Blog - Page 220 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Obama and the Special Interest Groups

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 26th, 2008|Categories: Politics|

Barack Obama has promised to shun the special interests and their bucket loads of cash. But the reality is, as with both parties, still the same. Influence peddling, or lobby groups doing their thing on the inside of political campaigns, is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. The difference may be that Obama has made this a frequent issue and openly runs on change in this area.

Delegates at this week’s Democratic National Convention are greeted with an AT&T goody bag, a key "sponsor" of the event. In fact this entire event is sponsored by industries like Pepsi, Coke, Molson Coors, Anheuser-Busch, Union Pacific, as well as SEIU and other labor unions. Even Pfiser, Abbott and AARP are sponsors, along with Motorola and Ford. Denver’s budget called for raising $40 million. The local mayor has said no taxpayer money will be used and it appears he will be right. Industries will sponsor the whole week.

Corporations are […]

The End of Racism in This Country

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 25th, 2008|Categories: Race and Racism|

I still would not believe it unless I heard it with my own ears and watched him say it with my own eyes. Like some of you I am watching little bits and pieces of the convention coverage of the Democratic Party this week in Denver. I particularly like watching Public Broadcast System (PBS) since they do less commentary and more basic news coverage. Much of the speaking tonight is pep-rally type stuff, except for Michelle Obama who I want to hear speak personally. In between the PBS folks interview leading Democrats, not the various talking heads.

Just a moment ago, at about 8:00 p.m. (CDT), former President Jimmy Carter was interviewed. In speaking about the election of Barack Obama he said, "If Obama is elected president, and I believe that he will be, it will mark the end of racism and prejudice in America." Even the PBS gang was floored. One said, "That is quite a statement." Carter didn’t budge. Either the former president has gotten more feeble than I realized or his liberal ideology has overwhelmed him beyond belief. I doubt […]

Who is the Most Powerful Person in Sports?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 25th, 2008|Categories: College Football|

Forbes magazine, in its September 1 issue, has named the individual whom they think is the most powerful person in all of sports in America. Being a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide I was not completely surprised when I learned that they chose Alabama’s head football coach, Nick Saban. With a record-breaking contract, total control over one of the nation’s premier football programs, and a transcendent impact on the University of Alabama itself, Coach Saban clearly has incredible power in the world of sports.

The author of the Forbes story, Monte Burke, wrote that no coach, including all of those in the professional leagues, can match Nick Saban’s combination of money, control, and influence.

Thus Nick Saban, a hugely controversial coach because of how he left both LSU, and then the Miami Dolphins in January of 2007, becomes the first college football coach to be featured on the front of Forbes magazine since it was created in 1917. I expect the […]

Radical Feminism and the Grace of God

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 24th, 2008|Categories: Feminism & Women|

The Confessions of an Ex-Feminist (Ignatius, 2008) is a revealing look at how the grace of God moved one woman from radical protest to living faith. Author Lorraine V. Murray was deeply involved in the sex and drug culture of the 1960s, and was an open protester. She had attended Catholic schools for 12 years and was immersed in the old Baltimore Catechism. When Murray arrived at the University of Florida in 1964 she began to doubt everything she had been taught. By 1968 she had read Das Kapital and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, but not the Bible.

She concluded logically that, if there was no God, then she could live any way she pleased, and this was the course she followed for some years. She went from relationship to relationship and lived for "free love" and open sex. She also embraced radical views of "women’s rights."

Attaining a doctorate in philosophy with an emphasis on the feminist writings of […]

Tell No One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 23rd, 2008|Categories: Film|

I like foreign language films. They intrigue me because they do not have the glamor and expensive effects of American movies. Further, the actors and actresses are often unknown to me so I tend to not pay as much attention to their star power as to the story and the actual acting. And on smaller budgets writers and producers must major on character development more than big scenes that jar me.

Tell No One is one of the finest new foreign language films of 2008. It is a French film and is playing in many theaters presently. It is a murder mystery so I will not give away the story by telling you to see it. It is a type of Hitchcock thriller based upon an American novel by the very bright author Harlan Clever. The movie kept me in my seat for two-plus hours and totally absorbed. I recommend that if you see it you take someone with you because you will […]

A Pop Culture Icon Turns 50

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 23rd, 2008|Categories: Culture|

Madonna, the original material girl, turns 50 this month. She has successfully scandalized the Vatican, shocked nearly every moral value held by ordinary people, yet remade herself enough times to stay on the front edge of pop culture. She is, if anything at all, a master at marketing and image. And in an age of marketing and image she has made a ton of money in the process.

The tabloids love her. Was she involved with Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees? How true is her brother’s new tell-all book about her? My answer is: "Who cares?" But she just keeps on doing it. She kicked off a new tour in Wales this past week. A 55-year old mother of two told AP, "I just think she’s awesome." Apparently a lot of folks my age agree, as do a whole new younger generation. The same woman who I quoted above adds, "Here’s a woman that’s successful, takes care of herself, looks […]

Why We Should Lift the Ban on Drilling Now

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 22nd, 2008|Categories: Current Affairs|

No issue has caught more voter interest in recent weeks than the question regarding offshore drilling. I wrote about it a few weeks ago and continue to reflect on it more today. I am no expert, as several reminded me, but I think I can follow an argument and read what the experts tell us. So here is my take, simple or otherwise.

Lifting the drilling ban on the outer-continental shelf is a no brainer really. Before we can create alternative fuels and new energy use products we must drill. This is not an either/or debate. But this is what many in Congress, led by Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi, are telling us day after day. They blast away on oil companies making profits while the public suffers even more. Their view is to punish the profit-makers and manage our economy by a kind of redistribution of wealth and energy money. This approach will always fail.

We must do all […]

Vatican II and the Unity of the Whole Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 21st, 2008|Categories: Unity of the Church|

It is a little known fact, at least among most ordinary Catholics and Protestants, that Vatican Council II answered the question "What is the church?" in a way that was revolutionary in many ways. De Ecclesia, the initially proposed response to this question, identified Christ with the Roman Catholic Church. Membership was thus based on acknowledging the authority of the Roman pontiff; the maximal extension of the infallible magisterium; and ecumenical minimalism. The drafters were clearly concerned to protect the old thinking, and saw the church as "deeply concerned about the question of authority." Regardless of what some modern Catholic apologetics groups now say, this draft was easily rejected. The reason? The historical context was not big enough. It was not big enough for a largely Western church that was now faced with the entire global situation.

Thus Sacrosanctum concilium (December 4, 1963) says in the very first sentence that it wants "to adapt more closely to the needs of our age […]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Great Challenge

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 20th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

When the recently-deceased Russian dissident, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, gave his now famous address to Harvard thirty years ago this summer, he warned us that we should not buy into the belief that all nations longed for American style democracy. But this is precisely the thinking that is behind the philosophy promoted by President Bush at the present moment. It makes the late Solzhenitzyn look even more like a prophet when you read his words these thirty years later.

What Solzhenitsyn observed in the summer of 1978 was a "decline in courage" in America. He noted that this decline had impacted the West deeply. He believed that this had changed "the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. . . . Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?" We had turned the "pursuit of happiness" (which did not mean what we now think it means in […]

The Connection Between Medication and Counseling

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 19th, 2008|Categories: Counseling|

In the common goodness and grace of God the twentieth century brought real advance in the area of psychiatry. New drugs were discovered and various schools of counseling were developed as knowledge increased regarding the human body and how the mind actually works. But a recent trend does not bode well for patients with psychotic and emotional needs. Health insurance plans show an increasing unwillingness to pay for real counseling. The result is that more psychiatrists are prescribing medications without therapy.

A recent study showed that in more than 14,000 sessions, the percentage of visits that involved actual therapy fell to 28.9% in 2005, down from 44.4% in 1996. The use of medication rose to 83.8% of all cases, up from the earlier number of 68.6%. Authors of a recent study based on these numbers suggest there is no hard evidence yet that this has harmed patients, but they are generally agreed that drugs and therapy should be kept together. The two […]