Free Republic

Last week, I wrote about “unconditional love.” I claimed that it was a myth. In truth, love as such cannot occur absent conditions. All emotions are a response to preconceived values, and values are by nature conditional. We love what we love because it is what it is.Reaction to the piece was mixed, as reflected in the comments section. Some followed the argument. Others disagreed. Of particular interest to me, since I am a Bible-believing Christian, was this response from “Harald”: Christ loves me unconditionally. He died for all of us, no exceptions.Is that a myth too? Yes, Harald. Yes,...

Israel’s Ungrateful Children by Norma Zager “Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits 
To laughter and contempt that she may feel 
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is 
To have a thankless child!” William Shakespeare’s King Lear One of the easiest things to do is break a mother’s heart. Shel Silverstein wrote a wonderful book that has now become a classic and a must read for children entitled “The Giving Tree.” It is a story about a tree that gives and gives, its leaves, branches and all it possesses until it becomes no more than a stump. Yet the...

One of the reasons for the ascendance of the English-speaking world has been that the English language is almost alone among major languages in having the word "earn." Those of us whose native language is English assume that the phrase "to earn a living" is universal. It isn't. It is almost unique to English. Few languages have the ability to say this. In the Romance languages, for example - a list that includes such major languages as Spanish, French, and Italian — the word used when saying someone "earns" money, is "ganar" in Spanish, "gagner" in French. The word literally...

Worth a million words.

Surveillance Seized in Hacking Probe 14 minutes ago By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY - Police have seized surveillance equipment from the psychiatric hospital where Mark Hacking worked as an orderly and the convenience store where he was seen twice the night his wife, Lori, presumably died. Hacking, 28, is accused of killing Lori Hacking, 27, while she slept and dumping her body in a trash bin. Authorities believe the bin is at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute, Hacking's former employer. The equipment taken from the hospital was a digital recorder for surveillance cameras, according...