Reading in Times of Trouble

-
More and more, it looks like we'll all have a bit of spare time on our hands.

Rather than spend it binge watching "Mean Girls", pick up a book and read.

First and foremost, for all of us, not just those of you facing your own mortality for the first time, is to be right with the Lord.

If you don't have a Bible, you can download it for free as an app (or course!).  I like YouVersion, which just comes up as "Bible" on the App Store.  Right now it has five start with 4.8 million votes.  You can easily search, select from different translations, and even choose preset reading and study plans.




Start with the Gospel of John.  From there you may with to continue with Acts and Romans, or fall back to the Old Testament and read Genesis.  Many find comfort in the Psalms and I find great wisdom in Proverbs.  But, start with the Gospel of John (fourth of the first four books of the New Testament).

I believe in a mix of Biblical study mixed with some non-fiction and fiction.

My non-fiction book currently is the excellent Texas Ranger about the life of Frank Hamer, famous for bringing Bonnie and Clyde to justice.  Honestly, I haven't been doing it justice as my mind has been more fit for mindless fiction lately, but it's a great book all the same.


Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde


My fiction book of late is The Profession by Steven Pressfield.  Set in the near-future of 2032, it imagines a world where mercenary armies are the world's choice for fighting in the embroiled Middle East.  Good, worth the four stars it gets on Amazon, it's not quite up to some of his historical fiction like The Gates of Fire or The Virtues of War.

You don't have to read Russian literature to make a book more worthwhile than an endless session of television.  Though, that box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD's is calling a siren song.... (and I didn't pay nearly that for my set).  




Popular posts from this blog

The Public as Pawns

-
Image
Happy Sunday, everyone! It's been awhile since I've posted.  I've been waiting to see how the response to the trickling end of the corona virus would be. Earlier, I posted that there should be a single captain of the re-opening ship.  The tactic of having governors going their own way with their own standards and motivations, only to be complicated by county and city "leaders", creates a situation where the citizen and small business owner have no idea what to do.  On one side of an imaginary line, it's illegal to sell a beer or give a haircut, an hour away, people are packing restaurants and small business, those which managed to make it this far at least, are opening their shutters and praying for enough commerce to continue on. Generally speaking, I'm not for a centralized power structure, but when the response was nation wide, we need someone to at least vet the plans and organize things for continuity and to leverage interstate commerce to ma
Read more

Transitioning a Society

-
Image
This "quarantine" was intended to "flatten the curve".  Mission accomplished.  Now, get out of our way so we can fix the damage done by you, the politician. It was never about making sure no one ever caught the virus.  In fact, for herd immunity to work, the majority of people need to be exposed and build anti-bodies against the contagion.  We are prolonging the inevitable by keeping people locked down and businesses closed.  Once everything opens, there will be a spike in COVID-19 cases, and that is OK. The greatest threat to America and the world right now is not the virus, it is the transfer of power from the people to the politicians.  It's transferring because we are all obeying orders which are schizophrenic (release murders and put paddle boarders in jail) and downright illegal (where does the Constitution list who is "essential" and who is not?). Historically and Biblically, the sick were quarantined while the healthy went about the busin
Read more

George Orwell - a Last Warning

-
Image
Here is a two minute video on YouTube  stemming from an interview (or at least a dramatization of an interview) with George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984 . The words are well known, but, as the years pass, they become ever more poignant and more on point. A bit of thought, not a lot, but a bit, is required to think about how to heed such words.  From there will stem a tree of ideas, branches going every which way, but buds green with freedom and not red with the blood of Communism/Fascism/Totalitarianism. Yes, blood may be inevitable, it so often has been in the human struggle throughout history, but if it so, is this not why we teach (taught?) values clarification and the idea of triage to our middle-schoolers?  I suppose I live in the past, but, if blood is to be spilt better theirs than ours, better mine than yours, and, yet, better none at all if freedom can be secured without it. It's not like we haven't been warned...
Read more