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How atheism is being sold to America
Religion – including Christianity and Judaism – is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." At least that's according to the No. 1 New York Times bestseller "God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.
In the news business, we often cite a nation's current top-selling books – for example, the popularity of anti-Semitic titles in Arab countries – as evidence of the mindset of the people.
Well, in the United States of America right now, some of the most-bought, most-read and most-discussed books are angry, in-your-face atheist manifestos.
Besides Hitchens' book, which has dominated nonfiction bestseller charts for months, there's the popular "Letter to a Christian Nation" by atheist author Sam Harris, sequel to his earlier tome "The End of Faith," and Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" – all New York Times bestsellers.
Then there are other hot titles: "God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist" by Victor J. Stenger. "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" by Daniel C. Dennett. "Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism" by David Mills. And so on.
"This is atheism's moment," crowed David Steinberger, CEO of Perseus Books in a Wall Street Journal interview. "Mr. Hitchens has written the category killer, and we're excited about having the next book." That's right – this fall the publishing world will further cash in on the anti-God juggernaut with "The Pocket Atheist," featuring the writings of famous atheists, edited by Hitchens.
"How can this be?," you might wonder. "Hasn't America always been a Christian nation?"
No question about it. America was founded by Christians. Its very purpose for being was the furtherance of biblical Christianity, according to the Pilgrims and succeeding generations. Our first school system was created expressly to propagate the Christian faith. Almost all the Founding Fathers who drafted and signed the Constitution were believers. Even Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer, in the high court's 1892 "Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States" decision, proclaimed the obvious: "This is a Christian nation."
Today, however, many of us are infatuated with outright, outraged, full-bore atheism. Almost half of Americans – 45 percent according to a recent Gallup poll – say they'd be willing to vote for an atheist for president of the United States. Dawkins, the charismatic evolutionist-author, is even selling young people "Scarlet Letter" tee-shirts with a giant "A" – for "Atheist" – on his website (and bumper stickers too). Somehow, atheism – just like homosexuality, which used to be considered shameful and something to hide – is now becoming hip, sophisticated, even a badge of honor.
What is responsible for this blooming of atheism in America today?
Dennis Prager, the brilliant Jewish radio talker and columnist, ferrets out some key reasons.
"First and most significant," he points out, "is the amount of evil coming from within Islam." He explains:
Whether Islamists (or jihadists, Islamo-fascists or whatever else Muslims who slaughter innocents in the name of Islam are called) represent a small sliver of Muslims or considerably more than that, they have brought religious faith into terrible disrepute.
How could they not? The one recognized genocide in the world today is being carried out by religious Muslims in Sudan; liberty is exceedingly rare in any of the dozens of nations with Muslim majorities; treatment of women is frequently awful; and tolerance of people with different religious beliefs is largely nonexistent when Muslims dominate a society.
If the same were true of vegetarians – if mass murder and violent intolerance were carried out by vegetarians – there would be a backlash against vegetarianism even among people who previously had no strong feelings about the doctrine.
Remember, to atheists, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all pretty much the same – dangerous monotheistic fairy tales that induce people to oppress and kill each other – the only difference being the particular myths, superstitions and rules they impose on followers based on each religion's traditions and supposed "holy books."
Thus, the pathological fanaticism and hair-trigger violence exhibited by brainwashed jihadists around the world today are easily associated by atheists with all religions, especially when they call to mind abuses committed in past centuries – say, the Inquisition or the Salem witch trials – in the name of Christianity.
Another major, if more long-term, factor contributing to the popularity of atheist books, Prager notes, is the "secular indoctrination of a generation," thanks to our de facto atheistic public school system:
Unless one receives a strong religious grounding in a religious school and/or religious home, the average young person in the Western world is immersed in a secular cocoon. From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages. I have taught college students and have found that their ignorance not only of the Bible but of the most elementary religious arguments and concepts – such as the truism that if there is no God, morality is subjective – is total.
So the generation that has been secularly brainwashed is now buying books that reconfirm that brainwash – especially now, given the evil coming from religious people.
Finally, observes Prager, Christianity and Judaism have, with some notable exceptions, failed to effectively counter the ever-rising tide of atheistic secularism in the Western world. Pointing out that "it is virtually impossible to distinguish between a liberal Christian or Jew and a liberal secularist," he notes that all three "regard the human fetus as morally worthless; regard the man-woman definition of marriage as a form of bigotry; and come close to holding pacifist beliefs, to cite but a few examples."
Thus, with religious evil increasing in the world – thanks to Islam – and fewer and fewer people willing and able to confront it, Prager concludes "the case for atheism will seem even more compelling."
'Feigned knowing and a sneer'
Well, not that compelling. Even secular media bastion the Washington Post couldn't miss the fatal flaws in "God Is Not Great."
"Hitchens claims that some of his best friends are believers," says Post reviewer and confessed Hitchens fan Stephen Prothero. "If so, he doesn't know much about his best friends. He writes about religious people the way northern racists used to talk about 'Negroes' – with feigned knowing and a sneer. 'God Is Not Great' assumes a childish definition of religion and then criticizes religious people for believing such foolery."
Noting that Hitchens "is a brilliant man" and even that "there is no living journalist I more enjoy reading," the Post reviewer nevertheless goes for the throat: "But I have never encountered a book whose author is so fundamentally unacquainted with its subject. In the end, this maddeningly dogmatic book does little more than illustrate one of Hitchens' pet themes – the ability of dogma to put reason to sleep."
So, why then is Hitchens' book so mesmerizing to so many?
Partly because he has a huge intellect, and most of us are impressed and frankly intimidated by superior intellect and knowledge – even if the bearer of those gifts is profoundly misguided. And partly because he's a superb writer, and inherent in skilled and passionate writing is the power to persuade, to shake up, even convert. It's a bit of magic, the way words strung together perfectly can play and dance on the brain, stimulating emotions and pulling on the strings of the mind in one direction or another.
And yet, upon close examination, what first appear to be powerfully logical atheist arguments turn out to be dust.
For instance, Hitchens boasts in Vanity Fair that on his nationwide book tour he says to his audiences: "My challenge: Name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever. I have since asked this question at every stop and haven't had a reply yet."
Sam Harris makes the same argument, forcefully pointing out that human beings are born with an ethical sense of right and wrong – even if they don't believe in God. And the atheist standard-bearers cite this as evidence no God exists.
Do they never pause to wonder whether God puts this moral sense, or conscience, into each person whether or not that person is aware of his Creator?
A little child innately knows it's wrong to steal even though he's too young to have any knowledge or belief about God. For most people, their inborn sense of justice and injustice operates as intended – just as their arms and legs and heart and lungs do – even if they're not mindful of their Creator's existence. When atheists see an old woman fall down in the middle of a street, they stop to help her as readily as anyone else. It's called common decency.
Thus the very evidence of God – in the form of a mysterious moral sense of right and wrong that transcends time, place, culture and conditioning, a trait shared by no other animal – becomes for the atheist proof of just the opposite, that there is no God.
Here's a funny one: If atheism is inherently so progressive and tolerant, and religion so ignorant and violent, as we're told, how then do our atheist Pied Pipers explain the 100 million-plus innocent men, women and children slaughtered by their own atheist governments during communism's 20th century reign of terror?
Simple. Hitchens simply declares atheistic communist dictatorships to be "religious." Quoting his hero George Orwell, Hitchens says "a totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy," thus making Stalin's mass murders of tens of millions of his countrymen not the work of an atheist, but of religion! In North Korea today, the problem is not communism, but out-of-control Confucianism, insists Hitchens.
Uh-huh. And what about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hitchens admires? How does he square the leader of the '60s historic Civil Rights Movement with his having been a Christian minister? Well you see, explains Hitchens, whatever good King accomplished was due to his humanism, not Christianity. "In fact," notes the Post, "King was not actually a Christian at all, argues Hitchens, since he rejected the sadism that characterizes the teachings of Jesus."
So, the millions of innocents murdered by atheistic communists during the last century don't count against atheism in Hitchens' book, since communism isn't really atheistic – its atheist leaders being so delusional that they're sort of, you know, religious. But Rev. King, whom Hitchens likes, wasn't really a Christian at all, since he didn't embrace the "sadism" of the most compassionate, virtuous and self-sacrificial being ever to walk the earth.
And this passes for brilliant analysis?
Evolution, of course, is a key battleground for all of atheism's champions. Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist often nicknamed "Darwin's Rottweiler," condemns people who believe in creationism as "evil." (Strong, absolutist words for someone who doesn't believe in God.) Hitchens mockingly catalogues various parts of the human body, taking witty pot shots at their "poor design." And Harris – with stunning chutzpah – writes in "Letter to a Christian Nation" that "nature offers no compelling evidence for an intelligent designer and countless examples of unintelligent design."
Sam, what are you thinking?
A single dandelion, considered from a strictly scientific, analytical perspective, contains more unimaginable complexity and spellbinding design brilliance – from its atomic and molecular design to its cellular and plant structure – than all the manmade supercomputers in the entire world combined.
"No compelling evidence for an intelligent designer"? Sounds like Harris has uncritically accepted a religious teaching that doesn't square with reality.
That's right, evolution is a religion, full of incredible and unproven beliefs about man's origin, and by logical extension his destiny, and even his very nature. Any theory/philosophy – especially an unprovable one – having to do with explaining the origin, destiny and nature of man is, by definition, religious. If you don't get that, you're not thinking.
Ironically, many of the same human weaknesses and pressures that induce people to accept their religion unthinkingly also lead atheists to embrace evolution's belief system just as mindlessly. Within the current science establishment there are overwhelming academic and professional pressures to embrace evolution – and persecution if one does not. No room for honest inquiry or, Heaven forbid, a good-faith challenge to current orthodoxy.
When Harris and other atheist-evolutionists protest there's just no evidence of intelligent design, one has to laugh – just as history's greatest scientists, from Galileo to Newton, would also laugh incredulously at today's atheists for their conceit, arrogance and monumental blindness. In "The Marketing of Evil" I briefly explore this point:
From the beginning of human life until Darwin came along in the mid-19th century, human beings would step outside their homes and survey with their eyes and minds the wonders of nature. They'd see majestic 400-year-old redwood trees, hummingbirds that were able to hover, and honeybees that somehow knew how to do a special figure-eight dance that would communicate to all of the other worker bees the precise location of the dancer's newly discovered nectar source.
Looking in every direction, we humans beheld not only fantastic complexity, diversity and order, but also the supreme intelligence behind creation, as brashly evident as the noonday sun.
This ubiquitous natural wonderland caused man to acknowledge and honor the Creator of creation, as Copernicus did when he wrote, "[The world] has been built for us by the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all." Or as Galileo wrote, "God is known … by Nature in His works and by doctrine in His revealed word." Or as Pasteur confessed, "The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator." Or Isaac Newton: "When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."
Did not happen by chance?
Ever since Darwin and his successors succeeded in selling us on evolution – a fantastic theory for which there is no proof, and many serious problems – when we now walk outside and look at the created universe, what do many of us see? Chance!
Although our eyes survey the same wonders of God's creation that inspired faith in our predecessors, in our minds today we see only the meaningless result of millions of years of random, chance mutation. That's what our minds "see" – the eternal dance of purposeless recombination of ever-more-complex forms, but all without meaning, without spirit, without love. And by direct implication we also "see" that man is not a fallen being needful of God's saving grace, but merely the cleverest, most evolved animal of all. Since evolution by definition always results in improvement and advancement, man and all of his violent and lustful and selfish drives are perfectly normal and natural and … advanced. There is no good and evil, no Heaven and Hell – and man, as a highly evolved monkey, has no sin and no guilt – as these are logical impossibilities from the evolutionary point of view.
In short, whatever else evolution may be, the driving force behind it today is the same as it has always been – a way to deny God's existence.
I conducted a little thought experiment a while back, while looking out over the Pacific from the Oregon coast. Drinking in the vast expanse of the ocean, the pounding surf, the seagulls, the salt air – ultimate serenity and ultimate power all in one timeless moment – I asked myself: How can one experience all this magnificence without believing in a Creator?
So I tried, just as an experiment mind you, to conceptualize the existence of the fantastic creation I was beholding, yet without a Creator. I consciously tried to adopt an atheistic worldview, even for just a minute, to see what it was like.
What I got was a headache, a psychic shock, a momentary taste of another realm – an empty, prideful, appalling dimension of hell-on-earth, masquerading as enlightenment and freedom.
That's why the conflict between theism and atheism is not just a philosophical topic for polite debate over tea. It's a spiritual war of the worlds. That high anxiety I felt momentarily, as I tasted the "other dimension" that animates those who reject the very idea of God, was minor and passing. But I'm quite sure hard-core atheists feel agony when the opposite happens to them – that is, when they chance to experience a fleeting moment of realization that God exists, and that they are accountable ultimately to Him.
This would account for the near-explosive emotion that always seems to surround this "objective, scientific" subject. Underneath all the scientific pretension, it's all about man being master of his own destiny, about freedom from accountability to God, about being released from Judeo-Christian sexual morality, about making up your own rules, about sustaining the life of pride and individual will.
In a very real sense, it's about being your own god.
Rebelling against father
Another giant flaw in atheist thinking is plastered right on the cover of Hitchens' book. His title is "God Is Not Great," with the subtitle "How Religion Poisons Everything." Hitchens is equating "God" with "religion." Big mistake! God is God, but even true religion is full of imperfect people – often confused, and sometimes corrupt or even crazy.
So, are atheists rebelling against God – or against religion? Good question.
If genuinely against God, they have an unsolvable problem – unless they come to realize their error, as many do at some point in their lives. But if they're rebelling against religion, then clearly they deserve a little sympathy.
After all, religion in the modern world is a mess. And I'm not talking just about the cancerous jihad movement metastasizing within Islam. Even within Christianity – an authentic "religion of peace" – you have major scandals like the Roman Catholic Church's 10,000-plus cases (since 1950) of alleged child sexual abuse at the hands of predatory priests, as well as the Protestant world's abundance of high-profile scandals, sexual and otherwise. Then you have the absurdly unbiblical, leftist agenda of many so-called "mainline" Protestant denominations, including their idiotic attacks on Israel, the ordination of homosexuals and lesbians as church leaders and so on.
But even more troubling than all of this is the shallowness and superficiality in far too much of the modern Christian church.
On a recent Saturday afternoon I was channel-surfing and ended up watching the notorious 2004 film "Saved," a satire that mercilessly skewers evangelical Christianity and features in the lead role a vain, duplicitous and occasionally downright mean adolescent Christian girl. The movie has been understandably condemned by many Christians.
Just for a lark, during commercials I flipped over to some of the Christian television networks to catch a little "real" Christian programming. It was eerie, almost surreal, how similar the "real" Christian preachers, fund-raisers and sidekicks were to the "caricatures" of the same types portrayed mockingly in the film.
Nothing in this world will more readily turn even decent people away from God (at least for a time) than religious leaders who are phonies. Unfortunately, it's easy for guilty, denial-steeped people, those who aren't yet ready to genuinely face themselves, to clothe themselves with the appearance of religiosity, while secretly – perhaps unconsciously – preserving their selfish, sinful nature. This is what we call hypocrisy. And it's very confusing to people who are looking up to such prideful leaders for guidance and example.
In the same way, when parents are religious hypocrites, or emotionally "high" on their religion, or pretentious, or impatient and willful, or just confidently parroting "truth" they've heard but don't really understand – their kids can sense something wrong, at first anyway. But because children are not yet mature and are easily influenced, they almost always end up either conforming (out of intimidation) to their parents' mold and becoming just like them, or (eventually) rejecting religion altogether. Of course, the more such confusing parents try to "help" their rebel children, the more their kids resent them and become even more rebellious.
I know these are tough words, but if we're ever going to understand why so many people are turning not only to atheism, but to Wicca and paganism and New Age religions and myriad other strange spiritual philosophies and practices – then we need to face the sad state of the modern church. Many thoughtful analysts say the church today is more in need of overhaul than it was at the time of the Protestant Reformation.
Yelling at God
Let's move on now and focus on the No. 1 argument, not only today but throughout history, against the existence of God: "If there's a loving and all-powerful God, how can He allow the human race – His children, made in His image – to suffer so terribly?" This question has often been called "the rock of atheism."
In "Letter to a Christian Nation," atheist scientist Sam Harris hammers this point into the ground:
"At this very moment," he writes, "millions of sentient people are suffering unimaginable physical and mental afflictions, in circumstances where the compassion of God is nowhere to be seen, and the compassion of human beings is often hobbled by preposterous ideas about sin and salvation."
Attempting to rub the reader's nose in the age-old mystery of suffering, Harris goes on: "Somewhere in the world, a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl's parents believe – as you believe – that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this. Is it good that they believe this?"
"No," answers Harris, who adds, cryptically: "The entirety of atheism is contained in this response."
From the day's news, Harris calls forth still more examples of great suffering as evidence that God doesn't exist: "The city of New Orleans, for instance, was recently destroyed by a hurricane. More than a thousand people died; tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions; and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Hurricane Katrina struck shared your belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God. But what was God doing while Katrina laid waste to their city? Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Do you have the courage to admit the obvious? These poor people died talking to an imaginary friend."
Mankind has grappled for millennia with the mystery of suffering, and how it can possibly be compatible with an all-powerful and benevolent God. Let's explore this question together for a few minutes and see if perhaps we can catch a glimpse of a greater reality.
To begin with, let's consider one more famous voice angrily condemning God as cruel and sadistic. See if you can guess who the speaker is:
What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, "good"? Doesn't all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite? …
If God's goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God: for in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine.
So, who do you think this is ranting and raving against God? The ever-fuming journalist Christopher Hitchens? The haughty Oxford professor Richard Dawkins?
No, actually it's another Oxford professor, far more famous than Dawkins, and whose intellect and writing ability dwarf Hitchens'. It's C.S. Lewis, one of the 20th century's most influential defenders of the Christian faith.
As you may know, Lewis was an atheist for the first part of his life. Through a gradual spiritual awakening during his early 30s, he first became convinced of the existence of God, and later – with the help of "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien and another colleague – embraced the Christian faith. Through his books, like "Mere Christianity" (voted the best Christian book of the 20th century by Christianity Today in 2000), "The Screwtape Letters" (now being made into a feature film for 2008 release) and many others – including of course his beloved "Chronicles of Narnia" series – he helped, and continues to help, countless people in their journey toward God.
"So," you must be thinking, "these angry anti-God words from the great C.S. Lewis must have come from his early, whacked-out atheist years – right?"
They were written after "Narnia," after "Mere Christianity," after all the acclaim of an appreciative Christian world. They were written, to be precise, after the 1960 death of Lewis' wife, Joy, in his book "A Grief Observed."
For most of his life, well into his 50s, Lewis the author, literature professor at Oxford and Cambridge and celebrated Christian apologist, had been a bachelor. Then he met Helen Joy Davidman, an unusually gifted American writer and poet of Jewish background who had converted from atheistic communism to Christianity, in part due to Lewis' writings. After they corresponded for several years, she moved to England and they married in 1956, when Lewis was 57.
Both of them knew Joy had bone cancer. In fact, they were married at Joy's hospital bedside.
Amazingly, Joy experienced a dramatic remission, during which time the couple lived together happily, traveled and enjoyed each other to the fullest. But this blissful period was short-lived, and Joy died when her cancer returned with a vengeance in 1960.
In his 1961 book, "A Grief Observed," Lewis records for posterity his intense bereavement – including his very real angers and doubts about everything he had written and taught about God for decades – and does it in such a raw and uncensored manner that he originally released the book under the pseudonym of N.W. Clerk, so readers wouldn't associate it with him.
But let's see how Lewis responded to this severe personal suffering – and what conclusions he ultimately came to about God. He begins, understandably enough, poignantly grieving the loss of his beloved (whom he referred to in the book as "H," for Helen):
… The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant – in a word, real. Is all that work to be undone? Is what I shall still call [Helen] to sink back horribly into being not much more than one of my old bachelor pipedreams? Oh my dear, my dear, come back for one moment and drive that miserable phantom away. Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back – to be sucked back – into it? …
… What pitiable cant to say, "She will live forever in my memory!" Live? That is exactly what she won't do. You might as well think like the old Egyptians that you can keep the dead by embalming them. Will nothing persuade us that they are gone? What's left? A corpse, a memory, and (in some versions) a ghost. All mockeries or horrors. Three more ways of spelling the word dead. It was H. I loved. As if I wanted to fall in love with my memory of her, an image in my own mind! It would be a sort of incest. …
Meanwhile, asks Lewis, where on earth is God?
This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. …
Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not "So there's no God after all," but "So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer."
Now Lewis zeroes in on the key question:
… Sooner or later I must face the question in plain language. What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, "good"? Doesn't all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite? What have we to set against it?
We set Christ against it. But how if He were mistaken? Almost His last words may have a perfectly clear meaning. He had found that the Being He called Father was horribly and infinitely different from what He had supposed. The trap, so long and carefully prepared and so subtly baited, was at last sprung, on the cross. The vile practical joke had succeeded.
In his despair, Lewis goes on to speculate darkly about the "vile practical joke" played on him and his beloved.
What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers H. and I offered and all the false hopes we had. Not hopes raised merely by our own wishful thinking, hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnoses, by X-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were "led up the garden path." Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.
The next morning, Lewis thinks better of his agonized rant.
I wrote that last night. It was a yell rather than a thought. Let me try it over again. Is it rational to believe in a bad God? Anyway, in a God so bad as all that? The Cosmic Sadist, the spiteful imbecile?
And coming to his senses, he asks:
Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense? Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.
'Knocked silly'
Eventually, after fully expressing his anger, inconsolable grief and doubts about God, Lewis starts to turn a major corner.
… Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. … And suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed, it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.
… How far have I got? Just as far, I think, as a widower of another sort who would stop, leaning on his spade, and say in answer to the inquiry, "Thank'ee. Mustn't grumble. I do miss her something dreadful. But they say these things are sent to try us." We have come to the same point; he with his spade, and I, who am not now much good at digging, with my own instrument. But of course, one must take "sent to try us" in the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box and the bench all at once.
Lewis finally admits a shattering but also liberating personal truth …
He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down. …
… And he offers a useful metaphor to explain the powerfully redemptive use God makes of human suffering.
… Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game, "or else people won't take it seriously." Apparently it's like that. Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world.
Nothing less will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses.
In the afterglow of this profound realization, Lewis, in a moment of story-telling brilliance, confides in God:
Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a "spiritual animal." To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, "Now get on with it. Become a god."
Why do you suppose one person who suffers a tremendous personal loss also loses his belief in God, while another goes through the same experience and – despite all his transient doubts and angers – emerges with his faith intact, and stronger than ever?
Why did some people survive the Nazi Holocaust only to conclude there is no God – or no God worth knowing if He would allow such suffering – while other Holocaust survivors emerged from that ordeal with a far deeper faith in the Almighty?
What words can describe this mysterious quality? Humility, faith, blessedness, grace? It's actually beyond words – perhaps some secret mystical connection between our soul and God, some back-channel that enables us to keep attuned to a proper perspective regardless of difficult circumstances.
That special quality – C.S. Lewis had it – is the secret ingredient that makes the good things that happen to us truly good, and the bad things that happen to us also good, because God uses them to perfect our character. In the same way, for people who live from the energy and motivation of pride (which in turn is connected to the invisible realm of evil), the bad things that happen remain bad (non-redemptive), but even the "good" things (success, wealth, fame) aren't good either, because they just build pride, in ever-increasing conflict with God.
Our life is a gift – including the suffering. It's time we stopped spitting at the gift-Giver. Atheists who rant pompously against God are a little like ants, muttering and sputtering furiously against man, believing themselves superior to him (if he even exists!).
Life is not only a gift from God, but it's supposed to be magical – or maybe "miraculous" is a better word – and full of adventure and discovery. I'm not referring to our outer journey of life, which may or may not be particularly exciting, but to the inner adventure we're meant to experience – a journey of discovery whereby through progressive realization and repentance our character is gradually perfected for the Creator's purpose. The enchantment of such a life is subtle and private – no one else will know about it – but it's more magical than anything in "Harry Potter" or "The Lord of the Rings" or "The Narnia Chronicles" or any other fantasy from the mind of man. Because we are living characters, set in a story not from the mind of man, but from the mind of God. And that story is full of wonder.
An acorn falls to the ground, dies to itself, and effortlessly grows into a towering oak tree – a transformation which, if it occurred in a few seconds, we'd consider pure magic. But, since that same magic unfolds in slow motion over the course of 50 years, we think nothing of it. We walk past such marvels constantly and shrug, just as we bypass the potential miracles of character growth within each of us – dying and being reborn – because we don't understand God's methods. Sometimes there is miraculous transformation in suffering – but only if we endure it with patience and dignity, and not with resentment.
God works miracles through the things we suffer. Even Christ, the perfect Son of God, learned obedience that way, Scripture tells us.
"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (Hebrews 5:8-9 KJV)
So, even if we suffer, even if we need to be "knocked silly" like C.S. Lewis, even if we lose everything like Job, what of it? The magic of redemption is in the air when we suffer with patience and humility and without anger – and allow God to transform us at our core, into the giant oak. This is a great mystery.
And what of the atheist? He also breathes a kind of magic air, but of a very different variety. He is his own god, or so it seems. That kind of freedom has a sort of sweet stench – a little like those green Christmas-tree-shaped air fresheners that people hang from their car's rear-view mirror, meant to make the car smell better but which actually emit an offensive odor. Just so, the "sweetness" of pride, of being your own god and master of your destiny, has a spiritual scent that is noxious to sincere seekers of truth.
Meanwhile, as atheist authors write books and lecture and travel to and fro persuading as many of us as possible to abandon our faith, lift up your gaze: The enemy is amassing and heading for the city's gates. The global Islamic jihad movement, which is single-mindedly focused on spreading Islam over the world at the point of a sword – or a gun or a bomb or a suitcase nuke – has awakened after centuries of relative dormancy and is on the prowl again, seeking whom it may devour. The waning of genuine Christian faith in America is like a pheromone, a sweet scent this predator can't resist. And yet – just as God brought ancient Israel back to life over and over, don't count us out.
It's been said it takes a religion to fight a religion. Thus, however many angry and clever books atheists write expounding their arguments, they'll never make any headway in countering radical Islam. You see, genuine belief in God – the God Who inspired the Holy Bible and sustained America's soldiers throughout all the righteous wars we have fought for freedom, not just for ourselves but for others too – is what has given strength and muscle and sinew to America up until now. And without genuine faith in God, we will never be able to defeat the Islamists in the coming battle. Why? Because their belief – and therefore their determination, persistence and willingness to suffer for the sake of obedience to their god – will be more powerful than ours.
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DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co expanded its global recall of cars with defective ignition switches to 2.6 million on Friday, adding 971,000 later-model vehicles due to concerns over faulty replacement parts.
The recall now includes all model years of the Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet HHR, Saturn Ion, Saturn Sky, Pontiac G5 and Pontiac Solstice made from 2003-2011.
At least 12 deaths have been linked to the defect in the ignition, which when jostled or bumped can switch itself into "accessory" mode, even at highway speeds, shutting down the engine and disabling power steering, power brakes and airbags.
The expanded recall follows a Reuters report on Wednesday that it was still possible to purchase GM-brand ignition switches manufactured by Delphi Automotive carrying the same part number as the product at the center of the February recall.
GM redesigned the faulty part for model years after 2007, but it did not change the part number, and it fears that some newer-model cars could have been repaired with defective older-model switches.
Switches still available in parts stores may not be defective, but it is nearly impossible to tell new ones from older-design ones unless they are taken apart or the manufacturing history is checked, Reuters reported.
Even before the expansion, the recall had sparked investigations by Congress, federal regulators, the Department of Justice and GM itself. All are asking why it took GM so long to address an issue first noted by the company in 2001.
GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Friday that "we are taking no chances with safety" in replacing the ignition switches on all 2.6 million cars. Barra is due to testify next week before Congress, where she is likely to be grilled on why it took GM more than 10 years to implement the recall.
The expanded recall adds 971,000 cars globally, including 824,000 in the United States, GM said.
GM also is recalling all the replacement ignition switches that have been sent to U.S. aftermarket distributors, the spare parts market. About 95,000 faulty switches were sold to dealers and parts wholesalers, of which about 5,000 remain on shelves.
GM said Friday that no deaths or injuries have been linked to faulty ignition switches in the newer models that have been added to the recall. Older versions of those cars, dating from 2003-2007, were recalled in two tranches in February.
GM had said on Thursday that the replacement ignition switch it has ordered from Delphi to use in the earlier recall will bear a new part number that "eliminates any potential confusion about which part to use in the repair," according to a company spokesman.
GM said owners will be notified by mail the week of April 21 and can have ignition switches replaced for free at dealers "as parts become available" — a process that is likely to take months because of the sheer number of vehicles involved.
GM also launched a website, www.gmignitionupdate.com, to provide consumers with information on the recall.
GM replaced the Cobalt in 2010 with a newer compact, the Cruze. On Friday, the automaker told U.S. dealers to stop selling certain 2013 and 2014 Cruze sedans equipped with 1.4-liter engines without saying why.
Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit, editing by Peter Henderson

subset: commoncrawl


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Lars Fredrik Lunde needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 250 designs submitted by 78 freelance designers.
Hyttekos is a small company that sells furniture and interior for mountain cabins. We are now going to make a webpage where we can display our products and need a logo for that purpose. The logo and site shall reflect a traditional Norwegian handcrafted style.
On the webpage http://artex.ee/ you can see some of the products that we will display on the new website.
The target audience is people who own cabins or are going to buy a cabin in the near future (and need furniture/interior)
The logo shall reflect traditional Norwegian handcrafting tradition. We believe it's difficult for you designers who's never been to Norway to understand what this means, and ask that you look at these websites for inspiration:
We are going to use varm colors like brown, beige maybe red on the website - But open for other suggestions.
'Hyttekos' consists of two Norwegian words: 'Hytte' which means cabin and 'Kos' which means cozy.
Some clues: Traditional Norwegian, old fashion, carvings in wood, patterns, cozy, warm, cabin, mountain.
We do not want the logo to be: modern, minimalistic or sterile.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Femi Leye - Daara
Falz - Talk
Sound Sultan - OSAC
Oritse Femi - Make Am
Phyno - OIL (prod. Soularge)
D'Tunes ft. SkiiBii & Reminisce - Ori Owo
Ayo Jay ft. Akon & Safaree - No Feelings
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IPC on TwitterMy Tweets
Recent Comments
The (unofficial) blog of the BCLA Information Policy Committee
We've had a week of responses to the Access Copyright (AC) lawsuit against York University, and predictably they haven't been very supportive of AC's decision to defend what the Canadian Federation of Students calls "obsolete licensing agreements" and "archaic models." Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) President Thomas Hickerson said in CARL's statement,
Access Copyright's action seems to question rather clear copyright law and jurisprudence, and feels very much like an attempt to intimidate universities into buying their blanket licence.
But why would AC need to be intimidating institutions into using its services? A big answer to that question comes from the Supreme Court's 2012 decisions supporting Fair Dealing for education. It was these rulings that undermined AC's business model by supporting a more open approach to copyright in educational matters. In those rulings, as Howard Knopf pointed out at the time:
- Collectives cannot assume that they will be entitled to an additional "layer" of remunerated rights every time there is a new method of delivery. Technological neutrality matters.
- The Court said what it meant and meant what is said in CCH v. LSUC in 2004 and will move forward from there – not be pushed backwards. Users have rights that must be given a "large and liberal interpretation". Copyright doesn't exist solely for collectives.
- Educators are in a "symbiotic" relationship with students and the Copyright Act serves the goal of education, which includes access to essential material. "Instruction and research/private study are, in the school context, tautological."
There's much more at that link highlighting the kinds of things that in this lawsuit Access Copyright seems to be pretending the court did not say.
Last summer Michael Geist also took a closer look at what those Supreme Court cases meant:
Led by Justice Abella, the court has reaffirmed that fair dealing is a user's right that must be interpreted in a broad and liberal manner. In fact, the court provides further guidance on interpreting fair dealing with an emphasis on the need for a flexible, technology-neutral approach. In reading the decisions in the Access Copyright and song previews cases, it is hard to imagine a bigger victory for education, Internet users, and innovative companies.
That victory for Fair Dealing and education in general was last year though, and maybe we've seen a huge amount of terrible activity at York University since then to justify lawsuits? Nope. As AC's statement says, its "legal actions signal to institutions that we continue to strongly disagree with their interpretation of the law." This is not a case of specific infringement, but a policy disagreement that is leading AC to spend the money it makes from its members litigating educational institutions.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) issued a letter to Access Copyright noting that AC's lawsuit is not in the service of education:
As we have explained, the availability of new contractual models (specifically site licenses directly between content providers and academic institutions), modes of scholarly communication (Open Access publishing), and user rights (the CCH and Alberta decisions and Bill C-11) has had a profound impact on the utility of Access's services in the post-secondary education sector. It is now clear that Access Copyright's only plan is to try to hang on to the past. This serves no one well.
And that's really the problem with this whole thing. Suing people/educational institutions to protect a business model is not a way to help students and scholars. In CARL's statement Brent Roe said,
[Fair dealing] unlocks knowledge for generations of students, who are the future of innovative research. Education as fair dealing must be protected against predatory lawsuits.
That is a position that we totally support.


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This camera is located on Djuma Private Game Reserve inside the Sabi Sand and part of the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa. It overlooks Gowrie Dam which is located right in front of Djuma's 5 star Vuyatela guest lodge and is a long running WildEarth broadcast.
In fact this camera is the longest running waterhole webcam in Africa and in particular during the dry season often home to leopards or lions coming for a drink or elephants coming for a swim. The camera is now remotely controlled around the clock, archived 24/7 and if something interesting happens twitter alerts will be sent out @wildearth so you won't have to miss a thing.


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Now more than ever, banking and finance are truly global institutions. All of the world's large economies are intricately intertwined with one another, and financial issues in one part of the world can have a near-instant ripple effect across the globe. The International Dictionary of Finance and Banking brings clarity to the web of global finance by explaining many banking concepts and financial practices in quick, accessible articles written in plain language. The web site contains thousands of articles, including:
- The "Black Monday" crashes of the U.S. stock market in 1929 and 1987
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
- The World Bank
- The World Economic Forum
- The World Trade Organization (WTO)
- The World-Gold-Council-(WGC)
- Stock and securities exchanges around the world, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), London Stock Exchange, and German Stock Exchange.
Whatever your finance or banking question, you're sure to find an answer. Enter your query in the search box below, or browse the indexes to get started.


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Today's feature is from Clara and Jennie of Clover and Violet. Super cute blog!! I really love their little niche. They design really cute bags and totes, I love this Ruby Market Tote they did. They also do a lot of stitching and embroidery...and this quilt today is to-die-for sweet. And you can totally make your own, check out this index, tons and tons of info and directions on this quilt! It makes me want to start stitching this instant!! Make sure to stop by Clover and Violet and check out all their fun tutorials and their shop!
It's finally done! I wasn't sure way back in May when I started this quilt that I'd ever actually finish it! But all the wonderful participants of the Embroidery 101: Stitch & Quilt Along kept me going, and now I have one of my favorite quilts ever! {And, if you missed out on it the first time around, the tutorials and patterns are still available here!}
Along with everyone else, I learned a lot through making this quilt. Each block was not only an adventure in stitching, but also in drawing and designing, things I'd never really done a lot of. I really feel like I grew with each block.
But instead of saying too much, I'll let the quilt do the talking this time. Here are a few of my favorite blocks, though it's really hard to narrow it down...


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I'm sure everyone is aware of the potential to put in a multi-purpose trail from Easley to Pickens along the old rail bed. It would be similar to the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville. I'm sure many of us have driven all the way to Greenville to use the trail and would really support a trail in this community. Talk to your friends and neighbors and get their support. There is a meeting Thursday at the Pickens County Museum at lunch to hear about the Master Plan. Theresa and I attended the meeting tonight and it was pretty informative.
Totally FOR it. I hope this works out!!!
I never expected much opposition to the trail but there appears to be some. http://www.facebook.com/PickensDoodleRailsToTrailsJustSayNo
Let's all try and focus on the positive aspects that this could bring to the community and make it happen. As many people as possible should try and attend the Council meeting. I will try to find the dates and times.
FWIW I attended the Bike Easley meeting at the city council meeting last night. The first thing I noticed is the cyclist and runners were badly under-represented. If we as a community want a project like this to work, we need to get involved. The city leaders want to make Ealey a "Bike Friendly" city but they need our support. The bike paths that have been installed need to be used. We really need to make our presence known. I am as equally frustrated as the rest of you as the paths lead to nowhere and dump you into dangerous areas. I briefly mentioned that the big picture needs to be paths without boundaries from community to community but their big focus appeared to be a path from Brushy Creek Baptist Church to Pope field. I am big supporter of any walking path but I am concerned that this may be another expensive "path to nowhere" that is poorly travelled and gives the opposition more ammunition in their "fight against multi-purpose paths"
I have always been a big advocate of "do it once, do it right, and move on". We really need to band together and make a strong push for the local governments to work together and provide Greenspace for our children. A multi-purpose path between Easley and Pickens seems like a great opportunity but without our presence at the meetings and show of support, I'm afraid our local leaders will continue to take the path of least resistance.
I know about the very abbreviated section of bike path along, what is that, 135? It was used in the MAC ride on the way in. Like you said, a path to nowhere. Are there other paths? I'd sure like to use them...if they led somewhere.
Agreed, we need to rep. Maybe we can rally a group of folks together for the next meeting?
If you go to BikeEasley.com and download the Master Plan, it is in chapter 3. I had a hard time finding it because the link was hidden in a banner on my browser. I just checked and it shows up better now.
A city email announced this:
The City is ready to embark on the next phase of the Brushy Creek Greenway. There will be a Special Called meeting/workshop next Monday, March 25, 2013 @ 5:30 pm. The meeting will take place at City Hall in the Council Chambers. The meeting is open to the public.
Is this part of the bikeeasley stuff?
- itri -
I'm not sure. I knew there was going to be a meeting on Monday and thought it was a BikeEasley meeting but it looks like Council will be there to announce the start of the Greenway. I had planned to attend the meeting anyway. One of the things we really need is a group of local cyclist to represent our interest. It could be a sub-committee of the Y-race team or even the entire group. Some of the local leaders consider cyclist to be road hazards and nothing but a nuisance.
I find it a little interesting that they called the group The Bicycling and Pedestrian Group and not BikeEasley. I may be reading too much into it, but Greenville recently change their emphasis to include pedestrians. The reality is theses paths are better for walking and running that cycling anyway. As a cyclist we will continue to need safe, shared roads.
I would expect to hear nothing more than a sentence or two about the "Doodle Rail Project" unless there has been a major break through or there are some outspoken anti-trail people at the meeting who will mention how bad the idea is.
It's official, Easley and Pickens are now co-owners of the property, I am very excited to see this happen.
Cool! Do you think it will be wide enough to actually bike on (while others are walking/jogging)? It would be great to incorporate this into future 5k/10k races. or maybe use the whole thing for a half marathon.
Absolutely it will be wide enough. One of the early mistakes in the SWT was the narrow areas. It is better to learn from other peoples mistakes than repeat them. My major reservation with the Greenway project is how narrow it will be in order to come within budget. It is also another road to nowhere. The Doodle Rail will be different. It will be a lot cheaper to build a wide trail over a pre-existing rail bed than an elevated path over a swamp. This will be a great place to hold a half marathon but even nicer to give the community a great place to walk or ride their bikes. Especially the ones that don't have the ways and means to go to Greenville. I run through the Railroad St area a couple times a week. I almost always see young kids riding their bikes on a dangerous road with blind curves. They frequently engage in impromptu bike races and often chase me on their bikes. Having access to a trail for them would be priceless
This is the last item on city council's agenda at the meeting tonight:
11. RESOLUTIONS: Resolution No. 2013-12: To award a contract to Alta Planning and Design in an amount of $43,800 to complete a feasibility study for the Doodle Line
This is the last item on city council's agenda at the meeting tonight:
11. RESOLUTIONS: Resolution No. 2013-12: To award a contract to Alta Planning and Design in an amount of $43,800 to complete a feasibility study for the Doodle Line
Still going to be a long process but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Alta comes with a good resume including the Silver Comet trail. At some point during he winter we need to consider a 5k or another run to raise awareness and funding for the trail.
I think that's a fantastic idea... a night run would be neat. Maybe Kevin can lend us some of the fire trucks and we can get area law enforcement and med emer to assist. They're good guys. A race for a good cause and good guys supportIng it ought to bring the people in.
There's an industrial park in Liberty that is fairly undeveloped...event location possibility?
The trail is moving along. There will be a public meeting at the Pickens Y in Nov. If you have any ideas or just want to show support, stop by.


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Holiday Gift Guide Flashback: True Christmas Spirit
Posted by Dennis Velasco Categories: Editorial, Features, Family, Kids,
Growing up the way I did - barely getting by, fully understanding what hard times meant, and dealing with some messed up family stuff - we never really made Christmas a big deal. At least, it never really was to me. For example, one year we couldn't afford a Christmas tree (but when we did, we kept that thing for like a decade), my mom made us get some fallen twigs outside our apartment and she delicately wrapped them up in tin foil. We put it in a green vase and I think my sister actually tried decorating it by coloring the tin foil red and green. Ah, youth. Well, I couldn't totally blame her for her attempts to make something bad into something good, afterall, she had a perm and actually thought it looked cool. But, heck, it was the mid-80s, so the poor choice made by my nine-year-old sibling could be forgiven in retrospect.
In all honesty, the last Christmas I remembered before this particular one I'm about to tell you about when I was eleven, was when I was five. I got a whole bunch of Micronauts and this huge plastic Spider-Man doll that had a grappling hook, which was supposedly a web that he could "climb." Mind you, I don't blame my parents for any of this lack of remembering several years in between as they always did their best, God bless their hearts, and I'm glad my sister was always in the Christmas spirit, but I knew what was up. Okay sure, I was a Holden Caufield without knowing I was at the time, but whatever. I dealt with it. You couldn't fool me, I tell ya.
But, this particular Christmas, I got fooled.
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March 8, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
BRANDON — There was nothing extravagant about the Otter Valley School District's $10,991,527 proposed budget, OV principal Dana Cole-Levesque said. After all, it was 4.8 percent higher than last year's budget of $10,479,219. But together with the school's two bond proposals, a combined $10.5 million to pay for the renovation of the 45-year old school building and the construction of a new middle school gymnasium, it was simply too much to ask of district voters.
March 5, 2007
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury's roads are still being serviced by snowplows and sanders, but it won't be too long before they are invaded by hungry excavators and gargantuan asphalt rollers.
Town officials, local businesses and area motorists are already anticipating — some dreading — this spring and summer, when work crews will begin a busy construction season that will include more than $1.7 million in paving work for state roads running through downtown Middlebury.
"It's going to be a patience-testing summer, but then we should be in good shape for awhile," said Middlebury Director of Operations Dan Werner. "We should have a nice looking downtown, when it is done."
By ANDY KIRKALDY
VERGENNES — The latest recipient of Vergennes American Legion Post 14's annual Community Service Award typically travels a few hundred yards to help her fellow citizens, but twice has also traveled thousands of miles to give aid to those in need.
On Thursday night at its annual birthday dinner, Post 14 will give its 13th Community Service Award to Ann Rivers, 58, a Vergennes Area Rescue Squad crew chief and vice president who lives just down the street from VARS' Panton Road headquarters.
Rivers has put in at least 72 hours and typically more than 100 hours a month while serving as a crew chief, and has also been the agency's treasurer and clerk at different times over the past 12 years.
March 1, 2007
ADDISON COUNTY — Local advocates for migrant farm workers on Wednesday hailed a new legislative attempt by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. to legitimize the presence of undocumented laborers currently providing vital service to dairy farms throughout the state.
At issue is the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, And Security Act Of 2007, of which Leahy is a co-sponsor. The legislation would create a "blue card" program, through which currently undocumented people working in agriculture could secure temporary legal status, with the ultimate possibility of qualifying for a permanent legal status (a green card).
In addition, Leahy included a provision within the bill that would give undocumented dairy workers, goat herders or sheep herders a chance to legally work for an initial period of one year, with an opportunity to apply for up to three more years of temporary employment. The provision would also allow the dairy worker who has successfully worked for 36 months in temporary status to apply for permanent residency, subject to visa availability.
By ANDY KIRKALDY
VERGENNES — The seven-member Vergennes City Council could have four new members after Tuesday: Mayor April Jin is facing former alderman Michael Daniels for a two-year term, while Alderman Randy Ouellette is the only incumbent in a field of five seeking three council seats.
Ouellette is facing Mathew Chabot, Christine Collette, Peter Garon and Diane Lanpher; The top three vote-getters will earn two-year terms.
All the candidates except Chabot attended a forum hosted by American Legion Post 14 on Feb. 22; Chabot was out of town on business. Jin and Daniels' opening remarks and responses to questions from the audience of about 20 were excerpted in Monday's Independent.
MIDDLEBURY — Jer Coons began gathering the tools he would need to become a successful singer-songwriter early. He was born with the talent, he got his first guitar at age six and he befriended his would-be booking manager, Spencer Kelley, in the playrooms of Mary Johnson Children's Center in Middlebury.
Together, Coons and Kelley, who both graduated from Middlebury Union High School last spring, are jumping head first into the independent music scene, preparing to make a living doing what they love.
"This fall, when Jer started getting serious about his music, we realized we could both benefit from each other," Kelley said.
And it seems to be working.
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While, I didn't go too in depth about my feelings on the Cabrera-Sanchez/Verdugo swap last time (basically I think it's roughly an even deal, though Melky isn't a great fit with the way the roster is currently constructed) one thing it did do is it made the back end of the Giants rotation vulnerable. Ryan Vogelsong and Barry Zito are currently slotted in firmly as the team's 4 and 5 starters, which is fairly risky given that Vogelsong came from nowhere and Zito is coming off a year where he was below replacement level per Fangraphs.
The Giants also lack young pitching as the Giants top pitching prospect is either a guy who has a fastball that rarely jumps over 90 MPH or a guy who didn't focus on pitching exclusively until his senior year of high school.
Chris Volstad could fill both those problems. There are reports that he could be available, as he is arbitration eligible for the first time and Florida could want to move on from his 4.59 career ERA. But why would the Giants want to take a flier on him?
Well for one, he is still relatively cheap. MLBTR projects him for a $2.6 Million salary after his first time in arbitration. He also has a good pedigree as he was rated as the Marlins top prospect by Baseball America in 2007, and second in their system in 2008.
But most importantly, he is better than he has shown. Volstad has been good at getting ground balls (career 50.4%), however, most of his career Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez have been the Marlins middle infield combination and both of those players are below average defenders. Last year, Volstad posted a 4.89 ERA, with a 52.3 GB%, however he also posted a 3.64 xFIP, which is a solid indicator for his future.
This would help him fit well with the Giants as there is a growing likelyhood that Brandon Crawford could be the Giants starting SS, which regardless of whether or not you believe that is a good idea, would improve the Giants defense. Combine that with the solid Freddy Sanchez and the legitimate gold glove candidate Pablo Sandoval, and you have a very good infield defense. Volstad would also be helped by AT&T park as last year he posted a 15.5 HR/FB rate-just below Barry Zito and Bronson Arroyo.
While he would be a good fit, there is the question of what would be fair to give up. I think given the questions surrounding the back of the Marlins bullpen they would be interested in Santiago Casilla and then an 11-20 rated prospect, like a Chris Dominguez or Charlie Culberson.


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Power management company Eaton has entered into an agreement with FirstEnergy Corp. to provide engineering services and equipment for Units 1-3 at FirstEnergy's Eastlake, Ohio power plant. Through this multi-million dollar contract, Eaton's Electrical Services and Systems team will supply turnkey project management and equipment conversions that enhance grid stability and reliability. The project is part of FirstEnergy's Energizing the Future initiative, which includes a series of projects to enhance service reliability across its five-state service area.
"Eaton is committed to providing its expert engineering resources in support of FirstEnergy's goal of an adaptable, responsive infrastructure that is able to maintain grid reliability through its extensive modernization project," said John Stampfel, vice president and general manager, Electrical Engineering Services and Systems Division, Eaton.
This project will allow the Eastlake plant to continue to provide an important service to regional electric consumers after it stops generating electricity in September. By retiring coal-fired boilers and converting the generators to synchronous condensers, the plant will be able to adjust conditions on the electric power transmission grid by stabilizing grid voltage.


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On Aug. 29 and 30, two Marines were medically retired at the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, Fla., after a pair of unforeseeable events on Parris Island left them incapable of continuing their careers.
During recruit training, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Battles and Pfc. David McDonald sustained injuries. After extensive medical treatment, both Marines were retired from the Corps, but not from life. Battles, a former recruit of Mike Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, broke his neck in an event during the Crucible, only 24 hours before receiving his Eagle, Globe and Anchor. McDonald contracted La Crosse virus early in training. The virus caused by encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain.
They are being retired as Marines, regardless of the fact that they did not graduate recruit training, said Capt. Jay Woods, who worked with both young men after their injuries. They joined by their own choice, and by absolutely no fault of their own, they were put into a situation where they fought for their lives. A Marine situation. Any lesser man would have rolled over and died months ago.
Battles, a 20-year-old from Wauchula, Fla., knelt outside the pugil sticks arena on Nov. 9, 2011. Geared with a helmet, flak jacket, pugil stick and groin protection, Battles said he thought only of defeating his opponent with a quick uppercut from the padded end of his pugil stick. Shaking with adrenaline, Battles charged into the fight. Bent low in an aggressive stance, Battles went in for a strike. However, he inadvertently smashed head first into the chest of his fellow recruit and crumpled to the ground.
"I was just laying there thinking 'man this sucks. I can't move,'" Battles said. "My shoulders felt like they were on fire. I just tried to stay calm. I didn't think it was anything serious. I thought I'd broken my collar bone or my shoulder."
After numerous failed attempts by the corpsmen to get a response from Battle's body, they realized something was seriously wrong.
Battles had broken his neck. He was quickly rushed to the hospital.
After receiving the news of their son's accident, his family quickly loaded the essentials into their van and drove to Parris Island.
"For a brief second, I thought he had won a phone call home," said Justin Battles, Nicholas' father. "And then there was this long pause, and my heart sank. I knew something was wrong."
"It's a parents' worst nightmare," said Justin Battles. "Calling his mother was the worst phone call I've ever made in my life. She was hysterical."
After being told he may never walk again, Battles under went an intense surgery without pain medication due to the risk of his already low blood pressure dropping to fatal limits.
Battles had to have a halo brace drilled into his head. He explained the feeling of the screws entering his skull as the worst pain he has ever endured. He said his head felt as if it was exploding from the inside out.
For weeks, Battles laid in his hospital bed totally immobile. He relied on his family and loved ones for every basic need.
Over the next few months, Battles slowly regained mobility in his torso, arms and fingers. His family also found his feet to be ticklish.
Even after his experience, Battles' displays through his attitude that he has no intentions of slowing his life down. With the help of his wheelchair, family and friends, Battles has returned to a life of activity. He's gone fishing and hunting, and he said he even looks forward to being a part of the local wheelchair rugby team.
When asked why he joined the Marine Corps, he said he wanted his life to mean something.
Battles said he always thought that something big was supposed to happen to him. He wanted people to think of him as someone who made a difference that inspires people.
"I like to inspire people," said Battles.
"There was a kid who read my story who was going to drop out of high school his senior year," said Battles. "Because of my situation he didn't. If I can motivate people like that, that just lights my fire."
"He just has this inner drive and motivation," said Justin Battles.
According to doctors, with the research done involving patients with very similar injuries, it is possible for Battles to make a 95 to 100 percent recovery.
The day after Battles' accident, a recruit from Fox Company, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, was preparing for a night's rest at the naval hospital in Beaufort, S.C. Pfc. David McDonald, an 20-year-old native of McHenry, Miss., reportedly commented to his nurses how happy he was to finally be able to get some sleep away from the squad bay. The next morning, he did not wake up. McDonald had unexplainably slipped into a coma.
Just days before, Mc-Donald's drill instructors noticed he was acting strange, almost as if he was hallucinating. The chief drill instructor was called into the squad bay. Asking him if he was alright, the chief drill instructor placed his hand on McDonald's shoulder. McDonald, a normally passive young man, according to his family, reached for the instructor's arm and sank his teeth in. McDonald was promptly transported to the naval hospital after the strange encounter.
The doctors were baffled. However, an explanation was finally found after various tests and months of research. Sometime during his few weeks at recruit training, McDonald had contracted the La Crosse encephalitis virus, believed to be caused by the bacteria from a mosquito bite.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, many people infected with the virus have no apparent symptoms. Once the virus has advanced, it can cause seizures, coma and paralysis. In rare cases, long-term disability or death can result from La Crosse encephalitis. There is no specific treatment for the infection. The care is based on the symptoms.
McDonald was in a coma for approximately six weeks. His father and grandmother rarely left his side, remaining strong even when the doctors lost hope.
He was always such an active boy, said Anita Loper, McDonald's grandmother. After his brief journey to be a Marine, it was heart wrenching, watching him lay there and knowing there was nothing she could do.
In late December, their waiting paid off as Mc-Donald opened his eyes just days from being taken off life support.
It happened on Christmas Day, said Loper. The therapist was talking to him and tr ying to get him to say something. The therapist asked him, "what do you call grandma?" and he said "Grandma Net." Those were his first words.
McDonald receives daily therapy to improve his mobility and cognitive learning skills.
As Woods spoke with McDonald, it was evident that McDonald was able to understand everything being said to him. Woods has witnessed McDonald's steady progress throughout his treatments.
McDonald's family is proud of him and the choice he made to join the Corps.
"He didn't talk to anybody about it," said Loper, who was shocked, but also pleased by the news. "He just came home one day and announced he had joined the Marines."
Loper said she loves the Marines. Their involvement has made the misfortune that befell McDonald more bearable.
Sgt. Maj. Joseph Van-Fonda, sergeant major of the Wounded Warrior Regiment, called from Washington and told Loper, although McDonald was being retired, he is still a Marine, and his brothers and sisters will always be there for him.
Throughout the months of frustration and struggle, the Marines were close to Battles' and McDonald's sides. Weekly visits and frequent calls for updates gave the families reason to appreciate the Marine Corps desire to stay with these young men.
The Marine's who come visit are like an extended family, Justin Battles said. Their visits and support have done a lot for Nick's morale.
A famous saying in the Corps is that Marines do not leave anyone behind. Woods mentioned the fact that Battles and McDonald will forever be a part of a family that lives all over the world. Both families have expressed their admiration of the support they received from the Marines, making the long treatments easier to bear.
Both Marines received 100 percent Department of Defense, education and veterans benefits. They will be taken care of for as long as they may live. Already these young men have received power wheel chairs, which can often be seen racing down the hospital hallways. With help from Veterans Affairs, they have received wheel chair-accessible vans, and McDonald's home in Mississippi is being remodeled to accommodate all of his needs for when he returns.
Throughout these struggles, both young men share common values. They have earned the title of Marine that they so animatedly sought. And their families have commented on the strength of these young men as they have yet to complain or let their predicaments cause them to enjoy life less.
By enlisting into the Marine Corps, these young men have joined a family larger than they can imagine, and have impacted the lives of strangers in many ways that they don't understand. Their perseverance through the years to come will not be alone as their family continues to stay close to their side. Once a Marine, always a Marine.


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Counterfeit: to imitate or copy closely especially with intent to deceive.
The greatest method of deception is to counterfeit. And the master of counterfeit and deception is Satan. The Bible in 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 warns of Satan's counterfeit: "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness;. . ." Isaiah 14: 14 tells of Satan's ultimate counterfeit: ". . . I will BE LIKE the most High." And among his greatest counterfeit's is the New King James Bible (NKJV). Christians that would never touch a New International Version (NIV), New American Standard (NASV), Revised Standard (RSV), the New Revised Standard (NRSV) or other per-versions are being "seduced" by the subtle NKJV. And though the New King James does indeed bear a "likeness" to the 1611 King James Bible, as you'll soon see, there's something else coiled (see Genesis 3:1) "underneath the cover" of the NKJV....more can be found at http://www.av1611.org/nkjv.html.


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It's back....that coat is not going anywhere any time soon. I love that it's not warm or heavy. It's such a light weight and very cool coat that it makes it an easy transitional piece. The dress was from LoveCulture and the booties are from the one and only, Lolashoetique. This is a perfect outfit to transition into Fall.
Are you as ready as I am for the cooler weather?
Xo Cari
P.S. After this post Im officially caught up with all my blog posts. Yah!


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In this lesson students investigate the effects of black carbon on arctic warming and are introduced to a mechanism of arctic warming that is not directly dependent on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: black carbon deposition on Arctic snow and... (View More) ice. It can also be used to introduce the concept of albedo. Prerequisite knowledge: students understand the concepts of absorption and reflection of light energy. This lesson is designed to be used with either an Earth/environmental science or chemistry curriculum. It may also be used as an enrichment activity in physics or physical science during a unit on energy. Includes suggested modifications for students with special needs and low technology option. Requires advance preparation, including freezing ice samples overnight. (View Less)
Materials Cost: $10 - $20 per group of students
This is an activity about the Doppler effect. Learners begin by simulating the noise made by a passing siren. After learning that the change in pitch results from movement, they investigate the definition of frequency, calculate change in frequency,... (View More) and learn how this applies to light and the study of astronomy. This lesson requires a Doppler ball, also referred to as a buzzer ball. (View Less)
This is an activity about seasons. Learners begin by brainstorming a list of activities and events that occur in each season. Next, learners perform an experiment by comparing the temperature on thermometers left under a lamp for different lengths... (View More) of time to illustrate that Earth heats more when the Sun is in the sky longer. (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5 per group of students
This is an activity about the concept of direct versus indirect sunlight. Learners construct and use a sun angle analyzer to investigate the effect of angle on area illuminated. The fraction of light on each square of the analyzer is then calculated... (View More) and compared. A discussion at the end relates the results to the amount of sunlight falling on different parts of the Earth and the effect this has on temperature and seasons. Reprinted with permission from the Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS). (View Less)
In this lesson, students explore a discrepant event when they design an experiment to measure the rate that ice melts when in pure water versus salt water. It is designed to help students realize that a carefully-designed experiment may yield... (View More) unexpected results, due to unseen events, even though the experiment is precisely planned and executed. The addition of a new technology may clarify factors in the experiment which were previously unknown. Note: the experiment requires advance preparation the day before: two buckets of water are set-up (one with plain tap water, the other with as much salt dissolved in it as possible), which need to be at room temperature. It also requires ice cubes of uniform shape (e.g., from an ice maker or ice trays filled to uniform capacity). This lesson is part of the Cosmic Times teachers guide and is intended to be used in conjunction with the 1993 Cosmic Times Poster. (View Less)
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This is a hands-on lab activity about seawater density, specifically the relationship between density of fluid, weight of an object, and buoyancy. Learners will develop hypotheses and observe a demonstration of density to understand its role in... (View More) buoyancy. They will also examine the effect of salinity on density. Background information, common preconceptions, a glossary and more is included. This activity is part of the Aquarius Hands-on Laboratory Activities. (View Less)
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This experimental activity is designed to develop a basic understanding of the interrelationship between temperature and pressure and the structure of a device made to examine this relationship. Resources needed to conduct this activity include two... (View More) canning jars, two large rubber balloons, a heat lamp or lamp with 150 watt bulb, and access to freezer or water and ice. The resource includes background information, teaching tips and questions to guide student discussion. This is chapter 5 of Meteorology: An Educator's Resource for Inquiry-Based Learning for Grades 5-9. The guide includes a discussion of learning science, the use of inquiry in the classroom, instructions for making simple weather instruments, and more than 20 weather investigations ranging from teacher-centered to guided and open inquiry investigations. (View Less)
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In this laboratory activity, learners explore the difference between heat and temperature, and explore the rate of heat transfer from one substance to another as it depends on the density of the substances being investigated. The activity can be... (View More) conducted either in a science lab or in a kitchen. It is one of two activities supporting the scientific investigation of the Interstellar Medium (ISM), and is linked to reading material, reading review questions and problems, a teacher answer sheet, and glossary. (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5 per group of students
This is an activity about Earth's magnetosphere. Learners will use a magnet, simulating Earth's protective magnetosphere, and observe what occurs when iron filings, simulating the solar wind, blow past and encounter the magnet's field. This is the... (View More) third activity in the Exploring the Earth's Magnetic Field: An IMAGE Satellite Guide to the Magnetosphere educators guide. (View Less)
In this activity, students perform a version of the experiment of 1801, in which ultraviolet light was first discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter. This experiment should be conducted outdoors on a sunny day - variable cloud conditions, such as patchy... (View More) cumulus clouds or heavy haze will diminish your results. This activity requires advance preparation and special materials (e.g., glass prism, blueprint paper, household ammonia). (View Less)
Materials Cost: $5 - $10 per group of students


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A left wing weirdo and sick anti fascist Peter Redfern has admitted killing his wife and daughter.
Left wing Hope Not Hate anti fascist hammer killer.
Peter Redfern, 70, a long term member of the anti fascist anti British organisation "Hope Not Hate" admitted the murder of Sarah Redfern and confessed to the manslaughter of his wife, Jean, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Redfern strangled his wife at their home in Wath-upon-Dearne in November 2013 before attacking his daughter with a hammer when she returned from work.
He admitted the killings on the first day of trial at Sheffield Crown Court. He will be sentenced on Thursday.
The bodies of the two women were discovered after Redfern rang 999 to confess and screaming anti fascist slogans.
The court heard he had incurable bone cancer and was on drugs. He was also suffering from depression.
A Hope Not Hate undercover spokesman told the Daily Bale through a representative –
"Could you leave our name out of this please. We have not had any contact with Peter Redfern for some time now, and his membership Ran out last year. We do not warn people twice about membership money, if you do not pay up, then your out. Peter was expelled from "Hope Not Hate" for not paying his dues. So do not connect this man to us ok ? We got enough crap to deal with at the moment with all the sexual scandals our members are involved in, without this crap too"
Left wing Peter Redfern pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Jean Redfern, 67, but guilty to manslaughter.
He pleaded guilty to murdering his 33-year-old daughter, Sarah.
Det Chf Insp Chris Singleton, of South Yorkshire Police, said the double killing was "shocking and impossible to understand".
He said: "Only he knows why he committed such a violent act.
"Jean and Sarah were a mother and daughter who were as close as a mother and daughter could be."
Daily Bale reporter on left wing crime – Gary Raikcroft


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Pro Kabaddi 4 Match 5 Kolkata vs Delhi Live Score Team Squad: After lots of entertaining matches in Pro Kabaddi League 4 2016, now it turns for match 5th between two kabaddi legends team Kolkata vs Delhi on 27h April, 2016 at 20.00 (IST) and 14.30 (GMT) on wards in the NSCI SVP Stadium, Mumbai. This match is most important for Kolkata vs Delhi to win to comes in top four position to looking forward for playoffs matches. This is the league match between legend teams i.e. Kolkata vs Delhi to get the trophy both the teams must have to win this match of Pro Kabaddi League 2016 to get points and must remain in atleast top 4 positions. You can enjoy this one of the die interesting match between Kolkata vs Delhi on Star Sports, Starsports.com and also you can enjoy this match on your smartphone by Hotstar app.
Deepika Padukone Looks Stunning in IIFA Awards 2016
Pro Kabaddi PKL 4 Match 5 Details Team Squad
|Match 5, PKL 4 2016
|Mon, 27th June, 2016
|Kolkata vs Delhi
|NSCI SVP Stadium. Mumbai
Pro Kabaddi PKL 4 Kolkata vs Delhi Live Highlights Result Score Board Match 5
All the fans of PKL 4 eagerly waiting to watch this interesting battle live telecast of PKL 4 Match Kolkata vs Delhi. Check out below for full information on live streaming and highlights of this match between Kolkata vs Delhi in India and other countries on Star Sports, Starsports.com and Hotstar app.
Kolkata vs Delhi Live Streaming Highlights
Splitsvilla Subuhi Joshi Hot Unseen Photos
Hope you enjoyed this article and gained information about Pro Kabaddi PKL 4 Match 5 Kolkata vs Delhi Live Highlights Result Score Team Squad. For more details stay connected with us. Also, you can put your queries in Comment Box, we will respond quickly.Don't forget to share this article with your near dears on social media sites such as Facebook, twitter, tumblr, pinterest, digg, google plus, linkedin, stumbleupon, etc. Be Happy


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Silverstone has all the makings of being a very hectic weekend for a lot of people. Not so much because of the weather – things are looking up compared to a week ago, with just a few drops of rain forecast for Friday, and dry weather for Saturday and Sunday – but more because of the goings on behind the scenes.
Thursday was the deadline for Moto2 and Moto3 entries to be submitted. The class looks to be oversubscribed again, with Dorna and IRTA left to whittle the entry list down to something of its present size.


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At many times in the history of the Anglo people, the abuses of liberty by Power (capitalized to indicate the official power of the centralized State and those close to it) have produced such resistance by enough normal men and women who felt their … [Read more...]
Special Interview for Constitution Day
Many Americans treat the founding of the country as if it were a repudiation of most of the Anglo tradition that came before it. Others treat it as if it were a simple revolution against a tyrannical monarch. Both are untrue: the founding of America … [Read more...]


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Along the last days/weeks, I've gave myself the oportunity to tinker with XInput 2.1 in GTK+, now that the core concept of the involved changes seem settled (although corner cases are still being discussed).
Thanks to the previous port to XInput 2.0, handling multitouch events has been fairly easy, by enabling
GDK_TOUCH_MASK events on your widget you can receive
GDK_TOUCH_PRESS/MOTION/RELEASE events containing a touch ID, which is unique at that time for a touch event stream, so enabling that you can effectively receive events from simultaneous touches.
In addition, one can create
GdkTouchClusters (related to a GdkWindow) and add touch IDs to it. from that point on, any update on these touch IDs stops sending individual GDK_TOUCH_MOTION events, instead sending
GdkEventMultiTouch events, containing all latest events for the touch IDs in a
I'm pretty happy with the resulting API, althought there are some internal details left to improve, my main gripe currently is that implicit grabs in CSW still happen per device, this means no multi-widget multitouch yet within an app (also posing interesting problems with keyboard events redirection and explicit grabs). Another big item is looking into integrating this with gestures, as direct manipulation and gesturing need to go hand in hand, so that branch could be discontinued in favor of this one.
As I'm pretty lazy, and the results would be strikingly similar to what I previously posted, I won't post any video, so you'll have to settle for a screenshot:
This is sitting now in the xi21 branch. If you just compile this you won't see much working though, the demo only reacts to touch events, which are only sent if XInput 2.1 is there, which requires compiling certain Xorg modules branches, and having a multitouch device at hand.


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We're so excited to be offering this amazing giveaway! RedPoppy Fashion is partnering with online boutique Shabby Apple to give our readers the chance to win this fashionably romantic stretch sateen Ski Bop dress. The flirty and jazzy knee-length style features a fitted bodice with a drop waist ruffled flounce and a rich maroon hue that we absolutely love for Fall/Winter 2011! Wear it with a chunky strand of pearls, a chic skinny belt, or a fabulous faux fur coat, and you'll look jazzingly gorgeous for the holiday season.
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