Be sure to listen to Sean Hannity’s radio show later today. My friend Mel Maguire will be speaking with Sean today, April 8th, about her excellent commentary regarding the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. Mel represents a small but very brave minority – gay conservatives unafraid to speak against political correctness, in favor of freedom. Be sure to listen! It seems like Mel always has something interesting to say... … [Read more...]
Can a Smart Person Believe in God?
April 6, 2014 by 1 Comment
[ Hat tip and many thanks to fellow Prince of Peace Lutheran Church member Jim Jimenez, for lending me his book.] The title of theoretical physicist and author Michael Guillen's book Can a Smart Person Believe in God? is actually a rhetorical question. The author is obviously a very intelligent man as well as a professed Christian, who leaves nothing open to interpretation when he wrote: "I believe in the monotheistic God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- the God of the Book. The One who created the universe." Furthermore, his credibility as author of this work is beyond dispute -- Dr. Guillen holds a trio of PhD's from Cornell University, in astronomy, mathematics, and physics, respectively. Dr. Guillen also taught physics at Harvard University for eight years, and served as the ABC News science correspondent. In other words, his academic/scientist credentials are impeccable. He explained his motives for writing it by saying: In fact, the main reason for writing this book is not to rebut atheism (although, inevitably, I do that) but to discredit the arrogant manner in which its proponents often present and defend it -- especially these days, when being cool often means coming across as sassy and self-reliant. Probably the best word to describe Dr. Guillen (and his book) would be balanced. His professional experience as a teacher, his training as a scientist, and his ability to articulate useful information in a conversational, easy-to-understand style combine to create a book that is concise and very easy to read. He elaborated further on his reasons … [Read more...]
Pornographic advertising for Orbit chewing gum
April 4, 2014 by 1 Comment
According to what I learned in my business classes in college, the purpose of advertising is to help a company market a product to customers, whether repeat or potential. Some ads are designed to make a lasting impression to improve brand awareness, reminding the customer of their historic shopping preferences. Other ads are intended to simply increase sales. The question is, what is the purpose of the new advertising campaign for Orbit chewing gum? The William Wrigley, Jr. company has dominated the chewing gum business for more than 100 years. Their most popular U.S. products include Altoids breath mints, Skittles and Starburst candies, Lifesavers, as well as Juicy Fruit, DoubleMint, Spearmint, and Big Red gums. Orbit gum is yet another Wrigley brand of gum, one with a very interesting history. During World War II, every pack of Juicy Fruit, Spearmint, and other well known Wrigley brands manufactured were exported to U.S. troops fighting overseas. The brand was discontinued in 1946, after the war had ended and the other brands returned to the American market. In 1976, Orbit was revived as a product, introduced as a sugar-free gum sold in a few European countries. In 2001, the brand was brought back to American markets with the "Dirty Mouth" ad campaign. The first commercials featured a blonde spokeswoman and typically suggested that the reason a person needed to chew Orbit gum was to clean their mouth after they had used bad language. They were pretty silly ads, but mostly harmless. The one starring Snoop Dogg was actually pretty funny, … [Read more...]
Questioning Darwin
April 1, 2014 by 1 Comment
This month HBO is airing a program that it promotes as a documentary, called Questioning Darwin. Somewhat predictably, the program paints the picture that Ken Ham and his museum for Young Earth Creationism should be considered the only viable and true alternative philosophy to Darwinism, completely ignoring brilliant thinkers such as John Lennox, Francis Collins, Connor Cunningham, Stephen C. Meyer and Frank Turek, as well as competing ideas such as Intelligent Design and Old Earth Creationism. The documentary dredges up the old, tired creationism versus evolution debate once more, reinforcing many of the known, misleading stereotypes and repeating the same mistaken assumptions that have pretty much been hashed to death already. The narrator begins by claiming that Christians who insist the Bible must be accepted as the literal Word of God are creationists who consider Darwin the antichrist. This was news to me. Based on my limited knowledge mostly gleaned from biographies of his personal life, I was sort of under the impression that Darwin was sort of a spoiled, petulant rich guy who married his cousin and never really had to work for a living. Curiously, the documentary described creationism as a growing branch of Christianity, as if "Creationist" was comparable to Baptist, Lutheran, and Catholic. On the whole, the documentary depicted creationists as stubborn, ignorant and silly deniers of science, while the scientists were portrayed as calm, soft-spoken, rational people. There simply wasn't an option offered that didn't fit those two somewhat … [Read more...]
Out of touch
March 29, 2014 by 2 Comments
As a general rule I try to avoid celebrity bashing, mostly because I don't want to sound jealous. Fortunately, after reading Gwyneth Paltrow's outrageous, whining remarks complaining that "it's much harder for [Paltrow]" than a working mother, I happened to read another article that made me realize there wasn't much left to say. Ms. Paltrow explained: I think it's different when you have an office job, because it's routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening. When you're shooting a movie, they're like, 'We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,' and then you work 14 hours a day and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as, of course there are challenges, but it's not like being on set. Oh, boohoo. Cry me a river, Ms. Paltrow. Two weeks spent playing make-believe in Wisconsin constitutes a serious hardship in your mind? Suffice it to say that no one is forcing Gwyneth to earn millions of dollars for a few weeks of "hard" work pretending to be a real person. But don't just take my word for it. Check out the hilarious open letter working mom Mackenzie Dawson penned in response to Ms. Paltrow, recently published in the New York Post. Ms. Dawson hit the proverbial nail on the head right off the bat when she began, "Thank God I don’t make millions filming one movie per year” is what I say to myself pretty much every morning as I wait on a windy Metro-North platform, about to begin my 45-minute commute into the city. Sarcasm practically dripped from Ms. … [Read more...]
