Trinitarian Marriage, a sermon series by Joost Nixon

Marriage, Singleness, and Celibacy 54 min
Marriage pt 2 50 min
Trinitarian Marriage 43 min
Starting a Family pt. 3 - In Laws 48 min
Unknown and Frustrated - (featured in Vol. 19/1 of Credenda Agenda, p. 20) 39 min
Starting a Family pt. 4 34 min

"In the modern world of male and female relationship, men are more like Francis Drake than John Smith. They are interested in conquest, visiting women like cities along a coastline, stopping only long enough to raid and despoil. There is no real penetration of the interior before boredom strikes and they move on. The result is invariable devastation. But many Christian men, though they can say they are the husband of one wife, are injudiciously bored with their wives. There has been conquest -- they "got the girl." But now that they have her, they only nibble and set her aside. There is headship with no dominion; conquest without exploration. Leif Erickson may have landed at Newfoundland, but he knew nothing of Ol' Muddy, or Pike's Peak, or the Painted Desert. He never tasted a Georgia Peach, or was cowed by an electrical storm in Denver. He may have landed, but he never really explored.

...The problem is that men think of the wedding as "mission accomplished." They've landed her and now she can't run off without getting into trouble. But a wedding is mere admission to the ride, not conclusion of the ride. The covenant is a license to know -- not evidence that you have known. It is a license to know her sexually. License to know her heart. License to probe her fears, to visit the dark places under the stairs.

These differing expectations and orientations produce unimaginable exasperation. The wife longs to be known and loved. The husband piddles around, splashing the beach, when there are mountains to scale, rivers to navigate, cornfields in which to lose oneself. He thinks he is done. She wonders why he doesn't get started. She is a feast on a table, but her husband isn't hungry (except for sex). She is as unsatisfied as a Ferrari stuck in first gear.

If men were faithful to pursue their wives as they ought, they would be less bored and more fruitful. But pursuit is so much more than flowers and sex, or dinner and a movie. Pursuit is not allowing the curiousity you once had about her to dwindle. It is asking questions that have not been asked. It is not assuming you know what she thinks. Pursuit requires time and zeal, preparation and forethought. And as you seek to live with your wife "according to knowledge" you will find that your marriage is much more challenging, and much more rewarding, than you ever thought."

The Taxpaying Minority, by Air Fleischer

If the tax forms you're filing this year show Uncle Sam entitled to any income tax, you increasingly stand alone. The income tax system is so bad, and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40% of the country's households -- more than 44 million adults -- pay no income taxes at all. Not a penny.

Think of it this way. After dropping off your tax forms at the Post Office, you find 100 people standing on the sidewalk. Forty of them will be excused from paying income taxes thanks to Congress. Twenty of them, the middle class, will pay barely a thing. The 40 people who remain, the upper middle class and the wealthy, will pay nearly all of the income taxes.

Look at that crowd again and find the richest person there. That individual will pay 37% of all the income taxes owed by those 100 people. The 10 richest people in the crowd will pay 71% of the income-tax bill. The 40 most successful people will pay 99% of everyone's income taxes. Yet for some lawmakers in Washington, these taxpayers aren't paying enough. Our tax system comes up short in a lot of areas. It doesn't foster economic growth. It isn't very simple. And it certainly isn't fair. The one place where it does excel is at redistributing income.

According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40%) pay 99.1% of all income taxes, the taxes that support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, for example, fund the federal portion of transportation, education, environmental and welfare spending.

Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10%, paid 70.8% of all income taxes, an increase from their share of 48.1% in 1979. Think about it. Ten percent pay seven out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

And those super-rich one percenters? Their share of the nation's income has risen, but their tax burden has risen even faster.

In 1979, the first year of the study, these affluent individuals made 9.3% of the nation's income and they paid 18.3% of the country's income tax. In 2004, these fortunate few made 16.3% of the nation's income but their share of the income tax burden leaped to 36.7%. Think about that. One percent take in less than 17% of the country's income, but pay almost 37% of the country's income tax.

As for the middle class, CBO reports they make 13.9% of the nation's income and their share of the nation's income tax dropped to 4.7%. In 1979, they made 15.8% of the nation's income and paid 10.7% of the nation's income tax.

The combination of across the board marginal income tax rate cuts and repeated expansions of the earned income tax credit (EITC) for lower-income Americans has created this situation in which fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of the income tax. When President Bush in 2001 cut the lowest tax rate to 10% from 15%, several million additional workers were excused from paying any income tax. Raising top rates, as Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton did in 1990 and 1993, also shifted the burden to a smaller group of Americans.

The EITC program redistributes money from those who pay income taxes to 22 million families and individuals with incomes less than $36,348. These workers not only don't have to pay any income tax, they're given a government check as a subsidy to help make ends meet. The EITC is also designed to relieve them of the cost of paying for their share of Social Security and Medicare.

If Republicans, including their presidential candidates, wonder why their calls for tax relief don't resonate like they used to, it's because there aren't that many income taxpayers left. They've been taken off the rolls.

As for the Democrats, they historically have raised taxes and redistributed income as a core philosophy. It doesn't matter to them how much money some people pay -- the argument is that the wealthy can always pay more. According to this point of view, it's immaterial that the tax code is highly progressive; it can always be made more progressive. While raising taxes on the few to benefit the many might be a political winner, it's an increasingly risky policy to pursue.

If, as now happens, 60% of the people in our democracy can force 40% to pay the bills, what's to stop 65% from making 35% pay it all? Since no one wants to pay taxes, what's to stop 90% of people in a democracy from making 10% pay it all? Or why not let 99% of the country off the hook, as long as the remaining 1% picks up the tab?

The problem is that there is a tipping point after which piling taxes onto the rich will leave the government unable to meet its obligations. And perhaps we're already reaching that point, where most people won't have a serious stake in what the government does because they don't pay for it. They want services and benefits, but they don't pay the price. That's a formula for runaway spending and no accountability. In other words, a system that looks a lot like the one we already have.

This can't last forever. When government revenues derive mostly from the wealthy, the fortunes of a few determine the fate of us all. Surpluses and deficits will be driven less by the economic strength of the country, and more by the gains made by the rich in hedge funds, mutual funds, equities and stock options. Like a spinning top that twirls on a narrow point, the top will stay up so long as it continues to go round. Once it slows down it falls, and the government's main source of tax revenue will plunge with it.

What a Catch-22. Members of Congress who want to fund antipoverty programs will have to hope the rich get richer, because the wealthy will need to make more to pay for all the federal programs.

The usual rebuttal made by those who support raising top rates is that lower income Americans pay Social Security and Medicare taxes and therefore need "relief." Of course they pay these taxes. But then, they alone get a good return on their money.

Top earners, on the other hand, pay payroll taxes so their money can be redistributed to others. According to the CBO study, the top 20% of workers, those with incomes over $64,300, pay 44.2% of the payroll tax while the bottom 20%, those who make less than $17,300, pay 4.2%. In return, when it's time to retire, lower-income workers typically receive more in Social Security benefits than they paid in, while the wealthy, who paid the most in taxes, simply can't live long enough to get back what they paid. For much of the middle class and the wealthy, Social Security isn't a retirement program -- it's another program that redistributes their income.

As for Medicare, it doesn't matter that the rich paid far more in taxes; all recipients receive the same benefits. Think of it this way. If Medicare were a car, its price for a low-income worker would be $145 and its price for a millionaire would be $14,500, even though it's the very same car.

Here's why. A taxpayer who makes $1 million a year pays $14,500 in Medicare taxes while a worker who makes $10,000 a year pays $145. But when they retire and visit their doctors or go to the hospital, Medicare reimburses both an equal amount of money. That's a pretty big redistribution of income and a pretty good deal for the low-income worker.

At the end of the day, everyone in this county is in it together. We have an obligation to help the neediest among us and the wealthy should pay more. But a system in which almost half the country pays no income taxes and 40% pay all the income tax has gone too far. Instead of raising taxes and punishing the successful by making them pay even more, it's time to junk the current system and start anew with a code that fosters economic growth for all, not increased redistribution of income for some.

Mr. Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, is president of Ari Fleischer Communications.

Beating the Rap: Will the Imus imbroglio trip up hip hop?

On yesterday's "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert mentioned how he and other journalists appeared on the Imus program for years knowing it used over-the-top humor. He also noted that rapper Snoop Dogg degrades women and yet is hired by Chrysler to sell its cars. In response, PBS's Gwen Ifill, herself an early victim of Mr. Imus's degrading rants, was refreshingly candid. "So we're all hypocrites, Tim. Let's see what we can do to get past it."

Music and Lyrics: Hip-hop "artists" are no better than Imus.

"Hip-hop artists rap about what they see, hear and feel around them, their experience of the world. Like the artists throughout history, their messages are a mirror of what is right and wrong with society. Sometimes their observations or the way in which they choose to express their art may be uncomfortable for some to hear, but our job is not to silence or censor that expression."

The Wolfowitz Files: The anatomy of a World Bank smear.

Product Recalls: Informing and Educating at a Crucial Time

Bono's birthday donation drive / U2 auction @ Ebay

U2/African Well Fund Auction - 100% of the proceeds of this auction will go towards building water projects in Africa.

Bono's birthday donation drive - For the fifth year in a row, the African Well Fund is pleased to announce plans for a fundraising drive to " Build a Well for Bono's Birthday ".

From March 22nd through May 6th, the African Well Fund invites U2 fans and others who are inspired by Bono's tireless activism on behalf of Africa to make a donation in honor of Bono's birthday on May 10th. Your donation in the amount of $100, $75, $40, or whatever you can afford, will go a long way in helping to provide clean water for the people of Africa.

Donations from the four previous campaigns totaled over $80,000 and have been used by our partner Africare to fund well projects in Uganda, Ethiopia, Angola and Zimbabwe, and our current well projects are underway in Uganda, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Check the AWF Wells page for more information on our projects. This past September, two African Well Fund members traveled to Africa to see wells built by previous birthday fundraisers. You can see video from the trip at youtube.com or read the trip blog from AWF's visit to Africa for more information.

A New Epic by Tolkien

One of the publishing world's best-selling franchises is getting a long-awaited new installment. Nearly 34 years after the death of J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, his publisher has set a big U.S. press run of 250,000 copies for a new novel.

The book, "The Children of Húrin," which comes out Tuesday, is set about 6,000 years before the period depicted in "The Lord of the Rings." For Houghton Mifflin, it's perhaps the last opportunity to build on a franchise that it estimates has sold 80 million books in the U.S. since the 1938 publication of "The Hobbit."

Christopher Tolkien, the author's 82-year-old son, has been working on "Children" for three decades, stitching together outlines, notes and unfinished drafts his father left behind, including an incomplete version of the tale written as an epic poem. The result is entirely in the elder Mr. Tolkien's words, with only minor grammatical changes in things such as verb tense, according to Webster Younce, the editor who oversees the Tolkien list for Houghton Mifflin.

The publisher is keeping the book under wraps until its official publication next week, saying only that it chronicles the story of Túrin, son of the titular Húrin, as he tries to evade a cursed fate. But many elements of the story have been published in earlier works, such as Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume history of Middle Earth. According to Tolkien scholars, the tale recounted in "Children of Húrin" involves tragic themes such as suicide and unknowing incest. The central narrative seed is a sequence of songs from a Finnish epic; those songs may have folkloric origins similar to those behind Shakespeare's "Hamlet," says Verlyn Flieger, an English professor at the University of Maryland.

"He never turns to evil, but everything that Túrin touches gets destroyed," says Michael Drout, an English professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, based on his reading of earlier Tolkien material. "Irony drives the entire plot."

The Tolkien franchise is important to Houghton Mifflin's bottom line. Since 2001, when the first "Lord of the Rings" movie was released, books in that trilogy have sold an estimated 11.9 million copies, according to data compiled by Nielsen BookScan, which tracks sales from about 70% of U.S. consumer booksellers. In 2003, Tolkien books represented 20.7% of net sales for Houghton Mifflin's Trade and Reference Publishing segment, according to a company Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

As for the new volume, anticipation is high, even among those who know the story's general outlines. "Nobody has seen anything of this book," says Prof. Flieger. "I can't wait to get my hands on a copy."

The Real MVPs

A movement that could upend baseball's economics is gaining steam. The idea: Peg a player's value not just to his results in the box scores, but to his potential impact on the team's bottom line. See a chart and hear a podcast on the new science of baseball pay. Read More...

CIA chief says military roots don’t hinder his ability to run civilian spy agency

Of the five main agencies whose sole mission is intelligence, only the National Reconnaissance Office is currently run by a civilian.
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is a retired Navy vice admiral. The head of the National Counterterrorism Center, John Scott Redd, is a retired Navy vice admiral. If his nomination is approved by the Senate, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper will be the defense undersecretary for intelligence.

Finally, a taste of success for Hamilton

AP

Reds OF is finding success in his bid to overcome addiction.

How U.S. Used a Bank To Punish North Korea

Nuclear Talks Are Said To Proceed, as Macau Frees Frozen Accounts

Steve's Jobs

The music moguls trusted Steve Jobs once and he saved them. It's time for them to trust him again.

If they don't, they shouldn't be surprised by what comes next. Having squandered the trust of its consumers, the music industry is rapidly losing the loyalty of its content providers as well. Artists have been the big losers in all of this, and by necessity they've had to learn a little about marketing and distribution. Software is software, even if it's got a beat -- so what's to keep Steve Jobs and Apple from going into the music business itself?

As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit

Islam's Rise Gives Boost To Militant Unbelievers; The Celebrity Hedonist

Damage Control: Author Dezenhall Challenges Tylenol Cyanide Scare Response, Conventional PR Wisdom

Damage Control: Author Dezenhall Challenges Tylenol Cyanide Scare Response, Conventional PR Wisdom

This week's spotlight: Eric Dezenhall, CEO, Dezenhall Resources

The old rules of crisis management don't cut it anymore, believes D.C.-based communications exec and author Eric Dezenhall. What's more: This is 25th anniversary of the Tylenol cyanide scare, which Dezenhall says should not be upheld as a model of crisis management. "The myth is they immediately recalled the product, but it actually took eight days. Retailers began pulling it first," says Dezenhall, who began his career in the White House Office of Communications during the Reagan presidency and has since managed "monster controversies" for top brands and personalities in the pharmaceuticals, petrochemical and entertainment sectors.

"This is important because you now have everybody upholding the 'instant recall.' But it's unrealistic because companies would constantly be in recall mode if they were to follow that line of thinking," explains Dezenhall, whose recently released Damage Control: Why Everything You Know about Crisis Management is Wrong advances similar claims and more.

"Another reason this is a bad model is nobody was blaming Johnson & Johnson for poisoning people," Dezenhall continues. "Everyone understood there was a madman on the loose and the company was a victim. It's easier to get out of a crisis in such 'sniper crises.' Far more common are 'character crises,' where the company is the villain. Those are harder to manage."

In addition: "There was also a very easy action you could take if you didn't want to die during the Tylenol scare. You threw out your Tylenol. But imagine telling a woman with breast implants to take them out," Dezenhall posits. "Imagine telling someone who bought a $40,000 SUV to take it back. Ridiculous. You can't. So the Tylenol case was a relative storm of very easy actions and scenarios that shouldn't be held up for today's practitioners," he reiterates. "It's not the model we should be following—just as Calamine lotion isn't the antidote to diabetes. It's the wrong set of 'solutions' for managing the types of crises most of us face."

Read on for more of Dezenhall's controversial take on this sacred cow of crisis communications, his assessment of JetBlue's recent crisis response—and his sometimes surprising "new rules" of practicing PR in an increasingly adversarial age:

How did the Tylenol case come to be so iconic if it's such a bad model?

The reason it became known for being so brilliantly managed is that a PR firm that didn't handle it wrote a case study declaring it to be brilliant. They rewrote the facts and went around on road shows for years proselytizing the case.

Basically, it came down to some very clever PR people rewriting how it went down, positioning it as their own work—and then using it as a rainmaking tool. From there, lots of PR people preached this case for new business development purposes. Business school professors also love this case study and the "theories" behind it because it's so neat and tidy. But the truth is crises are typically far messier. Traditional crisis communications is rarely up to the task.

What's "wrong" with crisis communications as we know it?

Conventional crisis communications is about issuing apologies, staying on message and getting out there quickly. That's insufficient. It should be more about recognizing that modern crises aren't always organic and simple. Instead, they're agenda-driven conflicts catalyzed by motivated adversaries. The best way to answer the question, then, is to say that modern crises aren't communications problems. They're conflicts.

Conventional PR is anchored in the belief that the public want to be educated, as if the public is waiting to hear more about what an industrial polluter has to say. But the truth is the public isn't listening. The Edward Bernays school of PR assumes that the public is a blank state to be manipulated. But my experience is they're not even listening. The public doesn't yearn to be educated by multinationals. So my perspective is that true crisis communications now is more guerrilla warfare than conventional warfare.

You claim in your book that PR isn't the best discipline to combat crisis—why?

The answer is it's not in the DNA of most PR people to do what's necessary to manage a crisis. PR people by nature tend to be positive people who are very uncomfortable with the existence of conflict. They want it all to be OK. The problem with that is everything won't be OK when you're dealing with conflicts. What you have to look at in any crisis is not only what the problem is, but also what the DNA is of the people at table.

Corporate PR people are used to communicating positive information. They're not used to sparring with people who want to hurt them. Their job is about building and maintaining "relations." That makes sense when the focus is on news releases, speeches and the usual corporate communications mission. In that sphere, their DNA is correct. But not when you're dealing with crisis management, where you're facing hostile parties. Political-oriented PR people are less limited that way.

How does that critique of the typical PR mindset translate to advice for readers?

For starters, corporations and their PR representatives should be better at attracting people to the table who have been through litigation. Bring on people who know what it's like to have protesters out there. Hire PR team members who have dealt with savage litigation and blanket negative media coverage. Realize that PR people who come from the marketing or "promotional" sphere are disasters at mitigating crisis.

Another tip that comes out of this is to be aware of your own hard wiring. If you abhor confrontation, don't volunteer for crisis work. Admit that you should be on the marketing side—and work hard to find the right partners to sit with you at the table when crisis strikes.

Who are those right people—who should be in the war room?

Let's start with who shouldn't be there. Mid-level people with no decision-making power—get them out of the room. Others include: technical people with no capacity to summarize complicated things for public consumption, and note-takers or people who feel compelled to send detailed emails on laptops about the proceedings. When there's someone in the room taking detailed notes, I get up. I've had too many situations where I've later seen my memos in the newspaper. You never know the loyalties of the people in the room.

Could you explain that statement—why do you say that?

A corporation under siege is no longer a company. It's a collection of individuals looking for self preservation, so you never know who will send that email to The Wall Street Journal.

So back to the question: Who absolutely must be in the room?

The top lawyer, the top business manager or your CEO, a crisis counselor and an expert on whatever the technical issue or question is that's under consideration. That's it. And yes, you need a PR person in the room—but it has to be someone who is adept at dealing with bad news. If that's not you, find that person and get him or her in there.

What are some of your "new rules" of crisis management?

Don't try to spin a public that doesn't want to be spun. For example, BP's feel-good advertising didn't win over the public following 2005-6 allegations of leaks and commodity trading fraud. And don't confuse crises with conflicts, nuisances or marketplace assaults. HP made the mistake of inflating its 2006 boardroom leak nuisance into a crisis.

What is the number one crisis tip you learned during your tenure at the White House?

The most important factor in who survives a crisis is the fundamental likeability of the target. People liked Reagan. They let him slide on a lot of things. I was a 22 year old kid. I wasn't a power player, but I do recall that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Mike Deaver would rarely let Reagan talk to hostile audiences with the belief he would win them over. Instead, he was just put in situations where he was strong and audiences liked him.

So the tip is this: Nothing is to be gained by trying to convince people who hate you to like you. Preach to the choir instead.

Brian Pittman; bpittman@bulldogreporter.com

McCain's Finest Hour

Hamilton, aka Roy Hobbs, gets first MLB hit -- two-run HR

Cincinnati Reds' Josh Hamilton, left, is congratulated by manager Jerry Narron after Hamilton's two-run home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

In the third inning, Hamilton hit Edgar Gonzalez's first pitch into the right-field seats for a two-run homer. It was also Hamilton's first big-league hit. Hamilton, who was mobbed by teammates in the first-base dugout when he returned, became the first Reds batter to homer for his first Major League hit since Chris Denorfia on Sept. 9, 2005, vs. Pittsburgh.

The Billionaire in Triple A

White's $2.4 billion windfall would place him 131st on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans in 2006, $100 million ahead of Mark Cuban. He could buy the A's, Angels, Mariners and Rangers and turn the AL West into the AL White. Or he could purchase the Dodgers, as teammates suggested this spring, and pay himself to be the closer. The rock is worth almost 10 times more than Alex Rodriguez's record 10-year, $252 million contract. "White," Los Angeles pitcher Randy Wolf says, "should be A-Rock."

Dodgers' pitcher Matt White.

Dump Eric Milton

Abe Lincoln watches the Washington Nationals

hat tip: Church of Baseball