“Westboro Baptist Church targets Taylor Swift,” the headline read. The article had a flavor of outrage, and rightly so. Fred Phelps, WBC’s leader and tireless purveyor of damnation, is at it again. This time, as chronicled by Pop Spy’s Jennifer O’Dell, Phelps’s acolytes are up in arms about Continue reading
Doomsday Gospel
Posted in Christianity in Politics
Tagged condemnation, damnation, debauchery, decadence, evil, forgiveness, fornication, Fred Phelps, God, Gospel, grace, heathen, immorality, Jesus, kindness, love, lust, mercy, patience, politics, press, promiscuity, sexual immorality, sin, Westboro Baptist Church
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Trust
I just finished watching The Impossible, a new film in which a youngish couple played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts have brought their three boys to Indonesia and settled into a coastal bungalow just in time for the 2004 tsunami ― the largest on record. They are frolicking in the swimming pool when they hear a great rumbling. They look up to see birds flying away from the ocean and trees bending in the wind. Continue reading
Posted in Acceptance, Trust
Tagged adversity, calamity, cataclysm, confidence, death, disaster, good, hardship, joy, life, loss, love, pain, peace, redemption, rescue, salvation, sorrow, sovereignty, triumph, trust, victory
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Early Sunset
I’m losing my sister. Erica has been fighting illness for months and had just started on a third round of chemo when we found out that her cancer had advanced rapidly, leaving her with no more than a week or two left, barring a sudden reversal. Continue reading
Posted in Grief
Tagged bereavement, Grief, grieve, heaven, hope, hospice, illness, life after death, loss, redemption, sad, sadness, salvation
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Diverging Paths
I got a text from an old friend yesterday that put the last 20 years of my life in a whole different light.
I had an insanely demanding day yesterday and wasn’t able to read Richard’s text until this morning Continue reading
Posted in Grace, Love, Suffering
Tagged choices, confinement, corrections, crime, deliverance, diverging, fork, fortune, God, grace, incarceration, institutions, jail, justice, juvenile, life, locked up, mercy, path, prison, punishment, redemption, road, salvation
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Land of the Morning Calm
Peter joined the U.S. Army in 1981. He had studied Taekwondo extensively for years, so when the time came to discuss his deployment, he asked to be stationed in Korea where the discipline of Taekwondo had been developed during the 1950s and ’60s. Continue reading
Posted in Friendship, Giving, Kindness
Tagged benevolence, cold, culture, exhausted, famished, friendship, giving, hardship, hostility, hungry, kindness, love, mercy, misconceptions, prejudice, racism, soldiers, tired, war, wet
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The Tower of Babel
A stranger on the other side of the world taught me that the Tower of Babel was a blessing. Let me explain. I was tooling around Facebook late last night when a lady I’ve never met accepted my friend request. Her name is Hulya, and she lives in Turkey. I had sent her a friend request on impulse.
First, let’s get this out of the way—she is pretty. Okay. This certainly was a factor in my friending her. But it just so happens that I have a soft spot in my heart for Turks. Continue reading
Posted in Relationships
Tagged beauty, communicate, culture, feeling, feelings, friend, friends, friendship, friendships, gentleness, honesty, humanity, kindness, language, read, speak, talk, Tower of Babel, warmth, write
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Overturning Adam
“Mankind differs from the animals only by a little, and most people throw that away” –Confucius Continue reading
Posted in Renewal
Tagged Adam & Eve, alienation, Animal Kingdom, animals, animosity, creatures, distrust, enemies, enmity, estrangement, fear, friendship, mistrust, reconciliation, renewal, restoration, the Curse, the Fall, trust
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Long Black Train
When we catch our first sight of it, nothing could be more appealing. It doesn’t look black at all. It is bright, sleek and beckons with sophistication. Through its spotless windows you can see handsome, fresh-faced people on board, full of pluck and charm, having the time of their lives. Continue reading
Posted in Sin
Tagged corrupt, corruption, death, decay, depravity, destruction, evil, hades, hell, lost, perdition, road to perdition, sin, vile, wickedness
6 Comments
Freezing the Wages of Those Tipped is Cold Act
Published in the Anchorage Daily News February 7, 2010
Here we go again. CHARR has managed to rope in the Legislature on the latest pursuit of its longstanding dream of rifling through the pockets of tipped Alaska employees. This time, instead of trying to reduce wages directly, which was soundly rejected several years ago, CHARR has introduced House Bill 240 to freeze tipped employees’ wages if they make more than $15 per hour including tips. Let time and inflation take the blame for their gradual loss of wages. Clever. Continue reading
Posted in Labor Politics
Tagged bartenders, capital, CHARR, hospitality industry, hotels, IRS, labor, labor laws, laws, minimum wage, National Restaurant Association, pay, restaurants, servers, taxes, tip credit, tipped employees, tips, upward mobility, wages
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Lack of Public Transportation Progress Hurts Anchorage
Published in the Anchorage Daily News, May 9, 2009
Welcome, Mayor-elect Dan Sullivan. You will soon be dealing with a domino chain of fresh budget shortfalls and a citizenry upset about rising property taxes and also against a sales tax. But if you try to satisfy our tax-free fantasies, Mr. Mayor, I’m afraid you may be tempted to cut public transportation, either directly or by ignoring upkeep. I hope instead you will consider a forward-thinking approach and offer a real alternative to drivers and pedestrians. Continue reading
Posted in Green Revolution
Tagged automobiles, cars, city buses, clean energy, driving, federal grants, fossil fuels, green, infrastructure, public transportation, transit systems
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