http://www.jackspipe.com Pondering life in light of God's endless glory. Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:52:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Much has been said about Governor Palin. To add a few comments of my own... First, I've seen nothing close to this past week in my lifetime of watching presidential politics. Second, that Mrs. Palin seems to have integrity and a willingness to duke it out in the ring should ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/09/05/first-thoughts-on-sarah-palin/ I missed this the first time through; from 3/31/08. http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/09/02/what-punishment-means-to-barack-obama/ The Democratic Convention is yet another reminder of the disposability of political speeches. I suspect it's always been this way because politics has always been about the same old thing. If you think about truly memorable things said in recent political speeches, all of them were pretty much off-the-cuff ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/28/fewer-stories-please/ Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenti Beria remain notorious. Yezhov was a crazed, alcoholic, bisexual dwarf who enthusiastically oversaw Stalin's Great Terror. Beria, his successor, was a sadistic killer and rapist. Neither, particularly Beria, was averse to getting blood on his shirt. Preceding these depraved Stalinist hangmen was the lesser-known Vyacheslav ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/26/why-the-focus-on-partial-birth-abortion/ Wow. I don't remember our high school choir sounding quite like this. Quite a story, too. http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/19/things-high-schoolers-have-done/ As if to demonstrate the last post in action, we have this article. So here's the deal: They'll adopt more conciliatory language. They'll keep doing the same thing. All talk, no action. Methinks NARAL has little to worry about. The machinery of death rolls on... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/12/the-shell-game-in-action/ Tim Bayly's latest writeup on Barack Obama's appeal to "moderate" evangelicals reminded me of a few choice Sobran quotes from 1996: Liberalism wants us to "set aside our differences," as if our differences don't really matter as much as the things on which we can all agree with liberalism itself. You ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/09/peace-and-injustice-setting-aside-our-differences/ Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died. More than anyone else, he demolished the belief that a pure Leninism had been debased by Stalinism, and furnished plentiful examples of the future's discreditable past. Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a great man. Some select quotes from his masterpiece, Gulag Archipelago: You are arrested by a religious ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/08/03/alexander-solzhenitsyn-rip/ Yikes. http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/31/note-to-self-stay-off-the-ferry/ One rarely hears the word "harlot" today. We still hear the word "whore," but mostly in a non-Biblical sense ("attention whore"). The implications of fornication and adultery are mostly gone. The decline from "sodomite" (Biblical term implying judgment) to "homosexual" (clinical term) to "gay" (phony euphemism) is now ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/29/the-decline-of-perfectly-good-words/ I don't know if the world is laughing at the Christian church for stuff like this (HT: Riddleblog), but if it isn't it should be. The level of irreverence in some contemporary evangelical churches is amazing. Is there no fear of the Lord? The broken wrist is the least ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/23/dirt-bike/ Comments are open. Question: Whether it's over the phone or that person ringing your bell, how do you respond to cold calls? Most of the web discussion on this topic is one-way (helping the hawker), so I'm looking for advice on behalf of the prospect/victim. I hate to be ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/21/a-christian-response-to-solicitations/ An overflow quote from the Georgian Godfather post... The mustached Producer [of the show trials] knew each of them very well. He also knew that on the whole they were weaklings, and he knew, one by one, the particular weaknesses of each. Therein lay his dark and special talent, his main ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/14/his-dark-talent/ HT: Pastor Timmons. http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/08/knox-and-friends/ The CoE's "growth" continues... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/07/heres-a-shocker/ I recently re-watched the The Lord of the Rings on DVD and was struck again by the colossal achievement. I now believe it to be -- by a mile -- the greatest adventure film ever. The book isn't too shabby either. (By the way, it is key to watch ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/07/03/put-aside-the-ranger/ I was quite interested in Adolf Hitler as a youth. I read and reread books about him. With the advent of the History (aka. Hitler) Channel, Hitler is even more fascinating to people. My theory is that much of this interest springs from the occultic and Wagnerian theatrics of ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/06/28/the-georgian-godfather/ What else can you say about this? This tasty treat will add a touch of class to any occasion. http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/06/21/ho-ho-ho/ "One morning just before the October [1917] Revolution," recalls Anna Alliluyeva, "there was a ring at the door. I saw a smallish man dressed in a black overcoat and a Finnish cap on the threshold. 'Is Stalin at home?' he asked politely. ... After a brief conversation, Stalin and ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/06/17/such-are-the-workings-of-providence/ Stories like this continue to surface stating that young evangelicals are peeling away from conservatism. It's hard to tell how big of a movement this will be until the election (our liberal media has long indulged in wishful thinking in such matters), but it bears watching. The reason ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/06/11/young-evangelicals-and-social-justice/ Doesn't this get you pumped up about the latest Narnia film? (Yes, I know, the movie has been out for weeks and this is late... but fashionably late). Yawn. The feminist hits keep-a-comin' with this series; we heard this routine last time. Maybe it's time for Disney ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/06/05/zena-the-warrior-princess-meets-narnia-yawn/ I've never thought much of Habitat for Humanity. It always had that vague taint of the (now-trendy!) social gospel and political leftism espoused by regressives like Tony Campolo. Now Habitat is revealing itself by logrolling with Planned Parenthood. Someone at National Review (back when it was much better) once ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/05/31/habitat-for-abortionists/ Most tourists visit Moscow to see the ballet, the Kremlin, and the churches. There weren't any Stalin tours when I was over there a few years ago. Requesting such from a Russian would prompt a suspicious retort: "Why would you want to see that?" They were amused, even proud, ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/05/25/land-of-oddities-part-ii/ There are some really bizarre places in Russia. Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, for one. The modern part is where the glitterati who didn't make the Kremlin Wall were buried: Yeltsin, Khruschev, Raisa Gorbachev, Mayakovsky, Orlova, Stalin's second wife, cosmonauts, generals. Even Solzhenitsyn's censor. Pictures do the totality of ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/05/19/land-of-oddities-part-i/ I don't agree with Bob Dewaay on everything, but he's clearly gulped deeply from Reformation (and scriptural!) wells on the matters that really count. He's one of my favorite commentators on current issues facing the church. His recent article Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome notes: [W]hy are literate American Christians ... http://www.jackspipe.com/2008/05/14/romeward-bound/