Who is James Golden?  

   The unknown man of the No. 1 radio talk program. Gateway to The Man. 

   We saw him on TV this week. We knew he was an African-American, a partner with the late Rush Limbaugh, who gave him the pseudonym "Bo Snerdley. 

   He was more than a call screener. Golden, a college grad, was producer and engineer for Limbaugh. He is also producer/executive with Premier Networks, the largest radio syndication in the U.S. Google shows his net worth at $18 million. 

   Interviewed on Newsmax, he made it plain that Limbaugh was not racist, as Democrats always charged. (Who haven't they called racist?) 

  "I never would work for a racist," he said. He called Limbaugh's detractors, "Jim Crow Democrats, then and now." It's common for some to call people names that they themselves deserve. 

   He voiced disgust with Delta, Coca-Cola and other businesses that reacted to Georgia's voter law, noting that they have just two "token" black members on their boards of directors. Golden also said that Colorado, New York, Delaware and some other states have stricter voter laws than Georgia. Numerous blacks and black-owned businesses lost out when Baseball yanked the all-star game from Georgia. 

   Speaking of which, we saw a cartoon in our weekly paper. A man is standing at a bar at the Masters, drink in one hand, the other hand casually in his pocket. He says to the bartender, "It was either the all-star game or the Masters." The bartender replies, "Well-played, Mr. Commissioner."   

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Growing Up 

   Look for our new series, Growing Up, starting next week. You will learn about Jimmy Donut's stumbles along the way. But, there's always a lesson. And Tuesday - how CEOs become WOKE.  

            Jimmy

    

 

   

   

Soft Totalitarianism 

   Part 2

    If there is no sacred order, then the promise of the serpent in the Garden of Eden - "you will be like God" (Genesis 3:5) - is the foundation of the new culture. 

   Sociologist/author Rod Dreher said, "Without shared belief in and submission to a sacred order what you get is an 'anti-culture,' which is inherently unstable." He doubted that those raised in this culture would be willing to return to the old ways. He foresaw the future of religion as devolution into watery spirituality, which could accommodate anything. 

   In 2005 two sociologists of religion coined the phrase Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to describe the form that Christianity (and other faiths) had taken in contemporary America. They saw a general belief that God exists, and wants nothing more than for us to be nice and to be happy. 

   Today, the great sin is to oppose the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish. Note the sexual revolution and ethnic or gender identity politics, and the utopian focus of the radical left. Cultural revolutionaries have an ally in advanced capitalism - that nothing should exist outside of the market and its value according to human desires. 

   If true freedom is freedom of choice, as opposed to choosing virtue, then the door is open to reforming religion around subjective experience. Many conservative Christians, it is said, cannot explain victories of transgenderism. This phenomenon affirms psychology over biological reality, and is a logical culmination of a process that started long ago. 

   Christian resistance to the anti-culture has been fruitless, the article says. The spirit of the therapeutic has conquered the churches. Relatively few Christians are prepared to suffer for their faith, because society that formed them denies the purpose of suffering and the idea of bearing pain for the sake of truth.  

The lessons

   Dreher provided lessons for those who may face cultural and political harassment, gleaned from those who suffer totalitarianism elsewhere: 

* Stand firm but let bitterness stand down

* Avoid becoming hysterical 

* Value suffering but be merciful to those with less fortitude

* Practice hospitality and don't fear being seen as weird

* Speak up with the truth

* Don't worry about being prudently silent at times 

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 Coming Soon, Soft Totalitarianism   

   Western Christians may soon experience what Jews have long been facing around the world. If governments impose secularism, we will need a manual for spiritual survival. 

   Sociologist Rod Dreher published in 2020, Live Not by Lies. Views will summarize a summary today and - the lessons - on Friday. 

   Soft totalitarianism, he writes, exploits modern man's preference for pleasure over principles. The public will not oppose the state, he says, because it will be satisfied by self-indulgent comforts. Social critic James Poulos calls this the "Pink Police State," as people surrender political rights for guaranteed personal pleasure. 

   The state will use surveillance technology, welcomed by consumers for lifestyle convenience and public health. Big Brother's Big Data already monitors our private life via apps, credit cards and smart devices. 

   Dreher says the cultural revolution that overtook the West defines the core of soft totalitarianism. In 1996 he wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic - "the death of God in the West has given birth to a new civilization devoted to liberating the individual." 

   "Religious Man," he said, who believed in transcendent principles that ordered life around communal purposes, had "given way to Psychological Man." The latter "believes there is no transcendent (beyond normal; other worldly) order and that life's purpose is to find one's own way. Man, no longer a pilgrim on a meaningful journey with others, is a tourist travelling according to his self-designed itinerary." 

More radical than communism 

   This revolution is more radical than the Bolsheviks in 1917. They may have been godless, but they believed in an order, in which individuals subordinated their desires to a higher cause. By the 1960s men were seeking a civilization without a binding transcendent order. Long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was predicted that communism could not withstand the Western cultural revolution -one that set the individual free to pursue pleasure. 

Tomorrow: Part 2

Serious Humor   😛

   Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy graduated Magna Cum Laude from Vanderbilt. He has a law degree from Virginia, and a degree from Oxford in England. 

   About Gov. Cuomo lecturing us, he said, "It is like a frog calling you ugly." 

   Here are more of his quotes: 

"The election in Georgia will be the most important in history. You have nothing to worry about unless you are a taxpayer, parent, gun owner, cop, person of faith or an unborn baby."  

"Americans are thinking, there are some good members of Congress, but we can't figure out what they are good for." 

"Always follow your heart...but take your brain with you." 

"The short answer is 'no.' The long answer is 'hell no.'" 

"When the Portland mayor's IQ gets to 75, he oughta sell." 

"She has a billy goat brain and a mockingbird mouth." 

"You can get a goat to climb a tree, but you'd be better off hiring a squirrel." 

"This has been going on since Moby Dick was a minnow."

"Don't stand between a dog and a fire hydrant." 

"It appears that he might do the right thing, but only when supervised and cornered like a rat." 

"This is why aliens won't talk to us." 

"Chuck Schumer just moo's and follows Nancy Pelosi into the cow chute."

"She can strut sitting down." 

Provided by a friend

 From Prince to Homeless to Castle   

   When he was 18 months old, his father faced death threats and escaped with his wife and five children. 

   At age 10, the boy was living in a boarding school in Scotland. His older sisters had married, his mother was institutionalized, and his father moved to still another country with his mistress. 

   Looking back, the man said his childhood home was "wherever I happened to be." 

   Looks like a a life-long criminal in the making. 

   Not to be. While a cadet in the Royal Navy, he met a 13-year-old girl, a distant cousin, and began a long-distance courtship lasting through World War II. Before marrying Elizabeth in 1947, Philip renounced his Greek legacy and became naturalized in Britain. 

   His father was Prince Andrea of Greece. Philip was born Philippos Andreou in 1921, prince of Greece and Denmark. 

   In 1951, when his wife's ascendency to the throne became imminent, he resigned his naval commission, having risen to the rank of commander. 

   In 1997 Philip supported his grandsons, walking with Prince William, 15, and Prince Harry, 12, during the funeral procession of their mother, Princess Diana. 

   Having a title with no job description - Duke of Edinburgh - Philip took the role of champion for more than 800 charities ranging from youth advocacy to the environment to technological advancements. 

   He died at 99 in the historic castle named "Windsor."   

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 Amazing Creation   

   A canary hatches eggs in 14 days. A barnyard hen in 21 days. Ducks and geese in 28 days. Mallards in 35 days. Parrots and the ostrich hatch in 42 days. Get it? 

   We saw these numbers a few years ago. They came around again, so we share them today.

   The four legs of an elephant bend forward in the same direction, enabling the huge animal to rise from the ground. No other quadruped is so designed. A horse rises first on its two front legs. A cow rises first with its two hind legs. 

   Each watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind. Each orange has an even number of segments. Each ear of corn has an even number of rows. 

   Stalks of wheat have an even number of grains. Every bunch of bananas has an even number on its lowest row.   

   The waves of the sea roll on shore 26 to the minute in all kinds of weather. We'll try to remember this, next trip to the beach.

   Flowers blossom at specified times during the day. Botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) said that if he had a conservatory with the right kind of soil, moisture and temperature, he could tell the time of day by the flowers that were open and those that were closed.  

   Think God might be sending a message, especially to unbelieving scientists? 

   Our lives may be ordered by the Lord for his glory, if we trust him. He who made our incredible hearts and brains deserves our even, not odd, attention. 

       Jimmy

Equality Beyond Death?     

   Our leaders are on a roll...rolling back inequality by taxing the rich and devising ways to give reparations to descendants of slaves.

   Such is the ideal of Marxism - From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs. The principle: Free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services.  

   Equality has never been achieved, except in the form of mass poverty. Those who promise equal outcomes for all must remain excused from the masses so they can "govern." Look no farther than 90 miles south of Florida. 

   Our Creator directs those who have to help those who need, but his way is a test of godly love and character, not an edict of human government. Paul uses the word "equality" in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, but again - it's about individual willingness, and in those unpredictable days, rolls might be reversed. 

   "Neither heaven nor hell is a place of equals," writes Mike Huckabee in Rare, Medium and Done Well. 

   We will be judged by "the books" to be opened at the end of time. John wrote in Rev. 20:12-13 - among the final warnings, instructions and promises - "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. ...and each person was judged according to what they had done."  

   No excuses. No defense attorneys.  

   Huckabee says, "Clearly, there are eternal rewards based on the manner in which we lived our lives on earth." More is expected from those who have, and faith leaders will be judged more strictly than those they lead. 

   Politicians and their comrades exercise power as voters permit, but each will be judged by God's law, not man's, as will you and me. This is not about heaven or hell. Destination occurs at death. Final judgment, after the Millennium, will be specific and assign our deserved eternity, in one realm or the other.  

        Jimmy