Misanthrope's Corner

Japan kept silent on worst nuclear crisis scenario

2012-01-26T10:15:00.001-08:00

Japan kept silent on worst nuclear crisis scenario
By MARI YAMAGUCHI and YURI KAGEYAMA | Associated Press – Wed, Jan 25, 2012...

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government's worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

The recent emergence of the 15-page internal document may add to complaints in Japan that the government withheld too much information about the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

It also casts doubt about whether the government was sufficiently prepared to cope with what could have been an evacuation of unprecedented scale.

The report was submitted to then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his top advisers on March 25, two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, causing three reactors to melt down and generating hydrogen explosions that blew away protective structures.

Workers ultimately were able to bring the reactors under control, but at the time, it was unclear whether emergency measures would succeed. Kan commissioned the report, compiled by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, to examine what options the government had if those efforts failed.

Authorities evacuated 59,000 residents within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant, with thousands more were evacuated from other towns later. The report said there was a chance far larger evacuations could be needed.

The report looked at several ways the crisis could escalate — explosions inside the reactors, complete meltdowns, and the structural failure of cooling pools used for spent nuclear fuel.

It said that each contingency was possible at the time it was written, and could force all workers to flee the vicinity, meaning the situation at the plant would unfold on its own, unmitigated.

Using matter-of-fact language, diagrams and charts, the report said that if meltdowns spiral out of control, radiation levels could soar.

In that case, it said evacuation orders should be issued for residents within and possibly beyond a 170-kilometer (105 mile) radius of the plant and "voluntary" evacuations should be offered for everyone living within 250 kilometers (155 miles) and even beyond that range.

That's an area that would have included Tokyo and its suburbs, with a population of 35 million people, and other major cities such as Sendai, with a million people, and Fukushima city with 290,000 people.

The report further warned that contaminated areas might not be safe for "several decades."

"We cannot rule out further developments that may lead to an unpredictable situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where there has been an accident, and this report outlines a summary of that unpredictable situation," says the document, written by Shunsuke Kondo, head of the commission, which oversees nuclear policy.

After Kan received the report, he and other Japanese officials publicly insisted that there was no need to prepare for wider-scale evacuations.

Rumors of the document grew this month after media reports outlined its findings and an outside panel was created to investigate possible coverups. Kyodo News agency described the contents of the document in detail on Saturday.

The government continues to refuse to make the document public. The AP obtained it Wednesday through a government source, who insisted on anonymity because the document was still categorized as internal.

Goshi Hosono, the Cabinet minister in charge of the nuclear crisis, implicitly acknowledged the document's existence earlier this month, but said the government had felt no need to make it public.

"It was a scenario based on hypothesis, and even in the event of such a development, we were told that residents would have enough time to evacuate," Hosono said.

"We were concerned about the possibility of causing excessive and unnecessary worry if we went ahead and made it public," he said. "That's why we decided not to disclose it."

A Japanese government nuclear policy official, Masato Nakamura, said Wednesday that he stood behind Hosono's decisions on the document.

"It was all his decisions," he said. "We do not disclose all administrative documents."

Japanese authorities and regulators have been repeatedly criticized for how they have handled information amid the unfolding nuclear crisis. Officials initially denied that the reactors had melted down, and have been accused of playing down the health risks of exposure to radiation.

In another example, a radiation warning system known as SPEEDI had identified high-risk areas where thousands of people were continuing to live while the reactors were in critical condition. Officials did not use that data to order evacuations; they have since said it was not accurate enough.

The outside panel investigating the government response to the nuclear crisis has been critical, calling for more transparency in relaying information to the public.

"Risk communication during the disaster cannot be said to have been proper at all," it said in its interim report last month.

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mariyamaguchi and Yuri Kageyama at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Pray for Chris Hitchens

2010-09-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Atheist Hitchens skipping prayer day in his honor

AP By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer Jay Reeves, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 20, 5:48 am ET

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Stricken with cancer and fragile from chemotherapy, author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens sits in an armchair before an audience and waits for the only question that can come first at such a time.

"How's your health?" asks Larry Taunton, a friend who heads an Alabama-based group dedicated to defending Christianity.

"Well, I'm dying, since you asked, but so are you. I'm only doing it more rapidly," replies Hitchens, his grin faint and his voice weak and raspy. Only wisps of his dark hair remain; clothes hang on his frame.

The writer best known to believers for his 2007 book "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" has esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father. He is fighting it, but the 62-year-old Hitchens is realistic: At the very best, he says, his life will be shortened.

For some of his critics, it might be satisfying to see a man who has made a career of skewering organized religion switch sides near the end of his life and pray silently for help fighting a ravaging disease.

He has an opportunity: Monday has been informally proclaimed "Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day."

Christopher Hitchens won't be bowing his head, even on a day set aside just for him.

"I shall not be participating," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hitchens was diagnosed with cancer in June, forcing him to cancel a tour to promote his new book, "Hitch-22: A Memoir." He took time off from work as chemo treatments began but recently published the first of what is intended to be a series of essays in Vanity Fair magazine about his diagnosis.

On Sept. 7, he visited Birmingham for his first public appearance since the diagnosis, a debate against David Berlinski, author of "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions." They argued over the implications of a purely secular society before a crowd of about 1,200 in an event sponsored by Fixed Point Foundation, the Christian apologetics group headed by Taunton.

Taunton is devoutly Christian yet has developed a fast friendship with Hitchens, who appeared at a similar debate sponsored by the organization last year. Taunton is among those praying for Hitchens, and Hitchens takes no offense.

The way the English-born Hitchens sees it, the people praying for him break down into three basic groups: those who seem genuinely glad he's suffering and dying from cancer; those who want him to become a believer in their religious faith; and those who are asking God to heal him.

Hitchens has no use for that first group. "'To hell with you' is the response to the ones who pray for me to go to hell," Hitchens told AP.

He's ruling out the idea of a deathbed change of heart: "'Thanks but no thanks' is the reply to those who want me to convert and recognize a divinity or deity."

It's that third group — people who are asking God for Hitchens' healing — that causes Hitchens to choose his words even more carefully than normal. Are those prayers OK? Are they helpful?

"I say it's fine by me, I think of it as a nice gesture. And it may well make them feel better, which is a good thing in itself," says Hitchens.

But prayers for his healing don't make him feel better.

"Well, not any more than very large numbers of very kind, thoughtful letters from nonbelievers, some of whom know me, some of whom don't, asking me to know that they are on my side," Hitchens said. "That cheers me up, yes."

Hitchens doesn't know exactly how "Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day" began, other than that it's one of those things that appears on the Internet and goes viral. He declined an invitation to appear at a rabbi's prayer service in Washington that day, and he doesn't see any point in the exercise.

"I'm perfectly sure that there is nothing to be gained from it in point of my health, but perhaps I shouldn't even say that. If it would do something for my morale possibly it would do something for my health. We all know that morale is an element in recovery," he said. "But incantations, I don't think, have any effect on the material world."

The National Cancer Institute says esophageal cancer affects about 16,500 Americans each year, almost 80 percent of them men. Smoking and drinking alcohol regularly increase the risk of the disease; Hitchens does both.

The cancer that began in Hitchens' esophagus already has spread into the lymph nodes in his neck, and he fears it has reached a lung. He's visibly tired after a book signing and luncheon appearance and says he needs to rest, even though resting seems like such a waste of time when so little time may be left.

Already into his fourth round of chemotherapy, which he is receiving every three weeks, Hitchens says it's difficult to gauge his eventual legacy. He hopes to be remembered with affection by some; with passion by others; and hopefully as a good father by his three children.

As for his work, Hitchens says he would be happy to be recalled simply as one of those "who are attempting to uphold reason and science against superstition."

"I'd be proud to have my contribution at that," Hitchens said. "This is a very long, long, long story. It's humanity's oldest argument. If I played a small part in keeping it going that would be enough for me."

Mel GO BACK TO ROBYN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

2010-07-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

July 17, 2:00 PMAtlanta Pop Culture Examiner/Radell Smith

http://www.examiner.com

Mel's got friends: Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro and Jamie Foxx support Mel Gibson.

Mel Gibson isn't standing alone as his mistress and babymama attempts to paint him as a cad and domestic abuser with sliced and diced audio tapes.

The race and profane-laced Mel Gibson tapes making the airwaves courtesy of RadarOnline are doctored according to a respected forensic specialist. So that beggars the question: Why did Oksana set up Mel in this way?

Whoopi puts up her dukes for Mel, click here to read about it

Whoopi Goldberg isn't letting Oksana Grigorieva get away with her gold-digging scheme against her friend Mel, as she voiced that Mel is her friend and not a racist.

"I know Mel, and I know he's not a racist. I have had a long friendship with Mel," Whoopi said to those watching The View, per the NY Daily News.

Whoopi cites Mel's visitation to her home--and his playing with her children--as proof positive that Mel isn't the racist lunatic portrayed on Oksana's homemade tape. She further states that she ought to know who is a racist, since she is a black woman. Good point, Whoopi.

De Niro braves the masses for Mel

Robert De Niro is no whimp. He never plays one in the movies either. De Niro had heard enough in the Mel bashing so he opined that he hoped Mel was able to weather this 'unfortunate' storm in his life right now.

De Niro wisely refrained from commenting on why this storm is swirling, but once the detectives determine if Oksana faked the tapes, so to speak, De Niro might be more vocal about that.

Jamie Foxx throws a shoulder Mel's way too

Foxx isn't saying Mel is innocent in the tape scandal--no one can until law enforcement forensic specialists review the tapes for authenticity too--but he is saying anyone, including Mel, can make a mistake. Jamie Foxx feels that if Mel is guilty of the accused tape ranting and abuse than he should get help for that. Everyone would agree with that assertion.

In addition to Whoopi, De Niro and Foxx, Mel has enjoyed the support of others in this battle with his former mistress Oksana Grigorieva: his soon-to-be ex-wife Robyn, no less. The judge at the hearing on Thursday also supports Mel, maintaining Mel's visitation rights will stay intact in spite of Oksana's demand they be terminated.

Mel and his friends come under fire and attack from Oksana's rep

Oksana allegations not supported by dental evidence

Oksana Grigorieva seems to be attempting to paint a picture of the Lethal Weapon action star that is more in keeping with the character he played in that movie than the man who spent 28 years married to the same woman and who put together the Passion of the Christ film.

If the Mel Gibson tape turns out to be a doctored version, like the false proclamation that Mel punched her in the mouth twice, than Oksana Grigorieva needs the book thrown at her by the judicial system. Real domestic violence is a terrible thing. Claiming it happened in order to make a buck is terrible too and does a grave disservice to those who really experience it in life.

Dentist refutes Oksana's claims about hit to the mouth

Grigorieva's dental chart and notes, as well as his testimony to law enforcement, does not substantiate Oksana's claim that Mel hit her in the mouth twice and broke out two of her teeth.

The dentist, who claims to have known Oksana for 12 years (and said she has wanted a husband and a baby for a long time), did try to give a possible scenario of what 'might' have caused her teeth 'veneers' to crack (at some time): a hit to the temple.

But that's just a hypothesis. And that doesn't mean Mel Gibson delivered the blow to Oksana, or that it wasn't self-inflicted by the woman wanting $10 million in extortion money from Mel, per his lawyers.

Teeth not knocked out, only veneers cracked

In looking at the claim that Oksana made that Mel punched her in the mouth and broke two teeth, we already can see that she paints an inaccurate picture of the star from the beginning. No evidence exists of a punch to the mouth. Two teeth were not knocked out of her head, just the falling off and breaking of two of her veneers on her teeth.

If we review the fact that this all happened in January but she never reported it in all these months, we can conclude she had some motive for keeping quiet about it this long. She and Mel parted ways officially in April, so why the secrecy and the little 'you'll all know soon" hints she has dropped since then? She didn't come across as a victim to me then. She seemed to be plotting something.

Oksana wanted to be an actress not a singer

It looks like Mel hooked up with a wannabe actress instead of an unknown singer/mistress/manhunter. Oksana has taken a page from Mel's acting days: the babymama has set the stage for things to come.

Oksana Grigorieva stayed with Mel for three months after the alleged event. Reportedly, she only left him in April when she learned he might have cheated on her, but she swore to the press that wasn't the reason for their breakup. She promised to 'tell all' but on her time table. She said it wasn't 'the right time' back then. Remember? What was she waiting for?

Professional babymama in Hollywood?

Grigorieva is a professional Hollywood babymama according to her history. She hooked up with Timothy Dalton and produced a child in that marriage, which led to some financial support from him but not like she craved, and it didn't get the desired career moves she anticipated either. Oksana remained relatively obscure in the singer/modeling endeavors she claims to be a participant of commercially.

Next comes Mel, a 28 year happily married man who was ripe for the picking. Now, less than a year into the relationship--and after she learns Robyn will indeed get it all, even though she is a babymama again--she wants to bail. Mel doesn't make it easy and voila...tapes are purposefully made and a claim of abuse surfaces that never plaqued Mel in his 28 year married life.

One plus one equals two in my book, so I'd say Oksana Grigorieva needs to go back to math class if she wants to fool law enforcement on this one. The public may buy it, but I doubt they do.

Open Letter to Oksana Grigorieva

2010-07-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

Get a job like the rest of us and stop gold digging for the sake of your children.

Stop ruining lives.

You owe Timothy Dalton, Mel Gibson and Mrs. Mel Gibson an apology.

Open Letter to Mel Gibson

2010-07-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

Mel,

Seek Christ first. Put this away and go back to your wife.

Read Proverbs 31 and I John. Ask God for wisdom.

Then just move on.

Barrier-breaking jazz star Lena Horne dies at 92

2010-05-10T09:30:00.001-07:00

AP, May 10, 2010 10:07 am PDT

Lena Horne, the enchanting jazz singer and actress known for her plaintive signature song "Stormy Weather" and for her triumph over the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white audiences but not socialize with them, has died. She was 92.Horne died Sunday at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Gloria Chin. Chin would not release any other details.
Horne, whose striking beauty and magnetic sex appeal often overshadowed her talent and artistry, was remarkably candid about the underlying reason for her success: "I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept," she once said. "I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked."
"I knew her from the time I was born, and whenever I needed anything she was there. She was funny, sophisticated and truly one of a kind. We lost an original. Thank you Lena," Liza Minnelli said Monday. Her father, director Vincente Minnelli, brought Horne to Hollywood to star in "Cabin in the Sky."
In the 1940s, Horne was one of the first black performers hired to sing with a major white band, the first to play the Copacabana nightclub in New York City and when she signed with MGM, she was among a handful of black actors to have a contract with a major Hollywood studio.
In 1943, MGM Studios loaned her to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black movie musical "Stormy Weather." Her rendition of the title song became a major hit and her most famous tune.
On screen, on recordings and in nightclubs and concert halls, Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in such songs as "The Lady Is a Tramp" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." In 1942's "Panama Hattie," her first movie with MGM, she sang Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things," winning critical acclaim.
In her first big Broadway success, as the star of "Jamaica" in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her "one of the incomparable performers of our time." Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her "the best female singer of songs."
But Horne was perpetually frustrated with the public humiliation of racism.
"I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn't work for places that kept us out. ... It was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world," she said in Brian Lanker's book "I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America."
While at MGM, she starred in the all-black "Cabin in the Sky," in 1943, but in most of her other movies, she appeared only in musical numbers that could be cut in the racially insensitive South without affecting the story. These included the Red Skelton comedy "I Dood It," "Thousands Cheer" and "Swing Fever," all in 1943; "Broadway Rhythm" in 1944; and "Ziegfeld Follies" in 1946.
One of the most glaring exclusions, though, was the MGM remake of "Show Boat." Horne, who had appeared in the role of Julie in a "Show Boat" scene in a 1946 movie about Jerome Kern, seemed a logical choice for the 1951 movie, but the part went to a white actress, Ava Gardner, who did not sing.
"Metro's cowardice deprived the musical of one of the great singing actresses," film historian John Kobal wrote.
Early in her career, Horne cultivated an aloof style out of self-preservation, becoming "a woman the audience can't reach and therefore can't hurt," she once said.
Later, she embraced activism, breaking loose as a voice for civil rights and as an artist. In the last decades of her life, she rode a new wave of popularity as a revered icon of American popular music.
Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music," won a special Tony Award. In it, the 64-year-old singer used two renditions — one straight and the other gut-wrenching — of "Stormy Weather" to give audiences a glimpse of the spiritual odyssey of her five-decade career.
A sometimes savage critic, John Simon, wrote that she was "ageless ... tempered like steel, baked like clay, annealed like glass; life has chiseled, burnished, refined her."
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn on June 30, 1917, to a leading family in black society. Her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, wrote in her 1986 book "The Hornes: An American Family" that among their relatives was an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She was largely raised by her grandparents as her mother, Edna Horne, pursued a career in show business. Lena Horne dropped out of high school at age 16 and joined the chorus line at the Cotton Club, the fabled Harlem night spot where the entertainers were black and the clientele white. She left the club in 1935 to tour with Noble Sissle's orchestra, billed as Helena Horne, the name she continued using when she joined Charlie Barnet's white orchestra in 1940.
A movie offer from MGM came when she headlined a show at the Little Troc nightclub with the Katherine Dunham dancers in 1942.
Her success led some blacks to accuse Horne of trying to "pass" in a white world with her light complexion. Max Factor even developed an "Egyptian" makeup shade especially for the budding actress while she was at MGM. But she refused to go along with the studio's efforts to portray her as an exotic Latin American.
"I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become," Horne once said. "I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."
Horne was only 2 when her grandmother, a prominent member of the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, enrolled her in the NAACP. But she avoided activism until 1945 when she was entertaining at an Army base and saw German prisoners of war sitting up front while black American soldiers were consigned to the rear.
That pivotal moment channeled her anger into something useful.
She got involved in various social and political organizations and — along with her friendship with singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson — got her name onto blacklists during the red-hunting McCarthy era.
By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities in the civil rights movement, once throwing a lamp at a customer who made a racial slur in a Beverly Hills restaurant and, in 1963, joining 250,000 others in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Horne also spoke at a rally that year with another civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, just days before his assassination.
It was also in the mid-'60s that her autobiography, "Lena," with author-film critic Richard Schickel, came out.
The next decade brought her first to a low point, then to a fresh burst of artistry. She appeared in her last movie in 1978, playing Glinda the Good in "The Wiz," directed by her son-in-law, Sidney Lumet.
Horne had married MGM music director Lennie Hayton, a white man, in Paris in 1947 after her first overseas engagements in France and England. An earlier marriage to Louis J. Jones had ended in divorce in 1944 after producing daughter Gail and a son, Teddy.
In the 2009 biography "Stormy Weather," author James Gavin recounts that when Horne was asked by a lover why she had married a white man, she replied: "To get even with him."
Her father, her son and her husband, Hayton, all died in 1970 and 1971, and the grief-stricken singer secluded herself, refusing to perform or even see anyone but her closest friends. One of them, comedian Alan King, took months persuading her to return to the stage, with results that surprised her.
"I looked out and saw a family of brothers and sisters," she said. "It was a long time, but when it came I truly began to live."
And she discovered that time had mellowed her bitterness.
"I wouldn't trade my life for anything," she said, "because being black made me understand."

Elian 10 years later

2010-04-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

In the wake of Elian's 16th birthday, now a part of the Young Communist Union, him in full regime garb, Castro named as a father figure, his mother apparently forgotten-- along with the reason of why she died, the following from the American Thinker says it best for this pathetic young man now being shamelessly used as a propaganda throwaway:

"If Elian had been granted asylum, today he would be a teenager preparing to go to college with every opportunity for success ahead of him. Instead, on the cusp of adulthood, Elian poses for propaganda photos sandwiched between Cuban army soldiers attending the Union of Young Communists congress in Havana...The youthful Gonzalez should have been wrapped in the America flag. Instead a boy who once represented the quest for the God given right to be free, waves a Cuban flag symbolizing poverty, oppression, authoritarianism and misinformation..."

God rest the soul of Elian's mother and God grant this boy wisdom before it is too late.

Nausea

2010-03-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

"Ok, for the last time (imagine little U.S. Constitution frying under relentless flame), this is your government on socialism."

The Morning After: Waking up with a Coyote Ugly Healthcare Bill
By Thomas P. Miller, Tuesday, March 23, 2010

credited to www.american.com

Let’s look ahead to what could and should be done to reverse the damage and make real progress: A six-part strategy.

The reality is sinking in that the House finally approved the (temporarily) last version of healthcare overhaul legislation late Sunday night. It has been signed by the president, and is well on its way into law. But before the Senate takes up another round of changes in the budget reconciliation bill later this week, it’s time to revise Gerald Ford’s words upon replacing Richard Nixon as president in August 1974: “Our long national nightmare is far from over.”

As President Obama and his Capitol Hill allies assemble to take their victory laps, a different majority of likely voters and working Americans are looking for a better alternative than chewing off their own legs to escape the jaws of a dangerous fiscal trap ahead.

Admittedly, many taxpayers would rather review what remains of their Final Four basketball brackets than contemplate filling out their future tax brackets. However, last week’s Capitol Hill maneuvers probably reminded them of a different sport as ObamaCare strategists engaged in contortions, leaps (of faith), and balancing acts worthy of Olympic gymnastics. For sheer degree of difficulty as a program, they averaged a “9.” On the other hand, the execution on the floor registered much lower numbers (although the East German judges in the media gallery appeared to score it much higher!).

Rather than recycle the well-worn criticisms of fundamentally flawed legislation that threatens to undermine future healthcare choices and competition while further destabilizing both our economy and politics, let’s look ahead to what could and should be done to reverse the damage and make real progress.

A six-part strategy ahead would include:

(1) Stop the reconciliation bill coming up in the Senate this week. Several successful “Byrd rule” procedural challenges could strip key provisions out of the bill—although an initial ruling by the Senate parliamentarian late Monday night on the deal to delay the effects of a “Cadillac” tax on very high-cost insurance plans suggests the process remains wired for the majority. The Senate Republicans still hope to sink the rest of the bill by removing portions of its net budget savings and other House-favored changes. A host of Republican amendments also could stretch out this latest war of attrition and (if we want to be optimistic) result later in a House-Senate stalemate in a conference committee before the promise of a quick fix is abandoned.

(2) Challenge and slow down early stages of the final law’s implementation at various chokepoints. The health legislation remains fundamentally unworkable. Forcing it to run a multi-year gauntlet of critical comments and questions in the rulemaking process, rigorous administrative procedure requirements, and a tsunami of legal challenges to its statutory provisions should start the hemorrhaging.

(3) Mobilize the tens of millions of irate voters who were dissed and dismissed by leaders of the current (but not future) majority on Capitol Hill. The November 2010 congressional elections will provide the only place to administer the sort of pain that matters to those who pursued their own ideological and partisan agendas rather than the wishes and interests of their constituents.

(4) “Repeal” is not enough. Candidates opposing this year’s toxic brew of “health reform” in name only need to construct a more accessible, credible, and understandable short package of "this is what we have to change and do differently" instead of just yelling “repeal” in crowded town hall meetings. The rationale for overturning most of this law is to provide something better, not just a return to the unsatisfactory past. To provide a better gloss and purpose to the coming electoral fury, some starting points might include more serious funding for high-risk pools, interstate competition in health insurance that moves beyond slogans, stronger transparency measures for healthcare costs and value, honest talk about the limits of public funding resources, and transitions to defined-contribution financing of healthcare choices—without reversing minor (but popular) new benefits already put in place within the next year. The most perniciously destructive stuff does not kick in until 2014.

(5) Before the 2012 election, the only way to overcome a firm presidential veto barrier to significant changes in health policy is to hook narrowly appealing ones to must-pass legislation. The strongest candidates for such legislative brinksmanship involve future continuing resolutions for year-end appropriations, debt limit extensions, and unpopular emergency fixes. However, these tactics all face strong odds against changing permanent law and are more likely at best to score political points and reframe the 2012 national debate.

(6) Ultimately, it takes a new majority to elect a president who listens to all Americans, instead of just a selective sample who send supportive letters and personal stories. Yes, it’s hard to reverse deceptive and destructive promises cynically embedded into the modern welfare state, and the going just got tougher. But we have dug out of deeper holes before, and the hunger across the country for change that we really can believe is indeed shovel-ready.

Thomas Miller is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

FURTHER READING: Miller’s previous articles on healthcare for THE AMERICAN include “Should We Fight Today’s War on Obesity Like the Last War on Tobacco?,” “Healthcare Dreams, Healthcare Realities,” and “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” Scott Gottlieb writes, “Obamacare Is Going to the President’s Desk—What Next?” and Michael Barone explains why the “Health Plan Means Bigger Deficits and Higher Taxes.”

Dialing for Derivatives

2010-01-23T14:27:00.001-08:00

We love you Rick Moranis, God bless you in the new year and we hope you and your kids have a wonderful 2010.

From the New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Dialing for Derivatives
By RICK MORANIS
Published: January 31, 2009
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Tell Jim Webb to Put a Sock In It

2010-01-19T20:15:00.001-08:00

I LOVE the state of Massachusetts. And oYEAH quite a poop-rising-around-Nancy-Pelosi's-Ferragamo's-freak-out on Capitol Hill. And Barney Frank's sputtering more than an overflowing waffle-iron. This is the grace of God alone. Breaking the Kennedy vice-grip could be synonymous with something Fran Lebowitz wrote about the probability of "finding a rabbi in Iraq". Thank you Lord! Now Mr. Brown, don't blow it.

Credit to AP Wire via Drudgereport - Kisses, Matty

In epic upset, GOP's Brown wins Mass. Senate race

AP – Massachusetts State Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, celebrates in Boston, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, after … By GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writers Glen Johnson And Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writers – 29 mins ago
BOSTON – In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century, leaving President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office.

Addressing an exuberant victory celebration Tuesday night, Brown declared he was "ready to go to Washington without delay" as the crowd chanted, "Seat him now." Democrats indicated they would, deflating a budding controversy over whether they would try to block Brown long enough to complete congressional passage of the health care plan he has promised to oppose.

"The people of Massachusetts have spoken. We welcome Scott Brown to the Senate and will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he would notify the Senate on Wednesday that Brown had been elected.

The loss by the once-favored Democrat Martha Coakley in the Democratic stronghold was a stunning embarrassment for the White House after Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save the foundering candidate. Her defeat on Tuesday signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

Brown's victory was the third major loss for Democrats in statewide elections since Obama became president. Republicans won governors' seats in Virginia and New Jersey in November.

"I have no interest in sugarcoating what happened in Massachusetts," said Sen. Robert Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee. "There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient."

Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters. The trouble may go deeper: Democratic lawmakers could read the results as a vote against Obama's broader agenda, weakening their support for the president. And the results could scare some Democrats from seeking office this fall.

The Republican will finish Kennedy's unexpired term, facing re-election in 2012.

Brown led by 52 per cent to 47 percent with all but 3 percent of precincts counted. Turnout was exceptional for a special election in January, with light snow reported in parts of the state. More voters showed up at the polls Tuesday than in any non-presidential general election in Massachusetts since 1990.

One day shy of the first anniversary of Obama's swearing-in, the election played out amid a backdrop of animosity and resentment from voters over persistently high unemployment, Wall Street bailouts, exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

He said his frustrations, including what he considered the too-quick pace of health care legislation, led him to vote for Brown.

For weeks considered a long shot, Brown seized on voter discontent to overtake Coakley in the campaign's final stretch. His candidacy energized Republicans, including backers of the "tea party" protest movement, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.

A cornerstone of Brown's campaign was his promise to vote against the health care plan.

Though the president wasn't on the ballot, he was on many voters' minds.

Coakley called Brown conceding the race, and Obama talked to both Brown and Coakley, congratulating them on the race.

The Democrat said the president told her: "We can't win them all."

Brown will be the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 30 years.

Even before the first results were announced, administration officials were privately accusing Coakley of a poorly run campaign and playing down the notion that Obama or a toxic political landscape had much to do with the outcome.

Coakley's supporters, in turn, blamed that very environment, saying her lead dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas and after the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing that Obama himself said showed a failure of his administration.

Days before the polls closed, Democrats were fingerpointing and laying blame.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the House Democrats' campaign effort, said Coakley's loss won't deter his colleagues from continuing to blame the previous administration.

"President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident," he said. "President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy."

At Boston's Park Plaza Hotel, giddy Republicans cheered, chanted "USA" and waved the "tea party" version of the American flag.

Even before Brown won, the grass-roots network fueled by antiestablishment frustrations, sought credit for the victory, much like the liberal MoveOn.org did in the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats rose to power.

GOP chairman Michael Steele said Brown's "message of lower taxes, smaller government and fiscal responsibility clearly resonated with independent-minded voters in Massachusetts who were looking for a solution to decades of failed Democrat leadership."

Wall Street watched the election closely. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 116 points, and analysts attributed the increase to hopes the election would make it harder for Obama to make his changes to health care. That eased investor concerns that profits at companies such as insurers and drug makers would suffer.

Across Massachusetts, voters who had been bombarded with phone calls and dizzied with nonstop campaign commercials for Coakley and Brown gave a fitting turnout despite intermittent snow and rain statewide.

Galvin, who discounted sporadic reports of voter irregularities throughout the day, predicted turnout ranging from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, 40 percent to 55 percent of registered voters. The Dec. 8 primary had a scant turnout of about 20 percent.

Voters considered national issues including health care and the federal budget deficits.

Fears about spending drove Karla Bunch, 49, to vote for Brown. "It's time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money," she said. And Elizabeth Reddin, 65, voted for Brown because she said she was turned off by the Democrat's negative advertisements, saying: "The Coakley stuff was disgusting."

___

Liz Sidoti reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy, Bob Salsberg, Steve LeBlanc, Karen Testa, Kevin Vineys and Stephanie Reitz

God Bless You Abby Johnson for Leaving Planned Parenthood

2010-01-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Planned Parenthood Director Leaves, Has Change of Heart

Posted: 11:23 PM Nov 1, 2009
Reporter: Ashlea Sigman
Email Address: Sigman@kbtx.com

CREDIT TO KTBX online network and Ashlea Sigman

Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson's life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

"I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," said Jonhson.

She handed in her resignation October 6. Johnson worked as the Bryan Planned Parenthood Director for two years.

According to Johnson, the non-profit was struggling under the weight of a tough economy, and changing it's business model from one that pushed prevention, to one that focused on abortion.

"It seemed like maybe that's not what a lot of people were believing any more because that's not where the money was. The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," said Johnson.

Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian church goer recently became convicted about.

"I feel so pure in heart (since leaving). I don't have this guilt, I don't have this burden on me anymore that's how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion."

Johnson now supports the Coalition For Life, the pro-life group with a building down the street from Planned Parenthood. Coalition volunteers can regularly be seen praying on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood. Johnson has been meeting with the coalition's executive director, Shawn Carney, and has prayed with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood.

On Friday both Johnson and the Coalition For Life were issued temporary restraining orders filed by Planned Parenthood.

Rochelle Tafolla, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson issued the following statement: "We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary."

The temporary restraining order contends that Planned Parenthood would be irreparably harmed by the disclosure of certain information, but does not bar Johnson or Coalition For Life volunteers from the premises.

As of Sunday evening, neither Johnson nor Carney had seen the complaint filed against them that prompted the restraining order.

A hearing about the order has been set for November 10.

Miep Gies Passes Away at 100

2010-01-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

“First, Margot had fallen out of bed onto the stone floor. She couldn’t get up anymore. Anne died a day later.”

Janny Brilleslijper provided an eyewitness account of the deaths of Margot and Anne Frank in Bergen-Belsen.

At the end of October 1944, Anne and Margot are transported from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen. Their mother remains behind in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Edith falls ill and dies of exhaustion in January 1945. Auguste van Pels arrives at Bergen-Belsen with another transport of prisoners in November 1944. There she meets Anne and Margot again. Auguste van Pels is only at Bergen-Belsen for a short while and probably dies during a transport of prisoners to Theresienstadt. Anne and Margot succumb to typhus in March 1945, a few weeks before the camp is liberated by the British Army.

“Dearest Mother,

I hope that these lines get to you bringing you and and all the ones I love the news that I have been saved by the Russians, that I am well, am in good spirits, and being looked after well in every respect. Where Edith and the children are I do not know. We have been apart since September 5, 1944. I merely heard that they have been trans-
ported to Germany. One has to be hopeful to see them back well and healthy.”

The first letter from Otto Frank to his mother, February 23, 1945.

Otto Frank is liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Shortly before his release, the Nazis evacuate the camp. Prisoners, who can still walk, must go with them. Peter van Pels is among these prisoners. He arrives at the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria at the end of Janaury. The prisoners have to perform heavy labor. Peter van Pels dies of exhaustion on May 5, 1945.

courtesy of the Anne Frank online museum; http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=160&lid=2

We honor Miep Gies who hid and supplied for Anne Frank, her family and others hiding with them for those 24 harrowing months prior to their subsequent capture, imprisonment and murder right before the end of WWII.

Gies saved Anne's diary before abandoning her home to the Nazi machine. Miep Gies had her own website and died in a nursing home in Amsterdam at the incredible age of 100 today.

Accolades

Mrs Gies was an employee of Anne Frank's father, Otto, who kept them and six others supplied during their two years in hiding in an attic in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944.

But the family were found by the authorities, and deported. Gies and Otto Frank, next to her, were reunited after the war; Anne Frank died of typhus in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen later.

It was Mrs Gies who collected up Anne Frank's papers, and locked them away, hoping that one day she would be able to give them back to the girl.

In the event, she returned them to Otto Frank, and helped him compile them into a diary that was published in 1947.

It went on to sell tens of millions of copies in dozens of languages.

She became a kind of ambassador for the diary, travelling to talk about Anne Frank and her experiences, campaigning against Holocaust denial and refuting allegations that the diary was a forgery.

For her efforts to protect the Franks and to preserve their memory, Mrs Gies won many accolades.

"This is very unfair," she told the Associated Press.

"So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7891056.stm February 2009

Goodbye Tavern

2010-01-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

End of an era for New York's Tavern on the Green January 1, 2010 1:39 p.m. EST

Central Park

New York (CNN) -- The legendary New York restaurant Tavern on the Green closed its doors early Friday after serving its last supper and hosting a New Year's Eve party.

The iconic spot on the western edge of Central Park will undergo major renovations under a new operator and may even retain its famous name, but to many patrons, this is indisputably the end of an era.

Claudia Myers and Wayne Knowles, a semi-retired couple visiting recently from Norfolk, Virginia, were saddened by the news and decided to treat themselves to one last Tavern dinner. "I came here years ago and had good memories," Knowles said.

"It's the atmosphere and ambience," Myers added. "Everyone knows what Tavern on the Green is and where it is" -- here, Myers paused -- "except one cab driver. It's just a neat place. It has history, and it's in the park."

Ed Brown and his wife, Judy, also were in town for the holidays from Plantation, Florida, and were aware of the restaurant's plans. "It's my first and last time eating at Tavern on the Green," Brown said. "At least I can now say I ate there."

Rodney Shephard, the restaurant's maitre d' for the past 23 years, recently prepared for his last party. The event for 1,500 guests is nothing he couldn't handle, but he wasn't looking forward to the party on his last day of employment there.

"I never thought this day would come," said Shephard, 52. "Not like this. Not like the money-making machine that this place is."

The restaurant served its first meal in 1936, when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia presided over its opening as the city and the country were trying to dig out from the Great Depression.

iReporter enjoys a final meal at Tavern on the Green

The restaurant almost died in 1974, when the operator shuttered the "rustic little money-losing pub," as New York Times food writer Eric Asimov later described it.

But Warner LeRoy took over the Tavern's lease and invested $10 million in renovations. He added two rooms to the existing four and installed scores of copper and brass chandeliers, Tiffany-style stained glass, bull's-eye glass mirrors and ornate pastel-colored fixtures, as well as a 167-foot mural depicting Central Park.

After its 1976 reopening, words like "playful," "dazzling" and "eclectic" were used to describe the restaurant's ambience and the menu. "It was an over-the-top whimsical place," longtime publicist Shelley Clark said.

Warner LeRoy's father, Mervyn LeRoy, produced the film "The Wizard of Oz." A black-and-white photograph hanging in the Tavern shows Warner as a child with Judy Garland on the set of the 1939 movie.

See iReporter's photos of the famed restaurant

Jennifer Oz LeRoy, in her recently published book "Tavern on the Green -- 125 Recipes for Good Times," which was co-authored by her mother, Kay, described the vision of the restaurant that her father wanted.

"When he walked into the courtyard of the run-down building, he imagined something wholly original and incredible: He would build a room in that space that would look like the inside of a wedding cake," she recalled.

"He was a brilliant showman and a brilliant restaurateur. He was bigger than life," said the Tavern's chief operating officer, Michael Desiderio. "He thought dining is like a great show, and when the curtain goes up, everything must be perfect."

Shephard, who started as a front desk manager, fondly recalled LeRoy and the sense of family that he brought to the establishment: "It's like a second home. I consider the employees like your brothers and sisters, and now it's all going to be cut off."

The restaurant became the destination for anniversaries, birthdays and family affairs, serving more than 500,000 people a year -- an average of 1,400 dinners a night. Tourists eagerly descended upon the eatery for the crab cakes, wedge salad, salmon and Parmesan-crusted chicken.

Food critics didn't share in the enthusiasm.

Andrew Knowlton, restaurant editor for Bon Appetit magazine, said the restaurant has never been the greatest venue for foodies. "When you're serving 2,000 meals a deal, I don't care if you're [chefs] Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud, you just can't put out that much of a volume and have top-quality food."

The LeRoy family was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2009 after losing a bidding war for the lease to another proprietor, Dean Poll, who also owns the Boathouse Restaurant in Central Park. Now that the restaurant is closed, its contents will be auctioned off by Guernsey's auction house.

As part of the 20-year license to operate the restaurant, Poll is expected to invest $25 million in renovations.

While maintaining the Victorian historic features of the building, Poll's plan is to incorporate green building technology, as well as replacing the kitchen and electrical and plumbing systems. The renovations, which are expected to take four years, will be conducted in phases so the restaurant can remain open.

Attorney Barry LePatner, who represents Poll, said the new revitalized restaurant will become a popular destination for tourists and New Yorkers alike. "The new incarnation of Tavern on the Green will integrate modern respect with an iconic location and a sensibility that will warm to New Yorkers," LePatner said. "We want more New Yorkers as well as tourists."

LePatner said that while the terms of the lease are still being negotiated with the city parks department and issues with labor unions are still unresolved, Poll's vision is to create a new era. "The game plan is to have one of the biggest creative moments in the history of the city, and bring Tavern on the Green back to its original, enhanced luster."

One issue still unresolved is the name of the restaurant, which the current management estimates is valued at $19 million. The LeRoy family says it trademarked the name in 1981. U.S. District Court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum is expected to rule on the issue in January.

In the meantime, LePatner said, the city has filed a trademark for "Tavern in the Park," but he said Poll would like to retain the original name and feels it should rest with the site.

Posthumous Nobel Peace Prize Should Go to Irena Sendler

2009-10-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

In a world where Arafat, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Obama get a Nobel, it somehow seems believable that this woman was overlooked. I'm still under the impression someone was drunk while giving Mother Theresa the vote. But that is the world we live in. How many have executed exquisite, dangerous, inconceivable feats of courage and live day to day among us undetected or have died never to be rewarded here. God knows and that is my consolation for common injustice.

Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children dies
WARSAW (AFP)

CREDIT - TURKISHPRESS.com

Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation in World War II, died Monday in Warsaw aged 98, her daughter confirmed.

A social worker, Irena Sendler worked with Warsaw's poor Jewish families prior to the war.

After Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, she took grave risks to help Polish Jews trapped by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.

At the end of 1942, Sendler joined the Zegota anti-Nazi resistance movement of Poles helping Jews.

It was then that she began the extremely difficult of smuggling Jewish infants and children out of ghetto and escaping almost certain death. She managed to save a total 2,500 children.

AND MORE ON IRENA - credit to www.historywomen.com

“I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.”

--Irena Sendler

During World War II, Hitler’s Nazi regime built the Warsaw Ghetto, a 16 block area in the city of Warsaw , Poland , and proceeded to herd over 500,000 Polish Jews behind its wall to await annihilation. While many non-Jewish Poles turned their backs, such was not the case with Irena Sendler. Though her name is not recognized by most, Irena Sendler in an unsung heroine who defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children from certain death by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Born in 1910 as Irena Krzyzanowski, she grew up in Otwock, a town about 15 miles southeast of Warsaw . Irena was greatly influenced by her father, Stanislaw, who was one of the first Polish Socialists. His ideas were a great influence on her as she studied Polish literature and was part of the leftist Union of Democratic Youth. Irena’s heart for the Jewish people of her nation may have been acquired by watching her father, a medical doctor, take care his patients, many of which were of poor Jews.

As an adult, Irena worked as senior administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department that ran the canteens of the city when Germany invaded the country in 1939. Under her direction, these canteens not only provided food, financial aid, and other services for orphans, elderly, and poor but also clothing, medicine, and money for Jewish families. To avoid inspections, the Jews were registered under fictitious names and were reported as patients suffering from highly contagious diseases.

When the Warsaw Ghetto was built in 1940 to contain the nation’s Jewish population, Irena was appalled. She was so horrified by the conditions of the Ghetto that she joined the Council for Aid to Jews, Zegota , organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, and directed the efforts to rescue Jewish children. At that time nearly 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and diseases.

In order to gain access to the Warsaw Ghetto, Irena used her position in the Welfare Department to obtain a pass from the Warsaw Epidemic Control Department. She visited it daily with the aim of re-establishing contacts, bringing food, medicines, and clothes. While there, she wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews.

One of her most difficult tasks in rescuing the children was getting the Jewish parents to agree to let her smuggle their little ones out of the Ghetto. While she could not give them the guarantee that their children would survive the escape, she could guarantee that they would certainly die if they stayed. The cries of both parents and children being separated continued to haunt Irena her entire life.

In order to succeed in her efforts, Irena needed help from the outside. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department. With their help, Irena issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures and successfully smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them new identities.

Some children were taken out of the Ghetto in body bags, while some were buried inside loads of goods. Some were smuggled out in garbage cans, potato sacks, and coffins. They were also smuggled out in ambulances as victims of typhus. One baby was even smuggled out in a toolbox carried by a mechanic. A church in the Ghetto was also used as a means of escape. The church had two entrances: one that opened into the Ghetto and one that opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw . The children entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians.

While it was difficult to escape the Ghetto, it was even harder to survive as a Jew on the Aryan side. The rescue of a child required the help of at least 10 people, most of which were recruited from the local church. Children were first taken to units called Pogotowi Opiekuncze, or caring units and were later given false identities and taken to houses, orphanages, and convents.

Only Irena knew the children’s true identities and kept record of them, and their new identities, in coded form. She placed this information in glass jars and buried the jars beneath an apple tree in a neighbor’s back yard, across the street from German barracks. She hoped to one day dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.

Between 1942 and 1943, Irena successfully smuggled out over 400 children, but on October 20, 1942 she was arrested for her activities and imprisoned by the Gestapo. She was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children and she endured torture to conceal this information. Under unrelenting torment, Irena remained strong…and silent. Though the Nazis could break her body (they broke both her feet and legs) they could not break her spirit. Irena refused to betray any of her associates or the children in hiding. She spent three months in the Pawiak prison and was sentenced to death.

While she awaited execution, her Zegota associates were able to bribe one of the German guards to halt the execution. This German soldier took Irena to an “additional interrogation” and once outside he shouted in Polish “Run!”…and she did. The next day she saw her name on the list of the executed Poles.

Even though she faced death because of her work in rescuing Jewish children, Irena did not give up this cause after her narrow escape. Instead, she returned to the Warsaw Ghetto under a false identity and continued the work of rescuing Jewish children until the end of the war.

When the war ended, Irena dug up the jars and used the notes in them to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families in hopes of reuniting them with relatives scattered across Europe . However, she found that most of the children had lost their families to Nazi concentration camps.

The children only knew Irena by her code name Jolanta, but many never forgot her. Years later she received an award for her humanitarian service during the war and her pictured appeared in the newspaper. When the paper hit the newsstands, she received telephone calls from many of the children, now grown, who recognized her as the woman who took them out of the Ghetto.

Still having a heart for people, later in life Irena continued her work with Social Welfare helping others by working to create houses for elderly people, orphanages, and emergency service for children.

Irena Sendler never considered herself a hero and never claimed any credit for her work on behalf of the Jewish people during World War II. In fact, her one regret was that she wasn’t able to do more and she felt that this regret would follow her for the rest of her life.

To my knowledge, Irena is living today in Warsaw , Poland , as is 94 years old.

Netanyahu: For A Time Such As This

2009-09-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

GOD BLESS YOU MR. NETANYAHU. There is a man in the house. To all the bastards that believe the horrors never happened. Today at the UN, New York City after Ahmadinejad spoke:

"The man who called the Holocaust a lie spoke at this podium. To those who refused to come and to those who left in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere -- have you no shame? Have you no decency?"

And the following from the Washington Post:

Israeli Leader Blasts Ahmadinejad at U.N.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009; 8:24 PM

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 -- Brandishing Nazi orders for the extermination of the Jews, Israel's prime minister blasted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday for continuing to deny that the Holocaust occurred and rebuked U.N. delegates who politely listened to the Iranian leader's speech Wednesday, demanding, "Have you no shame?"

"Here's a copy of the minutes of the meeting of senior Nazi officials instructing the Nazi government exactly how to carry out the extermination of the Jewish people," Netanyahu said in a General Assembly speech that questioned the morality of engaging the Iranian leader. "Is this protocol a lie?"

Ahmadinejad accused Israel on Wednesday of manipulating the United States and European government in the pursuit of "racist ambitions." The remark prompted walkouts by the United States and other European and Latin American delegations.

But the Iranian leader also signaled during an interview earlier in the day with The Washington Post and Newsweek that he is willing to step up nuclear cooperation, including allowing Iranian nuclear experts to meet with scientists from the United States and its allies.

Netanyahu appealed to the U.N. delegates to stand up to Iran, saying that its government could not be trusted and that its nuclear program posed the greatest threat to democratic governments. "Will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons?" he said. "Well, ladies and gentleman, the jury is still out on the U.N., and recent signs are not encouraging."

Netanyahu's speech -- which echoed some of the Bush administration's harshest criticism of the United Nations -- comes as the United States and other Security Council powers are preparing for international talks with Iran over its nuclear program in October.

It also comes as the Israeli military is facing increasing U.N. pressure to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes stemming from its winter war in the Gaza strip.

Netanyahu sharply criticized Richard Goldstone -- a former South African judge who carried out a probe for the U.N. Human Rights Council -- for issuing a "biased and unjust" report accusing Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes, and he warned that the failure of governments to denounce the report could undercut U.S.-led efforts to pursue peace in the Middle East.

"Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now," he said. "Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace."

The confrontation over Iran came during a week of exhaustive diplomatic debate at the United Nations, where Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and President Obama both delivered their debut speeches before the General Assembly.

Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez, reading from his handwritten notes of Obama's speech, told the General Assembly on Thursday how moved he was by the new U.S. president's assertion that no country should dominate another, but he expressed frustration that Obama has not acted more firmly to implement that policy.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Lift the savage, murderous embargo" on Cuba, he said. "Are there two Obamas? I would like to believe the Obama I listened to yesterday."

Ch?vez had an acrimonious relationship with the Bush administration, which he has said backed plotters seeking to overthrow his government. Speaking at the United Nations three years ago, Ch?vez called then-President George W. Bush a racist, imperialist devil who smelled of sulfur.

"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore. It smells of hope," he said. "Obama, come over to the socialist side! Join the axis of evil, and we'll build an economy at the service of the people."

Ch?vez said Obama reminded him of president John F. Kennedy, whom he said he admired for his intelligence.

"I hope God will protect Obama from the bullets that killed Kennedy," he said

More Denials

2009-09-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Iran's Ahmadinejad proud of Holocaust denial
By NASSER KARIMI and LEE KEATH (Associated Press Writers)
From Associated Press

September 21, 2009 5:31 PM EDT
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president said Monday he is proud to stoke international outrage with his latest remarks denying the Holocaust as he heads for the United Nations this week - showing he is as defiant as ever while his country comes under greater pressure to curtail its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes the world stage with a speech Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly. He appears intent on showing he has not been weakened by three months of turmoil at home, where the pro-reform opposition has staged dramatic protests claiming Ahmadinejad's victory in June presidential elections was fraudulent.

Ahmadinejad has a reason to try to present his government as strong: On Oct. 1, Iran is to enter key negotiations with the United States and other powers seeking concessions on Iran's nuclear program.

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon, warning that Tehran already has enough enriched uranium to build a bomb. Iran denies the accusations, saying it only aims to generate electricity.

Heading into the talks, Iran has firmly rejected demands it give up uranium enrichment, a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or a warhead. And it doesn't want the talks to focus on the nuclear issue at all. But American and European officials warn that if no progress is made in the meetings, they will push for tougher U.N. sanctions against Iran.

In New York, Ahmadinejad is likely to come under heavy pressure over the nuclear issue. And his every step will be dogged by Iranian exiles, who plan protests over his government's postelection crackdown against the opposition. Already, exiles have been lobbying New York hotels to reject events where the Iranian president is to appear.

Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran on Monday called on the U.N. General Assembly to appoint a special envoy to investigate and document human rights violations committed during the postelection turmoil.

But Ahmadinejad appears to relish the controversy. This will be his fifth appearance at the annual General Assembly since his first election in 2005. In past years, he has used his U.N. visits to bolster his credentials as a figure of resistance to Israel and American domination - an image that he believes plays well among his conservative supporters in Iran.

He stoked the fires ahead of the visit with new comments casting doubt on the Holocaust. Asked about widespread condemnation of such remarks, Ahmadinejad said Monday: "The anger of the world's professional killers is (a source of) pride for us," according to state news agency IRNA.

During a speech Friday, he questioned whether the Holocaust was "a real event" and called it a pretext used by Jews to trick the West into backing the creation of Israel. He said the Jewish state was created out of "a lie and a mythical claim."

The United States branded the speech "hateful." Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Monday that Ahmadinejad "yet again shames the great tradition of the noble Iranian people" and has chosen "the violent repression of Iranians over a policy of friendship and cooperation that would have promoted their welfare and their honor."

Israel often touts Ahmadinejad's comments on the Holocaust - and his predictions of the Jewish state's demise - as proof of the threat from Iran if it obtains nuclear weapons.

Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, said Monday that all options remain "on the table" in dealing with Iran's nuclear program, indicating that the country has not abandoned the possibility of a military strike.

Along with his anti-Israel and anti-U.S. rhetoric, Ahmadinejad often portrays himself as the champion of a new world order ending Western domination and providing justice for developing nations.

The president's message during his U.N. visit will be "peace and friendship for all nations, fighting suppression and interaction with all nations in the framework of justice and mutual respect," said a spokesman for Ahmadinejad's office, Mohammad Jafar Mohammadzadeh, according to IRNA.

Ahmadinejad has courted controversy in previous visits. In 2007, during a speech and question-and-answer session at New York's Columbia University, he sat through a scathing criticism by the elite university's president. He was jeered at the same gathering for defending Holocaust revisionists and claiming there are no homosexuals in Iran.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst as the Washington-based RAND Corp., said Ahmadinejad is playing to an audience at home, trying to distract from the controversy over his election. "But I think that his credibility and legitimacy have been so damaged that this isn't going to help him in Iran," Nader said.

In fact, courting controversy could hurt him even with fellow conservatives in Iran, some of whom feel the president needlessly turns European countries against Iran, he said.

"It makes engagement with Iran more difficult for Western countries," Nader said. "It calls into question his seriousness in engaging the West."

In the Oct. 1 talks, Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is to meet with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, as well as U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns and representatives from Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

Ultimate say on Iran's nuclear program lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who stands at the top of the country's clerical leadership. On Sunday, Khamenei took a tough line, saying accusations Iran was seeking a bomb are "a lie and a trick against the Islamic Republic."

"The American government must change its policy," Khamenei said. "The Iranian people are watchful against this animosity and will stand up against it."

----

Lee Keath reported from Cairo.

Copy of Fedralist Papers For Auction - only $100k!

2009-06-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

What fun to find this gem among the nasty news of late. Someone give this man 100 grand!

By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press Writer Rick Callahan, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 15, 3:13 am ET
INDIANAPOLIS – A rare leather-bound book that played an influential role in America's early history could bring a windfall for a soldier training for his second tour in Iraq.

Indiana National Guard Capt. Nathan Harlan was a high school junior when he paid $7 for a 1788 first edition of volume one of "The Federalist" — a two-volume book of essays calling for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Harlan, a 35-year-old from Granger, Ind., said he always thought his find might be worth about $500, not the thousands it could fetch when it's sold online Tuesday by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas.

"I'm really hoping it goes for $100,000, but I'm not holding my breath," he said, chuckling.

The divorced father of three was 16 when he bought the 227-page book in 1990 after his mother spotted it among book stacks as they browsed at a South Bend, Ind., flea market.

Harlan's high school history class happened to be discussing "The Federalist" — also known as "The Federalist Papers" — that same week, so he knew the book was special.

The two-volume set was published months after the Constitution was drafted in September 1787 in Philadelphia. Its collected essays helped rally support for ratifying the document that provided the federal government's framework, said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at The Library of Congress.

The essays were penned by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, all of whom used the same pseudonym to focus attention on their pro-ratification arguments.

"It's one of the great political documents to come out of America," Dimunation said. "And the favorite parlor game of the late 18th century was who wrote which essay."

After displaying his find in a shadowbox for 19 years, Harlan decided in April to sell it on eBay in part to make some money but also because no one else in his family appreciated the book.

Harlan did an Internet search for "The Federalist" just before listing the book on the online auction site. He changed his mind about eBay when he saw that Heritage Auction Galleries sold a complete two-volume set last year for $262,900 — a lofty price aided by the fact that it was in its original form and had been owned by a Revolutionary War soldier.

Harlan owns just a single volume, and its leather cover has been replaced, but the auction house estimates it will sell for $8,000 to $12,000. James Gannon, Heritage's director of rare books, calls that range "very conservative" and says bidding could push the final price between $20,000 and $30,000 because the book is sought-after.

Harlan will get all the proceeds. Heritage is waiving its standard 20 percent seller's commission in recognition of his upcoming service in Iraq. He plans to save most of his auction earnings after paying a few bills.

Harlan, who is currently training at Indiana's Camp Atterbury, will likely be overseas by the time he gets his money. He will deploy this summer with the rest of the 140-soldier 38th Combat Aviation Brigade for up to a year.

Nick Aretakis, an associate with William Reese Co., an antiquarian book dealer in New Haven, Conn., said the book could be especially appealing to a collector who owns only the second volume and wants the other half.

"It's always better to have the complete set," Aretakis said. "But it's such an important book that even having just a single volume is a nice thing. And it was a good buy at $7."

___

On the Net:

Heritage Auction Galleries: http://www.HA.com/6025-30001

What the hell is going on with Netanyahu anyway?

2009-06-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

I found out earlier today that Margaret Thatcher is in failing health and her mental faculties are rapidly deteriorating. The Labor party and Euro liberals are ready to dance on her grave. Now This. Statesmen are dead and compromise is the language of politicians that cannot pursue courage on an idiosyncratic level let alone a purely academic one especially with a group of illiterate terrorists hellbent on dominating Jerusalem and obliterating Israel. Is he serious? Does anyone remember someone in the not too distant past saying 'peace in our time' and Hitler raping Eurpoe shortly thereafter? Are we actually thinking slicing up more of Israel is going to solve something? Anything? They refuse compromise. Why don't we?
WHY DON'T YOU, MR. NETANYAHU?

By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer Josef Federman, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 51 mins ago
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself under U.S. pressure but attaching conditions such as having no army that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would also have to recognize Israel as the Jewish state — essentially saying Palestinian refugees must give up the goal of returning to Israel.

With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."

The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal.

"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

The White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an "important step forward."

Netanyahu's address was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.

"I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions," he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. "Let's make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place — in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem."

Since assuming office in March, Netanyahu has been caught between American demands to begin peace talks with the Palestinians and the constraints of a hardline coalition. On Sunday, he appeared to favor Israel's all-important relationship with the U.S. at the risk of destabilizing his government.

But his call for establishing a Palestinian state was greeted with lukewarm applause among the audience at Bar-Ilan University, known as a bastion of the Israeli right-wing establishment.

As Netanyahu spoke, two small groups of protesters demonstrated at the university's entrance.

Several dozen hard-liners held up posters showing Obama wearing an Arab headdress and shouted slogans against giving up West Bank territory. Across from them, a few dozen dovish Israelis and foreign backers chanted slogans including "two states for two peoples" and "stop the occupation."

Police kept the two groups apart.

The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.

Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, has always resisted withdrawing from these lands, for both security and ideological reasons. In his speech, he repeatedly made references to Judaism's connection to the biblical Land of Israel.

"Our right to form our sovereign state here in the land of Israel stems from one simple fact. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people," he said.

But Netanyahu also said that Israel must recognize that millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, and continued control over these people is undesirable. "In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem," he said.

Netanyahu has said he fears the West Bank could follow the path of the Gaza Strip — which the Palestinians also claim for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas militants now control the area, often firing rockets into southern Israel.

"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.

"If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state," he said.

Netanyahu became the latest in a series of Israeli hard-liners to soften their positions after assuming office. Earlier this decade, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza before suffering a debilitating stroke. His successor, Ehud Olmert, spoke eloquently of the need to withdraw from the West Bank, though a corruption scandal a disastrous war in Lebanon prevented him from carrying out that vision.

Netanyahu gave no indication as to how much captured land he would be willing to relinquish. However, he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, saying, "Israel's capital will remain united."

Netanyahu also made no mention of uprooting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. He also said that existing settlements should be allowed to grow — a position opposed by the U.S.

"We have no intention to build new settlements or expropriate land for expanding existing settlements. But there is a need to allow residents to lead a normal life. Settlers are not the enemy of the nation and are not the enemy of peace — they are our brothers and sisters," he said.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians have refused to do so, fearing it would amount to giving up the rights of millions of refugees and their descendants and discriminate against Israel's own Arab minority.

Although the Palestinians have agreed to demilitarization under past peace proposals, Erekat rejected it, saying it would cement Israeli rule over them.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, another Palestinian official, called on the U.S. to challenge Netanyahu "to prevent more deterioration in the region."

"What he has said today is not enough to start a serious peace process," he added.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the speech "racist" and called on Arab nations "form stronger opposition" toward Israel. Hamas ideology does not recognize a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and the group has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.

Netanyahu also came under criticism from within his own government — a coalition of religious and nationalistic parties that oppose Palestinian independence.

Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Jewish Home Party, which represents Jewish settlers and other hard-liners, said Netanyahu's speech violated agreements struck when the government was formed. "I think the coalition needs to hold a serious discussion to see where this is headed," he told Israel Radio.

Pre-Summer Tribute to Roy Haynes

2009-05-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

I have to say the things that keep me sane are my God, my Bible, some really good friends and great music. Next to classical, nothing beats jazz well done. My father was a trumpet guy and I'm the piano end of things, so I'm not a huge fan for drumming per se aside from the great Gene Krupa however I must admit that the beauty of the strokes by Mr. Roy Haynes has been a wonder on many a track-- he isn't a diva, nor is he a deterrent to the greats around him-- he simply enhances, and it's worth a listen to anything he's done-- just graceful, professional, fun. What chops, take a look on http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Roy_Haynes.html and dig those crazy threads.
ONLINE MUSIC: Check out KCSM Jazz 91.1 and the fabulous, incomparable KRML, listen online and it's an absolute free vacation. Now that summer is coming don't forget your Jobim and Gilberto strains--- anyway, enjoy the bio below courtesy of Drummerworld.

When Roy Haynes plays his drums, sixty years of experience informs every authoritative stroke. A working musician since 1942, Haynes' unrelenting swing and sound of surprise has graced the bands of a who's-who list of jazz innovators across a wide spectrum of improvisation.

Roy Haynes was born in Boston, March 13, 1926, and was keenly interested in jazz ever since he can remember. Primarily self-taught, he began to work locally in 1942 with musicians like the Charlie Christian inflected guitarist Tom Brown, bandleader Sabby Lewis, and Kansas City blues-shout alto saxophonist Pete Brown, before getting a call in the summer of 1945 to join legendary bandleader Luis Russell (responsible for much of Louis Armstrong's musical backing from 1929 to 1933) to play for the dancers at New York's legendary Savoy Ballroom. When not travelling with Russell, the young drummer spent much time on Manhattan's 52nd Street and uptown in Minton's, the legendary incubator of bebop, soaking up the scene.

Haynes was Lester Young's drummer from 1947 to 1949, worked with Bud Powell and Miles Davis in '49, became Charlie Parker's drummer of choice from 1949 to 1953, toured the world with Sarah Vaughan from 1954 to 1959, did numerous extended gigs with Thelonious Monk in 1959-60, made eight recordings with Eric Dolphy in 1960-61, worked extensively with Stan Getz from 1961 to 1965, played and recorded with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1963 to 1965, has intermittently collaborated with Chick Corea since 1968, and with Pat Metheny during the '90s. Metheny was featured on Haynes' previous Dreyfus release Te Vou! (voted by NAIRD as Best Contemporary Jazz Record of 1996). He's been an active bandleader from the late '50s to the present, featuring artists in performance and on recordings like Phineas Newborn, Booker Ervin, Roland Kirk, George Adams, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Ralph Moore and Donald Harrison. A perpetual top three drummer in the Downbeat Readers Poll Awards, he won the Best Drummer honors in 1996, and in that year received the prestigious French Chevalier des l'Ordres Artes et des Lettres.

On Praise, he gathers a top-shelf quintet of improvisers half his age. The 72-year-old master attacks nine tunes from each conceivable angle and possible configuration; typically, his young cohorts have to exert every ounce of creative energy not to be left in the dust. Those youngbloods include two newcomers to Haynes' circle, altoist Kenny Garrett and tenorist David Sanchez. Roy's son Graham Haynes adds his distinctive sound on cornet and flugelhorn to the powerful front line. Pianist David Kikoski has been with Haynes for 15 years, while bassist Dwayne Burno is a recent initiate.

As on his previous two recordings for Dreyfus (When It's Haynes, It Roars and Te Vou!), Praise refers to Haynes' glorious legacy while adhering firmly to his credo, "Now is the time." Within the imaginative arrangements, Haynes stamps his personality on each tune, intuitively designing rhythmic phrases like a great tap dancer. "I structure pieces like riding a horse," he says. "You pull a rein here, you tighten it up here, you loosen it there. I'm still sitting in the driver's seat, so to speak. I let it loose, I let it go, I see where it's going and what it feels like. Sometimes I take it out, sometimes I'll be polite, nice and let it move and breathe -- always in the pocket and with feeling. So the music is tight but loose."

Haynes elicits remarkable performances. For example, there's a startling duo with Kenny Garrett on "My Little Suede Shoes." 49 years after Haynes played traps alongside two congueros on Charlie Parker's original recording, he dialogues with the ferocious altoist almost in free meter, implying the beat. "Israel" is a tribute to Haynes' friend, composer John Carisi, which premiered on the April 1949 Birth of the Cool session for Capitol with Kenny Clarke on drums. Here the soloists take precise, elegant solos on the challenging changes, spurred by Haynes' all-over rhythm painting. "The Touch Of Your Lips" is the latest in a series of Sarah Vaughan ballads that Haynes has recorded, featuring a compelling Graham Haynes statement on flugelhorn. David Sanchez, in fine form throughout, blows full bore on Kikoski's Coltranesque "Inner
Trust," while the versatile pianist gets two trio features -- a tasty interpretation of the traditional hymn "Morning Has Broken" and a rollicking version of McCoy Tyner's "Blues On The Corner," playing electric piano. The three horns handle Chick Corea's rhythmically tricky "Mirror, Mirror" with panache, while there's keen ensemble interplay throughout "After Sunrise," augmented by in-demand Latin percussionist Daniel Moreno. The proceedings conclude with a finely textured drum solo, "Shades of Senegal."

Haynes assesses his restless persona - "I am constantly practicing in my head. In fact, a teacher in school once sent me to the principal, because I was drumming with my hands on the desk in class. My father used to say I was just nervous. I'm always thinking rhythms, drums. When I was very young I used to practice a lot; not any special thing, but just practice playing. Now I'm like a doctor. When he's operating on you, he's practicing. When I go to my gigs, that's my practice. I may play something that I never heard before or maybe that you never heard before. It's all a challenge. I deal with sounds. I'm full of rhythm, man. I feel it. I think summer, winter, fall, spring, hot, cold, fast and slow -- colors. But I don't analyze it. I've been playing professionally over 50 years, and that's the way I do it. I always surprise myself. The worst surprise is when I can't get it to happen. But it usually comes out. I don't play for a long period, and then I'm like an animal, a lion or tiger locked in its cage, and when I get out I try to restrain myself. I don't want to overplay. I like the guys to trade, and I just keep it moving, and spread the rhythm, as Coltrane said. Keep it moving, keep it crisp."

Source: dreyfusrecords.com

open letter to Michael Phelps

2009-03-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Get your act together you spoiled rotton brat and take it seriously. You've been given the gift of financial security because you do what you love to do. You have no idea how lucky you are.

Stop being an idiot,

The management

Today's News and other items of interest

2009-03-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Police: Pastor shot dead at church, others stabbed
By JIM SUHR (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
March 08, 2009 4:46 PM EDT
MARYVILLE, Illinois - A gunman walked down the aisle of a church during a Sunday service and killed the pastor, then stabbed himself and slashed two other people as congregants wrestled him to the ground, authorities said.

The man walked into the sprawling red brick First Baptist Church shortly after 8 a.m. and briefly spoke with The Rev. Fred Winters before pulling out a .45-caliber handgun and shooting Winters once in the chest, said Illinois State Police Master Trooper Ralph Timmins.

The gun jammed before the man could fire again, Timmins said. The attacker then pulled out a knife and injured himself before churchgoers subdued him. Two parishioners involved in the struggle also suffered knife wounds, Timmins said.

Timmins said officials don't know whether Winters, a married father of two who had led the church for nearly 22 years, and the gunman knew each other. Officials did not know the suspect's name.

This is from the church website-- please keep them in prayer.

A Message About Today’s Loss
Today, a little after our 8:15 service began, a man entered First Baptist Church and fired several gunshots at our Senior Pastor, Dr Fred Winters.

Please pray for Dr. Winter’s family, our two brave members who were injured when they stopped the assailant, for the assailant himself and his family, and for our church members as they deal with this tragic loss.

In this day, where uncertainty seems to abound creating an environment in which people are vulnerable in doing things they might not do otherwise, one thing is certain, we, as human beings need a foundation upon which we can live our lives. We at First Baptist Maryville, along with other Christian believers, share this conviction: that foundation is God’s Word. In the pages of the Book we call the Bible, we find the pathway for peace, hope, and a quality of living life despite what circumstances we find ourselves in.

COMMENT:
I remember back in Connecticut when a friend and I were walking his beat around Foxwood Casino. He'd point out the cars shrouded in snow to belong to denizens who had been at the casino for more than 48 hours, just playing slots. That was in 1993. We have now upscaled to video slots which are more frightening. The computer is a beast we bear in the age we live in. We just have to accept it and work around its seduction. I come from a family that bore the burden of a few alcoholics, have attended AL-ANON myself, dealt with the multiple addictions of a family member that, if not doing harm to those around him, almost killed himself. I've dealt with the personal conviction to stay away from alcohol and gambling because of my propensities towards addiction in those areas, and by Christ alone I've avoided offense so far in these things. Needless to say, any breath of addiction aside from the basic illogic of giving ones virtue and mind over to dull stimulation by choice via a stationary object without intellect seems preposterous. But its done every hour of every day by mindful, intelligent people, even Christians who are to have the mind of Christ, are to foster a heart pliable to the Holy Spirit free from carnality and hypocritical activities, having no other Gods before them.

The Creator made our body and mind to glorify him. The passivity of any addiction is given strength by ones even minimal amount of aquiescence to the stimulii present. II Corinthians 10:5 speaks of bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. It's already difficult in this day and age to do that, thus the reason scripture tells us to be thoughtful about what we involve ourselves in.
Some things are inconsequential and take no thought like making a bank deposit or shopping for tires for the car but it's the ability of choice, the thing we give ourselves over to that in the end may have power over us, and this is what we are told to remain on the alert for: strongholds. We need to stay alert. This is why the small things are insidious, never getting involved outside of ourselves and focusing on our online family, lighting our eyes on sexy movies or literature, soft porn, most tv, buying lotto tix, going to Vegas, nightclubbing, dismissing the basics like attending church ("gather with the brethren")prayer or scripture are just things that dampen the work of the Holy Spirit to conform us to the person of Christ, damage our fellowship with God, let alone become a gateway for things that are potentially strongholds.

When we choose those things over God continuously, they become idolatry and our heart, much like seared meat, gets hardened to the things of the spirit. They look like foolishness to us because we are fostering a worldly mind by willfully feeding our flesh, which is voracious and needs to be crucified in Christ each day by the basics of our walk with the Lord and the things that encourage the activity of the Spirit: prayer and basic study of the Word, things which take no time at all. We give hours over to things that are producing wood, hay and stubble, but forfeit fifteen minutes with the Lord early in the morning. Have you ever wondered why you feel so awake at an odd time in the morning? I believe (for myself ) that God desires time with me and I am to respond sweetly, in compliance even if it just slipping out of bed for ten minutes and kneeling to thank him for getting me through the night. If we continuously cut Him off, we will reap wind in our walk and I for one do not want to face Him with the ashes of my life and wasted time that he has given me here on earth. We are given gifts of friends and love and good things but He also requires something, and it's not much. Just ourselves, and our love. Unfortunately, what you love, you give yourself over to. Thats the thing we give our most precious asset to: our time. Time is not our creation. It belongs to God and we are to steward each minute as wisely as we possibly know how.

Idolatry becomes an addiction of sorts. It just becomes a "god". There is validity regarding the physical damage caused on the mind by continual driven involvement with insidious things like working 60 hours a week to keep up an unnecessary standard of living, being in perpetual debt because of hobbies or out of control spending, continual online gaming and gambling (be it stocks or slots), aside from the obvious like sexual or food addictions, is all an appetite/covetousness issue, idolatry, needs not being met and seeking something other than what God intended to satisfy the need, be it social, physical or emotional. Addictions and idolatry are not diseases but spiritual-root problems that create fruitless lives. We all have our own sins and struggles, but in the extreme cases we cannot think that 'it can never happen to me'. We need to be soldiers in Christ. The duty is to remain a watchman for Him and to be the best example we can be, even in our sinless state and not consciously give ourselves over to spiritless things that yield wind.
We already do that unwittingly. Doing that with intent is just being a bad steward of what God gives us with our mind and body.

I know my sin and propensities. If you know yourself and can admit to some stuff, it just ceases to waste time and allows God's reign and His grace to flow with our cooperation in tow. Otherwise it is blatant disobedience and we are in sin willingly, forfeiting grace because we're feeding the flesh.

The point is that: if you know its godless or has something questionable about it, just err on the side of wisdom and cease the activity. Its simple and extremely difficult, but in Christ we can do all things and He breaks bondage. Keep it together and know you are loved. But take the walk of this life seriously, because we really don't have lots of time left and each hour is His grace and mercy in effect.
Be wise and go forward.

Article following::

Glitzy video slots seen as particular addiction risk
Critics say video slots like these at Foxwoods are especially addictive to some. (JANET KNOTT/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2003)

By Carey Goldberg
Globe Staff / March 7, 2009
Among addiction specialists, video slot machines have come to be known as the "crack cocaine" of the gambling industry.

Graphic Video slots a fast game
The mechanical wheels of spinning fruit used in the old one-armed bandits have gone the way of the typewriter. Modern-day slot machines are computerized sound-and-light shows so skillfully designed to keep players glued to their seats that some have been known to wear adult diapers to avoid bathroom breaks.

As state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill promotes the idea of licensing three slot parlors in Massachusetts, some mental health and gambling specialists warn that the newer machines deliver such potent gambling highs that they can be particularly addictive.

The video slots allow players to gamble incredibly rapidly, winning or losing a game every several seconds without a break, to the point that their brains are undergoing the equivalent of an intravenous drip of an intoxicating drug, said Bob Breen, director of the Rhode Island Hospital Gambling Treatment Program.

"When you sit in front of the slots, especially if it's 24/7, there are no cues for you to quit," he said. "There's no time to stop and think. You're getting that constant drip, and people describe it as being in the zone," he said.

The gaming industry defends the computerized slots, saying their widespread use has not led to increased addiction problems.

But in 15 years of clinical experience, Breen has found that gambling descends into pathology much more quickly among slots players than among people who bet on sports, races, cards, or lotteries.

It tends to take just a year, as opposed to up to five for other types of gambling, said Breen, who has published two studies that analyzed more than 200 addicted patients.

It is not only the speed of the games that makes so addictive the playing of new-style electronic gaming machines, which include video lottery and electronic poker games along with high-tech versions of traditional slots. The machines produce a highly intense and continous experience for players, said Natasha Schull, an MIT professor who has studied the machines, their designers, and their players.

There is no waiting for the horses to run or the wheel to stop spinning, she said. And the machines have been cramming more and more betting possibilities into each wagering moment, so that a nickel machine might actually allow 100 bets of a nickel at one push of the button.

"It's like playing 100 machines at once," she said.

Brain studies have shown that gambling causes the release of dopamine, a feel-good chemical that spurs the desire to repeat a pleasurable behavior and that is involved in drug addiction. The pleasure comes not just from winning, but from the process of playing and anticipating a possible win." Continued playing causes damage to these synapses and the psychological effects in the long run can become equally damaged, along with compromising familial and personal relationships.

Stupid mistake not far from the truth

2009-03-07T16:27:00.000-08:00

I'd say "overcharged" sums it up. Making an asinine mistake is one thing but making America look ridiculous especially when Russia isn't exactly pro-USA is NOT what we need right now. Clinton(S) GO HOME.

Clinton's Gift to Russia Goes AwryBy Jill Dougherty, CNN

posted: 4 HOURS 9 MINUTES AGO
comments: (March 7) --
The Obama administration has been talking about "pressing the reset button" with Russia after relations "crashed" when Russia invaded Georgia last August.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday before sitting down to their working dinner, she presented him a small green box with a ribbon. Inside was a red button with the Russian word "peregruzka" printed on it.

Oops. Somewhere a translator is crying. That button being pushed Friday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should say "reset." But the Russian label on the button reads "overcharged" instead. Click for more gaffes.(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker)

"I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together.'"
Clinton, laughing, added, "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" she asked Lavrov.
"You got it wrong," Lavrov said." Both diplomats laughed. "It should be "perezagruzka" (the Russian word for reset,) Lavrov said. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means 'overcharged.'"
The question came up at the news conference afterward.
"In a way, the word that's on the button turns out to be also true," Clinton said. "We are resetting, and because we are resetting, the minister and I have an overload of work."

U.S. Gift to Russia Lost in TranslationSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a 'reset button,' however the Russian-language label had the wrong word, and read 'overcharged' instead of 'reset.' (March 6)
Asked by a Russian reporter whether he had pressed the button, Lavrov said that he and Clinton did, indeed.
"It is big and red and I hope that Russia and the United States, and other countries will never press on another button which used to be associated with a destructive war," he said.
The "overload," Clinton said, is a broad agenda of issues.
"We are going to systematically go through each and every one of them," she added.
Clinton said the two sides will get to work on re-negotiating a follow-up to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and nonproliferation. On other issues like Afghanistan, the Middle East and Iran, Clinton said, "We will work through them."
On issues where there is disagreement, Clinton said, "We are keeping those on the list because, we think through closer cooperation and building trust in each other, we can even tackle some of those differences."
Lavrov agreed the burden of the agenda for the two countries is "enormous," but added: "I don't think either Hillary or I have any desire to be freed from any burden."
Clinton called the encounter "a very productive meeting of the minds." She said both Lavrov and she are "very practical-minded" and will create a "specific set of objectives and responsibilities" to present to presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev before the leaders' first face-to-face meeting in April at the G-20 meeting in London.
On the START treaty, she said Russia and the United States intend to have an agreement by the end of this year when the treaty expires and are "going to get to work immediately" on it.
Lavrov was asked about Russian intentions to install S-300 missiles in Iran. He said the decision "will be made exclusively on the basis of law in accordance with Russian law, and will be under expert control, which is one of the strictest in the world and of course in accordance with international agreements." Lavrov said the weapons Russia provides to its partners are "nondestabilizing, defensive weapons."

In an apparent reference to U.S. military supplies to Georgia, Lavrov said, "We want our partners to act the same way and show restraint in military supplies to those countries where, including very recently, those weapons have been used very close to our borders."

Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters afterward, however, said they had not read Georgia into the minister's comments.
They said the discussion ranged broadly over a number of areas and "we now have a very substantive work agenda that they just outlined."
"It would have been easier and in a first meeting almost natural to be much more general but in this case it was very focused and very productive in laying out steps," one official said.
On the proposed missile defense system the United States is considering installing in Poland and the Czech Republic, one official said, "Minister Lavrov made it clear he had listened quite attentively to Secretary Clinton's comments about missile defense ... and I think it's got them thinking."

Dare to Be a Daniel

2009-03-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

good reminders...love you j Vernon!
credit to Through The Bible Radio and Dr. J. Vernon McGee
Daniel: Choosing to Stand Alone
by Dr. J. Vernon McGee
Published and distributed by
Thru the Bible Radio Network
P.O. Box 7100
Pasadena, California 91109-7100
(800) 65-BIBLE
www.ttb.org
Scripture references are from the King James Version Bible.

We know more of the personal history and the private life of Daniel than we do of any of
the other prophets. He is introduced to us as a teenage boy, probably 15 to 17 years of age, when
he was carried away as a captive and transplanted from his home in Israel to a foreign country, a
heathen land. For over sixty years he lived in that dissolute court and pagan environment into
which he’d been taken with all of its spiritually deadening influences.
He walked with royalty, and he did so with dignity and with purpose amidst a licentious
and rakish court and society of that day. He became prime minister of two world governments,
that of Babylon and that of Media-Persia. He was lifted to the very highest position that any king
could offer any man.
Daniel was more famous and more respected in his day than the Prime Minister of
England or the Secretary of State of the United States. He was much more famous than any of
the men who have served in those offices. He won the friendship of kings, but he also had bitter
and cruel enemies who sought his life.
He was loyal and true to the pagan prince whom he served. This is one of the things that
characterized this man. He maintained an unblemished testimony. He kept himself unspotted
from the world. He walked so that no one, not even his enemies, could find any fault with him –
that is, anything they could prove. They brought many charges, but they never were able to make
anything stick against this man.
In the sixth chapter of the Book of Daniel we read:
Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel
concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault;
forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
(Daniel 6:4)
May I say that this is a marvelous testimony for a man like Daniel to have in a foreign and very
wicked court of that day. He was faithful to God. He was an old man when a testimony came
from heaven by the mouth of an angel, “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved.” What a testimony
when you have reached a ripe old age, not to have men down here praise you, but to have a
testimony come from heaven, “A man greatly beloved!” That was God’s testimony. And the
writer to the Hebrews put him in the Westminster Hall of Fame and Faith, but not by name. It
wasn’t necessary to name Daniel, because it’s well known who the writer is speaking about when
he says in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions. (Hebrews 11:33)
What a testimony for Daniel to have!
Then when we come to the end of this man’s life, we find in the very last verse of the
Book of Daniel this statement concerning him, “...Thou shalt rest” (Daniel 12:13). Having served
God and man so faithfully, now God says in effect, “You will now go to your rest.” And not only
that, He adds, “You’ll stand in your lot at the end of the days. When the time comes for the
resurrection of your people, you will be raised with them. And then you’ll receive the just reward
for the life that you have lived for God.” I cannot conceive of any man whose life stands out like
the life of Daniel.
Somebody asks the question, “What is the secret of this man’s life?” In our day when
success is the mark of greatness, it doesn’t make any difference what enterprise you are in – you

may be a gambler, you may be in the race-horse business – but if you make a success of it, the
world will give you a passing grade and say that you are all right. Today we have gone
overboard on this matter of success. May I say to you that Daniel was a success, not only by
God’s standards, but by the world’s standards.
We can turn back a few pages in our Bibles to the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a
howling failure according to the world’s standards. God called him to stand in a dark and hard
place. But this man Daniel didn’t stand in that kind of a place. Rather, he served in the glow and
publicity of a great court, and he stood yonder at the very top. May I say to you, our leading
periodicals would have sent their editors to get an article on Daniel and his success, because
that’s the way the world measures things today.
Now what was the secret of his success? What was the key to his life? If you should ask
me, I think that I would express it in one word, only one word: separation. Here is a man
separated to God. And I believe that separation is still the door to the understanding of prophecy.
One of the reasons that prophecy has fallen on evil days, and the reason it has lent itself to
fanaticism, and the reason that a great many people have turned from it is because of the lifestyle
of those who proclaim it. If there is anything in the Word of God that is made clear, it is that
prophecy, in order to be a blessing to our own hearts and lives, must lead to a separated life.
I want to give you a statement of G. H. Lang, a great expositor of the Word of God in
years gone by:
The qualification for being a prophet is the qualification for understanding
prophecy. The reader must be one with the prophet in this at least, the resolute
purpose to be holy. For the immediate end of all prophecy is practical, moral:
“Every one that hath this hope set on Christ purifieth himself, even as he is pure”
(1 John 3:3). Merely mental study of Scripture is idle, being idle, is mischievous,
“if any man intendeth to do God’s will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it
be of God” (John 7:17). Therefore, as we proceed to consider the visions and
messages of Daniel, let each ask himself, Am I a man of Daniel’s moral purpose
and resolve? If so, the Spirit of truth will open the meaning of what He showed
and said to Daniel; if not, Daniel’s book will remain to me a sealed book, even
when “the time of the end” may have come (Daniel 12:9).
May I say to you, that is the one great requirement today for the study of prophecy. And the
reason today it has dropped into so much fanaticism is because teachers and preachers of
prophecy have ignored the fact that the one prerequisite is a life that is dedicated to Almighty
God. Now that’s the thing that characterized Daniel: separation.
Now I know that the word separation is in disrepute. And it has been harmed today more
in the house of its friends than from the outside. Right now we have two extreme groups in our
midst. In one group are extreme separationists. They’re legalists, actually. They have adopted a
narrow and limited code of conduct. They have reduced the Christian life to their little
straitjacket, and if you don’t get in it, it’s going to be bad for you. They say that we’ve been
delivered from the Ten Commandments and from the Mosaic Law in order that we can get under
their law. And they haven’t settled for ten commandments – some of them have made a hundred!
And if you don’t follow them, you are not going to make it. They are our present-day Pharisees,
and they have adopted the policy of “touch not, taste not, handle not.” Many of these are unkind
and cruel in their conduct and in their judgment on others. And they happen to be the greatest
gossips you can meet in these days. As the young people say, they’ll chop you to pieces if you’re

not very careful. May I say to you, that’s legalism. It certainly does not manifest the spirit of our
Lord, and it certainly is not New Testament separation.
Then, my beloved, there is another group that goes to the opposite extreme. These folk
are anti-legalists. They follow, actually, one of the early heresies of the church called
“Antinomianism.” That is, they believe that since we’re saved by grace, we do as we please.
They like the principle of grace, but they do not like the precepts of grace. There’s no discipline
of grace, according to them, and one’s conduct does not count. You may live however you
please. Paul, in Romans 6: 12, answered them, “Shall we continue in sin...? God forbid.” Those
who have been saved and yet continue to sin are spiritual rebels today. They don’t follow any
man or anything. They do as they please.
May I say that both of these views have hurt the concept of Bible separation.
Let’s look now at the separation in Daniel’s life. I believe that in the Book of Daniel we
have true separation, certainly Bible separation. And if you can sing casually, “Dare to be a
Daniel, dare to stand alone,” then it might be well for you to understand what is implied, what it
means to dare to be a Daniel, what it means to stand alone for God in our day.
Notice now this man’s separation. Daniel was young when he was carried away as a
captive to Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar first captured Jerusalem in 606 B.C., he had no notion
of actually destroying the city. He could have, but it was not until eighteen years later that he
destroyed Jerusalem. In the meantime there had been two rebellions against him that led him to
this extreme action. At his first invasion, Nebuchadnezzar deposed the king and set his brother
upon the throne of Jerusalem. Also he took into captivity at that time the choicest young men,
those who had the highest IQs. The devil has always gone after the best. And I’m personally
jealous, wanting the Lord to have the best. I don’t see why we can’t have more Christian workers
with high IQs. What’s wrong with dedicating brains to God occasionally? May I say to you, my
beloved, we need them these days. And this man Nebuchadnezzar was wise enough to take the
choicest, those with the highest mentality, those with the best personalities, those who were the
most physically attractive; and among those were Daniel and his three companions. These four
Hebrew children were the ones who went with the others into captivity at that time.
Now these four young men had been brought up under the Mosaic system. They had
available to them a large part of the Old Testament Scripture, in fact, through the Book of
Jeremiah. They found themselves in a foreign land with strange customs, pagan ways. They were
homesick. If you want to know how they felt, the captives recorded their experience in Psalm
137:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there
they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us
required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we
sing the LORD’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. (Psalm
137:1-6)
Well, there were other captives, I’m sorry to report, who did forget Jerusalem. Many of them
never returned to their homeland.
But there was one young man who during his entire long life never forgot Jerusalem even
when it meant endangering his life. On one occasion it meant being thrown into a den of lions

because he had opened his window and prayed toward Jerusalem as was his custom. He never
forgot his God or his homeland. But as a teenager he was a homesick boy in a strange land.
Nebuchadnezzar’s plan was to brainwash these young men to prepare them for service
under his government. The idea was to take away from them everything that was in their
background, put new ideas, new philosophy into their thinking, and make them servants of this
great world government. He went so far as to change their names! We think of Daniel’s three
companions as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but those are not their real names. The names
their parents gave them are Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. We ought to remember those names
rather than the heathen and pagan names given to them. The name Daniel, meaning “God is my
judge,” was changed to Belteshazzar, named after a heathen idol, Bel. Not only did
Nebuchadnezzar actually change their names, he even changed their diet! You talk about
changing a person, my friend, he intended to change them thoroughly!
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the
portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he
requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. (Daniel
1:8)
Now Daniel made a bold request. In fact, it was one that jeopardized his very life. For he
happened to be in the court of a man who was suffering from a form of insanity, well-known
today as a dangerous type of insanity. This man without a moment’s notice could have given
instruction to put these young upstarts to death for not wanting to eat what the king provided for
them; after all, he was providing for them Babylon’s best.
Now this passage here is the standard text for “Temperance Sunday.” It’s the stock in
trade. I can remember as a boy being in Sunday school and having the teacher go over this again
and again and again. May I say to you that there is more involved here than drinking. It has to do
with eating also. “Be temperate in all things,” the Scripture says.
Now what Daniel did was this: He respectfully requested for himself and his companions
that they be put on a special diet. Daniel did not know the old saying, “When in Rome do as the
Romans do.” After all, Rome wasn’t yet in existence. But he didn’t even know it as “When in
Babylon do as the Babylonians do.” And I want to say something else for him, he didn’t give a
lecture on the evils of alcohol. He could have. Believe me, Babylon needed it. Neither did he
make himself otherwise obnoxious. He just purposed in his heart that he would not eat that diet,
that he would be true to God. That’s all. Oh, how we need today men and women who will
purpose in their hearts to be true to God! That’s all.
God was with Daniel. Will you notice this,
Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the
eunuchs. (Daniel 1:9)
That Daniel was a favorite of the one in charge was no accident. God was working in behalf of
these young men through His providential dealings.
And the prince of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I fear my lord the king, who
hath appointed your meat and your drink: for why should he see your faces
worse liking than the children which are of your sort? then shall ye make me
endanger my head to the king. (Daniel 1:10)

You can see that this official of Nebuchadnezzar’s really believed in that diet. He said in effect,
“Now Daniel, I like you, and I’d love to cooperate with you. But suppose I permit you to go on
this diet you want, and after three years the day comes when you are brought in before the king
and you and your companions are there with the rest of the trainees – all fine looking fellows,
because this is a great diet – and the four of you are little, old anemic things! You see what a
position it would put me in! It would jeopardize my life! I can’t do that.”
So Daniel makes a fair request.
Then said Daniel to Melzar whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee,
ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. (Daniel 1:11, 12)
It is a sensible, honest request. These young men are not juvenile delinquents who are rebelling
against the law of the land. I want to make that very clear. They’re not a gang from the east sides
of New York City or Los Angeles. They simply respectfully request that the diet might be tested
for ten days.
Now they asked for something that used to worry me a great deal. It was “pulse.” Has
that ever bothered you? Pulse to eat? Actually, the pulse to be eaten is some form of a cereal, it is
a grain. If I may bring it up to date, Daniel says, “I want my Wheaties!” Cereal is what he is
asking for.
Now the question arises, what was wrong with the meat in Babylon? Was it
contaminated? Was there something wrong with the meat? May I say to you, I think they
probably had the best filet mignon you could get anywhere in that day. There was nothing wrong
with the meat in Babylon. We get our key to the problem in this statement: “Daniel purposed in
his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat,” and then in his
request to the prince of the eunuchs “that he might not defile himself.” That’s the key. This has
to do with religious and ceremonial defilement. Remember that this young man had been brought
up under the Mosaic system. He had been brought up to read the Word of God and to understand
Scriptures like Psalm 119:9, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed
thereto according to thy word.” In effect, Daniel said, “I’m following the Word of God at any
cost. This is not academic or forensic with me. This just happens to be reality with me, and I
intend to follow the Word of God.”
What was wrong with the meat, then? Well, several things. The first is that God had
given to His people a line of demarcation between that which was clean and that which was
unclean. Why? That men and women might know from the days of the Old Testament down to
the present hour, and especially in this day of latitude and Arianism, that there is such a thing as
black and white; such a thing as right and wrong; that there is such a thing as believing
something, standing for something, and paying a price for your stand.
Now God had said to His people:
For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye
shall be holy [set apart]; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with
any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. For I am the LORD
that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore
be holy, for I am holy. This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every
living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth
upon the earth: to make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and

between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.
(Leviticus 11:44-47)
God said that there were certain meats that could be eaten and certain meats that could not be
eaten. That was the Old Testament legalistic system. It had to do with religious ritual, for God
had given it. That was true of that day, and He intended it to be followed to the very letter.
So Daniel said, “I can’t eat the meat of Babylon. God forbids me to eat it.” Oh, I have a
notion that one day they would bring him stew. Gracious, all kinds of meat could be in the stew.
I heard of a fellow who said, “I never eat stew away from home because I don’t know what’s in
it, and,” he continued, “I never eat it at home because I do know what’s in it!” Daniel said, “I’ll
eat no meat. I don’t eat this which is forbidden by God.”
Now another issue is involved here. It was a live issue in Paul’s day, and may be today in
some quarters: All meats available to these people had been first offered to idols. That was a
curse of idolatry. Every bit of the meat was offered to idols, and Daniel would not have any part
in that which had to do with idolatry. So he refused.
Daniel also said that he could not drink the wine. Many of us believe that all four of these
Hebrew young men were Nazarites. Back in the Book of Numbers, chapter 6, you’ll find
instructions for the Nazarite, a person separated wholly unto the Lord. One of the three things
that he was not to do was drink wine or even get near it. I think Daniel and his three companions
were Nazarites. They were separated unto God in this particular connection, and they did not
believe that they should defile themselves. They were being obedient unto God.
In Daniel’s day they had the Book of Isaiah, and they knew his admonition:
Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out
of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD. (Isaiah 52:11)
They wanted to be clean in God’s sight.
Now somebody is going to ask, “Are you suggesting that today separation is a matter of
diet?” And the answer is no. Somebody else asks, “Are we not delivered from this very thing in
this age of grace?” The answer is yes, because Paul very clearly makes the statement that meat
today has nothing in the world to do with our separation to God:
Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience
sake: for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. If any of them that
believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before
you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. (1 Corinthians 10:25-27)
Eat anything today that you want to eat. They package and sell rattlesnake meat in San Antonio,
Texas! If you want to eat it, you can eat it, but don’t invite me for dinner the day you serve it! It
is a matter of taste these days. It has nothing to do with our separation to God. And Paul again
enforced this:
But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, f we eat, are we the better;
neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. (1 Corinthians 8:8)
Meat has nothing to do with our relationship with God in this age of grace in which we live.

Then what is true Bible separation in this age of grace? The tendency is to draw a line
down on questionable things and be dogmatic about debatable things. I have a letter here that is
quite revealing. It came to me several years ago from someone who started with us when we first
began our midweek service at the church I pastored in Los Angeles:
I’ve returned to California after a year of full-time Christian service in Ohio and
an extended trip east. But I’ve come back almost spiritually shipwrecked. Have
been a Christian for three and one-half years, and until recently was able to give a
glowing testimony about being saved out of Unity. But lately I’ve been so dead
that Christ seems way up there and I’m way down here. I have all the negative
virtues of a Christian. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t play cards, I don’t
attend movies, I don’t use makeup. But those things do not make a happy
Christian. My friends tell me I’m becoming bitter, and oh, I don’t want that to
happen. Before becoming a Christian I was very ambitious, worked hard for
whatever I believed in, and incidentally, was listed in Who’s Who, but now I
wonder, what’s the use?
May I say to you, that was a sad state for this fine woman. Thank God, she came out of it, and
she is still a separated Christian. But I think she found out what true separation is.
Will you note this very carefully. In the early ages of the church, monasteries were built,
and the motive for them was good at first. Men were protesting against the licentiousness of the
Roman Empire and the awful sin of that day. They said, “We want to withdraw from this!” They
thought that by withdrawing they would solve their problems. But before long, it was worse on
the inside of the monastery than it was on the outside. Do you know why? Because they weren’t
truly separated.
Let me paraphrase what Christ said to the Pharisees, “The trouble with you Pharisees is
that you make the outside of the cup clean, but the inside of it is filled with corruption!” A great
many people think today, Well, if I just refrain from doing enough questionable things I’m a
separated Christian, although their hearts may be far from God. My beloved, separation is not
whitewashing the outside of a tomb. There must be life on the inside first of all.
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy
he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
(Titus 3:5)
Separation means that God has done a work first of all on the inside. We must be born from
above. We must receive new life from God. We can’t rub it on the outside.
Listen to this: “Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.” He didn’t
try to isolate himself. In substance he said, “In my heart I’ll be loyal to God, and that will
regulate my conduct on the outside.”
Daniel’s separation back in the Old Testament is the same that Paul speaks of in the New
Testament:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God [God has been merciful
to you, and He has saved you! I beg of you, because He has been merciful to
you…], that ye present [This same word is translated “yield” in Romans 6:13.
That’s active. It is an act of the will.] your bodies [Present or yield your total

personalities, meaning all you have, my friend, all you are. If God doesn’t have
you, He doesn’t have anything. He doesn’t even want your pocketbook. He wants
you. I beseech you, I beg of you, that ye yield your total personalities…] a living
sacrifice [Maybe when the occasion calls for it we could work up our courage and
go out here to the Colosseum and die for Christ by being thrown to the lions. But
it’s this old humdrum living on Monday…Tuesday…Wednesday…Thursday…
that’s the hard thing.], holy [dedicated to God], acceptable unto God [God is
encouraging us. He says in effect, “I want you to do this. You are the lost sinner,
corrupt, ungodly, whom I have saved. And now it is acceptable for you to come
and offer yourself to Me if you so purpose in your heart.”], which is your
reasonable [rational, intelligent, spiritual] service. And be not conformed to this
world [this age]: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans
12:1, 2)
Instead of being conformed, Daniel said, “I can’t eat of this. I’ve purposed in my heart that I will
not be conformed to the court of Nebuchadnezzar. I want to be yielded to God.” Daniel’s
experience is ours. We are captives in this world in our bodies. And we cannot serve both God
and mammon today, my friend.
There are two areas of Christian conduct. In one area the Bible is very clear, as we see in
Romans 12 and 13. The duty of the Christian to the state is submission. He is to obey the laws of
the land, he is to pay his taxes, and he is to show respect to those in authority. Also chapter 13 is
specific on a believer’s relationship to his neighbor: He is to pay his bills; he is not to commit
adultery, kill, steal, bear false witness, nor covet what another has. In fact, he is to love his
neighbor as himself. The believer is to be honest, and he is to avoid reveling, drunkenness, strife,
and jealousy. The Bible is very clear on these things.
However, there is another area of Christian conduct on which the Bible has no clear
word. It is not set out for us in black and white. For this grey area God has not laid down rules
for us; instead He has given us three great guidelines. Although I am not going into detail with
each one, I want to pass them on to you because they are so important.
Conviction
For example, He has said: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Romans 14:5). In
matters like this God has given us no rules, but He has given us principles, and the great
principle here is of conviction. Whatever a Christian does today he should first purpose in his
heart. And that’s the answer to all things that are questionable. If there’s any question in your
mind about it, then it is wrong for you to do. Be fully persuaded in your own mind and carry out
your conviction with enthusiasm.
Conscience
Then notice that the second principle concerning questionable conduct deals with doing
something for God: “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth”
(Romans 14:22). There must be conscience. Anything that a Christian looks back upon and has
to say, “I wonder if I should have done that?” was wrong for him. It may not be wrong for the
next man, so don’t criticize the next man. But, my brother, it was wrong for you.

Consideration
Then the third principle: “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to
edification” (Romans 15:1, 2). That is consideration. You know, friend, there may be something
you can do that’s all right. Let’s not argue about what is right and what is wrong. The Bible is
clear on those points. But that’s not the basis we are looking at here. Instead, the question is, are
you driving somebody away from Christ by what you are doing? If so, it is wrong.
I have a friend who quit going to professional baseball. Oh, I hope you don’t
misunderstand me, I’m not saying baseball is wrong, I’m just saying that he found out that there
were a bunch of little boys following him, and he said, “In that stadium crowd I don’t think I can
win them for the Lord.” Now that may not be for you. That was for him. You see, consideration
of others is a principle, not a rule.
You see, my friend, when you believe and receive Jesus Christ, you come to the Lover of
your soul. You are wedded to Him, and you love Him, and you are now trying to please Him.
Can you imagine a fellow getting married and after the honeymoon is over he brings to his wife
ten commandments that she is to follow? He’d better not, because the honeymoon would really
be over! But suppose he comes into the kitchen and hangs on the wall the commandments: “You
shall not date any other fellows any more. You shall cook my meals, etc.” What if he did a thing
like that? To begin with, it would probably break her heart. I think she’d say, “I’m not going to
date anybody else. I married you. I’m going to cook your meals, not because I have to but
because I want to. I love you.”
My friend, today, Christian conduct is not how far you can go before you are wrong, it is
what you can do to please your Savior. That’s Christian conduct. And to be separated to Him
means to feel as Daniel felt when he “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself”
(Daniel 1:8).

Message from Dr. J. Vernon McGee

2009-02-26T23:16:00.000-08:00

Ai and I
by Dr. J. Vernon McGee
Published and distributed by
Thru the Bible Radio Network
P.O. Box 7100
Pasadena, California 91109-7100
(800) 65-BIBLE
www.ttb.org
Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture references are from the New Scofield Reference Bible.

The worst enemy you have is not your neighbor nor your bill collector, he is not your severest critic nor your most aggressive competitor. We can identify him without calling in the FBI to determine who he is. In fact, I trust we can apprehend and condemn him very shortly, thus giving you a victory over him. Your worst enemy is sitting in the seat with you at this moment.
The enemy is yourself, as you have probably suspected. He occupies the same skin that you occupy. He uses the same brain you use in thinking his destructive thoughts. He uses the same hands that you use to perform his own deeds, and may I say to you that this enemy – your flesh – can do you more harm than anyone else; he is the greatest handicap you have in your daily Christian life.
Now there are two factors that make dealing with this enemy extremely difficult:
In the first place, we are reluctant to recognize and identify him. We are loathe to label him as an enemy. The fact of the matter is most of us rather like him.
The second problem, or objection, is that he is on the inside of us. If he would only come out and fight like a man it would be different, but he will not. It is not because he is a coward but because he can fight better from his position within. Actually, the better choice of subject for this study might have been “The Enemy Within.”
Nations, cities, churches, and individuals have been destroyed by the enemy within.
Russia fell to the Communists in 1917, not because of the German pressure on the outside but because of the doctrine fomented on the inside.
There comes out of ancient history an authentic narrative, long held in the category of mythology, that the city of Troy held off the Greeks for ten long, weary years. Finally the Greeks sailed away leaving a wooden horse. The Trojans took that wooden horse within their gates, and that was the undoing and destruction of Troy.
As we change our view from scenes of ancient battlegrounds to the fields of spiritual warfare, we immediately find much evidence that churches are wrecked from within, not from forces without.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in writing to the seven churches in Asia Minor, gave them certain warnings, and not one of these churches received warning as to the enemy on the outside. He said:
…Thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam…So hast thou also
some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner.…But I have this
against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a
prophetess; and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed to idols. (Revelation 2:14, 15, 20 AMERICAN
STANDARD VERSION)
Christ said to these churches in substance, “You have something within that is bringing about your own destruction.”
Disloyalty and unfaithfulness in the church today is hurting God.s cause more than any enemy that is on the outside. The devil can hurt our churches only from the inside, not from the outside. Then, my friend, an individual can be destroyed from the inside. Alexander the Great was probably the greatest military genius that has moved armies across the pages of history. There has been no one like him. Before the age of thirty-two he had conquered the world, but he died a drunkard. He had conquered the world, but he could not conquer Alexander the Great. There was
an enemy within that destroyed him.

The only battle that the children of Israel lost in taking the Promised Land was a battle in which the defeat came, not from without but from within.
The fact of the matter is that when the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, only three conspicuous and outstanding enemies stood in their way. Those three enemies foreshadowed the three enemies that Christianity has today.
Consider Israel and Her Enemies Jericho, Ai, and the Gibeonites, these three enemies prevented Israel.s enjoyment and possession of the Promised Land. The land was theirs. God had told them that it was theirs. God had given them the title deed when He said to Abraham: And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:8) And to Joshua God said: Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses. (Joshua 1:3 AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION) God was trying to say to them here, “It is yours, go in, possess, and enjoy that which you take.”
What a lesson this is for us today. These people were given a land that was made up of three hundred thousand square miles, and even in their best days they occupied only thirty thousand square miles. Consider the Christian and His Enemies
We have been told in Ephesians 1:3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. You and I today have been given all spiritual blessings. They are ours. But how many of them are you enjoying today? How many of them are really yours? You have the title to them, but have you claimed them and are you enjoying them as He intended? When in Chicago several years ago, I found the following news item which I clipped from a metropolitan paper. The headlines read:
SKID ROW HUNT Comb flop houses for a 4 millionaire
It continued, “The flophouses and saloons of Chicago.s skid row were searched today for one, Stanley William McKenna Walker, 50, an Oxford graduate, an heir to half of an eight million dollar English Estate. The Missing Persons Detail hopes that somewhere among the down-and-outers who line the curbs and sleep off wine binges in the hotels, they would find Walker, son of a wealthy British shipbuilder.”

Think of a man wearing clothes steeped in filth from sleeping in the gutters of Chicago, a wino, lining up at some mission to get a bowl of something to drink or eat, and he has four million dollars! How tragic!
Then think of the many Christians who are just like that. They are blessed with all
spiritual blessings and yet are living as if they were spiritual winos.
None of these spiritual blessings are immediately in our possession to enjoy. God has made them over to us, but if we are to get them, there are battles to be fought and victories to be won. In fact, the Epistle to the Ephesians closes with the clanking of armor and the sound of battle with the call to put on the whole armor of God. It will be worth our while to stop and look at the methods of Joshua in battle. His taking of the Promised Land places him among the great generals of history. He will stand along with Alexander the Great, with Hannibal, with Caesar, with Napoleon, and with General Stonewall Jackson in their greatness.
Joshua.s abilities in strategy and tactics in moving into the Promised Land were
tremendous. For example, he had a threefold blockage to break. He had three formidable enemies. Immediately ahead of him stood the city of Jericho. It was right in the center of the land and was all but impregnable as a fortress. Then to the northeast stood the little city of Ai. To the south was a combine, an alliance of Gibeonites. It was necessary to take these three in breaking
the blockade. His strategy was first to take Jericho, thus breaking the
backbone of the land. He could then move to the north, then to the south, and dispose of each section separately.
The three enemies of Joshua represent the enemies of the Christian today.
1– Jericho represents the world. 2 – Ai represents the flesh.
3 – The Gibeonites represent the devil. Thus you and I have a threefold enemy robbing us of our possessions: the world, the flesh and the devil.
In this study we shall concentrate on one of these enemies, Ai. Ai represents the flesh. The city of Ai was located up among the hills, thirteen miles north and west of Jericho, which was down on a plain. From the plains of Jericho up to the promontory of Ai one had to ascend 3200 feet and it was over rugged and difficult terrain. Dr. John Garstang, the great biblical historian, wrote:
Its position was a strong one befitting its importance as an advanced post of the
dwellers upon the plateau. Perched on the summit of a low hill, overlooking the
wilderness of tangled valleys that descend towards the Jordan, it commanded a
view on all sides but the west where rises a ridge that obscured the view of
Bethel. Steep watercourses enclose the site on all sides but the south…On its
northern side the valley is deep, and from the opposite slopes the city must have
presented a bold and well-nigh impregnable appearance, crowning a detached hill
which rises in a series of rocky terraces…
Now Joshua underestimated the strength of Ai. When he made his first attack with just a small force, he met with a crushing defeat and had to flee; some of the soldiers were killed in battle. To flee in defeat was a great disgrace for God.s soldiers. However, he made a second attempt and was successful in taking Ai.
When you read in the Book of Joshua about this ancient battle over a little city years ago, it probably means nothing to you today. But God has put great spiritual truths here for us, and the Holy Spirit can make this real and living to you as you read it. Let me set down here that Ai and I have something in common. We have something that is quite similar. There are three “musts” that are revealed in this incident, and they must be in your experience and mine if we are going to lay hold of the spiritual blessings and gain a victory over the flesh.
1 – There must be a recognition of the enemy and his potential.
2 – There must be an examination of the reasons for defeat by the enemy.
3 – We must look carefully at the resources provided by God with which to
overcome the enemy. First of all, we must have a recognition of the potential of the enemy. And here we want to look at Joshua 7:2, 3:
And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east
side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And
the men went up and viewed Ai. And they returned to Joshua, and said unto
him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up
and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but
few. My, what a false estimation! You see, these people were basking in the warm sunlight of the first flush of victory. They were dreaming because they had overcome Jericho. But they forgot something that was very important. They forgot that they did not fight at Jericho. They forgot that the victory was not theirs – the victory was God.s. They got possession, but God got the victory. They had forgotten that.
Let us notice what happened at Ai:
So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled
before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six
men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote
them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became
as water. (Joshua 7:4, 5)
Now the General Staff of Joshua was guilty of military stupidity. The top brass of the Pentagon back in Jericho had blundered. It was an awful mistake, but it will be best for you and me not to point the finger of criticism back yonder at Joshua. Our enemy defeats us in the same ways today because we fail to recognize or acknowledge him and do not give him credit for the potential he has.

Who is This Enemy?
It is the flesh – the fellow who lives in our body. The flesh is called sarx in the New Testament – that is the Greek word for it. The word “flesh” is used approximately 393 times in the Scriptures and is used always in one or two connections.
It is sometimes used to speak of that which is physical. To be very frank, when it speaks of flesh it often means nothing more than the meat on the bones. That is all. And when it is used in that sense, it always carries a note of weakness. For instance, Isaiah said, “All flesh is as grass.” Grass is weak, and the use of the word refers to the meat on the bones. Then the psalmist says this: “He [God] remembered that they were but flesh.” They were just weak human beings,
and he is speaking of the flesh. It is of interest to note that our word “sarcoma” which is an awful thing in the flesh, has its root in this Greek word sarx. We also get our word “sarcasm” from this same word. Originally sarcasm meant “to tear the flesh.” Therefore sarx in one sense means physical flesh. However, most of the time, especially in the New Testament, sarx is used in a moral and ethical sense. It is used in speaking of this old Adamic nature which we have. This nature which
is sometimes called the “carnal man” or the “old man” is labeled correctly when it is called “the flesh.”
You have that “old nature” – I have it, all of us have it. There is not a person who does not have this nature which is known as “the flesh.” It is the old Adamic nature. Are you prepared to look at it now and to identify it, to recognize it, to call it by name as we spotlight it? Not many Christians are willing to do this.
Let me say here that the “flesh” is evil by nature.
And at this point we want to turn again to the Scriptures. In Romans 7 Paul says,
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is
present with me, but to do that which is good is not.…I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law
of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:18, 25 AMERICAN
STANDARD VERSION)
Has this been your experience – is this flesh of yours inclined to sin? Some wag has said,
“Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening.” Do you know why his statement is true? It is because this old nature is just that kind of nature – it is evil. And we all have it. Goethe, the great philosopher, said: “I have never read of any crime committed but that I, too, might have committed it.”
Samuel Johnson, the brilliant literary light in England during the eighteenth century, made the statement: “Every man knows that of himself which he dares not tell his dearest friend.”
You and I have an old nature. Are you willing to label and recognize it? Do you know
that you have it today and that it is contrary to God?
The old nature is in rebellion against God. Take, for instance, your own case. Perhaps you go to church only on special days – Easter, Mother.s Day, Christmas – for you do not like to go to church every Sunday. That is the old nature in rebellion against God. Let us look at this old nature through the words of Scripture, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)
God has no notion of salvaging the old nature. He has no program by which it can be remodeled for use by Him. He has no program for it at all! It is condemned, my friend, as we shall see in a moment. Christ condemned it on the cross.
Since God will not use the old nature, it is necessary to have a new nature that comes from God. Turn once again to the Epistle to the Romans:
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. (Romans 8:7, 8)
In your old nature you can never please God. Paul said to the Corinthians, “That no flesh should glory before God” (1 Corinthians 1:29, AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION). God does not even like it when the flesh lifts up itself and boasts in itself. God says that no flesh is to glory in His presence at all. It is an atrocious thing.
Do you want to know what the flesh does? Well, the works of the flesh are enumerated in Galatians 5:19-21, and the words are the ugliest to be found anywhere. If you have not looked at your morning paper, you might pick it up and there you will see what the flesh does. The accounts written up in the paper will include the following list from Galatians: “…adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings…” Could there be uglier words? Yet that is what the flesh is capable of doing, and that is what the flesh does today.
Remember, you and I were born with it. David said, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” Our Lord said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It will always be flesh. Unless a little child is reared in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, he will turn his back on God. Count de Maistre of France, a wonderful child of God and known in that country as one
of its greatest Christians, left us this statement: “I do not know what the heart of a villain might be, I only know the heart of a virtuous man, and that is frightful.”
What about you at this moment? Are you willing to admit that you have that kind of
nature? Are you willing to admit that your old nature has the potential to absolutely wreck your Christian life and destroy you? Until you are willing to admit this, you cannot go out to battle, for you will meet with defeat as did Joshua at Ai. There are two basic reasons for defeat at the hands of the enemy, and it is well to have these in mind. We return to the record in Joshua:
And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark
of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon
their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all
brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to
destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of
Jordan! (Joshua 7:6, 7)
They encountered a shameful, ignoble and humiliating defeat – so much so that it crushed Joshua and he cried out in agony of his soul that he wished they had never crossed over Jordan. Why were they defeated? Well, here are the reasons, and what a lesson lays in them for us today! They failed first of all because they were depending upon their own ability and forces. Actually, they were no match for the men of Ai. Ai was much smarter and Ai was much stronger. Certainly the children of Israel could never have overcome Ai in their own strength –
never!
Today the flesh can dominate and destroy you – you cannot get the victory over it on
your own. How sad it is to hear a man who has been overcome by alcohol say, “Now I am going
to get a grip on myself; I will quit drinking, and I will be all right from now on.” How have you
made out when you.ve tried to overcome the flesh in your own strength? You know you did not
win.
What do we learn as we read the eighth chapter of Joshua? At Jericho we learned about
depending on God.s strength. As Paul said,
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Philippians 4:13)
At Ai we learn about our weakness, for the Lord said, “… without me ye can do nothing” (John
15:5). If there was any man who could have lived with the flesh by overcoming himself, it was
the apostle Paul. As a Pharisee he had a discipline back of him that would put us modern-day
Christians to shame. What a discipline he had! Paul tried to live the Christian life, but he finally
reached the place where he said,
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
(Romans 7:24)
It is a losing struggle, my friend, if we depend upon our own strength.
The second reason the Israelites were defeated at Ai was due to a defection in their own
camp – you must note this. Joshua went before the Lord and stayed there all day. He wept
bitterly and sobbed and put on sackcloth and ashes. Finally, after bearing with this, the Lord
grew weary of it –
And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy
face? Israel hath sinned… . (Joshua 7:10, 11)
The Lord as much as said, “Cut out this whining and fretting before Me.”
Perhaps you have wearied the Lord in some way. There are many times when prayer is of
no avail. You are just wasting your time. How many times have you and I gone to the Lord and
said, “O Lord, why have You let this thing happen to me?” And we have remained before Him
blubbering like a baby, yet knowing all the time that there was something in our lives with which
we were refusing to deal. Here we find that God is saying to us through His words to Joshua,
“Get up off your knees and get up on your feet. I do not want to hear you until you deal with that
thing in your life.”
Then God said further,
…There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand
before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.
(Joshua 7:13)

Today, the reason many of us have lost the joy and power in our lives is that we do not
deal with the sin there. God is through with you until you do this. Do not misunderstand – you do
not lose your salvation. These were still the children of Israel, but they never won another battle
until they dealt with the accursed thing. They had to deal with it.
God told them they had to ferret out this thing. One man had sinned, but it made all Israel
guilty. God instructed them to find this man who had sinned. They were going to have to cast
lots to do it. They had to go through quite a procedure, by the way. Doubtless they had to use the
Urim and Thummim to determine who it was.
Years ago there was a young skeptic in Scotland. He visited a little town where there was
a shoemaker who had a reputation for knowing the Word of God. The young skeptic said, “I
should like to ask this man some questions.” When he was introduced to him, his first question
was, “What was the Urim and Thummim?” The shoemaker replied, “Well, to tell the truth, I do
not exactly know. But this I know, that it was attached to the breastplate of the High Priest. And I
know that it means the lights and perfections and was used to determine the will of God. Just
how, it is not given to us, for it is not for us today. But I have brought it up to date, and I have
changed one letter in order to do this. I have changed the little letter „r. to „s.. Instead of Urim
and Thummim, to me it is „use-.im and thumb-.im. That is the way I find God.s will.”
He was right, friend. We don.t need the Urim and Thummim. Nor do we need a fortune-
teller or horoscope. The way we will find direction for our lives is to thumb through and use His
Word. That is our one source.
So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and
the tribe of Judah was taken: and he brought the family of Judah; and he took
the family of the Zarhites: and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by
man; and Zabdi was taken: and he brought his household man by man; and
Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of
Judah, was taken. (Joshua 7:16-18)
When they brought the families, and the family of Zabdi was taken, then they narrowed it
down to households, and the household of Achan was taken. When Achan was ferreted out, he
acknowledged his sin.
Today many Christians are marching around Jericho, blowing trumpets and talking about
how “separated” they are. At the same time they are suffering a glaring defeat at Ai because the
flesh is overcoming them.
Let me be specific. Someone says to me, “I am a separated Christian.” My friend, I am
glad to hear that. Every Christian ought to be separated and I am glad that you are. But what do
you mean by that?
He replies, “Well, in my business I have to go to many parties where they serve cocktails,
and I want to say to you that I always turn my glass down. I have never tasted a cocktail.”
I am glad for that testimony today, for liquor will eventually destroy America. But I want
to ask you a question – are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Paul says, “And be not drunk with
wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Do you have the Holy
Spirit fulfilling in your life all of the wonderful things that God wants done? Are the fruits of the
Spirit there? No? Then you are defeated at Ai.
Again, someone says, “I am a separated Christian – I want you to know that I would not
be caught dead in a movie.”

Again may I say that I thank you. Many of them are pretty immoral. So I want to
congratulate you upon your stand. But just a moment. You may not go to see movies, but what
are the “movies” of the flesh? Some of the movies of the flesh are strife and division. Are you
sowing strife and division among the brethren? Then you are overcome by the flesh. You may
have a victory yonder at Jericho, but Ai has defeated you. The “flesh” has defeated you.
Sometimes folk come to me and say that they, too, are “separated Christians.” We thank
them for this word on their part and ask what it is that they do not do. “Well, Pastor, I want you
to know that I do not smoke cigarettes.”
Certainly, I want to congratulate you – incidentally, you may avoid cancer of the throat or
lungs by this stand. But I have a question which I must ask you: Which is worse, to have fire on
the end of a cigarette or the fire of jealousy and envy on the end of your tongue? I want to say to
you that you can keep on blowing trumpets around Jericho, but you are still in line for defeat at
Ai.
Joshua now asks Achan for a confession,
And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God
of Israel, and make confession unto him…. And Achan answered Joshua, and
said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus
have I done: when I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and
two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I
coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst
of my tent, and the silver under it. (Joshua 7:19-21)
Covetousness is one of the sins of the flesh, for one of the works of the flesh is idolatry, and how
many are overwhelmed by that today! Anselm said, “I have had men confess to me every known
sin except the sin of covetousness.” Israel dealt severely with the sin of Achan. They stoned him
and destroyed all that he had – including that Babylonish garment, the silver and the gold – with
fire. You and I must deal with the sins of the flesh.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
Now we come to the last matter: the resources provided by God to overcome the enemy.
First, we want to note what happened:
And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the
people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand
the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land. (Joshua 8:1)
Joshua had dealt with the sin, and God was now ready to give him the victory.
My friend, you and I cannot control the flesh. Only the Spirit of God can do that. The
tragedy is that thousands are trying to control and eradicate it in their own strength. You might as
well take a gallon of French perfume out to the barnyard, pour it on a pile of barnyard fertilizer
and expect to make it into a sand pile in which your children might play. You cannot control and
set in the right path this thing we know as “the flesh.” God says you cannot. It is the Holy Spirit
who has this control.

In discussing this issue of the flesh, we must first acknowledge the fact that there is a war
to be fought.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and
these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye
would. (Galatians 5:17)
Then we want to look very carefully at a second fact. And if you miss everything else that is
written, do not miss this: Christ died a judgment death required against the sin nature.
a) Christ did not die only that you might have salvation, but –
b) He died that this sin nature might be dealt with – this nature which you and I have.
…God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3)
This simply means that when Christ came to this earth, He not only died for your sins that you
might have salvation, but He died to bring into judgment this old sin nature. Otherwise God
could not touch us with a forty-foot pole because we are evil.
The Holy Spirit
The “Holy Spirit” is not His name – Holy is His title, for He is holy. In giving Him His
title we speak of Him as the Holy Spirit.
We must remember that if the Holy Spirit comes into your life, my friend, it must be
because God has satisfactorily, adequately, and completely satisfied Himself that your sin nature
has been judged. That is the reason He tells us to reckon on that – count on it – He has judged
our sin nature. When He died on the cross almost two thousand years ago, you and I, if we have
accepted Christ as Savior, died there. That is what Paul meant when he wrote, “I am crucified
with Christ…” (Galatians 2:20)
Then he states it again in Galatians – and we don.t use this verse very often.
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
(Galatians 5:24)
If you belong to Christ, you have crucified the flesh – not today, but almost two thousand years
ago when He went outside Jerusalem and died on the cross. There Christ died because I have a
sin nature and you have a sin nature, and the Holy Spirit could not touch us until Christ had paid
that penalty. When the penalty was paid and our sin nature was condemned, then the Holy Spirit
could and did come into our lives and bring victory out of defeat.
You cannot control this enemy. You have tried it – have you not? You say you are a
“separated Christian.” What of your bad temper? You did not mean to tell a lie, but did. You
know you are defeated by the “flesh.”
Your victory over the “flesh” is only by the Holy Spirit and not by your own resources!
In leaving this profitable subject, we want to look back over our steps and see the path.
Once more we must return to Romans, and for this reading we will turn to chapter 8, verses 3
and 4:

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin
in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
God saw that this old nature was condemned. He has no notion of salvaging it, but oh, how He
loves poor, lost humanity that has this fallen nature!
Then He sent His Son not only to die for our sin, but also to condemn this old sin nature.
Now it is condemned; it is judged:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me…. (Galatians 2:20)
This old nature is as bad as He says it is. You and I cannot get rid of it – we cannot control it –
but the Holy Spirit has come in to give us a victory.
I want to close this study with an illustration out of the life of Dr. C. I. Scofield. He often
told the story of when he was a boy, attending a country school, that the school bully jumped on
him. He did the best that he could, which was all too little, for he was a much smaller boy than
the bully. Finally, the bully knocked him down, and got on top of him. He was taking a beating
that was something terrific. Through the dust of battle he caught a glimpse of his big brother
coming down the road and he was pulling off his coat as he was running toward them. Dr.
Scofield said, “All I did, when my brother pulled this big chap off me, was to crawl up on a
stump and rub my bruises as I watched my brother beat the stuffing out of him.”
My friend, your worst enemy is your old nature. You cannot whip the “bully” who lives
within you. He is whipping you, isn.t he? Why do you not turn him over to the One who is
capable of handling him? Why not turn him over to the Holy Spirit?

Whither Condoleeza?

2009-02-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

Oh I cannot tell you how glad I am Valentine's Day is over. Never has a holiday demanded so much expectation and subsequent nausea within 24 hours since Christmas and New Year's, so lots of us are in recovery. Needless to say tears were shed, chocolate was eaten. A friend and I embraced yesterday, we could say nothing but wimpered like children. "It's over... it's ok.." Don't get me started on St. Patrick's. But anyway, what with all that's going on in the world, why should we care about 'i didn't get flowers' 'he bought Russell-Stover' 'is it still raining? by the way let's just be friends', i really think we need to know how Condi spent her Valentines Day. Did Henry Kissinger come over for Russell-Stover? Harvey's Bristol Cream? Did she practice her piano? Go running with George Bush? Did she watch Napoleon Dynamite on TBS? Shovel Snow. These are the things I want to know. I mean i KNOW Hillary Clinton didn't have a great Valentines Day. But what's the poop? Welp, here is some info. Not riveting, but fun nonetheless. This is taken from Variety, Jan. 21, 2009

WMA signs Condoleezza Rice
Agency pacts with outgoing Secretary of State
By TED JOHNSON
Rice
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has signed with the William Morris Agency, the first step in what is being called the “reinvention and evolution” of her career.
The agency said Rice will focus on books, lecture appearances, philanthropic activities and “new business initiatives in the media, sports and communications sectors.”

Rice will be represented by WMA chief Jim Wiatt and Wayne Kabak.

Kabak said that Rice will be writing two books: One will focus on her diplomatic career, and the other will be about her parents, the Rev. John Wesley Rice Jr. and Angelena Ray, whom her daughter has referred to as “educational evangelists” for their influence on pursuing academic excellence.

The diplomatic memoir will probably be written first, Kabak said.

If the past is any guide, Rice will be among a flood of former administration figures pursuing book deals and other projects.

President Bush says he is planning to write his memoirs, and Laura Bush recently landed a deal with a publisher for her tome.

The agency currently represents House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Byron Dorgan, Sen. Jim Webb and former Sen. Fred Thompson. In the past the agency has repped former President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty, Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John Edwards.

GERALD FORD??!!!!

Patrick McGoohan dies at 80

2009-02-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

He said no to James Bond, yes to Ibsen. He wrote of an everyman figure that resonates with anyone who feels imprisoned by fear, statistics or the culture. He was an interesting humble man and acted the likes of which we'll never see again.

Patrick McGoohan dies at 80; TV's 'Secret Agent' and 'Prisoner'
CBS

January 15, 2009
Patrick McGoohan, a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor who starred as a British spy in the 1960s TV series "Secret Agent" and gained cult status later in the decade as the star of the enigmatic series "The Prisoner," has died. He was 80.

McGoohan, whose career involved stage, screen and TV, died Tuesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, McGoohan's son-in-law. The family did not provide further details.

It was the height of James Bond mania in 1965 when McGoohan showed up on American TV screens in "Secret Agent," a British-produced series in which he played John Drake, a special security agent working as a spy for the British government.

The hourlong series, which ran on CBS until 1966, was an expanded version of “Danger Man,” a short-lived, half-hour series on CBS in 1961 in which McGoohan played the same character.

But it was McGoohan's next British-produced series, “The Prisoner,” on CBS in 1968 and 1969, that became a cult classic that spawned fan clubs, conventions and college study.

Once described in The Times as an "espionage tale as crafted by Kafka," "The Prisoner" starred McGoohan as a presumed British agent who, after resigning his top-security job, is abducted in London and taken to a mysterious prison resort called the Village.

Known only as No. 6, he is interrogated by a succession of officials who are known as No. 2. But he refuses all methods of breaking him down to reveal his past or why he resigned, and he repeatedly makes failed attempts to escape.

The seemingly idyllic village contains "seeing eyes" that monitor activities and signs such as "A Still Tongue Makes a Peaceful Life."

McGoohan co-created and executive-produced the series, which ran for only 17 episodes, as well as wrote and directed several episodes.

In a 1967 interview with The Times, he described the series as "Brave New World" stuff.

"Nobody has a name, everyone wears a number," he said. "It's a reflection of the pressure on all of us today to be numbered, to give up our individualism. This is a contemporary subject, not science fiction. I hope these things will be recognized by the audience. It's not meant to be subtle. It's meant to say: This little village is our world."

Of the enduring cult status of the series, McGoohan once said: "Mel [Gibson] will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a number."

McGoohan, who reportedly turned down an offer to be the big screen's original James Bond, appeared in films such as "The Three Lives of Thomasina," "Mary, Queen of Scots," "Silver Streak," "Escape From Alcatraz," "Scanners," "Ice Station Zebra" and Gibson's "Braveheart," in which he played England's sadistic King Edward I.

In his review of "Braveheart" in The Times, critic Peter Rainer wrote: "Patrick McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

As a guest star on Peter Falk's TV detective series "Columbo," McGoohan won Emmys in 1975 and 1990.

Falk once described McGoohan, who also occasionally worked as a director and writer on the "Columbo" mysteries, as being "mesmerizing" as an actor.

"There are many very, very talented people in this business, but there are only a handful of genuinely original people," Falk told the Hollywood Reporter in 2004. "I think Patrick McGoohan belongs in that small select group of truly original people."

He was born to Irish parents in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., on March 19, 1928. Some months later, his family returned to Ireland, where he grew up on a farm before moving to Sheffield, England, when he was 7.

In the late '40s, after working a number of jobs, he became a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory Theatre, where he soon launched his acting career.

In 1951, he married actress Joan Drummond, with whom he had three daughters, Catherine, Anne and Frances.

In 1959, he received a London Drama Critics Award for his performance in a London stage production of Ibsen's "Brand."

On television, McGoohan also starred in the short-lived 1977 medical drama "Rafferty."

Sharif Ali, McGoohan's agent, said McGoohan had been writing and had two acting offers on the table before he died.

"He really didn't talk much about his illness," said Ali. "We were too busy talking about his future; he was excited to get back to work. He had so much more to give."

In addition to his wife and daughters, McGoohan is survived by five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

CREDITED TO dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

God Bless Israel and Her People In Jesus Name

2009-01-26T22:49:00.000-08:00

60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

On January 27, 2005 at 7:00 PM, The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington (JCRC) will mark the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz with a special commemoration at B’nai Israel Congregation, 6301 Montrose Road, Rockville, Maryland. The event is free and open to the public. (RSVP to 301-770-0881 or bburke@jcouncil.org)

The commemoration will feature keynote speaker Nathan Lewin, partner at Lewin & Lewin, LLP. Lewin fled Poland as a young child and lost several members of his family in the Holocaust, including his grandfather who was killed at Auschwitz. The program will also feature Zemer Chai, the “Jewish Community Chorus of Washington DC.” Zemer Chai has been lauded by The New York Times and The Jewish Forward for their evocative and stirring choral arrangements.

The event seeks to honor both the liberators and the liberated. Exactly 60 years before, on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops swept through Poland and liberated the prisoners who remained at Auschwitz. As the Red Army approached, the SS sent over 60,000 prisoners on a forced march, and many lost their lives. Hundreds of Soviet soldiers also died in an effort to liberate the camp and surrounding cities.

“We want to thank the liberators of those camps”, says JCRC Holocaust Commission member Herman Taube, a renowned poet and author. “The Russians lost 18 million people in that war, and so did other nations, so the commemoration of Auschwitz is an important day in history.”

Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide and the Holocaust. Beginning in 1942, the camp became the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity, which was committed against European Jews as part of Hitler's plan for the complete destruction of the Jewish people. The majority of the Jewish men, women and children deported to Auschwitz were sent to their deaths in the Birkenau gas chambers immediately after arrival.
“This was the most notorious concentration camp in Poland. Auschwitz symbolizes all of the camps. And since this is the 60th anniversary and a number of survivors are dying out, this day should be marked. It is our obligation to come together to say Kaddish and to say thank you to those who liberated us,” says Taube.

Credit SonofDavid.com

Next, credit to JewsforJesus.com

I Escaped From Hitler Twice: The Fred Wertheim Story
September 1, 1983
This is an archived article. It originally appeared on September 1, 1983. Some information may be outdated.

When a Jew comes to believe in Jesus, it not only affects his life but the lives of those closest to him—his family. This was certainly the case when Steve Wertheim, the son of a Jewish immigrant, came to believe in Jesus.

Steve's father, Fred, was born in Germany in 1925. The son of a baker, he lived in a small village of 2,000 people. The town had very few Jews, ten families to be exact. Fred, as a young boy, had to look among the non-Jews for playmates because the only other Jewish children were his two older sisters and an older Jewish girl. It didn't bother him to have gentile friends, but it started bothering them to have a Jewish one.

By the time Fred was eight, the Aryan philosophy of Hitler was well on its way to acceptance by most Germans. Fred's best friends did not want to play with him anymore. His parents, who were prospering in the bakery business, held to the illusion that Hitler would lose his popularity and that things would get better once again for the Jews. Instead they got worse.

The Wertheim family finally decided to leave Germany for America. However, wanting to leave and getting out of the country were two different things. Because of immigration quotas, they needed to apply to the Consulate for clearance. The family had no papers prepared by a United States citizen for them, and that made emigration difficult. They were given a number—a very high one—48,878, which represented the number of people allowed to come from Germany before them. It would be a while until they could expect to go.

Meanwhile, on July 2, 1938 Fred became bar mitzvah. He was to be the last Jewish boy to undergo the ceremony in his district. Four months later came Kristallnacht. His synagogue, along with hundreds of others was destroyed. Six days later, it was ordered that Jewish children be expelled from the schools. At the same time, Jewish males that were thirteen or older were being conscripted for "labor camps." Fred was small for his age and because of his size was overlooked. Before long, entire Jewish families were being deported to the death camps. Yet, for some mysterious reason, his family was spared. Their immigration number came up, and in May of 1941 the Wertheims left what had become Hitler's Germany. They traveled by way of France, Spain and Portugal and arrived on the shores of what they saw to be heaven on earth—America.

Fred learned the English language quickly and after having been in the States only two years, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. The eighteen-year-old went through basic training and was shipped out to England. He was then given additional training and assigned to the First Infantry Division as part of the combat engineers. This was a front-line unit that was trained to remove mines or build emergency bridges so others could advance. Front-line units like Fred's had dangerous duty and high casualties.

Fred took part in the invasion of Europe on D-Day. He fought his way through France and across the Rhine River, ironically, into his native Germany. Then Fred and some of his fellow Army soldiers were captured there. Says Fred,

"I remember they had us lined up. The Germans were talking among themselves, loud enough for me to hear. Since I understood what they were saying, my body started to shake. Some of my buddies started asking me, 'What's happening? How come you're ready to pass out?' I told them, 'This is the way it's going to be. They don't know what to do with us and so they're going to shoot us."'

Yet, for some reason they changed their minds and took the group to a prisoner of war camp near Hanover—Stalag 11B. Fred was spared again.

Most of the prisoners at Stalag 11B had been there throughout most of the war and were very weak. Some couldn't even stand up. No work was assigned to the prisoners, for it would have probably killed most of them who were in a state of physical debilitation. Each morning, Fred and the others answered a roll call and then spent the rest of the day wandering within the boundaries of the high wire fences.

The conditions in the camp were not up to Geneva Convention standards. The clothes of the prisoners were burned regularly because they were lice infested. Many had their hair shorn very short to minimize the infestation. Their breakfast and lunch was combined into one "meal" which consisted of a tin can filled with black coffee. In the late afternoon they were given a stew which contained vegetables and occasionally a few strings of horsemeat. Fred remembers,

"It smelled so rotten that I literally held my nose while I was eating. Once in a while, very late at night, some Germans from outside the camp would throw food over the fence and run away." It proved that not all Germans were Hitlerites.

Meanwhile, back in the States, Fred's family had gotten a telegram delivered by a woman dressed in black. It was from the War Department saying that Fred was missing in action. Germany didn't turn over names of prisoners, so his family had no way of knowing if he was alive.

Eventually the Allied Forces conquered Germany and General Montgomery's Ninth Division liberated Stalag 11B. Fred first had to recuperate from tapeworm and other maladies received as a result of his imprisonment. Then, around Mother's Day of 1945, he was sent home.

"The convoy I was in was the first batch of American POW's to get back to New York City and we got a tremendous welcome—fireboats and everything. The following Saturday I got a big reception in the synagogue from the rabbi and the entire congregation."

Fred felt very grateful to be back in a safe place. He couldn't forget, however, the horrors of war or the miracle of his preservation. "God has done so many good things for me. He brought my immediate family out of Germany. He kept me alive in a prisoner of war camp. And there was the time that I was in a German halftrack that turned over on top of me. Two Germans lay dead next to me. The halftrack was so heavy with equipment that I couldn't move. Then water started to come up as we were pressed down in a field. I thought my life was over. I said the Sh'ma and I spoke to God pleading for His help. At that moment, several of my German captors were able to lift the halftrack and slide me out from under it. I was safe once again."

"First I escaped from Hitler as a Jewish refugee. Then I was liberated as an American prisoner of war. But I was never free until Messiah saved and rescued me."
Fred Wertheim believed in God and felt that God had preserved him for a purpose. He didn't know what it was, but reasoned that he should just go on living, that God would show him some day. Fred married a nice Jewish girl from his synagogue and he and Laura settled down in the Bronx. They raised two sons and things were going fine until he got a phone call from his oldest son Steve. Steve had moved to California after graduating from college. Fred could not believe his ears, but Steve's words were clear: "Dad, Mom, I've come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah."

Fred took the news very hard: "After all I had been through, here I saw my own flesh and blood had turned against me." Fred worked as a mail carrier, and for weeks after the phone call, he would just suddenly start crying on his route. People asked him what was wrong, but he couldn't tell them. He was ashamed to let them know that his son had become a Christian.

Steve tried to explain to his father that his decision to believe in Jesus was not intended to hurt Fred. It was a decision based on conviction—the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. Steve told his father about a Mr. Goldstein who had originally told him about Jesus. Mr. Goldstein was a Jew for Jesus who Steve had met and through whose Bible study meeting Steve became more and more convinced of his spiritual needs and of Jesus' sufficiency.

Fred, while depressed over Steve's decision, became angry with Mr. Goldstein. When Steve told him that Goldstein was coming to New York and wanted to visit with him, Fred agreed. He said to his son, "I want to meet the man who did this to you and I want to kill him. I'm going to throw him off of our terrace!"

Goldstein and his wife visited the Wertheims and instead of a violent or angry interchange, the two couples discussed things over coffee and a danish pastry ring.

Says Mrs. Wertheim, "We asked them many questions. After a while, Mr. Goldstein pointed out prophecies in the Jewish Bible. I was a little shocked to see that my husband was very curious to know more."

Fred Wertheim's curiosity continued past that evening. He started attending Bible study meetings in New York:

"I became a very conscientious student. Each week we were asked to prepare for the next lesson by reading a particular passage from the Scriptures. One week the assignment was to read the first letter of John (in the New Testament), but I read the Gospel of John by mistake. I couldn't put it down. Then, on the morning of September 29, 1975, I woke up at four o'clock. I saw what was the outline of a figure standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I couldn't see a face, but I knew it was Jesus. I was convinced that he was real and that I wanted him in my life. I knew he was my Messiah. For me to become a believer, it took a supernatural event like this one. I know it's not that way for everybody who believes in Jesus, but that's how it happened to me. I didn't tell my wife until later in the day."

Laura Wertheim was upset about the news. First her son and now her husband too! To compound things, their youngest son Robbie, announced that he too was a believer. He didn't want to say anything until his father came to believe because he was afraid that it would be too traumatic an experience for Fred. In Robbie's words, "I didn't think he could take another one."

But could Laura Wertheim take another family member believing in Jesus? Says Mrs. Wertheim,

"I was very stubborn. While I felt surrounded by believers, I kept reminding myself that so many people were killed in the Holocaust. So many Jews were killed. I couldn't betray my upbringing."

Then the Wertheim family went to see a movie called "The Hiding Place." Laura watched this true story about a Christian woman and her family in Holland during the war. Says Laura,

"It showed the suffering this woman went through, yet she kept her faith in God. It made me see that God was working during the Holocaust—through people like this dear woman. Because she believed in Jesus, she helped Jews—she had real reason to hope. I just sat there and wept and sobbed through the entire picture."

The next week, she too accepted Jesus as her Messiah. Four years later, Fred and Laura Wertheim renewed their marriage vows. Portions of the ceremony follow:

"Love and commitment have come to have a diminished meaning in today's world. Yet, we can see the true meaning of love and commitment as we behold Fred and Laura Wertheim, a couple united in God, showing forth His faithfulness. In a world where promises are seldom kept and faithfulness is scorned, they stand here to declare and reaffirm their love for one another.

"In Jewish tradition, it is considered a blessing and privilege to be an invited guest at a wedding. To be able to rejoice with a bridegroom and his bride as they begin a new life together is something that brings joy to the heart. How much more, then, can we rejoice with Fred and Laura as we witness the profession of their continued love. Thirty years ago on the 22nd day of October of 1949, Freed and Laura were joined under the chupah.

"Today, they reaffirm their vows in our presence. They rededicate their lives to one another with a new dimension and depth—that they are joined to God Almighty. He is the center of their union with one another. Their children have always been able to recognize the mutual devotion and deep respect that Fred and Laura have had for each other throughout their marriage. Yet, when the Wertheims met Jesus their Messiah, their relationship truly blossomed. The faith that they came to four years ago has made a good relationship far sweeter. Their relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love each other in the everyday practicalities of their life together. Their relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love others.

"Because God has been so faithful to them, they desire to publicly declare and demonstrate that faithfulness and have come today to dedicate their lives afresh in serving Him.

"Fred and Laura, God has given both of you much, and the Scriptures say, 'From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.' However, when God gives us a responsibility, He also promises to supply what we need to fulfill that which he requires. We have the great promises of God to rely upon as we live our lives in Messiah. 'Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Messiah Jesus' (Philippians 1:6).

"…As they stand before you, the Wertheims wish to reaffirm their commitment to one another in Jesus and their desire to reflect God's image together.

Fred: 'As the days seemed short to Jacob in serving for Rachel, so have the years seemed that we have shared. Laura, my wife, I promise you, as a child of God, that I will continue to love and respect you, honor and uphold you, and give of all that I have to you. As we continue to walk together in the love of Messiah Jesus, I pray that we will become a true reflection of the love and faithfulness Jesus has for the Holy Congregation.'

Laura: 'Fred, throughout our marriage you have been both my beloved and my friend, the one whom I can fully trust with all that I am. As a child of God, I promise you, my husband, that I will continue to love and respect you, honor and uphold you, and give of all that I have to you. I will faithfully stand with you and help inspire you, that God's will might be the focus of our lives.'"

"May God's love surround you, Fred and Laura, as the mountains surround Jerusalem; and may that love emanate forth to all who you touch with your lives. May your next thirty years together increase your joy and gladness as Messiah reigns in your lives."

taking leave

2009-01-25T22:52:00.000-08:00

its all too much.

Artist/album: Kari Jobe
Year: 2005
Title: Come To Me

Lyrics:

Come to me, you weary one.
And I will give you rest.
I will give you rest.
Come to me, you weary one.
And I will give you rest.
I will give you rest.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Take me upon you, I will give you rest.

Come to me, you broken one.
And I will give you peace.
I will give you peace.
Come to me, you broken one.
And I will give you peace.
I will give you peace.
I will calm your waters, and I will whisper,
"Peace be still."
Take me upon you, I will give you peace.

Come to me, you burdened one.
And I will give you joy.
I will give you joy.
Come to me, you burdened one.
And I will give you joy.
I will give you joy.
You will rise like eagles, and my joy will be your strength.
Take me upon you, I will give you joy.

Come to me (x3)
I have been waiting for you here.
He has been waiting for you here.
Come. Come to Him.
Come and find your peace.
Come and find your rest.
Come and find your joy.
He is waiting here for you.
He is waiting here for you with open arms,
To hold you, to embrace your heart, to love you.
He is waiting here. (x2)

(Thanks to Jailyn for these lyrics)
[ Come To Me Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

for dl

2009-01-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

A nod to http://hollyet.wordpress.com/ for the cheery lyrics below. And of course they have no idea, you know, they never do. It's not their fault, women just deal differently. But knowing this doesn't help. It just requires patience and when you have none it just strips you. She says it well as always, just when you really think you've got it, found it, hold on to it, it's just one more damned thing to deal with and nothing that you expected. It's true that love sucks and men are the perpetual frigging Jordan. Ain't no crossing in this lifetime. Self-centered soft-focus, fade to black. Happy early Valentine's Day!

something returned

i’ll give to you

battered blues and worn out shoes

hopeful prayers

another song

you’re back at the beginning

dropped the string along

and i was glad to give it to you

what you stole was yours all along

you provide the definition

you tell me where to go

you answer or you don’t

any phrase is a catch

you got me from the start

this is what i’ve found:

i never rhyme

i never reason

in the christmas season.

Not that there's anything wrong with that..

2008-11-14T21:07:00.001-08:00

Credit to Roger Griffin below and www.HistoryPlace. In these times its too easy to forget. Here is a refresher on fascism. First of all we will drive by the Night of Broken Glass, which I learned about way too late in my adulthood and NEVER heard of in a screamingly liberal university. Lord Jesus be with us over the next four years. Hold on.

Kristallnacht

A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass.

The attack came after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Jew living in Paris, shot and killed a member of the German Embassy staff there in retaliation for the poor treatment his father and his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis in Germany.

On October 27, Grynszpan's family and over 15,000 other Jews, originally from Poland, had been expelled from Germany without any warning. They were forcibly transported by train in boxcars then dumped at the Polish border.

For Adolf Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the shooting in Paris provided an opportunity to incite Germans to "rise in bloody vengeance against the Jews."

Read orders to the Gestapo regarding Kristallnacht

On November 9, mob violence broke out as the regular German police stood by and crowds of spectators watched. Nazi storm troopers along with members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murdered Jews, broke into and wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalized Jewish women and children.

All over Germany, Austria and other Nazi controlled areas, Jewish shops and department stores had their windows smashed and contents destroyed. Synagogues were especially targeted for vandalism, including desecration of sacred Torah scrolls. Hundreds of synagogues were systematically burned while local fire departments stood by or simply prevented the fire from spreading to surrounding buildings.

About 25,000 Jewish men were rounded up and later sent to concentration camps where they were often brutalized by SS guards and in some cases randomly chosen to be beaten to death.

The reaction outside Germany to Kristallnacht was shock and outrage, creating a storm of negative publicity in newspapers and among radio commentators that served to isolate Hitler's Germany from the civilized nations and weaken any pro-Nazi sentiments in those countries. Shortly after Kristallnacht, the United States recalled its ambassador permanently.

In Germany, on November 12, top Nazis, including Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels, held a meeting concerning the economic impact of the damage and to discuss further measures to be taken against the Jews. SS leader Reinhard Heydrich reported 7500 businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned (with 177 totally destroyed) and 91 Jews killed.

Heydrich requested new decrees barring Jews from any contact with Germans by excluding them from public transportation, schools, even hospitals, essentially forcing them into ghettos or out of the country. Goebbels said the Jews would be made to clean out the debris from burned out synagogues which would then be turned into parking lots.

At this meeting it was decided to eliminate Jews entirely from economic life in the Reich by transferring all Jewish property and enterprises to 'Aryans,' with minor compensation given to the Jews in the form of bonds.

Regarding the economic impact of the damage from Kristallnacht and the resulting massive insurance claims, Hermann Göring stated the Jews themselves would be billed for the damage and that any insurance money due to them would be confiscated by the State.

"I shall close the meeting with these words," said Göring, "German Jewry shall, as punishment for their abominable crimes, et cetera, have to make a contribution for one billion marks. That will work. The swine won't commit another murder. Incidentally, I would like to say that I would not like to be a Jew in Germany."

What Is Facism?
by: Roger D. Griffin, B.A., Ph.D. Professor, Department of History, Oxford Brookes University. Author of International Fascism: Theories, Causes, and the New Consensus, The Nature of Fascism, and other books.

I. Introduction
Fascism, modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence.
The term fascism was first used by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1919. The term comes from the Italian word fascio, which means “union” or “league.” It also refers to the ancient Roman symbol of power, the fasces, a bundle of sticks bound to an ax, which represented civic unity and the authority of Roman officials to punish wrongdoers.

Fascist movements surfaced in most European countries and in some former European colonies in the early 20th century. Fascist political parties and movements capitalized on the intense patriotism that emerged as a response to widespread social and political uncertainty after World War I (1914-1918) and the Russian Revolution of 1917. With the important exceptions of Italy and Germany, however, fascist movements failed in their attempts to seize political power. In Italy and Germany after World War I, fascists managed to win control of the state and attempted to dominate all of Europe, resulting in millions of deaths in the Holocaust and World War II (1939-1945). Because fascism had a decisive impact on European history from the end of World War I until the end of the World War II, the period from 1918 to 1945 is sometimes called the fascist era. Fascism was widely discredited after Italy and Germany lost World War II, but persists today in new forms.

Some scholars view fascism in narrow terms, and some even insist that the ideology was limited to Italy under Mussolini. When the term is capitalized as Fascism, it refers to the Italian movement. But other writers define fascism more broadly to include many movements, from Italian Fascism to contemporary neo-Nazi movements in the United States. This article relies on a very broad definition of fascism, and includes most movements that aim for total social renewal based on the national community while also pushing for a rejection of liberal democratic institutions.

II. Major Elements
Scholars disagree over how to define the basic elements of fascism. Marxist historians and political scientists (that is, those who base their approach on the writings of German political theorist Karl Marx) view fascism as a form of politics that is cynically adopted by governments to support capitalism and to prevent a socialist revolution. These scholars have applied the label of fascism to many authoritarian regimes that came to power between World War I and World War II, such as those in Portugal, Austria, Poland, and Japan. Marxist scholars also label as fascist some authoritarian governments that emerged after World War II, including regimes in Argentina, Chile, Greece, and South Africa.

Some non-Marxist scholars have dismissed fascism as a form of authoritarianism that is reactionary, responding to political and social developments but without any objective beyond the exercise of power. Some of these scholars view fascism as a crude, barbaric form of nihilism, asserting that it lacks any coherent ideals or ideology. Many other historians and political scientists agree that fascism has a set of basic traits—a fascist minimum—but tend to disagree over what to include in the definition. Scholars disagree, for example, over issues such as whether the concept of fascism includes Nazi Germany and the Vichy regime (the French government set up in southern France in 1940 after the Nazis had occupied the rest of the country).

Beginning in the 1970s, some historians and political scientists began to develop a broader definition of fascism, and by the 1990s many scholars had embraced this approach. This new approach emphasizes the ways in which fascist movements attempt revolutionary change and their central focus on popularizing myths of national or ethnic renewal. Seen from this perspective, all forms of fascism have three common features: anticonservatism, a myth of ethnic or national renewal, and a conception of a nation in crisis.

A. Anticonservatism
Fascist movements usually try to retain some supposedly healthy parts of the nation's existing political and social life, but they place more emphasis on creating a new society. In this way fascism is directly opposed to conservatism—the idea that it is best to avoid dramatic social and political change. Instead, fascist movements set out to create a new type of total culture in which values, politics, art, social norms, and economic activity are all part of a single organic national community. In Nazi Germany, for example, the fascist government in the 1930s tried to create a new Volksgemeinschaft (people's community) built around a concept of racial purity. A popular culture of Nazi books, movies, and artwork that celebrated the ideal of the so-called new man and new woman supported this effort. With this idealized people's community in mind, the government created new institutions and policies (partly as propaganda) to build popular support. But the changes were also an attempt to transform German society in order to overcome perceived sources of national weakness. In the same way, in Italy under Mussolini the government built new stadiums and held large sporting events, sponsored filmmakers, and financed the construction of huge buildings as monuments to fascist ideas. Many scholars therefore conclude that fascist movements in Germany and Italy were more than just reactionary political movements. These scholars argue that these fascist movements also represented attempts to create revolutionary new modern states.

B. Myth of National or Ethnic Renewal
Even though fascist movements try to bring about revolutionary change, they emphasize the revival of a mythical ethnic, racial, or national past. Fascists revise conventional history to create a vision of an idealized past. These mythical histories claim that former national greatness has been destroyed by such developments as the mixing of races, the rise of powerful business groups, and a loss of a shared sense of the nation. Fascist movements set out to regain the heroic spirit of this lost past through radical social transformations. In Nazi Germany, for example, the government tried to "purify" the nation by killing millions of Jews and other minority groups. The Nazis believed they could create harmonious community whose values were rooted in an imaginary past in which there were no differences of culture, "deviant" ideologies, or "undesirable" genetic traits.

Because fascist ideologies place great value on creating a renewed and unified national or ethnic community, they are hostile to most other ideologies. In addition to rejecting conservatism, fascist movements also oppose such doctrines as liberalism, individualism, materialism, and communism. In general, fascists stand against all scientific, economic, religious, academic, cultural, and leisure activities that do not serve their vision of national political life.

C. Idea of a Nation in Crisis
A fascist movement almost always asserts that the nation faces a profound crisis. Sometimes fascists define the nation as the same as a nation-state (country and people with the same borders), but in other cases the nation is defined as a unique ethnic group with members in many countries. In either case, the fascists present the national crisis as resolvable only through a radical political transformation. Fascists differ over how the transformation will occur. Some see a widespread change in values as coming before a radical political transformation. Others argue that a radical political transformation will then be followed by a change in values. Fascists claim that the nation has entered a dangerous age of mediocrity, weakness, and decline. They are convinced that through their timely action they can save the nation from itself. Fascists may assert the need to take drastic action against a nation's "inner" enemies.

Fascists promise that with their help the national crisis will end and a new age will begin that restores the people to a sense of belonging, purpose, and greatness. The end result of the fascist revolution, they believe, will be the emergence of a new man and new woman. This new man and new woman will be fully developed human beings, uncontaminated by selfish desires for individual rights and self-expression and devoted only to an existence as part of the renewed nation's destiny.

III. How Fascist Movements Differ
Because each country's history is unique, each fascist movement creates a particular vision of an idealized past depending on the country's history. Fascist movements sometimes combine quasi-scientific racial and economic theories with these mythical pasts to form a larger justification for the fascist transformation, but also may draw on religious beliefs. Even within one country, separate fascist movements sometimes arise, each creating its own ideological variations based on the movement's particular interpretation of politics and history. In Italy after World War I, for example, the Fascist Party led by Benito Mussolini initially faced competition from another fascist movement led by war hero Gabriele D'Annunzio.

A. Intellectual Foundations
The diversity of fascist movements means that each has its own individual intellectual and cultural foundation. Some early fascist movements were inspired in part by early 20th century social and political thought. In this period the French philosopher Georges Sorel built on earlier radical theories to argue that social change should be brought about through violent strikes and acts of sabotage organized by trade unions. Sorel's emphasis on violence seems to have influenced some proponents of fascism. The late 19th and early 20th century also saw an increasing intellectual preoccupation with racial differences. From this development came fascism's tendency toward ethnocentrism—the belief in the superiority of a particular race. The English-born German historian Houston Stewart Chamberlin, for example, proclaimed the superiority of the German race, arguing that Germans descended from genetically superior bloodlines. Some early fascists also interpreted Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to mean that some races of people were inherently superior. They argued that this meant that the “survival of the fittest” required the destruction of supposedly inferior peoples.

But these philosophical influences were not the main inspiration for most fascist movements. Far more important was the example set by the fascist movements in Germany and Italy. Between World War I and World War II fascist movements and parties throughout Europe imitated Italian Fascism and German Nazism. Since 1945 many racially inclined fascist organizations have been inspired by Nazism. These new Nazi movements are referred to as neo-Nazis because they modify Nazi doctrine and because the original Nazi movement inspires them.

B. Views on Race
Though all fascist movements are nationalist, some fascist ideologies regard an existing set of national boundaries as an artificial constraint on an authentic people or ethnic group living within those boundaries. Nazism, for example, sought to extend the frontiers of the German state to include all major concentrations of ethnic Germans. This ethnic concept of Germany was closely linked to an obsession with restoring the biological purity of the race, known as the Aryan race, and the destruction of the allegedly degenerate minorities. The result was not only the mass slaughter of Jews and Gypsies (Roma), but the sterilization or killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans who were members of religious minorities or mentally or physically disabled, or for some other reason deemed by self-designated race experts not to have lives worth living. The Nazis' emphasis on a purified nation also led to the social exclusion or murder of other alleged deviants, such as Communists, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

The ultranationalism and ethnocentrism of fascist ideologies makes all of them racist. Some forms of fascism are also anti-Semitic (hostile to Jews) or xenophobic (fearful of foreign people). Some fascist movements, such as the Nazis, also favor eugenics—attempts to supposedly improve a race through controlled reproduction. But not all fascist movements have this hostility toward racial and ethnic differences. Some modern forms of fascism, in fact, preach a “love of difference” and emphasize the need to preserve distinct ethnic identities. As a result, these forms of fascism strongly oppose immigration in order to maintain the purity of the nation. Some scholars term this approach differentialism, and point to right-wing movements in France during the 1990s as examples of this form of fascism.

Some modern fascist variants have broken with the early fascist movements in another important way. Many early fascist movements sought to expand the territory under their control, but few modern fascist movements take this position. Instead of attempting to take new territory, most modern fascists seek to racially purify existing nations. Some set as their goal a Europe of ethnically pure nations or a global Aryan solidarity.

C. Attitudes Toward Religion
In addition, fascist movements do not share a single approach to religion. Nazism was generally hostile to organized religion, and Hitler's government arrested hundreds of priests in the late 1930s. Some other early fascist movements, however, tried to identify themselves with a national church. In Italy, for example, the Fascists in the 1930s attempted to gain legitimacy by linking themselves to the Catholic Church. In the same way, small fascist groups in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s combined elements of neo-Nazi or Aryan paganism with Christianity. In all these cases, however, the fascist movements have rejected the original spirit of Christianity by celebrating violence and racial purity.

D. Emphasis on Militarism
Fascist movements also vary in their reliance on military-style organization. Some movements blend elite paramilitary organizations (military groups staffed by civilians) with a large political party led by a charismatic leader. In most cases, these movements try to rigidly organize the lives of an entire population. Fascism took on this military or paramilitary character partly because World War I produced heightened nationalism and militarism in many countries. Even in these movements, however, there were many purely intellectual fascists who never served in the military. Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini stand as the most notable examples of a paramilitary style of organization. Since the end of World War II, however, the general public revulsion against war and anything resembling Nazism created widespread hostility to paramilitary political organizations. As a result, fascist movements since the end of World War II have usually relied on new nonparamilitary forms of organization. There have been some fascist movements that have paramilitary elements, but these have been small compared to the fascist movements in Germany and Italy of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, most of the paramilitary-style fascist movements formed since World War II have lacked a single leader who could serve as a symbol of the movement, or have even intentionally organized themselves into leaderless terrorist cells. Just as most fascist movements in the postwar period downplayed militarism, they have also abandoned some of the more ambitious political programs created in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Specifically, recent movements have rejected the goals of corporatism (government-coordinated economics), the idea that the state symbolizes the people and embodies the national will, and attempts to include all social groups in a single totalitarian movement.

E. Use of Political Rituals Another feature of fascism that has largely disappeared from movements after World War II is the use of quasi-religious rituals, spectacular rallies, and the mass media to generate mass support. Both Nazism and Italian Fascism held rallies attended by hundreds of thousands, created a new calendar of holidays celebrating key events in the regime's history, and conducted major sporting events or exhibitions. All of this was intended to convince people that they lived in a new era in which history itself had been transformed. In contrast to what fascists view as the absurdity and emptiness of life under liberal democracy, life under fascism was meant to be experienced as historical, life-giving, and beautiful. Since 1945, however, fascist movements have lacked the mass support to allow the staging of such theatrical forms of politics. The movements have not, however, abandoned the vision of creating an entirely new historical era.

IV. Compared to Other Radical Right-Wing Ideologies
Although fascism comes in many forms, not all radical right-wing movements are fascist. In France in the 1890s, for example, the Action Française movement started a campaign to overthrow the democratic government of France and restore the king to power. Although this movement embraced the violence and the antidemocratic tendencies of fascism, it did not develop the fascist myth of revolutionary rebirth through popular power. There have also been many movements that were simply nationalist but with a right-wing political slant. In China, for example, the Kuomintang (The Chinese National People's Party), led by Chiang Kai-shek, fought leftist revolutionaries until Communists won control of China in 1949. Throughout the 20th century this type of right-wing nationalism was common in many military dictatorships in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Fascism should also be distinguished from right-wing separatist movements that set out to create a new nation-state rather than to regenerate an existing one. This would exclude cases such as the Nazi puppet regime in Croatia during World War II. This regime, known as the Ustaše government, relied on paramilitary groups to govern, and hoped that their support for Nazism would enable Croatia to break away from Yugoslavia. This separatist goal distinguishes the Ustaše from genuine fascist movements.

Fascism also stands apart from regimes that are based on racism but do not pursue the goal of creating a revolutionary new order. In the 1990s some national factions in Bosnia and Herzegovina engaged in ethnic cleansing, the violent removal of targeted ethnic groups with the objective of creating an ethnically pure territory. In 1999 the Serbian government's insistence upon pursuing this policy against ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo led to military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But unlike fascist movements, the national factions in Yugoslavia did not set out to destroy all democratic institutions. Instead these brutal movements hoped to create ethnically pure democracies, even though they used violence and other antidemocratic methods. Another example of a racist, but not fascist, organization was the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, which became a national mass movement in the United States. Although racial hatred was central to the Klan's philosophy, its goals were still reactionary rather than revolutionary. The Klan hoped to control black people, but it did not seek to build an entirely new society, as a true fascist movement would have. Since 1945, however, the Klan has become increasingly hostile to the United States government and has established links with neo-Nazi groups. In the 1980s and 1990s this loose alliance of antigovernment racists became America's most significant neo-fascist movement.

V. The Origins of Fascism
Despite the many forms that fascism takes, all fascist movements are rooted in two major historical trends. First, in late 19th-century Europe mass political movements developed as a challenge to the control of government and politics by small groups of social elites or ruling classes. For the first time, many countries saw the growth of political organizations with membership numbering in the thousands or even millions. Second, fascism gained popularity because many intellectuals, artists, and political thinkers in the late 19th century began to reject the philosophical emphasis on rationality and progress that had emerged from the 18th-century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment.

These two trends had many effects. For example, new forms of popular racism and nationalism arose that openly celebrated irrationality and vitalism—the idea that human life is self-directed and not subject to predictable rules and laws. This line of thinking led to calls for a new type of nation that would overcome class divisions and create a sense of historical belonging for its people. For many people, the death and brutality of World War I showed that rationality and progress were not inherent in humanity, and that a radically new direction had to be taken by Western civilization if it was to survive. World War I also aroused intense patriotism that continued after the war. These sentiments became the basis of mass support for national socialist movements that promised to confront the disorder in the world. Popular enthusiasm for such movements was especially strong in Germany and Italy, which had only become nation-states in the 19th century and whose parliamentary traditions were weak. Despite having fought on opposite sides, both countries emerged from the war to face political instability and a widespread feeling that the nation had been humiliated in the war and by the settlement terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In addition, many countries felt threatened by Communism because of the success of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.

VI. The First Fascist Movement: Italy
A. Mussolini's Fasci
The first fascist movement developed in Italy after World War I. Journalist and war veteran Benito Mussolini served as the guiding force behind the new movement. Originally a Marxist, by 1909 Mussolini was convinced that a national rather than an international revolution was necessary, but he was unable to find a suitable catalyst or vehicle for the populist revolutionary energies it demanded. At first he looked to the Italian Socialist Party and edited its newspaper Avanti! (Forward!). But when war broke out in Europe in 1914, he saw it as an opportunity to galvanize patriotic energies and create the spirit of heroism and self-sacrifice necessary for the country's renewal. He thus joined the interventionist campaign, which urged Italy to enter the war. In 1914, as Italian leaders tried to decide whether to enter the war, Mussolini founded the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia (The People of Italy) to encourage Italy to join the conflict. After Italy declared war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in May 1915, Mussolini used Il Popolo d'Italia, to persuade Italians that the war was a turning point for their country. Mussolini argued that when the frontline combat soldiers returned from the war, they would form a new elite and bring about a new type of state and transform Italian society. The new elite would spread community and patriotism, and introduce sweeping changes in every part of society.

Mussolini established the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Veteran's League) in 1919 to channel the revolutionary energies of the returning soldiers. The group's first meeting assembled a small group of war veterans, revolutionary syndicalists (socialists who worked for a national revolution as the first step toward an international one), and futurists (a group of poets who wanted Italian politics and art to fuse in a celebration of modern technological society's dramatic break with the past). The Fasci di Combattimento, sometimes known simply as the Fasci, initially adopted a leftist agenda, including democratic reform of the government, increased rights for workers, and a redistribution of wealth.

In the elections of 1919 Fascist candidates won few votes. Fascism gained widespread support only in 1920 after the Socialist Party organized militant strikes in Turin and Italy's other northern industrial cities. The Socialist campaign caused chaos through much of the country, leading to concerns that further Socialist victories could damage the Italian economy. Fear of the Socialists spurred the formation of hundreds of new Fascist groups throughout Italy. Members of these groups formed the Blackshirts—paramilitary squadre (squads) that violently attacked Socialists and attempted to stifle their political activities.

B. Mussolini's Rise to Power
The Fascists gained widespread support as a result of their effective use of violence against the Socialists. Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti then gave Mussolini's movement respectability by including Fascist candidates in his government coalition bloc that campaigned in the May 1921 elections. The elections gave the newly formed National Fascist Party (PNF) 35 seats in the Italian legislature. The threat from the Socialists weakened, however, and the Fascists seemed to have little chance of winning more power until Mussolini threatened to stage a coup d'état in October 1922. The Fascists showed their militant intentions in the March on Rome, in which about 25,000 black-shirted Fascists staged demonstrations throughout the capital. Although the Italian parliament moved swiftly to crush the protest, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign a decree that would have imposed martial law and enabled the military to destroy the Fascists.

Instead the king invited Mussolini to join a coalition government along with Giolitti. Mussolini accepted the bargain, but it was another two years before Fascism became an authoritarian regime. Early in 1925 Mussolini seized dictatorial powers during a national political crisis sparked by the Blackshirts' murder of socialist Giacomo Matteotti, Mussolini's most outspoken parliamentary critic.

C. Fascist Consolidation of Power
Between 1925 and 1931, the Fascists consolidated power through a series of new laws that provided a legal basis for Italy's official transformation into a single-party state. The government abolished independent political parties and trade unions and took direct control of regional and local governments. The Fascists sharply curbed freedom of the press and assumed sweeping powers to silence political opposition. The government created a special court and police force to suppress so-called anti-Fascism. In principle Mussolini headed the Fascist Party and as head of state led the government in consultation with the Fascist Grand Council. In reality, however, he increasingly became an autocrat answerable to no one. Mussolini was able to retain power because of his success in presenting himself as an inspired Duce (Leader) sent by providence to make Italy great once more.

The Fascist government soon created mass organizations to regiment the nation's youth as well as adult leisure time. The Fascists also established a corporatist economic system, in which the government, business, and labor unions collectively formulated national economic policies. The system was intended to harmonize the interests of workers, managers, and the state. In practice, however, Fascist corporatism retarded technological progress and destroyed workers' rights. Mussolini also pulled off a major diplomatic success when he signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican in 1929, which settled a long-simmering dispute over the Catholic Church's role in Italian politics. This marked the first time in Italian history that the Catholic Church and the government agreed over their respective roles. Between 1932 and 1934 millions of Italians attended the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution in Rome, staged by the government to mark Fascism's first ten years in power. By this point the regime could plausibly boast that it had brought the country together through the Risorgimento (Italian unification process) and had turned Italy into a nation that enjoyed admiration and respect abroad.

For a time it seemed that Italy had recovered from the national humiliation, political chaos, and social division following World War I and was managing to avoid the global economic and political crises caused by the Great Depression. Mussolini could claim that he had led the country through a true revolution with a minimum of bloodshed and repression, restoring political stability, national pride, and economic growth. All over the country, Mussolini's speeches drew huge crowds, suggesting that most Italians supported the Fascist government. Many countries closely watched the Italian corporatist economic experiment. Some hoped that it would prove to be a Third Way—an alternative economic policy between free-market capitalism and communism. Mussolini won the respect of diplomats all over the world because of his opposition to Bolshevism, and he was especially popular in the United States and Britain. To many, the Fascist rhetoric of Italy's rebirth seemed to be turning into a reality.

D. The Fall of Italian Fascism
Two events can be seen as marking the turning point in Fascism's fortunes. First, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, which meant that Mussolini had the support of a powerful fascist ally. Second, Italy invaded Ethiopia in October 1935 (see Italy: The Ethiopian Campaign). In less than a year the Fascist army crushed the poorly equipped and vastly outnumbered Ethiopians. Mussolini's power peaked at this point, as he seemed to be making good on his promise to create an African empire worthy of the descendants of ancient Rome. The League of Nations condemned the invasion and voted to impose sanctions on Italy, but this only made Mussolini a hero of the Italian people, as he stood defiant against the dozens of countries that opposed his militarism. But the Ethiopian war severely strained Italy's military and economic resources. At the same time, international hostility to Italy's invasion led Mussolini to forge closer ties with Hitler, who had taken Germany out of the League of Nations.

As Hitler and Mussolini worked more closely together, they became both rivals and allies. Hitler seems to have dictated Mussolini's foreign policy. Both Germany and Italy sent military assistance to support General Francisco Franco's quasi-fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in 1936. The Italian troops in Spain suffered several dramatic losses, however, undermining Mussolini's claim that his Fascist army made Italy a military world power. Then in November 1936 Mussolini announced the existence of the Rome-Berlin Axis—a formal military alliance with Nazi Germany. Fascism, once simply associated with Italy's resolution of its domestic problems, had become the declared enemy of Britain, France, and the United States, and of many other democratic and most communist countries. Italian Fascism was fatally linked with Hitler's bold plans to take control of much of Europe and Russia. The formation of the pact with Hitler further isolated Italy internationally, leading Mussolini to move the country closer to a program of autarky (economic self-sufficiency without foreign trade). As Italy prepared for war, the government's propaganda became more belligerent, the tone of mass rallies more militaristic, and Mussolini's posturing more vain and delusional. Italian soldiers even started to mimic the goose-step marching style of their Nazi counterparts, though it was called the Roman step.

Although the Italian Fascists had ridiculed Nazi racism and declared that Italy had no “Jewish problem,” in 1938 the government suddenly issued Nazi-style anti-Semitic laws. The new laws denied that Jews could be Italian. This policy eventually led the Fascist government of the Italian Social Republic—the Nazi puppet government in northern Italy—to give active help to the Nazis when they sent 8,000 Italian Jews to their deaths in extermination camps in the fall of 1943. Mussolini knew his country was ill-prepared for a major European war and he tried to use his influence to broker peace in the years before World War II. But he had become a prisoner of his own militaristic rhetoric and myth of infallibility. When Hitler's armies swept through Belgium into France in the spring of 1940, Mussolini abandoned neutrality and declared war against France and Britain. In this way he locked Italy into a hopeless war against a powerful alliance that eventually comprised the British empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the United States. Italy's armed forces were weak and unprepared for war, despite Mussolini's bold claims of invincibility. Italian forces suffered humiliating defeats in 1940 and 1941, and Mussolini's popularity in Italy plummeted. In July 1943, faced with imminent defeat at the hands of the Allies despite Nazi reinforcements, the Fascist Grand Council passed a vote of no confidence against Mussolini, removing him from control of the Fascist Party. The king ratified this decision, dismissed Mussolini as head of state and had him arrested.

Most Italians were overjoyed at the news that the supposedly infallible Mussolini had been deposed. The popular consensus behind the regime had evaporated, leaving only the fanaticism of intransigenti (hard-liners). Nevertheless, Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) commandos rescued Mussolini from his mountain-top prison, and Hitler then put him in control of the Italian Social Republic—the Nazi puppet government in northern Italy. The Nazis kept Mussolini under tight control, however, using him to crush partisans (anti-Fascist resistance fighters) and to delay the defeat of Germany. Partisans finally shot Mussolini as he tried to flee in disguise to Switzerland in April 1945. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers endured terrible suffering, either forced to fight alongside the Nazis in Italy or on the Russian front, or to work for the Nazi regime as slave labor.

E. Significance
The rise and fall of Fascism in Italy showed several general features of fascism. First, Italian Fascism fed off a profound social crisis that had undermined the legitimacy of the existing system. Many Europeans supported fascism in the 1930s because of a widespread perception that the parliamentary system of government was fundamentally corrupt and inefficient. Thus it was relatively easy for Italians to support Mussolini's plans to create a new type of state that would transform the country into a world power and restore Italy to the prominence it enjoyed during the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

Second, Italian Fascism was an uneasy blend of elitism and populism. A revolutionary elite imposed Fascist rule on the people. In order to secure power the movement was forced to collaborate with conservative ruling elites—the bourgeoisie (powerful owners of business), the army, the monarchy, the Church, and state officials. At the same time, however, the Fascist movement made sustained efforts to generate genuine popular enthusiasm and to revolutionize the lives of the Italian people.

Third, Fascism was a charismatic form of politics that asserted the extraordinary capabilities of the party and its leader. The main tool for the Fascistization (conversion to Fascism) of the masses and the creation of the new Fascist man was not propaganda, censorship, education, or terror, or even the large fascist social and military organizations. Instead, the Fascists relied on the extensive use of a ritualized, theatrical style of politics designed create a sense of a new historical era that abolished the politics of the past. In this sense Fascism was an attempt to confront urbanization, class conflict, and other problems of modern society by making the state itself the object of a public cult, creating a sort of civic religion.

Fourth, Italy embraced the fascist myth that national rebirth demanded a permanent revolution—a constant change in social and political life. To sustain a sense of constant renewal, Italian Fascism was forced by its own militarism to pursue increasingly ambitious foreign policy goals and ever more unrealizable territorial claims. This seems to indicate that any fascist movement that identifies rebirth with imperialist expansion and manages to seize power will eventually exhaust the capacity of the nation to win victory after victory. In the case of Italian Fascism, this exhaustion set in quickly.

A fifth feature of Italian Fascism was its attempt to achieve a totalitarian synthesis of politics, art, society, and culture, although this was a conspicuous failure. Italian Fascism never created a true new man. Modern societies have a mixture of people with differing values and experiences. This diversity can be suppressed but not reversed. The vast majority of Italians may have temporarily embraced Fascist nationalism because of the movement's initial successes, but the people were never truly Fascistized. In short, in its militarized version between World War I and World War II, the fascist vision was bound to lead in practice to a widening gap between rhetoric and reality, goals and achievements.

Finally, the fate of Italian Fascism illustrates how the overall goal of a fascist utopia has always turned to nightmare. Tragically for Italy and the international community, Mussolini embarked on his imperial expansion just as Hitler began his efforts to reverse the Versailles Treaty and reestablish Germany as a major military power. This led to the formation of the Axis alliance, which gave Hitler a false sense of security about the prospects for his imperial schemes. The formation of this alliance helped lead to World War II, and it committed Mussolini to unwinnable military campaigns that resulted in the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. The death, destruction, and misery of the fighting in Italy was inflicted on a civilian population that had come to reject the Fascist vision of Italian renewal, but whose public displays of enthusiasm for the regime before the war had kept Mussolini in power.

VII. Fascism in Germany: National Socialism
The only fascist movement outside Italy that came to power in peacetime was Germany's National Socialist German Workers Party—the Nazis. The core of the National Socialist program was an ideology and a policy of war against Germany's supposed moral and racial decay and a struggle to begin the country's rebirth. This theme of struggle and renewal dominates the many ideological statements of Nazism, including Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf (My Struggle, 1939), speeches by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935).

All of the Nazi government's actions served this dual purpose of destroying the supposed sickness of the old Germany and creating a healthy new society. The government abolished democratic freedoms and institutions because they were seen as causing national divisions. In their place the government created an authoritarian state, known as the Third Reich, that would serve as the core of the new society. The Nazis promoted German culture, celebrated athleticism and youth, and tried to ensure that all Germans conformed physically and mentally to an Aryan ideal. But in order to achieve these goals, the Nazi regime repressed supposedly degenerate books and paintings, sterilized physically and mentally disabled people, and enslaved and murdered millions of people who were considered enemies of the Reich or "subhuman." This combination of renewal and destruction was symbolized by the pervasive emblem of Nazism, the swastika—a cross with four arms broken at right angles. German propaganda identified the swastika with the rising sun and with rebirth because the bars of the symbol suggest perpetual rotation. To its countless victims, however, the swastika came to signify cruelty, death, and terror.

A. Main Features
There were two features specific to Nazism that combined to make it so extraordinarily destructive and barbaric once in power. The first feature was the Nazi myth of national greatness. This myth suggested that the country was destined to become an imperial and great military power. Underpinning this myth was a concept of the nation that blended romantic notions about national history and character with pseudo-scientific theories of race, genetics, and natural selection. It led naturally to a foreign policy based on the principle of first uniting all ethnic Germans within the German nation, and then creating a vast European empire free of racial enemies. These ideas led to international wars of unprecedented violence and inhumanity.

The second important feature of Nazism was that it developed in the context of a modern economy and society. Even after Germany's defeat in World War I, the country was still one of the most advanced nations in the world in terms of infrastructure, government efficiency, industry, economic potential, and standards of education. Germany also had a deep sense of national pride, belonging, and roots, and a civic consciousness that stressed duty and obedience. In addition, the nation had a long tradition of anti-Semitism and imperialism, and of respect for gifted leaders. The institutions of democracy had only weak roots in Germany, and after World War I democracy was widely rejected as un-German.

B. Hitler's Rise to Power
The dangerous combination of Germany's modernity and its racist, imperialist ultranationalism became apparent after the economic and political failure of the Weimar Republic, the parliamentary government established in Germany following World War I. Unlike Mussolini, Hitler took control of a country that had a strong industrial, military, and governmental power base that was merely dormant after World War I. Hitler also became more powerful than Mussolini because the Nazis simply radicalized and articulated widely held prejudices, whereas the Fascists of Italy had to create new ones. Although the Nazi Party won control of the German legislature after a democratic election in 1932 , in 1933 Hitler suspended the constitution, abolished the presidency, and declared himself Germany's Führer (leader). Once in control, Hitler was able to insert his fascist vision of the new Germany into a highly receptive political culture. The Third Reich quickly created the technical, organizational, militaristic, and social means to implement its far-reaching schemes for the transformation of Germany and large parts of Europe.

The Nazis' attempts to build a new German empire led to the systematic killings of about six million civilians during the 1940s, and the deaths of millions more as the result of Nazi invasion and occupation—a horror rivaled only by Josef Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. The Nazis primarily killed Jews, but also targeted homosexuals, people with disabilities, and members of religious minorities such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. All of this killing and destruction stemmed from the Nazis' conviction that non-Germans had sapped the strength of the German nation. At the same time, the Nazis attempted to take control of most of Europe in an effort to build a new racial empire. This effort led to World War II and the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians. After early successes in the war, Germany found itself facing defeat on all sides. German forces were unable to overcome the tenacity and sheer size of the Soviet military in Eastern Europe, while in Western Europe and North Africa they faced thousands of Allied aircraft, tanks, and ships. Facing certain defeat, Hitler killed himself in April 1945, and Germany surrendered to the Allies in the following month.

C. Significance
Although scholars generally view Italy under Mussolini as the benchmark for understanding fascism in general, the German case shows that not all fascist movements were exactly alike. German National Socialism differed from Italian Fascism in important ways. The most important differences were Nazism's commitment to a more extreme degree of totalitarian control, and its racist conception of the ideal national community.

Hitler's visionary fanaticism called for the Gleichschaltung (coordination) of every possible aspect of life in Germany. The totalitarianism that resulted in Germany went further than that of Italy, although not as far as Nazi propaganda claimed. Italian Fascism lacked the ideological fervor to indulge in systematic ethnic cleansing on the scale seen in Germany. Although the Italian Fascist government did issue flagrantly anti-Semitic laws in 1938, it did not contemplate mass extermination of its Jewish population. In Italy Fascism also was marked by pluralism, compromise, and inefficiency as compared to Nazism. As a result, in Fascist Italy far more areas of personal, social, and cultural life escaped the intrusion of the state than in Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, both Italian Fascism and German National Socialism rested on the same brutal logic of rebirth through what was seen as creative destruction. In Italy this took form in attempts by the Fascist Party to recapture Roman qualities, while in Germany it led the Nazis to attempt to re-Aryanize European civilization.

When Nazism is compared to other forms of fascism, it becomes clear that Nazism was not just a peculiar movement that emerged from Germany's unique history and culture. Instead, Nazism stands as a German variant of a political ideology that was popular to varying degrees throughout Europe between World War I and World War II. As a result of this line of thinking, some historians who study Nazism no longer speculate about what elements of German history led to Nazism. Instead, they try to understand which conditions in the German Weimar Republic allowed fascism to become the country's dominant political force in 1932, and the process by which fascists were able to gain control of the state in 1933. The exceptional nature of the success of fascism in Germany and Italy is especially clear when compared to the fate of fascism in some other countries.

VIII. Fascism in Other Countries from 1919 to 1945
World War I and the global economic depression of the 1930s destabilized nearly all liberal democracies in Europe, even those that had not fought in the war. Amidst this social and political uncertainty, fascism gained widespread popularity in some countries but consistently failed to overthrow any parliamentary system outside of Italy and Germany. In many countries fascism attracted considerable attention in newspaper and radio reports, but the movement never really threatened to disturb the existing political order. This was the case in countries such as Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Holland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Fascism failed to take root in these countries because no substantial electoral support existed there for a revolution from the far right. In France, Finland, and Belgium, far-right forces with fascistic elements mounted a more forceful challenge in the 1930s to elected governments, but democracy prevailed in these political conflicts. In the Communist USSR, the government was so determined to crush any forms of anticommunist dissent that it was impossible for a fascist movement to form there.

But fascism did represent a significant movement in a handful of European countries. A review of the countries where fascism saw some success but ultimately failed helps explain the more general failure of fascism. These countries included Spain, Portugal, Austria, France, Hungary, and Romania. In these countries fascism was denied the political space in which to grow and take root. Fascist movements were opposed by powerful coalitions of radical right-wing forces, which either crushed or absorbed them. Some conservative regimes adopted features of fascism to gain popularity.

A. Spain
Spain's fascist movement, the Falange Española (Spanish Phalanx) was hobbled by the country's historical lack of a coherent nationalist tradition. The strongest nationalist sentiments originated in Basque Country in north central Spain and in Catalonia in the northeast. But in both areas the nationalists favored separation rather than the unification of Spain as a nation. The Falange gained some support in the 1930s, but it was dominated by the much stronger coalition of right-wing groups led by General Francisco Franco. The Falangists fought alongside Franco's forces against the country's Republican government during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and 1937. But the Falange was too small to challenge the political supremacy of Franco's coalition of monarchists (supporters of royal authority), Catholics, and conservative military forces.

The Republican government killed the Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera in November 1936. With the loss of this key leader, Franco managed to absorb fascism into his movement by combining the Falange with the Carlists, a monarchist group that included a militia known as the Requetés (Volunteers). The fascism of the Falange retained some influence when Franco became dictator in 1939, but this was primarily limited to putting a radical and youthful face on Franco's repressive regime. Franco's quasi-fascist government controlled Spanish politics until Franco's death in 1975. Franco's reign marked the longest-lived form of fascist political control, but fascist ideology took second place to Franco's more general goal of protecting the interests of Spain's traditional ruling elite.

B. Portugal
In Portugal the dictator António de Olivera Salazar led a right-wing authoritarian government in the 1930s that showed fascist tendencies, but was less restrictive than the regimes of other fascist countries. Salazar sought to create a quasi-fascist Estado Novo (New State) based on strict government controls of the economy, but his government was relatively moderate compared to those in Italy, Germany, and Spain. Salazar's conservative authoritarianism was opposed by another movement with fascist tendencies, the National Syndicalists, which hoped to force a more radical fascist transformation of Portugal. But Salazar's government banned the National Syndicalist movement in 1934 and sent its leader, Rolão Preto, into exile in Spain. Salazar continued to rule as the dictator of Portugal until 1968.

C. Austria
In the wake of World War I, Marxist forces on the left and quasi-fascist groups on the right increasingly polarized Austrian politics. Some right-wing forces organized the paramilitary Heimwehr (Home Defense League) to violently attack members of the Socialist Party. Other right-wing forces created an Austrian Nazi party, but this group rejected many basic elements of fascism. The somewhat less extreme Christian Social Party led by Engelbert Dollfuss won power in 1932 through a parliamentary coalition with the Heimwehr. Once in power, Dollfuss created a quasi-fascist regime that resisted incorporation into Hitler's Germany and emphasized the government's ties with the Catholic Church. Dollfuss was killed when the Austrian Nazis attempted a putsch (takeover) in 1934, but the Nazis failed in this effort to take control of the government. The government then suppressed the Nazi party, eliminating the threat of extreme fascism in Austria until Nazi Germany annexed the country in 1938.

D. France
The Vichy regime in France stood as one of the most radical quasi-fascist governments during World War II. The regime took its name from the town of Vichy, which was the seat of the pro-German government controlled by the Nazis from 1940 until 1945. The Vichy government shared many characteristics with Nazism, including an official youth organization, a brutal secret police, a reliance on the political rituals of a "civic religion," and vicious anti-Semitic policies that led to the killing of an estimated 65,000 French Jews. The Vichy regime was headed by Henri Philippe Pétain, a fatherly figure who ensured that genuine fascists gained little popular support for their radical plans to rejuvenate France. At the same time, fascists in other parts of the country supported the Nazi occupation, but the Germans never granted real power to these radical forces.

E. Hungary
Fascism had a mixed impact on Hungarian politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Some Hungarian leaders hoped that an alliance with Nazi Germany would bring the return of Transylvania, Croatia, and Slovakia—territories that Hungary had lost in World War I. At the same time, however, many Hungarians feared that Germany would try to regain its historical military dominance of the region. Right-wing nationalist groups who favored close ties to Germany flourished in the 1930s, and by 1939 the fascist Arrow Cross movement was the dominant political party. Under the leadership of the radical army officer Fernec Szálasi, the Arrow Cross sought to enlarge Hungary and hoped to position the country along with Italy and Germany as one of Europe's great powers. The Hungarian government led by Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya supported Hitler's overall regional ambitions and maintained close ties with the Nazi government, but the regime felt threatened by the Arrow Cross's challenge to its authority. Horthy clamped down on the Arrow Cross, even though his own government had fascist tendencies.

During World War II Hungary sent about 200,000 soldiers to fight alongside the German army on the Russian front, and about two-thirds of the Hungarian force was killed. As the war turned against Germany, Hungary began to curtail its support for the Nazis, leading Hitler to send troops to occupy Hungary in 1944. The Nazis installed Szálasi as the head of a puppet government that cooperated with the SS when it began rounding up the country's Jewish population for deportation to Nazi extermination camps. By the end of World War II, fascist Hungarian forces and the Nazis had killed an estimated 550,000 Hungarian Jews. The Arrow Cross party collapsed after the war, and some of its leaders were tried as war criminals.

F. Romania
To the east of Hungary, Romanian fascist forces nearly won control of the government. The Iron Guard, the most violent and anti-Semitic movement in the country, grew rapidly when the Romanian economy was battered by the global depression of the 1930s. As the Iron Guard became more powerful, Romanian ruler King Carol II withdrew his initial support for the movement and in 1938 ordered the execution of its top leaders. Romanian general Ion Antonescu, who was backed by the Iron Guard and by Nazi Germany, demanded that Carol II abdicate his rule. After the king left the country, Antonescu set up a quasi-fascist military dictatorship that included fellow members of the Iron Guard. Intent upon creating their own new order, the Iron Guard assassinated political enemies and seized Jewish property. But the campaign led to economic and political chaos, which convinced Nazi officials that the Iron Guard should be eliminated. In 1941, amidst rumors that the Iron Guard was planning a coup, Antonescu crushed the movement with Nazi approval. Antonescu's army then cooperated with Nazi soldiers to exterminate Jews in the eastern portion of the country in 1941, and thousands more died when the fascist forces expelled them to a remote eastern region of the country. By the end of the war an estimated 364,000 Jews had died in the Romanian Holocaust as a result of this alliance of conservative and fascist forces.

IX. Fascism after World War II
After the world became fully aware of the enormous human suffering that occurred in Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers, many people came to see the defeat of fascism as a historic victory of humanity over barbarism. World War II discredited fascism as an ideology, and after the war most of the world saw levels of sustained economic growth that had eluded most countries in the years after World War I. The economic and political turmoil that had spurred fascist movements in the years after World War I seemed to have disappeared. At the same time fascism could not take root in the conditions of tight social and political control in the USSR. Government controls also prevented fascism from gaining a foothold in Soviet client states in Eastern Europe.

But fascism proved resilient, and new movements adapted the ideology to the changed political environment. Some support for a revival of fascism came from the movement's supporters who were disappointed by the defeat of the Axis powers. In addition, a new generation of ultranationalists and racists who grew up after 1945 hoped to rebuild the fascist movement and were determined to continue the struggle against what they saw as decadent liberalism. During the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union vied for global dominance, these new fascists focused their efforts on combatting Communism, the archenemy of their movement.

Since 1945 fascism has spread to other countries, notably the United States. In several countries fascist groups have tried to build fascist movements based on historical developments such as fear of immigration, increased concern over ecological problems, and the Cold War. Along with the change in ideology, fascists have adopted new tools, such as rock music and the Internet, to spread their ideas. Some fascist groups have renounced the use of paramilitary groups in favor of a "cultural campaign" for Europeans to recover their "true identity."

Fundamentally, contemporary fascism remains tightly linked to its origins in the early 20th century. Fascism still sets as its goal the overthrow of liberal democratic institutions, such as legislatures and courts, and keeps absolute political power as its ultimate aim. Fascism also retains its emphasis on violence, sometimes spurring horrific incidents. For instance, fascist beliefs motivated the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that killed 168 people and wounded more than 500 others. In Germany, fascist groups in the early 1990s launched scores of firebomb attacks against the homes of immigrants, sometimes killing residents. In 1999, inspired by Nazi ideals of ethnic cleansing, fascist groups conducted a series of bomb attacks in London. The attacks were directed against ethnic minorities, gays, and lesbians.

After World War II, only South Africa saw the emergence of a significant fascist movement that followed the prewar pattern. In South Africa the white supremacist paramilitary movement Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) organized radical white South Africans to create a new hard-line racial state. Most white South Africans supported the system of racial and economic exploitation of the black majority known as apartheid, but only a small fraction went so far as to support the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. The movement carried out repeated acts of violence and sabotage in the 1980s and especially the 1990s, but remained a minor political force. South Africa's political reforms in the 1990s led to the further reduction in support for the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. In other countries, widespread hostility to fascism made it impossible to create a mass movement coordinated by a paramilitary political party, as Nazi Germany's National Socialists or Romania's Iron Guard had been. As a result, fascists have relied on a number of new strategies to keep the prospect of national revolution open.

X. New Fascist Strategies
Fascist groups have developed many new strategies since World War II, but they have virtually no chance of winning control of the government in any country. Citizens in all countries hope for political stability and economic prosperity, and do not see fascism as a realistic way of achieving these goals. Even in countries where ethnic tensions are strong, such as in some areas that were once part of the USSR or under its control, there is no mass support for visions of a reborn national community based on self-sacrifice, suppression of individualism, and isolation from global culture and trade.

A. Reliance on Dispersed Small Groups
One of the most important new fascist strategies is to form small groups of ideologically committed people willing to dedicate their lives to the fascist cause. In some cases these minor groups turn to terrorism. Since 1945, fascists in Western Europe and the United States formed many thousands of small groups, with memberships ranging from a few hundred to less than ten. These small groups can be very fragile. Many of them are dissolved or change names after a few years, and members sometimes restlessly move through a number of groups or even belong to several at once. Although the groups often use bold slogans and claim that their forces will create a severe social crisis, in practice they remain unable to change the status quo. These groups remain ineffective because they fail to attract mass support, failing even to win significant support from their core potential membership of disaffected white males.

Despite their weaknesses, these small fascist groups cannot be dismissed as insignificant. Some of them have been known to carry out acts of violence against individuals. In 1997 in Denmark, for example, a fascist group was accused of sending bombs through the mail to assassinate political opponents. In the United States, fascists have assaulted and killed African Americans, Jews, and other minorities, and set off scores of bombs. Small fascist groups also present a threat because the fliers they distribute and the marches and meetings they hold can create a local climate of racial intolerance. This encourages discrimination ranging from verbal abuse to murder. In addition, the small size and lack of centralized organization that weakens these groups also makes them nearly impossible for governments to control. If a government stops violence by arresting members of a few groups, the larger fascist network remains intact. This virtually guarantees that the ideology of fascism will survive even if government authorities clamp down on some organizations.

B. Shift to Electoral Politics
In addition to organizing through small groups, some fascists have tried to participate in mainstream party-based electoral politics. In contrast to the first fascist movements, these new fascist parties do not rely on a military branch to fight their opponents, and they tend to conceal their larger fascist agenda. To make fascist ideas seem acceptable, some parties water down their revolutionary agenda in order to win voter support even from people who do not want radical change and a fascist regime. Instead of emphasizing their long-term objectives for change, the fascist parties focus on issues such as the threat of Communism, crime, global economic competition, the loss of cultural identity allegedly resulting from mass immigration, and the need for a strong, inspiring leader to give the nation a direction.

Italy, for example, saw this type of quasi-democratic fascism with the 1946 formation of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), which hoped to keep fascist ideals alive. In the mid-1990s the MSI managed to widen its support significantly when it renounced the goals of historic Italian Fascism and changed its name to the National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale, or AN). Although the AN presents itself as comparable to other right-wing parties, its programs still retain significant elements of their fascist origins. During the 1990s several other extreme-right parties gained significant mass support, including the Republicans (Die Republikaner) in Germany, the National Front (Front National, or FN) in France, the Freedom Movement (Die Freiheitlichen) in Austria, the Flemish Bloc (Vlaams Blok) in Belgium, and the Liberal Democratic Party in Russia. All of these groups have some fascistic elements, but reject the revolutionary radicalism of true fascism.

C. Emphasis on Cultural Change
Since World War II, some fascist movements have also shifted their goal from the political overthrow of democratic governments to a general cultural transformation. These movements hope that a cultural transformation will create the necessary conditions to achieve a radical political change. This form of fascism played an important role in the formative phase of the New Right. In the 1960s and 1970s New Right intellectuals criticized both liberal democratic politics and communism, arguing that societies should be organized around ethnic identity. Unlike earlier fascist movements, the New Right agenda did not require paramilitary organizations, uniforms, or a single unifying leader.

As a result of their emphasis on culture and ethnicity, the New Right argues that it is important to maintain a diversity of cultures around the world. But since it favors the preservation of ethnic cultures, the New Right strongly opposes the mixing of cultures that is increasingly common in the United States, Canada, and Europe. As a result, New Right thinkers attack the rise of global culture, the tendencies toward closer ties between countries, and all other trends that encourage the loss of racial identity. These thinkers argue that people who oppose racism in fact want to allow racial identity to be destroyed and are therefore promoting racial hatred. Known as differentialists, these fascists proclaim their love of all cultures, but in practice attack the multiculturalism and tolerance that lies at the heart of liberal democracy. Some political scientists and historians therefore argue that differentialism is really just a thinly disguised form of racism and fascism. Since the 1980s some leading New Right intellectuals have moved away from the fascist vision of a new historical era. However, the ideas that form the basis of the New Right movement continue to exert considerable influence on fascist activists who wish to disguise their true agenda. One example is "Third Positionists," who claim to reject capitalism and communism in their search for a "third way" based on revolutionary nationalism.

D. Attempts to Build a Global Movement
Fascists since World War II have also reshaped fascist ideology by attempting to create an international fascist movement. New Rightists and Third Positionists in Europe condemn cultural and ethnic mixing, and strive to unite fascist forces in Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, and other countries behind a shared vision of a reborn Europe. These fascists thus break with the narrow nationalism that characterized the first fascist movements. At the same time, neo-Nazi groups worldwide have embraced the myth of Aryan superiority, which German fascists used as the basis for war against the rest of humanity. The neo-Nazis hope to build a global movement, and rely on this central element of racism to create a doctrine of white supremacy for all of Europe, Canada, the United States, and other places with substantial populations of white people. The new international character of fascism can also be seen in the pseudo-scholarly industry that publishes propaganda in an academic style to play down, trivialize, or excuse the horrors of Nazism. This approach is sometimes called historical revisionism, although it is separate from a much more general and mainstream approach to history known as revisionism. Some of these self-styled scholars manufacture or distort documentary evidence to “prove” that the Nazis did not create extermination camps that killed millions of Jews during the Holocaust. All professional historians completely reject any attempt to show that the Holocaust never happened, but there continues to be a loosely knit international community of fascist writers who make such claims. The Internet has made it much easier for these writers to spread their ideas and propaganda in a way that is practically impossible to censor. While fascism has no prospect of returning to its former influence, it is set to be a continuous source of ideological and physical attacks on liberal society for the foreseeable future, and a permanent component of many democracies

Ann's Latest Take On FM/FM Debacle

2008-10-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Election later. The mortgage mess is more fun.

THEY GAVE YOUR MORTGAGE TO A LESS QUALIFIED MINORITY
September 24, 2008//credited to AnnCoulter.com

On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of. ... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country."

McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation altogether, but, as The New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the panel would not release him."

So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and the Democrats.

Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles' mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."

The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain already had explained that scandal away -- repeatedly. It was celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a certain horny hick president a few years ago.

In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:

"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him."

It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.

Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal -- and he wasn't -- that would still have absolutely nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis currently roiling the financial markets. This crisis was caused by political correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the Clinton era.

Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains."

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.

Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee."

Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact.

When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices.

In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."

Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.

A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off.

In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.

Rep. Barney Frank denounced Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare you oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them! The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats.

Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.

Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

Goodbye Dear Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

Solzhenitsyn, chronicler of Soviet gulag, dies
by DOUGLAS BIRCH (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated PressAugust 03, 2008 8:59 PM EDT

MOSCOW - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.
Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday at his home near Moscow, but declined further comment.
Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.
Beginning with the 1962 short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Solzhenitsyn (sohl-zheh-NEETS'-ihn) devoted himself to describing what he called the human "meat grinder" that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.
His non-fiction "Gulag Archipelago" trilogy of the 1970s shocked readers by describing the savagery of the Soviet state under Stalin. It helped erase lingering sympathy for the Soviet Union among many leftist intellectuals, especially in Europe.
But his account of that secret system of prison camps was also inspiring in its description of how one person - Solzhenitsyn himself - survived, physically and spiritually, in a penal system of soul-crushing hardship and injustice.
The West offered him shelter and accolades. But Solzhenitsyn's refusal to bend despite enormous pressure, perhaps, also gave him the courage to criticize Western culture for what he considered its weakness and decadence.
After a triumphant return from exile in the U.S. in 1994 that included a 56-day train trip across Russia to become reacquainted with his native land, Solzhenitsyn later expressed annoyance and disappointment that most Russians hadn't read his books.
During the 1990s, his stalwart nationalist views, his devout Orthodoxy, his disdain for capitalism and disgust with the tycoons who bought Russian industries and resources cheaply following the Soviet collapse, were unfashionable. He faded from public view.
But under Vladimir Putin's 2000-2008 presidency, Solzhenitsyn's vision of Russia as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity, as a place with a unique culture and destiny, gained renewed prominence.
Putin argued, as Solzhenitsyn did in a speech at Harvard University in 1978, that Russia has a separate civilization from the West, one that can't be reconciled either to Communism or western-style liberal democracy, but requires a system adapted to its history and traditions.
Putin's successor Dmitry Medvedev sent condolences after news of Solzhenitsyn's death, Russian media reported.
"Any ancient deeply rooted autonomous culture, especially if it is spread on a wide part of the earth's surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking," Solzhenitsyn said in the Harvard speech. "For one thousand years, Russia has belonged to such a category."
Born Dec. 11, 1918, in Kislovodsk, Solzhenitsyn served as a front-line artillery captain in World War II. In the closing weeks of the war, he was arrested for writing what he called "certain disrespectful remarks" about Stalin in a letter to a friend, referring to him as "the man with the mustache."
He was sentenced to eight years in labor camps -- three of which he served in a camp in the barren steppe of Kazakhstan that was the basis for his first novel. After that, he served three years of exile in Kazakhstan.
That's where he began to write, memorizing much of his work so it wouldn't be lost if it were seized. His theme was the suffering and injustice of life in Stalin's gulag - a Soviet abbreviation for the slave labor camp system, which Solzhenitsyn made part of the lexicon.
He continued writing while working as a mathematics teacher in the provincial Russian city of Ryazan.
The first fruit of this labor was "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," the story of a carpenter struggling to survive in a Soviet labor camp, where he had been sent, like Solzhenitsyn, after service in the war.
The book was published in 1962 by order of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was eager to discredit the abuses of Stalin, his predecessor, and created a sensation in a country where unpleasant truths were spoken in whispers, if at all. Abroad, the book - which went through numerous revisions - was lauded not only for its bravery, but for its spare, unpretentious language.
After Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Solzhenitsyn began facing KGB harassment, publication of his works was blocked and he was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union. But he was undeterred.
"A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country," he wrote in "The First Circle," his next novel, a book about inmates in one of Stalin's "special camps" for scientists who were deemed politically unreliable but whose skills were essential.
Solzhenitsyn, a graduate from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Rostov University, was sent to one of these camps in 1946, soon after his arrest.
The novel "Cancer Ward", which appeared in 1967, was another fictional worked based on Solzhenitsyn's life. In this case, the subject was his cancer treatment in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then part of Soviet Central Asia, during his years of internal exile from March 1953, the month of Stalin's death, until June 1956.
In the book, cancer became a metaphor for the fatal sickness of the Soviet system. "A man sprouts a tumor and dies -- how then can a country live that has sprouted camps and exile?"
He attacked the complicity of millions of Russians in the horrors of Stalin's reign.
"Suddenly all the professors and engineers turned out to be saboteurs - and they believed it? ... Or all of Lenin's old guard were vile renegades - and they believed it? Suddenly all their friends and acquaintances were enemies of the people - and they believed it?"
The Stalinist era, he wrote, quoting from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, forced Soviet citizens to choose one of three roles: tyrant, traitor, prisoner.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, an unusual move for the Swedish Academy, which generally makes awards late in an author's life after decades of work. The academy cited "the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."
Soviet authorities barred the author from traveling to Stockholm to receive the award and official attacks were intensified in 1973 when the first book in the "Gulag" trilogy appeared in Paris.
"During all the years until 1961," Solzhenitsyn wrote in an autobiography written for the Nobel Foundation, "not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known."
The following year, he was arrested on a treason charge and expelled the next day to West Germany in handcuffs. His expulsion inspired worldwide condemnation of the regime of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Solzhenitsyn then made his homeland in America, settling in 1976 in the tiny town of Cavendish, Vermont, with his wife and sons.
Living at a secluded hillside compound he rarely left, he called his 18 years there the most productive of his life. There he worked on what he considered to be his life's work, a multivolume saga of Russian history titled "The Red Wheel."
Although free from repression, Solzhenitsyn longed for his native land. Neither was he enchanted by Western democracy, with its emphasis on individual freedom.
To the dismay of his supporters, in his Harvard speech he rejected the West's faith "Western pluralistic democracy" as the model for all other nations. It was a mistake, he warned, for Western societies to regard the failure of the rest of the world to adopt the democratic model as a product of "wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity or incomprehension."
Some critics saw "The Red Wheel" books as tedious and hectoring, rather than as sweeping and lit by moral fire.
"Exile from his great theme, Stalinism and the gulag, had exposed his major weaknesses," D.M. Thomas wrote in a 1998 biography, theorizing that the intensity of the earlier works was "a projection of his own repressed violence."
Then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev restored Solzhenitsyn's citizenship in 1990 and the treason charge was finally dropped in 1991, less than a month after a failed Soviet coup.
Following an emotional homecoming that started in the Russian Far East on May 27, 1994, and became a whistle-stop tour across the country, Solzhenitsyn settled in a tree-shaded, red brick home overlooking the Moscow River just west of the capital.
While avoiding a partisan political role, Solzhenitsyn vowed to speak "the whole truth about Russia, until they shut my mouth like before."
He was contemptuous of President Boris Yeltsin, blaming Yeltsin for the collapse of Russia's economy, his dependence on bailouts by the International Monetary Fund, his inability to stop the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders, his tolerance of the rising influence of a handful of Russian billionaires - who were nicknamed "oligarchs" by an American diplomat.
Yeltsin's reign, Solzhenitsyn said, marked one of three "times of troubles" in Russian history - which included the 17th century crises that led to the rise of the Romanovs and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. When Yeltsin awarded Solzhenitsyn Russia's highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew, the writer refused to accept it. When Yeltsin left office in 2000, Solzhenitsyn wanted him prosecuted.
The author's last book, 2001's "Two Hundred Years Together," addressed the complex emotions of Russian-Jewish relations. Some criticized the book for alleged anti-Semitic passages. But the author denied the charge, saying he "understood the subtlety, sensitivity and kindheartedness of the Jewish character."
Yeltsin's successor Putin at first had a rocky relationship with Solzhenitsyn, who criticized the Russian president in 2002 for not doing more to crack down on Russia's oligarchs. Putin was also a veteran of the Soviet-era KGB, the agency that, more than any other, represented the Soviet legacy of repression.
But the two men, so different, gradually developed a rapport. By steps, Putin adopted Solzhenitsyn's criticisms of the West, perhaps out of a recognition that Russia really is a different civilization, perhaps because the author offered justification for the Kremlin's determination to muzzle critics, to reassert control over Russia's natural resources and to concentrate political power.

Like Putin, Solzhenitsyn argued that Russia was following its own path to its own form of democratic society. In a June 2005 interview with state television, he said Russia had lost 15 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union by moving too quickly in the rush to build a more liberal society.
"We need to be better, so we need to go more slowly," he said
Following the death of Naguib Mahfouz in 2006, Solzhenitsyn became the oldest living Nobel laureate in literature. He is survived by his wife, Natalya, who acted as his spokesman, and his three sons, including Stepan, Ignat, a pianist and conductor, and Yermolai. All live in the United States.
----
Correspondent Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

ALSO____
Such a helpful website.. with good links below... keep waiting and don't be discouraged...
I wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.

WaitingUpon God
(Psalms 25:1-5 NKJV) To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. {2} O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed; Let not my enemies triumph over me. {3} Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause. {4} Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. {5} Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.(Psalms 27:13-14 NKJV) I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. {14} Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!(Psalms 31:23-24 NKJV) Oh, love the LORD, all you His saints! For the LORD preserves the faithful, And fully repays the proud person. {24} Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the LORD.(Psalms 32:1 NKJV) Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered.(Psalms 33:18-22 NKJV) Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy, {19} To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. {20} Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. {21} For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. {22} Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.(Psalms 37:3-9 NKJV) Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. {4} Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. {5} Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. {6} He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday. {7} Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. {8} Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it only causes harm. {9} For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.(Psalms 39:7 NKJV) "And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You.(Psalms 40:1-4 NKJV) I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. {2} He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. {3} He has put a new song in my mouth; Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the LORD. {4} Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust, And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.(Psalms 42:5 NKJV) Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.(Psalms 42:11 NKJV) Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.(Psalms 62:1-2 NKJV) Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation. {2} He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.(Psalms 62:5-8 NKJV) My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. {6} He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. {7} In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God. {8} Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah(Psalms 69:2-3 NKJV) I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me. {3} I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God.(Psalms 78:6-7 NKJV) That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, {7} That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments;(Psalms 130:1-7 NKJV) Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD; {2} Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications. {3} If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? {4} But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared. {5} I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. {6} My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning; Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. {7} O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption.(Psalms 145:14-20 NKJV) The LORD upholds all who fall, And raises up all who are bowed down. {15} The eyes of all look expectantly to You, And You give them their food in due season. {16} You open Your hand And satisfy the desire of every living thing. {17} The LORD is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. {18} The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. {19} He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. {20} The LORD preserves all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy.(Proverbs 20:22 NKJV) Do not say, "I will recompense evil"; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you.(Isaiah 25:7-9 NKJV) And He will destroy on this mountain The surface of the covering cast over all people, And the veil that is spread over all nations. {8} He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken. {9} And it will be said in that day: "Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the LORD; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."(Isaiah 26:3-9 NKJV) You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. {4} Trust in the LORD forever, For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength. {5} For He brings down those who dwell on high, The lofty city; He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He brings it down to the dust. {6} The foot shall tread it down; The feet of the poor And the steps of the needy." {7} The way of the just is uprightness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just. {8} Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O LORD, we have waited for You; The desire of our soul is for Your name And for the remembrance of You. {9} With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; For when Your judgments are in the earth, The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.(Isaiah 30:18 NKJV) Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him.(Isaiah 40:28-31 NKJV) Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. {29} He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. {30} Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, {31} But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.(Isaiah 64:4 NKJV) For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him.(Lamentations 3:21-26 NKJV) This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. {22} Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. {23} They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. {24} "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I hope in Him!" {25} The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. {26} It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD.(Hosea 12:6 NKJV) So you, by the help of your God, return; Observe mercy and justice, And wait on your God continually.(Micah 7:7-9 NKJV) Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me. {8} Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, The LORD will be a light to me. {9} I will bear the indignation of the LORD, Because I have sinned against Him, Until He pleads my case And executes justice for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I will see His righteousness.(Acts 24:15 NKJV) "I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.(1 Corinthians 1:4-8 NKJV) I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, {5} that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, {6} even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, {7} so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, {8} who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.(Philippians 3:20-21 NKJV) For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, {21} who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.(James 5:7-8 NKJV) Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. {8} You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Hate Crime Against Wiesel

2008-07-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

The press excuses this as insanity. I say it's anti-semitism full-force. Both are madness. We support and love Elie and pray God keep him safe..
In Christ..
staff

By MALIA WOLLAN (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated PressJuly 21, 2008 8:28 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO - A New Jersey man who once claimed insanity was convicted Monday of a hate crime for accosting Nazi death camp survivor and scholar Elie Wiesel in a hotel elevator.
Eric Hunt, 24, was convicted in San Francisco Superior Court of one felony charge of false imprisonment with a hate crime allegation. Hunt was also convicted of two misdemeanor counts - one for battery and one for elder abuse.
The jury dismissed charges of attempted kidnapping, stalking and a second false imprisonment charge.
He had withdrawn his original not guilty by reason of insanity plea, eliminating the need for a second trial to determine his sanity at the time of the crime.
Hunt shook in his seat after the verdict was read. He could face as long as three years in prison.
"We are pleased with the verdict," said his attorney, John Runfola. "I'm just saddened it took this long to get justice for this young guy who is mentally ill."
During the nine-day trial, Wiesel, 79, testified that he thought Hunt was trying to kidnap him when he was forcefully pulled off an elevator at San Francisco's Argent Hotel on Feb. 1, 2007.
On the witness stand, Wiesel read comments allegedly written on a Web site by Hunt calling Wiesel's accounts of the Holocaust "fictitious."
document.write('');

Wiesel's parents and younger sister died in Nazi death camps during World War II. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and has written more than 40 books, many of them about the Holocaust and Judaism.
Hunt's lawyers contend that his online statements were the result of a mental illness and not anti-Semitism and that Hunt is being treated.
"He is not a Holocaust denier," Runfola said.
Sentencing is set for August.

Replacement Theology Dangers

2008-06-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting and timely take on an old issue revisited by an anonymous writer.. take a look...

Replacement Theology by Anonymous, 1989
There is a lot of confusion going around these days about God's promises, even among our own ranks here at (unnamed organization). I'd like to take this opportunity to dispel a little of the confusion.
There is a powerful movement afoot called Replacement Theology which states that the church is Israel and the promises given to Israel were primarily for the church. This movement is incurring the wrath of God, as it increasingly condemns the nation of Israel as illegitimate, which is natural for folks who believe the church has replaced Israel. Even among those who still hold to Israel to one degree or another, there seems to be a propensity for yanking Old Testament promises out of the Bible -- and, I might add, out of context -- and indiscriminately applying them to modern church situations. The tendency is to select those promises which fit church theology (like healing, prosperity, victory) and ignore those which do not (like punishment for rebellion, keeping of feasts, sacrifices). To set the record straight: the church did not yet exist when those promises were given, and they were not given to Israel as a "type" of the church until the church should inherit them. The Old Testament promises were given to Israel, and they apply to Israel. Many of them ALSO apply to the church in a general way, and many of them apply to all nations in a general way, and many of them apply only to Israel. We have got to quit assuming that just because some teacher of the Word says the Bible says something is ours, that it is. We must understand the situation and context in which the promises were given -- promises of blessing and/or cursing, of redemption, et-cetera -- before we can understand the promises themselves.
Let's take as an example 2 Chronicles 7:14. Most people today are familiar with that verse, but unfortunately the vast majority of the church in America seems to have gotten the idea somewhere -- not from God -- that the promise is to America. It most assuredly is not. Let us read the passage in its context (2 Chronicles 7:11-20):
Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's palace, and successfully completed all that he had planned on doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My Name [over whom My Name is called] humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now My eyes shall be open and My ears attentive the prayer of this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My Name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually."
The context here is the completion and dedication of the temple in Israel. Note God's promise concerning "this house". Speaking to Israel, the Lord promised to forgive the nation and heal the land if the nation would repent. The entire nation is called "My people". Israel is called by God's Name. This promise was NOT given to Japan, Albania, or the United States, none of which is a nation "called by My Name". Unfortunately, we in western society have twisted the meaning for our own supposed benefit to allegedly say, "If My people which are called by My Name (the Christians within the country) ..." But it does not say that. Now the promise CAN apply to a nation other than Israel in a general way: certainly if any nation (America included) will repent, God will restore the nation and forgive the sin and heal the land. The key is the distinction between who is Israel and who is not. If the church is Israel, then one can truly say, "If the believers will repent and pray, I'll restore their land." But believers have already repented, or else they wouldn't be believers! The confusion comes from erroneously assuming the church is modern "spiritual Israel", having replaced national Israel. It does not say "If the Christians will pray and intercede and repent". Repent of what? The believers are already the righteousness of God in Jesus, and it's not for the righteousness of the believing 1% that America will be judged, but for the sin of the wicked 99% who refuse to repent. The promise concerns a NATION repenting, not God's people WITHIN A NATION repenting and praying. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, it is true, but our repentance does not nullify the justice and righteousness of God. He cannot leave America unjudged and remain a righteous judge!
Elsewhere in the Bible we find the answer to how God deals with a wicked nation where a few people are righteous. This is one of those passages the modern Word of Faith and Kingdom Now people like to avoid, because it pretty well debunks their misinterpretation of 2 Chronicles 7:14. This is found in Ezekiel 14:13-20, and it is one of those places which speaks of all nations in general (starting with verse 21 -- not quoted here -- the Lord starts to apply it directly to Israel):
"Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it, and cut off from it both man and beast, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves," declares the Lord God. "If I were to cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they bereave of children, and it became desolate so that no one would pass through it because of the beasts, though these three men were in its midst, as I live," declares the Lord God, "they could not deliver either their sons or their daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the country would be desolate. Or if I should bring a sword on that country and say, 'Let the sword pass through the country and cut off man and beast from it,' even though these three men were in its midst, as I live," declares the Lord God, "they could not deliver either their sons or their daughters, but they alone would be delivered. Or if I should send a plague against that country and pour out My wrath in blood on it, to cut off man and beast from it, even though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in its midst, as I live," declares the Lord God, "they could not deliver either their son or their daughter. They would deliver only themselves by their righteousness."
Can our righteousness deliver America? What does God say about it? The only people who will be delivered are the righteous, and we've got to quit praying out of God's will and asking Him to deliver the wicked, because He is a righteous and just God and He will judge sin. The smart thing is to get your sin judged on the cross so you're free of it and you don't get judged yourself. We need to pray for people to get saved, and for wisdom for our leaders, and whatever else the Word tells us to do. But know this: God is about to judge this nation. It is His will to do so, indeed, He MUST do so. It is NOT His will that any perish, but that all be saved. Nevertheless, Scripture is clear that God hates sin, and He will destroy the nation that continues to sin. He will also leave a righteous remnant.
The next time you hear someone quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14 over America and admonishing you to pray for restoration of America, just remember God isn't going to restore America. God is restoring Israel now, and human government is coming to an end, because the Messiah is about to return as King of kings and Lord of lords; and soon the Word will be fulfilled which says, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and He shall reign forever and ever." Why should God put off Messiah's return so Americans could enjoy a few more years of materialism and debauchery? We need to get in on what God is doing, not try to make Him conform to American Christianity and an American Jesus.

It Can Happen To You!

2008-03-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

I have fallen for my share of plastic paddle boats & hopefully I'm not alone on this one.
I vaguely remember a young girl I knew named Petra years ago who insisted she was in love with a monk. I have no doubt her adoration was viable, however the parallel between
paddle boats, monks and suitees seem to make as much sense as bachelors over fifty entertaining the possibilities of white wicker furniture. Ain't gonna happen. Unless the paddle boat is Elton John.

Wild Black Swan Reunites With Paddle Boat Love(CBS News)

For Petra, a wild black swan, it was love at first flight when she flew into a German swan lake last year and spotted the mate of her dreams through the woods, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports.
Petra had a weakness, it seems, for the big, strong, silent type. And to a swan. what could be bigger, stronger or more silent than the plastic paddle boat she had fallen for. They spent a happy summer together, and when winter came and the other swans flew south, Petra refused to leave.

Local zookeepers actually tried to drive the couple apart, introducing Petra to single male swans. But she wasn't interested, and the keepers gave up. They didn't want to stress her, they say.
So when the time came to take the boat out of the boathouse and put it back in the lake, the press swarmed in. Petra was there waiting.

The question: Had she gotten over her love boat? Had she realized the relationship was going nowhere — that she and the boat were just too different? Or had love survived the long cold winter? The boat was put back into its natural habitat, and towed to a quiet corner of Swan Lake, their corner.

They couldn't hold her back.
Frankly, the reunion of Brad and Jennifer might have caused less fuss.
But this is a celebrity romance that looks like it will last.
...NOT FOR LONG BABY!
(FOR THE REST OF PETRA'S STORY, PLEASE GO TO http://bestpony.blogspot.com/
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

William F. Buckley, Jr. Dies at 82

2008-02-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

www.drudgereport.com

I remember my first intro to formal Conservative thought when I was about 23. The book was WFB's "God and Man at Yale" which gave a great outline of God and postmodern education and its effects on society and world politics. This fascinating young upstart was placed in front of me in the form of mid-life sage analyst during a debate on the cold war. I followed him through the Reagan years as a teen and he won me along with Mrs. Thatcher and the rest. After this, Russell Kirk and Whittaker Chambers took me under their wing. Nothing compares to first meeting Bill fighting with Gore Vidal on PBS however as a 12 year old. From then on I always wondered what it would be like to be Pat Buckley. She's so lucky, she can make him scrambled eggs, she can go to parties with him. She can hang out with George Plimpton and I thought wow... To me he'll always be that soft-spoken, cooly sardonic hot shot never to be replaced. Miss you already WFB!

Feb 27, 11:47 AM (ET)By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) - William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.
His assistant Linda Bridges said Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.
Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of "Firing Line," harpsichordist, trans-oceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in a New York mayor's race, Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, the National Review.
Yet on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent's discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

(AP) William F. Buckley Jr., the conservative pioneer and television "Firing Line" host, smiles during...Full Image"I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition," he wrote in The New York Times Book Review in 1986. "I asked myself the other day, 'Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?' I couldn't think of anyone."
Buckley had for years been withdrawing from public life, starting in 1990 when he stepped down as top editor of the National Review. In December 1999, he closed down "Firing Line" after a 23-year run, when guests ranged from Richard Nixon to Allen Ginsberg. "You've got to end sometime and I'd just as soon not die onstage," he told the audience.
"For people of my generation, Bill Buckley was pretty much the first intelligent, witty, well-educated conservative one saw on television," fellow conservative William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said at the time the show ended. "He legitimized conservatism as an intellectual movement and therefore as a political movement."
Fifty years earlier, few could have imagined such a triumph. Conservatives had been marginalized by a generation of discredited stands - from opposing Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to the isolationism which preceded the U.S. entry into World War II. Liberals so dominated intellectual thought that the critic Lionel Trilling claimed there were "no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation."
Buckley founded the biweekly magazine National Review in 1955, declaring that he proposed to stand "athwart history, yelling 'Stop' at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who urge it." Not only did he help revive conservative ideology, especially unbending anti-Communism and free market economics, his persona was a dynamic break from such dour right-wing predecessors as Sen. Robert Taft.

(AP) William F. Buckley Jr., the conservative pioneer and television "Firing Line" host, responds to...Full ImageAlthough it perpetually lost money, the National Review built its circulation from 16,000 in 1957 to 125,000 in 1964, the year conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater was the Republican presidential candidate. The magazine claimed a circulation of 155,000 when Buckley relinquished control in 2004, citing concerns about his mortality, and over the years the National Review attracted numerous young writers, some who remained conservative (George Will, David Brooks), and some who didn't (Joan Didion, Garry Wills).
"I was very fond of him," Didion said Wednesday. "Everyone was, even if they didn't agree with him."
Born Nov. 24, 1925, in New York City, William Frank Buckley Jr. was the sixth of 10 children of a a multimillionaire with oil holdings in seven countries. The son spent his early childhood in France and England, in exclusive Roman Catholic schools.
His prominent family also included his brother James, who became a one-term senator from New York in the 1970s; his socialite wife, Pat, who died in April 2007; and their son, Christopher, a noted author and satirist ("Thank You for Smoking").
---
On the Net:
http://www.nationalreview.com/

Taft '08

2008-02-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

In my world Perot still has a chance. I'm just really concerned about McCain. I'm also really concerned about Hillary. Maybe if Hillary ran with Leslie Gore or Ron Paul. Maybe Leslie Gore and Nixon. Maybe Al Gore and Taft. But thats like running a hologram. I guess the third dimension of this equation would be Satan or Hillary. Running a hologram of good might be an idea, Reagan, Lincoln and John Adams. I think I actually remember asking Chuck Colson at a symposium if he would run, that was in 2001 I think. "Never" he said with a smile. I'd like an enchalada to run. Perhaps Charro. Anyway, I'm thinking Brett Somers, Paul Lynde and my brother as secretary of state.

Fatty for President, Glenn Beck Radio Show

www.glennbeck.com

February 19, 2008 - 3:00 ET
GLENN: Have you seen the latest poll? This is from, what is it, Zogby? This poll, I don't know, it's one of these stupid polls. Gallup. This is a Gallup poll. If you could have any President from our past run today, who would it be? I would also like to, before I have you answer that question, I would also like to have you answer this question: Do you have nothing going on in your life that you feel a question this unbelievably irrelevant, is worth your time to answer? "Oh, if I could have any President?" Any President from all time run today. What is this even supposed to prove besides how dumb people are? If you could have any President, bring them back to life in some Dr. Frankenstein sort of way, who would you bring back? Living or dead, next President of the United States, who would it be? Dan, who would it be for you? DAN: I'll just take the first one, George Washington. He got things going. He got the ball rolling. GLENN: George Washington? DAN: Yep. GLENN: With the wooden teeth and all? DAN: Yep. GLENN: I would like to know -- this would be fun. We'll be able to be in this Gallup poll and say, well, do they update their style or anything? I mean, does he have to have the wooden teeth and the wig because he probably wouldn't be really effective. I just want to know the parameters here. The stovepipe hat? He's pretty ugly. Can we just have him on radio? Can FDR walk? Can you imagine FDR now? Can you imagine hiding your disability? Well, let me ask you that question. Wow, do you think we would elect FDR today? Because nobody would hide his disability. Do you think we would elect him, a guy in a wheelchair? Stu just looked at me through the window and just said, yeah, I don't think so. I wonder. You think so Stu? STU: Yeah. I don't think that that -- I think that this would be the time. I think back in the day they tried to hide that because, you know, it was something at that point, you know, people weren't ready for it or whatever. Now, I mean, I think -- GLENN: I don't think so. STU: I do. I think we think about how the person -- I mean -- GLENN: We would see him as weak. STU: I disagree with that. What are you talking about? GLENN: I'm not saying this is my belief. STU: No, I know. But really? GLENN: You know what? I think it's an abomination that we hide the wheelchair in the FDR Memorial. Have you ever seen that? Yeah, they have a cape and all you see is just a little bit of the wheel. STU: But that's how he wanted to be remembered. GLENN: Yeah. Well, whatever. STU: Sorry. GLENN: I mean, we've had our first handicapped President. I mean, that's a huge milestone. And we hid it. It would be like finding out that, you know, Woodrow Wilson was an African-American that wore makeup and we would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let a statue have the makeup on. What are you talking about? This is a big accomplishment. This is a big deal. STU: History should be history on this, should be told. I mean, we don't do that in any of our textbooks. I don't know why we would start with memorials. GLENN: I'm sure Nixon wanted to be remembered as a good President. STU: Sure. GLENN: Okay? STU: Yeah, but I don't think that that would be a problem at this point. I disagree with you. GLENN: Think we would elect -- I think we would elect a woman President, African-American President. Don't think at this time in our life we would elect a Jewish President because I think too many people would say it will be seen in the Middle East as we are totally biased. It wouldn't be an anti-Semite thing. It would be a strategy thing, I believe. STU: I don't under -- the wheelchair thing, though, doesn't make any sense to me. Why would we care about -- think they're weak, that's silly. GLENN: That's what people would do. As he would walk up for his speech, I would think of the strength. But too many people -- I mean, people do it in their own life. They see their weakness. He did it. They see their weakness as weakness instead of a strength. You know this guy used to rehearse how many steps it would take to go from the backstage to the podium? He would rehearse it. They would say, Mr. President, you're going to have 18 steps this Saturday. And he would say, I want no cane, I want nothing. Bill, you come by. You just hold onto my elbow. And he would rehearse all week for 18 steps. STU: Yeah, but we see -- if we were to see someone leading the free world with a major disability, we would see it as overcoming something. GLENN: Absolutely we would. But I don't think you would get that opportunity. I don't think you would get the opportunity today to serve. STU: We're not, you know, recruiting a guy to lead on the front lines of battle or to do a high jump. We're talking about a guy who's in his office because of his mind and his ability to communicate. If it affected his ability to communicate, it would be something that you'd need to consider. GLENN: I'm not talking about Stephen Hawking. STU: Right. But if that happened, you would have to consider that. GLENN: But why not have Stephen Hawking? He's so bright. STU: Because your ability to communicate is part of your job as we've seen over the past seven years. GLENN: I think Stephen Hawking would be a better communicator than George W. Bush. STU: That's not true. GLENN: I think that's a possibility. I would like to see a debate between Stephen Hawking and George W. Bush and I bet Stephen Hawking wins. And it takes him 20 minutes to answer a question. I think he wins. STU: It's hard to stumble when you're picking up words from -- GLENN: It's hard to win a debate when you're typing with your eye. STU: That's what I'm saying. I mean, it's also hard to stumble, though. You are not going to type this same half of the word twice. You're typing. GLENN: I'm just sayin'. I'm just sayin'. Here's the thing. I think people would see, in the campaign, they would see that as a weakness. STU: I don't. I totally disagree with that. GLENN: As he's -- do you know how many -- do you know how much time is spent on making sure that there's a little box for the short ones to stand on, to make sure that there's no height difference between the two? You've got -- STU: That's totally different. That is not overcoming a disability, being short. Unless again you're in the NBA. GLENN: You've got to overcome stuff if you're short, come on. STU: Yeah, if you're a member of the Sacramento Kings, then yes. But I don't think that that's what we're talking about. We're talking about a job that's based on your ability to communicate and your intellect. GLENN: Yeah. And so why is it that short people feel like they have to have steps on the podium, so they look like the same height? STU: Because I think, I think that that has something to do with presentation and stuff. GLENN: It has everything to do with psychological, people look at them and say, look at the other guy, he towers over them, that's a position of strength. The guy wheels himself in, people would see that -- I wouldn't. I would see that as a strength. Other people would see that as -- STU: No, but people who see -- the instant thing that you feel when you see someone who's trying to overcome a physical disability -- GLENN: Try this. STU: -- is that it's -- you feel bad for them. You want to say -- GLENN: Would Taft be elected today? STU: William Howard Taft? GLENN: Yes. STU: That was my answer for who I would bring back because that guy, he rocked. GLENN: Would Taft be elected today? He was the guy who was so fat, they had to replace the bathtub in the White House. When I was at the White House, I asked to see the Taft bathtub. No longer exists. I think that should be in a museum. STU: I totally agree with that. GLENN: Yeah. STU: I think, agree, I think a fatty could get into the White House. GLENN: You are out of your mind. You are out of your mind. You are out of your mind. STU: It depends on the circumstances. GLENN: On what circumstances? That we all are honest with ourselves and we all look at each other and go, jeez, I mean, look at us. There's no way a fat man is going to become President of the United States. STU: Bill Clinton wasn't exactly svelte. GLENN: I'm not saying that. Are you comparing Bill Clinton with Taft? STU: Well, yes. Overweight Presidents? There's not too many in the category. GLENN: There's a difference between overweight -- that's like saying I like big cars. You know, I like big cars. I like the new Cutlass, or I like the new, you know, Abrams tank. There's a slight difference in size. STU: Perhaps I don't remember my Taft history. GLENN: Taft was so big they had to replace the bathtub in the White House for him! People would -- a fatty fat fatso come up to the -- he could be the smartest guy, he could be the best communicator but he would walk up to the podium and people automatically think here's a guy who's out of control, he can't control his weight, blah, blah, blah. What happens if there's a disability? There are a lot of people who try and try and try and cannot lose weight. He would never be elected to be President of the United States because he's a fatty fat fatso. STU: I think that's much more legitimate than your stupid wheelchair one. That makes no sense. The wheelchair one makes no sense. GLENN: You are telling me you've never met a fat person who has tried and struggled and done everything they can and they cannot lose weight? STU: Have I ever met one? GLENN: Yeah. Oh, come on. You're kidding me. STU: Met one? Not in a theoretical, it's a glandular sense, which we've heard a hundred million times. Have I ever actually met someone with a glandular thing? Is that what you're asking me? GLENN: I don't know if it's a glandular thing. I've met people who -- and don't ask me for the names but call Tania and she'll tell you. I met people who have exercised, who eat right and they just can't lose weight. They can't do it. STU: Well, I would say -- GLENN: Look at the fat bias. STU: What do you mean fat bias? I'm fat. I'm just saying -- GLENN: You're not fat. You're fat like I'm fat. I'm talking Taft fat! STU: What I'm saying is that I will admit to you that I believe that people like that exist. I will also admit to you that most of the people who say they are those people are snacking on Double Quarter Pounders behind your back. GLENN: I agree with you. I'm saying the one who can't lose weight, who works out, who can't lose weight. STU: In theory I believe those people exist. GLENN: So in theory that's the person that waddles up to the podium next to a svelte anybody. STU: That would be much more difficult in today's world. GLENN: Do you think that John McCain would have an easy time with -- the guy can't lift his arms up. Let's say he was just in a car accident, whatever. Can't lift his arms up. Do you think that -- it's the exact opposite. A guy who was in a car accident, can't lift his arms up. Every time he lifts his arms up, if it was a car accident people think, don't keep the button very high. It would be jokes like that, et cetera, et cetera. STU: Like Dole. Remember Dole with the -- GLENN: Exactly right. With John McCain, however, it came as a war hero. So every time he tries to lift his arms, you remember the bamboo cage and you are like, man, that guy is amazing. You remember the bamboo cage. It's the same thing except in reverse. You see the fatty fat fatso and you're like, guy's out of control. Even if he says, no, look, here's a note from my doctor; I can't lose weight. Guy's out of control. It automatically says that. If you look at any study on anybody, the reason why people don't succeed -- and this isn't universally true, but generally speaking according to studies, the reason why fat people don't climb the corporate ladder is because -- not because the rungs can't hold them. It's because people in higher positions look down and say, this person is out of control. STU: Right, that you don't have it together. GLENN: Correct. STU: But I think this is a legitimate -- I think you are right on this one. This is what I've been trying to say. It's the other one. It's looked at completely the opposite. GLENN: People are not -- tell me why Obama has people crying and passing out at his -- nobody's listening to his policies. It's all about the image. STU: Image, I know. GLENN: If you can -- and I don't think you'd get this opportunity. If you could take somebody in a wheelchair and make sure that that story of them conquering everything and they've climbed Mt. Everest and whatever, if they were somebody that was in Sports Illustrated for their prowess in sports, then maybe we. STU: I think that's exactly how people would embrace that. GLENN: It's the only way people would embrace that. STU: Look at the number one President on this list, it's JFK. I mean, with reason why JFK is the number one on this list is because he's dead. Let's be honest about it. GLENN: You are taking my point. STU: No, I'm not. I'm saying that when people see horrible things happen to someone, they tend to embrace that, not reject it. So if you're in a wheelchair, people would embrace the fact that you're overcoming something difficult. GLENN: People are uncomfortable with wheelchairs. If anybody in a wheel -- if you are in a wheelchair, call me right now. If you are in a wheelchair, you tell me whether or not people relate to you like they do other people. Too many people are immediately uncomfortable with a wheelchair because just the exact opposite is true. They see something horrible and they don't even want to think about it. STU: All you people with a wheelchair that have run for President, you call and tell us all your experience about running for President in your wheelchair. GLENN: That's not what I -- what do you mean by running for President in your wheelchair? What kind of -- why hate the fat people and the people in wheelchairs today, Stu? Why all the hate? STU: Can we just hear the history of William Howard Taft? Do you think we can hear that or not?
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Ready for the River

2008-02-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

Just a journey back while nodding to the Pony in regards to songs of sentiment, below.

First in this I also am reminded of the passing of Representative Tom Lantos. Thank you to www.anklebitingpundits.com for an interesting article re: the honorable late rep. He was an extraordinary man surviving the fascist terror, (he and his wife I must add)and although through the years I've had points of disagreement with some stands, he loved his country and did his best for the victim as he saw it. Neat to hear that Elie Weisel made a statement too..

All post-partum recoverees from the debacle that was and remains Valentines Day, enjoy the following as we venture back to America's romantic age and a shanty or two. I've been told that using italics is tacky. Deal with it.

Oh, shenandoah, I long to hear you Look away, you rollin river
Oh, shenandoah, I long to hear you Look away. we're bound away
Across the wide missouri
Now the missouri is a mighty river Look away, you rollin river.
Indians camp along her border Look away. were bound away
Across the wide missouri
Well a white man loved an indian maiden Look away, you rollin river
With notions his canoe was laden
Look away, were bound away
Across the wide missouri
Oh shenandoah, I love your daughter
Look away, you rollin riverIt was for her I'd cross the water.
Look away, were bound away
Across the wide missouri
For seven long years I courted sally
Look away, you rollin river
Seven more years I longed to have her
Look away, were bound away
Across the wide missouri
Well, its fare-thee-well, my dear,
I'm bound to leave you
Look away you rollin river Shenandoah,
I will not deceive you Look away,
were bound away
Across the wide missouri.

ahh but they do deceive, they still do..

Thank you Lord

2008-01-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Devotionals by Barri Cae <barricae@comcast.net>

The below is an excerpt credited to/by B.C. Devotionals above noted. Enjoy the Bible verse, thank you to the Pony for reminding me how easily we forget the One who loves us like no other. He knows! Don't worry about anything, it is so easy to say, but our God is just that. He is the great I am. He is the King of glory. Paul Sheppard said something so interesting along the lines of being full with the things of God, much like Mary during her pregnancy. She needed to be with someone who got it. She didn't even go to Joseph! She went to Elizabeth who was along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist. In these times we need to be with people full of the things of God, and serious about where it's taking us in this journey of the Christian walk. Mary could see the changes and grow up through them. Becoming mature. This is what God's design does. And the One who allows all the things we cannot understand at times is the One who knows us best, who wants to see us full of Him. Sometimes the only way is to fill our situation with needs that only He can supply. Sometimes He gets our attention that way. What He desires however is our heart and love. He is after us. I hope to have my heart fully caught by this King of glory, if He will take this wretch. Fill us, we are hungry and only you satisfy Lord! Blessed be your name, take away the falsity and the wrong appetites. Marry our hearts Lord and keep us staid on Thee in this waiting time. Thank you God, in the name of Jesus..

The Hebrew word for this type of knowing is yada (yah-dah). It is an intimate knowing, the type of knowing that husband and wife sharing in intimate relations. This is sacred, and this is the love that the LORD has for us. God's knowledge of you is special, sacred, unique, exhilarating, beautiful. There is no greater thing in life!
The LORD is good; a stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him. (Nahum 1:7)
Perhaps no other psalm so beautifully illustrates our intimacy with God than Psalm 139:
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
Is there any other more wonderful thing in life than to know that You are loved by God?

Do you have this knowing about God? Do you know He loves you? Look what the LORD says about us:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, ( Jere. 1:5)

But let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD. (Jere. 9:24) He delights that we know Him!

"Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?" declares the LORD. (Jere. 23:24)

For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. (2 Chron. 16:9)

I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,
even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father;
and I lay down My life for the sheep. (John 10:14-15)

He who knows us best loves us most. What a great God we serve! What a great Father of lights we have! What a great Sovereign of the universe, and to think that He loves us! What a great Savior! What a Great Yeshua!

It Could Be Worse. You Could Be Britney's Kids

2008-01-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hi! Did you recover from 2007? Gear up for the next one. It will be okay, even if Hillary gets in. Our God (not theirs) is on the throne. Check out jihadwatch.com if you're bored. Not that it has anything to do with Hillary. That would be found in "The Late Great Planet Earth". Check out HalLindsey.com
Anyway, on a lighter bricklaying note one thing assisting me in facing off with '08 (alongside the new smoked bacon chocolate bar from www.vosgeschocolate.com, kind patient sweet God-fearing friends, "Naked" superfood green drink, mummy, Ken Branagh remaining unemployed indefinately and salt pork made by my sister-in-law, I have rediscovered a pretty carol by Gus 'Planet Guy' Holst which has been tapping my heart. And why not. Everyone is in a state of flux. People are troubled. I am troubled. Friends have fallen off buildings and gotten pregnant. Daisy died. My brother still insists on eating cake and donuts after contracting diabetes and landing in the hospital. The earth spins on uncontrollably. It's just all very stressful. So hope you enjoy the meessage below. I am in no mood to cheer you up. It's entirely for me, so read and get back out there and live your life. It could be worse. You could be Britney Spears' lawyer.

Selah the following first.

Psalm 42:11 - Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God
Psalm 31:24 - Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
Psalm 71:5 - For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.
1 Peter 1:21 - Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
1 Peter 3:13 - Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?
1 John 3:3 - Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
Proverbs 14:32 - When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge
Colossians 1:5 - The faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel.

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol.
Although written by Christina Rossetti before 1872, it was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904 and appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906.
According to the website CyberHymnal, Rossetti wrote these words in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem[1].
In verse one, Rossetti describes the physical characteristics of the Incarnation.

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
In verse two, Rossetti contrasts Christ's first and second coming.
Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.
The third verse dwells on Christ's birth and describes the simple surroundings, in a humble stable and watched by beasts of burden.
Enough for him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
which adore.
Rossetti achieves another contrast in the fourth verse, this time between the incorporeal angels attendant at Christ's birth with Mary's ability to render Jesus physical affection. This verse is omitted in the Harold Darke setting.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But his mother only,
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
The final verse may be the most well known and loved.
What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart.
The text of this Christmas poem has been set to music many times, the two most famous settings being composed by Gustav Holst and Harold Edwin Darke in the early 20th century. There is another setting—less well known—from the same era, by Thomas B. Strong. Eric Thiman wrote a setting for solo voice and piano. More recently Bob Chilcott, at one time a member of The King's Singers, wrote a choral setting entitled "Mid-winter". Another recent setting is that by a Canadian, Robert C L Watson. The Holst version has been recorded by a number of popular recording artists, including Bert Jansch, Julie Andrews in 1982, Allison Crowe in 2004, Moya Brennan in 2005 and Sarah McLachlan in 2006, as well as by many choirs including the Robert Shaw Chorale and the choir of St. John's College, Cambridge. The Darke version, with its beautiful and delicate organ accompaniment, has also gained popularity among choirs in recent years, after the King's College Choir included it on its radio broadcasts of the Nine Lessons and Carols. (Incidentally, Darke served as conductor of the choir during World War II.)

God Bless Johnny Cash

2007-10-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Poor Johnny. But thank heavens he didn't know Tommy Bahama. People keep asking me why I wear black. I have no answer. Black is easier. Makes me look like I know what I'm doing. Always looks clean! and most of all, it gives me a chance to mourn the human condition. Just Kidding!

JOHNNY CASH LYRICS
"Man In Black"

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,Why you never see bright colors on my back,And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,But is there because he's a victim of the times.I wear the black for those who never read,Or listened to the words that Jesus said,About the road to happiness through love and charity,Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.I wear it for the sick and lonely old,For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,Believen' that the Lord was on their side,I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,Believen' that we all were on their side.Well, there's things that never will be right I know,And things need changin' everywhere you go,But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,You'll never see me wear a suit of white.Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,And tell the world that everything's OK,But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

Bunny Kitty Doggie Pony

2007-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have endured a heavy day of sheep shearing and need reflective time , enclosed is light reading. Enjoy Hell Fire in a Kid Glove this time by corner favorite Cotton Mather, puritan brother and twizzler manufacturer. Also the sweet Scot Mr. Erskine; supercute poet and Godly Man encourages us to remember our maker and our only true love.
For anyone who cares, the Athens Evening Optimists Club will be meeting every fourth Tuesday from now until the end of time at the Cafe Carlyle, 35 East 76th Street. Closest subway: 6 to 77th Street. Walk south on Lexington Avenue to East 76th Street, then west. It's around there somewhere. Bring some pocket change for the piano player and the vending machine.

"Faith, without trouble or fighting, is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith." - Ralph Erskine, 1733

Thy food conform to thine array,
Is heavenly and divine; On pastures green, where angels play,
Thy husband feeds thee fine.
Angelic food may make thee fair
And look with cheerful face;
The bread of life, the double share,
Thy husband's love and grace.
What can he give, or thou desire,
More than his flesh and blood?
Let angels wonder, saints admire,
Thy husband is thy food.
His flesh the incarnation bears,
From whence thy feeding flows;
His blood the satisfaction clears,
Thy husband doth bestows.
Th' incarnate God a sacrifice,
To turn the wrathful tide, Is food for faith; that way suffice
Thy husband's guilty bride.
This strength'ning food may fit and fence
For work and war to come;
Till through the crowd, some moments hence,
Thy husband bring thee home:
Where plenteous feasting will succeed
To scanty feeding here; And joyful at the table-head
Thy husband will appear.
Then crumbs to banquets will give place,
And drops to rivers new: While heart and eye will face to face
Thy husband ever view.

The Best Match; Or, the Incomparable Marriage Between the Creator and the Creature
by Ralph Erskine

This was delivered, in two discourses, at Culross: but the precise time and occasion cannot be ascertained; only we see the first edition was printed Anno 1722.]
"Thy Maker is thy Husband." — Isaiah 54:5
The prophet Isaiah having largely discoursed of the sufferings of Christ, and the blessed fruits and effects of them; among which one is, that he should have a numerous seed to believe on him; and that, when the Jews reject him, the Gentiles should gladly receive him: and thus foreseeing, by the spirit of prophecy, the glorious state of the Gentile church, he breaks forth into a song of triumph in the beginning of this chapter; where the prophet directs his speech to the church and spouse of God in these words, "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing; and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord." Where we have a magnificent promise of the fertility and the felicity of the Gentile church; and this is enlarged to the fifth verse, which contains the words of our text; where we have the reason of her happiness and fruitfulness who was formerly a barren widow, for "Thy Maker is thy Husband:" he who made thee out of nothing, and therefore can easily fulfil all these promises, how unlikely soever they seem to be; he who made thee a people, yea, which is more, who made thee his people, he will take possession of thee as his spouse, and act the part of an husband to thee.
I shall defer my further introduction and exposition, and also whatever might be said concerning the external relation betwixt Christ and the visible church, my chief design being at this time, only to speak a little to that internal spiritual marriage-relation betwixt Christ and the invisible church, or Christ and the believer, as it is represented under the picture of a marriage: and what I would offer upon this subject I lay before you in this doctrinal proposition.
That there is a marriage-relation betwixt Christ and believers, wherein he supplies the place of a husband unto them, and they the place of a bride and spouse to him.
In prosecuting whereof, I would essay these three things.
I. Prove, that there is such a marriage-relation betwixt Christ and believers. II. Speak to the nature of this marriage. III. Give the reasons, why Christ comes under such a relation to his people. IV. Make some application of the subject.

I. To confirm the doctrine, that there is a marriage-relation betwixt Christ and believers. This will appear from these two considerations.
1. From the compellations given to Christ with relation to believers. How frequently doth the spouse call him her husband in the book of the Song? "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. My beloved is mine, and I am his," Song 2:3,16. And, says the apostle, 2 Cor. 11:2 — "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin unto Christ."
2. The marriage relation betwixt Christ and believers appears from the designation given to believers in scripture with respect to Christ. How frequently calls he her his love, his spouse, in the book of the Song of Songs? "Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my SPOUSE. How fair is thy love, my sister, my SPOUSE!" Song 4:9,10. In Rev. 19:7, there the church, (or believers in the collective capacity) is called the bride, the Lamb's wife: "The marriage of the Lamb is come, and the bride hath made herself ready." We need not stand to prove that which is so evident, we need say no more to confirm it, than to repeat the text, "thy maker is thy husband." Therefore I come,

II. To speak of the nature of this marriage: and here we would briefly consider, 1. The parties married. 2. The terms of the marriage. 3. The properties of the marriage. 4. The effects of it. 5. How the match is carried on. 6. How it is concluded.
(1.) I say, let us consider the parties married; who is the Bridegroom, and who is the Bride.
1. Then, the bridegroom is the wisdom of God; and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in him: he knows all the needs of the bride, and is ready to supply them.—On the other hand, the bride, before her matching with him, is the most notorious fool out of hell: her folly is shown by continuing to refuse to match with him; to refuse to give her consent to this heavenly bridegroom.
2. The bridegroom is the eternal Son of God; the King's only Son: "The King made a marriage for his Son:" He is the blood-royal of heaven.—On the other hand, What is the bride's pedigree? She needs not boast of her descent; "Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite," Ezek. 16:3. There is a vast difference here.
3. The bridegroom is the heir of all things: he hath all riches,"the unsearchable riches of Christ."—But what is the bride worth before he match with her? She is worse than nothing, poverty itself; and not only a beggar, but in debt, and Christ is willing to pay her debt.
4. The bridegroom is comely and glorious. All the seraphims and cherubims above, all the sons of men in the world, all the crowned heads on earth, in all the circumstances of glory, are but like black pieces of earth compared with this glorious bridegroom.—On the other hand, What is the bride before he match with her. Even as black as the devil can make her. Not only a leopard, spotted here and there, but wholly black and ugly. When she is cast forth in the open field to the loathing of her person, she is a spectacle of horror and misery; yet then it is a marriage-day and a time of love.
(2.) What are the terms of the marriage: the articles of it on his part and her part? The terms on her part, though the whole belong to Christ, yet, to speak of terms in an improper sense, he requires of her what he worketh in her; namely,
1. That she be divorced from all other husbands, and give up with all other lovers and idols; particularly, that she be divorced from the law, that she may be married unto Christ: she must not obey the law from a principle of her own strength; nor as a covenant of works, that, by obedience, she may purchase a title to heaven; nor to gratify a natural conscience; nor merely to escape hell, and make a righteousness of her obedience. She must be divorced from that husband.
2. Upon her part it was required, that she be satisfied with this husband alone as the great portion of the soul, that he may have no rival, no competitor in her affections, none to sit on the throne with him: she must keep the chief room for the son of God. Again, on his part, he contracts,
1. That he will make over himself to her; all he is, all he hath, all he hath purchased, all he hath promised; he will make over to her all the blessings of the everlasting covenant. O this is a sweet article! And a large charter indeed!
2. He contracts to perform all the glorious offices of a husband to her; to provide for her, protect her, direct her, pity her, clothe her, to encourage and comfort her; and to do all for her she needs; this is the sum of the contract; for, to speak properly, Christ is all, and does all in this matter; and our part is done by him in us, Hos. 2:19,20. "I will betroth thee unto me for ever: yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord." Christ signs the contract for him and her both. "I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness;" I will fulfill the law, and satisfy God's justice. "I will betroth thee unto me in loving-kindness:" though there be nothing in thee to invite my love, but much to challenge my aversion, yet I will overcome all my imperfections, and set my love upon thee. "I will betroth thee unto me in mercies;" in pardoning mercy, sanctifying mercy, supporting mercy, comforting mercy. But lest the bride think, that whenever she sins there may be a divorce, she may break up and go away, therefore it follows, "I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness." He pledges his veracity for fulfilling the articles on her part and his both. But then,
(3.) What are the properties of this marriage?
1. It is a very mysterious marriage, that the Creator should take the work out of his hands for a bride; not only when in its original and virgin integrity, as it dropt out of his creating hands, but when polluted with the poison of the devil, the venom of the serpent, that he should take her for his bride; "Thy maker is thy husband." This is an astonishing union. If a glorious angel should be matched with a creeping worm, and a king with a beggar, it would not be such a wonder; but the maker to join himself to the work of his hands; there cannot be a greater distance conceived betwixt any thing, than betwixt a Creator, and that which is brought out from the barren womb of nothing, a creature; and yet they are in a marriage-relation; "Thy maker is thy husband."
2. This marriage is very difficult and hard. It is true, there is nothing too hard for Omnipotence; yet the human nature of Christ had much to do with it; though he was supported by the divine nature, yet he behoved to swim through the river of his own blood, before he could get his bride. He satisfied the justice of God, established a new covenant. All this must be done in order to this marriage.
3. This marriage is an indissolvable marriage; death dissolves other relations, but it increases this intimate union: Nothing shall separate Christ and the believer: "I am persuaded, saith Paul, that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. 8:38,39.
(4.) What are the effects of this marriage?
1. The first and immediate effect is a most close union betwixt Christ and the believer. This union, though less than a personal union, although it be in some respect, yet it is more than a political union, more than a moral union; it is a very close union. The bridegroom, Christ, he gives his bride his own spirit; communicates vital influences, from the glorious head, to her: and she cleaves, by faith and love, close to him; and God promises that he will make the house of Israel cleave close to him, as a girdle to the loins of a man, Jer. 13:11. He makes his spouse in spite of all her folly, in spite of all her enmity, in spite of all her enemies and temptations, to cleave close to him.
2. Another effect of this union, is sweet communion, mutual fellowship: he feasts with them and they with him: he blows upon her garden, quickens and animates her graces; and then he comes and eats his pleasant fruits.
3. Another effect is, familiarity, which is coincident with the former: he treats them not as strangers, but as friends; and not as friends only, but as his own spouse: he communicates to her, and speaks comfortably and kindly to her. It is a wonder what condescension God will make sometimes: and the believer again can be more familiar with God, than with the whole world; and can tell to God what he can tell to none else.—Thus you see some of the effects of this marriage.
(5.) How was the match carried on?
I answer in a word. On his part it was carried on thus:
1. He gave the Father his hand, and engaged to him in the covenant of redemption, from eternity, that he would do all things necessary for accomplishing the marriage.
2. Because there must be an union of natures betwixt the bridegroom and the bride; (it was not possible that we could be matched with the divine nature;) therefore he becomes a man, and takes on our nature, that there might be an union of natures.
3. Because the bride is a slave, he pays her ransom, substitutes himself in her room, takes on her debt, and pays all that she owed to justice, and then takes on with her. But, on our part, just nothing at all; we had no hand in the covenant of redemption; no hand in the contrivance of salvation; we knew nothing about the business; we had no thoughts of a Redeemer; deserved nothing but pure wrath; we were lying, with full contentment, in the devil's territories when Christ was carrying on the match.
(6.) How is the marriage concluded upon his part?
1. He sends forth his ambassadors to court for him, as Abraham did his servant for Isaac: and there is a great work, indeed, to make her give her consent. Let angels in heaven unite their powers of persuasion, they could not prevail with one soul, if a converting day were not come: but they must always speak fair to her. How rhetorical was Abraham's servant for his master? He hath but one child, and that child hath great riches; he seeks no portion with Rebecca, only her consent. Thus he rhetorizes and flourishes exceedingly, and persuades with the greatest motives. But yet the ambassadors of Christ have a larger commission, if our eyes were opened to see it; they are sent forth to make love to the bride, and in his name to commend Christ.
2. He concludes the marriage thus. The bride being wretchedly ignorant of her true happiness, therefore his father distresses her with the debt which she owes to him; and the wretched person is forced, for some time, to mount Sinai; and there God descends in all the circumstances of terrible majesty; he thunders against her, curses; "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," Gal. 3:10. God exacts all the debt, conscience roars, and the devils are let loose; she fears hell and wrath; and God declares, in the gospel, that the wretched bankrupt shall go to prison, and lie eternally in hell, if she do not take on with his son, marry him, and believe on him. Thus the bride is forced to an extremity: some have more, some have less of this law-work; but all are humbled and broken in some measure, who are married to Christ: he sends forth his spirit and convinces the world of sin. But this would not do either; and therefore,
3. The bridegroom sees that nothing but condescension will do it; and so he appear in all his glory: when the bride is full of fears, perplexities, and anxieties; when the terrors of God are surrounding her, and the arrows of the Almighty drinking up her spirits, and when she is crying out, What shall I do? Whether shall I go? Then the bridegroom appears in all his excellency and glory, and says, "Behold me, behold me;" and she gets a view of him that ravishes her heart, and enlarges her soul; then it is that the spirit is sent to determine her to consent. The manifestation of his glory does enlighten her mind and spirit; and immediately grace, upon the will, draws out the whole heart after him: so that if the bride could be grieved and pained upon the marriage day, it would be for her folly in refusing him so long. —But what is done upon the bride's part, for concluding the match; Nothing at all; but the whole soul is enabled to acquiesce in a redeemer: and the believer is ready, at such a time, to say, he is my Lord, my God, my strength, my all, and shall be for ever. Thus you have a brief scheme of the nature and way of this marriage.
Having spoken but very briefly to the former heads I shall here, before I proceed to the reasons of the doctrine, offer a few remarks upon the time of this marriage-union betwixt Christ and believers. We told you how this marriage was concluded and completed by Christ, and now we say, there is a stated day and time for the concluding thereof: and upon this head we may remark,
1st, That there is a two-fold day we are to consider in this marriage, namely, the day of espousals on earth, and the day of consummation in heaven; and we may compare these two together in a few words.
1. The day of espousals here is ushered in with a very dark morning or rather an evening, upon the bride's part, with the wrath of God, and the law: as it was said, "The evening and the morning was the day:" so, in this contract, the evening of legal terrors, at least some humiliation, ushers in the morning: But as to the consummation, there is a great deal of glory before its the soul being taken to heaven already, and the body sleeping sweetly in the grave, a bed where the bridegroom lay three days before her.
2. In the day of espousals, when the person gets a victory, over corruption, and finds little stirring of it, no sensible working of it, yet there is a party within, at the same time, that opposes the match, and which will afterwards get out its head, and will be still assaulting the believer, while he is on earth: but in the day of consummation, there is no such thing; no enemy, no sin, no corruption; but the whole soul goes out wholly upon the bridegroom.
3. The espousals are carried on secretly; it may be the person is sitting at your side, and you do not see, nor know when Christ is making up the match; or, perhaps, on his knees at home, there is a secret transaction: But the consummation will be before millions of angels, millions of saints, and millions of spectators. Here is a great difference: after the day of espousals is over, the bride may give many squint looks to her old lovers, looking back to Egypt, departing from her husband, doubting of his love, distrusting his word, fearing his dispensations: But after the consummation, no shadow of sin, no shadow of jealousy, no shadow of mistakes, or fears, can overtake her for ever; no cloud can intervene, for the sun of righteousness shall never be eclipsed any more. But then,
2. A second remark is, that the precise time of the espousals is condescended on by the Bridegroom and his Father, from all eternity; the very moment when the bride shall be made to sign the contract, and flee to Christ, and pour out her whole soul upon him; that precise moment is agreed upon betwixt the Father and the Son, in the covenant of redemption, from eternity.
3. We remark, that the Bridegroom waits patiently for that moment that is agreed upon betwixt the Father and the Son: he longs for it, he desires it. The believer many times is ready to think, O, Christ is not willing! I have set days apart, I have gone to my knees, I have sought him in and about this and the other ordinance, and yet I could not close with him: I have been almost dipt in hell with affliction, yet my heart was never melted; surely Christ is not willing. O let us flee the borders of blasphemy! The Lord Jesus is willing;, but the fulness of the time is not yet come; there is a set moment for his coming to his people, and for this they are to wait: yea, for this he waits himself, according to that scripture, which I shall read to them that cannot get that in duties and ordinances which they have been long looking for; Isa. 30:18,— "Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you; for, the Lord is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him." He will wait upon the very moment of time, for the day of salvation; he knows the proper season. The crane, the swallow, and the stork know their seasons, by the natural instinct God hath given them; and will he not know his own season? Yea, he waits to be gracious.
4th Remark, That when the time comes, then there is a sweet coming together of all circumstances to conclude the work; all things work pleasantly together to complete the match; conscience goes right to work, the word is made lively, the Spirit acts powerfully and sweetly in the soul: there is an auspicious conjunction of all favourable circumstances, for determining the bride, and drawing out her heart.
5th Remark, That there are several signs and characters of this day, by which it may be known. What are the signs of it? you shall say. I shall not insist on this, only it is a day of light; great light breaks in upon the mind; it is a day of love; much love is let in upon the heart; it is a day of power, wherein the bride is persuaded and overcome; difficulties are surmounted enemies conquered, and the bride's will is moulded into a compliance; it is a day of amazement. O what an ecstasy of wonder is raised in the person's heart! I was blind, now I see; I was dead, now I live; I was weak, now I am strong; this morning, perhaps, I was under affliction, and under the terrors of God, and now he hath ravished me with the consolations of his Spirit: I was afraid of hell, now I have the hope of heaven and eternal life. O what a day of wonder is it! Lastly, it is a day of vows; the soul will be ready to break forth in such a day crying, What shall I speak for him? What shall I suffer for him?
A sixth and last remark on this head is, that in this stated day of espousals, the bridegroom manifests his glory to the bride; when he intimates to the soul "thy Maker is thy Husband" he shews his glory; his absolute glory, his comparative glory, his relative glory; they are all one upon the matter, yet there is a formal different consideration of them.
1. His absolute glory is manifested. What does the soul see, that is matched and married to Christ? Alas! Some see nothing but dreams and fantasies; but when the believer is matched with Christ, so he deals with him as with Moses, he makes all his glory to pass before him; the person gets a view of the glorious attributes of the Son of God.
2. He manifests his comparative glory; "Thou art more excellent than hills of prey: fairer than the sons of men;" the bride, the believer sees him as the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, every way incomparable. Whatever he be compared toy he excels it; if he be a lily, he is the lily of the valley; if he be a rose, he is the rose of Sharon; if he be a plant, he is the plant of renown; if he be a physician, he is the physician of value; if an advocate, he is an advocate with the Father; he is represented without any parallel.
3. His relative glory is manifested: he is discovered as a glorious priest, a glorious prophet, a glorious king, a glorious husband, a glorious redeemer and Saviour! And there will be a sight of his glorious fulness in all these relations, and the glorious fitness of that sufficiency and fulness, all suited for the soul: and thus revealing himself, he removes all jealousies and mistakes from the bride, supplies all her needs, heals all her diseases, and out-bids all her rivals, who can offer nothing to allure the soul, while he can, and doth say, I am all-sufficient to help thee.

III. I come now to the third thing proposed; namely, To offer some reasons of the doctrine, why Christ comes under a married-relation to believers. I answer,
1. His own sovereign will is the best reason why he comes under a marriage-relation in this case; "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in thy sight," Matth. 11:28. His actions are not to be examined at the bar of our reason: "He hath mercy because he will have mercy."
2. His love to them makes him come under such a relation to them; "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with everlasting kindness have I drawn thee." Love is the motive that engages him; love brought him out of heaven for them; love nailed him to the cross for them; love laid him in a grave for them; and love engages him to a marriage-relation with them.
3. He does it for the glory of his own free grace, mercy, and love. As love and mercy was his motive, so it was his purpose, that he might display and reveal it to the utmost. This attribute is at its utmost degree. Infinite wisdom could have contrived a thousand worlds, and infinite power could have made them, but the love of God hath gone to its utmost height; it is not possible for Christ to give a greater, demonstration of his love than he hath done, in giving his life for the bride, and entering into a marriage-relation with her.
4. He does it, that he may furnish work for the blessed company in the higher house; for on the earth the contract is only drawn up: this is only the day of espousals; heaven will be the day of the consummation of the marriage: this is only a courting and wooing time; but the day will come when the nuptial solemnity shall be celebrated, and that shall continue while the day of eternity lasts,—This shall suffice for the reasons of the doctrine.

IV. The fourth thing was, To make some application; and it may be, 1. For Information. 2. Lamentation. 3. Examination. 4. Exhortation. Now of these in their order.
(1.) For Information. Is it so, that there is a marriage-relation betwixt Chirst and believers?
1. This informs us of the infinite love of God towards lost sinners, in giving his own Son to be a husband and redeemer unto them: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life," John 3:16. God so loved the world, as neither angels nor men can tell.
2. This informs us of the infinite love of Christ, in condescending to be a husband to such a bride. It could never have entered into the heart of the wisest angel in heaven, that Christ the eternal Son of God, should become man; and far less that he should take such a filthy and deformed creature and bride by the hand, as sinners are: if he had given us our deserving, he would have made his justice to ride in triumph over us, and hell to resound with eternal shouts of praise to incensed justice; but, to the quite contrary, he hath so ordered, that heaven shall resound with eternal hallelujahs of praise to his gracious mercy and free grace, in choosing those that were enemies, and admitting them to his blessed bosom.
3. This doctrine informs us of the believer's safety. Having Christ for her husband, who can hurt her? It is the duty of a husband, you know, to protect and defend his spouse; and to be sure Christ will not be lacking in this to his bride: "He will hide them in the secret of his presence from the pride of men: he will keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues," Psalm 31:20. "About all the glory he makes a defence," Isaiah 4:5. He covers them with the mantle of his Spirit; sure then, the bride of Christ is in absolute safety: he hath retiring chambers for her, to hide her in till the day of indignation be overpast.
4. This doctrine lets us see that believers are no such lowly and wretched persons as the world generally takes them to be; they are Christ's bride, and he is their husband: and, O what an honour is it to be married to the Son of God! Having him for an husband, they come to be related to all Christ's relations; God is their Father, because he is his Father; angels are their servants, because they are his servants; saints are their fellow-brethren, because they are his members; heaven is their inheritance, because it is the kingdom of their husband. In a word, whatever is his, is theirs; "And all things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's," 2 Cor. 3:22,23.
(2.) For Lamentation. Is it so, that there is a marriage-relation betwixt Christ and believers? This calls for deep lamentation in these two particulars.
1. It calls us to lament that Christ should have so few brides among us, though he be wooing and courting us, by the gospel, crying, "Behold me, behold me," Isa. 65:1. Yet where is the man or woman that is prevailed with to enter a match with this glorious bridegroom? Though he be fairer than the sons of men, and condescends to offer marriage with sinners, who are as black and ugly as hell itself, yet they set him at nought, and give him just ground for that melancholy complaint, "My people would not hearken to my voice, Israel would have none of me," Psalm 81:11. And may he not appeal to the very immaterial creation, to judge of our folly as he did of old to Israel? Jer. 2:12,13,— "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; yea, be astonished and horribly afraid, for my people have committed two great evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."
2. This doctrine may afford us matter of lamentation also, That believers, who are espoused to him, should walk so unworthily of such a husband. You know a wife should conduct herself conform to the character of her husband; and where her carriage is base and shameful, it reflects a dishonour on him. O how unsuitable is it to see Christ's bride blackened with the filth of hell! To see those who, have stricken hands with Christ, in a marriage-covenant, joining hands with lusts and idols, and defiling themselves with them!
(3) For Examination. Let us try if we be thus married and related to Christ; whether he be our husband, and we his bride and spouse.
I shall offer a few marks whereby we may know whether or not we be married unto this glorious Husband; and they may be drawn from the consideration of the antecedents, the constituents, and the consequents of this marriage.
1st. Try by the antecedents to the marriage-contract. Before ever Christ did contract with thee, didst thou observe him courting thy soul before this contract? Here is a courting. Now, how did Christ court you.
1. Did he court you by the austerity of the law, as with fire and sword? Did he court you by such a word as that, Thou art a cursed wretch: for, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them?" Gal. 2:16. Did he court you by such a word as that, Cursed is every one that doth the work of the Lord negligently? Did he court you thus, by the spirit of bondage, with the terrors of God, as clothed with vengeance, telling thee thou art an heir of hell and wrath, a child of the devil? Did he court thee so as thou wast surrounded with fear and trouble?
2. Did he court thee as by the austerity of the law; so by the sweetness of the gospel, when he saw thee cast down, when he saw thee a poor heavy laden sinner, like to be crushed under thy weights? Did he then court you with such a word as that, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Matth. 11:28; or with such a word as that, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters; he that hath no money, come; buy wine and milk, without money and without price," Isa. 55:1. "Flee to your strongholds, ye prisoners of hope." Did he thus court you with the gospel-offer?
3. Did he court you by his love-letters? This is another antecedent of the contract. Got you ever a love-letter sent from Christ out of heaven? But you will say, What is the love-letter? Even the Bible: "Search the Scriptures, these are they that testify of men" John 5:39. Here there are the declarations of the love of Christ to thy soul: here there are love-promises in these letters, that shall be yours. There is a love-covenant in these letters. Have you read and pondered them? And can you say that Christ spake them into your heart? If it be a text that was preached upon, or if it be a single word, O Christ drop that into my heart! And I think it will go with me to my death-bed, it came with such life and power. In a word, Got you any gifts before the marriage-contract, such as the, gift of true conviction, such as the gift of heart-contrition, the gift of real humiliation, the gift of self-denial, the gift of faith? These are given, some before, some at the contract?
2dly. Try by the constituents of the marriage.
1. If this marriage be made up betwixt Christ and thee, then thou hast put away all lovers besides Christ; the right hand will be cut off, the right eye put out; you will be divorced from all other husbands, particularly from the law; ye must be dead to the law, that ye may be married to another husband, even to Christ. But you will say, What is it to be dead to the law? I answer, It is not to lay it aside as the rule of obedience; for the law shall still be the rule and standard of the believer's obedience, life, and conversation but to be dead to the law, is to be sensible that the law cannot save us as a covenant of works. It is to disclaim all hopes of being justified by the law, or by our works or obedience to it. I see Christ, the glorious husband, hath brought in an everlasting righteousness, answering the law fully: this is the garment I must put on, and cast off my filthy rags.
2. Hast thou given a cordial consent upon the contract-day? Can you say you was enabled to take him, as the Psalmist, "O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my Lord;" and thou art my God, my head, my husband? Have you given a rational consent to it? Yea, a super-rational and supernatural consent? A deliberate, chaste, stayed, solemn, unconditional consent? Did you say it with faith, and with an heir of heaven, that he was yours, and shall be so forever? It is true, persons may be matched to Christ who cannot condescend on the precise time: the Spirit may work many times some way that we cannot know; yet it is his ordinary way with his bride, after many tossings, to break in with ravishing, conquering sweetness, to draw forth her soul to a solemn remarkable closing with him, and consenting to him. Have you then been engaged to make over yourself to the bridegroom, by an unreserved resignation of yourself to him, that you will not only take him wholly, and for ever, for holiness and happiness, for light and life, for grace and glory, but also make over yourself to him, soul and body, whatever you are, whatever you have been? Have you been thus made to yield yourselves unto the Lord? Are you one with him? Have you one spirit with him? Are you of one faith with him, of one way with him, endeavouring to walk as he walked? "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," 1 Cor. 4:17.
3. Can you say, that upon the marriage-day, you got a marriage-gift from the bridegroom? Among the Jews, the bridegroom was to give a marriage-gift to his bride: Now, what gift did you receive on this marriage-day? Can you say, indeed I got the wedding garment; he clothed me with his righteousness, which he span out of his own bowels, weaved with his own hands, and, dyed with his own blood; and thus all my guilt is covered, the curse is done away? This is indeed what few get; yet some have been, and are able to say, I am delivered from the wrath to come; and there is no condemnation to me; and on such a time I got also an ornament of the graces with the spirit, which I wear as jewels, that is to say, faith, love, obedience, patience, humility;, and I got the promise of an hundred-fold here, and I am expecting more gifts yet, before the marriage be consummated I am expecting mare assurance, I live in the hope of glory; I expect a sealed pardon of all my sins, and I look to get the earnest of the spirit, and more every day.
4. Another constituent of this marriage-contract is, the bride, on that day, puts off one veil, and puts on another. This was the Jewish custom, the brides put off the veil of bashfulness, and puts on the veil of subjection. Christ's bride, before the marriage, cannot look the bridegroom in the face, is ashamed to look upon him; but she is made to put off this veil in the presence of her former lovers, and to take Christ by the hand, and then she puts on the veil of subjection, whereby she promises in his strength, to subject herself to her husband's will. Have we thus promised to be obedient to his commands, in his own strength, whatever he enjoins us to do or suffer?
3dly, Try by the consequents of this marriage. Would you know if there has been a contract between Christ and you? Try then by the immediate consequents.
1. Did you see the king in his beauty, and such a glory and excellency in him as could not be paralleled by all the glory of ten thousand worlds?
2. What was your converse with him on the contract-day? Can you say, he embraced me in his arms, and I embraced him in my heart, and there was sweet communion and fellowship betwixt him and me?
3. Wast thou crowned in the marriage-day, so as thou wast known by others, as it were, to be the bride of Christ? The Jews, they not only crowned the bridegroom, but the bride also. You see what the crown is that Christ's bride should have, Rev. 12:1. "There appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." The bride of Christ is crowned with the doctrine of the twelve apostles.
4. The bride of Christ keeps at home, and delights in the bride-chamber. This is her delight all the days of her life, to dwell in the house of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple, Ordinances will be sweet, being the galleries wherein the King is held.

II. Try by the qualities and duties of the bride, which are also the consequents to this marriage.
1. If you be Christ's bride, then you will love the bridegroom. Love is what every wife owes to her husband; much more doth the believer owe it to Christ who hath expressed far more love to this bride than ever a husband did to a wife; he loved her, and gave himself for her. He shed, the hottest blood of his heart to save and redeem her. You will love him with a love of desire; "With my soul have I desired thee in the night;" with a love of delight; "My meditation of him shall be sweet;" with a love of benevolence, wishing well to his interest; "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not thee to my chiefest joy," Psal. 127:5,6. They that habitually love husband, wife, children, riches, or any thing more than Christ, have no reason to think that they are matched with him.
2. If we be married to Christ, we will trust in and depend on our husband? In whom can a wife trust, if not in her husband? The believer rests on Christ for grace and glory; and commits all to him, ventures all on him, and expects all from him. The soul that is espoused to Christ, looks on the infinite virtue of his blood, the infinite efficacy of his spirit, the infinite fulness of his, grace, the infinite dimensions of his love, the infinite faithfulness Of his promise: in all this he sees an infinite ground of hope, and thereupon he ventures, and rolls all on him. Here, he says, I will stay and rest, here I will build, here I am resolved to stay, here I am resolved to live and die.
3. If we be married to Christ, we will have a zeal for his glory. Some sacrifice Christ's interest to their own honour: but the believer says, Let my master increase. Though my name should never be heard of in the word, let Christ be exalted. O, says Christ's bride, I would have all the world coming and adoring him! I would have all the world to love him! I would have all the world to praise him! Especially when she is under any lively influence, O then, says she, if the greatest enemies knew what were in our Lord, they would come and join with him, as I have done!
4. The bride of Christ cannot live without him. An honest wife will be hard put to it, to live many years without her husband. O it is sometimes like a hell to her to miss Christ in ordinances! O, the sore moans and heavy groans of the deserted soul, that has had the experience of the sweetness of Christ! "O that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!" Job 23:3. "O that it were with me as in months past!"
5. If you be Christ's bride you will be longing sometimes for his second coming; less or more you will desire the day of judgment, and long for his appearance. The epilogue of all the spouse's sweet discourses is, "Make haste, my beloved, be thou like a roe, or a young hart, on the mountains of Bether, till the day break and the shadows fly away." And the conclusion of the whole Bible is, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," Rev. 22:20. Can you say you have longed for his coming? I see the devil reigns here, corruption reigns here, and never will things be right till he come again in the clouds and set heaven and earth in a flame, when these nuptial solemnities shall begin to be celebrated, and the marriage solemnized while eternity lasts.
6. If there has been a marriage betwixt Christ and your souls, then readily you have some of the love-tokens to present; I mean, some expressions of his covenant love: you can tell, that, some time or other, he brought you to the banqueting-house, and displayed a banner of love over you. Sometime he hath enlarged your soul with ardent and longing desires after him, and satisfied you with the fatness of his house. The soul that is really espoused to Christ, will readily have some experiences of his love to tell of.
7. The spouse of Christ is a chaste spouse. Idols never get her heart as before; though now and then she may give a squint look, yet idols never have that force and room in her affections once they had; she is afraid of doing any thing that may be displeasing and dishonouring to him: hence we will find the spouse of Christ breathing out earnest desires and requests to God, to be kept and led in the way of righteousness; "O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes," Psalm 119:5. Hence she groans up her case, "O wretched one that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death!" Rom. 7:24.
8. If we be Christ's bride, we will be a fruitful bride. Let us try; have we never a child of good works, or of grace? "Thy belly," says Christ to the spouse, "is as an heap of wheat," Song 7:2. You know wheat is very fruitful: the barren soul that never loved, never mortified, never repented, never gave alms, never appeared for God; that barren soul is not the spouse of Christ; for the spouse of Christ is fruitful. This much by way of trial.
4thly, For exhortation. Is there a spiritual marriage betwixt Christ and believers? O then! Shall we not be persuaded to come and close with Christ for our husband, and take our Maker for our husband, our God for our husband? If we be ambitious, here is the top of our ambition, Jesus Christ; if we be covetous, here is the true riches; whatever we are, whatever we have been, if we come to him, he will in no ways cast us out: it is true, we cannot come of ourselves, but let us cry, Lord, if I die, I shall be buried under the mercy-seat, praying, weeping, looking, as I can, and go to hell with Christ in my heart as much as I can. Come to him, and he will overcome your whole impotency; lay your case before him, saying, Lord, I am a wretched one in the highest degree: Lord, here is a great offer made, I have no heart to it; O, and give a discovery of a lost state, and of thy excellent glory. O, draw out my heart, and let me die upon the spot, rather than reject Christ for ever.
Many motives might be adduced; consider only,
1. The loveliness and beauty of Christ. His beauty is universal; he is lovely in his person, lovely in his nature, lovely in his offices, lovely in his estates of humiliation and exaltation, lovely in all his relations; his beauty is transforming, it will make the bride comely also; it is communicative, the bride is made comely through his comeliness. When we speak of the comeliness of Christ, we should let angels and saints above, that have the more immediate intuition of the radiant splendour of this blessed object, go forth to declare his glory. Everything in him is lovely, and nothing is lovely without him, nothing is lovely but what proceeds from him and goes to him; he is so lovely, that he cannot possibly be otherwise: he is the primary, original, and necessary loveliness.
2. Consider, as he is lovely so he is loving; his love is infinite, eternal, free, distinguishing, effectual; never man loved like him. O how many foldings are in this love, as can never be unfolded?
3. Consider, if we close with Christ we will give him a glad heart; his heart is glad in that day, when he takes a poor sinner by the hand; the day of his espousals is the day of the gladness of his heart. How many times have we, grieved him by our hypocrisy, and formality, and backwardness? And would we now give him a glad heart, for all the grieved hearts, we have given him? Then let us embrace him as offered in the gospel, and then he will be glad. Why? Then he will see the fruit of election, the fruit of redemption, the fruit of his death, the fruit of his resurrection, the fruit of his ascension, the fruit of his intercession: then he gets back the temple of the Holy Ghost; the lost sheep is found again: then he gets back the member of his own body.
I might give something by way of direction. You may say, What shall I do then, that I may be married unto Christ?
In one word, if you would have Christ for your husband, O then, entertain his suit, and hearken to his wooing, and courting motions! Is he darting light into your hearts, and letting you see the evil of some sin that formerly ye delighted in? O do not resist his suit, by continuing in sin after this! Is he strengthening that light so as to set conscience on fire with the sense of sin, and apprehension of wrath? O quench not this fire till you get water out of the wells of salvation! Otherwise ye reject his suit. —Is he carrying his suit farther, and stirring up your affections to desire after Christ! O quench not this motion! But cry to him to fasten the nail sure, and carry on the work, till the marriage be completed.
Now, I might give a word of exhortation also to them that are married and espoused to Christ.
All I shall say is this; O let Christ's bride live on him, and take all from him! As a poor woman married to a rich man, she lives upon his riches. Many are ready to say, that if Christ would call us his bride, we would live on ourselves; we would pray, repent, believe, &c.; but the bride of Christ must get all these things in him, and take all from him, and live wholly on him, and freely on him. When Joseph's brethren did not know him, they were buying and selling with him, they would have nothing from him without money; but when they knew that he was a brother, for all the offences that they had done him, they were content to come down every man of them, and take all from him for nothing; this is the way you must do with Christ, when matched to him; we must not, with the legalist, have repentance and duties of our own, we must take all from him, who is the repository of all divine fulness, whereof the believer's part is, out of that fulness to receive grace for grace.

It's important to remember that we are conquerers in Christ. The powers that be are ordained of God and Mather was one of the foremost Puritan expositors of God's authority. Away from the usual writings of his many forays into the issues re: the Salem Witch Trials, we have here a nice little piece on being satisfied in Christ, the basics that give us joy everlasting. This is his softer side. For the steel wool side, check out Wonders of the Invisible World and The Devil in New England.

Satisfaction in God
by Cotton Mather
Our continual apprehension of God, may produce our continual satisfaction in God, under all His dispensations. Whatever enjoyments are by God conferred upon us, where lies the relish, where the sweetness of them? Truly, we may come to relish our enjoyments, only so far as we have something of God in them. It was required in Psal. xxxvii. 4, "Delight thyself in the Lord." Yea, and what if we should have no delight but the Lord? Let us ponder with ourselves over our enjoyments: "In these enjoyments I see God, and by these enjoyments, I serve God!"
And now, let all our delight in, and all our value and fondness for our enjoyments, be only, or mainly, upon such a divine score as this. As far as any of our enjoyments lead us unto God, so far let us relish it, affect it, embrace it, and rejoyce in it: "O taste, and feed upon God in all;" and ask for nothing, no, not for life itself, any further than as it may help us, in our seeing and our serving of our God.
And then, whatever afflictions do lay fetters upon us, let us not only remember that we are concerned with God therein, but let our concernment with God procure a very profound submission in our souls. Be able to say with him in Psal. xxxix. 9, "I open not my mouth, because thou didst it." In all our afflictions, let us remark the justice of that God, before whom, "why should a living man complain for the punishment of his sin?" The wisdom of that God, "whose judgments are right:" the goodness of that God, who "punishes us less than our iniquities do deserve." Let us behave ourselves, as having to do with none but God in our afflictions: And let our afflictions make us more conformable unto God: which conformity being effected, let us then say, "'Tis good for me that I have been afflicted."
Sirs, what were this, but a pitch of holiness, almost angelical! Oh! Mount up, as with the wings of eagles, of angels: be not a sorry, puny, mechanic sort of Christians any longer; but reach forth unto these things that are thus before you.

Talkin' Turkey

2007-10-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Get me some dijon on whole wheat or a digital camera, but I honestly cannot believe the amount of wild turkeys taking over my hometown. We have a family of five living in our apartment complex and about ten full grown males were spotted in front of my office building.
"I can't get in" said a coworker calling me on his cell. "I swear there is a turkey in front of the door and he won't let me get past him." I know this man. He owns a motorcycle and has guns. At 7:59am he was at odds with a 3 foot high turkey. "Just shoot him and come on up" I said. This was met with disdain. I think one of them actually had a knife and cell phone.
My mother lives with me and I was trying to figure out a way we could keep one of the smaller females that wander our neighborhood. "Could we keep her in the bathtub mom?" I asked. "No honey, you're 37. Once you get a husband then you can have a turkey." she said.
I think I'll load 'em up in my car and take them to work with me. Maybe we could set up a meeting with the boys my coworker met this morning. Bay area rapid transit is also nearby; they could go to San Francisco. The new Barney's is there; some shopping, fine dining, a little wine, some symphony maybe. The turkeys I've known in the past have tried this formula. Maybe it will for work for these guys with better results.

Here is a fun little article along the same lines from '03. It beats election news.

Can a Wild Turkey Find Success and Happiness in Manhattan?
By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: May 23, 2003
Much about this bird is a mystery.
For starters, why did it take flight over Manhattan? Where did it come from? Is it alone?
One thing is clear.
''It's definitely a wild turkey,'' said E. J. McAdams, executive director of New York City Audubon, which has documented sightings of the bird from the Upper West Side to Chelsea and Greenwich Village since February. ''And it's a talented turkey at that.''
Several other witnesses, lacking Mr. McAdams's ornithological insight, have been just as impressed.
''The thing scared me to death,'' said Art Lindenauer, a retired chemical engineer who encountered the turkey in April on the balcony of his 28th-floor apartment on West 70th Street. Mr. Lindenauer has photographs of the turkey at rest, walking along the balcony railing, and taking flight.
By all accounts, the wild turkey sightings apparently are a first in the center of Manhattan. Few species would seem less likely inhabitants of an urban core, considering the wild turkey's ungainly size, its native habitat in woods, mountains and swamps, and its diet of berries, nuts and insects.
But its arrival is not altogether surprising, given that birds and animals have been making their way into densely populated areas across the nation.
A coyote was found in Central Park in 1999, not far from where a pair of red-tailed hawks have nested on a luxury apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 74th Street. Bears, not yet spotted in Manhattan, have been spotted in the suburbs, feeding from garbage cans and lumbering across yards.
Wild turkeys, long a beguiling sight along back roads and stone walls in the country, have been moving steadily to the suburbs and the fringes of the boroughs.
Several have been spotted in recent years in Pelham Bay Park, in the Bronx Zoo, on Staten Island and in Inwood Hill Park at the northern tip of Manhattan.
The turkey that has been spotted this year in Manhattan is clearly a female: she is smaller and less colorful than a male.
''The population all around is so healthy, I would not be surprised to see one or two turkeys wander into Manhattan each year,'' said Greg Butcher, an ornithologist and director of citizen science for the National Audubon Society. ''Turkeys are going to want woods and fields, and New York City parks provide them,'' he said, ''but I would be surprised to see a self-sustaining population in Manhattan.''
Not everyone is convinced that a wild turkey could find its way into the center of Manhattan on its own.
''If it's real, I'd say it was assisted into the city by some person,'' said Stephanie Easter, director of dispatch for the city's Center for Animal Care and Control, which rescues injured animals and birds.
''We've never seen one in Manhattan,'' she said, ''and I don't think the average person in this city knows what a wild turkey looks like.''
John Rowden, the curator of animals at the Central Park Zoo, said that no one had yet reported a wild turkey in his park but that recent sightings in the Bronx and Inwood might explain how one or more was spotted near the Hudson River on the West Side.
''Turkeys are not great dispersers or fliers,'' he said, adding that they rarely range much over 12 miles. Even their limited flying abilities would allow turkeys to cross the narrow expanse of the Harlem River from the Bronx, find their way to the Hudson and migrate down its shoreline, he said.
That appears to fit the pattern. Mr. McAdams, of the city's Audubon Society chapter, said the first two sightings were in February and mid-April, when what seems to have been the same bird was spotted trotting in the West 60's between West End Avenue and the West Side Drive.
Then, on April 20, came Mr. Lindenauer's encounter on his 28th-floor balcony, in the Lincoln Towers apartment complex, just off West End Avenue. He said he spotted the turkey leaning against his living room window, as if she were taking a nap.
Mr. Lindenauer, who was at home with his wife, Jinx, a sculptor, said he tapped on the window to get the turkey's attention. The bird stood up reluctantly, he said, and walked along the railing, posing for photographs for 15 minutes or so before she took off.

A Day for All Survivors in Israel

2007-10-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

I love Israel and if ever given the chance to bleed for her I will gladly, however this issue resolved finally has been long overdue.. Who knows why except that we live in a politically perverse 'global neighborhood' that boasts revisionist history to the point of where even the victims have to feign healing at their own expense, literally in this case. Israel is so often castigated by its mere existence that even admitting to the holocaust has been irreversably costly for them politically. The fact that stipends are now a paltry $200 in the light of the average pair of upscale womens shoes here in the states costing aroung $150 shows me that even in the year 2007 the possibilities of Gore getting the Nobel Peace Prize is as equally frightening as Hillary becoming president or fascism returning to our political scene as a legitimate societal interest. It CAN happen again. It did on 9/11.

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 15, 8:08 AM ET
JERUSALEM - The prime minister unveiled a new package of financial benefits for Holocaust survivors Monday, raising welfare payments for Israelis who became refugees during the Nazi genocide in Europe more than six decades ago.
The announcement followed criticism of the government for not doing enough to help the 240,000 Israelis who survived the murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. Today, many of the survivors are elderly and needy.
The package presented by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raises government stipends for the some 80,000 Israelis who fled their homes ahead of Nazi forces and became refugees. Known as the "second circle" of Holocaust survivors, most are from the former Soviet Union and moved to Israel in the 1990s.
The new benefits follow a package announced in August for the "first circle" of survivors — those who lived under direct Nazi rule, in ghettoes and concentration camps.
Olmert said the new aid was "an important moral step" that would correct a grave oversight on Israel's part.
"The state never gave those who survived the Holocaust the attention and resources it put into memorializing those who died in the Holocaust," Olmert said.
The package totals $373 million. Two-thirds of that will go to raising welfare payments for all needy senior citizens, including survivors, while the remaining third is intended more narrowly for survivors.
On top of the increase in welfare handouts, recipients will also be granted new monthly stipends ranging from under $40 to $125, depending on their age and economic situation.
Since August, needy survivors from the "first circle" were guaranteed allowances of $284 a month, with the exact sum also linked to age and income.
Noah Flug, a Holocaust survivor who chairs a consortium of survivors' groups, said the new benefits would make life easier for the one-third of Israeli Holocaust survivors who are poor.
"This is the first time an Israeli government has given serious treatment to this important and painful subject in our history," Flug said. "For years we talked about those who died and forgot about those who went through seven circles of hell and stayed alive."
Before the first of the new benefits were announced in August, survivor benefits were calculated by complex regulations depending on country of origin, where claimants were during the war, when they arrived in Israel, whether they received German government reparations, and other criteria.
Anger at the government's treatment of survivors erupted over the summer. Many elderly survivors charged that Israel had never done enough to support them and that they lacked money for basic necessities, and hundreds of survivors and their supporters demonstrated outside parliament.

Is it Me Or Is It Hot On The Dance Floor?

2007-10-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Many say Putin finds Lenin to be competition. Others say its just a bummer looking at a dead politician while eating stroganoff take-out, let alone a communist mass-murdering one. My personal best Soviet leader would be Boris 'Reform This' Yeltzin, bless him. He hated socialism, suffered depression, was his own Margaret Thatcher, liked vodka, dispaired of his own leadership and called Bill Clinton a disaster. I propose this: they exhume Yeltsin and we prop him up for the 08 election, then we send over a very much alive Hillary Clinton. Remember Lenin also wanted free universal health care. Shipping Hillary and Sandy Berger would be nice for us, it would re-energize Putin's popularity, and encourage her own need for strong, masculine leadership. They say Wellesley women need strong dudes. Maybe a dead communist mass-murdering one with E-Harmony profile was all she needed in the first place. Oh Bill honey you ain't tuff enuf! that's all from this war room, sunday's comin'....

Kremlin insider calls for Lenin to be buried
Wed Oct 10, 3:26 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians should move the embalmed body of revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin from Moscow's Red Square and bury him as an act of closure on Russia's turbulent past, a Kremlin insider said on Wednesday.
Lenin led the Bolshevik revolution in November 1917 which cemented Communist rule in Russia and the Soviet Union for the next 74 years.
"We have only just moved away from revolutions, from turbulent political battles, the country wants to live normally, to work, to be rich," Vladimir Kozhin, one of the Kremlin's top administrators in charge of its property portfolio including Red Square, told the official daily, Rossiskaya Gazeta.
Russia's first post-Soviet leader, Boris Yeltsin, more than once spoke in favor of removing the mausoleum from Red square. But strong pro-Communist sentiment in the country prevented him from doing so.
President Vladimir Putin has brought relative stability to Russia since he came to power in 2000 after the chaotic post-Soviet 1990s. Cash from oil and gas revenues has underpinned that stability and propelled a resurgence in Russian national pride.
Doctors embalmed Lenin's body days after he died in 1924 and laid him out in a mausoleum in Red Square. Lines of waiting tourists -- both domestic and foreign -- stretch around the Kremlin's walls as they wait to file past his body for the few minutes the guards allow.
"Of course, having this necropolis at the centre of the city is nonsense," Kozhin said, adding he wanted a national referendum on whether Lenin should be moved and buried.
"And if 80 percent of the people say that Lenin should be moved and buried then it is up to us to act on that decision," he said.