Category: Insights

(BrightCitizen.com) American’s are fed up with politicians, no doubt about that.  Barak Obama played on American’s desires to get functional government working in Washington DC, but brought division, arrogance, and incompetence to weaken the nation globally.

Although still powerful, the American Government’s power and respect has globally continued it’s decline from the presidency of George Bush, and even accelerated under the mis management of Mr. Obama.

While in the process a rich but not necessarily smooth, candidate has arisen to try to take the crown of executive political leadership in the US.  Donald Trump, the clever but brash heavily accented New Yorker has risen up.

Mr. Trump’s tough talk has definitely drawn the crowds.  He has also been able to get good numbers in the various telephone and other polls made.  American’s are clearly fed up with lying, apathetic politicians that get elected but flow straight into medriocrity never accomplishing anything.

Mr. Trump belittles minorities, women, has political adversaries in his own party, and judges people by whether they are ‘nice’ or not.  He is basically rude old guy who only knows how to order people around, but not how to work with people.  If someone is not ‘nice’ to him, he acts a bit like an adolescent and proceeds to call them names.  In the Fox News debate, Megyn Kelley experienced that 69 year old acting like a spoiled teenager when she asked him how he could counter his reputation for being critical of women.  Instead of explaining to the audience how he could counter his past record of attacking belitting women, he began to tell Ms. Kelley how he had complaints about her.

Yes, America needs a non-politician in the US presidential office, but does Donald Trump have the maturity or the class to represent the United States of America?  Over the last few months, we would say, probably not.  What do you think?

The last few weeks I started going to a Bilingual Bible Study in Yurakucho.  It’s been really enjoyable as it’s a group of business professionals that jump into the Bible, have great fellowship, and talk about all sorts of things that you need to talk about in business but that you don’t.  The kicker is we do it in both Japanese and English.

If you happen to be near Yurakucho, or even if you’re not.  Come join us on Wednesdays from 7pm.  I will copy and paste the location info below.

For Yurakucho, you can find the group at

Tokyo Kotsu Kaikan Building 6F (Ginza Farmers Labo- Burex Labo), 2-10-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006

On Google maps you can find the location here.

We’re there every Wednesday!

Fascinating to see the evolution of the Unified Communications suppliers in the world.  Of course, different companies have varying levels of strength depending on the country.

(BrightCitizen.com) If you’re American, you’re probably an American Football fan. In American football, we don’t use our feet to control the ball, we throw and carry the ball to score points points in a game that mimics Rugby and less of what Europeans call “Football” where players do use their feet that is called Soccer in North America.

In American football, a pumped up or inflated ball is a must, but an under-inflated ball is easier to grip. The National Football League, who owns and runs the multi-billon USD American “Football” franchise sets rules for the game to keep consistency and fairness among their teams.

Each winter the NFL season culminates with a national watch game and associated events that climax the event for the season called the Superbowl. In 2015, Tom Brady, the team leader and quarterback for the New England Patriots team was caught directing people to deflate game balls he would use below regulated standards. In short, this player was caught cheating in a game before the Superbowl.

The NFL likely did not want to disrupt their climatic event and made no judgment. Following the big game, the NFL commissioner suspended quarterback and confirmed cheating player to a 4 game suspension in the new season.

When you are a thief and get caught, it’s best to make good and move on. The same goes for someone who broke the rules to win. Let’s not get it wrong, The player has some talent in this American game. However, the sad part to the story is this, instead of recognising his guilt and paying the penalty, the player apparently thought he was above “the law” and hired a lawyer to take his employer to court to try to void his suspension. This sue-happy mental attitude is a bad sign for the US.

Something is wrong when you go to court over a game. Something is even worse when you are the one who cheated and you’re not willing to pay the consequences.

Unfortunately, the player’s cheating and unwillingness to pay for what he did is a self-centered, ugly, and arrogant display of what we are beginning to see in our nation today. This is likely the first time that American courts were asked to make judgments for a game. Clearly, the NFL made their judgment and if you want to play the game you need to follow the rules.

If the player is successful in breaking the rules and getting away with it, we may see continued degradation in the moral fiber of America. Our hope is that justice will triumph and the player will serve out his time. There’s a saying, “Cheaters never prosper.” It will be interesting to see what happens to this example of sports in courts. Doing the right thing, working hard, and correcting where you have failed and moving on, has been the strength of our nation.

Carson, Huckabee and Walker all performed credibly, with Carson having the debate’s best line: “I’m the only one on the stage to separate Siamese twins. I’m the only one to remove half a brain, though you would think if you went to Washington that someone had beat me to it.”

In a video posted to YouTube last week, Pastor Rit Varriale of Elizabeth Baptist Church in Shelby explained that his church had installed a flag pole so it could hold a “special ceremony” to raise the Christian flag above the American flag.

That ceremony took place on Sunday.

“We hope congregations all across the U.S. will join us on this,” Varriale said. “And prayerfully it will sweep across our country as a message to congregations to reevaluate our priorities. We serve God first.”

“If you already have a flag pole at your campus, go ahead and flip that order around. Start putting the Christian flag above the American flag,” the pastor recommended. “If you don’t have a flagpole — we didn’t have a flagpole — get one, put those flags up there, and demonstrate to everybody that drives by you’re a congregation that’s committed to God first.”

Varriale told the Baptist Press that U.S. flag etiquette was “completely improper.”

“We should be flying the Christian flag above the American flag” as a demonstration that Christians will respect and obey the federal government up to the point that the government asks something that is inconsistent with what God has called His people to do,” he opined.