Stephen

“The gap between our real power and what people expect from us is the source of the most difficult pressure any head of state has to manage.”
― Moisés Naím, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be

“It takes an estimated average of seventeen years before evidence from scientific research is incorporated into day-to-day clinical practice.”
― Michael Greger, How Not to Diet

“But we often get in the way of our own best intentions. When fasting we might be tempted to feel a sense of pride about our sacrifice. The very thing we relinquish sometimes clamors inside us as a “need” to be met. Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, our attention can dangerously be drawn to the very thing we’ve voluntarily surrendered. Even so, the practice of Lent can be a valuable discipline. It’s difficult to grasp what our sense of entitlement does to our bodies and souls. Our culture worships at the feet of pleasure. As we “shovel it in,” we can become desensitized to our needs—the real hungers in our lives. Observing Lent can help us wrestle with the causes of our perpetual consumption. When we decide to relinquish what fails to truly satisfy, we come face-to-face with some tough questions. Can we believe Jesus when he says, “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”? How can we make room for the Savior in our lives? Can we grasp the reality of Good Friday and live within its irony? Lent challenges us to consider the honest answers to these and other soul-searching questions. It invites us to jump off the hamster wheel of consumption and experience the pinch of abstaining from thoughtless indulgence.”
― Anonymous, Devotions for Lent

“News is news and spin is spin, and when you introduce the second to the first, what you have isn’t news anymore. Hey, presto, you’ve created opinion. Don’t get me wrong, opinion is powerful. Being able to be presented with differing opinions on the same issue is one of the glories of a free media, and it should make people stop and think. But a lot of people don’t want to. They don’t want to admit that whatever line being touted by their idol of the moment might not be unbiased and without ulterior motive. We’ve got people who claim Kellis-Amberlee was a plot by the Jews, the gays, the Middle East, even a branch of the Aryan Nation trying to achieve racial purity by killing the rest of us. Whoever orchestrated the creation and release of the virus masked their involvement with a conspiracy of Machiavellian proportions, and now they and their followers are sitting it out, peacefully immunized, waiting for the end of the world.”
― Mira Grant, Feed