Persnickety

Franklin Graham is the son of America's leading evangelist, Billy Graham, and runs Samaritan's Purse, a Christian international relief organization. He also runs the Billy Graham Evangelistic organization and he gets a hefty compensation package for both, totally over $880,000 per year (last figure reported in 2015 ). So we can assume it is higher than that at the present time. That figure is in the upper tier of compensation packages for mega-pastors and their ilk. Some such as Pastor Rick Warren "reverse tithe" and give much of their salaries back to various charities and their own congregations. Graham has said that he is not doing so in order to accrue enough money so that he can work for free when he is 70. One wonders how much work he will be doing at that age. It must be said that Samaritan's Purse receives a high rating by Charity Navigator, despite Graham's salary being about 50% higher than average for aid organizations such as Graham's. Hi...

Today President Obama gave a historic speech from Havana, Cuba, outlining his vision for a rapprochement between Cuba and the USA. I found it inspiring but a little disingenuous, especially at the end. These types of speeches, meant to demark some historical significance, are writ large, with sonorous phrases and appeals to “our better angels.” But we cannot let it lie there, shining like some fable from the George Washington cherry tree notebook; it needs to be examined for its true nature. I have left the first half of the speech to history. It was a wonderful display of reconciliation, a reaching out to the Cuban people in a way that might well soften their hearts to American interests. The last half, however, tended to twist the narrative toward fantasy, in a way that Reagan would have been proud. Here are the more unsettling paragraphs: So let me tell you what I believe. I can't force you to agree, but you should know what I think. I believe that every person sho...