Marshall Fritz, founder of the Advocates for Self-Government and of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, and creator of the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz, passed away on election day, Tuesday, November 4, 2008. He died at the age of 65, after a months-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Marshall founded the Advocates in 1985 to help libertarians become successful communicators of the ideas of liberty.
In 1987, Marshall invented the now world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz. The Quiz expanded on a chart created by Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan. Marshall refined Nolan’s chart and added ten simple questions on political issues. In doing so, he created a Quiz that almost instantly tells takers which political group they are most aligned with, while also introducing them to a far more diverse, and accurate, multi-spectrum portrait of American politics.
As I tell my kids, don’t believe a single thing a politician says during the campaign, because–unlike the way things work out here in the real world–you can’t sue a politician for not making good on his promises.
David Boaz, at the Cato Institute’s blog, makes a short list of executive orders Obama could rescind, in order to show that he was actually sincere, and not just pulling BS out of his butt.
This is partly the story of my youth. More than that, it’s my dad’s story. Written as a letter to me and my brothers, it shows how God worked in our life, through both the good and bad. Things didn’t always work out as we expected, but they always worked out. Unlike many Christian memoirs, this is not a story of unabated miracles. It’s a story of getting beat up and knocked down and tripping up and making mistakes, because that’s the greater part of life. The miracles are few and far between. Continue reading “Book Giveaway: Can You See God in This Picture”
“I am sure that this book will prove to be highly controversial by many, but it also forces you to see the way that too much power can–and will–corrupt if not given a conscience.”
Lisa (GoodReads.com reviewer)
This is the story of a group of young professsionals who are also political acitivists in the fictional town of Abe’s Turn. This is the first set of a series of episodes, which read like a TV crime drama, except that the law in Abe’s Turn is corrupt, and these activists resort to espionage to defend innocents caught in this corrupt system. This first volume contains the first 4 episodes–4 stories in one–plus an additional short story, a behind-the-scenes essay, and other bonus chapters. Continue reading “Book Giveaway: The Conscience of Abe’s Turn”
Because I’m an author and publisher, my father asked me to read through and edit the manuscript, written as a letter to me and my two brothers. Naturally, I knew many of the stories already. I knew he had started out pastoring a church in West Cape May, New Jersey, before I was born and that we had moved to Western Pennsylvania when I was very young. I remembered him refinishing our upright piano in the basement, yelling at me to stay out because it was dangerous, and then ending up in the hospital from breathing the fumes because he wasn’t using proper safety protocol. And I remember, even more vividly and emotionally than he, leaving tiny Burgettstown, PA, and moving 76 miles away to Sharpsville, and then again 588 miles more into the Boston area.
Unlike many Christian memoirs, this is not a book full of feel-good experiences. It’s not always “Praise God!” and miracles, because that’s not life. As Dad said to me:
[In another book I read] everything was blessing and miracle and miracle after miracle, in his whole book. My book, you read it, and you don’t see any miracles. You see us getting beat up and knocked down and tripping up and making mistakes, which is the greater part of life. The miracles are few and far between. Where people really live is where we were.
Preachers get in the pulpit every week: ‘Praise God, what He’s going to do.’ It’s always ‘what He’s going to do.’ You know, ‘I can see revival in the air.’ It’s always ‘revival in the air.’ It never comes. It’s always ‘in the air.’ And this book was written to say: I’m not looking ahead to what’s coming. And I’m not taking one miracle in my life and letting that be the sole testimony. We went through this, and now we want to explain this in terms of a blessing from God, in terms of true ministry, in terms of achievement and success and calling. That’s the way it was. And it doesn’t deny us the fact that we were called, that we were blessed.
And sometimes the blessings were tiny. I didn’t win the lottery. Someone didn’t come to me and give me a brand new car when mine broke down. But the real blessings were, I played football with you boys across the road in Burgettstown. Or we played hide and seek in the woods. That’s life. And you lose the little things, because you’re looking for the big things.
Here’s a snippet from my dad John King’s memoir Can You See God in This Picture. This is part of the story of our life in Butler, PA. At the time, I was just a few years old, so I don’t really remember these stories first-hand.
I’m glad Dad wrote them down before he ran out of time.
Letting our children in on the bad times of our lives requires vulnerability. And that’s what I saw most reading my dad’s memoir, vulnerability. He told me that of all the people he mentions in the memoir, no one really comes out looking bad, except for him. After reading it, I agree. But as a writer, let me tell you, vulnerability is where passion and poignancy come from.
And I’m thinking now that maybe it’s also where wisdom comes from. What if you had to reach down into your soul and explain to your kids why you quit your job to pursue your dream? Or why you work at a job that keeps you away from them? I’m not saying that either A or B is the right or wrong choice. I’m only asking: What if I had to reach down deep into my soul and explain my choices to my kids? What wisdom would I end up imparting to them?
I’m not sure I know the answers. But I do know, I’m glad my dad imparted that wisdom to me before he ran out of time, because it’s at least nice to know that he didn’t know what he was doing back then any better than I do now. Continue reading “Friday Snippet: Back to Butler, PA to Teach Biblical Greek”
If you don’t mind me asking, how much did it cost you to publish your book (or your dad’s)? You seem to be doing all of the important things that subsidy presses do and probably at considerable savings.
I’m still refining my publishing process, and I don’t intend to publish many books by other authors (which is more expensive than publishing my own books, because you have to coordinate between two people, rather than just between the two sides of my own brain). But here’s what I’ve found out so far: Continue reading “How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book?”
Marshall Fritz, founder of the Advocates for Self-Government and of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, and creator of the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz, passed away on election day, Tuesday, November 4, 2008. He died at the age of 65, after a months-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
The proof copy of my dad’s memoir arrived today: