Last year Amazon led the e-reader market by selling about 8 million Kindles, and they sold more e-books than hardbacks.
READ MORE AT:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-17/tech/kindle.page.numbers_1_kindle-users-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-e-reader-market
The most e-Readers + more e-Books sold than hardbacks!
March 23rd, 2011 | Jim JohnsonTithing vs. Stewardship
July 10th, 2010 | Jim JohnsonWhen Robertson McQuilkin began to understand the broader implications of Jesus’ parable of the cheating manager in Luke 16, he says Jesus’ teaching “rocked my life.” He says the punch line of the parable is that you are a manager of some of God’s property (Luke 16:12) and that it’s impossible to live and work with equal fervor for both temporal and eternal payoffs–you cannot serve both God and money (Luke 16:13).
McQuilkin tells how these principles transformed his thinking and his life (I’ve added the italics) —
As a young adult I continued my childhood pattern of tithing. God got his ten percent first. Always. It was like paying taxes. But when it became clear to me that I was not the owner at all, just a manager of another’s property, I stood convicted as an embezzler. I was avidly getting, saving and spending 90% of God’s property on myself without a qualm. I shrank from managership, fearing to lose the good life. Finally I concluded that the cost of disobedience was too high and yielded to God’s will. Suddenly it was as if my cage door swung open, setting me free! …My responsibility is simply to be an honest manager.
The manager looks at the King’s business differently from the tither. Tithers look at their paycheck, calculate the 10% and ask, “Where should I invest this?” The manager looks at the needs of the business and asks, “How can I rearrange my resources to meet this great need?”
Truth is now multiple choice
July 2nd, 2010 | Jim JohnsonLeonard Pitts provides some second thoughts on Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s recent statements citing universal knowledge about what’s going on in drug trafficking in order to defend official government policies, especially since there seems to be no real evidence to support this “knowledge.” It seems that in our age it is not only abstract moral principles that are up for grabs as “truth,” but even basic factual information is a subjective option. Within his thoughtful discussion is this description of the age in which we live that is worth remembering –
Maybe you remember the Information Age. At the dawn of the Internet, we were promised a Jeffersonian utopia of instantly available information that would make us a wiser, more-enlightened citizenry.
Instead, we find ourselves stranded in a Misinformation Age where truth is multiple choice, geared to your political beliefs and one need never burden one’s cherished and preconceived ideas with anything as fusty and outdated as a demand for verification, authentication, fact. (read more)
How much does our gas cost?
June 23rd, 2010 | Jim JohnsonWe’ve all heard that “freedom is not free” – and we know that means it comes at the cost of human life. But do we think that way about our gasoline? Do we think how much it really costs?
Here is a recent reminder –
What has appeared to be endless is actually stored solar energy. Oil, gas and coal are fossilized organic life from millions of years ago, for which we now sacrifice our coastal ecosystems, blast away our mountain tops and go to war at the cost of our sons and daughters and hundreds of billions of dollars.
If we took the costs of the wars we fight for oil and added them to the price of gasoline at the pump, we’d be paying hundreds of dollars a gallon. Not to mention the costs of mopping up spills, providing health care for people affected by pollution and paying for myriad other symptoms of our fossil-fuel addiction. These are real costs, but we refuse to recognize them. (Read more)
Sarah Palin’s poles
June 9th, 2010 | Jim JohnsonLeonard Pitts describes Sarah Palin’s impact by saying she “is, second only to the president, the most compelling figure in American politics — and the most polarizing.” (read more)
He then describes her polarizing impact —
For some, she is the folksy, straight-talkin’ avatar of conservative principles, while for others, she is the leader of an intellectually incoherent movement that has no idea where it’s going but seems in a hurry to get there.
This seems like an accurate analysis. I know people at both ends, but no one between these poles. Palin is seen either as right on, or out in left field.
The Linkletter Gift
June 6th, 2010 | Jim JohnsonArt Linkletter got kids to say the darndest things. Recently John Timpane wrote of his pleasant memories as a child-guest on Linkletter’s program when he was one of those kids saying those outrageous things. Especially noteworthy is how he remembers the way Art Linkletter made him feel accepted along with the other children who were also guests that day…
He made each of us feel, “He sees me, only me.” …If the entire order of adults had the Linkletter gift, could see each child – both ways, as in “See what’s special” and “Imagine himself as that child” – this world would be closer to family. (read more)
How Bush beat Gore, in a nutshell…
June 5th, 2010 | Jim JohnsonMargaret Carlson concisely explains what happened back in 1999 while lamenting the separation of Al and Tipper Gore after 40 years of marriage…
Mr. Gore’s popular-vote victory ended when the Supreme Court tossed an unsigned opinion over history’s transom like a ransom note penned by Kafka. In it was a written warning that its logic must never be inflicted on anyone but Mr. Gore. All the votes in Florida, it said, would have to be counted but a court-imposed deadline would make counting all the votes impossible. (Read more)
