They want you to panic. They want you to look to the unreasonable hope that “they” can save you. DON’T! The advice of Jeremiah is for today. Human history is full of “normal” times. Oppressive oligarchs, foolish policies, wars that need not be are, unfortunately “normal.” As the people of Jerusalem were carried away into exile, the prophet did not spin a tale of unrealizable deliverance, but nor did he admonish his hearers to despair!
Instead he gave them these words: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon; Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” – Jeremiah 29:4-7 So as madness reigns in our nation’s capital and the world, we are admonished to remain those who build, those who create, and so be a part of God’s Greater Kingdom! “We Shall Never Surrender,” in the words of that great statesman, Sir. Winston Churchill.
In the dark days of segregated Virginia,Katherine Johnsonplotted the path that would take us to the moon. Mural Concept by Bob Kirchman
In 1852, Frederic Edwin Church painted Virginia's Natural Bridge
Volume XVIII, Issue XXa: Return to the Final Frontier
Astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken prepare for their historic flight. NASA Photo.
Crewed Flight to the ISS
NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission will return U.S human spaceflight to the International Space Station from U.S. soil with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley on an American rocket and spacecraft for the first time since 2011. In March 2020, at a SpaceX processing facility on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX successfully completed a fully integrated test of critical crew flight hardware ahead of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program; the first flight test with astronauts onboard the spacecraft. Behnken and Hurley participated in the test, which included flight suit leak checks, spacecraft sound verification, display panel and cargo bin inspections, seat hardware rotations, and more. The spacecraft will lift off from Pad 39A on May 30, 2020 at approximately 3:22 EDT. NASA Will Provide Live Coverage [click to watch].
Tentative Schedule of the Mission
May 29, Friday
10 a.m. - Administrator Countdown Clock Briefing (weather permitting) featuring: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren NASA astronaut Nicole Mann
May 30, Saturday
11 a.m. – NASA TV launch coverage begins 3:22 p.m. – Liftoff 4:09 p.m. – Crew Dragon phase burn 4:55 p.m. – Far-field manual flight test TBD p.m. – Astronaut downlink event from Crew Dragon 6:30 p.m. – Postlaunch news conference at Kennedy
Administrator Bridenstine Kathy Lueders, manager, NASA Commercial Crew Program SpaceX representative Kirk Shireman, manager, International Space Station Program NASA Chief Astronaut Pat Forrester (Editor's note: NASA TV's coverage of the mission will be continuous from 11 a.m. Saturday through the post-arrival news conference on Sunday.)
May 31, Sunday
TBD a.m. – Astronaut downlink event from Crew Dragon 10:29 a.m. – Docking 12:45 p.m. – Hatch Open 1:05 p.m. – Welcome ceremony 3:15 p.m. – Post-arrival news conference at Johnson NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
Johnson Space Center Director Mark Geyer NASA Chief Astronaut Pat Forrester
June 1, Monday
11:15 a.m. – ISS Expedition 63 Crew News Conference with Commander Chris Cassidy and Flight Engineers Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley of NASA
12:55 p.m. – ISS Expedition 63 In-Flight Event with SpaceX Officials and Employees in Hawthorne, California
June 2, Tuesday
9:20 a.m. – SpaceX employee event and Class of 2020 Mosaic presentation, with NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy, Bob Behnken, and Doug Hurley
To celebrate the 2020 graduating classes, SpaceX and NASA put out a call for students to send in their photos to go to space. The student photos will fly aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule on the Demo-2 mission, which will take off for the International Space Station (ISS) on May 30 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here is the composite image of the photos.
Live Feed of NASA TV.
America at Her Best, “Tough and Competent”
The storm cells that caused the scrub of Wednesday's launch are seen in this SpaceX photo.
Elon Muskwishes the astronauts a safe trip after suit-up on May 27.
Wednesday was a wonderful day for me. I was watching America at her best. As NASA prepared for the first launch of a crewed spacecraft from the cape in 9 years, a storm system bore down on what was otherwise a flawless preflight sequence. Astronauts were in the spacecraft and fueling was underway but a launch would have violated two weather rules with the charged atmosphere and the menacing storms. Interestingly, NASA and SpaceX officials had fielded a question about ‘Launch Fever’ in a press conference the night before. ‘Launch Fever’ or ‘Go Fever’ is actually a serious concern. Apollo 1 had many problems that if called out would have grounded it, but Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee pressed on. There was pressure to keep the program on schedule. As the astronauts tried to work out a problem in the communication system a frayed wife caused a spark in the oxygen pressurized cabin. The resulting fire killed the three astronauts.
That terrible event created a new culture in NASA. Flight Director Gene Kranz made all of his staff write the words “TOUGH and COMPETANT” on their whiteboards. They would never take anything for granted. They would never be afraid to say “STOP!” No doubt, that ethic was in part responsible for Apollo’s great safety record. In a very dangerous environment, NASA learned how to manage risk. The strengths of many talented people were brought together to pull off a mission that required incredible focus and courage. Katherine Johnson and many other great mathematicians wrestled with the equations that would put the astronauts on the correct course. Although it might not have looked it in the 1960s, NASA was already building an organization that would require an incredibly diverse group of people. At MIT, Margaret Hamilton created much of the computer code necessary for the mission. At Langley, Dorothy Vaughn supervised a group of programmers. Mission Control might not have looked very diverse, but the hundreds of thousands of workers who made the missions happen were. It was America at her best.
Wednesday saw an amazing display of that best. Mission Control has evolved and so has NASA’s culture of safety. Elon Musk spoke of the responsibility he felt to the astronauts and their families. SpaceX and NASA are determined to deliver a safe and reliable spacecraft. With the world watching, as the storms came in, they had the courage of their conviction to call off the launch. A NASA administrator remarked: “It is always better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than to be flying wishing you were on the ground.” I thought of Pete Conrad’s Apollo 12. It was launched during a thunderstorm and was struck twice by lightning. The entire flight program dropped out. Houston asked them to try a reset: “SEC to Auxiliary.”Alan Bean knew what that was and successfully reset the spacecraft’s controls. There was still concern that the parachutes could have been damaged. After Apollo 12 flew, storms were considered a reason to scrub a mission. Sadly, the shuttle era saw the tragic loss of Challenger and Columbia. The shuttles had aged and the tile heat shields were problematic.
I wanted to see a launch Wednesday, but am so glad I saw something better!
The astronauts say goodbye to their families on Wednesday.
These Women Put Man on the Moon
Watching those old space shows as a child, it was pretty obvious that you just got into the spacecraft, took off and flew to wherever in the solar system you wanted to go. It looked deceptively simple – and it was! We had no reason to doubt that man had landed on the moon because Buck Rogers had made it look simple. But when President John F. Kennedy gave the imperative to actually put a man on the moon and bring him safely home, it immediately became clear that the problem was not so simple.
In order to go to the moon, you had to take off and steer a course to where the moon would be when you got there. You had to account for parabolic ascent and elliptical orbits. Your travel map existed in the realm of complex geometry and required brilliant mathematicians to chart. Fortunately the NASASpace Task Group at Langley Research Center had just such a group of mathematicians. They were mostly women and quite a few of them were African American! If you have seen the movie Hidden Figures you learned the stories of three of them, but the complex world of spaceflight engineering actually demanded many more. Many of them worked in the West Computing Group at Langley. Here Katherine Johnson and her colleagues mapped the stars for the astronauts. Yes, they literally mapped the heavens, so that the astronauts could navigate by the stars should their machine computers fail them.
This became essential in missions like Apollo 13, where the spacecraft was actually shut down at a time when critical course corrections had to be made. Katherine Johnson was one essential backup person who the navigation controllers in ‘the trench’ at Mission Control called in to calculate the trajectories of the revised mission. This was essential as you had to sling the Command Module and Lunar Module assembly around the moon about 65 miles from the surface. A miscalculation could have sent the spacecraft crashing to the lunar surface or missing the gravitational effect of the moon entirely – hurtling into deep space with no possibility of return.
To me, the complex mapping, verified by many earth orbit tests, is one reason I have little patience for the skeptics who say the lunar landing was somehow ‘faked.’ The careful calculations and critical launch windows only became known because the people who designed the mission really had to do it.
Some of Langley's first computers. NASA Photo.
In this 1930's era building, the computers plotted man's path to the moon. NASA Photo.
Dorothy Vaughn. NASA Photo.
Katherine Johnson. NASA Photo.
Margaret Hamilton with the printout of the Apollo AGC Software. NASA.
Margaret Hamilton
Software Engineer
Margaret Hamilton was 33 years old when she worked as director of software engineering at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. She and her team defined the design and testing criteria for the software that ran the onboard computer on the Lunar Module and developed the concepts of asynchronous flight software and priority scheduling which saved the Apollo computers from crashing during overloads such as the ones that occurred during the Apollo 11 descent to the moon (the 1201 and 1202 alarms).
The Journey of Apollo Eight
A particularly beautiful diagram of the journey to the moon.
(NASA)
Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei
Ukranian Spaceflight Scientist
On June 21, 1897 the world celebrates the birthday of Yuriy Vasilievich Kondratyuk, the famous Ukrainian author of the “route kondratyuka” which the Apollo spacecraft and Lunar Module took to the moon, creating the concept of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. His real name is Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei. He changed it because of the danger posed by the Soviet Union to upper-class Ukranians. This did not prevent him from becoming one of the most famous inventors in the world.
Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargeiplotted the course of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, which was used to put Apollo astronauts on the moon. NASA's John Cornelius Houbolt and Thomas Dolan of Vought Astronautics referred to Sargei's work as they developed the concept for use by the Apollo program.
Tom Dolan and John Houbolt
Thomas Dolan was an American engineer who proposed the first fully developed concept of Lunar orbit rendezvous for the Apollo program while working at Vought Astronautics. Dolan referred to his LOR study concept as Manned Lunar Landing and Return (MALLAR), and it was largely ignored by NASA administrators until Langley engineer John Houbolt began championing the concept in 1961. The proposed idea outlined a smaller spacecraft dedicated only to operate in the vacuum of space. This spacecraft could act as sort of a shuttle between an orbiting "command module" in Lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon. Following this mission profile required the Command/Service Module and Lunar Module to fly all the way to the moon together and undock while in orbit around the moon, at which point the Lunar Module would land on the moon. In order to return, it would lift off again into lunar orbit and perform an orbital rendezvous with the Command/Service Module. The lander's ascent stage would be left behind in orbit, and the crew would return home using the Command/Service Module. This method saved a lot of weight in propellant and spacecraft mass, but did not gain widespread acceptance early on. The risks associated with Lunar orbit rendezvous were initially considered unacceptable by NASA officials. The Gemini missions would later prove that rendezvous and docking was indeed possible in space, paving the way for Dolan's idea to be put into practice. John Cornelius Houbolt was an aerospace engineer credited with leading the team behind the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) mission mode, a concept that was used to successfully land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth. This flight path was first endorsed by Wernher von Braun in June 1961 and was chosen for Apollo program in early 1962. The critical decision to use LOR was viewed as vital to ensuring that Man reached the Moon by the end of the decade as proposed by President John F. Kennedy. In the process, LOR saved time and billions of dollars by efficiently using existing rocket technology. (Wikipedia)
'Earthrise' Photo enhanced by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Imagery. NASA Photo.
“Well Done. Good and Faithful Servant”
Memorial Service for Ravi Zacharias
Tribute to Ravi Zacharias by Atlanta Street Artist Joe King. Ravi was not only a great Christian thinker, he built bridges between cultures, and that included his adopted home town of Atlanta, Georgia. Be a Bridge Builder! Be like Ravi!
If you criticize someone else, then offer something of your own. If you offer it, then just do it.” –Sergei Korolev, Father of Soviet Rocketry
Sixty-three years ago the first man-made satellite was placed in orbit. The man behind this feat was Ukranian born Sergei Korolev. As a young man he was enthralled with the idea of flight and rose from his initial vocation of builder to become the Soviet Union’s secret ‘Chief Designer.’ Denounced by fellow scientist Valentin Glushko during Stalin’s purges, Korolev was sentenced to hard labor in the Gulag. He was beaten (his jaws were broken) and he almost died there, but was brought back when the Soviets needed to build an ICBM in the days of the Cold War. Ironically, Glushko would design the engines for the great rockets imagined by Korolev. Sergei dreamed of manned flight to the moon and beyond. His dream eventually became the focus of the competition between the two great ideologies when John F. Kennedy proposed a mission to the moon. Many people don’t remember that Kennedy initially went to the United Nations General Assembly where he met Premier Nikita Khrushchev and actually proposed a joint mission by the world’s two superpowers. Though Korolev begged the Soviet leader to accept the offer, Khrushchev had no desire to ‘share the glory’ with the Capitalists. So began the great ‘space race’ of the 1960s.
Korolev, once a prisoner, now became a man so valuable that the KGB insisted his identity be kept a state secret. He was known simply as the ‘Chief Designer.’ He went on to send dogs into space and designed the Vostok Spacecraft that carried Yuri Gagarin into orbit – the first person to fly in space. He began development of the large N1 Rocket and the Soyuz spacecraft in anticipation of a lunar mission but died during surgery to remove a tumor because his injuries from the gulag prevented doctors from saving him. Leonid Brezhnev ordered a full state funeral and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin wall as the world finally learned who the genius behind Russian rocketry really was. Today both Astronauts and Cosmonauts ride together to the International Space Station aboard an N1 Rocket in a Soyuz Spacecraft – essentially as designed by Sergei Korolev!
Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectory of American spaceflight.
These Women Put Man on the Moon
Watching those old space shows as a child, it was pretty obvious that you just got into the spacecraft, took off and flew to wherever in the solar system you wanted to go. It looked deceptively simple – and it was! We had no reason to doubt that man had landed on the moon because Buck Rogers had made it look simple. But when President John F. Kennedy gave the imperative to actually put a man on the moon and bring him safely home, it immediately became clear that the problem was not so simple.
In order to go to the moon, you had to take off and steer a course to where the moon would be when you got there. You had to account for parabolic ascent and elliptical orbits. Your travel map existed in the realm of complex geometry and required brilliant mathematicians to chart. Fortunately the NASASpace Task Group at Langley Research Center had just such a group of mathematicians. They were mostly women and quite a few of them were African American! If you have seen the movie Hidden Figures you learned the stories of three of them, but the complex world of spaceflight engineering actually demanded many more. Many of them worked in the West Computing Group at Langley. Here Katherine Johnson and her colleagues mapped the stars for the astronauts. Yes, they literally mapped the heavens, so that the astronauts could navigate by the stars should their machine computers fail them.
This became essential in missions like Apollo 13, where the spacecraft was actually shut down at a time when critical course corrections had to be made. Katherine Johnson was one essential backup person who the navigation controllers in ‘the trench’ at Mission Control called in to calculate the trajectories of the revised mission. This was essential as you had to sling the Command Module and Lunar Module assembly around the moon about 65 miles from the surface. A miscalculation could have sent the spacecraft crashing to the lunar surface or missing the gravitational effect of the moon entirely – hurtling into deep space with no possibility of return.
To me, the complex mapping, verified by many earth orbit tests, is one reason I have little patience for the skeptics who say the lunar landing was somehow ‘faked.’ The careful calculations and critical launch windows only became known because the people who designed the mission really had to do it.
Some of Langley's first computers. NASA Photo.
In this 1930's era building, the computers plotted man's path to the moon. NASA Photo.
Dorothy Vaughn. NASA Photo.
Katherine Johnson. NASA Photo.
Margaret Hamilton with the printout of the Apollo AGC Software. NASA.
Margaret Hamilton
Software Engineer
Margaret Hamilton was 33 years old when she worked as director of software engineering at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. She and her team defined the design and testing criteria for the software that ran the onboard computer on the Lunar Module and developed the concepts of asynchronous flight software and priority scheduling which saved the Apollo computers from crashing during overloads such as the ones that occurred during the Apollo 11 descent to the moon (the 1201 and 1202 alarms).
The Journey of Apollo Eight
A particularly beautiful diagram of the journey to the moon.
(NASA)
On June 21, 1897 the world celebrates the birthday of Yuriy Vasilievich Kondratyuk, the famous Ukrainian author of the “route kondratyuka” which the Apollo spacecraft and Lunar Module took to the moon, creating the concept of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. His real name is Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei. He changed it because of the danger posed by the Soviet Union to upper-class Ukranians. This did not prevent him from becoming one of the most famous inventors in the world. (read more)
Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargeiplotted the course of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, which was used to put Apollo astronauts on the moon. NASA's John Cornelius Houbolt and Thomas Dolan of Vought Astronautics referred to Sargei's work as they developed the concept for use by the Apollo program.
Tom Dolan and John Houbolt
Thomas Dolan was an American engineer who proposed the first fully developed concept of Lunar orbit rendezvous for the Apollo program while working at Vought Astronautics. Dolan referred to his LOR study concept as Manned Lunar Landing and Return (MALLAR), and it was largely ignored by NASA administrators until Langley engineer John Houbolt began championing the concept in 1961. The proposed idea outlined a smaller spacecraft dedicated only to operate in the vacuum of space. This spacecraft could act as sort of a shuttle between an orbiting "command module" in Lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon. Following this mission profile required the Command/Service Module and Lunar Module to fly all the way to the moon together and undock while in orbit around the moon, at which point the Lunar Module would land on the moon. In order to return, it would lift off again into lunar orbit and perform an orbital rendezvous with the Command/Service Module. The lander's ascent stage would be left behind in orbit, and the crew would return home using the Command/Service Module. This method saved a lot of weight in propellant and spacecraft mass, but did not gain widespread acceptance early on. The risks associated with Lunar orbit rendezvous were initially considered unacceptable by NASA officials. The Gemini missions would later prove that rendezvous and docking was indeed possible in space, paving the way for Dolan's idea to be put into practice. John Cornelius Houbolt was an aerospace engineer credited with leading the team behind the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) mission mode, a concept that was used to successfully land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth. This flight path was first endorsed by Wernher von Braun in June 1961 and was chosen for Apollo program in early 1962. The critical decision to use LOR was viewed as vital to ensuring that Man reached the Moon by the end of the decade as proposed by President John F. Kennedy. In the process, LOR saved time and billions of dollars by efficiently using existing rocket technology. (Wikipedia)
'Earthrise' Photo enhanced by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Imagery. NASA Photo.
On Christmas Eve, 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts were attempting to do something no human being had ever done before: They were going to try to get my cheapskate father to buy my family our first color television.
Oh yeah, and they were also going to the Moon.
Fifty years ago, on December 21st, 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts blasted off the Earth from Cape Kennedy and, although they weren’t going to land on the moon, they were going to orbit it and televise it to us all “live” from their space capsule on Christmas Eve. The astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, were risking their lives in this dangerous mission to advance science, to give some good news to a world that desperately needed good news… and to get my dad to buy us a color TV and give me the best Christmas of my life! I add that only so you can see that I also had some skin in the game.
For those of you who weren’t around back then, 1968 was a year of terrible pain in America. The war in Vietnam was spiraling out of control with no end in sight. And just about every family in any big city or small town knew a soldier who had been wounded or died fighting in a country that none of us had ever been to, or knew much about.
In 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were fighting for peace, civil rights and an end to violence… and were themselves shot and killed.
It was a time when people seemed to stop having friendly conversations with their neighbors across the fence and started angrily hollering at each other in political protests on inner city streets and college campuses.
Just about every morning in 1968 the country woke up to bad news that was worse than the day before. But to a 15 year-old me and my 12 and 7 year-old brothers, the worst news of 1968 was that we still had to watch our favorite TV shows on a crummy black and white television set. Don’t get me wrong, we felt bad about all those other things that were happening in America too. We had seen it all on the TV news, but, just, you know… in black and white. I’m sure we’d have felt much worse if we had seen it in color.
Now, in case you are thinking that color televisions were a pretty rare thing in 1968, well, they were not. Most all of the families in our neighborhood had a color TV. And by 1968, just about every show on all three TV networks was in color. Most other kids could see Adam West’s royal blue cape on “Batman”, Opie’s red hair on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Little Joe Cartwright’s lime green jacket, lavender shirt and tight fawn-beige pants on “Bonanza”. (That might explain why Little Joe got beat up so much by the less tolerant cowboys on the Ponderosa.)
Watching TV in black and white made no sense to my brothers and me. If we went to the local theater, the movies were in color. The pictures that our family’s Kodak Instamatic camera took of us on birthdays, vacations and whenever my youngest brother Neil’s swim trunks fell off, were all in color. Everything my brothers and I saw in our everyday lives was in color. Except for when we got home and turned on our television. And that is because we did not live in “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color”. We lived in Dick Scully’s Crappy World of Black and White.
Dick Scully was my father and he was the only thing standing between me and a color TV. Dad didn’t like spending money on things he considered to be an unnecessary expense… things like name-brand cookies, college educations, and Stingray bikes with monkey handle bars and cool banana seats. And my father considered a color TV the most unnecessary expense of them all. Well, maybe the second-most unnecessary expense after my mother’s visit to the doctor for her annual mammogram.
Every year I spend money that we could be using for other things on that damn test and what does it ever show, Geraldine? Nothing! Every year, absolutely nothing!” He actually made my mother feel guilty for not having cancer. Like if it weren’t for her disappointing mammograms, we’d be eating Oreos instead of Shop-Rite cookies. That was my father.
Every month or so, for years, my brothers and I asked our dad to buy a color TV and every time his answer was the same, if you don’t count swears. “We can’t afford it.” Now, we certainly weren’t rich, but my father made a good living. He had a small dry cleaning store and most of the people in the neighborhood came to him to get the stains out of their clothes. As Dad used to say, “Blood and vomit are our bread and butter.” It would have seemed impossible to make the phrase “Blood and vomit” even more disgusting in a sentence, but my father managed to do it.
My mother also tried to get him to buy a color set for us, but she was more clever and subtle than we were. I remember one time when she said, “Dick, I know you love the kids and they know you love them too. If you say that we can’t afford a color TV, we all believe you. But I was thinking… the boys have also always wanted a cat too and we can get a cat for free, so, if they can’t have a color television, why not let them have a cat instead?” Mom knew our father hated cats, so this was a brilliant plan. If asked, I would have said he hated cats more than he hated spending money on a color television. I would have been wrong. He got us a cat. The irony that it was a black and white cat was not lost on me.
If it sounds like I had the crummiest life of anyone in our neighborhood, well, I didn’t. There was one kid in my school who had it even worse than me… Ralph Forgey. The Forgeys were pretty poor and had a black and white TV like us, but the picture tube had burned out on theirs a few years earlier. They couldn’t see anything on the screen, but the sound still worked, so Ralph Forgey and his family could only listen to TV shows. Maybe that’s why Mrs. Forgey couldn’t understand how some nice girl hadn’t snapped up Liberace yet.
Since it looked like we were never getting a color television, I tried to find ways to watch my favorite shows on other people’s color TVs. My first choice would have been to watch TV over at one of my friends’ houses. The only problem was most of my friends’ parents didn’t like me much, so I was rarely ever invited inside. Some nonsense about things always getting broken whenever I visited. I was considered an “outdoors friend”.
I got so desperate to watch color TV that I came up with a plan that would get me into the house of any kid in my school, even if I never met him. The idea was that I would “find” the kid’s lost jacket and bring it around to his house at about 7:30 that evening, when network TV shows were starting up. Of course, the jacket was never “lost” at all… I had swiped it during the day at school. The plan was that the kid’s parents would be so grateful to me for having found the jacket that I would naturally be invited into their home and would get to watch their color TV with them. Unfortunately, that was never successful because by the time I got to their house, the poor kid had already gotten a beating for losing his jacket and the family was in a bad mood because of the whole thing. On paper though, that one should’ve worked.
Scams like that came to an end when it was announced that the Apollo 8 astronauts were going to the moon and would show it to us all on live television on Christmas Eve. That night at supper, I asked Dad to buy us a color TV again. He had his usual four-word-answer ready… “We can’t afford it.” But I was ready too, because for the first time, I had a good reason for us having a color TV. My brothers and I needed to see the Apollo 8 mission in color for our science classes at school. This time it was for education: The ultimate scam in any kid’s playbook. He replied with a first-ever five-word-answer… “We still can’t afford it.”
Oh man, if the first trip to the moon and education wasn’t enough to get us a color TV, nothing was. I launched into an angry, desperate plea for a color television that both my brothers joined in on. My mom stood next to us in solidarity, however she was holding the cat and I wasn’t sure if that was going to help us or hurt us. “Dick, let’s stop having this same old argument. It’s almost Christmas and this is the perfect time to finally get a color TV. The astronauts are going around the moon for the first time ever and I think our kids should get to see history being made in color like all the other kids in America!” My brothers and I cheered and, to my recollection, the cat meowed.
Dad actually seemed to consider it for a moment. We all held our breaths in anticipation, then he said, “Look, I’d love to have a color TV just like the rest of you but we just can’t afford it…” His voice trailed off as he lit up a cigarette and puffed on it self-satisfied, sure of another victory. But not this time. Mom was ready.
“Well, I’ve found a way that we can afford it, “ she said. “I’m going to pay for it myself. I got a job.”
Dad was clearly caught off guard by this new development. “What? A job? Oh come on, Gerri, you can’t be serious… "
Mom told him she was going back to being a waitress, like she was before they were married. My father, not buying any of this, picked up his newspaper and flipped through the pages, snorting, “Sure you are. What restaurant would hire you after all this time?”
My mother replied cheerfully, “The Blue Star Tavern” over on Fairview Avenue. I start tomorrow.”
My father leapt up from his chair. “The Blue Star Tavern?! That’s where I eat lunch! I don’t want my wife around when I’m eating lunch!”
You boys can come in during your Christmas vacation and eat for free”, Mom continued. “The job even comes with two uniforms and—“
You get to wear a uniform?” my little brother, Neil, asked, impressed.
Mom answered, “Well, they’re not really uniforms… just a nice blouse, a pair of pants and— “
Dad nearly choked! “Pants?!” “Pants!!” he exclaimed a second time to fully register his shock. “No wife of mine is getting a job or wearing pants!”
Panic had set in and my father started begging. “C’mon, Ger’… you can’t do this to me. If you start working, people will think it’s because I don’t make enough money.”
Mom countered with, “Well, won’t they think that anyway because we’re just about the only family in the neighborhood that doesn’t have a color television?”
For the first time in his life, my father couldn’t think of something to say. Not even something stupid. Mom just cheerfully continued, “Do you need the car every day, Dick, or do you think we should get another one for me too?” she asked.
Dad angrily snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray, “I’m putting a stop to this right now!” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and opened it. If this were a cartoon, the wallet would have had moths flying out of it. Since this was real life, it just smelled bad. He counted out three-hundred dollars in twenties and handed them to my mother, bellowing “Get the damn color TV, but no job… you hear me, girl?!”
I couldn’t believe it… we were actually going to get a color television. I didn’t know what to say. My mom knew what to say, though, as she turned to my dad and gave him a peck on the cheek, “Thanks, honey.”
My father lit another cigarette and fell back into his chair, muttering, “There’s no way Richard F. Scully’s wife is going to be waiting hand and foot on anyone!” He then turned to my mother and barked, “Now go fix me a peanut butter sandwich… and make it snappy!”[read more]
In June 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to “begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.” The reason for a space force is simple: space is the strategic high ground from which all future wars will be fought. If we do not master space, our nation will become indefensible. Since that time, entrenched bureaucrats and military leaders across the Department of Defense, especially in the Air Force, have been resisting the President’s directive in every way they can. And this December, although Congress voted to approve a Space Force, it did so while placing restrictions on it—such as that the Space Force be built with existing forces—that will render it largely useless in any future conflicts. At the heart of the problem is a disagreement about the mission of a Space Force. The Department of Defense envisions a Space Force that continues to perform the task that current space assets perform—supporting wars on the surface of the Earth. The Air Force especially is mired in an outmoded industrial-age mindset. It sees the Space Force as projecting power through air, space, and cyberspace, understood in a way that precludes space beyond our geocentric orbit. (read more)
I teach in a law school. For several years now my students have been mostly Millennials. Contrary to stereotype, I have found that the vast majority of them want to learn. But true to stereotype, I increasingly find that most of them cannot think, don’t know very much, and are enslaved to their appetites and feelings. Their minds are held hostage in a prison fashioned by elite culture and their undergraduate professors. (read more)
Staunton's Romanesque-Revival Marquis Building, constructed in 1895, originally housed the offices of architect T. J. Collins. Collins is responsible for the design of over 200 buildings in the historic city. A men's clothing shop once occupied the street level and the large umbrella was installed on the facade as a trade sign. Today the building is often referred to as 'The Umbrella Building.' -- Photos by Bob Kirchman
'The Apprentice' Benjamin Banneker's Amazing Accomplishments
Benjamin Banneker was a renaissance man.
"You're Fired"
A Milestone Monday Feature:
The story of Benjamin Banneker is forever intertwined with the planning of our nation's capital city. In 1791 Banneker was in the employment of Andrew Ellicott, who was charged with the task of laying out the monumental city plan concieved by French architect Pierre Charles de L'Enfant, who had been hired to design a capital suitable for the new republic.
L'Enfant based his design on the best traditions of Baroque landscape design and his creation resembled the hunting gardens of Louis XIV's massive palace at Versailles. L'Enfant proved to be very difficult to work with... America's first 'rock star' architect, you might say. George Washington fired him.
Here the traditional story says that L'Enfant rolled up his drawings and left the young country in a huff, taking his designs with him. Ellicott turned to Banneker, who had prepared the actual surveys, and Banneker is said to have redrawn the plans from memory!
Though many modern historians doubt that Banneker recreated the plans from memory, the man's documented accomplishments would be in keeping with those of a man capable of such a feat.
The hunting gardens of Versailles...
...inspiration for our nation's capital?
A simple farmer most of his life, Banneker had the good fortune to know the Quaker settlers of Ellicott's Mills in Maryland. The Society of Friends believed in providing basic education to all people and young Banneker certainly received a solid basic education.
Banneker became a student of astronomy and published an almanac. He corresponded with President Thomas Jefferson on the issue of the status of his fellow African Americans. His letter to Jefferson is well crafted, invoking reason as well as compassion. It appears that Banneker took up the craft of surveying in his fifties, looking to a time when he might be physically too old to farm.
Banneker is said to have observed the workings of a clock and then carved his own working clock mechanism from scrap wood. He published his almanac until 1802.
Banneker lived for four years after his almanacs discontinued. He published a treatise on bees, did a mathematical study on the cycle of the seventeen-year locust, and became a pamphleteer for the anti-slavery movement. He continued scientific studies by night and walked his land by day. He also continued to keep his garden. He hosted many distinguished scientists and artists of his day, and his visitors commented on his intelligence and on his knowledge of everything of importance that was happening in the country. As always, he remained precise and reflective in his conversations with others. His last walk (with a friend) came on October 9, 1806, he complained of being ill and went home to rest on his couch. He died later that day." [1.]
Banneker's Almanac.
The Ellicott/Banneker map of Washington.
The city today.
1791 Letter to Jefferson To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Banneker, 19 August 1791
FromBenjamin Banneker
Maryland. Baltimore County. Near Ellicotts Lower Mills
August 19th: 1791
SIR
I am fully sensible of the greatness of that freedom which I take with you on the present occasion; a liberty which Seemed to me scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished, and dignifyed station in which you Stand; and the almost general prejudice and prepossession which is so prevailent in the world against those of my complexion.
I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of Beings who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world, that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt, and1 that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and Scarcely capable of mental endowments.
Sir I hope I may Safely admit, in consequence of that report which hath reached me, that you are a man far less inflexible in Sentiments of this nature, than many others, that you are measurably friendly and well disposed toward us, and that you are willing and ready to Lend your aid and assistance to our relief from those many distresses and numerous calamities to which we are reduced.
Now Sir if this is founded in truth, I apprehend you will readily embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and oppinions which so generally prevails with respect to us, and that your Sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are that one universal Father hath given being to us all, and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also without partiality afforded us all the Same Sensations, and endued us all with the same faculties, and that however variable we may be in Society or religion, however diversifyed in Situation or colour, we are all of the Same Family, and Stand in the Same relation to him.
Sir, if these are Sentiments of which you are fully persuaded, I hope you cannot but acknowledge, that it is the indispensible duty of those who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who profess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burthen or oppression they may unjustly labour under, and this I apprehend a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles should lead all to.
Sir, I have long been convinced, that if your love for your Selves, and for those inesteemable laws which preserve to you the rights of human nature, was founded on Sincerity, you could not but be Solicitous, that every Individual of whatsoever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof, neither could you rest Satisfyed, short of the most active diffusion of your exertions, in order to their promotion from any State of degradation, to which the unjustifyable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.
Sir I freely and Chearfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, and in that colour which is natural to them of the deepest dye, and it is under a Sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, that I now confess to you, that I am not under that State of tyrannical thraldom, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed; but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favoured and which I hope you will willingly allow you have received from the immediate hand of that Being, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.
Sir, Suffer me to recall to your mind that time in which the Arms and tyranny of the British Crown were exerted with every powerful effort in order to reduce you to a State of Servitude, look back I intreat you on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed, reflect on that time in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the Conflict, and you cannot but be led to a Serious and grateful Sense of your miraculous and providential preservation; you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy you have mercifully received, and that it is the peculiar blessing of Heaven.
This Sir, was a time in which you clearly saw into the injustice of a State of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition, it was now Sir, that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publickly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remember’d in all Succeeding ages. “We hold these truths to be Self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness.”
Here Sir, was a time in which your tender feelings for your selves had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great valuation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings to which you were entitled by nature; but Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the Same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.
Sir, I suppose that your knowledge of the situation of my brethren is too extensive to need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which they may be relieved; otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from these narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and as Job proposed to his friends “Put your Souls in their Souls stead,” thus shall your hearts be enlarged with kindness and benevolence toward them, and thus shall you need neither the direction of myself or others in what manner to proceed herein.
And now, Sir, altho my Sympathy and affection for my brethren hath caused my enlargement thus far, I ardently hope that your candour and generosity will plead with you in my behalf, when I make known to you, that it was not originally my design; but that having taken up my pen in order to direct to you as a present, a copy of an Almanack which I have calculated for the Succeeding year, I was unexpectedly and unavoidably led thereto.
This calculation, Sir, is the production of my arduous Study in this my advanced Stage of life; for having long had unbounded desires to become acquainted with the Secrets of nature, I have had to gratify my curiosity herein thro my own assiduous application to Astronomical Study, in which I need not to recount to you the many difficulties and disadvantages which I have had to encounter.
And altho I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year, in consequence of that time which I had allotted therefor being taking up at the Federal Territory by the request of Mr. Andrew Ellicott, yet finding myself under Several engagements to printers of this state to whom I had communicated my design, on my return to my place of residence, I industriously apply’d myself thereto, which I hope I have accomplished with correctness and accuracy, a copy of which I have taken the liberty to direct to you, and which I humbly request you will favourably receive, and altho you may have the opportunity of perusing it after its publication, yet I chose to send it to you in manuscript previous thereto, that thereby you might not only have an earlier inspection, but that you might also view it in my own hand writing.—And now Sir, I shall conclude and Subscribe my Self with the most profound respect your most Obedient humble Servant,
BENJAMIN BANNEKER
NB any communication to me may be had by a direction to Mr. Elias Ellicott merchant in Baltimore Town.
B B
As an Essay of my calculation is put into the hand of Mr. Cruckshank of philadelphia, for publication I would wish that you might neither have this Almanack copy published nor give any printer an opportunity thereof, as it might tend to disappoint Mr. Joseph Cruckshank in his sale. [2.]
Our nation's capital would not be the same if it wasn't for Benjamin Banneker, the Black architect hired by George Washington, the first President of the United States, to design the city of Washington, DC. It was actually Thomas Jefferson himself who highly recommended that Banneker be placed on the planning committee. The former designer who walked off the job took all the plans with him, but Banneker was able to save the project by reproducing a complete layout of all the streets, parks, and major buildings. Not only was he able to do it from memory, he was able to do it in just two days! (read more)
Poem by Mckenna Wood
Idon’t typically get into political or touchy topics on social media but this to me is an exception. This is something that I am very passionate about. I encourage you to consider for a moment the idea that each and every life (planned and unplanned) comes with a purpose. I believe that no matter how the child was conceived it’s life is still beautiful. Have you ever asked your friend or loved one if they were planned? Probably not. Because that is not important to you, they are important to you. They play a role in your life that you probably can’t imagine being without. I believe that even an unplanned baby or a baby conceived horrifically or a baby with “special needs” can change the world. With that in mind I wrote this “poem”
What if she changed the world?
She was a blessing to everyone around her. She was kind, and loving and selfless. She was light in the darkness of this world, she was wise beyond her years. Her presence could light up a room and her smile lifted spirits. She was the best friend. She was looked up to by all the children around her. She conquered her battles. She was brave. Her words were purposeful and impactful. They reached people in a special way. Those with “diseases” and syndromes were inspired by her, she changed the definition of special needs. She showed a love like no other. She built bridges between peoples where it looked impossible. She changed the world. Except... she couldn’t. All of that was stollen from her. She was robbed of her future.
What if the circumstances were different? what if they wanted to understand that a beating heart was a life? what if they chose not to look at her as a plague on her mothers body? what if they realized that her mind and nerves and body were very much alive? what if they realized that she herself was not a disease? what if they chose to believe that she was human? what if her mother wanted her? What if her father was around? what if? What if the test didn’t say she had cerebral palsy, what if the test didn’t say she had Down syndrome, what if it didn’t say she had Spina bifida? WHAR if it didn’t say she was a disease? What if she hadn’t been ripped from her mother’s womb? what if the doctor said she can still have a life that’s full? what if they said she could still change the world?
What if her smile told someone they were seen, and that made them decide not to take their life? What if her friendship had been long awaited and prayed for by someone lonely and hurting? What if her words traveled around the world and impacted the minds of all who listened? What if her mind created cures for the sick and dying? What if her love radically changed people? What if she led a country from crumbling to standing firm? What if she redirected the course of history? What if she was different, and brilliant? What if her “flaws” were her greatest strength, her secret weapon? What if she was uniquely needed? What if she was given the chance to fulfill her purpose? What if she changed the world? - McKenna Wood
Particularly in some Anabaptist circles, one hears the argument that “since we have historically exempted ourselves from military service and government assistance, we don’t vote.” Many in that tradition today pay into (and receive) Social Security and Medicare, their young people register for Selective Service, but voting – often that will bring an explanation that one chooses to be uninvolved in the “dirty” business of politics. “God will raise up the government” they say. In a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC, such as ours, GodHAS raised up the government – and they are us! Our Constitutional system was designed to give every citizen representation in the government that holds us together. We enjoy Religious Liberty, but are we taking it for granted? Indeed, are we by apathy giving up our duty to maintain it? If the mantle of government has been placed upon us, however minimally, however locally, do we not sin by neglecting a Sacred duty? Consider the many assaults on God-fearing people in Leftist legislation these days. Attacks on the Sanctity of Human Life and Religious Liberty abound in our State Houses and in Washington. Not to act is as as unthinkable as passing by an accident scene where there is injury, leaving the action of helping to someone else. In fact, the parable of The Good Samaritan should lead our action here. “Who is my neighbor?”
September 18, 2019 (Lepanto Institute) — The following is written by Hon.Robert Marshall, former member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
If Christians don’t personally engage in politics, it’s all over for America. If we fail to act in the public square, more immoral policies will spread and harm those we love.
The window of opportunity for implementing successful civic action will not remain open forever, especially if Leftists have their way and succeed in pushing atheistic socialism and curbs on religious liberty. If we truly love our neighbors, and care enough to protect our families and communities from the ever-encroaching and growing persecution of Christians and others who embrace natural law values, then we must become the salt, the light and the leaven of society. If we fail to act in the public square, more immoral policies will spread and harm those we love. Pray, and like the Good Samaritan, also act. (read more)
Today’s TRIPLE ISSUE gives you several weeks’ reading as I step back from weekly publication to devote myself to several important projects. I hope you enjoy it.
The Smartest Horse that Ever Lived
A True Story
More than simply the biography of an unusual sideshow act, Beautiful Jim Key by Mim Eichler Rivas takes a thorough look at American history from before the Civil War to the mid-20th century, examining race relations, World’s Fair and exposition history, and the development of the humane movement. The story centers around the “Arabian-Hambletonian educated horse”Beautiful Jim Key, his breeder William Key, who was a business-savvy former slave, and their promoter, Albert Rogers, a privileged young New Yorker who aspired to being a philanthropist. (read more)
Jesus, Horses, Healing
Risen Ridge Ministry
Dezi,SocksandMaplegraze at Risen Ridge Ministry. This Spring they will begin providing ministry sessions. Photo by Jen Beck.
Horses have an amazing way of communicating. They are honest, gentle, and encouraging. In a horse ministry, people who are seeking healing through the love of Jesus will come and find it through a relationship with a horse and a facilitator. They will learn what it is like to care for another's well being, and what it feels like to have an honest relationship based on love. Horses don't care about your past or what you look like. Over and over, the horse will see you for who you really are, whom God created you to be. The experiences will demonstrate that God's love never fails, can bring restoration, and how we all have value. (read more)
I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 30:17
Beautiful Jim Key and Kindness
Sitting in the Richmond shoe store, I made a friend. After a wonderful morning teaching art to our middle school and high school students, I had rushed back home so we could drive a friend to the Richmond airport for a flight to Nashville. My wife and I needed a date night so we planned on going to dinner in Richmond. “I just have to exchange some shoes” she said so after a fairly quick trip to the departure entrance we made our way to Willow Lawn Shopping Center. I grabbed a comfortable chair in the shoe store while my wife spent about an hour finding what she needed. I wished I had thought to bring a book – I’m reading a really good one by a Japanese runner who’s a novelist – Haruki Murakami, and his creative process is a lot like mine. Alas, I had forgotten to bring it.
There were two comfortable chairs in the store at the front and I soon moved our coats and stuff for a young lady to sit down. She was accompanying her mother on a shoe buying expedition and I offered that I would give up my seat when mom needed it. And so began another interesting conversation between two people from very different backgrounds and ethnicities. It was great! I discovered that this young lady, accompanying her mother on a shopping expedition, worked multiple jobs and was studying nursing. “Have you ever heard of this amazing horse?” I asked and we watched the story of BeautifulJim Key on my phone. The essence of the story is the power of true kindness and this young woman was the picture of kindness. The story takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War – a time when society and mob thought was at its worst and yet the story of Jim Key(the horse) and Bill Key(who trained him) shines like a lighthouse in that troubled time. Kindness, manifested in individual behavior, was a powerful force in the life of Bill Key. Born a slave, he had the good fortune to have a master who treated him with all the kindness one would afford to a son. In return, Bill had accompanied his master’s two sons, who he thought of as brothers, into battle. He not only protects his brothers, but he helps many slaves out of the South.
After the war is over, Bill and his two brothers come home only to find that their father has lost their home. Bill, who was quite a card player, had amassed a considerable amount of money after he had been taken prisoner by the Union. He had been captured and was apparently spared execution because his captors found that he was an excellent cook. He won many a U. S. Dollar at cards and used the money to buy back the home he had once served in. He did this so the man who had been a father to him would have a place to live out his days. And so the story of the amazing horse, Jim Key, is really a story of how true kindness, individually practiced, can work great changes in the world we live in.
And so here we were, sharing the wonder of kindness in our own messed up time. I learned about all the good places to eat around Willow Lawn, but we both admitted we loved Chick Fil A. Richmond’s original Chick Fil A is in Willow Lawn and as my wife finished her shopping and apologized for taking so long, I suggested we go there. I know she had been thinking of some local health food type place near their, but she graciously agreed to a quicker and simpler dinner, enjoying her cobb salad very much! Chick Fil A has made a place for itself by the simple attribute of actually finding and expressing pleasure in serving. Coming in to Willow Lawn, we couldn’t find the shoe store. “Let’s ask him,” my wife said as she pointed out a young man at the crosswalk. He pointed out the direction. I thanked him. Se said “My Pleasure!” and I said to my wife “I know where HE works!” Human Kindness! It is a way of truly saying to another person “You Belong Here!” It is a virtue who’s practice truly brings not only great good, but real satisfaction.
Have you seen the latest Joker movie? I wasn't sure I wanted to go. There's the money - about $18 a ticket here in Fairbanks -- but Brad convinced me to go since it isn't yet cold enough to worry about needing to warm our car mid-movie. (Yes, Alaska - a very challenging place). Brad knows me, though. I love to analyze films, to figure out what they're trying to say to their viewers. So Friday night date, movie. And while in the line to buy tickets, we ran into our son and his girlfriend who were going to see the same movie.
The reviewers of the movie all seemed to cite it as “dangerous,” fearing it might inspire insurrection groups to identify the character as a hero and imitate him. Others condemned the film’s “willful unpleasantness” and “rare, numbing emptiness” (we call that nihilism). Still others draw a connection between Joaquin Phoenix’s depiction of the character and the validation of “white male resentment” seen on the political right.
As an observer of social psychology, however, I saw Joker's commentary on the phenomenon of collectivism(what another commentator called "de-individuation.") The film's true evil (the Big Bad, if you will) is a broken, frustrated society that latches onto random, almost purposeless acts of violence, imbues them with deeper meaning, and uses them as justification for mass violence and brutality. On the way to the car, Brad asked me "What was the political message?" and I didn't find Joker to be a political movie. It's a psychological one, showing the dangers of group action and the power of group narratives. Our son's girlfriend was so impressed with my answer that the young folk asked the old folk to hang out and discuss it. This is a synopsis of about three hours of drinking coffee and three thinkers and a construction worker psycho-analyzing a fictional character.
In Joker, Gotham City is broken, but no one class or group shoulders the blame for the dysfunction. Arthur Fleck is failed by every level of society - mugged and beaten by a street gang, brutalized by rich young bankers, abandoned amid the de-funding of the public mental health care system, and permanently scarred by his own family. Lots of blame to go around. And yet, every class in Joker seeks to shift the blame for society’s woes. The rich denigrate the working class and the working class dehumanize the wealthy. A TV host (played by, ironically, Robert DeNiro) mercilessly teases Arthur, and all classes share the same glee at his televised failures.
In their desperate need to find someone else to blame, the masses of Gotham condemn "them" (I think they were "the one percent"). Society then elevates Arthur's purposeless act of murder into kind of social rebellion. The populace knows zero significant details about the killing -- no motive, circumstances or even the identity of the perpetrator -- but imbues it with shared meaning. They've already constructed their narrative and will fit a random event to match it, and thus declare Joker a hero.
When Arthur's identity is revealed in the movie’s climax, hordes of protesters are already ready to revolt. Another purposeless murder by Arthur sparks riots. On the brink of public suicide (akin to suicide by cop in mass shootings, perhaps), Arthur issues a rambling rant where he blames the elites for the state of Gotham, claims credit for the earlier killing, and decides to enjoy one last bit of senseless violence.
From a psychological perspective, Joker is an incredibly realistic and damning depiction of group dynamics. Unlike previous versions of the Joker by Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker has no plans, no real motives, and no overarching point to make. He's a victim of both circumstances and his own impotent rage. He doesn’t manipulate or use other people to achieve his ends, probably because he has no actual ends to achieve. In this version of Gotham, everyone is awful to everyone, and it is society that makes Joker what he is, not by their treatment of him, but through their mythologizing and romanticizing of his purposeless actions.
De-individuation is a phenomenon where crowds assume a collective identity and become willing to commit even the most heinous acts, as seen in the Stanford Prison Experiment, but also Nazi Germany, Communist China, the old Soviet Bloc states, and Southern slave plantations. De-individuation is seen when crowds assume a collective identity, diffuse individual responsibility among themselves, and become willing to commit mass riots and lynch mobs because they come to believe that simple numbers equate to moral action. The collective identities of de-individuated groups result in biased recollections and interpretations of events that devolve into horrifying violence.
This is exactly what happens in Joker. All Arthur Fleck does is commit relatively aimless murders and issue a relatively incoherent angry rant on television. The true villain of the movie is the broader society that latches onto these actions and words and imbues them with nonexistent meaning to justify their own crimes.
As a novelist, I recognize that fiction reflects reality. In the search for meaning amid an increasingly polarized and hostile political climate, groups come together and lionize monsters. While the mass murderers Che Guevara and Mao Zedong are praised by many on the political left, their self-aggrandizing brutality ignored in favor of the mythologized virtues of socialism and communism, the nationalist ideologies responsible for mass tragedy in the past are lauded by those on the political right. Feelings of disenfranchisement and resentment produce violent mobs on both ends of the political spectrum, hence Antifa and the Proud Boys.
Brad walked away from the film with a deep sense of discomfort. Call him "Everyman". Like most American moviegoers, he prefers simple, somewhat cartoonish evil villains who he can assume are "the other" because they don't prompt any self-reflection. None of us want to identify with the villain. We prefer to see a message against our ideological opponents rather than our own potential for immoral behavior. Brad served as our "normal" control as Keirnan, his girlfriend and I analyzed the movie at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant afterward.
We agreed that like the hordes of Gotham, we seek to villainize those who disagree with us while excusing the behavior of our in-groups. Such circumstances make instances of mass violence and de-individuation all the more likely.
Joker is not about Trump and the alt-right any more than it is about Antifa and the radical left. It is about the apolitical dangers of group de-individuation. We need such examples outside the psychology classroom because otherwise, the examples will be on the news. We've already seen it in the Antifa riotsand Charlottesville. We need uncomfortable films like Joker to show us the dangers of grouping up and allowing apolitical psychological forces dictate our interactions with our fellow humans and, heaven forbid, our government policies. (read more)
Stefan Kanfer on the Decline of Cultural Knowledge
Last week, newspaper city rooms were alive with the sound of schadenfreude, and Twitterers tweeted about the latest display of ignorance in TIME. To watchers of newspapers and newsmagazines, the incident came as no surprise. During the still-young millennium, ad dollars have fled from traditional periodicals to television and the Internet. Result: Shrinking readership, diminished staffs, and outsourced research. In TIME’s case, the publication relied on a data-compiling site, the Open Syllabus Project, for a list of the most-read female writers in college classes. Number 97 was Evelyn Waugh. The trouble is, Waugh was a male. (read more)
My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.” – Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame Professor
The 21st-century church is experiencing a crisis of young people rejecting the godly foundation upon which they were raised. Through this edition, best-selling author and apologist, Lee Strobel, will address this generation's lack of biblical heritage. He looks at why so many millennials are skeptical about faith and how the church can educate young people to defend their beliefs. (read more)
Volume XVII, Issue XX:
A Repeat of One of Our Favorite Issues
Thanksgiving is Good for You
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” -- Psalm 100:4-5 NIV
The 'other'Weekly News Magazine [click to read] once featured the story: "Why ANXIETY is Good for You." We at THYME see this one a bit differently. In the Bible, Philippians 4:6 exhorts us NOT to be anxious. Rather we are to view our needs in light of our relationship to a loving G-d. Indeed, our requests are presented in light of the gratitude we feel as we consider the goodness and provision to be found in the Divine.
Not be anxious? In today's world? That is precisely the direction given the believer. We live in a stress-filled world and we are not commanded to shut ourselves away but rather to interact with it... becoming a conduit for G-d's Love to reach it. Indeed History shows us people of Faith fighting plagues, caring for the helpless and generally DOING things, often navigating the best course we can in unclear situations. We are NOT helpless, though we often seem to labor in insufficient light.
Fitting thoughts as we celebrate the feast of Thanksgiving. These are indeed anxious times, and it is easy to become overwhelmed by the general angst of the period we live in. History tells us of Divine promise and fulfillment. The Patriarchs piled up stones to remind them of G-d's faithfulness in the past and to keep them faithful as they waited to see His faithfulness in their present lives.
And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee." -- Deuteronomy 27:2-3
Indeed, one must recount the stories of how G-d met needs in times past. One must also tell of the promises of G-d. Faith needs fuel, and Gratitude is the substance that makes our faith burn bright, even in the darkest of times.
Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let his praises ring; glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of G-d. Refrain: Standing, standing, standing on the promises of Christ my Savior; standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of G-d.
Standing on the promises that cannot fail, when the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living Word of G-d I shall prevail, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
3. Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, bound to him eternally by love's strong cord, overcoming daily with the Spirit's sword, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
4. Standing on the promises I cannot fall, listening every moment to the Spirit's call, resting in my Savior as my all in all, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
The staff of THYME wish you a most blessed Thanksgiving!
Sunset on the Sound, Outer Banks. Photo by Karley Spralin.
The 'Common Course and Condition' America's First Experiment with Socialism
When the Pilgrims first set up their economic system in Plymouth they opted for a system where all the results of their labor were held in common. All of the colonists then drew from the common store what they lived on. The Common Course and Condition, as this system was called, resulted in some bad feelings on the part of those who produced effectively and some lack of initiative on the part of those who were happy to have the food without the work.
The system produced constant shortages and a man who rose early and worked diligently came quite naturally to resent his neighbor who slept in and contributed less effort. Friction was high among the colonists and in 1623 Governor William Bradford declared the common course a failure.
The colonists were next assigned plots by families. Larger families were given larger plots. Everyone was responsible for the production of his own land and growing food for his own family. The results were notable. Far more crops were planted and tended. There was plenty instead of shortage and all in response to this new sense of ownership.
Church Found where Pocahontas was Married
Her eyes meet yours as you enter the Virginia Executive Mansion. A young girl from days long ago, yet her presence in the foyer immediately captured my attention. There are two portraits of Pocahontas in the room, one in English clothing (below) and the more familiar rendering seen above.
Pocahontas's formal names were Matoaka (or Matoika) and Amonute. Pocahontas is a childhood name that perhaps referred to her playful nature. After her marriage to John Rolfe, she was known as Rebecca Rolfe.
Archeologists say that they have Discovered the Church [click to read] where Pocahontas married Jamestown planter John Rolfe.
Harvest Hymn Written in 1844 by Henry Alford
“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” is a harvest hymn written in 1844 by
Henry Alford. It is often sung to the tune “St. George's Windsor” by
George Job Elvey. So I created this in light of Thanksgiving to remind
us of what we should really be thankful for. Two of my photos are
overlayed with the text of the hymn added." -- Kristina Elaine Greer Photo Graphic by Kristina Elaine Greer
It wasn't a grand feast, but rather a time of giving thanks! on December 4, 1619, almost 2 years before the pilgrims held the feast with their Native American benefactors, Captain John Woodlief came ashore near the present site of the Berkeley Plantation. He had sailed from Bristol, England in the Good Ship Margaret with 35 men. They had survived a harrowing storm on November 29th and felt great gratitude for their deliverance. Here is Their Story [click to read].
Lessons from Squanto for Today
The Man Who Taught the Pilgrims Offers Wisdom
In this 1911 illustration, Tisquantum teaches the settlers how to plant maize.
Here is an interesting ebook: Squanto's Garden [click to read] from Off the Grid News. Most of us know some snippets of Squanto's story... how he taught the settlers how to successfully cultivate the soil of their new home, but Bill Heid actually shares some practical gardening tips and garden layouts that Squanto might have shared with the Pilgrims. He also fills out Tisquantum's story, giving us insight into a man who's unusual life uniquely equipped him to teach others.
The Sun burns through a morning mist on Thanksgiving Eve.
A Native American's Amazing Story
" ... a special instrument sent by God for their good beyond their expectations ..." -- William Bradford
Today millions of Americans will dine on turkey and celebrate Thanksgiving. Most people will realize that it has some connection to the Pilgrims in Massachussetts, but the story of G-d's provision and the reason for the celebration seem to have faded in our collective memories.
The Pilgrims came to the New World for their kids. They were a Christian group who sought to live for G-d rather than be seduced by the culture around them. They lived in Holland for a while but they saw their children falling away from the faith.
So they moved. They sought passage on a ship bound for Virginia. The ship went off course and they landed in Massachussetts instead. They had a rough time of it their first winter and almost half of them died. Still, when offered the chance to return to Europe, they declined. Then one of the indigenous people walked into camp and spoke to them in English!
The man's name was Samoset, and he introduced the Pilgrims to Squanto, who taught the Pilgrims many things to help them survive in the new world. Squanto spoke even better English than Samoset. His story is amazing.
Squanto had first met Europeans around 1605 when Captain John Smith made his famous voyage. He travelled to England with him but when he returned to America he was captured into slavery and returned to Europe. Spanish monks bought his freedom and sent him to England where he found passage back to America. Sadly, his village was now gone, the people wiped out by disease. He found people nearby to live with but one day heard that a new group of people were living where his old village had stood. What's more, they spoke that funny new language that he had learned.
Samoset made the introduction and the rest, you might say, is history. Thanks to Squanto the Pilgrims survived and began to do quite well in the new world. Their relations with the Native people were quite good and their Thanksgiving was for the amazing provision they found in Squanto, of whom it was said:
" ... He desired honor, which he loved as his life and preferred before his peace ..."
Volume XVII, Issue XXI:
A Repeat of One of Our Favorite Issues
The Forgotten Season
The turkey leftovers were still cooling when the much media hyped 'Black Friday' events began. In a Long Island Wal Mart, a young associate was trampled to death as bargain hunters literally broke down the doors. A young man had to die because twenty dollars could be saved on flatscreens. Managers closed the store and someone actually was irate that he couldn't get in. Come on, if a colleague has died, its 'Game Over' on the shopping frenzy. Close the store and try to help the poor man's significant others. To hell with reopening for the remainder of the day! Management reopened the store at one o'clock that afternoon. Satirical publication 'The Onion' came out with a story where thousands were 'reported' to have died in Black Friday shopping. I did not find it funny. One death to satisfy the greed gods is too many. Our prayers go out to the family and friends of this young man. May they find comfort.
Lost in the madness of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and yes, even Small Business Saturday is the wonderful celebration of Advent. The high churches still celebrate it. It is a time of waiting and preparation for the miracle to come. It is so un-modern! It ties us to history. The traditions of Judaism are full of waiting. Abraham and Sarah saw the child of promise when they were way past the age of child bearing. I sometimes think of one-hundred year old Sarah as a preschool parent and join her in her laughter! Then there was Joseph and his imprisonment, followed by hundreds of years of exile in Egypt. We often think about the Promised Land, but we forget that all Promised Lands seem to require a prep!
In fact, there came a time when people forgot the lessons of the brick kilns and lost the Promised Land to the Babylonians and the Persians. The Temple, center of worship, was destroyed. But it was in this time of living as expats that the community of the Synagogue strengthened the people anew. Ezra and Nehemiah presided over a return to the land of promise. Again, the promise required a prep. As the exiles built the prosperity of Persia, they prepared themselves for the time when they would build their own.
A second Temple was built. The exiles returned. Then came the great empires of the Greeks and the Romans. The Temple was rebuilt, but the heavy hand of Roman rule presided over a time of trouble. Many looked to the future Messiah to put things aright. Indeed, there were many who claimed to BE Messiah. They came and went. But in a time when Heaven seemed so distant, there came another child of promise... to a couple way past child bearing. John the Baptist, a "Voice crying in the wilderness," came saying: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." At the same season of history, his mother Elizabeth's cousin Mary came to visit.
Mary had been visited by an angel and told that she, a virgin, would bear the child of promise. Though this was an incredible blessing, she faced the prospect of unwed motherhood... in a culture that stoned you for it. Her betrothed, however, had also been given a message from Heaven, that he should take her for his wife. What incredible faith and love! When I chose my Confirmation name, as a boy, I took the name Joseph. It was not that I ever thought I could match such selfless love, but that I so admired it! Even to this day, some of the people I admire the most are those men who have stepped into the lives of children they did not physically father, and yet have earned the name Dad nonetheless! These men live as both an example and a challenge to me. Some of them are my juniors in years, but they far surpass in their maturity!
Such are the lessons we miss if we merely content ourselves with instant gratification. There is an old saying: "Rome wasn't built in a day." Indeed our own nation cast off from its sure position as an English colony to pursue an uncertain future. In 1812 England returned to burn the young country's capital. The White House is so called because its sandstone outer walls had to be painted after the burning left them permanently blackened. By the middle of the Nineteenth Century, however, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building great ships to strengthen Bristol's trade with America. A hundred years after barely surviving her revolution, the nation we know had taken her place as a world power.
Advent is a celebration of the incarnation. It is perhaps the greatest of Christian mysteries, that the Creator G-d would voluntarily and willfully become Man. The Infinite would clothe Himself in the finite. G-d would love us to such a degree that He would become one of us, G-d with Us, Emmanuel." -- Manuel Luz
We do well to celebrate Advent, though it is largely forgotten in the popular narrative, because it causes us to pause and prepare. In a world where preparation is limited to four years it does us good to remember the lessons of centuries. Advent allows us to step back from our busy lives and ponder timeless truths... like the man that the Bethlehem baby grew to be. He too died, some say on a Friday, but his death was not just his own. Did He indeed carry the sins of the world? The account of His Resurrection causes us to ponder mysteries far greater than ourselves and our puny wants. We should indeed consider the life of this man.
Art is incarnational by nature. Art is the incarnation of concepts and ideas and emotions onto a canvas or a page or a stage or a screen. The act of art is to take these ideas and flesh them out in our artistic mediums—the visual arts, the literary arts, dance and movement, cinema and videography, music, theater. In the same way, our Artist G-d takes His love for us and fleshes it out by entering into the universe by becoming human. Jesus, “through Him all things were made,” becomes man." -- Manuel Luz
Autumn Evening. Photo by Bob Kirchman.
Jules Verne’s ‘Lost’ Novel Imagine a World without Art
ByBob Kirchman
Jean Verne is the great-grandson of the famous author and futurist Jules Verne. In 1989 Jean was getting ready to sell a family home and made an amazing discovery. There was a huge bronze safe that the keys to had long since been lost. Although it was believed to be empty, the young Verne opened it with a blowtorch anyway. There in the safe was a manuscript. It was a novel called ‘Paris in the Twentieth Century,’ which Verne had submitted to his publisher Jules Hetzel right after the success of his first novel: Five Weeks in a Balloon.’ Hetzel had rejected it in 1863 saying “It’s a hundred feet below ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon.’ Hetzel went on to say “No one today will believe your prophecy!”
Jules Verne predicts most damningly our society’s modern intoxication with ugliness. Go to any modern art school or venue and you find more of a cold mechanical sort of art aimed more at ‘expression.’Roger Scruton has written on this phenomenon and how the great works of the past have been pushed aside. [2.] Scruton opines: “The current habit of desecrating beauty suggests that people are as aware as they ever were of the presence of sacred things. Desecration is a kind of defense against the sacred, an attempt to destroy its claims. In the presence of sacred things, our lives are judged, and to escape that judgment, we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us.”
Early industrialization did not of itself produce bad art. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and classicized ironfront buildings all carried forward a certain sense of beauty and proportion. The revolt against the traditions of the past was more intentional as in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp sought to parody traditional art’s over-concern with technique. He signed a plumbing fixture ‘R. Mutt’ and entered it in an exhibition. What he meant as a paradoxical statement, however, the art intelligentsia took for a serious movement. Ever since Duchamp’s urinal the world of art has itself destroyed the place of beauty.
For its part, industrialization has had a mixed effect. The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair’s ‘Hall of Science’ is as beautiful as the Eiffel Tower. It is in its own right quite a contrast to Frank Gehry’s ‘Experience Music Project.’ The 1964 New York World’s Fair was the ‘great cathedral’ of modern progress. In fact, it featured a ‘Carousel of Progress’ which had its own hymn: “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” Men were headed to the moon. Technology was indeed going to end want and darkness.
But this new world, secured by ‘mutually assured destruction,’ created questions of its own. Technology created pollution. The promise faded into disillusionment and forced upon us a new conundrum. We had discarded ‘antiquated’ notions such as EX NIHILO creation – science was still our new god – but now science informed us that technology was a source of evil. Thus the Twentieth Century inherited a new Cosmology and has found it wanting!
The problem is that we have discarded the Wisdom of Centuries, even as we lean unapologetically on ‘modern’ science to inform us. We seek naturalistic answers or philosophical ones. We shun the truly transcendent ones. Indeed, Paris in the Twentieth Century looks at our present time and asks the hard questions.
Counting on Katherine
How the Brilliant Mathematician Saved Apollo 13
Helaine Becker's children's book tells more of the Katherine Johnsonstory.
The Woman with the ‘Right Stuff’
[click to read] Katherine Johnson Plotted the Way
BySteven J. Niven Get the girl to check the numbers.” These words came from astronaut John Glenn in February 1962 as he prepared to become the first American to orbit the Earth. The trajectory of his orbit had been calculated by NASA’s new state-of-the-art computers, but Glenn did not trust the machines. Mercury 7 astronauts had always relied on “computers in skirts,” women who were mathematicians at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., for such flight data. So before he made his historic voyage into space, Glenn called on Katherine Johnson to recheck the computer’s analysis, knowing that she had provided similar calculations for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Johnson, one of the few African-American women then working for NASA, calculated and confirmed the data for Glenn’s orbit. The launch went ahead and Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, 10 months after the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin was the first human being to make that journey. Johnson’s role was little recognized at the time, but she would go on to play a significant—though, again, largely hidden—role in the first moon landing and in U.S. space exploration in the 1970s and 1980s. She did so by doing what she had always loved: math. (read more)
Truth Behind Moon Landings
Debunking the Conspiracy Theorists
Simple explanations for the most common conspiracy explanations.
The Beauty of Quiet Statements
Like many people this week, I was saddened to learn that my favorite restaurant was stepping back from supporting family affirming charities such as the Salvation Army. I understand the dynamics behind this decision and while I don’t agree with the reasoning (or the timing) of this, I still love Chick Fil A – especially the local operator’s two stores that employ many young people I know. I am saddened because the corporate office has announced that they intend “instead” to focus on charities that “help the disadvantaged in their communities.” If that is what you want, I cannot think of an organization that does more for their communities than the Salvation Army. Moreover, I loved that Chick Fil A stood for a lot of us small businesses, such as cake makers and photographers, who were being singled out for following our beliefs in our business.
I repeat, I still love Chick Fil A, but I on my own intend to make a chicken sandwich at home next week and I will put the seven dollars I would have spent on a Chick Fil A lunch in the first available red kettle. I am NOT creating or advocating a boycott mind you, rather I am making a decision to go direct with my support to a good organization. I’ll still enjoy my favorite restaurant, but I will make a conscious effort to direct my own giving. That means I’ll give up a meal out every now and then.
Growing up in parochial schools, one of the nobler things I respected was the call to personal denial and sacrifice for the noble cause. To that I offer the suggestion that all of us think more on this level. Quietly make a difference that no one will know about. It might just develop into a lovely habit!
Icy Fence in Virginia
Photo byKaren Brookshire
Ice on barbed wire after last year's ice storm in Virginia.
Philippians 4:19
Photo byBob Kirchman
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:19
