Kenneth R. Casey, Jr.

The Amazon Kindle 2

2009-09-30T12:10:00.003-04:00

Last April I got an Amazon Kindle. For those who don't know, a Kindle is an e-reader, an electronic book. And it's an amazing device. It uses a relatively new technology called e-ink which in every way makes the viewing screen look just like a paper book. Now you don't any longer have to get paper cuts or lick your fingers every time you want to turn a page. It's not like the lower resolution of LCD, nor is it backlit like it. Instead it can be read in ambient light, even in bright sunlight. It's just like paper.

It also allows you to have access to any of 300,000 books and more within one minute. Nearly all books are less than $10, many even free! It is continuously connected to the internet via a 3g connection (mobile phone) and thus to Amazon's electronic Kindle store. You can search books by Title and/or Author and download and pay for the book with a single click. I bought mine for $360, but they are now available for $299. My module is the Kindle 2.

Anyway, ever since I've gotten the thing I can't stop reading. I get the AP World, AP US, and MIT Technology News all day every day automatically updated as it changes. When I'm reading any of over 1,500 books it can hold in its memory, it always remembers where I was the last time I read it. It also keeps all of this information online for me to access via web. I know this sounds like a commercial, but I swear, I'm not benefitting by referrals or anything like that. If you get one, though, you will thank me!

I've managed to read my way through most of Dickens, which I've always wanted to do as his writing just blows me away. (What he's done with the English language should have been illegal for all of the pleasure it brings to lovers of the language.)

Once, while reading the bestseller "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a good nonfiction about the Lincoln administration, they mentioned the then controversial abolitionist book "Uncle Tom's Cabin". I realized I'd never read that book, so I left off reading the current book, downloaded "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in less than a minute, read that book start to finish, and then picked up "Team of Rivals" and began reading right where I'd left off! Amazing!

Now, for some good books I've read. I just finished "The Help" #1 on the NYT bestsellers list. It's a very heartwarming and educational book (fiction) about the experience of negro maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the Jim Crow years. I've never been into fantasy fiction like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and others, but during an Amazon promotion, they gave away the first in a series of one writer for free. So, I thought I'd try it. I ended up reading 12 600 to 900 page books by the Author Robin Hobb. The books were amazing and the writing was excellent! I recommend them most highly.

Books I also recommend include: The Unlikely Disciple (nonfiction), My Sister's Keeper (fiction, now a movie), I Know This Much is True, (fiction), The Lovely Bones (fiction), and The Copper Beech (fiction). I've read many, many more since I got my Kindle, but these were the very cream of the crop.

If you have a Kindle or any questions about the Kindle leave me a comment!

The Religious Success of Islam?

2009-08-04T11:07:00.018-04:00

Has it ever occurred to you to think along the following lines? There are a lot of wars going on among the Muslims and the Western world. The Muslims believe their religion is correct to the point of killing multiple people in pitiless and savage ways and even killing themselves to become "martyrs" in the process. In many Muslim countries it is against the law to point of a penalty of death to attempt to proselytize Muslims to the truth. When you are trying to find out what you believe in, many people seem to come to the universal idea of a single omnipotent and omnipresent God or a "Great Intelligence" or Providence. The Muslim and the Judeo-Christian Gods would fall under these categories.

If you do believe there must be a God Who created all this, isn't it reasonable to assume that He would want us to know Him? We know scientifically that it is unlikely that God is appearing in any physical form today, so how are we to know Him? Many of the varied religions have a book or more to which they refer as Scriptures in which they believe that God in some form or manner communicates with them (The Bible, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, etc.) In the case of the Muslims, there scriptures are called the Qur'an or the Koran. They claim to believe in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, but they almost never refer to them. Their most important book is the Koran. In some places you can meet a savage death by desecrating this book. Many religions also have one or more prophets who claim to represent God's presence, proclaim His messages and even write their scriptures. In the case of Christians this person is Jesus Christ, Who is also believed to be the Son of God. In the case of the Jews, these are people such as Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and many other minor prophets. In the case of Muslims, their prophet is a man named Muhammad who lived in the seventh century, well after the Jewish and Christian prophets. Again in some Muslim places, if you desecrate the name of Muhammad, you can meet a merciless death. Over all, I think you can draw one conclusion from Islam; it is a religion in which a lot of needless death occurs.

If you are a sincere seeker of truth, you may have discovered that there are many criteria by which religions can be compared or judged. I've looked at several comparisons among these three religions. I want to focus on what I think is the most basic one which is expressed by the question, "Which one does God give His blessings to?" If you look at Judaism for example, the best place we can look to is the Jewish state, Israel. Has God blessed the nation of Israel? Their track record is very good. Jews, as individuals, by and large seem to be very successful in all they set their hands to. As an example most of nuclear and theoretical physics has been the baileywick of the Jews (Albert Einstein was a Jew). The nation of Israel, was founded in 1948 after a war with Arab states in which Israel won hands down. In several subsequent wars, Israel overcame her enemies by what some would call "miraculous" means. Much technology and innovation has come out of Israel. Before the Jews occupied the land of Palestine it was pretty much useless land and was not being very well administered or exploited by its inhabitants. When it became the nation of Israel, the desert bloomed. It is now a very beautiful place in which to reside or visit .
How about the Christians? Western civilization, especially where there is a majority of the "protestant" persuasion has done very well. Let's take the United States of America as an example. Founded by various orthodox protestants trying to escape European religious persecution almost 234 years ago, it has flourished beyond the wildest dreams of its founders. Most of the world's greatest inventions, discoveries and innovations have all come from the predominantly Protestant United States. Of all the nations of the Earth, it has risen to become the most dominant nation in the World and has even conquered the Moon itself!

What about Muslim "civilization". Few of them seem to have done well with oil wealth beneath their soil, but what else can they claim? Many, if not most of them are still living in the 7th century or at least want to live there again under what they call "Sharia Law". Wait a minute, you might contend, didn't the Arabs invent our numbering system, and innovate much in the way of higher mathematics and astronomy? These accomplishments occurred long before the founding of Islam which again, began in the 7th century. None of the nations which are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and many other religions are very successful. (Japan is probably one exception to this, being a non-judeo-christian nation.

So, why doesn't an intelligent Muslim ask himself why they cannot defeat Israel nor can they win this current war in which Al Queda, the Taliban and many other sects are arrayed against Western Civilization? Where is their God? Where is Muhammad? Do they not call upon Him 5 times per day and keep one of the most rigorous religious regimes there are among religions with their many fastings, feasts, and pilgrimages? Why do they come in dead last when it comes to blessings? Is this the religion that one must believe in or die a horrible, pitiless death as the Koran says? Instead of following a man who preached the idea of killing one's enemies long after Jesus Christ told us to "Love [our] enemies", why don't we follow the Man who was both Man AND God. A God Who came down to Earth as a man, to strip of Himself most of His Godly powers which could have saved Himself from death, and laid down His own life ...and rose again... so that ALL of His creation might be saved? Then, you can enjoy the life of those who are surrounded and overwhelmed by His bountiful and rich grace (his unmerited favor)!

Use the comments to give your thoughts about this issue...

By and Large a Good Thing!

2009-06-01T13:32:00.007-04:00

I'm no longer able to garden. I run completely out of strength, use a cane to get around. I'm miserable now that I can no longer garden. Today, Kenny III and I worked on putting out my Kenbob Fiery peppers out in pots in the front yard. When they are full grown and a beautiful shade of red, I place them in a jar, top them off with distilled vinegar and can them. Then in the winter when I have some time and strength, I make them into sauce. It is the most delicious sauce, you wouldn't believe. I have a very close Thai friend who LOVES hot peppers of every kind. He likes his peppers powdered or whole and has never liked sauce. But he loves my pepper sauce. It is a peculiar variety of pepper I found at a gas station garden center in Rosebush 28 years ago and because I have never been able to find this variety in any pepper photographs, I started calling them Kenbob peppers and the sauce, Kenbob Sauce. I used to give away bottles of the stuff, but I can't make it in the volume I used to so it's all for me now. I'd be happy to share my seeds though. This is how I've maintained my peppers for so many years. I always keep a plant or two in the house and hand-pollinate them. They make wonderful ornamental plants with their bounteous number of red peppers hanging from the bush.

I have recently found out that I woman that I know and always thought of as a Christian due to her going to a very sound church, is a stripper at Deja Vu. It really grieves me that she is doing this. We are told that when brothers and sisters in the faith practice sexual immorality, we are to have nothing to do with them to shame them into repentance. We are not able to even eat with them.

About a month ago I was thinking about the horrors that Tiller the Baby Killer was committing against God. I prayed then that God would remove him. Now it's been done. Hell yawned to receive him. The evil required to make your living continually cutting up small babies ready to be born just blows me away. I can't imagine the pure evil. Some men molest children. This man KILLED them using the most monstrous means. Whoever this man was who killed him may not be a very nice person, but he did a nice thing. Monday morning, no babies were going to die by Tiller's hand, Praise God!

I just found out that the Muslim prophet was a pedophile! He was in his 50s when he married a six year old girl "Aisha", and started raping her at the age of 9!!! This is straight from his own writings. And don't think that the jihadis are not the normal Muslims, they are instructed from the Koran to force Jews and Christians to accept Muhammad as the true prophet of Allah or to kill them if they will not. The nice Muslims are not faithful to their own scriptures! It is indeed a violent religion. I know much violence has been committed by Christians in the name of Christ, but Christ taught us to love our enemies, to offer them food and water, but Muslims are told by their very scriptures and prophet, to kill non Muslims. God save us in these perilous times. We are letting these people into our country and poisoning our own well.

Computer Down Blues, Israel and Hamas

2009-01-06T09:17:00.005-05:00

I've had to take my computer in for repairs. My drive kept getting repeating errors on it. I tried and tried to fix it and then determined it was beyond my ken to do so. So, it's in the capable hands of Mainstream Computers in Alma for the time being, and I'm using my son's computer to accomplish most of my computer tasks.

I want to vent my spleen about what's going on in the Middle East. For those who don't know, a six month "cease fire" between Hamas in the Gaza strip and Israel collapsed a few days back and Israel, after showing a LOT of patience and restraint, finally decided to do something about it. Hamas has the nasty habit of targeting Israeli civilians with rockets designed to kill them and destroy their homes, schools and temples. Many Israelis have been killed and injured by these bombs. During the ceasefire, Hamas lobbed over 100 of these rockets at them and still Israel would not budge from the ceasefire. What kind of restraint would we show if Canada started lobbing rockets at several of our cities in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? How long would we suffer their onslaught while exercising all of our efforts at trying to make peace with them?

Here's a little something I wonder about...

Let's say you have a world view, a belief structure, and you rely on that to offer you some kind of "salvation" from the world's troubles and a promise of life after death. How would you go about choosing one? A lot of people just take a leap into the dark or simply hold fast to the faith in which they were raised. But say you're a smart one, and you want evidence to show the correct one. Would you not look at the lives of those espousing a given belief to see which shows the greater success in these areas of salvation? Let's look for a moment at Hinduism. Has their worship and world view resulted in riches for them? Are their efforts blessed with success? Any honest person has to say no, Hinduism has only brought poverty and backwardness to those who are its followers. What about Roman Catholicism. Yes, they do fare better, but do not progress much past the Latin American style of life. What about Islam, nothing but poverty, despair, raging wars, violence, hatred of every kind. It is a very scary religion. What about Protestant Christianity? From this world view has arisen the best of Western Civilization, the accomplishments, dominions and riches immeasurable. The United States was founded upon Biblical principles and by them, prospered greatly. Now we see those principles abandoned and our successes are inversely proportionate to our adherence to those principles.

So why do these Islamic extremists, Hamas, Hisballah, Al Quaida, and the Taliban not see what they are "gaining" by virtue of their beliefs. Why is it they don't see that God is blessing Israel in every way in their small strip of land next to the Mediterranean? All of the efforts which Islam has exerted against Christianity and Judaism have been totally wasted. Do they stop and take account of their "progress" and not repent of their mistaken ways?

I just watched a special on Fox, in which a young Islamic man, imprisoned in an Israeli jail for being caught up in terrorist activities, the son of a senior Hamas officer, was shown a simple Scripture in which Christ told us to "Love your enemies." In a moment, his heart recognized this Word from Christ as true. The "flavor" of this truth was completely different from the Koran. He gave himself wholly over to evangelical Biblical Christianity. Because of this, he now has a "Fatwa" hanging over his head and is seeking asylum in the U.S. Now the enemies he is told to love, want nothing more than to kill him.

What stark differences there are between our two civilizations.

We are told in the Scriptures that he who blesses Israel, will be blessed, and he who curses Israel will be cursed. Let's remember to pray for Israel in her battles, and pray blessings upon her in every way!

How I Met My Wife, Patti Part II

2008-12-18T16:38:00.006-05:00

About a month after my prayer was the first time I saw her. I happened to be turned backwards at my workstation when she was talking briefly with the owner in the hallway. My first thought was (very honestly) she looks like a girl I would marry! In the meantime, she had seen me while I was talking to one of my charges. She says she fell in love with me at that moment and knew she would marry me. I know this sounds contrived, but this is exactly how it happened!
In the coming weeks, the women of the shop tried to get us together. One day Patti stopped me in the hall to ask me about the apartment I was vacating soon, as she and her roommate Becky were looking for a new place to live. I was very shy and distant to her which came off as slightly arrogant. Little did I realize that one of the owner's sisters had put her up to asking me, believing that's all it would take to light a spark. The next day I was called up by the owner's sister and chastised. "I gave you a perfect opportunity to get to know a perfectly wonderful girl and you "acted like a zombie"!!! I promised not to make that mistake again.
Then the office and shop people started speculating on whether I would ask her out to the Christmas party. But I had heard it that she was preparing to ask me to it. Then she herself finally came out and asked me to follow her to her office which I did. She then explained the big mixup how the employees were expecting us to come to the Christmas party together. She was so shy I had to help her out here. "Shouldn't we go to the party together and alleviate all this pressure?" I said. She looked immediately relieved. "That sounds good to me!" "The Christmas party isn't until 2 weeks away." I pointed out. "Shouldn't we get to know each other before then? So I asked her to dinner the next evening and she accepted. 4 weeks later, after going out just about every night we were engaged and then 4 1/2 months later we were married! This coming May 10th, we shall have been married for 29 years!

How I Met My Wife, Patti Part I

2008-12-16T11:53:00.008-05:00

I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell how I got right with the Lord and the miraculous way in which I met my wife!
Back in October of 1979, I was the shop foreman for my employer in what was called the "Handgrinding Dept." at a company called Universal Rotary Tool Co. in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Those in my department (including I), sat at benches sharpening and manufacturing Tungsten Carbide and HSS rotary cutting industrial machine tools. My job as foreman was to see that our orders were completed with superb quality and on time. Unfortunately I was unable to get any of my people to work overtime, so it always fell upon me to take up the slack.
One evening I was working by myself, listening to the radio at about 8pm when the owner came in to retrieve something or other. He came up to me and sat down and exchanged the few normal customary pleasantries. He then started in on me with what seemed to be his favorite subject which I found most annoying, the "Gospel". I let him go on with his usual spiel until he wound up. I used to be involved in the "charismatic" movement when I was a kid and had had my fill of contemporaneous prophesyings, tongues, supposed healings, etc. and found the subject of Christianity always brought back bad memories. I frequently reminded him of this, but he was remorseless in his efforts to get me "resaved".
This time he asked me if he could leave me with a free Bible. I told him that it would be a needless waste of a perfectly good Bible, because it would never be read, but since pessimism was not one of his character qualities, the Bible nevertheless remained on the bench at my side when he ambled off home.
Since I'd taken off the headphones when he began to talk to me, I left them off and did some thinking about some of the things he'd said. I was not feeling too happy being at work at 8 o'clock at night and really, I'd been depressed for some time before that. I thought about the time I'd been with the charismatics. When taken as a whole, my time with them had been a nightmare. But in that moment when I first opened my heart to Jesus Christ, well, that was simply the best moment in the 23 years of my life at the time. I realized that it was not Jesus Christ that made me feel sick about the whole thing, it was the charismatics. They'd told me that I could not really be saved until I quit smoking, and no matter how many times I'd crumpled up my remaining packs at the end of each day, I'd always go out and buy one the following day. No matter how much I prayed and begged God, He never helped me to quit. The charismatics had told me that Jesus was healing people all the time, even raising the dead. I'd never seen anyone "actually" get healed in these supposed healing sessions. I never saw the blind regain their sight or the deaf their hearing. I'd never seen missing arms and legs fully restored or even seen the lame walk for more than a few faltering and painful steps. Where was God? Why would a kind, loving God allow the horrors that go on constantly? This time I thought, "Did God ever really promise to take care of all of this things now? If Jesus weren't God, than who was?" I thought about this for some time, sincerely wanting to know. Soon my thinking turned into audible prayer there by myself in the shop. With tears streaming down my face, I said to Him Who I wasn't even sure was there, "If you are God, please resolve my problem of disbelief. Make me a Christian. Don't let me be an on again, off again Christian, but give me a Christian wife who will help me to maintain a steady relationship with you." At that moment I knew my happiness lay in the hope of a Christian marriage, a life partner with whom I could share my new relationship with Christ. I knew I needed to find a church, and right then and there I ruled out any Assemblies of God or any other Pentacostal (charismatic) churches.
I did not know this then, but just a few short blocks away, a 19 year old christian woman, a "missionaries' kid" was praying for a new job to replace the one she'd grown to hate. Within weeks she had a job with my company, working in the front office. (to be continued...)
By the way, while I was away from the Lord, I quit smoking on the first day of summer in 1977.

Followup to Hospitalization Blues

2008-12-08T18:18:00.003-05:00

Well it turned out that Patti had a bowel obstruction which was caused by the hernias. The pain was absolutely horrible. She came home from the hospital on Saturday and was right back at work Monday. I showed her this blog as she had not really been informed about it yet. She doesn't like it at all in terms of the whole concept of blogging one's private life. I see her point here. She also said it seems rather vain to think that people would actually look at it. I personally would not think someone vain for doing this, although I can see why someone would think it so. I enjoy writing and why not write in a way that can keep friends and family members informed as well? I think she will grudgingly allow me to self-censor what I put in here. If not, you will see some of the content here disappear!

Hospital Blues

2008-12-05T12:26:00.002-05:00

My wife Patti went to the emergency room Thursday morning complaining of a severe pain in her abdomen and the inability to hold anything down in her stomach. They put her on several large glasses of a contrast agent for the CAT scan and after drinking the last one succumbed to projectile vomiting.
The CAT scan results did not come in until Friday morning. They could find nothing but 2 small hernias. They think that is the problem. They are working her up to greater and greater amounts of water to see what she can hold down, and hopefully she can come home Saturday (tomorrow).
Things are really crazy when she's not here. With my disabilities I need help for almost everything. She is the center of our lives emotionally and physically. Many of you will remember that the summer before this last one, she came down with a perforation of the colon and had to have a colostomy for six months. Nothing ever went well with that. She had skin conditions that wreaked havoc with the ostomy and it kept her in constant pain. It was a horrible summer for her. She finally got it reversed in January of this year. Now this!
The hernias will be repaired during normal elective, scheduled surgery. For now, she can return home for the weekend and get some rest before the workweek. Also -- our washing machine is making a loud squealing sound during the spin cycle. Patti had called the repairman who scheduled Thursday as the earliest he could get here. He was supposed to be here between 7 and 8 in the morning. He didn't get here till 10 am. Then he gets into the job and says there is something caught in the works, but the tool that he needs to remove the bowl was in the possession of his partner, so it would have to wait until the next day to return to fix it. He would call early in the morning to confirm. Meanwhile, he wanted a check for $75. I should have insisted the job be finished before writing the check, but being the schmuck I am, I wrote it to him.
When he didn't call the next day, he had a heck of a story: His partner accidentally left the tool at the customer's house. When he called later, he found that the customer was out of town and would be for two weeks, sooo they had to order another one and that wouldn't arrive until the following Tuesday. Now I went off on the guy about having a single one of these tools and then told him I wanted to be first in line Tuesday after he got this tool. He agreed. After hanging up I recalled my rule about never sending a plate back to the cook unless you want to be eating his spit and called back and apologized for my unpleasant attitude and for being such an ungrateful rube. The good news is that I just got a 6 months free trial to Angie's List! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T09:18:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite holiday. It's a time of year when we can sit down with those we love and are thankful for, and consider the past year's blessings. The meal is pretty good too! This year we will be celebrating with our adopted family of 26 years, the Doans. They have been very special people to us through the years. We met them at the first church we went to when we moved to this area from Wisconsin back in 1981. They have been used miraculously by God in our lives on many occasions, and we have spent many Thanksgivings with them

This year there have been many events for which I'm grateful. My grandson was born, my daughter got married, Patti had successful surgery to reverse a colostomy she'd had to live with for 6 months, and many other things I cannot recall just now. It's good to take one day just to be thankful to our Creator, Father and Friend.

Thankfulness itself is a wonderful gift from Him. It certainly is not an unpleasant feeling to be thankful. Why is it then that people are so unthankful to God? Atheists go through their lives feeling that they are accidents of nature with no one to thank for their existence. Thankfulness to our Creator is the foundation of our emotional lives. We all acknowledge Him in the many "foxholes" life throws at us. We just don't all "thank" Him. What a shameful thing it is from His perspective; to have created "and loved" and blessed these creatures of his, only to have them turn their backs on Him and show no "thankfulness", no gratitude for the gift of life He's given to each of us.

Let those of us who "are" thankful, purpose in our hearts to audibly thank God in the company of others every day. I have a theory that it is as infectious as a smile or a yawn. Tell someone today about something for which you are thankful and draw attention to Him who is to receive all thanks, all glory and all honor. Praise Him with words, songs and prayer. May God richly bless your fellowship this Thanksgiving and make your day spent with loved ones over a delicious meal, a day you will be thankful for, for many years to come!

2008-11-22T12:07:00.001-05:00

Children

My grandkids are coming over to play today. I do look so much forward to their coming, to feel the love that comes from these new sources for and of love in my life. There are two of them by my daughter Caitie and her husband Brian Andrew. Their names are Lillian Grace Andrew, and Devin Sean Andrew. Brian works for Centennial Wireless, and Caitie works at Glen's Supermarket. We have a new grandchild on the way via Sean and his girlfriend Meschia Cooper. I'm not sure when it will be born, but she just found out about 3 weeks ago.

I really love having grandchildren. I loved having my own 5 children. I'm glad we had all 5 of them. They are each unique in their own way and have each their own little eccentricities. Shannon just graduated last May with her MBA and is trying to stay in this area, but is finding it difficult to find a job due to being "overqualified". She has a very serious boyfriend named Jason. He works as a Blackjack dealer at the Casino in Mt. Pleasant.

It is true as the Word of God says,

Psalm 127:3-5
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

2008-11-18T16:48:00.000-05:00

The Judgement of the Lord is Upon Us

The economy keeps sinking deeper and deeper, and no wonder. Our "civilization" has fallen a lot in the past 40 years. After the roaring 20s, an economic catastrophe occurred and our nation turned to God. "In God We Trust" was made into our National Motto in 1956 by an act of Congress. "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegience in 1954 as well. Our nation prospered in those years. In the late 60s, things turned for the worse. Anyone 50 and older remembers television as "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriot etc. Look where Television has fallen. We have Homosexuals declaring themselves so and proud of it. Right now they are practically rioting across the country because California voters rejected the use of the term "Marriage" for the union of these perverts.

Well God has had his fill apparently. He has a plan to turn us back to Him, and He will execute it.

Read Romans 1:24-32 and weep, pray and fast for our nation.

2008-11-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new blog. This is a continuation of my old Blog on my family Web site. This will allow for comments from my friends (if there will be any after reading my opinions).