All the animals, birds, cats and dog are fed.  Birds are congregating at the feeders – except for the hummingbird one where one tyrant is trying to defend it as his own (a pretty common trait of the bird and one we see around here a lot) and the cats and dog are hunkered down for a nap.

“If this should seem like a bit of theorizing, remember that always the greatest Christians have come out of hard times and tough situations. Tribulations actually worked for their spiritual perfection in that they taught them to trust not in themselves but in the Lord who raised the dead. They learned that the enemy could not block their progress unless they surrendered to the urgings of the flesh and began to complain. And slowly, they learned to stop complaining and start praising. It is that simple—and it works.”  AW Tozer

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

¹⁰ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.  KJV

To be honest, I have never taken joy in any of my infirmities or persecutions, but I do know that often it forces me to my knees asking God to make me stronger, to make me more compliant to His wishes; to remain strong with Him.

While I would rather have Him take away the challenges, I know that His desire is to help me through them so I can learn to trust Him more.

Still, I cannot say what Paul said, I understand it, but I struggle with it; and admire his courage and determination AND his showing us how to live our lives for Christ.

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Below is my own diatribe on ‘Fake News:’

I have to laugh as I read and hear how the major national news outlets, broadcast and print, are going to search out fake news.  They rarely point to themselves, instead they point to the social media and the web blogs and pages, mostly the conservative ones, as the problem.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans, as well as a lot of people through their blogs and postings, propagated and distributed opinions and false assumptions as fact – and the major news outlet were as guilty if not more so than the social media sites in broadcasting false information.

It became very apparent election night that the so called elite journalists of the major networks didn’t do their job.

They had misworded their poll questions in favor of Hillary, so they got a response that reinforced their bias.  You can make statistics say almost anything you want them to say.

As Mark Twain wrote:  “There are lies, d... lies, statistics.”  Benjamin Disraeli called them the three lies.

They refused to consider Trump as a legitimate candidate so they didn’t follow up on many leads that might have given them pause to delve deeper, rather than accepting their own bias.

They did what many of us do, they wanted to find evidence of their own beliefs, so that is what they looked for, dismissing solid evidence to the contrary.

But they are journalists, and if they want the recognition and respect that name implies, they need to put aside their bias and report the facts – not as they want them to be, but as they are.

The proof of that they did not do that is in the reactions of every major news outlet and particularly the liberal outlets when Trump started winning, heavily, especially in areas that had always supported democratic candidates.

They were almost in a coma as they broadcast their disbelief in what was occurring.  They ‘didn’t see it coming.’

I can remember one outlet refusing to call the election for Trump in a certain state, stating something to the effect they wanted to make sure they were right.  – ‘twas about time, they were one of them that had disregarded the growing evidence that Trump could win the election much earlier in the year and continued to pound the table for Clinton.

Trump has many characteristics that even staunch supports find offensive, the news people chose to focus on the terrible things he was doing and saying and not actually looking at how people were responding.

Anyone that supported, or even had a good word for Trump, were labeled as ignorant, red-necked and any other names you may recall. 

While National news media was sounding the trumpet for a huge Clinton win, Rasmussen Reports was showing this was a much closer race than anyone else was predicting.  They have an unbiased approach and do their homework – they are one of the very few research outlets that predicted that Trump could win the election – and they said why, the national news media didn’t pay attention.

NOW, the major news outlets are going to hunt down these false news pieces – they need to start within their own house.  Make sure their policies are designed to report what is happening and not fabricating, or at least not allowing their biases to guide the stories.

There is nothing wrong with editorializing, but when it is promoted as facts then it is ‘fake news.’  It is what someone thinks about the news, not what the news actually is – there is a difference.

We know that the First Amendment, among other freedoms, specifically says that government could not interfere with the freedom of the press.  I have no problem with that.

While there always was and will be some bias, until just a few short years ago we could support and believe, again for the most part, what the news media was saying – they had credibility.

However, too many reporters, editors and owners of national news media outlets are allowing their own personal feelings interfere with accurate and honest reporting.

The press has been called the ‘Fourth Estate’ for centuries – and they CAN provide insights into what is happening in our country and hold government accountable – but ONLY if they are honest, only if they report accurately and not create the news; as was quite obviously done this past year.

They have lost that legitimacy, that ‘aura’ of honesty and believability. 

They need to clean up their act and get back to straightforward reporting.

Until that happens millions of people are not going to believe them and will find ways of getting the other side of the information out there – even if their bias is as bad.

Intelligent people are learning to question everything that is considered news.  They know that human bias is going to creep into posting on the social networks as well as the major outlets, and some of that can be excused.

However, blatant disregard of the whole story and focusing only on the things the reporter wants to stress as being important – especially when much of what is not considering any other options - has created a distrust of the national news media we haven’t seen before.

There are many good reporters out there, men and women who strive to do their best to report in a neutral and fair way.  Unfortunately, few of them are in those major outlets.

Yep, Nita, I would put you in the positive category.  Didn’t always agree, but felt you were fair.

The owners of our social networking system ALSO have a great deal of control of what is shared by others.

After years of refusals, I finally joined Facebook about a year ago.  While I have heard from both sides that Facebook has deleted their posts, I have seen much from both sides of the election – and frankly, disbelieved much of it.

Their headlines were the first clue that the report was questionable – ‘This will put Hillary in prison,’ ‘This will destroy Trump’ and similar ‘headlines’ that promised the world and gave nothing – except for inaccurate information.

I quickly chose not to open anything that gave that kind of a headline.

But, Facebook and other networking sites could choose to sway people by NOT allowing anything that they themselves, personally, opposed and help provide an even greater wall between people.

It doesn’t take long to learn to be askance of information and demand – or research – other areas for information to determine what is true and what are lies that are being spread by others.

People, who have nothing better to do, tweet out their opinions or thoughts on things they know nothing about, are growing in numbers.  They re-tweet - or whatever format they are using – the hearsay from someone else that doesn’t know all the facts and then often add to the confusion with their own opinions.

It is up to us, to not be sucked into such idiocy and think opinions are proven facts – no matter the source. 

AND we need to teach our children to do the same.

Later, Art (-: