Carl Lance

Dangerous Storms

A winter storm is passing through the eastern US, affecting 80 million people and blizzard conditions have shut down our nation’s Capital. Thousands of flights were cancelled, stranding countless travelers. On Friday, schools were closed, and authorities asked people to go home and stay warm until this danger passed through. Of course, there are always […]

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Unmerited Favor

We were enjoying a long Holiday weekend in Beijing, China when I got a phone call from my boss, telling me I had been promoted! I knew the promotion list was supposed to come out, but I didn’t expect to be on it. It wasn’t something we particularly needed and it won’t have a huge

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Another Day

Thursday was the first day of China’s “National Day” holiday. I wasn’t interested in celebrating the communist takeover of this country, so for me it was just another day off from work. The air pollution had been “cleaned up” either by the wind or by government intervention and it was a bright sunny day in

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Lesser Gods

A co-worker showed me a picture of a famous guitarist and declared emphatically “This is god!” I replied, “You don’t have very high standards for your gods.” I knew what he meant by his statement, but I don’t like people casually calling someone “god.” This man was idolizing the musician for his talents, and I

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Very Important People

This week the news was filled with stories of the important people who are visiting the capital of the most powerful country in the world. Millions have been spent on security and every move has been planned to make sure the visits are successful. When people are greeted with this much fanfare by the President

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