Michael Bates: October 2024 Archives
Back in the early 2000s, Jeff Friend and Chris Huber wrote a comic strip called "Which Circle?" a thinly-veiled spoof of Campus Crusade for Christ as they encountered it in their college years. Sixteen episodes, which were published in The [Wittenburg] Door, are available on Facebook. The archived whichcircle.com website appears to have a complete collection of 21 episodes and features commentaries from Friend and Huber, elaborating on the aspects of Cru culture that inspired each episode. Jon Bitterhouse, the Wildwood summer project director in Episode 10, is based on a real staffer who was my summer project city director in Quezon City, the Phillipines, in 1983. I found a lot in the strip that echoed my experiences, particularly the condescending attitudes displayed toward rival campus ministries.
Michelle Malkin: The inspiring story of Maglite inventor Tony Maglica
From Michelle Malkin in 2015: "In our home, we try to instill a life lesson for our kids best summed up in Latin: Nihil boni sine labore. It means, 'Nothing good achieved without hard work.'
"Few people I've met in my lifetime embody this motto better and more brilliantly than Tony Maglica, inventor of the iconic Maglite flashlight.
"The spry 84-year-old founder and CEO of Mag Instrument still traverses his 450,000-square-foot factory floor dozens of times over the course of his 12-hour workday, six days a week, beginning at the crack of dawn and ending after most of his 800 employees have clocked out."
The Idyllic Culture Columbus Ended
"Even if we take the leftists accusations seriously, they are senseless. Did the Spanish practice slavery? Yes: so did the natives. Did the Spanish murder their enemies? Yes: and many of the natives killed their own people as well. Did the Spanish raid and conquer? The natives did little else.
"Thus the question becomes whether one group did anything more praiseworthy than the other. And of course one did: one ended most of the other's barbarity. And one expanded the bounds of human civilization forever.
"Columbus had little to do with the former, but everything to do with the latter: it was his vision and his personal courage that ended the Middle Ages and created the modern world. Any 'indigenous people' who enjoys human rights, modern medicine, a regular food supply and indoor plumbing should thank him daily."
Phones Are Destroying Kids' Ability To Read Books
Jeremy S. Adams writes: "And yet we somehow expect these same kids who can't enjoy a simple bike or horse ride to sit down in a corner and spend hours reading a book. Keep in mind one of the most shocking yet revealing statistics in modern educational research: teens are more likely to read a novel at thirteen than they are at seventeen. As one of my best friends recently observed, 'My son used to be a voracious reader -- a couple books a week. And then we gave him a phone and the reading stopped.'... Which brings me to another demoralizing data point in the quickly degenerating mental state of American students. Two weeks ago, Pew Research released disturbing findings about American educators which found that 58 percent of high school instructors noted their students had "little to no interest" in learning. A whopping, though completely unsurprising, 72 percent say cellphone distraction is a major problem."
The Transatlantic Tracks of Columbus by Keith A. Pickering
Using a model of magnetic variation circa 1500, based on dating and magnetic alignment of lake sediments, hearthstones, and lava flows, combined with an analysis of Columbus's inter-island track, Pickering has concluded that Plana Cays is where Christopher Columbus first made landfall in the New World. Pickering confirmed the model by applying it to Columbus's first return voyage and second voyage, where endpoints are known.
