Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

ROBERT GATES AT UT AUSTIN

TomJohnsonLectureSeries_BobGates

Secretary Robert Gates gave a nice, informative interview this evening at the LBJ Presidential Library on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin to promote his latest book A Passion for Leadership.

 

Secretary Gates has served under Presidents  Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Some lines of his that caught my ear tonight:

 

“God help us from the man or woman in a leadership position who thinks they’re the smartest person in the room.”

 

Presidents who had zero sense of humor: “Nixon and Carter.”

 

Whether in business or the military: “Those on the front line know best what’s not working.”

 

After 50 years of service to the government, “I am amazed I survived…. [because] at some point, experience becomes a liability.”

 

“We need more people [who have come up into leadership positions but] who know where they are from [i.e. “the sticks,” “the boonies”] and are willing to go back there [and relate and affect the people they left behind].”

Overselling Old Ideas About Marriage: a Microcritique of Ryan T. Anderson

bookbread pencil shavings

Over at First Things, Mr. Anderson seems very concerned that the implications of the Obergefell decision means some florists and cake bakers, who previously purported to serve the public, no longer get to define that public on their own exclusionary terms.

 

But I believe the enthusiastic acceptance and embrace of the decades-old wedding industry did far more to destroy marriage than a weeks-old SCOTUS ruling.

 

There are churches on nearly every other block of real estate in Dallas, and how many of those congregations welcomed second and third weddings among their congregants?

 

And how many of those congregants were florists and cake bakers who profited off those subsequent marriages of their fellow congregants?

 

To blame all this on the Baal that dwellith inside the Beltway seems a bit much.

Dubstep: You know you’re mainstream when the OED approves

Found this today:

C. S. Lewis Bible to be Released (Continentalnews.net)

C. S. Lewis Bible to be Released.