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Name: Tompaul
Birthday: 7/30/1976
Gender: Male
Interests: Travel. Writing. Theology. Photography. Movies. Food.
Expertise: Procrastination.
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/18/2004
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| 100 years ago today--December 19, 1909--my grandfather, James William "Parp" Estes, burst into the world. He only lived to be 92, passing away March 31, 2002, but he made the most of his years--and always represented unconditional love to his four grandchildren.
He was also the best--if not the most willing--model I've ever had.
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| The Adventist Review digs deep into the real questions that keep people up at night--such as, where did haystacks come from? Surprisingly, they appear to only date back to the 1950s:
. . . In the early 1950s Ella May Hartlein and her husband lived at Arizona Academy (before it became known as Thunderbird Academy), where Mr. Hartlein was dean of boys. The young family enjoyed dining out at a local Mexican restaurant, and they were fans of the tostadas. Before long the Hartleins moved to Idaho, then on to Iowa, serving at an academy there. There was a clear shortage of Mexican restaurants in those locales, and the Hartleins missed their beloved tostadas.
For a Fourth of July picnic, faculty women got together to figure out what to serve the crowd. Mrs. Hartlein, who by now had improvised and come up with a dish that would satisfy tostada cravings, had a suggestion. “I’ll tell you something we’ve had,” she said. And out came the story of how she began using Fritos for tostada shells and adding beans, lettuce, other veggies, and cheese. . . .
[The recipe] was labeled “Hartlein Special,” for Ella May. From there the dish went forth, though it is unclear when people began referring to it as “haystacks.” . . . | | |
| Adventist Today features my take on the difficulty of bringing dynamic Christians to life in the movies. From the article:
Unfortunately, Shadowlands isn't alone in movie biographies that emphasize angst over charisma, whittling down dynamic personalities ‘til there's little left but their gloomiest days. The musical bio-pic Walk the Line depicts much of the life and struggles of Christian musician Johnny Cash, but in exploring what spurred his addictions, it forgets to show the audience the larger-than-life qualities that made Cash such a magnetic presence in the first place. In 2003's Luther, a speedy tour of Martin Luther's life, the Reformation's original rabble-rouser is reduced, after a few early zingers at the establishment, to a man moaning, "Most days, I'm so depressed I can't even get out of bed." While Luther's life had more than its share of lows alongside the triumphs, the morose portrayal is hardly what you'd expect of a man whose fearless stand for the gospel changed Christianity and the western world forever.
And don't get me started about your typical Jesus movie. . . .
Visit the above link to read the whole thing. | | |
| The Chattanooga Times Free Press tells the story of the original presidential gate-crasher: former Washington Adventist University (then Columbia Union College) president--and Nixon look-a-like--Dr. George Akers:
Dr. George Akers’ strong resemblance to President Richard Nixon has earned him curious stares and “has anyone ever told you” conversation starters throughout much of his adult life. It also embroiled him in a controversy not unlike to the one faced by the couple accused recently of crashing President Barack Obama’s first White House state dinner.
Dr. Akers, who at 43 was a newly-installed president of Washington Adventist University at the time, said there was no plan at all when in 1970 he ended up behind the gates of Camp David, the Maryland presidential retreat where President Nixon was writing a speech at the time. “Our school was having its annual picnic nearby ... and some of the kids said let’s go over and chat with the guard,” Dr. Akers recalled this week from his Ooltewah home. “The next thing I know I was in the middle of the front seat.”
Their plan was to roll up to the U.S. Marine guard shack, wave at the guard with the expectation that they would be turned away. Laughs all around, and a good time would be had by all. But when the party pulled up in their green Cadillac hard-top convertible, a passenger told the guard, “Our president is ready to go through,” Dr. Akers said. “Seeing me and hearing the word president, the guard arched his back, saluted, clicked his heals, pressed a button and waved us through.”
It wasn’t really a lie, since he was a president of the small Christian university. But Dr. Akers said he immediately told the man driving the car that they needed to turn around. It wasn’t long before Secret Service agents swarmed Dr. Akers’s vehicle, ordering everyone out.
“Over the (Secret Service) intercom system, somebody said, ‘The President’s party has just cleared,’ and the message came back, ‘What do you mean he’s just cleared, he is in here taking a nap,’” Dr. Akers said he learned later.
The men spent more than three hours being questioned by authorities. Their car was disassembled and files that detailed all parts of their education and professional life were produced within minutes. Dr. Akers said they were able to get out of any criminal charges by reminding agents that the guard had welcomed them into the compound, and that he had never claimed to actually be the president. . . . | | |
| Nicholas Kristoff addresses the real way to peace in Afghanistan. Hint: it's not through military means:
“To me, what was most concerning is that there was never any consultation with the Afghan shura, the tribal elders,” said Greg Mortenson, whose extraordinary work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in “Three Cups of Tea” and his new book, “From Stones to Schools.” “It was all decided on the basis of congressmen and generals speaking up, with nobody consulting Afghan elders. One of the elders’ messages is we don’t need firepower, we need brainpower. They want schools, health facilities, but not necessarily more physical troops.”
For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.
Another program that is enjoying great success in undermining the Taliban is the National Solidarity Program, or N.S.P., which helps villages build projects that they choose — typically schools, clinics, irrigation projects, bridges. This is widely regarded as one of the most successful and least corrupt initiatives in Afghanistan.
“It’s a terrific program,” said George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee. “But it’s underfunded. And it takes very little: for the cost of one U.S. soldier for a year, you could have the N.S.P. in 20 more villages.”
These kinds of projects — including girls’ schools — are often possible even in Taliban areas. One aid group says that the Taliban allowed it to build a girls’ school as long as the teachers were women and as long as the textbooks did not include photos of President Hamid Karzai. And the Taliban usually don’t mess with projects that have strong local support. (That’s why they haven’t burned any of Mr. Mortenson’s schools.)
America’s military spending in Afghanistan alone next year will now exceed the entire official military budget of every other country in the world.
Over time, education has been the single greatest force to stabilize societies. It’s no magic bullet, but it reduces birth rates, raises living standards and subdues civil conflict and terrorism. That’s why as a candidate Mr. Obama proposed a $2 billion global education fund — a promise he seems to have forgot.
My hunch is that if Mr. Obama wants success in Afghanistan, he would be far better off with 30,000 more schools than 30,000 more troops. Instead, he’s embarking on a buildup that may become an albatross on his presidency. | | |
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