Ladies, Look At This Face

CARLY FIORINA MAKES LEMONADE FROM THE LEMONS THE DONALD MOST UNGRACIOUSLY TOSSED HER. She does it with class, style and not a bit of sourness. Way to go, Carly!

Two Babies Talk Life After Delivery

THIS IS CLEVER AND POIGNANT, IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T READ IT:  H/T


IN A MOTHER'S WOMB were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”  The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

Sunday--Humility and Lowliness of Spirit

WHY CHRISTIANITY IS SURGING IN HEART OF ISLAM
THREE WAYS WE FIGHT FOR OUR FAMILIES

HUMILITY AND LOWLINESS OF SPIRIT QUALIFY us for friendly communion and intercourse with God in Christ.  Pride makes God our enemy (1 Peter 5:5).  Our happiness here and hereafter depends on our friendly intercourse with heaven. If we have not that, nothing can make up our loss (Psalm 30:5).  If we have that, nothing can make us miserable (Rom. 8:31), 'If God be for us, who can be against us?'  Now, who are they whom God is for, but the humble and lowly?' They who being in Christ are so made like him. He blesses them, and declares them the heirs of the crown of glory:  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. 5:3)  He will look to them, be their condition ever so low, while he overlooks others (Isa. 57:15).  He will have respect to them, however they be despised: 'Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect to the lowly; but the proud he knowth afar off' (Ps. 138:6).  He will dwell with them, however poorly they dwell (Isa. 57:15). He will certainly exalt them in due time, however low they lie now (Isa 40:4).

Now, is it not better to be qualified for communion with God, than to have him engaged against us, at any rate?

Humility is a duty pleasing to God, pride a sin pleasing to the devil (Isa. 57:15; 1 Tim. 3:6).  God requires us to be humble, especially under affliction, 'and be clothed with humility' (1 Pet. 5:5, 6).  That is our becoming garment.  The humble Publican was accepted, the proud Pharisee rejected. We may say of the generation of the proud, as 'Wrath is come upon them to the uttermost' (1 Thess. 2:16).  They please neither God nor man, but only themselves and Satan, whom they resemble in it.  Now duty is better than sin at any rate.

They whose spirits are brought down to their afflicted lot, have much quiet and repose of mind, while the proud, that must have their lot brought  up to their mind, have much disquiet, trouble and vexation..

The spirit brought down to the lot makes and maintains this inward tranquillity.  Our whole trouble in our lot in the world rises from the disagreement of our mind therewith; let the mind be brought to the lot, and the whole tumult is instantly hushed;  let it be kept in the disposition, and the man shall stand at ease in his affliction, like a rock unmoved with waters beating on it (Col. 3:15). 'And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called'.

---Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot, Living With that Thorn in Your Side, 1737

Saying Adios Amigo to Bob Dornan A Jackson Hole Original and Real Western Man

 

(PLEASE NOTE, A PIECE OF MY KEYBOARD WENT OUT LAST WEEKEND, MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO POST. The part has been ordered and should be in and fixed by next week. Till then,  posting will be light. Thanks for coming by.)

 I WAS CRAZY ABOUT BOB DORNAN OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS I KNEW HIM IN JACKSON HOLE, AND HE WAS FOND OF ME TOO. Every person who knew him had tales to tell. This summer when I was out in Moose having lunch at Dornan's, I learned Bob was gravely ill with only hours to weeks to live. I moped around for days afterwards. Bob died last week after a very full life and very happy marriage, and I want to post what came out today in the Jackson Hole News and Guide: 

  By Johanna Love

One day several decades ago Sen. Alan Simpson came upon his childhood pal Bob Dornan outside of Dornan’s Wine Shoppe in Moose. Dornan was stomping on cardboard boxes, flattening them to recycle. Dumbfounded at the sight, Simpson said, “What the hell are you doing?”

 As always, Dornan didn’t mince words. “He said, ‘You just help me, you big bastard,’” Simpson recalled. “‘You got a size 16, just get in here and help.’”

 Recycling was important to Dornan, working in the shadow of the Tetons at Dornan’s, his family’s cluster of businesses in Moose: a restaurant, grocery, gift shop, sports shop, bar, wine shop and outfitting operation.

On Sept. 2 Dornan, the public face of Dornan’s, died at home. He was 86. His friends remember him as smart, genuine and funny, with a wealth of knowledge about many subjects, especially wine.

He was “interested and interesting,” friend and former bar manager Amy Brennan McCarthy said. “You could sit over lunch and talk about geology, about the economy,” McCarthy said. “Of course you could talk about the wine.

He was an absolute gem of a human being with an open heart and an open mind.” Simpson, famous for his own gift of gab, said Dornan was a born conversationalist, which came in handy for the millions of people who flowed through Dornan’s. “He had a way of communicating with people,” Simpson said, “from the janitor to the popes and the potentates. He had a heart as big as his body.”

When Mary Howley Ryan began working for Dornan in the Spur Bar in 1992, she was surprised by his willingness to chat. She was impressed that he didn’t talk down to a young 20-something woman, that he cared about what she had to say and engaged her in discussions. “You didn’t just work for Bob,” she said, “he kind of adopted you. It was like a family.”

 Educated as an engineer, Dornan was a lifelong learner. He first picked up the wine bug in the 1960s, touring California vineyards with his father, Jack. For the past 30 years Dornan’s Wine Shoppe manager Dennis Johnson was an attentive pupil, soaking up Dornan’s wisdom as they tasted various varietals. “He taught me almost everything I know about wine,” Johnson said. “He just believed in a good glass of wine every day, or a good bottle.” A favorite grape was Zinfandel. “He said if he could only drink one wine for the rest of his life, it would be zinfandel,” Johnson said.

Read the whole piece.

Let it suffice to say,  I and hundreds of others will greatly miss  this rough yet good-hearted man. But no one will miss Bob like Dennis Johnson, my friend and fellow fly fisher who managed Dornan's Wine Shoppe for Bob decades.

Adios amigo.

CANCELED: Nashville Mayoral Candidate Megan Barry Is Sponsoring A Planned Parenthood Fundraiser October 1 in West Nashville

PBS OMBUDSMAN:  GWEN IFIL'S SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS TO PBS CREDIBILITY, BUT REALLY, DOES ANYONE STILL WATCH THE NEWS HOUR ANYMORE?

5 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD VIDEOS

(ABOVE, MEGAN BARRY AT LEAST FOUR YEARS AGO)

IT'S HARD TO FATHOM HOW OR WHY ANY SERIOUS CANDIDATE FOR POLITICAL OFFICE at this point in time, would help sponsor a Planned Parenthood fund raising event after the released videos and  undercover expose of the organization's depraved murdering and selling of fetal body parts often of full-term children in the womb.

But Nashville ultra-liberal mayoral candidate Megan Barry, along with her husband Bruce of the TN ACLU, is doing just that.  On October 1, less than a month after the election on September 10, she's co-sponsoring a big event at the GJCC---the Jewish Community Center in West Nashville---to help raise money for Planned Parenthood.

I cannot help but think this is going to hurt her chances for being elected mayor, unless Nashville is even bluer and more uber-liberal now than I think.  God help us if she's elected. The event at the JCC is entitled AMUSE BOUCHE....amusing indeed. But, HEY!, with a little wine,  it'll all go down with tidbits of gaiety as patrons chit-chat about hacked body parts and stem cells sauvignon..

Dawn of a New Day

     

EARLY MORNING UNDER THE DAM OF THE SOHO which is habitat for the smartest fish in the world. It takes patience, perseverance, and focus to catch these fish at this time of year after all the pressure they've been under. You also have to use the smallest of flies (16-22) with the tiniest of tippet (6x-7x) in the slickest tail water fishery in America. A major challenge all aroun and always humbling. .Fortunately, some of my favorite former  fishing guides and colleagues in Jackson Hole fixed me up with a pair of boots that help wading here on the SOHO be much safer... felt soles with steel studs. DUCKS ON THE WATER....

Our Gordian Knots Need Jesus The Great

BY JON BLOOM AT DESIRING GOD

PHRYGIA WAS AN ANCIENT kingdom in what is now central Turkey. According to legend, once upon a time Phrygia was without a king. One day, a pagan oracle declared that the next man to drive an ox-cart into Phrygia’s capital city, Telmissus, would be the new king. That man was a farmer named Gordias.

Gordias’s son, Midas (who later became the king with the golden touch), decided to honor his newly exalted father by dedicating the ox-cart to the Phrygian god, Sabazios, and he tied it to a pole using a knot so complex that it was considered impossible to untie — the Gordian Knot. Another oracle pronounced that the one who would solve the riddle of the knot would rule Asia.

Centuries went by and the ox-cart remained securely tied to the pole. Then Alexander the Great came, conquered, and happened upon the knot. Being the decisive warrior-leader he was, he dispensed with the inscrutable knot by slicing through it with his sword. And he went on to conquer Asia.

The Gordian Knot has become a parabolic symbol of intractable complex problems and Alexander’s sword (c. 333 BC) has been a parabolic symbol for decisive, out-of-the box leadership solutions.

Our Gordian Knots

In the kingdom of our souls, we each have our Gordian Knots, don’t we? Some of them are impenetrable intellectual quandaries over God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, the nature of suffering, the origin of evil, God’s eternality, the Trinity, and so on. We press on these and discover our limits and hopefully learn to exult with Paul in saying,

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

The more painful knots are the complex spiritual, emotional, and psychological entanglements of indwelling sin or the temperamental weakness, disability, circumstantial adversity, and traumatic past experiences. Combined together, these often shape how we think and what we do in ways that confound us.

We try to untangle them. We try to figure them out. But the more we work at them, the more complex we find the knots to be. Counseling and certain kinds of therapies can certainly help us the same way teachers, discussions, and books can help with intellectual struggles.
Counseling will only help us to a point. Therapy doesn’t possess the power to cure us. We discover our limits. And we cry out with Paul,

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Who can untie these sin-permeated, hopelessly intertwined knots of pain?

None of us can. The most gifted human pastor, counselor, or psychological expert is unable to fully untie the knots that entangle us. Nor can any of us make a sword ourselves that will cut through them.

Our Conqueror Has the Sword

The answer to our cry is the same answer Paul declares in the next verse:

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25)

There is one who can solve the riddle of our Gordian Knots. He is the conqueror. “He is called . . . The Word of God” and “from his mouth comes a sharp sword” (Revelation 19:13, 15). And with that sword, all that is sinful in us and all that is part of the futility of this age (Romans 8:20) will be cut away.

On Cavalry, Jesus the Great dealt the decisive blow upon every sinful knot of every saint who would ever belong to him. In this age, every promise of God is yes in Christ and has power to cut through our knots with truths and set us free, if we will believe them (2 Corinthians 1:20, John 8:32). And in the age to come, every Eden-induced Gordian Knot will have been destroyed.

Loose the Sword on Your Knots

Some knots you will never be able to untie on your own. But there is one who can undo them. Jesus, the Creator of our bodies and psyche, the Maker of our souls, the One who really knows how we’re wired and what we need, essentially counsels one primary thing for our troubled hearts: “Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Jesus wants us to look to him, listen to him, and trust in him.

The key to dealing with our Gordian Knots is not ultimately introspection and analysis. Effective counseling and therapies will aim to help us see more clearly what lies are interfering with our believing in Jesus so we can counter them. But the key to freedom, the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) that will cut through the knots of lies, is believing Jesus’s words (John 8:32, John 15:7).

The words of Christ are living and active and the sharpest sword (Hebrews 4:12) and in him every promise of God is yes for us. He alone will set us free (John 8:32).

Fox For Nashville's Latest '8 Years, Megan' Ad

I VOTED TODAY FOR DAVID FOX.

He will make a much better mayor than Megan Barry ever can.

Megan voted to raise the property tax rate on homeowners 13%, costing taxpayers over a hundred million dollars....She voted to massively increase government spending---by $398 million---but failed to spend it wisely....Funds that pay for pension and health care benefits owed to Metro employees are $3.1 billion in the red. That's not good for retirees, and it's not good for taxpayers who are on the hook for it...Megan Barry won't be good for Nashville. BTW, great ad above David!

Friday: Is Stock Market Turbulance Over Or Just Beginning?

MEGYN KELLY, FIRST CASUALTY OF TRUMP'S 'ASSYMETRIC' WAR ON FOX NEWS?

(ABOVE, THE FED MEETING---SCHEDULE---COMES TO SMOKY JACKSON HOLE---PHOTO JHNEWS)

WHILE I DON'T PRETEND TO BE THE ULTRA-SMART MONEY, I've thought since the great market rout of 2007-2009, and subsequent housing crash that followed, we've been living in an artificially propped up economy for the last few years that would eventually crash to epic levels of pain and suffering. Markets have been manipulated for years.

Are we now at the bottom? Or are global markets just rehearsing for greater drops ahead? Only time will tell, but our federal debt and spending is becoming unsustainable, the Federal Reserve is out of the quick fixes of lowering interest rates any further---how much lower can you go from ZERO, ZIRP?---the Chinese economy is coming back to Planet Earth after years of flying high and finally consumer debt is at all time highs.

We've been living the euphoric high-life that we thought would never end. My own opinion is that the financial crisis----and a totally new chapter in global markets---is just getting started. The good times may not be completely over, but they are slowly grinding to a halt. In other words, caution is advised on all fronts, including paying down debt and tightening our belts. I would also SELL the bounces right now, rather than BUY them. Major volatility is not our friend.

Prudence is the order of the day and  should always be. Sure, we may have some more bounces, especially if the FED gives the markets what it wants---assurance that interest rate hikes are not imminent.  But overall, FED valium won't be the last word or any kind of saving grace.

Here is a fascinating article at ZeroHedge today on what China's U.S. Treasury liquidation means to our economy.   It's well-worth a read to contemplate what a $1 trillion QE in reverse might mean to us in the months ahead.

Later Today: Why I Endorse David Fox For Mayor and What I've Learned From Being A Successful Mediator

       
BUSY, BUSY DAY TODAY  but I intend to get back later to talk more about why I support David Fox for mayor and will vote for him in early polling next week.

I also want to talk about what I have learned about mediation from decades of being a court mediator ahead of the mediation I will participate in Wednesday with Mike Shmerling and Abe's Garden. From much experience,  I know what  makes for success and what dooms a process even before it begins.   One thing is for sure:  I don't fall for stunts and heavy-handed tactics before a good faith mediation begins. No one should.  But that doesn't mean some people won't try.

In my years of being a mediator with a very good track record,  I've seen truly amazing things be resolved in the most creative ways. I've witnessed much healing take place even after years of conflict.  I've seen people walk away saying it was almost miraculous what took place during mediation. On the other hand, some things---especially when a participant takes a winner-take-all, terrorist attitude---simply can't be successfully mediated or mediated at all. Some people go into mediation thinking it's a mini trial. It's not.  Mediation is about finding win-win solutions and trying to help the other person achieve what they most care about.

Again,  mediation, to be successful, is  a win-win game.  There are those people who can't get their minds around that concept.

It's an entirely different process.  Mediation works in  90% of the cases I've mediated, but you've got to put your guns down and leave them at the door.

Guess we'll see what happens Wednesday.  ******* UPDATE: Our mediation failed to reach a win-win agreement, so we'll be heading to trial in late November.

Sunday Thought

PASTOR JOHN PIPER: REFLECTIONS ON A PLANNED PARENTHOOD PROTEST

IS THIS TRUE FOR YOU? It certainly is for me.

Once a man or woman really understands the nature of sin---a self-inspired narrative in which we write the script of our lives and leave the Almighty God out---and begin to repent, it gets easier to see more and more of the unredeemed aspects of our lives.

 FROM CHALLIES

No Commentary Needed, As DOW Torpedos Down 530 Points

A BOUNCE WILL COME, BUT IT COULD BE ONLY A  QUICKIE.

Carrington Speaks On Behalf of Husband David Fox's Run for Nashville Mayor

SURE, SHE'S BIASED. FOR GOOD REASONS. Carrington is smart, capable and accomplished in her own right, and she knows a good man when she sees him. She knows a good candidate when she sees one.

David Fox will do a great job for Nashville in prosperous times as well as downturns in the economy. He knows that prosperity isn't just about spending more, more, more, full steam ahead. Prosperity is a way of life that takes into account the various global economic cycles that inevitably come or will come. It means living within one's means and growing too.

Lefty Megan Barry naively thinks that David's is a mindset of austerity, but she's just plain wrong. It's a mindset of wisdom and sustained prosperity in good times and bad. Hers will bring train wrecks down the road. Megan will run city government with extremely partisan and special interest cronies and insiders from the left and the far left.

Hammocks On Rubber Rafts Through the Big Kahuna---A Jackson Hole Original

STOCKS CRASH AND THRASH THROUGH CLASS 5 RAPIDS, TAKE ON WATER TODAY

WAS JUST FLY FISHING THROUGH THE BIG KAHUNA WEEK BEFORE LAST,  but not even in my wildest dreams,  would I consider riding a hammock attached to a rubber raft or paddle board through some of the roughest white water in the canyon of the Snake.  Call it age, wanting to live to fish and hike another day, or stodgy wisdom....even with life jackets,  this seems beyond insane.

Still many of these kids here either grew up living or summering in Jackson with lots of experience in extreme sports. This so-called business venture and 'test-flight' seems a  bit un-unserious to me....but whatta I know.

 JACKSON HOLE NEWS

Mayorial Candidate David Fox

BY FAR, DAVID FOX IS THE SMARTEST, MOST CAPABLE AND EXPERIENCED MAYORIAL CANDIDATE GOING INTO THE SEPTEMBER 10 ELECTION.

He should win by a landslide.

Unfortunately, Nashville has become a big, very liberal city that's outrunning itself in dealing with unimaginable traffic, billions in unfunded liabilities and decaying sewer and other infrastracture. Fox is a businessman and fiscal conservative who wants to deal with these unsexy problems.  He has the West Nashville, business and conservative vote. But will it be enough?

Fox does not have uber-liberal developers like Mike Shmerling with whom I am currently in litigation.  Shmerling is other mayoral candidate Megan Barry's darling fair-haired boy.

Megan Barry is a protege of our present big spending Mayor Karl Dean. She's  a marvelous public speaker (good delivery, scary message), and promises every resident of Nashville all kinds of new entitlements  (as her guy uber-Shmerling chomps at the bit). Her politics are to the left of Nancy Pelosi. Many people I talk to think she would be a true disaster for Nashville, not to mention Nashville's finances and credit ratings  down the road. But she doesn't care about any of that. She's got much of the black, and all of the feminist and LGBT vote. She also has much of the radical environmental vote.

Megan whines that she's for prosperity and that Fox is for austerity.   But that's not true:  Fox is for a level of sustained prosperity that can stay more constant during down financial times as well as good--so that the highs and lows are less disruptive during recessions that inevitably come with the economic cycles.

David has his work cut out for him in the last few weeks before election day on September 10.  He's not a great public speaker and needs to find a fine debate coach PDQ.  If not, he will lose the next debates and the election.  But almost everyone I know and respect, including me, is supporting Fox big time.

David, get thee to the finest debate coach money can buy and quickly.  If all else fails,  call  Donald Trump. 

Sunday--Spirit of Lethargy in the Church

PASTOR MIKE ATKINS AT RIVER CROSSING IN JACKSON, WYOMING TALKS FROM ISAIAH 51:221 AND JEREMIAH 1:  The enemy loves it when people are lethargic---as Satan says, Lie down so we can walk over you.

Powerful sermon.

Glimmer of Hope for America As News Anchor Refuses to Cover the Kardashians Anymore

ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: MICROAGGRESSIONS AND THE NEW POLICE STATE AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAID AMEN AND AMEN AND AMEN.

VIA ZERO HEDGE

What Does 'Sola Scripture' Mean?

THE REFORMATION PRINCIPLE sola Scriptura has to do with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters. Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture.

It is not a claim that all truth of every kind is found in Scripture. The most ardent defender of sola Scriptura will concede, for example, that Scripture has little or nothing to say about DNA structures, microbiology, the rules of Chinese grammar, or rocket science. This or that “scientific truth,” for example, may or may not be actually true, whether or not it can be supported by Scripture—but Scripture is a “more sure Word,” standing above all other truth in its authority and certainty. It is “more sure,” according to the apostle Peter, than the data we gather firsthand through our senses (2 Peter 1:19). Therefore, Scripture is the highest and supreme authority on any matter on which it speaks.

But there are many important questions on which Scripture is silent. Sola Scriptura makes no claim to the contrary. Nor does sola Scriptura claim that everything Jesus or the apostles ever taught is preserved in Scripture. It only means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture (2 Peter 1:3).

Furthermore, we are forbidden to add to or take away from Scripture (cf. Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Rev. 22:18-19). To add to it is to lay on people a burden that God Himself does not intend for them to bear (cf. Matt. 23:4).

Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That—no more, no less—is what sola Scriptura means.

“The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.” —Westminster Confession of Faith

Congratulations to David Fox For Making the Nashville Mayorial Runoff!

CNBC: WHAT TRUMP AND BUSH DID WRONG
CARLY FIORINA TOTALLY RULED THE FIRST DEBATE

 GREAT RACE,DAVID! LET'S GO ON TO VICTORY ON SEPTEMBER 10!  David is a fiscal conservative who is fighting for what he calls The Nashville Way which is disappearing from our city at warp speed, often at the hands of  unruly developers.

What Trump Is Accomplishing in This Election Above All Else

WHETHER TRUMP GETS ELIMINATED IN HIS PRESIDENTIAL BID sooner, later or never remains to be seen.  I've stopped trying to figure it out.

What I see as Trump's greatest contribution to the American people so far is his bringing out the weaknesses and worst in his opponents.  After watching Trump day after day,  when I then saw Rick Perry, all coiffed and coached to be presidential for the last four years,  I instantly knew he was done.  Finished. Too tamed down.   I was not in the least bit surprised he didn't make the cut for tonight's Fox News debate though I like him.

Now we see Jeb Bush unleashed and name calling, generally coming across as petulant and majorly entitled to a group of supporters.  This will be interesting, but my early call is Jeb will go downhill from here.  I've never been a Bush3 fan but this is not becoming at all. He's whining and playing Trump's game.

Another one bites the dust? Who knows?  I could be wrong and am often.

UK Falling Out-of-Love With Tea and Biscuits Even As US Continues Its Infatuation With Coffee and Donald Trump--The Jolt--And Awaits Thursday's Super-Caffeinated Debates

SAY IT ISN'T SO: AFTERNOON TEA WITH BISCUITS AND CLOTTED CREME IS LOSING GROUND TO COFFEE IN THE UK? The Telegraph has the full story.

Blogging has been light not just because it's summer here in Wyoming and I spend a lot less time online, but also because I don't have a lot to say at the moment as I watch, mesmerized like all of us,  by the spectacular fall of Hillary Clinton like a stale, soggy tea bag out of caffeine and the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, The Caffeinated Talker-Doer. At the moment, I can only claim to be a spectator in this unprecedented circus.

Let's put it this way: Donald Trump is to politics as a triple caffeinated latte with extra whipped cream is to our morning cup of Joe. We're hooked and we can't get enough of The Jolt.  It's the American Way.

Pastor John Piper Explains Christian 'Hedonism' and Man's Chief End

TO GLORIFY GOD AND ENJOY HIM FOREVER. Or, Christ is most magnified in us when we're most satisfied in Him, and when we truly want to spend time in His Presence and in prayer.

Hamilton---Think I Want to to See It

HAMILTON! A CLASSIC IMMIGRANT STORY. NOT A CLASSICAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT STORY. Back in those days, our country didn't bring in just the masses of lowest common denominators. It's the hottest show on Broadway but not without backlash of sorts. I also realize if it has an elitist, liberal and politically correct axe to grind, I could be persuaded to lose all interest and not give it a second thought.

The Permanant Deflation of Tom Brady's Star In the Court of Public Opinion

THIS OP/ED IN THE NY POST TODAY FOLLOWING THE NEWS OF TOM BRADY'S NFL SUSPENSION BEING UPHELD, proves once again that no matter how much fame and fortune a man may achieve, it's never, ever enough:

He couldn’t smash his own cellphone — he had to tell a flunky to do it. That’s how privileged Tom Brady has grown. It’s one telling detail in an appalling fall.

With his smug defense of his Deflategate coverup, Brady has turned a fairy tale — from 199th pick in the NFL draft to perhaps the greatest quarterback ever, with four Super Bowl rings, a supermodel wife and mansions ’round the world — into trash.

He stands exposed as a scoundrel — quick to cheat, cover up and still preen.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell likely would’ve shown mercy on the Patriots quarterback had the star not engaged in “destruction of relevant evidence” — mainly, the cellphone the NFL had asked to examine, to check for texts with team staffers fingered for deflating Brady’s balls before last fall’s AFC championship game. Brady ranted, “I replaced my broken Samsung phone . . . after my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under any circumstances.”

The gazillionaire next talked up his union membership — a pathetic play for sympathy. Then he falsely implied that he’d been disciplined for the evidence-destruction. No, Tom, it was the cheating. Fine: The NFL process is no court of law.

But you won’t impress many fans by airily declaring evidence off-limits to investigators — and then having your minion trash it. What’s next? Brady — backed by Patriots management and his union — is headed to court to contest the suspension. Maybe he’ll win. In the American court of public opinion, though, Tom Brady’s reputation stands permanently deflated. 

And we won't even talk about Gisele's recent burqa-wearing stunt in Paris  recently.  Frankly, who cares whether she gets plastic surgery?  It's the hypocrisy that people are turned off by.

Sunday At River Crossing--Day of Decision

ARISE AND SHINE! FOR BEHOLD DARKNESS SHALL COVER THE EARTH AND DEEP DARKNESS THE PEOPLE....but

Blue Angels Fly Over Jackson Hole This Week

SENATOR CRUZ SPEAKS ON THE SHAMEFUL, SHAMEFUL GOP BEHAVIOR IN CONGRESS 

THE BLUE ANGELS, the United States Navy’s flight demonstration squadron, flies over the Teton Range on Tuesday afternoon. The aerobatic team, consisting of six aviators from the Navy and Marines flying F/A-18 Hornets, made three passes over the range for a photo op on their way to an air show in Fargo, N.D. LINK.

Thanks Judy for sending this stunning Wingman photo.

Fascinating Lawsuit in the Culture/Religious Wars---As Nuns Intensify Fight To Prevent Sale of Convent to Katy Perry

FEDERAL LAWSUIT: GRAVEL OR PAVEMENT? ON MEADOW ROAD IN JACKSON HOLE

ARE THERE ANY FASCINATING LAWSUITS THESE DAYS?  Well yes, actually: My ongoing legal proceedings with Abe's Garden.

Aside from that, there are a few others I think are well-worth following as Sisters Rita Callahan and Catherine Rose Holzman (pictured above) fight to block Katy Perry from buying their beloved, old convent in LA. The sisters do not like her, her lower cash deal or anything about her offer. They're revving it up with a top  LA law firm to play hardball with Perry, some of their other convent sisters and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.  Gosh, this sounds familiar.

This from the NY Times article Monday:
 

Poverty, chastity, obedience — and they are still barring the door to Katy Perry. 

In a pair of legal filings on Friday, two nuns who object to Ms. Perry's proposed purchase of their order's convent on eight acres here disclosed an email describing any sale to the saucy pop singer as a breach of their sacred vows.

"In selling to Katy Perry, we feel we are being forced to violate our canonical vows to the Catholic Church," Sister Catherine Rose Holzman wrote to an official of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on May 22, as competing deals for the property, valued at about $15 million, were being considered
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Whether the Los Feliz-area Mediterranean villa and acreage go to Ms. Perry or to her rival, the developer Dana Hollister, may depend on a decision by Judge Robert H. O'Brien of Superior Court in Los Angeles County. Judge O'Brien is expected to consider arguments in a case filed against Ms. Hollister by José H. Gomez, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, at a hearing on July 30. 

Friday's filings by Sister Catherine Rose, 86, and Sister Rita Callanan, 77, include a memorandum opposing the archbishop, and declarations peppered with intimate details about church dealings. They add heat to a dispute that is already complicated by a possible clash between canon and civil law, and the decision by the nuns to reveal their distaste for Ms. Perry in public interviews late last month.

The court papers include claims by several of five surviving nuns in the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary that the archdiocese is betraying them and bullying them into supporting a sale other than their preferred transaction with Ms. Hollister. That deal would pay about $10 million for the convent, but with little cash up front, while giving the archdiocese more than $5 million to buy out its long-term lease on a retreat house for priests that also occupies the hillside plot on Waverly Drive. Under its terms, the nuns contend in their filings, they would directly control the proceeds, rather than having them administered by officials of the archdiocese. 

Their rejection of Ms. Perry's slightly lower cash offer — under diocesan control — now borders on schism. (It appears the Catholic hierarchy much prefers Ms. Perry's upfront cash deal and the control it gives them rather than the more money later deal.) Their filings included a letter titled "How the Chancery Stole Waverly," which was sent to the archbishop on June 13 by Sister Jean-Marie Dunne, 88, who previously filed a declaration supporting the sale to Ms. Perry and did not join in Friday's action. 

After a litany of objections to the archdiocese's attempt to assert control over the nuns' civil nonprofit, Sister Jean-Marie's letter concluded: "All of the above would and should have been avoided if the chancery personnel possessed a modicum of humility and honesty." 

Instead, she added, "they seem obsessed with their misconception of their sovereign, ecclesiastical canonical importance." (She later suggested that the archdiocese "even the score" by putting $3 million in the Immaculate Heart bank account.) 

Representatives of the archdiocese have argued that their only concern is to get the best deal for a now-dispersed group of aging nuns, who would continue to own the proceeds of any sale. Under the terms of Ms. Perry's deal, those would include a new priestly retreat house in the Pasadena area — though Sister Rita and Sister Catherine Rose say they view ownership of that house as a liability. 

"I would like to reiterate my continued commitment to all of the Immaculate Heart sisters that the archdiocese will take care of them and ensure their well-being now and in the future," Archbishop Gomez said in a statement on Saturday. 

Like Sister Jean-Marie, Sister Marie Victoriano, 88, and Sister Marie Christine Muñoz Lopez, 82, have filed declarations in support of the archbishop. But Sister Rita and Sister Catherine Rose, in a filing prepared by the lawyers from the Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtingher law firm, a Hollywood powerhouse, have questioned the validity of at least the Dunne and Lopez declarations.

Sister Jean-Marie, they noted, expressed opposition to the sale both before and after signing her statement, and Sister Marie Christine, they said, was observed to be "woozy" and under the influence of morphine at about the time church officials asked her for a declaration of support.Sister Marie Victoriano said in an email on Sunday, "I have great confidence in the archbishop's decision and have no concern whatsoever."

Sister Jean-Marie did not respond to an email query on Sunday. Sister Marie Christine could not be reached at her home in a Los Angeles care facility. The five nuns have been living separately since leaving their convent, which was acquired from a benefactor, Daniel J. Donohue, in 1971.
J. Michael Hennigan, a lawyer for the archdiocese, disputes claims that the declarations of support were improperly secured. 

Judge O'Brien is now being asked to decide whether the archdiocese relied too heavily on canon law in taking control of the nuns' temporal affairs, without meeting the demands of civil law. Mr. Hennigan said the archdiocese in no way neglected civil requirements. The Vatican, he added, has clearly decreed that no sister or group of sisters should be involved in the governance of their nonprofit. 

It is clear that several of the nuns do not trust the promises of care. Sister Rita and Sister Catherine Rose say the archdiocese misappropriated a final bequest of $250,000 from Mr. Donohue, who died in 2014, and has failed in its obligation to maintain the existing retreat house.

Fascinating fundamentals and cast of characters. While I certainly identify and sympathize with the plight of Sisters Rita and Catherine Rose, I still don't know enough to make an intelligent guess about the validity of their claims. It seems some of the dispute might be settled within the church hierarchy as far as possible, with what's left settled within the civil courts of Los Angeles. I wish these gutsy ladies well and plan to follow their case closely.

Gay Baker Jesse Bartholomew Chastises Fellow Gays For Wanting to Force Anyone to Do Their Wedding Cake Who Doesn't Want To

THIS GAY BAKER JESSE BARTHOLOMEW IS 100% CORRECT:  No one should be forced to bake a wedding cake or do any preparations for a gay wedding who doesn't agree or want to.  There are plenty of other people who will gladly do it. Can't embed it, but link to Jesse's rant is here.

He can't tell his fellow gays and lesbians how disgusted he is with them and their bullying. Shame on them, according to Bartholomew.

Radical gay Nazis are wrong to try to force everyone to agree and celebrate gay marriage. It will never work and just another form of forced religion. The backlash will be not be pretty.

Truth is,  citizens in our country are free to object for religious reasons or for no reason at all.   Or. For. No. Reason. At. All. Would gay bakers want  hetero conservatives to force them to do anything they don't want to do, including being dragged to church to  'get religion'?

Of course not. But radical gays want a double standard.  They want their cake and eat it too.

Thank you Jesse Bartholomew for speaking truth to nonsense.

John Piper On Romans 9:20: Who Are We, Mere Mortals, To Question God?

OUR POSITION IS TO BE THAT OF UTTER SUBMISSION TO GOD. We can humbly ask for God's help and guidance however. Of course, this submission is easier said than done, and always involves a serious inner struggle.

The End of the Road For Cosby and Trump

I KNOW IT'S SUNDAY AND I INTEND TO DO ANOTHER POST SOON AFTER THIS SHORT ONE. Still I'd like to take a minute to say how painfully obvious it is that both Bill Cosby and Donald Trump have completely lost whatever vestige of reputation each of them had left in the public eye.

With the publicity surrounding Cosby's newly released 2005 deposition admitting he used drugs to seduce vulnerable women, there's no doubt that Bill's career has come to the end of the road, not a minute too soon.

It didn't take Donald Trump nearly as long to self-destruct with his latest arrogant stunt comments on Senator John McCain not being a war hero. Terrible and shameful, especially since John refused his prison release until all his fellow POWs were let out with him. This opened him up to additional torture and extreme suffering. BTW, I am no great fan of McCain but have to take his side in this one whether he did anything heroic on the battlefield or not. Rod Dreher has a short piece up on Trump's demise.

All I can say now to both is Good, Good Riddance.