Jorn Utzon, Sydney Opera House architect died

Jorn Utzon, Sydney Opera House architect, died of a heart attack at 90.  It seems there was a bit of Howard Roark in him. Not so much Roark that he blew the place up, but enough so he never visited it.

Mr Utzon, an award-winning architect, put “Denmark on the world map with his great talent,” said Danish Culture Minister Carina Christensen.

Having won a competition in 1957 to design the building, he left the project before it opened in 1973.

Read more

People begging toy companies to parent their children

Articles - people - like this would have sent me into a gibbering rage a few years ago.

The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

“Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don’t have the money,” wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. “By bombarding them with advertisements … you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can’t afford the toys you promote.”

Now they just inspire me to hit the Caps Lock key: Read more

Fear of “backlash” and a little truth telling

I thought this article was interesting: Muslims speak out against terror online.  Two quotes in the article drawn from progressiveislam.org particularly caught my eye. The predictable “backlash” comment - “I’m sure there will be an anti-Islamic backlash in the country.”

I have no idea what will happen in India, but in the United States the “backlash” the media and CAIR so desperately seek has never happened in decades of terror attacks by Muslims. No riots, no blacklists, no mosques burned… nada. In America the number of fake Muslim hate crimes rivals the number of real ones.   And all reported anti-Muslim hate crimes are still only about 20% that of hate crimes against Jews. In fact, there are only a few more anti-Muslim hate crimes reported than there are anti-Christian ones. (Their 156 to our 135.) So let’s dispense with the backlash nonsense, at least in America. It’s not happening. Read more

Leaking is not, as they say, couth

in Great Britain. And there’s a big difference between leaking and whistleblowing - nice to see they, at least, can still comprehend what a thoroughly dishonorable activity leaking is.

Mark Steyn Two-fer

A reality check and a reality check-out.

Engage With Grace

A friend once described to me what happened when their dog was hit by a car. She took him to the vet and said, “Do whatever it takes; I don’t want to lose him.” Thousands of dollars later, she regretted it. They’d put the dog through a lot of pain, spent a lot of money that was needed elsewhere, and as she put it, “It’s just a dog. Yes, we love him, but he’s not a person, and he’s going to die, just like all pets do - sooner than we want.” While the equation for people is obviously not so simple, our failure to address the simple, inevitable reality that we WILL die is also painful and expensive. Read more

An Uncommon Word

A year after “A Common Word” where many Christian leaders essentially renounced their faith by asking Allah for forgiveness and apologized for the fact that Muslims were not permitted to conquer Europe, the dhimmitude continues apace.

Students at Yale Divinity School were instructed to comply with Islamic standards in order to accommodate Muslim guests at a conference ironically titled “Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed: Implications for Christians and Muslims.” The implication for Christians is that we must subordinate our faith and ideals so that we don’t offend Muslims. The implications for Muslims seem to be that they must accept the fealty of Christians.  Read more

Well Said.

The name of the holiday is NOT Turkey Day!

(And the holiday we celebrate during the first week of July is “Independence Day” not “Fourth of July.” Every country has a fourth day in July; only the United States celebrates our independence on that day.)

Next Page »