment that went into its construction, so they have a natural right to say "no" if they cannot in good conscience engage in something.   Of course, the secular "lamestream" media was all over this, calling the Christian bakers "haters" and of course crying for their blood, yet when it comes to recent incidents, their true colors (not the "rainbow" on their "gay flags" either!) began to show.  And, one of those things centers around Kennedy's organization.

In the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy last year, the always opportunistic and self-serving leadership of America's #1 progressive "hate group," the Southern Poverty Law Center, ramped up its ferreting out what it perceived as "hate groups," and it began to target Evangelical ministries.  One of those targets was D. James Kennedy Ministries, which was listed on the SPLC's infamous (and bogus) "Hate Map."  In response to that, some major corporations such as Amazon revoked Kennedy Ministries' donor status, and as a result it had a negative financial impact on the ministry.  The leadership of D. James Kennedy Ministries rightly launched a discrimination suit against Amazon, in addition to seeking reparations for defamation damages caused by the SPLC's slander, and they recruited David Gibbs, a prominent Christian attorney from FL, to represent them.  As of this date, the suit is still active, as Amazon and SPLC have tried to get the case dismissed (which thankfully Kennedy Ministries and Gibbs are refusing to do) based on the grounds that as a private corporation, Amazon has the right to discriminate essentially.  And, as of yet, the outcome has yet to be seen although I do pray that Kennedy's legacy is given true justice and wins this case, as a win for them is a win for all of us.  This now leads me to a few comments on the situation.

When the Christian baker aforementioned tried to assert the same right to refuse business that Amazon did against D. James Kennedy Ministries, the baker lost the case.  Let me ask this - is it fair that a big mega-corporation like Amazon can discriminate but a mom-and-pop Christian bakery cannot?  I have done a lot of business with Amazon over the years - you can pretty much get anything you are looking for on there, and the ease of buying is a major reason for its success.  But, when Amazon does dumb things like this, is it a moral imperitive to boycott them?  I have not had the conviction to do so yet, as for me personally I have worked with Amazon for about 12 years or more with no issues, and I have benefitted much from buying off their site.  Yet, Amazon does discriminate against a Christian ministry while more than likely many of its leadership would be dancing in the streets over the closure of a poor Christian baker who refused to bake a "wedding cake" for two lesbos.  It is no doubt that Amazon needs to be taught a lesson, but how does one do that?  That perhaps needs to be explored further. 

Other recent "right to refuse" incidents of large corporations - Dick's Sporting Goods, Delta, etc. - refusing the National Rifle Association business based on what happened recently at Parkland in Florida.  What is weird about this whole thing is that the NRA had absolutely nothing to do with those tragic shootings, and no NRA members were even involved in the whole thing, yet innocent members of the organization are being punished despite the fact they are law-abiding citizens with legal firearms permits.  Many of the same people denying the NRA patronage would also be dancing in the streets if a Christian baker were shut down for refusing to bake a "wedding cake" for two faeries.  If we really wanted to point out something here on that, Dick's Sporting Goods, in particular, should be an object of boycott by religious people just for its name - I mean, for a store who (facetiously or not) advertises "get your balls at Dick's" this creates a serious moral dilemma!  And, since in this day and age it pays to get "offended," perhaps I can be offended at potential advertising campaigns for Dick's because they sound obscene and offend my moral sensitivities - how about that?  I know Dick's is not intentionally pornographic, but they need to be fair and also understand that NRA members are not all psycho killers because they have permits to pack a pistol.  Plus, the potential for off-color jokes that could offend people with strong moral or religious convictions should maybe force Dick's to rethink its name, right?   Just sayin'!  As for Delta, here is the inconsistency with that - it seems as if it is OK for an illegal terrorist to fly their planes because they purchased a ticket, but not an NRA member who is a law-abiding citizen?  I mean, look at whose flights crashed on 9-11 - does not the same type of plane have the same potential to do damage?  Maybe a complaint should be filed against Delta for the type of planes it flies - if they have been identified as being used in terrorist attacks, why should passengers feel safe on them?  Again, some food for thought for the "political correct" crowd.

These inconsistencies - both against the NRA and against D. James Kennedy Ministries - are not about discrimination or anything valid.  They represent an agenda - for the Progressive/Socialist, certain types of discrimination (which may actually be really bad) are OK as long as they do it, but when someone who disagrees with them makes a similar judgment, then the goal is eradication of dissent against the "political correct" orthodoxy of the secularist by feigning "hate" and "discrimination."  It has been done before too, and to be honest it is time that people with more common sense stand up and say "NO!!!!" to these liberal/progressive/secularist bullies and for us all to stand up and reclaim our rights to conscience.  Until we do so, the liberal agenda will continue to harass, bully, and intimidate those they disagree with until they eradicate such people from the face of society.  And, that simply cannot be allowed to happen.  Information is the key to change in a positive way, and exposing inconsistencies and hypocrisy serves to empower the powerless against the "establishment" that seeks to oppress and repress them.  Hopefully that is some food for thought until next visit.