yallerdawg
yallerdawg's JournalA presidential milestone: Trump has spent 100 days in office at one of his golf clubs
Source: CNN, by Dan Merica
President Donald Trump reached a presidential milestone at his Palm Beach County, Florida, golf club on Saturday: One hundred days in office at a golf club that bears his name.
*****
In total, Trump has spent nearly 25% of his days in office at one of his golf clubs. It is impossible to know whether Trump golfs every time he visits one of his golf clubs because White House aides rarely confirm that he is golfing, and Trump has, at times, visited his golf clubs to eat a meal or meet with people.
*****
"Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf," Trump tweeted in 2014. "Worse than Carter."
Trump also made presidential golf an issue during the 2016 campaign.
"I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf," Trump said in August 2016 on the campaign trail.
*****
Read it all at: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-presidential-milestone-trump-has-spent-100-days-in-office-at-one-of-his-golf-clubs/ar-BBJOXHy
The only place he ever gets lost in the weeds.
March Premieres and Returning Favorites
Be sure and add your favorites!Gotham Fox, March 1, Thursday, 8-7CT Best hero/villain origin series ever!
Atlanta FX, March 1, Thursday, 10-9CT Childish Gambino returns to his day job - simply brilliant.
Heathers Paramount, March 7, Wednesday, 10-9CT This is a dark ride. For those who like it dark.
Instinct CBS, March 18, Sunday, 8-7CT Interesting?
Krypton Syfy, March 21, Wednesday, 10-9CT The pre Kal-El planet.
Billions Showtime, March 25, Sunday, 10-9CT After last season, where will it go now?
Trust FX, March 25, Sunday, 10-9CT A series on the Getty kidnapping.
The Terror AMC, March 26, Monday, 9-8CT Loosely based on a true event.
Roseanne ABC, March 27, Tuesday, 8-7CT One more time!
Siren Freeform, March 29, Thursday, 8-7CT Shoulda throwed 'er back!
Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West
Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated businessSource: Smithsonian.com, by Matt Jancer
*****
The “Old West” conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing cowboys in small frontier towns – such as Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge City, or Abilene, to name a few. One other thing these cities had in common: strict gun control laws.
*****
Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they’d receive a token, like a coat check, which they’d exchange for their guns when leaving town.
*****
The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. While a few citizens challenged the bans in court, most lost. Winkler, in his book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state’s right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution’s allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”
*****
Frontier towns with and without gun legislation were violent places, more violent than family-friendly farming communities and Eastern cities of the time, but those without restrictions tended to have worse violence. “I’ve never seen any rhetoric from that time period saying that the only thing that’s going to reduce violence is more people with guns,” says Winkler. “It seems to be much more of a 20th-century attitude than one associated with the Wild West.
*****
Read it all at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/
Nary a gun in sight!
For the first time, a woman and non-Christian will lead this group...
that thinks government is too involved in religionSource: Washington Post, by Michelle Boorstein
*****
Rachel Laser, a lawyer and longtime advocate on issues related to reproductive freedom, LGBT equality and racism, is the new executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She is the first woman and, as a Jew, the first non-Christian to lead the 71-year-old group.
*****
Laser (rhymes with JAZZ-er) also has experience building bridges. For five years the University of Chicago Law School graduate worked for Third Way, a progressive think tank aimed at finding common ground with evangelical Christians, in particular on issues such as reproductive health, gay equality and torture. She worked with Trump adviser Sam Rodriguez and Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter (who pastored President Barack Obama) on a measure that supported both contraception access and sexual health education (sometimes seen as more liberal causes) as well as help for pregnant mothers and new parents (sometimes seen as causes of abortion opponents).
*****
In the past couple of years, Laser has worked on curriculum and consulting related to racism and white privilege. She hopes that African Americans will be among the communities she can inspire to be more active in protecting separation.
Her goal: rebrand the fight for the separation of religion and government “so we can win big like we did with marriage equality.”
What would “winning big” mean on this complex issue?
Laser pauses. “It means freedom of religion will be about a diverse, vibrant country, and not a monolithic, culturally favored religion in this country.”
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/02/21/for-the-first-time-a-woman-and-non-christian-will-lead-this-group-that-thinks-government-is-too-involved-in-religion/
Does the Second Amendment really protect assault weapons? Four courts have said no.
Source: Washington Post, by Meagan Flynn and Fred Barbash
*****
“Nine terrified children ran from one of the classrooms when the gunman paused to reload, while two youngsters successfully hid in a restroom,” Judge Robert B. King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit wrote in the majority opinion. “Another child was the other classroom’s sole survivor. In all, the gunman fired at least 155 rounds of ammunition within five minutes, shooting each of his victims multiple times.”
The court ruled that the ban on assault weapons like the one Adam Lanza used at Sandy Hook — like the one that police say Nikolas Cruz confessed to using at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 and that Omar Mateen used at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub in June 2016 and Stephen Paddock used from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 — was constitutional.
It was not the first time a federal appeals court had ruled that a ban on assault weapons was permissible under the Second Amendment. It was the fourth time in the past decade. In fact, no federal appeals court has ever held that assault weapons are protected.
*****
The Supreme Court has declined to review any of these cases. A reason may be that at the moment there is no split among the appeals courts across the country, a factor that heavily influences the high court’s choice of cases. The appeals courts have all agreed that assault weapons bans are okay.
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/22/does-the-second-amendment-really-protect-assault-weapons-four-courts-have-said-no/
Dow closes more than 200 points lower as Walmart posts worst day since October 2015
I know, I know, it's terrible about 'the money.'But you know? Wall Street and Walmart? We are who we are!
Oh. Welcome back to Washington, Mr. Precedent! Enjoy your vacation?
Source: CNBC, by Alexandra Gibbs
The Dow Jones industrial average fell sharply on Tuesday, pressured by a steep decline in Walmart shares and a rise in interest rates.
The 30-stock index closed 258 points lower — snapping a six-day winning streak, with shares of Walmart shedding 10 percent. The retail giant's stock posted its biggest decline since October 2015.
The S&P 500 pulled back 0.6 percent, with consumer staples declining more than 2 percent. Walmart was the biggest decliner in the S&P 500. Kroger and Kraft Heinz, which are also in the staples sector, were among the worst-performing stocks in the index.
*****
Read the rest at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/us-stock-futures-dow-data-earnings-and-politics.html
A Descendant of Robert E. Lee Speaks Out Against the Sin of White Supremacy
Source: The Progressive, by Eric Gunn
The Reverend Rob Lee has an unusual vantage point from which to view this time of deep political polarization.
*****
Lee, twenty-five, emerged as a distinctive voice last year in the movement to remove monuments to his ancestor and other Confederate leaders. After last summer’s rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by an automobile driven by a rally participant, Lee made public statements against white supremacy in his capacity as a church pastor.
Rev. Lee says:
What we’re seeing is almost the de-evolution of the evangelicalism and conservative evangelicalism that started with the Moral Majority. This is a real problem for Christians, especially progressive Christians like myself, who see this as a grave injustice to the faith. This is a real problem.
Read it all at: http://progressive.org/dispatches/speak-up-and-speak-out-rev-rob-lee-180215/
"Labels fail me: Am I still an Evangelical?"
Another voice shouting from the Bible Belt!Source: AL.com, by Dana Hall McCain
It's because I have awakened in mid-life to find the label as frequently associated with the political as the spiritual. It started with a seemingly innocent commingling of the two in the 1980s. The idea was to mobilize conservative Christians in order to have our values better heard and represented in Washington.
The second problem is that when we come to associate one political party, wholly and without exception, with the cause of Christ, but we don't do the hard work of bringing that party to heel regarding the values of Christ, we're no longer leading. We are being led. Such is the relationship between Evangelicals and the GOP. We don't bring our weight to bear in the party for causes like DACA, because we're prone to embrace and hold up as immutable truth the party talking points on immigration, even when they are at odds with the words of Christ.
Call me dogmatic, but I'll go with the words in red over what the Steven Millers of the world espouse when the two disagree. And I won't tell you that hateful speech, or arrogance, or trite dishonesty from any president is a good thing, even if some of his policy positions align with my own. We've lost the guts needed to take our own people to the woodshed, because we've believed that our primary job is to beat Democrats instead of the Devil.
The Devil is delighted by this misunderstanding.
Read it all at: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/02/labels_fail_me_am_i_still_an_e.html
Facts, Truth and Meaning
Excerpt from: Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Interview with Holly Ordway
Holly Ordway is Professor of English and faculty in the M.A. in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University; she holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms and Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith.
*****
In my book, I’m making an argument for the recovery of a broader, richer understanding of the imagination. Reason and imagination are paired faculties: we need both in order to think about anything. In order to make reasoned judgments, such as whether something is true or false, we first have to have something meaningful to think about, and that’s where the imagination comes in: it creates meaning.
Thus, at its heart, an apologetics approach that is imaginative is one that is focused on the creation of meaning. So much of the time, when we use Christian terms or concepts in apologetics and evangelization, we’re using words that are empty of meaning for our listener, or that have had their meaning twisted or trivialized. When we talk about ‘sin,’ people think it just means ‘fun stuff that Christians don’t want us to do.’ When we talk about ‘heaven,’ people often think it means ‘spirits floating around on clouds.’ (I say this as a former atheist who thought precisely that!) If people think sin is no big deal and heaven is boring, then they aren’t going to understand what we say about these things – if they are even interested enough to listen at all. In order for our apologetics discussions to be fruitful, we need our words and ideas to carry real meaning for our listeners – and that’s where imaginative apologetics comes into play.
*****
One of the key points in my chapter on metaphor is that both figurative and literal language are modes of communication of truth (or falsehood, as the case may be). It is not the case that metaphors are somehow inherently ‘less true’ than propositional language. Scripture is packed full of metaphors, and we can only make sense of what the Bible says if we recognize that this is non-literal, truth-bearing language. Jesus is described as ‘the Lamb of God’: this is a true statement, but it does not mean that the Second Person of the Trinity was incarnate as a baby sheep (we recognize that this would be a very stupid reading of the text). Rather, we see that this powerful image tells us who Jesus is, and what his mission is: he is pure, innocent, gentle; he is also the sacrifice for our sins. We can say all these things in propositional language, but it does not convey the holistic meaning of ‘the Lamb of God,’ in which all these different meanings are simultaneously present and taken in, through the image.
Metaphors, in short, are effective because they are potent (packing a lot of meaning into a single image) and because they are interactive (the reader or hearer has to engage with the image to grasp the metaphor). They are thus highly generative of meaning.
*****
Devil on the 'Go to Church' sign has an intriguing backstory
I bet every state has at least one of these 'stranger than fiction' stories!Source: AL.com, by Kelly Kazek
This familiar "iconic" sign on I 65 between Montgomery and Birmingham is going back up after a storm took it down a while ago:
There is another "iconic" roadside attraction between Montgomery and Prattville on HWY 31. This thing is so "out there" a few years ago I got my family to don tin-foil hats and pose around it for photos (lost in a computer crash). We called it "The Pratt." What the hell is this?
Now, the rest of the story.
Do you see what's lurking in the background in this photo?
"The red devil silhouette actually is much older," he wrote. "It was part of a tin sheet-metal neon sign on Highway 31 between Montgomery and Prattville, marking the Tan-Kar gas station at Red Devil Lake. The devil sign survived the closure and demolition of the old station and remained abandoned on the highway until Mr. [W.S.] Newell acquired it from the property owners. He then used it on his now famous 'Go to Church' sign."
On the left, there is that "thing" again.
And then (some might say, "Of course!"
):
Read all of it at:http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2018/02/devil_on_the_go_to_church_sign.html#incart_m-rpt-2
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Fri Apr 4, 2014, 04:21 PM
Number of posts: 16,104
