Tom Wolfe to write a book on Miami?

That would be fun.

"Stand up for America! Bean American!"

I saw this on a bumper sticker in the church parking lot. It was red, white, and blue, with the Stars & Stripes as a background.

I stood there for a few moments looking at it, trying to figure it out. "Bean American!" What did that mean? Was it some sort of ad to buy American vegetables? Were we suppose to bean people who didn't stand up for America? I just stood there looking at it.

Then I realized there was slightly wider space in the word "Bean" betwen the "e" and the "a" than the spaces between the other letters.

Stupid bumper sticker.

Emirates Airlines Coming to Miami, Maybe

The Miami Herald reports that the Dubai-based airline may come to Miami, with a non-stop flight from here to there. That would make it one more hop to Nairobi.

No date is set for Miami, but the article reports that the airline will have a flight from Houston in December. So the Austin based family may find it an easier trip than the one through Heathrow.

Not Quitting my Day Job

Van is out of town this weekend, and he asked me to preach this morning. I worked hours on my sermon. Hours. This is not an easy thing to do, by any stretch, at least not for me.

I did have a topic rattling around inside my head: how to deal with the Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment.

You can read my notes here.

Maybe not so bad for a first draft.

The Little Church that Could

Adrianna reports this in our church's most recent newsletter:

This will be our ninth (9th) year receiving shoe boxes [for Operation Christmas Child] from other groups around Miami as a Relay Center (3 yrs) or Collection Center (6 yrs). Our first year we collected almost 1,000 boxes, last year over 17,000. This year we will collect in excess of 20,000 boxes from around Miami-Dade and The Keys. How much over 20,000? Jesus knows, I cannot even guess.

Not the Best, Anymore

We noticed this several years ago. What a shame. (Hat tip to Glenn for noting this.)

The Trinity International Foundation Replies

This came in an email to our home in response to Carol's email to TIF that protests the sale:


Dear partners in ministry,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us on the Spirit FM
web site. We are encouraged to hear how God has greatly blessed so many lives
through the ministry of Spirit FM. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that
some reactions have been strong in response to the announcement to sell Spirit
FM. We respect your comments and are addressing in this email the principal
concerns expressed.

In recent years, Trinity International University received several unsolicited
offers to buy the radio station. As a result of these offers and in order to
fulfill their fiduciary responsibility, the Board of Regents engaged a brokerage
firm in 2006. The broker began a process of assessing the value of the station
and determining the level of interest in the market. This process was a quiet
one because the outcome was uncertain and we did not want to interrupt the radio
ministry of Spirit FM. We saw no wisdom in making this professional inquiry
public and thereby open the door to questions the station staff could not answer about a topic under
exploration by the board.

We are extremely grateful to the thousands of listeners who have supported
Spirit FM financially and in prayer for so many years. We believe that God
places people in leadership in specific situations at specific times. Those
leaders are sometimes called upon to make tough decisions. Trinity’s board takes
seriously its responsibility as stewards of the resources of Trinity
International University and approached this decision with much deliberation and
prayer. In the end the board believed, before God, that this was the best
decision.

Many of the matters involved in the board’s inquiry and ultimate decision are
sensitive and confidential. However, we do want you to know that our desire was
to sell to a Christian organization, and we attempted without success to do so
with several different organizations.

A significant portion of the proceeds will be
placed in the TIU endowment. The endowment is like a long-term savings account that cannot be spent without action from the
board. The annual interest from endowment will be used to further the mission of
the university. Trinity College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Trinity
Graduate School, and Trinity Law School make a huge impact on our culture for
Christ. The board’s vision is to do more through the educational programs these
schools offer, including our programs in South Florida.

We believe that we are blessed with some of the most talented radio staff in the
nation. These faithful servants were informed of the process several weeks
prior to the signing of the Purchase Agreement on September 24, 2007. In spite
of this news, they continued to minister in a professional and effective manner.
After September 24 all parties agreed that it would be impossible for the Spirit
FM staff to continue their on-air duties as usual. Generous severance and
placement assistance for
the staff are being provided.

We ask you to join us in prayer that:

1. The sovereign Lord will pour out His Spirit on South Florida in order to
fill any void that may be left by closing Spirit FM
2. A strengthened unity in Christ will be demonstrated among churches and
believers with a shared purpose of reaching the lost in South Florida
3. The staff of Spirit FM will be sustained by God’s grace as they seek the
Lord’s will for future ministry.

One of the listeners responded as follows:

"...I am encouraged in my heart to pray for your ministry as a Christian entity
of education. I pray that the next Billy Graham will come from your school. I
pray that the seed that is now being sowed with tears by our community grows and
develops into a life-giving tree that will touch, not just the thousands the
radio touched here in South Florida, but the millions that are hungry and in
need of the love of God."

We join in these sentiments with this listener and ask you to join us in this
prayer.

Seeking God in all things,

Trinity International Foundation Board


As even a first year law student would say, res ipsa loquitur.

WMCU Update

Two very fine litigators called me today, both Christian, one a solo personal injury lawyer and the other a partner in the largest firm in Florida, and both determined either to stop the WMCU acquisition or claim the proceeds of the sale for the South Florida Chrisitan Community.

This is going to be interesting.

Winning in Iraq

OpinionJournal publishes an opinion piece that appears in today's WSJ, the thesis of which is that the Iraqis "on our side" and the Allies are now winning.

"Save WMCU"

Fasten your seatbelts.

The Post-WMCU World in S. FL is NOT one without Christian Radio

I emailed Rob Robbins, the President of CallFM, and asked him his view of the world in South Florida after WMCU. Here is his response:

The two priorities for The CALL right now are program development and expansion. Ultimately the goal is a full-time live staffed operation 24/7, reaching lost and unchurched teens and young adults between the ages of 13 and 25.

1) We are currently expanding in Naples and Bonita Springs (as far north as Estero, FL) with new translator stations that are installed and waiting on some county permits. The translator coverage, by FCC rule, will rebroadcast the WMKL programming.

2) WMKL is working to relocate to a tall tower out on US-41 as early as next month to increase the audience by another 70%. There is an FCC filing freeze in effect until October 19th which is delaying the grant of the construction permit until later this month. The current WMKL broadcast is at less than 50% power under special temporary authority because we decided not to replace the existing antenna that is designed for 91.7 instead of
91.9 MHz.

3) Later this year/early 2008 we will be building and operating a new full-power station in Palm Beach County.

4) We are pursuing a potential opportunity to broadcast in Highlands County, FL within the next year as well.

We have absolutely no plans to change or modify The CALL's programming in the future. It has been more than thirteen years of a journey to get to this point, and I am truley excited about the opportunities for growth that God has brought us over the past year and for what the coming months will bring for our ability to impact more young adults, and to develop the programming to make it most effective.

In terms of the loss of WMCU, it is a real travesty. The only potential response that we might consider as we prepare for expansion is the potential to build the new WMKL facility and the WPSF facility as digital (HD) stations. HD Radio consists of the normal analog signal and first HD-1 digital channel required to contain the programming of the analog signal, and then an HD-2 and HD-3 channel each with unique CD-quality programming.

This would allow us options to lease the 2 extra channels to other Christian broadcasters for addition program revenue or to program ourselves with adult contempory Christian music or preaching/teaching format (which really isn't our mission as an organization). You can see more information at www.hdradio.com, and a working example of WPOZ, Orlando (www.zradio.com).

Just think, God used myself and several guys in their early 20's to put this radio station on the air, against everyone's advice that it was impossible.
I can speak from first-hand experience what it is like to wait night after night for 5-6 years pursuing a calling on nothing more than faith and prayer, and to see God accomplish his purposes. I am confident that God is able to bring that type of Christian radio ministry back to Miami if He chooses. It will not be easy, and probably not overnight unless a Christian radio network finds the opportunity to move into Miami.

Security Contractors in Iraq

In today's WSJ, an opinion column, available on OpinionJournal, defends the use of private security contractors in Iraq, and, to my mind at least, does so persuasively.

About a year ago, Carol and I ran into one of our children's contemporaries, who had just returned from Iraq after a year of working with one of those contractors. He worked in the office in Bagdhad and was not one of the professional, armed people. He did wear a flack jacket, he said, when he went outside, and I believe he said that he had been given some training of the self-defense sort and carried a side arm. He said that he had a great time, but did not intend to return.

He said that the State Department, other government people, and civilians whom the private security forces protected, preferred their protection to that of the regular armed services. He said that the private security forces knew exactly what their mission was, protection, a mission that was not the primary mission for government forces. He said hat the protection that the government forces provided was simply inferior to that of the private security contractors.

There is a sort of free market principal at work here, and that point is implicit in the WSJ article. The private security contractors depend on preformance in order to continue to be employed. They compete with one another. Their pricing is market driven, and turns out to be less expensive than that of a soldier. The article describes the controls that our government has in place to prevent "rogue" activity by these contractors, and they seem reasonable as described by the writer.

Things to Do with a Law Degree: #1826

Sue the Patriots.

In Honor of my Father's Banjo

and the Florida game that I'm watching, here's another Dropkick Murphys video for you.

one of these things

is not like the other....

I'm not sure who put the new subtitle on the blog, but I have a suspicion.

adjective, adjective, adjective, noun?

WMCU Going Out of Business

Radio Station WMCU, Spirit Radio, 89.7 FM, is on all the time at our house. It is owned by Trinity International University, based in Deerfield, IL. Under the TIU umbrella is also, for example, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ("TEDS"), a famous place in certain Evangelical circles. On Tuesday morning, a recorded announcement on WMCU said that the "Trinity International University Foundation" had sold the radio station. In the Miami Herald that same day, an article appeared indicating that a national non-profit had purchased the station for $20,000,000 and intended to establish a classical music radio station at 89.7, of which there has been none in the South Florida area for several years.

It is definitely a reverse for South Florida to have the radio station close down. There are so few unifying institutions in our part of the Christian world, the community here is so riven with the disarray that comes from exotic cultures washing up against each other, that closing WMCU seems contrary to what one would think God's will would be.

Because of my position on the board of a foundation that supports TIU here in South Florida, I may be able to find out the "inside" story on this event. There may be good reasons for the decision. I would be interested in knowing what they are.

Law School Lies

The lead article in yesterday's WSJ trumpets "A Stingier Job Market Awaits New Attorneys". This is news? The article has a graph that compares the growth in GDP with the growth in legal services; it shows that the disconnect has been at work since the early nineties. For years I have been advising young people not to go to law school unless they simply had the itch, and to stay away from the expensive schools unless they were ready to compete for elusive, spirit grinding jobs at the elite firms with starting salaries now at $160,000 (and starting billable hour requirements at 2000+). With those jobs, if one lands one, the graduate could at least start to pay off his or her debts. Go into public interest law? Start with a small firm or hang up one's shingle? Forget it, if you have $100,000 of college debt and another $100,000 for law school.

The article describes the duplicity of law schools in what they say about the salaries of their graduates. Many, especially the "second-tier" schools, simply lie. They simply lie. I am waiting for a class action to be brought against the law school industry by struggling young law graduates. Why do they lie? For universities, the article reports, "law schools are money makers."

UPDATE: Juan pointed me to the WSJ lawblog. This article generated a lot of comment, and Juan tells us to look here and here. The WSJ article that I discuss can itself be freely accessed here. Thanks, Juan!

Playing Together

Our Blossoming Arteest!

Aidan has been working on this painting for months now. Whenever he wants to paint, we take out the same canvas and let him add whatever color he wants whereever he wants to put it. So, there are many layers of paint here. This weekend, he decided that he wanted to try to use finger paints on top of the acrylics I had been letting him use. So, we thought we'd see how that worked. While it was still wet, it looked great! HOwever, now that it has dried, almost everything just looks muddy. Fortunately for you, the pictures were taken while it was still wet.

Enjoy!

New Dropkick Murphys is out

For all you many fans - here's "The Rocky Road To Dublin" back from Sing Loud, Sing Proud to tide you over until you get the new album: