#224: Religious Politics

January 28, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #224, on the subject of Religious Politics.

There’s something of a flap at the moment in the world where religion and politics intersect. It seems that Jerry Falwell, Jr. (pictured), has made the comment that Jesus and the New Testament church never tried to tell the government how to run the world, they just focused on saving souls. The inference drawn (I will not claim to know his intent) is that people should keep their religion out of their politics. It’s a bit ironic, really, since Falwell’s father was co-founder, with Cal Thomas, of the organization calling itself The Moral Majority (which some argued was not actually either, but that’s not the point here), which particularly in the 1970s attempted with some success to exert influence to bring the political sphere in line with what it perceived as Christian ideals.

Certainly there is an important principle in American government that religious institutions should be isolated from government, unregulated and unimpeded by each other, uninvolved in each other. However, the notion that religion should not influence government suffers from two major misunderstandings.

(Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The first is simple, but apparently not obvious: politics and religion are, at the core, the same thing. They are both about how you believe the world actually is, and what the best way to live within it would be. They are both fundamentally non-rational, that is, what we might call super-rational, structures of beliefs based on what have been called “pillars” of “moral intuition”. We hold political positions because we believe that certain principles are “right”, whether caring for the needs of the downtrodden and persecuted, defending the freedoms of individuals, or arranging for an equitable outcome in the economic world. Jonathan Haidt does an excellent job of explaining these moral concepts in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (which I review and discuss here). Both are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as part of really one fundamental right: the right to believe what you do, express and promote those beliefs, and associate with others to discuss them. You can’t separate politics from religion because politics is religion.

Atheists reject that notion, so we should probably consider it further. If you were an Odinite who believed that Father Odin created the Aryan people to dominate the world before entering the afterlife and using their practiced combat prowess to defend Gladsheim against the giants at Ragnarok, you would promote the position that the government should create opportunities for young men to learn to fight and conquer other countries. If you are a Hindu believing in the transmigration of souls, you are going to work to defend not only the lives of people everywhere but a peaceful coexistence with animal life from cattle to cockroaches. These are not at that point irrational actions or decisions; they are perfectly rational choices based on an embraced understanding of the fundamental nature of the world. Atheists believe there is no god, but in the main they believe that there are binding moral principles, that some things are right and others wrong, and that government ought to promote right conduct and discourage wrong conduct. That is not different from religious belief. It is still about how we understand the world and what we think should happen in it.

So if politics and religion are really fundamentally two different words for what people believe about reality, it becomes inherently impossible for a person to separate the two. If you think separating politics from religion is simple, you fail to understand what they are.

The other flaw in the reasoning that Christianity should not try to manipulate government because it did not attempt to do so in the first century is that this is not the first century and we are not living in the Roman Empire. Most of us are living in republics of one sort or another, nations in which democratic principles choose the goverment and determine the laws.

In Rome, Caesar was the government. In America, we are.

Sure, I’m not Donald Trump or Barrack Obama; I’m not the Speaker of the House or the Senate President or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I’m not even the mayor of my small town (and having known the son of the mayor of a small town, it is not a job I want). However, whether or not I voted for them, whether or not I voted at all, those people hold those offices because we chose them, and that means I by my contribution for or against am partly responsible for that choice. I am the government; you are the government. We have the responsibility to govern ourselves, and to govern each other.

We don’t agree how to do that. That’s par for the course–when did you ever agree with anyone about everything? But we discuss our options, give our preferences, and in doing so we bring our values–our politically and religiously based values–into the decision-making process.

My political science professors at Evangelical Christian Gordon College years ago made the point that it did not matter whether or not a candidate for office was a Christian, in the sense of claiming a Christian faith or being a member of a recognized Christian church. What mattered was whether a candidate stood for political principles consistent with the Christian faith and a Christian view of how to govern. The person himself could be Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu, or even Atheist. He could have a deplorable private life, and be selfish and cruel in his personal relationships. What matters ultimately is that what drives his choices in governing is principles supporting a more Christian world, and whether he is politically effective, capable of leading.

I’m not in the least bit interested in discussing whether our current leaders are such people. We could spend years just trying to come to some kind of agreement concerning what Christian principles of government are, and how to balance things like equity and kindness and freedom. I am only saying that religious people are inherently going to bring their religiously-based views about reality, their political views, into these discussions, and that’s part of the democratic political process. You can’t keep religion out of politics without keeping values out of politics, and once you remove values from politics you have nothing left.

Reviews

#223: In re: Full Moon Rising, by T. M. Becker

January 22, 2018 M.J. 3 Comments

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #223, on the subject of In re: Full Moon Rising, by T. M. Becker.

Prologue

Although I did a number of book reviews in the previous Blogless Lepolt web log a decade ago, I have done none in the mark Joseph “young” web log but one that was time travel related. Part of that is because I write my book reviews at Goodreads, and have been reading enough lately that I did not want either to overload the web log with reviews or play favorites with inclusions and exclusions here. However, this is a special case.

That requires full disclosure. The author, T. M. Becker, is my first cousin once removed–my mother’s brother’s son’s daughter. Yet I cannot say we know each other very well. I can pronounce her given name (or at least, I believe I pronounce it correctly) but am not going to embarrass either of us by pretending I’m completely certain how it is spelled. We have been in the same room three times in our lives, all at family gatherings (although with her nine children I imagine it always seems she is at a family gathering), the first when she was perhaps five years old, plus or minus a couple years, and the other two within the past couple years. I did not immediately recognize her when she came up to me at that last one. She connected with me via social media shortly before this book was published, and I offered to write a review in exchange for a copy.

That is the kind of offer a writer immediately regrets, as the fear arises that you won’t be able to say anything good about it and don’t want to damage a relationship by saying something bad. Fortunately, that is not a problem in this instance. Thus I offer

Full Moon Rising
by T. M. Becker

I have high praise for Becker’s first published novel. It is excellent in many ways.

Let’s begin with the little stuff. I read a lot of books in which I cringe at editing mistakes, typos, grammatical errors, spelling errors, misused words, punctuation problems, and the like. Here the editing was immaculate. I think there were perhaps two sentences in the entire book which I thought I might phrase differently, one place where I had to pause and figure out who made one statement in a three-way conversation. There is no editor credit other than thanks to a writer’s workshop group; I am guessing that it is her own linguistic skill that is responsible for this.

She somewhere has acknowledged the influences of J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, and her story fits comfortably between Hobbits and Hogwarts but never blatantly borrows anything significant from either. She demonstrates familiarity with subject matter, such as proper medieval architectural terms, common medicinal herbs, fashion and textiles and jewelry, and equestrian matters. It at least feels as if she knows what she’s describing. Her characters and creatures and settings while familiar are all original, or at least sufficiently distinct from any I have encountered elsewhere to say I don’t feel as if they were borrowed.

I struggle with titles. I’m not sure that this book is well named, as the rising of the moon while significant in the main character’s life was less prominent in the story. However, I would be hard-pressed to find a better title, and titles after all are essentially handles by which to identify stories.

The story revolves around Arabella. It took me a while to learn her name, because it is written in the first person (and on this, kudos to Becker for never noticeably breaking perspective) and her name is rarely spoken–but I admit I often have problems with names of people, whether fictional or real. There are quite a few conflicts and mysteries surrounding her, such as the disappearance of her mother, the oppressive regime that has conquered her country, the strange dreams she has when the moon approaches full, the magical trunk in her bedroom, the nature of the horse she rescues, and the threat of the evil wizard. Some of these are not resolved within the book, and some are resolved too easily, such as the downfall of the oppressive regime after Arabella has fled the country. However, the book is not about those stories. It is very much about Arabella’s self-perception, the person she sees when she looks in the mirror and why she does not believe when others tell her she is beautiful. It is a good story, and perhaps very meaningful for the target young adult audience; I recognized what was happening before the reveal, but I think we were supposed to be wondering why everyone saw her as beautiful but herself, and Becker accomplishes this layered into a story laced with adventure and excitement.

If I have a disappointment, it’s that I don’t know what Becker will write next. Arabella has lived through her teen years and is about to marry her prince (unclear in the epilogue whether the wedding had occurred, but if not it is imminent); she would not be a suitable central character for the next book unless the villain kidnaps her before the wedding. Speaking of the villain, we think he is dead, but he might have survived, but continuing Arabella’s story beyond a few weeks would not fit the target audience of the first book. There is much that could be explored in this world, but difficult to set so good a plot to it as the one about Arabella in this book. I fear my curiosities about the other fortresses, the secrets of Aramis, and so many other questions about what is just beyond what we were told will go unanswered.

Yet perhaps that is as it should be. There is room in her world for another story, and room on the shelves should she decide to create another world.

I am giving the book five stars on Goodreads. I think it one of the best books I have read in several years.

Law and Politics

#222: The Range War Explodes: Interstate Water Rights

January 13, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #222, on the subject of The Range War Explodes: Interstate Water Rights.

Your ranch is upstream, and they dammed up the water.
Thirsty cows scream for my uncle to slaughter
The sheep
While your daddy’s asleep,
And I do the same for his daughter.

The Range War, by Todd Rundgren

In my hopefully forthcoming book Why I Believe I used the example of the range war, probably recalled from this old Todd Rundgren Romeo and Juliet song, in asking whether or not it was “theft” for the owner of an upstream ranch to dam the water supplies to provide for his own livestock and family, if it reduces the amount of water that would otherwise naturally flow downstream onto his neighbor’s ranch to water his livestock. It is a difficult and intriguing question: can I steal something from you that you never had, simply by preventing it from reaching you? If I prevent the water from flowing downstream, can you accuse me of theft?

It appears that the United States Supreme Court is going to answer that question: Florida is suing Georgia for using too much fresh water from the rivers that supply its northern areas, and the court has granted certiorari.

Georgia has a pretty solid case. After all, if a storm is coming and I get to the grocery store before you and buy the last of the milk, eggs, and bread (what is now being called a “French Toast Emergency”), did I thereby rob you of those supplies? If you took me to court over that, you would probably be laughed out of the room. It’s Georgia’s water; what they don’t use becomes Florida’s water; what they use to support their growing cities and their booming agriculture, they use. It doesn’t seem that Florida can really claim that it’s their water before it reaches them, and if it never reaches them, it never becomes theirs.

On the other hand, it’s not like Florida can get to the water first by leaving earlier. Florida is in a very real sense dependent on Georgia allowing the water to cross the border. Further, these are serious environmental concerns, removing water from wilderness areas dependent on those rivers.

Since this is a dispute between two States, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction–the case does not come to them on appeal from a lower court, and there are no prior decisions for them to consider. An appointed Special Master has recommended that they side with Georgia, but at oral argument the justices reportedly seemed to be seeking a way to support Florida, Justice Ginsburg suggesting that a cap on Georgia’s water use might be necessary to protect its downstream neighbor.

Stay tuned for the resolution to this modern version of an old problem.

Bible and Theology, Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning

#221: Silence on the Lesbian Front

January 12, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #221, on the subject of Silence on the Lesbian Front.

Sometimes what the Supreme Court does not say is as significant at what it does say. There is much speculation as to why they declined to hear a suit against a Mississippi law protecting a first amendment right not to support same sex weddings and similar matters. The lower court ruling at this point is that the plaintiffs do not have standing, that is, none of them can demonstrate that the law has caused any of them actual harm, but the question behind that is why the court didn’t want to grab the case and decide the issue.

One possibility is that no one knows how it would fall, and no one wants to risk setting a precedent against their own view. The conservatives would undoubtedly support the law, which makes it unlawful to bring any criminal or civil penalties against someone who for religious reasons refuses to provide services in support of acts they consider immoral, and particularly homosexual weddings. The passage of the law invalidated local laws in Jackson and other metropolitan areas of the state that had protected the supposed rights of the homosexual couples. Meanwhile, the liberal wing wants to normalize homosexual conduct, and have the law regard treatment of homosexuals as equivalent to treatment of blacks and women. So we have an almost even split among the justices–but that there are an odd number of justices.

The swing vote is almost certainly Chief Justice Roberts. He has been strong on first amendment rights, but has also sided in favor of homosexual rights. If either side were sure of his vote, they would probably have accepted the case as a way of establishing a precedent favoring that position. It thus may be that his position is uncertain, and neither side wants to take the risk.

On the other hand, the court has agreed to hear the cake case, in which a baker claims that a state law requiring him to make wedding cakes for homosexual weddings is an infringement on his religious liberty and freedom of speech. The speech issue seems to be the one that is carrying the most weight with the justices, but it may be that the rejection of the Mississippi case is hinting out an outcome here. If in the cake case it were decided that a state law could compel service providers to treat homosexual weddings the same as heterosexual weddings, it would still be an open question as to whether a state law can prevent any such compulsion, and the Mississippi case would matter. However, if the Court were to decide that the baker cannot be compelled to create a cake for a homosexual wedding, that inherently supports the Mississippi law, saying that no one can be so compelled.

So the fact that the Court did not accept the Mississippi case could mean that they are leaning toward judgement in favor of the baker in the cake case, or it could mean that the position of the court is too uncertain for them to take case on the same issue so soon. What it does not mean is that the Court has the votes to overturn the Mississippi law and wants to do so.

Law and Politics

#220: The Right to Repair

January 10, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #220, on the subject of The Right to Repair.

When I was considerably younger, I did a small amount of electronics troubleshooting and repair. My father was an electronics engineer who encouraged and assisted this, and my focus was primarily on audio equipment used by my band. Back then you could buy components through RadioShack® and its sister catalog company Allied Electronics®, and through Lafeyette Electronics® and probably several other outlets. Sometimes we ordered replacement parts directly from manufacturers, among whom Ampeg® deserves special mention for its support.

Nowadays modern electronics have gotten away from me. I’ve got a rough understanding of transistors, and read an early book explaining integrated circuts, but microminiaturization is too difficult for my weak eyes and clumsy hands, and “negative feedback bass boost” and “RCL circuit” are more vague concepts in the back of my mind than real knowledge. I have enough trouble wiring footswitches and jacks for my own home-designed equipment. Computers and cellular phones are beyond me, and I almost always take them to professionals for work. However, I usually take them to local professionals, not manufacturer repair services. They’re cheaper, and I tend more to trust that they’re not going to try to sell me something I don’t need.

The problem faced by many of these repair services is that some manufacturers (the list starts with “A”) won’t provide what they need to make repairs–information such as schematics and programming data, parts, repair instructions. Home handymen like me can’t get these, either. The manufacturer doesn’t want you to be able to repair your device. It wants you to have to pay it inflated rates to repair it, or replace it with a new device it is ready to sell you. Thus for even so simple a problem as a cracked screen, the company is not going to sell you a replacement screen nor provide you the installation instructions for it. You either buy a new device or pay them to fix the old one.

The State of New Jersey thinks this shouldn’t be permitted. The legislature is reportedly considering a bill, the Fair Repair Act, which will require manufacturers to make parts and information available for independent and home repairs of electronic devices. As one who has benefited from the availability of such technology in the past, and who utilizes the services of independent repair outlets, I much favor this bill, and encourage you to support it if you live in New Jersey.

Even if you don’t, this will be significant. If companies are required to make this kind of support available in New Jersey, with today’s international market it effectively becomes available worldwide. It will also be a boost to small businesses, as it becomes possible for them to repair electronic devices previously clouded behind company secrets.

It won’t be a complete revelation of everything. Manufacturers will try to stop the bill, claiming that it will require them to reveal trade secrets. However, New Jersey has a legislatively defined meaning of “trade secret”, and anything that falls within its parameters will be protected under the law. What won’t be protected is the arbitrary creation of monopolies on repairs and replacement parts for cell phones and similar consumer electronics, and it’s past time to do it.

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Elections, Games, Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning, Music, Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel, Time Travel Movies

#219: A 2017 Retrospective

January 2, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #219, on the subject of A 2017 Retrospective.

A year ago, plus a couple days, on the last day of 2016 we posted web log post #150: 2016 Retrospective. We are a couple days into the new year but have not yet posted anything new this year, so we’ll take a look at what was posted in 2017.

Beginning “off-site”, there was a lot at the Christian Gamers Guild, as the Faith and Gaming series ran the rest of its articles. I also launched two new monthly series there in the last month of the year, with introductory articles Faith in Play #1: Reintroduction, continuing the theme of the Faith and Gaming series, and RPG-ology #1: Near Redundancy, reviving some of the lost work and adding more to the Game Ideas Unlimited series of decades back. In addition to the Faith and Gaming materials, the webmaster republished two articles from early editions of The Way, the Truth, and the Dice, the first Magic: Essential to Faith, Essential to Fantasy from the magic symposium, and the second Real and Imaginary Violence, about the objection that role playing games might be too violent. I also contributed a new article at the beginning of the year, A Christian Game, providing rules for a game-like activity using scripture. Near the end of the year–the end of November, actually–I posted a review of all the articles from eighteen months there, as Overview of the Articles on the New Christian Gamers Guild Website.

That’s apart from the Chaplain’s Bible Study posts, where we finished the three Johannine epistles and Jude and have gotten about a third of the way through Revelation. There have also been Musings posts on the weekends.

Over at Goodreads I’ve reviewed quite a few books.

Turning to the mark Joseph “young” web log, we began the year with #151: A Musician’s Resume, giving my experience and credentials as a Christian musician. That subject was addressed from a different direction in #163: So You Want to Be a Christian Musician, from the advice I received from successful Christian musicians, with my own feeling about it. Music was also the subject of #181: Anatomy of a Songwriting Collaboration, the steps involved in creating the song Even You, with link to the recording.

We turned our New Year’s attention to the keeping of resolutions with a bit of practical advice in #152: Breaking a Habit, my father’s techniques for quitting smoking more broadly applied.

A few of the practical ones related to driving, including #154: The Danger of Cruise Control, presenting the hazard involved in the device and how to manage it, #155: Driving on Ice and Snow, advice on how to do it, and #204: When the Brakes Fail, suggesting ways to address the highly unlikely but cinematically popular problem of the brakes failing and the accelerator sticking.

In an odd esoteric turn, we discussed #153: What Are Ghosts?, considering the possible explanations for the observed phenomena. Unrelated, #184: Remembering Adam Keller, gave recollections on the death of a friend. Also not falling conveniently into a usual category, #193: Yelling: An Introspection, reflected on the internal impact of being the target of yelling.

Our Law and Politics articles considered several Supreme Court cases, beginning with a preliminary look at #156: A New Slant on Offensive Trademarks, the trademark case brought by Asian rock band The Slants and how it potentially impacts trademark law. The resolution of this case was also covered in #194: Slanting in Favor of Free Speech, reporting the favorable outcome of The Slant’s trademark dispute, plus the Packingham case regarding laws preventing sex offenders from accessing social networking sites.

Other court cases included #158: Show Me Religious Freedom, examining the Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley case in which a church school wanted to receive the benefits of a tire recycling playground resurfacing program; this was resolved and covered in #196: A Church and State Playground, followup on the Trinity Lutheran playground paving case. #190: Praise for a Ginsberg Equal Protection Opinion, admires the decision in the immigration and citizenship case Morales-Santana.

We also addressed political issues with #171: The President (of the Seventh Day Baptist Convention), noting that political terms of office are not eternal; #172: Why Not Democracy?, a consideration of the disadvantages of a more democratic system; #175: Climate Change Skepticism, about a middle ground between climate change extremism and climate change denial; #176: Not Paying for Health Care, about socialized medicine costs and complications; #179: Right to Choose, responding to the criticism that a male white Congressman should not have the right to take away the right of a female black teenager to choose Planned Parenthood as a free provider of her contraceptive services, and that aspect of taking away someone’s right to choose as applied to the unborn.

We presumed to make a suggestion #159: To Compassion International, recommending a means for the charitable organization to continue delivering aid to impoverished children in India in the face of new legal obstacles. We also had some words for PETA in #162: Furry Thinking, as PETA criticized Games Workshop for putting plastic fur on its miniatures and we discuss the fundamental concepts behind human treatment of animals.

We also talked about discrimination, including discriminatory awards programs #166: A Ghetto of Our Own, awards targeted to the best of a particular racial group, based on similar awards for Christian musicians; #207: The Gender Identity Trap, observing that the notion that someone is a different gender on the inside than his or her sex on the outside is confusing cultural expectations with reality, and #212: Gender Subjectivity, continuing that discussion with consideration of how someone can know that they feel like somthing they have never been. #217: The Sexual Harassment Scandal, addressed the recent explosion of sexual harassment allegations.

We covered the election in New Jersey with #210: New Jersey 2017 Gubernatorial Election, giving an overview of the candidates in the race, #211: New Jersey 2017 Ballot Questions, suggesting voting against both the library funding question and the environmental lock box question, and #214: New Jersey 2017 Election Results, giving the general outcome in the major races for governor, state legislature, and public questions.

Related to elections, #213: Political Fragmentation, looks at the Pew survey results on political typology.

We recalled a lesson in legislative decision-making with #182: Emotionalism and Science, the story of Tris in flame-retardant infant clothing, and the warning against solutions that have not been considered for their other effects. We further discussed #200: Confederates, connecting what the Confederacy really stood for with modern issues; and #203: Electoral College End Run, opposing the notion of bypassing the Constitutional means of selecting a President by having States pass laws assigning their Electoral Votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.

2017 also saw the publication of the entirety of the third Multiverser novel, For Better or Verse, along with a dozen web log posts looking behind the writing process, which are all indexed in that table of contents page. There were also updated character papers for major and some supporting characters in the Multiverser Novel Support Pages section, and before the year ended we began releasing the fourth novel, serialized, Spy Verses, with the first of its behind-the-writings posts, #218: Versers Resume, with individual sections for the first twenty-one chapters.

Our Bible and Theology posts included #160: For All In Authority, discussing praying for our leaders, and protesting against them; #165: Saints Alive, regarding statues of saints and prayers offered to them; #168: Praying for You, my conditional offer to pray for others, in ministry or otherwise; #173: Hospitalization Benefits, about those who prayed for my recovery; #177: I Am Not Second, on putting ourselves last; #178: Alive for a Reason, that we all have purpose as long as we are alive; #187: Sacrificing Sola Fide, response to Walter Bjorck’s suggestion that it be eliminated for Christian unity; #192: Updating the Bible’s Gender Language, in response to reactions to the Southern Baptist Convention’s promise to do so; #208: Halloween, responding to a Facebook question regarding the Christian response to the holiday celebrations; #215: What Forty-One Years of Marriage Really Means, reacting to Facebook applause for our anniversary with discussion of trust and forgiveness, contracts versus covenants; and #216: Why Are You Here?, discussing the purpose of human existence.

We gave what was really advice for writers in #161: Pseudovulgarity, about the words we don’t say and the words we say instead.

On the subject of games, I wrote about #167: Cybergame Timing, a suggestion for improving some of those games we play on our cell phones and Facebook pages, and a loosely related post, #188: Downward Upgrades, the problem of ever-burgeoning programs for smart phones. I guested at a convention, and wrote of it in #189: An AnimeNEXT 2017 Experience, reflecting on being a guest at the convention. I consider probabilities to be a gaming issue, and so include here #195: Probabilities in Dishwashing, calculating a problem based on cup colors.

I have promised to do more time travel; home situations have impeded my ability to watch movies not favored by my wife, but this is anticipated to change soon. I did offer #185: Notes on Time Travel in The Flash, considering time remnants and time wraiths in the superhero series; #199: Time Travel Movies that Work, a brief list of time travel movies whose temporal problems are minimal; #201: The Grandfather Paradox Solution, answering a Facebook question about what happens if a traveler accidentally causes the undoing of his own existence; and #206: Temporal Thoughts on Colkatay Columbus, deciding that the movie in which Christopher Columbus reaches India in the twenty-first century is not a time travel film.

I launched a new set of forums, and announced them in #197: Launching the mark Joseph “young” Forums, officially opening the forum section of the web site. Unfortunately I announced them four days before landing in the hospital for the first of three summer hospitalizations–of the sixty-two days comprising July and August this year, I spent thirty-one of them in one or another of three hospitals, putting a serious dent in my writing time. I have not yet managed to refocus on those forums, for which I blame my own post-surgical life complications and those of my wife, who also spent a significant stretch of time hospitalized and in post-hospitalization rehabilitation, and in extended recovery. Again I express my gratitude for the prayers and other support of those who brought us through these difficulties, which are hopefully nearing an end.

Which is to say, I expect to offer you more in the coming year. The fourth novel is already being posted, and a fifth Multiverser novel is being written in collaboration with a promising young author. There are a few time travel movies available on Netflix, which I hope to be able to analyze soon. There are a stack of intriguing Supreme Court cases for which I am trying to await the resolutions. Your continued support as readers–and as Patreon and PayPal.me contributors–will bring these to realization.

Thank you.

mark Joseph "young"

Monthly Archives: January 2018