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Our Daily Thread 11-20-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1789 New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

In 1943, during World War II, U.S. Marines began their landing on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands.

In 1945, 24 Nazi leaders went before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

In 1969 the Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phase out of the substance. 

In 1990 Saddam Hussein ordered another 250,000 Iraqi troops into the country of Kuwait.

And in 1998 Afghanistan’s Taliban militia offered Osama bin Laden safe haven.

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Quote of the Day

“There is no patriotic obligation to help advance the career of a politician who is otherwise pursuing interests that are fundamentally antithetical to your values. That’s not the call of patriotism.”

John Bolton

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Today is Todd Nance’s birthday, so that means the best cover band ever, Widespread Panic!

Next up, Duane Allman on guitar playing what Eric Clapton calls the greatest guitar solo ever.

And it’s also Joseph Fidler Walsh’s birthday. From GuitarCenterTV

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Anyone have a QoD?

65 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-20-13”

  1. Good morning all and good night. Wish I could stay around, but I will read your comments in the morning. This is late enough for me to be online. In a month I plan to come home for Christmas and will visit you all then. Blessings

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  3. I love seeing Jo’s smile when I first log into the blog each morning.

    Widespread Panic came to the Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores a few years ago. There are people who follow them anywhere. They sleep in tents, their cars, people’s front yards. They sit on the beafch and smoke weed. It was ambitious of the City of Gulf Shores to implement their Zero Tolerance Drug Policy. Lots of people ‘Came on Vacation, Left on Probation”. The band has not been invited back.

    It is a little nippy here this mroning. I am finding I am much more tolerant of the chill than Mr. P. He may become a little more tolerant once he gets that first heating bill! It is funny to notice our attitudes and feelings about money. He has always had a steady income with no real threat of losing his job. I have always felt pressure and stress where money is concerned. I don’t have another closing until December 12th! Nothing is on the books for January and I can’t even think about February. See? There is a difference!

    Besides all that Life is Good and I must get about my day. It looks to be a full one.

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  4. Kim, that must be how a farmer feels. I don’t think I could do that. Thankfully, God is in control.

    I, too, enjoy Jo’s smile each morning.

    A bit nippy here too. 0F windchill. Trying to decide just what to wear for the trek to work on the snow covered highways.

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  5. I have forgotten the figures, but I read somewhere about the millions in Africa and India who have died from malaria because of the discontinued use of DDT.

    Nixon did lots of bad things while trying to make liberals like him.

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  7. Kim, that is how I used to feel. In freelance I could have three months without a gap in work, or I could have six weeks with nothing at all. And sometimes the six weeks with nothing at all would come after a month of only $300 in income, and mentally it was hard to get past the concept that maybe I’d never again have work to do, and would need to give up on freelance. Even my best years of freelance brought in only about 70% of what I’d earned in Chicago. But I got a home equity line of credit to cover those times of zero income (as a Scottish lass, I was in no danger of going out and splurging on a new outfit or new furniture just because I had credit and I “could”), and I would borrow $1,000 from it here and there, and pay it back within a couple of months. And I never owed more than $2,000 on that line of credit, so it never was truly dicey, but sometimes it sure felt that way.

    Now, though, I’m married, and it no longer feels like “my responsibility” to provide. My income is needed, since his went down a little just at the point where one kid is driving (she pays for gas, but not insurance) and one is in college (we’re not paying for college, but we do help out), but some of my income is “extra,” and it no longer matters whether I have a project “right now” or have a month off and know that I will have another soon enough. (This year I had 11 projects back to back–my most ever–and then six weeks off, and now I am in the middle of another six projects back to back, and could easily get another before I finish jobs five and six.)

    For you, Kim, I’m sure it’s also encouraging to know that you no longer have to “rely on” your income. You aren’t a single mother any more!

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  8. I had to work last night, covered a meeting where a development team laid out their preliminary ideas for a stretch of our waterfront — then had to come home and write the story, so I guess I was off the clock by around 9 or 9:30, something like that, not accounting for a couple calls from editors with quick questions (a misplaced comma in once sentence & a word mangled via typo in another).

    This morning I’m off to Pep Boys. On my drive in to work yesterday morning someone informed me that my 2 rear brake lights were out (the top center one is working) which is so strange. I’ve been replacing so many of those rear light bulbs in the last few months, I guess they are all going out at once, or else there’s some other issue with wiring. Hopefully this is just 2 bulbs (but it looked like the left tail light also was out and that’s really odd because that’s the one I had replaced — I think — just about a month ago at Pep Boys).

    Anyway, don’t like the idea of driving around without the main brake lights so I made an appointment to get that fixed right away.

    It’s been chilly at night and in the mornings in my house, too, but I’ve avoided turning on the heater so far this year. 🙂 I’m wearing lots of sweatshirts.

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  10. Donna, replacing a break light is a trivial thing.
    I suspect you could do it if you tried.
    I think you said you drive a Jeep. I’m not familiar with Jeeps, but I suspect that a light bulb and phillips screw driver is all you need. A real difficult job would take you fifteen minutes, most, much less than that.
    Having said that, I suspect Elvera would never try.

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  12. The tax prep/bookkeeping business has an uneven flo of income, too. The Feds of late keep changing deadlines, the opening of tax season, etc. so that, too, adds to the suspense. The people working in the industry have really been jerked around the last few years. Because the laws get made and interpreted at the last minute, it means a delay in IRS putting the forms out which delays filing and crunches everything together that use to have a tight but still doable time frame.
    Also, now the preparers are expected to have copies of all the records used for filing for the clients which is basically putting the preparers in the role of being auditors for the IRS..

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  13. Yesterday while driving in to work, the beautiful blue sky looked like it had white window pane checks on it from all the contrails over by the Atlanta airport. My husband commented that he had never seen three jets coming into the airport one after the other on the same runway. Then after dark we headed home and the sky had the lights of the jets dotting the sky all around us as they were making their patterns of holding for their turn at the runway. Yes, the sky indicates the holidays have begun.

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  14. Saw a Facebook post (which I cannot find now) about the book “Train Up Your Child”, by someone who called their teaching child abuse. Having not read the book, I can’t really comment. Nevertheless, I wonder about the legitimacy of the complaints. There are certainly lots of folks are up in arms about it.

    Just wondering if they have a legitimate complaint?

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  15. It was the bulbs (thankfully not an electrical issue). Apparently this is an ‘issue’ (along with faulty automatic window regulators) with Jeep Liberties of a certain vintage. Bulbs tend to go out a lot and all at once. 😦

    There are no wires that go to the bulbs, they’re hooked up to a circuit board of some kind, which the mechanic said is a very odd design and weirdly distinctive to the Jeep Liberties of that era. He said to change the bulbs myself next time I just need a “star” (not a Phillips head) screwdriver — the right tail lights are easy to access, the left ones not so much because of the way the tailgate swings open.

    All in all, it all took 15 minutes, cost $30, for 3 new bulbs,

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  19. If it wasn’t them, you don’t want to get me started on the Pearls. If it was, at least two children have died by parents using their methods, and they say a lot of foolish things and have a lot of dedicated followers. I spent a lot of time on their website a couple years ago and read enough of their postings, to have some really strong opinions on some of it. Plus one of their followers took some huge leaps of logic based on one of Debi Pearl’s books, decided what “type of man” my then0fiance, now-husband was (even though she had never met my husband and even though the description of that type of man is about 180 degrees from my husband), and based on that type of man being a hard man to live with informed me that I was going to have a very hard marriage. (No, I have a husband who is a very easygoing man who is far better than average at “reading” me–that’s just not a trait I expect in a man, and he’s better at it than my women friends–and who is loving and kind. A very easy man to live with.)

    I could say more.

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  20. Yes, that’s the one. I thought we had the book, but I am certain to be mistaken. We must have a book with a similar title. If half of what you say is true about the Pearl book, my wife would have thrown it out long ago – with a vengeance, and I’d have been in full support.

    I’m all for discipline, but the consequence should fit the transgression, and be age appropriate. It’s not like a 6 month old is going to ever understand why you’re beating them with a stick.

    We tried to be VERY clear why there were consequences to our children’s misdeeds, but they were sometimes misunderstood anyway. And we only found out about the misunderstanding years later…

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  21. I don’t want to engage in a debate, but I have To Train Up A Child, and have read it in its entirety, as well as other publications of the Pearls’. I don’t agree with everything they write (I don’t agree with everything anybody writes — excepting the Bible, of course), but many of the Pearls’ writings have been a blessing to me and our family, including that book. The overarching principle I took away from TTUAC is that tying strings of fellowship within the family is key to getting your children’s hearts, making training more effective, and lessening the need for disciplining, which should NEVER be done in anger or a spirit of revenge, after the parent has allowed himself/herself to get to the point where he/she has “had it” and unleashes on the child. Any adult who read that book and who allowed him/herself to get so angry (or name any other strong emotion) that a child was gravely injured or died at his/her hands has misinterpreted not only what the Pearls wrote in TTUAC, but also, and most importantly, Scripture.

    We Christians are all responsible to read whatever we choose very carefully, and are free to accept or reject those books, articles, what have you. Opinions are going to vary from person to person on the things we choose to read. But, always, we must filter everything we read through the light of Scripture, and apply accordingly. We need to chew on the meat of the Word and spit out the bones that may be present in other readings.

    Those are my two cents.

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  24. On yesterday’s prayer thread, the topic of divorce came up. I have heard that if one spouse is left by the other, the one who was left is free to marry again because they were abandoned by their first spouse.

    Any thoughts on this?

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  25. Well, I guess I can reply to yesterday QoD here: When I started commenting on World, I was living away from home. Sometimes, it felt a little weird to have a community that existed only in pixels and I would back off from posting for a few days. However, I couldn’t help passing on some of the humour and a few good debate exchanges to my family. When I had to come back to my family home, my mother would shake her head over me spending so much time online; but then she noticed how frequently I would have my Bible out on my knee as I discussed some point and she realized that I wasn’t really wasting my time.
    When Mumsee asked me to consider going out to visit her, my mother was surprisingly acquiescent. I was even more surprised when my father accepted the idea. My extended family thought differently – several suggested I was taking an unacceptable risk. When everything went fine (well, for the most part :-D) it seemed to convince everyone that one) the people I was interacting with were real and trustworthy and two) I wasn’t completely insane. Since I ended up on another continent via Aji sun’s invitation on World, my family treats ‘the blog’ as an utterly normal and reasonable activity, although none of them have ever taken the time to read it.

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  27. MakeitMan – I am familiar with the book “To Train Up a Child”. As a homeschooled child from a fundamentalist conservative household who experienced the rod of correction being applied to the seat of learning, I do not see how any parent found excuse to abuse their children from what the book said. My mother did not read the book until after she had raised her children, but she found its views close to what she practiced with us – and I will say here that my mother’s corporal discipline was wisely used and very moderately applied.
    I have other problems with the Pearls’ organization, No Greater Joy, but if I had only read their book on discipline, I would have recommended it to parents. That some parents deliberately misinterpreted what was wrote in order to justify brutality is not the Pearls’ fault; after all, sadistic parents have also used Proverbs to justify beating a child. I would caution against using the No Greater Joy material because of some serious doctrinal problems, but I wouldn’t accuse the Pearls of encouraging child abuse.

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  31. oops, did I say names? The Real, could you please change that to initials if you see this? Thanks. Do you have one of them Six? They are wonderful.

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  32. Chas – Re DDT and malaria: You are correct that banning DDT had far more disastrous effects than most people realize. From The Merchants of Despair:
    “In Ceylon, for example, where, as noted, DDT use had cut malaria cases from millions per year in the 1940s down to just 17 by 1963, its banning in 1964 led to a resurgence of half a million victims per year by 1969.”
    Sadly, now, even if DDT spraying was brought back, malaria carrying mosquitos have developed resistance to it. Thankfully, other methods of control – new medicines and bed nets – are beginning to have an effect; but not in time for those children I saw dying of the disease.

    You say that Nixon did it to please the liberals – actually, he did it to please the conservatives. Eugenics and population control of undesirable has been consistently promoted by political conservatives throughout its history, starting with Malthus. From the same book:
    “But for the Nixon administration, the supposed potential value of population control as a Cold War weapon held the greatest interest. The president charged his National Security Advisor (and Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger with conducting a secret study on the role of population control measures in the fight against global communism… The document-known as National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200)… represented the encoding of Malthusian dogma as the strategic doctrine of the United States. NSSM 200 was leaked in 1990 and consequently declassified…”

    The book then quotes from NSSM 200:
    “Where population pressures lead to endemic famine, food riot, and breakdown of social order, those conditions are scarcely conducive to systematic exploration for mineral deposits or the long-term investment required for their exploitation… The smooth flow of needed material will be jeopardized…
    In developing countries, the burden of population factors, added to others, will weaken unstable governments.. Countries suffering under such burdens will be more susceptible to radicalization…
    With the overall array of U.S. foreign assistance programs, preferential treatment in allocation of funds and manpower should be given to cost-effective programs to reduce population growth    .”

    The book goes on:
    “On November 26, 1975, NSSM 200 was formally adopted as U.S. foreign policy… A follow-up memo issued in 1976 by the NSC (which now included CIA director George H.W. Bush) called for the United States to use control of food supplies to impose population control on a global scale. It further noted the value of using dictatorial power and military force as means to coerce Third World peoples into submission to population control measures.”

    I should mention that this book is written by a conservative writer with little love for the current U.S. administration. I have read two other books that give the same sordid story, written by liberal writers who confess they support abortion choice and birth control but are horrified at what took place in the name of population control. From all that I have read, I would say that the apparent ‘right’ side of the Cold War was actually responsible for more deaths and human rights abuses than Hitler and Stalin put together.

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  34. In case you don’t see the connection to banning DDT and population control, another quote from the book, quoting Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and brother of eugenicist Julian Huxley:
    “..with the aid of DDT we stamp out malaria and, in two or three years, save hundered of thousands of live… But the hundred of thousands of human beings thus saved, and the millions whom they beget… cannot be adequately clothed, housed, educated or even fed.. Quick death by malaria has been abolished, but life made miserable by undernourishment and over-crowding is now the rule…”

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  35. OK You all know that I am your token divorced woman. I am married to a man now who was a divorced single dad for 18 years.

    There are many reasons for divorce. There are lots of emotions associated with divorce. I have experienced most of them.

    I begged my husband for attention for years. I begged him to check in and participate in family life. I was a single mother until I got a divorce and he decided I was serious about everything I said and checked back in as a dad. This past weekend I shared with you something he did that was so typical of how our marriage went. I wanted to do something and he didn’t. If I made him do what I wanted to do he made me miserable or I backed down.

    I became more and more depressed and started seeing a therapist who also went to church with us. She convinced me I was an abused spouse. I kept tellin the group therapy girls that ex-husband would never lay a hand on me. One night one of the other women who also happened to be a therapist followed me outside and told me I might not think I was being abused but I was. Somewhere in all of that I decided to get a divorce.

    I have second guessed that decision almost every day of my life 8 years. I have punished myself for it and I have blamed that decision for almost all the trouble I have had with BG.

    The answer is that there is no easy answer. Divorce is horrible for all involved—even the one who wants it.

    I am happy where I am now. I am married to a man who is unlike any other man I have ever known. He is laid back and easy going. He is kind and generous. I have often looked at him like he is some sort of alien special of man. That doesn’t mean that he is without faults. He has almost as many as I do! BUT! For years I second guessed my decision and I punished myself, feeling like I deserved every bad thing that happened to me because I chose to end my marriage.

    I would encourage all of you to silently pray for any and all you know who may be considering a divorce. Women rally around the women and pray with and for her and men do the same for the men you know and about all remember there is his version, her version, and what really is happening. No one knows the truth except MAYBE the two people involved.

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  36. Thank you, Kim, for sharing. We do all need to be compassionate and helpful, not accusing or guilt causing. We need to stand and pray for those with problems in their marriages.

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  37. Guess What?
    The leader of our Bible study tonight said:
    “……and we say to God, You know what?……….”

    I reckon God didn’t know until we told Him.

    i missed the five minutes of his talk after he said that.
    I know!
    It’s my fault. I’m too picky.
    Elvera says I’m too technical. She may be right.
    But you know what? That’s my only fault.
    The only one I’ll admit publicly.
    😉

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  38. Karen, the apostle Paul says that if an unbeliever wants to stay with a spouse who is a believer, the believing spouse should stay (even if they shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, they are now married; it is a legitimate marriage), but if the unbelieving spouse wants to leave, then let him. The believer is not under bondage in such cases (1 Cor. 7:15). I haven’t actually “studied” this much (though I was once in a relationship-that-didn’t-go-anywhere with a man who was divorced, and it might have become relevant, so I did study it some), but it sure seems logical that “not under bondage” means “no longer tied to the marriage.” Real world example: I know a young lady briefly married to a young man who she realized in retrospect was not a believer. He ended up being unfaithful to her, and she divorced him. To me it all fit together; even with the adultery, if he had been willing to reconcile, I’d have encouraged her to consider it, but it simply was a bad match on all fronts, and biblically she has freedom to remarry.

    It becomes trickier when someone who claims to be a Christian walks away. Do we say that walking away proves they weren’t a believer in the first place? Are we free at some point to remarry anyway? I would say every attempt should be made at reconciliation in such a case, but would want pastoral counsel on whether remarriage is allowed/wise in such a case. I know some people who say divorce is never, ever permitted, even in cases of blatant, unrepented adultery or child abuse. (A theoretical case of child molestation of one’s own children in which Debi Pearl said that the mother should seek the full force of the law in having him send to prison, but then should take him back when he gets out of prison, is far and away one of her more controversial positions. This is heinous and unbiblical.)

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  39. Yes, Mumsee, I do have one of them, 4th Arrow, named by 2nd Arrow, who was blessed with a little sibling born on her 8th birthday.

    “Born on her 8th birthday”…hmmm, Doesn’t sound quite right.

    Although I do have a history of going a long ways past my due dates…

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  50. Good night everyone 🙂
    I have a song that Jesus gave me,
    It was sent from heav’n above;
    There never was a sweeter melody,
    ‘Tis a melody of love.

    In my heart there rings a melody,
    There rings a melody with heaven’s harmony;
    In my heart there rings a melody;
    There rings a melody of love.

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  52. Wow, anonymous, I only beat you by seconds to get 49.
    Janice, my brain is not that clever at 6am, but that would have been a fun comment.
    I am divorced and commented on it at the end of yesterdays prayer thread, but I don’t think that any of you saw it. and since this is late in your day, you probably won’t see this either.
    🙂

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  53. oh, thanks for the song, anonymous. I love to have such sweet tunes running through my mind. At my funeral, I want to have a hymn sing. You all remember now!

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  55. Hi Jo…anon was me…I just couldn’t figure out why I was a green quilt square! I messed around with emails and passwords and finally got it figured out…then I changed my avatar to display the fine young buck who was eating my knock out roses….I told him to scoot and he just looked at me as though he was saying “make me”!! This herd that hangs out on our property is not afraid of us at all…so I let him eat my dormant roses…free pruning!! 🙂
    I love that song myself…I can recall singing it along with my Mom as we would work around the house…we would sing it in harmony…brings back wonderful memories…I want hymns sung at my funeral too! I will sleep well with a joyful heart singing this one over and over…thanks Mumsee and AJ!! 🙂 Good night…

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  56. There’s actually a song with “In my heart there rings a melody”? Now I don’t feel so bad not knowing what Mumsee was saying. 😉 AJ filled in an answer that seemed like a logical next word, but I didn’t know it was a song! Now I’ll have to find it on YouTube, since I can’t sleep, anyway.

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  57. It’s lightly raining here tonight — the dogs and I all came back from the walk rather wet, but happy.

    The cat is elated with a large box I’ve given to her to play in. She’s got some imaginary game going that involves racing about the living room with an occasional attack and head-on charge into the box.

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  60. You know, I was just thinking, with all the Anonymouses (or is that Anonymice?) that show up around here, wouldn’t it be kind of fun if we all decided to be Anonymous on the same day… How quickly do you think we could guess each other’s identities?

    Maybe we could be really tricky and talk about something we’re not known to talk about. Or something.

    This is how my late-night brain works, folks. Everyone who wakes up tomorrow and reads this will wonder what in the world happened to me. 😉

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  63. Jo, I did see your comment on the prayer thread about the divorce and how your ex got married three days afterwards. I thought that must have been awfully hard to deal with, but sometimes people do have to say good riddance and shake the dust off of their feet. Do you ever consider that your ex gave you the gift of drawing even closer to God? When I see your smile, I see the joy of the Lord in you.

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  64. Why thank you Janice. it was hard and especially for the kids. But… God uses hard things for good and He used this to bring me here. Right where He wanted me. I miss the grandkids, but there is something about doing the job that He gives you that brings joy. I found that God had been drawing me close to Him right before that time as I was in BSF leaders and He used it to fill me up with His word so that I would stand firm in the hard times.

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  65. when I come home at Christmas for a few weeks (and I don’t even know where I am staying yet or have the tickets) I am going to click on all these cool video links you all keep posting.

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