Posts

Posted on

Vanessa- an update

Vanessa Liu, our Chinese guest for Christmas, left yesterday, and we miss her so much!  As planned, we took her to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY last Wed.  The exhibits are both comprehensive and impressive, and Vanessa mostly listened, kept her Chinese dictionary at the ready, and seemed to enjoy herself.  She saw and heard many things that were new to her.  At supper the next day, we had a long discussion about “faith in evolution” vs. faith in Christ, and she restated her commitment to evolutionary beliefs.  Those are, we believe, the major impediment to her conversion, since she has been taught them constantly since childhood.  The good news is that she now has the other side, presented thoughtfully and respectfully.  In addition, she participated in giving and receiving gifts (I got a quill and ink set, for instance), attended many church services, went dancing with us on New Year’s Eve, spent several hours discussing his trip to China with our cousin, John Graham and even did some target practice.  As we parted, and some of us were close to tears, she stressed that she wanted us to visit her in China.  I hope we can! 🙂

Here are some pictures of our adventures together: Continue reading “Vanessa- an update”

Posted on

Our gift from China at Christmas

We have a special gift with us this Christmas.  Vanessa Liu, our daughter’s Chinese roommate at OSU, has come to stay over the holidays,Rene & Vanessa at Christmas 2008 and in only a few days she has become dear to our hearts.  (Here she is with Rene, her friend from OSU who brought her down.)  We talk about China & America, the ways our two cultures are different or the same, and why we do all the things we do.  She has been helping clean and decorate some, she went to the ornament exchange with the CPC ladies Mon. night, and yesterday she had fun feeding the chickens.  She will join us in gift giving and receiving on Christmas day, and be at a big family dinner this Sat.  Though she doesn’t understand much of it, she has also joined us in corporate & family worship.

This Sun. evening past we had Continue reading “Our gift from China at Christmas”

Posted on

I was wrong…

and I hereby admit it.  I always assumed that Paul Krugman (NY Times Op-Ed Columnist) was a wacko leftist radical whose opinions were fun to laugh at but hardly ever to be taken seriously.  Then I read this.  Folks, the man is making some sense here.  Madoff is clearly the worst kind of financial scumbag– he deserves hard labor in a rock quarry where all the people he ripped off get to come throw rocks at him.  Yet, it’s hard to rebutt Krugman’s argument that large sections of the financial industry deserve, in some sense, the same fate.  Here’s the point I am honing in on– Continue reading “I was wrong…”

Posted on

Do not farm

Almost 200 years ago our family came to this area to start farming.  My information on the first 75 years is sketchy; about all I’m sure of is that they didn’t move to our present location until the 1840s, when my great, great grandfather built the “old place” now restored by the Paul Hornback family.  In all that time, there were many ups and downs for farming, and no doubt many pessimists.  Nevertheless, we’re still here, growing mostly crops and a little jet fuel.

Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative commentator I respect, who is widely read and very well educated.  He is a college professor, and a farmer.  Here is what he Continue reading “Do not farm”

Posted on

Screeched to a halt

Upon returning from picking up Serena at work early Friday morning (she is temporarily caring for the dogs at the kennel in the morn, too), Ted noticed an unusual, brown lump in the road near our driveway. He went back to investigate, after turning into our drive, and returned to deposit the said brown lump in Serena’s lap. It was a screech owl! It had evidently flown into a car, and had the good fortune to land in the center of the lane such that car tires straddled it as they passed. It did not have the good fortune to be uninjured from the crash, however. Ted and Serena rigged up a perch for it in a critter cage we had. It sat on the perch in a dazed but quiet condition all the while it was at our house. It would look at us out of its left eye, but kept the right eye closed.

Saturday, we were going in to Louisville anyway, and were able to make contact with Raptor Rehab. of KY, which is based there. The director informed us that this is “hit-by-car screech owl season”! It happens every year, because they are more active, presumably courting. There were 6 cages lined up in the back already, containing hit screech owls. Unfortunately, the volunteers weren’t encouraging about our owl’s prospects, due to the blood in its throat, the damaged eye, and the bloody stool it had while at our house (internal injuries). At least it will be in the care of folks who know what to do for it.

Here’s the poor little fellow, in our cage, and at the rehab. center.

Injured screech owl in our cage

being examined by Raptor Rehab. volunteer

And here’s your tidbit for the day: In Raptor Rehab’s newsletter that they gave us, one of the articles was about barn owls. Did you know that they are nicknamed “the flying mousetrap,” and that they can catch more mice in a night than 10 cats??? Imagine!

Posted on

Caribou and SNL

Folks, it take a lot to get me to watch TV.  I kissed it goodbye almost 40 years ago, and my life has been full of exciting times, productive work, lots of books and movies and thousands of conversations with live people.  In a word, TV (generally) is for the brain dead.  If you’re feeling a little offended right now, I suggest you … take a hike 😉  If you’re still here, however, I must confess that I just watched Continue reading “Caribou and SNL”

Posted on

A Failure of Nerve

My father tells me that my grandfather, one of the most respected and best known farmers of Shelby County, seriously considered giving up and selling out in the 1930’s.  It was after the stock market crash; times were very hard; he was in serious debt due to an unfortunate turn of events a few years before, and he wanted to sell out and become a doctor instead.  He was almost 40 years old at the time– this would have been a very iffy road.  He, and the farm, were saved Continue reading “A Failure of Nerve”

Posted on

Receprocity & the 2nd Amendment- UPDATED

Caution–New York is the only state that prohibits the transportation of handguns without a license. Travelers should therefore be particularly careful since they face severe consequences should they inadvertently violate the state’s highly restrictive statutes.

On June 26 [2008], the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment—”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”— protects a purely individual right, as do the First, Fourth and Ninth Amendments. “Nowhere else in the Constitution does a ‘right’ attributed to ‘the people’ refer to anything other than an individual right,” the court said. “The term [‘the people’] unambiguously refers to all members of the political community.”

On Sept. 8th, while traveling home from a building seminar in NY state, I got a first hand look at how law enforcement in a “gun unfriendly” location interprets my right (see above) to individually carry a weapon as a means of protecting myself and my wife.  Although I was not actually arrested, I was effectively taken prisoner Continue reading “Receprocity & the 2nd Amendment- UPDATED”