Friday, February 11, 2011
THE RELIGION OF PEACE STRIKES AGAIN
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
AND, IF YOU ACT RIGHT NOW...
All these ads from the past make me want to buy something; I'm just not sure what.
While I'm sure that almost anyone that looks at this is going to be struck by just how sexist these old ads are I've got to wonder just how different they are than the ads we see today? Sure, now men are made to look stupid, too, so I guess that's an "improvement". But, wouldn't you say that women are objectified just as badly in most modern advertisements as they are in these? Women are presented as objects meant to satisfy the sexual desires of men in most advertising. They always have been and they always will be. It's just become a bit more sophisticated now and thus more pernicious.
And younger. While we still have the same objectification, the same sexualization, the same pornification, it's just not with full grown women exclusively anymore. Go over to the Disney Channel or Nick and see what they do with twelve year olds these days.
While I'm sure that almost anyone that looks at this is going to be struck by just how sexist these old ads are I've got to wonder just how different they are than the ads we see today? Sure, now men are made to look stupid, too, so I guess that's an "improvement". But, wouldn't you say that women are objectified just as badly in most modern advertisements as they are in these? Women are presented as objects meant to satisfy the sexual desires of men in most advertising. They always have been and they always will be. It's just become a bit more sophisticated now and thus more pernicious.
And younger. While we still have the same objectification, the same sexualization, the same pornification, it's just not with full grown women exclusively anymore. Go over to the Disney Channel or Nick and see what they do with twelve year olds these days.
ADS WE'LL NEVER SEE AGAIN
My wife sent these to me today so I thought that I'd pass some of them along. For those of us that are a bit older these bring memories of a different time and place, not perfect but in a whole bunch of ways much, much better than today.
But, of course, things have changed. So I promise, dear, that I'll store test the coffee for freshness...unless you don't want me to...nudge,nudge,wink,wink.
But, of course, things have changed. So I promise, dear, that I'll store test the coffee for freshness...unless you don't want me to...nudge,nudge,wink,wink.
IRAN AND MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISTS TRY TO CONTROL EVENTS IN EGYPT
Regardless of the distortions by the media here in America there is more at work in Cairo than an innocent push for democracy. Speaking of which, why should we be excited about a push for democracy? We're not a democratic society. But you know who is? Russia, Cuba, China, Venezuela, North Korea...
And while we're on the subject of Islam:
Nothing like a spiral of revenge to keep your day interesting.
I wonder why we even involve ourselves in these countries? Our world view and religious tolerance doesn't allow us to understand the people that live here and the passions that drive them. Not that we can't, just that we don't and it's this lack of understanding that allows our politicians and media to twist and manipulate the facts to their own advantage.
We go to war to fatten the wallets of the bankers and industrialists while being told that we're planting democracy and freedom in countries that are not prepared for it, don't understand it and don't want it. That's why, when given the opportunity to vote, most of the time the people vote for more oppression. We give them a democracy, not a republic, which is the form of government we live with, and then we watch as they revert to form. Corrupt governments remain corrupt; they just get new guys at the top, siphoning off the money we send as aid, money stolen from future generations of Americans.
American soldiers die by the thousands to satisfy the imperialist dreams of the politicians and the greed of the money men.
Ask the average guy on the street here in America and see if he thinks it's worth sacrificing the lives of our kids for this armpit of the world or all the others we constantly find ourselves involved in. Outside of our humanity we've got nothing in common with any of these people. We don't understand them and they don't understand us. Worse, given the opportunity many would see us dead.
TEA Party not withstanding, this isn't going to change, either. There's just too much money in it. Our money and the money of generations to come.
"“In the absence of a leader who can talk to those in power, protesters in the street are too weak. This has helped Muslim fundamentalists find their way into talks with the government,” a source anonymous for security reasons told AsiaNews. “Foreign hands are pulling the strings in Egypt,” he said.
“You can see more and more fundamentalists in the streets. Many have in fact been recently released from prison,” the source said. At the same time, the Arabic translation of a recent speech by Ayatollah Khamenei praising the Egyptians for their courage has found its way in pamphlets handed out in the streets. In it, Iran’s spiritual leader urges Egyptians to carry out an Islamic revolution.
Site, a US-based intelligence monitoring service, reported that al-Qaeda released a message to the Egyptian people, calling for a jihad against Mubarak’s pro-Western regime. It also warned them against “pagan idols” like democracy and Westernisation."
Asia News
And while we're on the subject of Islam:
"Indonesian police officers patrol Christian churches to discourage further violence, following the aftermath of the attacks in Temanggung (Archdiocese of Semarang, in Central Java) (see Fides 8/02/2010), sources in Indonesia tell Fides, expressing “serious concerns and fears by the Christian community in Semarang, Jakarta, but also in other cities of the archipelago.”
A man has been arrested, suspected to be among the organisers of the violence, but his identity and his potential membership to an organisation have not been disclosed. Meanwhile, the militant group Islamic Defender Front has denied being involved in the disorder.
The President of the Commission for Interreligious Dialogue of the Indonesian Bishops Conference, Bishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi, said that “religious minorities have been left without any protection from the state, calling for “a decisive step” to put an end to the violence and calling on the Christian faithful to not fall into the spiral of revenge but to forgive."
Fides
Nothing like a spiral of revenge to keep your day interesting.
I wonder why we even involve ourselves in these countries? Our world view and religious tolerance doesn't allow us to understand the people that live here and the passions that drive them. Not that we can't, just that we don't and it's this lack of understanding that allows our politicians and media to twist and manipulate the facts to their own advantage.
We go to war to fatten the wallets of the bankers and industrialists while being told that we're planting democracy and freedom in countries that are not prepared for it, don't understand it and don't want it. That's why, when given the opportunity to vote, most of the time the people vote for more oppression. We give them a democracy, not a republic, which is the form of government we live with, and then we watch as they revert to form. Corrupt governments remain corrupt; they just get new guys at the top, siphoning off the money we send as aid, money stolen from future generations of Americans.
American soldiers die by the thousands to satisfy the imperialist dreams of the politicians and the greed of the money men.
Ask the average guy on the street here in America and see if he thinks it's worth sacrificing the lives of our kids for this armpit of the world or all the others we constantly find ourselves involved in. Outside of our humanity we've got nothing in common with any of these people. We don't understand them and they don't understand us. Worse, given the opportunity many would see us dead.
TEA Party not withstanding, this isn't going to change, either. There's just too much money in it. Our money and the money of generations to come.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
DREAMING OF A CALIPHATE
Boy, I sure hope that we get some of that Sharia freedom over here! Won't it be great?
"Thousands of angry Muslims attacked three churches, a Christian orphanage and a health centre that is also a Christian. The violence took place this morning at 10 am (local time) and only ended with the intervention of police in riot gear and police vans. One of the vans was set on fire by the crowd.
The revolt took place in Temanggung regency (Central Java), and started right in front of the town hall: first the crowd attacked the court where a trial against Richmond Bawengan Antonius, a Christian born in Manado (North Sulawesi) , accused of proselytizing and blasphemy was being held.
Bawengan was arrested in October 2010 because during a visit to Temanggung he had distributed printed missionary material, which, among other things, poked fun at some Islamic symbols. The profanity has cost him five years in prison, but the crowd were demanding the death sentence. The violence was sparked by their dissatisfaction with the verdict."
Asia News
"Christians in Egypt increasingly live in fear of discrimination and persecution, and political change may not be a change for the better.
Some Christian demonstrators were seen praying peacefully with Muslims, as protests gripped Tahrir Square in Cairo. But with an uprising in the streets and upheaval in the government, Egypt's Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, aren't likely to end up with someone in power as tolerant of them as even President Hosni Mubarak has been.
“I don’t believe Mubarak is a good man, but he’s at least ten times better than the Muslim Brotherhood is,” a popular tweeter named Maged told FoxNews.Com. “Imagine if they took control with American approval.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamic group that in recent years has tried to tone down its extreme image in search of a greater role in the Egyptian social and political structure, but some argue that the group never really shed its extremist past.
Maged described an ascendant Muslim Brotherhood as the “mother of all fears," a nightmare for Christians: “About 90 percent of the population here believes that slitting our throats is their way to heaven.”"
Fox News
"As pro and anti-Mubarak protesters clash in the streets of Egypt, the Christian minority continues to face mounting persecution, largely unbeknownst to the public eye.
Tom Doyle, Middle East director for E3 Partners, a Christian missionary organization that works extensively in Egypt and the surrounding region, and author of “Breakthrough: The Return of Hope to the Middle East,” tells FOX that colleagues on the ground report the murder of 15 more Christians outside Al-Minya, about 150 miles south of Cairo.
“With no police available, no one was willing to help them. Family members are taking turns keeping watch over their homes, as robberies, rape, looting, and car theft are occurring routinely now.”
Under Egypt’s constitutional rights, Christians are free to practice their faith. Persecution, however, has been rampant, as Muslim extremists seek to deny those rights. Twenty-three Christians were murdered and 70 injured as a suicide bomber attacked a Coptic Christian Church at a New Year’s Eve mass in Alexandria. Archbishop Raweis, the top Coptic cleric in Alexandria, denounced what he called a lack of protection."
Fox News
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
MICHAEL VORIS INTERVIEW
If you're a fan of Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV as I am then you might enjoy this interview with Michael Coren.
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
THE COMMON GOOD
I've been doing lot of thinking lately about things political and the misuse of truth in the service of political gain.
Both sides of the political world, particularly the Progressive/Marxist side, are fond of screaming (quite literally) about the common good and social justice, usually for the purpose of personal or political gain. Below you'll find an explanation of common good from an article about Thomas Aquinas' moral, political and legal philosophy:
Take in the implications of the common good properly understood.
In our current political reality the common good is used by the Progressives as an excuse to redistribute wealth, to take from those that have and give to those that don't. And the Capitalists use it as a rallying cry to convince others that the common good is nothing more than an excuse to lighten their pockets. Both are acting from purely selfish motives.
But what if the common good was applied selflessly, in the manner described above. What if we concerned ourselves with the good of others exclusively? What if we all acted in a right manner because we acted out of love, not greed? What if the government, instead of forcing a false good on the people working to satisfy selfish goals instead worked in conjunction with faith communities to explain and promote real common good?
What if the churches and the government did their job and stopped playing games with the souls of the people and the future of our society?
I'm just saying.
Both sides of the political world, particularly the Progressive/Marxist side, are fond of screaming (quite literally) about the common good and social justice, usually for the purpose of personal or political gain. Below you'll find an explanation of common good from an article about Thomas Aquinas' moral, political and legal philosophy:
"“Common good” is very often a safer translation of bonum commune than “the common good”. For there is the common good of a team, but equally the common good of a university class, of a university, of a family, of a neighborhood, of a city, of a state, of a church and of human kind throughout the world. The difference in each case between the group's common good and an aggregate of the wellbeing of each of its members can be understood by considering how, in a real friendship, A wills B's wellbeing for B's sake, while B wills A's wellbeing for A's sake, and each therefore has reason to will his or her own wellbeing for the other's sake, with the result that neither envisages his or her own wellbeing as the source (the object) of the friendship's value, and each has in view a truly common good, not reducible to the good of either taken separately or merely summed. Inasmuch as there is possible and appropriate a kind of friendship between the members of each of the kinds of group listed (non-exhaustively) above, each such group has its own common good."
Stanford University
Take in the implications of the common good properly understood.
In our current political reality the common good is used by the Progressives as an excuse to redistribute wealth, to take from those that have and give to those that don't. And the Capitalists use it as a rallying cry to convince others that the common good is nothing more than an excuse to lighten their pockets. Both are acting from purely selfish motives.
But what if the common good was applied selflessly, in the manner described above. What if we concerned ourselves with the good of others exclusively? What if we all acted in a right manner because we acted out of love, not greed? What if the government, instead of forcing a false good on the people working to satisfy selfish goals instead worked in conjunction with faith communities to explain and promote real common good?
What if the churches and the government did their job and stopped playing games with the souls of the people and the future of our society?
I'm just saying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
