Today, the Huffington Post published a piece from Sabrina Schaeffer bemoaning the current state of the feminist movement and their "equality means uniformity" philosophy. This comes in the midst of a widespread dialogue over whether gender is merely a societal construction or is "hard-wired" into men and women. In a breath of fresh air and common sense, she asserts that gender is a product of nature, not simply nurture, and so *shock* it's okay for her girls to play with princesses and pink toys.

Now this may seem obvious to many of us (even if the extent of "hard-wiring" differs from child to child), but Western culture at-large is very confused on this point at the moment, and hence the (several) stories of parents raising their children in gender neutral environments, etc. So the question is, what is this debate really about? Is it really over girls playing with princesses and boys playing with trucks, or is there a larger issue on the table?

Football, whether it be Penn State or Tim Tebow, has spent an unusual amount of time in the larger national spotlight this season, and as such we have spent a great deal of time discussing some of these stories. All of these stories - particularly the Penn State scandal - raise questions about the centrality and power of sports figures in our culture, and the ways that fans may be blind to the crimes of their heroes. Of course, this blindness is not a feature unique to the sports world, only it is particularly noticeable there.

In that line of thought, here is a fun yet reflective article published recently on Bloomberg.com examining the how sports interacts with life and culture more generally. It does not take a particularly strong stance either positively or negatively, but it does raise some interesting questions about how deeply we should invest in our team loyalties.

What is a proper perspective on sports? How do we balance the amusement, entertainment, and social interaction that sports provides with the more serious concerns of life?

Christopher Hitchens once noted that the time he most questioned his atheism was when listening to Bach. Bach's music, he noted, could be so stirring that he was occasionally tempted to posit the existence of a higher reality. The Soloist is a film centered around precisely this concept, and for that reason, is a film well worth looking at.

Now, as a preliminary note, I will offer that watching this film is kind of like listening to a piece of jazz music played by an emotionally unstable musician, which is fitting given that Nathaniel (Jamie Foxx) is an emotionally unstable musician. Put another way, the film is very "artsy" in both its cinematography and its narrative development, often picking up a narrative only to put it down without resolution; it's not a linear story line.

With that said, the story is not about the musician, but is actually about the writer (Robert Downey, Jr.) and how he changes through his interactions with Nathaniel. From this perspective, the Soloist chronicles the true story of a journalist's search for meaning and transcendence as he struggles with feelings of inadequacy and disillusionment. Nathaniel changes very little through the course of the film; Steve Lopez, on the other hand, is completely transformed by his encounter with Nathaniel and slowly realizes that there is grace and transcendence at work in the world (though he does not discover its source in the film). In this regard, the film does an admirable job of exploring the effects of life's little expressions of grace, not the least of which is found in the stirring effects of music.

Some of you may have noticed the Wikipedia "blackout" a couple days ago.  Maybe you knew what it was all about, or maybe you didn't. Here's a short piece from the Atlantic explaining not only why Wikipedia went black, but also how it got to that juncture. The piece itself isn't particularly profound or deep, but it does raise some interesting questions about neutrality: how neutral is neutrality and to what degree is neutrality itself expressive of a value?

Here at Fixed Point, we obviously believe in the power of open dialogue and a neutral platform - hence the collection of debates you can find on our website. But certainly not all people believe in using such platforms, and the dialogue in our culture suffers as a result. C.S. Lewis perhaps described the effect of this best when he said: "In any fairly large and talkative community, there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into ‘coteries’ where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumor that the outsiders say thus and thus.  The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility.  Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other groups can say.”

So where does our sense of value for neutrality come from? Christopher Hitchens once noted that, after he had openly challenged believers to take him on publicly, it was Christians who had responded to his challenge most readily. This certainly doesn't amount to a scientific study of the issue, but it is interesting to note.

How neutral is neutrality? Does neutrality imply that you will not defend the very platform you stand on? Who should defend neutrality? Is it worth defending?

On MLK weekend, it seems fitting to remember the man who changed this country through his non-violent protests. Particularly in an age where dialogue often seems shrill or entirely lacking, MLK perhaps provides a vision of hope that tomorrow does not have to look like today.

But how appropriate are such invocations? Prof. Stephen Tuck notes in his New York Times article that everyone invokes the late reverend these days. How is it that conservatives and liberals, communists and capitalists, and everyone in between can use the same man to promote their own causes? Perhaps that just speaks to his extraordinary ability to draw people together.

Are such uses of King's message disingenuous? What do you think?

A couple of days ago, Bill Mears at CNN highlighted the controversy over court use of sharia in Oklahoma. "State Question 755" is a voter-passed amendment to the Oklahoma state constitution prohibiting state courts from using sharia (Islamic religious law) or international law to reach court decisions. As the article reports, the Tenth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals has issued a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the amendment while the Council for American-Islamic Relations litigates the First Amendment constitutionality of the initiative.

This comes as a shock to many people who are afraid that the court may be paving the way for some sort of court acknowledgement of sharia. It is worth noting, however, that the court's reasoning for suspending the initiative was not because they found sharia a legitimate source of law, but rather because they found the statute unnecessarily discriminatory in nature - it preemptively singled out Islamic law as illegitimate.

All of this raises several interesting questions: What should be our source for law in the United States? Is singling out sharia discriminatory? Should the law have also ruled out using other religious laws? How would you feel about this law if it had forbade use of the Bible in legal reasoning? Does this constitute "fear mongering," as one commentator suggested? Are there legitimate concerns to recommend this law? Are there legitimate concerns for striking it down?

What do you think?

Here is an interesting article exploring the intellectual foundations of the "Arab Spring" and why they are tending to lead (through fair elections) towards Islamism and not away from it. Many Western commentators are boggled by this development, particularly after the wholesale - and thoroughly Western - optimism that democracy would liberalize the Middle East.

As we suggested here back in May, such a view of democracy is at best naive. Democracy itself cannot address issues that run deeper than politics (though it may exacerbate or minimize their effect). Instead, democracy simply provides one vehicle for a society to express its deeply seeded values, and as John Owen suggests, that looks to be Islamism in the Middle East.

Are you surprised by these developments?

What do you think the long term effects of democracy in the Middle East will be?

Here's a short film exploring the thesis of Lawrence Krauss' latest book A Universe from Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing. The presentation is impressive, though the thesis itself is not particularly original, and as he makes very clear in the video (his comment about Jesus and the stars, for instance), he is running an anti-religious agenda.

Clearly, Krauss believes that he has managed to finally and completely dispatch with religious questions, and yet almost all the science he points to seems to point straight back to religious questions. The universe came from nothing? And this dispatches with religion? That seems odd given that Genesis has been saying precisely this for time immemorial. And that is before we point out that he fails to address why there is something rather than nothing, even if you accept his unfulfilling explanation of how something came from nothing (it's not his fault; it's hard for science to operate on an era before physical laws were in place). With all of this considered - worn out arguments, anti-religious agenda masquerading as science, not answering the question he purports to answer, etc. - Dr. Krauss might try explaining why his book exists.

What do you think? Does he say anything you find compelling or challenging?

This column was originally published in USA TODAY.

Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist, is at it again. This time, Oxford University's professional unbeliever is out to spread holiday cheer with a new children's book, The Magic of Reality. Christmas is, after all, the season of magic, and lest children confuse sugar plum fairies and flying reindeer with the observable and repeatable, the professor has loaded neither toys nor goodies on his sleigh but a heavy dose of "rational skepticism." So gather around, children, and hear a new tale of Christmas.

Since the publication of his 2006 best-seller, The God Delusion, Dawkins has been railing against religion and its many manifestations. Whether you believe in Yahweh, Allah, Jesus Christ or Santa Claus, they are all the same in Dawkins's view: fictitious products of a "mental virus." More than that, Dawkins thinks that people of faith - any faith - are potentially dangerous and must be opposed. Disregarding all nuances of religious beliefs and practices, Dawkins seems to think that the Amish might just as easily have flown planes into the Twin Towers as a band of radical Muslims. So to save the next generation from this sort of religious extremism — it is all religious extremism — Dawkins offers a 271-page volume intended to help the young know the truth of things, or, more accurately, the truth as Richard Dawkins understands it.

The structure of the book is simple. Each chapter begins with a question, such as "What is a rainbow?", and presents an answer that the Sumerians or the Tahltan people of western Canada might have given. He then follows this up with a scientific explanation. Illustrations are added for clarification and are mostly attractive, even if some of them seem to have been inspired by a Wes Craven film. The implicit thesis of the book is that religious explanations of "reality" are silly and utterly incompatible with the scientific endeavor.

This format is not wholly ineffective if it is Dawkins's purpose, as it seems to be, to airbrush out those things that don't fit neatly into his thesis. Thus, he at once hails Sir Isaac Newton as perhaps "the greatest scientist ever" while ridiculing people who believe in God. That Newton was a deeply religious man is conveniently ignored. But ignoring things is necessary if the thesis of the book - indeed, if the thesis of Dawkins's life - is to stand. This leads him to profoundly mischaracterize the religious views he presents.

Furthermore, he repeats his error of seeing religion as monolithic. Jewish traditions are lumped with those of the Tasmanians, the Christian story of Jesus with that of Cinderella, because one is as absurd as the other. Never mind, kiddies, that it was the Judeo-Christian tradition (not Cinderella) that gave rise to the very science Dawkins occasionally practices and the civilization from which he draws most of his moral and intellectual sensibilities. Dawkins seems to think that revealing such details to children is to risk religious fanaticism in them at some future date. Or does he really just not know these apparently trivial bits of history?

Dawkins's capacity for self-delusion on this point was revealed with startling clarity at the Oxford Museum of Natural History where, in 2008, I chaired a debate between him and his Oxford University colleague, professor John Lennox. When Lennox, a mathematician and philosopher of science, asserted that the museum had a Christian heritage, Dawkins heaped scorn on the very idea. He carried the point by sheer force of personality, but he was wrong. The museum was, in fact, founded with money from the sale of Bibles. Contributors deemed it an appropriate expense and means of glorifying God and his creation. But Dawkins would have none of it. To him, religious people must be as opposed to science as he is to religion.

Factual errors aside, the irony of Dawkins' crusading is that he is crusading at all. In so doing, he has unwittingly mimicked the Christian missionary and evangelistic efforts that he so hates. Many readers will no doubt recall his campaign to plaster the sides of London buses with the message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The clear purpose of that initiative and many others is to convert the unenlightened. Indeed, Dawkins is an atheist evangelist, preaching his faith with the fervor of an Old Testament prophet. He portrays himself as a kind of liberator, freeing the world from its bondage to religion while building his own megachurch of unbelief.

Dawkins once told me that he found the first of the Ten Commandments - "You shall have no other gods before Me" - to be the most personally offensive. At the time, I was not sure what he meant. Since then, however, it has become clear that Dawkins, having aspirations of his own, did not like this exclusivity clause. Something of an object of worship himself, his website plays host to the largest atheist congregation outside of North Korea, promoting all things Richard Dawkins: books, videos, trinkets and, of course, atheism — or, more precisely, Richard Dawkins' version of atheism. It has become the basis of a movement. His converts have conferences and Sunday meetings, and they have even created campus groups to reach the lost.

Nowhere has this mimicry been more laughably apparent, however, than in Dawkins' efforts to proselytize children. In 2009, he helped launch - no kidding - an atheist summer camp. One imagines children roasting marshmallows as Dawkins reads some titillating passage from The Origin of Species or, more likely, The God Delusion. That must not have worked out too well, so the professor wrote The Magic of Reality, which is, in effect, The God Delusion for kids (though somewhat more insightful and less bombastic).

Of course, it was Dawkins who labeled as child abusers those parents and teachers who instruct their charges in a given view of life. And yet The Magic of Reality does precisely that. According to Dawkins, it is meant to be read by children or, better yet, by parents to their children. It is a sort of anti-religious catechism. This is not because the book is void of factual or even interesting information; it is, rather, due to the context in which Dawkins arranges the facts, slanting the table in a manner that is oddly reminiscent of those he accuses of indoctrinating the young. Apparently, indoctrinating the young is an acceptable vocation provided you believe that all truly wise men do not follow a star to Bethlehem, but to North Oxford.

In the final analysis, The Magic of Reality lacks, well, the magic that a children's book must possess. On the contrary, Dawkins would rob children of the true magic of life: meaning. One can always hope that Dawkins, like the Grinch, will realize that the magic of Christmas — and that of reality itself — is not found in the tangible. Then again, maybe Dawkins is seeking to become atheism's Oxford equivalent to C.S. Lewis, whose stories continue to excite the imaginations of young and old alike some five decades after his death. If so, the Lewis estate need not worry. The place of the pipe-smoking inventor of Narnia within the canon of children's literature is firmly intact.

© Copyright 2011 Larry A. Taunton

Fixed Point's Larry Taunton talks on the Chris Fabry Show about his late friend, Christopher Hitchens, and where he differed from the rest of the New Atheists.

Stream Podcast Episode - Duration: 38:02

This column was originally published in the CNN Belief Blog.

My favorite Christmas movie is, unquestionably, Frank Capra’s 1946 feel-good flick "It’s a Wonderful Life." Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed play George and Mary Bailey, a happy couple living a life of genteel poverty in the small American town of Bedford Falls.

George is a kind and generous man. He is active in his community and in the war effort. Most importantly, George is all that stands between the town’s mean old man, Mr. Potter, and the demise of all that is good in Bedford Falls.

As financial pressures crowd in on poor George, he begins to question his value to the community. So much so, that he wishes he had never been born. To demonstrate to George the folly of his wish, an angel is sent to give him a glimpse of what Bedford Falls would look like if that wish were granted. In Dickensian fashion, the angel takes him from one scene in that small town to another. The difference is stark. Indeed, Bedford Falls isn’t even Bedford Falls anymore, but a place called Pottersville. The town’s main street is a red-light district, crime is rampant, and life there is coarsened.

When George, in desperation, turns to the angel, seeking an explanation for these drastic changes, the angel says, “Why, George, it’s because you were never born!”

According to a recent poll conducted by The Hill, 69% of voters think America is in decline, and 83% say they are worried about the country’s future. And that has generated a lot of finger-pointing: Republicans blame President Obama; Obama blames Republicans; environmentalists blame industrialization; the “Occupy” people blame everybody who isn’t occupying something - most of us agree that there is a problem, but efforts to identify the source of it are incomplete, misguided or downright evil.

The problems of human society are the problems of human nature, wrote "Lord of the Flies" author William Golding. Indeed. This was the discovery of the monastics. Seeking to escape the evil of the world, they found instead a doctrine central to Christianity: that evil is innate to us all. History tells us that a given philosophy, creed or religion will either restrain our darker impulses or exacerbate them, but escape them we cannot. Not in this life, anyway.

So what will save us from ourselves and preserve human dignity and life in the societies we create? Democracy? Socialism? Stitching up the ozone?

These days, there is a lot of talk about religion - Christianity in particular - and its role in public life. Whether it is protesting Nativities, the debate over “In God We Trust” as our country’s motto or the controversy surrounding the public faith of Tim Tebow, a national discussion is taking place on what the present and future role of Christianity in America should be. The consensus among the secular elites seems to be that it is a bit like smoking: It is harmful, but if you must do it, do it in the designated areas only. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist and atheist provocateur, calls Christianity a “mental virus” that should be eradicated.

The professor should be more careful in what he wishes for. Like many others, he grossly underestimates the degree to which his own moral and intellectual sensibilities have been informed by the Judeo-Christian worldview.

"It’s a Wonderful Life" is a fitting metaphor for a nation absent Christian belief. Jesus Christ said that his followers were to be like “salt”; that is, a people whose presence is felt for the good that they do. As a man or woman’s evil nature is gentled and restrained by the grace of God, there is a corresponding outward transformation of society. The data bears this out. According to the research of The Barna Group, Christians are the most charitable segment of the population by a substantial margin. Hence, any society that is liberally sprinkled with them has a greater concern for the poor, sick, orphaned and widowed - “the least of these,” as Jesus called them. (This is precisely what Nietzsche, and Hitler after him, hated about Christianity.)

But Christian influence goes well beyond benevolence: Our laws, art, literature and institutions find meaning in a rich Christian heritage. In his new book "Civilization: The West and the Rest," Harvard historian Niall Ferguson argues that the decline of the West can, in part, be attributed to the decline of a robust Christian presence in Western culture. Ferguson’s point is largely an economic one, but the inference that Christianity has served to strengthen the fabric of life in the West as we have known it is unmistakable. T.S. Eliot made a similar observation: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes.”

That is just another way of saying that the difference between a nation with meaningful Christian influence and a nation without it is the difference between Bedford Falls and Pottersville.

© Copyright 2011 Larry A. Taunton

Gayle Trotter of First Things recently interviewed Fixed Point's Larry Taunton. Centering around his new book, The Grace Effect, we will let the content speak for itself.  Click here to read the full interview.

This column was originally published in the CNN Belief Blog.

I first met Christopher Hitchens at the Edinburgh International Festival. We were both there for the same event, and foremost in my mind was the sort of man I would meet.

A journalist and polemicist, his reputation as a critic of religion, politics, Britain's royal family, and, well, just about everything else was unparalleled. As an evangelical, I was certain that he would hate me.

When the expected knock came at my hotel room door, I braced for the fire-breather who surely stood on the other side of it. With trepidation, I opened it and he burst forth into my room. Wheeling on me, he began the conversation as if it was the continuance of some earlier encounter:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has effectively endorsed the adoption of Sharia law. Can you believe that? Whatever happened to a Church of England that believed in something?” He alternated between sips of his Johnnie Walker and steady tugs on a cigarette.

My eyebrows shot up. “‘Believed in something?’ Why, Christopher, you sound nostalgic for a church that actually took the Bible seriously.”

He considered me for a moment and smiled. “Indeed. Perhaps I do.”

There was never a formal introduction. There was no need for one. From that moment, I knew that I liked him. We immediately discovered that we had much in common. We were descendants of martial traditions; we loved literature and history; we enjoyed lively discussion with people who didn’t take opposition to a given opinion personally; and we both found small talk boring.

Over the next few years, we would meet irregularly. The location was invariably expensive, a Ritz Carlton or a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. He disliked cheap restaurants and cheap liquor. In his view, plastic menus were indicative of bad food. I never ate so well as when I was with Hitch.

More than bad food, however, he disliked unintelligent conversation. “What do you think about gay marriage?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. It’s like wanting the worst of both worlds.” He drank deeply of his whiskey. “I mean, if I was gay, I would console myself by saying, ‘Well, I’m gay, but at least I don’t have to get married.’” That was classic Hitch. Witty. Provocative. Unpredictable.

Calling him on his cell one day, he sounded like he was flat on his back. Breathing heavily, there was desperation in his voice.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, anticipating some tragedy.

“Only minutes ago, I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.” He was almost gasping.

I didn’t know what to say. No one ever does in such moments, so we resort to meaningless stock phrases like, “I’m sorry.” Instead, I just groaned. I will never forget his response:

“I had plans for the next decade of my life. I think I should cancel them.”

He asked me to keep the matter private until he could tell his family and make the news public. Hesitatingly, I told him that while I knew that he did not believe in such things, I would pray for him. He seemed genuinely moved by the thought.

“We are still on for our event in Birmingham, right?” He asked. I was stunned. Sensing my surprise, he continued. “I have made a commitment,” he insisted. “Besides, what else am I going to do? I can’t just sit around waiting to die.”

As time approached, he suggested a road trip from his D.C. apartment to my home in Birmingham, Alabama.

“Flying has become a humiliating experience, don’t you think?” He said. “Besides, I haven’t taken a road trip in 20 years and it will give us a chance to talk and for me to finally take you up on your challenge.”

Arriving in Washington some five months after his diagnosis, I was shocked by his appearance. Heavy doses of chemotherapy had left him emaciated, and hairless but for his eyelashes. His clothes hung off of him as though he were a boy wearing a man’s garments. He was, nonetheless, looking forward to our journey, having packed a picnic lunch and, predictably, enough Johnnie Walker for a battalion. After breakfast with his lovely wife, Carol, and his sweet daughter, Antonia, Hitch and I headed south on an eleven-hour road trip.
“Have you a copy of Saint John with you?” He asked with a smile. “If not, you know I do actually have one.” This was a reference to my challenge of two years before: a joint study of the Gospel of John. It was my assertion that he had never really read the Bible, but only cherry-picked it.

“Not necessary.” I was smiling, too. “I brought mine.”

A few hours later we were wending our way through the Shenandoah Valley on a beautiful fall morning. As I drove, Hitch read aloud from the first chapter of John’s Gospel. We then discussed its meaning. No cameras, no microphones, no audience. And that always made for better conversation with Hitch. When he referenced our journey in a televised debate with David Berlinski the next day, various media representatives descended on me to ask about our “argument.” When I said that we didn’t really argue, they lost interest.

But that was the truth. It was a civilized, rational discussion. I did my best to move through the prologue verse by verse, and Christopher asked thoughtful questions. That was it.

A bit put off by how the Berlinski event had played out, Hitch suggested we debate one another. Friend though he was, I knew that Hitch could be a savage debater. More than once I had chaired such engagements where Hitch went after his opponents remorselessly.

Hence, I was more than a bit anxious. Here he was, a celebrated public intellectual, an Oxonian, and bestselling author, and that is to say nothing of that Richard Burton-like, aristocratic, English-accented baritone. That always added a few I.Q. points in the minds of people. With hesitation, I agreed.

We met in Billings, Montana. Hitch had once told me that Montana was the only state he had never been in. I decided to complete his tour of the contiguous United States and arranged for the two of us to meet there. Before the debate, a local television station sent a camera crew over to interview us.

When he was asked what he thought of me, a Christian, and an evangelical at that, Hitch replied: “If everyone in the United States had the same qualities of loyalty and care and concern for others that Larry Taunton had, we'd be living in a much better society than we do.”
I was moved. Stunned, really. As we left, I told him that I really appreciated the gracious remark.

“I meant it and have been waiting for an opportunity to say it.”

Later that night we met one another in rhetorical combat. The hall was full. Christopher, not I, was of course the real attraction. He was at the peak of his fame. His fans had traveled near and far to see him demolish another Christian. Overall, it was a hard-fought but friendly affair. Unknown to the audience were the inside jokes. When I told a little story from our road trip, he loved it.

The debate over, I crossed the stage to shake Christopher’s hand. “You were quite good tonight,” he said with a charming smile as he accepted my proffered hand. “I think they enjoyed us.”

“You were gentle with me,” I said as we turned to walk off the stage.

He shook his head. “Oh, I held nothing back.” He then surveyed the auditorium that still pulsed with energy. “We are still having dinner?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

After a quick cigarette on the sidewalk near the backstage door, he went back inside to meet his fans and sign their books.

There was something macabre about it all. I had the unsettling feeling that these weren’t people who cared about him in the least. Instead, they seemed like a bunch of groupies who wanted to have a photo taken with a famous but dying man, so that one day they could show it to their buddies and say, “I knew him before he died.” It was a sad spectacle.

Turning away, I entered the foyer, where 30 or so Christians greeted me excitedly. Mostly students, they were encouraged by what had happened onstage that night. Someone had spoken for them, and it had put a bounce in their step. One young man told me that he had been close to abandoning his faith, but that the debate had restored his confidence in the truth of the gospel. Another student said that she saw how she could use some of the same arguments. It is a daunting task, really, debating someone of Hitchens' intellect and experience, but if this cheery gathering of believers thought I had done well, then all of the preparation and expense had been worth it.

The next day, the Fixed Point Foundation staff piled into a Suburban and headed for Yellowstone National Park. Christopher and I followed behind in a rented pick-up truck. Accompanied by Simon & Garfunkel (his choice), we drove through the park at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the grandeur of it all.

The second chapter of John’s Gospel was on the agenda: The wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. “That is my favorite miracle,” Hitch quipped.

Lunching at a roadside grill, he regaled our staff with stories. Afterwards, he was in high spirits.

“That’s quite a - how shall I put it? A clan? - team that you’ve got there,” he said, watching the teenage members of our group clamber into the big Chevrolet.

“Yes, it is,” I said, starting the truck. “They enjoyed your stories.”

“I enjoy them.” He reclined his seat and we were off again. “Shall we do all of the national parks?”

“Yes, and maybe the whole Bible, too,” I suggested playfully. He gave a laugh.

“Oh, and Larry, I’ve looked at your book.” He added.

“And?”

“Well, all that you say about our conversation is true, but you have one detail wrong.”

“And what is that?” I feared a total rewrite was coming.

“You have me drinking Johnnie Walker Red Label. That’s the cheap stuff. I only drink Black Label.”

© Copyright 2011 Larry A. Taunton