The Air Force's newest officer

2nd Lt. Thomas Sensing, USAFR, left

Big day Friday! I arose very early, drove to the Nashville airport and boarded a plane for Tampa, then drove to Bradenton. There I administered the oath of military commissioning to my son, Thomas, who thereby became a Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force Reserve. He will hold this commission while he completes medical school (which he just started this fall). When he graduates he will be commissioned a captain in the regular Air Force's Medical Corps.

As a retired Army officer, I am authorized to administer these oaths. So it was a really great thing to commission my own son. Next summer he will attend the USAF Commissioned Officer Training school at Maxwell AFB, Ala., where he'll buy his uniforms and all that (and maybe get a haircut!). A lot of medical students have already started school by the time their military scholarships are awarded, so they don't worry about that sort of thing until the summer break.

Got back home late Friday night. A grand day all around!

So far my family is represented in the Army (me), the USMC by my eldest and now the Air Force by Thomas. My daughter just started her freshman year at Tennessee Tech where she is studying chemical engineering and sort of considering applying for the Navy's Nuclear Power Officer Candidate (NUPOC) program at the end of this school year. Here's the vid:

Our sugar addiction

Americans are becoming more obese because we eat so much sugar. Here is a small section of a highly informative infographic:

Click and read the whole graphic.

Sugar is added to almost everything you buy in a grocery that is not plain raw. Glucose, sucrose and  fructose are found on a shockingly high number of nutrition labels, just see for yourself. Fast foods are packed with added sugar. Sugar is literally addictive. Eating a high-sugar diet - the typical American diet - leads directly to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

So how interesting that Michelle Obama is promoting to schools the new federal guidelines that want pupils to eat more fruit and vegetables. That is literally a recipe for childhood obesity. Fresh fruit today has been bred for many generations to have the highest fructose content possible. If you bite into a fresh apple you are just eating a large hunk of crunchy sugar with a dietary-insignificant amount of nutrients.

Dietary carbohydrates are sugars once they are digested. Simple carbs break down to sugars very quickly while complex carbs less quickly. But both simple and complex carbs become sugar in the bloodstream. Carbs are found in a amazing number of vegetables. Potatoes of course, are high carb, but so are many veggies that most people would consider "safe." Green, leafy vegetables are in fact safe, but is the only category of vegetable that is safe in its entire.

It is dietary sugar and carbohydrates, pure and simple, that make you fat.  Dietary protein and dietary fat not only do not make you fat, to the contrary, if you eliminate sugars and carbs from your diet you will drop weight literally within 24-36 hours and will not be hungry while you slim.

Rules of thumb for food shopping and eating:

• The more ready to eat something is, the quicker it will make you fat and give you diabetes. 
• The more processed a food is, even if it requires a lot of preparation, the quicker it will make you fat and give you diabetes. 
• The more simple carbohydrates a food has, the quicker it will give you diabetes because it spikes the blood-glucose level so fast, leading over time to insulin resistance. 
• Read labels of everything. Foods with one or less carbs per serving are pretty much free, but should be eaten with meals, not as snacks.
• Meat, fish, poultry (MFP henceforth) and eggs are on limits in all particulars except when they have sugars added, such as glazed ham. Read labels on packaged meats.
• When you are hungry, eat MFP until you are sated. Don't worry about weights, measures or calorie counting. Just don't keep eating once you are satisfied. Don't worry about how often you eat MFP during the day, as long as you are actually eating to satisfy hunger. 
• Drink water, not sugared soft drinks or sweet tea. Diet drinks are fine, but remember that aspartame, the most common artificial sweetener in them, seems to stimulate insulin production, lowering blood glucose, and that typically leads to snacking. That's one reason that diet drink consumers eat so much.  Saccharine, however, is safe (the pink envelope stuff). Caffeine apparently stimulates insulin production, too (hence the famous coffee and donut break) so drink decaf beverages if you can. 

This list is simple summary of what you will learn if you read this absolutely invaluable book. Amazon's page is here. (BTW, I don't make money off this link.)

Human DNA isn't junk after all

New peer-reviewed paper in Nature falsifies Darwinian junk DNA prediction

Here’s biologist John Timmer to explain the orthodox Darwinian view of DNA from 2007:

Personally, I fall into the “it’s all junk” end of the spectrum. If almost all of these sequences are not conserved by evolution, and we haven’t found a function for any of them yet, it’s hard to see how the “none of it’s junk” view can be maintained. There’s also an absence of support for the intervening view, again because of a lack of evidence for actual utility. The genomes of closely related species have revealed very few genes added from non-coding DNA, and all of the structural RNA we’ve found has very specific sequence requirements. The all-junk view, in contrast, is consistent with current data.

Problem is, a study reported in Nature, one of the most highly respected scientific journals in the world, is that at least 80 percent of the human genome is active and the other 20 percent probably is to a very high proportion.

One of the planks of the evolution platform is that

... because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA.

But there is very little "useless DNA." So to preserve this plank of evolution theory - and it is a major plank -  biologists are going to have to figure how evolutionary processes managed both to preserve functional DNA while shedding "junk" DNA, and what were the gene-pool survival advantages of doing so.

Good luck with that.

Bishop Schnase offers prophetic assessment of UMC

Wesleyan Wisdom: Bishop Schnase offers prophetic assessment of UMC - The United Methodist Reporter:

He seems right on target.

Early in his address, Bishop Schnase lists additional sobering realities. The bold type assertions are his; the extrapolations are mine. 

1. We have a crisis of relevance. This expresses itself in numerous ways: lifelong episcopacy; district superintendents who resort to “cluster charge conferences” and do not hear preachers preach or visit congregations; seminary faculties who do not foster strong connecting links between academic preparation and pastoral service; a disconnect between societal change and “social principles”; theological confusion that leaves us a sitting duck for extremists of all stripes. 

2. We are failing to reach young people. Every local church would do well to have every older family identify where the youth and adults are who were in that church as children. It is true that many are not in church and this in itself is a sad testimonial to our Christian formation ministry. That is not, however, the whole story. Spend one Sunday visiting the independent and Pentecostal congregations in your community and you will find some of our “lost children.” 

3. There’s a disconnect between leadership and people in the pews. The economic philosophy, political persuasion and theological convictions of our preachers make lots of sermons either foreign or “over the top” to many in the pews. Our seminaries, two of which I served as faculty member, have been perilously close to developing an adversarial relationship with our parish culture.

4. Our organizational systems are not conducive to our mission. Peter Drucker says that in his first visit to company leadership he asks, “What’s your business?” Many stammer in answering. What would your church leadership say? Then he asks, “How’s business?” To this we must answer: “Not good.” ...

5. We have an unsustainable financial system. Our support base erodes with every older adult death. Recent studies by the Lewis Center document what we have known. People under age 50 are giving less to the church. 

From the local church to the general church, we are adopting unsustainable budgets. Draconian apportionment cuts may be needed. 

6. Membership and attendance are almost at a hemorrhage level in some areas.The UMC’s Newscope reports that only a handful of annual conferences showed membership/attendance gains in 2011 and that U.S. membership has dropped to below 7.6 million (compared to almost 11 million in 1968). Our membership continues to get older. The Lewis Center warns us that we must attract younger people and escape the earlier “suburban captivity” of United Methodism. 

See also my post, "Death Throes of the Blue-Model Church."

Christian Madrassa Talibanism

On Not Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater (A Message for Abused Ex-Fundamentalists):

I grew up in a form of Christianity most of you can’t even imagine.  Sometimes I’m even embarrassed to talk about it.  Whenever I meet someone who also grew up in it I want to grab them and sit down and talk at length.  I want to say “Hey, let’s form a support group!”  Often I find they went one of two directions with it—either deeper in or farther away. 

You see, the religious form of life I was raised in was almost cultic in its extreme legalism.  I’ve come to refer to us as “urban Amish.”  We lived in a city, but we regarded everything and everyone around us as bound for hell unless they repented and joined our group or something very much like it. ...You see, our form of Christianity was not garden variety fundamentalism.  It made fundamentalists look like liberals.  We considered fundamentalist Baptists liberals because they didn’t believe in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues and healing.

Read the whole thing.

12 Quotes: Thinking About Christianity

12 Quotes: Thinking About Christianity:

As Christians we accept one foundational truth - God - and everything else makes sense. An atheist denies God and has to accept incredible explanations for everything else. It takes more faith to deny God than to believe in Him. - John MacArthur

We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. - C.S. Lewis

Many are willing that Christ should be something, but few will consent that Christ should be everything. – Alexander Moody Stuart

Whatever is only almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is the more likely to lead astray.  - Henry Ward Beecher

We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen. - Thomas Merton

It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one true liberty -- the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right. Don't get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you -- with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. - Oswald Chambers

We may disagree with the content and approach of the New Atheists, but we should be grateful for the chance to engage these issues with a culture that is paying closer attention than any time in recent history. - Sean McDowell

Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.- Jonathan EdwardsWhat I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn. - Madeleine L'Engle

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving. - Frederick Buechner

It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless. - Donald Miller

Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service. If we do not use the mind that God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God's grace. - John Stott

John 3:16 in seven words and one photo

John 3.16:

The tattoo on the side of the wounded soldier says simply, "For those I love I will sacrifice."

The baseless thinking of atheism

See also, "Do human beings really have free will?"

And yet curiously, not for an abortion

And yet, curiously, minors do not need permission to get an abortion. Because that would be, you know, wrong.

 

The Austrian Church's race to the bottom

I have just learned that Catholics in Austria (and perhaps elsewhere in Europe) occasionally hold a "Western Mass." What's that, you say? No, despite its name, it's not a celebration of the rich history of Western culture, faith and reason that was cradled in Europe. Not at all. It's a Mass where the communicants pretend to be Americans in the American Old West. Or something. So as the priest preaches or consecrates the Eucharist, the worshipers drink beer (well, it's Austria) and smoke cigarettes at picnic tables. They even eat barbecue, or whatever Austrians think Old West barbecue might be. But that's not the worst part, no sirree, Bob. It is this, grabbed from the video also posted below:

Words fail me now. Let's go to the tape.

 

Is the American Church immune from such travesties? Not on your tintype!

"Nymphette Mass" - I kid you not.

And roll tape again:

The handiwork of God

This is NASA's astronomy picture of the day.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19.1

 

Want a janitor's job? Get a degree.

Janitorial work is increasingly becoming the domain of the college degreed - and if you apply, you'd better have a degree in a technical field.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that as many as one out of three college graduates today are in jobs that previously or historically have been filled by people with lesser educations or none. 

The U.S. now has 115,000 janitors with college degrees, along with 83,000 bartenders, 80,000 heavy-duty truck drivers, and 323,000 waiters and waitresses. Employers, because they realize that many college graduates aren’t really educated, now routinely quiz job seekers on what they majored in and what courses they took, a practice virtually unknown a generation ago. 

Good luck if you majored in gender studies, communications, art history, pop culture, or (really) the history of dancing in Montana in the 1850s.

The problem is that high school grads - as many as three-fourths! -are increasingly unprepared for even the ever-lowering standards of undergraduate work. Most college graduates are similarly unprepared for "the real world" and so half of college grads are unemployed or underemployed, a figure no doubt amplified by the very bad economy.

So anyone attending college today needs to understand some crucial things that will form the new normal for some time to come and why these factors should directly determine what you major in:

1. It will matter to employers what you studied, even if the job has not historically required a degree.

Work habits and self discipline are the key virtues employers seek. A graduate with an accounting degree might not find an accounting job, but rare is the student who can successfully complete the degree without both those virtues.

So with the job market being an employer's market, hiring managers for non-technical jobs will likely use the technical difficulty of an earned degree as an indicator of whether you are a good prospect. Absolutely any degree whatsoever that ends with the word "studies" is utterly useless for demonstrating focus and self discipline.

2. The "degree required" bar has been greatly lowered and will stay there for many years.

Is a college degree really needed for janitorial work? Of course not. But as more and more new janitorial hires possess a bachelor degree, it will become normative for their employers to expect. Even if the economy improves, it will be a long time before actual degree-required jobs are plentiful enough to return the mass ranks of janitorial hires to high school education only.

This being so, you must face a crucial question with all the compassion of a Swiss banker; "Is college worth the price?"

3. No matter your dream of employment, computational competency, clarity of expression and computer literacy will be dominant virtues of value to employers.

Forget the sell job that colleges like to tell you about "finding out who you are" there. You can spend a lot less than four years doing that and get paid for it to boot.

You are going to college to learn skill sets that will enable you to make a living. No matter what courses you take, when you graduate you must be literate, numerate and computer competent - and that last does not mean gaming.