QUARANTINE BLOG # 543

September 24, 2021

If you want to pursue an arts and science degree at Point Park University in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh, tuition for one year is $33,800.  Add another $1,600 or so for fees, and then you have lodging and food which you find on your own and are also extra. 

On their website, the University – which is regionally, not nationally, accredited – they say, “At Point Park, Pittsburgh’s only Downtown university, you’ll engage in a more active, more real, more professional education.  You’ll have professors who teach from their own real-world experience when you pursue a degree from among more than 100 ... programs that we offer.”

Well, maybe so, but if a biological male wants to be known as female and you address  “her” as “him” you will be in trouble with their Office of Equity and Inclusion because of violating PPU’s “Misgendering, Pronoun Misuse, and Deadnaming Policy.”   If you do not respect your classmates’ pronouns, “action could be taken” against you.

The directive continues, “While the University recognizes the aspect of intent versus impact, we must recognize that regardless of the intent, if an individual is impacted in a harmful way, action could be taken if a complaint is filed.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter what you said or what you meant when you said it.  All that matters is how they perceived it.  And all of that violates the individual’s right of free speech!  Bonnie said we could just start calling everyone, “Hey you!”

The lid is off of the sewer and there seems to be no call to put it back on.

👉  I’m going to do some of Maryland state symbols, but for Mississippi a brief paragraph (with apologies).  Their state bird is the mocking bird, state tree/flower is the magnolia, water mammal is the bottle-nosed dolphin, and the real state song – adopted on May 16, 1962 – is “Go Mississippi!” (Watch the video for the first 52 seconds for the whole song, and the rest of it for views of the state). May I suggest a second state song, “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival,” as performed by Ray Stevens.

👉  In 1898, the Maryland Farmers’ Institute held a “Round-Up.”  One of the topics raised at the meeting was the necessity for a state flower.  A vote by county was taken, and the results were 42 votes for the Black-eyed Susan, and 28 for the goldenrod.  In 1918 legislation made the Black-Eyed Susan the state flower. 

Since 1947 (a very good year) the Baltimore Oriole has been Maryland’s state bird.  The name can be traced back to the 1600s when Cecil Calvert, or Lord Baltimore, ran the colony.  The Calvert family’s coat of arms, now Maryland’s flag, featured a gold and black pattern that shared similarities to the bird’s distinct markings.  If you would like to attract them to your yard, bird experts recommend leaving out grape jelly or orange slices – they have very particular eating habits and will only eat dark-colored fruit.  

The nine-stanza poem, “Maryland, My Maryland,” written by James Ryder Randall in April 1861 and sung to the tune of “O Tannenbaum,” was made the official state song in 1939.  Today, Maryland has no state song because it was repealed July 1, 2021, in a move some say is another example of “cancel culture.”  Randall was a Southern sympathizer at the outbreak of the Civil War, and his poem was a call for Maryland to secede from the Union and join Southern cause.  It alludes to Abraham Lincoln as a “tyrant” – “Dear Mother! burst the tyrant’s chain” – and a “despot” – “The despot’s heel is on thy shore, Maryland!” – and to the Union as “Northern scum” – “she spurns the Northern scum.”  Maybe Tennessee could give Maryland a song, since they have 10 state songs.

👉  Some “Blackouts:”

👉  Some words well chosen:

👉  And as baseball’s regular season comes slowly, and painfully, to a close, Linus reports:

Someone pointed out to me a while ago that Charlie Brown wears the same colors as the team from Pittsburgh.

👉  Today’s close “Are You Sneaking a Disclaimer Inside Your Commitment Clause?” is by Adrian Rogers.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service”  (Romans 12:1).

I have a friend named Joseph T’son, a dear man who is like the “Billy Graham” of Romania. Joseph is a man of great faith. I’d been in Romania preaching crusades. One day as we were riding along together, I asked him his opinion of American Christians. Specifically, I asked, “Joseph, tell me about American Christianity.”

He answered, “No, Adrian, I’d rather not.”

“Joseph, I’m a big boy – tell me.”

“Well, Adrian, in America, the big word is commitment.”

“That’s good, isn’t it, Joseph?”

“No, not necessarily. When you make a commitment, you’re in control, but when you surrender, you’re no longer in control. The word ‘commitment’ didn’t even really come into vogue in the United States until about the 60s. It’s a very popular word today. People are telling God what they’re committed to: memorizing the Bible, tithing, soul-winning. But if a man pulled out a gun and said, ‘Stick ‘em up,’ you’d lift your hands. You wouldn’t start telling him what you’re committed to. You’d say, ‘What do you want me to do?’ You’d surrender.”

People like to be in control. We like to make commitments, but the true word is surrender. Jesus is Lord. Don’t say, “Lord, I’m committing myself to build a great church, to more Bible study, more this or that. Instead, say “I surrender. I am yours, Lord.”

Only when you lift your hands in ultimate surrender will you know the power of God at work in you. You will never, ever be over those things God wants under you until you get under those things God has set over you. Start with complete surrender. Study the Word of God. Surrender fully to the lordship of Jesus Christ in your life.

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