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World Views

Wake Up to Woke Corporations They Are Costing You Money

A coordinated movement by Planned Parenthood, ACLU, The Center for Reproductive Rights, and similar organizations, have successfully conducted a campaign to pressure corporations into using shareholder money to promote abortion. While social liberals have failed to implement their agendas through the democratic process, they have traditionally used, for the last 50 years, the liberal courts for rulings in their favor. Now that the Supreme Court has swung to the conservative side and Roe and Casey are in jeopardy of being overturned, the left has gone to plan B. Plan B is not new, similar tactics were used quite successfully by the "Reverends"Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to shake down large corporations into opening up their purse strings to do their bidding or else.

Citigroup was the first to offer a "reproductive healthcare policy" to help circumvent the Texas Heartbeat Bill. The policy provides transportation and lodging to anyone that needs to cross state lines to have an abortion. The latest to succumb to this abortion scam is Yelp. Both Yelp and Citigroup are publically traded on the NYSE and are using shareholders money to implement a social agenda. Yelp now adds its' name to 50 other companies lobbying against the Texas law along with,  Citigroup, Lyft, Ben and Jerry's and Reddit. In 2019, more than 200 corporate giants, Zoom. Go Fund Me and Square signed a statement advocating for "reproductive healthcare", asserting that restrictions on abortion are bad for the economy and "bad for business." Planned Parenthood claims that companies who remain neutral on abortion are hurting their female employees and all women in general.

Woke corporations such as Coca Cola have bullied MLB into moving the All Star game from Atlanta to Denver, because of a voting law they didn't like, and now Disney announced recently that it was going to fight to repeal The Parents Right Act that was signed into Florida Law. Big asset managers like BlackRock use their economic sway with companies to force them to comply with woke agendas. In Larry Fink's ( Fink is the fearless leader of BlackRock) 2022  Annual Letter to CEO's he wrote, "Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not social or ideological agenda. It is not 'woke.' It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper. This is the power of capitalism." Sure, he harnesses the power of capitalism to do exactly what he thinks you should be doing, just like Coca Cola, Google, The Ford Foundation, Starbucks, Pfizer, Eli Lilly , Johnson and Johnson and of course BlackRock, did to protest the Georgia Voting Rights Law and pressured MLB to take away the All Star Game from Atlanta,. The city and it's businesses lost millions in taxes and revenue. That's Stakeholder capitalism? Not for Atlanta it wasn't.

As maddening as this is, we need to  wake up to the "woke" and fight back like Florida has done with Disney. We are consumers, investors and we are the majority, we vote and we can be more vocal than the left. We need to be wise where we invest our dollars, whose services we use, and what we purchase.  Just a reminder to Yelp, CitiCorp, Ben and Jerry's and all their friends, Abortion is not health care. You are aiding and abetting the extermination of your future customer base. How smart is that?

 

Posted by Art Flickinger

Toad-ally Stupid

 I have had a long time interest in psychedelics, not from the perspective of wanting to experience their effects but  trying to understand why people have a desire to escape reality using them as a means to do so. Lately it has become quite fashionable to smoke a toxin excreted by a species of toad, the Sonoran Desert Toad (Bufo Alvarius) The toxin is a defense mechanism secreted by the toad to ward off predators. Predators who indulge can find themselves succumbing to the toxin and dying. Dosis sola facit venenum, "only the dose makes the poison," is an adage attributed to Paracelsus and is the classic toxicology maxim. Man has found that the dose of the neurotoxin that kills predators does not poison them but offers them a psychedelic experience. The toad's venum is milked  from glands which contains 5-MeO-DMT, the psychoactive ingredient, a paste is made from it, dried and then smoked. Effects occur within 30 seconds and last approximately one hour. The user will be incapacitated, time, vision and sound may be distorted. Some relate the feeling of being connected to a higher power, dying and being re-born to a new awareness. Some people call it the "god molecule" because of these aforementioned effects. The toxin is smoked in a group setting in the presence of a Shaman who collects the fee which is upwards of $250.00 and performs a ritual. Celebrity testimonies endorsing the drug have added to its popularity and abuse. Both Mike Tyson and Hunter Biden, hopping "Mad-Hatters,"  in their own right, have claimed beneficial effects from its use. 

Ancient societies were no strangers to mind altering chemicals. Archaeologists note the presence of opium, hemp and many other substances in Bible-era cultures. Mood-altering substances were also used in connection to ancient religious practice. Greek temples used mind-altering drugs in fortune-telling and oracles. The Apostle Paul's list of the works of the flesh appear in (Galatians 5:19-21), are grouped by similar offenses. He begins by mentioning sexual sin, idolatry and then "sorcery" or pharmakeia. His reference of pharmakeia is closer to idolatry and sexuality in context and hints at the use of drugs in ungodly spiritual practices. Similarly the the Hebrew word kesheph  is translated "charms" in Nahum 3:4 . The same word in Kings 9:22 and Isaiah 47:9 is translated as "sorcery." Combining these contexts suggests biblical "sorcery" is not  akin to Harry Potter's super powers but about abusing drugs for idolatry, recreation and/or oppression of others. The Bible says we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 10:12) not the deadening of our minds with drugs. We are to be sober minded about the devil's schemes (1 Peter 5:8-9) not to be incapacitated and flopping around like a fish out of water. We are to be filled by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) not baked, wasted or blasted on drugs. Smoking toad venom is idolatry and is not a practice any Christian should have any part of period. We become more like God through sanctification led by the Holy Spirit in a lifelong process, not a sixty minute drug "trip." Smoking toad venom is toad-ally STUPID.

 

Posted by Art Flickinger

The Silent Pandemic

In 2020, The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published a report entitled, "Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults." Two facts that show the significance of the threat to public health as outlined in the study are as follows:

Social isolation significantly increases a person’s risk of mortality from all causes, a risk that may rival the risks of                smoking, obesity, and physical activity (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2017);
Being socially connected in a variety of ways is associated with having a 50 percent greater likelihood of survival, with some indicators of social integration being associated with a 91 percent greater likelihood of survival (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010)

Loneliness is not a new problem nor is it exclusively a problem of just the elderly, it affects all age demographics and has been particularly been exacerbated by the covid-19 induced isolation as a public health measure. In 2018 the UK acknowledging the problem and appointed a Minister of Loneliness citing a study that documented approximately two million people over the age of 75 across England reported going  weeks without any meaningful social interaction.

Man is gregarious by nature because that is how our Creator made us to be. We are not meant to live apart from meaningful community. The life of faith always takes place within a community, the body of Christ. C.H. Bullock made the following observation about the Psalms, "The Psalmist could not see himself as an individual apart from Israel. His self-identity was bound up in his participation in the community of faith." What is your self identity bound to? Have you even reflected upon it? Do you have a meaningful community? One of the positive outcomes from the covid -19 pandemic was that it forced us as a Church to reflect on the importance of the community of faith and worshiping together as believers We concluded that worshiping in person amongst the community of believers was our priority and we acted with that in mind.  Watching a service on line leaves much to be desired as a realistic long term substitute for worshiping in person. Yet, some churches are considering going online exclusively. That is akin, from my perspective, to going through a drive by viewing at a funeral home.

The American lifestyle has fostered the ideal of the "rugged individualist," neighborhoods have lost their sense of community and are becoming more isolated from their neighbors, soaring divorce rates, broken and scattered families, and the loss of the church as a meaningful part of people's lives, all contribute to the loneliness problem today. Mother Teresa  purportedly said, "The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved." The church has the answer, the Body of Christ, it is the most meaningful answer to loneliness. It is a community where we pray and worship together, grieve and rejoice together and love one another. 

Posted by Art Flickinger

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