Commentary Telling It Like It Is To Those That Might Not Want To Hear It & Links To News Around The Internet
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The "gates of heaven" scene in the film adaptation of Voyage of the Dawn Treader was quite moving. Some of the ultrapious will probably lecture the rest of us as to the shortcomings of the characters for preferring to return to the regular world rather than adventuring on to "Aslan's country" when provided with the opportunity. However, perhaps the greater truth is that we do not desire such a pilgrimage before it is our intended time.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Would Deficit Panel Impose Sanctions Upon Itself?
Foremost among these ranked increasing the retirement age to nearly 70 years. If such a proposal were ever enacted, it would be the first time in decades that the ruling elites have taken Biblical revelation into consideration.
You see, the Good Book teaches that that is about the end of the human lifespan and anything beyond that is usually categorized as a descent into suffering.
To state things bluntly, dear readers, the government eventually plans to cross its fingers hoping that you will just die on the job.
But whereas you will be extolled the glories and delight of sacrifice, it is doubtful the same will be required by the likes of those seated on the commission.
For example, the co-chair of this panel was retired Senator Allan Simpson. As part of the sacrifice we are all expected to shoulder with a smile, has Allan Simpson forsaken the benefits the members of that deliberative body have been known to accumulate once they leave it?
So before we ever cut back on the elderly tottering along the edges of destitution, perhaps we should curtail the lavish benefits extended to those elevated to membership in the federal legislative body already millionaires to begin with or whom often use their time in elected office as springboards to additional fortunes, accolades, and honors.
Perhaps better yet, lets abolish Congressional salaries all together. Then those entering these national halls will be more prone to depart from them under their own power long before they have to be pushed out in a wheelchair.
by Frederick Meekins
A hyperfundamentalist has posted that holiness is legalism to the liberal. However, not all examples of legalism equate with misunderstood holiness. Wearing a ball cap with the brim forward or a collared shirt only makes you a person wearing a cap with a brim forward of a collared shirt. If you are aroused over a shirt without a collar with all other significant portions of the anatomy concealed, you are the one with the serious mental problem.
An article in an edition of Nieman Reports, a publication of a journalism foundation at Harvard, titled "There's More To Being A Journalist Than Hitting The Publish Button" laments how the rise of blogs and social media has resulted in "ignorance, anger, and anti-elitism". In other words, the duped masses simply doing as they are told are on the verge of dwindling.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Did Anti-Defamation League Get Ventura FEMA Expose Flushed Down The Memory Hole
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Michael Vick wants a dog. If sex offenders that have served their sentences are relegated to tent cities on the outskirts of society in order to protect children from these perverts reoffending, then this piece of human excrement (who doesn't even rise to the level of a son of a bitch since that would be an insult to canines everywhere) shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Obama Demands You Die In Place During A Nuclear Attack
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Does Prison Fellowship Give Christmas Gifts To Crime Victims' Children?
On a positive note, the ministry didn't role out the organization's usual sob letter supposedly written by a convict, incarcerated for a sentence of about nine years, asking for a handout for his daughter.
I guess if they had continued repeatedly sending the same plea as they have done year after year since at least 2005, the discerning would have realized it was nearly time for this deadbeat to be released.
Thing is, this year's appeal still left much to be desired.
One woman is quoted as saying, "It was hard to see...him [her father] in prison...Angel Tree just showed us that he was thinking about us while he was there."
Perhaps all well and good. But what is Angel Tree doing for the children of victims no longer able to let their children know that they are thinking about them thanks to a number of the very same convicts Prison Fellowship no doubt depicts as being put behind bars by an inequitable criminal justice system rather than by felonious misdeeds?
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
In regards to the Department of Homeland Security program urging shoppers to report suspicious activity: are Americans going to be given guidelines of what to look for or are you going to get a knock at the door in the middle of the night because some pissant cashier thinks the quantity of a sale item you purchased is peculiarly large?
Innkeeper's Bad Press Not Necessarily Deserved
As the opening act of the Greatest Story Ever Told, each character mentioned in the Christmas narrative has had a number of literary traditions and homiletical assumptions added that may or may not be directly traceable to the text of the Holy Bible. One of these is none other than the Innkeeper.
When we are confronted with the dichotomy of the Second Person of the divine Godhead, enthroned in Heaven throughout all previous eternity, being born into a filthy barn with the stench of feces and urine all around, knowing this account not from the standpoint of the characters within but rather as the beneficiaries of the complete Good News of the Gospel message, we are horrified on an instinctive level and look for someone to blame for this apparent breech of cosmic protocol. Often, the Innkeeper is thrust into the role.
But is such an outrage warranted? Though literature and tradition can be useful tools of instruction, enlightenment, and illumination if they are kept in check by the foundation provided by the Word of God, it is to the Word of God that the investigation must turn if we are to distinguish undisputed fact from what may turn out to be nothing but well-intended imagination.
The text reads in Luke 2:7, “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” With that passage, one has exhausted the corpus of Biblical references regarding the Advent Inn though definitely not the speculation or debate surrounding the figure that no doubt tended this mentioned structure.
Technically, there isn’t even an innkeeper directly mentioned. One can conclude that the expansion of the role that he played in interpretations of the Christmas Story is more about giving pageant parts to kids who, to put it bluntly, don’t quite measure up to the charisma of those selected to play Joseph and Mary but who are a cut above those selected to play shepherds and animals in terms of intelligence.
The Innkeeper also becomes a foil through which assorted ministers, church music directors, and aspiring ecclesiastical playwrites make assorted points that these respective thinkers feel either need to be made but are not explicitly spelled out in the portion of Scripture under consideration or even placed as hints to draw applause to their own vaunted sense of holiness or spirituality.
The first misconception construed about the Holy Family and tossed at the Innkeeper is that these wanderers were homeless and that this particular businessman typifies the attitudes exuded by commercial interests towards the destitute. This line of reasoning was popularized years ago by Jesse Jackson and is no doubt widespread today as assorted charities often capitalize on these kinds of sentiments prevalent this time of year in order to shame the general population into complying with solicitations for donations.
Racemongers such as Jackson constantly hold their ears to the rails of the public discussion ready to pounce on any thinker daring to make the error that all within a protected demographic happen to partake of a certain characteristic not inherent to what makes an individual part of the particular group in question. Then why isn’t this same care of thought applied to those finding no roof over their heads?
As Rush Limbaugh astutely rejoineded at the time, Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. Thus, their state of lacking a domicile was merely a transient one. Technically, they were no more homeless than someone going to the beach and finding nothing but “No Vacancy” signs lit along the boardwalk.
The dilemma faced by the Holy Family in no way justified the increased social spending Jackson was calling for at the time nor infuse the most debauched among indigents, unwilling to lift their own fingers in the effort to elevate their status, with a sacredness or purity with which they should not be esteemed. Unlike Mary and Joseph, many of the homeless end up in this lamentable condition because of their willful refusal to pay their bills rather than because of an eager compliance in seeing that their obligations are met.
A related criticism of the Innkeeper accuses the Innkeeper of being insufficiently religious or spiritual. Those out to find fault with him will respond, “He should have been able to find room for the birth of the Messiah by either kicking out another paying customer or by giving up his own bed.”
This suggestion makes a number of assumptions that cannot necessarily be supported one way or the other from the text as it was inspired by the moving of the Holy Spirit.
For example, no where in the Gospel account is the Innkeeper explicitly portrayed. Mary and Joseph may have learned by other means than directly from the proprietor’s mouth that the inn was full and they wandered about the town looking for an alternative place to stay until the blessed event transpired and there was no where else where they could get off the street.
If sufficiently secluded and in dire enough of an emergency, Mary and Joseph might have dashed into the nearest stable without even notifying the owner or caretaker. The manger in question might not have even belonged to the innkeeper.
Even if Mary and Joseph interacted directly with the Innkeeper, there is no proof that the couple even told the Innkeeper of their unique plight. As difficult as it may be to remember, the Nativity took place in pre-Internet times when pregnant women didn't go around posting pictures of their bare bellies with stretch marks and protruding navals for all the world to see.
Joseph was initially of the mind to hide Mary away privately all together away from public view in Matthew 2:19 and Mary's cousin Elizabeth went into seclusion for five months following the conception of John the Baptist according to Luke 1:24. As such, if the Innkeeper even met Mary and Joseph, he might not have even known that she was pregnant if the couple went to extraordinary measures to conceal that she was with child.
Since, according to tradition, the Innkeeper placed Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus in a livestock sty, the Innkeeper must not have been an overtly devout individual if that is the way he treated the Messiah and the human vessel through which the Son of God entered the mortal realm in human flesh. But even if Mary and Joseph pulled rank (something they would not have likely done given what we are told in regards to their character), why should the Innkeeper have believed them at the time?
To pious ears, that may sound shocking. However, it must be remembered that at that point in history, Mary and Joseph were no more renowned than any other Israelite.
Before going into the stable, Jesus hadn't even been born. Mary knew that a miracle had occurred within her. However, even Joseph was disinclined to believe his espoused's account until he was persuaded otherwise by no less than the intervention of God Himself.
As an Israelite, the Innkeeper could have been aware of prophecies that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. However, short of a detailed anatomical examination or divine encounter of his own, how would he have known Mary was telling the truth or simply pulling his leg to swindle something out of him as religious charlatans have been known to do throughout history. If we are going to add extraneous details to the Christmas story, perhaps we might as well applaud this willingness to assist while keeping the potentially deceptive that we can't verify at arms length.
Living 2000 years after the events chronicled in the Gospel accounts, we are privileged to know from beginning to the end this particular portion of the Story of Stories. There is more than enough to meditate and ponder upon in those pages without having to drag through the mud the character of a character that what is known of is little more than historical conjecture and literary speculation.
by Frederick Meekins
Monday, December 13, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
There probably is little need for Palin to go to Haiti. However, it's a bit of a stretch for a fanatic Reconstructionist to proffer this as evidence that Palin isn't a Christian. The fanatic interprets the junket as violating Matt 6 admonitions to give secretly. Couldn't one respond that this individual, constantly refuting the faith of others based on where we all fall short, in turn himself isn't a valid Christian because of the works-based righteousness of this particular aspiring religious demagogue?
Harrison Ford's New York apartment for sale is 5,000 square feet with 4.5 bathrooms. Yet the aging thespian is a spokesman for a group called "Team Earth" that wants people to drive less and turn down our thermostats. Is Ford so full of it that it takes five toilets to handle what he's putting out? I guess his condo is so cold he has to try each commode until he finds one that doesn't freeze his backside.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Should Immigrants Be Allowed To Maim, Rape & Kill In The Name Of "Culture"
Glenn Beck announced that a company controlled by the Russian government has acquired an interest in a U.S. uranium mine. Everyday it gets more and more like that dream sequence episode of Deep Space Nine where the Jem Hadar were pretty much handed free reign aboard the station with Starfleet’s blessing.
Government agencies geared towards “minority business development” are founded on two basic assumptions. 1. Minorities are either too deficient in terms of intellect or character to establish businesses on their own. 2. Color really does determine the quality of a product or service one is in the marketplace for.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Monday, December 06, 2010
Salvation Army Bells Deemed Offensive
Giant, a prominent Washington DC area supermarket chain, has curtailed the number of days that the Salvation Army will be permitted to solicit donations this season outside of the grocery retailer’s locations.
In a number of media reports, it was claimed that the bells were offensive and irritating to a number of shoppers.
So what about those food solicitation campaigns where the grocery chain doesn't simply set out a receptacle for those wanting to contribute food items to charity but instead gets broadcast news outlets involved?
Spokesmen from both institutions not only smooch their own rearends in letting the public know just how progressive both the media outlet and food distribution corporations are in bringing awareness to the plight of the supposedly malnourished but also castigate the viewing consumer if they do not comply with the demand for a contribution.
Why isn’t this deemed offensive?
Or how about the recipients of such charity who are not really starving per say but rather simply not receiving the quality of food they think that they otherwise deserve but are unwilling to work for in order to acquire?
Isn’t it offensive to be lectured to by such types or rather their benefactors?
But perhaps the greatest outrage of all occurs when the price for food the average consumer is forced to pay is jacked up with the goods not being sold often simply being tossed into the dumpster.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
How is Hillary's gathering of intelligence on world leaders any different than what nations have always done to each other? Perhaps Wikilieaks should be more concerned about the mobile X-ray vans that can see whatever your doing in your house from playfully smacking your spouse's backside to scratching your own.
Tweets Regarding Junk Touching
Wonder if TSA administrator John Pistole's pistol would even show up on the full body scanner or be of sufficient caliber to grab onto in a pat down.
White House eunuchs announced they don't care whose privates are violated this Thanksgiving season.
If to be subjected to a government mandated "groin check" in an airport, dependent upon what the attendant looked like, one conducted by the opposite gender would be preferable. And if conducted in privacy, there better be candelight and soft music playing in the background.
How come a potential airline passenger merely asserting his right to genital self determination by informing the TSA screener of the penalty for sexual assault is threatened with a $10,000 fine but the same government leveling such a charge likely gives more than this in handout benefits to undocumented foreigners violating our borders? Where are the babykillers now when their mantra of “keep your laws of my body” could finally be applied in an appropriate context?
If TSA perverts are so obsessed with groins, hopefully they'll get whacked down below by one of the kids these goons are molesting with Obama's blessing.
As a former member of an organization of revolutionary Hispanosupremacists, the government approved molestation of Americans is likely the first time ever that the mayor of LA has rushed to defend "law enforcement" or orderly passage through a border checkpoint.
For now, if Americans do not want to endure the trauma of a government sanctioned molestation, they can circumvent airport security by driving to their respective destinations. However, in the future, what is to prevent this simple act itself from being categorized as an act of terrorism in a manner similar to how having a screwdriver in your possession when pulled over by police can result in allegations of harboring burglary tools? More importantly, electric cars will probably force those desiring to travel long distances to fly anyway since no automobile will have enough power to go very far from the driver's respective residence.
An overly zealous Facebook evangelist has posted that a Christian would not allow themselves to be subjected to TSA security screenings. Is it going to be insinuated eventually that a Christian that has consented to such a search is not really a Christian or has fallen into a state of apostasy? In regards to some of these matters in terms of the individual adult, don’t Christians have the prerogative to follow their own conscience?
Here is an example. In the Old Testament, the census was frowned upon by God, but in the New Testament the reader finds that it was compliance with a census that brought Mary and Joseph to the city of Bethlehem. So did Jesus spring from the womb of one heretic and was raised as the stepson (for lack of a better term) in the house of another?
Those with courage enough to stand up to these most outrageous of bodily violations should be heralded However, the hand of fellowship should not be removed from those that decide to pursue another course of action when presented with these unacceptable choices.
The head of the TSA has lamented the disrespect travelers have shown to airport screeners. Unless their groins have been stroked and their breasts fondled, in comparison to this mistreatment inflicted upon American airline passengers, these bureaucrats have very little to complain about.
by Frederick Meekins