Have Thought Will Travel. Ruminate on ideas, philosophy, culture, society, books, music, politics, religion, movies...and see where it takes us.
May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here. -- Ronald Reagan
“Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must – must -- redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well.” -Dr. Donald Berwick, Director of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He was appointed when Congress was out of session, avoiding Senate confirmation hearings. Berwick is a full blown Communist and would not have gotten approved; not even all Dems could sanction this guy. Berwick is an advocate of rationed health care, saying several times it’s a good thing. Health and Human Services Secretary Sibelius has agreed with him several times, and endorsed him.
This vid is a break down by line and section of what’s in the anti-health care bill so you can look up the paragraph and section and read for yourself what’s in there. My Liberal friends say this intervention of government into our health lives is a good thing. Liberalism used to mean restricting government’s intervention into our lives. That’s now known as “classical liberalism”.
For reading about what’s in ObamaCare, read Sally Pipes’ “The Truth About Obamacare”. I regard her as the leading expert on the subject. Don’t believe any of the politicians that say what’s in it is good for you; they never read the Bill, by their own admission. Plus, they have an opt out, they don’t have to participate in the legislation, they have their own Cadillac program (no insult to Cadillac intended) that they are keeping.
I think Rick Warren of the famous SaddlebackChurch, should pick his friends as carefully as he picks his Bible verses.
He spoke at a pro-Islamofacist meeting, along with some pro-terrorist thugs; including Siraj Wahhaj, an “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 WorldTradeCenter bombing, Naeem Muhammad, a U.S. staff member of Islamic Relief that is a front group for Hamas and raises money for them, and Zulfiqar Ali Shah, former South Asia Director of KindHearts. KindHearts was shut down as a charity organization by the FBI because its “charity money” was going to finance terrorist groups.
Introduction to his speech: “As-salamu Alaykum. I come to you today deeply humbled and honored by this invitation. I truly mean that. I applaud your courage for inviting an Evangelical pastor. Thank you.”
The meeting was of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The ISNA has been named by the Justice Department as a Hamas front group. This meeting was in July of last year, and though dated, I’m hoping Warren has been more careful of his associations.
It’s bad enough that Leftists are “useful idiots”, but I hate seeing a leader of Christians being one.
The WestboroBaptistChurch, which is neither Christian nor Baptist, is a bottomless cesspool of hate, so I’m not going to link them. These are the knuckleheads that stand out outside military funerals celebrating American soldiers getting killed. They’re also Jew haters. A vile bunch if there ever was one.
They also protested at the funeral of Ronnie James Dio because he’s a ‘Satan worshipper’. I knew Ronnie, and he wasn’t. Truth doesn’t matter to these low life bottom sucking scumbags.
Now it turns out they’re using Ozzie Osbourne’s music to express their hatred of all things Christian, military, gays, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and anything American. The specific song they’re using is Ozzy’s “Crazy Train”, changing the lyrics to "You're going straight to hell on your crazy train" on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
I hope Ozzy sues them back into the Stone Age.
Ozzy: "I am sickened and disgusted by the use of 'Crazy Train' to promote messages of hate and evil by a 'church.'" Ozzy said about their protests at Dio’s funeral: "I thought it was in such bad taste that those people had those banners about Ronnie James Dio. That's disgusting. They say that we're the anti-Christ. Well, what makes them any better?"
We agree with Ozzy. Not only are they not any better, but one could make a case they are in fact the ones doing the bidding of Satan.
That anyone commits suicide is tragic. That level of despair breaks the heart to even think about. The media this past week has been all over the suicide of six kids, three homosexual.
Not to my surprise, Conservatives and Christians are to blame, because we are homophobic, and promote the hatred of homosexuals.
From “Huffington Post” blogger John Shore, on his personal blog:
"It's a fact that gay teenagers are about thirty percent more likely than straight teenagers to take their own lives. It's a fact that the vast majority of Christians believe that being gay is a profound moral failing, a foul aberration, a repelling, unnatural offense against God that fully warrants as punishment an eternity spent in hell. Asserting that those two facts have no relationship cannot possibly be anything but intellectually dishonest."
This is of course a vile hateful lie. There may be a few wacky extreme literal people that think this, but it’s marginal, and it’s certainly not mainstream Christian thinking. What he says are facts are not at all; they are made up by him.
To the bullying issue, are the kids that do this to homosexual kids, doing it because the Bible told them so? Doubt it. Doubt they are being raised in the church, doubt the are being raised in the Christian tradition.
There are bullies going back to the beginning of time. I dealt with them until high school. One guy used to lay into me on a regular basis at the school bus stop, before and after school. Sometimes he got his buddy and they both would lay into me. I fought back and got my ass kicked. Eventually, I went to the guy’s Dad and told him what was going on, and that if his son even touched me one more time, I was going to the police. As I walked away from the house, I could hear the Father yelling at the son and knocking him around. Violence ran in the family. After that the other kid laid off too. I dealt with it on my own. I grew up, weighing about ten pounds and terminally shy, but dealt with all the bullies; there were several.
There are options to deal with knuckle dragging jerks, and suicide is not one of them.
The other part of the story is the knuckleheads in the media that use this story to attack Christians and Conservatives, and other people with traditional values. The Jurassic Press drags out intellectually knuckle dragging jerks like the hate spewing Kathy Griffen, or Rosie O’Donnell (why’s she still around?), the incredibly intolerant Wanda Sykes who said that she hoped Rush Limbaugh would die of kidney failure. That’s what passes for comedy now. Griffin said she would like to push Sarah Palin down the stairs. Peace and Love dude.
What is this thing, come to think of it, of hate filled alleged comedians being interviewed on alleged news programs for political and cultural commentary, or the knucklehead Stephen Colbert testifying before Congress on immigration? Mostly, I think, because that’s about all the intellectual heft the Left can bring to bear on any issue. Can’t win any argument, facts are against them, so let’s make a mockery of everything.
It’s not bullying that’s the problem now, any more than it was in the past. It’s the breakdown of the culture, the destruction of the family, and the total rejection by half the population of traditional values. Other people are not valued so much. Part of it is about kids manning up and fighting back. It’s part of growing up and dealing with some of the crap we’re all dealt in life.
It’s about stupid statements like Kathy Griffin’s on this: "I think that the way that we had trickle-down economics in the '80s, this is trickle-down homophobia. And I really want people to connect the dots. And that's why I believe there's a connection between Prop. 8; Don't Ask, Don't Tell; and now the string of teen suicides."
Or the unfunny Sykes: "In the laws and everything else that's out here, in the churches that they preach that homophobia is wrong. You pretty much have given kids permission to disrespect and, you know, and to cause harm to the gay and lesbian community." Really Sykes? What churches preach that? Of course she believes this is mainstream Christian thought, but she's so unintelligent and uninformed, so blinded by bigotry and hatred, that's all she knows.
These idiots talk about tolerance yet bash Christians, Jews, traditionalists, Conservatives, anyone trying to live a moral life, on a regular basis. They are vile stupid people, and I have to wonder why and how it’s possible they have any public platform other than the stage to practice what they criticize.
I'm sorry and saddened by these suicides. I'm saddened too that intolerant vile hateful people use these tragic deaths as a platform to attack values and beliefs different from their own. Really...who's intolerant?
There was a murder by Mexican pirates on a border lake. The wife escaped and the husband was shot dead. I wrote about it here.
Now there are some other developments, in the form of some inconsistencies. The wife, Tiffany Hartley, has been on the television talk show circuit. Doing that, she has made some inconsistent statements about what happened.
I jumped all over this story because, living in the Southwest, the border issue with all the nastiness coming out of Mexico that is ignored if not supported by the US government, really ticks me off.
In Tiffany Hartley’s original story, she said she and her husband were shot at, he went down and she tried to retrieve him, but had to flee when they continued to shoot at her. That was when she noted that her husband David was shot in the back of the head. That’s what she told the sheriff.
Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez:
“…observed some boats coming at them at a pretty high rate of speed, noticed that some of the boats were armed so they immediately started, according to her, revving it up and gassing it up to the U.S, side of the border to prevent them getting hurt.
“She said she was seeing bullets hitting close to her in the water and realized that her husband had been hit behind the head.” She went back trying to find, trying to help him. She went in the water trying to load up her husband to her Jet Ski … trying to get his body and Jet Ski back to the U.S. side.
“She was being shot at so she finally had to let go of the body, climb back in her Jet Ski and head back over here to the United States…”
On the Today Show’s Meredith Viera, the story changes:
"Viera: Yesterday, you told me, Tiffany, that ‘one of the boats came up to me’ — this is your quote — ‘and had a gun pointed at me, trying to decide what to do with me, and then they left.’ How close did these people come to you? Can you describe them to me?’
Hartley: Honestly, looking at the barrel of the gun is all I saw. I was pretty focused there. I couldn’t tell you what they look like. But they were within the length of my jet ski of me, which is about 10 feet.”
Viera: Why do you think, Tiffany, why do think that they would spare your life? If in fact they had killed your husband. Why would they want anyone around that could possibly ID them?
Hartley: I have no idea. All I can do is give God the glory. That’s all I can do. Is that he had touched them to leave me, and go and figure out with the other two boats what could happen, so I had that time to get away. [Without] God’s grace, I wouldn’t be alive."
On Fox News’ "On The Record" with Greta Van Susteren, the story changes again:
"Van Susteren: When you were doing that, when you were attempting to help your husband, where were those other boats?
Hartley: Two were in front of me, uh, quite a ways a way. And one actually came up to my boat — er, my jet ski. And they had pointed the gun at me and they were talking amongst each other and pointed it back at me. And then they decided to leave [crosstalk] and meet up with the other two boats.
Van Susteren: Did you say anything to them?
Hartley: Yeah, I told them please don’t shoot, don’t shoot."
They were behind her, they were in front of her, she talked to them, she didn’t talk to them, she fled them, and she went toward them. From the “Today Show”: “I had to turn him over because he was face down in the water. I turned him over and he was shot in the head." The wound was in the back, and then it was in the front of her husband?
Her story has too many contradictions. Is this turning from a border event to a true crime story? Did she murder her husband and use this as a cover story? I shudder to think.
Remember the big kerfuffle by Dems and other assorted Leftists when Palin used the phrase "...in our cross hairs", that she was threatening violence. Any kind of metaphor with just a light dusting of what may possibly be a reference to violence gets their panties all twisted up.
Pre-President Obama said he was going to unify everybody, be a post racial, post partisan administration, and slow the rising of the oceans (vids to prove it). He blames Bush for all his challenges, and I've said several times in this blog that a person assuming a position of leadership that bad mouths his predecessor isn't a leader and is juvenile to boot.
Now on the campaign trail he has this to say regarding his political opposition:
"They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate." If they're successful in doing that, they've already said they're going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill." (italics mine)
Never heard such language from Eisenhower about Truman though Eisenhower inherited a mess, Reagan about Carter though he inherited an economic situation worse than Obama's, but you did hear Clinton moan and whine for the total of his first term about inheriting the worst economy in forty years; a blatant lie by the way.
Statists have it in their genes to blame everything on everyone else, when they are in fact the creators of everyone's misery, then act like a bunch of little Bart Simpson's running around, "I didn't do it!".
Some other classy presidential language.
“They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”
“Get in Their Faces!”
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” (To ACORN thugs)
“Hit Back Twice As Hard”
“We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.”
Really, the President of the United States whining about not getting his way, and using violent imagery (according to Statists' own definition) against his political opponents. Not only unpresidential, this is a shameful man.
‘If a baby’s going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother.’
‘If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face… If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would.’
The disregard for human life for Secularists does not begin in the womb. This is what happens when life isn't viewed a sacred. This woman also doesn't think premature babies are worth saving. From her website: "...Not totally happy (but who is? Don’t let’s kid ourselves. Many more of us wake up in the morning dreading the day ahead than would like to admit)." Here's a miserable human being hating life, so would rather see dead babies, in and out of the womb, to match her own misery.
This is a disturbing vid, a clear representation of what Leftists\Global Warming\Climate Change (or whatever they're calling themselves today) would like to do to people that don't toe the Party line. This was supposed to be a positive, advocacy ad for reducing one's carbon footprint.
Not that Leftists have ever killed or exterminated anyone that disagreed with them.
This past weekend the Left had a rally in response to Glenn Beck's August 28th “Restoring Honor” rally. This was a rally that had old Leftists, Socialist, Union thugs, and other remnants of the scattered Left. This weak affair was called "One Nation Working Together". From the look at the size of the crowd and the kind of people there, not too many want to be a part of their nation.
They bussed people in and paid for their hotel rooms. It was all phony. It was put on by the Unions, Communist Party USA, and the Socialist Party.
Interesting, well, maybe not, how the Jurassic Press didn’t have pics and vids of them. I’ve corrected the oversight below.
This was a weak response by the Left and Democrats. Being a response it wasn’t creative, new or fresh. It was old and tired. They apparently too tired to pick up their trash. I’ve noticed that in pics after TEA Party rally’s the trash is around the full trash barrels, and after Leftist’s rally’s there’s trash left everywhere.
I think too that there weren’t enough white or oriental faces. This was a racist rally, no doubt.
One Nation Rally
Toward the end of Leftist Rally
The opening on the Leftist Rally
Metaphor-What the Left is trying to do to our country-trash
Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally
I searched for close ups of the after pics of the restoring honor rally for trash all over the place. Couldn't find one.
There’s a little lake in south Texas. An idyllic place for water recreation, and most noted for its fishing. The US\Mexican border runs right through it; not in a straight line, but all curvy with the shoreline.
It’s also become a place of murder and theft by Mexican pirates.
Tiffany Hartley and her husband David Michael Hartley were out jet skiing this past weekend on FalconLake, and he was shot in the back of the head by the pirates. They chased her while shooting to kill her, but she escaped.
Her husband’s body is still out there, and the search teams can only search on the US side of the lake. The Mexican government, of course, isn’t assisting in the search. They’ve been asked to by Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez. Could you imagine the uproar if some American thugs had murdered some Mexican tourists on that lake?
This year there have been five reported attacks before this. Heard of them? Our Federal Government just doesn’t care about US citizens on the border. Too busy suing Arizona for trying to enforce the law, and making excuses for their abysmal record of border (non) enforcement. More interested in getting amnesty for undocumented Democrats coming across the border illegally.
On the Mexican side of the lake are the ruins of an old church in Old Guerrero. Tourists have been going there for years. Now they are getting robbed. What have US officials done? Well, you stupid citizens, don’t go there, is their response. It's like the area in southern Arizona where the Feds have put up billboards to stay out of the area because it's dangerous, and it's dangerous because Mexican drug cartels control it. I think some our law enforcement people should go to that side of the lake, make a raid, and kill the bad guys. The Mexican government won’t help enforce the border any more than the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations have. Can you imagine if we had a tourist spot on the US side that Mexicans visited, and some American bad guys murdered them?
Mexico should be told by our State Department that they have 48 hours to get rid of the pirates, pay reparations to the US, find David Harley’s body, or we will invade that side of the lake and put US troops there. The lake is by agreement dual use, and supposed to be open to all. Now we have Mexican pirates coming out onto the lake and killing US citizens.
Our government sits on its sorry collective cowardly ass.
Remember when candidate Obama said one of the first things he was going to do when elected was to shut down U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay? Well, about 20 months have gone by and Gitmo is still open. Bush lied! Ooops...wrong guy. Anyway, I'm sure that the unfulfilled campaign promised is Bush's fault.
Now we hear, horror of horrors, that these poor misunderstood terrorists are limited to only one ice cream a day. Torture! Where's Human Rights Watch!
Oh! The inhumanity!!
Really, there's a couple signs on a fridge: "DETAINEE FOOD ONLY " and "Only 1 ice cream for each detainee!"
The "detainees" have all gained 10-20 pounds since their incarceration. Seems like the food police, led by Michelle Obama, would welcome this limitation on frozen fat, sugar and salt. I think Michelle should send some produce from her magic garden. Let them eat okra.
This was an issue for The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg. What's the cause of this this horror, this violation of human rights!
A few months ago Mexican president Felipe Calderon came to the United States and spoke before Congress saying: "I am convinced that a comprehensive immigration reform is also crucial to securing our common border. However, I strongly disagree with the recently adopted law in Arizona." The Democrats gave him a standing ovation. That included Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Vice President Joe Biden. This guy also thinks that all his drug war problems are the fault of the US.
He is adamantly against any barrier going up between the US and Mexico; especially a wall, virtual or physical. He has said Arizona’s immigration law is and invitation "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement". Democrats cheered this too.
News flash. Mexico is building a wall between them and Guatemala, to stop drug trafficking they say. In case they didn’t hear, that’s also one of the reasons US citizens want to put up a barrier on our southern border. Of course Dems and RINO's are against a barrier because these are undocumented Democrats; votes for the future.
Of course, them having to put up a wall is the United States’ fault. Here’s some wacky reasoning by a Catholic Priest, Fr. Francisco Pellizari from Italy that the Mexican government subscribes to: "The dramatic increase in the cost of 'polleros' (human traffickers) and the corruption of the authorities is the result of the walls the United States plans to build and has built along the border.”
Next they’ll being saying the violence, murder, rape, and drug trafficking is Bush’s fault, unless Obama’s and the Democrat Party’s copyright of the phrase has been confirmed.
The Wall of Hypocrisy, besides pretending to be built to stop the flow of drugs, is to reduce the flow of people "found to be physically or mentally unhealthy ... economic burdens on society". Those caught of course, after being imprisoned and beaten are returned to their country. In the US those from south of our border that are found to be physically or mentally unhealthy are given social security cards, drivers licenses, free health care, EBT cards, and anything else they may need.
But of course, it’s all the fault of the United States.
Sometime I've got to wonder. It has been shown again and again that atheist, secular governments and their supporting organizations are anti-Christian, often anti-Semitic, yet some Christians still support them.
This weekend there's going to be a counter rally, "One Nation Working Together", to the hugely successful Glenn Beck, pro religious and pro traditional rally, of a couple weeks ago. Those that attended organized themselves, got buses, planes, trains, and automobiles together on their own dime and got there. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people attended to proclaim their faith and the desire for a traditional, constitutional republic.
This week, the rally is for pro government, anti-Christian, high tax, pro union, secular organizations promoting subservience to the State. Government unions are busing people in, and wealthy Leftists are contributing heavily to help get people there. Some of the organizations that will be there, and that are financing this rally, include the Communist Party USA, , the National Center for Transgender Equality, Planned Parenthood, Code Pink, the Human Rights Campaign, and Democratic Socialists of America, to name a few.
That's all fine, but I'm concerned there are churches that endorse this, like the United Church of Christ, the sister church of my own First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) ; good grief, First Christian is liberal enough at the national leadership level. (Fortunately each or our churches are autonomous.) The United Methodist Board of Church and Society endorses this pro secular, anti Christian rally too. There are some other churches that endorse this, and I've got to wonder why. The United Church of Christ and United Methodist Board of Church and Society have withdrawn, but only because of controversy, not belief.
This rally is about putting government above God. Why any church would endorse such a thing is mystifying. Then again we have Marxist Liberation Theology, and Black Liberation Theology, which is what the church that the Obama's went to for twenty years, preached and practiced.
Evil influences do indeed enter even into the Body of Christ, His Church.
Here’s a growing market, even a counter culture product, which is showing promise. Most video games we know are shooters, sexual and violent. Here’s a company that produces video games with a Christian message.
The company is Left Behind Games Inc., named after the best selling series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that already has several games on the market.
There are several independent film companies, most notably, Possibility Pictures, which produced the well received movie “Letters to God”. There are several Christina film companies that market independently through call centers and mail. We may be seeing a counter movement to the anemic Hollywood fare that isn’t family or faith oriented, which is usually dismissive and negative of family, faith and Christianity.
The movie “Fireproof” was dismissed by secular critics, but embraced by people of faith. It was made for about $500,000, 21,000 volunteers, and the properties used in the film were donated. It grossed over $33 million at the box office, and was the highest grossing independent film of 2008.
We’re glad to see Christian based entertainment coming into its own, and finding a way to get the Christian message into the culture, offering an alternative to the insipid fare dribbling out of Hollywood.
Left Behind Games now has a national outlet, WalMart. The video games will be available there by the end of October. We’re happy to see that WalMart is a family friendly, Christian friendly chain, and we commend them.
I thought it was my imagination, that I keep hearing the words, and seeing the legislation, and wondering, how’s that happening, that’s not in the Constitution.
Here’s some of what Dems, Leftists, Statists, that whole side of the aisle say about the Constitution.
There’s a writer for the Leftist magazine, “Slate” and her response to Candidate Christine O’Donnell’s statement: “…when I go to Washington, D.C., the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it is constitutional.” The writer, Dahlia Lithwick, pondered: “How weird is that, I thought. Isn’t it a court’s job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional? And isn’t that sort of provided for in, well, the Constitution?”
My understanding is congress critters, when sworn into office, swear to uphold the Constitution.
Another question arose, when the current Republican “Pledge to America” stated they would, and this isn’t a new idea, have a tag on new legislation saying what article in the Constitution allows that law. Make sense to me. We’re supposed to be informed by it when passing laws, so where in there is it? Susan Milligan for US News & World Report: “Just plain wacky.” Truly? I remember even writing papers in school, we had to document and footnote our sources. Seems sensible to me that people passing laws to enhance their lives and ruin ours, could at least take a moment and do a fantasy check.
I have a vague memory from civics class way back in the 1960’s that the government has “enumerated powers.” Dems and RINO’s have tossed that concept out a long time ago. I remember posting a vid of Rep. James Clyburn (Statist., S.C.) saying: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.” These guys really do believe they have the power to do anything they want. They do not care, nor understand what’s in the Constitution, and they certainly don’t want citizens to make their own choices about how to live their own lives.
They will tell you what light bulb you can burn in your house, what temperature your house should be, what health care program you can have and what health care will be provided to you, how much energy you are allowed to consume, force your kids to attend a failed school system, the list can go on forever.
Rep. Phil Hare (Statist., Ill.):
Finally there’s Nancy Pelosi: “Are you serious?” responding to a question about where in the Constitution it allows them to pass all the measures in the health care bill. Truly?
Do we really want people passing laws they exempt themselves from, that ignore the Constitution, tell us how to live our lives and will punish us with prison or fines if we don't obey, plus tell us how much of the money we earn we get to keep?
How well is your basic understanding of the world's religions? Click here for a quick 15 question quiz.
This is from a national poll done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Unfortunately, atheists and agnostics have more knowledge of religions than people that are religious. I’m not surprised at this. Most Christians, once they accept the truths of our faith, quit learning. Same principle I think as most people’s vocabulary quits expanding in high school, and people’s political views get cemented in.
It’s important for everyone to keep expanding their knowledge all the time. Especially Christians, that are under assault worldwide, need to be able to confidently discuss their beliefs. I’ve heard many Christians say they don’t have the time for Bible study, or to read books of apologetics. When I hear someone say they don’t have time for something, then it’s not important to them. We need to understand other’s faiths, so we can communicate with them from a place and language they understand. We need to understand our own faith to grow stronger in it, and to develop a deeper relationship with God and each other.
Knowledge and faith need to be balanced. Christians need to be informed. Really, when atheists know more than people that proclaim a faith, there's some self evaluation that needs to happen, and some work to do.
There's a "on the other hand" issue here. On any secular issue, whether politics, history or literature, most people seem not to know much, as evidenced by Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments.
Regardless, Christians should know what they believe and why.
While New York is dealing with the construction of a large religious building, there is another similar controversy on the other side of the country, in Meeteetse, Wyoming.
The Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel want to build a monastery that will have a 150 seat church, inside a 144,000 square foot French Gothic-style compound that will include a coffee roasting barn and living quarters for the monks. Its marker will be a 150 foot spire.
This story caught my eye because they are the Carmelite monks that make “Mystic Monk Coffee”, which I have a banner ad for on this blog site.
The controversy has arisen because some ranchers in the area don’t like the idea of a huge compound in a traditional ranching area. They question the impact the monastery will have on wild life, traffic, and water usage. They also, being a religious institution, won’t be paying any property taxes. I have to wonder if these ranchers see any pluses here.
The property has already been purchased, zoning approved, plans drawn up. The last legal thing that needs to be addressed is the ParkCounty commissioners need to make the final approval. That’ll happen on Oct. 5, 2010.
These monks started with just two people, have now grown to 18, and several more are applying to join the order.
The traffic issue is interesting. I have to wonder just how much traffic a few monks is going to generate. They have their coffee beans trucked in, and they’ve said they would reduce shipments to once a month. There’s an easement to an irrigation pond that would have to be moved, and the monks said they would take care of that. They also grow most of their own food, so traffic for that would be limited too.
The site is about 14 miles from the nearest road, and about 20 miles from the nearest town. I could probably do without the spire, but it doesn’t look like it could be seen by anyone nearby. The site sits on 2500 acres.
Unlike like the NY Mosque of Triumph, I really can’t see an issue here. How much of an impact are a few monks praying and roasting coffee beans going to have?
Ranch owner Dave Grabbert, who sold the Order the land said: “What's puzzling to me is if people complain about these guys as neighbors, what kind of neighbors would they want?”
I have always thought that nobody who has an ounce of common sense—not to speak of sensibility and culture—cannot help but respect other people’s religious beliefs, except for those which are manifestly contrary to universal human right principles. Such is, of course, my attitude toward Islam. Hence my deep appreciation for thinkers such as G.K. Chesteron, whose respect for Islam is as strong as his “humanistic” approach to life in general. Which obviously generates some kind of tension between the two needs: respect, but awareness of the most controversial aspects of Islam, with regard to its (much) less humanistic approach…
Here is an example of his, so to speak, “bivalent attitude” toward Islam. There is in Islam “a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace,” he wrote in his 1917 Lord Kitchener...
The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…
Islam as “the great creed born in the desert.” That’s the key argument he makes to explain both what is wrong and what is the sublimity hidden in the heart of the religion of Muhammad. Two faces (what is sublime and what is “a permanent menace”) of the same coin—a Weltanschauung which is son of the desert and which generates both great mystics and huge fanatics and creators of fanaticism.
But it was not until 1919 that Chesterton had the opportunity of making this perfectly clear to himself, when he left his home in Beaconsfield, and traveled backward through time to the place which is sacred to the three “religions of the Book.” And his 1920 The New Jerusalem, is just a philosophical travelogue of his journey across Europe, across the desert, to Palestine.
Chesterton saw Islam as the Way of the Desert. The desert being a place of loss of perspective, and Islam personifying that loss of perspective. When the mind has grown used to the monotony of the desert, he wrote, a curious change takes place:
It may sound strange to say that monotony of its nature becomes novelty. But if any one will try the common experiment of saying some ordinary word such as "moon" or "man" about fifty times, he will find that the expression has become extraordinary by sheer repetition. A man has become a strange animal with a name as queer as that of the gnu; and the moon something monstrous like the moon-calf. Something of this magic of monotony is effected by the monotony of deserts; and the traveller feels as if he had entered into a secret, and was looking at everything from another side. Something of this simplification appears, I think, in the religions of the desert, especially in the religion of Islam. It explains something of the super-human hopes that fill the desert prophets concerning the future; it explains something also about their barbarous indifference to the past.
We think of the desert and its stones as old; but in one sense they are unnaturally new. They are unused, and perhaps unusable. They might be the raw material of a world; only they are so raw as to be rejected. It is not easy to define this quality of something primitive, something not mature enough to be fruitful. Indeed there is a hard simplicity about many Eastern things that is as much crude as archaic. A palm-tree is very like a tree drawn by a child—or by a very futurist artist. Even a pyramid is like a mathematical figure drawn by a schoolmaster teaching children; and its very impressiveness is that of an ultimate Platonic abstraction. There is something curiously simple about the shape in which these colossal crystals of the ancient sands have been cast. It is only when we have felt something of this element, not only of simplicity, but of crudity, and even in a sense of novelty, that we can begin to understand both the immensity and the insufficiency of that power that came out of the desert, the great religion of Mahomet.
And here is a generous eulogy of Islam:
In the red circle of the desert, in the dark and secret place, the prophet discovers the obvious things. I do not say it merely as a sneer, for obvious things are very easily forgotten; and indeed every high civilisation decays by forgetting obvious things.
But a second later he challenges those whom he has just praised:
But it is true that in such a solitude men tend to take very simple ideas as if they were entirely new ideas. There is a love of concentration which comes from the lack of comparison. The lonely man looking at the lonely palm-tree does see the elementary truths about the palm-tree; and the elementary truths are very essential. Thus he does see that though the palm-tree may be a very simple design, it was not he who designed it. It may look like a tree drawn by a child, but he is not the child who could draw it. He has not command of that magic slate on which the pictures can come to life, or of that magic green chalk of which the green lines can grow. He sees at once that a power is at work in whose presence he and the palm-tree are alike little children. In other words, he is intelligent enough to believe in God; and the Moslem, the man of the desert, is intelligent enough to believe in God. But his belief is lacking in that humane complexity that comes from comparison.
[Italics mine]
And a few lines below he says:
[Islam] was content with the idea that it had a great truth; as indeed it had a colossal truth. It was so huge a truth that it was hard to see it was a half-truth.
What does he mean by that? Let’s follow his reasoning:
Islam was a movement; that is why it has ceased to move. For a movement can only be a mood. It may be a very necessary movement arising from a very noble mood, but sooner or later it must find its level in a larger philosophy, and be balanced against other things. Islam was a reaction towards simplicity; it was a violent simplification, which turned out to be an over-simplification. Stevenson has somewhere one of his perfectly picked phrases for an empty-minded man; that he has not one thought to rub against another while he waits for a train. The Moslem had one thought, and that a most vital one; the greatness of God which levels all men. But the Moslem had not one thought to rub against another, because he really had not another. It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts.
[…] The philosophy of the desert can only begin over again. It cannot grow; it cannot have what Protestants call progress and Catholics call development.
[…] The highest message of Mahomet is a piece of divine tautology. The very cry that God is God is a repetition of words, like the repetitions of wide sands and rolling skies. The very phrase is like an everlasting echo, that can never cease to say the same sacred word; and when I saw afterwards the mightiest and most magnificent of all the mosques of that land, I found that its inscriptions had the same character of a deliberate and defiant sameness.
The ancient Arabic alphabet and script is itself at once so elegant and so exact that it can be used as a fixed ornament, like the egg and dart pattern or the Greek key. It is as if we could make a heraldry of handwriting, or cover a wall-paper with signatures. But the literary style is as recurrent as the decorative style; perhaps that is why it can be used as a decorative style. Phrases are repeated again and again like ornamental stars or flowers. Many modern people, for example, imagine that the Athanasian Creed is full of vain repetitions; but that is because people are too lazy to listen to it, or not lucid enough to understand it. The same terms are used throughout, as they are in a proposition of Euclid. But the steps are all as differentiated and progressive as in a proposition of Euclid. But in the inscriptions of the Mosque whole sentences seem to occur, not like the steps of an argument, but rather like the chorus of a song. This is the impression everywhere produced by this spirit of the sandy wastes; this is the voice of the desert, though the muezzin cries from the high turrets of the city. Indeed one is driven to repeating oneself about the repetition, so overpowering is the impression of the tall horizons of those tremendous plains, brooding upon the soul with all the solemn weight of the self-evident. [Italics mine]
Isn’t that a wonderful explanation of the (abyssal) difference between them and us, whose minds have been nurtured by Greek rationality and Judaic-Christian values? This difference is also why, compared with its millennial rival, Christendom, the world of Islam had become poor, weak, and ignorant. In his What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis asks, but does not answer, the following questions: “Why did the discoverers of America sail from Spain and not a Muslim Atlantic port, where such voyages were indeed attempted in earlier times? Why did the great scientific breakthrough occur in Europe and not, as one might reasonably have expected, in the richer, more advanced, and in most respects more enlightened realm of Islam?” One might say, Just read The New Jerusalem to get the right answers to these questions and a few others.
George Blanda…I grew up watching this guy. A man’s man, a player’s player. 26 years in pro football, retiring at the age of 48.
From Blanda’s A.P. obituary:
Blanda began his memorable run in 1970 by throwing three touchdown passes in place of an injured Daryle Lamonica in a 31-14 win over Pittsburgh on Oct. 25. The following week he kicked a 48-yard field goal in the final seconds to give the Raiders a 17-17 tie against Kansas City.
Blanda was just getting started. He threw a tying touchdown pass with 1:34 remaining and then kicked the game-winning 52-yard field goal in the final seconds the following week in a 23-20 win over Cleveland.
He followed that with a 20-yard TD pass to Fred Biletnikoff in place of Lamonica in a 24-19 victory over Denver the next week, then kicked a 16-yard field goal in the closing seconds to beat San Diego 20-17 on Nov. 22.
Passing TD's in a game: 7 (Tied with 4 others) November 19, 1961 vs. New York Titans[1]
Most seasons played: 26 (1949–58, 1960–75)
Most seasons scoring a point: 26
One of two players to play in 4 different decades: (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s) – Jeff Feagles being the other
Most PATs made (943) and attempted (959)
Most interceptions thrown, single season: 42 (1962)
Held record of most pass attempts in a single game: 68 (37 completions, vs. New York Titans on 11/1/1961) until 1994 when Drew Bledsoe had 70
Oldest person to play in an NFL game: 48 years, 109 days
First player ever to score over 2,000 points
Oldest quarterback to start a title game
3rd Fewest receiving yards in a career: – 16
Most total points accounted for (including TD passes) in a career: 3,418 (not an official stat)
Ten years with the Chicago Bears, seven seasons with the Houston Oilers, and nine-years with the Oakland Raiders. His 340-game career was the longest in league history.
I grew up watching great comedy. Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Gregory Peck, Laugh In, It's a Mad Mad Mad World, Blazing Saddles, Monte Python. Great comedians like Mort Saul, George Carlin, Buddy Hackett, Steve Martin, Bob Newhart to name but a few.
Now we have the hateful Kathy Griffin. Now we have the unfunny, hateful John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and most especially Bill Maher.
This is from a Friday night Bill Maher episode, from his horrid politically correct show “Politically Incorrect”. It was mocking Delaware Senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell.
Actress impersonating O’Donnell:
"Like, you know, one time, during a game of Truth or Dare, me and my friend Becky killed a Mexican."
“We've all done things we regret. In college, you know, we used to get pregnant all the time on purpose, just so we could sell the stem cells. I'm not proud of that! It's just, it was the 80's, you know?”
“Those girls should know that keeping your virginity is very important. But in the ass is okay. It is, it's true. I've dabbled in the ass a little bit. It's in the Bible, it's okay.”
On several “comedy” shows, there has been an incessant waterfall of jokes about her and masturbation.
I’ve tried to sit through sitcoms. I’ve tried to sit through movies billed as comedies. I’ve tried to sit through movies billed as “romantic comedies”. None are funny. They are long drawn out juvenile sex jokes and personal insults.
If you want to hear funny insults, listen to Don Rickles.
I watch standup comedians and hear personal stories leaden with sex and unfunny insults. No funny political commentary or social commentary. No playing with the language ala George Carlin. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, comedy is dead. RIP
He spent more time in prison for political crimes against the State than Nelson Mandela, but you probably never heard of him. The reason for that is because his crime was being a Christian; never popular among the Elites.
His name is Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin Mei. Born in 1901 and died in 2000. Thirty of those years he spent in prison because he was a Christian, and defied the State, refusing to renounce his faith. The Chinese government showed a little more restraint than barbaric fascist Islamic states that just murder people who refuse to renounce their faith.
Father Kung was consecrated Bishop on October 7, 1949, the year the Communists took power, making him Bishop of Soochow. In 1950 he became Bishop of Shanghai and apostolic administrator of Soochow and Nanking. By 1955 he became such an enemy of the State, he was arrested. A few months later he was taken to an arena, a dog racing stadium, and shackled he was led to the microphone. The purpose was to confess his crime (being a Christian), but instead he said, “Long live Christ the King! Long live the Pope!”, and the audience responded, “Long live Christ the King! Long live Bishop Kung!”
He spent the next 30 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, and was released in 1985 to house arrest. That part of the sentence was 10 years, but he was released after two and a half years.
From a sermon he gave in 1991:
“In America, you have freedom of expression and true freedom to worship. You honor justice and human rights. This is a nation of God. Standing with you here today, my heart is with my people in China who still do not have the freedom to worship.
… It is my sincere wish that, through the continuous leadership from the Government of the United States to help and influence the Government of the Peoples Republic of China, my people and my country will one day also enjoy the same true freedom of religion, expression, the human rights and justice in accordance with international standards.”
This is why I bring this brave man of faith and conviction up. The freedom of expression and to worship is being slowly eroded in this country. We Christians are demeaned and insulted in the Jurassic Press and by many current government officials. A blind eye is turned to the suffering, persecution, torture and murder of Christians worldwide. Our secular government is silent when Islamic states violently oppress Christians.
In this country the government uses the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State to repress religious freedom, at least Christians'. Our secular government and these two organizations do support the freedom of religious expression of Islamofacists, which, given the Statist predilections of our elites, is no surprise.
Cardinal Kung shortly before his death.
There’s a cautionary tale here. One doesn’t want to accept the fact of the slow taking away of liberty, and especially of the right to practice one’s religion. What Leftists practice is “Fabianism”, which is a slow, premeditated taking over of freedom until everyone is a slave to the State. As is shown time and again, especially in the 20th century, to close the deal on tyranny, Jews and Christians must be first marginalized, isolated, and then imprisoned.
Look around and see what the elites in this country, Jurassic Press and Leftists in government, say about Christians (example is what is said about Palin and Christine O’Donnell and their faith) without challenge, and how they ignore the persecution and murder of Christians world wide.
About the only time you’ll see Democrat politicians in church is at election time, and usually in Black churches. They’re all for separation of church and state the rest of the time. That’s because more Democrats believe in UFO’s than God (several polls over several years), and are mostly secularists and atheists that believe government should be more powerful than God; that people should bow down and submit to them.
The rest of the time, the rest of us, believe and a lot go to church. We live in an overheated political time, and by law clergy can’t make any political comments from the pulpit. This is an IRS rule made in 1954 because some minister criticized Senator Lyndon Johnson. Really, what was he thinking criticizing one of the most powerful Statists of the time?
Two questions arise from this. Where’s the free speech? Even though the government uses taxes to control behavior, what’s the government (via the IRS) doing in churches monitoring speech?
This Sunday is Pulpit Freedom Sunday. What ministers are doing nationwide (this isn’t the first year) is making political points in their sermons and sending the transcripts to the IRS; then daring them to prosecute.
Personally, I don’t want to hear political stuff from pastors when I’m in church. They do though have a right to say what they want. Something about that pesky Constitution. Going back to the time of the founding of this country, a lot of political observations about candidates and their behavior were made from the pulpit. Were politicians living or at least trying to live according to the word of God? That’s something important to Believers.
We should roll back the IRS rule to before when Lyndon Johnson was offended, kick the IRS out of the business of controlling free speech in churches, and make a new rule that when a secularist Dem goes to speak politics at a church during elections, they have to pay a hypocrisy tax.
While demanding acquiescence and acceptance of their murderous genocidal intolerant religion here in the US and other Western countries (you’re an Islamophobe if you don’t), they continue killing people that don’t agree with or submit to them.
While lying about oppression here in the US (there is none), comes another horrific story of the barbarism of this hateful political ideology masquerading as a religion. This is a real story of Muslim oppression. Dateline Pakistan.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has reported the story of a Christian man and his wife; he was burned alive and she was raped because they would not renounce their faith and become Muslims. The man, Masih, and his wife Martha, worked for a character Sheik Mohammad Sultan, a wealthy businessman. He and some other thug Muslim leaders asked Masih and Martha to convert, and when they said they wouldn’t and were going to quit their jobs, the sheik said he would kill them if they quit.
Here’s the set up. The sheik’s house was robbed and Martha was charged with the theft. What did the police do? They raped Martha and set Masih on fire in front of the police station. He was taken to hospital where he died three days later.
ICC’s Regional Manager for South Asia, Jonathan Racho: “We are outraged and deeply saddened by the murder of Masih and the rape of Martha by the police. As this case clearly indicates, Pakistani Christians are treated as less than animals by the Muslims. We urge the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zadari, and other high level government officials to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice.”
President of Pakistan Christian Congress, Dr. Nazir S Bhatti: “[The] Rape of Martha Bibi before her children by Muslim police officials and burning of her husband took place just a few miles from building of the Supreme Court of Pakistan where Muslim judges sitting on benches of justice have no sympathy with Christian victims. Perhaps in the eyes of these judges rape of an ‘infidel woman’ is not a crime."
Where’s the outrage of the secular, bigoted, intolerant, atheistic Jurassic Press, Leftist Feminists, Statists, human rights groups, the UN, social justice groups?
This kind of barbaric outrage goes on all the time, but they don’t care…the victims are only Christians after all.
Looking forward to this movie. It's clear that this new, current American Revolution is being lead by women. These are strong, independent women that have achieved success on the own merits. It's in limited release right now.
Eddie Fisher was an early 1950's teen idol that was more noted for his women than his music, which is a shame because he was a gifted singer. He’s also more noted for his drug addictions. He was married to Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Connie Stevens, and had affairs with Marlene Dietrich, Ann-Margret, Kim Novak, DinahShore and Angie Dickinson. Quite a roster. Sad he didn’t respect himself, women, or marriage. Many singers have kept their careers going after their peak, and Fisher decided not to as music changed and his audience dwindled. He had a famous daughter, Carrie Fisher with Debbie Reynolds, is survived four children and six grandchildren. RIP
