Aug
03
2011
Worth a Look 8.3.11
Logic Lessons: Attack the Argument, Not the Person
General George S. Patton’s standing order during the Second World War was to “attack, attack, and, if in doubt, attack again!” That approach certainly worked well for the U. S. Army in Europe during World War II. However, when it comes to logic (and peacetime), the attack needs to be focused on the argument, not on the person.
About nine years ago I developed the following list of prayer requests that I gave to every willing hand. I haven’t passed them out in at least four years, but I decided to resurrect them. Why? I need prayer…badly! And so does your pastor. As leaders in the church we have unique and often more intense temptations (“Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter”). So will you consider praying for your pastor the way I ask my people to pray for me?
Interesting article - How the Tea Party “Hobbits” Won the Debt Fight:
Today, no one is talking about tripling the national debt or passing a “second stimulus.” Congress is about to cut spending by about $2 trillion and put us on a trajectory to balance the budget within a decade. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid complained Saturday evening that Congress has raised the debt limit 74 times since 1962 without conditions. He is right. This is happening for the first time in history, thanks to the Tea Party.
A thoughtful review of Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction:
Jacobs’s “one dominant, overarching, nearly definitive principle for reading,” and one of his few prescriptive statements, is, “Read at Whim.” He borrows this exhortation from the poet Randall Jarrell, though the capitalization is Jacobs’s own. Whim, he suggests, is not “thoughtless, directionless preference” but inclination guided by your natural desires, by what brings you pleasure. Jacobs conveys the joy of losing oneself in a good book and issues a bracing call to the life of a literary omnivore.
And yet something is amiss in his argument…