Misanthrope's Corner

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..