Watchers on the Wall

Here are a few of the not-to-be-missed articles from the last few days:

* “Is Ted Cruz the Answer?” (Lloyd Marcus, American Thinker)

* “Many NYC students so tech-oriented they can’t even sign their own names” (Kirstan Conley, New York Post)

* “The Humbling of the West: Europe and the U.S. bow and scrape to ascendant Iran.” (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal)

* “Obama’s Legacy: Runaway Deficits, Debt And Health Costs” (Editors, Investor’s Business Daily)

* “Does Europe Have a Future?” (John Hinderaker, Power Line)

Catching Up

With the weather, football championships, and the observances of the Roe Wade anniversary, you may well have missed these important articles.

No problem. Catch up now.

* “Obama’s Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom” (Melody Wood, Daily Signal)

* “Donald Trump’s ‘Conversion’ Raises Serious Questions” (Dana Loesch, National Review)

* “Christian persecution in 2015” (Marcus Roberts, Mercator)

* “Half million at risk of female genital mutilation in US, says report” (Michael Cook, BioEdge)

* “Wal-Mart: It Came, It Conquered, Now It's Packing Up and Leaving” (Shannon Pettypiece, Bloomberg)

* “A Bad Deal Off to a Worse Start” (Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News)

The Thanksgiving Jar Project (Video)

In just a couple of minutes, Denny explains an easy, effective, and year-round activity that could dramatically increase your family's gratitude attitude.

Catching Up: A Few Not to Be Missed Articles

* “The morally repugnant response to the Cologne sexual assault gang” (Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week)

* “Hillary Clinton Tells Planned Parenthood: ‘As Your President, I Will Always Have Your Back’” (Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com)

* “What Obama Got Wrong in the State of the Union” (Rob Kuhlman, Daily Signal)

* “Congressman Will Leave His State of the Union Seat Open for the 57 Million Aborted Babies” (Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com)

* “ObamaCare Enrollment Is Nothing To Brag About” (Editors, Investor’s Business Daily)

* “China arrests most prominent woman rights lawyer for subversion” (Sui-Lee Wee, Reuters)

* “5 National Security Problems You Won’t Hear From Obama’s State of the Union” (Justin Johnson, Daily Signal)

* “The New Way to be Pro-Choice” (Zachary Gappa, Town Hall)

* “Internal Government Emails Reveal Intentions for Contraceptive Mandate” (Carrie Severino, National Review)

* “Which diversity matters? Why do academics fret about racial diversity, but not diversity of thinking?" (J. Budziszewski, Mercator)

The Thanksgiving Jar

In 2015 Claire and I attempted to significantly increase our gratitude attitude by keeping a Thanksgiving Jar on our kitchen counter.  And into that jar we dropped notes throughout the year — notes on which we had jotted down thanks for blessings given us by God. We wrote down encouragements, answers to prayer, deliverances, special moments of beauty and adventure.  You get the idea.

It was a very stimulating way to sharpen our sense of thanksgiving, to reduce complacency and complaining, and to deepen our appreciation of the constancy of constant God’s mercies to us. We started the project as a result of a New Year’s resolution and it turned out to be a niftier spiritual exercise than we had imagined.

We’re doing it again this year. In fact, we started on Thanksgiving Day.

But what of last year’s notes? How did we use them?

Well, they became a delightful new spice to our Christmas celebrations.  Every other night or so, Claire and I sat with cups of tea in the living room, basking in the glow of the Christmas tree lights while we pulled 5 or 6 of the notes at random out of the bowl. (The number of notes had grown so that we dumped them from the Thanksgiving Jar into a large bowl every once in a while.)  We then read through them one at a time and thanked God afresh for each of those blessings. They always stimulated conversation and related prayers as well.  It was very neat.

So there you have it. Perhaps you might consider making a New Year’s resolution to start a Thanksgiving Jar project for you and your family.  It will no doubt help make Thanksgiving a whole-year practice and will also provide an added bounty to your Christmas season.

A Bit of "Spot On" Reading

* “The Tears of a Clown” (Scott Johnson, Power Line)

* “Obama's gun control lies” (Michael Filozof, American Thinker)

* “Two Weaknesses Could Undo the Islamist Movement” (Daniel Pipes, Town Hall)

* “Why Obamacare Is on the Road to Repeal” (Chuck Donovan & Genevieve Plaster, Daily Signal)

* “Middle Eastern Christians Speak Out on Wheaton Professor’s Actions” (James K. Hoffmeier, TGC)

* “Founder of Femen Brazil now makes war on feminism” (Carolyn Moynihan, Mercator)

* “Unappreciated Tax on the Poor” (Walter E. Williams, Town Hall)

* “Proof That Obama Was Wrong About Cuba” (Mike Gonzalez, Daily Signal)

About Those New Year Resolutions

Here are 3 of this past week's radio commentaries dealing with New Year
resolutions. Each KLCV program is just 60 seconds long so you've got time to give them a listen.

“New Year Resolutions? Bah, Humbug!”

“Writing Imprisoned Christians”

“3 Keys to Keeping Your Resolutions”