Always Reforming

I should never have been born. As I drive by a country knick-knack store named Gloria Jean's, I dwell upon this solemn fact: I should never have been born, at least not accordingly to the wisdom of this world.  You see, my mother had seven children, which is by itself to some a remarkable fact.  After six children the doctor told her not to get pregnant again.  She ignored him.  The doctor told her to abort this seventh child.  She promptly found a new doctor.  Having had six C-sections already, on December 13th, 1989, she had her seventh and final. Any sane women would've stopped at six or fewer, and, frankly, I don't know if I could blame them.  99 out of 100, no, 999,999 out of 1,000,000, women would have stopped.  My mother eschewed worldly wisdom and had one more.  My mother may not have been sane, but she was Godly, and I thank God for that. Not only was I born, as this post should sufficiently prove, but I was blessed to be born ...

Leadership.  If you want to start an argument, discussing leadership is as easy a way as any.  Who should lead, how should they lead, and what it means to lead are all hot topics.  One very popular leadership philosophy in our postmodern world (our post-postmodern--I'm not sure where we're at in 2018) is to be a very passive leader.  In other words, you lead by not really leading at all.  Parents let their kids make their own decisions, managers don't really manage their employees, and husbands don't lead their wives.  No one wants to offend anyone or take responsibility, so leaders are impotent. This philosophy or style of leadership, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, is an overreaction to the despotism, chauvinism, and insensitivity to which human nature so naturally inclines.  As such, it expresses legitimate concerns, but the answer to a problem is never to abandon the good and the right into order to avoid the bad and destructive. Mor...

It seems that the world is all about government these days.  When anything bad happens, we lobby for more and more regulations.  Shootings?  Regulations.  Obesity?  Regulations.  Somebody is offended?  Regulations!!  Our operational principle is that regulations will solve our problems.  What that really means is that we believe that the government will solve all of our problems.  We, moderns that is, are almost universally Statists.  The State is our god, establishing our morality and granting us our rights.  If there is a problem, ol' Uncle Sam will fix it!  Dare to suggest that the government shouldn't be involved in education, healthcare, or charity, and you'll be labeled as a heartless white Evangelical!  What could be worse? Well, government is a good thing, ultimately, or at least it should be.  Government is ordained by God to execute His justice, which means that it is our responsibility to respect ...

Sports have been around a long time. Study the annals of history and you will find different athletic competitions going back essentially as far as we can search.  Whether it was racing, or boxing, or even simply killing each other in a giant stadium filled with spectators, mankind has loved to compete and to watch competitive feats of physical conquest. Why?  Why are sports so pervasively "human"?  Though not an exhaustive list, here are a few reasons: 1) We love to be distracted .  The harshness of life goes back about as far as our love of sports, and it's no coincidence.  Athletics are a useful diversion.  Some people would say that this is a bad thing, but I think there is a place for it, though we must be moderate in this, as with all things. 2) We love to drink alcohol .  Booze=good.  Booze+sports=great.  Booze+sports+fried food=fantastic. 3) We love to see adversity overcome by triumph . There's just something about a fourth-qua...

A few stores, such as Wal-Mart and Dick's, have raised the age to buy a gun at their stores, and 2nd Amendment advocates are up in arms (pun intended) about it!  To many a hillbilly (I mean that in the best possible way--I come from a long line of hillbillies), Wal-Mart not selling their 18-year-old a shotgun is pretty much tantamount to Armageddon.  I would argue, however, that this actually a good thing.  You see, that's what freedom is all about.  Wal-Mart should be free to sell, or not sell, a firearm, or any other product for that matter, to any person they please.  You, as a private citizen, are free to shop elsewhere.  Wal-Mart has no obligation to sell you anything!  That's how this system is supposed to work. We must be consistent here, folks!  If what we really want is the government to stop regulating guns, then we can't demand that the government force stores to sell guns at the legal age.  That's still regulating guns.  I...

Now, I like Guillermo Del Toro--at least I used to--as he has traditionally made original and interesting movies, but while The Shape of Water may very well be both of those things, I think it illustrates Del Toro's slide deeper and deeper into depravity, as well as many of our culture's problems.  In case you missed it (you're probably better off if you did), The Shape of Water contains some pretty indecent sexual material.  To be clear, I did not watch this film as the "Parent's Guide" section over at IMDB was enough to dissuade me from seeing it.  I warn you, that section reads like a pornographic fantasy novel (not that I've ever read one).  As if his last film 's incestuous material, disturbing though not quite graphic, was not enough, he had to push the envelope to include interspecies sexuality, to say nothing of the graphic nudity, this time around. Now, in past years a feature film featuring interspecies intercourse probably would have caus...

So last night I was driving home and Layla by Derek and the Dominos began to play.  Naturally, I turned it up, and then I began to think about Eric Clapton and how diverse his career has been.  When, I wondered, was he in Derek and the Dominos?  Was it before or after Cream?  And what was the name of that other band he was in?  Oh yeah, the Yardbirds!  For the record, Derek and the Dominos was a brief project, lasting only from '70 to '71. Anyway, as I pulled into my driveway, I decided I should probably buy a biography about Eric Clapton, so I quickly pulled out my phone, googled "Amazon...books about Eric Clapton," and ordered his autobiography.  Ain't technology amazing! As I was checking out (on Amazon...not from life or reality or anything like that), I realized that the shipping options were all free!  I backed out of the checkout to make sure that I hadn't accidentally signed up for Amazon Prime (I a) am not ready for that type of comm...