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Keep listening to the talk shows but also don’t allow yourself to be used anymore.

Glenn Beck is clearest right now but they all have been at best used by the political machine.

I hope Levin, El Rushbo and even Hannity find some clear thinking and courage to stand up in a moral and honest way....

Me too. They, Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin are the only ones I can see who still have principles.

I'm working on a suggested reading list for email list of inner city pastors that I've befriended. This time I'm going with George Whitefield because he's a good example of the how different the slavery of the mid 1700 was from the civil war era slavery .

Whitefield is also a great example of a man with a pure heart but was somewhat misguided and supported slavery but became a staunch abolitionist later in life. In the early days, Whitefield saw slavery as a means of freeing Africans from barbarism. He encouraged that slaves be educated with the intent that they eventually be released as self sufficient citizens of the colonies. Later in life he opposed slavery but never faltered in his belief that learning and Christianity were the route to true freedom. (The slavery of the civil war era made teaching slaves to read a crime.)

Whitefield was beloved by slaves and freedmen alike. Whitefield was given a slave named Surrey. He freed her at the front door of his home and said that she would live as part of his family till she was ready to live on her own. At Whitefield's funeral a freed slave named Phyllis Wheatly eulogized Whitfeild in glowing terms. Wheatly was a well known freed slave and poet of the day.

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic dye."

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

-Phyllis Wheatly

Her poem isn't intended to praise slavery by any means. She called slavery a curse on mankind. What the poem does indicate is that she could rise above her slave past and see even greater good in an education and Christian faith.