Tornado Damage To Union University

Damage Around Union Area In Jackson, TN

Tornadoes Hit My Alma Mater Yet Again

A powerful storm system with multiple tornadoes collapsed the roof of a mall in Memphis, trapping people inside, and trapped students in dormitories at a college in Jackson, the Nashville Tennessean reported on Tuesday.
A least one fatality was reported, the newspaper said, and other media reported dozens of injuries, some serious.

Our house is only about 6 miles from Union. We suffered no damage during the first wave. We have another one coming. Please pray for us. 9 students remain trapped at this hour at Union and the campus is completely demolished. Jennings Hall is without a roof, the dorms were demolished and miraculously no one has died there. There are other areas around the city that were hit hard such as a nursing home and others. Hopefully this next wave will not bring any more damage to our area. Tornadoes have hit Jackson back in 2003 and 1999 and brought about tremendous damage.

Please continue to pray for us and for those who will be affected by this for months to come. Thank you.

You can read more from Reuters here.

You can read more from the Baptist Press here.

You can see some of the first pictures of the damage to Union University here.

Backroom Dealing During Super Tuesday

Romney, who addressed the state GOP convention in person Tuesday, comfortably led the first ballot at the convention, leading to a three-way second ballot contest between the three contenders.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic reported Tuesday that, after the first ballot, McCain’s campaign called his supporters there and urged them to vote in favor of Huckabee.

“Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change,” Beth Myers, Romney’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-What do you make of this?
-Should this matter to you?
-Are our elections really democratic?
-If the allegation is true, what do you think McCain's reasoning was?

Bhut Jolokia: Why?

Okay, here is the situation after two bites: My tongue is absolutely on fire but numb at the same time. How can something be numb and on fire simultaneously at the same time? I don't understand that one.

Some questions:
-Why do this to yourself?
-More importantly, why is the Wall Street Journal sponsoring it?

Department Of Children And Families Spokesman Arrested On Child Porn Charges

The head of the Department of Children and Families, "horrified and shocked" by the arrest of his agency spokesman on child-pornography charges, Monday ordered a review of personnel records for all DCF employees.

DCF Secretary Bob Butterworth and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey briefed reporters at DCF headquarters about the arrest of Al Zimmerman on eight counts of soliciting two boys for sexual purposes.

Butterworth, who fired Zimmerman last Friday, said he sent a message to all department employees — urging them to "work with your heads held high" — and said the incident does not reflect on DCF's work in protecting children in foster care, the elderly and other needy Floridians.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Can we keep things like this from happening?
-Does this lessen your trust in your local child protective service agencies?
-What punishment should Zimmerman be subject to if found guilty? Should his punishment be any more severe due to the nature of his job?
-What do you think will be the fallout from this incident?

LIberals, Show Evangelicals Some Love!

At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith.

Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.

Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.

Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives...

I read it first at Denny Burk's blog.
You can read more here.

Some questions:
-Why do you think Evangelicals are not tolerated when tolerance is the battle cry of the liberals?
-What are your thoughts about the New York Times article?
-Do you find the author's comments right on or is he over simplifying the issue?
-How do you see this issue being overcome or can it be?