General Flynn's Vision for America: Peace Through Strength

What Does General Flynn Think is the Key to Bring America Back Under Trump?

General Flynn was on Though Leaders with Jan Jekielek recently.

More of an overview of his vision for America, it avoided specifics about what Flynn’s role will be in the new administration. He paid a heavy price for his support, and ultimate role in Trump’s first term. As National Security Advisor, he was sidelined immediately by Obama’s outgoing apparatchiks. They had the FBI run him through the same lawfare trap that Trump went through. Flynn had less money to fight the charges and was ruined. He never even got started in the critical role. He was gone before the inauguration. Likely he knew too much about how the intelligence agencies work. They had to cancel him.

Borrowing From Reagan

He's miraculously positive about the future of the country, but aware of the inherent problems of an oversized bureaucracy. He talked about the strength of the country as a means of projecting to the world. This is familiar language to anyone who grew up in America during the Reagan years. The president thought “Peace Through Strength” a critical strategy for stability.  It probably sounds like an aggressive doctrine to those who didn’t.

 Over the last 20 years the idea of “Peace Through Strength” has been bastardized. It used to mean that a strong military was the key to economic growth and freedom in the United States. Reagan used it on the world’s stage to counter the debilitating effect of socialism on a country. In essence, we are better than the Soviet Union because we’re free and secure. But after the long experiment in Afghanistan, Iraq and much of the Middle East, it’s taken on a different meaning.

Agreement With Russia

We are less secure and less free but still manage to send our military all over the globe despite its significant depleted strength. Whether this was intentional or just the result of bad policies, it has hurt our capabilities to defend the homeland. In that spirit, the general highlighted a few core principles for the country to get back to stability. Stop pretending Russia is the same big bad country from the post World War II days. They’re a regional power but a diminished one, China is the bigger threat. We can and should come to an agreement with Russia to avoid nuclear war. He didn’t give details, but it’s clear the Biden administration set diplomacy back to dangerous levels. We’re on the brink of war with a nuclear power and no one is talking.

Country First Leaders

Flynn mentioned leadership multiple times. I never got the sense that he thought the world could be a peaceful utopia, free of wars. But he’s also against poking the bear, especially when our military isn’t ready for another conflict. That part is my own editorializing. He didn’t say we couldn’t fight a big war. I’m confident he believes it though. Leadership means cooler heads. It means trying to be diplomatic despite the inherent frustration it brings. It means service to country and not self. Too many of the leaders in positions of authority are corrupt to the core and as a result, think only of themselves. This is particularly true of the intelligence community. They use blackmail and intimidation to get their way. Or, to stave off attacks against their pet projects.

Organizing American Principles

 Our federal system works like a cartel. Multiple agencies and multiple interests all looking out for their special projects, corners, power centers. Effective leadership cuts through the graft. When you hold a few powerful people accountable, the rest will fall into line without a lot of fuss.

Lastly, he mentioned the importance of understanding the “organizing principles” around which the country is arranged. No details were given. I think he means that leaders should understand the core values that made us great. Government is necessary but far from the reason we have a prosperous country. The founders recognized a God given right of individual freedom and enshrined it into the Constitution as a protection against the state. Leaders that act to thwart free people are the problem. The word “freedom” has also been bastardized by those hoping to legalize drugs or avoid taxes. It was always about speech, religion and commerce and what the government could compel.

Conclusion

The influence of communism on the United States since World War II has changed the culture enough that capitalism is a dirty word for many. We must get back to local control and local leadership and that starts with schools and city councils. I’ve summed up most of Flynn’s answers as I remember the interview. I’m sure he’ll have a position with the administration in some capacity. I thought he might have had enough of the legal stuff the last time around, however. He may want to be an informal advisor and nothing else.

No one would blame him for that, certainly not Trump. General Flynn is still a giant in the MAGA movement.   

Camino Ghosts: Book Review

 

John Grisham’s Latest Camino Installment is Dull and Anticlimactic

I just finished reading Camino Ghosts from John Grisham. It’s the third version of this plucky group of literary nerds who summer on an island (Camino) off the Atlantic side of Florida. Grisham doesn’t do a lot of serial type books. He doesn’t have a hero the way Lee Child (Jack Reacher) or Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch) do. But the subject matter is as different as the pacing. Jake Brigance from A Time To Kill would be his closest serial. He’s done 3 stories that I’m aware of. But Brigance isn’t exactly racing around the globe rescuing hostages or fomenting revolution in a South American country.

He’s basically a pro bono lawyer in a country town in Southern Mississippi. Not exactly riveting stuff. It’s great story telling though. I enjoyed the small-town politics and legal wrangling. We learn how the system works and how it doesn’t. We root for the accused.

The Camino stories don’t have the same rich texture. It feels like I should care more about the people in it, but I don’t.

Breakdown and Criticism

Camino Ghosts would have been better as a short story. The first 1/3 felt like an interesting yarn, so I kept going. It flattened out and settled to the bottom like week old Coca Cola after that. The last third was rushed through and summarized like a made for TV movie stuffing in an ending right before a commercial break. It’s almost like he got halfway done doing research and decided it wasn’t worth his time and handed it off to a junior writer to finish by the deadline.

The most compelling thing about the Camino Island crew is how fun it would be to live there and go to their parties. Telling stories about a small group of boozy eccentrics is what holds this series together. The eager book seller (Bruce Cable) with the big contacts and the young author/professor Mercer Mann and her new husband Thomas. A crew of fellow writers and retired busybodies fills out the rest of the island set. Written in an easy, breezy style, their life on the island is focused on books and causes.

Outline Summary

In the early 17^th century, an unknown village in West Africa is raided and the people are sold as slaves by another tribe. Both slave traders and raiding party’s treat the villagers horribly. The women are raped and beaten. The men are either killed outright or separated from the women on the march to the sea. The conditions on the ships are even worse. Stiflingly hot and disease ridden, many die in the tight airless spaces before the ship arrives with its slaves. One particular ship crashes near Florida in a storm. The captured Africans revolt against their captors and escape to a tiny island, Dark Isle. The White slavers are executed in a voodoo ceremony by a captured woman named Nalla. The curse, White men can never set foot on the island and live to tell about it.

Lovely Jackson is the last descendent of the people from Dark Isle. She moved to Camino Island when she was just 15. No one has lived there since. The island is hers. A big developer wants to set up condos on the island but needs permission from the state of Florida. Lovely claims ownership. Tidal Breeze, the developer, needs to disprove her theory of ownership. They have a lot of money and powerful friends. Lovely has the crew from Camino and their vast eclectic mix of writers and environmental lawyers designed to stop corporate development. She needs to prove she owns it to stop the builders.

Any description of the slave trade and its barbarity should force a kind of revulsion in the reader. This description is no different. It’s partly what made me think the story would take rough ride like the crossing that the slave ship endured. Mostly it devolved into a dull summation of the legal questions and Lovely’s memory. The stakes were very low. I kept thinking that the worst case scenario was the developers win the case to build on the island and Lovely dies a few years later. She was in her 80s. It’s not exactly a disaster.

Conservation Angle

For all the camaraderie of the liberal writing crew and their desire to keep the greedy bastards out, someone developed the island they live on. I never fully sympathize with conservationists; most already have their property. The attitude is always, go find your piece of land somewhere else. They love to move in the middle of nowhere and keep everyone else out. I understand the impetus, no one wants a highway or an apartment building near their spread, but it’s not “evil” or “corrupt” to want to develop. In either case, we root for Lovely and the protection of her homeland. Grisham makes a good case legally and emotionally that’s easy for the reader to follow.

I wonder if John Grisham made the connection that Bruce and Mercer and Thomas and the crew were helping themselves more than Lovely. They wouldn't have wanted the development any more than her. For all of their efforts, the real winners would be the ones who live on Camino Island. 

Conclusion

Hoping for a quick end to the story after getting halfway through is a sign your book is too boring. In the end I just didn’t care. It was like being promised an action packed movie with violence and ancient curses and being shown some old photos of the island instead. Not exactly a bait and switch, but it was much flatter than promised.

 

President Trump and the First 100 Days

 

What Will the First 100 Days Look Like for a Newish Administration

The first 100 days of a president’s term are an arbitrary measure of success. But it does give us a glimpse of where the focus will be.

A Victory Lap

Trump and co are going to move fast. They ran a smart, fun campaign in contrast to the Harris camps’ lack of a real message. To be fair, they didn’t have time to prepare given the infighting from the White House. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She was a terrible candidate, and Biden was too old and becoming more senile with every speech and presser. Trump won a clear mandate by sticking to the same issues he’d always talked about. Close the border, punish China with tariffs, promote American industry and stay out of foreign wars.

He pressed hard on the border. It’s gotten demonstrably worse since he left. He said the democrats didn’t care about the country and they went and proved it.

Thanks to Elon Musk, the mainstream media doesn’t have a stranglehold on information anymore. Twitter, or X, is in the free speech camp. Matt Taibbi’s reporting on the “Twitter Files” laid bare the strongarm tactics from the FBI. They treated the social media company like an agency of the government and broke countless surveillance laws in the process. But at least they couldn’t hide critical stories this election year.

Everyone who voted for Trump has a wish list for the first 100 days. Our republic is in serious trouble unless we begin to sort it out. Here are the things I’d like to see get underway right off.

#1 Close the Freaking Border!

The border has been a problem since the Bush 41 days. It’s been a problem for longer than that, but it hit critical mass sometime around the early 00s. The American people were not in agreement with Washing DC on this. American citizens knew were dealing the effects of an open border and resented it. We could be persuaded to go to war in Iraq and spend on Medicare, but we were never persuaded on the border. 

George W Bush desperately wanted a border bill that gave citizenship to millions of illegals, then they'd close the border. But they wouldn’t close the border first. That’s when we knew D.C. wasn’t serious about stopping illegal immigration. It was a “trust me” kind of pledge and we didn’t trust them. Trump saw right through it because he listened to people at his rallies. He listened to Ann Coulter too who said he should make it the signature issue. 

He did run on it, and he never apologized or walked back his stance. It's why we love him so much, for all of his flaws.

An intractable problem with an easy solution shouldn’t be this hard to fix. But if there is an open border we know some constituency benefits. Big business needs the labor, Democrats need the voters and cartels need to move drugs and people to their customers. Sex trafficking is an industry in an of itself. If we’re going to commit soldiers to a war it needs to be on our southern border. A lot of people still think the crossing at the border is about migrants seeking a better life. Ridiculous. But it’s so much more chaotic and evil than people realize. We’ve left an open door to our house at the southern border and thieves are robbing us. It’s time to lock it up and start enforcing the law, like legitimate countries do. 

#2 Clean out the FBI and Department of Justice

The Achilles heel of Trump’s first term was his appointment of too many swamp creatures. From Jeff Sessions (Attorney’s General) and Rex Tillerson (State) to holdovers like James Comey (FBI) they caused irreparable harm. He was learning how to run a government and had to rely on insiders. 2024 Trump is a very different man. There are more loyalists and people of solid character who had front row seats to the inside coup known as the “Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax”. Kash Patel was an investigator in the House of Representatives for Devin Nunes. He has receipts. He litigated the whole sordid affair. Putting Kash in charge of the FBI is like putting Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in charge of the prison guards at Shawshank. 

He knows it because he’s been victimized by it.

We generally think of the FBI as a professional investigative unit that handles wire fraud and smuggling. They still do that, but they’re mostly a praetorian guard for whichever politicians advance their interests. Blackmail and intimidation is how they gain power. They’re well dressed goons. Time to break them up and rebuild the investigative part of the agency. Rename it if you have to. Did any of the top guys break laws? Throw them in prison. We can’t have these agencies running their own game with endless taxpayer money. Send a strong message or it WILL happen again.

#3 Tighten up Election Laws Across the Country

At least a third of the country thinks the 2020 election was stolen. For a lot of reasons, states either disregarded election laws on the books or got them changed during that year. Remember too, this was the covid year, and the deep state was determined to make mail in ballots part of the process. Why? Because of the Wu Flu and its supposedly never-seen-before-deadliness? Or, maybe they just wanted to overwhelm the swing states with fake ballots. Mark Zuckerberg spend hundreds of millions of dollars on election related issues. You know, just make sure it was completely and totally fair. They got away with it.  

A lot of the election stuff needs to be fixed on the local and state level since the laws vary so much. It’s less clear cut that way but ultimately easier to fix. We don’t need federal laws to change most of it, but we do need accountability for whenever cheating is found. I still hope we can prosecute some of the shenanigans from the 2020 election. But I’m not holding out hope on that.

#4 Fix Efficiency in Spending

It sounds like a contradiction in terms, fix efficiency by using an inefficient system. But efficiency comes in the form of cuts. Cut out redundant agencies, departments, people and offices. Our government is 36 trillion in debt. Clearly we’re spending money we don’t need, for projects and officials we don’t need. There are too many people on the dole. I’m not even talking about people who refuse to work and get free groceries every month. That’s a problem for sure, but waste is everywhere you look. It all goes to a constituency and isn’t easy to take away either.

We ‘solve’ everything with money. Can’t get a vote on your bill, pay off the Senator by adding his pet project to it. Need information from a foreign source on troop movements, bring a suitcase full of money. Want contractors to build bases in a hot zone, break out the checkbook. I’m hopeful about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s project to cut waste, but I don’t know how much power they have. All spending changes need to go through the House of Representatives, making it tough. But I’m hopeful that they’ll identity massive areas of fraud. There are a lot.

Conclusion

The first 100 days should give us a good idea of how effective Trump’s appointment’s are. This isn’t one of those times in the country where we can keep plodding on, pretending everything is fine. Not to be too negative, but I’m amazed we haven’t had a serious economic crisis yet. We’re top heavy and it’s corruption that’s making us overweight. Argentina seems to have righted their ship for now. This is a time for bold leaders and bold ideas. We can learn a lot from Javier Milei and his bold reforms. 

 

2 Corinthians Chapter 4: the Eternal and the Carnal

 

Change Culture Through Gospel: Paul’s Reminder to the Corinthians

Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is a further reminder of their growth in Christ. In the process we learn how God works in His people through a lifetime of faith. Like most advice on spiritual growth, it’s a slow process because life is tough and real maturity takes time. I particularly like how Paul contrasts the carnal with the spiritual. It’s a comparison that runs through the entire letter. For Christians, the eternal weight of salvation and sanctification overwhelm the trials of daily life.

“We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair: persecuted, not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” (verse 8-9)

A Similar Culture of Excess

Corinthian culture was not all that different form our modern, urbane version. They valued wealth and success. They were hedonistic in their philosophy. Corinth was cosmopolitan and filled with pagan religions from all over Greece. Christian virtues of selflessness and sacrifice weren’t appealing to their lifestyles of excess. The apostle Paul does two things in this passage which play out in larger ways throughout the letter.

He focuses on their attention on the gospel, and by extension the physical and spiritual body of Jesus.

I think he does this to counter the some of the pagan teaching of the day that rejected Christ as a physical God. Since we are also physical and spiritual beings, he connects the carnal and physical where necessary. His phrases “earthen vessels” “outward man” and “mortal flesh” are indicative of that theme. The gospel is rooted in the idea that God became man, suffered a physical death and miraculously rose again. False doctrines go after this immediately. They can’t let people think God became man. If Jesus was a perfect man with a body like Adam, then the curse of sin and death was won back from Satan at the cross. If God is only a spirit, then we are all suckers, essentially. It’s fleshed out in the first letter to the Corinthians much more.

All good advice contains some reminder or who we are in Christ. The Corinthians had received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul was integral to starting this church and had seen their early growth. He takes every opportunity to remind them of their past, present and future as believers.

A Charter for Christ

We all need this whenever we lose our way spiritually. It’s important for Christians but also for movements and organizations. A venture’s beginning will look nothing like its end. Organizations should change with the times if they want to be viable long term. This is certainly true of churches. But what is kept and what is discarded will determine its effectiveness.

The first church in Acts had to expend its mission and size, but they kept their primary goal of taking care of the poor and “fulfilling the law of Christ”. Paul and Barnabas also kept it front and center of their ministry. Because they put people first, they expanded and grew. Obedience to Jesus and His commission made the difference. Christianity grew exponentially during Constantine (306-307 A.D) even though it was often imposed.

Today we live in a world where organizations that have been around for hundreds of years have been corrupted to the point of ruin. Governments lead the charge in distorting their mission. I’m most familiar with the American version so I’ll mention that.

A Government For the People

All large organizations need to be amended, reworked or destroyed at some point. Without this critical process they become entities unto themselves and protectionists. After decades the problem is even more difficult. After a hundred years or so it’s intractable. The reason is pretty straightforward. A constant flow of money creates a class of people dependent on its continued flow. Laziness takes root. Incompetence becomes the defining characteristic, then more greed and eventually evil overwhelm the last smoldering embers of the original mission.

The short version is that they lost their way. We lost our way. We became wealthy and hedonistic (like the Corinthians) and stopped caring about the responsible part of governing. The intelligence community runs operations against Americans. January 6^th proved this. Thousands of businesses depend on the Defense Department for their billion dollar contracts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encourage foreigners to break our laws by not protecting our borders. Hundreds of agencies all concerned with their own relevance is the most obvious problem. They’re too big to be reined in, unless the taxpayers see the rot and rebel.

A Dollar for the Corrupt

We’re trained to think of our national government as a class of civil servants who perform a necessary task. Much of it is, but it outgrew that role a long time ago. I’m hopeful that Elon Musk and DOGE will make some headway toward exposing the waste and fraud. The difficult (negative) part of me thinks the only way government gets better is if the dollar collapses globally. How do you put out a fire? Deprive it of oxygen. How do you make a fat kid slim down? Deprive him of food. Agencies deprived of dollars will cease to exist in the same way.

But might there be a softer (positive) solution to save the country from its own bureaucracy?

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians focused on who they are in Christ. He reminded them of what they’d learned about Christ, grace and a loving God. The culture around them prioritized money and status. They thought sacrifice was a weakness. By challenging them to live counter to their carnal desires, Paul challenged them to focus on the eternal. Christians today need the same reminder. Our political class is an outgrowth of our culture. It’s easy to mix up our place in the culture with our place in God’s kingdom. But we shouldn’t shy away from building strong communities that impact the culture. As long as we keep our focus on the gospel and don’t lose heart at the current malaise, we become true servants.

Paul reinforces that at every opportunity.

Conclusion

“Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (verse 16-17)

However bad the corruption around us, Paul invites us to see it as a light affliction. The weight of heaven and salvation and eternal life demands we reorder our minds. It’s also the starting place for getting our country back to Godly principles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Christmas is a Must: Holiday Traditions that Won't Die

White Christmas is Love Letter to the World War II Generation

Most people have Christmas or New Year’s traditions. Maybe it’s a shopping trip on black Friday with the whole family, or a night spent playing video games on Christmas Eve. Traditions come and go as new people are added into the mix. Having Christmas in a different city than your own makes people adopt new traditions. Mine is simple. I watch White Christmas every year because it’s the movie I most associate with my childhood. I didn’t like musicals as a kid. I still don’t, but there are always exceptions. As an adult you appreciate things you didn’t as a kid. Dance and music are expressive forms or art. This doesn’t make sense to kids, especially boys. Unless you grew up in a house where music and dance were encouraged, you probably didn’t get it

 I remember fast forwarding through the dance numbers on our overused VCR. As a kid, I thought music got in the way of the story. But with or without the music, it's a movie with a message that a lot of people probably miss.

America the Young

White Christmas is a story rich with gratitude for a generation that fought and died in World War II. Optimism is everywhere. A song and dance team (Wallace and Davis) that met during the war, meet a sister act team (The Haynes Sisters) and head to the mountains in Vermont for some fun. While in Vermont the two men bump into their old general and decide to help him with his struggling bed & breakfast. They transfer the whole show to Vermont for the holidays, hoping to bring some business to the hotel.

I’ve tried to analyze why I like this movie so much. Despite being dated, it’s the optimism of a growing, prospering country that’s so attractive. There is talk of love and marriage and babies throughout. It captures the post war attitude Americans felt toward their future. Because it starts with a scene from Christmas in 1944 at the front, we get to see the contrast between the bleakness of war and the beauty of life away from it. After the bombings and death and misery comes prosperity and life to the full. Broadway shows are a symbol of a prosperous, confident nation.

Kaye the Wonderful

Danny Kaye as Phil Davis is brilliant. Both with his physical mannerism and facial expressions, he steals every scene. One in particular shows him pretending to twist his knee as a ruse to keep the general preoccupied. I read somewhere that Kaye was an accomplished pantomime before performing in musical comedies. It makes perfect sense. Good actors can find the camera even in scenes where their part is secondary. He is surrounded by professional dancers on the “choreography” number, but we look for him. We notice him in every frame because he’s very expressive.

His counterpart is appropriately subdued.

Bing Crosby (Bob Wallace) is in this movie to be the legitimate crooner. The pairing with Danny Kaye is similar to Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Crosby isn’t a great actor but pulls off a solid performance as the career focused leading man. Their counterparts are a sister act (The Haynes Sisters) whose brother served in the same unit as Wallace and Davis during the war. Actress Vera Ellen (Judy Haynes) is the carefree younger sister with dreams of stardom. Rosemary Clooney (Betty Haynes) is the cynical older sibling. Vera was hired for her dancing, she’s clearly a professional. Her IMDB said she was the youngest member of the Rockettes at the time. Everything in the film revolves around these four characters and their connection to each other.

Broadway the Prosperous

White Christmas is an ode to the generation who saved it from totalitarianism. America became a superpower after World War II. Europe recovered eventually, but only after a lot of expensive rebuilding. Japan too, dug itself out and rebuilt its cities after a bombing campaign from the allies that left it a wasteland, a radioactive one at that. American society was poised for a bright future. Its cities weren’t destroyed, Pearl Harbor the only damaged base. But everyone lost a lot of people. Estimates say around 75 million people around the world died. The Soviet Union suffered the most. Between the war itself, starvation and disease they lost close to 30 million. It’s not a surprise that most countries saw a massive boom in growth, both in babies and businesses.

Perhaps because of the heavy losses, military units felt like families.

There is a symbolic phrase that pops up twice between Wallace and Davis and neatly captures the underlying message, “Let’s say we’re doing for a pal in the Army”. Always said after a reluctant decision, like going to see the Haynes Sisters perform out of obligation. It’s a tacit acknowledgement of the value of wartime friendships. It's as concrete as the wall that nearly crushes Phil Davis during the shelling of their camp by the Germans in the first act.

America the Optimistic

You could say this movie is a thank you letter to the men and women who sacrificed during the war. The post war boom is why. No one represents the endless optimism of America in the fifties like a song and dance troupe. Phil Davis saves Bob Wallace from falling debris and injures his arm in the process. Davis uses the injury to guilt Wallace into turning his one-man act into a two-man Broadway juggernaut. It’s a running gag throughout. Whenever Davis wants something he points to his arm as if to say “You owe Me”. It’s played for laughs but contains the core message of the movie to the generation that fought the war--we owe you.  

My favorite scene is at the beginning when both Bob Wallace and Phil Davis are in their dressing room changing after a performance. It’s a scene that feels as rehearsed as one of the many dance numbers. Davis tries unsuccessfully to set Wallace up with a ditzy girl from production. Wallace was unimpressed.

Davis: "Alright they didn't go to college, they didn't go to Smith".

Wallace: "Go to Smith, she couldn't even spell it"

 Their banter and physical timing is perfect. Both men change into different clothes while discarding their shirts and jackets. They toss clothes hangers and shoes to each other, without losing the dialogue’s sharpness. It’s both performance art and witty banter, and it comes off clean like a play.

Conclusion

I think they overdid it just a little at the end. The surprise dinner for the general was a nice touch. But then, the foursome dressed like Santa, brought out the dancing kids and opened the barn door while the snow fell. It’s almost like they saved up all the cheese for the last 2 minutes. In this way it's very much like Hallmark's low budget features of today. It’s also when Bing Crosby sings White Christmas for the second time. Despite the canned finish, it’s a wonderful movie with a powerful message. Post-war America owes its boom to the World War II generation.  I'll keep the tradition alive until I just can't do it anymore.

 

Jordan Peterson Interviews Pastor Greg Laurie

 

Greg Laurie Has Something To Say, If Only Peterson Would Let Him

I saw Jordan Peterson interview Greg Laurie. YouTube had the whole interview minus the Daily Wire subscriber stuff. Greg is the real life character from The Jesus Revolution who was part of the Jesus freaks movement in southern California in the 1970’s. The movie goes into this a little bit. Greg was raised by a single, alcoholic mother who moved around a lot. Predictably he got into drugs and alcohol at a young age. A common theme of the interview was the chaos of his early life. He didn’t have a father figure or even a close male relative to look up to after they moved west. He had to keep his mother from drinking too much and ending up dead.

Anyone who is familiar with Jordan Peterson understands his particular way of conversing. He is a clinical phycologist who talks a lot about hierarchies, motivations and inner turmoil. Pastor Laurie gives straightforward answers about his childhood and Peterson examines it. It doesn’t work. I’ll show my bias toward Greg with this, but nothing is more significant than the gospel. That story of life change, salvation, and sacrifice is the best thing you will ever hear. It cuts across all the cultural baggage and class designations we live under. It’s the truest thing, and as such needs a wide berth. Don’t jump in and try to categorize it along philosophical or anthropological lines. You’ll just muddy it up.

Peterson would do well to just let answers speak for themselves. He can’t help it.

 I’ve seen a few of his interviews now and I find them a struggle to get through. Jordan is a much better interviewee than interviewer. I can appreciate that he has his own methods for evaluating answers and putting new information into his intellectual framework. But not every answer requires deep examination. Also, his question set ups are exhaustingly complex. I found myself scrubbing through his long questions to the part when Pastor Laurie begins to talk. Jordan’s not a classic interviewer, fine. He brings a lot of professional understanding of human behavior into the talk. But the segments have a way of highlighting Peterson and not his opposite.

I’m a big fan of Dr. Peterson however. He knows the importance of the Bible in Western literature. Know one dissects Post Modernism's influence on academia like him. When he’s on the Joe Rogan experience, it’s the best show all year. I’ll put everything on hold. Intuitively he understands the intricate connections between the Old Testament and New. He’s responsible for introducing the scriptures, likely for the first time, to a new audience. Unchurched young men don’t think they have any need for the bible. But Peterson illuminates it like only a scholar can. Most people have never heard it talked about in such an elevated way. He’s probably a Christian himself but it’s not clear because he stays away from hard declarations.  

Still, hearing him add commentary to Greg’s direct and simple answers, left me feeling queasy. Not only is the gospel being shared on this heavily viewed show, but it’s a very moving testimony. Peterson kept trying to shoehorn Greg’s story of redemption into something clinical and cold. I’m sure he didn’t mean to. It was like when your uncle comes home from a foreign trip and regals the family with stories about his time. Every time he finishes another vignette, your younger brother adds a note about what he’s learning in his sophomore Middle East history class.

 I’m not a subscriber to Daily Wire so I can’t complain. I’m not getting this ‘Peterson as interviewer’ thing they’re doing. It’s clunky and awkward. Maybe I’m misunderstanding what the show is supposed to be. They might be trying to do a conversational thing like Rogan has. The problem is all the questions go one way. Peterson asks them. The best  interviews I’ve seen were from Brian Lamb of Q&A on C-Span. I know, that’s an old format and an old style. But Lamb seemed to get that the show was about the person being questioned. He didn’t bring a ‘gotcha’ style or add personal asides.

 When the subject is about the gospel you should sit back and learn something. Or at least, recognize that people watching the interview will be deeply affected.  

Maybe that’s at the heart of my critique. I kept thinking about all viewers who haven’t probably heard a lot of redemption stories. How many will follow Greg Laurie’s example and seek out the one true God? But I’m not giving the Holy Spirit enough credit. Whenever the good news is preached it has an effect. For all Jordan Peterson’s parsing, Laurie’s testimony still finds an audience, the way it always has.

God's Plan for Improvement: Running With Perspective

 

Anxious Training and Old Habits that Won't Die

It’s been a rough couple of weeks since I signed up for the marathon in Texas.

 I already mentioned that it didn’t go well. The last two weeks were an off week for me. Not because I didn’t want to run, but I came down with a nasty cold. It was enough to knock me out of even trying to run. I’ve been climbing back ever since. Last Saturday I toughed it out and put in 14 miles. The rest of my team put in 20. I knew I wasn’t going to make it that far, but after not doing any jogging for so long, I was content with the result. The rest of the week reflected a normal pattern of training, 3 days at the gym and 3 days running. Sunday is the Route 66 marathon. No, I’m not signed up. I had a chance to take someone’s bib and run for them. She injured herself a few months ago and is unable to do the race. I’m not ready either.

Thinking Versus Doing

I’ve figured out that I’m one of those runners that prefers to train than race. Because I’m a thinker I’ve thought about it. There is less pressure to train. At least internally, I can relax and enjoy the run without worrying about the pace. Why can’t I do this during a race? It’s not like this counts on some eternal chart. Like, if I don’t improve every time I have to reevaluate my life choice and do something else. But a race is a test. It’s the clearest example of how much you've improved in the time you had to practice. It’s like any other test. It’s designed to measure. I hate tests because of the probability of failure. It might not even be a high probability, but it’s always there or it isn’t a test. If you have a bad race, you fail.

That probably seems like strong language for a recreational sport, but it’s true.

Failing a race doesn’t make you a failure though. People fail tests for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with preparedness. Learning to run marathons efficiently must be a long-term goal. And you might not show improvement right away. A friend of mine made a transition in his training just recently. He’s always been fast. Even on some of our longer distance Saturdays, he slowed down a minute and a half below what he was used to. His endurance improved dramatically. The idea with slowing down is to get your heart rate into a lower setting. This isn’t the place to describe heart rate zones. But let’s say elevated, or exerting a little more energy than a quick walk.

 This is supposed to allow you to have more energy at distance and ultimately get faster.

New Ways Old Attitudes

Your body becomes fat dependent at low heart rates. This means it burns fat at a higher percentage than it burns carbs. Our bodies store fat more than carbs; fat is a better energy source for long distance running. I’ve known this. Fat adaption running constitutes a sort of, marathon training 101. But making yourself run slower is a more difficult than you might imagine. There is a comfort level that develops over the course of your training. It’s never exact, but stays within a certain pace window. My heart rate has been ticking up slowly over the years as well. That’s not good. The higher the rate the shorter the distance you’ll cover. It’s another concern to work out.

Some of the most efficient runners I know are over the age of 50. They’re eager to help with advice too. It’s as helpful a community as there is. But you have to stick with it, even when you feel like a failure.

There is a verse that keeps cycling through my head. It’s more about life in general, but comes up a lot with jogging. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made know to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

The first part hits me straight on. Nothing should cause anxiousness in our lives. I think we have a tendency to label issues in life as either “important” or “not important”. We spend more time on the important stuff like family, career, charity and tend to worry more about them. But Paul is clear that nothing should cause us anxiety. By making our requests known we hand off the worrying parts to God and he returns peace instead.

Conclusion

Most people wouldn’t put recreational running into the “important” category. For long term health and fitness it’s certainly necessary, but doesn’t rise to the level of family or career. Whatever place it occupies in your life, it’s never something to be anxious over. It’s a soothing balm of a verse that helps me relax about the trajectory of my training, racing and testing. Perspective is a wonderful thing. It’s even enough to make me breathe a little easer and slow down a bit. I might be able to get my heart rate down a few points. No promises on that though.

In running and spiritual growth, we should put aside old ways of thinking and let God reveal new paths. His peace allows us run with perspective and develop into people that reflect His nature.

Trump's Big Victory and Charlie Kirk Chases Votes

 

Turning Point and Trump 2.0: New Popular Republican Party

Trump won the national argument last night.

In a landslide that’s still being counted, he won early and sealed the deal. It’s been a brilliant campaign. He did a lot of rallies last time as well as this time, but he managed a few genius public demonstrations this time. He stopped by the infamous bodega in New York that was robbed by a crook. By doing so he brought attention to the crime in the city under the corrupt leaders. He wouldn’t have been in New York but for the nonsensical trial for supposed campaign finance misuse. He worked a shift at McDonalds to bring attention to Kamala’s lie about working there when she was younger.

Old Guard

His campaign rented a garbage truck after Biden called his supporters garbage. That one the campaign pulled off in less than a day. The GOP of Mitt Romney would never do this. They weren’t running as a representative of the people and their interests. We didn’t have an alternative really. Ron Paul was sharp but hardly popular. He was too wonky on policy for the average voter. Trump did the one thing no one else did, he listened. Ann Coulter told him to run on immigration because everywhere she went, people talked about it. It was important to Americans but not politicians.

Whenever they talked illegal immigration it was about work visas. Americans were concerned about crime. We never got an effective border wall because the business class didn’t want it. Trump at least started building the wall. Coulter got squeezed out of the White House and never forgave Trump for it. He never adopted her ideas, which were responsible for his election. He did lean on Mexico to keep a lot of the border crossers on their side. He bulked up the border with ATF agents as well.

Illegal Immigration

I thought about this last night while watching the returns. I chose to watch Charlie Kirk’s Rumble channel. Charlie is responsible for a lot of the get-out-the-vote efforts this cycle. His Turning Point Action group got serious after last year’s steal. They educated locals in key states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. This election is about how Turning Point turned out the youth vote. They wrested control of the RNC from the old guard once Trump wrapped up the primary elections. They made Laura Trump co-chair of the RNC and started spending wisely.

A big complaint from MAGA republicans is the lack of help they get from the RNC. The old guard (McConnell, Ryan) hate the MAGA movement and refuse to spend money on their races in key states. Money makes a huge difference in close elections. The Washington establishment was letting MAGA world know how they felt about their movement. Turning Point was the lynchpin for moving the Republican party away from its corporate roots and toward a popular movement. They helped Trump organize his ideas from the first term into something more seamless. Along the way they got Elon Musk and RFK Jr to endorse and become full members of team Trump.

Trump needed TPUSA for the ground game. He is clearly the star and popular enough to lead in the polls. But voting is about getting your supporters out to actually mark their ballots for you. This year was no different, except the margin of victory was so much clearer. The Democrats didn’t get their people out.

Wonky Time

I tuned in early last night. I like to hear the analysis. I geek out on elections too. The TPUSA guys are serious data nerds and it’s fun to hear them handicap the race. They talk ballot dumps and county ethnicity breakdowns. They get excited, like toddlers at the zoo, when a swing state like North Carolina flips. They talk over each other constantly, pour over every new tranche of reports from the state and compare each to the last election. Some of the guys tell stories about the past year on the campaign trail. They lost their YouTube feed at one point. One of them referenced a website as a joke and YouTube cut them. I wasn’t sure why this was exactly. Was it a copywrite thing?

Charlie was on edge and extra careful after that.

Right around the time the group called Iowa for Trump, it looked like a fantastic night for DJT. Pennsylvania was still counting but running out of votes for Kamala. Even the New York Times projected Trump would win PA. Then Wisconsin started looking good and Michigan too. Even without  the western states, there wasn’t much of a path for Kamala at this point. Trump had North Carolina and Georgia in the bank. All he needed was Pennsylvania to get the magical 270 electoral votes and secure it. I went to bed content with a Trump victory. His margin was too big to try a middle of the night dump of votes.

New Day

I’m optimistic for this new administration. This is Trump 2.0. Nearly killed twice, he’s under no illusions how important this is. He is a survivor of some of the worst lawfare I’ve ever seen. It’s strengthened his resolve. He has a better idea of who to trust and who not to trust. He hired some real losers last time. His coalition looks strong and atypical. Normally you’d see a list of regular senators and statesmen from previous administrations in the cabinet. We’ll see some of that. But we’ll also see business and tech people. General Flynn will be heavily involved in cleaning out the justice department I hope.

This country needs serious people to start to fix the mess. It’s not just economic either. The Biden and Obama administrations treated the federal government like their own private army. Raiding offices and arresting their opponents; dragging citizens through circus courts and tossing them in jail. There are millions of illegal aliens in the country they need to be escorted back to their country. Something tells me Trump 2.0 is going to be a more serious and effective administration than the last time around.

Conclusion

I checked on some choice video clips from the Turning Point crew this morning. They stayed up all night to analyze the returns. At one point Jack Posobeic, basically, told Charlie to take a bow. It was clear that all the hard work paid off. He teared up for a bit, but being the humble guy he is, wouldn’t take credit.

Trump won the national argument last night, and we can thank Charlie Kirk for his part in it.

The Republican party looks different today. Thank God.

The Old Man: Book Review

Thomas Perry's The Old Man: Why We Love Spy Thrillers

I just finished reading Thomas Perry’s “The Old Man”. The only comparison I have for this book is the TV show on Hulu. It’s why I decided to read this book in the first place. I’m glad I did. Now I’m familiar with this author who I didn’t know anything about before. The Old Man doesn’t exactly go by one name. This holds true in the show as well. It’s kind of his M.O. to use fake identities until he gets burned, then start on another. First he is Dan Chase, then Peter Caldwell, followed by Hank Dixon and eventually takes on the identity of a Canadian citizen named Alan Spencer.

All identities have backstories and passports. This is a guy who knows how to evade notice. It’s the character that draws us into the story. He is 60 years old and owns 2 large dogs. Perry never gets around to describing their breed, except to say some think they’re a cross between a Labrador and a poodle. He calls them “80 pound beasts” at one point. We’re to assume they’re well trained to listen for danger and protect their master. Dan Chase is an accomplished man who pays attention to detail. He’s trained his dogs well. Described in the first chapter of the book, thieves break into the home of Mr. Chase. The dogs pounce and subdue the intruder while Dan kills him. From here the story really begins.

We find out that Mr. Chase is a man on the run because of an incident in Libya almost 30 years ago. I wont spoil it, but it’s the thread that the whole story hangs on. In the long tradition of bad ass covert case officers, this one is mostly different because of the age of the spy. He’s 60 and in shape. The TV show makes you think the plot is convoluted. It’s not. It’s quite simple and follows a linear timeline. About the only flashback is at the beginning to set up the plot. Otherwise, we follow the Old Man through Chicago, California, Toronto and then Libya.

His love interest is a 40-year-old divorced mother from Chicago who follows him into the identity swapping, covert world of running from the US government. He rented a room from her using the name Peter Caldwell and she fell for him. She has a little backstory of her own that makes hiding from the law a comfortable fit.

I checked on the author’s website to see if he had a series devoted to the character. Sadly it’s a one off. I wonder if he will write another one with the success of the TV show. I’ll try not to go into detail about the show because it’s not even remotely the same. Another character that carried over from the book to the show was this military contractor named “Julian”. He’s a black farmer from Jonesborough, Arkansas who gets the assignment to go after the Old Man. He’s irritated with the scope of the investigation and becomes disillusioned with the whole process. He’s a likeable symbol of a man fighting an internal battle on the morality of what he does. If this Old Man character doesn’t get another book, I’d start a new series with Julian.

Julian is in the TV show but doesn’t have the same story. I bought the book to understand the show better. Don’t do that. It won’t help. The TV show has a lot of layers that have only been hinted at. I thought a fuller reading of the book would answer my questions, but no. Especially since Thomas Perry only wrote one book, these are two different stories. The writers of the show cut and pasted the main character and two others, gave them different histories and located them in different parts of the country. This isn’t a problem. Books often get made into movies with little or no connection to the original novel.

 Characters drive stories and when you’ve got a likable character, you tell more stories. Spy novels with international intrigue never get old. We keep reading them, authors keep writing them. From Mitch Rapp to Jason Bourne, it's the danger and violence we love.

I like that Dan Chase (The Old Man) is over 55. Is that because I’m getting older myself and associate with the type? Never you mind that!

I’ve thought about what it is that makes the character so compelling. To me it’s the unassuming nature of a guy with gray hair and a pleasant demeanor. No one expects him to defend those in his orbit with such raw, cold violence. In one instance, the Old Man and his girlfriend hitch a ride with 2 young men who only stopped because they saw the woman. It’s clear almost immediately that the men have bad intentions toward her and don’t think the Old Man can do anything about it. He tries to diffuse the situation by telling them he’s uncomfortable and their threats are inappropriate. He beats them up quickly, and roughly, when they keep commenting on his age and lack of sexual prowess. You can feel the false bravado of the young men right until Chase smacks the driver with a pistol.

He’s a man who’d rather walk away and change identity than get into a scrape. But when he’s confronted with it, he leaps into action. His age suggests he’s more patient with people and gives them a break when other, younger agents, might not. It’s an important part of the story which I’ll only hint at. The Old Man needs someone in the US government to believe he is the good guy.

It's a story about putting the past right and trying to overcome mistakes. It’s a universally appealing sentiment. Who doesn’t want to fix something from the past that’s created an untenable situation in the present? If not an untenable situation, a lot of us would want to make a different decision or take another path. We never get to. But with a lot of money and two 80 pound beasts, you just might.

 

 

Justice Run 2024

 

The Justice Run 2024: The Short Version

I spent the weekend in Fort Worth. I signed up for the Justice Run for the 3^rd Year in a row. Officially it’s a run along the Trinity River Corridor. Unofficially, it’s a fund raiser for victims of sex trafficking in its 4^th year. The run gets bigger every year and the cause becomes more essential, as the number of kids trafficked increases exponentially. I'm happy to join the fight.

My marathon turned into a half marathon quickly.

The race is always on Saturday and this year was no different. I took off work on Friday and drove to my brother’s home outside of Fort Worth. My mom came along as well. My brother took me to the church on Friday afternoon so I could pick up my race packet. They included tank tops this year, which worked out well because of the heat. Mine was too big. Fortunately, I’d prepared and brought one from home to wear instead. The temperature at the start was in the low 60’s. A little warm for a marathon, but at least it wasn’t delayed because of rain. Last year was wet and sloppy and we started later to allow the water to absorb into the ground. About the only nice part of running through a wet park, is the lack of pedestrians getting in the way.

This time the park was packed. That meant strollers and bicyclists.

I knew the temperatures were going to climb once the sun came out. The two previous days I made an effort to drink a lot of water for hydration. I don’t think it’s the heat that did me in though. Whatever it was, I burned out around the 11 mile mark and coasted in at the half way point. Sometimes preparation is a waste of time. I’ve always thought the most important thing about preparing for a marathon is getting the miles in. The diet and energy stuff is a close second, but it’s anyone’s guess how you’ll feel in the moment.

It turns out this day wasn’t my day. I didn’t have enough in the tank. My pistons weren't firing. My thermostat was in danger zone. My metaphors are wearing thin. For whatever reason I couldn’t finish. It’s more accurate to say I didn’t want to finish after feeling spent so early. My lack of energy after the first lap was an indication that the last half was going to involve mostly walking. That’s why I called it. The thought of walking 13 miles with an occasional short jog was too painful to consider.

I did manage to meet a wonderful woman who ran with me for the first 8 miles or so. We talked about everything from travel to politics. She caught up to me a mile or so in and we ran side by side and chatted. We kept a similar pace. Any faster and I wouldn’t have had the breath to talk for very long. She attends Mercy Culture, the church that sponsors the run, and filled in some details about the leadership. Normally I’m in my own world when I’m jogging. Thankfully, her conversation made the early part of the run enjoyable.

The route was roughly the same as last year. The organizers moved the event further down the river by a few hundred yards. It allowed them to set up on a flat, dry parking lot with a spot for vendors inside a warehouse. Apparently, it’s the location they’ve tried to get for the last 3 years. This year they made it a reality. They’re getting better at organizing the run as well. I heard one person complain that he had to find a vendor with water bottles once he’d finished the race. Normally you’re handed a water once you cross the finish line. But there was plenty of water all around, you just needed to go get it. For a small race I don’t think that’s the worst criticism.

The mission of the Justice Run is to raise money for victims of sex trafficking. Mercy Culture Church is trying to build residences to house women and children who’ve been rescued from the trade. Apparently, the neighborhood community (nearby) opposes having the residences built there. But the land belongs to the church; it’s a question of zoning. Does the current zoning law cover the church or not? The building is on hold until the political stuff is sorted out. Sex trafficking is one of those ugly, under the radar type of crimes that take place in astonishing numbers. It’s a ministry whose time has come. I’m proud to support them.

As for the rest of the day, my brother grilled steaks for the family. It’s a tradition now in its 3^rd year. I run, he cooks. Ostensibly a celebration of a grueling marathon, this year we had to amend it slightly. No one wanted to miss the steaks because I didn’t finish the race. We joked about cutting mine in half.

 Whatever happened in the race, any excuse to be with family and grill out is OK with me.

National Sovereignty and Trade Policy: New Directions

 

Is Free Trade Dead? National Sovereignty and Trump Economics

How important is a country’s trade deficit? Are countries just large markets made up of consumers, or are do they have interests' outside of economics?

I had a teacher who liked to talk about how deficits in trade were meaningless. “Does Walmart buy goods from you? No? so you have a trade deficit with Walmart.”

Big Deals

This was how trade deficits were explained to me in my economics class. They’d started calling it Global Economics by the time I was in grad school. “Macro Economics” had gone the way of the gold standard. His point was that some countries buy and some sell, we all specialize in a mature market based economy. Trade deficits aren't a big deal.

My question to him should have been “Aren’t a big deal to whom?” If you sell whisky or cars or beef, it’s a very big deal when you can’t sell into a foreign market. Especially if other industries, like retail, are able to buy shipping container loads of electronics and shoes.

With a country like China we buy more than we sell. Partly because they keep their currency artificially low and partly because our goods are significantly more expensive.

My professor was focused on America’s balance sheet. Since China isn’t the only country we trade with, we make it up by selling to others. Most of our trade is with Canada and Mexico. Both are significantly larger trading partners because of their proximity. Let’s not forget the rest of South America, Europe and Asia. But we do have a massive trade imbalance. Oil is the culprit. We buy a lot instead of producing it here, a mistake for sure. But that’s an article for another day.

Ricardo’s Influence on Trade

The existing framework for international trade is based on the David Ricardo model. If your knowledge of trade theory is a little rusty, here is a quick summary. Countries should trade what they’re good at in exchange for what they aren’t good at. This is all theoretical so bear with me.

Countries with an abundance of grapes will become adept at making wine. Countries with tech industries will become adept at making microchips and smart phones. These countries will trade with each other and focus on what they do best. Both will have a comparative advantage; wine countries shouldn’t try to make microchips and tech countries shouldn’t grow grapes.

 It’s a dramatic oversimplification but it gives us a starting point. The model falls apart when you introduce quotas, tariffs or subsidies. The free traders have tried to get everyone on level field of play by introducing global rules in their game. But it’s like agreeing to play football with multiple sets of rules. Countries can’t agree to exactly the same game because their internal politics are vastly different. And they all have special industries to protect. For some it’s agriculture and for others it’s manufacturing. Add to that, the unions with their own demands.

Tariffs Make a Comeback

But the basic structure of free trade involves removing barriers like tariffs to increase the overall amount of trade. But what if countries ignore the rules or subvert the process?

There isn’t a great mechanism for settling disputes but there is one. The WTO (World Trade Organization) has courts to hear cases between nations. But it takes years and is often unsatisfactory for both countries.

 I don’t hear politicians talking optimistically about free trade anymore. It’s no secret that manufacturing in particular, has taken a beating. Partly this is the fault of the unions. They negotiated sweet deals in past with the auto makers. You can’t blame them for getting the best deal possible, but the legacy costs hurt the auto manufacturers. They also started moving their manufacturing overseas to save on labor. Also, the rest of the world started selling great cars in the U.S. putting further pressure on our industries.

 A lot of the complaints that President Trump has about trade is the lack of transparency in foreign markets, particular China. His thinking goes like this, ‘we open our markets, why can’t you?’ Trump and Peter Navarro (trade advisor) made sure to put a hefty tariff on China for their unfair trade practices like technology transfers (Intellectual Property theft) from US companies. Those tariffs are still in place.

National Sovereignty Economics

It's hard to make an economic case for tariffs. It’s just a tax on foreign goods. The consumer pays it anyway. But Trump isn’t just punishing foreigners, he’s trying to keep industries at home and maybe bring a few back that have left. He’s concerned more for American jobs than cheap consumer goods. The downside is that countries will retaliate with tariffs of their own on our products and services.

But is it really as damaging as we’re told? Liberal economists make it seem like the tit for tat on tariffs will necessarily lead to war. It feels to me like there is a similar historical parallel with the Soviet Union and President Reagan. He bankrupted the Soviets by spending heavily on defense and forcing them to keep pace. Moscow couldn’t afford it. It didn't lead to war.

 What if we invest in our own industries, produce our own oil, grow our own crops and promote American companies abroad?

 China won’t easily find another consumer driven economy to replace what they’ve lost with the Americans. They can’t afford to keep up.

There are probably a hundred things wrong with that example, but Trump thinks in terms of national sovereignty first and economics second. He believes that a strong America is the best thing for the world. For all the criticism he gets about being a bully on the international stage, he does want fair trade. That’s how I read it at least. I’d rather have someone who puts America first. A lot of our leaders are completely owned by international interests. Their trade policies are not significantly different. Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992, was a critic of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). But he finished a distant 3^rd. The free trade skeptics haven’t had a standard bearer until Trump. Whether you like his tariffs or hate them, Americans need to start having the debate again.

Conclusion

Walmart has certainly benefited from lower trade barriers in the last 30 years. That’s a good thing. Most of us have a trade deficit with Walmart. Individuals can run those deficits forever, but countries need to balance their accounts at some point. Countries are more than just markets, they’re sovereign nations with cultures and religions and notions of progress. We have (or had) a thriving middle class and an upwardly mobile citizenry.

 Does America have the capacity to defend itself if attacked?

That takes a lot of industry to convert to tanks and ships and weapons. This isn’t a big deal until you’re suddenly forced into a war footing.

China has been America’s Walmart for too long. What we don’t get from China we get from other countries. That’s called leverage. They have leverage on us. If you can’t make enough to supply the domestic market, you’re in trouble. Trade can be a liberalizing force between nations, but when it’s uneven it can be dangerous. It’s time to put American industries first again.

Does Anyone Buy Books at Stores Anymore?

 

Shopping for Books and Reminiscing About the Old Way

Looking for books used to be fun, but there’s hardly any reason to go to the bookstore anymore. Of course I read digital copies too. They can be bought quickly and downloaded to a phone in seconds. But I like to hold the book, see the ink on the page and scribble notes in the margins. Our eyes get too much screen time as it is. I’m making an effort to buy more physical books again.

A New Era

I went looking for a copy of A Moveable Feast the other day. Hoping for a discount paperback, I shuffled into Barnes and Noble. It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased anything there. Used to be they had a section for $5 dollar books in a bin. Most were just hardcover copies of whichever Danielle Steele novel was popular years before, a lot James Patterson too. I could always find classics for cheap and in hardcover. Not that I need a hardcover, but it’s nice if you can find it. The bins are gone though. Instead we get racks of calendars, pens, penlights, bookmarks, phone chargers and other reading adjacent knickknacks. Often it's tchotchkes with no relation to the printed word (see above pic). I’m sure the margins are better on booklights than cheap paperbacks. 

I didn’t see any of those lap cushions with the flat wooden top for couch reading but I’m sure they were around.

B&N has a music side too. I realize this isn’t new. I’ve poked my head in a few times in the last few years, but I didn’t imagine they got rid of so much of what made it great. Instead of a messy, bustling place full of families it’s become a minimalist version of itself. Neat shelves with sharp white font letters on dark green backgrounds advertise the genres while large posters of the classics (Ulysses, Homer, The Grapes of Wrath) populate the walls. You can still hear the café blender whirring on occasion. They’ve taken out half the tables so the sound of wooden chairs being slid into place isn’t as frequent either.

A Former Life

The grit is starting to set in the way it does with old stores. The floor tile has gone from white to off-white and the carpets are threadbare in well-tread spots.  

 They haven’t overhauled the way Radio Shack did years ago. Radio Shack saw that consumer electronics were going the way of waterbeds and cassette tapes, there was less interest every day. They tried to stop the bleeding by reimagining their mall stores. They managed a funny Super Bowl ad in 2014 about their 80’s image. In the end it wasn’t enough. Borders, my favorite, went bankrupt in 2010 as well. There wasn’t anything special about Borders but I like the location here in Tulsa. I spent time doing homework a few nights per week in the café.

There was always a group of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) gamers occupying a corner of the same café. I wanted to complain about the noise but how could I? It’s not let any of us were paying customers. I never bought anything but tea either. Borders never sold much as far as I could tell. I’m starting to see the problem.

Although closer geographically, it always felt like a ‘us too’ version of Barnes & Noble. They decided on Seattle’s Best coffee instead of the superior Starbucks. No one picks Seattle’s Best over Starbucks unless you can’t get Starbucks.

Once digital readers hit the market in 2007, Borders said enough. I’m not sure it was this reason alone but it was clear by this point they couldn’t compete with yet another slap in the face from Amazon. First they offered books for a fraction of the price, then they digitized the experience. Although Books A Million (BAM!) never had one either and they’re still around. Amazon’s Kindle captured the market and only B&N created their own line of e-readers. I have one lying around somewhere. It wasn’t the fancy color one that loaded the page correctly every time either. The black letters were hard to see on the hazy yellow backdrop. The buttons weren’t responsive either. I’d finish a page and hit the button to turn, nothing would happen. I tried again, nothing. Then I mashed it hard and it jumped 20 pages ahead. This happened frequently and I eventually gave up on it, tossing it in the drawer next to my Borders café punch card.

An Unexpected Turn

It's no secret what happened to the book sellers across the country. It’s the same thing that happened to Radio Shack, Circuit City and Toys R Us. Amazon took them out to the pasture like an old mare with a broken leg and put a bullet in them. Online shopping is what we wanted and it’s what we got. Besides, even B&N has an online option. It’s probably where all their $5 books are if they still even exist. It feels like Barnes & Noble is on in the twilight of its operation. I don’t pretend to know what their financials are, but I can’t imagine they’re selling enough in the stores to stay viable. Maybe they’re killing it online, enough to save the stores. If so, it doesn’t make sense to keep the stores afloat. You’d think a handful of warehouses would work better.  

If you grew up in the 90’s you assumed the mega book stores would grind the small sellers into the ground and ruin their business. Nothing typifies this better than "You’ve Got Mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. That movie pulled a clever trick on us. It pretended to side with the ‘mom & pop’ seller (Ryan) while actually softening the corporate view (Hanks). But the business dynamics turned out to be something different. Big stores did put small ones out, but also the internet and ecommerce happened. It opened the door for big stores to be dragged out to the pasture in the same way the mom & pops were.

 I’m partial to Barnes & Noble. I worked there one Christmas season for extra money. They bought a large space at the local mall and punched out a wall for access inside and out. We seemed to be marking down older titles constantly and filling every empty space with book displays. The busyness eventually waned when January came around, but it never needed a music section or a Pokémon rack.

Conclusion

But times change and companies do what they must. I’m reminded of a quote from a character in Hemingway’s bull fighting classic The Sun Also Rises.

“How’d you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways, gradually, then suddenly”

I imagine the “slowly” part of bankruptcy is what you see coming, fewer customers and similar competitors. The “suddenly” part is what you don’t see, eCommerce and e-readers. I hope people keep going to book stores but I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. Will we miss them when they’re gone?

I did eventually find that copy of A Moveable Feast in paperback. At nearly $20 bucks I thought better of it and walked away. I’m sure Amazon has a copy for less.

 

  

Fall Class on 1 Corinthians: Reflecting on Culture

 

Critical Thinking and Biblical Studies: Paul and the Corinthians

I’ve been reading 1 Corinthians for the last two weeks.

 I’ll continue to be in that book for ten more weeks. Every fall we have a chance to enroll in classes that cover books of the Bible. We read selected portions and answer questions. Usually it’s just one or two chapters. I’m familiar with 1 Corinthians, but not about the culture in that community in Greece. The deep dive into cultural attitudes of the people is probably the biggest thing I’m learning. It’s the historical part of the bible that doesn’t always come through in the reading. History and culture animates so much of the Scriptures that we often miss the full context of a verse.

Historical Foundations

I find history to be endlessly fascinating. Not everything needs a two hour documentary or a 700 page book, but context is critical. I watch documentaries to learn about some unknown part of the country, industry or person. Those sports docs always suck me in. ESPN did one called The Last Dance, highlighting Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Ostensible about the final championship season, it recapped the Jordan years since the Bulls drafted him from North Carolina in 1984. There was a lot of new footage of the team on road trips and during practice. Everyone loved it too. I’m sure it was one of their highest rated documentaries of the year. 

I’ve watched a lot of boring shows too.

I started one about the travel cruise industry and turned it off after 20 minutes. Despite the logistical miracle of running a cruise line, it was less exciting than watching the crew eat lunch together. This is a reference to a Gene Siskel metric about films. If you’d rather watch a documentary of the same actors in the movie having lunch, it’s too boring. There was a way make it fun, but they missed. Get a charismatic host next time and have them walk excitedly from room to room and drop nuggets of information. Instead, they used a narrator who sounded like he was reading a recipe for wheat bread. Not all history shows are created equal. I can see some people thinking the Bible is boring too. But with the right teacher, curriculum and context, it wouldn't be.

Cultural Foundations

I’m not the type you have to convince to read, but a lot of Christians are. My hope for those who don’t like to read, is that the culture of Greece during the Roman empire will spark curiosity. Anything that puts the letter of Paul into a helpful construct, makes us understand the scriptures a little more. It also shows us how these issues people dealt with (pride, sexual promiscuity, greed) are still present today. The world isn’t as different as we imagine. Human nature is sinful in any age. That’s important, or we might think our issues are those of a ‘sophisticated’ society.

Sophistication is where the theory of human evolution shows up in modern life. It posits the idea that we evolve to higher states of consciousness the same way we escape our primitive bodies. First we swam then we crawled. Now we walk upright, discard our silly ideas about a spirit world and seek utopia. The world is as corrupt as it was in the time of Christ. History helps us put our life and times into a larger context.

The opposite problem is that we see the scriptures only through the lens of the time in which they were written.

Philosophical Foundations

It goes, Paul’s warnings to the Corinthians were for those people at that time. We shouldn’t read too much into the relationship between their sins and ours. Sure, we can read his words and get a better sense of his instructions and scolding. But we have different ideas today about women in society and slavery. It's not a parallel reading.  

But leaning too heavily on history can contextualize the meaning away. The way to read the Bible is both in its time, and existing as a guide for today. The word of God existed in the past and present, it carries the same impact into the future.

America needs to bring back the importance of the Bible as a common book. What I mean by “common” is connected at all levels of society. Cultures need values that work across all levels. The Bible used to serve that purpose. Even non-religious people (in Anglo societies) realized the underpinning of the Bible on law, medicine and philosophy. George Bernard Shaw, socialist playwright, and G.K Chesterton argued different sides on much of the philosophy of their day. Both were raised in a British society where the Bible formed the basis of cultural learning. Shaw had to undercut belief in God in an established Christian society. He was a radical among the common classes.

Today, Chesterton would be the one arguing against the established humanism of the day. The schools are steeped in postmodern thought and churn out students with that worldview. This means science, medicine and law have been remade into something closer to the views of Shaw than Chesterton. This is in part, because we don’t study the Bible anymore. We’ve let the post modernists tell us that it can’t be rightly understood because of author bias. Once you’ve broken down the importance of scripture for social cohesion, it gets relegated to churches and parochial schools only. Then, in debates on ethics or education or scientific theory it gets treated like astrology, mysticism.

Conclusion

I think the world is ready for another renaissance. We need a new age of enlightenment, one that’s focused on the Light of the World. The twentieth century and the twenty first, have seen enough selfish philosophies to turn us inward for the rest of time. It’s time for critical thinking again. The apostle has something to say about it: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’ and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile’.” I Corinthians 3:18(NKJV)