After reading another blogger's thread on the disparity in salary among college level educators, I have to take a serious look at things. Sure, critics can say all they want, but isn't the point of those statistics to take a look at whether we truly have become an egalitarian society? In my life, I can honestly say I have not once seen a case of sex discrimination, and only once seen a clearcut case of racial discrimination (I applied for a job, and was hired; a hispanic man that applied a...

OK, so here's the scenario. I am headed over to a friend's house to purchase eggs (fresh, and at a reasonable, if not altogether cheap, price). While I am there, he gives me a discourse on the condition of his animals. The discourse is a thinly veiled sales pitch for his chicks (at almost twice the price I pay at the feed store), and his young pigs. Now, first of all, to know me, you must know that my Jewish ancestors one day sat around while old Moses declared swine flesh to be unclean...

The subject of baby names arose on another thread, and I have to tell you the baby name in our familu of which I am most proud (I love all my girls equally, but my little "mouse" is very dear to me, as I will explain following). Alannah was born just under two years ago, and her name was a contraction of "ally", suggested by my oldest (7 at the time), and "Anna" (suggested by my second daughter, five at the time). We took the spelling of the name from well known one hit wonder Alannah Myle...

The recent JU drama has brought out the cynic in many bloggers, myself included. While I have been quite busy, I quickly was drawn in by allusions to the drama, then backtracked until I found out what it was all about. It will not be rehashed here. This is not what this blog is about. The whole thing set me to thinking about the nature of prayer requests. If we send out a prayer request and the object of our prayers turns out to be fictional, what have we lost? It's not as though we have a...

Dear Friends, You may have noticed the absence of my blogs for the last few days. There will not be any blogs for awhile longer either. While I enjoy blogging and will return, there are some things that are larger than life. You may have noticed my earlier blog about my wife's labor concerns. Well, she started having contractions Tuesday and we had to take her to the hospital 80 miles away (she isn't due until August 23). They were able to stop the contractions, but because we are so is...

OK, here's a question for all of you. If you could interview one person, past or present, who would you interview, and what kind of things would you want to learn from the interview? One of the most fascinating interviews I ever heard about was when Alex Hailey interviewed a prominent white supremacist. In arranging the interview, Hailey neglected to inform his subject of the color of his skin, and what came out of it was a rather insightful and intriguing interview. In the spirit of that,...

I was responding to another thread in which I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed as I thought about the situation. I won't get into specifics, but the general gist of it was the situation put the individual in grave danger of becoming part of a cycle of anger. A cycle of anger is always destructive, and someone has to put a stop to it. I say this out of experience: I am the product of generations of dysfunctionality, and I finally came to the realization that it was up to me to put a stop ...

Well, the family's all tucked in bed, and I can say...this has been an interesting experience for my wife, a lifelong Wisconsinite, to move out to the middle of the desert. The heat has been a horrible burden for her, and we look daily at the calendar to see how close we are to September. With the baby due in August and a full week lost to a broken swamp cooler, I can honestly say, we're ready for the cool weather to begin again. We did catch a break today, as it was mostly overcast...t...

I am a misfit. More to the point, I'm a misfit Christian. I often feel like Diogenes, only instead of seeking an honest man, I am seeking a vibrant, living faith. While I am prone to judge, time has taught me that we are all imperfect in our beliefs and theologies, and I am loathe to cast undue judgement on someone else's beliefs without extensive Biblical support. I am adamantly prolife. To me, that means, anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti-poverty. That being said, ...