Having just read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I have made it rather my heart's desire to spread this 'gospel' as far and wide as I possibly can it was such an influential read for me.
Toward that end, I found a link to a PDF copy of Screwtape Proposes a Toast - a "Satirical Epistolary Short Story" written by C.S. Lewis for the Saturday Evening Post, December 19th, 1959. This piece was included as an epilogue to the bound version of The Screwtape Letters, and was even more powerful than the book because of the inclusion of the ways in which public education and Democracy would be rendered completely useless by the devils machinations and the human's lack of brilliance in, not only not recognizing these, but falling for them utterly.
I'm including the section on Democracy below. It is lengthy, and all I can do is lead a horse to water so to speak, but if you choose to read it, you will forever be better for the time you spent to do so. On to Lewis;
Some time ago, I woke up about 2:30ish for some unknown reason.
For some unknown reason I picked up my phone to have something to do until I felt I could fall asleep again.
I pressed the Facebook app and immediately found two prayer requests and needs.
My friend Molly, who had been struggling simply to live after being taken to the hospital with a disease of unknown origin, needed to be rested in order to get off her ventilator, but she was not resting.
Do unto others...Luke records Jesus' words from the Sermon On The Mount a bit differently than Matthew. Luke provides the phraseology we so often use to advise our children - as I was advised by MY parents; "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." (Luke 6:31)
Recently, I've been thinking on this edict and I have to say that, today, this admonition doesn't stand like it did decades ago when my grandparents - and even parents - used it.
And so we begin today knowing that tomorrow looms etherially on the horizon as the start of a new year waiting to greet us at the midnight chime of the clock.
For centuries, human beings have made the "new year" a holiday to itself. The age old renderings of 'baby New Year' assure us that we humans, we mere mortals, can redirect our lives at that point in time and begin again anew for yet another year.
Joy Pullmann at the Federalist
wrote a GREAT piece today on why Michelle Rhee should NOT be named as theSecretary of Education. I loved it so much, I'm doubling down on it.
No,
neither Rhee nor anyone else of her 'ilk' should be appointed as head of DOE.
In
case you don't know - or are somehow new to education policy (or heck - just
governance in the United States) - there is no middle ground anymore. NONE. Yes, there
is supposed to be a gradient of governance that tends to rest somewhere near
the middle of the ideological spectrum (ideally) in EVERY area of our lives the government
has usurped, yet - particularly in education - what you really have is this:
