Foster Friess died last Thursday here in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I live. He was 81 years old. He had been undergoing treatments here at the Mayo Clinic for a blood and bone marrow cancer. The gregarious Foster Friess will be greatly missed by friends. With a name like that, how could you not like Foster Friess. His name always reminded me of when I was growing up in Seattle, my family sometimes would go have an evening treat after... Read more
The Virginia Theological Seminary–an Episcopal Church institution located about 20 miles south of Washington D.C.–has announced a reparations program to pay descendants of hundreds of Black people who were either forced without pay or paid very inadequately, from 1823 to 1951, to build and run this seminary as construction workers, gardeners, cooks, dishwashers, janitors, and laundry workers. Payments will extend to perhaps hundreds of their descendants as genealogists pour through records to determine who is qualified for what will... Read more
China is doing what the Bible says by allowing more and more children per family. For, the Bible says that when “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1.1 NRSV), he afterwards declared to the first humans, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (vv. 26-27). That means populate the earth with humans. Demographers claim that for a nation to just maintain its same number of people year after year, couples must have an... Read more
I posted Thursday that a court in The Netherlands (=Holland) this week ordered its largest corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, to “reduce [carbon] emissions resulting from its products sold in the Netherlands by 45% by the year 2030 compared to 2019 levels.” It was the first time in the world that a court ordered a corporation to reduce emissions resulting from its burning of fossil fuels. But it was especially significant that it was a leading corporation in the oil and... Read more
Republican senators successfully voted yesterday to block the creation of an independent, bipartisan commission–similar to the 9/11 commission–to investigate the Capitol riot that occurred on January 6th. In my opinion, that is a travesty against our democratic form of government. Indeed, the House impeached former President Trump for causing that “insurrection.” And this negative vote was done yesterday despite the majority of American voters calling for such an investigation. It’s because there is so much disinformation going on and lingering... Read more
I’ve said it before, since Trump became President. (See some previous posts, “The Republican Party’s Reputation Is Shot to Hell” [April 23, 2019]; “Republicans–Three Strikes and You’re Out” [October 4, 2019]. And I’m saying it even more strongly now. Yesterday, Senate Republicans successfully voted to block the establishment of a commission panel to investigate the Capitol riot January 6th. That is such a shame. It is a dereliction of duty. Even though this nation has become so politically bipartisan, a... Read more
For the past seventy years or more, many Israeli Jews and some Christians, especially evangelicals and Pentecostals, have argued that Palestinians should not be entitled to their own state in the holy land because they rejected the two-state solution offered to them and Jews by the UN Security Council way back in 1947, thus before Israel became a state again. And these people have argued likewise concerning the solution that President Clinton put forward, called Clinton Parameters, which PLO chief... Read more
The world is burning up. That is, the average atmospheric temperature around the world has increased almost two degrees Fahrenheit in just over the past century. It’s the result of the Industrial Revolution in which we humans have been burning so much fossil fuel–namely coal, petroleum, and natural gas–to heat our homes, drive our cars and trucks, fly in airplanes, produce our electrical power, conduct military operations, and the list goes on and on. But there are still millions of... Read more
Through the years, there has been some questioning about whether or not Donald Trump has ever laundered money, which is a crime, via purchases through his Trump Organization or even sales of apartment units at his Trump Towers on Manhattan Island, New York. More particularly, did Trump do this when he purchased his two premiere golf course resorts in Scotland: Trump Turnberry, purchased in 2006, and Trump International Golf Links, purchased in 2014, which was later built on a 1,400-acre... Read more
Phil Mickelson established a monumental record in golf today by becoming the oldest golfer to ever win one of the four majors in golf, it being the PGA Championship at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, South Carolina. (One of the four majors in golf, the British Open, reaches back 161 years.) Mickelson won by two strokes at six under par for a 282 total. His nearest pursuers were four-time major winner Brooks Koepka and one-time major winner Louis Oosthuizen,... Read more
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