The primary difference is that of motivation. In religion, we try to obey the divine standards out of fear. We believe that if we don't obey we are going to lose God's blessing in this world and the next. In the gospel, the motivation is one of gratitude for the blessing we have already received because of Christ. While the moralist is forced into obedience, motivated by fear of rejection, a Christian rushes into obedience, motivated by a desire to please and resemble the one who gave his life for us.
...
The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me.
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller, pp 186-187
Subject: Request for Additional Data Transparency/Availability
Mr. Ehlmann,
I have been a resident of St. Charles County for 33 years and am incredibly proud to call it home for me, my wife and our 4 children. I value the service that you and your colleagues have provided during that time to the over 400,000 residents under your charge and I thank you for all of your many efforts to make St. Charles County such a wonderful place.
I am writing to you today to request additional information and data resources around Covid-19 in St. Charles County. I have been following closely the disease in our County since the first case was announced in March and have been manually tracking the numbers on a daily basis. The Covid-19 dashboard that was released is helpful and provides some insight into the numbers, but I desire and wish for some additional insight. I wish to begin a discussion around how the County might share the underlying data tables to the residents, empowering them to perform analysis and make the graphs that they find valuable. I understand that many people are not as into data as I am, but I believe that there is value in being as transparent as possible with the citizens. I understand that there are possible HIPAA concerns and other legalities that must be considered, but I was hoping to see if it might be possible to even just start by sharing the data that drives the current dashboard.
At the moment, you can see the number of Total Deaths, but you cannot see the day to day # of deaths in a table. You can see the numbers broken out by each Zip Code if you click on that portion of the map, but you cannot find the Zip Code level data in a table. You can filter and see all of the data by gender or race, but none of that data is available in a table. This lack of tabular data has led to an inability to do any type of detailed analysis of trends and impacted populations.
Currently, I am creating and tracking the Estimated Active Cases, as that number is more meaningful than the much reported Cumulative Totals. I use this calculated value to determine what the 7 and 14 day trend is for Cases the County, which many people have found useful. I have attached today's graph of the Active Cases for reference. (Additional graphs can be found here, if desired.)
I understand that this has been an unforeseen global event, and I do appreciate the data that the County has made available. However, I do believe that we can work to make the data even more transparent and available for residents who, like myself, might find more data availability a great thing.
I welcome any comments, suggestions and discussion, as I hope to improve what our wonderful County has already put in place. Thank you again for your time and for your service.
Respectfully,
Jeremy Walker
CC:
Doug Bolnick - Director Public information Officer
Mary Enger - Director, Communications
Matthew Seeds - Director, Information Systems
Below is a collection of graphs that I have created to show several different data points that I find helpful in tracking this disease in the county. You can read some of my notes about the data in these charts here.The County’s health and information systems departments did switch reporting systems recently and noticed an error in the presentation of reported numbers. This caused the issue you note, and this was corrected as soon as possible.I am not sure if the switch refers to the update to the PowerBI dashboard or if it refers to the actual source they are collecting the data from. I have not nioticed any updates the the actual layout or content of the dashboard, so i assume it is the data source. If the change in source resulted in a greater than 5% negative change in reported cases, then there seems to be valid reason for concern with the validity of the numbers that have been previously reported.
Recently, my social media feeds have exploded with people
expressing outrage and deep sadness over the killing of Cecil
the lion. You might be led to think that they were best friends with this
beast, although none of these people have ever met or scene Cecil in person, as
he lived on the other side of the planet.
But they have seen pictures and videos of him and I can tell you that
they appear to have been very deeply impacted by the story of his demise. Petitions!
Blog posts! Status Updates! Exclamation Points!!!!
If we lined up 120 lions and killed them all in 1 bloody
hour, you can be sure that the entire world would demand justice. And yet, we
do something far worse every hour here in the United States. 21 percent of ALL
pregnancies in our country are terminated by an abortion. 1 in 5. Over 58
million Americans have been murdered in this fashion since 1973. That’s an
immediate population loss of over 18%, which does not include possible future
generations. Dwell on that. These aren’t
just numbers - they are little lives
that are being purposefully extinguished.
ver, which we are a couple of days into at this point. Not being from a Jewish family, the significance of Passover is somewhat lost on me from a cultural perspective.
by Andrew Peterson
" by Andrew Peterson
" by Aaron Shust 
" by Sidewalk Prophets:
Runners realize their limitations through the repetitive motion of slamming their feet into the ground and propelling themselves forward. Runners of any skill level must deal with learning how to manage the mental as well as physical challenges that come with starting a race. To get to that line, the runner has to have determined weeks or months in advance that they are going to commit themselves to the task of purposefully wearing themselves out multiple times a week when literally nobody is looking and nobody cares.And that is where I am.
Last night, as I lay in bed, I found myself thinking about my grandfather, Dale Walker.
When we arrived, I help Grandpa get from the bedroom to his recliner by the front door. He settled in for a period of time and seemed very quiet. After a while, I helped him walk to the bathroom. Once he was finished, I helped him move to his bed. This was the last time I ever saw my grandfather standing. As he rested in his bed, I helped him get comfortable, helped get him a drink and spent the time talking to him about what mom was helping grandma with in the kitchen.
After a couple of hours, it became readily apparent that his condition was worsening. Uncle Keith had come over and we were going to get Grandpa into the Green Escort to take to the hospital. Not having a wheelchair in the house, we resorted to grabbing one of the wooden kitchen chairs from the kitchen. We set Grandpa into the chair and then we carried him out of the front door to the car. (My recollection is that I carried the feet of the chair, but that may be incorrect.) Once we were able to get Grandpa into the passenger side and buckled in, I leaned in, kissed his forehead and told my Grandfather that I loved him. I don't know that he had the power t
