Fausta's blog

Israel Matzav:

The UN 'Human Rights Council' decided this week that it is forbidden to criticize Islam because "religious issues can be "very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it." From now on, only religious scholars would be permitted to broach 'religious matters' before the Council.

This means that any crimes committed by Islamists can not be addressed by the UN's HRC. The Organization of Islamic Countries is the largest voting block at the UN.

While we can not criticize Islam, it's OK to protest security measures on religious grounds:
And Now, Sniffer Dogs Are Offensive: Muslims travelling on trains from Brighton have objected to sniffer dogs being used to search them for drugs and bombs.



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Labels: Islam, religion, UN

Updated
You can listen to the podcast here
In today's podcast, an all-star lineup:
Elizabeth Blackney of Media Lizzy, Jazz Shaw of Midstream Radio, Shane Burgess of Political Vindication, and Siggy will be discussing sexual mores in the West and in Islamic countries.

We'll start by talking about Lisa Schiffren's post Sex and the Single Muslim Girl, with a panel discussion, followed by conversation.

Chat's open by 10:45AM, and the call-in number is 646 652-2639. Join us!

Labels: Blog Talk Radio, female genital mutilation, FGM, podcasts, relationships, religion, Sex.

Psalm 51
David pleads for forgiveness after he went in to Bath-sheba—He pleads: Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.
TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN, A PSALM OF DAVID, WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET CAME UNTO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATH-SHEBA.
1 Have amercy upon me, O God, according to thy blovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies cblot out my dtransgressions.
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and acleanse me from my sin.
3 For I aacknowledge my transgressions: and my bsin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I asinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be bjustified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother aconceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7 Purge me with ahyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10 Create in me a aclean heart, O God; and brenew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from thy apresence; and take not thy bholy spirit from me.
12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be aconverted unto thee.
14 aDeliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
16 For thou desirest not asacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
17 The asacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a bcontrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
18 Do good in thy good apleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.



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Labels: Christianity, music, religion

COE Archibishop Rowan Williams declared (click on link for audio file) that integrating some aspects of Sharia law was inevitable in Britain.

Today Joan Smith explains that British women are already suffering from Islamic law (h/t Alcibiades):

As soon as you look at the actual operation of religious law in this country, the picture looks less rosy. Even if the Archbishop didn't have in mind barbaric punishments such as stoning women to death for adultery, there is plenty of evidence that sharia courts are a means of consolidating patriarchal power in societies where Muslim women have begun to demand the same rights as men. The Department for Work and Pensions recently made an astonishing decision to pay state benefits to Muslim men for each of their wives, as long as the marriages were contracted legally abroad. Bigamy is illegal in Britain and the spectacle of the Government colluding in the practice of polygyny – not polygamy, for Muslim women cannot have four husbands – is a signal that ministers are losing their moral compass on the subject of women's rights.

We are only just beginning to realise the extent of violence against women from ethnic minorities. Last week, Commander Steve Allen, who leads for the Association of Chief Police Officers on honour-based violence, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. Responding to a question about whether forced marriage and "honour" crimes are under-reported in this country, Allen responded with a single word: "Massively". He believes the real level of violence might be 35 times higher than the number of cases (around 500) reported each year to the police and the Foreign Office forced marriage unit.

If a woman is running away from her parents or a violent husband, mosques and sharia courts are not the obvious place for her to turn to get justice. The Centre for Social Cohesion study contains a startling insight into attitudes in one British mosque, reported by Mohamed Baleela, a team leader at the Domestic Violence Intervention Project in Hammersmith, west London. "Last time I talked about marital rape in a mosque," he said, "I nearly got beaten up. Because we said that the law makes it illegal to rape your wife, someone got up and hit me because he was ignorant of the law."

The most powerful argument, that all people in a country are subject to the same laws - indeed, that the rule of law applies to all - appears to be lost to the Archibishop, but not on Smith, who also points out that

indeed the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2003 that sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy and European values. Secular law protects people's right to practise their religion, but it also protects them from aspects of their faith which are unjust and oppressive.

Too bad the Archibishop and his followers can't seem to remember that; as you can listen in the above audio clip, he actually dismissed the European Court of Human Right's decision.

Most disturbing of all, Williams believes that the law should be shaped by "individual affiliations" and "individual loyalties", and believes that "a law that says that there's a law for everybody and that's all needs to be said" is "a bit of a danger".

So long, rule of law.



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Labels: religion, UK

In what must be the most "out there" cosmetics campaign in recent years, someone in Singapore came up with a line of Lookin' Good for Jesus cosmetics. The line included a "Virtuous vanilla" lip balm, which doesn't sound too naughty but then the inuendo took over, and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream made it to the cosmetic counters. Let's hope it doesn't tingle.

The Catholics got upset and the company withdrew the products. If they had been in Latin America, they could have repackaged the whole line with a picture of heh-SOOS, some good looking guy with the same name as Jesus and they would have saved themselves the fuss.

I wonder what Ace and Laurie Kendrick would have to say about "Looking Good for Jesus".



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Labels: fashion, humor, religion

In this week's New York Times Book Review Ayan Hirsi Ali reviews Lee Harris's The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West.

In the book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains,

Harris is pessimistic in a way that the Enlightenment thinkers were not. He takes a Darwinian view of the struggle between clashing cultures, criticizing the West for an ethos of selfishness, and he follows Hegel in asserting that where the interest of the individual collides with that of the state, it is the state that should prevail. This is why he attributes such strength to Islamic fanaticism. The collectivity of the umma elevates the communal interest above that of the individual believer. Each Muslim is a slave, first of God, then of the caliphate. Although Harris does not condone this extreme subversion of the self, still a note of admiration seems to creep into his descriptions of Islam's fierce solidarity, its adherence to tradition and the willingness of individual Muslims to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good.

But this is what she has to say,

I was not born in the West. I was raised with the code of Islam, and from birth I was indoctrinated into a tribal mind-set. Yet I have changed, I have adopted the values of the Enlightenment, and as a result I have to live with the rejection of my native clan as well as the Islamic tribe. Why have I done so? Because in a tribal society, life is cruel and terrible. And I am not alone. Muslims have been migrating to the West in droves for decades now. They are in search of a better life. Yet their tribal and cultural constraints have traveled with them. And the multiculturalism and moral relativism that reign in the West have accommodated this.

Harris is correct, I believe, that many Western leaders are terribly confused about the Islamic world. They are woefully uninformed and often unwilling to confront the tribal nature of Islam. The problem, however, is not too much reason but too little. Harris also fails to address the enemies of reason within the West: religion and the Romantic movement. It is out of rejection of religion that the Enlightenment emerged; Romanticism was a revolt against reason.

Both the Romantic movement and organized religion have contributed a great deal to the arts and to the spirituality of the Western mind, but they share a hostility to modernity. Moral and cultural relativism (and their popular manifestation, multiculturalism) are the hallmarks of the Romantics. To argue that reason is the mother of the current mess the West is in is to miss the major impact this movement has had, first in the West and perhaps even more profoundly outside the West, particularly in Muslim lands.

Thus, it is not reason that accommodates and encourages the persistent segregation and tribalism of immigrant Muslim populations in the West. It is Romanticism. Multiculturalism and moral relativism promote an idealization of tribal life and have shown themselves to be impervious to empirical criticism. My reasons for reproaching today's Western leaders are different from Harris's. I see them squandering a great and vital opportunity to compete with the agents of radical Islam for the minds of Muslims, especially those within their borders. But to do so, they must allow reason to prevail over sentiment.

She concludes by saying "while this conflict is undeniably a deadly struggle between cultures, it is individuals who will determine the outcome."

Another individual who has spoken on reason is Pope Benedict, who created quite a stir in 2006 when he said, "Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature".

This statement reflects a tradition that has come down for thousands of years, reflecting how reason itself is at war with the forces of chaos. Indeed, the story of civilization is the struggle of reason against chaos.

As it turns out, as I was working on this post Neoneocon also posted,

I believe what Harris may really be saying is that, in our emphasis on reason and tolerance, we must not forget to include a robust defense of our own culture and our own values. It is a balancing act; we don’t want to segue back into intolerance ourselves. But there is no other way to fight the forces of intolerance than to believe in and defend ourselves.

It all starts with the individual.



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Labels: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, books, Islam, religion

If you go to the link, National Enquirer World Exclusive: John Edwards Love Child Scandal! there's nothing there. The Enquirer pulled it.
Update, 12:20PM: the article's back up.

However, this being the internet, Doug Ross has capture and text, on the affair with Rielle Hunter.

Ace quotes from No Prisoners,

This is a perfect "one-two" punch by the Clintons. First, have some cutout mention that the Republicans might make hay out of a question about Obama "selling" drugs. Second, have a tabloid allege that Edwards has fathered a child while his loving, devoted, wife if dying of cancer. Since all sources are either being denied/fired or suspect, the damage is not enough to knock out either opponent - only weaken them. This way the two (Obama and Edwards) can split the anti-Hillary! vote but, both remain in the race (with reduced support) so she doesn't have to face only one strong contender.

This is pure Clinton "magic".

Dan Riehl has the video Hunter made for the Edwards campaign.

Politico has the story on Roger Altman, The Clintonite who owns National Enquirer

But hey, another married man claims to be the baby's father.

Sing it, Diana!

Ooh, ooh, ooh....aaaahhh

You think that I don't feel love
What I feel for you is real love
In other's eyes I see reflected
A hurt, scorned, rejected

Love child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Born in poverty
Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Take a look at me

Started my life
In a old, cold, run-down tenament slum (tenement slum)
My father left he never even married mama
I shared the guilt my mama knew
So afraid that others knew I had no name

This love we're contemplatin'
Is worth the pain of waitin'
We'll only end up hatin'
The child we may be creatin'

Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
(Scorned by) Society
Love Child
Always second best
Love Child
(Different from) Different from the rest

(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby
(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby

I started school
And a worn, torn dress that somebody threw out
(Somebody threw out)
I knew the way it felt to always live in doubt
To be without the simple things
So afraid my friends would see the guilt in me

Don't think that I don't need ya
Don't think I don't want to please ya
But no child of mine will be bearing
The name of shame I've been wearing

Love Child
Love Child
Never quite as good
Afraid, ashamed
Misunderstood

But I'll always love you
Always love you

I'll always love you
Always love you

I warned them and warned them and warned them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hillary wants to show she's likable, so Bill goes on Entertainment Tonight while she stays in the helicopter.



The Anchores thinks Bill doesn't want Hillary to win.

(Note to Hillary: If you want to project the image of the leader of the free world, don't stand next to anyone who dwarfs you phisically.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
UNICEF's picture of the year:

An 11-yr old girl being married to a pedophile.

Where is UNICEF?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mass. Universal Care Faces Year-2 Reality

For those who like to believe there’s a free lunch, the table at Massachusetts' universal health care scheme is being pared.
...
The Boston Globe reports on Massachusetts' changes for 2008: "The changes will probably cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for patients, and possibly increase how much patients have to pay."

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Via Maria, Dennis Prager writes about Secular Europe or Religious America?


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Labels: Democrats, health care, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, politics, religion, UN

Gateway Pundit has the story: Jew's subway hero a Muslim
Read the rest.

Labels: crime, Islam, religion

In my first post about Wednesday's podcast, I talked about how , as Teo put it,

we're behaving as adolescents, outsourcing hardship, focused on sex instead of on meaningful human contact, and isolating ourselves by technology.

Last night I didn't sleep well because something I had for dinner didn't quite agree with me so I turned on the TV. I'm not sure what channel was playing the program, but they showed the latest trend in pornography, which involved the use of sex toys on a prostitute in a studio, directed by the paying subscriber at his/her home. For that, the subscriber pays $7 a minute.

It was very sad to see this. In fact, it was downright depressing - the most depressing thing I've seen in the past year or so.

How much more of a descent into loneliness and alienation can you get than that? I shudder to ask, because I know someone else is already working on something even worse.

I have posted before on the culture of pornography enveloping us. Maybe it's the aftereffects of last night's dinner but right now I'm not optimistic at all as to what it bodes for our children.

The emphasis on ever-young ever-sexual images in today's world (a phenomenon which is not limited to the USA - to the contrary) and the de-emphasizing of human contact will make our children's lives ever more difficult.

Increasingly, more people become obsessed with youth to the point of self-mutilation through plastic surgery. Old people are relegated to retirement homes and their contributions are ignored. We force ourselves to think only in terms of everlasting youth and vitality.

Aging has become a sin, possibly the only sin left.

In yesterday's comments, GM Roper commented about ageing and death,

I remember my other grandfather, who was a minister, reminisce about growing up close with death and dying and how it was a natural and necessary part of life. The differences seem to me to be huge. We ignore death and so we become afraid of it, we do not cherish our homemakers who deal with all of the necessary steps to making a house a home a hearth more than a place to cook food and all the little enjoyable (and sometimes not so enjoyable) things that go into a life between the first wail after birth to the last gasp at death.

When we become comfortable with who we are, then and only then can we begin to be comfortable with where we are going.

Francis W. Porretto expands on the subject:

An advanced civilization will respond to an unpleasant but predictable necessity [i.e., death] by creating such dedicated institutions. The tough part is paying the resulting institutions the appropriate degree of respect. After all, we didn't create them because we actively wanted to, but because all the alternatives were worse. So our young must endure developmental conditioning that will predispose them toward respectful behavior under dispreferred circumstances: funerals, visits to nursing homes, hospitals, and the homes of failing relatives; coping with smelly Grandpa. The conditioning doesn't always take, but we do the best we can.

There are other trends afoot, of course. Medicine continues to increase our lifespans, and certain elements of medical research suggest that even aging itself is curable. No one could fail to be attracted by the possibility of a prolonged life in a state of youthful vigor and attractiveness. But no matter how good our biologists and physicians get at prolonging our lives and vital forces, we will still die, from accident, disease, violence, or suicide. One of the unpleasant trends in contemporary thought is the promotion of the contrary view: that sooner or later, mortality itself will be "cured."

I don't believe it to be possible, but let's postulate it for the nonce. If Mankind were to lose its cognizance of and respect for death, what would happen to our attitudes toward life? Would it not be immeasurably cheapened? Would we not slide inexorably into complete ennui? No life, infinitely prolonged, could possibly be significant. Any dividend of achievement, love, or experience would sit atop an infinite divisor. Quotient: zero!

Or imagine rather that immortality were available only at a high monetary price. That would be all but certain; it would be the greatest medical advancement of all time, and no doubt would be available at first only to the most fortunate few. What then? Would we not have created a new have-not class? Wouldn't that class raise a cry unprecedented in the history of Man? Let slide the question of whether there's necessarily any unfairness involved in having to pay for such a treatment; the ululations would still drown out all other speech or thought. The resulting convulsions could well destroy society.

We prefer to keep those who tend to the dead on the margins of society. At the very least, But not only are they of us; they are essential to us, and to what it means to be men.

And that's what it all comes down to, isn't it?


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Labels: podcasts, relationships, religion

In Wednesday's podcast, Mamacita asked,

I wonder how many of our Halloween customs and our fear of the unknown are based on the fact that Americans fear death far more than any other culture does. We don't touch the dead, we don't associate with the dead the way other cultures do... Other cultures wash their dead, they dress their dead, they put the dead in their living room.

Siggy posted

we touched on death and how little real connection we have to that life cycle event. Parents and grandparents are shipped out to nursing homes. We regard death as a medical event only, and not as a family event. Taking care of the remains of loved ones has become no different than sending out clothes to a dry cleaners.

I agree up to a point. I don't have any reason to believe that ours is the culture that most fears death. Additionally, my experience is that in poor countries anyone who can afford a servant has one, and that servant is the one taking care of the daily chores. In India, an entire caste took care of the dead.

But the point in which we all agree - Mamacita, Teo, Siggy and I - is that in our contemporary society we are increasingly isolating ourselves from human contact and from dealing with the day-to-day activities that keep us in touch with what real death and real life are all about. As Siggy said,

All the things that are part of our existence, at least in Western culture, we can farm out.

This is not new; indeed it goes back to Egyptian times when they were farming out the chores to the Israelites (who left as soon as they were able to).

First let's look at the daily chores; tomorrow I'll discuss the ageing aspect.

In the New Testament we have Martha, whose name means lady; mistress of the house. Saint Martha according to the Dictionary of Saints,

(1st century). The sister of Lazarus and of Mary who is often identified with Mary Magdalene, Martha received Christ in their household at Bethany, which was specially loved by him (Luke 10: 38–42), on which occasion he gently reproved her for her complaint that her sister Mary did not help her sufficiently in the necessary preparations. The words of Christ were frequently represented as indicating the excellence of the contemplative life (represented by Mary) over the cares of the active life, represented by Martha. In the Gospel of John, Martha also appeared on the occasion of the Raising of Lazarus ( John 11: 1–46), when her faith in Christ and his divine power was the occasion for the famous words 'I am the resurrection and the life', and for the miracle of Lazarus' return to life. It was also recorded that Christ once again had supper at Bethany, where Martha served him six days before the passover ( John 12: 1–2). This is all that can be known of her from the New Testament; there is no early tradition about her death.

Martha, then, is connected to the care of the home (Luke 10: 38–42)

38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.
40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

This passage is now interpreted to mean that spiritual matters take precedence over material matters. However, having done some entertaining of my own, I still find it irksome. As Dymphna said,

I think Jesus would've had a different answer if they both sat around listening to Him and there was no supper.

Or if Jesus and the Apostles arrived at Martha's house and there was no place to sit because of the dirt and all the clutter.

Obviously I'm not quite up to speed when it comes to the contemplative life. But I digress.

Martha is also involved in the care of the dead, first with the resurrection of her brother Lazarus (John 11: 1–46), who is resurrected through her faith,

17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles[a] from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
27"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ,[b] the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

And also with Jesus's own death, since he spent the six days before Passover at her house.

Martha then, to me symbolizes the balance of the spiritual - which is sometimes lacking in our day - with the cotidian.

Unfortunately, in our modern world we now seem to have lost both.

As readers of this blog know, I'm addicted to HGTV and other do-it-yourself programs. In several programs, TV crews go to people's houses and reorganize years' and decades' worth of decay and neglect.

The only question I have when I have watched these programs is,How can one's spirit be so lost that one can live in such chaos?

In her excellent book, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, Cheryl Mendelson says,

When you keep house, you use your head, your heart and your hands together to create a home - the place where you live the most important parts of your private life.

And that's what it all comes down to, isn't it: creating a home with our heads, our hearts and our hands.

At least one woman - not coincidentally named Martha - has also created a huge enterprise out of homemaking, too, which is almost a conondrum of feminism. Siggy's commenter Expat brought up feminism,

With respect to our current distance from death, I think that this affects feminist ideology. Many younger women don't seem to realize that much of the work previously done by many women–feeding the family, raising the children, caring for the sick, and consolling the dying - was actually much more relevant to meaning of life questions than today's "careers." I become really angry when modern feminists act as though women like my mother and her sisters were some sort of mindless victims. Even without a college education, these women knew more about life than today's fem will ever learn at the University of Delaware.

Mamacita also pointed out that in our society we're encouraged not to touch each other at all (except possibly in a sexual context). As Teo mentioned in the podcast, we're behaving as adolescents, outsourcing hardship, focused on sex instead of on meaningful human contact, and isolating ourselves by technology.

Teo pointed out that

In some fashion, Halloween, when all these kids run around collecting candy, with their parents, dressed up as all kinds of things, is a throwback to a world that was invented, in many respects, but that seeks to recreate a world as it was.

Maybe it's time we touched each other more, and we paid more attention to creating homes with our heads, our hearts and our hands.

Do we risk getting hurt by doing so?

And if we do, is it worth it?

Tomorrow I'll post about the subject of age, as we mentioned in the podcast.

CONTINUED on Saturday November 3:

(On the subject of Martha, see also this interesting essay by Clara Beth Speel Van de Water )



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Labels: podcasts, relationships, religion, Scheiss Weekly, Sigmund Carl and Alfred, Teo Ruiz

No, of course they aren't.

It's the time of year for the Blake Prize in the land down under, but it's always season for taking potshots at us Catholics, so here we have what passes for art these days:

Artist defends Osama-as-Jesus

Priscilla Joyce Bracks' Bearded Orientals, Making the Empire Cross is a lenticular image in which the viewer can flip between portraits of Jesus and Osama bin Laden, by shifting slightly from side to side.

Isn't that precious: Bearded Orientals, Making the Empire Cross. Because you know, you gotta include references to empire (be it British, or whatever) and the Cross, since the image itself wasn't laying on the offensive stuff thick enough.

Of course anyone who awards a prize for this "religious art" is morally bankrupt, and it shows: Reverend Rod Pattenden, who awarded the $15,000 prize to the competition winner says about Bearded Orientals, Making the Empire Cross that

the artist was questioning "the idea that you can have absolute good and absolute evil. Life's a bit more complicated than that".

Ponder that for a moment: A clergyman who does not believe in absolute good.

Completing the dhimmitude and complete moral equivalence of the bien pensant, a statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded by a Muslim burqa was also a Blake Prize entry.

If you haven't heard of the Blake Prize, it's a $15,000 prize awarded for religious art,

The Reverend Rod Pattenden, who awarded the $15,000 prize to the competition winner in Sydney yesterday, said his mission was to spark debate about spirituality in a world that was "cynical, degraded and in crisis".

With competition like this, it ought to be.

As if the anti-Catholic imagery is not insulting enough, Reverend Rod manages to fling yet one more insult while he's at it,

Mr Pattenden said he did not expect controversy to result from the exhibition at the National Art School Gallery "because the Christian community doesn't look at art a great deal".

With crap like this being called prize-winning "art", why would it want to?

Meanwhile, over in Sweden, Lars Vilks is receiving death threats.

Captain Ed wants to know, When Exactly Did Art Die?

Update:
Aussie Islamic Leader: Mary in a Burqa is 'Not At All Offensive'

Update, Friday 31 August:
Don't take offense, shut the gate, via Janette.

Labels: Australia, Catholic Church, Osama bin Laden, religion

I was just talking to Baron Bodissey and remembered an excellent post of his, The Little Wicked Wicket Gate where he discusses Orthodox Secularism. His message is as relevant today as it was then.
---------------------------------------------------
Cindy Sheehan goes to NYC.
Again.
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Wiretap Debacle: How politics has gutted the terrorist surveillance program.

Accommodation as an Islamist Political Instrument
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NonParty Politics doesn't like what he saw in the Daily Show...
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Michael Totten interviewed Barry Rubin a couple of weeks ago. Rubin's the author of The Truth About Syria. Here's the Amazon link:

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In a lighter mode, there is kaffir, and then there's kaffir.

Labels: books, Michael Totten, Middle East, politics, religion, Syria, TV

Tony Blair to become Catholic Deacon?, asks The Anchoress

There's talk afloat that when he leaves office, Tony Blair may not simply become a Catholic, but that he may become a Permanent Deacon, as well

Athos of The Three Massketeers has an interesting new theory about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

But the most important piece of evidence that the PRB was not merely a romantic sigh for a lost Medievalism, I think, is the first point above. It was the Brotherhood's agreement to cloak their identity in a kind of counter-Protestant Reformation mentality, artistry, and loyalty. It was just sufficiently obscure and forthright that a curious investigator could easily connect the historical "dots" but most would not.

He does raise an interesting point. Any art scholars out there?

Labels: art, Pre-Raphaelites, religion, Tony Blair, UK

Praise

O Lord God Almighty, I thank You for Your presence and for Your guidance. You alone are worthy of our worship, and You alone are to be praised in all the heavens.

Father, on this day of prayer, I remember all the goodness You have showered upon this nation and I lift my voice in prayer and gratitude along with many of my fellow citizens. I pray that our worship rises to You as a fragrant and pleasing aroma, and ask You to come into our lives and inhabit our praise.

I ask my readers to pray for our great nation and its people, and to pray for the bloggers, for my visitors and for me. I'll be praying for all of you.

We all get weary, after all.

Cross-posted at DNN

Update:
Confession
Supplication
Update 2
Thanksgiving

[We] will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples;
[We] will sing to You among the nations.
For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens,
And Your truth unto the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
Let Your glory be above all the earth.

Labels: faith, religion

McGreevey seeking to become Episcopal priest

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and has been accepted into a three-year seminary program starting this fall.

McGreevey, who often described himself as a devout Catholic while in public office, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday, at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan.

He also has been accepted into the Master of Divinity program at Manhattan's renowned General Theological Seminary, seminary spokesman Bruce Parker said in a statement this afternoon.

I expect there'll be a return visit to the confessional self-help and possitive affirmationtm venue^tm.

Here's the reaction from another Jim:

Well, now here we are. At the same time that this crud is back on the state payroll and is tying up valuable court time slugging it out in what promises to be an ugly custody dispute, and at the same time that his soon-to-be former wife has published her own account of life with the governor and is making an appearance on Oprah [the confessional self-help and possitive affirmation venue^tm], we learn that he really is doing all things one does to become an Episcopalian priest.

I gotta tell ya. Living in Jersey is farookin' adventure.

Jersey: it's a heck of a place!

Update: Instapundit quotes Mark Stein

On any Sunday morning, there are more Anglicans in the pews in Nigeria than in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada combined.

Indeed.

Labels: Church of Oprah, Episcopal Church, Jim McGreevey, politics, religion

A blessed Good Friday to all my visitors,

Labels: art, Catholic Church, music, religion, videos

I was going to blog about the troop withdrawl bill and the Democrat's proposal for the largest tax hike in American history. I find both subjects profoundly depressing: One will get us killed, the other one will get us broke. And the Dems will pass both with, as they say in Spanish, bombo y platillo, which literally translated is drums and cymbals, or in Monty Python's words, "with much rejoicing".

That will be the soundtrack of their grab for power, the echoes of which the Caliphate Islam will no doubt replay for propagandistic purposes. The same Caliphate Islam that denies its followers the pleasures of music.

I had outlined the post but before I finished it I was thinking of going to a lecture at the University discussing Presidential legacies and possibly using something from that lecture. However, even when the person giving the lecture is not a Bush hater, I know that the audience will be filled with people who actively despise the President.

They live in hate.

Their hate feeds their complacency which feeds their hate.

A couple of months ago I was at a lecture where being surrounded by such a crowd had a toxic effect on me.

This afternoon I decided I'd pass, both on the lecture and on the post (I would have been at the lecture right now). I'm saving my energy for Saturday.

So after going through my email I was visiting other blogs, and found that Hot Air has a video promoting Amazing Grace. I had posted about my experience with the hymn, but never got around posting about the movie. The movie is beautiful. My only misgiving is that only the first stanza of the hymn is played in the movie, when the others are more meaningful:

T'was Grace that taught
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
we have already come.
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far
and Grace will lead us home.

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

When we've been here ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
then when we've first begun.

Certainly a song for our times.

It's been a day for songs.

Today's class on Beowulf started with Janis Joplin: The professor started the lecture by playing a CD of Janis Joplin's Ball and Chain

Back when Janice was singing the blues I wasn't even in college yet, and I've been blessed with a happy life so I've never felt the kind of pain that compelled her to tear out her heart while saying,

Hon', tell me why love is like
Just like a ball
Just like a ball
Baaaaaaalllll
Oh daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy
And a chain.

But the lecture was interesting, in that the destructive force of Grendel is awakened by the song of the world.

Is the destructive force of our time awakened by the songs of our world? The songs of Grace, the songs of joy, the songs of love, the songs of heartbreak, all the songs we are free to create, and sing, and buy, and play - the songs that the evil in men's hearts will try to stifle?

One can't help but wonder.

Labels: Amazing Grace, Democrats, Islam, movies, music, politics, religion

Don't miss the WSJ's interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Free Radical
Ayaan Hirsi Ali infuriates Muslims and discomfits liberals.

Many liberals loathe her for disrupting an imagined "diversity" consensus: It is absurd, she argues, to pretend that cultures are all equal, or all equally desirable. But conservatives, and others, might be reasonably unnerved by her dim view of religion. She does not believe that Islam has been "hijacked" by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: "Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous."

The Muslim faith has many variations, but Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the unities are of greater significance. "Islam has a very consistent doctrine," she says, "and I define Islam as I was taught to define it: submission to the will of Allah. His will is written in the Quran, and in the hadith and Sunna. What we are all taught is that when you want to make a distinction between right and wrong, you follow the prophet. Muhammad is the model guide for every Muslim through time, throughout history."

This supposition justifies, in her view, a withering critique of Islam's most holy human messenger. "You start by scrutinizing the morality of the prophet," and then ask: "Are you prepared to follow the morality of the prophet in a society such as this one?" She draws a connection between Mohammed's taking of child brides in the first century A.D. and modern sexual oppressions--what she calls "this imprisonment of women." She decries the murder of adulteresses and rape victims, the wearing of the veil, arranged marriages, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other contraventions of "the most basic freedoms."

About the culture war:

The most grievous failing of the West is self-congratulatory passivity: We face "an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it." She believes a more drastic reaction is required: "It's easy," she says, "to weigh liberties against the damage that can be done to society and decide to deny liberties. As it should be. A free society should be prepared to recognize the patterns in front of it, and do something about them."

Go and read every word.



Cross-posted at MSN

Labels: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, faith, Islam, politics, religion, Wall Street Journal, WSJ

Via Humberto, How Not to Do It: Nothing works in the omnicompetent state.

The scheme in Britain is, of course, rather different. (It is not necessary to believe that such schemes have been consciously elaborated, incidentally; rather, they are inherent in the statism that comes naturally to so many politicians because of their self-importance.) The hoops that bind the government to the consultants who advise it in its perennially failing schemes of modernization are those of gold. As Craig demonstrates (though without understanding all the implications), the consultants need failure in Britain to perpetuate the contracts that allow them to charge so outrageously and virtually ad libitum (Craig suggests that $140 billion has disappeared so far, with no end in sight); and, in turn, the government benefits from having this rich but utterly dependent clientele.

The beauty of the system is that dependence on expensive failure reaches quite low levels of the administration: for example, all those “civilians” (as nonpolice workers for the police are called) in P.C. Copperfield’s police station, as well as the educational psychologists whom Frank Chalk derides. The state has become a vast and intricate system of patronage, whose influence very few can entirely escape. It is essentially corporatist: the central government, avid for power, sets itself up as an authority on everything and claims to be omnicompetent both morally and in practice; and by means of taxation, licensing, regulation, and bureaucracy, it destroys the independence of all organizations that intervene between it and the individual citizen. If it can draw enough citizens into dependence on it, the central government can remain in power, if not forever, then for a very long time, at least until a crisis or cataclysm forces change.

At the very end of the chain of patronage in the British state is the underclass, who (to change the metaphor slightly) form the scavengers or bottom-feeders of the whole corporatist ecosystem. Impoverished and degraded as they might be, they are nonetheless essential to the whole system, for their existence provides an ideological proof of the necessity of providential government in the first place, as well as justifying many employment opportunities in themselves. Both Copperfield and Chalk describe with great eloquence precisely what I have seen myself in this most wretched stratum of society: large numbers of people corrupted to the very fiber of their being by having been deprived of responsibility, purpose, and self-respect, void of hope and fear alike, living in as near to purgatory as anywhere in modern society can come.

The books Dalrymple mentions in his article are available through Amazon.co.uk:
Wasting Police Time: The Crazy World of the War on Crime
It's Your Time You're Wasting: A Teacher's Tales of Classroom Hell
--------------------------------------------------
Good News Bad News

Good news on Iraq: Senate Democrats are moving to rewrite history, by limiting the Iraq war authorization they voted in 2002.  Good news how?  Well, if you are a surrender enthusiast, it's a step in the right direction!  But if you believe the United States must fight and win in Iraq as in all the theaters of this generational war on Islamic extremism, then every move the anti-war Democrats make to undercut a wartime president and troops in the field is a shot in the foot that will drive Americans farther from them.   

More good news about Iraq: Sen. Joseph Lieberman says the Democratic measure to undercut the troops could make a Republican out of him. This highly principled Democrat's moral stance is an example the rest of them should follow, but the bad news is, they won't.  But Hillary's new embrace of defeatism may be just the thing to underscore what a bankrupt position it is.  She's not the only 2008 hopeful playing politics with war.

Read the rest. (h/t Larwyn)
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Dan's asking, Are SC Pols Pay To Play? (h/t Larwyn)
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Town Commons looks at Iran
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Return to the Third World

In a very short while, nearly 70% of Christians will be in the non-European world.

.04% Of Our Military Is Against The War

I'm a little behind this morning but will be blogging more later. Thank you for your patience.

Labels: Christianity, Iran, Iraq, religion, schools, UK

The Anchoress posts about Hillary's demand that Obama return the money he's raised,

Well, slap my ass and call me Sally, but it seems to me that a strong and confident campaign does not demand that other candidates denounce their supporters and return contribution checks to them, but this is what Hillary Clinton's campaign does all the time! Particularly if an opponent's donor has dared to say something mean about poor old Hillary, who is just a girl and should be treated nice, because politics is about niceness and sweetness, and she would never, never indulge in a scorched earth, slash-and-burn sort of politics, herself.

Yet another reason not to vote for Hillary.

Falling on Geffen's ears, and Daschle to Endorse Obama

As Hillary said, "You don't have to fall in love, you just have to fall in line".

Meanwhile, "It was from the heart. It was unbelievable."

Thanks to Larwyn and Maria.
Update, another one from Maria, CLUELESS LIB STICKS HIS LEADING MAN WITH A STINKER

One night in Hollywood and it's all blasted to hell.

----------------------------------------------------
Gerard, another one of my four favorite bloggers, An Ash Wednesday Confession with Eliot's Ash Wednesday

BEING ONLY A MAN, I often tire of the endless things of man; of his vanity and his violence which, as all the things of men must, resides in me as well as in you.

A wonderful post.
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The love-for-oil-fest continues. This time is Venezuela-Argentina, again.
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Town Commons looks at Nancy's sense of outrage.
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(PDF file) Entrepeneurs are the heroes of the world
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I really want to see this movie,
Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace
Words by John Newton 1779

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,
And Grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come.
'Tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far
And Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His Word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.
Slavery continues in our day.

Labels: Amazing Grace, Argentina, Barak Obama, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Latin America, movies, Nancy Pelosi, politics, religion, Republicans, slavery, Venezuela

The Anchoress sent this wonderful article, Ashes Say Something About Who We Are

Ash Wednesday is a day of atonement, but a day of testimony, too. It is a day when we proclaim ourselves as Christians, as followers of the Way - even when the Way leads to nothing but the remnants of an extinguished flame, brushed with a thumb against the brow, as crumbs fall to the floor and we feel the warm residue stick.

Read it.

Labels: Catholic Church, faith, religion