Well, we got nowhere with this task last week, and we are about to try again today–the search for the doctor’s office. “Find the lost city of Eldorado and hang a left…”
First I had to crank out a Newswithviews column. Should’ve been done Monday or Tuesday, but there’s just too much to remember and it never crossed my mind.
I wonder when we’ll get back. *sigh* Post-election blues…
Timoleon
Once upon a time, the Greek settlers in Sicily were oppressed by tyrants, who had the backing of Carthage. They sent to their founding city, Corinth, to plead for help, but no one wanted to take on such a hopeless mission. Finally someone thought to nominate Timoleon to lead it–a man who had once been something of a civic hero, but who’d been so long in retirement that most people thought he’d died. Timoleon consented to his appointment as general, and set sail for Sicily with a token force that no one ever expected to see again: for the tyrants of Sicily were fierce and powerful, and the might of Carthage stood behind them.
To make a long story short, Timoleon performed military miracles, rid the island of the tyrants, defeated the Carthaginians, and restored democracy to the city of Syracuse.
For which he himself was accused of tyranny and put on trial for it: and to which he said that he had prayed that he would live to see the Syracusans given the right of free speech. As Plutarch said, every lark must grow a crest, “and every democracy a false accuser.” Some things never change. But in Timoleon’s case, his mild reply so shamed his accusers that they dropped their charges; and the city permitted him to grow old and die in peace, honored by all.
People do have short memories and are also short on gratitude. Those were two reasons why our country’s founders gave us a republic instead of a democracy.
To say nothing of our own modern variants of folly: “Alexa, who should I vote for?”
Study history, and learn what to expect.
And pray for better–to God who is sovereign over history. The ancient Greeks did not know that, but we do. Don’t we?
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Posting this on Monday for publication today, while we rattle around in New Jersey Traffic, looking for the cunningly concealed doctor’s office. So as I write this, I don’t know what the results of the election will be.
But you don’t need a crystal ball to see what kind of world the Democrats mean to engineer for us. Here is one of its many tedious aspects:
https://leeduigon.com/2015/11/13/how-to-write-a-politically-correct-fantasy/
Just remember, if it turned out badly yesterday: we had the chance to crush the Political Correctness party, and we didn’t do it.
Requested by Susan, At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing, sung by the congregation and choir at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, New York City. This one goes all the way back to the 6th or 7th century, translated into English in the 1840s.
Now, if I do this right, I’m posting this Monday morning and you’re seeing it on Wednesday while we try again to find the doctor’s office…
Don’t you love movies with portentous titles that turn out to be just a lot of hot air?
Well, this isn’t one of them.
Cats and babies can have a lot of fun together.
And sometimes they don’t.
“We don’t need no stinkin’ election!”
Well, here we go with the “news” media trying to be players affecting the outcome of the election–in this case, MSNBC “reporting” the result of the Florida gubernatorial election… the night before Election Day (https://deadline.com/2018/11/msnbc-graphic-mistake-florida-governor-race-1202496555/).
The fake news giant reported that the Democrat won the election “with 99% of the vote counted”–when, of course, the polls had yet to open and none of the vote had yet been counted. The lame excuse was “our system had inadvertently populated some test numbers.” Aren’t you glad they cleared that up? Like it could happen to anyone.
In that the media repeatedly and purposely emit falsehoods in a blatant attempt to deceive the voters and swing the election to their Democrat masters, President Trump does not exaggerate in calling the media an enemy of the people.
They’re certainly not our friends.
As you read this, I’m probably behind the wheel of my car, trying to find the doctor’s cunningly-concealed office so my wife can begin to have her tests. Remember, we couldn’t find it last week: Mapquest gave us a bum steer.
Anyway, I’m typing this yesterday so it will appear here today, and that makes it hard for me to say anything wise, let alone coherent, about our recently-concluded midterm elections. Despite heavy, nasty rains, my local polling place had a rather high turnout–which struck me as unusual. Like, our town’s evil Democrats are running unopposed, so why all the excitement? We do have a senatorial race, but this benighted state of New Jersey hasn’t had a Republican senator since I was a kid in college.
Looming up in the background, still some distance off, is this year’s Supreme Court decision that unions can no longer suck money out of their members’ paychecks for use in politics. This practice is how the teachers’ union came to own New Jersey. Watch what happens to liberalism once people are no longer forced to contribute money to Democrat political campaigns.
Point 2: Regardless of the outcome of the election, the chief enabler of Far Left Crazy is our hideously overpriced public education system, which indoctrinates whole generations into socialism, sexual hyperactivity, hatred of America, racism of the anti-white variety, and anti-Christianity. Stop funding public schools and colleges, and they’ll have to stop funding and cultivating Far Left Crazy.
Christian children belong in Christian schools, either at home or somewhere around the block. Stop letting people who hate you “educate” your children.
Unless you like what they’re teaching them.
P.S.–Confound it!!! Phone call after phone call, distraction after distraction–and naturally I wind up posting tomorrow’s post today, and wasting time… &%$#&@!
This was my first published novel, Lifeblood, vintage 1988. Heidi asked how I made the jump from horror to Christian novels.
Well, first off, it took 20 years. There was a horror boom in the 1980s, and I was part of it. When it turned into a horror bust in the 1990s, I was part of that, too. I wrote a lot of books after that, but none ever got published. It really wasn’t looking like I would ever be published again.
I had four horror novels published. I wrote them in hopes of becoming rich and famous, for my own aggrandizement. Serving God never crossed my mind.
In a radio interview a few years ago, Kevin Swanson asked me, “So what woke you up?” And I answered, “Believe it or not, Bill Clinton! Suddenly we had a president doing sex with an intern in the Oval Office, going all Charlie High school smart guy on us by saying ‘It depends on what is is,’ and getting away with it–and all these people saying ‘Oh, it’s only sex, and lying about sex, and everybody does it, no big deal.'” It became obvious that our culture had slipped a few big notches downward while I wasn’t looking. Did I want to live in a country where it really was okay for the president to be doing interns in the Oval Office? I could hardly recognize it as the America that was supposed to be my home.
Fear sent me running back to the Bible, back to prayer. I started writing quasi-journalistic pieces for several Christian, pro-family organizations and eventually caught on with the Chalcedon Foundation (and I’m happy to say I’m still there!).
Chalcedon publishes books on theology; but a few years ago, someone wondered if it might not be a good idea if we published a novel or two. And my editor, Susan, said, “But we already have a novelist!” Meaning me.
And it just so happened that I had only recently had a dream featuring a high mountain with the sound of a bell somewhere in the air. It was a very haunting image, and it became the seed of Bell Mountain.
God keeps giving me these novels to write in His service–twelve of them, so far. As long as He keeps giving them, I’ll keep writing them. This is the work I love best, and may it be fruitful to Christ’s Kingdom.
Public education in America has always been a Trojan horse, and we dragged it right into the middle of our city.
Most of what’s wrong with America is the education establishment’s fault.
Consider carefully the remarks by this “educator,” who thinks ordinary sanity is tantamount to mental illness.
https://leeduigon.com/2014/07/30/yes-someone-actually-said-this/
And we want roundworms like this educating our children because __________?
Fill in the blank and win a tinfoil hat.
Rejoice in the good news of the Gospel, never mind the world’s bad nooze. Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart–and I don’t know who’s singing it, or I’d be happy to give them credit.