Category Archives: Religion

UPDATED: Once There Was ‘A Christmas Story’ (BHO’s Canine-Centered ‘Holiday’ Card)

Christianity, Family, Film, Hollywood, Religion

Set in the 1940s, “A Christmas Story” depicts a series of family vignettes through the eyes of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, who yearns for that gift of all gifts: the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. This was boyhood before “bang-bang you’re dead” was banned; family life prior to “One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads,” and Christmas without the ACLU. …
(By the way, Bob Clark, the director of this magical movie, and his son, were killed by an illegal alien. This says as much about modern-day America as does the dissolution of the prototypical family unit depicted so magnificently in “A Christmas Story.”)

I watch snippets of this gem of a film every year. I’ve written about “A Christmas Story” at least twice. Read “Once There Was ‘A Christmas Story.'”

UPDATE: BHO’S CANINE-CENTERED HOLIDAY CARD. The Canine member of the Obama family is front and center in their “holiday greeting card.” “It features an image of Bo, the Obama family dog, in front of a fireplace in the White House library with a poinsettia and other decorations. The card, which makes no direct mention of Christmas and doesn’t feature a Christmas tree, states: ‘From our family to yours, may your holidays shine with the light of the season.'” (LA TImes)

Sarah Palin told Fox News that she found it “odd” that the card emphasizes the dog instead of traditions like “family, faith and freedom.” She also said that Americans are able to appreciate “American foundational values illustrated and displayed on Christmas cards and on a Christmas tree.”

In his latest (and greatest) book, Patrick Buchanan captures the essence of Barack Obama as an “avatar of the cultural revolution”:

“Pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-amnesty, pro-affirmative action, one foot firmly planted in the Third World,” … an Afro-nationalist like Barack Hussein Obama Sr. BHO’s Christianity is the liberation theology preached by his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. A man who believes that whites qua whites have “much to answer for.” This “race consciousness and reflexive bias” was revealed in “his reaction to the Sergeant Crowley-Professor Gates affair.”

HAVE A MERRY ONE.

Refugees In The Failed State of Iraq

Barack Obama, Bush, Democracy, Iraq, Middle East, Military, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Religion, War

Saddam Hussein ruled over what the state department considered a rogue state, Iraq. The US eliminated Hussein and invaded his country (not in that order). Thanks to the American invasion, Iraq is now a failed state, where the politically weak are forsaken, and a muscular majority exercises its authority (a dispensation also known as democracy). The deposed dictator had kept a lid on the cauldron of sectarian strife, now boiling over in Iraq.

I’ve covered the plight of the millions of Iraqi refugees we helped uproot.

Against the backdrop of “Obama basking in the Iraq withdrawal” comes a reality check: a report, via CNN, on those Iraqis who have been internally displaced.

While war supporters may console themselves with the fact that “displacement is not new in Iraq,” as this Brookings-Institute observes, Iraq since the blessings of Bush is suffering a displacement crisis.

UPDATED: ‘To Save One Life Is Like Saving the World’ (Republicans Disagree)

Individual Rights, Islam, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Liberty, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Religion, Republicans

This may sound chauvinistic, but when nations are consumed with safekeeping their own, by default (and in self interest), they are more careful with the lives of their enemies.

Israel has demonstrated once again its commitment to that Talmudic verse, “To Save One Life Is Like Saving the World.” (The verse was ‘appropriated,” or ripped off, by Islam, and an exclusionary clause written into the equivalent Quranic ayah. Islam’s borrowed version, needless to say, is considerably less humanistic and universal.)

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir expressed bewilderment at the news that,

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and hundreds of Palestinians crossed Israel’s borders in opposite directions on Tuesday as a thousand-for-one prisoner exchange brought joy to families but did little to ease decades of conflict. …In all, Israel is setting free 1,027 Palestinians in return for the liberty of Shalit. Some have spent 30 years behind bars for violent attacks against Israel and its occupation of land taken in the 1967 Middle East War.
Over 100 of the 477 prisoners released in the first phase of the exchange were taken to the West Bank. The rest were coming into Gaza, apart from 41 who were due to fly out from Cairo to exile in Turkey, Syria or Qatar.

Bashir, a neocon-cum-liberal, is in good company here in the US. The following is from a 2004, Antiwar.com column:

… the neoconservatives at National Review have grumbled about Israel’s “lopsided prisoner exchanges” over the years. One “sofa samurai,” Eric Leskly, [once noted] the startling disparity of exchanging 5,500 Egyptian soldiers, following the Sinai campaign of 1956, “for the lives of the four Israeli soldiers captured in the fighting,” and over 8,000 Egyptians, after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in exchange for 240 Israeli soldiers.
Its official policy notwithstanding, Israel has also negotiated with terrorists for the lives and bodies of its soldiers. As Dr. Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, told the Jerusalem Post: “Israeli governments are more prone to the influence of public opinion.”

I remember thinking just that when, years back, I watched demonstrators heckle Ariel Sharon after yet another suicide bombing. One man yelled, “If you don’t sort this mess out, I’ll personally pay you a visit.”

UPDATE II: Bar Ron Paul, the debaters at the CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate related not at all to the Israeli position—a consistent preference for doing what it takes to save a life, even if not always strategic.

Not Another Sermon on the Mitt

Christian Right, Christianity, Elections, Ethics, Morality, Politics, Religion

Whatever you say about Mitt Romney, one cannot dispute that this presidential candidate is patrician; Romney is a refined, mild-mannered man. He could have made mincemeat out of Rick Perry for his word-salad during the debate in Tampa, Florida. Romney’s retort was, “Nice try.” That’s all. But a lot of people prefer the boorish Bush clone, Rick Perry. In fact, rumor has it that Perry is behind the latest assault on Mitt’s Mormonism. Via the WaPo:

Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, a Rick Perry supporter who recently described the Mormon religion as a “cult,” and isn’t backing off that claim in subsequent interviews.
But while the “Mormon Question” was a big one in the 2008 presidential race, there’s plenty of reason to believe its impact has somewhat lessened four years later, as Romney becomes more of a known quantity to voters.

Mitt Romney’s response typified his good manners: “We should remember that decency and civility are values too.”

The country and the “cognoscenti” did this dance in 2007, back when Mitt was forced into publicly defending his faith.

I’ll repeat what I said back then, on 12.07.07:

“I have no dog in the fight over Mitt’s Mormonism … Admittedly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may have some odd ideas. Not so the Mormons I know; they are very fine people. And quite magnificent is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; it’s in fact the finest in the world.”

What gets to me is the absolute Alzheimer’s of the political players involved and their followers.

I would not put it past Bush’s clone (Perry) to have had a hand in this latest anti-Mormon mischief-making.