If you review the history of any nation where the state controls the people you will always find secrecy. Evil deeds are done in the dark – in secret. In any dictatorship the press and media are controlled by the state in order to conceal the truth. Arrests by the SS in Nazi Germany were always made at night under the cover of darkness. In our own country trying to find out the truth about government is often clouded in secrecy….
The New York Times sports section noted that July 4thwas the one hundred year anniversary of the famous Johnson vs Jeffries heavy weight fight held in Reno, Nevada on July 4, 1910. Called "The fight of the century" by the media some 20,000 people watched a black man, Jack Johnson fight the former heavyweight champion of the world, James J. Jeffries, billed as the "great white hope." Johnson had angered the white establishment by simply refusing to conduct himself the…
William Barclay was a Biblical scholar and professor in Scotland who published extensively. One of his books is Day by Day published in 2003 by Hendrickson’s Publishers. One of his short articles deals with the idea of authority. He asks "Where, for the Christian does authority lie?" He examines the question of whether it lies in the church and notes that given the human conduct of the Christian church over history it is unlikely to be there. He notes that…
Ten years ago, on an early Friday morning, July 7th2000, my mother Mary Thelma Babarovich, died in her sleep at the San Juan Care Center. Her death was not unexpected. After all, she was born on December 28, 1905 and was ninety four years old when she died. She had been in failing health for some time. Her passing was, in fact, a personal blessing to her as she had been ready to meet her maker for some time. My sisters,…
My grandfather, Nicola Luvera died in Anacortes on Independence Day, July 4, 1956 after living more then ninety years. His story is one of courage and determination. After working in a slaughter house in Italy for twenty cents a day he decided to try to find a better life for his family in America. He managed to borrow money from relatives to sail to the "new world" where his relatives had found work. In 1902, he left and made his way to Montreal, Canada…
That's the title of an article that was recently published by the Catholic News Service. Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops has written that the Sunday sermon or homily should not be longer then eight minutes which is about the average listener's attention span, he says. The bishop also urges preachers to spend the appropriate amount of time to "craft a well-prepared and relevant sermon for Mass." Among the general guidelines, he also suggests that a…
Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted excommunicated a nun who served on a hospital commission that voted to allow an abortion for a woman who would not survive if she delivered and a fetus with little or no chance of survival. We have seen during recent political campaigns and in other settings, that many bishops seem to relish the power they claim to possess to excommunicate or deny communion to those they have decided are immoral. As one letter writer to a Catholic…
There is a website called inspire 21.com http://www.inspire21.com/stories/truestories/. It features true stories that are inspiring to read. One of the stories is a story I read somewhere else in the past and had forgotten about. The story is entitled "Who packs your parachute? It involves a true story about Charles Plumb and his parachute experience. Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy. He flew in Vietnam. After flying 75 combat missions his luck ran out….
When I was a child growing up in Anacortes, Washington, there were two movie theaters in town. One, the Empire Theater, at 7th & Commerical Avenue, was directly across from our family’s grocery store. The building is there, but the theater hasn't operated in many years. Today, Burton Jewelers occupies the area which was the lobby and ticket office. Since I was too young to work at the store they would take me with the family to our family grocery store, but, I…
I hadn't head of Desmond Doss (1919 – 2006)- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss - who was the first conscientious objector to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor until I came across a note about him. He was one of only three who was so honored. He was a Private first class at the time of his actions. As a Seventh Day Adventist Doss refused to carry a weapon into combat and served in the Pacific theater of World War II as a medic. He…
