Three Men; One Perspective    

   Jesus (in the flesh) had been gone more than 10 years when James wrote his letter to "scattered" Jewish Christians, about A.D. 45-49. If Jesus hadn't visited his half-brother after the resurrection, and sent the Holy Spirit in his place, would James have bothered? 

   Jesus had been gone more than 25 years when Peter the disciple wrote his two letters to the "scattered," while intense persecution was underway. If Jesus hadn't visited the disciples after his resurrection, and sent the Holy Spirit, would Peter have dared to witness? 

   Jesus had been gone about 50 years when John, one of the gospel authors, wrote his letters and the "Revelation." Would John have troubled himself at the end of his life if he hadn't experienced the life, crucifixion and resurrection so many years before? 

   Each man wrote differently, but all agreed on numerous truths. James and Peter were martyred, and John was banished to a Greek island for opposing emperor worship. 

   All three wrote of truth, or walking in truth. They urged belief, and that we remain in belief.

   They wrote of judgment, corruption, pride and boasting, and false trust in gold and silver. They all said the world is hostile, evil and hates believers, who should not love it.  

   These men encouraged readers, telling them to bear up and to know that hope purifies. All three corrected errors, exposing false prophets who led people astray. Believers needed to live godly, righteously and in holy fellowship. 

   Faith accompanied by deeds, as the Lord commands, may lead to suffering, they agreed. They called for love of neighbor, deeply, of brothers and of one another. There are other themes they had in common, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. 

         Jimmy

Quotables    

   "If someone had to die, I thought it should be me." 

   A Wyoming six-year-old, who protected his little sister from an attacking dog. He received about 90 stitches. 

   "Twitter has become the ultimate editor of The New York Times." 

   A writer and opinion editor - a political centrist - who resigned after "constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. The paper of record is the record of those living in a distant galaxy...whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people."  

   "When my mother was pregnant with me, the government chased her everywhere trying to forcibly abort me."

   A China researcher for Human Rights Watch

   "I thought, 'Well, okay! I guess I'm a dishwasher now.'" 

   A Jacksonville woman who took a job at an assisted living facility to be near her husband with Alzheimer's 

   "This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of (a political party) are not condemning mob violence and the attack on federal courts."

   U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr

Penguin Math 
   
   They don't fly, but they know their geometry. 

   Antarctic temperatures can drop to minus 40 with winds at cat 1 hurricane speeds. 
To stay warm, thousands of emperor penguins squeeze into huddles ... but not randomly.

   Their formations align with physics and geometry concepts, say researchers, who validated an earlier study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 

   Penguins move so each one spends time at the center of the cluster, which can reach 100 degrees F. Birds on the windward side quickly move to the leeward side. They push leeward penguins to the middle, and the center moves out to the windward edge. Over a few hours, penguins cycle through these rotations multiple times. 

  Huddles begin as misshapen blobs. But as they shift, the boundary of the pack begins to form a hexagon. Each penguin lines up as though it was on the hexagonal grid of a honeycomb. This formation allows for a dense, optimum arrangement for sharing warmth. 

   Accounting for humidity, wind speed and solar radiation, their movements are so mathematically precise that researchers could accurately predict how individuals within the huddle would maneuver. Without knowing it, the birds formed an almost perfect arrangement. 

   A mathematician wrote: "We tried to think of a better way (penguins could huddle), but it always involved an omniscient being who would tell them where to go." 

   Can you imagine thousands of humans cooperating that way? 

         Jimmy

Masculine or Effeminate?    
    
   Away with artists who dare to depict the incarnate Son of God, let alone portray him as effete or womanish. 

   Centuries in advance, the prophet described him as having "no beauty (female) or majesty (male) to attract us to him." Intentional. See Isaiah chapter 53 for further details. 

   Some others in the Bible were "handsome," but never Jesus. What the Lord wants us to know about himself is of mind and Spirit, not his looks. 

   God is all the attributes He gave to his creation, both male and female. Does it matter that painters offer their own concepts? 

   Why are men (10 percent) less likely to attend church and listen to sermons than women...today and in many cultures over time? 

   When 19th century American churches forbade sports on Sunday, men avoided church. Some men who did attend slept through the sermons.  

   How about: pastors and teachers speak of "my Rock," and "my strength." 

   That He created Earth and will rule over nations.

   That He taught with authority.

   That He spent 40 days and nights without food or water, sparring with Satan while physically exhausted. 

   That He called false-teachers "hypocrites" and a "brood of vipers," to their faces. 

   That He overturned tables and benches, driving merchants out of the temple.

   That, as a Lamb, He willingly endured the horrific cross. 

   That, as a Lion, He will make war.           (a guy thing) 

   Okay, loving Jesus also said, "Let the children come unto me." 

         Jimmy




  

Ending the 1918 Flu   

   The H1N1 flu virus struck in the spring. Flu viruses thrive in cold weather.

   But the virus returned that fall, and soldiers in World War I carried it all over the globe. A wave that began in Australia reached North America in early 1919. 

   One third of the world's population may have been infected. It's possible the virus simply ran out of victims, says a scientist. 

   New sanitary practices also helped, along with the war's conclusion. 

Keeping Satellites in Orbit 
   A telecommunication satellite enters space on rocket; then a motor takes over and carries it to 22,236 miles above Earth. The motor stabilizes the satellite in orbit around the Equator. 

   Small motors periodically adjust the satellite to keep it at the same speed Earth rotates, so it seems to hover in the same spot above us.

Who Funded Amelia Earhart? 
   Short answer: She raised her own cash.

   Earhart used publicity stunts to earn money, setting flight records in the process. "I make a record and then I lecture on it," she said. 

   Sometimes she flew her own plane, footing the bill and just breaking even. Earhart also wrote books, contributed to Cosmopolitan magazine, designed a line of clothing for active women, and took part in a promotional deep-sea dive. 

   We had no idea. 

 Source: Smithsonian 
 Tomorrow: the "faces" of Jesus 

       Jimmy

So, You Are Privileged?    
    
   Tch. Tch. Our political left has a target on your back.

   Some 25 years ago at a large government site, my department of about 20 people spent a day of training at a bed and breakfast. (We got neither bed nor breakfast.) 

   On the "guidance" of Hazel O'Leary, secretary of energy, our manager lined us grownups side by side, out in the back yard. (We weren't even government employees.) 

   It began: "If you were raised by two parents, take a step forward. If you're male, step forward...white, forward." Some coworkers stepped backward. 

   After all the criteria, such as education, yours truly found himself to be among the most privileged. I sat down on the steps, befuddled. That's not how I saw myself, especially among this group of achievers, including black women. I had struggled throughout my career. Never secure. Never a leader. Never wealthy. 

   Today, the identity police are still at it. We learned last week that workers at our former job site are being encouraged to despise white privilege. If it's there, it's happening at government sites across the country. 

   Part of a plan - the far-left plan. They contend:                         \/
      Freedom of speech protects the privileged.
      Equality in law protects the privileged.
      Freedom of religion protects the privileged. 
         (Translation: God and the Bible, not welcome.)
                                                                                                                          Source: Nikki Haley  
   They say:
      Social justice (as they define it) trumps freedom of religion.
      What counts are categories: race, sexual identity, etc. 
      Rights that perpetuate privilege must be eliminated.
      America must be remade.                                                       /\
 

  We don't worship the GOP.

We do appreciate current policies and imperfect America's progress overall.

Any administration - and Congress - under pressure by 
the growing left will fail everyone, except the newly privileged 
power brokers and those who go along to get along.

As in oppressive China

        Jimmy

   

Overcoming Our Nemesis     
     
   Monday, we covered Creation, and God's demonstration that without his righteousness, and his personal, intimate relationship, every inclination of man's heart is lacking. Genesis 6:5. Cue the Flood. 

   Depravity has not changed since Noah's time. Lust and violence continue, unrestrained in some quarters. There is immorality, ungodliness, greed, rebellion - and among our contemporaries - porn, X-rated movies, human trafficking and more. 

   After centuries of biblical influence, many are inclined to live by civil standards, but not everyone honors the God of those standards. 
  

John, the disciple probably closest to Jesus, wrote:

   Friendship with the world is enmity.

   Do not love the world or anything in the world. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. 

   The world and its desires will pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.  1 John 2:15-17 

James, the half-brother of Jesus, later martyred, wrote: 

   You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 

   Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.  James 4:4, 7, 8

God cursed the ground we live on,

and cursed the vegetation.

   Jesus is our peace with God. He removed enmity with his body on the cross, reconciling to himself all who believe.  Ephesians 2:14-16 

   

Finding Our Nemesis in Genesis     

   Friends, if you have issues with the world and your relationship to it, consider the enmity that has continued from the beginning...to our day. 
    

Enmity: ill will, opposition, mutual hatred

   Here, we remember God's creative work, and what went wrong. 

Tomorrow, his solution. 

   In the beginning, God created... 

          light 

          sky 

          ground/land 

          seas

          vegetation

             - plants

             - trees

          lights in the sky 

             - sun

             - moon

             - stars

           creatures

              - birds

              - fish 

              - livestock

              - wild animals/beasts 

              - those that move along the ground

              - man (in God's likeness) to rule, given the breath of life 

   God placed a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He commanded Adam and his wife not to eat the fruit of this tree, but they were easily deceived by the devil, who spoke through a serpent. 

   All these millenniums later, we escape the hateful deceiver's power only by accepting the terms of our loving God...there is no other. It's a continuous life and death struggle. 

   God told the serpent: I will put enmity between you and the woman (Eve), and between your offspring (Satan) and hers (Christ); he (risen from the dead) will crush your head and you will strike his heal (the crucifixion).  Genesis 3:15

   After years of allowing man's lust and violence, the Lord said, My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal.  Genesis 6:3

   The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  Genesis 6:5

Tomorrow: Overcoming our nemesis

Why, Lord?    

People wonder, why doesn't God do away with evil?

The late Adrian Rodgers

had this to say in a broadcast sermon:

If God erased evil, and everyone was locked in...good,

there would be no freedom.

And if there was no freedom,

there would be no love for a savior. 

God is love, and He wants us to choose love,

among other options,

first for him and then for our fellow human beings.

Tomorrow and Tuesday: Finding our nemesis in Genesis

What If           
No Atom Bomb?   

   Thanks to Hitler's aggression in 1939, the U.S. had an answer for Japan in August 1945. Who knew? 

   The U.S. Army Air Forces began development of a long-range bomber, a $3 billion gamble - America didn't want war. Pearl Harbor changed everything.

   President Roosevelt intended to avoid harming civilians, but Hitler made it hard to fight nice. He didn't surrender, but shot himself when Russians closed in. Then he discovered that Darwin was wrong.

   Japan's top dogs - now defeated in 1945 - planned a massive resistance, which would have cost enormous numbers of Allied invaders plus Japanese soldiers and civilians alike. 

   It was March 1944 when the B-29 Superfortress - the biggest and deadliest aircraft ever - was ready. Its wingspan almost the width of a football field; its tail fin as tall as a three story building. 

   A B-29 could fly more than 5,000 miles at 350 mph with tons of bombs. It had a General Electric system for remote firing of machine guns, an analog computer, radar, and 150 electric motors, seven generators and 11 miles of wiring. Nearly 4,000 were built. 

   Germany, its original purpose, was being leveled by B-17s and B-24s. The B-29 in fact was the only plane capable of covering distances between Guam, Tinian and Saipan and the various Japanese islands. 

   Some 334 B-29s bombed central Tokyo with napalm in March 1945, setting a firestorm on the wooden city. No surrender.

   They went on to more than 60 of the largest cities. Still no surrender.

   If President Truman hesitated using two atomic bombs in August, conventional bombs had been falling on civilians en masse. Does it matter to the victims? Gen. Curtis LeMay guessed that had he lost the war, he "would have been tried as a war criminal." 

   Finally, Japan quit, but it was not unanimous.  

         Jimmy


  

MIRACLES   
Until the Day    
    

Paul wrote about...God, who gives life to the dead 

and calls things that are not as though they were. 

Romans 4:17

   Can we trust Paul's letters? We counted 64 extraordinary hardships, people and places Paul suffered for Christ. It was only to the Corinthians that he thought it necessary to list his many trials. 

   We don't believe for a second Paul would have endured all that - and written all those letters - some from his prisons - if he had fabricated his surprise calling - Acts 9. This passionate persecutor of Christians became a passionate bearer of good news. He in turn became a marked man by his former associates. 

   Our age began with the gift of the Holy Spirit - Acts 2. By the Spirit's power, followers of Jesus overcome Satan's deception and our own sinful nature. 
(Yes, we fall short of perfection.) 

   In the (new) beginning, Spirit-filled Peter healed a cripple. Stephen saw the glory of God while being stoned. The Spirit translated Philip from Gaza to Azotus. Two liars died on the spot. 

   Paul and Silas were singing in prison around midnight when an "earthquake" broke open the cells. All prisoners stayed put. Recognizing the truth, the frightened jailer begged, What must I do to be saved?  

   Today, with countless Bibles, teachers and missionaries - and advanced healthcare - God gives different gifts to different believers, the gift of healing for one. 1 Corinthians 12:28. Our brother-in-law was healed of rheumatic fever at age 10. His prognosis had been dire. We don't know what the Lord might be doing in some remote places on earth. 

   In chapter 13, Paul names the greater gifts - faith, hope and love. 

   While we worship and work, we await the Day of the Lord - 2 Peter 3 - when He will act on his wrath toward the wicked and establish his long awaited Kingdom.
Read John's miraculous vision, the Revelation.

        Jimmy


   
   
     
   

MIRACLES   
Angels Receive Assignments 

   Tell the virgin, Mary, Nothing is impossible with God. Give her a word of knowledge. Tell Joseph what is happening. Give Elizabeth a prophesy. Give Zechariah a word.  

   Your privilege: take good news to the shepherds (the least of these my brothers?) near Bethlehem. 

   Immanuel, God with us, is born to deliver us from our greatest enemy - sin.

   

   This is not what people expected. Jesus spends 40 days in the desert without food or water, foils Satan's temptations...and is attended by angels. 

   He turns water into wine and heals a leper. He calms a storm on the lake and walks on the water.  

   Jesus sends disciples into the countryside with healing powers. He feeds thousands by multiplying a small collection of bread and fish.

   Jesus fills an empty fishing net to the breaking point. 

Peter, stunned, says, Go away; I am a sinner. 

   Peter, James and John witness a transfiguration, as Jesus visits with Moses and Elijah. Peter blurts out an idea. 

   Jesus heals invalids, the blind, cripples, mutes, demon-possessed and paralytics. He raised Lazarus to life after four days.  

   His "work" about finished, He rides a cooperative colt into Jerusalem. Adoring people think He is going to establish his kingdom. Instead, He washes his disciples' feet. 

   They arrest him at night, while people slept. The Son suffers his Father's wrath - in our place - and He tells the Father to forgive his killers. 

   The tomb cannot hold him. He shows hundreds his nail-pierced hands. There is life-changing joy among his followers. He breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples.  

Tomorrow: Until the Day

       Jimmy

   

MIRACLES   
From Basket to Palace    
    
   Baby Moses and others of his generation were destined for infanticide. Was that Satan's first "holocaust?" But he was spared, and raised in Egyptian luxury. At age 80, then a shepherd in Arabia, he heard a voice in a burning bush.

   We mortals would choose a younger man with better articulation to face off with mighty Pharaoh. The plagues of judgment were awesome. A staff became a snake...then returned to a staff.

   During the Exodus at the southern tip of the Sinai wilderness, Moses and the Israelites were trapped. There was no way thousands of people and their animals could have traveled north...west of the Red Sea...toward the Promised Land. Check Google Earth. 

   God to the rescue again.

   What was all the commotion on Mount Sinai if not miracles? Still, the self-absorbed people rebelled, complained and died in the desert. Forty years after the camp-out began, their descendants broke camp. Joshua took over for Moses, now 120. 

   Jericho fell by a shout and the sound of trumpets. The sun stood still for several hours. An Assyrian officer was healed of leprosy. 

   An ax head floated in the Jordan River. Samson, Gideon and others had their moments.

   Did the Lord guide David's slingshot. What do you think? 

Tomorrow: A stone that causes men to stumble

      Jimmy

MIRACLES    
Abraham Believes; Sarah Laughs    

   Too bad the Weather Channel wasn't there to opine on 40 days and nights of rain and worldwide flood. TV News might have asked Noah: Who told you this was coming? How did you collect all those creatures for your...what do you call it...an ark?

   Hey, how did the door close by itself? Noah, Noah...let us in! 

   We mortals don't understand. God saw to it that someone recorded accounts of this event and human activity before and after. The writings, books, collectively are called...

   A Testament: a witness  covenant  tangible proof  tribute  conviction. 

   No generation experiences the whole. We believe his Testaments - with help of his Spirit - for what is past, with faith and hope in what is promised. 

   God called elderly Abraham to father a new family line. His offspring would trust and obey God and demonstrate his many attributes to the outside world. Wouldn't they? 

   He appeared in human form to reveal that Sarah would give birth long after the age of child bearing. When she overheard this, she laughed, and God overheard her. 
Is there anything too hard for the Lord? Gulp! 

   Almighty God accomplishes his will by the power of his Spirit, not the abilities of stubborn man, although He is active within us. He waited another 25 years - for emphasis we assume - before Isaac was conceived. 

   Abraham's 12 great-grandsons weren't choir boys, but the Lord had big plans for their descendants. Eventually, the 12 families - about 75 persons - migrated to Egypt to avoid a famine. Just part of the plan.    

   Joseph was falsely accused by the wife of an Egyptian official. Prison was part of the plan. Joseph himself later became the second most powerful official in Egypt. Part of the plan. 
 

Tomorrow: From Basket to Palace 

      Jimmy



   

Miracles     

As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so

you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Ecclesiastes 11:5

   Conception is a work of God, as is a 300-ft. redwood from seed to finish.
Solomon didn't have the Weather Channel

   A neighbor invited me on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. Fearing I might fall overboard and be swallowed by a large fish, I said, "no thanks." 

   Okay. It worked out for a prophet in the 8th century B.C. The fish spit him out alive after three days, and he got an honorable mention in the New Testament. 

What a fish story. 

   Long before that, the first man appeared fully grown. Makes sense. Otherwise who would feed him and change his diaper? 

   The first woman was fashioned (women have liked fashion ever since) from Adam's rib. Does that make her his "sidekick?" 

   In the movie Dumbo, no one expected to see an elephant fly. We wouldn't think a serpent could talk either, but Adam and Eve were charmed, and we've all become sin-bitten. 

   Did the first couple use the word "miracle" when their first child, Cain, joined the family? Did friends put 930 candles on a birthday cake for for Adam? 

   In time, the Spirit of God would no longer contend with the lust and violence of mortal men. (Genesis 6:3) God told Noah how to float a boat. Then the springs of the deep sprung and the floodgates of the heavens opened. 

   It's getting deep, so we'll seek higher ground and be back tomorrow.

Abraham believed and Sarah laughed

      Jimmy

Ms. Harris Goes to Washington   
    Conclusion: Sen. Harris  
     
   Hospitals of the Daughters of Charity were in financial trouble. Prime Healthcare - not unionized - made a bid to buy the hospitals and continue their work. 

   The Service Employees International Union opposed the deal, allegedly promising Harris $25 million toward her senate campaign. She didn't kill the public-supported buyout, but her 77-page poison pill of requirements was more than Prime Healthcare could swallow. 

   With or without $25 million, Kamala Harris went to Washington. She's no Jimmy Stewart.

   Talented Sen. Harris took the lead role a few seconds into the Judge Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, interrupting the process. She also won best actor award -just kidding - for aggressively taking on a Democratic debate competitor. The object of her scorn was...oh...Joe Biden. 
   
   Harris is no friend of Christians and Jews. Swoon, all you kids with soaring hearts.  

   As for VP Biden, he once was somewhat conservative...against abortion, for the Hyde Amendment, ready to approve Robert Bork, etc. Over the years, fellow Democrats persuaded him on issue after issue to move their way. His goal seems more important than his fundamental beliefs, if he still has any.

   What did our mom's say? Be careful who your friends are. 
   
   Mrs. Biden says her husband is a moderate, neither right nor left. In other words, he is within reach of his career-long goal; who cares what the party wants to do?  

   Sadly, this story is larger than the twosome on this ticket. It's a tale of corruption in California politics. Unfortunately, the disease infects Washington as well. 

   Our founders established a way for America to rise above the corruption of nations. Today, we have people with talent to conform to the nations, as the Israelites did in the years B.C.  

Want something more inspiring to read?

We offer our series on MIRACLES, Monday thru Friday

      Jimmy

     

   

Talented...Oh, Very   
          
   Joe Biden picks Sen. Kamala Harris, 55, as his running mate. He says she is "talented, dynamic and ground breaking." 
  

Quoting an actress, "My heart is soaring for all the kids out there

who see themselves in her and will dream bigger because of this."

  

   Yuck! 

   Admittedly, race and gender have been factors since George Washington, a white man, as required. In 2020 we can celebrate diversity while paying more attention to character. Isn't that right, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? 

   Biden, at age 29, set out to become our president. In 1994, Harris, at age 29, set out for lofty goals. She took up with a married man, Willie Brown, 60, leader of the state assembly, the second most powerful politician in California. Brown gave her access to political supporters, donors, etc., and a new BMW. Dynamic! 

   She knew who to connect with, exchanging campaign favors with Barack Obama when both were climbing political ladders. 

   From Peter Schweizer's book, Profiles in Corruption, we learn about her time as San Francisco district attorney (2004-2011) and California attorney general (2011-2017). At age 49, she married in 2014. Harris charted her course, following her own rules. 

   She determined which cases to bury (friends and friends of friends) and which to prosecute (all others). She favored those who supported her financially, regardless of law. 

   Against all evidence, she refused to prosecute priest abuse and other such cases. Big donors rewarded her. 

   With ally Jerry Brown in the governor's office, Harris ignored Sempra Energy's methane gas leak that continued for more than 100 days. The governor's sister was on the company's board. 

Tomorrow: the larger picture

  

   

Do You Believe in Miracles?       
    
   There are two definitions of miracles: 
      1. An extraordinary event - divine intervention in human affairs
      2. An extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing or accomplishment

   At the Winter Olympics in 1980, a U.S. team of college hockey players upset the four-time, gold-medal winning Soviet Union team, 4-3. As the game clock expired, young announcer Al Michaels asked, "Do you believe in miracles? YES!" 

   Was it a miracle? Certainly, under definition 2, an extremely outstanding accomplishment. Probably the greatest upset in the history of sports. 

~

   We believe that creation was and is a divine miracle, with humans last in order. 
We didn't design ourselves. The universe is the work of a higher intelligence, a greater power. 

   While we are pondering God, He in the spiritual realm is doing what He does.
The potter doesn't need the clay to question him. He does want our fellowship.  

   The Bible itself is a miracle - Spirit-inspired words given to humans for printing. 

   Evolutionists came up empty. We could conclude that much even if we never heard of God. 

   To Genesis 1:1. Everything that was made, living or inanimate, owes its existence to the Trinity. By him we live and move and have our being. Every breath. 

   God intervenes in human affairs as He determines. We may know it when we see it. Other times, we guess, He acts, and we're left to guess. 

   Join us Monday through Friday for our series on MIRACLES in the Bible. 
You will believe! 

      Jimmy
  

From Pro Women
       To Erase Women 
     
   Women arrived, thanks in part to the 19th Amendment 100 years ago this month. But some are so unfulfilled by their voting rights and access to the job market, they don't want to be called "women" any longer. Gotta pursue happiness somehow! 

   A professor writes that the first women's rights convention was held in 1848. This grew out of the abolitionist movement, when women realized they didn't have the same rights they were campaigning for African Americans. 

   Some didn't support the 15th Amendment (for black men) because women weren't included. In 1890 they joined forces with the National American Woman Suffrage Association. White women even moved away from promoting black civil rights. 

   In 1913, the movement sponsored a parade in Washington, the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Things were becoming more radical. 

   They protested in 1917, challenging the president: "You're trying to make the world safe for democracy. Well, extend democracy to the women in your own country who are supporting this war effort." 

   Wilson needed full backing. He couldn't ignore daily protests, and finally persuaded Congress to pass the 19th Amendment. The professor notes that Mrs. Edith Wilson supported the movement. 

   During World War II, women "manned" the factories while men fought the battles. Afterward, they were expected to go back to making beds. They began to question their world, and today more women than men attend college.

   Are we all good, now? Nah. Some women try to reduce womanhood, to erase the realities of biology. "Call me an individual who _____." Fill in the blank. 

   And men claim femaleness as a birthright, while young children are told to decide which they want to be, and media like CNN dutifully go along. 

   God created both male and female in his image. Genesis 1:27 

       Jimmy

Hardwired or Adaptable?  

   We knew it! We knew it! 

   Scientists say structural differences exist between the brains of males and females. They studied brain scans of more than 1,000 people in the U.S. and U.K. 

   Men tend to have more gray matter in parts associated with vision, emotion and memory. Women have more gray matter in parts associated with decision making, self-control, emotion and taste. 

   So, I applied this to our marriage and realized that Mrs. Donut has more gray matter in every area. Which of us is the exception? Well, I might equal her in the gift of self-control. 

   Of course, everything is controversial. A female professor says differences between the sexes are "a myth." She fears such research will detract "from the idea of real equality." 

   God said He made humans in his image, (both) male and female. 

   A professor at Wheaten College notes that God created men and women as biologically different, but that doesn't mean they don't have equal value. "We should celebrate the differences," he wrote.

   He says our biology, our particular environment and the choices we make all play a role in the anatomy of our brains. And that the brain "is an organ, so it does have a physical, hardwired nature. But it also engages with culture and is designed to adapt." 

   I take comfort that my limited gray matter coexists with scarlet colored blood. 

      Jimmy

    

TV's Punching Bags          
  
   What did these TV shows have in common?
   

Leave It to Beaver   Bonanza   The Waltons  

Little House on the Prairie   Father Knows Best

   
   Television fathers loved their families and were respected. Archie, in All In the Family began a trend.   

   Our Dad worked to support us. We could have set clocks by his to- and from- office routine, which continued until mandatory retirement at 65, long after we were on our own. 

   He maintained house and property, while equally dependable Mom did what mom's did. He attended our games and concerts. He took us to Sunday School and church, served on "the board," and gave me chores. He took us on vacations. 

   If Dad failed at anything, it was transferring his knowledge of algebra into my thick head. Ha, Ha! 

   I think other dads in our town were similar...forged by the Great Depression and resolute during World War II. I never met Mrs. Donut's parents, but they were of the same cloth. 

   Name me a recent TV program in which father is the lead character, let alone someone to emulate. I don't watch the shows, so you tell me.  

   Probably 30 years ago at a company function, I sat for lunch at a table of female employees. Big mistake. They were not conscious of my presence. Rather, between bites they totally disparaged their husbands or other men in their lives. Who's chauvinistic now? 

   A columnist says, "This diminution of fatherhood is a flanking attack on the family itself." He guesses, "the youthful rioters and looters grew up without strong, good dads to teach them right from wrong."  

   Honestly, if we had to choose between an all-male government or all female, we might take perceptive women. But there were good queens and bad queens.

   Fathers...where are you?

       Jimmy