larsonhicks

hubby. papa. party animal.

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@timecrisis2000 When you play songs on the episodes, it seems like the vocals are really high in the mix. Wonder if it’s running through the same filter/audio settings that are tuned on for your vocals during talk show?

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@yhbryankimiq Praise God!! Welcome, brother!

[Toby Sumpter @TJSumpter]

https://t.co/DOrc8U93Iy

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@TJSumpter Thanks, Toby!

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@joeroganhq The problem is that it still tracks everything you do in everywhere you go and as soon as you reconnect to a signal it transmits all of that information

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@dom_lucre Praise God! Welcome, brother!

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@dom_lucre America, baby! Well done sir!

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

We need higher ed reform in Alabama. https://t.co/18JMpjZOWT

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@calvinrobinson @grok Christian

[Joffre Swait @JoffreSwait]

This is the reason you, o Christian, should touch more things.

[Micah Hicks @The_Micah_Hicks]

“Picture Christ murmuring against his wife to the Father, ‘the woman Thou gavest’. Imagine Christ blaming the church, pointing an accusing finger. Try to picture Christ wishing he were with someone else. Every situation we might come up with piles absurdity on absurdity. When a man learns this and begins to treat his wife in a manner consistent with that insight, he soon sees the difference between sentimental attachments, and covenantal identity.”

—Douglas Wilson, Federal Husband @douglaswils

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

https://t.co/RcxWYzy9H8

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

Re: one of my frustrations with my dear CREC brethren.

https://t.co/qXdUWVgi2i

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@druggistopia Let the reader understand.

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

Want a quick filter for wisdom vs noise/grift? Ask: is this man—and his church—under legitimate authority? If not, unfollow.

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@druggistopia At minimum: authority outside himself and his local church—who examined him before ordination and who can discipline or remove him after.

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@idotf Who is “many of us”? What are you talking about? As opposed to learning Aramaic? If you’re talking about biblical scholarship, youd need Hebrew for most of the Bible.

[larsonhicks @larsonhicks]

@idotf Why are you excited about/promoting this?

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Pastor Rich Lusk @Vicar1973]

Years ago, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson got into it over self-driving trucks. Shapiro defended the free market to do its thing. Carlson said he it would serve the common good to not allow self-driving trucks because it’s the most popular job for high school educated men and putting 10 million workers out of a job would have too high a social cost. But where do we draw the line on this? What about the men who developed the self-driving tech and their families? Should they not be allowed to sell and profit from their work? Are truck drivers better than engineers? Don’t engineers have families too? And what about other industries? Should podcasting not be allowed to exist because it puts journalists and newscasters out of work? Should Uber not be allowed to exist because it puts taxi drivers out of work? The men at Uber have families too, presumably. Should homeschooling be outlawed because it puts teachers out of work? Should Musk’s purchase of Twitter been blocked since the first thing he did was fire a bunch of people? Are supposed to stop all technological innovation because it disrupts the job market?

Every one of these issues has multiple sides to it. When the government regulates industries in the way Carlson suggests, it ends up picking winners and losers. It puts Americans against each other and makes lobbying Congress the key rather than hard work and creativity. Whoever has the biggest lobby can protect their industry - while harming others. As Sowell says, government actions always have unintended consequences. There are no solutions, only trade-offs.  In the example above, truck drivers win but the engineers and technicians developing self-driving vehicles lose. On what basis does the state use the force of the sword to tell engineers they cannot bring their product to market? There has to be a better way. I usually like @TuckerCarlson but I think he got this one wrong.

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