Korean Non-Communion

Korean Non-Communion

It was at the North-South Korean border. An American military official approached the line, accompanied by one or two South Korean officials. He held a megaphone. Stopping just before the line, he aimed the megaphone over the border and explained that South Korea had found the body of a dead North Korean soldier and wanted information on how to turn it over to North Korea officials. As he spoke North Korean soldiers looked at him through binoculars and scattered about like flies until they finally went inside their building and closed the door.

It is difficult to take it all in. Normally, when you try to talk to someone, they listen, receive your message, and pass the message on. But, the North Korean officials seemed to assume that South Korea had some other intentions, as if the South wasn’t saying what the South was saying. That’s not to mention that the South had to communicate with a megaphone because no one in the North would receive a simple message.  · · · →

Why I Smile on Airplanes

Why I Smile on Airplanes

“Open the door, mate! Please, just open the door.”

Knocks continued as I took my shower at the hostel in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. It’s not every day that your shower gets interrupted by a drunken Britt from Birmingham needing to, well, more kindly than he put it “relieve himself”.

I knew who the guy was. We had talked recently and I didn’t feel in any danger. In fact, danger hadn’t even crossed my mind. I have no problem letting a bro into the bathroom when nature calls. I mean, a man’s gotta’ do what a man’s gotta’ do when a man’s gotta’ do it.

“Well, I need a moment.” My body was covered in soap and I wasn’t about to trudge soap across the floor.

“Please! Just open the door. I just have to take a [leak]. I’m drunk and I gotta’ go!”

“Coming.” I wrapped my towel around my waist and opened the door.  · · · →

American Crisis

American Crisis

The United States is in a crisis. It has been in a crisis since the 1990’s. It began with “all teams win” in school sports and “have sex with whomever you want, it won’t affect your family or your life” in sex education and Sunday morning morals. Students were told that college was the way to survive because it led to a “safe, secure job”. It started when institutional education took a turn on a few key principles. Now, people don’t know how to win in sports, they are unhappy in their families and their lives, and they don’t know how to keep or even find a “safe, secure job”.

People like Anne Coulter and myself, who foresaw Trump’s election and went on record, understood the nature of the crisis, which was why we forecasted the election with the confidence we did. We “Trump predictors”, (including Allan Lichtman), maintained our confidence in the face of so many voices telling us otherwise because our principles for understanding the political atmosphere shouted that much louder.  · · · →

Dad’s Wise Walls

Dad’s Wise Walls

My father built my entire house. I still remember being 5 years old, seeing the huge box freshly dozed right out of the side of the hill. I just looked up at this huge wall of dirt, not even knowing that my father had carefully engineered it to protect us from both tornadoes and floods.

He’d talk about the foundation, how the outer cement walls became extra thick and extra deep. He explained reinforced concrete to me many, many times. He never ran one single scenario about why a house needed a foundation. “That’s how you have to build it or you’ll have some kind of problem,” he’d say. “You can’t prevent every problem on earth.” The whole house could get lost in a random sink hole. But, people have been building for thousands of years and we’ve learned a few things. Thanks to my father, I learned something very important as a child: Don’t try to outsmart the Romans when it comes to building things that don’t fall down easily.  · · · →