I feel like I have been neglecting things around here lately. We’re busy preparing for our tax appointment this week so I’m spending lots of time adding numbers and organizing receipts. 
I’m doing a giveaway at my learning blog for three copies of The Old Schoolhouse 2013 Print Annual. It’s a great piece with lots of encouraging articles. Please stop by and register to win and get the word out!
In the meantime, some links in random order…
In Defense of Philosophy is a website created by Cedarville alums and students to protest the elimination of the philosophy department. If you aren’t familiar with Cedarville, it’s a Baptist college in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio. I’ve been there and some people who have had a very positive influence in my life are Cedarville grads. One of the people who comments over there mentions Dr. Grier who I have had the privilege of meeting a few times and hearing him speak/preach. The man is brilliant. I can only imagine what it would have been like to have him as a philosophy professor. Anyway, this is their protest and I hope they succeed. It is scandalous to think that a Christian university believes there is no need for a philosophy department. Read the testimonials over there. Person after person speaks of the fact that their experiences in the philosophy classes were the best part of their college career. Why? Because they learned to think.
Related to this is Peter Enn’s Can Evangelical Colleges and Seminaries Be Truly Academic Institutions? Good food for thought.
Time to Give Up or Time to Fight On? is an interview by Hugh Hewitt with Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, on how constitutional conservatives should respond to the recent election.
And on the topic of the election: Obama supporters shocked, angry at new tax increases. The entire thing is just hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. I could rant about this one for hours, but I’ll spare you. (However, anyone else may feel free to rant in the comments. I’ll enjoy your rant.)
For the Downton fans… Gracious Servanthood in Downton Abbey
We are raising a generation of deluded narcissists
The Middle Class in America is Being Wiped Out
Did anyone else watch Class of ’96 when it was on? I was so bummed when they cancelled it. Wish it would come out on DVD. I’d like to see it again. It was basically 90210 for the brainy kids.
My daughter has never been very political, except when she helped me sort and stuff envelopes when she was a child.
However, she is now shocked by what is going on with the results of the Obama administration. With the increase in Social Security taxes and insurance costs, they have taken quite a financial hit. Even then, it is nothing like her friend whose husband is an executive with one of the big “box” stores.
Starting this month, he is bringing home $1,800 less each month and their much more expensive insurance no longer covers the medicine and treatments one of her sons needs for an illness.
I suggested Steph read Erwin Lutzer’s very good book comparing what is happening in America to Germany prior to WWII.
Brenda,
Thanks for sharing some real life examples. After we get our taxes done we’ll know what the damage is on our end as well.
I know this will sound strange, but over the past few months I’ve (mostly) made peace with the idea of bankruptcy and losing everything. I think it is something more people should probably face and work through. I’m totally serious. And I’m not saying that because we are on the brink. But I do think that there are just so many middle class Americans who are simply not going to be able to cope with what is ahead. This is just the beginning.
We’ve already been discussing – if it comes to it, do we drop our health insurance or lose the house? Which is more important to us? We could choose to drop our health insurance and keep the house and still lose the house in the end if we can’t afford medical bills.
I’m not trying to borrow trouble and God could choose to prosper us in spite of everything we see going on around us. But the ability of the average family to have any kind of financial margin is rapidly disappearing. There comes a point where there is nothing left to cut and everything still keeps going up.
Sallie, sometimes I think we are related. My husband and I have had the same discussion. We have so many medical bills (and we have “good” insurance) with having kids w/ medical & special needs. I will never get out of medical debt. And because my kids can’t be cured, it will continue to grow year after year. It gets more expensive each year too, as our deductibles go up and medical care gets more outrageous. We’re too “rich” to get medicaid even though our kids qualify on diagnosis. We are literally one of those people falling thru the loopholes and cracks.
And it just might sink our ship permanently. Sad.
Lindsey,
I apologize for the late reply. Yes, you are in the exact situation that has the potential to sink so many families. I shake my head when I read blogs written by women in their twenties/early thirties who have it all figured out financially. But they’ve never had a significant financial setback, their children don’t have any health problems, etc.
We had our taxes done last week with the man who has been doing mine since before I met David. So he’s seen us through all kinds of financial situations. We were discussing the medical costs in this country and he agrees that it is going to get much worse. It will sink many people.
I do want to say though that God is in control. He can make it possible for His children in ways we can’t comprehend. So I do believe that we should pray, ask and trust while we work hard at what we do. But we also live in the times in which we were born and sometimes even God’s children suffer the consequences of the poor choices of their leaders. The answer is to continue to invest heavily in our spiritual lives and our walk with Christ since that is truly the only thing we can rely on.