The American zeitgeist concerning the Covid pandemic has, from the outset, flirted with a school of morality I have long termed “Sucks to Be You” Ethics. Back in March of 2020, I wrote about how President Trump was convinced that he had Covid confined to one arriving cruise ship, and in a real-life application of “Lifeboat Ethics,” he decided to… Read more »
Several changes to economic conditions and tax law over the last five years have added new variables to the big decision of whether it is more advantageous to rent or buy a place to live. I have updated and simplified a spreadsheet I have long used to teach this concept for you to download and plug in your own numbers…. Read more »
Two and a half years after all our lives were upended by Covid-19 it is critical that we look forward and ask ourselves, “How will America respond to the next pandemic?” Because we “failed the math part of exam” so badly with Covid-19, I fear that we will do much worse the next time out. The anti-math contingent of Americans… Read more »
“For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” — Jesus, quoted in Luke 16:1-13 NIV Everyone knows the punchline of this joke… Read more »
I have no great love of the Internal Revenue Service, but the current criticisms from people like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who is trying to convince people that that 87,000 IRS agents are headed to Iowa carrying high-lethality weapons have zero basis in reality. Grassley needs to be retired by the voters. However, I am going to tell you how… Read more »
“Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” (Frederick Buechner – Wishful Thinking, p. 79) After two dozen or so house moves, my wife… Read more »
Same-sex marriage should not be in the news again. But Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision has clearly invited states, as they did with Roe v. Wade challenges, to challenge their own 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that enabled same-sex marriages nationwide. Both Justices Thomas and Alito, have recently been… Read more »
Note: This is a cross-post from the Iowa blog Bleeding Heartland. A Kentucky circuit court recently granted a temporary injunction to halt the implementation of Kentucky’s “trigger law” that would ban abortion in response to the recent Dobbs Supreme Court decision. The judge spelled out perhaps the clearest rationale to date why the most extreme of the anti-abortion laws are… Read more »
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” — Isaiah 53:6 KJV A sample of the classic musical form of this passage from Handel’s Messiah: Here is the “thought experiment” of the day: Hundreds of ordinary Americans over 18 years… Read more »
I am sure Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito perceives himself to be a moral person. Indeed, he sees his religious sect-specific morality as so important that he has dedicated his career to changing long-held legal precedent in the nation’s enforcement of societal order. But there is no doubt that Alito’s direct actions have spawned evil consequences from his rulings on… Read more »